Find the cause of suffering

[Rain95]

Originally Posted by Gem

No one will ever figure it out, so the practice of 'knowing self', it's what is true of you at the moment. Not an answer as such, but as the subjective experience, and as the meditation is this observation, to recognize the experience without mine, me, my or I, it's just the truth of the experience as it is now in the way it is experienced by you.

If I tried to figure out what I was right now, I would start with I am a thinker in this body. But then if I was asked what am I currently thinking....I try to look "inside" which is awkward and weird... I don't know I don't see or hear anything...yea this is fuzzy vague stuff. I don't actually hear or see my thoughts but I somehow have them and know what they are? I somehow know what they are without hearing or seeing them...it starts out with me imagining I am seeing or hearing them,... if I write them down, type them out, I can see them in black and white.... or black and yellowish green on these forums. Like everything I am writing here, so thinking here, is a response to a post. But how are my thoughts formed, where do they come from? are they really mine?

The brain is a super computer with billions of neurons involved in making thoughts. Ok so logically I have been through a lot of school and experiences. I have grown up.... years and years of feeding data to the brain... it cross references billions of things to formulate answers... so what did I do here this morning? What am I doing now?

I looked at a post... my brain singled out a particular sentence my brain felt it could best respond to.... then it presented all this language and inferred meaning.... what did "I" have to do with any of this really? I am like a secretary taking dictation ... but I have come to believe I am typing all this out, I am thinking it, it is me... mine....

But I don't know how to make a thought, it just happens in response....I somehow turn on the machine by reading this or that...and there it goes at a billion miles a second.... 65 billion neurons spring into action and out it comes....

I have no idea how it happens or why. It's this body this machine I am somehow in. I wake up I sense stuff. I react to feelings... I was a little dizzy/sleepy I form thoughts about that....I went to bed too late.... I ate too much... turn on the computer, look at news form thoughts reactions to it....go to forums read react respond.... make choices, preferences.... I could clean my room..... go online do stuff on computer...... prefer fooling around on computer to cleaning my room.... social interaction is more fulfilling....though it can be stressful and create conflicts and bad internal feelings if I am treated bad in some way...

What am I? Sensation/Reaction...Thinking,....

Well that is all what I am experiencing...this is now...but it's not me... it is what I am experiencing...different....

I will never figure it out. The "tools" I have to use are not me. How can I figure it out? with thinking? Thinking is not me.... it's always changing based on external factors...

Spirituality? Some other people say there is a better way to be. In the current moment be aware of all the stuff that is happening.... sensation/reaction... be above it all. be separate from it...don't identify with it, don't touch it... be empty of content, just present with what is...knowing what you are not

use what you are and have, enjoy it, experience fully the mysterious reality in which you exist and find yourself, but see the actual, not just the imagined, don't be or identify with the machine within which we exist for this lifetime

what am I to do? what is my purpose? there's that thinking again....

but I can be aware of it.... without attaching to it or inferring meaning or truth to it.... that is something.... maybe that is my purpose.... to find the answers in experience itself, finding myself by seeing and discovering and being aware of what I am not moment to moment....

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Rain95

What am I? Sensation/Reaction...Thinking,....

Well that is all what I am experiencing...this is now...but it's not me... it is what I am experiencing...different....

I will never figure it out. The "tools" I have to use are not me. How can I figure it out? with thinking? Thinking is not me.... it's always changing based on external factors...

This is complicated in terms of conceptualizing and thinking about what is, I.e. what is going on. Of course the concepts and thinking are just that, not the 'reality' of what is.

It strikes me that pre-school 'children', 'dumb' animals and 'illiterate' farmers have no trouble dealing (living?) with what is, however.

It also strikes me that it can be meaningful fun to playfully try to conceptally 'figure' out what is going on, however, as 'we' are doing here. That is, if one doesn't get caught up in taking words and concepts too 'seriously' - as though words and concepts could ever 'capture' 'the truth' about 'reality'.

