Best Of

@lobster said:
Are these ideas things?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_precepts_(Taoism)

The further I go in the spiritual life, the more I leave all precepts behind and just live a simple, natural life with an extra helping of kindness and compassion. It just seems that the energy behind forbidding yourself things is naturally somewhat violent, it’s like you do yourself an injury.

I think in a way this is true for the Five Buddhist Precepts as well. Take “do not kill”, in a way any animal kills other animals from time to time, a cow’s tail is a built-in fly swatter, an elephant will step on ants from time to time. Even plants can be said to be alive, and without eating plants the whole animal kingdom would vanish. So it is natural for human beings to also kill from time to time, but living with kindness means that you do not want to.

In essence I think instructions of the kind “don’t live with anger or hatred in your heart” or “don’t feel envious” which are in the Ten Taoist Precepts are not helpful. They lead to denying emotions and thus repression, which will lead to a buildup of negative energy in the unconscious. If you can explain to people the thought patterns of the ego, the bad sides of my-making and identification, you can arrive at states of growth where these things drop away naturally and much more easily.

It’s better to develop one’s natural patterns of life, than to adopt a series of rules about how one’s heart and mind should behave, which you then have to struggle to keep. Better to think of these Taoist precepts as goals one can try to grow towards, and in the process mindfully examine the roots of for example your anger or hatred.

Are these ideas things?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_precepts_(Taoism)

Ah, yes.
A lifetime of memories-the pleasures and joy, sadness and regret.

"But whoever develops mindfulness of death, thinking, 'O, that I might live for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up one morsel of food... for the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out, that I might attend to the Blessed One's instructions. I would have accomplished a great deal' — they are said to dwell heedfully. They develop mindfulness of death acutely for the sake of ending the effluents.

"Therefore you should train yourselves: 'We will dwell heedfully. We will develop mindfulness of death acutely for the sake of ending the effluents.' That is how you should train yourselves."

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an06/an06.019.than.html

I found this a really interesting critique of the processes of Big Tech, where a service starts good and cheap, and becomes large and entrenched, and then becomes noticeably poor value for customers. Enshittification, it is also called.

When Israel was re-established in 1948, the land the Palestinians were inhabiting stretched into Jordan and Egypt and the border into Lebanon was also further into Lebanon. These countries refused the Palestinians that land. Other countries like Syria and Iraq deemed this "avoiding the Palestinian refugee problem" Why are these countries not being held accountable as well?

Some Arab countries in the region did provide some support to Palestinian refugees, including humanitarian aid and setting up refugee camps. However, the decision to not fully integrate Palestinian refugees into their societies was influenced by political considerations, concerns about national identity, and to maintain pressure on Israel to address the refugee issue which they created.

However the responsibility for finding a solution lies with all parties involved, including neighboring Arab countries, Israel, the Palestinians, and the international community. And the spanner in the works is it would seem the US veto power...