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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2015 19:12:05 GMT -5
Sounds like you want a discussion with a mirror.  |
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Post by silver on Jul 21, 2015 20:24:33 GMT -5
Sounds like you want a discussion with a mirror. How is that different from anyone else here? People clump together in cliques because they agree. duh What - is - so - different - He just calls a spade a spade...someone said they were looking for that, or approved of that, or something - admiration of someone who could be up-front. just maybe the difference is he wants a conversation, not a head-nodding -bash the dissenter seshin. |
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Post by zendancer on Jul 21, 2015 21:36:27 GMT -5
A few decades ago, reality consisted of me and my ex being deeply in love with each other for 10 years. Apart from your typical minor relationship problems, our marriage was quite exceptional. Our lives were progressing well in the material, mental-emotional and spiritual realms. Life was pretty darn good. I was 33, and my ex, after informing me out of the blue a few weeks prior that she was leaving me, was now packing up the last of most of our possessions. Then she drove away for the last time, leaving me forever, with no explanation of why she had decided to end our relationship. As i gazed upon the empty silent house, the reality of the situation kicked in, transforming the last couple of weeks of surrealism into one of shock. And in this state of shock, unable to go to work, my main activity was to slowly walk up and down the hallway thinking "Why?" to myself over and over. I kept asking this question because my world no longer made sense. My truths that my world view were constructed from were, 1. she loved me, and 2. she left me...and that simply did not add up. I could find no acceptable answer to the question that explained why she left me when she loved me, and for 2 weeks i was stuck in the world that no longer made sense. Every time i asked the question i received the same answer. In equation form it was, 'She left me + she loves me = does not add up'...and, unsatisfied, i began to explore, to question why i was receiving the same answer that did not fit the picture of my current situation. Turns out the issue was truth. Specifically, my conclusions\theories\speculations\assumptions\thoughts that i reasoned\accepted\classified\labeled as truth. The problem in the situation was not truth, but what i believed was truth. The problem was not with reality, but my perception of reality. When seeking information, the question could travel no further than my belief that she loved me. My reality was contained within\constructed from my beliefs, and any information contrary to those beliefs could not be seen or understood or accepted as evidence to the contrary. The belief she loved me was that strong that i could not see or consider any alternatives to help explain her leaving me. Add to this conundrum, after a week i began to look through the past decade of our relationship searching for clues as to why she left. I could find none. She loved me and that was that. So i was left with "Why?" repeating itself hour after hour, day after day. After 2 weeks i did something that has changed my life forever. I unlocked myself from my belief that she loved me. This instantly opened up an area beyond the boundaries of that belief. In this new realm, when i sent out my "Why?", what instantly returned was, "She doesn't love you." I looked at this new information like the caveman in 2001 when he first notices the bone. I looked at it as if i had no idea what i was looking at, and then the light slowly dawned. Ah, stick the new info into the equation. She left me + she doesn't love me = does add up. I was both amazed and shocked. Amazed because the answer was so obvious, and shocked because it was the first time i saw how blinding some beliefs\conclusions\thoughts can be. Over the course of a few months as i re-examined the previous decade of our relationship, i could now easily see all the huge cracks in our marriage and that some of these cracks went right back to the beginning. I was now able to clearly see that she stopped loving me from very early on in our marriage, thus her leaving made absolute sense. Mystery\puzzle\confusion solved. From the experience of now seeing reality differently in this one experience of a marriage breakup, i contemplated what was this dream state i had been living in for the last 30 years of my life. The only spiritual experience i had back then was 10 years of christianity that only skimmed the surface of my being and existence. I had no knowledge or understanding of the vast array of spiritual and metaphysical concepts, and my journey through Eastern philosophies was another decade away. But what i was experiencing was the beginning of an increase of awakening that i would eventually read about several years down the track. So by the time i cam across these words from