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He told me not to talk to him anymore...

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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby bodigami » Sat 08 Mar 2008, 22:59:48

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Angry_Chimp', '(')nihlistic rant)


You don't understand enlightenment.
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby bodigami » Sat 08 Mar 2008, 23:13:30

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'D')unno if you were including me in the "others" you don't understand, but FWIW:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jesus_of_suburbia', 'W')hy get mad at people for not acknowledging that the remainder of their life will probably be short and miserable?

I'm not actually mad at most folks I've tried to alert. There are a few I'm mad at in relation to the issue, but not for the reason you mentioned.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jesus_of_suburbia', 'W')hat exactly will fruit trees, gardens and bicycles do to have any significant impact in coping with "a disaster that's just around the corner will far exceed in scale and suffering anything humanity has ever experienced of imagined"?

Any increased ability to provide for one's own basic needs outside the larger economy will help one cope. I think that's arguably true in almost any likely peak oil related scenario, from mild recession to greater depression to global war.


10-4 Shanny! That's what I'm talking about. Minimizing the scope of the disaster. The milk and honey days might be coming to a close, but if we quit converting the remainder of the farmland around here into houses and all planted gardens and fruit trees in our yards and parklands instead of focusing on decorative plants and grass we might stand a fighting chance.

Instead of surrendering, we're starting now! Taking concrete steps toward survival is optional and I certainly don't expect everyone to participate in the effort. It might fail too, but for us we won't fail without a very mighty struggle.


as most of the "big changes in humanity" this one will be born almost from desperation. Isn't this behaviour a bit masochistic? Prepare when and if TSHTF! I hope we evolve beyond this and use our knowledge to prepare in advance to ecological problems. That is, if we survive.
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby Angry_Chimp » Sat 08 Mar 2008, 23:28:46

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zensui', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Angry_Chimp', '(')nihlistic rant)


You don't understand enlightenment.


Please I beg of you, give me a small taste of your so called enlightenment.

==AC
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby Angry_Chimp » Sat 08 Mar 2008, 23:34:30

should i call Oprah for some enlightenment?

Oprah Winfrey has chosen Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth," a self-help guide by the author of the million-selling "The Power of Now," as her latest book club selection.
http://tinyurl.com/2yfmm9

Winfrey made the announcement Wednesday on her TV talk show, which airs from Chicago. Tolle, whose other books include "The Power of Now" and "Stillness Speaks," is a native of Germany who now lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. According to his Web site, he advocates "transcending our ego-based state of consciousness" as a "prerequisite not only for personal happiness but also for the ending of violent conflict endemic on our planet."
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby eastbay » Sat 08 Mar 2008, 23:44:39

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zensui', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'D')unno if you were including me in the "others" you don't understand, but FWIW:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jesus_of_suburbia', 'W')hy get mad at people for not acknowledging that the remainder of their life will probably be short and miserable?

I'm not actually mad at most folks I've tried to alert. There are a few I'm mad at in relation to the issue, but not for the reason you mentioned.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jesus_of_suburbia', 'W')hat exactly will fruit trees, gardens and bicycles do to have any significant impact in coping with "a disaster that's just around the corner will far exceed in scale and suffering anything humanity has ever experienced of imagined"?

Any increased ability to provide for one's own basic needs outside the larger economy will help one cope. I think that's arguably true in almost any likely peak oil related scenario, from mild recession to greater depression to global war.


10-4 Shanny! That's what I'm talking about. Minimizing the scope of the disaster. The milk and honey days might be coming to a close, but if we quit converting the remainder of the farmland around here into houses and all planted gardens and fruit trees in our yards and parklands instead of focusing on decorative plants and grass we might stand a fighting chance.

Instead of surrendering, we're starting now! Taking concrete steps toward survival is optional and I certainly don't expect everyone to participate in the effort. It might fail too, but for us we won't fail without a very mighty struggle.


as most of the "big changes in humanity" this one will be born almost from desperation. Isn't this behaviour a bit masochistic? Prepare when and if TSHTF! I hope we evolve beyond this and use our knowledge to prepare in advance to ecological problems. That is, if we survive.

