waddicalwabbit
Full Member
Let's all go down the wabbit hole
Posts: 125
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Post by waddicalwabbit on Jul 6, 2010 22:19:09 GMT -5
See ZD? THAT'S why we keep you around. Nice catch. Lovely post. Thank you.
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Post by charliegee on Jul 6, 2010 22:20:44 GMT -5
for waddicalwabbit ...
lost my best friend when my wife died but gained another friend in the process ... don't know how it happened I was emptied gutted, cleaned out, filleted there was nothing left when it was over' but 'I' was still there walking, talking living and breathing and thankful so very thankful grateful for life in all it's messiness it's incredible beauty it's astounding incomprehensible brutality if presented with the proposition beforehand ~ lose your wife see her suffer and die lose every faculty that makes up a human being and you'll gain freedom in the process deal? deal? ... I'd spit in your face but that's exactly what happened not because she died there was no exchange but there was a blessing I was the recipient
lost my best friend when my wife died but gained another friend in the process ... me ... CG 7/6/10
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Post by enigma on Jul 6, 2010 22:41:03 GMT -5
Hi enigma. What I find is that it's easy to learn the advaita terminology and 'belief' system and to parrot it. "It is all one, there is no two, nothing is ever wrong, blahblahblah". I sense both on this forum; a very few, if any (how would i know? By what measure would I judge? who live in abiding non duality if you will and those who believe in it, if you get my drift. No judgment here. For me I fall into category B. I get to live bits of it sometimes, but mostly I just like to hang out with you all. Partial non abiding awakeness is great, sorta like pasteurized processed cheese food substance. It ain't cheese but it has some protein. God, I'm a whackjob. When I use 'you' in the following, I'm addressing anyone in the group. (even me) It seems like there are a small, but critical handful of instances where the 'belief' might break down. For me they fit into these categories: Nothing is ever wrong. Even when something truly 'horrible' happens to someone we dearly love. When their lives are shattered perhaps forever. I literally just closed my finger in the car door. Feels wrong to me. :-). Ok, I'll probably get over it, but it's bleeding all over my keyboard. See how easy this is? Life is meaningless. I encourage everyone to wear that to work today and then bring it home to their families. See how that fits and feels. To examine everything that happens or that we do and see that virtually EVERY action we take is driven by some perhaps subtle motivation to feel better about ourselves. 'I' finished that huge pile of work in only 4 hours today, I cut and baled 61 round bales all by myself', I made a nice breakfast for the grandkids'. Obviously these could just be awarenesses but more likely are some kinda egofood. It's challenging to be this relentless. Not that there's anything 'wrong' with feeding that little illusion if you care to. One of my struggles (and lessons) has been my inability to 'do' hardly a darn thing. Can't walk a mile many days or help my friends who have invited me to 'die' on their land, many days can't sit at the computer and type or even read. Life is meaningless. :-) No separation. Today a woman is being stoned to death in Iran. YOU are throwing the stones. You are the woman being stoned. You are the judge that decreed this. It is your 'fault' this is happening. This is NOT theoretical. If you go there in your heart and try that on all the way down, live that experience from those various positions, does that work for you? There is no independent volition. Nobody is doing anything. You can state this, you can make it a belief, but do you hold it as true down to the atoms that make up the cells that make up the bones deep inside of your experience? Come on, do you really? Did you really go there? Or is it just a belief? For myself, I'm not answering these questions in this now and I'm not suggesting that anyone else needs to answer for themselves. Just doing the work that dispels illusion. McKenna in that little video that Ahab put up talks about cutting off an ounce of flesh every day between here and enlightenment to help you stay focused, to crank your seriousness up a notch. How much of you is gone by the time you awaken? Hmmmm, let's see, I weigh just under 200 lbs. That would give me about 9 years here on dirtworld. I'd take that. :-) Love to all, Wabbit Nothing is ever wrong, but do everything you can to make it right. Life has no inherent meaning, so the only place you'll find it is in your own heart. There is no separation, so don't separate your divine nature from your human nature. There is no independent volition, so you're free from the burden of having to hold your life together or find someone to blame when you can't. If Truth denies life, it's not Truth, but if life denies Truth, it's not life.
