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Originally Posted by Rain95
I understand how breathing techniques can interrupt a thought identified process, after all, if one is focused on the breath, especially when this shift in attention is linked to spiritual philosophies and concepts, it will not only take the attention off of thought and onto a usually unconscious physical process, it will remind one or make one aware of their state of attention, of where their attention is or was. So one can use it repeatably to "wake up" or become more aware in the moment. I myself am not drawn to this method or practice or technique.
So doing that can lead to some space between me and some habitual reactionary thought. At times, there is no space between me and my thoughts. I become aware of the thought is the sense of knowing it is there and whatever it is proclaiming is "truth" to me, there is no space or distance between me and thought there. For example, I am sitting at home and my internet goes down, or the power goes out one day, and the thought comes, "I'm bored." I immediately feel this "thought" as my brain cooperates with it by producing the necessary chemicals and their corresponding emotions so that I physically feel this thought. One feels one is suffering from this "boredom" in some way and wants to escape this unpleasant "feeling."
Another example, I am peacefully driving down the freeway and somebody in the lane next to me doesn't notice I am there and moves into my lane in front of me inches from my bumper. I immediately hit my brakes and the thought comes, "OMG WHAT A &&*^%$$#" and once again my brain cooperates with this thought by producing chemicals so that I feel the strong emotion of anger.
If I was detached from my thinking, in both of these examples, I would not react to the thought, my brain would not produce the emotion causing chemicals, and I would not feel those emotions. There may be the feeling of the rush of adrenaline in the car example as that is an automatic body response to sudden danger, but there would be no anger.
So let's imagine two persons in these examples. One is a normal everyday person so the thought comes, "I feel bored" and they feel this subtle sense of suffering. The next person is practicing being self aware in the moment due to Buddhism or Zen or Ram Dass or Tolle or whatever, and so they question the reality of the thought, they don't identify with it, so no "feeling" of boredom is there. They recognize the unreality of the thought. Same deal with the car example.
My question is, can a person exist who naturally ignores or does not identify with thoughts like these? A person with zero religious or spiritual conditioning?
So that they are living Buddhism while having no knowledge of it? See actually we have this question backwards. They are not living Buddhism, Buddhism is pointing to this outside already existing thing. Buddha discovered something in himself that was always available. It was a potential he had before he realized it. He did not invent something, he discovered something that was there. So he taught it in his way and it ended up being called or associated with him or "Buddhism." But it is not owned by Buddha or Buddhism. It is a potential everyone has. Everyone can observe themselves and learn things. Learn to live in ways that make us suffer less. Live in ways where we are not in conflict with ourselves and others. Everyone can learn to not identify so much with habitual automatic thinking.
Learning this stuff is not only Buddhist. The "stuff" is not Buddhist. That just one organization that talks about this stuff. Tolle talks about the same stuff, the 12 step programs talk about it, Jesus talked about it, thousands of "paths" talk about these subjects in varying degrees and ways, people can also find it on their own or be "built" in such a way they do it naturally.
My premise in this question is there are people who are "enlightened" to various degrees with zero spiritual or religious affiliation. This stuff is not "owned" by religion. One does not have to be religious or affiliated with any path to walk in a forest in inner silence detached from their thoughts. It comes natural to some people.
One could argue they spent a lot of past lives studying Buddhism or something to get to the point this is what they exist as in an incarnation, but here again, this is backwards. It assumes the self realization came from Buddhism. That Buddhism is required for one to learn such things. Buddhism did not exist when Buddha found this thing. He found it naturally perhaps, lol I don't know as he did have knowledge of the early Vedas. Maybe that early Hinduism is what led him to enlightenment. Directed his self inquiry.
I would assume that how "spiritual" a person is in a human body is on a scale of sorts. Lets say 1 is not spiritual at all, and 1000 is very spiritual. Lets say the majority of humans are somewhere in the middle, from like 400 to 600. Lets say some are pushing the high 700's. Well these groups of people exist in religion and out of religion. One high 700 may be a Buddhist, another may be a Christian, another may not be in a religion. Very low people exist in all groups as well as history shows. Paths are just there, it's up to individuals what they make out of them.
This thread title is "Actualizing Buddhism" which means making it a living actual experience. Experience is not Buddhist, or Christian, or any "thing," it only becomes a thing when we describe it conceptually, with thought.
Thought can take control of experience and own it, color it, filter it, but it can exist with or without thought being a part of it. So really, actualized Buddhism ceases to be Buddhist. Actualized Buddhism is an experience, freedom from the conceptual, and Buddhism is a concept pointing to an experience.
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