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Hello All! Long time since I've been here
Hello All,
I know it has been quite a while since I posted. I made a mistake that I did during my xtian days that scared me and pulled away for a while. Other people were starting to tell me what was right and wrong. Since the Buddha did not teach that in my understanding, I became quite confused. Having broken out of a rigid belief system, I was feeling like I was in a strait jacket. NO ONE ON THIS FORUM DID THIS! It was the local sangha I attended.
So I am cautiously stepping in the waters again. To say plainly, it was working for me. I was attaining some semblance of inner quiet at times which I need desparately. I do say this with some fear as I'm unsure of what is going to happen. Spirituality has always fascinated and confused me since I am an agnostic. So I am going to take baby steps here for a while. I need to just sit a read and listen.
Brigid, I have missed you sorely. I think about you on a regular basis as you and I have some of the same struggles. Know that I've thought of you a great deal but was afraid to say anything.
Gang, I've missed you all also. I can't wait to read your posts. I'm going to try to just ask questions for now. Once some inner quiet returns, I hope to clean up the mess inside that has the label of "faith, religion, god". It took me 43 years to get here so I do not expect anything over night.
So feel free to say hi. If you don't remember me, glad to meet ya.
Jerry (aka Jerbear)
I know it has been quite a while since I posted. I made a mistake that I did during my xtian days that scared me and pulled away for a while. Other people were starting to tell me what was right and wrong. Since the Buddha did not teach that in my understanding, I became quite confused. Having broken out of a rigid belief system, I was feeling like I was in a strait jacket. NO ONE ON THIS FORUM DID THIS! It was the local sangha I attended.
So I am cautiously stepping in the waters again. To say plainly, it was working for me. I was attaining some semblance of inner quiet at times which I need desparately. I do say this with some fear as I'm unsure of what is going to happen. Spirituality has always fascinated and confused me since I am an agnostic. So I am going to take baby steps here for a while. I need to just sit a read and listen.
Brigid, I have missed you sorely. I think about you on a regular basis as you and I have some of the same struggles. Know that I've thought of you a great deal but was afraid to say anything.
Gang, I've missed you all also. I can't wait to read your posts. I'm going to try to just ask questions for now. Once some inner quiet returns, I hope to clean up the mess inside that has the label of "faith, religion, god". It took me 43 years to get here so I do not expect anything over night.
So feel free to say hi. If you don't remember me, glad to meet ya.
Jerry (aka Jerbear)
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I am soooo thrilled!
You know what this proves to me, in spades?
That we're 'home'.
We've had people come, establish themselves, have their room, decorate it the way they want, have a piece of pie and a cup of tea or cocoa from the kitchen, kick off their shoes, grab a chair and make themselves comfy.
And then, they pick up their rucksack, and go walkabout.
But you know what?
They always come back 'home'.
because this is a safe, warm, comforting place to be.
If you've been away, there's no recrimination.
Your room is still yours, as you left it, and nobody's taken it over.
there's still pie in the kitchen, tea in the pot, and comfy chairs galore.
We even have a new comfy place in the House...
it's the Attic.
We've installed three dorma windows, cleared it out of soooo much junk, and made it a safe haven to offload and talk, with no prying, lurking 'just visiting' eyes getting in....
So if you feel like offloading, (and only 'IF'.....) but don't actually care to have everyone know about it, pop up there, and get rid of the shedload of crap in your rucksack.
We re-cycle a lot too, here, you see.....
Welcome home, Jerbear.
We've missed you.
No place like it, is there?
Good to see you. Here - give me those dirty clothes out of your rucksack, I've got the washing machine on and the coffee is brewing on the stove.
I was away for a long while too but we all seem to be coming home.
And we all go through the doubts and questions moments, all the time, so chat away, ask questions or don't and just BE .... it's just nice to have you back.
PS -anyone who thinks they have got it all taped ... usually haven't (in my limited experience!)
They've moved the furniture around and I can no longer figure out how to look up posts by person posting —and so I am now redundant. But, who cares? Buddhists repeat themselves, right? Wrong?
Who cares! The important thing is that you're allright.
I mean, your belief system may not be rigid enough to please some. But, who cares? Perhaps it's the only way they can themselves feel secure: By getting people to agree to the correctness of their positions and the elegant fact that they are correct?
But, who cares? You don't need to play their game.
You have your own life to live and the obligation (some might say) to live it authentically and on your own terms.
Anyhow, I've often wondered what ever happened to our friend Jerbear. Glad to know that you're safe and sound.
