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"The gift of Dhamma excels all gifts; the taste of the Dhamma excels all tastes; the delight in Dhamma excels all delights. The Craving-Freed vanquishes all suffering". ~ Dhammapada

Anatta

Desire is quite natural. When hungry, food cravings take on a very personal note. It's the perversion aspect that leads to angstiness.

LAMA THUBTEN YESHE We think we are conscious but we are not - The nature of emotional pride is such that you go around with your nose in the air. You never want to see what’s in front of you or look down. The antidote is to do prostrations. When I talk about prostrations I don’t mean that you prostrate to only the Buddha. As Shantideva said, we can also prostrate to all mother sentient beings by remembering that the basic, fundamental nature of their minds is as equally pure as that of an enlightened being. Furthermore, doing prostrations doesn’t necessarily mean doing either the full length or five-point ones. If you’re out on a busy city street and suddenly go down on the sidewalk people are going to freak out. Instead of doing that you can simply make mental prostrations. Remember, there are three ways of prostrating: with body, speech and mind. The Buddha was so skillful. He gave us methods for every situation. So even if you’re on a crowded street and want to make prostrations, instead of putting on a big show and doing them physically, where everybody’s going to think, “What on earth is that?” you can just prostrate mentally. If you do things with understanding, it’s so worthwhile. If you do them without understanding and then ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?” you’ll conclude that you’re going backwards instead of advancing. Practicing with understanding is helpful in treating your uncontrolled mind. If you practice like that everything will become worthwhile. The same applies to making offerings. We don’t offer food to the Buddha because he’s hungry. We do it as part of training our mind to release emotional miserliness. The way we should look at charity is that no matter what the material value of what we give, the real value of generosity is in what we gain: knowledge wisdom. Of course, it depends on your attitude. Even if you offer only one dollar you can still gain a lot. Basically you have to understand the psychology of the various Dharma practices you do, especially those that automatically make you uncomfortable. But everything has meaning. For example, incense symbolises the pure energy of body, speech and mind, especially pure thoughts. The real essence of incense, that enlightened energy, is within you and the sticks we burn are external symbols of that. The real incense is in your mind. You have to know that, otherwise when you offer incense you’re just imitating people you’ve seen doing it, just copying Easterners. That’s not right. The real incense is your pure thought that gives pure vibrations to others. It’s the same when you’re offering light. External lights have the function of destroying darkness, of making things clear. But the real candlelight is within you — it’s your wisdom. So whenever you offer incense or light you should do so with a dedication like, “May my mind and those of all mother sentient beings be filled with the light of knowledge wisdom and completely purified of the darkness shadow that makes us totally unconscious and causes all suffering.” In other words, everything we do that might look like ritual is actually training our mind and freeing us from agitated states and impulses. It’s very useful. Then why do we have all these physical objects on our altars? Buddhists are supposed to renounce material things and then we put all these statues and paintings here? That’s kind of strange. Well, we think it’s far preferable to having pictures of fashion models and rock stars on our walls. Those things automatically draw our attention and stimulate attachment. It’s like when we’re in the supermarket and see all these desirable foods and think, “Fantastic! How much money do I have? Oh, not enough, how can I get some?” and then we go, “Mom, Dad, can I have some money please?” “No, you can’t!” and we’re so disappointed. That’s all visualisation. Expert marketers know how to display products in order to trigger our attachment and make us want to buy them. They understand people’s basic psychological energy and how the combination of appealing object and craving desire reacts. That association makes us go Bam! There’s contact and we go berserk. We lose wisdom and become unconscious. We have to know this. We think we’re conscious but we’re not. When we’re overwhelmed by attraction and attachment we actually become unconscious. If you check carefully at such times you’ll find that perhaps at first your mind is very clear but as attachment takes over, something dark seems to envelop your mind. Check up. That’s experience. You see, Lord Buddha’s psychology is not about what you believe but what you experience. Go into town right now and see what happens! That’s reality. And that’s why I always say that Lord Buddha’s teachings are so scientific. They’re very different from Western modes of religious expression. I’m not complaining. I’m just saying that Buddhist psychology and teachings may be different from what you were brought up with. They’re not about believing certain things and then going to heaven when you die; not about doing something now and waiting for a long time to experience the result. No! If you act correctly with wisdom right now you can see the result in the next second. It’s so simple.

Where do bad householders go when they die?