Buddha... "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world." - Buddha "In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true." - Buddha ..they made sense to me. That it's not that reality is an illusion, that we humans are not living in a Matrix, a world of illusion that does not exist. But the Matrix is formed within ourselves, when we believe something to be true when it actually isn't. The reality was my wife left me, she mostly likely had either never loved me(self deluded in thinking attraction was love) or stopped loving me not long after we were married. This was all real. It was real for the decade we were together. The only thing not real, was my perception of it, that i perceived she did love me, when the reality was she never did. Thus i had created a Matrix world in me mindtank that is superimposed over the real world, so that when i observe the real world, the one that contained a wife that didn't love me, all i could see was a world that had a wife that did love me. Some are convinced Buddha was teaching that the physical realm we exist in is the illusion, that the physical; realm and all things contained within it are not real, they are illusions. That's not how i interpret his words. I contemplate he is saying the physical realm is real, and that it's our interpretations\conclusions\beliefs that may not be real\correct. Thus the physical realm is not The Matrix, but our perception of it is, but only when our thoughts\conclusions\beliefs\perception does not match what is actually existing. Please do not waste your time posting arguments about my thoughts on the matter, attempting to prove mine wrong and your's right. If you are convinced the physical realm and perhaps your individual self is an illusion, not real, then please do so. Perceive existence according to your own reasoning, as do i. Your beliefs about existence do not adversely affect my journey, and it seems logical that mine should not affect yours that you would need to dispute my thoughts on the matter. I am open to discussion, but i am not interested in conversing with people who are convinced they are right and use conversation to declare this and attack anything they do not like or disagree with. Jay: Thank you. That's an extremely interesting story, and your interpretation of the Buddha's words seems pretty accurate to me. I don't think the Buddha denied the physical nature of the world at all; his main point was that any "matrix" is created by the intellect. As he said, "With our thoughts we make our world." Who knows why your wife left you? Sometimes people love each other but can't live together. In some cases it is only after people live together that one or both of them discover that he/she/they got married for the wrong reasons. No conclusions need to be reached. I know someone who, on his honeymoon, looked into a mirror, contemplated his future life with his new wife, and realized that he had made a huge mistake. After being totally alone with his wife for two weeks, he realized that he and his wife were not soul mates, and would never be soul mates, and that they had much less in common than he initially believed. A year later, he told his wife that he was leaving, and she was totally shocked; she had thought that their marriage was strong. She asked him why he was leaving, and all he could say was, "I can't really explain it." Many years later he said to me, "She was a wonderful person, and I cared about her deeply, but I discovered that I didn't want to spend my life with her." I have another friend who was married to a woman he deeply loved. They were quite liberal, partied a lot, and led a loose high-flying lifestyle. She had been raised in an extremely fundamentalist religious tradition, but had left it behind. Fifteen years into their marriage his wife developed a tumor, and just before surgery she made a deal with God. The tumor turned out to be benign, but her deal with God changed everything. She no longer wanted to party or even associate with the same friends anymore. She soon left her husband and became a devout church-goer again. Her husband was crushed, but he realized that they could not stay together after her beliefs changed so dramatically. He loved her, but he didn't want to be married to a hardcore fundamentalist who saw even drinking a glass of wine as immoral and sinful. Life can be quite mysterious in its unfoldment. Bottom line? Life is a lot like playing ball on running water. Giving up beliefs, and accepting the isness of "what is" allows one to relax and go with the flow. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2015 11:58:55 GMT -5
Sounds like you want a discussion with a mirror. How is that different from anyone else here? People clump together in cliques because they agree. duh What - is - so - different - He just calls a spade a spade...someone said they were looking for that, or approved of that, or something - admiration of someone who could be up-front. just maybe the difference is he wants a conversation, not a head-nodding -bash the dissenter seshin.  |
