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^^^ and as usual, a complex reply of @lobster , which i do not understand and as it is now getting late in night here, so i do not want to spoil a comfortable deluded sleep by even try to understand it. thank God that dogen did not taught the above lobster-dharma.
Those Zen disciplinarians can be tricky.
For a masochist like your self, you might just end up being asked to meditate on a chaise lounge and eat bon bons all day long.
I think your plan for a restful day with some sitting and walking meditation is a good one.
It's amazing how the book I'm reading (The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching - Thich Nhat Hanh) is so appropriate for some of the threads I've been seeing lately.
"Buddhist meditation has two aspects - shamatha and viphashyana. We tend to stress the importance of viphashyana ("looking deeply") because it can bring us insight and liberate us from suffering and afflictions. But the practice of shamatha ("stopping") is fundamental. If we cannot stop, we cannot have insight."
Re. meditation: When the thought arises, "I don't know what I'm doing so there's not much point in doing it," rethink a little: "I don't know what I'm doing ..." and then do it anyway.
yesterday, i got up at around 7:30am, then had tea, then sat in zazen posture with timer of 60 minutes, then 15 min relaxation, then 15 min kinhin, then 15 min relaxation, then 45 min sitting in zazen posture, then 30 min relaxation, then had heavy breakfast, then laid on bed for some sleep and then slept for nearly 3 hours and woke up by a missed call coming on my mobile , by then it was nearly 3:45pm, then had tea, then did AUM chanting by repeating the words AUM AUM AUM ... for 20 minutes, then did some pranayama breathing exercises, then sat in zazen with 60 min timer and after its ending timer sounded, moved my legs from burmese/half-lotus to normal cross-legged and sat for another 25 min, then 15 min relaxation, then 45 min kinhin, then opened https://youtube.com/watch?v=wJVlB58sgqE this url and buffered its video, and in the meantime had some snacks and had tea, then did this guided meditation by playing this video file, then buffered this video https://youtube.com/watch?v=YjeDh2xw4Qw and did this tonglen meditation by playing this video file, then sat in zazen for 30 min but in this sitting my back was paining too much and most of the time, i was thinking when this 30 min duration will end and when the pain got too much, i ended the sitting and when i saw in the timer app, it was just 20 min, but after that i ended my yesterday's schedule.
i felt 3 things (may be it is due to the fact that i do not know how to do meditation and so may not be doing meditation properly, so i felt these things, so these things can be junk feelings) - but i am telling here, so that if you think i am doing something wrong, then you can help me by correcting me:
1. the craze for doing meditation usually drops after the first 15 minutes or may be earlier.
2. the actual experience in walking in kinhin is not great, rather it is just the ordinary experience of walking, though maintaining the steps with the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out becomes very difficult especially when the in-breath is very small and the out-breath is very small.
3. if i had too much sleep and then have some snacks, so that my stomach is not even half-full and then have tea and then after that while sitting in zazen, no sleepiness occurs and the body does not tend to fall as in drowsing while sitting.
well, whatever i did yesterday was due to the support of you all, so thanks to all of you.
I chanted OM MANI PEME HUM HRIH in the bath and did some hoovering meditation ...
I also did some meditation this morning.
Yesterday I went for a walk. Just finished eating a pear.
Yes, my ego was feeling good, when i was typing yesterday's activities. i am a too egoistic person, damn. But speak slowly or may be just whisper in the ears..., some zen master would be coming with his stick to straighten me out... . you know that those zen teachers say beginners mind and don't know .
Yes, my ego was feeling good, when i was typing yesterday's activities. i am a too egoistic person, damn.
@misecmisc1 -- Everybody -- and I do mean everybody -- goes through the business of imagining that they have somehow grabbed the brass ring. No need for any Zen masters and their sticks or lofty-sounding interior chastisements ... life straightens out the ego kinks, like it or not. Practice helps to cushion the blow.
Just keep on keepin' on. You're on the right track.
1. the craze for doing meditation usually drops after the first 15 minutes or may be earlier.
Crazed is a worldly mind pushing life's river.
Meditation is just becoming one with that river.
Sounds like it is presently taking you maybe 15 minutes to stop trying to control that river.
2. the actual experience in walking in kinhin is not great, rather it is just the ordinary experience of walking, though maintaining the steps with the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out becomes very difficult especially when the in-breath is very small and the out-breath is very small.
