Best Of
Re: No Buddhist Quotes
“Abandon all the traditional dharmas, and you will arrive at the true dharma.”
— H. W. L. Poonja
Jeroen
Re: Right Speech
Very clearly stated @FleaMarket and I totally see how the same plays out in my life, even with this very post. Thanks for illuminating that.
For us who tend more to the feeling side, may I add a thought? Instead of apprehending loneliness 
That with speech we induce in the other the feeling "from which we are coming from" and in ourselves strengthen that feeling. It is not 1 for 1, since as we have already noted, skilful and unskilful speech on our end (delivery) can distort the message and we never know the quality of the receiver/mind on the other end.
From this perspective, it would be important to shut-up when the feeling "that we are coming from" is a negative one and aim to share more freely when it is a positive one.
marcitko
Re: The darkness within
For me this is an interesting topic. I have been exploring my “within” for a while, and I have come across things of darkness as well. These have mostly proved to be the results of my careless and culpable thoughts and speech, which have generated internal kernels of hate.
In dealing with kernels of hate, I have had to rely on the goodwill of fellow beings, who sometimes come and visit me when I’m on the boundaries of sleep. Treating them with respect and gratitude is all thats necessary, and listening to the stories that are sometimes told.
Buddhism inspires virtue, the paramita’s. It emphasises letting go, not-clinging, and doing the right things, such as right speech, right living. You may find that you naturally tend towards such things, and this will strengthen your belief in your goodness. This shifts the balance in your favour.
So, while my journey is not the same as yours, there are still some parallels. Living a good and virtuous life brings its own rewards, it allows you to feel better about yourself and feel less worried about what happened during early childhood.
Jeroen
Re: The darkness within
If you have to give everything of your Self up, when you die, why are you waiting until then?
federica
Re: Right Speech
@Jeroen said:
The sutra to Prince Abhaya on right speech may clarify things for you, @FleaMarket. It’s one of my favourites.
It's a good one and you've inspired a thought.
When right speech meets the untamed desire to participate, the mind obfuscates the truth in favor of its desires.
My desire to participate gets the better of me more times than I care to admit. This typically leads to all sorts of problems that often leave one or more people feeling not so great. Not participating leaves me feeling not so great.
In participation, I see dukkha coming from things not being shared rightly.
In non-participation, I see dukkha coming from the sense of self apprehending loneliness.
I believe relief can be found in either learning how to share rightly or learning how to cease apprehending loneliness. Eventually both.
In both cases factors of the Noble Eight-fold Path house the solution. It's only gated by refinement of understanding and the effort behind the refining of that understanding.
Re: Right Speech
@FleaMarket said:
Right speech is still very confusing to me. I agree with you though @lobster, of the types of right speech, noble silence is the best.
The sutra to Prince Abhaya on right speech may clarify things for you, @FleaMarket. It’s one of my favourites.
Noble silence is beautiful, I agree, but it is also an advanced form of communication. Ramana Maharshi, an Indian saint from the early 20th century, said that he always first approached people with a silent teaching. If that didn’t work, he would resort to words, talking first about self inquiry, then meditation, and lastly about stories and songs.
We can choose which form of communication is most appropriate for the audience we are faced with, how to inspire and introduce that which is wholesome to them.
Jeroen
Re: Right Speech
Right speech is still very confusing to me. I agree with you though @lobster, of the types of right speech, noble silence is the best.
It doesn't matter what's said, once produced the results are out of the producer's hands.
Whether it meets the criteria or not upon production and whether it still meets the criteria upon receipt might as well be an infinite game of telephone. And who's to say all understandings of these criteria are the same? When a football team wins, half the stadium celebrates what the other half mourns. I don't see how words can be shared without dukkha.
Re: No Buddhist Quotes
In all chaos there is a cosmos;
In all disorder a secret order.
- Carl Jung
Re: About mind-altering experiences
From one meditative perspective...
The limitation of having drugs being the primary creator of mind-altering
experiences is that such experiences usually occur in the absence of a practice that can adequately prep one for a complete digestion of such a journey.
Traditionally this is spoken of as a "storming of heaven" that short changes the full spiritual potential that any path walker might have otherwise had when all conditions had ripened enough to allow it to occur naturally when the individual was truly ready to digest it.
On the Buddhist path towards suffering's cessation, much emphasis is placed upon knowing how to accept such spiritual inheritances in such a way as to minimize it becoming subject to the habituated influences of the human ego.
While few experiences can be compared to such graces, the mere experience of it does not dictate in itself that it will spiritually result in more benefit than
deficit. Prematurely unearthed by the unprepared can often make it look more like a short cut into a minefield.
The most intractable and compounded delusions that I think I've witnessed have occurred from those on the far side of such attempted "stormings of heaven".
how
Re: About mind-altering experiences
@Jeroen said:
I’ve been reading a forum about Ayahuasca recently, and its been very interesting. There was one topic about “claridade”, which seems to be a phenomenon where people have been exposed to a mind-altering vision and have come to the conclusion that ‘they know the truth’ and go about talking about it to all kinds of people as if they should acknowledge it too.Now I can think of some people who have come to this experience without any kind of psychoactive substance, mostly religious people. It is certainly not restricted to Ayahuasca tea drinkers. But I find it very interesting that it is such a common phenomenon that they have a word for it. It seems to be so that the mind can be overpowered by religious and other experiences to accept ‘truth’ at a deep level.
What I note here is that without some sort of indoctrination before hand, all these "truths" contradict each other unless they happen at the same time and influence each other.
I used to "trip" quite a bit when I was younger and there were a few of us that really liked exploring the spiritual side of things and every time we thought we "had it" we forgot it by morning or it just didn't make sense any more when the trip wore off.
Now it seems some kinds of mind-altering experiences function to break down boundaries and belief structures, like some forms of psilocybin mushrooms, and I think also my own hypnagogic experiences. Terence McKenna used to talk about this a lot, and he once said “the people who need it the most, don’t take it”, referring to politicians and people in positions of authority.
That's a big distinction and a tricky bit. Psilocybin, for example, can help break boundaries and belief structures but it can also help build them. One can lead to a breakthrough and one can lead to a delusion.
From a certain perspective, it can sometimes be hard to tell one from the other.