Best Of
Re: Sense and sillyability
before i go do my retreat noble silent search for peace and love i want to add anotation/footnotes to help myself and you in our quest to dissmantle the samsara cycle of attraction and aversion fuel by ignorance. if we can dismanle this nirvana can awake us.
so ty for listening my attempt to change samsara into nirvana ...this lasting peace,love throgh wisdom
Not biting the hook
There's an image that's helped me lately that I thought I would share. Others may have already expressed it. I think Pema Chodron has spoken many times about "not biting the hook."
I think in terms of plastic bait this is pretty straightforward: don't fall for the illusion. But in the case of real worms, it's a little trickier. The worm itself is not an illusion. It's real, it has sustenance, it would allow you to continue your life as a fish.
So the illusion is the fact that this "good" thing is, in some cases, hiding a hook. That is where I get tripped up the most, usually around the arts and music, fine food, and sex. Or even things like self-help books, or something like being lazy on the beach or at the pool.
I could never reconcile the dismissal of those things as illusions because I knew they were real and positive forces. But now I DO understand that I have to look closer at each moment, because this real thing could be hiding a hook.
It has helped me be more mindful.
Of course, the problem with the metaphor is the question of What/Who is baiting and dangling the hook in front of me? What larger force wants to consume me? 
(I ask this partially in jest. My main point in posting was reconciliation of considering real, positive things merely as illusions. They're not illusions in and of themselves, they are only illusions if they are hiding a hook, in my opinion.)
Re: No Buddhist Quotes
“I love the Buddha's simple definition of enlightenment as "the end of suffering." There is nothing superhuman in that, is there? Of course, as a definition, it is incomplete. It only tells you what enlightenment is not: no suffering. But what's left when there is no more suffering? The Buddha is silent on that, and his silence implies that you'll have to find out for yourself. He uses a negative definition so that the mind cannot make it into something to believe in or into a superhuman accomplishment, a goal that is impossible for you to attain. Despite this precaution, the majority of Buddhists still believe that enlightenment is for the Buddha, not for them, at least not in this lifetime.”
— Eckhart Tolle
Jeroen
Re: Quotes - discussion
it seems that man has for a long time been a rather violent animal.
Yes and that violence appears rooted in three things: a protective nature, a survival instinct, and greed, putting profit over people. What we’re seeing in today’s world is mostly the last one. It's often disguised as legitimate: carried out by governments, corporations, or justified under the banners of "development" and "security"
Shoshin1
Re: Quotes - discussion
Very interesting @person, it seems that man has for a long time been a rather violent animal.
I notice I carry a number of idealised pictures of different societies in my head. Which may or may not be true, they are just impressions from popular culture.
I suppose the only cultures which can truly be said to be nonviolent are those which practice ahimsa: the Jain, the Tibetans, perhaps a few others.
Jeroen
Re: Quotes - discussion
@Jeroen said:
Carl Jung tells in one of his books of a conversation he had with a Native American chief who pointed out to him that in his perception most white people have tense faces, staring eyes, and a cruel demeanour. He said: "They are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something. They are always uneasy and restless. We don't know what they want. We think they are mad."
— told by Eckhart Tolle
I think there is truth in this. A lot of white people, a lot of Western civilisation is full of people pushing themselves, wanting things, desiring material gains. That attitude pushes the mind into ruthlessness, and you can see in the history of Western civilisation the desire for empire. In a way this goes back to the merchants mentality of wanting profit.
In a way the story of early history is about mind dominated by belief in the invisible world. Shamans and elders used to be the senior figures in the time man wandered the Earth in tribes, the wisdom keepers of the ancient world. People didn’t have much, didn’t want much, but they had an understanding of the mythical dimension of the world they lived in.
Nowadays people’s thinking is dominated by entertainment, politics, society’s systems, science, learning, mobile phones, computers, television, the internet… all kinds of stuff to do with the modern society. It is a cloud of concepts, thoughts and urges which drags people along, and only by returning our mind to the earlier forms can we shed this.
There is truth in it, but I think you're looking at the past through narrow, rose colored glasses. I think its more that Western civilization found itself on top when the music stopped than it is its uniquely bad. I think to the Mongols, the Aztecs, Chinese history, Imperial Japan, on and on.
