If we get too caught up in others teachings , could that prevent us from finding our own truth?

zenmyste

How do we know what is OUR own thinking and not now only the influence of Others???

With this in mind, how close are you in finding 'Your' self?? Your truth?

Do you 'know' yourself???
And if so, why are you practising someone elses path?

Thanks in advance!

lobster

zenmyste said:

With this in mind, how close are you in finding 'Your' self?? Your truth?

Do you 'know' yourself???

I am a year or less away.
I am pretty sure I do not have a self.
Would not know what to do with one if I could find it . . .

Tosh

zenmyste said:

Do you 'know' yourself???

In another post someone suggested that I just "be myself"! I wondered who that was? I used to be a hedonistic prat who didn't give a shit about other people, at the time that was 'myself'. Then I became depressed and suicidal, that was 'myself'. And now I'm someone different to back then, and that concept of self keeps on changing. When I was smoking I was someone with the heart and lungs of a 90 year old; that was 'myself', but in a few weeks I'm running my first marathon. Myself keeps on changing all the time; how the heck am I meant to know what it is?

Or am I talking merely in the realm of the ego?

zenmyste said:

And if so, why are you practising someone elses path?

I practised my path for a lot of years and it got me into a lot of trouble. I'd much prefer to walk a well trodden path; it's easier not to get so lost.

Wisdom23

i think we should take others teachings contemplate on them too see whether they fit in with our own ideals if so we can adopt the.

As far as finding myself i think i have being trying to be someone else for ages i never realised who i actual was I am trying to settle down and just be me so to speak and hopefully then i will find myself

hope this helps

Citta

Tosh said:

zenmyste said:

Do you 'know' yourself???

In another post someone suggested that I just "be myself"! I wondered who that was? I used to be a hedonistic prat who didn't give a shit about other people, at the time that was 'myself'. Then I became depressed and suicidal, that was 'myself'. And now I'm someone different to back then, and that concept of self keeps on changing. When I was smoking I was someone with the heart and lungs of a 90 year old; that was 'myself', but in a few weeks I'm running my first marathon. Myself keeps on changing all the time; how the heck am I meant to know what it is?

Or am I talking merely in the realm of the ego?

zenmyste said:

And if so, why are you practising someone elses path?

I practised my path for a lot of years and it got me into a lot of trouble. I'd much prefer to walk a well trodden path; it's easier not to get so lost.

The suggestion to be yourself carried no implication of a solid non changing "self."
It was using a linguistic convention to suggest that constructing a "good " self does not neccessarly help us to understand how the self sense arises..anymore than indulging a " bad " self does.

Tosh

zenmyste said:

How do we know what is OUR own thinking and not now only the influence of Others???

I think another thing to consider is that nothing exists in a vacuum. We will always be influenced by others in some way, shape, or form.

So maybe by making a conscious decision, based on our intelligence is better than being left at the whims of chance.

Just a thought.

I_AM_THAT

Meditate... Meditate... Meditate... and then Meditate some more.

Open you Heart and Free your Mind and the TRUTH will be presented to you!

Jimyo

I think a healthy combination of learning from others aswell as looking inward is working for me personally but I certainly don't have date set when I plan on becoming enlightened. I'd like to think if I lived until a 100 I'd still have somthing to learn about myself.

In terms of learning from others, when something is passed on (whether that be in a piece of text, a song or even a charcter trait of somebody) it is up to each and every person to interupt it how they wish so it is a combination of learning from others aswell as yourself at the same time.

genkaku

When kids are little, sometimes they galumph around in their parents' shoes and imagine themselves to be grown-ups. Later they actually are grown-up ... even if they wonder what the hell "grown-up" might mean. The best that can be said for grown-up-dom, so-called, is that now the shoes fit.

Jeffrey

We cannot possibly escape from ourself. I don't see it as possible.

pegembara

zenmyste said:

How do we know what is OUR own thinking and not now only the influence of Others???

With this in mind, how close are you in finding 'Your' self?? Your truth?

Do you 'know' yourself???
And if so, why are you practising someone elses path?

Thanks in advance!

If we get too caught up in others teachings , could that prevent us from finding our own truth?

From the Buddhist viewpoint, getting caught up in the Buddha's(other) teachings is a good thing. A Buddhist would want to be influenced by a Buddha and follow the well trodden path instead of creating one's own. Who knows where it would lead to?

ThailandTom

There is a lot of emphasis on not taking any word spoken to you by a teacher as truth or 100% correct in Buddhism, but there is a handy toolkit to use how you wish where you can find out if what you get told by various people is in fact helpful or not. I think going back to a middle way of thinking again helps here, take on board what you hear or read, but do not clutch it to death thinking it is the golden truth. If there is one thing we should take from what the Buddha taught it is that there is suffering and that there is an end to suffering.

David

zenmyste said:

How do we know what is OUR own thinking and not now only the influence of Others???

With this in mind, how close are you in finding 'Your' self?? Your truth?

Do you 'know' yourself???
And if so, why are you practising someone elses path?

Thanks in advance!

I'd say to take what makes sense from others but to trust your inner B.S. detector.

Nobody is going to wake up for us so others insight will only take us so far.

I don't think Buddha wanted us to take his word for it.

federica

The Buddha even taught us about this too, didn't he?
In The kalama Sutta?

God, how we like to complicate things for ourselves....

footiam

zenmyste said:

How do we know what is OUR own thinking and not now only the influence of Others???

With this in mind, how close are you in finding 'Your' self?? Your truth?

Do you 'know' yourself???
And if so, why are you practising someone elses path?

Thanks in advance!

If you are happy with your path, then walk it. People who are unsatisfied with their life look for someone's else path to emulate. Nothing wrong with that.

zenmyste

footiam said:

zenmyste said:

How do we know what is OUR own thinking and not now only the influence of Others???

With this in mind, how close are you in finding 'Your' self?? Your truth?

Do you 'know' yourself???
And if so, why are you practising someone elses path?

Thanks in advance!

If you are happy with your path, then walk it. People who are unsatisfied with their life look for someone's else path to emulate. Nothing wrong with that.

brilliant x

Cinorjer

We are all influenced by others for our entire lives, both positive and negative. Sometimes I hear my old Zen Teacher emerging from my thoughts, sometimes my wise old Grandmother, and when tired and upset even my grouchy stepfather starts to emerge.

So when you say "be yourself", well, pull up a cushion and welcome to the zazen experience. How can you be yourself, if you don't know who you are? So first tell me what you're looking for, and I'll tell you where to find it.

zenmyste

Cinorjer said:

So first tell me what you're looking for, and I'll tell you where to find it.

Inner peace!

Inner peace!

Where do i find it then?

Oh wait, its just hit me! The clue is in the title 'inner' hahahaha!