feels like i don't need to read anything else ever again
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feels like i don't need to read anything else ever again
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the author life issues make the benefits of meditation really dubious to me
He just had sex with some hookers, didn’t he? Is that really so bad a thing if it was consensual? Maybe we have to get over the archaic, puritan view that anyone with some “spiritual attainments” has to be some lofty ascetic Himalayan transcendental immortal übermensch who doesn’t need to eat, drink, have sex, or even have good restful sleep. Old religious precepts about sexual morality could indeed have been very valid in their time — reliable contraception was more difficult, so sex implicitly =‘d having children, and hence sexual immorality could lead to the breakup of the family structure, too many semi-orphans with deadbeat fathers, adultery splitting families apart, etc. There’s a lot of cases of spiritual figures having “scandals” around “sexual impropriety” and people usually take it to mean either, “That guy must not have been a real spiritual master, then,” or even, “All spiritual teachings must be bunk,” instead of the saner view that sometimes people just have sex and we judge this too much.
Secondly, you can still disassociate whatever wisdom is in the book and valid teaching of the technique of meditation from the person’s flaws. Even if your old German rocket science professor turned out to be a former Nazi war criminal brought over to the U.S. through Operation Paperclip, you still learned rocket science from them, if they were a good professor. And meditation isn’t even rocket science, either.
more importantly at the end he is jut parroting the vipassana fad and also mixing this with tibetan/mahyana buddhism, in order to please atheists who love some universalist non-dualist meditation à la ingram or shinzen young. Strictly speaking, the output is complete garbage, but since meditation is such a mess, it's better than nothing.
if you really want you can go straight to the work of the vipassana crowd, ie the 16 knowledge and so on, since that's where he ends up after his whole book.
I bought this book and it helped me realise I'm not up for following any system. That furthered my practice, so it was helpful but no because of its content.
NTA, and I don't really care whether the author had anything like that going on or not.
Though I wanted to comment on the following.
>Secondly, you can still disassociate whatever wisdom is in the book and valid teaching of the technique of meditation from the person’s flaws.
Sometimes that's the case. Though in my experience, learning anything about meditation has only been possible from those that have at least a degree of "attainment" (for the lack of a better word) behind them. Otherwise it's just wordplay. I could rehash all sorts of words and claims and it wouldn't be true because it wouldn't be coming from me. Only thing that counts is that which comes from experience and which is directly transmitted. I think that that's what we get wrong in our society. We disassociate the content of the said from the one that said it, and that way anyone can talk, instead of silence being interrupted only by the one that has anything to say. My guess, we'd speak much less if that were the case.
>In a series of Board meetings as well as written correspondences with Mr. Yates, he admitted to being involved in a pattern of sexual misconduct in the form of adultery. There is no evidence that this adultery involved improper interactions with students or any form of unwanted sexual advances. Rather, adultery with multiple women, some of whom are sex workers, took place over the past four years. The outcome was extended relationships with a group of about ten women. Relationships with some continue to the present day.
>He has provided significant financial support to some of these women, a portion of which was given without the prior knowledge or consent of his wife. Mr. Yates also said he engaged in false speech by responding to his wife’s questions with admissions, partial truths, and lies during these years.
>After we brought this misconduct to the attention of Mr. Yates, he agreed to write a letter to the Sangha disclosing his behavior, which would give students informed consent to decide for themselves whether to continue studying with him. However, after weeks of negotiations, we were unable to come to an agreement about the content and degree of transparency of his letter.
>At the end of this entire process, we are sadly forced to conclude that Mr. Yates should not be teaching Dharma at this time"
Now I don't know about you, but if that isn't what a life of transcendental enlightenment and ego detachment looks like, I don't know what does.
>Secondly, you can still disassociate whatever wisdom is in the book and valid teaching of the technique of meditation from the person’s flaws.
Not when the wisdom is supposed to affect your entire life. It either had no effect on his life, or even worse, it caused him to do what he did.
So either he didnt practice what he preaches, what he preaches does nothing, or it does harm.
>Person makes mistakes and tries to better their self.
>Works hard and gives advice to others who have also been struggling.
>Cluster B personality prone to manipulation and splitting people into all good or all bad: THIS PERSON IS EVIL AND DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT
See a therapist (or follow the book).
Life is not black or white.
Holding on to a person's past mistakes will not bring you happiness.
Read, practice, and understand.
Well, the story notes he wasn’t even accused of any sexual impropriety with students (a more common “scandal” among “gurus”, and even this I think can be overrated because of paradoxical sexual mores in the West where we’re both “more sexually liberated and free than ever” but also increasingly somewhat misandrist, on the lookout for “males abusing their position of power” and thinking consensual sex can’t happen between people in positions of authority vs. subordinates). What was wrong was lying about it, and to his wife, nothing less. The whole situation of him having to be sneaky about it still seems like it comes from cultural hang-ups around monogamy and celibacy. I’m no Reddit-cυck but at that point he should’ve just been honest about it instead of sneaking around, even suggesting an “open relationship,” or broken up with her if she wasn’t down for that (as she had the right to disapprove). However, again, cultural hang-ups seem to have made this too difficult as we have the expectation that “A spiritual teacher should be a celibate ascetic ascended guru whose ribs you can count from looking at their flesh, and at worst in a strictly monogamous marriage!”
The act of consensual sex itself doesn’t have to be “evil.” Often, ironically, it’s all the cultural hang-ups around it which lead to more evil (e.g. people feeling they have to sneak around and hide affairs from others, breaking partners’ hearts).
I’m agreeing with you, did you read my post too quickly, or are you addressing others who disagree with me?
May the Buddha forgive me for this upcoming wrong speech I’m about to indulge in, but I’m not using “gayspeak” or referencing transgender ideology you dumbfrick, it’s simply a reflexive and casual use of the generic third-person pronoun “they” or “them.”
Used to refer to the ones previously mentioned or implied.
Used to refer to people in general.
Used to refer to people in general as seen in a position of authority.
If I casually said, “I met a professor and they told me …” that’s not me using transgender Orwellian newspeak, it’s just a verbal tic of mine where I used that pronoun because it has valid uses and sometimes flows better. Clearly, a German rocket science professor is more likely to be a man, so you can replace that with “him,” if you’re that upset.
