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you guys ever feel...lame?
I had a mild case of the content, happiness going on for the past week...
but it's wearing off...
now I feel kind of in the cold...
a little bit of discontent..
I guess I was disenchanted.... recently i had a good attitude but my endurance is wearing thin...... I can't get it back anymore.....it sucks
I realize i'm clinging to gain/loss, pleasure/pain,
excitement/boredom.. it takes a lot of discipline and concentration to maintain a buddha's disposition you know?!
it was working well...results were good, but I can't keep it up, I'm getting angry and tired with it, pffftttt
*big sigh*
any advice?
but it's wearing off...
now I feel kind of in the cold...
a little bit of discontent..
I guess I was disenchanted.... recently i had a good attitude but my endurance is wearing thin...... I can't get it back anymore.....it sucks
I realize i'm clinging to gain/loss, pleasure/pain,
excitement/boredom.. it takes a lot of discipline and concentration to maintain a buddha's disposition you know?!
it was working well...results were good, but I can't keep it up, I'm getting angry and tired with it, pffftttt
*big sigh*
any advice?
0
Comments
btw.. what is a good teacher anyway?
Basically, it's one that has cultivated their morality to an extraordinary level through concentration, their study of karma + selflessness/emptiness, and directly realizing selflessness/emptiness.
Something like that - is usually what im told when im in a similar spot. I hope it helps
Much love
Allan
PS: everyone feels discouraged now and again - no big deal
The Buddha has taught the practice of "Dhana" and "Sila" as preparatory stages for meditation. Dhana is charity and Sila is maintaining a simple lifestyle, having good will, keeping your day to day life stress free as much as possible etc. Practice compassion and good will in your day to day life. I have noticed that if I keep my day to day life in line with dhana and sila, it is so much easier to get the mind into meditation.
Moods are like the weather. They come and go, and come and go, and come and go, and come and go…
A bad mood is very often accompanied with dwelling upon our self, way tooooo/toooo much, and this is suffering. This is because we still believe (emotionally) that our ego is the ‘me,’ and that everything that happens to this ‘me,’ is important. It is not!
If you get busy, with anything at all that amuses you, or something that takes you up, you will forget to dwell so much on your self (ego). You may even forget about your mood for a spell. And that is a vacation of sorts. That will be a relief.
My grandma used to say, “Ideal hands (mind) is the devil’s workshop.”
Boy, did she have that one right!
Good luck,
S9
Liberated from many things, including our preference for feeling happy and our aversion for unhappiness.
No significance with happiness. No significance with unhappiness. Observe both, observe how we "want". Real happiness is being free from the tyranny of wanting outcomes and results ... including the desire to be happy.
I think it would surprise most Buddhists if they realized that, the Buddha also had moods after Awakening. He just did not SUFFER moods.
A good deal of our suffering, as I believe you are pointing out, is this insisting that things be other than they are (AKA our bad moods should always be good moods), instead of sitting beside the river (of life). Wu Wei. "Look ma, no hands."
Always glad to see your wise words appear.
Respectfully,
S9
Well IM surprised.... according to what source, does it say that the buddha had moods????
Ir really doest make sence to me, that a person who has a perfect understanding of impermanence, about how everything really arises, who understands fully the suffering of others and why people do "evil" deeds out of ignorance, who has perfect compassion and no attachment - what would make emotions such as anger, fear and sadness arise in such an all understanding mind???
Much love
Allan
When the Buddha “Woke Up,” He said that, “We were all enlightened (every single human being) at this moment, but we just didn’t know it.
That means that you are enlightened right now, in this very second.
Do you have moods?
Just perhaps moods are a natural phenomena, much like breathing, or sleeping, or even bleeding.
Remember, Buddha said, “Suffering could end.” He never promised everything we did not like would go away, or ‘a chicken in every pot.’ ; ^ )
Love back at you,
S9
I think well have to disagree on this. What you say, doesnt make any sense to me - just by the small amount of practice ive done so far, I can see that ive become less and less moody when i look back at myself.
My experience is that whatever happens to you - if you are able to be aware in the present moment, then your "mood" will not be affected - this is something ive tried out several times - so i can not agree with your logic - since it doesnt corespond to any of my experiences from meditation and interreacting with other people.
