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How Do You Change Habits
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I guess we all know our own intellect can cause us some issues and Zen can help us if we are lucky that way
I would debate you on moving consciousness towards peace by the way! If you wanna play that is, otherwise we'll leave it at a laugh
Abu
Sometimes people can become so clever, they miss the point.
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Complaining after the event is largely pointless.
We can't be everywhere, but sure as eggs is eggs, if you have a gripe and you tell us, we can be there....
Many thanks.
If you or anyone else have broken a habit by bring attention towards peace then why not tell us about it?
Like standing in line for a cash machine or a shop counter and thinking 'that person is taking so long, they have no consideration, they must be a selfish person, why don't they understand I'm late for work, I'll miss my bus...' and even at the time you know what a ridiculous line of thinking this is, but you don't stop thinking it because it seems to relieve the pain somewhat.
And from those kinds of beginnings, we learn anger and hatred as a tactic, a coping mechanism like biting our nails, we delude ourselves into thinking that hatred is somehow meaningful, all because it gave the illusion of making us feel a little better when things didn't go our way. It can get quite serious, like war, which is just all these little frustrations and fears, along with greed, which is a related emotion, gathered up for decades and released into violence.
So working on this habit taught me to take anger and hatred much less seriously - when you're in that world, you tend to accept that other people have good reasons for harbouring grudges, getting enraged etc, because you want to justify your own rage. So it all becomes a bit self-supporting, the illusion. You believe in history, in what is written about why people decided upon their fictions of animosity; all this very serious, po-faced rhetoric that make it sound real, like there was no option but hatred. But take a step outside it and you realise it's all contrived, and that when someone says 'we were punishing them for x event in the xth century', that's a bit of an excuse meaning 'I have had a lot of bad days and I need someone to take it out on'.
But if I hadn't done the practice, turned my attention to peace for long enough to see through myself, and my rationalisations, and be able to laugh at them a bit, I'd still be in there not understanding, thinking people hurt each other for reasons, and not out of ignorance.
At the level I'm at, you could probably make me think I was angry by cutting my arm off or something, but it wouldn't last long, and I'd be aware it was unreal even as I reacted. It's a bit like, to use the Buddha's simile, a fire that's stopped burning but whose embers still glow - you could still feel heat from them if you kicked the fire hard enough. Pretty soon though, even cutting my arm off won't distort the nature of things.
It's just not our business to hate. It's a mistranslation.
I agree. And Right Effort is in the 8-fold path, so it must be important.
In my current practice integration is everything. Be it thoughts, emotions, what appears in the external world, etc.
A healthy sense of dispassion, but at the same time living in the world fully.
If the mind orientates towards peace. Which takes time because you need to convince your mind that peace is worth it. Then life gets more difficult at first. All your shit starts to wake up. So imho the more you progress the more karmic shit just pop up. But once the storm passes and you don't feed the trolls. Everything settles on its own time. So really just with presence and awareness its important to move about and integrate everything.
Then life gets simple and quiet.
But habits are still there. Just not strong enough to pull or push though. And i fail all the time. But we keep treking on the path realizing peace is right on the path as it is.
So at first we try to get rid of our habits. Then we transform them. Then we realize some sort of peace. Then to further that peace we let go of trying to fix or change. Because effort in either sense of positive or negative is fabrication. Peace requires absolutely nothing but an open mind and heart. No need to change, no need to not change. Peace is embracing and letting go in the same moment.
Just some thoughts.
Maybe I wasn't clear. I was asking for examples of habits that you've broken by bringing your attention towards peace. Is it that you haven't managed to break a habit by bringing your attention towards peace so you have no story to tell?
However, no one is ever angry, that's an illusion in the first place. I could still act as though I was angry, but it wouldn't take root and it would be seen through very quickly. I couldn't nurture a grudge, for instance.
There was a good test of it a few days ago, I thought I'd lost my cashcard in the middle of the Italian alps, with nothing to keep me going for the next month here. And I realised I'd lost it while I was in a classical music rehearsal of a friend, which I was watching, and in the past, before my practice, I'd have lost interest in the music, been unable to concentrate, I'd have thoughts running through my head 'what will I do? What'll happen to me?', but this time, though I felt a moment's panic, it only took a few seconds before I settled down, realised there was nothing I could do until the music finished, and I was right back in the singing.
I found my card later, by the way.
Trying to make some sense of what you're saying, is it correct to say that the practice of bringing your attention towards peace has broken your habit of nurturing grudges? If this is what you're saying, is it that you've lost the capacity to nurture grudges or simply that whenever you catch yourself nurturing a grudge you bring your attention towards peace, thus derailing the grudge nurturing?
But even if there is a habit, there is always peace. So peace can exist even while there is a habit.
If the habit self liberates then there is peace. If the habit self arises then there is peace.
Peace is not dependent upon the cessation of the habit. Though at first it may be.
Some habits I've given up:
Eating a completely paleo diet now. That means no pizza, no beer, no cheese, grains, etc.
This has is in bringing clarity in my life. Not only that I feel more energy and less tired.
On a grosser level my practice has been all about relaxing into what is. That means if there is tension or effort, both are relaxed.
The habit here is the tendency to effort or control or just force everything. Stopping and letting that go allows the body and mind to tune into a large amount of peace and clarity.
Some examples. Hope that helps.
Let us know how it goes on your original point anyway, and start a new thread again if you wish to ask, I presume.
I will also see later if I can share any specific experiences for your opening question, as I will probably involve myself in the middle side track.
Well wishes @AllbuddhaBound
Do you mean by focussing on the peace instead?
As to moving consciousness towards peace, that is perhaps a misnomer as consciousness cannot be brought to peace in the Buddhist sense of the words.
