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.
On the Heart and Unconditional Happiness
taiyaki
Veteran
Always move from the heart. The heart sets the right intention. Out of such intention arises all thought and action.
Death is approaching indefinitely. You will die and that is a fact. When you contrast death and your life right now, what really matters?
Does the money matter? Does the car matter? Does your retirement matter? What really matters?
Or is it the relationships with those around you? The precious moments of life and engagement? The heartfelt connection with life?
All true passion and energy arises from the heart. The mind is mediocre and the world is the minds game. If only we all moved from the heart the world would instantly become a paradise.
Why is it that we forget the heart, when that is all that is dear?
Always remember this:
Conditional happiness = subject meets condition = happiness arises = conditions change = happiness falls
Unconditional happiness = gratitude and contentment = happiness arises = conditions change = happiness arises.
If happiness is something that arises in one's subjectivity, why give conditions to your happiness?
Why not just keep being content and keep an attitude of graditude?
Do you really think the way you tried all your life works?
Look at the patterns. Don't lie to yourself. Cultivate contentment and gratitude and start living a happier life not based on conditions.
Death is approaching indefinitely. You will die and that is a fact. When you contrast death and your life right now, what really matters?
Does the money matter? Does the car matter? Does your retirement matter? What really matters?
Or is it the relationships with those around you? The precious moments of life and engagement? The heartfelt connection with life?
All true passion and energy arises from the heart. The mind is mediocre and the world is the minds game. If only we all moved from the heart the world would instantly become a paradise.
Why is it that we forget the heart, when that is all that is dear?
Always remember this:
Conditional happiness = subject meets condition = happiness arises = conditions change = happiness falls
Unconditional happiness = gratitude and contentment = happiness arises = conditions change = happiness arises.
If happiness is something that arises in one's subjectivity, why give conditions to your happiness?
Why not just keep being content and keep an attitude of graditude?
Do you really think the way you tried all your life works?
Look at the patterns. Don't lie to yourself. Cultivate contentment and gratitude and start living a happier life not based on conditions.
0
Comments
In truth, the world is the way it is, however we respond to it. It is just so, it is already ‘the Pure Land.’ We just can’t see it properly because of the mind’s reaction to things. If we can just look at things in and of themselves, without judging them, they are the only way they could be, dependent upon causes and ‘just so.’ Accepting the way the world is opens us up to experiencing it as it is– we just have to look with a non-discriminative mind."
forget about feeling joy or contentment later.
right now. make the active choice to live a better and happier life. right now. do not be a victim, but engage directly with your life!
beautiful words guys!
I think it takes a considerable amount of detachment to be able to do live such a "choice". When you are stuck in a shitty rut it can be very hard to convince oneself to be happy.
ultimately they won't find anything lasting.
thus they find buddhism and the path.
wake up.
There's something to be said about conditions that support spiritual growth. There's a reason why monks go to monastery's and isolate themselves. There's a reason the Buddha left everything behind.
Buddhism is good for certain things.But it doesn't provide one with a sense of direction in one's life. It often kind of implies that our priorities in life are dukkha, but then on a mundane level...it fails to provide a solution.
At least from what I've gathered so far. The more I empty my mind, the less I know what route to take, what choices to make.
Compassion can be one of them.
It won't help us with our careers.
It will however give us peace and a healthy relationship towards life.
In a way that is the ultimate direction and fufillment.
Taiyaki : I don't think Buddhism is here to tell us we will have unfulfilled lives. Nor to tell us to be stoic and blindly deal with whatever may come without minding conditions at all.
I think there is a tendency in equating the peace of the Buddha with insipidness. My brief tastes of satori were not insipid.
Enlightenment is unconditional happiness, but Buddhism is not enlightenment...it's a path. It's very mindful of conditions.
Mindfulness is not the same as attachement. You don't have to be enlightened to understand the concept of
Impermanence, and how it applies to us everyday.
Of course enlightenment isn't insipid. Your view of what is trying to be said is backwards. In a way, the fact that every solitary thing in this world is impermanent makes it all the more beautiful. Like a meteor shower.
In life, it is a humans tendancy to have sorrow when the last meteor has fizzled out, and wish that it would last longer, or had been brighter, instead of taking it for what it is beautifully temporary.
The same goes for unfavorable conditions. "I am hungry. I wish that I had food to eat."
Buddhism reminds us that these unfavorable conditions are also impermanent. At some point, the sensation of hunger will pass,whether through the consumption of food or otherwise.
There is great beauty and great comfort in the 8 fold path and in the whole of the dahmma. Enlightened or not.
These are the essential basics of Buddhism as I see it.
Previously we functioned out of selfish intentions. With the self as a lie, we work strictly for all beings, including ourselves.
I honestly do think the path can only lead towards wholeness of life. If sincerely taken with integrety and right intention.
Buddhism is about quieting our minds and opening our hearts.
When peace arrives joy is its neighbor. When suffering is embraced compassion arises. When greed is let go of we have generousity. When desire is let go we have acceptance and appreciation of beauty. When there is no more fear then love enters.
The buddha wasn't passive, the buddha was dynamic. Everything as it is, is utter perfection when looked at from the eyes of the heart. From this unconditional understanding and acceptance all true movement occurs. Spontaneous and liberating.
Much love.