An example - i work with sick and elderly. And sometimes get attacked verbaly or even physically by the people i take care of. If what oyu say is true, then i should have a reaction such as fear or anger. But because i know that they do it because they cant help themselves, i am able to stay calm and unaffected. Its not like i get angry, but doesnt give in to the anger - because i understand why they do it, that its because of their fear and dementia, there is no basis for the emotion to arise at all.
(But - we certainly doesnt have to agree on this
Much Love
Allan:)
I think that living from ‘Middle Way’ is certainly preferable to the way that most of us started out. If something made us sad, in the sad old days, we weren’t just sad. (Oh no, we couldn't leave it at that). We rolled in it, and wallow in it, until we grew so weary of it, and we just couldn’t continue it, and so we stopped. This is, until the next event can by, and the whole cycle started all over again. This was certainly suffering, and we are all grateful, I am sure, for some improvement in that area.
I don’t see moods as the same thing as depression, by the way.
Moods are more like physical weather, and they happen for any number of reasons, maybe low blood sugar, or lack of sleep, or coming down with something like a cold. Buddha did not escape these IMO. He was not a God. He remained very human, thus the pain of his poisoning in the end that took his life. He didn't escape pain either. Although I do believe he stepped right out of suffering. (I haven't even gotten metaphysical about this yet. I am speaking just within the psychological.)
However, though Buddha had pain from being poisoned, He did not add suffering to this by feeling sorry for himself (reaction), or being angry at his host for those ill gotten mushrooms (reaction), see what I mean?
I have also noticed a big difference on how long we hold onto these negative emotions, once we see them for what they are. A fear will come into my mind, perhaps one that I had suffered for days before when I could not shake it off. But, now within minutes, even seconds I can step out of it. This is because, I believe the habit of these reactions can be lessened over time with vigilance, and applied discipline.
So maybe we are not so far apart from each other as you may have thought at first.
Peace brother,
S9
I was right that the world was never the same, but I had misunderstood how, exactly. All my life, I had felt that if a person were to reach the stage I had, that was it. After that, you climb a mountain or something and sit and watch the world go on. How silly I was! No. Life continues on exactly as it had before. And it can seem a bit of a letdown.
A couple years later, I found myself depressed. My life had changed, to be sure, but I had lost my direction. Nothing I was doing seemed of any value, and all the things I had accumulated in life felt like burdens. I felt I'd been fighting a battle, but I no longer knew why or against whom.
Then a dream changed my life. In the dream, I was fighting a real battle, the last of many, when I found myself surrounded and outnumbered. Knowing I was defeated, I laid down my sword and surrendered. My enemy took me away, not to a prison, but to a temple. I was trained to become even more powerful than I was before, and I gradually realized I'd been fighting on the wrong side, all along. I learned the power of surrender.
The dream inspired a song, which I recorded in a very short time. The song, in turn, became the theme for some very big changes. I gave away, or threw away, about two thirds of everything I owned, put the rest in storage, moved out of my apartment, packed a bag and my instruments and flew to Los Angeles. I had never been there, I knew nobody, but it was something I'd always dreamed of doing. So off I went.
I stayed in a shared house in San Fernando Valley. While there, I started a rigorous daily routine of meditation, tai chi and kung fu, while also pursuing my musical career. I lined up some gigs and made some good contacts in L.A., but it was my personal growth that really took off. I had left a whole life behind, abandoning everything that had made me who I was. Yet, the more I lost, the more I realized I had.
Meditating in the California sunshine, I finally "got it." I needed nothing. Time and space lost all meaning, and the division between this and that vanished. Again, I had reached a new level of understanding and perception, and again my life would never be the same. But again...life went on, and changed.
I make no claim to be "enlightened." I don't even know what that means anymore. The point to my (long) story is simply this. There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Sometimes you will be happy. Sometimes you will not be happy. So what's the difference when you're "awake"? When you're happy, you know you're happy. When you're not happy, you know you're not happy. Either way, you're perfectly content and...paradoxically...happy. You can be happy with your unhappiness!
You never stop being human. You don't get to bury your emotions like a Vulcan on Star Trek. You have to go through it all, anyway, but with awareness, you can choose whether or not to suffer through it.
That's what it's really all about. No suffering. If you're expecting some kind of magical transformation, you're going to feel disappointed and "lame." It actually is ridiculous, the whole thing. Every bit of it. It's like a great, cosmic joke, and once you're "in" on it, you can't help but laugh.
