other peoples words

[neimad]

a lot of people have the tendancy, need or habit of backing up any statement they make with a quote or reference to someone elses works or a religious point of view.

 

i just want to know whether you feel that you shape your ideas to fit other peoples concepts.... or do you shape other peoples ideas to fit your concepts?

 

i guess maybe being raised as a buddhist by a father who encouraged an enquiring mind (although in retrospect i find it a little hypocritical because he is unable to present a point of view without first stating "from the buddhist perspective....", yes i have a bit of an issue with my father... but thats for another time) has given me the oppurtunity to fit into the latter category above.

 

i have read widely in the past and continue to read.... but i always find when i read a book, listen to a teacher or have a discussion with another individual that any ideas presented that are of interest, i will either take them away to digest and eventually incorporate into my OWN perspective reshaping it to fit my own particular thought pattern and concept structure.... or i will immediately translate what has been said or read into my own particular concept language and find the similarity with my own point of view.... thus shaping the idea to fit my own concept.

anything i find that doesn't not resonate as being a valid line of thought or reasoning, i discard.

 

 

so how do YOU work?

do you need someone else to shape your world view? or can you understand that regardless of anything anyone else ever says... no matter how profoundly it resonates with you, you still need to experience it in your own terms to actually own that as true knowledge/wisdom?

 

perhaps one of you chronic quoters can quote that line from the tao te ching that goes something like:

"the tao that can be discussed is not the true tao..... etc"?

 

 

i'm not being critical or judgemental of the way anyone works, i'm just on a real 'thought' trip at the moment and am in the process of dissecting the way my brain works and so in line with my communication experiment, i am phrasing my own perspective in the form of a question

[Cameron]

Although your Dad is a Buddhist and says "from the Buddhist perspective" I don't think that is necissarily what an advanced Buddhist/Meditator does. Of course, teachers will back there stuff up with quotes or stories attributed to Buddhas or Patriarchs or whatever but then there is also the reality mode where you express your practice in your life.

 

To me, zazen is the process of deconstructing all of your views anyway so it's not so much finding your own views but dropping them all. Then you can check out whatever you want and if you like it absorb it into your life but I think everything is a little different than if you have this perception of this is really ME and what I LIKE.

 

Mostly what you think is you is an illusion and what you think you like is pretty arbitrary IMO.

 

Of course without the thorough and deep grounding of stillness meditation in your life this is all talk anyway.

 

Cam

[neimad]

Mostly what you think is you is an illusion and what you think you like is pretty arbitrary IMO.

 

 

so what i think is an illusion and what i think i like is pretty arbitrary.... but this statement isn't applicable to you, cameron?

 

hahaha

 

sorry i'm on a real word trip right now..... cleaning up my language, it's an amazing and exciting process so i'm sharing it with all of you who might appreciate it. if you don't.... well let me know and i can easily keep it to myself.

 

 

 

p.s. freeform... we do exercises like that at cheng hsin... it's fun. learning what it's like to experience the universe as another individual.

Edited May 31, 2006 by neimad

[Cameron]

so what i think is an illusion and what i think i like is pretty arbitrary.... but this statement isn't applicable to you, cameron?

 

hahaha

 

sorry i'm on a real word trip right now..... cleaning up my language, it's an amazing and exciting process so i'm sharing it with all of you who might appreciate it. if you don't.... well let me know and i can easily keep it to myself.

p.s. freeform... we do exercises like that at cheng hsin... it's fun. learning what it's like to experience the universe as another individual.

 

 

Yes..it definetly is applicable to me. Don't you read my jounral..my thinking changes all the time!

 

 

I appreciate any insights you have to share and don't mean they arent valuable. Even if you come up with some deep insight is that deep insight YOU or is there something that doesn't come and go(like the insight) that is even deeper?

 

I don't presume to know any of this but I don't thik it's really about that anyway.

 

Cam

[neimad]

Yes..it definetly is applicable to me. Don't you read my jounral..my thinking changes all the time!

 

 

I appreciate any insights you have to share and don't mean they arent valuable. Even if you come up with some deep insight is that deep insight YOU or is there something that doesn't come and go(like the insight) that is even deeper?

 

I don't presume to know any of this but I don't thik it's really about that anyway.

 

Cam

 

 

hehe i was just playing around.

 

there is definately something deeper that doesn't ever change.... the only thing that really changes is my attempt to desribe it, to bring it into this dimension.

 

can it ever really be brought into this dimension?

i don't think so.... not fully. i don't think it can ever be fully understood while residing here in the 5-sense physical.

 

so perhaps it's more about removing the confinements of this dimension to go towards 'it'.

 

i dunno, i'm getting all spun out lately... things are beginning to make less and less sense, rather than more. yet the less it all makes sense, the more comfortable i feel, the more i can just appreciate the total absurdity of it all.

sometimes in the morning i sit and laugh at all the weird noises going on... i open my eyes and i see things and they make me laugh harder... it's all so weird.

 

 

(freeform, i'll get to the cheng hsin response later).

Edited May 31, 2006 by neimad