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how fully do you commit yourself?
How fully do you commit yourself to your practice? For me I usually like to try to commit myself fully, but every now and then i'll slip and do something unskillful. I realize it's not really a big deal, I mean it's not like I do anything particularly bad or anything like that, but I get kind of frustrated when I slip up. Basically i'm holding myself to a really high standard and occasionally I kinda say fuck it and do something that is unskillful. Afterwards I feel bad. But i'm trying to decide how fully I want to commit myself. Lately i've been making those unskillful actions rarer and rarer, but i'm still not completely sure whether I really do want to try to act skillfully 100% of the time or if I want to incoorporate buddhism into my life while still living a more normal, forgiving life.
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"The heart of the path is SO simple. No need for long explanations. Give up clinging to love and hate, just rest with things as they are. That is all I do in my own practice.
Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. When you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing.
Of course, there are dozens of meditation techniques to develop samadhi and many kinds of vipassana. But it all comes back to this-just let it all be. Step over here where it is cool, out of the battle.
Why not give it a try? Do you dare?"
"A Still Forest Pool" by Ajahn Chah *Please make the time to read this book*
I would recommend you aspire to the insight of not-self. It is something obtainable. Grow the desire, feed the mystery and intrigue, it is in your capacity!
With Love,
- G
PS: I hope one day you'll come back and repost in this thread about the irony of those last statements.
Until then I'll use buddhist teachers as a tool to be happier. I don't live my life in service of the dharma. The dharma lives in service of me.
If I'm not mistaken, Gautama never posited something called the "not-self." He did suggest that there was no abiding self.
The trouble with imagining or aspiring to a "not self" is that it simply enhances the notion of "self" (you can't get rid of something you haven't got in the first place and imagining you've got a self is the central reason people give Buddhist practice a try).
I have heard that a constant (physical) meditation practice is helpful. No big deal but just some incorporation. FWIW.
Anatta is more like a "perspective".
This is correct, but there is more to it than this. There is no self to be found in the aggregates of conscious experience.
I agree and disagree. One of the causes of "volitional" human action is our underlying drive system. This drive system is often simplified into two polls, a push and a pull. Any "mind-object", to use the Buddhist vernacular, can get charged with a push, a pull, both, or neither. This is related to why there is a mindfulness of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. Typically pulling arises around pleasant objects, and can have their pull strengthened by contemplating their pleasant attributes or results.
Now, not all pulls strengthen the sense of self. That being said, very strong push/pulls can strengthen or even overwhelm consciousness with a sense of self, yet EXTREME push/pulls can completely dissolve a sense of self. Near death experiences are a good case study. On the far end you have experiences where people describe completely dissolving. Right below that is where the projection of self becomes indiscriminate, one might describe completely merging with their surroundings. With out of body experiences the perception of an independent consciousness is retained, but association with the body, except for the abstract concept of "that's my body", is severed. Even if sensations can still be felt and recognized they are perceived as external.
From "Three Cardinal Discourses of the Buddha" translated by Ñanamoli Thera
Wow, if I'm not mistaken that sounds like wu wei.
Those are very nice quotes you have shown us and have given me some great insight. Thank you for sharing
I had never heard of wu wei before, but after reading this yes, it is similar to wu wei.
I would say the Buddhist practice has deeper insight and goes beyond "action without action". You may be interested in checking out Shinzen Young.
yet he leaves nothing undone.
The ordinary man is always doing things,
yet many more are left to be done.
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(Those who) possessed in the highest degree those attributes did nothing (with a purpose), and had no need to do anything. (Those who) possessed them in a lower degree were (always) doing, and had need to be so doing.
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