Here's the author of The Bhagavad Gita's attempt to meaningfully reference (some of) what I possibly incorrectly think you are talking about, Rain: "Knowledge, the knower and the object of knowledge, these are the three incentives to action; and the act, the actor and the instrument are the threefold constituents." (from Ch.18)

Implicit in the view, I think, is that the 'manifest' world, i.e. 'Being', is just the result of LIFE's 'action, of LIFE acting in and via all of ITs infinite 'forms' - you and 'I' being two of 'them'.

What is LIFE? one may well ask. Dumb animals, kids and farmers have no trouble 'knowing' what IT is without 'talking' about it, 'cuz 'they' just feel what they are 'in' their bodies n bones!

[Rain95]

Originally Posted by davidsun

animals, kids and farmers have no trouble 'knowing' what IT is

yup... its everywhere

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Rain95

yup... its everywhere

Beware 'head' (only!) 'trips' - LOL!

[Gem]

Originally Posted by davidsun

Yes, BUT ... The 'caring' I spoke about being or not being presently active was specifically related to the Quality of THE Spirit of Life in the (hypothetical) 'future' which Hindus and Christians envision as going on 'permanently', i.e. 'immortally', 'eternally' 'forever'. As expressed in: "That which is not, shall never be; that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident." (from Ch.2 of the BG)


Your denials in the regard notwithstanding, this exemplifies the kind of attitude/expectation which I regard as essentially being 'nihilistic' - nihilistic in the sense that it assumes that questions (hypotheses) such as the one I presented can never be meaningfully 'answered' (evaluated)

Perhaps my simplistic analogies are so mundane they seem beside the point, but you know what your hand feel like without having an answer for it, so in so far as you make the direct subjective perception that is a known, but it doesn't answer anything.

This statement dovetails with the 'point' I was making and (implicitly) supports my concluding suppositions, I think.


Another 'nihilistic' (kind of) statement - in my considered opinion, Gem. You (your words, really) perfectly illustrate my 'point'.

"NO difference" suggests that all (apparent) 'differences' are (essentially) meaningless. From https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...term=Nihilism: "Epistemological nihilism ... denies the possibility of knowledge of truth."

Those ('you' being a case in point) who believe that their 'path' is the 'best' one (in terms of 'truly' fulfilling Life's universal 'destiny') regard everyone who is on a different 'path' as having 'strayed' from the 'best', in the sense of being the 'truest', one, aye what, Bro?



All the religions posit their beliefs as the truest and the Buddhist religion is no different in that regard

My point isn't that some religious are truer than others. It's just not important what religion a person prefers because dhamma is universal and the Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists alike can notice what their hand feels like. When we take the universal dhamma and try to make it into our religion, then we have the iconography of Jesus and Buddha and the Hindu elephant lady... etc... which are sectarian. That's why the dhamma has no relevance to a religion, because religions are sects and dhamma is universal. This isn't to disparage anyone's religion, it's simply saying religion doesn't matter when it comes to knowing what your hand feels like.

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Gem

it's simply saying religion doesn't matter when it comes to knowing what your hand feels like.

Bro.

On the other hand, I think a philosophy/religion/belief system may provide udeful guidance pertaining to what attitude one might adopt and one might 'do' in response to what one's hand feels like, such that certain philopshies/religions/belief systems may be more positively creative (in effect) and others less so.

Here's a link to an article about 'pain' being useful and not something which simply need not be 'suffered':

https://www.fs.blog/2018/06/pain-reflection/

[Gem]

Originally Posted by davidsun

Bro.

On the other hand, I think a philosophy/religion/belief system may provide udeful guidance pertaining to what attitude one might adopt and one might 'do' in response to what one's hand feels like, such that certain philopshies/religions/belief systems may be more positively creative (in effect) and others less so.

Here's a link to an article about 'pain' being useful and not something which simply need not be 'suffered':

https://www.fs.blog/2018/06/pain-reflection/

That's a very nice article. I liked the simple layout and the deep implication. The main criteria I as I saw it was the truthfulness of: "a choice between an ugly and painful truth or a beautiful delusion". This is indeed where the guidance of teachers is valuable, because as the author says, many people opt for the beautiful delusion - being compelled by their aversion to 'the ugly and painful truth'. It characterises the Buddhist notion of 'craving' very well, because craving is the desire for it to be the way you want it to be, AND the desire for it not be as you don't want. 'Craving' encompasses the English notions of both aversion and desire as the singular tension between them. The meditation, 'to see it as it is', is facing the lived-reality without the 'craving', which is to experience it the way it is sans all the reactivity. I think the article nailed it on the head in these ways.

