What is freedom?

[Marblehead]

You and that bloody middle path :-) A hedonist is someone that chooses pleasure as the value, but as pleasure is the result of obtaining a value the hedonist has it all back to front. They are chasing a phantom. You cannot really eat with your eyes, but that's what the hedonist is trying to do. You aren't that. You aren't the robot or the tyrant either. Neither should you attempt to walk a line between these extremes, all you get is the position you are now in. Wrestling yourself into a big ball.

Hehehe.  Yeah, the middle path is a Buddhist concept.  I have no idea why I adopted it.

 

Ah!  The big ball.  It is eternal, you know.  No matter from where you start you always return to where you began.  Even your universe is that way.

 

No, I don't try (attempt); I just do.  Sometimes I fuck up.  So what?

[Marblehead]

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”

 

 

 

I've had enough of discipline.  I am now striving for chaos.

[Karl]

Hehehe.  Yeah, the middle path is a Buddhist concept.  I have no idea why I adopted it.

 

Ah!  The big ball.  It is eternal, you know.  No matter from where you start you always return to where you began.  Even your universe is that way.

 

No, I don't try (attempt); I just do.  Sometimes I fuck up.  So what?

I don't wrestle with myself it seems a pointless waste of energy. I watched fight club and that pretty much nails it.

 

Everybody fucks up, but not everyone learns from fucking up. You are old enough.......well you know the rest ;-)

[Junko]

Hey, miss Junko, is that your dog ... hahaha ...

 

Actually dogs teach me about a lots of freedom. The dog I had put on this forum just recently have passed away.....she was the one who thought me a freedom! Edited August 11, 2016 by Junko

[Karl]

Self begins to dissipate as it expands and the trajectory becomes clear even while duality still remains. Ultimately, the observed and the observer simultaneously merge and vanish, which seems paradoxical from a dualistic perspective and irrational from a physicalistic one.

<shrug>

De tarbaby, he say nothin'.

Are you telling me you are voluntarily disappearing up your own backside :-) well, I suppose, whatever floats your boat. I shall stand here with both feet planted firmly on the deck, I always follow the old adage not to depart the vehicle whilst it is still in motion.

[blue eyed snake]

I've had enough of discipline.  I am now striving for chaos.

 

well, when we equate the attainment of peace and contentment with freedom,

you can revel in chaos, no discipline needed anymore.

 

on the other hand, the daily watering of your garden is a form of discipline

[Jox]

Actually dogs teach me about a lots of freedom. The dog I had put on this forum just recently have passed away.....she was the one who thought me a freedom!

 

I am sorry for your lovely dog, may she rest in peace ...  

Would you like to share, how she thought you a freedom? 

[vonkrankenhaus]

Movement of evolution is towards more freedom interacting in environment.

 

Early heaven ba gua shows YinYang & what is given, and later king wen sequence is showing change - for example, 9 palaces.

 

So materially we might say we are not free, but metaphysically we might say we can find freedom.

 

And generally, we can say that we must be healthy in order to be free.

 

And we must be free in order to be truly happy.

 

 

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[Brian]

Are you telling me you are voluntarily disappearing up your own backside :-) well, I suppose, whatever floats your boat. I shall stand here with both feet planted firmly on the deck, I always follow the old adage not to depart the vehicle whilst it is still in motion.

I'm telling you (and have been for some time) that you are constitutionally unprepared for and hence throw out excuses you don't even recognize to avoid the paradigm shift which would/will accompany the shattering of the one-dimensional worldview you currently hold as absolute truth. I repeatedly nudge you towards deeper waters but your reluctance to let the shoreline slip over the horizon is neither unexpected nor troubling. You'll let go of the guardrail and skate on your own according to your own path -- or you won't.

[Junko]

Sure! One thing about a freedom I can confirm that you somehow feel in a way, you are not bounded by anyone, good and happy and in control.I am married and Yes, in this respect there are so many boundary I have to face,but I have a faith in dealing which I have learned from such intelligent animal like dog.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Junko

[Karl]

I'm telling you (and have been for some time) that you are constitutionally unprepared for and hence throw out excuses you don't even recognize to avoid the paradigm shift which would/will accompany the shattering of the one-dimensional worldview you currently hold as absolute truth. I repeatedly nudge you towards deeper waters but your reluctance to let the shoreline slip over the horizon is neither unexpected nor troubling. You'll let go of the guardrail and skate on your own according to your own path -- or you won't.

I did once, then I realised it was really skating on awfully thin ice and I have an aversion to cold water and drowning. :-)

 

Remember that you are holding your own view as an absolute truth-don't lose sight of that-it's attached to something. You might need it.