BUDDHA SPEAKS "All living beings, whether born from eggs, from the womb, from moisture, or spontaneously; whether they have form or do not have form; whether they are aware or unaware, whether they are not aware or not unaware, all living beings will eventually be led by me to the final Nirvana, the final ending of the cycle of birth and death. And when this unfathomable, infinite number of living beings have all been liberated, in truth not even a single being has actually been liberated." "Why Subhuti? Because if a disciple still clings to the arbitrary illusions of form or phenomena such as an ego, a personality, a self, a separate person, or a universal self existing eternally, then that person is not an authentic disciple." ***DIAMOND SUTRA***

ducks huddle, lake-side moon hidden, storm clouds gather soft reeds do not break

DZONGSAR JAMYANG KHYENTSE RINPOCHE ...when you remain for instance on the door handle for one minute without distraction, it's the Buddha, you're remembering the Buddha; because you're not distracted, this is also remembering the dharma; because you're not distracted, you're remembering the sangha. When you are not distracted you are not judging; when you're not judging that's the seed of compassion and that's the Buddha. When you're not distracted, chances of you misinterpreting, chances of you judging, having wrong views is much less and that's the Dharma; when you are not judging, not distracted, we are not even talking about holy object, we are talking about door handle, a fork or tissue paper or anything, during that time, as short as it may be, you are not contaminated, you are not corrupted by your emotion - at that time you are a holy person - at that time you have become a sangha.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

That's just your imagination on overdrive, making you hear things.

Thoughts and emotions are by nature empty. Attempts to establish will be frustrating, and ultimately futile. Samsaric beings imagine, fixate, solidify, analyse, try to make sense of the self thru vain attempts at grasping and contracting that which by nature is ungraspable. This is the fundamental error that traps beings in the cycle of rebirth. Anything that's 'empty' in essence, like space, is beginningless, therefore without source. Which means its foolish (delusional even) to believe that at some point in future, thoughts and emotions will be tamed and peace beyond understanding will be found.

Thank you, Steve. Your experience and kindness shines clearly in your words. I'm not arguing that one should not use emotions as a means to further one's spirutual goals. Considering that Gautama alluded to emotions as veils, and repeatedly stated that dispassion is one of the fruits of practice, and personally having been exposed to karmamudra teachings, I can vehemently state that due to the unstable, incomplete, often tricky and ephemeral nature (yin?) of emotions, the only benefit one can derive from working with them is the realization of their empty, unstable and therefore unreliable nature. Ultimately unfulfilling and imbued with its own set of obstacles. Dispassion is the fruit of cultivating equanimity. Without equanimity, bodhicitta can only be realised on a mundane, relative level. According to higher yoga tantras, knowing only relative bodhicitta is an obstacle of the path. The implications should be obvious to experienced mahayana practitioners.

there's no place like home please leave your left shoe outside stump the gargoyles

Anger is an emotional reaction. Lust & greed also arise out of delusion. So are all other emotions, positive or negative - all arise and subside within samsara. In authentic tantra, thru sadhana, initiates practice the transmutation of gross emotions, uniting base desires with their transformed essence, eventually leading to non dual bliss after years of establishing a view that is unperturbed and free, where thoughts and feelings spontaneously dissolve into space within the perfected mandala of self arisen perfection. Only after mastery can one take on the practice of tummo, supported by karmamudra. So it's possible, from the 1st to the 8th Yanas, that one can use emotions as the path. Though there are other approaches available. Dzogchen is the 9th yana (level). At this level it's advised to let go of the previous 8. Here, emotions are no longer relevant because one no longer operates within the confines of mundane pleasure and pain inherent within sense perceptions and therefore, limited and habit-bound.

is it walk time yet? eager beavers on the prowl no white flags today

"There is a fundamental field of information that is the source of our consciousness. Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon of our brain; it is, in fact, something your brain is tuned to, just as a radio is tuned to certain channels of information." ~ Nassim Haramein

Much of Thich Nhat Hanh's Zen teachings center on offering practitioners insight into the inseparability between the mundane and the transcendent.

The love spoken of in the holy books... that's the love worthy of aspiration. If mothers' love is the primary contributor to children's development, you'd think this world would see much more sanity and much less neurosis, but reality reflects otherwise. Mothers can be dysfunctional too, and sadly, pass on their karma in that fashion.

Doesn't make it any less painful.

I ascribe to the notion that emotions arise out of misplaced attachment to self. Therefore, the prerogative becomes one of working to disentangle coarse and subtle attachment rather than working on or with emotions, which are all ego-based, hence false. It is impossible to attain liberation working with and from unreal premises, yet its a common enough choice that is made.

The idea in Buddhism is to experience each moment in the present, and then let go, just like a stream 'experiencing' only the flow... ceaselessly, and adaptively. That's their nature. Whereas humans have a tendency to wonder, and be analytical about different terrains, be they physical, emotional, mental. This habit becomes even more pronounced when their curiosity begins to seep into the spiritual. They then gradually become mesmerised by the fascination these terrains hold, generating endless stories about them, and people get heavily involved discussing and debating their individual experiences of them, as if that was the goal. As if this was somehow an elevation of one's spirituality. Its not. Enlightenment is nothing; delusion is everything.