I think I see your very valid point zensui. There are many ways people are preparing. It's hard to tell what's the right way. I suppose we'll know eventually. But in our case, and hopefully for many undergoing a positive period of disaster preparation, we're saving, not spending, unloading things, not hoarding things, and gaining knowledge ... all kinds of knowledge... rather than simply waiting around for The Big Crumble.

Compared to where we were 4 years ago we've moved ahead by light years. I bet that's true for many here.
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby eastbay » Sat 08 Mar 2008, 23:50:32

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'A')C, Zensui is not one of those kind of "Buddhists," he's the real thing.


I was thinking similarly. The request is impossible to answer. It's all from within.
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby BigTex » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 00:35:06

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'A')C, Zensui is not one of those kind of "Buddhists," he's the real thing.


I was thinking similarly. The request is impossible to answer. It's all from within.


I don't have the answers, but I would like to comment on the idea that there is this hopelessly cold absolute reality and enlightenment consists of waking up to this utter desolation and somehow coming to terms with it.

That place of desolation is no more real than the comfortable delusion you leave behind. It's all ultimately just an interpretation of what is going on around you. You stand around a dead body and one person sees an angel ascending and another person sees a piece of meat beginning to rot. Which one is "real"? Who knows and who cares? Each experience is utterly real to the person experiencing it. I don't buy the MATRIX kind of thing, where some people are sleepwalking and others are awake. We are all sleepwalking and dreaming a different dream. It's arrogance that makes us think we are awake while everyone else is asleep. I feel it often, but I still think it's arrogance.

To put a point on what I am saying, though, the thing that I have learned (and Eastbay and I were talking about this down at Party headquarters the other day) is that the problem people have is imagining that they are owed something in life. This feeling of entitlement contributes to their distorted delusions and leads inevitably to disappointment--if they exceed their goals they feel guilt that they were fortunate while so many others weren't; if they don't reach their goals they feel like a failure.

Some of the most successful people I have known didn't see themselves as succesful, and I realized that the feeling they had of always being on the verge of failure drove them, but they never actually felt succesful, they just hoped to evade failure for one more day. Not a happy life, in my view.

OTOH, if you treat EVERYTHING in life with gratitude, always comparing it to NOTHING as opposed to comparing it to perfection, suddenly life makes more sense. There is less need for protective delusions. Would I rather be alive and suffering or have never existed at all? Looking at life in that way, the worst suffering can become bearable, and if it remains unbearable the decision to die can at least be an informed one (I'm think someone with a terminal illness, for example).

I think people often arrive at utter despair and imagine they have reached some kind of FULL REALITY experience, and yet when I have felt that way and it passed, I realized that was just another interpretation of what was going on around me.

The only dogma in my views on enlightenment are that kindness and humility seem to be the X and Y axis, and the more of those things I see in a person the closer to enlightenment I think they are.

That's just my version of truth today. I just wanted to throw something a little warmer out there than the idea that there is this utter cosmic emptiness and we are separated from it by a thread. I think we are separated from it by whatever we decide and if we choose to embrace it that can be an awful or amazing experience. Again, we decide. We're the ones who made up the whole cosmic emptiness idea in the first place.

What's "real" when you're dead?
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby bodigami » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 00:40:57

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Angry_Chimp', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zensui', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Angry_Chimp', '(')nihlistic rant)


You don't understand enlightenment.


Please I beg of you, give me a small taste of your so called enlightenment.

==AC


With that sarcasm? hell no! that just says your question is not honest.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Angry_Chimp', 's')hould i call Oprah for some enlightenment?

