Just out of interest...Have any member's social media accounts had a hack attack lately ?
The one I'm dealing with had used a copy of my profile photo but had added something extra to the photo, ( I guess they couldn't use a copy of the original one in use) plus they had spelt my last name wrong....
They had contacted one of my sisters in the UK (offering something similar to what they had offered me) my sister told them in no uncertain terms to отвали F%#K Off...
It first came to my attention last week when I had a friend request from what at first I thought was my real friend (it had what looked like her photo in the profile)...
Anyhow when I asked how her work was going she didn't answer, instead she rattled on about this international charity who give out what's called 'poverty grants' and went on to say that she had received something like $50,000 from them, then she posted a link and said check them out, (alarm bells rang) so I asked more personal questions about her work, again she didn't answer, she just said I needed to click on the link immediately before I miss out....
So I posted a grinning face 😁 and blocked whoever it was using what looked like my friend's account...
Hmm I wonder if hackers view their job as a Right livelihood ?
Shoshin1
@person
I apologize for the delayed response.
The first part of the Ten Commandments are contained in love for God and the second part in love for neighbor.
They are ultimately fulfilled through kenosis or self-emptying love. Fulfillment is not a finality but something the Christian progresses towards in spiritual likeness to Christ infinitely.
It is not fear of punishment for transgressing the commandments, but rather the fear of falling away from divine love that touches or is revealed to the heart.
It is not an idea but rather a way of life, which the saints of the Church and the Holy Spirit present in one’s life bears witness. The commandments are eternal life.
If interested in a detailed explanation, I recommend ‘Christ, Our Way and Our Life’ written by Archimandrite Zacharias.
https://essexmonastery.com/bookshop/christ-our-way-and-our-life/
That being said, both the precepts and commandments have a similar quality in that they provide a certain kind of indispensable requirement for spiritual fulfillment, but that’s where the similarity ends. One leads to enlightenment or Buddhahood and the other to illumination or Personhood, which are two entirely different spiritual states.
Silouan
Sometimes the river flows but nothing breathes
A train arrives but never leaves, it's a shame (Dukkha )
Oh, life like love that's walked out of the door (Dukkha )
Of being rich or being poor, such a shame (Dukkha )
But it's then, then that faith arrives ( In Buddha Dharma )
To make your feelings alive
And that's why, you should keep on aiming high (Dharma Practice )
Just seek yourself and you will shine (Meditation )
You've got to search for the hero inside yourself
Search for the secrets you hide
Search for the hero inside yourself
Until you find the key to your life
In this life, long and hard though it may seem (Samsara )
Live it as you'd live a dream, aim so high ( See through the illusion)
Just keep the flame of truth burning bright (Hold the Dharma )
The missing treasure you must find
Mmm-mmm-mmm
Because you and only you alone
Can build a bridge across the stream
Weave your spell in life's rich tapestry (Practice the Dharma )
Your passport to a feeling supreme ( Enlightenment-Buddha Nature )
You've got to search for the hero inside yourself
Search for the secrets you hide
Search for the hero inside yourself
Until you find the key to your life
You've got to search, inside yourself
Deep, deep down inside yourself, yeah
You've got to search, inside yourself
You've got to search for the hero inside yourself (ooh)
Search for the secrets you hide
Search for the hero inside yourself
Until you find the key to your life
Search for the hero inside yourself (oh yeah)
Search for the secrets you hide (all of the secrets you hide)
Search for the hero inside yourself (you'll find a hero)
Until you find the key to your life
You've got to search inside yourself
You've got to search (Meditation )
Shoshin1
very insightful post from @how
Some of us may not be able to just sit still
so sit and relax the tights, the eyeballing, the sniffing, the tension body, the memorising, the planning, the feeling
Karma yourself right down to bare minimum changing focus, attentive hearing etc
lobster
My own mind routinely designs credible pathways to give credence to the dream of it's own fiefdom.
