"Compassion means skillful action" - huh?

[Owledge]

Agree. That's called paying your dues. (The cat don't care.)

Toilet owners around the world aren't aware they have a shamanic ritual chamber in their houses.

Shamanic principle: If you receive something from nature, you should give something back.

[Owledge]

Is this compassion?..

 

No, it's a cat-back exhaust system.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Owledge

[Birch]

Nope. No intention of minimizing your hardships. Thing is though, if we linger on them they keep us depressed.

 

I do know this though, in a stick shift automobile there are more forward gears than there are reverse gears. Gotta learn how to shift gears.

 

Ah well, I don't think you know enough about these particular experiences of mine:-) So I'll stop you there:-)

If you're actually interested in this sort of thing (which many people seem to be which is great but often get it mixed up) check out http://eqi.org/invalid.htm

 

I'd also say it's well on-topic!

[Marblehead]

Ah well, I don't think you know enough about these particular experiences of mine:-)

You are perfectly correct. I know nothing of your experiences.

 

I would hope I would never say "Don't worry." or any of those unhelpful things.

 

I do know one other thing though - if we are in a hole and can't climb out it would be wise to stop digging.

 

Yes, I think it is time to stop talking about this because I really can't help in any way other than how I have already tried.

[Owledge]

double post deleted - quote function still sucks

Edited January 22, 2013 by Owledge

[Owledge]

K, that invalidation thing is almost omnipresent. I'd say it's one of the few major problems in society. Very basic stuff. The battle of mind vs. heart, fear vs. love. One could use many other terms than "invalidation" for the same thing.

Sadly, from my own experience and many accounts from other people, at least where I grew up, female teachers, who are supposed to have studied pedagogics, suck at not being invalidating. They are horribly emotionally cruel to children without noticing it, they are succumbing to all the ugly psychological violence that children throw around. They appear weak, not radiating respect at all. It's a bad state. There are few exceptions, and strangely, male teachers seem to naturally bring with them what's needed to not make those mistakes. One would think that women are more capable of dealing with matters of emotional intelligence, but I guess those women who want to become teachers have personality issues, maybe themselves having been invalidated.... and also pedagogics courses around here might suck.

Personal anecdote, not so much about emotional, but personaliy invalidation. Sports classes at school, basketball. I am lively and agile, like to feint and quickly change direction and all that, using my natural abilities to gain an advantage. ... And then the sports teacher tells me to slow down. I mean, seriosly... many people might not realize what's going on. A comment like that is absurd. It's sport, it's a game, it's about trying to perform well and win, and the guy tells me to give up an advantage, maybe because it painfully reminded him of the agility he doesn't have anymore.

[Birch]

You are perfectly correct. I know nothing of your experiences.

 

I would hope I would never say "Don't worry." or any of those unhelpful things.

 

I do know one other thing though - if we are in a hole and can't climb out it would be wise to stop digging.

 

Yes, I think it is time to stop talking about this because I really can't help in any way other than how I have already tried.

 

Mr MH, I didn't ask you for help:-)! Can you point out where you got that idea from?

Owledge, yes, this stuff is everywhere (I have found) and I do seem to be especially attuned to it (lots of experience haha). As many things are, it's a bit of a 'rabbity hole' and to me at least it has more to do with Daoist practice than one initially might suppose IMO/IME.

From one of the experts in the link I posted:

 

"Telling a person she shouldn't feel the way she does feel is akin to telling water it shouldn't be wet, grass it shouldn't be green, or rocks they shouldn't be hard. Each person's feelings are real. Whether we like or understand someone's feelings, they are still real. Rejecting feelings is rejecting reality; it is to fight nature and may be called a crime against nature, "psychological murder", or "soul murder".

 

[Birch]

K, that invalidation thing is almost omnipresent. I'd say it's one of the few major problems in society. Very basic stuff. The battle of mind vs. heart, fear vs. love. One could use many other terms than "invalidation" for the same thing.

