Selling Out? Really?

[Birch]

Sure WWROA, but I reckon it's worth researching oneself this stuff. It goes deep. If the education you receive is counter to yourself, takes you off into some world constructed for the benefit of others while not respecting your path in the process, it can be soul-destroying.

[Jetsun]

Times are different, it isn't easy to just go off and dedicate your life to cultivation like it once was. I was just reading about a guy who was just about to go into a traditional Buddhist three year retreat and had a freak out about his life how he was giving up a good career and some of the best years of his life to sit and do nothing, but the reality is on the Buddhist path at least there has to be a giving up of mundane life and renunciation of trying to attain happiness or fulfilment through it, so if you want to attain meditative realisations to match the conceptual understandings you have gained you will most probably have to do a number of long retreats in your life,or at least one three year retreat to get to the depth in your meditation. Those who say otherwise haven't studied the lives of previous masters, there are exceptions but the majority of masters go on long retreats sometimes 10-15 years or more.

 

But that is the Buddhist path, there are other paths, the Fourth Way for example is meant to be conducted in mundane life and around people as your fuel, which is what attracted it to me because I have always known it will be very difficult for me to take many years out of my life to go into retreat so I was looking for another way and it is meant to be possible to walk it while satisfying your duties as a householder. And according to Liu I Ming there are Taoist paths which can be walked within cities and within normal mundane life.

 

But another method someone else mentioned is to develop your dreaming ability and become highly developed in dream Yoga, then including waking meditation time you could be practising over ten hours a day while still going to work, which is probably more than many people in retreat practice.

[eye_of_the_storm]

From this



To this



hahaha...

[eye_of_the_storm]

Sure WWROA, but I reckon it's worth researching oneself this stuff. It goes deep. If the education you receive is counter to yourself, takes you off into some world constructed for the benefit of others while not respecting your path in the process, it can be soul-destroying.

 

 

That is true... I have found Uni to be...

 

 

My degree will... get me to where I need to be/ want (still/however/ regardless of ^) ... if that where is still there.

 

In terms of researching the system? Ive done a little

 

Edited January 18, 2013 by White Wolf Running On Air

[Thunder_Gooch]

My degree will not have even one class in it relevant to my job function.

 

I can't get hired without it.

 

Four years, and in excess of $40,000 USD in debt, for a piece of paper.

 

Then I need an unpaid internship, or low paid internship for a minimum of 5 years.

Edited January 18, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[GrandmasterP]

Not so sure about us boomers being advantaged to the extent some say.

Sho nuff I never paid a penny for education, state took care of that then a grateful research council with exes from my union, that was then.

Thing was with first degrees, everybody was in the same place so the competition was fierce.

Doing your M then a D postgrad staves off having to work too hard for a good few years.

These days the middle and uppers pay fees but those from low income families don't so to some extent the poor have a free ride.

However, since we scrapped grammar schools in most places those from low income groups don't get the chance to go to decent schools unless they are very lucky in where they live so the number of working class kids from poor backgrounds entering higher education has dropped off.

Whatever the degree, over a working lifetime a graduate will likely earn more than a non graduate hence it's a fair investment.

Vocational degrees are the best bet, those tend to lead to paid work sooner than the more esoteric subjects.

[Vmarco]

Times are different, it isn't easy to just go off and dedicate your life to cultivation like it once was.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Razor%27s_Edge_(1946_film)

[Marblehead]

Yeah. As I am likely the oldest member of this forum it should go without saying that things were different for me. WWII was just getting started when I was born.

 

Things are different now. It is almost impossible to get a good, unskilled labor job with respectible compensation today. A person has to get a degree now and there still aren't any promises of employment upon graduation.

[GrandmasterP]

Remember full employment?

More jobs than people to do them.

Mill hands in Lancashire back in the 60s and 70s could pack in a job in the morning and start a new job after lunch.

Wages had to be fair to attract staff, anybody paid a bit more they recruited well.

Man those days have gone though!

[suninmyeyes]

I think that what is most important is never to lose passion in life and have amazing time at least sometimes , but regulary. Regardless if one has or has not got a job.

 

There is also so many people with wonderfull carrears , but dried out of vitality and so grey that they blend in with the pavement . This does not mean that carrears are bad , it is just pointing the importance to recgonise ones own potential mental predators , which vary from person to person.

 

There is always a gamble of some sort going on . Always some sort of challenge -- whatever the life choice.

