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How 'spiritual' are you?
lobster
Crusty Veteran
Still intending to eat your way to enlightenment? Sit until nothing more happens? Hope your teacher comes up with the right practice - finally?
What does 'spiritual' mean to you? For me it is not based on restrictions of behaviour, diet or mind arisings. It is the freedom to be perfectly no different to the ordinary, whilst simultaneously working towards greater enlightenment for all concerned.
Oh look . . . they said something wised up from a book . . . how parrot like . . . or how spiritual?
Is the spiritual person able to provide what is required and move us towards our own insight and enlightenment as quickly as possible?
I would suggest the kind person, which most teachers are, exemplifies more of the attributes of genuine spirituality than the [insert other 'spiritual' behaviour] we have convinced ourselves is required . . .
Is Buddhism spiritual? :wave:
What does 'spiritual' mean to you? For me it is not based on restrictions of behaviour, diet or mind arisings. It is the freedom to be perfectly no different to the ordinary, whilst simultaneously working towards greater enlightenment for all concerned.
Oh look . . . they said something wised up from a book . . . how parrot like . . . or how spiritual?
Is the spiritual person able to provide what is required and move us towards our own insight and enlightenment as quickly as possible?
I would suggest the kind person, which most teachers are, exemplifies more of the attributes of genuine spirituality than the [insert other 'spiritual' behaviour] we have convinced ourselves is required . . .
Is Buddhism spiritual? :wave:
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Comments
Bing Dictionary
spir·i·tu·al
[ spírrichoo əl ]
1.of soul: relating to the soul or spirit, usually in contrast to material things
2.of religion: relating to religious or sacred things rather than worldly things
3.temperamentally or intellectually akin: connected by an affinity of the mind, spirit, or temperament"
I think number 3 would apply in my view.
The spirit of Buddhism lives on.
Come in the spirit of good heartedness.
There are even spiritual Atheists who have glimpses of the absolute and have a feeling of being one with the universe.
Our spiritual condition is to reach beyond.
This is how science and religion are two sides of the same coin.
What I do know with certainty is that I'm an individual rather than a person and passionate instead of dispassionate.
Perhaps . . .
You mean to think of oneself as spiritual is a form of association with spiritual virtues and lacks humility?
Maybe so . . .
Perhaps you are tempted by humility
Something real? What might that be? Something spiritual maybe?
Do tell . . .
When I think of myself, I find myself somewhere in...well, let's say the upper range of normal in terms of being spiritual. There are some who dwell on spirituality...not saying that's good or bad. There are also some who pretty much don't consider it at all.
Of course, the issue of spirituality is that no matter how spiritual we are regarding our own path, we may someday find that we have been totally wrong about our perceptions of spirituality. However, since for many people spirituality improves traits like kindness and compassion, all is not lost even when we are wrong.
Just drop your opinions.
When you have a path, you know it. No need to be anything special, just deal with what is in front of you.
I agree that view affects reality.
Which makes views good or bad or neutral in a conventional sense, which is all that we can discuss anyway.
You are just there. On a bus one rainy morning. Just there.
I could sit on a beach during a sun rise. And I could wonder at the beauty of it all and what it all means. But I can do that in my office between doing some actual work and tap tapping away on the newbuddhist forum.
My point is exactly that reality precedes mind. And, in so many words, that to be a part of reality is to drop opinions. Drop views.
Maybe it could be said that reality precedes thinking.
Thank you.
I usually don't feel so "spiritual" when I'm all distracted by the violent wretching I experience after reading one of your posts so "spiritual" has no meaning.
In fact, I don't feels very "spiritual", much of the time.
Sometimes I feel spiritual when I listen to Carlos Nakai or Kitaro, but it usually doesn't last very long.
I also feel kinda spiritual during and after vigorous sex with my wife. That doesn't last very long either - I fall asleep or wind up in the kitchen raiding the fridge.
I used to feel spiritual listening to Frank Zappa. Zombie Woof used to send me to an entirely different plane of existence. Didn't last.
Or did it?
maybe it never really happened - maybe it was merely some acid flashback nightmare.
Maybe it was just the toy surprise inside a box of Cracker Jack.
I guess that after hearing Zombie Woof 1000 times it got kinda old - like the song "We Built This City" which got old two hours after the first time I heard it.
I bet you LOVE that song .....
Right up there is "Nanook Rubs It".
Saying something shitty in the name of honesty again?
Your talking about having sex with your wife is making me a feel a little sick, to be honest.
If you think that this thing we call buddhism has nothing to say about life, death, meaning, you are gravely mistaken.
Also, lesser teachers tend to falsely promote a method of no-views that is fractional at best. This profound, all pervasive principle is often mis-used and applied in selective ways. This type of common misunderstanding was addressed often in early Zen literature...especially it's main effect which was meditative apathy and stagnation. Again, this is a thicket due to selective application, and ingrained conceptualization of terms 'reality' and state 'just there'. I am assured of this because for one, the writer is addressing thought as something to be negated.
