Hunger

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Bohdiyana

That sounds like part of the quest Buddha did. Remember when he ate one grain of rice a day? But then Buddha saw he was not getting anywhere with his strict asceticism and went on to his "middle way." It's odd to me because in one way I see the truth of what you are saying, there is this thing between the perceiver and the perceived, the experience and the experiencer. Subject and object, me and that. There is a sense in which these two are one. I think that is a part of what you are saying.

Mooji says consciousness is the creator of ego, it is ego. Consciousness is choosing to fool itself as it were. The unconsciousness is created by consciousness. I think this is what you are getting at when you say hunger is created by consciousness and consciousness creates hunger. I would say this "creation" is really just the identification with thought and a lack of awareness of self being different from thought. So if one had a bit of higher awareness, all these ideas about eating would not come into play or become phenomenal.

I can be aware of the sensation of hunger without thought or concepts. All animals experience hunger and know it is solved through eating. But yea humans add this whole other conceptual level because we have this whole other conceptual level. Because we ARE this whole other conceptual level. But then, we don't have to be. Humans can choose to not identify with the conceptual thought based mode of being. So then, you experience hunger, you eat. Not any more complicated that that.

Really it is the human intelligence and ability to conceptualize and think in abstract ways that leads to eating or hunger being so complicated. It leads to things like the entire billion dollar industries being created to make money off our hunger, eating and drinking. Think of the soda industry. Sugar, caffeine, high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors and colors, sodium benozate. Why would anyone drink this? Well the sugar and caffeine are addictive and make us feel good. That's why caffeine is added in the first place. The makers know this is an addictive drug. Why are diet magazines in the supermarket covered with pictures of cakes and donuts? Well because people like the idea they can eat that and lose weight, the idea that the magazines are subconsciously promoting. Someone told me bottled water has a chemical added to it that makes you more thirsty. Why? So you buy more bottles of water.

I wonder if there is a easier way to get to the bottom of all of this, a way that solves it all right now. There is that line in the Smash Mouth song, Pinch Me....."It's the perfect time of day, to throw all your cares away....." and the Zen line, "on an evening such as this, it's hard to tell if I exist...." If we could get free from our thinking, life would be easier and more natural. When you are hungry, you eat. We are conditioned to pick a cake over a carrot, thought plays into that, without thought, with higher awareness and self knowledge as the center of being, we would pick the carrot.

It's not that I experience hunger, it is that hunger exists, existence exists, and has a mind of its own. That mind is relative consciousness and in the case of hunger, relative to hunger.
Mindfulness sees that hunger exists and that it is conscious relative to itself and that it is stress.
It's existence goes back to its need to exist.
I think The Buddhas teachings of the middle way reflect how best to walk in this world mindful of what it is but I dont think his point was how great life could be if you live mindfully. He saw life as stress and he saw life as the end of stress.
I don't have any answers beyond what I see as I mindfully see the truth in what he was saying. I don't even know what it is that is being mindful but I do know I cannot say that we are consciousness. I can't say we are not either so I choose ho stay focused on what I can see and that is there is something in me being mindful and what it is being mindful of is empty in that it only exists relative to its cause for existing. It is conscious but that consciousness only exists as long as it exists.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

I use to think that the consciousness that I experience was some underlying essence of which I mistakenly called me only to be replaced by mistakenly believing that it was something solid, something underlying experience, some source or essence.

I have been on this journey for my whole life and I have traveled done every road imaginable, I finally can say that with regard to Buddhism that I get it.

The realization of what The Buddhas teachings were about is all very clear now. It is so obscure that no one would ever believe it and I imagine not many have. I’m left understanding why there are so many different beliefs in seeing why I never got it until now…………..the truth is unimaginable and difficult to accept unless it is found without ambition, unless it is sought for what it is, not for what one wants it to be.

With that said, I want to share this realization using hunger as an example with the hope that it will prompt discussion. I’m not trying to teach what I have realized, I’m just so blown away by it that I really want to hear what others think.

I use hunger as an example because I feel that we all see hunger as a basic need, a part of life and simply part of the way the body works not as a thing of its own perpetuating itself.

In short, there is hunger and there is hunger consciousness. Without hunger consciousness, there is no hunger. Without hunger there is no hunger consciousness. Hunger exists because it was consciously created by a consciousness that exists relative only to it because of its intent to create it.

It’s not my consciousness. It’s a consciousness that exists only relative to what is clings to because it clings to it, it feeds off of it and they feed off of each other. Consequently it grows and from it more desire, more clinging and more the reason it must continue to grow, even if it takes forever or multiple lifetimes and bodies.

Every consciousness of every part of us mentally and physically is this way, dependent and relative on that which it is conscious thru. Eye consciousness, nose consciousness, thinking consciousness, etc

This is a far stand from viewing hunger as something that I am conscious of.

The Buddha taught that actions have effects. Skillful ones have skillful effects and unskillful ones have unskillful effects. This was to help us see that we can choose to act skillfully with this discernment and thereby cause it to lose its hold on us, eventually us becoming “released” from all such clingings and stress.

For me it’s easy to see hunger as a type of stress or suffering in this light. It actually feels like stress.

To act skillfully, for me, means to first see the truth of all this and then to not feed into its cravings as much as humanly possible. I can eat so that it is not about enjoyment. I can limit myself to the kinds of food I eat so that it is not about taste and enjoyment. It is the clinging to and the craving of that feeds the consciousness we know as hunger.

