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Can I trust the ideas in my head?
Okay so the last three days have been full of realization. I've never been one for many AHA! moments, but I have always been intellectually inclined, and my mind seems to work well with seeming contradictions. But yesterday and today specially I've felt almost non-stop realization. Yesterday out of the blue I felt like I was beginning to sart to know what to do with my life. After feeling lack of ambition when compared with almost anyone I know....yesterday I began tasting what seems to be my first taste of true INSPIRATION in my life. And today everything in life, in the world of man, mind, plants, existence SEEMED to start making sense. My mind is beginning to see truth in A LOT of ideas I had never considered. So here are my questions
1- If other people have experienced something similar (part of the realization seems to be we all do at some point in life) do you have any advice on how to interpret the experience?
2 - I get this feeling that this process...seems to be going too fast. It's only going on a intellectual level for the most part, although my body awareness has increased significantly in the last year. Still I have this question in my mind : how can we ever be sure of the reality of what we are experiencing? I don't want to eventually experience some god complex, or to ever be arrogant again in my perception of reality. If on a certain level, we are one I'm talking to a part myself how can I on the level of human intellect ever know I'm aligned with truth?
3 - I also had another idea : I don't want to evolve my consciousness too fast before I experienced a lot of the good things I never experienced on a lot of levels in life. Should I be worried about that? lol
Damn, I'm already sounding like a cuckoo head lol I'm sorry for a lot of comments I made along the years.
1- If other people have experienced something similar (part of the realization seems to be we all do at some point in life) do you have any advice on how to interpret the experience?
2 - I get this feeling that this process...seems to be going too fast. It's only going on a intellectual level for the most part, although my body awareness has increased significantly in the last year. Still I have this question in my mind : how can we ever be sure of the reality of what we are experiencing? I don't want to eventually experience some god complex, or to ever be arrogant again in my perception of reality. If on a certain level, we are one I'm talking to a part myself how can I on the level of human intellect ever know I'm aligned with truth?
3 - I also had another idea : I don't want to evolve my consciousness too fast before I experienced a lot of the good things I never experienced on a lot of levels in life. Should I be worried about that? lol
Damn, I'm already sounding like a cuckoo head lol I'm sorry for a lot of comments I made along the years.
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Comments
Good advice from Sheng Yen:
EDIT: I guess what I'm worried about is having the opportunity to apply all the ideas before I stop caring about applying them...if that makes any sense? I've never inspiration in my life. It's truly an alien feeling to me.
Let's see...
1. I experienced something. Lost the touch, can't even remember what it was.
2. There is no truth. There is no false. The old question my high-school philosophy question put during one class : whose reality is the most valid ? Dog's reality, or human's reality ? Answer this, and you'll probably find out something.
3. If equally bad things happen, yes, you should worry.
My questions now :
1.So, what are you going to do with your life ?
2.Ok, so what sense does humanity as a whole have ?
My comment :
Well, indeed something happen. For one day at least, eyes see, ears hear, etc. I had moments like this, but they would end when I questioned my own existence , why am I the one to see the way I see, why am I ? <- things like this.
Now, you should keep this experience, and somehow, use it to advance on...a whatever scale of values you have.
Well, indeed something happen. For one day at least, eyes see, ears hear, etc. I had moments like this, but they would end when I questioned my own existence , why am I the one to see the way I see, why am I ? <- things like this, I returned to my state of ignorance and indifference.
1. Well, I never seen much point in goals...I never had any apart from vague ones like being happy. Well in the pastI wanted to be a game designer and then had a brief intuition to maybe be a psychologist. I guess I'm gonna continue what I was doing. I don't know what that means yet but I've been feeling an urge to travel and meet new people and also taking better care of my health. But I guess the short answer is I dunno.
