Spiritual hubris

[C T]

3 minutes ago, dmattwads said:

 

Oh it's not even alluded to it's said blatantly in several suttas of the middle length discourses, but I can't remember the exact suttas off the top of my head. I'll try to find them later.

 

Yeah, it'd be great to post up some examples. Cheers! 

No rush.... 

[doc benway]

3 hours ago, freeform said:

I don’t think it’s conditioning. I think it’s a natural instinct to see ‘other’ as potentially dangerous... It’s the case in the whole of the animal world.

 

In fact it’s through conditioning that we force ourselves to trust a stranger (rather than the other way round)...

 

A wild dog will always be wary of a stranger... a ‘tamed’ dog is more likely to wag its tail at a stranger...

 

You have a valid point but I think it only goes so far. A few additional rhetorical questions come up for me...

 

1. Conditioning occurs in nature, does undomesticated equate with unconditioned?

 

2. The vast majority of humans have not lived “wild” in millennia so is it reasonable to use wild animals, or wildness, as a template for human nature? I suggest that to separate human nature and human civilization may be artificial, nothing more than a thought exercise. Along these lines, I’ve read examples of minimally civilized populations who are quite open, naive, and trusting (and consequently easily taken advantage of), as well as examples of those who are reclusive and defensive.

 

3. We are discussing conceptual and verbal capacity - feeling threatened by an opinion, not a physical threat. It seems like there is a learning or conditioning process at work here. Along those lines is animal behavior a valid comparison when discussing conceptual disagreement?

 

Anyway, not saying I disagree with your point but it brings up interesting questions for me. 

 

[freeform]

1 hour ago, steve said:

The vast majority of humans have not lived “wild” in millennia so is it reasonable to use wild animals, or wildness, as a template for human nature?

While I made a comparison with animals - I’m talking more about the ‘human animal’ nature... the part of us that aims for survival, status, reproduction etc.

 

You could say these things are conditioned - and they are - but only within certain constraints.
 

For instance babies’ feeding habits (and how willing they are to put unrecognised objects in their mouth) can be used to accurately predict their political affiliations in later life.

 

In the same way it can predict how open they are to strangers or to new experiences.

 

But the fact that they tend to move towards or away from the unfamiliar is there in everyone. The act of judging whether something foreign is safe and interesting or unsafe and disgusting is an automatic response.
 

That’s very deep conditioning of our human-animal nature. Similar conditioning exists in animals. It’s not a socially imposed program. It’s a biologically imposed one. That’s what I mean by our animal nature.

 

Being reflexively open to something foreign is no less conditioned than being reflexively guarded.

 

The wisdom traditions work to get rid of any reflexivity or automacity in this regard.

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by freeform

[Geof Nanto]

9 hours ago, freeform said:

While everyone has an intrinsic spiritual nature - everyone also has an intrinsic animal nature.

 

Human nature is this funny dance between our spiritual and animal selves... however it’s been made clear by various unconnected teachers that it’s very much the animal part that drives much of humanity.

 

For Daoists in fact, one does not become a true human until they achieve a stage that’s akin to enlightenment. Zhenren means ‘true human’... anyone who hasn’t attained enlightenment is still tethered by their animal natures.

 

Left to nature the baby grows up, has kids, raises those kids then eventually dies - and comes back as a baby for another round - over and over.

 

That is the natural course.

 

In my experience with Daoists in Asia - none of them think of the process of alchemy as a natural unfolding. It’s in fact counter natural - a kind of reversal.

 

That’s not the view of any of the Daoist masters I’ve come across.

 

However I must say that mathematics gives the wrong connotation.

 

The Daoist cultivator is more akin to a gardener than a craftsman.

 

The craftsman controls and shapes her materials to follow her designs.

 

The gardener creates the right circumstances and conditions for her garden to bloom.

 

But gardening still has right and wrong. Let an invasive weed flower and spread its seeds and you’ll have to deal with the results over countless seasons.

 

Allow water to wash away your topsoil - and you’ll lose all fertility for generations to come.
 

Get enchanted with one plant to the exclusion of all the others and you’ll create the perfect conditions for disease to decimate the garden.

 

 

This may indeed be test tube spirituality - but way before test tubes were invented... so let’s call it cauldron spirituality instead  

 

I have no interest in engaging in verbal sparring with you, especially as you’ve shifted the ground of your argument into something I can almost entirely agree with. I particularly like the gardening analogy and have previously cited it myself. I live in in a semi-wilderness area and have spent a couple of decades on forest regeneration projects. Working this closely with nature has given be some of my greatest teachings about the nature of Dao. As to alchemy being about reversal of nature; that too is part of the Dao. Laozi wrote “the Dao works by reversal.” Also we human seem to have an instinct to go against our instincts, such is the complex web of chaotic yin-yang forces within our psyche that forms the primary material for our alchemical work. 

If what I originally wrote has no meaning for you, then I’m Ok to leave it at that, though it’s far from an ideal outcome. I haven’t got the energy for pursing contention, and, quite simply, my heart isn’t in it. I’m content with the way my path is unfolding and in my words here I try to convey a little of what’s important for me and also gain greater clarity into myself and our human psyche in general.
 