Walking meditation is just being attentive to the task of walking,
where sitting meditation is being attentive to the task of sitting.
Both are usually far too ordinary for the crazed to put up with..
3. if i had too much sleep and then have some snacks, so that my stomach is not even half-full and then have tea and then after that while sitting in zazen, no sleepiness occurs and the body does not tend to fall as in drowsing while sitting.
In Zazen, being attentively alert is no more or less Zazen than being attentive while drowsy. This is more about facing what is, than in trying to control anything.
The meditative equanimity that arises from any produced state of mentality, still remains conditional to that mentality.
It is in the meditative practice of allowing whatever we see & hear & smell & taste & feel & think, to be freed from our own sense gate's fiddlings, that an equanimity, untethered to our own ignorance.......manifests.
@misecmisc1 , when I began meditation I was just like you - I couldn't sit still for 5 minutes without a hard struggle, and the mind was a mes of thoughts. Now, it is different - I have gone into meditative trances and such, it doesn't happen everytime but I can calm the mind and body and enjoy awareness anytime I sit. What helped me to advance to such a place within myself, is what I would recommend to you, as it opened meditation wide open for me. It was this - I sat down in meditation, (I sit cross legged, back and neck straight, hands on knees) and I dedicated it to finding who I am. Not the body, not the thoughts, not the senses, but who I am, always have been, and always will be. This led me to an assortment of realizations, and trances, and each realization was spot on with what I am NOT - NOT the body, NOT the emotions, NOT how the mind views ''myself''. This I recommend to you, to gain better control of your meditation - meditate on who you really are, and/or what you are not. When you realize you are not the body, it becomes much easier to sit in calmness, and awareness, and build off of those to enter trance. i really hope this helps you - this technique is what took me from ''not knowing how to meditate properly'' (quote by you ) into dedicated practice
@genkaku said:
Just keep on keepin' on. You're on the right track.
@genkaku: Sir, this is what i fear that i may not be able to keep at it. currently i am alone at home, but in a few days, i will bring my wife and my daughter back to my work-city. after then, the weekend so-called retreat will be totally finished and even on work-days, even in morning if i try to sit for sometime, then also i might be disturbed by my wife telling me to wake my daughter, as she is busy preparing breakfast in kitchen for both me and my daughter. i think i then may just try to fool myself thinking i am being mindful in external activities like drinking tea, or walking after lunch etc, where as my focus would be so weak that i may not be fully engaged in doing a single activity. also since i might be working till 11pm, so in morning i might be getting up by 6am and will have to leave the house by 7:15am for office, taking my daughter with me to drop her at school and then leave for office from her school.
may be that is why karma is given so importance, that even though we may want to do something, but we may not because the conditions are not appropriate to get it done - or may be this is just an excuse, which my mind is making so that it does not feel bad and i can shed the responsibility of my task from my shoulders.
A practice can never be done anywhere except withing this present nano second.
Look there for your meditative task. Even this present minds rantings about yesterday or tomorrow can be experienced as passing phenomena or something to identify with.
Each nano second, another potential step towards suffering's cause or it's cessation.
@DhammaDragon: thanks for appreciating me. loved it and felt nice on reading your above post.
Even when you trip, you get up on your feet and try again.
what can i say, what choice do i have other than that, no spiritual teacher nearby who i know of, struck spirituality through internet after my daughter was born, born in a middle-class family so have to work to raise my family, working as software engineer in private company where work timings dictate life and can be asked to work in any shift from 9 to 6 or 2 to 10, thankfully no night shift till now.
there are some good conditions, which i have - like good parents who took good care of me and help me get good education, got good job, have a nice wife and a cute daughter.
but when i see that i theoretically somewhat understand the nature of things and i see i am wasting my life in working in office and taking care of my family, but these things were in my life before spirituality struck me so i cannot do anything about it, but be with it.
also, it is not just about conditions, i do have a lot of defilements of lust, anger, greed, aversion, ego and attachment inside me and i don't know how many thousands of lives it will take me to overcome them.
frankly, there is nothing in me, which i find is what i can feel good about except that i have got a human birth, but i am trying to behave kindly towards others and little kindly towards me too.
may be my these posts regarding sitting and walking are just my ego exaggerating about me trying to show-off, but in reality there may not be focussed attention for even 1 minute through out the day.
You are not wasting your life working in an office and taking care of your family, misec.
We are all growing spiritually in the midst of samsara.