I don't even understand your response to my post. I was pointing out you saying:
>Not when the wisdom is supposed to affect your entire life. It either had no effect on his life, or even worse, it caused him to do what he did.
It's not either. You can change yourself 99% but the 1% can still slip through the cracks.
Disregard, you’re confusing me with another poster right now/and you deleted your original post because it was mistakenly replying to me. That’s what I also responded to, the
with a strike-through.
>Well, the story notes he wasn’t even accused of any sexual impropriety with students (a more common “scandal” among “gurus”, and even this I think can be overrated because of paradoxical sexual mores in the West where we’re both “more sexually liberated and free than ever” but also increasingly somewhat misandrist, on the lookout for “males abusing their position of power” and thinking consensual sex can’t happen between people in positions of authority vs. subordinates). What was wrong was lying about it, and to his wife, nothing less. The whole situation of him having to be sneaky about it still seems like it comes from cultural hang-ups around monogamy and celibacy. I’m no Reddit-cυck but at that point he should’ve just been honest about it instead of sneaking around, even suggesting an “open relationship,” or broken up with her if she wasn’t down for that (as she had the right to disapprove). However, again, cultural hang-ups seem to have made this too difficult as we have the expectation that “A spiritual teacher should be a celibate ascetic ascended guru whose ribs you can count from looking at their flesh, and at worst in a strictly monogamous marriage!”
>The act of consensual sex itself doesn’t have to be “evil.” Often, ironically, it’s all the cultural hang-ups around it which lead to more evil (e.g. people feeling they have to sneak around and hide affairs from others, breaking partners’ hearts).
You'd make a good defence attorney.
The whole idea of "inner spiritual peace" doesn't appear to add up to all that much when it's consistent with behaviour of the kind mentioned above.
Well, fair enough, and thanks for the compliment, I guess. Our points-of-view are pretty different and it’s useless trying to budge each other on this — I respect your POV and it’s of course up to you who you do and don’t want to learn from.
Meditation can be regarded as a technique or practice that in itself won’t necessarily make you a saint and adhere unfailingly to all societal norms of morality, but it can still have profound benefits for you yourself personally. However, some people might object to this neatly separating the practice/teaching from the promulgator of it. I think you can still learn from an imperfect teacher as a stepping-stone, especially if they’re still relaying good information or at least an introduction to a good teaching and its practices, but I understand wanting a source that’s more inspiring in their personal conduct. Nowhere am I calling Culadasa a transcendental sage or saint, but it doesn’t mean he’s entirely worthless.
>The whole situation of him having to be sneaky about it still seems like it comes from cultural hang-ups around monogamy and celibacy.
The whole point that his desires were that far out of control to the point where he would violate the principles of his marriage and lie to cover it up seems to invalidate that his practices had any affect on his spiritual growth. If you cannot see why this would lead to skepticism about his credibility in a direct mechanistic way, then you don't understand what Buddhist meditation is about. In fact, this fixation on "cultural hang-ups" as the main thing at fault, and not sexual drive, leads me to believe that you probably have a long way to go before you'll understand how and why desire causes suffering.
Like, why do you even want to meditate? You have no reason to, nor any desire to.
What I’m more saying is some seem to view attainment as very much of an “either/or” thing. One can have some modicum of attainment and things to teach even while not being a complete saint (according to societal expectations of what a saint should be, look like, or act like). If Culadasa can teach you something, great. If you don’t want to learn from him at all, equally great. You don’t have to imitate his personal life or agree with all his behavior to learn something from his recounting Buddhist practices and teachings, in the same way that if someone writes a textbook/how-to book compiling techniques, practices, or equations they learned in some practical or scientific field, or an uplifting biography of some spiritual figure or historical entity, you can still benefit from it apart from the merits or demerits of the compiler/author.
As an old saying goes, the canal carries water without itself drinking it.
Also, I believe a common Buddhist belief is that sins/bad karmas which come from passion/desire for pleasure (sex, food, alcohol) are more forgivable and understandable than those of aggression (outright violence towards others), which is a sensible and humanistic view, even though they still indeed also work to eradicate the negative karmas coming from the former (addiction to carnality/passion/desires/pleasures).
Emotions can admittedly be pretty stupid. Just speaking conventionally, reason should control one’s emotions and body, and negative emotions should be outweighed by, replaced with or transmuted into positive ones. The glorification of emotionality in general and negative emotions in particular seems a big barrier to basic functioning sanity, but this doesn’t mean to cut out your emotions in an unhealthy manner, anymore than asceticism means to starve yourself to death or cut off your sex organs.
>What I’m more saying is some seem to view attainment as very much of an “either/or” thing.
You don't halfway step into nibbana. You either have it or you don't. It's that simple. If you want to moderate your desires, just practice Stoic reflection. If you want to fundamentally transform how you view the world and prepare yourself for removal from the cycle of samsara, you practice hardcore Buddhist meditation.
I wish I could sit here and tell you that you're playing with forces you don't understand that could hurt you, but thankfully Buddhist meditation isn't like that. If you aren't serious about it, you simply won't head anywhere. The only problem is whether you end up deceiving other people and thus spoil the message for the receptive.
Look, I get not wanting this journey. It's a big ask for anybody, with a lot of hardship along the way, and if you don't see the point of it, then it's best not to step on the trail until you're ready. But this haggling over having a little bit of craving left is missing the point so hard, it's embarrassing. It really is an either/or thing, because, ostensibly, the quest is to get rid of the same desire that sees you negotiating for compromises right now. It's stupid because when you get to the destination, you won't want what you compromised for, and sticking to your guns here will only ensure you never get there.
>The only problem is whether you end up deceiving other people and thus spoil the message for the receptive.
Interestingly enough I was having the same view but applied in an opposite manner — I was thinking about how easy it could be to “spoil the message” for others by backbiting and asserting, “Even if you feel you learned something from this book or set of teachings, you didn’t actually gain anything good from it, as the source had XYZ personal flaws and failings, and hence had nothing worthy to teach you.” However, I still respect and understand your point of view. It’s admittedly a big difference in our orientations. I simply think there’s nothing wrong with using someone like Culadasa as a stepping-stone or beginner’s entry into Buddhism. (After all, there’s a tremendous amount to study in Buddhism, and I doubt anyone is revering Culadasa as the sole source you should get your information from).
