[running]

Originally Posted by Gem

I think in Buddhism you have to understand from the 4 noble truths that craving is the cause of suffering and the cessation of craving is the end of suffering, but as an intellectual understanding we might imagine this refers to a tangible and objective thing when it doesn't. You have to investigate yourself to see how you generate your own suffering, and by seeing that insightfully, cease to do that. That cessation is what we call equanimity, which is not a thing itself, but the absence to those impulses which disturb the balance of minds and keep us distracted from what is actually happening.


We have a certain ability and a certain limitation, so at some point sensation becomes overwhelming and we lose equanimity. The art is not losing the equanimity of the mind, which means not reacting to the sensed phenomena in the sense of having no personal investment in it because it doesn't happen to me.



The idea that you can remove obstacles is where the ego become adverse to some feelings and wants rid of them, but in meditation it's simply true that it feels like this and all feelings pass, and if you really investigate it an realise that is true, you see that you can't possibly make it some other way and hence cease trying to. But there is still the issue of reactivity. Not liking it is one thing. I don't like having vomit in my hair, but how you react is different... you could calmly wash the vomit away or you could become highly agitated and generate a whole load of suffering... and it is this latter tendency we refer to ad 'craving'...



It is not an apathetic indifference. It is the ability to know 'this is how it is' without being disturbed by it, and that is a very difficult thing to do when the sensations become extreme. If we look at blocks, they are only emotions which we are personally invested in, we are always trying to avoid them, resist them, heal them and what have you. JB is thinking if ony we do this and that special energy practice we can get rid of the thing, but that's only an aversion toward it, and meditation is the cessation not of the blockage, which is a sensation, but of the adverse reactivity one has toward it that causes them to resist avoid get rid heal it and so on. That is all self-delusion getting involved trough the 'craving'.

everything you said is true from the expereince of the mind and emotions. im not sure if you read other posts leading to this one. but if you read what i wrote as we discussed you should see(if i explained well enough) i was speaking from what makes the concern of suffering in the context of what you wrote irrevelant.

i don't know if im responding to the reason you brought up in your post?