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 is your view of the law of attraction? sorry for non buddhist question( may be related to it)
absolute
Explorer
i wish this law were/is true, but scientifically there is no such thing right. this law is more like pseudoscientific to me. and from buddhist view it seems like making more desire. is the law of attraction true? what do you think about it ? what is the buddhist view of this kind of mysterious things? some say this law is true just like other physics law, others especially scientists say this law is the one of the examples of pseudoscientific things. i heard lot of answers like that from people, and you know there are lots of information in the internet and most of them false if you can't filter them with educational or logical thinking. so how to deal with this kind of things? answers me with buddhist view and scientific view ( please not pseudoscientific) and sorry for the question that unrelated to dhamma.
0
Comments
Moved to general banter.
'The Law of attraction' was basically an amalgam of various 'good news' and new-age dictums, all put into one place the sole aim of which was to make the Authors bundles and bundles of banknotes.
It succeeded.
I don't know of anyone who hasn't become disillusioned by this, and the other similar publication, 'The Secret'.
Very basically it tries to generate your positive karma entitlement by generating a positive attitude and mind set.
Of course when bad shit happens, which is part of NT1, the simplistic New Agers wonder why . . .
The useful thing is that the ability to practice metta, positivity and the eventual arising of equanimity and joy etc will free you increasingly from Dukkha.
Dukkha happens.
All of these little mind traps were embraced by businesses because it required people to see complaining as a fault and blame their own mindset on their problems at work instead of managers being idiots, and see every setback as an opportunity, etc. Of course, the real bosses knew the secret is who you know and who you're willing to step on to get there, not beaming positive thoughts at the world. However, a huge industry grew up where these businesses spent millions sending their workers and salesforce to be indoctrinated.
But it never caught on and never will, because eventually reality breaks through even the most artificial positive attitude unless you have a real mental problem. @Lobster gave a concise summary of why. Bad things sometimes happens to good people, and good things happen to bad people, and that's the way of the world.
But I'll give you the stupidest answer in the world.
If you want to get stronger, you work out continually. You think about ways you can get stronger, you change your diet, you change your mindset.
If you follow through then your body will change and you'll get stronger.
Now there is a basic problem with that. Causality is not just linear but circular. And recognition of the multitudes of causes and conditions that go into getting stronger is practically impossible. Why? Because it literally takes the whole universe.
With that in mind. You can start to expand your awareness of the different variables. Okay how about laziness? That's a big block from working out. Why am I lazy? What investment is there to prevent me from my goal? And you see it's infinite because the moment you set up the concept, you set the whole perception.
This is why karma or casualty is a projection, linking memory with experience.
If you understand the implication of that then you can literally change your whole perception by changing the imputation of the concept.
But that is really, really, really hard. Why?
Because of karmic momentum haha. It's like eating a lot of food. The consequences of taking a poo is inevitable.
Long story short. If we see the primary causes and conditions then we can really get things done, if we put in the effort and time.
The problem arises when we don't acknowledge the other forces at hand. And hence what we expect never aligns with reality = samsara.
So in Buddhism the question is why move towards something in the first place if we have this direct knowledge?
and the response to that is individual and there isn't a correct choice.
if one is realized then an expression of their awakening could be a motion away from life. another's could be plunged directly into life. in both causes the non-arising/illusory display of interdependent origination is realized. and with that the realization of how causes and conditions are projected onto reality as reality. This includes the projectionist as well.
sure positive thinking and visualization are helpful.
but get real man, there is no secret and no law of attraction,
it is wishful thinking.
if you want something, get the relevant information
and work hard for it.
dont waste your money on silly books.
But you cant fool the universe.
Always..always comes the karmic bill...always.
There is no such thing as a karma free lunch.
It's very un-buddhisty-- most forms of recognizable Buddhism encourage modulating desires and aversions to attain peace.
There are some Buddhisty arguments in favor of desire-- e.g. tantra, using desire to achieve Buddhist goals, i.e. it's okay to really want something as long as it is enlightenment for all sentient beings. And in the Nichiren system, one chants for material benefits now. In one book I read, the author implied that you chant for a new car now, you get your new car, and now you have the means to pursue more typical Buddhist goals. My probably non-Nichiren view of this is that it is a sort of Maslows Heirarchy of needs thing, where if you don't take care of your need for food and shelter and iphones, you can't concentrate on typical Buddhist goals. It's kind of pragmatic, imho, because if you expect people to change their mind about how little they can subsist on first, they might not start at all.