Let me ask you this to test your understanding: what is the state in which someone is not 'just there', has not 'dropped views'. Perhaps if our understanding of the nature of these 'inferior' states were complete, it wouldn't be so difficult to address this little 'problem' we are speaking of. Explain to us why this state of not 'just there' and not 'dropped views' comes about.. why it is so apparently prevalent, why it is good to exit these states for better ones.
I don't think I need to transcend the world so much as drop my expectations and attachments which come between "myself" and the world, as if I were a separate entity. I'm soaking in it-- but I don't always recognize it.
It's all so very ordinary, nothing "special." Why would I look elsewhere in the super-natural?
To put it in my own peculiar lingo, ontological fragmentation is another way of saying dukkha-- we become separated from where we are and from those around us. The realization of ontological wholeness is salvation (salvus = healing), which is awakening and at the same time is also compassion.
Expressed in theistic terms, this is to say that loving God and loving one's neighbor is identical. God = love, love = God (and so God is less an entity and more like a "process").
What determines a miracle is not natural laws being defied by the supernatural, but the way in which we embrace life rather than struggle (dukkha!) with it.
He can make light of some of the most serious threads in some of the most insensitive way, and nobody calls him on it. What are you all up in my face for?
If he can make light of sacred words found in mantra, I think it's ok to poke fun at him by saying his posts make me puke. I guess now I have to explain myself because you're too wrapped up in not liking me to actually see what I'm writing about.
Yes, my wife and I have regular, vigorous sex. There are times when it becomes nearly a religious experience. Transcendent. Spiritual. But it never lasts. The feeling of spirituality is impermanent, empty of any label I may try to affix to it.
The same applies to music. Music moves all of us, and in some cases music can take on a mystical, almost spiritual quality. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, is a good example. People used to assign all sorts of New Age silliness to The Who's rock opera, "Tommy". Grateful Dead anyone? But what happens after the music stops or gets old? Impermanence again. Emptiness.
So the whole question of "spirituality" is, in it's inevitable emptiness, more absurd than Lobster's usual, intentional absurdities.
There. How's that, 'bot? How dooyah like me now?
And BTW, rather than be sick, you should be jealous. After 20 years of marriage and 10 years of friendship before that, we still, regularly, rock each other's world. You should be so lucky, but you can be sick if you want to.
See that everything in samsara and nirvana is merely dependently arisen.
Is Buddhist spiritually a process of becoming aware of and doing something about dukkha? In other words being attentive and aware of the conditions of existence and the ways to improve the situation?
Is other spirituality based on a relationship to unnatural (no idea what super natural is) alleged foci?
Do people through life experience become embittered, kinder, more mature etc and a whole range of circumstantial outcomes? People attempting improvement are more likely to find favourable outcomes, I would have thought?
What about the Buddhist paths that are not aiming for any form of 'improvement', yet still have a 'practice'? Are we innately 'spiritual'? Is that 'spiritual' an unhelpful term?
Whew. Goodnight y'all. Sweet dreams.
Yes, my wife and I have regular, vigorous sex. There are times when it becomes nearly a religious experience. Transcendent. Spiritual. But it never lasts. The feeling of spirituality is impermanent, empty of any label I may try to affix to it.
The same applies to music. Music moves all of us, and in some cases music can take on a mystical, almost spiritual quality. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, is a good example. People used to assign all sorts of New Age silliness to The Who's rock opera, "Tommy". Grateful Dead anyone? But what happens after the music stops or gets old? Impermanence again. Emptiness.
So the whole question of "spirituality" is, in it's inevitable emptiness, more absurd than Lobster's usual, intentional absurdities.
There. How's that, 'bot? How dooyah like me now?
And BTW, rather than be sick, you should be jealous. After 20 years of marriage and 10 years of friendship before that, we still, regularly, rock each other's world. You should be so lucky, but you can be sick if you want to.
Rock around the clock. I'm not so much into granny porn to find your repeated exclamations of pleasure about your sex life titilating.
Also, I'd need to see a nude photo of your wife before I could say whether I'm jealous or not.
I also don't share Lobster's sense of humour, and have said so.
Actually, I kind of like you though, even if you do drive a girls car.
Sorry, I misunderstood the question. I initially thought you were asking us to assess how spiritual we are, as the title of your post was "How 'spiritual' are you?" I think it would have been clearer for me if the title had been "What does 'spiritual' mean to you?"
Anyway, it means to me the enlarging of the infinite heart and the transfiguring of an isolated individual to that of a person.
I suppose that's an attempt at humor.
Nice try.
You obviously never driven one like you have pair ;-)
Basically, an Orthodox Christian is one who has been received through Holy Baptism into the Church, participates in a Eucharistic centered life within the Church, and professes the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed as a symbol of faith.
In discussions where Christianity is mentioned we often see differing theological interpretations and ideas and that's fine, but that doesn't mean they are representative of what all Christians believe, so there are times I make the reference. However, I think I actually reference traditional sources and a particular point of view more so now than stating I'm an Orthodox Christian.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "How do you fit God into your thoughts?”, since God in essence is beyond thought, imagination, and even name. Please elaborate a bit more on the question.