Sadly, from my own experience and many accounts from other people, at least where I grew up, female teachers, who are supposed to have studied pedagogics, suck at not being invalidating. They are horribly emotionally cruel to children without noticing it, they are succumbing to all the ugly psychological violence that children throw around. They appear weak, not radiating respect at all. It's a bad state. There are few exceptions, and strangely, male teachers seem to naturally bring with them what's needed to not make those mistakes. One would think that women are more capable of dealing with matters of emotional intelligence, but I guess those women who want to become teachers have personality issues, maybe themselves having been invalidated.... and also pedagogics courses around here might suck.

Personal anecdote, not so much about emotional, but personaliy invalidation. Sports classes at school, basketball. I am lively and agile, like to feint and quickly change direction and all that, using my natural abilities to gain an advantage. ... And then the sports teacher tells me to slow down. I mean, seriosly... many people might not realize what's going on. A comment like that is absurd. It's sport, it's a game, it's about trying to perform well and win, and the guy tells me to give up an advantage, maybe because it painfully reminded him of the agility he doesn't have anymore.

 

Right, the stuff you're being told is for the other's convenience (for whatever reason). I guess it's interesting speculating on what those reasons are and to be honest I'm tempted to offer some speculation, but I just don't know -although I could give you guys a trapdoor into my psyche by offering up a guess:-) but I'm practicing not doing that.

[Owledge]

Tell me how to make a living with that understanding without clashing with adverse dominant belief systems. You can study psychology, spend years listening to crap, then you can show a paper and are authorized to either apply more or less insightless teachings in practice or muse about alternatives in academic journals.

It might sound cynical, but if a kindergarden teacher is immensely successful at figuring out what's troubling the kids, parents will start demanding that the teacher should be fired. Without authority (which is often nothing more than a psychological trick) you won't get people to let go of their crap. And as studies show, WITH authority you can even make people torture others.

Great advances in science have been made by people who are not burdened with indoctrination. (one example: Watson&Crick - figured out the DNA molecule structure. Used paper cutouts, like a puzzle game. Got it horribly wrong the first time due to an amateur mistake. Were laughed at by the professors. Got it right the second try though.)

Edited January 22, 2013 by Owledge

[Birch]

Tell me how to make a living with that understanding without clashing with adverse dominant belief systems. You can study psychology, spend years listening to crap, then you can show a paper and are authorized to either apply more or less insightless teachings in practice or muse about alternatives in academic journals.

It might sound cynical, but if a kindergarden teacher is immensely successful at figuring out what's troubling the kids, parents will start demanding that the teacher should be fired. Without authority (which is often nothing more than a psychological trick) you on't get people to let go of their crap. And as studies show, WITH authority you can even make people torture others.

 

I won't say it's easy:-) I guess it depends how much whatever you're doing is subject to dominant belief systems:-)

[Aaron]

I could have bet you'd post on the topic after saying you wouldn't anymore, but more or less just repeating your earlier statements is a little surprise. ( I didn't bet because I didn't want to influence the outcome that much. ;-) )

 

Here you are, lecturing people about how they can't claim to have knowledge of compassion because they don't demonstrate it in their forum activity ... while you aren't either. This is delicious for the mind. It's like a hypocrite comdemning people in a hypocritical way for being hypocrites.

 

K is a friend of mine, so I felt it proper to reply to her post. Anyways, nothing I said was wrong or right, just a description of what's going on here. Again, I only responded to be polite. In the future be aware that I have believed at the time that I was saying the last word on a topic and come back and said something again, in that sense I am very much a liar. So rather than call me a hypocrite, call me a liar, it's more sincere, even if it's not kind.

 

Also the delicious for the mind comment seemed a little a mean too and is a excellent example of what I've been saying regarding this topic. Perhaps you should define your own beliefs about compassion? Should you only have to be compassionate to those people you like or everyone? If the latter, is that really practicing compassion as Lao Tzu, Buddha, Jesus, and the other religious prophets advocated? Important questions. Now, unless someone asks me another question, that's the end of my participation.

 

Aaron

Edited January 22, 2013 by Aaron

[Owledge]

Corrected for making sense...

