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IS buddhism another form of Nihlism?
Nihlism can have a negative connotation. It is getting rid of the idea of guilt, the idea of purpose, the idea of living and just being a human being. How is buddhism different?
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I think that may answer your other questions.
Actually what you do is realize the running commentary, the one who is taking the temperature and saying things are good or bad. You realize that is thinking. To me it feels like you go more into pain regret and guilt and allow them to be.
But you don't get lost in your head. Does that make sense. Do you know what lost in the head is? Thats when the running commentary has convinced you that it is real when it could be totally off base wrong thinking. For example 'I am a loser' 'I am so handsome'. all of those thoughts are just thoughts
I remember the day my girlfriend told me she loved me. It was a feeling that I will never want to leave me. It still lingeres to this day. Love is a gift.
buddhism is the realization of emptiness or rather the lack of essence. it isn't asserting an essence, nor negating it. it is pointing to the fact that there wasn't anything to begin with. well there is THIS, but it isn't how we "imagine" it to be.
when one asserts there is nothing, such nothing only exists in relation to something. emptiness is the lack of something.
it's subtle but very profound. because there is no essence, everything is possible. change is possible. thus ignorance can be conquered with the wisdom of clear seeing.
Move on please
So you have to take the teachings with a light touch and see how they are true. My teacher's teacher who is very elderly made the point that love is real to his students. So yes love is real.
You'll have to think of these things. Buddhism says the nature of your mind is clarity. So if you let go of certainty and have a flexible open mind eventually you WILL make sense of all this stuff. Its the nature of mind.
to understand emptiness and to realize emptiness is the job/purpose/goal of a mahayana practitioner. struggle with it and engage with it because it in essence teaches the buddhas message.
you don't understand, but that is okay. keep struggling. buddhism is work.
This is actually a very common misconception. However nihilism, like its counterpart eternalism, are the two extremes of wrong view that the Buddha often criticized. Buddha referred to his teachings as a "middle way".
Buddhism is about the annihilation of ignorance and stress/suffering - not "getting rid of the self". You might be confusing anatta or "not-self" with nihilism. In No-self or Not-self?, Thanissaro Bhikkhu calls not-self a "strategy for shedding suffering by letting go of its cause, leading to the highest, undying happiness."
@compassionate_warrior That's in the Ananda Sutta.
Nihilism contends that there is no meaning, that everything is utterly empty of purpose. Buddha taught something different... that all things are in a state of flow that prevents anything from being solid. When we try to make things solid that are not, we suffer. The practice of detachment isn't a practice of caring less, it is a practice of letting go of the mind's habit of cling, so we care peacefully.
For example, if my marriage is falling apart, and I feel that it is, in order for me to suffer less, I need to realize that what I am suffering from is from my "clinging" onto something that was never sollid from the beginning. Correct?
Why, then, should I put forth the effort to save something or push something in the direction I want it to go if I can't control that thing?
Therefore, what do I stand for? What gives me meaning? Again, we come back to meaninglessness, don't we?
I really want to understand this.
So, do what you need to do, but don't cling to a preconceived notion of how it must end.
You actually control by letting go of a certain fixed idea. Your skillful
plan of allowing things to develop (by giving it your best shot and then watching things unfold) will save you a lot of grief.
Here is my perspective on the questions you're asking:
"However, when it falls apart our love for that thing will dissipate, is that correct? If that is true, that means we can't want anything, right?"
If we approach our love with the understanding that relationship will fade... either by death or disinterest, then the moments do not become meaningless, they become more precious in the moment. Again, emptiness is not a reduction of value, it is rather an intent of removing the valuation of the experience. We get our assessments out of the way, so we can appreciate the moments of life that we do get to share, no matter how fleeting. The attachment you seem to display is thinking that the object is the source of your love, which it is not. Your body is the source of the love.
"For example, if my marriage is falling apart, and I feel that it is, in order for me to suffer less, I need to realize that what I am suffering from is from my "clinging" onto something that was never sollid from the beginning. Correct?"
Its not just that, because in most relationships there are many clingings. You built a future, in your head, of what the relationship would look like, and reality is different than that vision. Because you hold that vision (cling), when the partner or relationship deviates from your ideal vision, you feel a dissonance in your mind. That dissonance is suffering, and causes you to act unskillfully toward your partner... undermining your intimacy. This is much like the example I gave of not tasting the meal or dessert, always thinking/comparing/wishing for the next thing.
"Why, then, should I put forth the effort to save something or push something in the direction I want it to go if I can't control that thing?"
Your words here are problematic for a couple reasons. You can't save something, but you can help things grow through mindful attendance. A farmer does not "save" his crops, so much as plant them, tend them, and harvest them. He cannot control the growth, only do his best to remain alert, so that if the crop has a need that he can provide, he provides it. If he was scared the whole time, his crops would not be attended with wisdom. Wisdom and fear do not mesh well in the brain. The former requires space, the latter eats up the space.
"Therefore, what do I stand for? What gives me meaning? Again, we come back to meaninglessness, don't we?"
This is such a personal question, it seems almost rhetorical. You know what you stand for... you just seem confused on how to skillfully stand. Meaning is determined differently for each person, and is very personal. For me, meaning is the practice of skillful and mindful activities, as well as helping the growth of my family. As I continue to practice, the idea of family is broadening to include more and more people and living things on the planets in our universe.
For you, who seem to be somewhat of a romantic, perhaps learning to cultivate strong intimacy with others? Overcoming personal difficulty? Finding truth? Like I mentioned, meaning is very personal and is a little different for everyone, which is why it is so important for us not to cling to ideas, because then we miss the meaning.
The eternalistic view is that objects, self, and phenomena is solid and inherently real.
The nihilistic view is that nothing exists or has meaning.
Buddhism teaches that the truth is Emptiness, which is a knife edge in the middle between the extremes of the eternalistic and the nihilistic; hence 'The Middle Way'.
Now that's why it's important to develop wisdom AND compassion. If you just contemplated and meditated on the wisdom element of Buddhism, you may conclude that nothing is real, or that nothing matters; and this would be considered a wrong view.
And if you just contemplated and meditated on the compassion side of Buddhism, you would suffer terribly at the suffering of all other beings.
That is why wisdom AND compassion should be developed together. Though I believe it's a common experience for one-or-the-other to get out of step with each other.
I kinda understand this at a heart level, since I tend to meditate on emptiness far more than I do compassion, and I indeed can become detached from life. My partner even complains about it sometimes! ;-)
However, my practise in A.A. means I help a lot of other alkies recover, and I spend a lot of time doing this, so I hope this will balance it out.
Thank you to the original poster for asking