Another poster mentions Chögyam Trungpa, and my controversial view (in agreement with that poster) is that even his books are amazing sources of knowledge, even while Trungpa Rinpoche had some massive personal flaws and failings which I can’t even try to justify. I just view him as a person who made both much negative and much positive karma. Your view is more puritanical, that we need to find and learn from the perfect master. I respect that and wish you well on your journey. No use really debating anymore, whether I’m wrong, you’re wrong, we’re both wrong, we’re both right, we’re both neither right nor wrong, or some other variation of the Nagarjunian tetralemma, as both our points have been made and no one is budging, although we can keep going if we wish.
>I simply think there’s nothing wrong with using someone like Culadasa as a stepping-stone or beginner’s entry into Buddhism.
I really don't think his book is worth much. It's been a while, and I haven't read the whole thing, but the section which covers the five hindrances is woefully inadequate and doesn't do justice to the concepts whatsoever. If that's a representative sample of the rest of the book, then I wouldn't use it at all.
>Your view is more puritanical, that we need to find and learn from the perfect master.
Not necessarily. Rather, as soon as you realize you need to stop spending time as an amateur, then you study under somebody who isn't a dilettante.
Fair enough. I’ve never actually read this guy and don’t plan to, was just playing devil’s advocate.
>I really don't think his book is worth much. It's been a while, and I haven't read the whole thing
Well I'm almost done reading it and have found it very valuable.
>Even if your old German rocket science professor turned out to be a former Nazi war criminal brought over to the U.S. through Operation Paperclip, you still learned rocket science from them
>them
What is the purpose of that gay-speak?
>Is that really so bad a thing if it was consensual
yes?
Um it is explicitly immoral and contrary to the necessary conditions of enlightenment. He was married, a teacher of meditation and Buddhism.
Because I don't think that the virtue of chastity is downstream of practical considerations or cultural norms as you are positing. I guess you really don't "get it" if you don't understand the benefits of asceticism and I say that as politely as I can.
Dude was dying of cancer at 74 which spread to his brain as well as having untreated bipolar disorder and you think he's not going to want to fulfill a biological drive when he's almost on his deathbed? That's the best time to do it, and it will feel amazing after years of restraining yourself. But not if you're doing it on a regular basis, which is why you avoid it as long as possible until you're close to dying.
At 74 he shouldn't have had any sex drive in the first lace. Animals have sex once per year and they only do it for procreation, contrary to women who are sex addicts and always in heat.
Don't forget that according to atheists, sex is the only ting in common between humans and animals, and animals frick all the time. This is completely false.
The truth is that animals don't value sex and it is female humans who are inherently bawds...
Atheists deny the truth because they want to pin their degeneracy on ''uncontrollable irrepressible biological urges'' so that they avoid being guilty of degeneracy.
>At 74 he shouldn't have had any sex drive in the first lace
Meditation gives you super powers like nofap.
In fact, Meditation is advanced nofap.
Bipolar disorder affects moods and may significantly alter a person's sexuality. An individual may become highly sexual during a manic phase, then have little or no sex drive during a depressive phase.
If anything it shows that meditation can overcome tons of issues.
>Sure it might work to make you feel pleasant and relaxed for a bit, but so would watching a movie or going for a walk.
Not even. Samatha meditation (which the book focuses on in the first half) drastically rewires your mind to be able to get incredible enjoyment from just remaining present with your breath and body.
Movies stir up tons of emotions and plant loads of wrong view, wrong speech, wrong action in your brain causing you to suffer. Your mind becomes filled with loads of visual imagery and sounds that overstimulate it and cause it to suffer.
Films make you think that life should be a certain way, when it reality it shouldn't.
All of that pleasure you get from visual entertainment will come to an end and then you'll crash and suffer.
What goes up, must come down.
>the “mindfulness” of absorbing narrowly into the sensations of the breath and blocking out the rest of experience, will be completely limited to the controlled environment of the formal “meditation” context and will not carry over whatsoever when you return to the activities of daily life.
And you don't what you're talking about if you actually read the book. You're not "blocking out" everything. You're keeping in touch with your breath and body which is the key to happiness. You don't chase after external stimuli because you eventually realize it's not very rewarding compared to just being with yourself.
And the rest of your criticism is again, answered in the book. Insight meditation is talked about in the second half. Read it and realize that you don't know what you're talking about.
YOU are very misguided.
>What goes up, must come down.
Extending this understanding.
Meditation allows you to be content with less which leads to longer lasting happiness.
Overstimulation through drugs, entertainment, sex, etc. just leads to craving which leads to suffering.
The less you crave, the less you suffer.
The more sensory pleasures you indulge in, the more you crave them, and the more you suffer.
Less is more.
This is what I've found to be true since I've quit many sensory pleasures (caffeine, alcohol, weed, internet to a large extent, movies/tv, music, etc)
If you understand the neuroscience of addiction, the concept of homeostasis and whatnot, then you understand why these sensory pleasures don't bring much fulfillment.
yeah, that dopamine detox fad, everybody has seen the youtube videos
>You don't chase after external stimuli because you eventually realize it's not very rewarding compared to just being with yourself.
Why can't you have external stimuli and still be with yourself? You're not the same person arguing about not "blocking everything" else out are you?
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
The more attention you give anything and the more you indulge in it, the more you want it.
If you're giving attention to these external pleasures consistently, then you'll want more of them.
Watch this as many times until it sinks in.
What goes up must come down.
Highs are followed by lows.
Higher highs are followed by lower lows.
Highs are also followed by cravings for those highs.
Cravings take you away from the present because you're wishing for some other state - a "higher" alternative state, which is not the current one, and because you
are not currently in this "higher' state and you wish to be, you suffer.
Living is being in the present.
If you're craving another state then you are removing yourself from the present, and not living.
If you don't indulge in these external pleasures, then you don't crave them, and because you don't crave them, you suffer less.
https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/miscellaneous-resources/start-here-evolution-has-not-prepared-your-brain-for-todays-porn/
This focuses on porn addiction but it can be applied to anything incredibly stimulating - drugs, tasty food, video games, exciting activities (skydiving, clubbing), etc.
A key point is that there's a difference from natural pleasures (whole food, nature, bodily sensations) and the artificial stimuli we've concocted which wreaks havoc on our reward system.
The brain wires itself to whatever you give consistent attention to.
If you read books everyday, you'll like books and crave books.
