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Re: Not attaching to thoughts
I think feelings and emotions kind of fall into this dynamic as well. Thinking and feeling are linked, feelings lead to certain thoughts and those thoughts reinforce and give rise to feelings, on and on.
When we're aware and can see the patterns happening we have the opportunity to step back and reconnect with the breath or body, or redirect our mind elsewhere.
person
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Gabor Maté on the Israel-Palestine conflict… he is Jewish but has also visited Gaza and has Palestinian contacts in Canada, so he has a pretty balanced perspective:
Jeroen
Re: Selflessness and Altruism
I guess I'm not communicating very well. I was attempting to juxtapose two differing views, or definitions, of selflessness. And essentially agree with @IdleChater 's take but wanted to ask an open question rather than take a firm stance.
@person said:
Which got me to thinking, what is the internal experience of selflessness? Is it an attempt to be good to others, OR is the internal experience one of doing good without regard to self and other? You see suffering or a problem and regardless of whether its yours or someone else's you act to remedy it.
person
Re: Selflessness and Altruism
@person said:
What's not selflessness?
Well, if selflessness = without self. What you say here, according to Mahayana teaching ...
The former, what I was defining as altruism (what you refer to as generosity?), an individual doing good for another?
Is incorrect, because if the action is without self (essentially pure) there can be no other. Both are conditioned one upon the other, so if there is no self, there is no other.
Because you recognize the other, the action can only be seen as generous. It is more concerned with the other, a self giving to another.
This forum is supposed to be at least nominally Buddhist, right?
Definitions are important, they are the finger that points to the moon, have a mistaken definition and your practice might not take you to the goal.
Your definition doesn't really synch with Buddhist teaching. There's nothing wrong with that, if you want to put it in those terms. Like you said, definitions are important.
What you seem to describe as selfless is actually self.
Re: Psychological self vs Buddhist self
I’ve also found it interesting how Buddhism and psychology relate. Often you heard it said that Buddhism is a psychology of mind, but what exactly the differences are is something that you don’t often get clearly described.
One of the goals of my Buddhist practice was to get a view on what the mind is and how it functions. Psychology has things to say about that, but Buddhism does as well. Yet over the years it has seemed to be a lost cause, using the mind to understand the mind.
In the end, they are all thoughts, and lately I have been more focussing on my relationship to thoughts. How thoughts take possession of the me-space, how one thought triggers another thought, how insight is an end to thought, how rest comes with sleep.
Jeroen
Re: What does it mean to live a spiritual life?
For me, ultimately, the spiritual life is attempting and answering the who-am-I question by methods of introspection.
Or just... moving with practical steps towards one's highest ideal/aspiration.
Years ago, this was all theoretical for me, and my goals lofty. These days, I honour actual-factual steps and efforts, even if the goals are lower.
marcitko
Re: What does it mean to live a spiritual life?
@marcitko said:
For me, ultimately, the spiritual life is attempting and answering the who-am-I question by methods of introspection.
You might be interested, Eckhart Tolle said this about the “Who am I?” question recently…
“When you ask yourself, who am I, the important thing is to realize that you won't be able to answer that question. So anything the mind comes up with is wrong, no matter what you say. And even if you say, ah, I've got it: I'm consciousness! Wrong, because it's a concept. Who you are is not believing in a concept. It's just a concept. So who am I? This was recommended by Ramana Maharshi and other spiritual sages as a profound meditation. Who am I? That question, you can ask it yourself with eyes open or eyes closed and then wait for the answer, which is not going to come as an actual answer that you could identify. It's not going to come as a thought or a word or anything you can talk about or think. The answer is the space after the question 'who am I?'.”
Jeroen
Re: What does it mean to live a spiritual life?
@how said:
For me, a spiritual life just describes the transition of selfishness towards selflessness.Certainly at a young age it seems to be true, and often later in life one becomes more giving automatically when material things become less important.
It reminds me of something that Osho used to say, that he was “full like a raincloud, showering his blessings on us all.” The raincloud gives naturally, it is in its nature. That too is a spiritual way of being.
Selfishness applies just as much to form as it does to sensation, thought, activity and consciousness.....just like selflessness can.
While a spiritual journey often begins with an addressing of those attachments that seem coarser and material in nature, they are only the preparatory steps towards addressing the subtler expressions of ignorance which brooks no limitation of age.
how
Re: What does it mean to live a spiritual life?
For me, a spiritual life is the way of self-emptying love.
Silouan
Re: Letting go of games
I’ve played a bit of poker online and socially with friends in some small home tournaments, I never did it seriously though, I didn’t spend the time on it learning to get good at the game although I did win a few of the tournaments among friends. So I’m sort of familiar with different aspects of playing.
I quite enjoyed it, the mechanical aspects of putting together a winning hand, a bit of excitement, the idea of reading people and tricking others, the idea of victory. The playing for money part never really grabbed me as particularly captivating, so I never really considered it gambling.
For me it was an innocent bit of fun, a pleasant and social game but it didn’t excite or captivate me in the way that a really good role-playing game did. What I didn’t like so much is that it sets you up in conflict against the other players, your winning means they have to lose. So in terms of dealing with social anxiety it does put you in a place where you have “enemies” and where the world is an unfriendly place, which is not ideal or a real representation of the world.
Jeroen