It's been a joy sharing this.
Namaste,
~ AD
it's amazing that you can just change your outlook and affect a million things..
I tried to show love and tenderness to every single thing, I was gentle with things, careful, respectful, even a dirty fork or spoon, I picked up nasty garbage on the floor with compassion. poor garbage ...all on the floor...
you know.... hahaha- it felt right to be like that..
but It was not me at all...not the old me, maybe I'm transforming and it's taking a lot of endurance and discipline, I feel like falling asleep just thinking about it..
a new workplace you know...new people... its a place where I feel it .. I can actually practice there and see it reflected in the place, the people and the things....no one knows me there it's kind of refreshing...
I'll continue to emulate the Buddha as much as I can..I'll meditate to try to reassure or strengthen my failing discipline...
what I want you guys to tell me is something like,
"Yeah TF, it will take a lot of energy to break down self imposed barriers and fetters, and realize arahantship....you will probably feel many different moods, and when you settle into the ocean, like water trickling fickle-y down a mountain...you will realize it was worth it... to work so hard"
I just wanted to add that this, I hope it improves on my silence thus far (been thinking of this all day)
I am in no place to tell you what your doing is correct or incorrect , but I am in a place to give you my thoughts.
If your experence thus far off the monumental changes that come with your practice. As most have said here, it's best to notice them for what they are a thing that is both rising and falling. Like the tides it has and ebb and wane (I hope those are the right words)
Those are sounds words, and I'm just resaying the wisdom that allready has been posted here.
My thought though is look at Mt. Everest, sometimes the creators blasted the mountainside with TNT, other times they used a chisels. Both were needed to make it what it is today, but the explosions where more fun to watch I bet.
Stick with it, I think it can change your path in many great ways.
Enlightened beings don't get "moods" as far as I understand. We get moods because our minds are not developed to the point that we do not get attached to anything. Moods are a manifestation of a need, a craving, a defilement deep within. Enlightenment is demolishing all defilements so that they are content with here and now and what they have now. They feel physical pain but the mental suffering has been eradicated.
But some of the wholesome states are remaining in an enlightened being's mind. They feel love, happiness, contentment but not in the same way we feel it. They don't cling to happiness like we do. They don’t cling to love or to a person. They might feel sorry for someone but that is not like a "sad mood" we get. There is definitely a difference there in a “mood” and in a “feeling of a arahath”. If we say a person who has become enlightened and demolished mental perceptions is in a “sad mood” that doesn’t make any sense to me
Furthermore with nirvana (the cessation of all mental affliction) the active basis for mental afflictions no longer exist, and so mental afflicitons such as moods can no longer arise.
Even the Buddha got sick and died. We don't shed our afflictions with enlightenment. We just stop suffering from them.
The enlightened ones feel physical pain, they get sick, they die, they are human. I think there is no question about that.
But I think that when they get sick, the mental aggregate of the associated suffering is not there; only the physical aggregate caused by changes in hormones, pain in the stomach etc . Mental suffering here is “feeling down, feeling sad, feeling like you need to end this pain as soon as possible, feeling frustrated with the pain”. That is the mental pain I am talking about here… Even if arahants feel physical pain they do not suffer mentally from that as we do. I think your last statement explains the same thing:
“Even the Buddha got sick and died. We don't shed our afflictions with enlightenment. We just stop suffering from them”
It's not that we have no moods, it's that we have no objections to them. A mood arises. We see that a mood arises. A mood passes. We see that a mood passes. No attachment, no desire, no suffering. It just is what it is.
Could I ask that if Lord Buddha is mentioned in posts as having said something, that we could have the actual sutta references and a link, please?
Otherwise one could say that the Buddha said absolutely anything - and it may not necessarily be accurate.
Many thanks.
Regarding the OP #1, thoughts and feelings come and go,its when we start clinging to them that problems arise. Everything changes constantly in our minds and if we can understand and accept that, we can relax a little and see that there are many positive as well as negative thoughts passing through.
Kind wishes,
Dazzle
okey that's good.
But I thought a mood is something like "I feel bored today", "I feel sad and moody" "I feel kind of in the cold... a little bit of discontent" ... You know the sort of thing that the thread originator is describing... We all feel that every once in a while because we still have defilements, needs and we are not content. It's originating from discontentment and needs. We feel bored because we have the need to be entertained, we feel sad when we have the need to be loved etc
That's what I understood as a mood which I don't think arahaths go through.
