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buddhism has teached me that everything is *mind* But can reality over power the mind????
Lets say only us can make ourselves happy!!!
No one can hurt us!! HOWEVER, people can hurt us physically right??
Let's go back 100 years and a slave was getting hit, whipped and beaten. How could he live in the NOW how can he bring his mind to the present moment when the present moment is getting beaten and whipped. So my question is perhaps its not all just mind its also how others treat us aswell...
I know some of u are going to say its how he overcomes this bad time...but what about when its actually going on. Men beating wifes up. How can they live in the *now*
Any thoughts here ? Cheers x
No one can hurt us!! HOWEVER, people can hurt us physically right??
Let's go back 100 years and a slave was getting hit, whipped and beaten. How could he live in the NOW how can he bring his mind to the present moment when the present moment is getting beaten and whipped. So my question is perhaps its not all just mind its also how others treat us aswell...
I know some of u are going to say its how he overcomes this bad time...but what about when its actually going on. Men beating wifes up. How can they live in the *now*
Any thoughts here ? Cheers x
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Comments
Everything is the elements and the play of the energy of sentient beings, all dependently originated, including the endless minds of sentient beings... all equally empty of inherent existence but interconnected with everything else.
As far as your question goes on being whipped, one should act appropriately. Which arises dependent upon the circumstance and can not be judged from without concerning such extreme situations. Also, one cannot learn dharma during certain circumstances if you haven't already done so. Now if this person has already learned the dharma and is undergoing torture, he/she can apply the teaching in that moment in order to overcome attachment.
Much like Garchen Rinpoche who was imprisoned by the Chinese for 20 years after they attacked Tibet, he underwent all sorts of hardships and torture. He practiced compassion towards his oppressors, and repeated various mantras and practices that he learned over his years previous to the Chinese invasion within the solitude of his own mind during those 20 years, deepening and deepening their inner meaning and resonance within the field of his own mind.
When he was finally released from prison, he came to the West, he is very much an enlightened Siddha master now. He lives in Arizona.
Anyway... Maybe this all gives you food for thought?
Of course they were no doubt accomplished meditators- but even a little familiarity with these techniques might help the people in your scenario somewhat.
You do present a rather difficult scenario. I would say mindfulness could help somewhat, but after all, we're only human.
(Posted at the same time as VH. Garchen Rinpoche.)
I'm not sure what you're asking. A man being whipped is very much living in the NOW at that moment, as is the man doing the whipping. Believe me, they are both very focused on what's happening in the moment. In a similar vein, a man beating his wife is very focused on the beating he's doing, also. And the person being beaten is very much focused on the NOW as she tries to block the fists that are pounding her.
It's the mental conditions that lead up to and infect the mind like a disease during something like this that cause the suffering. Mindfulness is but a tool, not the same thing as enlightenment. Mindfulness is necessary to develop a clear mind. All the living in the NOW does without the clear mind is focus your desires or anger on your immediate actions. A junkie is very focused on the NOW as he cooks up his dope. But, it's a mind contaminated by craving.
Being mindful is the first step to a clear mind. The next step is examining this current moment for defilements and begin rooting them out. Does this help?
So if one is going through hell in the *present moment* how does he be happy in this moment?
If you insist on wanting to be happy when the situation calls for sadness, then you're not looking at the world with a clear mind.
So whenever something bad happens to you physically, emotionally, mentally, etc., think "This will pass. It's not going to be permanent. The pain will be gone soon." It does wonders to your mind. For one you won't get depressed easily.
I also find it helpful to think "If I'm suffering now, I'm sure the other party is suffering as well." Sometimes the other party may be forced to hurt you by another person. Sometimes it's the law. Sometimes it's not on purpose. Sometimes there are underlying reasons which we cannot see that compels the other person to act the way he did. Have compassion for him/her. Have compassion for yourself.
Charlotte Joko Beck
Perhaps there came a day for some of us when we saw the
same film again, or a similar one. But by then other pic
tures may have simultaneously unrolled before one's inner
eye; pictures of people who attained much more in their
lives than a sentimental film could show. Some details of a
particular man's inner greatness may have come to one's
mind, like the story of the young woman whose death I
witnessed in a concentration camp. It is a simple story.
There is little to tell and it may sound as if I had invented
it; but to me it seems like a poem.
This young woman knew that she would die in the next
few days. But when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite
of this knowledge. "I am grateful that fate has hit me so
hard," she told me. "In my former life I was spoiled and
did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously." Pointing
through the window of the hut, she said, "This tree here is
the only friend I have in my loneliness." Through that
window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree,
and on the branch were two blossoms. "I often talk to this
tree," she said to me. I was startled and didn't quite know
how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have
occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree
replied. "Yes." What did it say to her? She answered, "It
said to me, 'I am here—I am here—I am life, eternal life.' "
Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl
Unlike the young woman, we have been shown the the way to the transcendent.
Bhikkhus, I will teach you the far shore and the path leading to the far shore.
Bhikkhus, I will teach you the unaging and the path leading to the unaging.
Bhikkhus, I will teach you the deathless and the path leading to the deathless.
The Story of "San Juan De La Cruz" or Saint John of the Cross is very good for this. It's a very moving story, his "Dark Night of the Soul."
It's very inspiring for anyone interested in spirituality.
You are right, to a degree. I have also had a harsh reality in my past. The teaching is about infusing everything with a transcendent bliss. You are talking about a conditional joy, born of circumstance. As you go deeper in meditation, you will realize the happiness switch, and this switch is far above anything that is body made. You will cry out of sadness for loved ones who pass on, and you will be angered by situations that are unjust, but you will always be infused with this energy of bliss, a transcendent joy that has nothing to do with the body/brain complex and it's situations. This has to be discovered first hand. Only then, out of this sense of bliss of neither attachment, nor detachment, as these are dualistic notions, you will be more appropriate in situations, even if others don't act appropriately around it. You will have total presence.
This is very subtle, the joy that a Buddha talks about is not that which is based upon external conditions.
I guarantee you that if a slave who was getting beaten and whipped brought himself fully into the moment he would realize the necessity of escape. He would also realize the necessity of doing so via non-violent means. He would realize that he is the master of his own destiny and that he can not be whipped or beaten unless he first allows himself to be powerless. He would also see that it is his attachments that keep him imprisoned in the situation he is in-his desire for a family, food, a bed, the comfort of not being beaten or the comfort of not being in danger of being killed for trying to escape-all the things that the slave masters are lording over him in order to keep him stuck in his predicament. It is not the way he is being treated that keeps him stuck, it is his willful surrender to it and the resulting self disempowerment. However, once one fully accepts the total nature of being, suffering and all, he might also see that he can allow himself to be beaten without suffering the aversion to the pain. However if he Loves himself, which all beings do in their natural state of being, he must not allow the abuse to continue indefinitely, and thus he enters into the necessity of escape.