2. Sense? In what sense? Basically it wasn't so much about eyes seeing and ears hearing. It felt very natural in a sense. I tend to be a heady guy...always trying to connect the dots since I was a child and reveling in studying patterns in my mind. So my experience was basically getting a lot of patterns one after the other. Mostly it was about other people's ideas throughout history and seeing the possibility of that having some level of truth. Stuff like the bible, fate, myths, some stuff I'd usually consider nonsense by so-called spiritual people mostly how language is full of word that I had assigned meaning in a too literal sense. Holy spirit, chi, soul, prana, whatever....But then a lot also concerning biology and the relation between the animals and plants and minerals in an ecosystem. A lot of it was about : from what perspective could this common saying be true...and seeing how at some level a lot of them of them are false but also true at another level of abstraction. So it was all very heavy although since my first post on this thread I've been feeling like I can see the essence of a lot of objects and noticing my interaction with people much more harmonious. I also saw how I could stop being such a un-industrious person in my life and how a lot of my ideas could be put to good use and how my people skills have in the past and might be of help to people in the future. I felt like how I could do a lot of what seemed to be like boring tasks in the past to complete a goal....I felt for the very first time like writing something on a piece of paper. I saw how there was so much good in the bad that happened in my life....Anyways, you get the picture.
As for your answers to my questions :
2 - Exactly, I can't know what goes inside a dog's reality. Nor about what goes on inside other people's heads. It's not about any reality being more valid than the other. But the same could be said about schizophrenics and I don't want to become one. I guess it's an urge to be sure whether there even IS a common denominator between a dog and a human's reality. You've watched the movie Matrix right? Imagine we are plugged to a program. How can Neo be sure he is plugged to the same program everybody else is in his Matrix reality (the one that resembles our reality but is actually a software) without being unplugged? And after being unplugged you could still have the same question. Buddhism says we shouldn't believe in our thoughts too much, but what about believing every other aspect of experiencing? How can one know ANYTHING at all?
3 - Well I'll probably worry anyway. Or not. lol
I used to think this was just mean, but it is true, as Master Shengyen says, that sometimes our great desire for enlightenment (or wisdom) can lead us to imagine we've found it.
The way I see it, Enlightenment didn't come easy to Shakyamuni, and he was a genius. What are the chances it will come to me easily? I wouldn't put money on it.
As for meditation, I don't even meditate that much. Certainly not formal sitting with awareness on the breath or anything. I'm not even Buddhist. I'll say again that I've never wanted enlightenment. I've never been seduced by what anyone talking about enlightenment said apart from the root of suffering. I entertained the idea of attachment being the problem and applied at will to one or two areas of my life. That's it. If anything I've always been agnostic about enlightenment as with a lot of other things.
accept what is.
contentment is being okay with whatever happens and being okay with making the necessary changes.
bring everything toward the heart. start feeling from the body. start sensing from the body.
different intelligences are going to start to operate. it's your responsibility to listen.
The question is...why should contentment be any more important than any other of my urges? How can I know that by apparently making that choice a year ago or so by getting fed up with suffering...I haven't opted for a reality that will make me more and more alone? How can I know if I made a sensible choice? So the theory goes. From the point of view of the experiencer or the experiencing or whatever else...there appears to only be one reality. That's true for the Buddha and for a mad men.
the other urges can be followed or they can be ignored. that is up to you.
but remember causality is in play. so cultivate the good. but it's up to you.
with contentment you now can suffer or be happy. either way you're content. it's not about outcomes but about process.
one must understand that you are always alone. aloneness is. that is the state of your subjectivity. but it is only one aspect as oneness is the other side of such coin as well. the dissolving of awareness into the object.
cultivate both aloneness and oneness. be both the introvert and extrovert.
the real work is interaction with the other. the real work is integration of our embodiment of truth within the confines of normal reality.
there is a time and place to be utterly alone and there is a time and place to be utter immersed with others.
again do what is most obvious. balance desire with contentment. also pick the correct desires. =]
either way up to you.
