More Unpopular Opinions

[Nungali]

On 3/13/2024 at 7:52 AM, liminal_luke said:

 

Not really.  The post you quoted was written in jest.  But my heart does go out to those parents who have moments when they would like to retroactively abort their children.  Our society doesn´t have much empathy for the parent who says "I deeply regret having had kids."  Such a statement would make one unpopular in most mommy groups.  And yet I´d wager that most parents, particularly new parents, feel ambivilent now and then. That´s a perfectly natural and to-be-expected feeling and I think we need to make space for it.

 

Because that is ALL a stuff up ! 

 

I watched a few women in our society struggle unbelievably  .... 4 kids , alone , working multiple jobs, paying crazy rent , dont matter if you get sick ... gotta keep going - constant exhaustion .  I watched my ex struggle with three boys under 5 ( with 2yo twins , not mine by the way ) , even with the help I could give .

 

One time we all went together to  the indigenous camp I used to visit and stay at . One of the old auntie's  there  took my (then ) GF aside  for a chat ... she was ferocious !  I could see my GF getting upset ;

 

" Why did you come here with those children ? You dont plan on staying here do you ? Why on earth a single young girl like you  have  all those kids ? How you going to look after them all ?  Look, with us , a silly young girl have even maybe two kids  but those kids got many mums ....'aunties' , 'uncles' , maybe even four or five women share the breast feeding for babies  , we are  all going to do it -  kid dont get enough attention , they just go to the next 'mum' ."

[Nungali]

23 hours ago, Unota said:

 

Okay, I see your point. Well...I do and I don't. Ehh...my head hurts. I do...but I don't!!

 

Ever been sailing  (I mean in a light small boat, controlling it yourself )  ?

 

 

[liminal_luke]

31 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

Because that is ALL a stuff up ! 

 

 

I don´t know what the above means.  

 

Sounds like the women at the indigenous camp have a great system.  Communal ties are everything.

Edited March 13 by liminal_luke

[Apech]

On 3/12/2024 at 9:55 PM, Unota said:

Sorry, I am still learning about this kind of stuff. Is an immortal spirit body not the end goal of taoist alchemy? I thought this was like, the equivalent of enlightenment, in comparison with other religion. To persist after death, etc etc, in whatever form that may mean. *squints as notes* Did I misunderstand? Am I being an idiot again?

 

There's no need to apologise.  Posting opinions (unpopular ones) is what this thread is all about.  

 

Think of this.  When you say go with the flow of life etc.  you have to remember that the natural flow of existence is that of increasing entropy - in other words everything if left alone gradually falls apart.  If you took a car and left it for say 1,000 years - what would you have? a pile of rust.  Some of us have cars which are already like that   Even mountains slowly erode.  The end point is called the heat-death of the universe because everything just turns to equally distributed dust and there is no life - because life requires organic organisation and growth.  The reason we have life on earth - which is a closed system - is because the sun provides a nett input of energy in the form of sunlight.  Without that input of energy there would be no plants, animals or human beings.  So in this sense life itself is against the natural flow.  Life is formed because of the nett input of energy into a closed system.

 

Internal alchemy starts by conserving the energy we have inherited - jing and qi - and then using the body, subtle body and mind to transform ourselves first into long lived healthy beings and then into immortal ones (we are told).  This is not anti-life really - even though the time and effort put into it might mean that you sacrifice much of the simple enjoyments. If you see what I mean.

[Apech]

9 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

I don´t know what the above means.  

 

Sounds like the women at the indigenous camp have a great system.  Communal ties are everything.

 

Brother Luke I do think that euthanasia for 18 year olds may be the most unpopular opinion so far

 

 

[liminal_luke]

Just now, Apech said:

 

Brother Luke I do think that euthanasia for 18 year olds may be the most unpopular opinion so far

 

 

You might just be right about that. I didn´t get the award for most unpopular opinion last time but hey, I´m a fast learner.  

[Apech]

19 hours ago, stirling said:

 

I guess that isn't my experience, at least with North Americans or practitioners in the UK.

 

Possibly in disagreement if I understand you correctly (and thus not popular?), but I will say that the single most important thing one could be doing IMHO is recognizing thoughts as thoughts, feelings as feelings, and all simply parts of the story of "self"/I as a mental construction. These are the most obvious things MOST in the way of enlightenment. In realization, the body can be seen at its base level to be a delusion... eventually seen to be the fluxing field of unlabeled sensations it has always been. The way forward in this case is in the simple practice of seeking  and resting in stillness.

 

 

 

Well my experience of groups of meditators is admittedly limited - as I tend to avoid them.  I am even disenchanted with the 'sangha' which I am supposed to be connected to - especially now as they are talking in terms of national co-ordinators for data management and such.  Yukkity yuk yuk.

