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  #21  
Old 25-02-2018, 11:23 AM
OEN34 OEN34 is offline
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IMO it's the relationship to the desire that causes suffering.

I once forced myself to not desire or want certain things, but since progressing on my journey I realised that it is perfectly fine to want or desire things, as long as I remain detached from them, not clinging to them and having an expectation as this is what caused suffering for me.

Remaining healthy with your wants, but have acceptance and detachment in all things allowing life to be as it is, not as I expect.
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  #22  
Old 25-02-2018, 11:39 AM
sky sky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OEN34
IMO it's the relationship to the desire that causes suffering.

I once forced myself to not desire or want certain things, but since progressing on my journey I realised that it is perfectly fine to want or desire things, as long as I remain detached from them, not clinging to them and having an expectation as this is what caused suffering for me.

Remaining healthy with your wants, but have acceptance and detachment in all things allowing life to be as it is, not as I expect.



Yes that's how I feel, attachments, cravings are the problem, not the desires.
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  #23  
Old 25-02-2018, 11:51 AM
sky sky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rain95
Some plays on words based on your post comes to my mind...

Are you sure you were there when pure awareness was present?

If it is present, are you?

Maybe you have never been there, but the absence of "you" manifests the experience of it.

How do we know we are not always there?

How do we know it doesn't last?

If we are awareness, then we are there always if we are awake. But then why do we not experience it always? Why are we aware of other realities. Why does awareness focus on thought, beliefs, ideas and not the emptiness and peace and mystery of now? Why is reality contracting instead of expanding? I would guess it's because awareness is preoccupied with the things in the ball that make up the self. When awareness takes it's attention off of these things they cease to be a part of experience and so experience changes. One finds themselves there. But then we are always there just choosing to make here about self and not about what it is. We make it about the self and not about what it is without self.




Why, where, when and how..... Who knows, it's a mystery to me.
The only thing I do know through experience is you can be aware before consciousness comes. Awareness is a feeling without thoughts but once consciouness arises I begin to think and loose the pure awareness my thoughts bring me back out of the feelings. It's very hard to explain but I is a feeling of oneness.
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  #24  
Old 25-02-2018, 12:25 PM
BlueSky BlueSky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OEN34
IMO it's the relationship to the desire that causes suffering.

I once forced myself to not desire or want certain things, but since progressing on my journey I realised that it is perfectly fine to want or desire things, as long as I remain detached from them, not clinging to them and having an expectation as this is what caused suffering for me.

Remaining healthy with your wants, but have acceptance and detachment in all things allowing life to be as it is, not as I expect.
Recently I have found myself in a path to understand more deeply my mind with the hope that understanding it will bring it to a more still peaceful state. My belief is that still mind is pivotal in knowing God, Self, Light, etc.
So I'm watching, keeping a journal and creating for myself a Sadhana or practice to help me move forward.
I am noticing so much about my mind each day and one of the things that is helpful is to note that it is the relationship to the restless conditioned state of my kind that can be seen for what it is. Identifying with my condition. The mind has become my God rather than the tool that reflects my God.
Lately I've noticed from this practice that what I viewed as a me who loves life so much that he can't wait to get up in the morning, may really be the effect of a mind so restless and in need of peace that can't wait to feed it's wants. I find that it's almost immediately after feeding those wants that a condition of wanting more is created.
So for me as a start in overcoming this, I agree that the wants or desires are not the issue, the restless nature of the mind is. The mind itself is also not the issue, in fact within it lies the answer.
It's not about clinging to the wants and desires for me, it's about clinging to those wants and desires as them being mine.
I'm not sure how a mind so still and at peace relates to the good things in life that I enjoy so much but I do notice the fear in finding out so my approach going forward is not to deny or try to detach from these cravings or desires because that is just the mind playing games with the mind, my approach is to trust the process of understanding that comes from strengthening that relationship with Self or God. It is by grace that the condition my mind is in will change to its perfect condition of stillness and peace as it reflects life, God, Light and me as I truly am.
It is by this effort or Sadhana that this grace can find its way in.

Thanks for listening
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CHITTA VRITTI NIRODHA

The cessation of identifying with the fluctuations arising within consciousness
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  #25  
Old 25-02-2018, 12:42 PM
BlueSky BlueSky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gem
The basis of Gotama's teachings is to acknowledge ones own suffering, find the cause, and thus end suffering.

Most of us suffer and find cause in external things that hurt us. This means suffering is linked to sensation. The question is, does sensation cause suffering, or is it the way we relate to sensation that is cause?

In the meditation, mindfulness, we are aware of ourselves, body, mind, emotion, just as they are as they happen to arise. The obstacle to this is 'distraction'. We can drift off into autopilot and become unconscious of what is actually happening, and instead, live in an imaginary world created in reaction to the actual real lived experience.

In sitting practice we soon see we are aware of our sensation and thought, and then we drift away into imaginary pasts, futures and fantasies. It's not bad or incorrect to do this. The meditation practice just enables a conscious recognition of it. Now you know, 'so this is what I do'.

From that preliminary, the the same process of being aware, noticing and discovering continues, revealing the truth about ourselves. Through this process of 'sati' we soon come to learn about how we relate to sensation - including physical, emotional and psychological - and come to realise how we cause our own suffering by relating to sensation in a somewhat delusional way.