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Post by ravenscroft on Jul 7, 2010 6:13:02 GMT -5
Let me first say that I don't intended to minimize anyone's loss in their life in anyway with this post. I have had my own tragedies in my life so I understand...however maybe I'm ignorant but you lose me here ... maybe I'm too simplistic to grasp any of this but would you tell the parents of a little girl who was raped and murdered that right and wrong are relative? ... I'm not trying to be cute here and would really like an answer to this. this is a terribly important question I would answer with this If I murder someone in my dream last night - was that wrong? Was there anything wrong with me dreaming that - what about the victim in my dream? just apply that to what you think of as "reality" - no more truth than that everyone wants it both ways - they want the nice comfy ideas about this "theory" of non-duality - but you give them examples like this or Hitler or whatever and they try to fit absolute truth, INTO the dream of separation you don't get to have it both ways the two truths DO NOT coexist nicely I am not saying you tell the parents this of course - that is just cruel but if we are talking about absolute truth here - lets put our cards on the table the child - the murderer - the parents in the above example are all one "thing" and no amount of emotional reaction can make then not that the truth is stark and true all the time or never, and once seen as this it can never be un-seen again
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Post by charliegee on Jul 7, 2010 7:15:04 GMT -5
thanks for your reply Raven ... this is a terribly important question and I only ask to lessen my confusion ... I agree that truth can only be one but if that is so then how can it still be relative ... excuse my ignorance but if 2 and 2 is 4 for me, isn't it for everyone ... maybe it's the terminology that confuses me ... or my feeble understanding ...
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Post by charliegee on Jul 7, 2010 7:22:31 GMT -5
even if the child, murderer and parents are one thing ~ that does nothing to ease the pain, the wrong, if you will, of the horrendous action of taking a life ... or am I posing questions in an incorrect manner? ... I feel like a two year-old child asked to comprehend advanced physics ... is my being a father and grandfather interfering with the reality of all this? ... again there is no duplicity here but a sincere desire to understand ...
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Post by loverofall on Jul 7, 2010 7:39:57 GMT -5
Wrong things happen every second and so do right things. We experience it and move on but the conceptual mind holds on and resists and extends.
My dog of 16 years died last week. I was very sad but it was the briefest mourning I have been through. The images and memories of my dog just didn't stick to keep the grief going. My mind moved on quicker like a little child. Every once in a while I get pulled back by seeing something that triggers an image and then the thought arises, I miss my dog and images of her appear and create sadness. A part of me sees this as ridiculous to fuel these images and they stop. I wasn't indifferent. I experienced sadness but I move on seeing at as part of the dance of life.
If its a thought or image, I think its the mind resisting. I then am brought back to a story I just heard about a friend that died in high school twenty plus years ago and the mom still has his bedroom. Yikes baby. Thats real resistance. The degrees are amazing.
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Post by charliegee on Jul 7, 2010 8:01:50 GMT -5
great post loa ... I agree for the most part in all that you said ... I lost my mom in March but I was so happy that she wasn't in pain anymore that my period of mourning was also brief ... I also lost my wife to cancer last year and though the transition was more difficult, it was a life-changing event for me ... put so many things in perspective ...
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Post by ravenscroft on Jul 7, 2010 8:37:57 GMT -5
even if the child, murderer and parents are one thing ~ that does nothing to ease the pain, the wrong, if you will, of the horrendous action of taking a life ... or am I posing questions in an incorrect manner? ... I feel like a two year-old child asked to comprehend advanced physics ... is my being a father and grandfather interfering with the reality of all this? ... again there is no duplicity here but a sincere desire to understand ... again, I don't want to appear insensitive here, because if you knew me - you would see that I am not insensitive As I said above, I have lost people and know - what that is but if you dreamed that you murdered someone is that a "horrendous taking of life?" if you dreamed that someone close to you died and in that dream you felt terrible grief - is that terrible pain real? or are you dreaming it? a few seconds after you wake up from that dream you may believe it but an hour later? a day later? gone this is waking FROM the dream is make sense? duality and non-duality do not coexists what is infinitly true in one time or place in always and forever infinitely true and any perception that is 99.999% true is (of course) completely false
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Post by charliegee on Jul 7, 2010 9:28:28 GMT -5
thanks Raven ~ i'm gonna live with this post awhile ~ it makes sense and yet ....
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Post by ravenscroft on Jul 7, 2010 9:31:18 GMT -5
thanks Raven ~ i'm gonna live with this post awhile ~ it makes sense and yet .... sure thing friend
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Post by souley on Jul 7, 2010 10:34:06 GMT -5
Maybe to have "good" things we need to have "bad" things. It would be nice with a world without the bad things, but if you remove the bad, it would be hard to keep the good. If people could not be ignorant, they could probably not be open to try new things either. If people could not get cancer, we would not have any evolution. Cancelling the bad, would cancel the good. A "perfect" world would literally be nothing.