Anyways, nothing I said was wrong or right, just a description of what I think is going on here.

 

 

In the future be aware that I have believed at the time that I was saying the last word on a topic and come back and said something again, in that sense I am very much a liar. So rather than call me a hypocrite, call me a liar, it's more sincere, even if it's not kind.

Man, are you confused! You are calling yourself a liar, while you yourself state in the same posting that at the time you believed it was your last words. You could only have been a liar if you didn't actually believe that, if you knew the decision to let it be your last words was fake. So if that was the case, then your above statement is a lie - either that you used to believe or that your were a liar. Whichever it is, it would make you ... a liar!

I love it!

[Aaron]

Corrected for making sense...

 

 

Man, are you confused! You are calling yourself a liar, while you yourself state in the same posting that at the time you believed it was your last words. You could only have been a liar if you didn't actually believe that, if you knew the decision to let it be your last words was fake. So if that was the case, then your above statement is a lie - either that you used to believe or that your were a liar. Whichever it is, it would make you ... a liar!

I love it!

 

Kind words are not sincere,

Sincere words are not kind.

 

The crafty man is not wise,

the wise man is not crafty.

 

The compassionate man does not taunt others, nor does he gloat over their failings.

 

When you've learned to be compassionate to others, then you will have the capacity to offer others worthwhile advice regarding the topic, til then I recommend you work on cultivating virtue in your life, because your last few posts show you are severely lacking in this area.

 

Really? LOL? Smiley faces? It's a bit sadistic. Let your anger and hate go, the capacity to enjoy the suffering you cause others, that would be the first place I'd start.

 

Aaron

[Owledge]

When you've learned to be compassionate to others, then you will have the capacity to offer others worthwhile advice regarding the topic, til then I recommend you work on cultivating virtue in your life, because your last few posts show you are severely lacking in this area.

You are arrogant for believing that my behavior towards you is sufficient judgment for my capacity for compassion.

 

Talking in quotes is unoriginal, especially when not marked so that foreign and own thought easily get confused by others and maybe by oneself. One can take stuff out of the Dao De Jing just like from the bible to make a point. Like "One who is good will never argue; One who argues is not good.".

 

"The compassionate man does not taunt others, nor does he gloat over their failings." - Where does that come from?

 

"Kind words are not sincere, Sincere words are not kind." - So what? We're both sincere or both not?

 

Stating not to further engage in a forum discussion is either a sign of lack of self-restraint or intended to fool oneself with superiority and self-importance.

 

One who is above mud-wrestling does not go preaching in the mud pit.

[Vmarco]

If the latter, is that really practicing compassion as Lao Tzu, Buddha, Jesus, and the other religious prophets advocated? Important questions. Now, unless someone asks me another question, that's the end of my participation.

 

Aaron

 

As an accredited and honored expert on Christianity, and student of Buddhism, I can assure you that, at best, any compassion of Jesus was relative, whereas Buddha's compassion is absolute. It is dishonest to interpolate any Jesiisms with the absolute reality of what Buddha spoke. I understand that the inter-faith based insist on joining the two, but they are comparing apples and orange juice containers.

[Vmarco]

Christians say, "love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things", 1 Cor 13:7. Although this form of love, that is, bearing, believing, hoping and enduring is idealized by Christians, it isn't Unconditional Love, but the submission, devotion, expectation and suffering to the conditions of their religions brewed beliefs

 

Buddhism is fully contrary to bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring. Tilopa said, that to transcend the mind's dualities all hope must die. "the highest goal is being devoid of hope and fear." Christianity advocates hope and fear.

 

Compassion or love can never be uncovered through hope and fear.