I don't know enough about Law of Attraction to say if there is something beyond getting-what-you-want-through-magical-thinking, like there is in Nichiren Buddhism (which under all the chanting-- it's still recognizable Buddhism).
-- Brian Griffen
Boy did Bill Maher rip that guy up...
Smile!
I've always said " I'm a tough chick with a positive
attitude to boot"
Does a positive attitude mean bad stuff never happens
to me? Of course not. But being 'positive' holds a
concept/meaning to me of....being able to look for...
recognize....then accept what is. It's not personal.
Life and non-satisfactory....is not dealt to just 'me'.
It keeps me from asking the why, and ask... Why not me?
It keeps me from acting precious. If the same shit
happens to me like everyone else...why act like an
Eeyore about it? Self-pity leads down a dangerous
lane, if you ask me.
Work on what conditions you can.
Wanting and wishing doesn't get you very
far....except for in the future. Not in the
present.
If wishes were horses, poor men would ride.
People in hell want ice water.
And?
The movie...'The Secret'...yes, full of a bunch of
unrealistic stuff.
I related to it as simply the result of everyone carrying their own jangely karmic field around them. Our likes and dislikes of ourselves and anyone else have a lot to do with how our own jangely karmic field related to any other karmic fields.
My karmic field seems to be able to spot, attract and be attracted to crazy ass women from a fair distance. My footsteps often take me to intersect with anothers foot steps and that would inevitable be that particular type of lady that probably should only represents a small % of the population.
A typical example might be with x county skiing where I would decide to go from one ski hill mountain over to the next. Midway between those two mountains while breaking a new snow trail , I'd intersect another lone skier doing the same coming from the opposite direction. We'd stop for conversation and low and behold, most of the time, it would be another lady that most would say was unbalanced. When looking back later I would see from our two snow tracks that two people had made many timing and course corrections to have that meeting occur.
Yes I know how laughably nutty this story sounds, but so many different versions of this happened everywhere with such regularity to me that I just came to assume that something wider than our sense organs can affect our compass decisions on where we place our next step in the world. Like we are all carrying huge lit signs above our heads that we are unable to see, but that those signs themselves seemingly can read and have some effect on our corresponding steps.
Eventually, meditation, or my repeated stupidity showed me that what I was particularly attracted to, had little to do with what was good for me. When I learned how to stop feeding my desires, other possibilities of freedom and equanimity unfolded.
So what I thought the law of attraction was...is the teaching of the consequences of not following the 4NT.
I can't speak to whether or not the law of attraction is something that works or not, I can only observe what I've seen in one person who embraces it.
Even Buddhism pretty much has an undercurrent of "good intention brings good results, bad intentions is bad karma and brings bad results". That's the Law of Intention. There's a huge problem with placing karma as hinging on intentions. People can commit terrible acts of destruction with the best of intentions. People can kill but have only good intentions...in their own minds.
So the law of attraction, like the law of intention or the law of righteousness, always runs into the reality that the universe is not a place that operates on justice or fairness. Doing good has to be its own reward, because the tornado or storm that's going to hit your town doesn't give a damn what sort of attitude or intention or God you bow down to.
These books were bestsellers bcos they play on people's inherent discontentment.
You are not earning the kind of money you want ?
You dont have the mate that you really desire ?
These books will show you how to get them.
That's the difference, I believe. Yes, good thoughts will lead to good results, as you say, but when 'good' is defined in the way law of attraction defines it, it leads to a big problem - and suffice it to say that it's also quite a twisted view of karma.
But in Buddhism, the highest ideals are wisdom, happiness and equanimity.
Even in Buddhism, we talk about the results of good karma.
In the law of attraction, it is greed, it is all about getting what you want.
It appeals to the same crowd that flock to Donald Trump lectures.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/02/the-powerlessness-of-positive-thinking.html
I know the Secret people consider it more magic and more to do with material success than true happiness.
One thing that is interesting to me, and related, is the idea of will power. I've never seen how that fits into Dharma.
Of course, you had to buy the DVD to find out more