We all have a family, we all have a job, we all have a life.
That's the practice turf, actually.
Becoming enlightened in a secluded monastery overhanging the Himalayas is a cinch.
@misecmisc1 said:
there are some good conditions, which i have - like good parents who took good care of me and help me get good education, got good job, have a nice wife and a cute daughter.
but when i see that i theoretically somewhat understand the nature of things and i see i am wasting my life in working in office and taking care of my family, but these things were in my life before spirituality struck me so i cannot do anything about it, but be with it.
also, it is not just about conditions, i do have a lot of defilements of lust, anger, greed, aversion, ego and attachment inside me and i don't know how many thousands of lives it will take me to overcome them.
frankly, there is nothing in me, which i find is what i can feel good about except that i have got a human birth, but i am trying to behave kindly towards others and little kindly towards me too.
may be my these posts regarding sitting and walking are just my ego exaggerating about me trying to show-off, but in reality there may not be focussed attention for even 1 minute through out the day.
Try not to try to own what you perceive as 'good' conditions, otherwise in a sense, those conditions become an end game, a limitation.
You don't own your parents, or your wife or your child and neither are limited to just being good, nice or cute.
Trying to push them into this box and maintaining their place is exhausting and fruitless - it just sets you up in conflict with yourself.
The same I suppose with your theoretical 'somewhat' understanding of the nature of things - if you're seeing that you're wasting your life then perhaps consider that 'somewhat' is a guess and led by this guess, you assume understanding - take care with assumptions that they do not blind you to that which you did not assume.
There is a lot you can do about it - take responsibility for yourself and meet that responsibility - take the highly prized spirituality which has struck you and apply it to your life as it is, rather than looking to it as an excuse or an escape.
For example, if this somewhat understanding is so clear and real then what is it, if it cannot even enable you to succumb what you see as the mundane or irrelevant challenges of life?
@misecmisc1 -- Perfect conditions for practice will never exist. They exist all the time and it is our practice to accord with them, not for them to suit us.
I once asked my teacher, a diminutive-but-peppery abbot at a Japanese monastery, what direction might suit me best. He told me twice (and for a Japanese person to say things twice is akin to a Marine Corps drill instructor screaming in your ear) "Take care of your family."
Buddhism is not about being kind or improving oneself. Self-improvement courses can do that. Buddhism is all about liberation from this material world. As long as u live in this world, there will be worldly concerns like family, job, etc.
0
silverIn the beginning there was nothing, and then it exploded.USA, Left coast.Veteran
It's my understanding that the Buddha dude as all about compassion - compassion equals kindness. It's not about 'liberation from this material world' -- it's about liberation from conditioning that stands in our way of seeing things and each other for how we really are and living skillfully.
@silver said:
It's my understanding that the Buddha dude as all about compassion - compassion equals kindness. It's not about 'liberation from this material world' -- it's about liberation from conditioning that stands in our way of seeing things and each other for how we really are and living skillfully.
That's so new agey. Buddha spoke of rebirth. Why would he, unless he felt we should avoid it?
0
silverIn the beginning there was nothing, and then it exploded.USA, Left coast.Veteran
No. It's not new agey. I have misgivings about how much you really know about the Buddha and Buddhism from reliable sources.
@genie said:
Buddhism is not about being kind or improving oneself. Self-improvement courses can do that. Buddhism is all about liberation from this material world. As long as u live in this world, there will be worldly concerns like family, job, etc.
so what i would like to know from you is this - i have a wife and a daughter and after my daughter was born, i struck spirituality through internet, so now you please tell me what should i do as per you?
0
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
edited June 2015
@genie said:
Buddhism is not about being kind or improving oneself. Self-improvement courses can do that. Buddhism is all about liberation from this material world. As long as u live in this world, there will be worldly concerns like family, job, etc.
Rubbish.
The Buddha stated that he came to show what suffering was, and how to transcend it.
The Four Noble Truths indicate that Transcending Suffering can be achieved by ceasing to grasp, cling and eliminate unskilful desire. The way to do that is to follow the Eightfold Path, (Right: View, Intention, [Prajna or Wisdom] Right Speech, Action, Livelihood, [ Sila or Ethical Conduct] and Right Effort, Awareness/Mindfulness, and Meditation [Samadhi or Concentration).
