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Post by Reefs on Mar 1, 2018 3:44:38 GMT -5
We've been on the verge of coming to a mutual agreement several times, but we kept it spinning just for you. Haha, thanks.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 3:54:44 GMT -5
The tension between desires doesn't stop. The tension doesn't have to be a big deal though, it's not often a big deal for animals. The cat wants to go out. The cat wants to stay in. The cat wants to go out. The cat wants to stay in. I've seen cats do this for half an hour lol but it's okay for the cat because they aren't making a problem out of what humans call 'indecision'. Indecision only tends to be a problem when we are telling a story about being undecided and believing that it has to be resolved. Normally folks are able to 'decide' and 'commit', because the energy of (or desire for) the separate chooser is quite strong, but I largely lost that capacity at a particular point, and then where there was indecision, it was just a case of going with the movements, and it took as long as it took for one movement to become sufficiently strong. Again, I'm not talking about indecision or committing. I'm saying, once a decision is made, let go of the contradicting one. It's literally a no-brainer.My experience with both dogs and cats is that they often want to be wherever they are not, which makes for a lot of door opening, but is not wanting both things at once. If you think they want to be both inside and outside at the same time, tell me how you know. The only one that could 'let it go' is the apparent chooser, right? Now, the apparent chooser seems to make a decision, but this is an illusion. All that is happening is that the body is following internal movements. There's no 'actual' decision made, so equally, there's no possibility of 'letting go' of a different movement. However, if the desire or movement behind the apparent chooser is strong (as it is for most people), THEN it will also strongly seem as if the apparent chooser decides, and it will seem strongly possible to 'let go' of the other movement. I have to assume that for you, the desire/movement behind the apparent chooser is strong in order for you to experience 'letting go of another movement'.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 3:55:30 GMT -5
I didn't say there's no apparent choice made. I did say I don't make a choice and let another one go. Choices are apparently made, but they're not technically 'choices' if what we are doing is following movements. I didn't say you did. Seemed like you did strongly imply it at least, but okay.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 3:57:18 GMT -5
There's some misrepresenting happening here. I have said that choices are apparently made, but there's no 'letting one go'. When did you last see an animal 'let a desire or other choice go'? To 'let go of a desire or choice' is a rational, independent/separate self thing to do....and actually I would say that what happens is that the energy of the other desire is suppressed temporarily. How the heck would I know if they let the other choice (the one they didn't make) go? For that matter, how do you know? I know because I understand the rational aspect of their mind isn't highly developed. They don't rationally think...'I've chosen that, so I'll let the other one go'. They don't experience themselves AS choosers or letter goers.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 4:00:06 GMT -5
Well, no, there can also be a witnessing of the energies playing out....and that's something that developed for me as the ability to 'commit to a choice' and 'let go of a desire' began to fall away. When there is conflict between energies, sometimes there's not much to do but just observe it happening. Beyond that, one can engage consciously and intelligently with the movements, work with the desires rather than trying to control them. I guess your experience is that a desire can be dropped, or let go of, hence why it is not 'bigger' than you. Generally, we have no control over desires. We've been talking about choosing one of two mutually exclusive desires, and letting the other one go. This should happen naturally and effortlessly. If you had a desire to meet Santa, and then found out there was no Santa, the desire to meet him should fall away. It shouldn't 'play out' like some energy that has to exhaust itself. Well that's a particular example in which you have discovered that what you have believed is a lie, but even there, I'm not sure the desire to meet him actually falls away, hence why kids experience 'disappointment' and maybe even 'betrayal' when they find out they've been lied to by their parents. That same desire is either suppressed, or it expresses itself a different way.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 4:00:51 GMT -5
The new definition IS the spiritual thinking. Getting lost in the spiritual thinking would be a failure to recognize that the new definition applies only with a small context in which the body and mind are assumed to be disconnected. I'm going to assume that your whole idea of connecting it to a spiritual idea was based on a poorly conceived guess. We can drop it. LOL I see.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 4:03:44 GMT -5