Regarding buddha getting sick, there is a difference between nirvana with remainder and parinirvana.
The point is to target the mental fabrications and ignorance so that destructive mental states cannot be produced at all, regardless of what is happening with the body (which is only a contributing factor of experience, not a direct cause).
All destructive mental states are born of ignorance, of grasping to yourself as an unchanging, singular, independent identify. Part of this is responsible for nihilism (ie. being unable tot distinguish your object of focus with your mental experience).
Well, not in buddhism.
Well this is true. I think the dispute here is that we think arahanths are like us. We forget the fact that they are enlightened and we are not. We still have defilements but they don't. Even though we get moods and we practice to look at them as they are "just moods" arahaths don't get moods at all because they do not have defilements causing moods. Some of these defilements are ground-level hard coded ones like clinging to a self. We cannot shatter them by mere reasoning like we normally practice
Thoughts are a process of the brain. The brain is an organ in the body. Thoughts are influenced by the body. You don't need quantum physics to reason that out.
I assume you are in possession of both a body and a mind, correct? Can you honestly tell me your mental state is not affected by your physical state? Have you ever drank alcohol? Or exercised? Or had sex? Isn't that something you do to your body? Doesn't the state of your body directly affect the state of your mind? Do you think an "enlightened" individual could do any of those things without altering his or her mental processes?
Mind and body are not separate. We're not talking about any metaphysical "higher consciousness" here, just basic, normal thought processes. So long as you have a body, your body influences your mind (and vice-versa). This is a matter of clear understanding. I'm sure there are all sorts of very profound elaborations one can make from this point forward, but I have no interest in debating all that. My goal is to make the complex simple, not the other way around.
I don't believe we were ever talking about Paranirvana, were we? I know nothing about Paranirvana, and neither do you, because you can't experience it until you die. Let's stick to what we know.
It doesn't seem like we're talking about the same things. Are you suggesting normal, everyday, random "moods" are "destructive mental states?"
I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you are male. The reason I bring it up, is because women tend to understand the relationship between the mind and body more intuitively than men. Women know that a mood can arise for no apparent reason. It has nothing to do with "ignorance" or "destructive mental states." It's just a mood. People have them. I might say anger is a "destructive mental state." Depression is certainly a "destructive mental state." But feeling a bit down on a given day? Nope, sorry. That's just being human. An awakened individual won't be much bothered by a "bad mood", but it doesn't mean he or she won't have them. Nobody gets to stop being human just because they wake up.
Of course, it is possible we are talking about entirely different things, which would make this discussion completely superfluous.
Well feelings/moods cannot rise for no reason according to Buddhism. Have you been through dependent origination btw? It describes the effects and their causes in detail. You say “a mood is just being human”. Well that is what it looks like to us as we take this entity as a self. We consider this sequence of causes and effects as a whole and then we call it a self and we call it human. That is the delusion here.
According to the dependent origination, ignorance (which is non attainment of enlightenment) is the cause of the sequence of phenomena which arises and dies. Mood (Ex: sadness caused by clinging) is just another such phenomena which arises as a result of thanha (defilements). If you follow this causes and effects pattern, the root is ignorance. Thus an enlightened being, who has destroyed this ignorance, who has destroyed defilements, who has seen the way things originate depending on certain conditions do not get into “moods” as we do. They don’t get angry as we do. That is not a state of being a god or something; that is just a supreme human state which is achieve by humans.
"feeling a bit down on a given day", feeling a bit of a "bad mood".. these are all caused by defilements.
Nobody knows how to be a nobody
If ever there is a somebody
Who knows how to be a nobody
Then that nobody is a real somebody!
If you ever want to be a nobody
Then follow that somebody
Who really is a "nobody"
(Later) Let go of everybody
even that somebody who already is a nobody
eventually you will be a real "nobody"
Suvanno
But, simple? You're calling your experience of phenomena a fleshy function and you're saying that's simple? Please don't eat my convoluted thoughts!
I'm sorry, it's just that your reasoning is bizarre to me (but common of any nihilist on the street - which happens to be everyone on the street).
For example: Just because your physical activity/basis influences your mind does not necessarily mean it is the mind.
