terrible misunderstanding of buddhism/taoism

[noahfor]

story of my life. only .. you have a girlfriend, you have had success. the insanity and suffering of life for you is conceptual.. mine is reality it seems.

 

If I can get a girlfriend and have success, so can you. Even before this happened, I was depressed, angry, cold, and virtually non-existent socially, and I've still managed to convince her to stay around for 8 years. I am a complete robot around other people. I've never been able to work for myself because of my social problems. People are incredibly loving. There are thousands and thousands of people who would love you.

[Non]

well.. in all efforts they all show me to be a joke. Like someone is just laughing at my every drive towards success because the more I seek the further it goes away from me.

[RiverSnake]

Noahfor i've never taken any psych-drugs so i can't really relate to your experience. But what i can say is we all have bad times and they all pass. Be strong and ride it out.

 

-Twinner, Otis, Steve f, Stigweard: all gave good advice.

Edited June 1, 2011 by OldGreen

[Harmonious Emptiness]

I don't see the problem?

 

When you wake up from a dream and suddenly realize it was all just a dream, do you get horribly depressed?

 

What would be horribly depressing to me is if samsaric life is simply as we know it with no deeper subreality free of human preferences and judgments. That one simply lives, works & dies. Why even bother, then?

 

Think about how you love your girlfriend.. Well, what is that based on, really? And why do you not love everyone equally? And what about those who don't get loved much in this world? Conditional love as you know it is great, but only because it is but a smithering taste of the totally unconditional cosmic love that the fabric of our submatrix is made of!

 

And even if you personally have a great life - what about others with horrible ones? How messed up would that be if that is simply how it is...with no deeper method behind the madness??

 

I personally like the idea of an underlying unity because it means that no matter what happens to us as individuals here, ultimately everything is "ok."

 

I agree with this. I have been thinking about this situation and, harsh as it may sound, this trouble was a result of ignoring the "please knock before entering" sign, lol. If you don't enter upon the mysteries with the proper etiquette you might just get slapped in the face by it, or see something you really were'nt ready to see. That's why proper use of psychedelics involves more than just a beer to wash it down.

 

It's like a fighting champion saying "you really want to try me? you sure? alright, whatever you say! WHAM. You said go "

 

Your wounds will heal, and maybe someday you'll get a little further and realize there's a lot more to it. But better not to show up uninvited, if you get my meaning

[angelo]

Sorry to hear about your confusion.

 

Beware if your mental health physician starts to give you any anti-depressants or other pharmaceuticals. You don't want to go there.

 

Ever looked into Qi Gong or Tai Chi Chuan? I go in and out of periods of depression, but since beginning internal cultivation & the balancing of my energies from the inside, I am starting to develop a more stable foundation.

 

I think it's a good path that you have stumbled upon.

 

Take care

 

∆

[Mandrake]

... usually I realize I'm waking up into a world where unique individuals, whom I know and have a real history with, actually exist,

 

noah,

what do you mean with "exist", and

"unique"? Be precise please.

 

 

I'm fine with loving everyone equally, but hopefully each love would have its own unique character and understanding, so that I'm loving the way people actually think and feel on the basis of who I am, and not just loving generically or anonymously a bunch of clones who happen to all be me.

 

I assure you, I am not a clone that happens to be you. In that case, there would be no separation and you would have unhindered knowledge of my experiences. I guess you can't tell me what I though last week, in what languages? It's perfectly possible to have an acid trip and hallucinate that everything is one, in the same way that it is possible to hallucinate that my room is filled with pink, meat eating, flying beavers.

 

I told you in my first post to start questioning your drug-induced insights seriously, searching ruthlessly for other perspectives and explanations. The capacity for self-deception is great, but we have a choice to continue with it, especially if others have pointed it out for us.

 

 

Mandrake

[noahfor]

noah,

what do you mean with "exist", and

"unique"? Be precise please.

 

 

 

 

I assure you, I am not a clone that happens to be you. In that case, there would be no separation and you would have unhindered knowledge of my experiences. I guess you can't tell me what I though last week, in what languages? It's perfectly possible to have an acid trip and hallucinate that everything is one, in the same way that it is possible to hallucinate that my room is filled with pink, meat eating, flying beavers.

 

I told you in my first post to start questioning your drug-induced insights seriously, searching ruthlessly for other perspectives and explanations. The capacity for self-deception is great, but we have a choice to continue with it, especially if others have pointed it out for us.