Oprah Winfrey has chosen Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth," a self-help guide by the author of the million-selling "The Power of Now," as her latest book club selection.
http://tinyurl.com/2yfmm9

Winfrey made the announcement Wednesday on her TV talk show, which airs from Chicago. Tolle, whose other books include "The Power of Now" and "Stillness Speaks," is a native of Germany who now lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. According to his Web site, he advocates "transcending our ego-based state of consciousness" as a "prerequisite not only for personal happiness but also for the ending of violent conflict endemic on our planet."


wtf? unite some dots, my username has zen on it, I'm buddhist. Don't make a joke of enlightenment. And seriously, you don't get it at all. That's nihilism you're promoting as enlightenment.
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby bodigami » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 00:50:44

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'A')C, Zensui is not one of those kind of "Buddhists," he's the real thing.


thanks ^_^

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'A')C, Zensui is not one of those kind of "Buddhists," he's the real thing.


I was thinking similarly. The request is impossible to answer. It's all from within.


yes, but it can and is externalised, even if it's partially. It can be hinted with language, and even with just mere prescence. But it cann't be answered to someone that is still in the "throwing poop" or "I hate humanity" stages, because it will be incomprehensible. And this is no superiority sense, because to walk the Path towards Nirvana one has to be detached from the so called "ego".
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby BigTex » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 01:06:29

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zensui', 'B')ut it cann't be answered to someone that is still in the "throwing poop" or "I hate humanity" stages, because it will be incomprehensible.


I thought throwing poop and hating humanity is what one would expect from an Angry_Chimp.

I couldn't leave that one alone.
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby jboogy » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 01:09:53

Angryman said;
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f you take away the lie of their life what is left to offer except the reality of existential dread?

You are assigning undeserved depth to the average american mind. If you took away the mundane things that most preoccupy themselves with, they would find different, equally trifling matters with which to occupy themselves.
and
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e said that the point was that even with the highest personal development and liberation, the person comes up against the real despair of the human condition.
I disagree, many have achieved complete happiness and satisfaction while acknowledging the ultimate failure of the human species. I've realized for some time this society and the things it holds dear are shallow and self-defeating races to obtain sensory gratification at the expense of an inner examination and possible ascention to true inner peace. I'm happy and I know we're f*cked.
and
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')nce you accept the truly desperate situation that man is in,
Mankind yes, each man as an individual, no.
and
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'i')s still as "religious" as any other, this is what he meant: "civilized" society is a hopeful belief and protest that science, money and goods make man count for more than any other animal. In this sense everything that man does is religious and heroic,
Some have certainly evolved beyond, "living in and for the moment", many have not, beyond the biological instinct to procreate.
and
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 't')he youth have sensed—for better or for worse—a great social-historical truth: that just as there are useless self-sacrifices in unjust wars, so too is there an ignoble heroics of whole societies: I am not familiar with this "youth" of which you speak, surely you do not mean the shallow, self-centered mass of egocentric consumers that passes for America's offspring.
Perhaps the population would be less swayed to socialism if we had fewer examples of socialism from our "Free Market Capitalists". -----fiddler dave
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby TWilliam » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 01:32:24

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zensui', 'I')t can be hinted with language, and even with just mere prescence.


"The Tao which can be named, is not the true Tao."

In other words, That Which Is Limitless can not be conveyed through the limited medium of language...
"It means buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, because Kansas? Is goin' bye-bye... "
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby bodigami » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 01:40:57

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '(')...)
I don't have the answers, but I would like to comment on the idea that there is this hopelessly cold absolute reality and enlightenment consists of waking up to this utter desolation and somehow coming to terms with it.


Why do you assume that absolute reality is hopelessly cold? Nirvana is also about hope, compassion, love (the real non-sensual one) and kidness which are warm. It is also about serenity, peace and harmony which are cold. Do you see a hint of at least just one state that trascends duality? Nirvana is about the cessation of suffering so that happyness can be born, and the path, breath by breath towards this cessation.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')That place of desolation is no more real than the comfortable delusion you leave behind. It's all ultimately just an interpretation of what is going on around you. You stand around a dead body and one person sees an angel ascending and another person sees a piece of meat beginning to rot. Which one is "real"? Who knows and who cares? Each experience is utterly real to the person experiencing it. I don't buy the MATRIX kind of thing, where some people are sleepwalking and others are awake. We are all sleepwalking and dreaming a different dream. It's arrogance that makes us think we are awake while everyone else is asleep. I feel it often, but I still think it's arrogance.