Well first off I am saying that ultimately there is no psychological resistance AND body resistance. I'm saying that resistance is associated with the body-mind as a whole. If the body resists, the mind resists. If the mind resists, the body resists. Hence why, if you change something in mind, that will reflect in the body, but also....if you change you body, your thoughts will also change. It's one system. So, notice that in what you replied to...I didn't speak of 'psychological' resistance, I spoke of 'resistance'. Otherwise, no, resistance doesn't have to be paid attention to, in order to call it resistance. Obviously not so, as demonstrated with the tea drinking example, but keep saying it because you might make it true. Just because you don't notice something in mind or body doesn't mean it's not there. Most of the time we only notice what is dominant, hence why if folks noticed that they are often experiencing a level of existential suffering, they would probably look closely at it. For the most part though, it is a quiet undercurrent of acceptable stress or dissatisfaction.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 4:06:25 GMT -5
But that's not my intent. Desires play themselves out whether I like it or not, I have no particular interest in 'allowing' desires to play out, they do anyway, and all the time. Making choices apparently happens, but I am never 'letting the other go'. Is that what you do? I would say the specific form that desires take is formed in mind according to conditioning, but 'desire' itself isn't formed in mind. This is actually an interesting issue. What is 'desire'? Desire is based on attraction via like or repulsion via dislike, emotional. Most "decisions" are emotional, and the job of the intellect is to supply reasons, ex post facto. (Of course all of this is done unconsciously, that is, subconsciously, the meaning behind "nonvolition"). Yeah, but I'm asking where desires springs from. Or are you saying, desire is the product of two forces? In which case...to go with your idea of 'essence'....maybe essence has a kind of 'resonation' with certain things, and the result of this resonation is 'desire'.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 4:09:39 GMT -5
Bingo, generally we have no control of desires, that says everything. Desires rule, override reason. Emotion rules. Don't you see this conflicts with your definition of nonvolition?No. You and Andy haven't been listening to me, and you still aren't. You heard 'let go of the other desire' and you stopped listening and ran with it. well that's one of the central points. Simply, who/what lets it go? I mean, it makes 'rational sense' to 'let it go', and I can see why you consider it to be adult and mature, because functioning in the world we have created sort of requires it. The systems we have created, all require the ability to basically suppress desires, and instead create an illusion of 'deciding' and 'letting go'. If folks didn't do that, a lot would struggle to go to work probably. These folks have to 'commit to their decision' in order to pay the bills. Even folks who generally like their work may not like their work every day, but are still obliged by the rules of the work place to show up. 'Committing to a chocie' is an ability that humans take for granted, but it's an odd thing. It perpetuates the movement behind the illusionary separate self.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 1, 2018 4:32:49 GMT -5
I have heard accounts of people remembering being born, you can probably google it. There is a person there, present from birth. So a person that can suffer. But that's not what we usually call a 'person' around here. Persons are illusions and illusions can't suffer.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 1, 2018 5:08:11 GMT -5
One of the many problems with observing behavior to determine when suffering is happening, is that we inevitably compare it to our own behavior when we suffer. I.E. you would have to suffer a lot to cry like that, so baby must be suffering a lot. Sometimes it is better just to trust your intuition, instinct and paternal instinct. I don't have a problem with talking about a particular form of adult human suffering (which I see you doing), but I think the idea that babies and animals don't/can't suffer is spiritual ideas gone a bit wrong. If it is intelligent, it can suffer. I suspect that much of the human movement towards spirituality is the natural desire to stop the suffering. Fair enough. But I think what can happen is that we can end up distancing ourselves from suffering, which is actually a subtle form of separation. There's nothing wrong with suffering given that we also experience pain and illness etc. When you see a baby in pain, you should suffer a bit. Take a look at the comments on the video....notice how people are suffering when they see it, some of the reactions are quite disturbing in fact. The goal of spirituality isn't actually not to suffer, it is to become more intelligent in our response to suffering. I agree that no reaction at all would indicate something gone awry. But I also think it's worth distinguishing between compassion and empathy here. They are often used interchangeably but there's quite a significant difference. Compassion is a natural and healthy reaction, empathy or commiseration is not. One is the feeling of alignment, the other the feeling of separation. Now, I haven't read those comments but my guess is that they all belong into the empathy/commiseration column. The way I understood Enigma's point is that there's a sensation that is experienced as extremely painful (which is what it is) but then there's some kind of additional commentary track in people's heads running parallel to that pure physical sensation which is (unnecessarily) amplifying the (perceived) pain level. But that's optional. And it's that optional part that creates the suffering. So looking at this thru the eyes of source, compassion would be the natural reaction. You sense someone is in pain but you don't feel in pain yourself because you are in alignment. If witnessing their pain would make you feel pain as well then you are not in alignment and are looking at this thru the eyes of the person.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 5:35:19 GMT -5