 

 

Mandrake

 

By unique and exist, I mean that other people have their own thoughts, feelings, memories, and experiences, which in turn shape more thoughts, and feelings, and memories. I'd like to believe that there are ways that it feels like to be my girlfriend that no one else has ever felt. That when I see her make a certain face I can almost recognize these ways of feelings that she uniquely has, and know that I'm with someone who feels the way she does.

 

I take your assurance that you are not a clone to mean that this is not a dream, which is what I thought you were saying wouldn't be so bad. In a dream I do know what everyone is thinking and did last week, which is nothing, since characters in a dream do not have thoughts or histories.

[noahfor]

Does an enlightened "individual" still have likes and dislikes?

[wearydreamer]

I also had quite strong trips on shrooms earlier.

What you described is a peek into reality. My definition of reality here is something that cant be doubted. But now back in normal state, it is again imperceptible. What you are left with are fragment of memory of altered state. Dream re-continued with a confusing memory.

Also as there are no individuals, there is no one to like or dislike. But Awareness of liking/disliking is there as pure affectivity. In dream, it will drive the dream to make dreamer like or dislike.

[noahfor]

I think I've found another big stumbling block for myself and that is this: that enlightenment and the enlightened perspective represents the absolute best way to be, the only truth, the only right things to do, and as a result makes every other deed or thought ugly, confused, and wrong. Like a parent's wanting to have a child, build a family, and show the child the wonder and beauty of life that they have seen themselves is all wrong, and really just a confused mess of egotism, attachment, false love, and other horrors. It makes it seem like the only real beauty and truth is in being enlightened, which sort of undermines all of life besides that of the enlightened.

[doc benway]

I think I've found another big stumbling block for myself and that is this: that enlightenment and the enlightened perspective represents the absolute best way to be, the only truth, the only right things to do, and as a result makes every other deed or thought ugly, confused, and wrong. Like a parent's wanting to have a child, build a family, and show the child the wonder and beauty of life that they have seen themselves is all wrong, and really just a confused mess of egotism, attachment, false love, and other horrors. It makes it seem like the only real beauty and truth is in being enlightened, which sort of undermines all of life besides that of the enlightened.

The desire for "enlightenment" (whatever that word may mean) is every bit as addictive as any other worldly desire. And is a source of enormous frustration (dukkha).

 

What if the magic were in simply being alive?

Having the opportunity to walk freely on the earth, smell the flowers and the smog, look at a beautiful sunrise or face, experience love and death.

This is pure, absolute, magic.

Ironically, we often never understand this until death is knocking on the door.

 

Unfortunately, it's our nature to take the daily experience for granted, no matter what it is.

We are designed to evaluate, assess risk vs benefit, and then screen anything out that isn't immediately perceived as threat or opportunity. So a man who is surrounded by beautiful women is bored of them. Delicious wine and food become dull. Buy a beautiful new car and it's just a ride in a few months. We always look for something new, something more. Something other than what we are. What we are is completely ignored, boring, even intolerable.

 

This is insanity!!!

 

We want to levitate, it's not enough to walk. We want to travel to other places with our minds when we can literally fly.

We even modify our bodies surgically to gain the approval of strangers.

 

What if enlightenment was simply to have an insight into this and no longer feel a need to be something else?

Just be what we are? And look at things with fresh eyes - everything. Plants, animals, people, buildings.

Really look and relate to the world rather than pine for something we don't have or can't be. Because whatever it is that we want, when we get it, the desire will still be there. It will just be substituted for something else.

 

What if there is no magnificent state called enlightenment, just a fantasy perpetuated by the mind that is never satisfied?

Get out and take a walk. Listen to birds. Listen to waves on a beach. Soak up some sun.

Walk topless in the rain. Roll around in the grass. Enjoy intimacy with your girlfriend like it was the first time you shared it.

When that is all you need, I think you just may understand enlightenment.

 

Just a guess...