One is observant and mindful of conditions that DO affect our lives, because without being compassionate towards ourselves we are not of much good use to anyone else.
Even with the self as a lie (although I don't like the idea of the self as a lie, the ego serves a function, it's neither a lie nor a truth, it's a part of the process of nature), from what I've gathered the Buddha doesn't suggest we all become monks and have every action be in SERVICE to people in general.
I think the point is to act from a place of higher consciousness. It's not about an arbitrary code of conduct. True virtue doesn't need moralism like they say. When you act in life from a place of higher consciousness...you don't suddenly give yourself to Buddhism. Buddhism is the raft to make you aware. After your aware your actions will act in congruence with nature. But I don't think they will necessarily fit the molds of what you seem to be describing...
You take people like Alan Watts for instance...I don't know your view on whether he was really enlightened or not (I have no reason to disbelieve him on that)....he wasn't afraid to admit to doing some things because he ENJOYED them.
If we are all parts of the whole, then we are not meant to just be anywhere doing anything...it's not about attachment to conditions....it's about recognizing our nature. I don't know if I'm managing to get my point across here.
We are also unhappy when others are suffering. This is why I don't understand how a Christian could be happy in heaven when they know their mother and father, perhaps unbelievers, are roasting in hell's torment.
I also agree there is no arbitrary code of conduct. In general good conduct has a pattern however. The 5 precepts have utility.
Non-attachment to conditions is due to our wish for happiness. We can never maintain an impermanent, merely labeled/conventional, contingent condition. Thus by stopping our grasping via wisdom/clarity we feel better. This is the true antidote to hostility and greed which ferment into thousands of bad emotions.
all subjects and objects are inferred.
since we are innately selfish, that energy is translated towards everything/everyone with the correct insight (anatta, dependent origination, emptiness).
until spontaneous compassion and joy are the status quo...we must actively have correct intention with the sincere motivation to practice the dharma 24/7. i am not speaking about becoming a monk. i am speak of viewing every single part of our lives as the teacher.
true nature! find that perfection that already is. then have fun lol.
I don't agree we are innately selfish. I think we are innately enlightened and learn whatever selfishness we might have, just like we learn our sense of self.
You say until spontaneous compassion and joy are the status quo....we must practice the dharma. Sure, but the dharma must be incorporated into our lives. And skillfully so. Failing to do that is counterproductive. It's in that sense that I think the dharma fails to address life at a more mundane level.
Answer me this : what is right livelihood for you? Do you think that the motivation behind right livelihood has to be compassion in the sense that you consciously pick a certain career path because you are helping people? Or is right livelihood the commitment to not make a living off other people's suffering? And where does one draw the line?
This is a tough question...but then the dharma is often cited as this very concrete thing...when in actuality it is not. Just like the self
right livelihood: skillful or unskillful.
skillful is less suffering. unskillful is more suffering. for everyone (including self).
we are innately stupid (ignorance), thus we need wisdom and insight to have correct perspective. because of this innate stupidity there is the whole 12 chain link to becoming.
our innate selfishness is born out of ignorance. thus with wisdom it just becomes selflessness. out of such selflessness arises spontaneous compassion, joy, peace, love, etc.
the line is simple. suffering or the cessation of suffering. when the self is liberated, by correct view...then one see's the suffering of everyone else. since there is no self, there is no other. then suffering is just suffering. suffering then becomes the fuel for all compassion action. it is the heart that moves.
not sure this helps. but it is night and day for me. suffer or don't. understand the causes and conditions. don't make me, my, i. all lead to suffering.
It is one thing to thing to know the path, and quite another to walk the path.
It's one thing to say the answer is compassion....but that simplifies the mundane. Nirvana and samsara are the same thing. On the level of form, decisions must be made though...choices. From a certain perspective suffering is almost an illusion in itself.
It's one thing to say suffer or don't. It's quite another to distill what actually leads to suffering or doesn't. Casting out all jargon and irrelevant knowledge to the side....and actually making the right choices for the individual and everyone.
Do you YOU not make choices in your life situation?
I could stand here saying I'm talking with myself....there's nothing inherently wrong with duality. It's not a matter of illusion. It's a matter of what level of abstraction one is working on. But an enlightened being works on all of them. On the level of form there are things that work and that don't.
with that there is the dependent origination of all things. the negation of inherent existence or emptiness of phenomena/self take away the view of absolutism.
with dependent origination or various interdependent parts coming together to have wholeness (linked from mind)...thus negating nihilism.
there are only causes and conditions manifesting at every moment. arising for that moment then ceasing.
there is no duality, other than the one the mind asserts and links. this is not to say there is no suffering or self. everything exists dependently, thus lacking an inherent essence. this is a very subtle view.
i am not talking just to talk. this is the ground. this isn't some path to be walked. it is literally the ground of reality.
with this wisdom of clear seeing there is only compassionate action.
this in a sense is freedom from karma. karma only occurs when there is intention. when intention is abolished via dependent origination, emptiness, anatta...then there is only spontaneous arisings based on causes/conditions. no agent behind making decisions.
even the assertion of an agent and felt sensation and affirmation of a choice or the inference of an agent is dependently arisen based on causes and conditions. aka ignorance.
this is not to say we don't make choices and intend. it again is all dependently arisen based on causes and conditions. spontaneous, ungraspable, lacking of any inherency or where, when, or here.