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Bit confused
Wisdom23
Veteran
How do you all understand the concept of non craving to be ? and how do you go about non craving ?
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Another option is fighting the feeling. That doesn’t work well either. The desire gets attention and grows. It becomes an obsession.
The third (the best) way to go about it is to mentally note the desire. That way I don’t reinforce the addiction and I don’t turn it into an obsession. The moment I note the feeling I don’t identify with it.
Like all things the desire is impermanent. It goes away without me doing anything about it.
(that’s the theory, I think I deserve a beer for writing this)
1. Sharon Salzberg wrote about seeing the Dalai Lama being interviewed on TV. He told of a tour he had taken of a Catholic Trappist monastery in the US, where the monks made cheese and fruitcake to support themselves. After the tour, the Dalai Lama had been given a sample of the cheese. "But," he said to the interviewer on TV, "what I REALLY wanted was a piece of the fruitcake!" whereupon he broke into giggles (as he tends to do).
At first I was stunned .. the Dalai Lama, after a lifetime of being a Buddhist, still craves fruitcake???!!! And he finds this ... amusing???"!!!
2. I remember a quote from the Bhagavad Gita .. okay, not Buddhism, but I think it is probably a universal quote: "That man who feels the inrush of desire but is moved not ... that man has obtained peace."
Now, I am certainly not enlightened. But I think it would not surprise me if the cravings themselves do not go away. And that it is only our involvement with them that changes.
Get back to me in 573,892 lifetimes, perhaps.
More dharma, more practice, more karma to aid all . . .
When we sigh, there is no yearning, because, as the song goes, a sigh is just a sigh. Not even that. Nor is resistance to the way resistance to the way.
Wisdom23, can you give an example of where the concept of noncraving is coming up?
When you think you crave, analyse all the feelings that craving is made of.
The feelings are all there is. They are not more than the sum of their parts. They don't add up to craving, just as the skhandas don't add up to a self. When you see this, you may seem to cling to the idea. i.e. you seem to want not to forget what you have briefly understood. If you smell smoke and hear flames from a room in your house, you probably will forget.
At first it's easiest to see in minor things such as wanting a cup of tea. Don't push it. You don't have to walk on hot coals or anything. It's not about resisting craving, it's about seeing clearly (you may have to resist a little to get the space to see clearly, however, but resistance isn't the magic).
You may notice a dryness in your mouth for instance, along with thoughts about getting up and making tea, and a sense of resistance, of wanting to stay seated, which is gradually overcome by thirst.
But again, the wanting to stay seated, when analysed, is seen as mere comfortable body feeling, muscle tensions and other subtle sensations which coalesce, as the set and props in a theatre do, into an illusion.
You can't train yourself from breathing. In fact, after you pass out, you generally resume breathing.
'The Blessed One was once staying among the Kurus at their market-town of Kammaasadamma. [And the Venerable Aananda said:] "Wonderful, Lord, marvelous, Lord, is the profundity of this law of Dependent Origination, and how profound it appears! And yet to me it appears perfectly plain."
"Do not say that, Aananda, do not say that! This law of Dependent Origination is indeed profound and appears profound. It is through not knowing, not understanding, not penetrating this truth[1] that this generation has become entangled like a knotted string, covered with blight, like grass and reeds, and cannot pass over the downfall, the woeful way, the sorrowful state, the cycle of birth-and-death."[2]'
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.060x.wlsh.html
When I seemed to breathe, there was dukkha and tanha.
Sallatha Sutta: The Arrow
The other thing, is that the discriminations I've made above are becoming less relevant to my practice. Even the notion that this is a practice.
May I ask you to explain your position on the persistence of dukkha after unbinding?
I said: Or I could say something which used to frighten me, but does not now: that pain is not suffering, and that a life without pain, or a life spent avoiding pain, is a kind of death. I learned that I was empty, so now I have the courage to begin learning fullness.
I don't agree with the conventional Buddhist soteriology based in the end of all suffering. I think the four noble truths free us from suffering in the same way that the microbe theory frees us from infection. We remain a stew of infection despite this insight, but it's still a positive development because we know the principles of hygeine implied by the microbe theory drastically reduce the risks posed by the most pernicious microbes. Similarly, as long as we are physically alive, kamma is operating to keep us that way as long as possible. You can see this in the life of the Buddha. He still ate, he still walked, he still communicated with people in order to achieve desired outcomes, and all of these behaviors depend on conditioning. What changes with the development of the four noble truths is that kamma becomes something which can be adjusted in the service of leading a good life.
I know what quenching means, because I have stumbled into the 7th jhana by accident a couple of times. But then the whole machine starts back up again. No kamma means no life.
Firstly, do you still perceive yourself to meditate? Secondly, is your every moment, or close to every moment, blissful? If so, then you are further along the path than me, and I cannot advise you.
Third question, when you perceive suffering in other people, do you automatically know how to act in order to relieve that suffering? I'm not asking whether your very presence makes people happy, or whether you have nothing to learn, I'm asking whether you hesitate or act.
And I don't mean make yourself act, I mean act without limitation, whether that means turning away or helping.
In any case, the suttas would give you better advice than I could, but with the greatest respect, I see your interpretation of them as being too legalistic, too logical.
Also, do you ascribe to some of the views of, and follow some of the practises described at the Dharma Overground website?
Is the 7th jhana really a "quenching"? Isn't it said that Arupajhanas are still leading to rebirth?
In the wikipedia article it says "Ariyapariyesana Sutta - "'This Dhamma (of Alara Kalama) leads not to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to stilling, to direct knowledge, to Awakening, nor to Unbinding, but only to reappearance in the dimension of nothingness.'"
Is it not the "ninth" jhana that is actually the quenching?
how do you stop it?
well, that is the million dollar question, is it not?
My understanding is that the 8th jhana corresponds to nibbana.
Regarding your questions about my personal beliefs, practices and attainments, I'll answer them in full if you'll first submit to being waterboarded so we can verify your claim that you don't experience dukkha and tanha because you don't breathe.
I do hang out at Dharma Overground a lot because it has a large number of serious practitioners and relatively little tolerance for BS. I have found them to be helpful and supportive, despite the fact that I am quite critical of most of the controversial aspects of Ingram's framework. If you really want to know where my practice is at, you can get a pretty clear idea from my comments there.
When I said 'I don't breathe', that's a figure of speech. I don't perceive a self who 'doesn't breathe' either.
The question is, not are you prepared to die: many are brave enough for this. The question is, are you prepared to live like a stone or a river? Because before it understands, the mind would rather die once than for all time, even if to do so is truly to live.
Understanding what you are is more than an intellectual exercise. It's the key to creating a clear mind.
In our explanation, a craving is a desire that you've let control your mind. Once the desire takes control, it infects the rest of the skandas and your mind becomes trapped by the desire, and that is called craving. You focus your consciousness on this feeling so that's all you can think about. Your thoughts revolve around how important and necessary your want is. Your emotions become tangled and you're angry with whatever is keeping you from the object of your desire. If it's your self control, you get mad at yourself, especially once you give in. Didn't I just describe every time you crave something?
The object is to acknowledge the desire when it arises. We all have our likes and dislikes. To be alive is to want something, to prefer one thing over another. So when something pleasant comes along, enjoy. When you can't have that pleasant experience for whatever reason, notice the desire and craving starting to arise, shrug your shoulders and recognize it's just the part of your mind that provides pleasure and pain. Let the craving go back to the nothing it came from and continue on with your day.