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How free are you ?
banned_crab
Veteran
Are you free from your thoughts? Are you free from the compulsiveness? Are you free from constantly creating problems in your head when all you need to do is enter the present moment?
How do I become free of these things? Ive felt the present moment but I am constantly distracted by uselesss things so I cant stay interested in it. I just want to be free, free an enlightened.
How free are you?
How do I become free of these things? Ive felt the present moment but I am constantly distracted by uselesss things so I cant stay interested in it. I just want to be free, free an enlightened.
How free are you?
1
Comments
The priority that you place on your goal to be present will determine how long that takes.
I am also distracted by a lot of useless things as well that really discourage me but i finally see the root of my problem and its a work in progress
I don't necessarily believe that free=enlightened. We are never free. Being in samsara means we are not free. There is always something gnawing away.
Just my 0.02 of course.
In metta,
Raven
Initially you will have to develop more skilful efforts towards slowing . . .
Practicing more comes in relation to our capacity, need and commitment.
For example thoughts arise . . . we become calmer, less overwhelmed and distracted by suffering, experience and life, in proportion to our effort. A calm environment, calming practices and general purpose calm is a holiday. Calmer karma allows our destructive distractions time to empty . . .
:om:
Distracted by : Interested in - seems to me to be potentially 2 sides of the same coin.
I want to be : x - perhaps this is another coin...
Flip the coins as many times as you need... they always fall on one face or another.
Once one realises this, coins are just coins.
Seems to me that you just do what the Buddha said to do and that's it. Sila, Samadhi, and Prajna. "To abstain from all evil, to cultivate good, and to purify one's mind."
To keep the precepts, to do daily meditation practice and cultivate wisdom. The daily meditation practice part is the most freeing aspect IMO.
They very fact that one can't stop the process of thoughts could even be considered evidence that there is no independent self-enduring nature or entity existing by its own power.
I'm pretty cheap, though.
not sure what you are trying to say here?
Anyway, according to dependent origination one can’t even be considered as being thoughts. That was the purpose of my rambling and in retrospect perhaps that is all that was needed to be stated instead.
Alas, I will never fully know freedom until the last of us has been freed.
The *only* thoughts in my head are of operating my vehicle. Other than the occasional "this view is so beautiful" or "the curves on this road are so much FUN" are simply thoughts of correctly operating my bike. When I ride I am not operating a simple vehicle, riding a motorbike is more about muscle memory, your bike is an extension of you. That's how I see it anyway. When I'm flying down the expressway at 80mph (average free flowing traffic speed) I am entirely focused. I use riding to clear my head, for example after a rather difficult and damaging argument with someone close, I'll go out for a ride for a little while and come back. taking a "break" from thinking about the argument lends me new perspective when I finally return home.
Seriously, riding a motorcycle is a zen experience.
Totally forgot a video, this guy rides sort-of how I ride. As you can see, riding like this, you cannot allow distracting thoughts to affect you.
I used to have the compulsion to say out loud the worse possible outcome if I hear about a person getting hurt. It was often inappropriate, but I felt that people needed to know.
I used to have the compulsion to make the cheesiest and nerdiest jokes just because I thought they were funny, and it didn't care that I was annoying others.
There were other weird and morbid compulsions of mine, but it's been such a long time, I've forgotten what they are.
How do you become free of these things? Reprogramming yourself. Not easy, but I'm just saying it's possible. I literally had to constantly explain to myself that I shouldn't have these weird thoughts, and why. Well, I guess you'd have to figure out why for yourself first.
The best way I can explain it is that a lot of these weird thoughts come from your sub-conscious mind. The sub-conscious mind and conscious mind are connected in some way. Use your conscious mind to reprogram your sub-conscious mind to stop having these weird thought. Again, it's not easy, but definitely possible.
This can be done through meditation. I did it through self-reflection, a lot of it. I used to take a lot of long walks by myself. I would think about why I think the way I do, and why I say the things I say.
Now to the topic... 1. No, I'm not free from my thoughts. I don't really wish to...at least at this moment.
2. No, again, I'm not free from my compulsiveness...but there are moments when I surely forget, for some time, about that compulsion and do something more constructive instead.