If you listen to a lot of music, you'll like music and crave music.
If you watch movies/tv/youtube/tiktok everyday, then you'll like those things.
If you do drugs, then you'll like and crave drugs.
If you watch porn or have sex, then you'll like sex and crave sex.
These external pleasures are not sustainable, you can't always get them whenever, but if you try to indulge in that much as possible you'll find yourself becoming increasingly agitated, depressed, and miserable because your brain is becoming overloaded with unnatural stimuli that it isn't built to handle.
If you focus on your breath and bodily sensations, then you start to enjoy just being with yourself, and don't feel much of a desire for anything else.
The breath is abundant - it's always there. You never don't have it unless you're suffocating or dead.
Become addicted to the breath and body and you'll be much happier than being addicted to any external thing.
I disagree. You claim seeking external stimuli takes you out of the present but I say you can only ever be in the present. There's only one place to ever think of the past or future from. Why take a hostile position against having to climb a mountain because you eventually need to come down? When you're done you're grateful to the mountain for lifting you up. You don't scorn it because you can't live up there. I certainly don't.
You don't need to climb a mountain. That's just a desire you have to fulfill some arbitrary goal which will make you feel like you've achieved something. Except you never had to do anything.
You could very easily spin this around and say you don't need to not climb mountains either. And that sort of strain of what you 'ought' to be doing is the real problem not the mountains and how they don't lift you up permanently. The enegy you expend trying to defend against the carnal only distracts you from yourself. I can't permanently spend time with my self and breath unless I adopt a super monastic ascetic life (by escaping to a monestary on a mountain) and then only maybe. If you tell me otherwise I won't believe you. The strain to somehow avoid and escape mountains to be with your self seems greater than the strain of climbing up and down a mountain and you haven't really explained why gratitude towards mountains and stoic acceptance of coming down isn't tenable, as if self is exclusively found in only the good parts of experience and good parts of experience are found exclusively in the self.
It require less energy to sit still and can be immensely pleasurable and satisfying.
It's not about avoiding or escape - there's just no need or desire to do much else once you realize this.
What's more is you're chiding not being in the present and worried about "the lows" coming in the future.
When you realize that an activity leads to more suffering, and you're consistently mindful, you do it less and less.
You understand the whole process without even needing to think about it.
Can people not undertand and be glad to pay the lows for highs? No tree grows to heaven without roots that also grow to hell.
The lows often outweigh the highs.
Let's take a drug like alcohol for example:
[+] High - You feel good for a short period of time.
[-] Comedown - The badness you feel is equal or worse to the goodness you felt because of homeostasis.
[-] Short-term physical effects - Nausea, dizziness, stomachache, digestive issues, vomiting, pain
[-] Long-term physical effects - Various types of cancer and maladies affecting the brain, heart, mouth, throat, lungs, other organs
[-] The craving for the drug that puts you in a state of dissatisfaction with the present.
So, one positive to four negative. Doesn't seem that great.
The pleasure you get will reduce your ability to feel pleasure not only from the drug itself over time, but everything else.
Not worth it in my opinion.
You're just making semantic distinctions now. Alcohol don't just make you feel good short term. I can laundry list benefits of alcohol lowering stress and inhibitions and enhancing enjoyment of various things and say the positives oughtwiegh the negatives. A hale holy person knows how to navigate negative storms not pretend he can ignore them and navigate calm waters forever. Better to have a case by case than an easy absolute than self is a solution to all or even most problems. Not saying breathing and being present carries no benefit. But I see absolutely no reason you can't "have your cake and eat it too" other than "well thats the way it is". I'd even argue you can use your own technique to offset negatives.
[-] Doing stupid things that get you in trouble, reducing your quality of life and negatively affecting the lives of others around you
[-] Through peer pressure and exposing others to this drug, you increase the likelihood that they do it too
More like 7 negatives
Alcohol increases stress and reduces pleasure from everything else.
Read "This Naked Mind"
https://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking/
>But I see absolutely no reason you can't "have your cake and eat it too" other than "well thats the way it is".
Because that is the way it is.
>I can list all of these benefits..
You would be deluded and not seeing the full-picture.
Alcohol is the most damaging drug to society. More than meth, crack, or heroin.
“You drink to end the distress. The drink itself does not provide enjoyment, but you sincerely enjoy ending the nuisance of wanting a drink. The relief is so strong you feel happy, even giddy. You drink to get the feeling of peace that someone who is not dependent on alcohol always feels.”
Our brain did not evolve to handle these things.
“Alcohol erases a bit of you every time you drink it. It can even erase entire nights when you are on a binge. Alcohol does not relieve stress; it erases your senses and your ability to think. Alcohol ultimately erases your self.”
“if alcohol made you happy, every time you drank you should be full of happiness. Let me ask you, from a purely physiological perspective, how could alcohol possibly make you happy? The effect of alcohol is to deaden all of your senses, to numb you, to inebriate you. If you are numb, how can you feel anything, happiness included? Surely you are not happy every time you drink. None of us are proud of everything we have said or done while drinking. Yet in the moment we believe we are on top of the world, saying and doing anything we please, deluding ourselves into thinking it’s making us happy. Are you happy when the room starts to spin, or your dinner comes back up? Is the drunk on the street in Vegas who has lost his home and his family to booze truly happy? You might take issue with this and tell me that”
“A good marketer can sell practically anything to anyone. Tobacco is literally dried, decaying vegetable matter that you light on fire and inhale, breathing horrid-tasting, toxic fumes into your lungs.121 At one point marketers promoted smoking as a status symbol and claimed it had health benefits. Once you give it a try, the addictive nature of the drug kicks in, and the agency’s job becomes much easier. If they can get you hooked, the product will sell itself. Since the product is actually poison, advertisers need to overcome your instinctual aversion. That’s a big hill for alcohol advertisements to climb, which is why the absolute best marketing firms on the globe, firms with psychologists and human behavior specialists on staff, are hired to create the ads. These marketers know that the most effective sale is an emotional sale, one that plays on your deepest fears, your ultimate concerns. Alcohol advertisements sell an end to loneliness, claiming that drinking provides friendship and romance. They appeal to your need for freedom by saying drinking will make you unique, brave, bold, or courageous. They promise fulfillment, satisfaction, and happiness. All these messages speak to your conscious and unconscious minds.”