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Post by silver on Jul 22, 2015 12:09:56 GMT -5
How is that different from anyone else here? People clump together in cliques because they agree. duh What - is - so - different - He just calls a spade a spade...someone said they were looking for that, or approved of that, or something - admiration of someone who could be up-front. just maybe the difference is he wants a conversation, not a head-nodding -bash the dissenter seshin. How am I 'making Buddha say stuff' exactly - when I'm speaking for my own self - which is quite obvious. And, btw, I think ZD responded appropriately and showed that it can be done, to have a real conversation with someone on a forum. Yeah, it CAN be done, to have a conversation while being free to express exactly how one feels without the inappropriate off-the-wall craziness that is allowed to go on here. Kudos for that, ZD.  |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2015 14:01:14 GMT -5
How am I 'making Buddha say stuff' exactly - when I'm speaking for my own self - which is quite obvious. And, btw, I think ZD responded appropriately and showed that it can be done, to have a real conversation with someone on a forum. Yeah, it CAN be done, to have a conversation while being free to express exactly how one feels without the inappropriate off-the-wall craziness that is allowed to go on here. Kudos for that, ZD. What Buddha was saying, which is the point of this discussion, is that if you live in the conceptual realm of mind(world) whatever you identify with is going to change, like a relationship with someone. And it can lead to trouble and eventually suffering if one believes that the relationship was built on any kind of permanence, like a concept of 'ever lasting Love'. |
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Post by silver on Jul 22, 2015 14:12:08 GMT -5
How am I 'making Buddha say stuff' exactly - when I'm speaking for my own self - which is quite obvious. And, btw, I think ZD responded appropriately and showed that it can be done, to have a real conversation with someone on a forum. Yeah, it CAN be done, to have a conversation while being free to express exactly how one feels without the inappropriate off-the-wall craziness that is allowed to go on here. Kudos for that, ZD. What Buddha was saying, which is the point of this discussion, is that if you live in the conceptual realm of mind(world) whatever you identify with is going to change, like a relationship with someone. And it can lead to trouble and eventually suffering if one believes that the relationship was built on the concept of 'ever lasting Love'. I hardly think that's the ONLY point of the discussion - there are as many as one wants to make - to speak up about. I guess there should be nobody wanting to get married because of this, and also the stats out there. *shrug* I don't know what to make of it meself. |
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Post by laughter on Jul 22, 2015 14:52:02 GMT -5
How is that different from anyone else here? People clump together in cliques because they agree. duh What - is - so - different - He just calls a spade a spade...someone said they were looking for that, or approved of that, or something - admiration of someone who could be up-front. just maybe the difference is he wants a conversation, not a head-nodding -bash the dissenter seshin.  (** nods head **) |
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Post by earnest on Jul 22, 2015 22:34:03 GMT -5
I have read that the main reason Buddha went on his metaphyscial journey was to understand and resolve the pain that humans experience. He was searching for understanding of emotional-mental pain,and he discovered it was self created and inflicted, thus he reasoned it must have to do with how we perceive existence, how we think, the conclusions we create and accept\believe\label as truth and thus behave according to them. I'm not quite able to get the wording of this point/question quite right, but I'll have a go. If you believe that emotional-mental pain is self created and inflicted,. do you believe that this pain is chosen? (and I'm acknowledging that it could be a "faulty choice") If it is done out of choice,. do you think it can be improved/strengthened over time? The way I'm reading what you wrote, I interpret it that you see pain occurring basically as a result of a poor choice. Is my understanding accurate? |
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Post by zendancer on Jul 23, 2015 8:10:32 GMT -5
