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Religions
Floating_Abu
Veteran
I was reading of scandals today and it makes me sick.
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Comments
Just some more thoughts.
_/\_
I could be too negative, that’s my problem maybe.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15237018
Only the truth - as plain as it gets...No emotions neither love nor hate ...
discover the enormous message in his talk...
clear all this religious nonsense and see that your mind is a receiver, not THE reciever...remove all the censors and you get all the channels...dont live the life, watch the life like a movie of your own selection from the universal database...
The answer:
Ayya Khema expounds this here.
I wish human relationships were as straight forward and as up front.
Why are you looking something that is permanent? Isnt it your mind that looks something permanent so it finds an eternal thing to cling?
Listen to the above video...J. Krishnamurti explains...
All emotions...embrace all the variety by not taking part in it.
This is the richness of emptiness, the variety. Remove the cencor and you watch everything without fear...
Why do you need only one thing (like unconditional love) that has no variety, richness, potential? Even if you find it, how long you can take it?
The goal is not to find something eternal that the mind can cling...the goal is to become a impartial observer that can embrace all the richness of emptiness.
My teacher says that if we rely on the skandhas we will suffer. At the time of death and otherwise.
Did you listen to the talk by Ayya Khema that I linked? If so what did you think? I think it relies on this:
1all love with an object either the subject or object will die and you will be parted
2being parted from your love is suffering
3nirvana is not suffering....
Since 1 and 2 and 3 are all true that means that there must be another principle operating than the conditional. Indeed in all buddhist scripture nirvana is called 'the deathless' and 'the unconditioned'....
"Why do you need only one thing (like unconditional love) that has no variety, richness, potential? Even if you find it, how long you can take it?
The goal is not to find something eternal that the mind can cling...the goal is to become a impartial observer that can embrace all the richness of emptiness."
Unconditional love is form and emptiness.. It is ungraspable but it has distinct qualities. An impartial observer is stuck in 'the watcher' which is just a layer of habitual thinking. Unconditional mind is the motion of letting go and the wisdom that bubbles up. There is a rich sensitivity when this is engaged which in a buddha is perfected into the enjoyment body of buddha, samboghakaya. Which is a body of symbols and expression from the dharmakaya or truth body (of emptiness). The final body is the earthly body, nirmanakaya.
In meditation, if the meditation is not just strengthening the ego, we are letting go into space and then finding clarity. That is the basic union that the dharma is all about. The union of method and wisdom.
Of the six paramitas we have the first one is giving and the last is prajna or wisdom. It is the wisdom of emptiness. The mixture of the 1st and the last is dhana prajna paramita and it is the giving without giver, gift, or recepient. That is the clarity aspect. The openness aspect is that we give it without any qualifications. We just leap. This happens to ordinary people when they give too. The sensitivity aspect is the bonds formed when giving, the heart connections.
The nature of unconditioned mind is clarity openness and sensitivity which you can see described in the above paragraph.
to accept totally, even acknowledging the infinite variety. this or that awareness gently touches and embraces all.
Jeffrey, no I didn't listen yet, there are many talks on the website, which one are you referring to specifically?
I don't understand, however...
1-Being parted from love is suffering...
Who is parting? Is there an object/subject, it sounds like there is a projection of a subject in this argument. If there is a subject then there is suffering.
2-In the "watcher" argument, you remove the cencor, which being the ego or the self. There is no one to suffer....its simple...
when you remove the cencor, where else you go? what else you need to do? when the you is gone, does it even make sense to reach nirvana? the answer is none...the cencor is gone, there is no you...how can there be suffering? Can you please explain?
That's a discussion for another day and another thread. I disagree though, and I've worked in veterinary medicine
On the other hand, I have to clarify something. I am not suggesting here forgetting the love...otherwise that would be a foolish talk. From my own experience, when i cultivate love my fears go away. Love is the strongest antitode for fear thus all my worries disappear. I am simply speaking from my own experience, so I am not bullshiting here.
