Seeing reality
Mingle
Veteran
Finally after 2 years I feel my practice is beginning to justify itself. I feel like meditation is starting to show some merit.
I have just had a great session. My mind just seemed to go silent in anticipation of something. What started off as a swarm of thoughts just turned into the odd one just flutter by. It was like all the meaning I gave everything just disappeared then everything was meaningless. Life was no more then my gentle breathing out and the random noises in the background. All I felt was just consciousness and everything else just seemed arbitrary.
I know for you guys this is just stating the obvious but to me there is knowing something because you have been told it and then really knowing something because you have experienced it.
I also think I understand rebirth better now too and that It has nothing to do with any afterlife. It is infact a metaphor for our constantly changing perspective on things. We conjure up this idea of us and give ourselves this backstory and call it "me" but all we are is an on going process that can never be frozen and labelled "I". Its not as simple as "Hi my name is Fred and I like this and I don't like this" in fact all our old habits are constantly dying and new ones are forming.
I will use my rack of cd's as an analogy. I have collected many over the years. Some I listen to some just gather dust. If someone wanted to know what music I like they might look at my cd's and believe that they know my taste but I find this silly, because to me you only really like what you like right NOW. I have many Cd's that I used to love but cannot stand now. Today I like rock but tomorrow I may like Jazz then those rock cd's will no longer be what I'm into. One day I might like rock again but it wont be the same as I will simply be falling in love with it again.
It is just a constant change with music and so it is with ourselves. Like the cd rack we define ourselves by all that we have ever liked, disliked and done but yet it is just an illusion that we have conjured up. Even to remember our past is to do so with biases formed by our current perspective. We our now, if we meet someone new they will define us as what they see now. We are constantly dying and being reborn. The me that started writing this is gone and by the time I finish I will be a new version of myself. We cannot be pinned down.
Comments
Yup.
That's it lol? That's the least I've ever seen you say. Is that a good thing?
Yup
hides
Nice job on the concentration and insight, bro.
Tee hee!
Good news!
Well said and understood
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.
Yup
[ goes into hiding with @dhammachick ]
I know what you're thinking. Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill?
@Mingle
Will this precious gift/insight be put to good use when Dukkha rears its head?
"Even so, Vaccha, any physical form by which one describing the Tathagata would describe him: That the Tathagata has abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising. Freed from the classification of form, Vaccha, the Tathagata is deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the sea. 'Reappears' doesn't apply. 'Does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Both does & does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Neither reappears nor does not reappear' doesn't apply.'
Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta
Hey @Mingle that's an amazing experience and story and thanks for enlightening me on the true meaning of rebirth because I DID take it literal this entire time, thank you
if we question an experience, in this case, seeing federica's response, that means we are back in working with illusion (born again/back in samsara)
if we let go of an experience 'with the knowledge we gained as in OP', then for one moment we do not born again clinging to the said experience
so still we have a job to do until the Knowledge We Gained will be confirmed with all experience we have
You are what you are seeking.
Seeking can stop.
Enough with spiritual entertainment.
Then the mind looks around not seeing the movement of the snake that circles and is vibrating around us and it continues wanting to exist instead of Being.
Aha you are welcome. I guess you too have again been reborn.
again and again and again from what I now understand about it @Mingle. Now that I understand it I see the connection between my rebirth and my suffering, they are hand and hand - cause and effect.
It's very interesting to me and I have been reading about it thus contemplating it. While reading The Mind and The Way it said that if one passes away without any desire or want or need for anything then what is there to be reborn into. Does that mean if you die understanding this suffering and therefore not desire for anything you won't be reborn (in the sense of actually coming back after death)?
That would be breaking the cycle of samsara (if reincarnation is real) and it is what Buddhist strive for. It is impossible not to desire as it is a desire to desire you stop desiring. To live is to desire, even a plant will grow towards the sun. The state I think you mean is a way to get around desire or to live with it and not let it control you and that's called Nirvana. The jury is still out for me of what I think of it and I posted a thread on it before, here it is
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/24411/nirvana#latest
I Just try and enjoy the journey and not worry about the end result.
In Buddhism, strictly speaking, some differentiate between 'Rebirth' and reincarnation' as the difference is distinct.
Brilliant film, I watched it again the other day. Now that I am older I thought I might appreciate it more.
I'm sort of obsessed with the simulation theory at the moment. Do you think meditation could help us wake up from the matrix (if we are in one)?
I wonder what would happen if characters on the Sims started meditating lol? Hmm prolly wouldn't mean anything. I must play that game.
You don't need to meditate to 'wake up from the matrix'. All you need to do is to see things as they really are.
I guess being aware of the concept alone should suffice. Perhaps sitting outside costa with a latte and watching the people go by with there lives may provoke some deep thought.
Yes, I do that a lot. Working with the public as a sales assistant, I meet people of all ages, from all walks of life and each one has a tale to tell, and no-one has any way of knowing what that tale is, or how it has moulded their lives.
It is indeed, this 'not knowing' that awakens compassion in us, because tragedy is invisible in such cases, and we never know what their life has brought them or how they have lived. Or are living, indeed....
We are in a kind of matrix of our own construction. Yes there is a 'given by society' matrix but on another level we have imprisoned ourselves as @federica mentions. When we see our matrix/karma we can begin to unravel its entanglement/mind bewitchment. The whole point of Buddhist practice ...
Meditating AI is one of the prophecies of the dubious Yinyana cult. Which fortunately has a zero membership policy ...
http://yinyana.tumblr.com/post/52618345165/vehicle-without-any-wheels
Yes, @federica and @Mingle I have seen the "matrix" that I have created in my own mind and the matrix that society has created for me. I now understand that it is not to change or stop this "matrix" but to live with it, accept it for what it is and move on without letting it sink its teeth in me. Not to judge myself or beat myself up for my mistakes or weaknesses or beat others up for their weaknesses but to practice "metta" with all, including myself and to accept it as it is. I also understand that when I allow myself to be manhandled by my sensory pleasures I get reborn again and again (sometimes 10-15 times a day if not more on some days) and this rebirth causes me suffering but even when I suffer to accept it and learn how to follow the Dharma with more dicsipline.
It's amazing that when one believes in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha how peaceful and calm life can be even though externally nothing has really changed.
What a wonderful world