Best Of
Re: The words of enlightened masters
I'm reminded of ....
“Bhikkhus, the teaching is merely a vehicle to describe the truth. Don’t mistake it for the truth itself. A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.
The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never know the real moon.
The teaching is like a raft that carries you to the other shore."
~Thich Nhat Hanh~
Or as Bruce Lee would say.....
Shoshin1
Re: The Elephant in the Room
@Bunks said:
@Shoshin1 said:
Putiney Mutiny in Russia...For real ? Or staged ? ...Hmm I wonder...
I do notice in the media EVERY story regarding Russia is about Putin losing his grip, losing the war, generally having a miserable time.
Bit like when Trump was President
That's in the Western media. But meanwhile, P himself is saying that the recent crisis resulted in more support than ever for the "Motherland" and himself as head of it. The leadership in Russia rallied around him at the beginning of those events, in a show of support.
So, whether he's losing his grip or is tightening it, is up for debate. The truth is probably somewhere in-between. But he's spinning the whole thing as an attempted coup, a narrowly-averted civil war, which is ridiculous. One guy leading a few thousand men toward the capital is not a civil war. It's just one guy who has a beef with the Minister of Defense, who appeared to be incompetent in supplying the Wagner troops with food, munitions, and other basics. One guy, who had a solid following among his men, so that he could organize a show of force to demonstrate he was to be taken seriously. This caused the fearless leader to flinch. So now the populace and the world has witnessed, that the supreme leader is not so fearless. Still, he's good at holding on to power.
Western news sources and pundits are hoping this is the beginning of the end for the hitherto fearless leader, but I think that's wishful thinking. I take this type of prognosis with a grain of salt. We'll wait and see.
In the meantime, there have been reports that Belarus is building camps for Prigozhin and his men, near the Ukraine border. It looks like Russia and Belarus want to make use of him to lead an attack on Ukraine from the north, while pretending they've sent him into "exile", and neutralized him. All we can do is wait and see. But betting on wishful thinking is not conducive to winning. I doubt Ukraine is engaging in wishful thinking. They have a country to win back. They have to be more grounded in reality. I found it interesting, that throughout the weekend and its aftermath, none of the media outlets thought to find out what the Ukraine's leadership's perspective was on the whole thing.
Dakini
Re: The Elephant in the Room
Yes it's a propaganda war of egos and greed...and all the innocent lives lost/wasted are just collateral damage...
Behind the scene, there are the puppet masters who are making a lot of dough from the ongoing conflict and have no desire for it to come to an end any time soon...
The love of money is the root of all evil, and weapon manufacturers and those who have shares in the companies have dollars signs in their eyes as they watch the destruction and bloodshed and cold hard cash where their hearts should be...
Shoshin1
Re: Righteousness
It scares the living shit out of me when I'm hobbling along 'walking' my dog - in my fashion - and I suddenly get overtaken by a cyclist who had neither the common sense nor the courtesy to alert me of their presence. In all the times I've been overtaken by a cyclist, only ONCE did a young lady approach me slowly, with an 'excuse me'... At all other times my dog gets provoked into a frenzy of barking and chase, leaving me decidedly unbalanced and on edge. My language is more often than not, appropriately colourful...! OM MANI FUCKING IDIOT!!
federica
Re: Righteousness
This can be a thornier issue than some might know.
My e-bike has tires with an aggressive 4'' width of tread that sounds a lot like an angry swarm of bees so the only folks I get to sneak up on either have a hearing impairment, their own sound system going on, or are myopically isolated from the present environment they are walking in.
But.....
One of the more common complaints that cyclists have about ringing bells or horns is that pedestrians still get startled and what's worse is a surprisingly large portion of them then jump in response in the wrong direction making a collision possible where a silent passing could have been accident-free.
Obviously, the width of the path is a factor in all of this, as are the pedestrians who are lost in their own mind and get startled by being uncomfortably jerked back to the present by a ringing bell or horn. Here, the pre-warning of the cyclist is often met with insults.
When a cyclist gets enough grief from pre-warned pedestrians, stealth mode can become a favored option for how it reduces the time they have to put up with another's verbal abuse.
how
Re: Vertical vs Horizontal Transcendence
The Buddha was about to go vertical until legend has it that Brahma Sahampati implored him to teach the masses that there are those who have 'little dust in their eyes' who could benefit too - in other words go horizontal as well.
The Buddha's teachings are still around and there is no need for Bodhisattvas at the present time.
In other words, get yourself on dry land first and if you can help others along the way, all the better but if not that's fine too.
Re: Mindfulness practice
One thing I believe is that losing mindfulness of a particular scene, activity, or idea is all a part of the mind how it both defuses and focuses. The mind should not stay concentrated on one particular sensation to extreme extensively. And part of mindfulness meditation is that returning to mindfulness of objects from being 'forgetting' will happen and that we don't need to get judgmental since it's all part of the mind. The vast field that one diffuses outward into stands for the emptiness of experience not needing to be a certain thing like a vast sky. The focusing that happens stands for the skillful means and compassion and this could include blissful feelings within the vast sky. So mindfulness as a skillful means might be noticing activity: the feet in walking or running, the hands in typing or washing dishes, the senses even in memories.
Jeffrey
Re: Thoughts on Plogging: Mindfulness of Dog Poo, Beer cans and broken wine bottles
Plogging journal: so the street right in front of my house is cleaner than ever and today, while cleaning my own garden, I decided to plant some remaining aloe vera that have been removed from the main aloe vera plants. The aloe vera developed many "children" around the main plant. I removed many of them and managed to make this.
Courtesy of Lisa that took the picture from the balcony.
Kotishka
Re: Knowledge of the absolute
@Jeroen said:
What do you think, can we know that something is eternal?
I'm in the camp of those that say we should trust our experience, whatever others say. Going by an experience now more than a decade ago, I'd tentatively say yes. I wrote about that experience here: https://tatfoundation.org/forum2021-05.htm#4 ("Becoming Conscious of Awareness").
However, these days I don't put much stock into such experiences (or even questions), nor chase them (maybe because I don't have any 
. These days I think that a good measure of spiritual maturity (and any experiences experienced) is just a person's daily functioning and level of positive qualities. Going by this measure, as you know, I could definitely improve!
marcitko
Re: Righteousness
There is probably some appropriate way to speak up towards those using the pedestrian path. I can't speak for everyone, but for me a scolding, moralistic tone likely would get rejected by my brain. I'm thinking a more measured, but still forceful tone might be better received?
Some people will be eternally recalcitrant, but I think most people care about how other perceive them. Just the act of speaking up is probably doing as much as you might reasonably do that could have an impact, aside from some deeply involved community activism to get better enforcement.
person