“Unconscious learning happens automatically and unintentionally through experiences, observations, conditioning, and practice.4 We’ve been conditioned to believe we enjoy drinking. We think it enhances our social life and relieves boredom and stress. We believe these things below our conscious awareness. This is why, even after we consciously acknowledge that alcohol takes more than it gives, we retain the desire to drink.”
“It’s not that alcohol makes drinkers happy; it’s that they are very unhappy without it.”
Again I feel unconvinced, you can easily replace the word drink and alcohol with mindfulness and meditation. You're just expending energy to avoid a different thing. It's hardly a spiritual position if all you care about is muh health. We're back to
. A few carnal pleasures does not atomize your soul and self but being guilty over it and desperate to avoid them certainly will start to wear on you.
I feel like all your posturing in this thread is negated by the fact that you're still posting on fricking IQfy. If your meditation practice wasn't enough to quit this place then the other guy is right, its useless. You're still just chasing after sensual pleasure and building an identity around it. It just happens to be meditation instead of a career or a family or whatever else.
I'll agree with the second half of this. Now you're just chasing an abstract higher state of not being a creature of anticipation. And in an increasingly complex world that seems far more unsustainable to me.
It's good to teach others.
I've drastically reduced the amount of time I come to this website so it is working. Went several months in the past year not even coming here once.
Meditation will make you better at your career and raising a family.
There's this consistent "either you're enlightened from meditating or meditation is
pointless" extreme thinking that keeps getting regurgitated over and over again in this thread.
It's the same kind of thinking as "well if i'm not going to be the next great writer/musician/filmmaker/scientist then that's what point?"
It's a process. You swing in one direction, and then back, and then forward a few steps, and then back a step, and then forward some more.
You're not going to become removed from all desires in one day.
>Went several months in the past year not even coming here once.
This is exactly like an alcoholic who claims sobriety because he went without alcohol for a few months but is presently drinking in a bar. It's fricking laughable. Again, all of your posts in this thread point to the fact that your identity is now caught up in your meditation practice. You haven't actually addressed the root of the problem, you've just put on a new coat of paint.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)
Splitting (also called black-and-white thinking, thinking in extremes or all-or-nothing thinking) is the failure in a person's thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both perceived positive and negative qualities of something into a cohesive, realistic whole. It is a common defense mechanism[1] wherein the individual tends to think in extremes (e.g., an individual's actions and motivations are all good or all bad with no middle ground). This kind of dichotomous interpretation is contrasted by an acknowledgement of certain nuances known as "shades of gray".[2]
Splitting was first described by Ronald Fairbairn in his formulation of object relations theory;[3] it begins as the inability of the infant to combine the fulfilling aspects of the parents (the good object) and their unresponsive aspects (the unsatisfying object) into the same individuals, instead seeing the good and bad as separate. In psychoanalytic theory this functions as a defense mechanism.[4]
>It's a process. You swing in one direction, and then back, and then forward a few steps, and then back a step, and then forward some more.
>You're not going to become removed from all desires in one day.
If an alcoholic goes a year without drinking, then drinks for a week, then goes 2 years without drinking - they've improved. It's progress.
>You're still just chasing after sensual pleasure and building an identity around it. It just happens to be meditation
The breath is always there. It's abundant. It's simple. It's the best addiction to have.
The breath is only "there" when you're actively paying attention to it. And you only derive pleasure from it after a long bout of training and then a long time of actively focusing. And for what? For the same end result of sensual pleasure that you could have gotten by engaging in the same material pleasures that everyone else does. By your own admission your still an addict, but now an addict to something that's subtler and actually harder to obtain.
the pleasure in mediation is not from the breath and is devoid of attachment, and aversion, contrary to sensual hedonism. Ans hedonists have frick all idea how pathetic sensual hedonism compares to meditation.
All pleasure is devoid of attachment and aversion. Sensual desire for that pleasure and identification with it, regardless of what kind of pleasure it is, is what gives rise to attachment and aversion. How exactly is your view different from someone that believes in Heaven? That if they just behave a certain way they'll have unimaginable bliss in the hereafter? Or likewise a heroin addict? In terms of intentions it's exactly the same, still just mindlessly (in your case quite literally) chasing after pleasure.
>The breath is only "there" when you're actively paying attention to it.
The more you pay attention, the more it's there always in awareness.
>For the same end result of sensual pleasure that you could have gotten by engaging in the same material pleasures that everyone else does.
Every pleasure you indulge in reduces your ability to feel pleasure from everything else.
So might as well stick to something that's abundant and everywhere you go.
The more you sit with yourself, the more pleasurable it is to sit with yourself.
Try it and see.
the more you reddit space, the more pleasurable it is to suck dicks
or maybe i have that backwards
It's called safe spacing, to give your sentences space from each other, and it's been around for a long time.
Oh so Coldass can cheat on his wife with prozzies and still be considered wise but I can't even shitpost? I see how it is
How does reddit make you feel? What do you notice happening in your body when you see the word "reddit"?
I don’t see how coming to IQfy is different than any other social gathering.
It’s more a problem of the commercialisation and appropriation of Buddhist methods by the secular McMindfulness movement. I don’t think the author is an actual monk or formally recognized as a legitimate Buddhist teacher. But I could be wrong about this
If you don't know then it's better to keep quiet.
>Dude: "Vegetables are good for you, kids"
>*Dude goes out and murders someone*
>Person with no critical thought: I'M NEVER EATING VEGETABLES AGAIN! THEY TURN YOU INTO A MURDERER!
moron, he is preaching about staying away from sex but it himself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)
no you fricking idiot
the correct analogy is
>Dude: "Eating vegetables prevents one from committing murder. I eat vegetables daily"
>*Dude goes out and murders someone*
>Alert citizen: "This man's message is refuted by his actions. I will not squander my valuable time perusing his writings"
I read a book that seems to have a similar premise and it was alright.
has he turned his life around? if yes, then likely he knows something
I want to read "selling spirituality", it looks like it's on this topic
I’ve done that a few times to help me fall asleep at night and it worked every time. I’m too lazy to practice it regularly though.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/comments/gyb51i/confused_is_tmi_still_credible_after_the_scandal/
Similar books (focusing on practice) but not written by coomer hacks?
there really isn't the best is the suttas. And even the suttas are murky about how to get into the proper right samadhi, ie how to connect insights with the jhanas.