Nirvana is not an interpretation but an experience of suffering being trascendend. As another hint, the descriptions of personal experiences are tied to the senses. Nirvana is more about awareness, mind and conciousness by themselves. If you understand your own mind to the point of being truly happy, then you're in Nirvana. The experiences you describe are still part of a dream, because they're tied to the sense instead of an understanding of the (true) self (of mind and soul).

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')To put a point on what I am saying, though, the thing that I have learned (and Eastbay and I were talking about this down at Party headquarters the other day) is that the problem people have is imagining that they are owed something in life. This feeling of entitlement contributes to their distorted delusions and leads inevitably to disappointment--if they exceed their goals they feel guilt that they were fortunate while so many others weren't; if they don't reach their goals they feel like a failure.


That may be true of "sucesses" of ignorant people, but again they're not Nirvana. {If you're noticing something, is that Buddhism is redundant and that Nirvana is mostly explained by what it is NOT.} If you already attained Nirvana, then you don't feel pity towards non Buddhas, you feel so much compassion towards non Buddhas that your only intentionality of becoming eternal is so that you can teach others the Path towards the cessation of suffering. Therefore you have become (this is not mainstream Buddhism but is in accordance with the spirit of it and the etymology of Buddhist words) a Boddhi-satva; someone that trascended even it's own attainment of becoming a Buddha by sharing it and now teaches to others Boddhi-nature.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')Some of the most successful people I have known didn't see themselves as succesful, and I realized that the feeling they had of always being on the verge of failure drove them, but they never actually felt succesful, they just hoped to evade failure for one more day. Not a happy life, in my view.


indeed it's not a happy life. It's also not a succesful life in a Buddhist context, because suffering is not yet trascended.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')OTOH, if you treat EVERYTHING in life with gratitude, always comparing it to NOTHING as opposed to comparing it to perfection, suddenly life makes more sense. There is less need for protective delusions. Would I rather be alive and suffering or have never existed at all? Looking at life in that way, the worst suffering can become bearable, and if it remains unbearable the decision to die can at least be an informed one (I'm think someone with a terminal illness, for example).


But still, suffering is still present. Note that I'm talking of suffering, not pain. Nirvana is perfection in as much as this perfection is understanded in a holistic way, not in the proyected human-centered ideal of (false) perfection. An example of this (false) ideal of perfection is Heaven; pleasure for all eternity, to the Hell with others!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')I think people often arrive at utter despair and imagine they have reached some kind of FULL REALITY experience, and yet when I have felt that way and it passed, I realized that was just another interpretation of what was going on around me.


That's because that sense of realisation of trascendense is a false one, simply because its foundations are impermanent assumptions.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')The only dogma in my views on enlightenment are that kindness and humility seem to be the X and Y axis, and the more of those things I see in a person the closer to enlightenment I think they are.


Well, humility is actually a basic understanding of anatta or non-self

And kindness in Buddhism is known as metta and is 1 of the 4 Brahma Viharas:
1. Metta: loving kindness
2. Karuna: compassion
3. Mudita: sympathetic joy
4. Upekkha: equanimity

For making good karma.

But if you're looking for characteristics that should be present in a Buddha then read the Seven Factors of Enlightenment:
* Mindfulness (sati) i.e. to be aware and mindful in all activities and movements both physical and mental
* Wisdom (dhamma vicaya) into the nature of dhamma/truth
* Energy (viriya)
* Happyness (piti)
* Relaxation or tranquillity (passaddhi) of both body and mind
* Meditation (samadhi)
* Equanimity (upekkha), to be able to face life in all its vicissitudes with calm of mind and tranquillity, without disturbance.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')That's just my version of truth today. I just wanted to throw something a little warmer out there than the idea that there is this utter cosmic emptiness and we are separated from it by a thread. I think we are separated from it by whatever we decide and if we choose to embrace it that can be an awful or amazing experience. Again, we decide. We're the ones who made up the whole cosmic emptiness idea in the first place.