An average mind's lifetime of dream design speaks a lot for just how much innate momentum has been established that never offers a path where "waking up" from it could actually be a likely possibility. It is no accident that all of the mental solutions to the dream that the mind has offered, turn out to be another run through a maze, and while occupying, ends up being without its promised exit.
To challenge your own mentality on its home turf is a losing proposition because that action in itself simply gives more credence to the validity of its dream.....
when not much more needs to be done, in any moment, than to offer all of the other sense gates (what we see, hear, smell; taste & feel) a fully equal share of that throne.
Here, all that is needed is to return a usurping mental monarchy and the dream it created to defend its position, back to an unmolested & collegially shared sense gate experience of all arising and passing phenomena that is no longer edited and ordered according to the limiting conceptions of a self verses other.
how
@person said:
I remember one time driving to the food shelf to donate some food. I became aware of a thought/emotion along the lines of "what a good boy am I", "I'm better than all those who don't do this". Seeing that arise in me as a result of doing this was so repulsive. I absolutely hated that feeling of smugness.I mean if I'm honest, I generally like myself more than is probably warranted. But I think its just that I'm comfortable and happy with myself instead of thinking I'm better than others, the comparing mind doesn't seem to be there much. In the case above it was and I hated it.
It is always interesting to see what is beneath these things, to follow them to their roots. You know the saying ‘that your irritations, your hates are your best teachers’? Maybe there is a certain insecurity at the core of this, that the ego needs to have a justification for donating things? If you’re mindful and ask yourself the question, ‘why does this thought visit me’, then your insight sometimes will supply you the answer in a flash.
Jeroen
I remember one time driving to the food shelf to donate some food. I became aware of a thought/emotion along the lines of "what a good boy am I", "I'm better than all those who don't do this". Seeing that arise in me as a result of doing this was so repulsive. I absolutely hated that feeling of smugness.
I mean if I'm honest, I generally like myself more than is probably warranted. But I think its just that I'm comfortable and happy with myself instead of thinking I'm better than others, the comparing mind doesn't seem to be there much. In the case above it was and I hated it.
Not sure what I'm getting at. I am more of the mind, just do the deed because its the right thing to do. I can't really say you're wrong about the promoting of good deeds. I guess I have a strong emotional reaction to smug, self-satisfaction.
I've been writing this slowly and reflecting I do mention things I do that promote a healthy lifestyle, psychologically and physically. And I can do that in humble or arrogant ways, so I suppose promoting good deeds is pretty similar.
person
This mornings haphazard musings.
Forms, sensations, thought, volitional activity and consciousness are simply
the Buddhist descriptions of the components of our existence. Most identities seem constructed by our chosen preferences of some of these components over others, of this collection. Deconstruction of an ego or a break up of the patterns that predetermine how we habitually respond to any phenomena is simply us learning how to stop favoring some of these components over others.
This is what I think meditation...is.
Less about the descriptions of which of these components are our favorites, and more about an actualization that lessens such preferences.
how
"Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice."
Bhikkhu Bodhi
Kotishka
Generally you're taught to anchor the mind to the breath. So you count and pay attention to the breathe and what you notice that you get distracted by thoughts. often we are absorbed into a thought story day dream and then we snap out of it, like waking from a dream. that is a the gross form of thoughts. but there are also very subtle undercurrents of thoughts and stories that are fragments, which are very difficult to see unless we have a very refined attention. one can also attend to proto-thought patterns which deal with sensation, which is not really a thought as image, but as felt sensation. it still carries the same object fixation of there being "something" there.
in mindfulness you come to a point where attention moves out but simultaneously you are aware as the watcher of those thoughts and perceptions. it feels very much like a fullness or a sensation of centeredness, in which thoughts arise, abide and cease. what remains is the mind/watcher/cognitive quality. this is still dualistic in nature, but is indispensable training of the mind.
if you're looking for non dualistic teachings on mindfulness then you have to seek a teacher, who can point out to your mind how to discern the liberating principle apart from thoughts, sensations and perceptions. then thinking won't be much of a problem because there will be no more link between a subject and object, hence no continuity of karmic impressions.
taiyaki