Pushing the limits.

[sky]

' All phenomena, the Buddha once said, are rooted in desire. Everything we think, say, or do — every experience — comes from desire. Even we come from desire. We were reborn into this life because of our desire to be. Consciously or not, our desires keep redefining our sense of who we are. Desire is how we take our place in the causal matrix of space and time. The only thing not rooted in desire is nirvana, for it's the end of all phenomena and lies even beyond the Buddha's use of the word "all." But the path that takes you to nirvana is rooted in desire — in skillful desires. The path to liberation pushes the limits of skillful desires to see how far they can go.

The notion of a skillful desire may sound strange, but a mature mind intuitively pursues the desires it sees as skillful and drops those it perceives as not. Basic in everyone is the desire for happiness. Every other desire is a strategy for attaining that happiness. You want an iPod, a sexual partner, or an experience of inner peace because you think it will make you happy. Because these secondary desires are strategies, they follow a pattern. They spring from an inchoate feeling of lack and limitation; they employ your powers of perception to identify the cause of the limitation; and they use your powers of creative imagination to conceive a solution to it.

But despite their common pattern, desires are not monolithic. Each offers a different perception of what's lacking in life, together with a different picture of what the solution should be. A desire for a sandwich comes from a perception of physical hunger and proposes to solve it with a Swiss-on-rye. A desire to climb a mountain focuses on a different set of hungers — for accomplishment, exhilaration, self-mastery — and appeals to a different image of satisfaction. Whatever the desire, if the solution actually leads to happiness, the desire is skillful. If it doesn't, it's not. However, what seems to be a skillful desire may lead only to a false or transitory happiness not worth the effort entailed. So wisdom starts as a meta-desire: to learn how to recognize skillful and unskillful desires for what they actually are.'


https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/...inglimits.html


An excellent article regarding ' Desires '. Some seem to think that desires are wrong, hope this helps.

[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by sky123

You want an iPod, a sexual partner, or an experience of inner peace because you think it will make you happy.

I thought I was reading what Buddha said then I saw iPod lol.

if the solution actually leads to happiness, the desire is skillful. If it doesn't, it's not

Some get happiness harming others, like in wars.
Some get happiness stealing what they want.
Some get happiness drinking alcohol or taking drugs or eating sugar.
So it's more complicated than just being skillful if it makes you happy.
Like buying an iPod... so you can stare at social media or a game all day,
it may make you happy, but it is not a good desire in Buddhism
I don't think.

A thief desires to take my stuff, taking my stuff makes him happy. This desire is immoral and wrong.
Not all desires are good.

I'd add, if the desire creates suffering or conflict in oneself or others, it is "un-skillful and wrong. Even if the fulfillment of this desire makes you happy.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

I thought I was reading what Buddha said then I saw iPod lol.

if the solution actually leads to happiness, the desire is skillful. If it doesn't, it's not

Some get happiness harming others, like in wars.
Some get happiness stealing what they want.
Some get happiness drinking alcohol or taking drugs or eating sugar.
So it's more complicated than just being skillful if it makes you happy.
Like buying an iPod... so you can stare at social media or a game all day,
it may make you happy, but it is not a good desire in Buddhism
I don't think.

A thief desires to take my stuff, taking my stuff makes him happy. This desire is immoral and wrong.
Not all desires are good.

I'd add, if the desire creates suffering or conflict in oneself or others, it is "un-skillful and wrong. Even if the fulfillment of this desire makes you happy.

I agree, not all desires are good and we can see this ourselves in our own lives.
The Link I provided explains the complete Teaching , I posted a small snippet only.

Happiness in Buddhism is different from the idea Westerners have regarding being happy, most of us think getting what we want makes us happy but that's not what Buddha taught and even if he didn't teach it our own experiences prove this.

To be completely happy we need to find the root cause of suffering, it's a different way of perception to Western happiness....

Originally Posted by sky123

I agree, not all desires are good and we can see this ourselves in our own lives.
The Link I provided explains the complete Teaching , I posted a small snippet only.