And that nothing does exist, as the non dual crap everybody is talking about. But maybe that was too boring, and the universe needed some pleasure and pain to keep things interesting.. and here we go with the dual stuff of right and wrong, good and bad. But it is also very good to return to nothing once in a while.. to keep some well needed distance and non-attachment.
I quote Douglas Harding "God would have loved to create a world of only good things, but it was not possible". And as usual this is just a philosophy.. it is not needed in any way to live life for real. Sitting down on my balcony with a cup of coffee is infinitely closer to the truth:)
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Post by zendancer on Jul 7, 2010 10:38:25 GMT -5
I'd hug them and cry with them ... hold their hand and bring them coffeee and cake and dinner and just plain love them ... great point ZD ... I'm honestly asking these questions and appreciate your measured and compassionate responses ... yes Jesus pointed to the higher truths beyond right and wrong ... a 'higher right, if you will beyond the distinctions of the Pharisees ... and the only people he beefed with were the religious people ... they who are awash in 'right and wrong' but sorely lacking in mercy ... Charlie: Yes. You knew exactly what to do in that situation. Words and thoughts were not necessary. Now, consider extending this direct understanding and response into everyday life in every moment. Enigma asked, "Why not now, always?" These words point to the radical state of being that you, yourself, have recently experienced. I left my office an hour ago and was driving to a construction project. As I drove along, I was looking at "what is" in silence. In that silence all distinctions ceased to exist. There was no "me," no "car," no "trees," no "sky," no "right," no "wrong," no "inside," no "outside," no "hypothethically murdered baby," no "hypothetically grieving parents," etc. When the body/mind is not imagining, not fantasizing about a hypothetical future, and not reflecting upon a remembered past, there is only THIS. THIS is the living truth and it is unimaginable. You can see it, and I can see it, but it is not a product of the mind. All products of the mind are imaginary and relative. THIS is the world of the absolute and the non dual. In THIS, oneness reigns supreme. In oneness, as oneness, we respond moment to moment as we must. If we see with the eye of oneness, then what the Buddha called "right action" automatically arises, and we respond to situations appropriately. THIS is the world that Jesus called "the kingdom of God." In THIS, personal selfhood is absent and we see everyone and everything as it IS. From my perspective I am writing this note to myself--one wave to another wave in the infinite ocean of God. You have had the direct experience of THIS, and your eyes have been opened to the mystery underlying everyday existence, but it takes awhile before intellectual understanding can catch up with what the body already knows. The more time you spend directly perceiving and interacting with "what is," the more clarity you will attain regarding the relationship between imagination and reality. Don't, however, be tempted to second-guess yourself. Your poems and writings are evidence that you're doing just fine. Non dual lingo is not important at all. Staying open, compassionate, joyous, grateful, kind, peaceful, and loving is what's important. Cheers.
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Post by karen on Jul 7, 2010 10:44:03 GMT -5
I'd recommend you stay with the questions longer, but better if you asked them of yourself, so you can get the answer yourself.
But make sure you don't ask a question you think you already know the answer to, because doing that will just be chasing your tail - in my experience.
For example: if it's absolutely wrong for a man to kill a child, is it absolutely wrong for a lion to kill a cub? A lot of people hold onto the assumption people are subject to a absolute moral continuum, but that animals are of nature and morality doesn't apply to them. If this is believed then why should it be believed? Exactly how is man subject to a moral rule-set and animals are not? What is the actual linkage between man and an act that can create a condition of wrongness?
I grappled with similar concerns myself in my seeking, and I found the answers that put the issue to rest. You can too - especially if you do it yourself! It's way more powerful coming from yourself.
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Post by charliegee on Jul 7, 2010 11:43:25 GMT -5
thanks ZD ~ for some reason that last post really spoke to me and delivered 'the message' in a clear and concrete way ~ when I read things as straightforward as that, I can follow along rather easily ... it's like, 'oh yeah, that' ... I often find that powerful truths usually wear simple clothes ... I know about walking along with my granddaughter in the bright, hot sun and playing a game of adding the numbers on license plates ... I was also struck when you mentioned the playfulness of certain people you know as I find that attitude generally lacking in this humorless, bottom-line life I see around me ... I know too that as serious as things may seem, and they are at times, there is also the play of nature, the laughter of a child, the changing skies and the existence of love ... everything else pales in comparison ...
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