You're implying that mind doesn't have that much power over matter. You can look no farther than Fossil Fuels resource depletition for an example that this is not the case.

Human mind is more powerful than most imagine, the problem is that it's blinded by ignorance and not guided by wisdom.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')What's "real" when you're dead?

Death is an illusion of an organism that still feels separated from the interdependent network of life and ultimately of existance itself.
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby BigTex » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 01:58:23

zensui, good thoughts.

The concept of "suffering" is tough to internalize when it leads to the realization that everything in your life, including what you consider to be joy, fun and relaxation is really just another form of suffering.

10-4, too, to people who say that words are awkward tools to convey certain meanings. I have been reading books on eastern thought before and there would be moments when I felt like I was seeing truth, but it was being shown to me through a series of mirrors relfecting it several times so that I could only see a small and distorted part of the whole. I realized that's the best the written words could do.

Straightening out a bent mind is hard.
:)
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby bodigami » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 01:59:45

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zensui', 'I')t can be hinted with language, and even with just mere prescence.


"The Tao which can be named, is not the true Tao."

In other words, That Which Is Limitless can not be conveyed through the limited medium of language...


Taoism and Buddhism are similar in many ways, almost to the point that there may have being some type of "cross pollination of memes" among them. But, I've learned to go beyond the "obscuration of Nirvana using methods of teaching that are mostly incomprehensible".

This means that since Buddha Gautama said he only teached "the cessation of suffering" there is a way of expressing the Dharma in a way that is more comprehensible. Even if the true Tao can not be named, the Tao Te Ching is a pointer to it. In both Buddhism and Taoism the practitioner must use this pointer to actually discover the Tao/Nirvana/Dharma. That's why some of us keep passing this bits of Dharma, because they are still valuable resources for a seeker ^_^
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby bodigami » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 02:11:46

jeje, this uncensored unmoderated openess is why Open Discussion is one of my favorites forums :)

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'z')ensui, good thoughts.


thanks

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')The concept of "suffering" is tough to internalize when it leads to the realization that everything in your life, including what you consider to be joy, fun and relaxation is really just another form of suffering.


Not really, what is selled as joy and relaxation are cheap imitations. Look no further than contemplation and meditation for relaxation and sharing smiles or hugs for joy. Fun is pleasure and therefore leads to suffering. Not everything in life is suffering, actually the 1st noble truth is: (unenlightened) life is suffering.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')10-4, too, to people who say that words are awkward tools to convey certain meanings. I have been reading books on eastern thought before and there would be moments when I felt like I was seeing truth, but it was being shown to me through a series of mirrors relfecting it several times so that I could only see a small and distorted part of the whole. I realized that's the best the written words could do.


That has to say more about Occultism elitist behaviours than about Easter Philosphy itself. If I ever attain Nirvana I will make it clear to understand for the West.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')Straightening out a bent mind is hard.

Only if it doesn't want to be straightened ;)
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby eastbay » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 02:17:35

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'z')ensui, good thoughts.

The concept of "suffering" is tough to internalize when it leads to the realization that everything in your life, including what you consider to be joy, fun and relaxation is really just another form of suffering.

10-4, too, to people who say that words are awkward tools to convey certain meanings. I have been reading books on eastern thought before and there would be moments when I felt like I was seeing truth, but it was being shown to me through a series of mirrors relfecting it several times so that I could only see a small and distorted part of the whole. I realized that's the best the written words could do.

Straightening out a bent mind is hard.


All life is a struggle against unsatisfactoriness. Simply put, we always seem to want more of what we crave and less of what causes discomfort and pain. The concept of 'satisfied' is fleeting and never quite reached. Due to imperfect translation, the term 'suffering' may be too harsh to describe exactly what The Buddha was talking about, but it's somewhat close so it's commonly used.

