A practitioner's responsibility

[manitou]

1 hour ago, johndoe2012 said:

 

I like this post because it has something genuine, something that does not come from the intellect.

 

I think if you follow that desire to strengthen your intuition/subconscious connection, you will succeed.

 

 

and I think the process of strengthening your intuition/subconscious connection usually involves removing something inside us. Maybe it's not quite like flexing a muscle, but after the personality adjustment has been made, repetition makes it part of us.

 

As to the blaming of someone who rear ends us, I think it's a Practice to embrace the 'is-ness' of the occurrence.  What sometimes occurs to me is What would have happened if I hadn't been rear-ended by that texter?  Might something more horrible have happened down the road?  Did that actually save me from something?  Who's to say?  It's just a way of staying comfortable with uncomfortable situations, and realizing that if you were in that guy's shoes with that guy's conditioning, you too would probably have been texting at that moment.

 

Doesn't mean he shouldn't get a ticket....

Edited May 14, 2018 by manitou

[Apech]

1 hour ago, Stosh said:

Ok, Youre tooling along on the way to work, and somebody on their phone ,slams into you... I blame them, Steve and  Manitou have to quit their job,   and Apech doesnt think  anyone is responsible

 

 

I blame Apple and Samsung ... anyway who uses their phone to actually call someone these days?

[Daemon]

What is it that you feel the need to excise @manitou?

 

☮️

[Apech]

28 minutes ago, Daemon said:

 

For me, it means that I need to take responsibility for my own responses (actions or inactions, although not for my feelings, which are just information flow, which can only be heard properly if I don't judge them).

For example, if I were surrounded by people who were really upset that their possessions had been binned, I have some choices. However, firstly I'd need to be able to deal with my own actual emotional reaction. Only then do I need to decide whether I'm able to offer anything to others to help them to process their emotional reactions. For that to happen, I first need to be in touch with my own feelings (and with those of others) non-judgementally.

However, I still need to make value judgements about actions, (both my own actions and those of others) because my actions will have consequences for which I will have some degree of responsibility. In this specific workplace example, I might need to take some responsibility to act help others to process their difficult feelings because we would all share the responsibility to maintain a happy, peaceful working environment (and that would also help me as I'd be part of the group dynamic). What would not (in my view) be helpful would be to judge those others as having unreasonable feelings of attachments to objects of emotional value to them. Representational objects can play a vital role (for example, shrines, flags, wedding rings, engagement rings, religious texts, places we love to visit in nature).

But I'd only be competent to help others deal with their feelings if I'm really in touch with my own feelings and I'm able empathically to resonate with them without either cutting off my own feelings or being overwhelmed their feelings. 

 

☮️

 

"take responsibility for my own responses"

 

claro, exatamente.

 

 

[KuroShiro]

28 minutes ago, manitou said:

What sometimes occurs to me is What would have happened if I hadn't been rear-ended by that texter?  Might something more horrible have happened down the road?  Did that actually save me from something?  Who's to say?

 

Thank you sir/madam for rear-ended me.

 

I would pay to see his/her reaction.

[Daemon]

29 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

"take responsibility for my own responses"

 

claro, exatamente.

 

 

I'd aspired to be a bit more nuanced than that.

What about those who are unable to take responsibility?

What about those times when it's impossible to respond and it's only possibly either to freeze or to react?

 

☮️

[Apech]

29 minutes ago, Daemon said:

 

I'd aspired to be a bit more nuanced than that.

What about those who are unable to take responsibility?

What about those times when it's impossible to respond and it's only possibly either to freeze or to react?

 

☮️

 

'nuance' wafted over my poor simple head like a cool breeze, I'm afraid.

 

are you going to answer your own questions?  or am I to take it as a test?

[ilumairen]

First, what is the purpose of blame, and what is accomplished through it? 

And what purpose would personal responsibility serve?

 

To me it seems like the difference between a "you did this" that keeps oneself mired in the swirling chaos of a self righteous sense of self, and the ability to accept experience as mutually arising and understanding the great diversity of factors that enabled the unfolding of ANY experience.

 

There is much more openness in the second imo, and this openness enables responsiveness and genuinely reciprocal interaction. And honestly, it just feels better.

[rex]

18 hours ago, Daemon said:

I was referring to the extremely interesting and enlightening paper about Narcissism and the Moses Complex (which I believe I quoted somewhere)?

Does that ring any bells for you?

 

☮️

 

 

Oh yes I remember that now - that was a good paper! Posting a link to a paper doesn't mean that I fully endorse everything in it , or even understand it well. I'll get back to the other question you posted on leadership and your discussion with Steve in another post.

[CloudHands]

The more I think about it the less I dig in.

I tried but no bell is ringing.