[noahfor]

Thanks for that. So if my girlfriend gives me a hug and I feel "this is real, this is meaningful, this is who I am in this moment, this is love" it isn't some confused attachment, addiction, desire, or misunderstanding? It is actually what I think it is? It just seems like in the face of "life is suffering" every part of life is meaningless and artificial, even when I feel like it isn't. Being around people and enjoying them as people and their company is just an illusion, fake, worthless pleasure, and an addiction.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

I think I've found another big stumbling block for myself and that is this: that enlightenment and the enlightened perspective represents the absolute best way to be, the only truth, the only right things to do, and as a result makes every other deed or thought ugly, confused, and wrong. Like a parent's wanting to have a child, build a family, and show the child the wonder and beauty of life that they have seen themselves is all wrong, and really just a confused mess of egotism, attachment, false love, and other horrors. It makes it seem like the only real beauty and truth is in being enlightened, which sort of undermines all of life besides that of the enlightened.

 

Yeah man, that sounds good. The important thing for anyone is to see the truth that works for them, at that time, in that place, including the implication of their actions on the future and those around them.

 

It went well with the psychotherapist?

 

Care to share any of his or her insights on this conundrum?

[noahfor]

Yeah man, that sounds good. The important thing for anyone is to see the truth that works for them, at that time, in that place, including the implication of their actions on the future and those around them.

 

It went well with the psychotherapist?

 

Care to share any of his or her insights on this conundrum?

 

That wasn't supposed to sound good. It was supposed to sound like something that makes all of life meaningless and horrible, which is what it feels like to me.

 

I did go to the hospital, but it turns out it was just some intake program they have set up. I won't be able to see a therapist for a couple of weeks. I did talk to a therapist while I was there, but it wasn't really therapy. It was just them getting information from me.

[doc benway]

Thanks for that. So if my girlfriend gives me a hug and I feel "this is real, this is meaningful, this is who I am in this moment, this is love" it isn't some confused attachment, addiction, desire, or misunderstanding? It is actually what I think it is? It just seems like in the face of "life is suffering" every part of life is meaningless and artificial, even when I feel like it isn't. Being around people and enjoying them as people and their company is just an illusion, fake, worthless pleasure, and an addiction.

What you feel and see and hear are real. The metaphysical mumbo-jumbo in your head and on this forum is bullshit. It's just words. Thoughts are not reality, just symbols of communication bouncing around in our heads.

Words used by people with too much free time and not enough to do. And I'm guilty like everyone else.

 

The idea that life involves suffering is certainly not a lie but that does NOT mean that all of life and all experience is always suffering or false. Quite to the contrary. Life is part pleasure and part pain. That is Yin and Yang. If you didn't ever experience pain, pleasure would be meaningless. You would have no frame of reference. Both are necessary, they define each other. That is called mutual arising and is a core principle of Daoist philosophy.

 

Life is not all suffering but there is some. The Buddhist concepts you are struggling with are not a description of reality, just a prescription to help people that are suffering. Attachment is when you tell yourself that your happiness depends on having something you want or avoiding something unpleasant. Buddhism suggests that this is the source of most suffering. In reality, your happiness depends only on you. Emotion is something inside of us, not something that depends on the outside world. Buddhism prescribes methods and concepts that help break this cycle of attachment. You don't need those tools right now. You're not currently in a position to benefit from them. You've got the ideas twisted around in your head so that rather than easing your suffering, they are terrifying you.

 

Unfortunately, because you stumbled upon all this suddenly, by force (intoxication), all of the necessary background work is not tempering your experience. Rather than a tool to help ease your suffering, this harsh delusion that everything is fake and worthless and so on is causing enormous pain. That in and of itself is a clue that it is a false insight. When you really grow to understand these concepts in a sober and gradual way with proper preparation, they are liberating, not suffocating. You don't need to try and understand reality right now - no one understands it anyway, it is beyond words and ideas. What you need is a good, healthy dose of the real world so you can remember what it feels like.

 

People are real, the world is real. It is the most real thing you will ever know. It is worth the effort and it is worth the game.

Hug your girlfriend, enjoy it, take her out to a movie, sing her a song, love her! That is all you get to do in life! Live and love, dance and sing. Enjoy it while you can. Of course, good times don't last forever. There are bad times too. And they are normal and natural and necessary. Good times allow us to enjoy the beauty life has to offer and bad times allow us to grow. So hopefully this obstacle you're wrestling with will be an opportunity for you. This could be a source of great personal growth if you allow it to be.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

That wasn't supposed to sound good. It was supposed to sound like something that makes all of life meaningless and horrible, which is what it feels like to me.