I guess you could say it's about why should the desires I now feel drawn to picking because I think they are correct...be correct? Why should I trust my experience? .... I guess it's up to me. That's sort of a depressing thought....and depressing thoughts have been the "correct" pointers in the past as much as the uplifting ones. It's a problem of choice. Even if it feels at a certain level I have no choice...lol I guess I'm screwed. No wonder monks just laugh their asses off...
either you want to be happy or you don't. but this isn't just about us.
look around you. they all want to be happy too.
so we don't have much of a choice. free ourselves so that we can benefit others and ourselves.
you know what you need to do because you are questioning. the mind can question all it wants but what is, is very obvious. just like when you're thirsty, you drink water.
of course i am under the assumption that what i am saying makes sense. hope you find something of value.
simplify. keep shit simple.
Reading on, I notice that you have made some progress in isolating a few things that caught your interest, and that you for once feel like writing those things down. Do it! If only for reference later on, something to fall back on maybe if lethargy sets in again.
My own struggles of youth are way in the past and not really a time I like to remember. I walked a path once chosen with not much enthusiasm or success. I managed to be quite happy nonetheless. Only recently did I wish I had had a better sense of what my choices could have been, a better sense of my own likes/dislikes/talents.
You are at a stage in your life where you *can* search for areas that hold your interest and appear valuable in terms of contribution to society. There are so many areas in research that are undeveloped, it is a shame. You have an analytical mind, I think, and there are many areas where this can be put to good use. I for one was not even aware of my own strength in that regard, and this is where I feel some support or direction may have pointed to a more fulfilling life.
Maybe you need to do more to find such support - not our anonymous cyber kind, but support in the real world, close to home so to speak, where it matters more and is more tangible.
You have no goals.... maybe because your scope, your field of vision, your range of perception is too narrow? (Mine was.) Traveling may or may not open things up for you, but you have to have a sense of what you are looking for.
I have no clue what your current experiences mean. For all I know they are just too recent and if you want opinions, these experiences need to have at least some resonance and staying power within yourself.
Be patient with yourself, don't expect too much too soon, and explore your options. Make it a project and enjoy the ride. NOW.
Take good care. :-)
@possibilities : See I have no goals in the sense that I was never one to think too much in the long term ya know? I'm more of a person used to think in the imaginary and being frustrated imagination is not reality since I was a kid lol. You could say my life history has been one quite riddled with frustration. Only after a period of depression and heartbreak did I start to finally feel some peace with a certain consistency. And the last year since then has been one of more hardship than before in other areas, but with a subtle sense of peace there too.
I feel confident. But you see I'm both very idealistic and very cynical. I was always one to want to do the right thing. That's why I question this confidence I have that everything is gonna be alright. I know life is about ups and downs...but I truly have an intention to not lie to myself.
Thanks again.
It's natural to wonder what it all means, when we have glimpses of clarity. Is is something real? What is it? How can I make it last next time? The only honest answers are, nobody knows, it's not important, and trying to cling to it will put it out of your grasp. So Zen Teachers try to refocus the student back onto the daily meditation and keep you from obsessing. That can sound like they're dismissing what you experienced, but they're only trying to bring it into perspective.
The one thing that is certain, frustrating as it is, is that the instant you wonder, "What was it?" is the instant you lost it. And that's the way it will always be.
Remember the law that all will change!
I don't feel like I crave any of the bodily pleasure or more insight in any way at all and I genuinely feel like I don't care if I wake up tomorrow feeling normal. I feel I'm ok with not knowing much...except maybe what "to let go" or "let be" actually means on the level of what I can choose. Not to think about it? I feel I can control the attention I give to my thoughts. So should I just pay attention to no thought at all?
I understand if you guys have no answer to me on that...but try explaining me what resisting actually means like I was a 5 year old (literally). Please?
Hard to remember when suffering and I guess I suffer small things but it seems huge. I am glad you are getting a glimpse of peace! And knowing.
Lol it's funny but there's something in me that just felt like he was waking up from a dream when I read that. And the fact that I felt that feels very ridiculous and unlike me lol. Wait, am I going nuts?
Its like you perk up. I don't mean a false smile. Have you ever seen an animal that looks like it is perking up and aware? This is the bravery!
