Good, growth, positivity, love, happiness...

[wandelaar]

@ OldDog

 

Well - that's not exactly what I meant.

 

For instance one can have a near death experience and consider it as a (perhaps interesting) freak of consciousness under stress, or one could have exactly the same experience and become completely convinced of the existence of life-after-death. So the results could be radically different depending on one's personality. No doubt the same is true for enlightenment experiences. There is no reason to consider the sceptical person as not yet ready for the truth, because one could just as well consider the ready-to-believe  person as too gullible. 

 

Besides I'm already convinced of the fact that our sense of being an autonomic entity with a free will is an illusion, and that the world process forms one big interconnected whole. So what else is there to learn?

 

Edited January 25, 2019 by wandelaar

[moraldilemma]

On 1/23/2019 at 6:59 AM, freeform said:

I think it’s a good question.

 

I’ve been pondering it myself for several years now.

 

There are several ways of ‘doing good’. 

 

One is simply doing good because it’s the easiest default... society is set up so that we generally tend to be good - otherwise we will be shunned from society. So you do good because to do bad would be harder, more risky, would look bad to people etc. This is doing good for benefit to oneself. Or doing good from a place of weakness.

 

Then there’s the type of doing good where you take responsibility for something in the world. This is the type of ‘doing good’ that is hard, much more arduous and subtle... it’s fraught with pitfalls. There is a real level of responsibility - to keep yourself on track. Because good can be elusive... and bad very often enters and subverts the process as soon as you’re not attentive. This is doing good from a place of strength.

 

Then there’s the undoing of ones ‘self’ and operating from a bigger Self... this is when the preference for good or bad is gone. This is the action of a ‘Sage’. Where one taps a motiveless, uncontrived source of action. So you just act effortlessly from this deep well of wisdom - and that sets into motion a cascade of cause and effect ripples that are ultimately profoundly ‘good’ - but might look bad at first - like wacking someone with a stick (seemingly bad) but it results in a transcendent state for the one being wacked (profoundly good).

 

Unfortunately most of us won’t ever get close to being these perfected sages... so that leaves us with the other two...

 

And also - the controversial bit. Doing good has nothing to do with spiritual growth. In fact - if your main aim in life is spiritual growth, you’ll need to let go of ‘doing good’ at some point. You’ll need to let go of any preference whatsoever in fact.

 

But for most of us - I say do good from a place of strength. But keep a sense of humour about it. Treat it lightly. Have some humility. Be vigilant and don’t let it build new layers of identity for yourself. Don’t do it because you want to be good. Do it just coz that’s what you do. Knowing full well the futility involved (and this is where humour helps)... Do it coz you can. Because it’s something you choose to do. What you do matters. 

 

On 1/24/2019 at 3:55 AM, wandelaar said:

Thinking about the ultimate utility of doing something (whatever) is a sure way to kill all joy in simply being alive.

 

One has to live like an animal (without much thought), or like a sage who has not only seen the ultimate futility of life but also (and this is crucial!) the futility of bothering about the ultimate futility of life. Only thinking it trough halfway will result in depression or worse.

 

That's how I solved the issue.

 

These answers make sense I guess.

[OldDog]

23 hours ago, wandelaar said:

So the results could be radically different depending on one's personality.

 

I don't disagree ... but the point I was trying to make is that we are not static beings cast with an immutable perception of the world. We are continually evolving in our ability to perceive and interpret. At any one instance of time, our reaction to what we encounter will be what it is ... but not forever. At that level, I think,  we are in agreement. But who is to say that you won't view things differently later ... that after, say a near death experience, that short of believing in an afterlife, your view of the world, how you perceive things won't be changed ... the value and significance of things would be different, in light of the experience.

 

 

[wandelaar]

1 hour ago, OldDog said:

But who is to say that you won't view things differently later ... that after, say a near death experience, that short of believing in an afterlife, your view of the world, how you perceive things won't be changed ... the value and significance of things would be different, in light of the experience.

 

I have no doubt that near death experiences exist. So even if something like it would happen to me, that would make no difference to my view on what kind of experiences people may have. I have also already thought and read about the different ways that near death experiences are interpreted, so having such an experience myself wouldn't start me thinking about something I never considered before.

 

Actually what I have read here on The Dao Bums lately has made me more sceptical about spiritualist interpretations of mystical and mystical-like experiences. Not because I don't believe the Bums who describe those experiences (I generally do believe they had those experiences), but because - contrary to what they themselves think - their exotic interpretations are in no way proven by the experiences themselves. And attempts to rationally/logically/scientifically/psychologically investigate or explain what happened are usually vehemently rejected. So the preconceptions of the sceptics about believers in the paranormal (that I initially considered as misplaced) are actually confirmed in what I read here on The Dao Bums.

 

My guess - but I could be wrong - is that having a near death experience myself would hardly change my view of life.