Fondly,
Nirvy
OH how I've missed you, darling friend! It's so absolutely wonderful to see you again, I can't even tell you. I've thought of you so often and hoped things were okay but I knew that since you'd been quiet you were probably working through some stuff and just like you said, I was afraid to say anything or to interfere. I wanted you to have space. I know for me when I'm working through things I find it difficult if there are people constantly asking if I'm okay or needing me to communicate with them. When I need time alone, I need time alone.
So it's just GREAT to see you're lovely face again, dear Jerry, and I'm glad you know you can come and go here as you please with total freedom. We want nothing but your health and happiness, if I may be so bold as to speak for others.
I'm going to think about the question of faith you wrote about in the other thread and when I've got something to contribute I'll post a reply. The question of faith hasn't actually been something I've had to grapple with in Buddhism (which makes a nice change...) but I do think about it and I believe it's a very important issue indeed. So give me a couple of days to mull it over and I'll try to post something thoughtful if I can. If not, I'll probably post anyway.
I've been sending tons of love and gentle hugs your way all through your absence and I continue to do so now. ((((((LOVE)))))) ((((((HUGS))))))
All my love,
Boo
Good to see you around again. I'll try to write more when time permits; break time is over and it's time to get back to work!
Jason
I've been away for a long while myself, too. Not sure how consistently I'll be posting, but here I am right now. I guess I'll see how the wind blows.
metta
_/\_
That is what trips me out about "religion". I went through an experience with Christianity that I wish on no one. Very cult like and I find that when I go into a "service" of any kind, the old thought patterns start up again. A few people acted like know it alls and I bolted. So for now, I'm just going to do things on my own and learn how to be okay with my own practice first. I also did learn that Zen was not for me.
Jerbie
Jerry,
I think that 'religious services' touch a deep part of our mind - all ritual does: just look at 'pledging allegiance' or any other rite with rote words. At that level, they act very quickly as anchors of the prevailing mental state (emotion for example). Whether that experience is negative and destructive or positive and creative, any further exposure to similar ceremonies will automatically evoke those states - a Pavlovian response, if you like. Until this conditioned response is dissipated (which can be done), it has always seemed to me tht it is better to avoid negative ones.
Many of my friends went to 'faith schools', particularly a couple of Jesuit boarding schools. Attendance at Mass evokes immediate memories of the Three Bs (Bullshit, Bullying and Buggery) that characterised the schooldays for some. For others, the memories, deep in their psyche/body, are positive and encouraging.
Some rejected any kind of 'spirituality'; others have adopted different spiritualities.
The lesson, for me who went through a secular childhood, is the old one about "horses for courses". From that position but deeply affected by the Gospels, I began to understand the notion of many, entirely different, entirely personal, paths. It was like a gentle widening of ripples on a pond: over the years, I learned more and more about different paths. Some were clearly named: "Christianity" or "Judaism" or "Science". Each offered 'truth' as the touchstone of their value. They appeared to satisfy lots of people so why was I not satisfied with any one of them?
I have met estimable people who are totally convinced that their path, way of life, beliefs, whatever, are The Best or even The Only Way. Others appear less certain.
Much of my time these days is spent in my garden, where I have a summer-house ("Simon's Shed") where I write, pray, vegetate, etc. My garden is full of flowers - of different kinds. Every now and again, I make a new border, plant new things, rearrange the statues and benches. Just recently, I acquired a depressed-looking Washingtonia (I 'rescue' plants at plant centres that are on the 'reduced' shelves) There is no way that it will be able to grow to its full size - or, at least, that is what I have been told. But I am going to have to see for myself - just like the eucalyptus that I had to cut down.
What I have realised is that there is no such thing as a 'perfect garden', only this garden at this moment. I can weed and water, in due season, and it will always be a struggle and a compromise. And I shall always have new things to learn - just as this year I am starting to watch the birds. I have seen birds that I never noticed before: woodpeckers, coal tits, even, possibly some passing migrants.
When I get angry at the Christian church or one of my other "-isms" (and it is an almost daily occurrence), I let it flow through me and notice its energy and the truths it reveals. I ask myself whether my take on the Jesus message and the Christ-nature - so idiosyncratic and counter-intuitive - are just so much nonsense. What if the priests/rabbis/lams/scientists are right? What if only total and absolute submission to their 'way' is the truth?
And what I do then is:
I make myself a cup of tea. Go and stand on the porch and breathe deeply. I stroke the cats.
I have my doubts and my moments of panic but I seem to come back, day in and day out, to the opinion ('faith' if you like) that there is a best-fit spiritual path for each person and they can only make it for themselves. It serves to give meaning and purpose in a universe that can seem meaningless and purposeless. It connects us with that which is beyond 'me'. And, if I can't go beyond 'me', how can I connect with 'you' and , beyond 'you', to all that is?
