[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by django

You don’t address emotions here, you say we are just choosing to keep our attention on mind and thoughts. You can choose to not attend to thoughts perhaps, but can you choose to not attend to emotions and stay psychologically healthy?

This is something I’ve been at for decades, IME clearing the mental and emotional channels does allow the wisdom mind stream to emerge.

Everything said or thought can be understood and acted on in different ways, some the opposite of each other. Like say the example of a child in a supermarket line throwing a loud temper tantrum because his or her mother won't let them get the candy that is on that display you have to pass to check out.

Imagine the child is screaming and stomping their feet and the poor mother is embarrassed, or maybe not if she does not care about such public displays, but then what is the mother's reaction?

The mother has several options, she can stop the tantrum and let the child have the candy, or she can yell at the child and threaten more physical punishment, which I have seen happen several times, and on and on.

The mother's thoughts and her relationship with those thoughts, her habits in thinking and acting, the patterns of thought and behaviors well worn in her body and mind, will determine the outcome. Present in all of that is the mothers understanding of the situation including her self awareness.

This is the original meaning of the word enlightenment, it related to self understanding. The belief in Buddhism, understanding at that level not only changes how everything is perceived and experienced, but that also frees one from the cycle of rebirth.

Obviously there are different levels of understanding, but even here understanding is related to intelligence and awareness and knowledge. Then these three things are related to experience and contemplating that experience, learning. Thus the need for rebirth.

Do all children throw tantrums when they see candy at the check out line? No they do not. I knew a "hippy" mom who taught her three sons from birth that sugar was bad and a poison. I babysat them once and asked them if they wanted candy when out getting a movie to watch. At the time, I did not know their mother had conditioned them in this way. They were young so the youngest was not talking yet, but the two older boys lectured me on how candy was bad and how I should never eat it.

So my guess would be children who throw tantrums for candy have probably been allowed to eat it before. Young children cannot understand why I could have it yesterday and not today. Last week and not this week. Also, the child has learned how to "punish" the parent to get what it wants. So the mother could be the root cause for the tantrum or whoever has taught the child candy is good and an possible option to get in that situation.

My point there is understanding, knowing all sides and aspects of a situation, who and how and what is happening, in any giver moment. Understanding the small details as well as the big ones. So it's more than having some rule like keep my attention off of thought or emotions. It's about self understanding and awareness.

We all are unique. Our bodies are unique. Our conditioning and experiences are unique. Even our souls themselves are unique. We have different skills, flaws, interests, and circumstances. But what is the same is we can strive to make something positive out of what we find ourselves to be and where we are. We can always bring more understanding and patience and love, for ourselves and others into each moment.

A lot of Buddhism points to the goal of liberation, to ending the cycle of rebirth. I would guess that means fully understanding ourselves. To have learned all we can learn here. But every single person has a different thing to work on and a different body, mind, and circumstance. Like I said, to learn requires experience, so that requires thousands on rebirths. I don't think spirituality or practice or religion is a one size fits all. One person may spend their whole life dealing with severe trauma and abuse they experienced in childhood, others may deal with severe tragedy, and others have none of this in their life and are born rich, nurtured and happy. So our path's are unique but they all lead to this experience and eventual understanding that frees us of a need for birth on this largely negative and violent physical plane.

I kind of wondered around the topic but tending to emotions, a huge deal for some people, not an issue for others at all, same with thoughts, huge deal for some, not an issue for others and everything in between. But none of these differences relate to how spiritual or enlightened a person is at all. We can't know that. A happy monk may be a new soul and a person suffering horrible experiences or addictions an old soul, no way to tell who is higher or lower as we all come here to learn individual things and for individual purposes.