Stosh

Umm the usual definition of emotion in English at least is that its a feeling, the outward manifestation which may or may not accompany it isnt the emotion itself. Which makes some of the points made umm dubious in what they are trying to convey. But I tried googling up what exactly the difference between feelings and emotions are and found only vague BS about what the differences were. Would anyone care to present a distinction , general rule of thumb wise about that?

If taking cue from BaguaKA , benedryl might reduce alergy symptoms that "mediations" wouldnt fix , and so at least you could rule out alergy inexpensively and easily. Alergies by an individual can either crop up or go away at any point so , just assuming its not allergy because you don't think you ever had them before... would be a boo boo. ( they can be a real Btch to diagnose)

Reminds me a bit of one time when a traffic cop was trying to pull me over (in that lazy way of standing at the roadside pointing).. I thought he was waving me to slow up, I waved back and kept going,, but I saw him in the rearview doing a surprised double take but he didnt bother to chase it down

Thats quite alright Manitou, Im just speaking up for a possible minority view, like Mh I am as atheist as one gets , but I know folks who arent and I dont consider them to be like Holboch depicts... posting the view just throws it out there for examination , no blood no foul . Im no censor nor thin skinned.

I have forgotten who suggested this , it may have been Campbell, or Jung, but the idea runs along the lines that gods fulfill a pardigm which is the natural exension of the situation of childhood. I think all that weakness and fear stuff is a very biased, insulting, and unfair characterization of those who believe in gods. ( my own attitudes not withstanding in this case). That people have a desire to know and understand what there is no reliable data for, fuels speculation , and investigation. That there are natural desires for social order , moral justification, and a sense of relatedness to the world which can be satisfied by various Faiths , is no sin, though ironically Holboch seems to believe in sin and wickedness , good versus evil . . since he draws faith in such a pure negative light,,, he must not understand that the world is not so black and white, when examining it through a non-righteous lens. ( as this excerpt seems to indicate)

In order to remain sane , the mind has to create some indicator that what one is thinking of is not exactly the same as what one experiences from the senses at some given moment. If the two were indistinguishable , daydreaming about a stroll in the park might leave you in the middle of a street. Present moment experiences tend to have a great deal of power relative to recollection, and it needs to be that way, because when you remember , to an extent, you relive an experience you had,,,and while it may be very vivid , you generally can tell that this is not present moment experience. You may recognize this dichotomy when in a dream state, when you recognize that you are dreaming, or overlook it when you meditate.

Sandalwood ? frankincense? sweaty palms?

Good ! thats the One who matters most.

Where would the world be without contrarians ? ( Mh-less for one thing) No, I like it that you want to draw your lines clear, my own angle could be called a spin , since I do understand exactly what youre saying in this post , and the logical conceptry that it reveals, Its just my own take , an ironic one , that ,,perhaps in line with Zanshin,, which is that there is another logical kind of position one may find COULD hold true , than the straightforward one you feel is, ummm , clearest. Its rather often , that the teachings of Taoism , as I understand them,, do contain a heavy element of irony. For instance , if I speak of the interfering downside of trying to "HELP" ,generally there is a rebuff ( which I expect) because the connnections which I carry through with ,, umm constitute a longer path of reasoning. Or pehaps saying that Tao is A-moral , rather than a morality teaching ,gets refuted because the ideas about amorality being "bad" overwhelms an audience before theyve gone the route of understandng what it can mean without the predisposition of labelling things "bad"... or "good" for that matter. OR that they think the title- rendering of the TTC is accurate.( which I understand it not to be) Or again , that the TTC was written for royalty, which , even if it does have an element of truth ,, is overwhelmed by the fact that when all is said and done royalty really isnt any different from you. ( do you think the queen ever was flatulent ? and additionally evidenced by the millions who attempt to apply its teachings who clearly arent operating as Royals ) So anyway to make the long story short,, I like your sticktuitiveness and we shall see in time whether that which youve discovered, affects you more in the way you describe, or whether I was not very far off. In the meanwhile , theres tons of other tidbits.

