Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
tempted by the dark side.
I've been pretty terrible recently as far as being a compassionate human being.
I'm indulging in every forbidden fruit possible..
I think it's starting to mess me up..
I'm indulging in every forbidden fruit possible..
I think it's starting to mess me up..
0
Comments
Palzang
Honesty is a good starting point.
Don't forget to be kind and forgiving with yourself here.
It'll pass and the way will clear naturally.
With metta.
Can you be a bit more specific about what's going on with you? I was thinking of starting a thread about using the dharma to work through trauma.
Would that be of interest to anyone? It's what I've spent the last few years of my life doing.
Yes, that would be extremely interesting.
Absolutely. Doing kind deeds for others, recognizing and helping to alleviate their suffering will help you to gain merit. This will help, as well as change your mindset, and help to create those causes for happiness Palzang spoke of.
Oh yeah, it's always a good idea to sincerely repent those negative actions with a strong determination not to do them again.
Palzang
Sometimes, a good bamboo whoop in the back works better. :hrm:
The problem is that people think self discipline is about emotional self indulgence for whatever reason. Yes, you have to be hard on yourself sometimes, but as in "Just don't do it goddamit!" and not as "I'm a worthless piece of crap", this is just ego clinging. It is the same thing when a mother raises a child, if you let him loose to do what he want he will screw up later (I am NOT saying you should beat up kids, please, the bamboo thing was a joke >:-\) and suffer much more.
Pema Chodron (lol I hold different opinions than her but I'll quote her anyways) was talking about a view people had from hell. There was this mountain full of blades on the ground, and a sexy devil on the top (somewhat like a succubus, representing pleasure). People in this hell would go up desperately, tearing themselves apart, feel a bit of pleasure, get eaten by the so called object of desire (the devil) and appear back at the foot of the mountain. Than they would do it again and again and again.
This is what attachment is all about. The so called forbidden fruit is just a fleeting pleasure. The problem is that people are tripping so much they don't notice the blades. When you realize the results of what you are doing you WISH you had someone with a bamboo stick hitting your ass every time you screwed up.
My advice to you is to meditate on impermanence and the faults of miserable realms, if you believe in rebirth. Even if you don't, over-indulgence leads to a hell in this life anyways, so focus on that.
So, ya messed-up okay. Did it hurt? if it did, don't do it again.
Like other folks have said, 'try another way to go! if it feels better do that!
And remember we're all a bunch of fools, those who scream loudest "I am NOT!! are the most foolish of all!!
Please accept this from this ole prattling, gamboling fool!!!!!!!!!!!
:banghead::banghead::banghead:
Don't knock yourself. Just observe what happens. Does the party or the drugs or the sex really pay out what it promises you that it will?
Usually we use these things to fill space because the signals we are getting are very uncomfortable and we want to feel better again. But those signals are just thinking in the space of awareness. Even the signal of how you are knocking yourself you can just be mindful of that as thinking. Be mindful of the body as the body. The feelings as feelings. The states of mind as states of mind.
What are you getting at?
Exactly, they're both extremes. The Buddha taught the Middle Way.
I would definately be interested in thread on working thorugh trauma. I too have been diagnosed with PTSD, GAD as well as ongoing depressive disorder. A physical health problem that I have means that I experience retraumatisation regularly. It is not easy.
Fran
Expanding on my previous ideas, the problem of the forbidden pleasure is not that you want it, or that it makes you feel so good. The problem is that when you don't have it, you suffer.
You don't always feel that directly because you are constantly searching for it, and that search blinds you to the underlying pain. It is almost as if you can touch it with your fingers, feeling a little pleasure by anticipation. Without that little anticipation you would be able to see the blades.
That is why I talked about bamboo. Sometimes it's the extra disturbance that adds to the craving and makes you see your addiction for what it really is.
as best I can,
my personality has never before been seen.
I put on masks...at almost every varying location.
when I'm at work, or in a social situation, I'm a saint.
when I'm witnessed....I'm a saint.
other than that I am nasty like the devil ..or worse
my imagination is greater MUAHAHA:mad:
I figure that most of my personality I share with others, has been a reflection, or copy/mimicry of someone I knew.
