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Re: Can the mind be conditioned into enlightenment?
@Jeroen said:
Since the human realm is part of the desire realm, don’t we all have intimate knowledge of it?
Indeed.
We all have predominant 'tendencies' and also insights throughout life. We also can move in a different field of experience, untainted by our past, present and future. A condition of how it is possible to be 'In the world but not of it' as some of the Gnostic Christians state it...
lobster
Re: Meditation as a state of mind
I woke this morning after a dream about our house being broken into.
AND the emotion/Mind stayed in fear. Much to my surprise. An arising. That was not calmed by meditation but physical exercise.
In Buddhism the Mind includes feeling and sensations. As most of us know.
The experience we have is the Mind. This is what we practice and try to integrate with using tools we have gained. 
lobster
Re: Buddhist View of Justice
"All tremble at the rod. All fear death. Comparing others with oneself, one should neither strike nor cause to strike.
All tremble at the rod. Life is dear to all. Comparing others with oneself, one should neither strike nor cause to strike.
Whoever tries to seek happiness through hurting others, cannot find happiness.
Whoever tries to seek happiness without hurting others, can find happiness.
Speak not harshly to anyone. Those thus addressed will retort. Painful, indeed, is vindictive speech. Blows in exchange may bruise you.
If, like a cracked gong, you silence yourself, you have already attained Nibbana: no vindictiveness will be found in you.
As with a staff the heardsman drives his cattle to pasture, even so do old age and death drive out the lives of beings.
So, when a fool does wrong deeds, he does not realize (their evil nature); by his own deeds the stupid man is tormented, like one burnt by fire.
Whosoever causes pain to the innocent ones will himself suffer quickly from one of the following ten states.
He will get sharp pain or injury of the body, or get serious illness or become mad.
Or punishment by the kind, or being accused of doing wrong or death of relatives or loss of treasures.
Or his house will be struck by lightning or after death, he will be reborn in Hell."
Meditation as a state of mind
I came across a passage in a book which said,
“Deep in you, meditation is already the case. So whenever it happens that your day-to-day turmoil is a little bit less…. Maybe you are watching a sunset, and watching the sunset your constant chattering mind has become quiet, the beauty of the sunset has made it quiet, and then you feel meditation come to the surface”
This struck me as something that was very likely, that in order to connect to meditation we just need to let it surface by encouraging the mind to be quiet. I woke up in the evening last night, and in my mind was the word “Prashant”, which is a common male name in South Asia and means patience, calm, quiet, or tranquil.
To be calmly aware is an excellent state. Often awareness has an element of searching to it, of shifting attention from place to place. These things are good to examine while waiting for quietness of the mind. But meditation as a state of mind implies that we can’t really do it, we aren’t actively making it so, at most we can make conditions favourable for it to arise.
Jeroen
Re: Buddhist View of Justice
@RobinH said:
It's a comic, it's cheap in the sense that it aims to portray a pleasure-oriented mindset in relatable ways and it's not afraid to go down in the mud and get dirty. It's using entertaining qualities to lure the reader in for the deeper content as it aims to be about how the sexual fantasies and behaviors people develop often have roots in trauma or are otherwise coping mechanisms that the more one understands about the more they can do to become independent from their harmful effects.
It definitely has some Buddhist aspects and would be worthy of a topic in its own right. Sometimes people who are addicted to pleasure turn to religion as a way of solving their problems, it might be an interesting counterpoint in your story.
Jeroen
Re: Buddhist View of Justice
Buddhist View of Justice
At a Dharma talk many moons ago the Dharma teacher made this interesting point:
If people truly understood that their actions inevitably bring consequences "for every action there is a reaction", those of sound mind would act responsibly, not out of fear of punishment but out of wisdom. A society guided by this awareness might have little need for police, armies, or courts. Ethical behaviour would come from inner awareness rather than external enforcement.
However because human beings are still imperfect and often unaware, social structures like laws and institutions remain necessary.
Understanding karma can be seen as a path toward a more peaceful society.
A peaceful journey of 1000 kilometers begins with the first wholesome karmic step.
