0

[Dedicated]

I've experienced different sides of this, and my current thinking is to take breaks, or at least temporarily reduce meat occasionally. 

[Neirong]

 

On 20.10.2023 at 6:35 PM, Apech said:

I was an admittedly not completely strict vegetarian for a good number of years.  Mostly due to the influence of my ex-wife and her cohorts.  But for the last 10 years at least I have been eating meat - in fact since I went low carb to deal with my weight and blood sugar I have eaten a lot of meat.  My feeling about it is - and this is completely non-scientific and unproven - that a meat diet is far more healthy provided its not junk food meat.  My reason for thinking this is that I am convinced that meat contains a lot of complex molecules and substances which we need for good health.  It's not just a protein gloop - which is why meat substitutes are unattractive.  After all we evolved over millions of years to eat a mixed diet.

 

Meat is denser and more nutrient-rich. The quality of the meat matters; if you purchase factory-farmed and hormone/antibiotic-grown meat, it certainly won't be healthy. Or if you eat "meat products" like sausages that have more soy/enhancers than meat.
 

Animals are not saintly lifeforms; they don't appear out of thin air. They consume other living beings, which means they are also killing millions of other living organisms. In some areas, it reaches a point where if you don't hunt and kill some "herbivore" animals, they start to pose a threat to the natural habitat.

[Summer]

Edited January 28 by Summer

[Summer]

Edited January 28 by Summer

[old3bob]

well Summer I suggest starting your own string for your pov on this this off the OP topic...

 

btw and on a different scale and in a different context would you get heart surgery by a person that didn't at least pass his medical tests/exams and training?  (thus a real MD)

Edited October 26, 2023 by old3bob

[Apech]

2 minutes ago, old3bob said:

well Summer I suggest starting your own string for your pov on this this off the OP topic...

 

@Summer is the OP.

[Mark Foote]

4 hours ago, Summer said:

 

Yeah, this is an interesting way of looking at it. Many are called and few chosen etc. But if the level of skill required is so difficult for most humans then where is the compassion? the help? By this logic a handful of people passed the test, became prophets and left a how to book for people. The people, being thick as shit, missed the point entirely, fight among themselves and even if someone modern gets it they'll kill him, call him heretic etc..

 

I said before that if Jesus came back now and said, verbatim, the exact same stuff as before they'd call him the antichrist. That and every single religious text is so full of obfuscation (pearls before swines thinking? so much for being egalitarian and equal) and obtuse stuff its almost like its rigged to fail. By the time you comprehend the rules of these scriptures you're almost dead and have committed loads of mistakes. That and we obviously have people who are aligned with wickedness that prosper, do well and lauded in society. The simple man with a simple life seeking salvation is seen as a fool or idiot.

 

Jesus, as a person, not the image, was obviously very very different than a lot of us think. I had a very interesting conversation with a scholar about this before and he agreed. Buddha too. Everything is so corrupted. Add in the hellish exit and I just can't say I agree with your idea at all. I do see a hell of a lot of mental gymnastics, reality denial and coping mechanisms though. Loads and loads of them.

 

The proof is everyone points back through time to these people that made it. In between then and now? Nothing but a bunch of failures. The world is proof of this. We have lots of tech but everyone is messed up in the head but denying it is expected. Worst as the bible bashers and overly religious who can be totally wicked one moment and then slip back into their pious mask the next. Hypocrisy. And yet saying this and being honest makes people in glass houses catch feelings.  I'm not saying I'm perfect. Far from it. But at least I see myself exactly as I am and not some idealized image. Spiritual ego tripping is mad and yet also so very common.
 

Here's the problem, with slight intro:
 

When necessity places attention, and a presence of mind is retained as the placement shifts and moves, then in Gautama’s words, “[one] lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness”:

 

Herein… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.  (The disciple), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought directed and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein.

 

(SN v 198, Pali Text Society vol V p 174; parenthetical material paraphrases original; “directed” also rendered as “initial” MN III p 78 and as “applied” PTS AN III p 18-19)

 

Foyan spoke of “looking for a donkey riding on the donkey”.  The degree of “self-surrender” required to allow necessity to place attention, and the presence of mind required to “lay hold” as the placement of attention shifts, make the conscious experience of “riding the donkey” elusive. Suzuki provided an analogy:

 

If you are going to fall, you know, from, for instance, from the tree to the ground, the moment you, you know, leave the branch you lose your function of the body. But if you don’t, you know, there is a pretty long time before you reach to the ground. And there may be some branch, you know. So you can catch the branch or you can do something. But because you lose function of your body, you know [laughs], before you reach to the ground, you may lose your conscious[ness].

 

(“To Actually Practice Selflessness”, August Sesshin Lecture Wednesday, August 6, 1969, San Francisco; “fell” corrected to “fall”; transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

Suzuki offered the analogy in response to the travails of his students, who were experiencing pain in their legs sitting cross-legged on the floor.  In his analogy, he suggested the possibility of an escape from pain through a presence of mind with the function of the body.

 

The difficulty is that most people will lose consciousness before they cede activity to the location of attention–they lose the presence of mind with the placement of attention, because they can’t believe that action in the body is possible without “doing something”:

 

It’s impossible to teach the meaning of sitting. You won’t believe it. Not because I say something wrong, but until you experience it and confirm it by yourself, you cannot believe it.

