Don't do that

[sky]

Originally Posted by eezi-ulgen

Yep. Since in mediation we let loose our gnarled thoughts.
When worked, both the wood and the meditative practitioner we both loose
our unwanted parts and resonate in both balance and true centered spin.
As the gnarled material is removed we can continue to shape and refine.

That is so true, I love the way you explain it
I think the Woodcarver visualises His/Her finished work even before they begin which shows in the perfect results.... as does the 'chocolatier'

The Truth of Suffering is when the Chocolate Box is empty
everything is certainly impermanent ..... attachments hurt....

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by Gem

Unfortunately, for me at least, under the circumstances I can't reasonably continue to cover the Satipatthana right to the end.
That is disappointing to me of course because I tried to do something worthwhile...

Well, it's veering off track fast if you want to get it back on...

[eezi-ulgen]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Well, it's veering off track fast if want to get it back on...

My apologizes Miss H.
@Gem, please continue.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by eezi-ulgen

My apologizes Miss H.

It happens.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by eezi-ulgen

My apologizes Miss H.
@Gem, please continue.

`I was going to cover the satipatthana sutta from beginning to end, but the conditions that enable that are a little delicate because it requires continuity of focus from beginning to end. If you miss some bits, the whole thing won't much sense. Beyond that there's more subtle vibes that have everything in harmony, and people generally aren't sensitive enough to feel that, so they don't know that they figuratively trample the little flowers without noticing them. That's the sad thing about life, you see, not the overt brutality and malice and such, it's the insensitive oafishness Christ implied by saying 'they know not what they do'.

It's difficult to successfully complete anything that requires some degree of delicacy unless you can also ensure the right conditions, like sorting papers outdoors, the conditions do not enable good outcomes. Similarly, full satipatthana coverage of any worth isn't going to work under the conditions that currently prevail here, and there's no point wasting wood by working against the grain.

But it doesn't matter, just be happy, because ya can't sort piles of papers, but outdoor conditions enable lots of other things, and whatever the conditions are will give rise to what they enable.

[eezi-ulgen]

@Gem
Let me add, when you feel nature has calmed sufficiently please continue.

[Unseeking Seeker]

Anyway, why not continue the discussion on suffering and how it may be transcended, till the time scriptural teachings are resumed?

I submit that unless we recognise that duality is a subset of singularity, of oneness, if the fulcrum of our awareness is below this, then where is it, other than in mind-body? Mistakenly believing ourself to be only this form, we seek outcomes that enhance its well being and when that is denied, we suffer.

The intellectual knowing that we are soul or Atman or living light or one with God ~ these don’t help much because we are rooted, anchored here. Thus ignorance of our true nature is the cause of suffering and recognition the release.

Of course there would be intermediate steps and we can always rely on the scriptures of all faiths for counsel, for example, the Bhagawad Gita asking us not to be attached to the fruit of our actions and so forth.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by eezi-ulgen

@Gem
Let me add, when you feel nature has calmed sufficiently please continue.

Lets just say there's no reason for it becoming unfeasible, but it did. Allow me to explain by way of illustration. As I put it on Facebook in regard to Roald Dahl's works that were 'sanitised' for no real reason, and thereby made no longer the author's own, those sanitizing have no sense that they stole the genius from not only the author, but from mankind as a whole, and completely unwittingly destroyed it. They are brutal, but they don't know they are brutal because they are brutes.

In this way they send tacit message completely unconsciously to aspiring brilliant authors that they won't be published unless they tow the woke-line, and thus the aspiration to create masterpieces is stifled because the conditions that enable them to emerge have been destroyed. The dull minded ones will prosper off the tripe that arises according to such conditions, but the outstanding will be defeated by that very same oppression.

Most people will not notice this happening. Yes, they will see the surface and be outraged at the woke cheapening the high standard of their beloved Roald Dahl novels, but they aren't sensitive enough to see the sublime in any empathetic sense. Imagine being Roald Dahl, who spent countless hours finding just the right words to craft inspiring stories that express the rich subtext of his inspiration, only to see mindless dolts treat it carelessly like any raggedy old thing, and literally steal and destroy it; and then have the gall to sell it under the original Author's name as a new and improved edition! That's a travesty which is heartbreaking, and a man can take some abuse, but at some point he's gonna say, 'it's not worth my while'. But wait! That's not even the sad part. The really sad part is it happens for no reason at all over nothing. It's not malicious or cruel of intent. No, that's not the problem at all. It's that it's completely and utterly heedless - and that makes it truly brutal.

This is not my thread in the same sense as it's not Roald Dahl's book. But on the surface, out in public, we can see that the the thread title is not as I named it, and with all that I just said for illustrative context, I summarise it by saying, if I can't name the baby, then it ain't my baby. It's the uncared for child of whoever named it.