Shoshin1
Re: Buddhist View of Justice
I don't know about such. I know genital mutilation can be culturally / religiously motivated and I can imagine sexual abuse being more rampant in some cultural circumstances, but never heard of the specific example, nor seen any data about it. I have very specific ideas about all the factors that come into play from the nurture side of the story when people engage in abusive behavior like such. I can point fingers to society all day long and write several pages on how all our monsters are just products of their environment and I guarantee that even if some of you are hell-bent on seeing this issue in black and white, it'd all make sense. But at the end of the day, there is agency, there is personal responsibility and everyone is very much responsible for their own behavior. There is a collective fault for pushing people to the edge, after all, we are all conditioned to be pleasure-oriented, from a young age to measure one's worth in success in romantic relationships and libido among other things. But choices are still made and those choices have consequences.
RobinH
Re: Buddhist View of Justice
It's a shame wealth and power shields people from consequence, because it only adds to this blind outrage, yet it fails to be constructive. I believe Epstein himself ended up on the registry a while back, yet it didn't stop him from building a network of abuse further. While others like that sometimes got murdered by their neighbours (hailed as heroes), he was still shaking hands with the elite and doing his operations from his private resorts. People are rightfully upset, that politicians and authorities choose to make exceptions when it comes to the privileged, but then again, people think they can take everything that's wrong with these things and pack it into the word "pedophile" (a clinical term) while refuse to acknowledge that the reason for abuse, any kind of abuse is much more universal: ignorance. Ignorance of privacy, of bodily integrity, of boundaries, of agency, of healthy developmental needs. Anyone who learns to avoid these and how to: can be kind to others and anyone who fails to avoid these can do great harm, even if they believe their motivations are pure as snow and they have the support of society behind them.
RobinH
Re: Buddhist View of Justice
I am not a Buddhist, as in I've yet to commit to the Dharma, but few things upset me as much as the way society, generally reacts to the suffering of those who they deem deserve it. I often encounter footage of people, sometimes teenagers given life sentences, breaking down in tears and the most average people I walk past the street are cheering and celebrating. Now more and more states are loud about extending the death penalty for this and that and I can tell, after all the damage they do, people still yearn for more, like live tv entertainment executions. It is rather traumatic for me and such intense hatred often makes me lose my will to live.
A life behind bars is wasted. A life taken is wasted. Any family that person had is broken, torn apart. Any family they could've had is lost. If I die because of someone else's fault, how could such devastation honor my memory? They shouldn't remain a danger to others, of course, they should be properly rehabilitated, but I recognize no justice in making people suffer. If they come to regret what they did, they should be able to try and make up for it in some way. And if they don't come to regret it the justice system fails a purpose that is core to its existence as far as I'm concerned.
RobinH
Re: Buddhist View of Justice
This is pretty much my own personal view of justice. You describe a cause and effect situation if people seek revenge. I believe that negative thoughts, like revenge, can warp a person's reason and possibly even their mind.
I've observed an increase in hubris in people. Hubris was a crime in ancient Athens. It seems to be encouraged in society today. This probably affects the justice system and causes people to abuse it.
I saw a group of women turn on one of their own because she took credit for another person's work. She didn't actually steal it, she copied it and used it as an example of her work. I didn't see how the situation started but it was disturbing to see the degree of anger from people who were not directly involved. One or two people pointed out that the woman was having personal problems and asked the others to hold off on accusing her. Others wanted to punish her to the max. Finally, the supervisor had to put an end to it. Those women were like a mob. Some of the most emotional ones were not the damaged party. Funny thing was, the person who had their work copied was the most gracious.
I don't mean to complicate the question, but here goes. I've come to the conclusion that people who cultivate anger in their actions, come to practice it much like other people practice the 4 Noble Truths,etc. They seem to try and legitimize anger and revenge by claiming it to be righteous justice. In this way they convince others, who might be more compassionate, to follow along. They also corrupt real justice, which should be about constructive repair of a wrong. Who becomes most responsible for the negative effects? The person who inspires the righteous justice or the ones who follow along?
kayte