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It has been a minute since I visited the Dhammapadda. Thanks for taking the time to summarize it as a refresher. I may be focused on relationship elements of the practice at the moment because I'm seeing the theme of good and bad friends arising more often and throwing myself and those I know against it for points of calm reflection.

I think it's unfortunately a largely pointless act. Those who care, can do nothing, and those who don't care, carry on.

How is your discipline and what do you find helpful in its cultivation?

return to the breath
The breath is a clear indication of what we are experiencing.
A few different breathing patterns can change consciousness.
https://www.soulfularogya.com/tibetan-pranayama-the-9-round-breathing-wonder/

Thought this would be of interest. I know the image and title can seem a bit overproduced...but the lecture is great.

People commit suicide for all kinds of reasons.
Seldom does the karma of a life that is rejected do anything else but offload itself as a delusion that others will have to address.
I do not see that specific karmic offloading being equitable to any of the Buddha's teachings on compassion.

to commit such an act requires a supreme level of awakening.
Any other act, whether out of desperation or because it belongs to the prevailing agenda, is nothing more than another death in vain and a bad continuation.

There is a huge world to contain, repair and protect.
Even before any current government even existed.
To protest your own current government is to serve as propaganda for those who follow their dark ends.

@lobster said:
At the moment it is ram-a-damn, an Islamist and Islamic festivity of giving hunger to god by only eating at night. Peeps sure are strange. Mentioning no names, except my own.

Most muslims will eat and hydrate pre dawn as well as at night.

@lobster said:
Well said @pegembara

Exactly so.
Ego is a jabbering monkey story. Pretending it is something constant/real/unique. It is the awareness/attention that you mention that is The Real.

“So you should view this fleeting world --
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.”
Mahayana Diamond Sutra/Gatha

dust in a storm, chaos manifesting as persona
and yet … we have nothing but this volatile ego to work with
Hence we polish it into some semblance of discipline (Yeah Elder Theravada plan)

there is a path … wander off and …

That is the plan.

Yes, we keep polishing the mirror until there is no more dust on it. Then we find that there was no mirror in the first place. Everything is resolved.

The body is the bodhi tree,
The mind is like a clear mirror.
At all times we must strive to polish it,
And must not let the dust collect.

Bodhi originally has no tree,
The mirror(-like mind) has no stand.
Buddha-nature (emptiness/oneness) is always clean and pure;
Where is there room for dust (to alight)?

Platform Sutra

How shall I get liberated?
Find out who has bound you

No one has bound me.
Then why ask to be liberated?

“Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.”
ACIM

"The mind sent outside is the origination of suffering; the result of the mind sent outside is suffering; the mind seeing the mind is the path, and the result of the mind seeing the mind is the cessation of suffering."

Ajahn Dune Atulo

Row, row, row your boat. Gently down the stream.
Merrily 4x life is but a dream.

Well said @pegembara

Exactly so.
Ego is a jabbering monkey story. Pretending it is something constant/real/unique. It is the awareness/attention that you mention that is The Real.

“So you should view this fleeting world --
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.”
Mahayana Diamond Sutra/Gatha

dust in a storm, chaos manifesting as persona
and yet … we have nothing but this volatile ego to work with
Hence we polish it into some semblance of discipline (Yeah Elder Theravada plan)

there is a path … wander off and …