 

(Kobun Chino Otogawa, “Embracing Mind”, edited by Cosgrove & Hall, pg 48)

 

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)

 

 

And the solution:

 

When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration:

 

… there is no need to depend on teaching. But the most important thing is to practice and realize our true nature… [laughs]. This is, you know, Zen.

 

(Shunryu Suzuki, Tassajara 68-07-24 transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

(ibid)

 

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Mark Foote

[old3bob]

2 hours ago, Apech said:

 

@Summer is the OP.

 

oops, right Apech, OP poster but still mixing OP topics?...if that is what you want to do Summer?

Edited October 26, 2023 by old3bob

[old3bob]

1 hour ago, Mark Foote said:

Here's the problem, with slight intro:
 

When necessity places attention, and a presence of mind is retained as the placement shifts and moves, then in Gautama’s words, “[one] lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness”:

 

Herein… the (noble) disciple, making self-surrender the object of (their) thought, lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness.  (The disciple), aloof from sensuality, aloof from evil conditions, enters on the first trance, which is accompanied by thought directed and sustained, which is born of solitude, easeful and zestful, and abides therein.

 

(SN v 198, Pali Text Society vol V p 174; parenthetical material paraphrases original; “directed” also rendered as “initial” MN III p 78 and as “applied” PTS AN III p 18-19)

 

Foyan spoke of “looking for a donkey riding on the donkey”.  The degree of “self-surrender” required to allow necessity to place attention, and the presence of mind required to “lay hold” as the placement of attention shifts, make the conscious experience of “riding the donkey” elusive. Suzuki provided an analogy:

 

If you are going to fall, you know, from, for instance, from the tree to the ground, the moment you, you know, leave the branch you lose your function of the body. But if you don’t, you know, there is a pretty long time before you reach to the ground. And there may be some branch, you know. So you can catch the branch or you can do something. But because you lose function of your body, you know [laughs], before you reach to the ground, you may lose your conscious[ness].

 

(“To Actually Practice Selflessness”, August Sesshin Lecture Wednesday, August 6, 1969, San Francisco; “fell” corrected to “fall”; transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

Suzuki offered the analogy in response to the travails of his students, who were experiencing pain in their legs sitting cross-legged on the floor.  In his analogy, he suggested the possibility of an escape from pain through a presence of mind with the function of the body.

 

The difficulty is that most people will lose consciousness before they cede activity to the location of attention–they lose the presence of mind with the placement of attention, because they can’t believe that action in the body is possible without “doing something”:

 

It’s impossible to teach the meaning of sitting. You won’t believe it. Not because I say something wrong, but until you experience it and confirm it by yourself, you cannot believe it.

 

(Kobun Chino Otogawa, “Embracing Mind”, edited by Cosgrove & Hall, pg 48)

 

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)

 

 

And the solution:

 

When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration:

 

… there is no need to depend on teaching. But the most important thing is to practice and realize our true nature… [laughs]. This is, you know, Zen.

 

(Shunryu Suzuki, Tassajara 68-07-24 transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

(ibid)

 

and recall that the historic Buddha was also put to an absolute like test along with other tests on the way.  Btw. no one knows how many potential students and masters have fallen and been turned to Adharmic ways while practicing various methods yet before and related to not passing certain tests...almost no one talks about those possibilities.

Edited October 26, 2023 by old3bob

[Mark Foote]

9 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

and recall that the historic Buddha was also put to an absolute like test along with other tests on the way.  Btw. no one knows how many potential students and masters have fallen and been turned to Adharmic ways while practicing various methods yet before and related to not passing certain tests...almost no one talks about those possibilities.
 

I'm only talking about Gautama's way of living, a certain "intent concentration on inbreathing and outbreathing", not his enlightenment:

 

… if cultivated and made much of, (the “intent concentration”) is something peaceful and choice, something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too.
 

(SN V 320-322, Pali Text Society V p 285)

 

Not looking to pass tests, just need to incorporate action that takes place without “doing something' as a regular thing in my life.

 

[Ajay0]

An insightful article by Sadhguru on the subject ...

 

https://isha.sadhguru.org/in/en/wisdom/article/plant-based-diet-benefits

 

Quote

 

The type of food we eat has a huge impact on the mind. An average American is said to consume 200 pounds of meat per year. If you bring it down to 50 pounds, I would say 75% of the people will not need antidepressants anymore. Meat is a good food to survive if you are out in the desert or the jungle. If you are lost somewhere, a piece of meat will keep you going, because it provides concentrated nourishment. But it should not be a daily food that you eat when there are other choices.

 

There are many ways to look at this. One aspect is that animals have the intelligence to know in the last few moments that they are going to get killed, no matter how cunningly or how scientifically you do it. Any animal that has the capacity to express some kind of emotion will always grasp when it is going to be killed. Suppose you come to know, right now, that at the end of this day, you are going to get slaughtered. Imagine the struggle that you would go through, the burst of chemical reactions within you. An animal goes through at least some fraction of that. This means when you kill an animal, the negative acids and other chemicals are in the meat. When you consume the meat, it creates unnecessary levels of mental fluctuations in you.

 

For most of those who have become mentally ill, the illness is not pathological but has been cultivated. Such a large percentage of people cannot be mentally sick unless we are somehow culturing it within our social fabric.

 

If you put people who are on antidepressants on a conscious vegetarian diet, in about three months’ time, many of them will not need their medication anymore. We have seen this with many people who have come to the Isha Yoga Center.

 

 

Edited October 27, 2023 by Ajay0