 

In the whole of their Holy Book, the Bible, it only suggests the idea that their God is love at the very end, in the late 2nd Century apology 1John. In fact, when viewing the full length and breadth of the Bible, their Patriarch is clearly a murderous, pro-slavery, vacillant, petty, racist, conditional God. And amazingly, a God who is so insecure, that it demands to be worshiped, obeyed and prayed to.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Vmarco

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

As an accredited and honored expert on Christianity, and student of Buddhism, I can assure you that, at best, any compassion of Jesus was relative, whereas Buddha's compassion is absolute. It is dishonest to interpolate any Jesiisms with the absolute reality of what Buddha spoke. I understand that the inter-faith based insist on joining the two, but they are comparing apples and orange juice containers.

 

Vm, i tend to think of reality sans the religious and spirituality "great people/persons". deities, gods, prophets, messiahs, buddhas, etc...

 

 

 

I tend to think of it in terms of raw information; truth is intrinsic and inherently experienced whether consciously recognized, acknowledged, or otherwise known.

 

 

By this means, i tend to dissect everything each spiritual person, religion, and document has to offer. This is all in hopes of having or gaining or reclaiming, or returning to true discernment (of truth).

[Marblehead]

Mr MH, I didn't ask you for help:-)! Can you point out where you got that idea from?

No. I was just trying to be compassionate. I've made mistakes before - this isn't the first time.

[Birch]

No. I was just trying to be compassionate. I've made mistakes before - this isn't the first time.

 

 

Were you offended when I pointed it out? My gut says that this could be an indication that 'something else' is mixed up with that compassion. But maybe not:-)

[Marblehead]

Were you offended when I pointed it out? My gut says that this could be an indication that 'something else' is mixed up with that compassion. But maybe not:-)

I have had many trials and tribulations in my life. Yes, I even got caught up in the suffering net - feeling sorry for myself.

 

Yes, I was offended. That's my problem, not because of anything you said.

 

I know that things don't have to remain the same. We can make changes in our life. I did and I am so very glad I did.

 

Yes, every now and again I recall some of the crap from earlier in my life and I can laugh at it. And laugh at myself too for my part in adding to the crap.

 

I haven't been squeaky clean all my life (I think I am now though). I added to my own pain and suffering.

 

So anyhow, I was just trying to cause you a smile. It didn't work. Oh well.

[Birch]

I have had many trials and tribulations in my life. Yes, I even got caught up in the suffering net - feeling sorry for myself.

 

Yes, I was offended. That's my problem, not because of anything you said.

 

I know that things don't have to remain the same. We can make changes in our life. I did and I am so very glad I did.

 

Yes, every now and again I recall some of the crap from earlier in my life and I can laugh at it. And laugh at myself too for my part in adding to the crap.

 

I haven't been squeaky clean all my life (I think I am now though). I added to my own pain and suffering.

 

So anyhow, I was just trying to cause you a smile. It didn't work. Oh well.

 

I figured something like that. You might get some real benefit out of that link I posted above:-)

[Vmarco]

 

 

By this means, i tend to dissect everything each spiritual person, religion, and document has to offer. This is all in hopes of having or gaining or reclaiming, or returning to true discernment (of truth).

 

 

Well, that's more than most do. Dissecting has a place, but only valid when in context with the whole.

 

George Clooney said, "Directing is the key to filmmaking. Everything else is just paint." Nevertheless, for most scientists, mathematically dissecting the paint on a canvas is usually the standard method in which they seek to understand everything from a flower to the origin and evolution of life. The painting, however, is not the painter. Likewise, the film is not the director, nor is empirical evidence derived from the physical body our consciousness.

 

The problem with the object-ivity of science for example is that its attachment to conditions will never reveal the unconditional. The idea of a Big Bang proceeds from an Aristotelean belief in cause and effect,...a beginning and an end. And yet there is no proof of cause and effect,...a beginning and an end.

 

Imagine a rose. We can discuss the flower’s petals, pollen, stem, and stalk—its physical characteristics, or we can converse on the chemical nature of the flower, such as the quantity of nitrogen, phosphorous, and amino acids. The sciential mind partitions the rose by reducing and enumerating all its elements and says that such components are the totality of a rose flower. However, those who take this approach have not recognized the rose; they have merely analyzed the object that it reflects. Such is the sciential, object-ive way of understanding a rose. Through full-spectrum consciousness (FSC), however, the rose is understood beyond analyzing or chopping it into pieces. Instead, its totality is grasped, not as a conceptual individuality within a perceived shell, but as a discrete geometry, intimately connected with the discrete geometry of the observer. FSC is not limited to an interest in anatomizing the rose, physically, chemically, or biologically. FSC is not interested in dividing it through perceptual consciousness into subject and object. The dividing of things is a function of object-ive knowledge.