 

 

No, no. I mean that sounds like a progressive realization -- that obsession with this ideal is basically another attachment and counter-intuitive or counterproductive. It means your figuring stuff out on your own which is what you need to do since you'll be lost if you don't have any reference point from which to learn or reject what is taught to you.

 

What is your familiarity with Buddhism and Taoism, btw? What have you been reading? Did you study with someone?

[noahfor]

Oh, okay, I understand what you're saying. I don't really have any familiarity with the concepts other than what I've read on the internet and heard over my lifetime. I wasn't really attempting to explore them either.

 

This thread has been a big help to me, and I really am thankful for all of the advice. I'm going to take it, and leave on what I think is a good note. I need a break from thinking, and I'm going to try and ground myself in some manner.

 

If I ever decide I need to start exploring again, I will do it the right way, or a better way at least. Thank you all.

[doc benway]

Oh, okay, I understand what you're saying. I don't really have any familiarity with the concepts other than what I've read on the internet and heard over my lifetime. I wasn't really attempting to explore them either.

 

This thread has been a big help to me, and I really am thankful for all of the advice. I'm going to take it, and leave on what I think is a good note. I need a break from thinking, and I'm going to try and ground myself in some manner.

 

If I ever decide I need to start exploring again, I will do it the right way, or a better way at least. Thank you all.

Good luck to you noahfor!

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Oh, okay, I understand what you're saying. I don't really have any familiarity with the concepts other than what I've read on the internet and heard over my lifetime. I wasn't really attempting to explore them either.

 

This thread has been a big help to me, and I really am thankful for all of the advice. I'm going to take it, and leave on what I think is a good note. I need a break from thinking, and I'm going to try and ground myself in some manner.

 

If I ever decide I need to start exploring again, I will do it the right way, or a better way at least. Thank you all.

 

 

I'll just say that if you're interested to study Buddhism, start with "Gospels of the Buddha: From Ancient Records" translated by Carus and Suzuki. It's a good base to know where Cha'an and Zen writings were coming from, since the more well known Cha'an and Zen focus on no-mind/Dhyana but don't talk much about the Morality/Kindness/Character/Wisdom teaching that is arguably even more integral.

 

Most of the Cha'an writing assumed that the reader already spent their time reading these sutras and so doesn't get into teachings that the monks were studying first.

 

Alright, peace. It's been a trip. Whoops!. sorry.

[Mandrake]

By unique and exist, I mean that other people have their own thoughts, feelings, memories, and experiences, which in turn shape more thoughts, and feelings, and memories. I'd like to believe that there are ways that it feels like to be my girlfriend that no one else has ever felt. That when I see her make a certain face I can almost recognize these ways of feelings that she uniquely has, and know that I'm with someone who feels the way she does.

Yes, to argue for anything else would be very hard. You've basically answered your own question. Research mirror neurons.

 

 

Thanks for that. So if my girlfriend gives me a hug and I feel "this is real, this is meaningful, this is who I am in this moment, this is love" it isn't some confused attachment, addiction, desire, or misunderstanding? It is actually what I think it is? It just seems like in the face of "life is suffering" every part of life is meaningless and artificial, even when I feel like it isn't. Being around people and enjoying them as people and their company is just an illusion, fake, worthless pleasure, and an addiction.

 

See above. What if you are privileged to know a part of a gigantic whole? Isn't that fantastic?

I would also caution you against falling into a conceptual framework of the world that is self-fulfilling, and that traps you. I've seen this happen, and was sliding into it a couple of years ago, which was horrendous. Luckily a buddhist cultivator helped me out of it.

 

Basically, you can start seeing everything as shit and pain, this tends to make you even more depressed, which you take as confirmation of your original position, which get strengthened further... and on and on the circle goes. If you to this add some type of forceful method where you exert your self in a way that puts a lot of pressure on the mind, you are at greater risk of falling deeper. But all this depends just on your concepts, there's nothing out there that forces you to feel psychological suffering, nothing!

 

If you decide to study buddhism for example, be cautious with the four noble truths, they are so easily misunderstood - especially the first one about suffering. Often they are presented unskilfully. Shakyamuni Buddha spoke lots about joy, lots, and even hedonistic pleasure; but somehow, people miss this important point.

 

So when your girlfriend gives you a hug and you feel "this is real, this is meaningful, this is who I am in this moment, this is love" - that's it! As long as you don't start believing that your happiness, for ever is dependent on this.

