No God

[Phaelyn]

Buddha was very wealthy, having separate homes for each season, and eating only the best foods (Sutta on Refinement, AN 3.38)

Some parts of his story are disputed since no wife or child are mentioned in the earliest suttas.

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

Why would his friends let him torture himself?

In the Buddha's time, such extreme practices was the norm. It was thought that going to the extreme was a means of moving beyond the ego.

Even still, if you look at some of the old teachings of Buddhism they still teach about imagining yourself dead.

[Phaelyn]

People try all kinds of things to try to be spiritual and most don't work. That's what that part of the Buddha story means to me. Buddha tried everything, giving up all, starving himself, meditating all day, leaving his wife and child behind, and then Buddha found none of that worked and gave it up.

Seeking spirituality can be a wholly egotistic selfish act and thus not lead one to spirituality. If you are doing "spiritual" things for the wrong reason, or in the wrong way, they just continue the ego.

Siddhartha followed this life of extreme asceticism for six years, but this did not satisfy him either;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/relig.../history.shtml

It did not satisfy him... he was doing all of that to get something.

Gautama Buddha said that the cause of sorrow – the second of the Four Noble Truths – is desire; and the cause of desire is tanha or trishna.[8]

Buddhism teaches the doctrine of inaction, i.e. cessation of activity, desiring or doing little.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trishna_(Vedic_thought)

The extinction of seeking, the desire for experience in all its forms.

[running]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

People try all kinds of things to try to be spiritual and most don't work. That's what that part of the Buddha story means to me. Buddha tried everything, giving up all, starving himself, meditating all day, leaving his wife and child behind, and then Buddha found none of that worked and gave it up.

Seeking spirituality can be a wholly egotistic selfish act and thus not lead one to spirituality. If you are doing "spiritual" things for the wrong reason, or in the wrong way, they just continue the ego.



It did not satisfy him... he was doing all of that to get something.

Gautama Buddha said that the cause of sorrow – the second of the Four Noble Truths – is desire; and the cause of desire is tanha or trishna.[8]




The extinction of seeking, the desire for experience in all its forms.

shocking the mind and body may be the most common way to bliss and silence. people under extreme pressure, circumstances, and near death experinces opens people up to the divine sometimes. there are no statistics so im taking an educated guess. whats not a guess though is desire is a fundamental need if doing a practice for the sake of the divine. in spiritual terms its called devotion. with enough desire(devotion) the impossible becomes possible. just like everything else in life. .bliss and silence relieve suffering as it quenches with causeless joy and silence in the mind. so there isn't a need to remove desire like many may think. it just gets superceded by something much greater.

[running]

Originally Posted by 7luminaries

Running, hello sorry I was off several days due to workload!!!

Again, like so much of what you say, I could say it is probably partially true or universal only at the highest level, where all individual detail and experience is lost or glossed over.
But without drilling down a bit, it just isn't that meaningful or helpful to me and I can't be sure we're really on the same page. We may not be, and that's totally ok as well, but I don't even know enough to hazard a guess without getting into a smidge more detail.

That's totally ok too, because that's exactly my point -- we always need a bit of back and forth -- that is the core of the human experience, engaging with ourselves AND others
But it means folks have to discuss and talk and get to know one another a bit. Then, from the point of a more fleshed-out individuality, one to the other, we can agree and disagree AND agree to disagree.
For me, that process of fleshing it out just a bit is really as important if not more important than anything else.

So...back to what you said. I would say that it is down to healing things from past lives. But it's not about dumping your karmic load into the bin of all you've ever done & been but didn't care for. And it's not about wiping off the dirty bits and throwing out the cleaning rags (LOL). And it's not a one-and-done or here-and-there approach, even if you're living in the bliss.

As, even from a blissful centred experience, your karma is yours to own and heal and make amends with other souls in your life, from this life and from others past. It's not just you being good with you, even blissfully so...that is an important start but it's not the journey. It's more readying for the trip. Reaching out and making amends, both where you've fallen short and where others have failed or betrayed you badly, either one...and often repeatedly and as needed. It's not about accomplishing anything per se -- and you may not have anything tangible to show for it (if others are not yet willing or able to meet you in reconciliation), but it's what your spirit requires of you ultimately. It's what Love requires and Love is what we are.

Making amends in other ways counts too, like paying it forward and being and doing authentic love day-to-day towards fam, friends, and strangers. But...your own amends fest awaits as does everyone's. And that will require your committed and ongoing presence, your conscious choices and your conscious effort and calm, committed, enduring, and focused attention to it, just as anything truly challenging, worth, and necessary does.