Doesn’t that sound outrageous and yet doesn’t it seem to fall in line with what you’ve read about those who are enlightened. Some as far as I have heard have to be forced to eat. It’s just not on their mind to eat. They have reached a place where the fire of that consciousness has gone out because it was starved of the fuel it requires and that is craving and clinging.

It’s all a little unsettling for me but I just can’t deny this realization nor can I allow myself to try to put a spin on it to make it more palatable. I can skillfully act the best I can though.



Thoughts?

I hear you and you have articulated this extremely well.

I kind of relate myself in all this through the awareness I am a clear vessel aware of myself I tend to make clear and sound choices in a more simple way of being and living. When I feel "connected" without the voice of others in me I listen to my own inner voice that I now recognise as the voice that just takes care of myself and of life around me as best I can. I want to live fully and experience myself now in life experiences beyond spiritual enlightenment. I am just open to life without expectations on what I can gain from life but more open to deepen my experience of life in lots of ways life offers.

In some ways coming home within myself has ignited in me the beauty of experiencing life more open and clear to live and immerse into life content and at peace. But with a willingness to strand up and say. I am ready to really live now.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

I hear you and you have articulated this extremely well.

I kind of relate myself in all this through the awareness I am a clear vessel aware of myself I tend to make clear and sound choices in a more simple way of being and living. When I feel "connected" without the voice of others in me I listen to my own inner voice that I now recognise as the voice that just takes care of myself and of life around me as best I can. I want to live fully and experience myself now in life experiences beyond spiritual enlightenment. I am just open to life without expectations on what I can gain from life but more open to deepen my experience of life in lots of ways life offers.

In some ways coming home within myself has ignited in me the beauty of experiencing life more open and clear to live and immerse into life content and at peace. But with a willingness to strand up and say. I am ready to really live now.

The thing is if I take refuge in The Buddhas words, meaning I place faith in that which I dont understand to be my own ignorance, I see that what it is that life has to offer is the grounds to end the suffering or stress that is inherent in life. Life's nature is stress and it is in life that we find an end to stress. I don't see that leading to a new life full of something else. I especially can't imagine the goal of Buddhism to be a better life when I look at his teachings and how life, after release or enlightenment has nothing left to offer such a person. Also it is spoken of about getting off the wheel of life and death and rebirth.
My take on this is that life happens or is created out of clinging and craving. Without which there is no life as we know it.
Of course I don't know and therefore I simply let go of all such feelings that arise from there but equally I don't replace them with thoughts that life can be this or that after enlightenment or release. I let go of that as well.
I'm not trying to argue your words, I'm just expressing how such words feel to me these days. I just can't buy into anything that serves only to help me cope with what seems obvious in the teachings of Buddhism.
It's a very difficult path for those who are not monks or esthetics, so it seems to me.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

The thing is if I take refuge in The Buddhas words, meaning I place faith in that which I dont understand to be my own ignorance, I see that what it is that life has to offer is the grounds to end the suffering or stress that is inherent in life. Life's nature is stress and it is in life that we find an end to stress. I don't see that leading to a new life full of something else. I especially can't imagine the goal of Buddhism to be a better life when I look at his teachings and how life, after release or enlightenment has nothing left to offer such a person. Also it is spoken of about getting off the wheel of life and death and rebirth.
My take on this is that life happens or is created out of clinging and craving. Without which there is no life as we know it.
Of course I don't know and therefore I simply let go of all such feelings that arise from there but equally I don't replace them with thoughts that life can be this or that after enlightenment or release. I let go of that as well.
I'm not trying to argue your words, I'm just expressing how such words feel to me these days. I just can't buy into anything that serves only to help me cope with what seems obvious in the teachings of Buddhism.
It's a very difficult path for those who are not monks or esthetics, so it seems to me.

There is "still trying to cope" and then there is being ok with what is and all striving,need to make be, fit, attach too, becomes a movement of pure awareness moving more present with itself and life aware. Monks connect to like minded relationships and live in environments that match. That is possible in the real world once you find the balance in self with all aspects of life you continue to struggle with. Peace with all things breeds a deeper grounded peace in self. So I don't buy that I need to compare spaces and others being something in their own way and choice. Choices in increase and life opens in magical ways when your there meeting it to notice. Openness to life reflected upon to build that grounded sense of connection to all life opens the greater door to life. Life meets Us where we are willing to meet life. I create the space in me that creates a space outside of me that Alligns beautifully and effortlessly. I wake up and greet what "I am".

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Bohdiyana

That reminds me of the problem with saying we are anything. It seems like a statement like that is always pointing at something when we are that which is pointing, never what is pointed at.

It's impossible to point at ourselves because all pointing is conceptual, words, images, thoughts all of that and none of that is what we are.

So I would agree, I cannot say I am consciousness. But then to talk about these subjects we need some concept to represent ourselves to discuss these things so that's where that word can be useful.

I think maybe it is mind that is pointing at itself. Mind can look back at itself and mindfulness as well as meditating feels exactly like that to me.
Buddhism to me is mind observing mind mindfully and therefore liberating mind to it original nature. Maybe enlightenment is just that, mind being released from being lost in itself.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Bohdiyana

Yea the reference point shifts out of the mind. It stops being the point from which we look. Our perspective shifts to outside the mind.

That's not what I said at all. There is no outside the mind. It all comes back to mind. Looking is mind looking at mind....self awareness.
That's what I am seeing anyways.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Bohdiyana

Let's say someone has no self awareness, so no mind looking at mind. Then say they do. What has changed in them? What were they before self awareness and then with it?

They were possibly in a coma.
Why is self awareness to you different than mind being aware of itself? Why can't self be mind to you?