You see? Words fail. Perhaps we can only dance it:
You describe your location as "A little dot in the universe" and therein lies a vital truth, the key to modern malaise. Until quite recently (about 500 years), the universe was a small and recent place for most in the West. It was bounded in space by the 'spheres' and in time by the Creation.
Then along came all those astronomers, typified by Galileo but not by him alone, and the universe 'got bigger'. It is now so vast that it is beyond imagining: 156 billion light-years.
And then, in the eighteenth century, those pesky geologists began to realise that the Earth was much older than had been thought. And the universe itself is now deemed to be over 13 billion years old.
I believe that we have yet fully to grasp these vast numbers but that they have had a deep psychological effect. Humans are no longer quite as important as we thought them, by enormous orders of magnitude.
And yet, at the same time, we have suffered outbreaks of religious fanaticism which assert that what each of us does is, in some magical way, both important to and affected by a Deity. So are we important or just specks of dust?
As for the modern malaise, I truly think scientific knowledge exploded but most people weren't ready for it. Whether or not you are a fundy of any type, fundamentalism gives a false sense of security. Then what is more difficult is when you find out that it can not offer what it seemed to give. Science does offer answers but no comfort with it. Many people want to know everything is going to be okay. When someone asks me "what about heaven or hell?" I usually say "I don't know but am open to the possibility if evidence comes up". That is not for most. I know that it can disconcerting to realize that what you thought you believed you no longer do. That's a tough road to hoe and many rather keep to what they believe whether it is true or not. I think it's great that there are others who want more.
So, I'm glad I'm on this dot in the universe as it affords me many opportunities otherwise I would not have known. I may have been a Czar on a distant galaxy on another little dot and my karma dropped me here. Or I may be the result of one ovum and one spermatazooa. But I will try to enjoy myself for as long as I can.
In both the story of the Buddha and of Jesus, I find the same subtext: we matter. We matter so much that the Buddha chose to turn the Wheel of Dharma, living and dying within the samsara of the turning world, giving example. And Jesus the same.
Admittedly, there are differences and puzzles, paradoxes and mysteries but this, above all, keeps me on some sort of even keel.
Good to see you on the forum again!
O, we are important, as you said above. But I'd add one lone qualification to that statement.
My favorite collect (the one for Quinquagesima) commences with the teaching "that all our doings without charity are nothing worth."
It's our genuine, spontaneous and joyous interconnectedness with others that gives our lives meaning (importance). Power and prestige (though seeming important) are just abutments to securing affection or admiration from others. The power to build nourishing enclaves, though awesome, is something which takes cooperation from many individuals. Conversely, the power to destroy or threaten to destroy the happiness of others is just a selfish longing to be loved on ones own strict, ungenerous terms. Imprint firmly a universal goodwill in the terrorist's heart and his perverse ideology will melt away instantly.
Love is the bedrock on which human life and meaning is grounded. And goodwill to all others is enlightened, informed love, and is our only hope for survival. However, on the individual plane (only) the two other classic theological virtues, namely faith and hope, certainly help maintain one's sanity. Faith is to believe it's all worthwhile and no noble act can ever truly be wasted. And hope, the opposite of both despair and presumption, is the (perhaps sometimes totally irrational) thinking that sustains us through our worst times and our most savage fears.
I know, Jerby, that you've had some problems with some fundamentalists. Me too. They simply can make everything so complicated when it's really very simple: Love, Love, Love!
______________________________________
I hope you are all doing well and it is great to see familiar faces on here.
Kim
Make sure you get up to the members' loft - there's a mug there with your name on it and we can all have a great natter about what you have been up to.
Welcome back, YM. Is there ever any real need for excuses between friends?
Put your feet up and relax, one and all.
It's MY turn to make the tea and sandwiches.......
Talk about the pot, kettle, black!! Hya Brian, how are you, stranger?;)
Hi Brian!
I'm around. I've been working from home now, full time on my other website (http://icrontic.com).
http://twitter.com/primesuspect is my daily minutiae. I'm also on facebook if anybody wants to add me.
Every day I say to myself "go back to newbuddhist and start posting again" but it never seems to materialize. I'm probably not quit back into the headspace I need to be to start posting here again, but the day will come.
I
We love being here, and I'm sure we all have our own private image of what the place looks like. Regardless, to steal a line, There's no place like home.
Toto.
Hugs, from a grateful occupant. XX
(PS excuse messy room... just moving into a bigger one today, as we speak.....!
I'm at work, and Nick's been left to do all the humping and bumping of boxes..... !:D)