Yes, BigTex when we type mere words there is no way for someone to sense the entirety of the intended message. The facial expressions, the home it's written from, the BAC, the history of the person... the whole thing is so very incomplete. So unfortunately the reader must largely guess. And oftentimes the message goes missing. And as we see anger and harsh words can result. That's one very good reason why we must all try to avoid using unkind words online. And in person.
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby PenultimateManStanding » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 02:43:33

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JPL', '
')And you look back & wonder why we all used to take drugs...

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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby jboogy » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 02:52:53

zensui wrote
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f you understand your own mind to the point of being truly happy, then you're in Nirvana.

But this assumes that when you truly know your own mind this will automatically mean you're happy, what if you finally know your mind, and you don't like what you find? If Manson mastered transandental meditation and truly came to know his mind, does this mean Charlie should be happy and at peace, even though he found nothing but the blackest kind of hatred within his mind?
I've heard it said a few times that Nirvana is the transcendence of suffering. Is this literal, as in the person feeling no angst of any kind? Or is it the ability to not be bothered by any of the suffering you know is happening in the world? I've always equated Nirvana with peace. A positive outlook born of confidence and unflappability, the strength to absorb anything life throws at you without feeling undue turmoil in your thoughts and emotions.

BigTex wrote
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')TOH, if you treat EVERYTHING in life with gratitude, always comparing it to NOTHING as opposed to comparing it to perfection, suddenly life makes more sense. There is less need for protective delusions. Would I rather be alive and suffering or have never existed at all? Looking at life in that way, the worst suffering can become bearable, and if it remains unbearable the decision to die can at least be an informed one (I'm think someone with a terminal illness, for example).


This is a favorite, and very effective technique of mine. Whenever anyone around me starts to moan about some nothing bit of annoyance or problem, I remind them that they've lived better and longer than 99.5% of every other person that's ever lived, don't look at Bill Gates and be consumed by the fact that he has a mansion and 50 billion $'s, be thankful you don't live in Iraq, or Palastine, or 200 other countries that are worse off than the U.S.

and

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he only dogma in my views on enlightenment are that kindness and humility seem to be the X and Y axis, and the more of those things I see in a person the closer to enlightenment I think they are.


Your right, kindness and humility are definitive indications of someone who "gets" it. Unfortunately I find kindness towards all difficult, I realize as I project anger at some that I am failing myself, but I believe there's some truth to the axiom that some only understand fear and threats of force, If my enemies are willing to be ruthless in pursuit of their goals, I would rather meet that force and conquer it, than subjugate myself in order to be able to claim I've achieved some lofty, idealized notion of what enlightenment is.
Perhaps the population would be less swayed to socialism if we had fewer examples of socialism from our "Free Market Capitalists". -----fiddler dave
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Re: He told me not to talk to him anymore...

Postby eastbay » Sun 09 Mar 2008, 03:06:16

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jboogy', '
')[BigTex: quote]The only dogma in my views on enlightenment are that kindness and humility seem to be the X and Y axis, and the more of those things I see in a person the closer to enlightenment I think they are.


Your right, kindness and humility are definitive indications of someone who "gets" it. Unfortunately I find kindness towards all difficult, I realize as I project anger at some that I am failing myself, but I believe there's some truth to the axiom that some only understand fear and threats of force, If my enemies are willing to be ruthless in pursuit of their goals, I would rather meet that force and conquer it, than subjugate myself in order to be able to claim I've achieved some lofty, idealized notion of what enlightenment is.[/quote]

jboogy, it's hard for sure, but getting started on a path away from anger is fairly easy. Begin with quitting swearing. Go one day. Then a week. If you can go a week you can stop completely. I'm not saying you swear a lot, but if one can take that small step then the next step, getting away from unkindness and anger, is considerably easier.

Then you can take the next step and that's getting away from angry and unkind thoughts. That's not as easy, but anyone can do it.

That's how it was explained to me a few years back. It may be worth a try.
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