Happiness in Buddhism is different from the idea Westerners have regarding being happy, most of us think getting what we want makes us happy but that's not what Buddha taught and even if he didn't teach it our own experiences prove this.

To be completely happy we need to find the root cause of suffering, it's a different way of perception to Western happiness....

Thanks, well said; it appears the concept of dukkha is unsatisfactoriness, so a moment of happiness gives way to another moment of something else. Buddhism seeks that which is ever present, unceasing and is in many ways deathless.

Jl

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

I thought I was reading what Buddha said then I saw iPod lol.

if the solution actually leads to happiness, the desire is skillful. If it doesn't, it's not

Some get happiness harming others, like in wars.
Some get happiness stealing what they want.
Some get happiness drinking alcohol or taking drugs or eating sugar.
So it's more complicated than just being skillful if it makes you happy.
Like buying an iPod... so you can stare at social media or a game all day,
it may make you happy, but it is not a good desire in Buddhism
I don't think.

A thief desires to take my stuff, taking my stuff makes him happy. This desire is immoral and wrong.
Not all desires are good.

I'd add, if the desire creates suffering or conflict in oneself or others, it is "un-skillful and wrong. Even if the fulfillment of this desire makes you happy.

"Some get happiness" in wanting and then actually doing it, and that is taking away what belongs to businesses and rich people and distributing it to everybody else.

You are right, not all desires are good.

[Amanthi]

if you can read "Pali" or "Sanskruth" language that is the best way for studies it. i have few books and i can share it

Originally Posted by sky123

I agree, not all desires are good and we can see this ourselves in our own lives.
The Link I provided explains the complete Teaching , I posted a small snippet only.

Happiness in Buddhism is different from the idea Westerners have regarding being happy, most of us think getting what we want makes us happy but that's not what Buddha taught and even if he didn't teach it our own experiences prove this.

To be completely happy we need to find the root cause of suffering, it's a different way of perception to Western happiness....

What is Western?
What makes one Western?
I am West of you,does this make me Western?
Or does bloodline make one Western?
Is it a place or merely ideas? Upbringing?
How do evaluate if I am Westerner?
I live on Turtle Island in the NW part as it is known by the true inhabitants or aboriginals or Earth Peoples to be more correct.
I am sure I have some Euro-christian ideas.Does this count as Western?
I thought happiness was happiness. BUT

[Unseeking Seeker]

***

Who is the desirer so desiring ... With what intent ... To what end ... By what means

In which domain ... external or internal ... ephemeral or eternal

Conditioned to attain for mind-body identity, striving for the complex, we neglect the simplistic obvious ... in effortless thought rested, identity disassociated, memory imagery distanced pristine stillness to connect ... with our own divinity, within.

Reclaiming bliss in permanence ... which we are ... self blocked by indulgence in ego cravings leading to stagnation.

Any activity ... if we but embrace & release in nonchalance without attachment, there is neither desire nor fear ... nor anticipation ... we simply flow like the breeze touching and moving on in self-existent joyousness.

No seeking then ... merely connecting by resonation to chosen vibration.

Choose love. (What’s thought got to do with love?)

***

[sentient]

Originally Posted by ImthatIm

What is Western?
What makes one Western?
I am West of you,does this make me Western?
Or does bloodline make one Western?
Is it a place or merely ideas? Upbringing?
How do evaluate if I am Westerner?
I live on Turtle Island in the NW part as it is known by the true inhabitants or aboriginals or Earth Peoples to be more correct.
I am sure I have some Euro-christian ideas.Does this count as Western?
I thought happiness was happiness. BUT

In my personal opinion, the Indigenous and what I class as the Western mind-sets are very different.

*

They called themselves “The Noble Ones” and set themselves up above and apart from Totality.
The forest dwellers – the hunters and fishermen’s minds boggled. How could anybody in their right mind do that?
So they called these self-designated “Nobles” …. ”slaves” ….. (slaves to their walls) ….
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/c-iQWExnWjY/maxresdefault.jpg

*

In hunter-gatherer world – in the vastness of that landscape, where no artificially erected walls or fences previously existed - where every little thing that exists - belongs to and plays it’s important natural equal part in the “system” of Totality - where the Laws of Nature maintain themselves ….
From that viewpoint - Arkaim must have looked like a prison camp rather than a dwelling place of free men.