The Eightfold Path is there to assist us in discarding Greed, Hatred and Delusion, while cultivating and developing The Brahamviharas, or Four Sublime States i, ie, Metta (Loving Kindness), Karuna (Compassion), Muddhita (sympathetic Joy) and Uppeka (equanimity).
The Buddha also instructed Laypeople on how to best bring up a family, and how to be a wise and skilful member of that family, and he taught about livelihoods (jobs) and other 'worldly' concerns....
Just thought I'd throw that in for you as a (new) starting point, because whichever point you started from before is neither skilful, nor correct....
i am finding that almost every activity which i do is having a selfish motive behind it. there is always a feeling of competitiveness in office work - the other person, who is on the same level as i am, i need to work and show that i have better performed than him, so that my appraisal may be better. if there are five persons working in a project team as team-members, then i have to work something extra to show the project lead that i worked more than others. i want that seat on the office bus, where the adjoining seat is also vacant, so that i can keep my bag on the other seat and i can sit comfortably on my seat. what work i do for other teams in the project, whether i get an appreciation or a thank you email from them or not. how i look in the office - whether my hair is properly combed, my walk is having that attitude you know that hey, look at me, specially when a girl is passing from the opposite side. it is almost always selfishly about me in my almost every activity whether at office or at home.
Formal meditation is a dedicated attempt within a supportive but static setup, to not feed our self oriented natures.
To a Buddhist practitioner, daily life is just a measurement of how well that practice perseveres or doesn't, beyond that supportive meditative set up.
Noticing the extent of your self interests in daily life is no less important than noticing them in your meditation.
From here you learn how to not continue feeding them in daily life in the same way that you practice at that in formal meditation.
It is not about embracing this selfish inertia or rejecting them or ignoring them.
It is just about allowing them to arise, live and depart without becoming so subject to their drama.
It is hard to do, a fluid work in progress and usually requires some patience & compassion for all the parties involved.
yesterday, an incident occurred when my mind was caught in two opposite thoughts, then i found that thinking about death may sometimes straighten the mind. thinking about death not from the view of committing suicide - of course not, since the human birth is the most precious gift to us and so we should value it by living our human life - but thinking about death from the view that my human body will die in future.
Comments
^^^ and as usual, a complex reply of @lobster , which i do not understand
and as it is now getting late in night here, so i do not want to spoil a comfortable deluded sleep by even try to understand it. thank God that dogen did not taught the above lobster-dharma. 
@misecmisc1
Those Zen disciplinarians can be tricky.
For a masochist like your self, you might just end up being asked to meditate on a chaise lounge and eat bon bons all day long.
^^^ advanced practice. First we have to awake. Sit like a statute [sic] and wait for Nothing to happen in all its 'emptiness'.
I am so glad the sky is still in the same position ...
I think your plan for a restful day with some sitting and walking meditation is a good one.
It's amazing how the book I'm reading (The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching - Thich Nhat Hanh) is so appropriate for some of the threads I've been seeing lately.
"Buddhist meditation has two aspects - shamatha and viphashyana. We tend to stress the importance of viphashyana ("looking deeply") because it can bring us insight and liberate us from suffering and afflictions. But the practice of shamatha ("stopping") is fundamental. If we cannot stop, we cannot have insight."
Have a good weekend, @misecmisc1
Just keep it simple, @misecmisc1, and go at your own pace.
Rest, meditate, allow for the day to unfold without expectations.
Thanks @Walker and you too have a good weekend.
Re. meditation: When the thought arises, "I don't know what I'm doing so there's not much point in doing it," rethink a little: "I don't know what I'm doing ..." and then do it anyway.
With a lot of stuff you only realise what the point is by continuing with it.
And with a lot of other stuff you realise what the point is by just letting it drop...
hi all,
yesterday, i got up at around 7:30am, then had tea, then sat in zazen posture with timer of 60 minutes, then 15 min relaxation, then 15 min kinhin, then 15 min relaxation, then 45 min sitting in zazen posture, then 30 min relaxation, then had heavy breakfast, then laid on bed for some sleep and then slept for nearly 3 hours and woke up by a missed call coming on my mobile
, by then it was nearly 3:45pm, then had tea, then did AUM chanting by repeating the words AUM AUM AUM ... for 20 minutes, then did some pranayama breathing exercises, then sat in zazen with 60 min timer and after its ending timer sounded, moved my legs from burmese/half-lotus to normal cross-legged and sat for another 25 min, then 15 min relaxation, then 45 min kinhin, then opened https://youtube.com/watch?v=wJVlB58sgqE this url and buffered its video, and in the meantime had some snacks and had tea, then did this guided meditation by playing this video file, then buffered this video https://youtube.com/watch?v=YjeDh2xw4Qw and did this tonglen meditation by playing this video file, then sat in zazen for 30 min but in this sitting my back was paining too much and most of the time, i was thinking when this 30 min duration will end and when the pain got too much, i ended the sitting and when i saw in the timer app, it was just 20 min, but after that i ended my yesterday's schedule.