 

I think the body is a very interesting topic - mostly because we all think we know what it is.  When of course we don't.  In the text I study it calls it the illusory body (Buddhist of course) and I balked a little at that.  But then I thought that actually whatever we think the body is - is probably illusory.  In fact if you think about it the body is more like a community of things - cells, bacteria, parasites, organs, skin, bone, muscle, blood etc. etc.  I think I read that there are over 7 trillion cells in the human body and even more commensal bacteria ... so what is it exactly and what keeps it going all together? eh?

 

 

[Apech]

4 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

You might just be right about that. I didn´t get the award for most unpopular opinion last time but hey, I´m a fast learner.  

 

There's time for someone to outdo you yet - but you have set the bar.  We might get a cracker from Uncle Steve yet!  Who knows?

[Mark Foote]

20 hours ago, stirling said:

 

I guess that isn't my experience, at least with North Americans or practitioners in the UK.

 

Possibly in disagreement if I understand you correctly (and thus not popular?), but I will say that the single most important thing one could be doing IMHO is recognizing thoughts as thoughts, feelings as feelings, and all simply parts of the story of "self"/I as a mental construction. These are the most obvious things MOST in the way of enlightenment. In realization, the body can be seen at its base level to be a delusion... eventually seen to be the fluxing field of unlabeled sensations it has always been. The way forward in this case is in the simple practice of seeking  and resting in stillness.
 

 

Quote

“Things grow and grow,

But each goes back to its root.

Going back to the root is stillness.

This means returning to what is.

Returning to what is

Means going back to the ordinary.” - Lao Tzu
 

 

Let's get SO unpopular!
 

As (one) dwells in body contemplating body, ardent… that desire to do, that is in body, is abandoned. By the abandoning of desire to do, the Deathless is realized. So with feelings… mind… mental states… that desire to do, that is in mind-states, is abandoned. By the abandoning of the desire to do, the Deathless is realized.
 

(SN V 182, Pali Text Society V p 159)

 

 

 

[stirling]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

Well my experience of groups of meditators is admittedly limited - as I tend to avoid them.  I am even disenchanted with the 'sangha' which I am supposed to be connected to - especially now as they are talking in terms of national co-ordinators for data management and such.  Yukkity yuk yuk.

 

Ooof. Nothing ruins practice like administration. My teacher has told me that she will request my robes back if I fall to demon of administration, and that any time something requires THAT much work it is time to drop some org. 

 

1 hour ago, Apech said:

I think the body is a very interesting topic - mostly because we all think we know what it is.  When of course we don't.  In the text I study it calls it the illusory body (Buddhist of course) and I balked a little at that.  But then I thought that actually whatever we think the body is - is probably illusory.  In fact if you think about it the body is more like a community of things - cells, bacteria, parasites, organs, skin, bone, muscle, blood etc. etc.  I think I read that there are over 7 trillion cells in the human body and even more commensal bacteria ... so what is it exactly and what keeps it going all together? eh?

 

Agreed. It isn't ANY of those things. Like everything else it depends on EVERYTHING for its existence. The Pleaides, rubber bands, Keith Moon,  and spider eggs are as much your body as anything else. It is impossible to draw a box around anything and label it separate from my perspective. What keeps it all going? It's luminous all pervasive emptiness, of course!  Perfection.

[Apech]

43 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

Let's get SO unpopular!
 

As (one) dwells in body contemplating body, ardent… that desire to do, that is in body, is abandoned. By the abandoning of desire to do, the Deathless is realized. So with feelings… mind… mental states… that desire to do, that is in mind-states, is abandoned. By the abandoning of the desire to do, the Deathless is realized.
 

(SN V 182, Pali Text Society V p 159)

 

 

 

abandon the desire to do …. Care to elaborate?

[Apech]

8 minutes ago, stirling said:

 

Ooof. Nothing ruins practice like administration. My teacher has told me that she will request my robes back if I fall to demon of administration, and that any time something requires THAT much work it is time to drop some org. 

 

 

you have robes?

 

8 minutes ago, stirling said:

 

Agreed. It isn't ANY of those things. Like everything else it depends on EVERYTHING for its existence. The Pleaides, rubber bands, Keith Moon,  and spider eggs are as much your body as anything else. It is impossible to draw a box around anything and label it separate from my perspective. What keeps it all going? It's luminous all pervasive emptiness, of course!  Perfection.

Interesting collection of objects!

[Mark Foote]

7 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

well said but also and in the meantime someone has to feed the kids, pay the bills, do chores and work some kind of job... thus and only a tiny percentage of folks are or have become renunciates who maintain such a pure state,  as for a householder with duties (who granted may sometimes visit such a state) who also try's to live  a renunciate's life at the same time will incur bad karma for breaking householder Dharma ...