3. No, again and again, I'm not free from worries. Things happening around me show me that I should not them lightly.
4. You can't get rid of these things. You can deal with them, you can postpone them, you can willingly replace them with other more constructive things...but you cannot overlook that the things ( compulsions ) were there in the first place. If you want to get free and enlightened ( for now just enlightened ) you have to realize how does your compulsion mechanism works in your case, and then apply the right treatment.
I honestly used to think you I had to act on certain compulsions in order for them to go away but I've discovered I don't.......that brings a certain amount of freedom with it!
Best of luck @heyimacrab.......just remember, baby steps....... :om:
i've thought of hopes and dreams, failure and despair, fun and joy, misery and pain, and a lot about sex. i am all those things? or was i just "verb-ing" when i experienced those thoughts? just a mind in motion, really. you aren't your thoughts, though you thoughts can sure make you feel that way. you are a verb. verb-ing all the time. no?
I didn't read that or hear that from anyone in particular, (that I remember, anyhow) but it makes sense to me; because only you can release yourself from suffering- through awareness and the Dharma and applying its teachings to your daily life/style.
So it doesn't matter to me how "free" I am now, because there is only now. This moment... no need to compare with past or hope to surpass current "Free" in the future. It is what it is.
Or question them?
You become your thoughts as soon as you "cling" to those thoughts. Our thoughts we cling to, (not merely the fleeting thoughts) become the glasses through which we view our world.
So it's much Wiser to cling to the 'good/positive' thoughts then, as opposed to clinging to "bad/negative' thoughts, eh? Choose your views.
It is the same way with feelings. If we can simply observe and reflect on the feelings thereby distancing from them, they can change on their own. It can take a longer time to let go of feelings than thoughts but it can be done.
Actions on the other hand do not go away just by observing them or with reflection. They have real consequence on yourself and other.
Try as you might, you will never have distance between you and your actions. Your thoughts and feelings are a different matter altogether.
Seriously, I think I (we) are experience. Not my experience, but experience.
- Walls can be walked around or head butted into path clearance.
- As you think, so you are. Think well.
- Static/signal interference is not the message.
- The outward reveals the nature of the inner. In essence they are the same.
- That which is stilled continually, becomes a settlement. Live there.
etc.
More New age ranting soon enough . . .
:wave:
Any experience is dependently originated. Yet there is something that is not an experience, non-duality. Like you say it is just a dropping away. This is what is unconditioned because it is not an experience, a life, a being, or a lifespan.
To tame the mind do not engage, do not ignore, only watch carefully. One need not eat if they are not hungry. Allow the mind to eat, but allow the self to rest, in watchfullness as a parent looks after a child. Do not chase thought, do not cling to non thought. Let the self rest in the body, and the thoughts will conform on their own. Just as a child falls asleep when a parent is accepts the childs cries to stay awake.
Remember fellow sufferer you have buddha nature, but have chosen to walk the the path that brings realisation and awakening. Unfortunately it can be very hard at times, and my heart goes out to you.
The question seems to indicate restlessness of the mind and the mind's reaction to your thoughts. Some of the comments in this thread are informative and if read in the right way are very informative. There is surely a great opportunity here to realise the reaction to the thoughts -it sounds like AVERSION, and that brings suffering.
This is just a couple of thoughts about freedom and enlightenment, I hope that they resonate with you:
When you can sit and see that these thoughts are just emanating from your mind and you can just observe them arising and fading and not react to them in the way you appear to be doing then you are in fact free.
Enlightenment is just a word that when you try to grasp its meaning you immediately lose it - GRASPING for enlightenment will bring suffering. Let the observance of the grasping be something that helps awakens you.
The other day whilst doing jogging meditation I had a few moments of bliss as my mind became quite still, and I smiled, because I saw my freedom and was present, and then a stupid thought came into my head, and it was gone, and I stopped smiling! I tried to get it back but realised that I was grasping for that experience and trying to push away my thoughts and then in that realisation the peace and freedom was realised again but in another way!
Good luck and keep practicing!
Part of it is realizing the craving to be free in itself a thing that can keep you from being free. Also freedom is not in controlling your thoughts or having things being the way you want them to be. Freedom is allowing things to be and not fight them. So when I said before I'm contented with not totally being free, that contentment in itself creates more freedom. That's kind of the thing I think one needs to realize.
When people think about being free they often think they need to change things. They need to fight things, turn them around. They need to be different, be better at this or that. But in my eyes, when you are not free it is not because of the situation, but because of how you react to it.