i felt 3 things (may be it is due to the fact that i do not know how to do meditation and so may not be doing meditation properly, so i felt these things, so these things can be junk feelings) - but i am telling here, so that if you think i am doing something wrong, then you can help me by correcting me:
1. the craze for doing meditation usually drops after the first 15 minutes or may be earlier.
2. the actual experience in walking in kinhin is not great, rather it is just the ordinary experience of walking, though maintaining the steps with the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out becomes very difficult especially when the in-breath is very small and the out-breath is very small.
3. if i had too much sleep and then have some snacks, so that my stomach is not even half-full and then have tea and then after that while sitting in zazen, no sleepiness occurs and the body does not tend to fall as in drowsing while sitting.
well, whatever i did yesterday was due to the support of you all, so thanks to all of you.
Thank YOU.
My retreat comes to end today too.
I chanted OM MANI PEME HUM HRIH in the bath and did some hoovering meditation ...
I also did some meditation this morning.
Yesterday I went for a walk. Just finished eating a pear.
You seem much more disciplined
@genkaku: why sir, what i did?
@misecmisc1 -- If I told you, I'd have to kill you.
...
Boy howdy! (He's such a show-off!)
Yes, my ego was feeling good, when i was typing yesterday's activities. i am a too egoistic person, damn. But speak slowly or may be just whisper in the ears..., some zen master would be coming with his stick to straighten me out...
. you know that those zen teachers say beginners mind and don't know 
.
sir, too zennish words.
@misecmisc1 -- Everybody -- and I do mean everybody -- goes through the business of imagining that they have somehow grabbed the brass ring. No need for any Zen masters and their sticks or lofty-sounding interior chastisements ... life straightens out the ego kinks, like it or not. Practice helps to cushion the blow.
Just keep on keepin' on. You're on the right track.
@misecmisc1
Good effort,
1. the craze for doing meditation usually drops after the first 15 minutes or may be earlier.
Crazed is a worldly mind pushing life's river.
Meditation is just becoming one with that river.
Sounds like it is presently taking you maybe 15 minutes to stop trying to control that river.
2. the actual experience in walking in kinhin is not great, rather it is just the ordinary experience of walking, though maintaining the steps with the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out becomes very difficult especially when the in-breath is very small and the out-breath is very small.
Walking meditation is just being attentive to the task of walking,
where sitting meditation is being attentive to the task of sitting.
Both are usually far too ordinary for the crazed to put up with..
3. if i had too much sleep and then have some snacks, so that my stomach is not even half-full and then have tea and then after that while sitting in zazen, no sleepiness occurs and the body does not tend to fall as in drowsing while sitting.
In Zazen, being attentively alert is no more or less Zazen than being attentive while drowsy. This is more about facing what is, than in trying to control anything.
The meditative equanimity that arises from any produced state of mentality, still remains conditional to that mentality.
It is in the meditative practice of allowing whatever we see & hear & smell & taste & feel & think, to be freed from our own sense gate's fiddlings, that an equanimity, untethered to our own ignorance.......manifests.
