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.
What I learned by being crazy
An excellent previous thread covered thoughs of buddhism and therapy
I once had a severe manic "experience"
With the help of good insurance, hospital stays and a good Psych MD I now longer have extreme up and downs
What it taught me was how much of what I experience as "I" is dependent on brain chemistry and my perceptions of reality are guided by such.
Once having had delusions about reality and coming back to a commonly agreed to reality, (I hope) I have no problems with the concept that my perceptions of this agreed to reality is a delusion.
I am not my thoughts, my dreams, beliefs,emotions,memory, sense perceptions or my body.
When i finish whittling away all those things i am not I seem to be left with nothing.
I once had a severe manic "experience"
With the help of good insurance, hospital stays and a good Psych MD I now longer have extreme up and downs
What it taught me was how much of what I experience as "I" is dependent on brain chemistry and my perceptions of reality are guided by such.
Once having had delusions about reality and coming back to a commonly agreed to reality, (I hope) I have no problems with the concept that my perceptions of this agreed to reality is a delusion.
I am not my thoughts, my dreams, beliefs,emotions,memory, sense perceptions or my body.
When i finish whittling away all those things i am not I seem to be left with nothing.
0
Comments
When Assagioli and Ferruci developed the visualisation (and you may be referring to psychosynthesis techniques), they were left with the conclusion that I may have/own this body, these ideas, these emotions, etc but that I remains as a pool of clear awareness. They were not left with nothing - and I would maintain that we cannot be left with nothing because we continue to be aware. Identity and personality may evaporate but, until nirvana and the extinction of all contingent arisings, we are left as the observer.
Therefore, there really is no such thing in animal nature as pure, sheer consciousness. What we have is loving consciousness. Loving-Consciousness is the bare bones of our existence.
No, we are not crazy, just confuciousness.
I do not agree. It is a stretch, but one worth making, to separate the affective from the observed.
Please remember I am a complete newbie at this.
Simon I had never read those gentlemen but may have arrived to the same thoughts through cultural influences.
"I seemed to be left with nothing."
Observer/non-observer
Zen saying i remember from where i dont remember
There is no I bowing, there is the bow.
Separating the small "i" of self from the bigger I of Buddha conciousness.
The dog doesn't have Buddha conciousness it is Buddha conciousness.
when "i" seek Buddha conciousness it is not there. i will not find it through intellectual pursuits or scriptural study or through ritual.
Sitting as a frog sits is proper practice. (Another saying i can't reference.) There is sitting, breathing but aware so it instantly reacts to a passing fly.
i guess i am attached to Zen teachings.
edit:
Really cool.
I am reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind bu Shunryu Suzuki. In it he says, "In the sutra it says, "There are no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no no body or mind...." This "no mind" is Zen mind, which includes everything."
He also writes "I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing."
being aware that you are not these.. indivudualises you to an extent. Although many people are very similar, emotion, memory and so on is still part of their make up and even though they cannot be depended on... a human is little without them..
If you were to have your arm amputated, for example, you would be no less the Human Being you are now....Your body is not WHO you are....
Simon Weston is virtually unrecognisable from the man he was before he burned himself so badly during the Falklands conflict....yet for being 'less' than he was, it has made him 'More' of who he is.....
Does this make sense....?
a question would be:: is self control the path you really want? or chaos? which is more natural?
animals are more honest and trustworthy.. an animal is as they are meant to be while humans.. are all a funny to me
a man was born for chaotic reasons... prehistoric man had every right to chaos.. now adays we have been falsey lulled into the idea of peace, and ideals that aren't ours.. rules laws..
ideas and imprints of society blind us.. although i try to remove these.. is this not moving me forward to chaos?.. the removal of boundaries.. emotions are always there not matter how hard you try to remove them..
is living as an idiot, just simply living your life rather than questioning it better? or is questioning it instead of living it better?
You are born into the Human realm not by choice but by circumstance. The thing is to make the best of it.
Live Life according to the Eightfold path, and the five precepts, and be happy.
What could be simpler?
To simply breathe and be aware, perhaps.
:banghead: LOL
Just being a bit facetious there, but it's only by first having grasped, that you can then let go....
true freedom of the mind can never be achieved but can always be pulled closer..
that right would u say?
Recognise you have emotions, but recognise also that your emotions are not you...they do not define who you are, and are all ephemeral...transitory and impermanent....
Be calm, and see them as they arise, acknowledge them, see them for what they are and let them go.
True Freedom of the mind is possible. You just have to free it. And nobody but you, can do it.