Behind the facade ...
lobster
Crusty Veteran
From another thread:
By gradually removing the facade, that has been built up by years of conditioning, one slowly begins to see beyond the mundane...
Identity in dharma? As far as I know we grasp or attach to gender, age, job, psychological profile, mood, behavour etc.
However we also hopefully know of the inherent temporary nature and emptiness of these masks ?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ātman_(Buddhism)
For example if we experience fear, does that make us permanently fearful, if embarrassed are we defined by ... Once a child, always a child? Of course not. We experience many beings but we can get locked in a siding ...
In our middle. Who are we behind the facade?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhyamaka
Here is one we did earlier ...
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/25588/nothing-to-do-nowhere-to-go
I iz Nothing?
https://www.formlessmeditation.com
Comments
Does the facade fool us or other people? How much are we truly WYSIWYG to others?
I'm reminded of a favourite quotation..
(Polonius, Hamlet.)
But how honest are we with ourselves?
When we comfort ourselves with the affirmation that we are 'a good person', what's our benchmark?
Compared to whom?
Stalin or Mother Theresa?
After all, they both had people who loved them, too....
Not only that, but to what extent can we know ourselves? You could say I consider myself a generous person, but in the end you might say only my actions reveal who I truly am, and while I do volunteer work I rarely give to beggars or street musicians or television appeals. So am I really generous? Or is it all just a calculated strategy?
To know ourselves and what we are is a complicated business.
If I fail to perform a generous or kind task, I do seek to expose the reason why, to myself, and attempt to logically justify why exactly I refrained from doing what would seem Compassionate.
@Jason's recent encounter with someone who asked him for money, is a good example of seeking within one's self the cause of the reluctance, or willingness...
It's not always a simple thing, in this day and age, to be unconditionally kind, generous, giving and/or considerate. There are so many scammers and tricksters out there, so many people willing to pull the wool over one's eyes, under the guise of being needy. Such scams are constantly being exposed on television, or in the media, and a person doesn't want to be taken for a fool, or practise Idiot Compassion.
Such experiences have the potential to make us mistrustful, and hesitant, in case we get caught out again.
Let me just comment that in the UK, there is legislation in place, preventing the sale of more than a certain number of Paracetamol tablets, because excess intake can lead to liver failure and ultimately, death (Many stores have placed a blanket ban on other medications too, not covered by legislation, simply to cover themselves as a 'belt and braces' measure, but I digress...)
I was in a queue at a check-out yesterday, and the woman in front of me was purchasing 2 boxes of Paracetamol (covered by legislation) and a packet of Ibuprofen (NOT covered by legislation, but there you go...). The Cashier advised her that she could not sell the woman all three packs of medication, and so, without a second's hesitation, I picked up one pack of the medication, and put it with my shopping, paid for it, and refused reimbursement from the customer.
Turns out she had 2 kids at home each with a bad cold, but one child is Diabetic (type I) and taking paracetamol adversely affects his sugar readings and gives a false spike, so he needed the Ibuprofen...
She was so grateful, but I merely told her 'Merry Christmas, pass it on!' and we parted company.
That was an impulse, and I really didn't have to think twice about it.
Other situations, sadly, leave me pondering. But my opinion is, better to KNOW you have done something "Good" than be left wondering whether someone has pulled a fast one...
Just my 2....
Indeed. I am constantly learning things about myself. Usually through my reactions to other people and adjusting my behaviors and sometimes modifying boundaries etc.
This ??
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I agree 100%
I just had a lot of anger today because I went to pick my medicine up and yet again there was a problem of getting my blood test logged with a program. So when that happens I call the blood lab see if they sent the results to my psychiatrist. I see them every time I get my blood and I like them so I don't think they are the "weak link".. So then I call the psychiatrists secretary and ask her to log the results she got from the blood lab. It has happened several times and it turns out wasn't logged for October and was logged a week after my test (today) for November and I thought it was resolved for October. I have no way to check other than talking to the pharmacy if it is logged and yet it was my job to make calls whenever a problem and I wish the pharmacy would call my psychiatrists office. I asked to pharmacist to talk to my psychiatrist so hopefully there will be more pressure now that the "boss" is aware of the problem. The pharmacist agreed to talk to the psychiatrist (aka pdoc) and I think it might happen.
It's a small thing but I don't understand how you can be working for a psychiatrist and not understand that logging a fax you got in the morning is important to do considering that psychiatric medicines aren't for "a tickle in the throat". It has to be done every month for 8 years and why problems occasionally?
But aside from the above it just shows that I in no way have removed the seeds of anger as the dharma instructs in the sutras. So I have a long way to go in terms of that.
An identity of spontaneously compassionate, aware of anger, more goodly is a worthy being. A spiritual facade if you will.
The original question is, what is behind/inherent in personality that is without a nature/choice?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_face
Do Senses make up a personality...? Does the choice of liking this, but not that, personify a person?
Several mothers of my acquaintance have said that babies at a year old display a lot of personality traits that are reflected in the older human. If that’s true it speaks a lot to our nature, what we get along in genes, rather than nurture or learned behaviour.
I feel our senses influence our persona. Just as choices are personal to us.
However I am really asking about Being independent of our little self and its ups, downs and sideways. Is such an emptiness, void of our likes and preferences?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhipakkhiyādhammā
That's an interesting question and obviously there can be no undisputed answer without dogma. Now that my ass is covered, it is said that even emptiness is empty of a dependent self meaning it still depends on our little selfs or at least the potential for little selves.
If we take away all relativity from the absolute we take away that which constitutes absolutality if that's even a word. Put another way, an objective view would have to take all subjective views into account in equal measure to be considered completely objective.
So when I look at it that way, although preferences could not be clearly defined, the potential for preferences must still be lurking in the soup just waiting to be presented with options.
Well, there's no red squiggle, if that's any help... and I get what you mean....
That is my experience.
The truly objective may be too ponderous for real life decisions outside of a Sangha setting. Ideally a teacher has sufficient emptying of self to be independent of the little self. It may come as a revelation that the major object in the way of independent 'thought' is the soup stirring we all engage in ...
I iz just a lobster bisque, the shame of it ...
Problem is we always try to figure people out -including ourselves - as if we were fixed identities, when in fact we are ever evolving and metamorphosing.
There is no stable self behind the façade.
No person behind the persona.
But people feel safe when they are able to put people into definite moulds and pin them down.
On closer look, the façade is in fact the lens of biases, prejudices and acquired experience through which we sift through reality.
But lifting that veil of conditioning is a being that can choose every new second what or who it wants to become.
And choices are endless.
Well said @Buddhadragon
... we might also consider how to choose Buddha facade. Is it evolved or empty? As you have been banned from posting, I can expect the perfect answer. oh I iz wikid ...