But the truth, the computer you typing is not in a state of unconditional love. The computer is just a computer embracing all there is. Doesnt care about nirvana or loving everyone etc. That unconditional love is a holy talk to embrace religious ideology and its saints.
And if there is unconditional love...I don't want such a permanent phenomena because it is an endless prison!
But thanks...good discussion.
For me upekka is easy to understand. We let go of everything. We have a lover or child and we don't grasp even to them. Thats unconditional upekka. Unconditional metta is to open with a good heart to every person. Like the bible says angels might be visiting you disguised as fools and beggars.
There’s en element of that in our meditation I think. We embrace what ever comes up and we embrace the fact that it’s going away again. We are open and accepting.
And a lot of that is the practice of our lives. We just embrace.
Relationships – I suppose – often will benefit when we can let go of some of our desires and demands; but they are not based on unconditional love. We need some balance (unlike dogs).
What I mean is that for example you can love your addicted partner or child in spite of the addiction and everything, but at some point you will have to stop him/her from destroying your life. You have to have some consideration for yourself also.
We can stand up for ourselves and we should (unlike dogs who can’t step out of their submissive mode).
Teachers don’t have unconditional love for their students. That’s nonsense. They are very capable of taking care of themselves and they do. And that’s a good thing.
As a rule the “unconditional love” dries up when the student stops contributing to the centre.
Again, that’s fair enough.
But of course we don’t have unconditional love for the teacher either. When the teacher messes up we can and we should do something about it. We share responsibility for what’s going on in our sangha.
In scandal land there are always people who do the whistle blowing. They are courageous people because some sangha are not tolerant to whistle-blowing at all. They are closed groups with cult mentalities.
Had I not had my own experiences and life encounters, I too would not believe such a thing exists.
But I have seen it, I have seen it in my teacher, whom you would have to see to believe, and I have also seen it through my own meditation and experiences.
Many years ago, I saw with eyes of unconditional love - and it was as if I was there but I was also just love. It was .. well we can just say it is an awakening process now but it is truly one of those things that only one whom has experienced can know or talk about. And I am certainly not here to try to convince any other. But I am happy to share what I know, but would not have believed myself.
Namaste,
Abu
Namaste.
Isn't it so??
Nature is just being nature. Dog is just being the dog. A squirrel is just himself!
It is humans I believe, which have a different type of consciousness. The consciousness of belief and projection ? and self awareness, which whilst can be valuable, can also be rather limiting.
We can even say that dogs give us conditional love, but I don't think they think that way at all, they are just themselves, a facet of nature or Dhamma as we might say.
Interesting a little.
Abu
I think it would be too much to argue for unconditional love.
There are too many, I think, salesman and charlatans and just really very misguided people whom might even believe they are loving when they are just selfishness on wheels.
But isn't this why we practice Buddhism? Because my experience, and the promise itself of Dhamma, is for a love and state of being that is limitless, potentiality is exponentially beyond the imagionations of our limited minds and egos.
It is true because it is so honourable. And it is most unbelievable because the ego, the intellect, our limited selves cannot even imagine what this would be like.
Only full realisation - and then - actualisation can bring this reality into our lives.
And if one was really flying, would belief matter anymore?
Even from a purely intellectual perspective, once we thought the world was flat and to imagine one could fly and land on the moon - well it was beyond our thoughts and imagination - and yet today we know just thusly.
It is thus that whilst we can - and perhaps even rightly so - be judgemental or be sceptical about such a thing as 'unconditional love' - which I see just as a truly unselfish love - then maybe we can also just practice (kind of like building a spaceship even though we don't know where we are going)
Best wishes,
Abu
So long as we focus only on cults and scandals, as I have, we are not focussed on the task at hand. Which of course is actualisation of the Dhamma ourself, for ourself, for this life, and for others.
If we look out, faults are endless. If we look within, faults are becoming. The answer, in my view, is practice, practice, practice.
Abu
_/\_
It is from a self proclaimed "lama" in the Tibetan tradition milking it for all she is worth. That is quite sick, I think, perverting and selling the idea of karma, milking her self inflicted title etc.
Yuck.