 

Object-ive knowledge writes the numbers 1, 2, 3, and so forth, towards a supposed infinity. No attempt to reach the total of all numbers can succeed; such a conceptual totality can never be reached. FSC, on the other hand, is aware of the circular pulse of duality, that is, the simultaneous inverse of -1, -2, -3, . . . that moves and spins along with the perceived 1, 2, 3, . . . , the reverse flow of forward-moving-spinning things. Relative reality tries to grasp an object-ive meaning, a perceptual cognizance that is blind to the two-way motion-spin of duality. By looking at our rose object-ively, we will never reach the essence of the flower. However, when we simultaneously come back into ourselves as we go out, we can view ourselves and the flower as the same thing. This is similar to how any two perceived elements are essentially the same thing, but whose alternate assemblage points in the geometry of space give the appearance of two different shells to the object-ive observer. In other words, when we see through the encapsulated appearance of a perceived thing, the volume within is no different from the volume of anything else. The apparent singularity of objects arises from the perceived shell and its frequencies. We are not our shell, our bodies, or our ego. That is how a Bodhisattva sees.

 

Before we allowed ego to divide ourselves into subject and object, we and the flower were the same thing. In reality, we are not really divided; we just think that we are when we put the I think before the I Am. Fortunately, we can transcend ego’s limiting perceptions.

　

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

i like to beleive that even if the paint isnt the painter, that the painter, or the essence of the painter, can be discovered within the paint as much as the person.

I like to hold true that the smallest building block of the whole is composed of the sum total of the whole of all building blocks...


That all I percieve and experience is contained within all else that I percieve and experience.



That this infinite eternity is the essence of all things...

Edited January 24, 2013 by Northern Avid Judo Ant

[Vmarco]

i like to beleive that even if the paint isnt the painter, that the painter, or the essence of the painter, can be discovered within the paint as much as the person.

 

I like to hold true that the smallest building block of the whole is composed of the sum total of the whole of all building blocks...

 

 

That all I percieve and experience is contained within all else that I percieve and experience.

 

 

That this infinite eternity is the essence of all things...

 

I'd suggest that the Tao disagrees. Wholeness is beyond the sum of opposites,..beyond all the illusory building blocks. The sum total of all the building blocks, is the same as of positives added to all negative.

 

As such,...there is no infinity. Infinity is another voguish belief topic among the object-ive minded. Theories of infinite space, time, and quantity are just more object-ive math. Definitions of infinity are related or relative to the concept of immeasurability in space, time, or quantity. However, if there is no space, time, or quantity, as implied by quantum cosmology, then there is no infinity. In contrast, the word eternity points to that which is without beginning or end, timelessness beyond the perception of space, time, and quantity. Recognizing the difference between infinity and eternity is inevitable for those shifting towards an earnest spiritual viewpoint and subsequently a clearer understanding of consciousness. Time and eternity are contradictions. A belief in time perpetuates the dream as a dream. Eternity points to a timeless present in which the dream is just a dream and does not actually exist.

 

Scientists are persistent in their search for object-ive facts regarding the existence that they perceive. For example, they peer deeper and deeper into the universe, looking for the precise moment of some theoretical cataclysmic event that they call the Big Bang. Because of their object-ive viewpoint of cause and effect, there must have been a Big Bang. This search is like an attempt to remove the paint from my illustrations, thinking that if they could find the first brush stroke, this would somehow disclose the essence of the painter.

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

it is as akin to a player trying to prove their game-world is real from within-the-game perspectives and resources...
It would take "a lot" to comparably represent that within the game itself... no?