It would be just like saying that because particular things look pleasant when the mind is happy, they themselves must be mind because they change into pleasant things when the mind is happy.
Precisely. Furthermore, you don't need to be enlightened or anywhere near enlightened. You could for example enter absorption, set yourself on fire, and burn to death without "your mind" being harmed.
Another example is, in the tibetan buddhist traditions at least, it is very common for lamas to sit in meditation 5+ days (2 or 3 weeks being the longest I've heard of) after their clinical death in a special type of meditation. During this time the body does not deteriorate or smell. Then finally when the mind is unhooked from the gross consciousnesses pertaining to the sense powers of the body, a small amount of blood drips from the nose and the subtle mental consciousness, dependent on karma and cause and effect, and continues elsewhere.
You say that like you know it or that it has been proven, but you don't and it hasn't. There are very many and astoundingly varying theories about what the heck the mind is.
How, then, could thoughts impact the body? Wouldn't decisions etc merely be more physical reactions going on? In which case, why name it mind?
To call it mind would be a delusion. To think that you have intent and the ability to make decisions is just an illusion, because it is mere physical reaction. The experience of love for example is simply some type of illusion, because really it's just physical particles (doing something. who knows what or how the illusion arises).
‘The Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma,’ that the very first thing that Buddha said upon His enlightenment was, “All sentient beings are already enlightened, but they just don’t know it.”
Enlightenment is the Buddha Nature, which is the absolute ground of being.
Hope that answers that question.
It certainly puts a new wrinkle on some of the things we have been wrongfully imagining to be true, doesn’t it? ; ^ )
S9
Brigid, with respect, I'm gonna throw this one back at you this winter a bit paraphrased if I'm in a flippant mood. If it gets down to 100 below in Canadia and you voice any impatience, I'll say:
The cold weather is not the problem. Your desire not to be up in the cold country in winter is the problem.
:tonguec:
Oh, on second thought, young Lady, I would never really do you like that.
Gosh, TheFound, do I ever feel lame? Yup, like most of the time! I guess that's why I have to lean on so many of you to keep me straight!
True, but hard to live.
Ha! That one takes the cake, Fivebells!
I want to thank you for sharing your experiences of traveling from insight to insight like you did. It shows me that this journey we are on is a deepening of Clarity, and not so much just new information, or accumulation of knowledge, as some would have us believe. Or like the Buddha said, absolutely nothing changes and yet…we wake up to a new way of seeing. (Seeing with New Eyes.)
Very often these new insights are accompanies with a Satori experience. They have said that this comes about because of a profound relief upon laying down some of our burden, (AKA laying down our misunderstandings.) Very often a Satori is manifested as a heightened sensitivity to our surroundings, and to our self. This comes close to what some people have called acceptance. Nature becomes extraordinary in its beauty. We take so much for granted as our minds merely skim the surface of life, running after progress and profit.
These Satoris do not last because they are a mind's reaction of relief, (bliss) and so it slowly melts back into the background of our lives. What does seem to remain is this more ordinary “comfort in our own skin,” which some might easily call peace. But, it is also like an island, if you will, or like being in the eye of a hurricane; because you see so much is going on around you, and yet the goings on are not actually you. In this way, you have dropped some “Wrongful Identification", and no longer suffer if a mood happens to be dancing all around you. You might simply label it. “That is a mood, and it is not me.” Or you might simply say, as Buddha did, “I know you Mara.”
This is liberation.
Respectfully,
S9
It is hard to pretend that you like being water boarded, or that it is your idea of a good time.
But this is not what is asked of you, is it?
You are simply told that if you are being water boarded, to see it, and not to add more suffering to it.
How?
Take each moment as one moment at a time, and do not add suffering by thinking about how you could not stand a whole morning like this. You will never suffer a whole morning. Ever. You will always only have to put up with this one moment. Period.
This is merely a psychological answer.
Peace,
S9
I imagine many a waterboarder says that to his victim. What many here seem to be putting to one side is the simple fact that the mind is no absolute. The mind can get sick, just as the body can.
I simply cannot imagine many people having the power to maintain the mind in perfect composure whilst being assaulted in the most arduous ways by an enemy. In medicine, respiratory function is always the first consideration (ABCs:Airway, breathing, circulation). That function is undermined and put at great risk in waterboarding, and the whole body-mind complex is thrown into disarray and into danger. The sympathetic hormones put into circulation in the body will no doubt put the body into a fight or flight mode.