I have read that the main reason Buddha went on his metaphyscial journey was to understand and resolve the pain that humans experience. He was searching for understanding of emotional-mental pain,and he discovered it was self created and inflicted, thus he reasoned it must have to do with how we perceive existence, how we think, the conclusions we create and accept\believe\label as truth and thus behave according to them. I'm not quite able to get the wording of this point/question quite right, but I'll have a go. If you believe that emotional-mental pain is self created and inflicted,. do you believe that this pain is chosen? (and I'm acknowledging that it could be a "faulty choice") If it is done out of choice,. do you think it can be improved/strengthened over time? The way I'm reading what you wrote, I interpret it that you see pain occurring basically as a result of a poor choice. Is my understanding accurate? My understanding of the Buddha's search for truth is somewhat different. The guy was primarily a thinker rather than a feeler (as evidenced by his vast recorded analytical/socratic dialogues), so its more likely that he was driven by curiosity rather than emotional/mental pain. He told his disciples that at the age of 30 he became consumed by three existential questions, "Why do humans suffer, why do they grow old, and why do they die?" After six years of talking to gurus (without resolving anything), fasting (without success), and meditating (which led to deep states of unity consciousness), he had a mind-blowing cosmic-consciousness experience when he saw the planet Venus rise above the horizon at dawn. He claimed that the space between Venus and himself collapsed. His experience resulted in many realizations, and all of his questions were resolved. He reportedly exclaimed to himself at that time, "How amazing, in all the universe I am the only one." From what he later told his disciples, there was no reasoning involved in his realization; instead, it was a sudden seeing into the nature of existence. Subsequently, he taught people to meditate, explained that suffering results from desire, and walked around India for about 45 years teaching. As you noted, much of his teaching involved explaining how thoughts affect our perception and understanding of the world. He taught many of the same parables as Christ, and he became best known for his teachings about meditation (which is why there are statues all over Asia of the Buddha sitting in meditation). He had numerous disciples who became enlightened as a result of his teachings, and his verbal interactions with his disciples and other people, and his many sermons, are recorded in the Buddhist canon, which is eleven times longer than the Bible. Although he was extremely logical, and intellectually brilliant, he emphasized the importance of direct seeing into the nature of reality and Self-realization. The Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra, among others, are short summations of what he taught. Of course, as with any interpretation of historical records, one's mileage may vary. LOL |
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Post by earnest on Jul 23, 2015 17:56:35 GMT -5
I'm not quite able to get the wording of this point/question quite right, but I'll have a go. If you believe that emotional-mental pain is self created and inflicted,. do you believe that this pain is chosen? (and I'm acknowledging that it could be a "faulty choice") If it is done out of choice,. do you think it can be improved/strengthened over time? The way I'm reading what you wrote, I interpret it that you see pain occurring basically as a result of a poor choice. Is my understanding accurate? My understanding of the Buddha's search for truth is somewhat different. The guy was primarily a thinker rather than a feeler (as evidenced by his vast recorded analytical/socratic dialogues), so its more likely that he was driven by curiosity rather than emotional/mental pain. He told his disciples that at the age of 30 he became consumed by three existential questions, "Why do humans suffer, why do they grow old, and why do they die?" After six years of talking to gurus (without resolving anything), fasting (without success), and meditating (which led to deep states of unity consciousness), he had a mind-blowing cosmic-consciousness experience when he saw the planet Venus rise above the horizon at dawn. He claimed that the space between Venus and himself collapsed. His experience resulted in many realizations, and all of his questions were resolved. He reportedly exclaimed to himself at that time, "How amazing, in all the universe I am the only one." From what he later told his disciples, there was no reasoning involved in his realization; instead, it was a sudden seeing into the nature of existence. Subsequently, he taught people to meditate, explained that suffering results from desire, and walked around India for about 45 years teaching. As you noted, much of his teaching involved explaining how thoughts affect our perception and understanding of the world. He taught many of the same parables as Christ, and he became best known for his teachings about meditation (which is why there are statues all over Asia of the Buddha sitting in meditation). He had numerous disciples who became enlightened as a result of his teachings, and his verbal interactions with his disciples and other people, and his many sermons, are recorded in the Buddhist canon, which is eleven times longer than the Bible. Although he was extremely logical, and intellectually brilliant, he emphasized the