You can try the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimuttimagga but it's also a secondary work.
For thirdary works
https://www.forestmeditation.com/meditation/meditation.html
It was just a clickbaity post for the OP but obviously I still believe in reading other books on buddhism and meditation.
The Mind Illuminated is a great book but yes it is by a coomer hack. In my personal opinion this reflects a fundamental limitation of meditation rather than a limitation of TMI technique. Meditation alone won't actually make you a saint. Everyone who says otherwise is lying or parroting dogma.
However, the author of TMI is almost certainly enlightened by any practical definition. Just like Chogyam Trungpa was enlightened and his life issues were much worse.
t. obviously didn't read the book and attacks a strawman
dzogchen, vipassana and even samatha all converge into the same thing when practiced at a high enough level.
>dzogchen, vipassana and even samatha all converge into the same thing when practiced at a high enough level.
again false. mahayana and vajrayana meditation is joke compared to the buddhist one
>vajrayana is not real buddhism
Oh my. Looks like zoomer convert zeal in Buddhism is just as bad as zoomer convert zeal in Christianity.
>At seminary the couple kept to themselves. At the Halloween party, after many, including Trungpa himself, had taken off their clothes, Merwin was asked to join the event but refused. On Trungpa's orders, his Vajra Guard forced entry into the poet's locked and barricaded room; brought him and his girlfriend, Dana Naone, against their will, to the party; and eventually stripped them of all their clothes, with onlookers ignoring Naone's pleas for help and for someone to call the police.
>Trungpa's choice of Westerner Ösel Tendzin as his dharma heir was controversial, as Tendzin was the first Western Tibetan Buddhist lineage holder and Vajra Regent. This was exacerbated by Tendzin's own behavior as lineage holder. While knowingly HIV-positive, Tendzin was sexually involved with students, one of whom became infected and died.[105]
truly an enlightened master despite his (human) errors
the material comes from asanga
Unironically Dream yourself Awake and/or The attention revolution. By the same author. Both about basic samatha with steps by step commentary
The entire notion of meditation “techniques” as mechanical paint-by-the-numbers procedures you conduct with your attention to produce a result of some flash of “insight”, is totally misconceived when it comes to Buddhism
Sure it might work to make you feel pleasant and relaxed for a bit, but so would watching a movie or going for a walk. Plus the “mindfulness” of absorbing narrowly into the sensations of the breath and blocking out the rest of experience, will be completely limited to the controlled environment of the formal “meditation” context and will not carry over whatsoever when you return to the activities of daily life. So to even call it “mindfulness” is absurd
Any meditation in Buddhism that is not centered around understanding the general nature of experience (as it applies to all experience, both formal meditation and everyday activity), on developing equanimity to any experience one might have, on investigating the timeless relationship between grasping/aversion and suffering, on investigating the relation between the ‘grasping subject’ and the ‘grasped objects’ and on understanding dependent origination - is misguided.
The conception of Buddhist meditation you criticize is simply shamatha practice (roughly, calming, tranquillizing or resting the mind), the other part you (rightfully) note should have just as much emphasis on it could be summed up under vipashyana (“insight”, could more literally be translated as “superior seeing”), or also post-meditation practice. And this is addressed in Buddhism, as shamatha-vipashyana is classically always described as a pair. You are overall correct that Buddhism proper is meant to be applied to one’s entire life and as much as one can, not just in sitting practice or other forms of meditation. So the misconception, as you note, is that this is simply something “tacked onto” your life — one devotes some time each day to sitting in meditation and that’s it. There is indeed a cliched view that it’s all about sitting in some posture, like the lotus posture/padmasana, some time each day with some shamatha practice like bringing the attention back the breath and you’re good to go.
Even vipassana a la modern Theravada is often misconceived from the get-go, with the emphasis being on perceiving the “continuous change/flux” of atomic dhammas that apparently make up experience, as being the ‘ultimate reality’ behind the ‘illusory’ discontinuous change and relative stability of everyday appearances.
Not that there aren’t truly insightful and realized beings in Theravada, but I suppose my point is that each Buddhist tradition is a mixed bag.
This is why Dzogchen is the best
You should make more substantial posts so that people can have productive discussion about the book.
here is the official purpose of samatha and vipassana
also the sujato's book is pretty good at reconstructing the various suttas
https://santifm.org/santipada/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/A_History_of_Mindfulness_Bhikkhu_Sujato.pdf
the important point to meditation is that you need to do the mindfulness first, and before that you need to follow the 5 precepts and so on, ie right talk, right resolve, right conduct and so on
Meditation is a pointless waste of time, first used by religious nutheads and later newageified and sold to dumb westoids
Read the book and you might feel otherwise.
What do YOU think is a good use of time and why?
There are no proven benefits to meditation that cannot be achieved by literally any other activity
It's a placebo effect. You think meditation works because you were led to believe it does. If meditation was forced on you and you were told that it makes you gay you'd never do it voluntarily
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_lying
There are proven benefits.
Ask any monk.
Ask me - I'll say yes.
I'm all ears buddeh, what were the incredible benefits of meditation for you that regular study, better food and sleep and working out couldn't accomplish. Since, after all, I assume you spent countless hours sitting on your ass and humming some mantra, to engage in such seemingly moronic and pointless task must've yielded incredible results, otherwise you'd a fricking idiot to keep going!
Increased calmness and emotional stability.
Increased happiness.
More appreciation for natural and simpler pleasures.
Reduced desire to seek external pleasures.
Can be content with less.
Questions for you:
How do you live?
Are you enjoying life?
Are you content right now with the way that you're living?
If not then what do you think would improve your life? Why?
>Increased calmness and emotional stability.
placebo effect, were you a mentally unhinged maniac before meditation? No you were a regular homie
>Increased happiness.
placebo effect, nothing changed you just got older and learned to cope with life better, as evidenced by the following points
>More appreciation for natural and simpler pleasures.
see above, you're a cope
>Reduced desire to seek external pleasures.
see above above, coping hard
>Can be content with less.
see all the way up, copius maximus
>Questions for you:
>How do you live?
Generally, I wake up, go to work, come home, eat, dunk on people like you who peddle gay ass meaningless timewasting guru crap like meditation, jerk off, and then sleep
>Are you enjoying life?
Its okay could be better
>Are you content right now with the way that you're living?