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Gem

That's a very nice article. I liked the simple layout and the deep implication. The main criteria I as I saw it was the truthfulness of: "a choice between an ugly and painful truth or a beautiful delusion". This is indeed where the guidance of teachers is valuable, because as the author says, many people opt for the beautiful delusion - being compelled by their aversion to 'the ugly and painful truth'. It characterises the Buddhist notion of 'craving' very well, because craving is the desire for it to be the way you want it to be, AND the desire for it not be as you don't want. 'Craving' encompasses the English notions of both aversion and desire as the singular tension between them. The meditation, 'to see it as it is', is facing the lived-reality without the 'craving', which is to experience it the way it is sans all the reactivity. I think the article nailed it on the head in these ways.

The author of The Bhagavad Gita thought so too, though he (obviously) believed in a transcendental 'Self'. 'who' or 'which' he advocated relying on - that 'approach' doesn't 'work' for everyone, however:

"Arjuna asked: My Lord! Tell me, what is it that drives a man to sin, even against his will and as if by compulsion?

Lord Shri Krishna: It is desire, it is aversion, born of passion. Desire consumes and corrupts everything. It is man’s greatest enemy.
As fire is shrouded in smoke, a mirror by dust and a child by the womb, so is the universe enveloped in desire.
It is the wise man’s constant enemy; it tarnishes the face of wisdom. It is as insatiable as a flame of fire.
It works through the senses, the mind and the reason; and with their help destroys wisdom and confounds the soul.
Therefore, O Arjuna, first control thy senses and then slay desire, for it is full of sin, and is the destroyer of knowledge and of wisdom.
It is said that the senses are powerful. But beyond the senses is the mind, beyond the mind is the intellect, and beyond and greater than intellect is He.
Thus, O Mighty-in-Arms, knowing Him to be beyond the intellect and, by His help, subduing thy personal egotism, kill thine enemy, Desire, extremely difficult though it be.”

[Rain95]

It's funny seeing ancient writers struggle with communicating truths with language as I do but then I have no idea if this is a result of the ancient writers actually struggling or is it fully caused by really bad modern translations of ancient texts an ancient languages/words.

Originally Posted by davidsun

Desire consumes and corrupts everything. It is man’s greatest enemy.

the universe enveloped in desire.

the wise man’s constant enemy;

it tarnishes the face of wisdom.

It works through the senses, the mind and the reason;

Was the word man really used in the original text to denote all of humanity?

Was the word meaning universe really used in the original texts? The ancient writer believed desire existed outside/external to a brains awareness?

Desire is constant? No it does not exist when thinking is not happening. The "unconscious" body's so called "desires" occur without a conscious entity directing them, so that is not desire either. It is habitual actions and chemical induced addictions, machine like programming.

But the writer cleverly was not talking about any of that.....his subject "wise man" was actually a reference to awareness.... that was what was constant.... awareness if "desire" thought was there or not

it tarnishes the[b] face of wisdom - I understand what this refers to but i doubt anybody else does - say the same thing as...identification with thought results in wisdom being applied though it's filter and interpretation and point of view.

the senses, the mind and the reason - what is it not working through?

Originally Posted by davidsun

control thy senses...slay desire,
beyond the senses is the mind, beyond the mind is the intellect, and beyond and greater than intellect is He.

um no ME is there....not he....but what was the real meaning of the translated word?

subduing thy personal egotism, kill thine enemy, Desire, extremely difficult though it be.”

Yea it is extremely difficult when you are using words like control, slay,subdoing, kill..... all these words refer to a thought identified consciousness

its not difficult at all as it requires no effort. just seeing

is seeing difficult? not really - why does one not see? because they have no learned to see yet - opening a door is not difficult.... but yea if you have not learned how to yet you can't do it

[sky]

Double post.