Worthiness of what to whom? ( by problems I mean considerations which impact completion of whatever the heck it is you decide to effect ,, as you well know)

Well said ! ( and worth saying).......... So having this pearl inside ,, having awareness of this awareness,, this contentment ,, this high perch .. Might one find a new fortitude to approach ones problems Might one be more disposed to make the soundest decisions might one be more inclined to exert ,share of themselves and enjoy the sunrise undisturbed all the more ? Or would they require to be sequestered, and hidden in a hole of their own making in order to keep this placid richness around themselves.? For as I see it , mastery of ones emotions wouldnt take some self battering suppression if one is instead freed. ( and there you have it , my idea of how to master ones emotions)

Shy? Nay, eloquent. IMO, Dont lurk .

Ok fine , its perfect , but isnt everything 'perfect' ?, that is to say , exactly whatever it IS. For most folks when they say perfect they are talking about a thing thats completely or homogenously of some character which they approve of. Such as a perfect diamond , or a perfect day or perfectly miserable. ..but your words are instead indicating that your perfect state is in fact ,completely-not emotion and homogenously not-having desire,, but those are not positive assertions about the character of the state,, they are just saying some things that the state is completely NOT. For example , today I am jacketless, but that doesnt preclude sweaters... So if youre sure you want to exclude emotion and exclude desire as descriptive of it ,, what is it? ( Im not asking this from a point where I think I have an irrefutable answer in mind for you, Im just of an opinion that the response didnt really hit at an answer)

I dunno, Brian, should one doubt that things exist , and so remain open? or would the same leave one closed ,, essentially would one prefer to see the world as a place they are in , or would they want to be in a world where theres nowhere to go, or that they could depend on nothing? Theres that analogy about the newspaper print , which goes that if one looks close all there are is dots , yes on one scale they comprise the story, but on this other scale the story is ,gone. Looking at a human , then go closer eventually you get down to a cellular level , and are thses parts alive? and then you go smaller still, are these quarks or waves of energy really what we are? .. its an issue of scale , we live on the scale of humans, experience the world with human senses, human minds,, the fabric of the universe is whatever the hell it is, but in a daily sense I just want my coffee and bagel.

They might, and then someone could ask, What do you expect as proof ? ( either way)

The philosopher takes I to be that which is self evident , and the starting point for philosophy's foundations. Farther down the road there there is that which is not self evident and the mystic might consider that to be I as well.

Im glad , you found the phrase fitting Ive got a question back for you regarding though , as long as we are on the same page here,, Do you consider that an emotion ?, or a sensation ? , or maybe some primal state of being which shouldnt get called either of those?. ( or perhaps all the words getting used for it are suboptimal)

Like I said earlier Kj , Im not always sure of what folks mean with the words they use, like if someone said ,umm hey Stosh , hows that bliss thing going ,, I would 'get' the thrust of the question, but not really what the 'bliss' was supposed to mean personally. Ill easily agree to both contentions you served ,1 that things one chases potentially has tensions downside etc ,just as the things one avoids can. And 2 that aside from that which draws ,and that which repels, there is a pleasant situation remaining, and remaining there is all you might want when you have that sensation. But if thats the bliss other folks call bliss,, ?? I dunno. Some folks like screaming with a crowd at say ,a soccer match, and they literally go there to do that screaming as part of a crowd..me personally , I really dont care for the crowd , and actively would be repelled by having to scream for my team. And I suppose anyone may have had a great time laughing at some get-together ,, but then when its finally quiet and you can tone down you may note how much less demanding that is. As I look at the meaning of the things collectively grouped as 'emotions' , I reclassify that they are behavioral subsets of our total behavioral complement and are associated with motivational dictates as well as sensational ones. The oddball in the group is a happiness for which one doesnt want to effect change regarding, youre motivated to keep things just the way they are. Is it a bliss? is it satisfaction , serenity ,plain old joy or what ? but yep , its real nice and it doesnt push you around ,though its always there in some quantity when you look for it.