No, only morons are content with what they have
>If not then what do you think would improve your life? Why?
Lots of money would be a good start, I'd also like to kill all my enemies
>Generally, I wake up, go to work, come home, eat, dunk on people like you who peddle gay ass meaningless timewasting guru crap like meditation, jerk off, and then sleep
that's a pretty good advertisement for becoming a meditating homie tbh
I honestly don't know how people can handle life without some sort of spiritual framework and practice. Life fricking sucks.
how old are you?
if you're young and acting like you can just do whatever you want without suffering some kind of consequences in the future (like "i can eat whatever i want and not get fat", "i can do as many drugs as i want and be happy", "i can be a not-nice person as much as i want and still feel good about myself) then i've got bad news for you
https://www.google.com/search?q=benefits+meditation
are no proven benefits to meditation that cannot be achieved by literally any other activity
that's false. proper meditation is the only way to reduce sensual hedonism
>There are no proven benefits to meditation that cannot be achieved by literally any other activity
>Read the book and you might feel otherwise.
To be fair, in the book he says that the attention and focus skills that a skilled surgeon develops as a result of his job is basically the same thing as the first 6 or 7 stages of his meditation process.
Except, you know, the surgeon also develops a useful skill along with focus, while meditationkek just sat on his ass the whole time
and you're doing even less by spreading unkindness
read the book and start your journey, today!
>in the book he says that the attention and focus skills that a skilled surgeon develops as a result of his job is basically the same thing as the first 6 or 7 stages of his meditation process.
No - stage 4 at most.
>Surgeons, chess players, professional athletes, and air traffic controllers are also examples of people who have developed an extraordinary capacity for stable, focused attention. But the stable attention of skilled meditators is different; they can sustain attention regardless of how important they consider the object to be. In addition, the quality of attention of trained professionals only reaches STAGE FOUR (this first Milestone). Reaching the higher levels requires techniques unique to meditation. That is, mastery for the surgeon is just the beginning for the skilled meditator. "
Paying attention to a sensation with your eyes closed and your mind more prone to wandering is an entirely different thing than paying attention to a physical object with your eyes open.
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/WithEachAndEveryBreath/Contents.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/Dhp/
CULAZO
lol
Basta Mencho
Every single time I see a post about a book here that I've read, it's always flocked by people who somehow have this incredible ability to say things that are flat out untrue about the book or the subject matter and act like it's true. It's almost like they haven't even read the book or the subject matter before.
Always amazes me.
To be fair, meditation is always going to be a bit divisive in that sense regardless of what book we refer to.
Between this and "Mindfulness in plain english", which is better?
Don't need to compare things. Read and find what's useful.
People who hate meditation:
>Those who don't want hold themselves accountable for how they feel and want to always blame others for their suffering.
>Those addicted to various external sensory pleasures and don't want to give them up because their brain has been wired and tricked into thinking that these addictions are the most effective way to reduce suffering, when the reality is that they tend to increase long-term suffering.
>Those with an opposing belief system who think that only their way of living is the right way and if they don't believe in meditation then it's simply wrong without offering any valid reasoning (aka Narcissists) (Can also be meditators too).
https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/wiki/booklist
Buddhism, like most ideologies (psychoanalysis, marxism, etc), takes a sound premise (it is good to meditate and the state of our mind is extremely important) but goes too far and assumes the entire world revolves around it (mind only school etc)
I have been meditating around an hour a day and it's good but is really just a healthier form of escapism. (ie it doesn't actually resolve your problems, just makes you cope better)
I also am extremely skeptical of anyone who claims enlightenment from meditation since anything gained from it can so too be lost with enough time away from practice.I just treat it as a way to be more mentally resilient and focus on prayer if I want spiritual growth that isn't as self-centered
>focus on prayer if I want spiritual growth that isn't as self-centered
That's what bodhicitta is for
Most buddhists stress that mindfulness and meditation is only one aspect of the practice, practicing selflessness and "right thinking" are the other parts. The Roshi I spoke to IRL at a zen temple specifically emphasized that Zen is "not a solo practice", meaning you have to practice selflessness and interact with the world and other people.
>focus on prayer if I want spiritual growth that isn't as self-centered
there is nothing more self-centered than begging an imaginary friend for treats, you aren't meditating in any traditionally Buddhist way if you are using it to affirm a sense of self
There are plenty of traditional Buddhist prayers to deities or bodhisattvas regardless, so it's unclear what you are getting at.
Your idea of prayer is a pretty drastic reduction in both buddhist and western ideas.
Can you explain why you think Chogyam Trungpa was enlightened. I don't get the rationale, unless by enlightened you mean just a pragmatic definition (realized the nature of the world) or something, not actually went beyond all desiring and ego attachment.
>There are plenty of traditional Buddhist prayers to deities or bodhisattvas regardless, so it's unclear what you are getting at.
there are but these are mostly medieval concessions to hindu culture, and besides, the cardinal, definitive kernel of Buddhism is the teaching of anatman or nairatmya, even when you get into the period where Buddhism in India has become Shaivism with find-and-replace bodhisattvas for devas, you still have that notion that there is no transcendental ego-substance found anywhere so the point of deity yoga for instance is to go beyond mere identification of a you with a god because both of those concepts are void and primordially quiescent... now, since you are ranking Buddhism alongside "psychoanalysis" and "Marxism" as "ideologies" and bluntly asserting that prayer is better because meditation is "self-centered," it seems highly likely that your main concern is performative abrahamist tradlarping—in which case the entire context in which you assert the primacy of prayer over meditation is colored by a hostile anti-theurgic religion which categorically rejects any form of experience and relies on the affirmation of creeds and waging low-intesity lawfare against the God which you believe there is a covenant with
> there are but these are mostly medieval concessions to hindu culture
That is an oversimplification. Traditions like Pure land Buddhism are far more devotional and gained more traction in areas without significant Hindu influence. The vast majority of nonwestern Buddhists still have tons of devotional practices beyond meditation.
Unless you aren't Buddhist I don't really see why there is an issue with this and why you are averse. Bhakti yoga is among the classical paths in Hinduism and Buddhism doesn't just throw that all away.