Sometimes it is better just to trust your intuition, instinct and paternal instinct. I don't have a problem with talking about a particular form of adult human suffering (which I see you doing), but I think the idea that babies and animals don't/can't suffer is spiritual ideas gone a bit wrong. If it is intelligent, it can suffer. I suspect that much of the human movement towards spirituality is the natural desire to stop the suffering. Fair enough. But I think what can happen is that we can end up distancing ourselves from suffering, which is actually a subtle form of separation. There's nothing wrong with suffering given that we also experience pain and illness etc. When you see a baby in pain, you should suffer a bit. Take a look at the comments on the video....notice how people are suffering when they see it, some of the reactions are quite disturbing in fact. The goal of spirituality isn't actually not to suffer, it is to become more intelligent in our response to suffering. I agree that no reaction at all would indicate something gone awry. But I also think it's worth distinguishing between compassion and empathy here. They are often used interchangeably but there's quite a significant difference. Compassion is a natural and healthy reaction, empathy or commiseration is not. One is the feeling of alignment, the other the feeling of separation. Now, I haven't read those comments but my guess is that they all belong into the empathy/commiseration column. The way I understood Enigma's point is that there's a sensation that is experienced as extremely painful (which is what it is) but then there's some kind of additional commentary track in people's heads running parallel to that pure physical sensation which is (unnecessarily) amplifying the (perceived) pain level. But that's optional. And it's that optional part that creates the suffering. So looking at this thru the eyes of source, compassion would be the natural reaction. You sense someone is in pain but you don't feel in pain yourself because you are in alignment. If witnessing their pain would make you feel pain as well then you are not in alignment and are looking at this thru the eyes of the person. I would say that when there is pain, there is suffering, but the additional commentary track aggravates and compounds the pain/suffering and IS something we can look at, thereby changing our experience of the pain/suffering quite radically. Yes, there is a distinction between compassion and empathy (though actually, if I recall, the disturbing reactions I noticed were more of the violent kind.) I think both compassion and empathy are natural, though compassion is the healthy off spring of empathy. Though even in compassion, one has to be able to relate to the suffering of another, so in that moment, the suffering is found within oneself. That doesn't mean we have to engage with it, or go into it, but it is 'there' nevertheless. I think to engage, or go INTO the suffering would be what is called 'pity'. I think many folks struggle with the healthiness of compassion because it is absent strong value judgement. Folks naturally and instinctively empathize, and then will go into pity, or will perhaps demonstrate the kind of violent reactions that I noted on that thread.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 1, 2018 7:31:00 GMT -5
yeah, but good non-duality can go beyond the 'illusion' bit in my opinion (as I tried to explain). 'Good' non-duality?
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Post by Reefs on Mar 1, 2018 7:37:21 GMT -5
I'm not entirely convinced it's all to do with what you go on to talk about below, for me it only becomes an issue when we begin to talk about SR as the end of all suffering, which is a notion I've never subscribed to, so it's not really an issue for me. Yes, it occurred to me that the other day I said that the Buddha didn't actually define suffering, and whilst that is technically true, otoh everything he taught was essentially an expansion of dukkha, it's causes, it's cessation, and the pathless path to its cessation. Voluminously he characterised dukkha, and corresponding various qualitative experience, yet steadfastly maintaining that ultimately it would remain anathema in any instance other than direct realisation. However, fwiw it's precisely because the conditions for the arising and cessation of suffering can be categorised that I don't see suffering as something strictly subjective. Therefore, for me this isn't quite accurate. Really suffering can't be classified as soley subjective, for that reason, nor soley objective for others. SR is the end of existential suffering. Alignment is the end of psychological suffering.
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Post by andrew on Mar 1, 2018 7:37:28 GMT -5
yeah, but good non-duality can go beyond the 'illusion' bit in my opinion (as I tried to explain). 'Good' non-duality? yeah, as opposed to mickey mouse non-duality that sometimes blags its way onto the amazon book charts
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