[Michael Sternbach]

I think an important clarification is due. Taking responsibility for everything we experience has nothing to do with self-blame and guilt. What it means is simply to understand that the energies we carry around and radiate tend to attract certain things to us.

 

Those energies are often the result of deep rooted beliefs and emotional traumas. Change at those levels is not always an easy matter. We may have plenty of issues that we are hardly even aware of. Although our external experience may provide us with clues - if we manage to avoid the blame and self-blame game. Valuable insight can only be gained from a more detached vantage point here.

 

A useful analogy may be dream interpretation. There is a general understanding that what we experience in our dreams reflects the thoughts and emotions that  live inside us, and may indeed help us understand what is happening on various levels of our psyche.

 

Now the philosophy of personal responsibility implies that even the external reality of our waking hours is not as disconnected from us as it seems. Internal and external reality are closely interlinked. The observer is not truly separated from the observed.

 

It has been suggested in this thread to practically explore this topic, starting with rather innocuous examples and working from there. That seems like a wise approach, generally speaking.  Over time, a more comprehensive understanding may develop. I have heard that the Buddha had full comprehension of this, and I assume that this is true for other Avatars as well.

 

Again, I would like to emphasize that this topic is not exclusively a Buddhist or Dzogchen teaching, and would be relevant only to the practitioners of the latter. Although Dzogchen's particular approach sounds interesting and I am curious to learn more about it.

 

The psychotherapist I used to collaborate with back in the 90's was employing the model of an 'external stage' paralleling an 'internal stage'. This was at the very core of the method of psychodrama that he had developed. He often said: "As inside, so outside". And he had a way of applying this concept quite playfully (!) even to situations of grave suffering, in ways that his clients did not find flippant or respectless, but sensible and helpful.

 

Again, I appreciate that this valuable topic has been brought up eventually. In fact, I once thought of starting a thread on this theme myself, but could not find an anchor that seemed suitable for TDB at the time. Little was I aware of the role it plays in Tibetan Buddhism until now.

 

 

 

[doc benway]

16 hours ago, Apech said:

I've been following this thread with interest and I'd like to ask what the various contributors mean by 'responsibility'.  If I take 100% responsibility for what happens what does that actually mean.  Is it just an attitude? or some kind of commitment to action?

 

 

 

I guess you could say, strictly speaking, a commitment to non action. Specifically, to remain in the nature of mind. That’s the root of this teaching, and all Dzogchen teachings. If an action occurs it comes from the 3 bodies but the responsibility of the practitioner is simply to remain in the nature of mind

 

- the superior practitioner remains indisturbed, the middling returns to the nature, and the lesser simply remains mindful

 

[doc benway]

5 hours ago, Michael Sternbach said:

 Little was I aware of the role it plays in Tibetan Buddhism until now.

 

 

 

 

I’m not sure either, but TWR talks about it in formal terms in Wonders and informal terms in retreat sometimes. Usually as a little poke and prod to make us want to do better, or so it feels to me. Not like it’s a doctrine or even required, just a snapshot of where we’re operating.

[johndoe2012]

.

Edited June 10, 2018 by johndoe2012

[ilumairen]

6 hours ago, johndoe2012 said:

Listen to Mooji at around 31:58, trying to be good aka taking responsibility is conditioning and needs to be rooted out.

 

 

 

A minor clarification; the idea of "trying to do good" is not what the teaching is pointing at in my understanding. 

[Mudfoot]

On 2018-05-14 at 4:13 PM, Daemon said:

 

What about those times when it's impossible to respond and it's only possibly either to freeze or to react?

Then you take responsibility to your reaction (includes freeze) when you have the opportunity. 

By releasing your system or mopping up the blood, depending on which of the two you landed in. 

[Daemon]

I was suggesting that sometimes I might not be responsible for my actions (in the way that is conventionally understood). For example, if I react to an unexpected threat, such as a car driving on to the sidewalk on which I'm standing by jumping out of its way, am I responsible for the action that saves my life in the same way as if I'd undertaken the training needed to survive a solo wilderness trip?

We have 3 nervous systems,

• Cerebral
• Cardiac and
• Enteric

Are gut and heart reactions cerebrally mediated?

 

☮️

Edited May 15, 2018 by Daemon

[silent thunder]

In my experience even cerebrally mediated processes are not under our direct, independent control and are subject to processes we are unaware of...  what we commonly refer to as choice, to me, is not a display of independent action and power on the environment.  It's no actual independent choice at all... rather what we call choice is the mental rationalization we ascribe after the fact, to the natural reactions to conditions by conditinioned responses that lie beneath conscious awareness.

 

Our choice of orange juice over water is as much a conditioned unthinking response as leaping away from the car. 

 

I realize this doesn't sit well with many folks and I'm fine with that... it's just my take.