To a true egalitarian mind-set, hierarchical positions of superiority seemed like an elaborate hoax and then having to defend these positions of one's superiority left, right and centre – a form of self-slavery also.

I cannot separate this egalitarianism of the hunter-gatherers from animism (the experience that all things have spirit and/or soul), because animism acknowledges the Eternal Embrace of Matter and Spirit in everything and was/is experienced directly, thus it was/is seen as a self-evident truth.

So to the hunter-gatherers this unbelievable isolationist mentality, not being a part of but apart from Nature or Totality was a “joke” on a Cosmic scale, but it wasn’t a laughing matter in the long run, when they started invading & bringing in their 'progress' or progressive thinking …..
So Europeans became culture and language shifters as were Native Americans also later on forced to assimilate etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ283N_ZdKY

If both views were understood thoroughly, perhaps a middle ground could be found.

Imo. Buddhism can be of help in that.

*

Originally Posted by sentient

In my personal opinion, the Indigenous and what I class as the Western mind-sets are very different.

*

They called themselves “The Noble Ones” and set themselves up above and apart from Totality.
The forest dwellers – the hunters and fishermen’s minds boggled. How could anybody in their right mind do that?
So they called these self-designated “Nobles” …. ”slaves” ….. (slaves to their walls) ….
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/c-iQWExnWjY/maxresdefault.jpg

*

In hunter-gatherer world – in the vastness of that landscape, where no artificially erected walls or fences previously existed - where every little thing that exists - belongs to and plays it’s important natural equal part in the “system” of Totality - where the Laws of Nature maintain themselves ….
From that viewpoint - Arkaim must have looked like a prison camp rather than a dwelling place of free men.

To a true egalitarian mind-set, hierarchical positions of superiority seemed like an elaborate hoax and then having to defend these positions of one's superiority left, right and centre – a form of self-slavery also.

I cannot separate this egalitarianism of the hunter-gatherers from animism (the experience that all things have spirit and/or soul), because animism acknowledges the Eternal Embrace of Matter and Spirit in everything and was/is experienced directly, thus it was/is seen as a self-evident truth.

So to the hunter-gatherers this unbelievable isolationist mentality, not being a part of but apart from Nature or Totality was a “joke” on a Cosmic scale, but it wasn’t a laughing matter in the long run, when they started invading & bringing in their 'progress' or progressive thinking …..
So Europeans became culture and language shifters as were Native Americans also later on forced to assimilate etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ283N_ZdKY

If both views were understood thoroughly, perhaps a middle ground could be found.

Imo. Buddhism can be of help in that.

*

I think I am were East meets West, so in the center.

The earth is a source of Life not a resource.I am not Western in thinking nor Eastern, I believe.

We once walked into a restaurant in Rapid City,South Dakota.

We seen all these Western cowboy hats turn and look and stare like we were
off the reservation or something.
We were happy to be eating.
I must be between Eastern happiness and Western happiness.
I guess I am in the Central Happiness time zone.

Maybe Eastern happiness is "If I don't MIND it don't matter".
Maybe Western happiness is "I got mine so you don't matter".

This is my reality of happiness.
Protecting Sacred Lands.
Building a Nation, from what is left after the American concentration camp system.
Known as the reservation system.
This is my community and friends and family and we are a Sovereign Nation
unto ourselves and will find our way.
We are soveiregn but under treaty with the USA Gov. :( vid is only 1:05mins. )
Hope you enjoy my community Sentient.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmty7ffSkZA

I don't know if it is Eastern or Western.We are just happy for the chance to spread our wings and fly.

Here is our Nisqually (Squalli-absh) Nations song.
A song that was lost but now it is found.
We were privileged enough to learn it, carry it back here and pass it on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWUsDetKwxI

I have come full circle on this forum and have transformed
and feel it is time to do other things.
I will leave you with the Raven transformation dance Sentient.(6:15mins.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_5s29JbsPM