Let's get a little more realistic here!
Would you kindly refer the document you read this from please? I need to know from which suthra it was picked up from and in which context it was said because this is the first time I heard that the Buddha said something like that.
Nirvana raises an important point. Some suffering arises from a deep biological level. Judging from the neurobiology involved, oxygen deprivation and water in the bronchia trigger a panic response which arose before the evolution of land animals. Resting in this experience probably means resting in the midst of panic. That is difficult for me to conceive.
The other thing my teacher said in response to that question was that there's not much point in thinking about such extreme situations, when we're still learning to rest in the experience of getting grumpy at tech support or the like.
N: The sympathetic hormones put into circulation in the body will no doubt put the body into a fight or flight mode.
S9: Exactly, so this is the time when you must decide which side of this debate you are on. No fairs taking both sides. ; ^ )
What would Buddha do, understand, during His personally being water boarded?
Let me help you out here. He would most like stand back from both the water boarding and Gautama, as they are both mind objects, and Buddha was Awake to the fact that He was not Gautama, or the terrible dream of being water boarded.
His body, on the other hand, would probably squirm and struggle for a breath, as the body is on automatic in that area.
I have learned by watching my migraine pain, that it is not me. When these headaches first happened, it was so bad that I actually considered suicide. But, the pain actually lessens when you realize that the pain is not you.
Migraine pain is actually only drifting near by me. Thinking pain is you, is "Wrongful Identification." Know that it is not you, makes it so that you can actually relax, and allow pain to do what it has to do. I know this from personal experience.
That does not mean that you won't put ice on the head in order to reduce the problem which the body is undergoing. That would be foolishness.
Incidentally, it IS realistic to stay right in the moment, as that is the only place you will ever live. Every thing else is a mental projection. Why take on more, if you do not have to?
Respectfully,
S9
I believe that if you take the words from my answer, and Google them, that you will get more than enough information in this area.
I couldn’t remember, myself, where I had originally read that quote, (I am a prolific reader), and so I Googled the quote, myself.
Interesting. Isn’t it? : ^ )
Happy hunting,
S9
Thank you for sharing what your teacher said. He sounds to be quite reasonable.
Yes, I would say a person could mentally stand aside from water boarding, and stand aside from the panic it brought about within the body. It is possible.
(I do not believe a trance state would be necessary in order to do this. It would call for great Clarity.)
However, you won't find me volunteering to try this out, real soon. ; ^ )
I do feel that a person such as this, would probably need to be Enlightened in order to carry this off. (Like you teacher has said. It is extreme.) Only when you are completely ‘Awake,’ do you know 100% who you are not, and therefore who you are.
(By the way: This statement does no argue with “no-self,” but we won’t get into that here.)
Some problems arise with our understanding of “suffering” (in the way that I believe Buddha meant us to understand it,) and that of pain. How are these two (suffering and pain) different?
Pain is more biological than suffering is. Suffering, as I see it, anyway, is an embellishment on top of pain, something that the mind adds onto pain, after the fact.
Pain is a biological necessity. Suffering is not. Suffering is therefore synonymous with ignorance or illusion.
If we could get this straight in our heads, once and for all, we would go about eradicating suffering with a steady hand, (Wouldn't that be wonderful?) and not waste precious time trying to completely eliminate pain, which is impossible.
Pain can however be buffered, or avoiding, in a practical sense.
Of course, most of us are still working on not 'falling to pieces' over a splinter. But, it is nice to know how high we can actually fly, eventually. ; ^ )
Respectfully,
S9
It seems you want to make enlightenment some kind of magical, mystical experience where you just float around looking very serene, never again subject to the idiosyncrasies of being human. I've got news for you. You don't stop farting just because you reach Nirvana.
It is entirely possible we differ mostly in definitions, rather than principles. Moods are just the normal fluctuations of our emotional states. They aren't concrete emotions like anger, depression, or sorrow. They're just vague undercurrents that appear and disappear like passing clouds. An enlightened individual recognizes them for what they are without placing any attachments on them. The "delusion" would be identifying with a mood and desiring something different.
Often we are told things like, “Do not trust your senses. They are liars, and will mislead you.’