Wow, arabic and chinese numbers look the same? and here I thought 69 was just a misalignment of Q .

At some time or other , I think I have forgotten what boredom was like , If I can shut my eyes , and do literally nothing for long periods of time ,, the idea of what "boredom" is loses some meaning. I still know what tedium is though, which is why I too, have got my hobbies, but me neither , I dont let me get bored. Some folks dont seem to plan for what they are going to be doing with their time in retirement ( Im not there yet) , and even if I wasnt totally disinterested in watching other people play sports or shop for stuff, I figure that I wouldnt want to have to resort to that all day long.

A competing numerical scheme which should be considered as an alternative to the number nine as the natural fundemental relationship of growth ( but Ill admit 9 is easier to remember) Fibonacci SequenceThe Fibonacci Sequence is the series of numbers: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34.....

I miss having a yard to putz with , but there is an upside ( to not ) , its one less thing to putz with . I was reading some Walden this weekend , (I hope the pace picks up though, He really does dwell on his subject , and if one has already agreement with the point he makes , well , I start deciding to put the book down. ) and as he tells , there is something to shriving off that which isnt really neccesary,, for instance , he doesnt accept a mat as a gift for his shack , because he would then have to shake it out occasionally ,, and he just doesnt want to have to put in so much effort. Which is taking things to a degree of laziness even I dont often get to !

Reading through all the posts , I thought I read someone say something ,,, ( but when I looked again I couldnt put my finger on the sentence ... Digressing, sometimes I just dont have a sense of what is being meant by certain words.. so I cant say who exactly it is that I might be agreeing with or disagreeing with ,, but I did want to underline what they said ) One day , I went hiking , the sun was high and hot , the paths were dry dusty crushed limerock, and by noon any shadows had retreated all the way up to the tippy-tops of the trees. The birds I'd gone out to photograph, had all flown to the elephant graveyard they visit daily between eleven and one o'clock. And I, deciding to hang it up for the day ,, I began the trek back to my vehicle , through squinting eyes ,, involuntarily closing to the glare in my face,, slowly I saw it became less far from me . I was really worn from my efforts and I considered that , no-matter how else I wanted things to be , no relief was being offered, other than to continue onward , forward , ahead, trundling on tired hot sweaty feet. And not till I had actually completely unequivocably put the key in the ignition , turned it , clicked on the air , and waited for it do begin to chill down ,, would there be. There was literally NO other option , this struck me starkly , so much so, I had a tiny bit of panic pass over me, man ! if I was bit by a snake now , if I twisted my ankle, if I gave up , Id just sit here baking in the sun until all the water in my bones had been sucked out into the sky! From the nothingness in my head some new words arose , Its not that far , you can make it , what are you getting all worked up about? Yes, there is no other option here , but this option is here , so everything is fine. I kept to my pace and continued. As I got within a few paces, for some reason , I had the impression that since I was so close , that now there were other options ! .... there wasnt . Why would I even think that ? I literally had to go through precisely every last step in the plan ,, and I did , and the air came on , and it cooled me off , and I drove home. Now when I got home I pulled off my shoes leaned back on the couch , and said , in my head Ahhhhhh ! ,I then questioned me, on how my day had been , I returned that had really been a fine morning so far. Isnt that curious?

I gave up, after the first question , when I looked at her upper half I saw her turing one direction , and when I looked at the lower half she appeared to be turning the other ,,,, ( so wouldnt the question be asking if one was an 'ass man' or 'boob man'? I thought to myself ) and again when I looked at the choice indicators at the bottom, wondering which meant turning to her left

I dont think its boring , It seems quite on point with Kajenx's OP., the thing he is looking at, give yourself a break man