 

Enjoy life; beware of becoming too serious. Don't allow your self to get fucked up just because something told you 1+1=3 in an acid trip.

 

 

Mandrake

[Otis]

The desire for "enlightenment" (whatever that word may mean) is every bit as addictive as any other worldly desire. And is a source of enormous frustration (dukkha).

 

What if the magic were in simply being alive?

Having the opportunity to walk freely on the earth, smell the flowers and the smog, look at a beautiful sunrise or face, experience love and death.

This is pure, absolute, magic.

Ironically, we often never understand this until death is knocking on the door.

 

Unfortunately, it's our nature to take the daily experience for granted, no matter what it is.

We are designed to evaluate, assess risk vs benefit, and then screen anything out that isn't immediately perceived as threat or opportunity. So a man who is surrounded by beautiful women is bored of them. Delicious wine and food become dull. Buy a beautiful new car and it's just a ride in a few months. We always look for something new, something more. Something other than what we are. What we are is completely ignored, boring, even intolerable.

 

This is insanity!!!

 

We want to levitate, it's not enough to walk. We want to travel to other places with our minds when we can literally fly.

We even modify our bodies surgically to gain the approval of strangers.

 

What if enlightenment was simply to have an insight into this and no longer feel a need to be something else?

Just be what we are? And look at things with fresh eyes - everything. Plants, animals, people, buildings.

Really look and relate to the world rather than pine for something we don't have or can't be. Because whatever it is that we want, when we get it, the desire will still be there. It will just be substituted for something else.

 

What if there is no magnificent state called enlightenment, just a fantasy perpetuated by the mind that is never satisfied?

Get out and take a walk. Listen to birds. Listen to waves on a beach. Soak up some sun.

Walk topless in the rain. Roll around in the grass. Enjoy intimacy with your girlfriend like it was the first time you shared it.

When that is all you need, I think you just may understand enlightenment.

 

Just a guess...

This is so awesome!

[Otis]

Does an enlightened "individual" still have likes and dislikes?

I don't know. If I happen to meet one, I'll be sure to kill him!

[Harmonious Emptiness]

 

If you decide to study buddhism for example, be cautious with the four noble truths, they are so easily misunderstood - especially the first one about suffering. Often they are presented unskilfully. Shakyamuni Buddha spoke lots about joy, lots, and even hedonistic pleasure; but somehow, people miss this important point.

 

 

just wondering which sutra you read Shakyamuni Buddha recommending hedonistic pleasure. In this regard I've only seen discourse referring to not being overcome by the senses so as to maintain Liberation.

 

edit: I know that hedonism is not necessarily reckless indulgence, but, nonetheless.

Edited June 3, 2011 by Harmonious Emptiness

[Mandrake]

just wondering which sutra you read Shakyamuni Buddha recommending hedonistic pleasure. In this regard I've only seen discourse referring to not being overcome by the senses so as to maintain Liberation.

 

edit: I know that hedonism is not necessarily reckless indulgence, but, nonetheless.

 

Well, I never said "recommended hedonistic pleasure", and hedonistic may have the wrong connotations perhaps.

I have to dig a bit to find the quotes. It was from a dharma talk long time ago and I should have them somewhere.

Anyways, in one passage Buddha is speaking to a bodhisattva householder (NOT amonk) - "buy jewellry to your wife"

In another passage he elucidates that for laypracticioner who can't devote their lives ONLY to sila samadhi prajna, that there are three good things 1. material acquisitions 2. enjoyment (enjoy things, buy some nice clothes) 3. No debt.

From the overall discussion, it's clear that one should not invest all one's mind, and effort into material pleasures (there's a limit to happiness from there), but search for deeper happiness. Enjoy them (sensual happiness), but don't cling or grasp them - with the sense that my whole being, existence, happiness depend on them.

As usual, I feel it is very important to emphasize that in Buddhims. not all feelings are afflicted, not all desires are afflicting! Buddhism does not for example aspire for psychopathic equanimity, but for equanimity in whom you have compassion for all beings. Reality based desires - those not imbued with ignorance - are ok.

 

 

Mandrake

 

PS. I can send the precise quotes when I find them, if you are still interested. Or, if any reader knows them by heart - please notify me. DS.

[Bluefront]