 

[doc benway]

32 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

In my experience even cerebrally mediated processes are not under our direct, independent control and are subject to processes we are unaware of...  what we commonly refer to as choice, to me, is not a display of independent action and power on the environment.  It's no actual independent choice at all... rather what we call choice is the mental rationalization we ascribe after the fact, to the natural reactions to conditions by conditinioned responses that lie beneath conscious awareness.

 

Our choice of orange juice over water is as much a conditioned unthinking response as leaping away from the car. 

 

I realize this doesn't sit well with many folks and I'm fine with that... it's just my take.

 

 

There are studies which suggest that by the time consciousness makes a decision, the muscles that carry out the action are already primed suggesting our awareness of the decision is secondary. The one who chooses is more a narrator than an independent actor, or so it seems.

[Daemon]

Is it therefore the case that for you ( @silent thunder ) that there are only 2 possibilities,

• you have free will
• you do not have free will

or do you have a more complex, nuanced and textured understanding?

 

☮️

[Bindi]

Wouldn't dismantling the conditioned responses be the necessary work? 

[silent thunder]

2 hours ago, Daemon said:

Is it therefore the case that for you ( @silent thunder ) that there are only 2 possibilities,

• you have free will
• you do not have free will

or do you have a more complex, nuanced and textured understanding?

 

☮️

I have awareness... of that I'm still certain.

 

Though I have no number to the potential of responses to conditions, nor of conditioned responses to stimuli.

Understanding is of little importance, even though it can feel strong and vital to make strong statements and have my mind reinforced with logical understandings, these days the mind games seem little more than passing entertainment compared to...  Presence, Beingness and Awareness... Release, Clarity and Emptiness.

 

2 hours ago, Bindi said:

Wouldn't dismantling the conditioned responses be the necessary work? 

If there's an action for me any longer, it's unfolding.  Radical, constant opening and unfolding in presence. 

 

Being. Here.  Now.

 

In this unfolding there is no effort involved, though some actions seem repeatedly manifested.

Release, acceptance, acknowledgement and presence repeatedly reinforce and cross manifest with each other.  Though there is no straining to achieve this... rather it manifests when enough of the filters and extraneous mental chattering and egoing no longer garners inertia.

 

I would characterize this unfolding as a repeated awareness of the absolute perfection of the manifest and unmanifest resulting in the radical release and deeply grateful acceptance (both of actions taken and not taken and of all phenomena).  Unfolding to true presence the way a flower unfolds.  No effort aside from a deep yielding to one's innate essential nature of beingness and presence.

 

There is a profound level of trust that I am living now, directly related to this unfoldingness and grateful acceptance of the perfection that is what is... that I would not have thought possible prior to recent shifts.

 

Where I am now, I couldn't claim with a straight face that anything is absolutely necessary... from tao, nature flows.  It flows according to its nature and can not be other than it is... and as the fluid nature shifts that which is manifest then is other than it was, yet is still naturally flowing from tao.  i am this flow... thoughts are a menu of sorts, or a book that refer to nature, but are not of it... so always seem somewhat ineffective for conveying the beingness of concepts.

 

I wonder, to what level, how radically and deeply the conditioned aspects of personality can actually shift with awakening.   Even in this it seems our essential nature in awakening does not erase personality, nor emotions, rather the relationship with them shifts.

 

hmm... hope some of these words helped clarify what I'm trying to share. 

It's a wonderful and potent conversation. 

Deep gratitude for all involved.

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by silent thunder
to add the sentence about trust

[Daemon]

3 hours ago, Bindi said:

Wouldn't dismantling the conditioned responses be the necessary work? 

 

 

That's certainly one of several approaches that you might find beneficial.

 

☮️

[Michael Sternbach]

4 hours ago, Bindi said:

Wouldn't dismantling the conditioned responses be the necessary work? 

 

My earlier post implies exactly this. While we do have a say in what experiences we create or attract, it is not always a matter of free decision. For we tend to function in terms of conditioned responses (as you say). And yes, it is within our power to alter those - if we find access to the level of consciousness, on which we can 'reprogram' ourselves.

Edited May 16, 2018 by Michael Sternbach

[manitou]

and to throw true craziness into this discussion, all things which have happened already, and are yet to happen, are actually happening NOW, within metaphysical understanding.  So if you're standing on the sidewalk and a car comes at you, this too is all part of a jigsaw puzzle that is already in place.  Acceptance of that 'is-ness' leads to an understanding and peace beyond understanding.

 

Somehow, it's like quantum physics.  Both a particle (which takes up space) and a wave of probability (which uses time) are both inseparable in our limited linear view.  Seems like cause and effect, but it's more vertical than that.  Were we not in that embolism bubble of time and space, we could see the entire work of art all at once.