I realise that was an abstract way of illustrating the issue, and whatever impressionism it might bring about is why I'm not going to finish what I set out to do, and it's possible, but unlikely, that I'll try to do anything serious or substantial in the future.

I know people don't see into it, they don't receive the tacit message consciously, and they generally aren't aspiring to create anything comprehensive and high quality anyway. Again, surface level it just doesn't matter, but over time we have been seeing, and we continue to see, the deteriorating standard of social discourse under completely arbitrary censorship, and we've seen how the clown world dominates without any empathic sensitivity at all.

In Buddhist practice, at least how I describe it, we train the sensitivities, so with some practice we become conscious at subtler levels and quite literally feel the vibes in the body, and thereby know more than your average bear about what's really going on 'underneath'. We soon learn to hold our tongue and not jump the gun until it starts to materialise on a level that other people more generally start to notice it.

In the evenings, every day, we get together for the metta group meditation and emanate loving kindness. This ameliorates bad vibes that might be generated thoughout the day and helps to maintain the underlying conditions that are conducive to everyone's happiness.

In the end, there's a sense in which it all matters a great deal, and there's a sense in which, whatever, I can typing - and the latter guy in that meme looks pretty happy to me.

[Miss Hepburn]

This is not my thread in the same sense as it's not Roald Dahl's book. But on the surface, out in public, we can see that the the thread title is not as I named it, and with all that I just said for illustrative context, I summarise it by saying, if I can't name the baby, then it ain't my baby. It's the uncared for child of whoever named it.

You know what? For all those that complained they did not like the title of this thread - well, it's back.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

Anyway, why not continue the discussion on suffering and how it may be transcended, till the time scriptural teachings are resumed?

I submit that unless we recognise that duality is a subset of singularity, of oneness, if the fulcrum of our awareness is below this, then where is it, other than in mind-body? Mistakenly believing ourself to be only this form, we seek outcomes that enhance its well being and when that is denied, we suffer.

The intellectual knowing that we are soul or Atman or living light or one with God ~ these don’t help much because we are rooted, anchored here. Thus ignorance of our true nature is the cause of suffering and recognition the release.

Of course there would be intermediate steps and we can always rely on the scriptures of all faiths for counsel, for example, the Bhagawad Gita asking us not to be attached to the fruit of our actions and so forth.

Don't misunderstand this as an affront, but as a simple statement that I didn't understand anything just said until you said "Thus ignorance...." sometimes I wonder it there's a secret language i just don't understand, but in my life, even amongst my meditation peers and teachers, no one I know speaks in this way. Then I go to online communities such as this and people speak in these elated terms and even in poetic form as a matter of course. Just to me it comes across as maybe like something, like, a performative avatar expressed because the stage is a forum.



In the Buddhist practice, at least in the way I describe it, which of course I'll claim is 'right meditation' the gist is, if you see for yourself and understand the truth of suffering and the reactionary causes of it that we succinctly call 'craving', you can desist doing that (as the original title implied), and that is the essential key to both cultivating a sharply honed sensitive mind and enabling the purificaation to unwind. Essentially the cessation of craving includes ceasing the resistance and avoidance strategies arising from the aversions that both retain and create anew the impurities we become blocked up with. As you suggest, craving is a symptom of wrong view, ignorance, delusion, which is resolved by direct insight into the underlying nature of things.


If this were a simple thing, then presto, problem solved and end of story, but it is complicated because the mind is not perceptive enough to be aware of the subtlest aspects of the lifeform.The reactivity occurring at depth, and we could say the deepest of ingrained impurity is still not revealed to the light of awareness where it can be experienced consciously and pass away. Hencewhy we take two aspects together, Conscious awareness with mindful equanimity. That is th3e same as "ardent awareness having removed craving and aversion toward the word". This is what we regard as 'pure awareness'. It's all alludes to the same theng which I just refer to as 'mindfulness'.



This can be described quite accurately as accurately as awareness regardless of content, in the sense that mind/body content can arise and/or pass away having no affect on one's equanimity, and that's the ticket.


The further complication in that sense is, how's you real life ability to endure your experience without you equanimity being perturbed?



It is my view that one can be self-aware without completion of purification as per my view that you are as you are not and you are not as you strive to become, and for almost everyone if not all of us, the way we are includes the harbouring of sankara that have not yet been cleared from the storehouse.


Now I'm just say a random thing off the cuff in the middle of nowhere instead of filling in slowly step by step and I'm assuming there's an impression that's sounds more wiser and is more stimulating or something, but to me, although the ideas kinda pop, it's not actually comprehensible, but this is what conditions enable so though I'd like to be more refined, it's all good enough.