Judge me.....please

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

I mean no disrespect but advice doesn't work in the context of what I was hoping to hear what folks here see in me that I might not see and understandably so as we are all different and quite complex in our own ways.
Also I really don't have a choice in how I react to all this because I can't with a pure heart follow it as I understand it.

No disrespect taken.

I totally understand it however. You wish to get judgment from Buddhist people and I am a Hindu with only a slight, fringe Buddhist bent, so my words are totally irrelevant to what it is you are hoping to find here.

I wish you good luck and all the best.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

Thank you kindly for responding The Necromancer and Natureflows.



First of all let me explain that by asking you to judge I meant to please share with me how I come across to you. I recognize that how I see myself is not necessarily how I come across so by sharing that with me I felt it could be helpful. Judge probably wasn't the best word choice.



Neo, It’s funny you mention my signature because as much as I liked it when I chose it, looking back at its meaning just now actually emphasizes what I don’t like about Buddhism.



chitta vritti nirodha" is a line from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. It refers to stilling the mind/removing fluctuations in order to experience Ultimate Reality.



In Buddhism as I understand it, removing fluctuations includes those positive ones you and I seem to both enjoy embracing. That’s it in a nutshell but also I have no desire to experience ultimate reality at the expense of this one and Buddhism seems to require such a sacrifice and one that requires blind faith that there even is an ultimate reality.

I understand and enjoy life. I suffer, I rejoice. I desire and I sacrifice. I am compassionate and enjoy my emotions. I love the relationships in my life with loved ones, with nature, with myself. I experience a “me” and embrace it not fully knowing what it is. I experience a “you” as well. I live and I die.

In fact I embrace all of life not really knowing what it is and I’m okay with that. I’m happy.

When I consider the words of The Buddha and put them into practice, I experience anything but happiness.

On some level I can see that the mind can expand to such a state that this one would be unrecognizable but on another I like this one and would actually consider it selfish of myself to cast it aside for something else.

So for me it’s not that Buddhism is all about overcoming negative, it is that it sees the positive as negative. Desire can be a beautiful thing or it can take you over. A sense of self can be a beautiful thing or it can take you over….and so on.

Buddhism is asking me to follow it blindly by practicing it in the way it suggests. I feel blessed that I understand enough about Buddhism to understand that and I feel blessed where practices like mindfulness has made my life more beautiful but I can’t commit to something that just goes against my grain so much that it feels wrong for the reasons I explained above.



So yes I need to let it go and take from it what I have but as one who has been compelled to grow spiritually from being a child to now, there is a sense of guilt or stress in doing so. I even heard an old Billy Joel song the other day and felt my mind try to apply it to me. “I rather laugh with the sinners, then cry with the saints” lol



In closing I think what bothers me most about Buddhism is that I cannot sit down with an 8 year old and explain it in such a way that would instill joy and happiness and a love for things beyond the physical. In fact it would most likely instill the opposite. No self, no desires, dispassion, no emotions, no thought, etc

I hope this post prompts the two of you to further respond. I would love to hear your thoughts as well as others.

Regards

Being confused as chuckle face (ground) said, only keeps you from being what you already are. The rest is a complimentary awareness. Listen to the/your eight year old, his wisdom shows you the true face already, his confusion will be felt in you and that confuses him, if you just cant relax and enjoy whatever flows and wants to be shared as a mindfulness of life and others in the awareness you already know and hold true to you more open without confusion, then you will be confused as chuckle face shared.

The mind likes to dictate right order and make sense of things, but being yourself at some point doesn't require the mind, to just be. Its a whole body awareness of being you is how we live this stuff now. Let the real stories of life teach you and the eight year old. Your truth in how it all fits your way is not the way of the truth shared in teachings, when you know the way, you find the way of life that matches your knowing or awareness as that piece of knowledge. You just practice being it, you don't have to practice speaking the knowing of it. That's for chuckle faces..

Just remember that there are those who choose to take Buddhism into a whole other world and circle and each step of the way through the practice is a changing point of awareness for each individual as a practice and how that practice serves humanity.. Some serve the temples, some get more real and serve life itself, through connection and sharing in the real world.


And look I am no Buddhist or no nothing of the teachings accept what I am in me that relates as myself in reverse order to many others in regards to Buddhism. I came to know myself first then the teachings made more sense from the point of resonation in feeling, the more I read and understand through others and their purging of texts. But really you don't have to listen to me. Listen to yourself and feel that confusion and let it go..

Let the next wave commence...;)

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Ground

you're confused.

Confused, no. Conflicted, yes.
I feel like I left my family and wandered the wilderness seeking answers like the Buddha and what I found is what he was pointing to. From the viewpoint of pointing at it, I really feel that there is no confusion within me but unlike the Buddha, I'd prefer to go back home. If I was a monk it might be different but if I was a monk who has tasted life as I have and remembered it, it might not.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by The Necromancer

No disrespect taken.

