Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Check me on this please
Theswingisyellow
Trying to be open to existenceSamsara Veteran
The Buddha taught suffering and the cessation of suffering. This is embodied in the Four Noble Truths; comprehending stress, abandoning its cause, realizing its cessation and developing the path to that cessation. At a very basic level it is actions (all actions with intention be they body, speech, or mind) and their consequences. So...
1. One must evaluate with integrity one's motivation, intention and potential outcome to a given act.
2. One must evaluate each action and its consequences apart from a sense of self. One's actions are annata.
3. In percieving one's actions as not-self one can be more honest, and have less conceit in evaluating one's actions and consequences.
4. Evaluating in this manner one then has the power to choose between no harm and good intentions or ill-will.
Example:
Somebody bumps into me forcefully, I feel anger arise:
A. Arises from ignorance=clinging to ideas of self or ego="I" and "my" making. So my feelings are predicated on concepts about my perceptions,essentially they are baseless.
B. Outcome; what is the potential outcome of my anger? In short suffering.
C. I recognize this feeling as a self-cherishing view, I see that its outcome is only suffering.
D. I recognize this label anger (stress), appreciate it for what it is, a feeling however it feels, but also recognize what it is not (not self or anything but what it is).
E. Anger leads to affliction and stress, so it must be abandoned for a more refined position.
F. A more refined position to me would be loving-kindness.
These are some thoughts I have had after reading: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/integrityofemptiness.html
1. One must evaluate with integrity one's motivation, intention and potential outcome to a given act.
2. One must evaluate each action and its consequences apart from a sense of self. One's actions are annata.
3. In percieving one's actions as not-self one can be more honest, and have less conceit in evaluating one's actions and consequences.
4. Evaluating in this manner one then has the power to choose between no harm and good intentions or ill-will.
Example:
Somebody bumps into me forcefully, I feel anger arise:
A. Arises from ignorance=clinging to ideas of self or ego="I" and "my" making. So my feelings are predicated on concepts about my perceptions,essentially they are baseless.
B. Outcome; what is the potential outcome of my anger? In short suffering.
C. I recognize this feeling as a self-cherishing view, I see that its outcome is only suffering.
D. I recognize this label anger (stress), appreciate it for what it is, a feeling however it feels, but also recognize what it is not (not self or anything but what it is).
E. Anger leads to affliction and stress, so it must be abandoned for a more refined position.
F. A more refined position to me would be loving-kindness.
These are some thoughts I have had after reading: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/integrityofemptiness.html
0
Comments
You have a very good understanding. you just need to add one or two steps in between E and F. And that is the step of the cessation of suffering. See when this anger arises in your mind it is marked by thinking (clinging) as to why you did not like being bumped into, and what you would like to do to the person who bumped into you. What you need to do is let go of the thinking. How do you do that? By recognizing the fact that your mind is angry, and accepting that fact. "My mind is afflicted by aversion, and that's OK." Now relax the tension and tightness (craving - cause of suffering) in your mind and in your body. You will now be experiencing the third noble truth - the cessation of suffering. With this pure mind you then proceed to step F, which is the cultivation of loving kindness, or if you are doing your sitting meditation, you return to relaxing on the in breath, and relaxing on the out breath. Keep doing this again and again and you will begin to see very profound results - the fruits of the Dhamma. Your doing great.
-Tikal
Thank you for your generosity in time, encouragement and your teaching. The idea of the cessation of suffering was something I could not quite get my head around in terms of understanding or practice. I will add this teaching to my practice. With even the little I know, the Dhamma is my life's blessing. May you continue to enjoy the fruits of the Dhamma, may you be blessed on your path.
Todd
-Tikal