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by Yueya

[Gerard]

On 18/12/2020 at 8:53 AM, dmattwads said:

Even on forums such as these it is often the case that a view differing from one's own view isn't seen as a different perspective, but rather as wrong.

Ah! No idea I guess i lost track of what you said. 
 

Yes that point is also valid and very much one of the pitfalls of Buddhism: parroting for thousands of years the same thing over and over. Follow one's experience and if you dare to deviate or challenge that you are seen as an outcast. You are wrong. Your practice is incorrect. Sutras are always right.

 

Only the path of jhana leads to liberation. IMO is too simplistic. For starters:

Any path that denies/tries to bypass the outer (body) & middle layer (yin-yang and 5 forces) is doomed to either failure or a very slow progress resulting in stagnation.

 

The three fundamental layers are:

 

-Physical (body)

-Middle (yin-yang, subtle)

-Primordial/spiritual (Mind, spirit)

 

Buddhism was developed from the last layer. Good luck for anyone (except for the Buddha) starting from that level. 

 

Taoism addresses all of them, thank goodness!
 

 

 

[Maddie]

3 minutes ago, Gerard said:

Ah! No idea I guess i lost track of what you said. 
 

Yes that point is also valid and very much one of the pitfalls of Buddhism: parroting for thousands of years the same thing over and over. Follow one's experience and if you dare to deviate or challenge that you are seen as an outcast. You are wrong. Your practice is incorrect. Sutras are always right.

 

Only the path of jhana leads to liberation. IMO is too simplistic. For starters:

Any path that denies/tries to bypass the outer (body) & middle layer (yin-yang and 5 forces) is doomed to either failure or a very slow progress resulting in stagnation.

 

The three fundamental layers are:

 

-Physical (body)

-Middle (yin-yang, subtle)

-Primordial/spiritual (Mind, spirit)

 

Buddhism was developed from the last layer. Good luck for anyone (except for the Buddha) starting from that level. 

 

Taoism addresses all of them, thank goodness!
 

 

 

 

Yes for several years I was a by the book Buddhist and found many useful things in it, but didn't find that my personal experience and the suttas always lined up, or that not everything in the suttas made sense.

 

Before that I was a by the book Christian, just repeat what I said about Buddhism for my experience with that one lol.

 

[Gerard]

3 minutes ago, dmattwads said:

 

Yes for several years I was a by the book Buddhist and found many useful things in it, but didn't find that my personal experience and the suttas always lined up, or that not everything in the suttas made sense.

 

Before that I was a by the book Christian, just repeat what I said about Buddhism for my experience with that one lol.

 

To be honest all religions are very limiting...and none are perfect. Fortunately Taoism is SCIENCE rather than a religious system.

 

Btw, I have met rogue Buddhists  :one was a monk, he disrobed after many years in the order; the second still is but no longer believes in formal Buddhism and the third came across a deep realisation resulting from living 3 years in solitude in the Arizona desert. I met this guy online in the now deceased E-Shanga. He told me many years ago something that at the time I was unable to grasp because of having way too many blockages to understand/experience it:

 

Gerard, the mind is the most complex thing of the entire reality.

 

I know now what he meant. Damn complex it is and very hard to reach for sure. It is behind the scenes; IT's the architect. 

 

 

[Maddie]

6 minutes ago, Gerard said:

 

 

Gerard, the mind is the most complex thing of the entire reality.

 

I know now what he meant. Damn complex it is and very hard to reach for sure. It is behind the scenes; IT's the architect. 

 

 

 

Maybe the truthiest truth that has ever been truthed!

[old3bob]

I'd say mind is only apparently complex, or complex when perception is bound to  or using various mental devices...for mind is only of forms and all forms are seen through by the Self as simply and clearly as can be.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by old3bob

[Limahong]

2 hours ago, dmattwads said:

Maybe the truthiest truth that has ever been truthed!

 

Hi dmattwads,

 

 

From a critical realist's perspective ~ there is only one such truth...

 

 

 

 

It is hard to find.

 

 

- Anand

 

 

[Limahong]

3 hours ago, Yueya said:

I’m content with the way my path is unfolding and in my words here I try to convey a little of what’s important for me and also gain greater clarity into myself and our human psyche in general.

 

 

 

 

[freeform]

20 hours ago, Yueya said:

I have no interest in engaging in verbal sparring with you

My response was shared in the spirit of thoughtful disagreement - not a call to arms  

 

I may have misunderstood you. But it seemed to me you were saying that alchemy is a kind of natural unfoldment that happens by itself once we take certain blocks out of the way.
 

I don’t agree with that because that’s not how teachers I respect talk about it.
 

I didn’t feel I moved the goalposts of my initial statement - but I’ve certainly been known to be clumsy with such matters!
 

21 hours ago, Yueya said:

I try to convey a little of what’s important for me and also gain greater clarity into myself and our human psyche in general.

 

I replied precisely because I found what you said interesting and worthwhile (even if I disagree) - I’m glad you’re sharing your experience - I might be a little insensitive and blunt, but my intention is most definitely not to shut you down, or anything like that!

 

21 hours ago, Yueya said:

I live in in a semi-wilderness area and have spent a couple of decades on forest regeneration projects. Working this closely with nature has given be some of my greatest teachings about the nature of Dao.

The divine is strongly reflected in nature. You’re very fortunate to live and work in it