@misecmisc1 , when I began meditation I was just like you - I couldn't sit still for 5 minutes without a hard struggle, and the mind was a mes of thoughts. Now, it is different - I have gone into meditative trances and such, it doesn't happen everytime but I can calm the mind and body and enjoy awareness anytime I sit. What helped me to advance to such a place within myself, is what I would recommend to you, as it opened meditation wide open for me. It was this - I sat down in meditation, (I sit cross legged, back and neck straight, hands on knees) and I dedicated it to finding who I am. Not the body, not the thoughts, not the senses, but who I am, always have been, and always will be. This led me to an assortment of realizations, and trances, and each realization was spot on with what I am NOT - NOT the body, NOT the emotions, NOT how the mind views ''myself''. This I recommend to you, to gain better control of your meditation - meditate on who you really are, and/or what you are not. When you realize you are not the body, it becomes much easier to sit in calmness, and awareness, and build off of those to enter trance. i really hope this helps you - this technique is what took me from ''not knowing how to meditate properly'' (quote by you
) into dedicated practice
@genkaku: Sir, this is what i fear that i may not be able to keep at it. currently i am alone at home, but in a few days, i will bring my wife and my daughter back to my work-city. after then, the weekend so-called retreat will be totally finished and even on work-days, even in morning if i try to sit for sometime, then also i might be disturbed by my wife telling me to wake my daughter, as she is busy preparing breakfast in kitchen for both me and my daughter. i think i then may just try to fool myself thinking i am being mindful in external activities like drinking tea, or walking after lunch etc, where as my focus would be so weak that i may not be fully engaged in doing a single activity. also since i might be working till 11pm, so in morning i might be getting up by 6am and will have to leave the house by 7:15am for office, taking my daughter with me to drop her at school and then leave for office from her school.
may be that is why karma is given so importance, that even though we may want to do something, but we may not because the conditions are not appropriate to get it done - or may be this is just an excuse, which my mind is making so that it does not feel bad and i can shed the responsibility of my task from my shoulders.
@misecmisc1
A practice can never be done anywhere except withing this present nano second.
Look there for your meditative task. Even this present minds rantings about yesterday or tomorrow can be experienced as passing phenomena or something to identify with.
Each nano second, another potential step towards suffering's cause or it's cessation.
thanks @how for your above reply.
hi all,
tomorrow i will try do some sitting and walking, as tomorrow i will be alone at my rented flat because tomorrow saturday is an off-day for me.
any suggestions/ideas/comments please, to add/change in previous activities done on previous two weekends- all are welcome. thanks in advance.
@misecmisc1:
I admire your discipline, your consistency and your wish to become a better human being through your meditation practice every time.
Even when you trip, you get up on your feet and try again.
I can't understand why you have sometimes berated yourself about it.
Your thread is great and I thought I had to tell you.
Thank you
@DhammaDragon: thanks for appreciating me. loved it and felt nice on reading your above post.
what can i say, what choice do i have other than that, no spiritual teacher nearby who i know of, struck spirituality through internet after my daughter was born, born in a middle-class family so have to work to raise my family, working as software engineer in private company where work timings dictate life and can be asked to work in any shift from 9 to 6 or 2 to 10, thankfully no night shift till now.
there are some good conditions, which i have - like good parents who took good care of me and help me get good education, got good job, have a nice wife and a cute daughter.
but when i see that i theoretically somewhat understand the nature of things and i see i am wasting my life in working in office and taking care of my family, but these things were in my life before spirituality struck me so i cannot do anything about it, but be with it.
also, it is not just about conditions, i do have a lot of defilements of lust, anger, greed, aversion, ego and attachment inside me and i don't know how many thousands of lives it will take me to overcome them.
frankly, there is nothing in me, which i find is what i can feel good about except that i have got a human birth, but i am trying to behave kindly towards others and little kindly towards me too.
may be my these posts regarding sitting and walking are just my ego exaggerating about me trying to show-off, but in reality there may not be focussed attention for even 1 minute through out the day.
You are not wasting your life working in an office and taking care of your family, misec.
We are all growing spiritually in the midst of samsara.
We all have a family, we all have a job, we all have a life.
That's the practice turf, actually.
Becoming enlightened in a secluded monastery overhanging the Himalayas is a cinch.
Try not to try to own what you perceive as 'good' conditions, otherwise in a sense, those conditions become an end game, a limitation.
You don't own your parents, or your wife or your child and neither are limited to just being good, nice or cute.
Trying to push them into this box and maintaining their place is exhausting and fruitless - it just sets you up in conflict with yourself.
The same I suppose with your theoretical 'somewhat' understanding of the nature of things - if you're seeing that you're wasting your life then perhaps consider that 'somewhat' is a guess and led by this guess, you assume understanding - take care with assumptions that they do not blind you to that which you did not assume.
There is a lot you can do about it - take responsibility for yourself and meet that responsibility - take the highly prized spirituality which has struck you and apply it to your life as it is, rather than looking to it as an excuse or an escape.
For example, if this somewhat understanding is so clear and real then what is it, if it cannot even enable you to succumb what you see as the mundane or irrelevant challenges of life?
