Discipline and spirituality
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
@marcitko said:
@person @JeroenGood discussion.
The practice of discipline is one of my favourite topics. @Jeroen I encourage you to open a separate topic.
For me personally, a period in which I was ever more disciplined brought the biggest (and even previously unimaginable) benefits.
My undisciplined phases brought nothing good and quite some bad.
I struggle with laziness, passivity, undirected effort, going from one thing to the other without producing a result.
I do NOT struggle with being colourful, fun-loving, being able to smell the roses, noticing beauty, joy, etc.
My oldest friend is the reverse. Super-disciplined yet struggling with different issues.
So a new topic, here it is.
I’ve had periods where I have been very disciplined — when I got into a new and much more corporate job, I changed my life and started going to the gym three or four times a week, and got really muscled and fit over the course of about a year, lost about 25 kg of body weight, but then I had a mental breakdown and ended up shifting to a much less stressed lifestyle.
That was when I got into a more relaxed way of living. I realised I had overdone it, over-strained myself and had to make a change. There is nothing wrong with living in a relaxed, low-energy style. You can take more time to smell the roses, sleep, reading and writing letters and correspondence to people you know.
As has been mentioned in the thread, there is a spectrum between discipline and laxity (wording?). Allan Watts called them "prickly" (disciplined) and "gooey" (lax/undisciplined). The Buddha advised the middle-way. Hence, here to it must be that the middle way applies as the way that brings the best results and least suffering.
An open question is how good any of us are in determining where we place on the spectrum in relation to the middle, hence which direction we should go with full steam ahead.
In our modern way of life, I think a lot of people will go more deeply into discipline first, and then like I did experience a backlash. The current mental health epidemic is a signal showing that, where a very large percentage of people end up taking medication, anti depressants or anti anxiety meds like benzodiazepines. These just mask the symptoms, whereas at their core is an unhealthy lifestyle.
I think we can take a leaf from the lives of cats… they sleep an average of 15 hours a day! Discipline is the art of ignoring your boundaries, of being subject to whatever goals the goal-directed part of your mind puts in front of you. Sure discipline helps you achieve your goals, but it’s not living.
Comments
A news headline I came across a few minutes ago: “Three quarters of Dutch topsporters suffer mental health problems.” I think that’s very telling, too much discipline and putting too much strain on body and mind is bad for your health.
My intuition is that there are very few things, if any, that fall into the bucket of all up(or down) side. Its all tradeoffs. So, I'd think there are challenges and obstacles to be dealt with living that way (very relaxed). Things like aimlessness or anomie spring to mind. Also, I think you're living in a bit of a different circumstance than most here. You're essentially retired, (I guess I don't know your household arrangements) with family who are have been able to care for household duties. I think too much stress is problem, and the bigger one in our world today. But I also think too little stress is a problem, and it does seem to be a growing one in some areas of the world. People without direction or purpose.
I don't like hustle culture, I think its an unbalanced lifestyle. Some people thrive off creating and doing though. I think they would shrivel up if they were to sit around all day reading or going for walks. I wouldn't recommend a spirituality for them of maximal chill.
We're not cats. Just as we're not sharks and shouldn't keep moving 24 hours a day. The human nervous system is tuned to a certain level of activity and stress, with a broad range between individuals.
To me its about the environment you do your living in. Do you have the resources and health to be able to engage in life affirming activities. If you don't take care of your life, your life can't take care of you.
I agree, too much discipline is bad for you. This is my worldly dharma, life is a balance, going all in leads to collapse and a restart, like the Yin/Yang. Leave the pendulum behind and seek to temper extremes with their opposite. Regularly reevaluate where you are and what needs attention or redirection.
From a deeper spiritual perspective trying to maintain a balance in the long run is a losing effort, impermanence and dukkha will have their way. Some effort into longer term spiritual freedom is a wise choice.
It’s true that I’m essentially retired, but at least partly by choice. I’ve chosen to spend that time on the spiritual journey, which is an activity where you can choose your amount of stress, and I decided to stay with low-stress lifestyles (largely for the sake of my mental health). These choices obviously will not work for everyone.
But if we consider what is natural, for many millennia human beings lived as hunter-gatherers in wild environments. We don’t actually need three meals a day, that is a modern luxury. The most stress those early humans ran into was not having enough food or running into a lion pride while hunting (a rare event I think).
I would suggest long periods of low stress, with occasional short high stress events.
Accurately evaluating where you are is difficult though. Take my last corporate job. I was in the best physical shape of my life, but did not see the breakdown coming. In hindsight there were some behavioural oddities which could have tipped me off, but it was outside of my experience, I did not know anything about mental health.
When you’re young and healthy you like to think you’re invulnerable and can push the limits, but the effects of a real break can be lasting and require a different strategy in terms of your long term well-being.
No, but what I’m trying to get at is that modern lifestyles are a long way removed from the norm into which our bodies and brains evolved. If you look at other large primates they sit around a lot eating leaves and berries. Admittedly our brains are larger and goal-directed, disciplined effort is by it’s nature a more human activity, but I think today’s always-on culture takes it several steps too far.
Yes, but who wants to be a hairy vegan? [I iz tempted but not much]
I recommend the film 'Yes Man', which we just enjoyed...
Now I have to do some work, or not. I may take the third option, which is play at work or work at play or even [to be decided]
This was rummaging about in my head today and I wanted to comment. Accurate evaluation is difficult, but this is the way. The practice of meditation develops a greater level of self awareness and introspection. We mess up, we learn and we move on.
If you have lived experience of psychosis, your context is likely to be much more inclusive than without that experience. It includes a certain first-hand knowledge of how the mind can ‘come off the rails’, and that can clue you in to whatever signs are unique to you. Perhaps the closest people without this experience can come is taking psychedelics.
My own experience only included hallucinations, of auditory and touch experiences, and not delusions or intrusive thoughts. So although I have some knowledge, I also know it can get considerably worse. But you see what I mean that some things can be ‘outside your context’ unless you have the right knowledge and experience.
That's an interesting comparison between the practical outcome of psychosis and psychedelics. I've heard several western Buddhists talk about how taking psychedelics opened their mind to the fact that our perceptions of the world aren't as fixed and real as they supposed. Which opened them up to meditation and the spiritual path generally. I do think my psychosis experience, though it came after entering the spiritual path, taught me that the mental world isn't so fixed and fully reliable.
I think if we're bringing in my personal disposition and experience into the validity of self reflection, awareness and the path. I have a strong sense of trust in life and my ability to meet its challenges which others may not share. That partly comes from a strong family support network, its also partly cultivated in that when challenges and anxiety arise and I feel overwhelmed I steer my mind to solutions, tell myself that this won't last and put one foot in front of the other.
Can one truly be spiritual without discipline? Even if one's spirituality is rooted in simply going with the flow, this, too, demands a certain level of discipline.
@Shoshin1
Yesterday I was going through all the mantra and prayers and even positive affirmation I have learned.
https://zenhealth.net/short-positive-affirmations/
This was the earliest affirmation I remember
"Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Coué
Think I would change it now to:
In Every way, every day, I'm improving in Every Way"
Yes, in the past I've used Émile Coué's simple technique of tricking the mind into believing something is true. It seems that the subconscious can't always distinguish between what's real and unreal, and this simple trick can work wonders. However its effectiveness can vary from person to person, and depending on the circumstances.
Fascinating stuff @lobster… I was just starting to read up on this, the whole idea of autosuggestion could be highly beneficial to me! Thanks!