I am a mimic.,..right now I'm a blend of all my past friends, my family, my heroes, everyone I ever copied a gesture from or looked up to in a certain way... learned a word from.. or manner of speech from.. ETC
.....maybe we all are just copy creatures, learning creatures...
....but the very original part of me, what i thought was the "buddha nature"...is just a cold calculating mind-storm.. that adds its own little
self-centered spin on everything it learns.. I just spin everything according to me, and how I spin it..that's my personality.. or ME..
We are like spinning roulette wheels, packed together. spinning shit from one to the other to the other, according to our different positions, but the shit remains the same, ... wtf?
characteristics of suffering = ?
anyway this is what's messing me up, I am a soulless , biological machine artificial intelligence...
the only thing i have different from a psychopath
is a bit of thinning conscience...
((let me just add this: If anyone in the world could 'read' my mind. They would not associate with me, and they would flee in horror, fear and disgust)
Okay so I finally felt safe enough or was it I got to the point where I really didn't give a f...k what other's thought and I simply exposed my secret self.
I did this by putting a kind of clown suit on him and letting him dance around in front of others. I called him 'Hostile Man' and whenever he appeared I'd say 'And now, Here's Hostile Man!' (applause) For me, this made it okay to allow this hidden part of my character, which was actually only hidden to my deluded mind, because when I exposed him other's said, 'Oh, yeah we've known about that part of you all along, it was way obvious to us.'
Anyway, when I started to openly acknowledge that part of myself and let it be known that I was really okay with poking fun at that foolishness, others joined me and this eventually led to the weakening of Hostile Man, like a kind of sad joke we all shared.
That's not to say that that part of my character/being is completely eliminated, OH NO!! it's just that it's not anything I need to hide anymore./ I've become really okay with openly acknowledging and talking about this part of myself, which I have confidence will eventually lead to Hostile Man's complete dis-empowerment! Yahoo!!
The other (Buddhist) part of this is that I also embrace Hostile Man as like a wounded child and give him all the love and tender compassion I can, understanding that he needs healing too!
would make the FBI's top 10 wanted
in a day. I guess maybe that's the problem
It was actually in prison that I decided that if I was going to live the remainder of life there I might at least put some effort into healing myself and maybe being an example to others there that it was possible to 'go out' in a state of relative healing and peace. So, Here I am on parole, until 2021, living in a priory - a far better cell than I had in prison, doing my time - still putting in the effort, cuz, ya know what? What is said abut this training/discipline has proven to be true!!
And, I didn't get that from some ole 'f...ing' book!
Oh, by the way, I didn't get caught for many years. I began being involved in organized criminal stuff, under the direction of relatives, when I was in my early teens, 'making my bones' as they say and 35 years old when I finally reached a point where I had soo much contempt for self, others and life itself and carried soo much overwhelming excruciating karmic pain/suffering that I became totally reckless and careless and wound up being arrested. The authorities knew of me and my association with the 'criminal sub-culture' in the world and had/have suspicions that I was involved in some pretty nasty stuff.
So, that's what you've got to look forward too, or not, it's your choice. It's a blessing that you've go the karmic fortune to have made contact with the folks on this forum and some vague interest in the Training. You can transform yourself and your life, now. Or, wait until you sink low enough into the abyss of pain and suffering that you no longer have a damn thing to lose.
Wow Brother Bob, thanks for sharing that and being so frank. You actually put a LOT into perspective for me with that.
Respectfully,
Raven
Holy crap, dude! You're suffering because you're ego's out of whack. Can't you see it? Just reread what you wrote. You can't just have a little darkness in you, you have to have the MOST darkness anyone has ever had. You have to be worse than the devil himself because you have more imagination. On the FBI's Top 10 list. And on and on and on.....
Please,TF. Give the ego a rest. Why don't you just try to be nobody special for a while and maybe your ego suffering will diminish.
On the other hand, the stimulants don't seem to be helping much, if anything they're only bolstering my anxiety and increasing my ambivalence, as opposed to properly getting a grip, treading the good path, absorbing fresher, non-stale air for a change.
Maybe change your avatar to a picture of a rainbow or a cat like everyone else!
Yes.