Mental Suffering to Liberation

[RyanWind]

Originally Posted by Gem

I wish to discuss how a person starts from this state of suffering and goes to a state of liberation.

An interesting question would be can a person who is mentally suffering go to a state of liberation? Maybe it's a matter of completely changing what the "person" is, not just giving this "person" a new experience. Having a complete revolution in what a person is.

The person who is mentally suffering is not aware of their true nature. That is what that suffering person is. One identified with their thoughts as the self. So can such a person, who is identified with, and focusing on their thoughts, go to liberation? No they could not. Really the state of liberation is just the quality of experience of one not identified with thought as the self. So it's not the person moves from here to there, the person experiences themselves as they really are and that in itself is the liberation.

The person who is suffering is focused on thought and sees their thoughts as important. The liberated person does not. So the same person cannot travel from a suffering state to one of liberation. The person itself changes. Thought is present as experience in the suffering person and thought is present as non-phenomenal non-permanent content in the liberated.

Is a person who is identified with thought the same person who is not identified with thought? No they are not. So it's not that this conceptual "person" moves from one state to the next. It's also not that you can't get to liberation, it's that you are preventing liberation by focusing on and identifying with thought. Liberation is always fully present in the current moment. It is only not perceived because our attention is on other things. And it's not that we need to put our attention on "liberation" because this too is a thought. One withdraws the attention from any conceptual verbal reality and perceives the now without effort, or resistance, or bias. The self is experienced without any identification on any ideas or thoughts that may or may not be a part of the now.

What happens is another element, a more all encompassing transcendent non-verbal awareness, becomes foreground that was before passive background. It becomes the point of perspective, not thought. This new element that becomes present is higher self awareness. And this "self-awareness" has nothing to do with thinking or analyzing because it is the perception that pre-dates all of that. That is there before the other. That is the self itself. The true self is perception and spontaneous knowing only, it not content based. As perception, it is the now before any ideas are added to it.

This brings in another interesting question. Why do we focus on thought? Why do we identify with thought? I believe we are designed to. That is the nature of this incarnation. The entire thing is designed to pull us into the identification with the body and its story and mind. This of course can lead to a nightmare like existence, so awareness is the quality of self that increases through this process in order to free us of the prison of our thoughts.

[sky]

Very interesting post Ryan.
'Prison of your thoughts' brought to my mind Anorexia.
I have a friend who has spent most of her life in a prison, her thoughts tell her she is obese when in reality she looks like a walking skeleton, identifying with her thoughts have taken her life away.
They certainly do cause suffering and unfortunately sometimes death.


Why do we identify with thoughts.... sometimes its habitual I think.

[Abrem]

I have a friend who has spent most of her life in a prison, her thoughts tell her she is obese when in reality she looks like a walking skeleton, identifying with her thoughts have taken her life away.
They certainly do cause suffering and unfortunately sometimes death.

There's probably a more neurochemical basis for this. I used to know this kid that licked his hands and then wiped it on his cheeks repeatedly every day. Eventually his cheeks turned into giant gums and even with treatment he couldn't stop, eventually they ended up carting him off to a mental institution. I think for some people these things become a compulsion that standard concepts of free will really can't apply to.

Why do we identify with thoughts.... sometimes its habitual I think.

Humans can't really shut off sensory input in the brain, like pain for example. Thoughts are basically a brain response to surrounding conditions right? Maybe it's just not that easy.

[RyanWind]

We have incarnated into a human body and a human life and it's up to us what we make out of it. Nothing about life seems fair or equal. There is always someone better off or worse off. But it is all for a purpose and karmic reasons. The serenity prayer is good advice:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

We don't always have a choice in the things that happen to us, the people who are around us, or our bodies health. But one thing we can do is learn to be at peace with ourselves.

Spiritual teachings can get very heavy and complex when really it's just about letting go and relaxing and being what you really are under all of this other stuff. Not trying to be something, or become something, or get something, just being at peace within and without. Having no inner or outer conflict. You can try to change things in the world, and do your best, but then you have to surrender the outcome we can't control.

That's one possible problem with words like "liberation." It sounds like something we try to get or to seek when it's just a word to point to a thing. The thing it points to is the ending of seeking, of conflict, of wanting, of desiring. Just being with full acceptance and unconditional love for what you are and have and will one day be.

[RyanWind]

Here is a picture representing the same person near the beginning of their incarnation and near the end of their incarnation.



In Buddhism, is the idea of impermanence, where everything is in a state of change, though I would say the true self is there as a witness to unending change. It is a point of un-changing identity. But the things we normally think of as "us" or the self, really are transitory and impermanent. This body we are in, this life story, our current relationships, how we look, will all be vastly different 200 years from now. Some people are happy about that, people who are tired of their current circumstances, and other people don't like that idea, as they like their current circumstances, but either way, our circumstances will change and in major ways as time goes by.

[Gem]

Just wondering, RyanWind, why you took an extract from my OP, and then created this thread rather than responding to it on the thread in which appeared.