 

many of the masters or advanced spiritual folks quoted at this site are renunciates in various ways along with their teachings related to that life,  and do not have (or no longer have) spouses, kids, bills, 9-5 jobs,  etc. that they have to deal with in the world. 
 

 

 

Got an unpopular take on that for you, old3bob (I'm expanding, Apech!).

In the chapter on inbreathing and outbreathing in Samyutta Nikaya V, there's an account of the time Gautama went on retreat for three weeks, and only the monk who brought his food was allowed near him.  When he came back from the retreat, he noticed there were fewer monks than when he left.  He asked his attendant Ananda about it, and Ananda reminded Gautama that before he left, Gautama had advised the monks to practice the meditation on the unlovely (aspects of the body).  Consequently, said Ananda, as many as a score of monks a day had begun "taking the knife".

Gautama had Ananda gather the monks, and he taught them what he said was his own way of living--basically, a particular set of thoughts connected with the four arisings of mindfulness.  But get this--that way of living, he said, was "a thing perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living besides"  (no enlightenment necessary).

What I understand from that teaching is that I can knock myself out, looking to turn a corner and be a different person, or I can accept a way of living marked by thoughts initial and sustained, which is something like the way I live now.  Well--he observed such thought with the placement of awareness by necessity ("one-pointedness of mind"), and in connection with an inbreath or an outbreath.  He did so "most of the time", and "especially in the rainy season"--that's how it was for Gautama. 

 

The only thing I really need to master is the ability to arrive at the cessation of habit and volition in the activity of breath, such that I can experience cessation in daily living, when the occasion demands--to master "just sitting", as it were.

 

 

I find that the stage of concentration that lends itself to practice in the moment is dependent on the tendency toward the free placement of attention. As I wrote in my last post:
 

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.

 

 

Shunryu Suzuki said:

 

To enjoy our life– complicated life, difficult life– without ignoring it, and without being caught by it. Without suffer from it. That is actually what will happen to us after you practice zazen.

 

(“To Actually Practice Selflessness”, August Sesshin Lecture Wednesday, August 6, 1969, San Francisco)

 

 

I practice now to experience the free placement of attention as the sole source of activity in the body in the movement of breath, and in my “complicated, difficult” daily life, I look for the mindfulness that allows me to touch on that freedom.

("To Enjoy Our Life")

 

 

Edited March 14 by Mark Foote

[Bindi]

Here’s my current unpopular opinion. The actual point of spirituality is the activation of kundalini, though to qualify this, its activation needs to be in the central channel, and facilitated by kundalini’s subtle energy/consciousness opposite, which can be identified as ‘Shiva’. I suspect that kundalini inappropriately activated via ‘forceful’ methods, of which there are many, causes kundalini to travel up a side subtle channel, and I further suspect that this cannot be rectified, that is, it cannot then be made to travel up the central channel, except in extraordinary circumstances, such as sending kundalini back to sleep and doing the initial work necessary before raising kundalini consciousness correctly. Travelling up a side channel will inevitably lead to relatively useless side road achievements, inevitably degrading the perceived value of kundalini. 
 

In a community obsessed with emptiness and non-doing and nonduality, this must surely be in the running for most unpopular opinion. 

[idiot_stimpy]

6 hours ago, Bindi said:

...with emptiness and non-doing and nonduality, this must surely be in the running for most unpopular opinion. 

 

I thought that was a method of safely raising it through the central channel. 

[old3bob]

Hey Mark,   To me reading through certain convoluted Buddhist texts is sometimes like trying to cut one's way through a dense jungle with a machete.  Such may be clear as a bell to you and some others but I venture to say not all of us.   On the other hand many of the short, simple but profound sayings of Zen, Taoism and parts of what Nagarjuna and the historic Buddha said are clear as a bell to me...go figure or maybe not.  

 

Btw,  why some Buddhists reject "Buddha nature" is very telling to me...

Edited March 14 by old3bob

[Apech]

9 hours ago, Bindi said:

Here’s my current unpopular opinion. The actual point of spirituality is the activation of kundalini, though to qualify this, its activation needs to be in the central channel, and facilitated by kundalini’s subtle energy/consciousness opposite, which can be identified as ‘Shiva’. I suspect that kundalini inappropriately activated via ‘forceful’ methods, of which there are many, causes kundalini to travel up a side subtle channel, and I further suspect that this cannot be rectified, that is, it cannot then be made to travel up the central channel, except in extraordinary circumstances, such as sending kundalini back to sleep and doing the initial work necessary before raising kundalini consciousness correctly. Travelling up a side channel will inevitably lead to relatively useless side road achievements, inevitably degrading the perceived value of kundalini. 
 

In a community obsessed with emptiness and non-doing and nonduality, this must surely be in the running for most unpopular opinion. 