Peace & blessings
7L

your trying to make sense of the universe. it doesn't work entirely from the mind and emotional body. if it did maybe i would agree. what your missing is how bliss works. how silence works. its nature. how it supercedes the mind and emotional body.

think of the body as everything ever experinced linked to it. for example a pain in the heart from an unfortunate experience life times ago. think of millions of things in the body and soul of the individual. these things can be cleared from the mind and emotional body as you describe. how exactly is still probably a question. but perhaps something like you think.

bliss and silence works in an entirely different manner. its power is in it is causeless and has no agenda. its power is its love/joy and silence are what all things crave. a kundalini awakening and the process to and in bliss and silence, is for that to become in ones system and living experience. in so doing it works its way through everything. that working its way through everything is the healing and clearing of millions upon millions of things. that is just what it does. and continues to even after one has become in that.

[7luminaries]

Originally Posted by running

your trying to make sense of the universe. it doesn't work entirely from the mind and emotional body. if it did maybe i would agree. what your missing is how bliss works. how silence works. its nature. how it supercedes the mind and emotional body.

think of the body as everything ever experinced linked to it. for example a pain in the heart from an unfortunate experience life times ago. think of millions of things in the body and soul of the individual. these things can be cleared from the mind and emotional body as you describe. how exactly is still probably a question. but perhaps something like you think.

bliss and silence works in an entirely different manner. its power is in it is causeless and has no agenda. its power is its love/joy and silence are what all things crave. a kundalini awakening and the process to and in bliss and silence, is for that to become in ones system and living experience. in so doing it works its way through everything. that working its way through everything is the healing and clearing of millions upon millions of things. that is just what it does. and continues to even after one has become in that.

Running hello there!

Heeheehee Nope, I'm not missing the bliss and so no worries.

I agree bliss is causeless and ever-present. Because bliss is an aspect of authentic love, which is causeless and ever-present. That is the being of authentic love.

There is also the doing of authentic love, which applies to us as sentient beings, self-aware and possessing agency. The doing of authentic love is the conscious, committed presence and the conscious, committed doing of authentic love in each moment.

One does not negate the other. Both are ours...one we experience causelessly, and the other we partake of by choice. We experience the doing of authentic love (i.e. we manifest authentic love in word and deed) in engagement with one another, where we choose to be and do authentic love in each moment...or not.

IMO the causeless is certainly the root of the manifestation, but many choose to move from the other direction, doing because it is loving and moving into the causeless love at centre that way. All ways to centre are good and true and beautiful. As are all aspects of authentic love, and IMO we are not meant to exist eternally by only one aspect or the other (or the other, etc)...but rather by all aspects

Peace & blessings
7L

[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by running

there isn't a need to remove desire like many may think. it just gets superseded by something much greater.

True trying to remove desire is a desire. But there is a way to end it.

In Theravada Buddhism, the ending of desire or Taṇhā results from the gaining of true insight.

[Unseeking Seeker]

***

Copied from another thread addressing the desire to remove desire:

An interesting question has arisen
About our desire to end the fire of desire
Signalling a doer needing to do as bidden
Attempting to extinguish flames ego does sire

We may see clearly that this is not the way
For as long as a separate identity is manifest
Our consciousness will continue to sway
In a web of illusion ego continues to resurrect

The trick then is to simply switch frequency
Choosing to be ever present at the Love vibration
Exiting stagnation rooted in patterns of delinquency
Celebrating all unfoldings here & now in elation

What has happened thus is this: we vaporise
Relegating role of mind body to an interface
There then being no one left to judge or size
We be to become bliss itself by divine grace

***

[running]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

True trying to remove desire is a desire. But there is a way to end it.

In Theravada Buddhism, the ending of desire or Taṇhā results from the gaining of true insight.

i think we just said the same thing. what i did was explain the insight

[running]

Originally Posted by 7luminaries

Running hello there!

Heeheehee Nope, I'm not missing the bliss and so no worries.

I agree bliss is causeless and ever-present. Because bliss is an aspect of authentic love, which is causeless and ever-present. That is the being of authentic love.

There is also the doing of authentic love, which applies to us as sentient beings, self-aware and possessing agency. The doing of authentic love is the conscious, committed presence and the conscious, committed doing of authentic love in each moment.

One does not negate the other. Both are ours...one we experience causelessly, and the other we partake of by choice. We experience the doing of authentic love (i.e. we manifest authentic love in word and deed) in engagement with one another, where we choose to be and do authentic love in each moment...or not.

IMO the causeless is certainly the root of the manifestation, but many choose to move from the other direction, doing because it is loving and moving into the causeless love at centre that way. All ways to centre are good and true and beautiful. As are all aspects of authentic love, and IMO we are not meant to exist eternally by only one aspect or the other (or the other, etc)...but rather by all aspects

Peace & blessings
7L

to be clear. i certainly wasn't suggesting the mind and emotional body go away or don't have value. i was only describing the clearing process by bliss and silence. but can and always will also happen from the mind and emotional body before and after bliss. everything always has value imo.