During those earlier days full of anguish, I often asked myself who came up with this idea of raising us to think everything would be just fine, leaving us unprepared for our struggles. Maybe they were hoping we'd be better off.... Anyway, if you look around your age group at people with similar life styles and attitudes, you'll see your troubles mirrored in them. Maybe they just have better distractions.... "Always" wanting to do the right thing - makes me think you were raised under a lot of pressure, with high expectations laid on you - which you finally internalized and which subsequently resulted in you losing track of what *you* want.
Are you now struggling with the Buddhist concept of self/non self? For now I'd forget that (I do) and look at issues that concern your basic needs: finding a path in life that leads to some amount of satisfaction with how you spend you day, finding what you like, what is important, what might make you happy. Find the core.
Buddhism actually *wants* all these things for you and I don't get why some people don't understand that this is the motivation behind all the ideas/suggestions/"rules" that describe how you may achieve just that. At least to some degree! And that's where being realistic comes into play -- baby steps :-), but forward.
Re: the issue of "clinging"... I simply translate that into the wise suggestion to be/remain flexible, e.g. to not bank too much on only one way of doing things, or one theory, and to allow others freedom to be who they are and not coral them into what may suit you. Obviously, you want to avoid being a bore.
Life can be so much more interesting once you try out several things. That's really the only way to determine what is "the right thing" for you. Your *idea* of what that is may at this point not even be your own.
Think it over :-) - think big, but keep it simple.
Part and parcel is that you don't have control. You won't always 'win'. But when you realize that the whole affair of that mindset is CAUSING suffering? When you see that clearly you realize this whole bill of goods is a little flawed. The ego revolts at not winning and that is part of the fear..the ego is afraid of what will happen if you continue to examine your experience and walk off the cliff
Have you ever seen the movie 'american beauty'?.. I'm living in the past because I don't see movies anymore... but in it Kevin Spacey quits his job or something and starts working flipping burgers. And he is working out and stuff. I am not advocating 'dropping out of life'... but I think the point is that he found joy in his new life because it was a relief from all the expectations..
Again I hate to say anything about this because I am not sure I can back this talk up. I am plagued by a lot of anxiety and a mental illness and I am far from enlightened. So I will just share my piece.....because I don't know whats going to happen and I trust.
I didn't mention in the first post how the last 3 days have also sprung in my mind mental images (and I'm not at all very visual when it comes to mind) of this statue of Jesus holding the cross on his shoulder that I remember from somewhere somewhen and cannot even be sure if it is just one. Ever since I was a kid, one of my biggest fears as been some religious statues I used to see in churchs and whatnot. I live in a very old country with rich history and with a lot of old stuff and whatever. Anyways, that's not the point. The point is that I hated the tendency my mind had(has?) of imagining the statues moving and looking at me with a scary face. Or the fear of that happening I guess.
I guess the point is...I've always hated and been angry at fear within myself. I shy away from it a lot of the times. And paradoxically I think other people see me as very brave. I don't know if it's because I tend to be or to appear as being. Probably a mix of the too.
My mind is nodding at me right now and saying that my tendency towards a certain brashness (even though very non-violent and never trying to control others) seems to have been something I picked up growing up to protect myself. I think I remember being very sensitive as a kid. I've tended to be very soft inside with a rough exterior but with a lot of inconsistency because I rarely afraid of making a fool of myself, which I often did....which also made me feel a lot of time like people didn't respect me.....
Anyways, the point is that I recognize fear in me that I guess I need to go beyond yes. And I guess some of the exterior roughness I developed was because I didn't know how to deal with certain fears. In some psychology tests I've done I'm told my biggest fear is that of loss of control. Vulnerability. Which I guess puts me at a disadvantage since that's the one thing I need lose according to some lol
Also +1 for Cinorjer's post.
What seems to me, is that your mind is very active and that it is desperately trying to grasp the reality.
For many practitioners the turning point has come with the realization, that there is nothing to get/that their mind can not grasp the reality/that any concept is just a concept - just noise in the head with different frequencies.
Anyways, thanks very much for all the input people