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If you could choose,,,,
Jeffrey
Veteran
If you could choose to be permanently in a trance that felt good would you do it?
Or would you rather have your ordinary life?
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Ordinary life. Don't know what the point of permanent bliss would be if you can't do anything... it sounds like some peoples' version of heaven, but not mine.
A ** permanent ** blissful state can't exist. If that were so, you wouldn't be calling it bliss for a blissful state implies that there is also a non blissful state! Even if one feels good all day long that has to be a time that feeling is not there. Otherwise the label good is meaningless.
Yep, same goes for existence itself.
The blissful state attained e.g through meditation is a means (not an end) to help us improve the quality of everyday life as it is, warts and all.
A permanent blissful state is a sort of mirage, like getting stuck in the theory instead of living the written word. It's a mere tool for insight.
Kia Ora,
Ignorance 'is' bliss (for some)
Metta Shoshin
In q Pema Chodrons interview with someone, she talked about her retreat experience. She said her senses it was like before they were little slits. She said after retreat the senses were wide open. But she said that if she couldn't take that back to her real responsibilities and life that she didn't think it would 'be worth a hill of beans'.
We gets a choice? Blue pill or red pill . . . m m m . . . Open to the hill of beans . . . m m m . . . it is for choices like this I have a cushion . . .
In essence we are in and out of trance states, openness, joy, equanimity, ordinary consciousness, my mind is better than your emotional hindrances, my experience is better thought of etc . . .
Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the cushion. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no cushion.
Neo: There is no cushion?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the cushion that bends, it is only yourself.
I tried very hard to achieve a permanently blissful state with vodka. I wanted permanent bliss but was willing to settle for a fricken BREAK from the misery gnawing at me, therefore, temporary states of bliss/relief (can't have everything!)
It didn't work. I've tried to achieve that state of bliss in other nearly or equally unskillful ways. The ordinary world was misery, intoxication of some sort was a break from it.
This question is not a playful question for me, for this life. I think it is my personal koan (Shinzen Young gave me that idea). Even sober as a judge, it is an ongoing inquiry.
I have a feeling this is true for many, but not all. This question feels like what I imagine a koan feels like, a physical/psychological all encompassing dilemma. Other things come too easily to me, but not this.
Bravo. Inspiring. Dukkha NT 1
Dharma = solution.
Happy to dedicate any limited merit from today's practice to you and those struggling with their personal koan . . . yep that includes me . . . I iz so selfish . . .
OM YA HA HUM
What is the good feeling? Others assumed bliss but what if I want something else.
Never ending excitedness until my chest explodes?
A constant feeling of affection toward my ego?
An endless drunken state?
Maybe the purest satisfaction of all my greatest desires combined into a single point?
I am thinking the last one but then I might not be able to make up my mind until exactly 3 hours before my death. Would the offer still stand or is this a limited time offer?
Three quotations from a book, titled "An Encyclopaedia of an Ordinary Life" (Amy Krouse Rosenthal):
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Give me 'an Ordinary Life' every time....
Reminds me of the thread about the Jhânas, and how some of us considered them more of a distraction than a goal to be attained through your practice.
The practice is intended to make you more present to the different hues in your life, not to get stranded in the artifitially-induced bliss it produces.
Some mornings I need strong motivation to drag myself into my yoga routine and the subsequent sitting meditation practice. But I do it because I know my experience of the day will be so greatly improved by it. I'll be more present, more positive, less stressed, less tetchy. It's a tool, not an end in itself.
Sounds like JK-Z's description of samadi. I have been cautioned about it.
"The experience of deep samadhi is very pleasant. In attending to the breath with one pointed concentration, everything else falls away—including thoughts, feelings, the outside world. Samadhi is characterized by absorption in stillness and undisturbed peacefulness. A taste of this stillness can beattractive, even intoxicating. One naturally finds oneself seeking this peacefulness and the simplicity ofa state characterized by absorption and bliss.
But concentration practice, however strong and satisfying, is incomplete without mindfulness to complement and deepen it. By itself, it resembles a state of withdrawal from the world. Its characteristic energy is closed rather than open, absorbed rather than available, trancelike rather than fully awake.What is missing is the energy of curiosity, inquiry, investigation, openness, availability,engagement with the full range of phenomena experienced by human beings. This is the domain of mindfulness
practice, in which onepointedness and the ability to bring calmness and stability of mind to the present moment are put in the service of looking deeply into and understanding the interconnectedness of a widerange of life experiences.
Concentration can be of great value, but it can also be seriously limiting if you become seduced by the pleasant quality of this inner experience and come to see it as a refuge from life in an unpleasant and unsatisfactory world. You might be tempted to avoid the messiness of daily living for the tranquility ofstillness and peacefulness. This of course would be an attachment to stillness, and like any strong attachment, it leads to delusion. It arrests development and short-circuits the cultivation of wisdom." JK-Z
Why choose? Just get enlightenment and have both!
^^^
we haz plan!
Hell yeah! I've ended up in blissful trance states (no alcohol or drugs included) a number of times, one of which lasted about 6 hours. If I could have that all the time, well it's a no brainer from the point of view of 'would I like to feel that blissed out all the time?' lol But you know, it's fine that actually the VAST majority of the time I'm not feeling like that.
Well said @Dandelion,
Those of us who have experienced practice that results in bliss out (a technical term whilst Jhana and samadhi states are tabulated) do transcend, go beyond and as you say become OK with mundane ecstasy/ordinary consciousness.
We cry, we become ecstatic, we goes up and down and around the houses. Don't go mad guys, we are on the path. Stay in the middle/center grounded.
. . . and now back to the two pill choice in a thee choice situation . . .
The essence of this thread is this: what state of consciousness are you seeking to attain; the blue pill is everyday consciousness; the red pill is one which is still everyday consciousness, but there is a thrill attached. I have taken too many red pills; give me the blue, and I'll watch you do the red one - lol
Or neither. You are not blissed out nor is your life subjected to ups and downs ('ordinary')
If you could dream a dream in which in one single night you could live 75 years of however you wished. This would be great for a few nights of 75 years.
After a time you would say, let's have an adventure in which you couldn't control what happened! You would say, well wasn't that exciting!
You would get more and more adventurous until you would dream exactly where you are now. - Alan Watts the dream of life
A lottery company organised a poll of one thousand people who had won an amount of money from them, and the question was asked:
"If you could choose between winning £50million, or living for ever, which would you choose?"
Nobody chose the latter.
Not one , single person.
Surely if a 'trance' ( whatever that is ) was permanent that would be everyday life ?
And then we would we probably crave this everyday life?
No doubt..that what dukkha does...
Come to think of it I tried a daily "induced" trance and it nearly killed me and everyone around me suffered. Bob
Non-duality means freedom from trance states, jhanas, and ecstasy as well as from dukkha.
The Dharma of the Buddha is ruthlessly radical.
Usually happens when we try to escape affliction, instead of facing up to it. We end up creating more suffering for ourselves and naturally for the people who care for us.
Oh really? I think I'm with these ladies:
"Siempre Vive- Live forever" !!!
(only half joking)
And those of us afflicted with the disease of alcoholism / addiction it happens more often than not.
I think I'd like to live until it's my moment to die. Then, I'll go quietly..... ;0)
@MeisterBob: have you read the book "The 12-step Buddhist"? It has very good reviews on Amazon. Looks like you could find it very helpful.
I have not. Over the years I have made many of my own connections between my "path" - agnostic mindfulness (with ethics and compassion) and AA. Though not really a Buddhist I'm told( and rightfully so) , some one else's correlation of Buddhism and a 12th step program may prove fruitful, thanks! Bob