Abu
Finally something real, thanks!
May I ask how long have you been on this diet and how long you expect to keep it? And how does bringing attention towards peace help you to keep this diet? Say you have a craving for beer and pizza one day, how does it work bringing your attention towards peace to not give into your craving? And does it always work or do you sometimes give in?
I would say it depends on the habit. Sometimes, action is enough for thought to follow (Fake it till you make it has practical application in behavioural science). And other times, one needs to examine the underlying drivers of that habit. It could be as simple as "I like it" or it could be complex psychological/physiological factors etc. And that is why I guess it is hard to answer this question -- because I think the net is wider than this. Even in Buddhist terms, there are ways that might be suggested but it would really have to be tailored IMO to your own habit/circumstance/propensities etc.
Sorry I cannot be of more help, sometimes we have things which we need to work through over a longer period of time. In Zen we call these intellectual unsolvable mysteries our own personal koans.
Best wishes,
Abu
I'm not saying my baseline of equanimity, before I started, was anything special. I'm not endorsing being me, I'm endorsing the practice. First, those are very hypothetical situations. Secondly, no I wouldn't hate if someone harmed someone I loved. Which in no way means I wouldn't care. There were times in the past when I realised that that would be the case if I continued, and it horrified me. Then I realised it's hate that is horrible, and it's hate that kills, not compassion.
I'm afraid they are not all hypothetical situations. Literally millions of children starve to death each year in third world countries. Maybe if we had even a bit more passion about that things would change. Or we can just keep moving our attention towards peace!!!
If you want to ask 'do you care now? In your non-hypothetical real life?'
More than I did before, and more importantly, my actions are more compassionate, and more successful, because I'm not gritting my teeth trying to be nice out of a sense of duty, or to be seen to be kind, which are both selfish motivations, ultimately.
But these are just conventional descriptions - the idea of caring gives way to the spontaneous action of cause and effect. Ok, I could argue from a dogmativ POV, but I'll do something different this time.
In Buddhist terminology we could argue that passion is absolutely to be ended without remainder etc. That attention, (and Floating Abu, sorry, but it is in the Pali Canon and is Buddhism) should be directed towards nibbana, or peace, but...
In my opinion, the way you mean this sentence: Is far closer to what the Buddha intended than what a lot of Buddhists mean when they talk about peace and cessation in a supposedly orthodox fashion.
And I think you think Buddhism is about going to sleep, and I think you think that because for a lot of Buddhists it is like that, so that's what you see and that's how you characterise it. And you don't respect a lot of middle class white people lighting incense and chanting while the world burns. But that's the thing, caring isn't so easy. Go and die for someone today, give away everything, go barefoot on the road to Damascus and restore the sight of the blind. There are plenty of bullets to shield people from, plenty of bulldozers to stand in front of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie
You see, I'm not as brave as Rachel Corrie. But I want to be. I burn to be. I hear a billion souls cry out in the night and I long to light lamps for them. And the more I incline to the plane of peace, the more space opens up to that great chorus of need in the world.
I'm not a naturally brave or caring person, I like my video games and nice food, music, holidays, women, fun... I can't just decide to be compassionate, I can't decide to pull myself to the moon by my shoelaces. It doesn't work like that.
But as I make space for subtler needs, as I practice meditation and study, for selfish reasons, I begin to understand that my need, that subtle yet inexorable gravity which whispers to and entreats my heart, is not separate from the need of others. So I'm not learning to be altruistic, and I'm not trying to please the gods, I'm not giving anything up for anyone, because this isn't a zero sum game with winners requiring losers, pleasure requiring pain. When you are free, as you brush undergrowth aside from your path, cage bars will bend and birds will fly.
In truth, you already are doing this, you are already a bodhisattva saving countless beings, whether you see yourself as behaving foolishly, kindly or selfishly; because this world unfolds in perfection, though our ignorance of this is a sad yet briefly necessary part of this perfection become as becoming, unchanging as change, and when you practice the way you will understand why, and you will forgive aeons of ignorance, as ignorance releases you now and before and never was.
What are you talking about now?
Please quote the Pali Canon so this time it can make some sense hopefully
Then say what you are specifically arguing for, besides diverse various theories of your own.
BW,
Abu
To be fair to you, viññāṇa, usually translated as consciousness, is used in various ways in the Pali Canon, not all of which have been clearly defined and agreed upon by scholars or Buddhists. Or Buddhist scholars
But certainly ozen's phrasing, bringing attention towards peace, is correct, in an orthodox sense, though easily misinterpreted, and I think there are better ways of putting it for modern people. Thus I am inclined to agree with you to an extent, and I expect the original Pali, to Indians of the 1st millenium BC, would be clearer.
It seems that you are asking for the best piece possible, but since they are all the best, you will probably be dissappointed.
And I'm answering your other questions about caring for those in need.
And secondly, the version here uses the word attends to, which is very different.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.122.than.html
Thirdly, the context of this sutra is quite wide ranging, and amongst other things, it teaches meditative concentration states, which I think is a different context to @AllBuddhaBound's initial question of how to change habits.
As @ozen correctly said, being an avoid ant is probably not what the Buddha actually intended.
I think your correction can be taken back in this case.
Please refer to ATI for studies, they seem to have a good collection.
Bringing atttention towards peace is not ozen's statement, if I understood him correctly - I think it was our dear taiyaki's actually.
BW,
Abu
Apart from that I am all for smiling.
May you have a good day @PrairieGhost.
Abu
Best wishes,
Abu
To put it briefly, you can't just wake up one day and say 'I'm going to give my life to helping others', because like a new years resolution, the habit of a lifetime's apathy can be persistent.
But practicing Buddhism breaks that habit.