[Karl]

Edited at mods request.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Karl

[Marblehead]

I don't wrestle with myself it seems a pointless waste of energy. I watched fight club and that pretty much nails it.

 

Everybody fucks up, but not everyone learns from fucking up. You are old enough.......well you know the rest ;-)

 

Yeah, but when we wrestle with ourself (question our opinions and understandings) we will always find "our" truth eventually.  I could lie to you, Karl, and never feel the worse for it.  But if I lie to myself I will have lost my inner peace and contentment.

[Marblehead]

well, when we equate the attainment of peace and contentment with freedom,

you can revel in chaos, no discipline needed anymore.

 

on the other hand, the daily watering of your garden is a form of discipline

 

Yep.  I have not totally escaped and never will.  And caring for the fish too.  But I selected those paths and accepted the responsibilities that go with them so what can I say?

[Karl]

Yeah, but when we wrestle with ourself (question our opinions and understandings) we will always find "our" truth eventually.  I could lie to you, Karl, and never feel the worse for it.  But if I lie to myself I will have lost my inner peace and contentment.

Not necessarily, that was what happened in fight club. The first rule of fight club is...

If you get used to this conflict then you might feel it to be somewhat normal. Sometimes we just haven't got the resource to solve the bad integration.

[Marblehead]

But on the other hand, if I have the strength to create a problem I damn well better have the strength to resolve it.

[Karl]

But on the other hand, if I have the strength to create a problem I damn well better have the strength to resolve it.

Only if you know you have created it, or you actively want to resolve it. This is one of the importances of learning the trivium. Input-process-output. Grammar allowing the detection of input errors ( in modern parlance this is referred to as comprehension, but it's a vey loose version of grammar), then logic to identify fallacies, incorrect classifications, definitions and finally rhetoric as the response.

If children learned the Trivium today the world would be a very different place.

[silent thunder]

And so comes one of my favorite axioms courtesy of Mr Einstein: don't use the same thinking to attempt solving the problem that was used in creating it...

[CloudHands]

Freedom is when they delete your account.  But it never happens.  So freedom is a myth.

Too much daobums

[Marblehead]

Only if you know you have created it, or you actively want to resolve it. This is one of the importances of learning the trivium. Input-process-output. Grammar allowing the detection of input errors ( in modern parlance this is referred to as comprehension, but it's a vey loose version of grammar), then logic to identify fallacies, incorrect classifications, definitions and finally rhetoric as the response.

If children learned the Trivium today the world would be a very different place.

 

Anymore, if I encounter a problem it is my own doing.  I know how to stay out of trouble.  But sometimes I act/react spontaneously.  And it is then when I have no idea what I am going to do next.

[silent thunder]

Freedom is a word, that represents an idea, based on a concept, which is an illusion.

[liminal_luke]

Freedom starts with sovereignty over one's own energy and the fruits thereof but progresses towards (and through) the liberating awareness that energy is not one's own. 

 

Beautiful!

 

What particularly strikes me is the order.  So many times I think people try to jump to transcendence before adequately addressing the "soveignty over one´s own energy" part.  Then again, others struggle so mightily to establish a firm boundary between themselves and others that they are loathe to let it go even when the time has come -- it can feel like going backwards

 

I think intimacy is like this too. Most of us start out neurotically fused with other people, and have to do lots of work just figuring out where we start and our loved ones begin.  Eventually we figure out how to be ourselves and let other people be themselves too.  Healthy boundaries.  And just as soon as we learn how to make those boundaries the next spiritual step is to let them dissolve.  

 

Such a sublime paradox.  

Edited August 12, 2016 by liminal_luke

[Taomeow]

Freedom is a word, that represents an idea, based on a concept, which is an illusion.

 

Actually, freedom is quite a bit more than a word, since the brain centers that differentiate between freedom and restraint are identical in humans and all animals with a brain and lie in the limbic system way below the neocortex (the only organ using words, ideas, concepts, and illusions.)  The "blue ribbon emotions" which are primary and shared by all species with a brain are four, of which one is rage, which is a universal reaction to restraint of freedom.  It is likely to have originated as the prey species' reaction to being captured and held immobilized by the predator.  The rage response is the chance to regain freedom, break free and escape and survive. 

 

So, freedom is not just a word and not an illusion -- everything alive can tell the difference, except for humans of course, because of the neocortex that comes up with stories... 

 

I should mention that in animals without a brain and in plants, the freedom perceptions and the rage reactions to its removal are likely to be every bit as intense, but much harder to study with a human brain.  

[Jox]

In & out

[Jox]

Krishnamurti