I do not think, that means that Buddha ‘Woke up’ and was blind to His eyes, or could not taste His food, or was even deaf to His ears. He was witness to what was going on in the body of Gautama. But, He knew full well that He was not of the body of Gautama.
I think these sayings have more to do with realizing that seeing, and hearing, and tasting, and moods, are things of the body, and that they are not actually you. You can allow them to be what they are, without fearing that this will harm you in any way.
What we often suffer from is “Wrongful Identification’ with the body, and the mind, and the ego.
Clarity in this area, soon allows us to, “Let go, and to let be.” Wu Wei
Peace,
S9
You make some sense here; thanks for that explanation. Yes, delusion of the self makes it look like it is "us" who suffers and "self" that feels, a "mind that is tightly bound with a body" etc. whereas this actually is a sequence of effects and their causes. But this cannot be realized fully by mere reasoning
Noone is saying the Buddha felt no physical pain, felt no hunger, felt no love and compassion, felt no taste etc... In fact, it is said that he once exclaimed the beauty of a town in India that he used to visit. sorry I do not remember its name now.
The point I'm trying to make is this. When we are confronted with a thought, a mood like say boredom, we should practice to see it for what it is and let it be and even identify its causes and identify that it's arising because we have the need to be entertained etc. Today I talked about this with a monk in this nearby temple. He said even the Buddha practiced it before becoming enlightened. This is the practice yes...
However, once you are enlightened, you have demolished all your defilements, craving, greed, clinging so that such mental moods do not arise in you. The cause of such moods have been eradicated. By moods i mean thoughts like "I am bored, I feel lost and frustrated etc". You know, the sort of things that the thread initiator is describing. They do not arise in enlightened beings because such moods arise due to our clinging no matter how subtle it maybe. They arise cause we are not content
Without dragging this conversation any further, I request everyone in this forum to ask about this from someone you think who knows better like a monk or your teacher. This is what I believe to be true and what I understand from the readings and discussions so far, but I can be wrong
Having said that, the monks who self immolated in protest to the government's cracking down on Buddhism in Vietnam during the war were able to rest in fire. Need I say more?
Of course a regular person who doesn't have years of intensive meditation and Dhamma training are going to suffer from bad moods, sad days, angry days, all sorts of stuff. But if we look closely at these experiences we can see how the desire not to feel these negative feelings is really at the core of the problem. If we were able to accept the sadness or anger or fear or whatever, accept it for what it is, a natural, normal human emotion that is subject to impermanence and is not 'me' or 'mine', allow ourselves to feel it without adding our own layers of guilt or aversion or avoidance to it, we would suffer less, wouldn't we?
Nirvana is not a state of being able to deal with small shits well until a really big one comes along. Parinirvana is when your mind is released from ever again having to be in a place where shit exists. Nirvana with remainder (ie. buddhas and arhats while they are still alive) still deal with shit but no longer see it as shit.
I wonder, sometimes, if I am not simply being 'glamourised' by the sense of peace and there might be more to come/do. The wondering lasts a shorter and shorter time because I know that this is only a preparation - for death, the only thing I must do. And, for me, a 'good death' will be to have loved the "kingdoms of this world" so much that I can let them go with a blessing rather than regret.
Take out the irrelevant nonsense about Paranirvana, and you have two sentences that completely contradict themselves.
"Nirvana is not a state of being able to deal with small shits well until a really big one comes along."
"Nirvana with remainder (ie. buddhas and arhats while they are still alive) still deal with shit but no longer see it as shit."
Your second sentence is exactly what I've been saying all along (albeit less crudely). Obviously, we've been talking about Nirvana (with "remainder", if you like), not Paranirvana. So which of your above statements do you wish to stand behind? If it's the second, then we have never been in disagreement to begin with.
It seems to me you have a rather strong attachment to your beliefs. Do you feel you've nothing more to learn? Do you think you could be wrong in your understanding of anything? Just curious.
Getting rid of fabrication and mental noise inspired by active misunderstanding (ignorance) is the whole point of the path. Through insight not just good concentration.
That's a contadiciton of terms. If thoughts and emotions are physical results then their only antidotes are other physical results or environmental changes. Any intervening or recognizing of moods is merely a random function of a gene or something like that. There is no base difference between an 'awakened mind' an an ordinary mind, they work exactly the same way.
In other words in this model there is no such thing as a mind or mental function that itself sees through and penetrates a situation.