Best Of
Re: Engaging with Freedom
@person said:
@taiyaki said:
OP, I've heard recently a teaching on two freedoms and how they are not the freedom offered by Dharma. There is freedom from and freedom to. Freedom from x, y, z. In a way a lot of what we do is try to attain freedom from oppression, from our traumas, from even suffering. Or freedom to x, y, z. Freedom to live a good life. Freedom to do whatever we want to. Dharma offers a freedom that isn't from or to.This teaching that was impressed upon me really shocked me because pretty much everything I do is well for those two modes of freedom. And even my dharma practice is about getting freedom from suffering and freedom to live a fuller life. But freedom in the dharma is something else entirely.
And thus I am presented with two things. My spiritual materialism and something so radical that my conventional mind cannot make sense of it.
This is really interesting, I hadn't heard it framed in that way before. What does it mean? Are you able to expand, or have a link to reference?
it's a private teaching. but I think to put shortly the teachings of dharma in a way don't really align with well normal, conventional drives. It's something else entirely. I mean certainly we want our dharma and our conventional drives to align. And at times they certainly do. But the freedom offered is unconditional. And it arrives when we end the delusion of self. We have a self, hence all our drives deal with freedom to do things (desire) and freedom from things (aversion). But when there is no self, then there is just freedom.
taiyaki
Re: Beautiful article about Shikantaza
A little joke…
Two older women were sitting in a cafe, talking about their adult children. “I hear your youngest son is living at home again,” said one to the other. “Yes”, said the other, “he spends all day meditating.” “Whats that,” says the first. “I don’t know,” says the other, “but it beats doing nothing.”
Jeroen
Re: Is being empathic a good thing?
Empathy can be a pro or a con depending on perspective. I see it as feeling through others and as good a tool as it is for understanding each other, it does have some cons. Imagine a surgeon trying to operate while empathizing with the patient. Would probably be better when presenting the bill (that joke isn't effective on us Canadians).
Re: The stories we tell ourselves
I told it...I told it from the start. It better realize it doesn't exist before I do or it's gunna really be in for it.
Sneaky bugger decided to cooperate.
Little did I know...I'm Britney Spears in this conservatorship.
Ach! Another story!...
Re: Season's Greetings From Aotearoa (Down Under )
@Fosdick said:
Has anyone else noticed a sort of sketchy resemblance between Hotei and Santa Clause?
Hmm a tubby jolly fellow carrying a sack full of gifts for children, then yes ...but thus have I heard... Santa tends to be judgemental when it comes to handing out gifts..he only rewards children who are well behaved... 
Shoshin1
