Best Of
Re: My Don'ts And Dos
@lobster said:
Don't's I don't have any of those.Do's
- Do do's
- Do better
- Do undone's
- Do be dooby Do ... Strangers in the night ~ Frank SInatra
Such a knack for trivializing the important, or momentous.
Re: Self-observation and mindfulness
Whether a dharma jewel has eight or eight thousand facets, each mirror simply reflects the truth of the other facets. When they represent the truth of the four seals, I suspect a Buddha would just say they are worthy signage pointing the way along his path towards suffering's cessation.
The question isn't whether self-observation and mindfulness is the same thing.
They can be possibly both and/or neither.
The real question should be whether you are softening & dissolving or hardening & increasing the conditioned state of your ego in either practices.
how
Re: My Don'ts And Dos
Don't's I don't have any of those.
Do's
- Do do's
- Do better
- Do undone's
- Do be dooby Do ... Strangers in the night ~ Frank SInatra
lobster
Re: Deliberatly Ending a Human life- How can we justify it ?
Yes, I can see that worry. But on the other hand, old people often don’t want to become a burden. In a way this is the result of better medical care and prolonged life, previous generations didn’t live so long and didn’t have these issues. Perhaps it’s time to modernise our morality.
We have 8 billion people on the planet, population growth is slowing and so people are having fewer children. The demographics tell us there will be a wave of greying populations sweeping the globe. That’s a lot of end-of-life suffering and strain on healthcare if we have to let them all die naturally.
Policymakers will have to face this question.
Jeroen
Self-observation and mindfulness
It seems to me that a key aspect of mindfulness lies in how you observe yourself. I find that I can observe my thoughts and emotions quite well while sitting still in a chair or on my bed, but when I am moving and doing things my attention is otherwise engaged and I have only a little spare capacity for observing thoughts and feelings.
When I am doing something complex like cooking which involves multiple tasks to track at the same time, I often lose self observation entirely, and find myself back in “just doing”. I have this while bicycling as well… there’s balance, steering, speed, the traffic, and the rushing environment to consider, and it’s altogether too complex an activity to not be wholly engaged.
I find that “just doing” refreshing, it’s like everything naturally finds its position, while when observing myself things internally seem to stop. It’s like not being aware allows everything magically to function perfectly and smoothly, while when observing there is some inner tension slowing things down.
How do you observe yourself?
Jeroen
Re: Deliberatly Ending a Human life- How can we justify it ?
@Angus said:
Apparently my last post on the subject was deleted because it caused offence- maybe because it mentioned abortion.
@Angus I'm under the impression that when a being is 'ready' to enter this world or leave it, it all depends on Karma...Some spend a short time (succumbing to illness, disease, intentional or accidental taking of life) some a long time (eventually succumbing to old age, illness, disease, intentional or accidental taking of life) and some in between...it all depends on what accumulated Karma has in store...It can be full of surprises....
One is just a vibrating bundle of energy flux held together by Karmic glue.
Arriving and departing this Samsaric world, when our Karma package is through.
Shoshin1
Re: Deliberatly Ending a Human life- How can we justify it ?
What do people think about the normalization of euthanasia?
Life necessitates the consumption of other life to exist.
For this Buddhist, the 1st precept is not an ideal that offers an escape from that truth.
It is a teaching that asks a practitioner to minimize the suffering caused by that necessity whenever possible. Otherwise, I'd be a Jain.
A practice that is having to address the question of euthanasia need only ask whether an individual considering euthanasia for themselves will result in more or less suffering for all concerned.
The answer is probably different for each case. Trying to reduce it to a black-and-white pronouncement of righteousness for everyone seems the more obvious breakage of the 1st precept that you expressed so much concern about.
It is not just the people of the "West" who seek to justify whatever they want.
how
Re: Deliberatly Ending a Human life- How can we justify it ?
The more traditional Buddhist teachings I've heard around pain at the end of life is that it offers an opportunity to purify much negative karma before moving on to the next life. If those are your beliefs it makes more sense to allow the end of life to occur naturally. Having those ideas will help relieve much of the mental anguish that also occurs from feeling like you're suffering needlessly. I wonder how you feel about removing someone from artificial life sustaining machines or stopping feeding someone who can't feed themselves?
Most people, don't have those beliefs though and unless you can conclusively demonstrate their reality to others on what grounds do you suggest to coerce them?
Its also a little like lying to protect someone from harm. Lying is negative karma, but in some cases it seems justified to prevent a greater harm.
So strictly speaking euthanasia does violate the first precept, but perhaps letting a terminally ill person die peacefully rather than in pain is more compassionate?
On the other hand, removing or diluting the sanctity of life may, down the road, lead to people being okay with something like someone killing themselves when they're going through a hard time.
person