[cathutch]

Some musing, from some early suttas, on suffering and stress, etc.
https://justpaste.it/zh8a

Metta

[sky]

Originally Posted by Abrem

There's probably a more neurochemical basis for this. I used to know this kid that licked his hands and then wiped it on his cheeks repeatedly every day. Eventually his cheeks turned into giant gums and even with treatment he couldn't stop, eventually they ended up carting him off to a mental institution. I think for some people these things become a compulsion that standard concepts of free will really can't apply to.

Humans can't really shut off sensory input in the brain, like pain for example. Thoughts are basically a brain response to surrounding conditions right? Maybe it's just not that easy.

Some types of anorexia are caused by psychological factors, biological factors, social factors or
interpersonal factors, it is indeed very complex but identifying with your thoughts plays a very important part in this illness.

[sky]

Originally Posted by cathutch

Some musing, from some early suttas, on suffering and stress, etc.
https://justpaste.it/zh8a

Metta

Thanks

[RyanWind]

Originally Posted by Gem

Just wondering, RyanWind, why you took an extract from my OP, and then created this thread rather than responding to it on the thread in which appeared.

I have a spiritual journal of sorts where I write down thoughts and ideas and anything I come across that interests me like things I see posted here or on the net or notes from watching spiritual videos etc. It's up to 200 pages now. Sometimes, I go mess around in that and rewrite things or edit it or delete things or ponder and contemplate things I have written down. It got up to 1000 pages once then I deleted the whole thing and started over. I came upon that quote of yours on page 195...that was 5 pages ago not sure when I read that, few weeks ago?

I remember nobody in that thread really answered that question of yours but that question stood out to me so I copied it down and tried to answer it and wrote a long answer but I got bogged down and didn't like what I wrote so I left it to come back to later. Then today I saw it again and tried to answer it again. I'm not sure what thread it came from.

The more I practice "mindfulness" the more difficult it seems to be to put ideas into words. I write things then upon re-reading them, I feel they are not really communicating what I am trying to. So lately I have been writing answers to posts and not posting them because I feel like I am not getting to what I am trying to say. Or I look at the wall of words and it is like..bla bla bla... lol. Like what is the point.

Because of how the whole mechanism of thought works, there is really no way to communicate being thoughtless. Anything you say is read by thought that then adds it to the conceptual and the whole thing is wrapped up in circular thought processes. Even if you somehow refer to concepts of thought questioning itself, this too becomes owned by thought which is the master of splitting itself into the seer and the seen when both are one thing, thought.

Oh scanning though my journal I see I tried to answer that post of yours on page 193 as well. Hmmmm yea I talked about Tolle's liberation in this answer. Oh I think I did post a short answer if I remember right. I'll go search....see if I can find the thread and my post...

Ok I can't find it maybe the thread was deleted? I don't know.

Here is my original answer from page 193 I am not happy with:

That's a good question, how does a person go from the mental state of suffering to one of liberation? I'll talk briefly about my experiences with it. My take on Tolle's liberation. I've read some Tolle and the thought in his mind that Tolle questioned one day was “I can’t live with myself.” He then reasoned, wait.....this question implied two selves....the "I" and the self I am saying I can't live with. Obviously there can't be two selves so one of the concepts in this question has to be fake or not real or not me. He then had an insight into what he really was and what he was not. He then sank deeper into his self-realization and no longer suffered mentally. Basically, he questioned a thought he and us would normally take for granted. He then perceived the true nature and falseness of this thought which led to a seeing of his true nature and this brought about a change in his consciousness which seemed to have stuck as a permanent thing.

I would point out Tolle studied spirituality and Buddhism and philosophy etc for a long time before this enlightenment. It did not appear "out of the blue." Also, I would assume he had an interest in liberation for many incarnations before this "instant" liberation as well. So it is not a instant thing. It takes self inquiry and work. You truly have to be interested in it and put energy into it.

My experience is I also had an interest on this subject a long time but without a insight into my true nature, I suffered a lot from this pursuit. I suffered because it was my ego from which I sought the other. So actually, pursuing this thing made me suffer mentally more. It took me a long time to work myself out of that. I have had a few insights similar to Tolle's but mine have not in anyway been permanent. One may sound funny and a bit simplistic but it had a large impact on my understanding. I was doing some menial activity and the day before I had been reading a lot of material on this subject of liberation and I had the thought, "I'm bored" and at the same time, I felt the emotion that comes with this thought.... but suddenly and about the same time, I questioned the reality of this thought. I reasoned... wait how is this real? Is this thought, "I'm bored" really mine? Did "I" create it and what is this "I?" How does this thought. "I'm bored" create a feeling? and just as instantly, I transcended the reality of the thought, the mental struggle against changing what was. or creating what was with a thought, vanished and I saw for a few moments how my thoughts had zero reality unless I accepted or believed the nonsense they were presenting. I had a brief experience with liberation. I was perceiving from a new and different place. My perspective was briefly not in thought but was at a "higher" vantage point where thought was "contained" within it.