 

Edited January 26, 2019 by wandelaar

[Zen Pig]

On 1/25/2019 at 6:39 AM, OldDog said:

When I was young I was what you might call a science bigot. I rejected any learning that was not science. My view was pretty narrow. In college I resented having to take any course that was not in line with traditional Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics curriculum. Just didn't see the point. Took a long time to get over that.

 

you and me both.  use to believe that science could eventually explain everything,  and got a degree in chemistry, with a lot of physics and a mathematics minor.   It took many years of feeling my own hubris,  and having it shattered with experiences in meditation,   until I saw science for what it was,  a good tool,  but nothing more or less special than a shaman's tools in the rain forest. 

Edited January 26, 2019 by Zen Pig

[wandelaar]

Some illusions die early on, and others never die (because one doesn't want them to die). Science needs neither.

[OldDog]

3 hours ago, wandelaar said:

My guess - but I could be wrong - is that having a near death experience myself would hardly change my view of life.

 

Wow! 

 

Supernatural doo-dah aside, you don't think that having dodged a bullet would change your outlook or thinking?  

 

I certainly don't have that degree of certainty. 

 

 

[wandelaar]

45 minutes ago, OldDog said:

Supernatural doo-dah aside, you don't think that having dodged a bullet would change your outlook or thinking? 

 

Not everybody who nearly escapes death has a near death experience. But naturally nearly escaping death without a near-death experience is also a significant life event. And such a thing would emotionally affect me. But that is another discussion.

 

Edited January 26, 2019 by wandelaar

[OldDog]

2 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

And such a thing would emotionally effect me. But that is another discussion.

 

I have always considered emotional knowledge as important ar rational knowledge. That the two equally inform our perception, understanding and actions in reality. Unavoidable.

[wandelaar]

"emotional knowledge"

 

There are such things as hunches, intuitions, instincts that are of use.

 

Emotions however may be totally inappropriate such as manifests in phobias, racism, and forms of political and religious extremism. We need emotions to make choices in life, but in the establishment of facts they are best ignored.

 

Edited January 26, 2019 by wandelaar

[OldDog]

4 hours ago, wandelaar said:

"emotional knowledge"

 

Sure. If you think of your emotions as just another senseory input and you become attuned to reading your own emotional content ... there you have it. You may not entirely understand what triggers your emotions. Clearly they are a response alternative to rationale. There must be some value to them. Why not listen to what they have to say.

 

 

Edited January 27, 2019 by OldDog
Typo

[wandelaar]

Sensory input isn't knowledge either. It's the way we go about testing theories on the basis of sensory input that results in knowledge. Now you can indeed add emotions to your sensory input as yet another source of information about the world (because you yourself also belong to the world). And than you will see that your emotions (as far as they actually say something) sometimes have it wrong and sometimes have it right.

[OldDog]

4 hours ago, wandelaar said:

... emotions (as far as they actually say something) sometimes have it wrong and sometimes have it right.

 

True enough ... but emotions are an actual response regardless of being correct or misleading. That's what I mean by being attuned to them. Recognize them for what they are ... simply indicators that something is going on. Often times emotional response is the first signal that something is going on that needs attention. Just another piece of information.

[wandelaar]

I see emotions as in roughly the same category as intuitions and gut feelings, they are not to be ignored but they are generally less reliable than sensory perceptions.

[OldDog]

13 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

... generally less reliable ...

 

Perhaps but I think not as much as we have been conditiined to believe. 

 

There is an old saying ... You see what you want to see and you hear what you want to hear. Literally, that's true. The traditional sensory inputs can be misleading ... or at least the mind can misinterpret. In the simplest case, how often have you ever misheard what someone else says ... or upon suddenly hearing an unfamiliar noise mistaking it for something else. For example a loud "bang" ... was something dropped or an engine backfire or did a gun go off. A soldier might easily hear the latter while a construction worker hear the former. The mind will seek to put information into a context that has the most significance for it. Emotions are no different. Context.

[wandelaar]

Quote

There is an old saying ... You see what you want to see and you hear what you want to hear. Literally, that's true.

 

And that is often because of one's emotions distorting the interpretation of sensory input. Much of the methodology of scientific research is put in place precisely to remove such emotional distortions in the interpretation and handling of experimental data.

[moraldilemma]

Found another perspective on the topic:

 

"The true seeker

Subdues all waywardness.

He has submitted his nature to quietness.

 

He is a true seeker

Not because he begs

But because he follows the lawful way,

Holding back nothing, holding to nothing,

Beyond good and beyond evil,

Beyond the body  and beyond the mind...

 

He harms no living thing.

 

And yet it is not good conduct

That helps you upon the way,

Nor ritual, nor book learning,

Nor withdrawal into the self,

Nor deep meditation.

None of these confers mastery or joy.

 

O seeker!

Rely on nothing

Until you want nothing."

 

-Dhammapada (ch. 19)

 

Even though it's attributed to Buddha, it seems pretty Daoist to me.