[eye_of_the_storm]

Music and art... my treasure... I share. (amazing time...just press play)

Edited January 18, 2013 by White Wolf Running On Air

[Marblehead]

Yeah, employment in art and/or music would be great for those with creative minds. There will always be people wanting to escape reality into the fine arts.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Marblehead

[skydog]

Im in the same predicament have some thoughts that came up though..If you get to the point where you dont need too much sleep eg 9:30pm- 3 am..then you can meditate in sleep, and do your practices early morning.before bed everyday for a couple of hours at least, walking practices, sungazing etc...this is by far more than most people do. In the meantime work on things like art, music, business etc creatively for fun and who knows it may help with things. But all day long is probably the best "cultivation" opportunity also..

[skydog]

Even though slowly starting to realise that it is here now, always here now, the idea of practice or cultivation can sometimes perpetuate the idea that there is something to do..bah..

[GrandmasterP]

It gets so that cultivation is mindless.

Only time I think about it is when I'm not doing it.

Sorta automatic when I do it just part of the old routine but my life is pretty same-ey every day anyway.

[Reed]

.....

True and true.

Alice is Captain Jimmy Tarbuck vice captain and Bruce Forsyth Hon. pres.

 

 

I may never be able to listen to Alice Cooper again without getting the image of the three of them together

[suninmyeyes]

Even though slowly starting to realise that it is here now, always here now, the idea of practice or cultivation can sometimes perpetuate the idea that there is something to do..bah..

You have a point there , nevertheless regular daily practise -- asigning time soley to whatever practise a person does usually does make a difference . As a teacher I learnt from told :

'First you have to swim upstream , than you go with the flow of the river'.

Even just through a discipline of daily practising -- ability to have a strong resolve , and determination to accomplish goals is achieved , so through that only alone life becomes easier and less tangeled up and confusing.

[Birch]

I disagree that art is an escape Mr MH. In some respects it's the only space in which people can freely examine reality and says things about it that don't get said elsewhere. The artists I've met all work pretty damn hard and it's often thankless too.

 

My earlier comment was not intended to be 'anti-boomer' but a suggestion to examine reference points. If an 'education' that is required for entry-level jobs puts you 50K in debt before you've earned anything, I say, look again.

[JustARandomPanda]

In the words of Nan Huai-Chin:

This is especially true of people who have done a bit of meditation work. All they have to do is study Buddhism and do sitting meditation for three days, and already the attitude that "In heaven and on earth, I alone am the honored one" arises.

 

This is literally true!

 

About a month ago it happened to me. I was sitting in meditation one night and went deeper than I normally manage. Almost to the verge of falling into sleep. But I was still trying to listen to my breath.

 

Then seemingly - out of nowhere (!) - I heard this faint thought arise,

 

"Only I am worthy - I will become a Buddha *before* anyone else does"

 

It shocked me right out of that meditative state. I was flabbergasted.

 

I remember just sitting there amazed and my next thoughts were:

 

"WTF?!!! Where the hell did THAT come from?! I usually don't go around thinking things like that! My god...if thoughts like THAT one are rumbling around in my subconscious god only knows what other kind of crap must be rumbling around in there too!"

[Vmarco]

About a month ago it happened to me. I was sitting in meditation one night and went deeper than I normally manage. Almost to the verge of falling into sleep. But I was still trying to listen to my breath.

 

Then seemingly - out of nowhere (!) - I heard this faint thought arise,

 

That's a great one! Once I was in a meditative-appreciative state on a remote mountain, when a beautiful naked woman walked along the boundary of a field. From out of nowhere, I loudly said in my head, "be gone satan!" and turned away. By the time I finished my WTF analysis,....about 10-15 seconds,...and turned around, she was gone. The slow learner I am, it took years before it made any sense to me. First was where did that come from,...then if I rejected some dakini or something,...but eventually arose a calm abiding about it.

 

The process to understand it will take as long as it needs to take. The good news is that you have had an experience not likely to be forgotten. To me, they are the most precious.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Vmarco

[GrandmasterP]

I get similar but it's always a big cream cake rather than a naked lady.

[Marblehead]

I disagree that art is an escape Mr MH.

Seems I misrepresented my thoughts again. Hehehe. I don't feel like looking back to see what I said but I assure you that I didn't mean that music/art is a form of escape. More at a form of expression for those who are able to express themselves in this form. (I'm not. I'm all left brain.)

[Marblehead]

"WTF?!!! Where the hell did THAT come from?! I usually don't go around thinking things like that! My god...if thoughts like THAT one are rumbling around in my subconscious god only knows what other kind of crap must be rumbling around in there too!"

Hehehe. Yeah, that are lots of things going on in our unconscious mind. And no matter who good of a house-cleaner we are we will always miss some of those dust bunnies.

[Marblehead]

I loudly said in my head, "be gone satan!" and turned away.

I would have allowed her to stay.

[C T]

I would have allowed her to stay.

carpe diem, sir?