 

 

What then is kundalini and what is 'Shiva'?

 

[Bindi]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

 

 

What then is kundalini and what is 'Shiva'?

 

Kundalini/Shakti is a level of consciousness that is designed to operate within the central channel, she is the Yin aspect of the central channel if you like, in ‘sleep’ mode because of a lack of energy flow in the side channels. Optimally Kundalini/Shakti consciousness dwells in the upper part of the central channel, though asleep she is in the lower part of the central channel. What her role is in the upper part of the central channel I can only guess at at the moment, but I do suspect part of her role is as intermediary between higher knowledge and consciousness and mundane consciousness. Shiva is her Yang counterpart, Shiva consciousness ‘knows’ and guides Shakti consciousness, opens subtle energy doors for her when the time is right, protects her as she travels upwards, and continually points out the way she has to go. Without his actions and directing from above, Kundalini/Shakti will go the wrong way, she will either be stuck on her travels upward or she will take what appear to be shortcuts that are in fact dead ends. It’s a very delicate dance that the two consciousnesses engage in, that can be all too easily disrupted by our mundane mind level consciousness. If circumstances allow them to actualise their potential then their level of consciousness will be available to us, of course I don’t know what that level of consciousness entails at this point in time. 

[Bindi]

6 hours ago, idiot_stimpy said:

 

I thought that was a method of safely raising it through the central channel. 

Ask a nondualist if they think their awakening/realisation/enlightenment is a function of kundalini or has got anything to do with kundalini. 

[silent thunder]

Unless you strip to your underwear, have scientist observers present and record it on video... no practice has any value.

[liminal_luke]

Subtle body work and nondual traditions need not be at odds. The central channel is the anatomical seat of nondual consciousness in the human body, imo.  Bringing our awareness to the center, we become centered. Resting our awareness in the center continually, we enlighten.  After enlightenment, there is no need to direct attention anywhere because everywhere is experienced as the center. 

Edited March 14 by liminal_luke

[Forestgreen]

Here is my unpopular opinion:

Kundalini is defined differently in different traditions, which causes confusion when the subject cones up.

Some of the Yoga upanishads seems to have similar descriptions, which differs from the more usually available versions. 

Source: The Yoga darshana upanishad and the Yoga kundalini upanishad.

 

[old3bob]

2 hours ago, Bindi said:

Kundalini/Shakti is a level of consciousness that is designed to operate within the central channel, she is the Yin aspect of the central channel if you like, in ‘sleep’ mode because of a lack of energy flow in the side channels. Optimally Kundalini/Shakti consciousness dwells in the upper part of the central channel, though asleep she is in the lower part of the central channel. What her role is in the upper part of the central channel I can only guess at at the moment, but I do suspect part of her role is as intermediary between higher knowledge and consciousness and mundane consciousness. Shiva is her Yang counterpart, Shiva consciousness ‘knows’ and guides Shakti consciousness, opens subtle energy doors for her when the time is right, protects her as she travels upwards, and continually points out the way she has to go. Without his actions and directing from above, Kundalini/Shakti will go the wrong way, she will either be stuck on her travels upward or she will take what appear to be shortcuts that are in fact dead ends. It’s a very delicate dance that the two consciousnesses engage in, that can be all too easily disrupted by our mundane mind level consciousness. If circumstances allow them to actualise their potential then their level of consciousness will be available to us, of course I don’t know what that level of consciousness entails at this point in time. 

 

Btw, as far as I know to Saivites Shiva (or Siva) is Supreme Being or Brahman,   with  Brahman being beyond all categories which then comes into manifestation as first Shakti of the purest energy and the dance of that energy represented by Lord Nataraja, along with or through Lords Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.   Btw Saivites have several major schools or sects and they don't agree on everything although they do agree on a great many of things.  I think most any discussion about Shiva should include such credit to & some basic  info about Saivites... which one could then do their own verification and research on. 

 

Edited March 14 by old3bob

[Apech]

57 minutes ago, Forestgreen said:

Here is my unpopular opinion:

Kundalini is defined differently in different traditions, which causes confusion when the subject cones up.

Some of the Yoga upanishads seems to have similar descriptions, which differs from the more usually available versions. 

Source: The Yoga darshana upanishad and the Yoga kundalini upanishad.

 

Can you tell us what those descriptions are?

[S:C]

5 hours ago, Bindi said:

a level of consciousness that is designed to operate within the central channel… engage in, that can be all too easily disrupted by our mundane mind level consciousness. If circumstances allow them to actualise their potential then their level of consciousness will be available to us

 

don’t we need both to live functionally? 
 

designed means there is a creator with intention? 
 

why does it work and why works it in the central channel, what is the difference to the mundane? 
 

potential is bound to decrease at some point… does it rise ever again?

always questions, never answers, sorry.