Small scale societies are able to live more harmoniously because of the way human psychology works with people you know and interact with regularly. Its the way most people interact with the people they know in their lives today. In my opinion, the problem has more to do with the size and inevitable anonymity of today's world and the culture that creates, rather than the other way around. Small tribal societies were often very exclusionary and violent towards those outside their group.
Also the past was a very violent time, deaths by violence today are like 1 in 100,000 whereas in the past it could be much, much higher.
https://ourworldindata.org/ethnographic-and-archaeological-evidence-on-violent-deaths
I think we've learned a lot and made progress in many ethical areas, individual rights being a big one, as well as technical advances such as sanitation and medicine.
I'd say learn what we can from what is good in the past, leave behind the bad things, take what we've learned and strive to do better going forward. Seeking to return to an idealized past that never really existed isn't the way.
person
Re: Rise Above
I like the phrase "less wrong", rather than true or right when it comes to the pursuit of knowledge. To me it kind of says, this is our best understanding right now, but we're always learning and discovering more, while also acknowledging that its not all just a coin flip, we do have some verifiable understanding of some things.
person
Re: Rise Above
@Jeroen said:
@person said:
Buddhism does have views of the invisible world such as karma and rebirth that I tend not to fully take on board. I say from time to time, though maybe not explicitly enough, that I've abandoned the renunciation and mystical thinking of the path. I'm trying to live a worldly life that still adheres to the teachings, but I suppose at some level that whole endeavour fails because it ignores the invisible aspects of the teachings.I think that’s very interesting, because a lot of the early stages of Buddhism are about Right View, which is about getting the concepts straight in your head and dropping unnecessary things.
Which I feel like I'm doing. I'm debating about what is and isn't right view and what should and shouldn't be adopted.
Now you have a very long history with Buddhism and still say you are a Buddhist but no longer adhere to “the renunciation and mystical thinking of the path”, it seems to me difficult to reconcile? For me they are the most attractive parts of the path.
This is a good question for Western Buddhism as a whole as most who practice in the West don't really follow them. I just set it on the back burner as many Tibetan teachers have said to do and take the practice to live a better life in the here and now. If karma and rebirth are true then I'm hoping that will be good enough. If not, I suppose off to the hell realms for me... 😓
Not to criticise your Buddhism @person, I’m sure a lengthy introspection led you to this point, but perhaps the intellectual life outside Buddhism has started to carry you along in other directions?
Yes, this is what I'm saying. I'm looking to other ways of living. I kind of think the balance of Taoism may be closer to what I'm attempting, though still using Buddhist practices. I've been more seriously considering Zen as a path recently (which is some sort of blend between early Buddhism and Taoism). Early on in my Buddhism I had the view that trying to live in the world was destined to failure. That it was like trying to balance on a knife's edge. You try to gain a foothold one place and the other foot slips, on and on, there is no safety. I had in my mind that I would renounce and become a monk, but that never happened and I eventually conceded that it probably never would. That I'd be better off trying to make an attempt to live more fully in the world while still attempting to live in a spiritual manner.
Often psychologists want to be seen as scientists and this colours their work and output.
My story is more about I was the sort of person who believed all the things. Psychics, aliens, ley lines, etc., etc. Time and again the things I believed in showed themselves to have big flaws and to not be true. Including believing in the invisible world of demons attempting to possess me, which was in fact a psychotic break which I now believe was brought on by working for 2 months in the home of someone with mental health issues of their own. I didn't realize it at the time but I'm sensitive to the emotions of others and readily take them on. So anyway, in essence I'm very open and intuitive, I take in a lot and needed some way to discern what is valid and what isn't. So that is why I think a rational, scientific approach is important in deciding what is true and what isn't.
Perhaps what I'm clinging to and have need to let go of is the idea that the spiritual path is a distinct thing with parameters and ideas and that it’s worth preserving. That is an attachment, no argument there. I suppose I'm not really willing to do that, if you have a good argument for why I should I'm open to hearing it.
If you no longer chase the idea of attaining the Buddha’s enlightenment, then what is the point of the spiritual path?
A happy, meaningful life. Enlightenment simply isn't on the table for me unless I leave the world behind and focus on that. I can't rule out karma and rebirth, so if it does continue perhaps I'll continue on the path of eons and get there at some point. If anyone is open to supporting me financially to pursue enlightenment, I'd be open to considering it.
person