importance of direct seeing into the nature of reality and Self-realization. The Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra, among others, are short summations of what he taught. Of course, as with any interpretation of historical records, one's mileage may vary. LOL Thanks ZD,. its probably starting to circle back on to a free will/choice question for me. I don't see pain as being a problem and that being pain-free is desirable. Suffering is a different story and the Buddha did a good job on that topic Re what Jay is saying and how I broadly interpret him to believe he has a choice around beliefs,. my experience has been that I don't consciously choose to either have or not have the beliefs I've got – I just get what I'm given. Of the beliefs that I'm aware of, I don't seem to have any ability to collapse them through conscious choice, or be able to just choose not to have them. The ones that have collapsed didn't do so because I woke up one morning and decided to chuck them in the bin. It seems that all I can do is just be open for investigation and willing to have a look (that willingness to even have a look seems like an act of grace). So like you said, what the Buddha went through seems like it was a similar process – he just kept on investigating. |
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Post by tzujanli on Jul 24, 2015 7:06:31 GMT -5
I have read that the main reason Buddha went on his metaphyscial journey was to understand and resolve the pain that humans experience. He was searching for understanding of emotional-mental pain,and he discovered it was self created and inflicted, thus he reasoned it must have to do with how we perceive existence, how we think, the conclusions we create and accept\believe\label as truth and thus behave according to them. Read more: spiritualteachers.proboards.com/thread/4214/buddhas-matrix?page=1#ixzz3goCozs82The story of Buddha reveals the illusion his parents perpetrated, the illusion of a 'perfect life', but.. when Buddha was exposed to reality he was shocked, the remainder of his physical existence is compensating for his inability to deal with his parents' ruse.. his fundamental misunderstanding, born of the realization that existence was not the illusions his parents played, was that "Life is suffering", and it is not.. 'suffering' was what he saw when he saw through the illusions his parents surrounded him with.. Life IS, then the experiencer creates their mindscape as a representation of Life, mistaking the representation for the isness is a source of suffering.. Buddha's choice to pretend there's no one to suffer was an escape from his emotional suffering due to his parent's deceptions.. When the experiencer is not attached to ideas, beliefs, and self-images, suffering is just another word for pain.. a natural happening of physical experience.. |
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Post by silver on Jul 24, 2015 14:50:44 GMT -5
I have read that the main reason Buddha went on his metaphyscial journey was to understand and resolve the pain that humans experience. He was searching for understanding of emotional-mental pain,and he discovered it was self created and inflicted, thus he reasoned it must have to do with how we perceive existence, how we think, the conclusions we create and accept\believe\label as truth and thus behave according to them. Read more: spiritualteachers.proboards.com/thread/4214/buddhas-matrix?page=1#ixzz3goCozs82The story of Buddha reveals the illusion his parents perpetrated, the illusion of a 'perfect life', but.. when Buddha was exposed to reality he was shocked, the remainder of his physical existence is compensating for his inability to deal with his parents' ruse.. his fundamental misunderstanding, born of the realization that existence was not the illusions his parents played, was that "Life is suffering", and it is not. . 'suffering' was what he saw when he saw through the illusions his parents surrounded him with.. Life IS, then the experiencer creates their mind-scape as a representation of Life, mistaking the representation for the isness is a source of suffering.. Buddha's choice to pretend there's no one to suffer was an escape from his emotional suffering due to his parent's deceptions..When the experiencer is not attached to ideas, beliefs, and self-images, suffering is just another word for pain.. a natural happening of physical experience..While I agree with what I underscored and the very last sentence, I think he very well may have experienced something real and significant in his meditations and I don't think we should discount that. |
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Post by elgeeto on Aug 2, 2015 15:17:32 GMT -5
I always thought having the matrix condition someone to love you unconditionally was like an unbelievable request, way more difficult to provide than money or respect.
But Gods' got a plan he leeched the variables from your previous outcarnation it'll all work superb probably from here on out.
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