I totally understand it however. You wish to get judgment from Buddhist people and I am a Hindu with only a slight, fringe Buddhist bent, so my words are totally irrelevant to what it is you are hoping to find here.

I wish you good luck and all the best.

No not at all. I appreciate any and all who would express to me what they feel they see in me. It's just I'm not looking for advice on what to do with what I feel.
Your first post was very much in line with how I see things.
People who understand Buddhism, as you do, hopefully can understand.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

Being confused as chuckle face (ground) said, only keeps you from being what you already are. The rest is a complimentary awareness. Listen to the/your eight year old, his wisdom shows you the true face already, his confusion will be felt in you and that confuses him, if you just cant relax and enjoy whatever flows and wants to be shared as a mindfulness of life and others in the awareness you already know and hold true to you more open without confusion, then you will be confused as chuckle face shared.

The mind likes to dictate right order and make sense of things, but being yourself at some point doesn't require the mind, to just be. Its a whole body awareness of being you is how we live this stuff now. Let the real stories of life teach you and the eight year old. Your truth in how it all fits your way is not the way of the truth shared in teachings, when you know the way, you find the way of life that matches your knowing or awareness as that piece of knowledge. You just practice being it, you don't have to practice speaking the knowing of it. That's for chuckle faces..

Just remember that there are those who choose to take Buddhism into a whole other world and circle and each step of the way through the practice is a changing point of awareness for each individual as a practice and how that practice serves humanity.. Some serve the temples, some get more real and serve life itself, through connection and sharing in the real world.


And look I am no Buddhist or no nothing of the teachings accept what I am in me that relates as myself in reverse order to many others in regards to Buddhism. I came to know myself first then the teachings made more sense from the point of resonation in feeling, the more I read and understand through others and their purging of texts. But really you don't have to listen to me. Listen to yourself and feel that confusion and let it go..

Let the next wave commence...;)

That hit home.....thank you I really felt that and couldn't agree more.
....hugs.....

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

That hit home.....thank you I really felt that and couldn't agree more.
....hugs.....

Well done you got the feels...

[Ground]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

Confused, no. Conflicted, yes.
I feel like I left my family and wandered the wilderness seeking answers like the Buddha and what I found is what he was pointing to. From the viewpoint of pointing at it, I really feel that there is no confusion within me but unlike the Buddha, I'd prefer to go back home. If I was a monk it might be different but if I was a monk who has tasted life as I have and remembered it, it might not.

you're conflicted because you're confused.

Most take the finger for the moon and grasp at the finger. But the finger is just pointing to the moon. Others reject the finger and don't see the moon because of this rejection.
So it is essential to validly know the finger and the direction it is pointing to but once this is known one has to look into this direction to see the moon and not dumbly stare at the finger.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Ground

you're conflicted because you're confused.

Most take the finger for the moon and grasp at the finger. But the finger is just pointing to the moon. Others reject the finger and don't see the moon because of this rejection.
So it is essential to validly know the finger and the direction it is pointing to but once this is known one has to look into this direction to see the moon and not dumbly stare at the finger.

You are obviously confused about me being confused so I'll try to explain my use of the word conflicted in the context of this thread and in using your own words here.
Taking the finger for the moon is confusion. Knowing the finger Is not the moon and yet feeling how what one knows about the finger conflicts with everything one holds dear is being honest with oneself. Choosing to stop staring at the moon is also being honest with oneself.
It's really that simple and I don't think most mistake the finger for the moon, I think most change the moon to what they want it to be and I get that.

[Ground]

double post deleted

[Ground]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

You are obviously confused about me being confused so I'll try to explain my use of the word conflicted in the context of this thread and in using your own words here.
Taking the finger for the moon is confusion. Knowing the finger Is not the moon and yet feeling how what one knows about the finger conflicts with everything one holds dear is being honest with oneself. Choosing to stop staring at the moon is also being honest with oneself.

But it is exactly your staring at the finger that "conflicts with everything [you] hold dear".

Originally Posted by BlueSky

Choosing to stop staring at the moon is also being honest with oneself.
It's really that simple and I don't think most mistake the finger for the moon, I think most change the moon to what they want it to be and I get that.

The problem is that when you say 'moon' you don't know what you're talking about since you're staring at the finger exclusively.

The real issue is that you're not liberated from 'the world of the finger and the fingers' as long as you don't see liberation ('the moon') and that you even can't see or acknowledge that you are staring at the finger.
So yes, you are right: you should be honest with yourself and drop buddhism which just adds another finger to your world of fingers. Buddhism isn't appropriate for all kinds of individuals.

Do it! Drop buddhism once and for all!
Stop hanging around here.
There is definitely no benefit in wasting your time in a buddhist forum except if you derive benefit from lamenting