Once this cause is identified, each new arising of suffering is recognised as 'something I do', rather than 'something that happens to me'... and we are thereby led to understand the way to bring suffering to an end.
I am beginning to see that it's not even that, something I do. It's the condition the mind is in, restless, lazy, unstill.
I say it is not something I do because it is that same mind that sees itself as restless that sees itself as the I that is in something I do. That mind does not know who I is. I am beginning tibsee this I as the feeling or power of God or Self relating to itself and a clear still mind is the vehicle in which it does this.
It's God relating to itself thru it's creation which is its power and this can only be reflected thru a clear mind.
I'm not really disagreeing with what you said, I'm expanding on it as it is unfolding for me.
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CHITTA VRITTI NIRODHA

The cessation of identifying with the fluctuations arising within consciousness
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  #26  
Old 25-02-2018, 07:28 PM
Rain95 Rain95 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sky123
Why, where, when and how..... Who knows, it's a mystery to me.

That's a great answer!

Quote:
Originally Posted by sky123
The only thing I do know through experience is you can be aware before consciousness comes. Awareness is a feeling without thoughts but once consciousness arises I begin to think and loose the pure awareness my thoughts bring me back out of the feelings. It's very hard to explain but I is a feeling of oneness.

I understand what you are saying. I think I will have some difficulty communicating with you because of how you use or define the word consciousness. For me, for a long time, I've used that word to refer to my true self, what I am, what is aware. In fact, I see awareness as an aspect of conscious energy. Like how the human body can see, or can hear, I would say a consciousness can be aware, or can identify with the human mind.

I think basically you use the word awareness where I use the word consciousness. Also you use the word consciousness to describe an "awareness" that is identified with the human mind. So yea lol, some difficulties in communicating but I get the meanings behind the words we have been conditioned to use to refer to things in different ways.

It would be hard for me to refer to the real self as only awareness because of the complexities of my belief system. I like to think about how things work so I need more parts in my model. Part of my conditioning is from college classes I took in religion and philosophy where I think historically, philosophers referred to the true self as "consciousness" or as the "soul" in some cases and not awareness. Part of the philosophical idea being a "consciousness" can be aware or not aware. An aware consciousness can choose to not identify with the false self and an unaware consciousness passively accepts the false self as the self. But yea all of this is only important if one wants to write about such things or be a philosopher.
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  #27  
Old 25-02-2018, 08:38 PM
OEN34 OEN34 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueSky
It's not about clinging to the wants and desires for me, it's about clinging to those wants and desires as them being mine.


Thanks for listening

Exactly.

''Mine'' is ego in the sense of attaching yourself to something and ''owning'' it. Things come, things go. It is getting to a place of genuine comfort and acceptance of this, which I don't think is easy, if we're all truly honest to ourselves.

Of course we own things, it is life, and we say the words ''That is mine'' often, but if we can come from a place of knowing things are impermanent in the physical world, that either they leave us, or we leave it first, at some point whatever it is, is going to end, be it a car or a house, for example.

Seeing them for what they are is essential, IMO. As I said, it's not easy as we're so conditioned to act in the opposite way, but if we can strive for detachment from these things we are on our way to freedom.

Thank you for your thoughts.
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  #28  
Old 26-02-2018, 08:07 AM
sky sky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rain95
That's a great answer!



I understand what you are saying. I think I will have some difficulty communicating with you because of how you use or define the word consciousness. For me, for a long time, I've used that word to refer to my true self, what I am, what is aware. In fact, I see awareness as an aspect of conscious energy. Like how the human body can see, or can hear, I would say a consciousness can be aware, or can identify with the human mind.

I think basically you use the word awareness where I use the word consciousness. Also you use the word consciousness to describe an "awareness" that is identified with the human mind. So yea lol, some difficulties in communicating but I get the meanings behind the words we have been conditioned to use to refer to things in different ways.

It would be hard for me to refer to the real self as only awareness because of the complexities of my belief system. I like to think about how things work so I need more parts in my model. Part of my conditioning is from college classes I took in religion and philosophy where I think historically, philosophers referred to the true self as "consciousness" or as the "soul" in some cases and not awareness. Part of the philosophical idea being a "consciousness" can be aware or not aware. An aware consciousness can choose to not identify with the false self and an unaware consciousness passively accepts the false self as the self. But yea all of this is only important if one wants to write about such things or be a philosopher.




'That's a great answer!'.....

To answer I need to think I try not to think unless I have to, I don't trust my thoughts so I prefer feelings.
Consciousness is the ' I am '
Awareness is 'Am ' that's how I feel at the moment but my feelings have plenty of flexibility
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  #29  
Old 26-02-2018, 10:02 AM
Shaunc Shaunc is offline
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Rather than finding the cause of suffering wouldn't our time and energy be better spent on finding the cessation of suffering.
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  #30  
Old 26-02-2018, 10:47 AM
sky sky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaunc
Rather than finding the cause of suffering wouldn't our time and energy be better spent on finding the cessation of suffering.


To end suffering you need to find the cause

Cause and effect....
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