@misecmisc1 -- Perfect conditions for practice will never exist. They exist all the time and it is our practice to accord with them, not for them to suit us.
I once asked my teacher, a diminutive-but-peppery abbot at a Japanese monastery, what direction might suit me best. He told me twice (and for a Japanese person to say things twice is akin to a Marine Corps drill instructor screaming in your ear) "Take care of your family."
That was a lot of years ago.
He wasn't wrong.
@Zero: Thanks for your reply.
@genkaku: Thanks for your reply too.
Buddhism is not about being kind or improving oneself. Self-improvement courses can do that. Buddhism is all about liberation from this material world. As long as u live in this world, there will be worldly concerns like family, job, etc.
It's my understanding that the Buddha dude as all about compassion - compassion equals kindness. It's not about 'liberation from this material world' -- it's about liberation from conditioning that stands in our way of seeing things and each other for how we really are and living skillfully.
That's so new agey. Buddha spoke of rebirth. Why would he, unless he felt we should avoid it?
No. It's not new agey. I have misgivings about how much you really know about the Buddha and Buddhism from reliable sources.
so what i would like to know from you is this - i have a wife and a daughter and after my daughter was born, i struck spirituality through internet, so now you please tell me what should i do as per you?
Rubbish.
The Buddha stated that he came to show what suffering was, and how to transcend it.
The Four Noble Truths indicate that Transcending Suffering can be achieved by ceasing to grasp, cling and eliminate unskilful desire. The way to do that is to follow the Eightfold Path, (Right: View, Intention, [Prajna or Wisdom] Right Speech, Action, Livelihood, [ Sila or Ethical Conduct] and Right Effort, Awareness/Mindfulness, and Meditation [Samadhi or Concentration).
The Eightfold Path is there to assist us in discarding Greed, Hatred and Delusion, while cultivating and developing The Brahamviharas, or Four Sublime States i, ie, Metta (Loving Kindness), Karuna (Compassion), Muddhita (sympathetic Joy) and Uppeka (equanimity).
The Buddha also instructed Laypeople on how to best bring up a family, and how to be a wise and skilful member of that family, and he taught about livelihoods (jobs) and other 'worldly' concerns....
Just thought I'd throw that in for you as a (new) starting point, because whichever point you started from before is neither skilful, nor correct....
Feisty!
Can men be feisty? Yep. Of course they like to think of themselves as skilful and sartorially elegent ...
... and now back to skilfull listening ...
When you're hormonal, 58 and peri-menopausal, feisty is understandable.
When you have to contend with a forum where 65% (approximate proportion, give or take....) of the members are of the male gender, it's essential....!
And now, back to the noodling....
hi all,
i am finding that almost every activity which i do is having a selfish motive behind it. there is always a feeling of competitiveness in office work - the other person, who is on the same level as i am, i need to work and show that i have better performed than him, so that my appraisal may be better. if there are five persons working in a project team as team-members, then i have to work something extra to show the project lead that i worked more than others. i want that seat on the office bus, where the adjoining seat is also vacant, so that i can keep my bag on the other seat and i can sit comfortably on my seat. what work i do for other teams in the project, whether i get an appreciation or a thank you email from them or not. how i look in the office - whether my hair is properly combed, my walk is having that attitude you know that hey, look at me, specially when a girl is passing from the opposite side. it is almost always selfishly about me in my almost every activity whether at office or at home.
any suggestions here please. thanks in advance.
@misecmisc1
Formal meditation is a dedicated attempt within a supportive but static setup, to not feed our self oriented natures.
To a Buddhist practitioner, daily life is just a measurement of how well that practice perseveres or doesn't, beyond that supportive meditative set up.
Noticing the extent of your self interests in daily life is no less important than noticing them in your meditation.
From here you learn how to not continue feeding them in daily life in the same way that you practice at that in formal meditation.
It is not about embracing this selfish inertia or rejecting them or ignoring them.
It is just about allowing them to arise, live and depart without becoming so subject to their drama.
It is hard to do, a fluid work in progress and usually requires some patience & compassion for all the parties involved.
yesterday, an incident occurred when my mind was caught in two opposite thoughts, then i found that thinking about death may sometimes straighten the mind. thinking about death not from the view of committing suicide - of course not, since the human birth is the most precious gift to us and so we should value it by living our human life - but thinking about death from the view that my human body will die in future.
I know that view = it's nice!