> Buddhism alongside "psychoanalysis" and "Marxism" as "ideologies"
I don't mean it in a pejorative sense. Rather its just a set of ideas that tries to give a complete picture on something. Using the term religion is not really proper since there really aren't the same goals
Never mind the fact that meditation as described in the book above is totally removed from traditional contexts. It would be like saying doing westernized acupuncture makes you believer in Taoism.
>meditation is "self-centered"
When I say self-centered I mean the colloquial definition, as in not caring much about others. I am just focused on my own mind and body when meditating. That is fine. I don't see meditation and devotional practices to be opposed.
> hostile anti-theurgic religion which categorically rejects any form of experience
Nothing of what you said in your following rant applies to my beliefs or prayer practices and is just projection, seemingly parroting cliches from Evola or something. In fact it honestly sounds like that is where you got the aversion to devotion from.
If you're meditating within a Mahayana Buddhist context, all your practice should be based on the compassionate motivation to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. All Tibetan meditation practices begin with meditating on refuge and bodhicitta, and end with dedicating the merit of the practice to the enlightenment of all sentient beings.
i can tell by your post that you have enlarged breast buds
>self-centered
Well, at minimum, Buddhism demands you stop doing harm to others and to yourself as much as possible, which is already a contribution to a better world, by starting with “tidying up your own corner.” As in the classic three-fold discipline of sila-samadhi-prajna (ethical conduct/discipline, concentration, and insight). It’s ‘self-centered’ inasmuch as it’s stressing that enlightenment ‘starts at home’ and you have to work on yourself before you can even help others significantly. And what can be regarded as the self-centeredness of the Theravada or Hinayana path and their ideal of the Arhat is transcended and added to with the Bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism, where one attains enlightenment not just for oneself but for the sake of all sentient beings, having the aspiration to lead all sentient beings to enlightenment (which aspiration is bodhichitta).
Post-meditation practice (trying to apply insight to all of life as well as in one’s dealing with others), as well as the ethical guidelines to be followed, deal with and transcend this seeming “self-centeredness.” And there is a lot of heart-centric devotion in Buddhism, as has already been mentioned, including even by you yourself with the mention of Pure Land Buddhism.
I do mean the pragmatic definition. Vajrayana is a lot friendlier towards precept-breaking, and I suspect it's because Theravada's model of enlightenment doesn't actually work. Serious (non-western) Vajrayana starts with years of doing basically Theravada stuff as preparation so it's not like they are ignorant of it.
Part of Vajrayana's insight is that being enlightened, selfless, present etc doesn't mean following a strict dogmatic list of rules. It does mean acting with compassion towards yourself and the world but in a more relaxed way, i.e. doing the best you can rather than becoming a robot incapable of desire.
This is definitely a letdown compared to what Buddha seems to promise, and many people reject it. Which is fine but I think they strive towards an ideal that's not only unattainable but perhaps not even desirable. The actual aim of Buddhism is getting rid of suffering, not becoming perfect.
>This is definitely a letdown compared to what Buddha seems to promise
Not when it's based on the view that the five poisons are in actuality the five wisdoms.The poisons aren't necessarily a problem, grasping at them is. From the Vajrayana perspective, the desireless monk isn't even an ideal, the Vajrayana ideal is the Mahasiddha. The realization of a Mahasiddha is a higher realization than the realization of an Arhat.
>Vajrayana is a lot friendlier towards precept-breaking, and I suspect it's because Theravada's model of enlightenment doesn't actually work.
That's the propaganda of the Ingram cult. They literally say ''the model of the arahant in the suttas is too hard, i fail to reach it so it's probably fake. Instead as a good atheist,I will create my personal definition of arahants and claim it's really what the buddha meant in the suttas''.
This is what they did in Vajrayana too, but they don't care about buddhism. those people sell a ''lineage'' and so they have to larp as buddhist going back as far as possible. So they need a new layer of lies to say that ''the arahants in the suttas are not enlightened, the real teaching of the buddha was given to us in a dream''
The vast majority of lay Buddhists who have ever lived have prayed/made offerings for good fortune, healthy children, advantageous marriage etc. Saying Buddhists don't pray because monks don't pray is like saying Catholics don't have sex because priests and nuns don't have sex.
>Buddhism, like most ideologies (psychoanalysis, marxism, etc), takes a sound premise (it is good to meditate and the state of our mind is extremely important)
false, it's not a premise. if you want to use logic terms, learn logic instead of passing for a baboon
You're meant to be meditating every single second, no? Isn't this just being aware of your condition in your waking life?
Meditation I always saw as a first step for those who don't naturally gravitate towards solitude. The awareness of the moment, your judgement on it, and that judgement of the judgement of it are all things that might be beneficial, sure, but they're also nothing like a brain hack or anything. It's just being aware.
Am I wrong? I always felt your usual literate type never really needed to meditate--they already do every second of their waking lives. They were conditioned to by the mere act of reading.
Being aware is really hard anon. One of key insights of meditation is exactly the realization of how much of what we do is unconscious or automatic. This isn't some esoteric knowledge either, you'll see this after only a couple sessions.
You sit down with an intention to focus on your breath. You follow the breath for a while, then suddenly you realize that you've been deep in thought about something else for a few minutes now! Where did the time go?
>If I learn how to ignore my emotions well enough then I'll be happy
When will people learn?
not about ignoring emotions but accepting them
another clueless response from someone who knows nothing about meditation
You don't just "accept" an emotion if it's unhealthy and move on, you have to figure out why you're having it and do something about it. Another clueless response from someone who's scared of their emotions.
hierarchical tiers of dealing with emotional stress and/or trauma
>enlightened tier
understanding the cause, working through the process mentally, avoiding the unfortunate circumstances that caused trauma
>good tier
accepting it (needed for higher tier)
>shit tier
ignoring it
>oh shit Black person what are you doing
numbing with booze or medication
https://pairadocks.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-10-steps-of-emotion-processing.html
1) Observe: Look at, watch, listen to; staying with it.
2) Notice: See, hear and sense; perceive.
3) Recognize ... discern what it is in a known (previously identified) pattern.
4) Acknowledge: Be with its "is-ness," "actual-ness," "there-ness," exist-ence; synonyms: concede, grant, admit, confess.
5) Accept ... that it is and align with it... noticing and rejecting any judgment or evaluation according to conscious or unconscious beliefs, ideals, rules, requirements, etc.
6) Own ... what is happening in you; take responsibility for.
7) Appreciate: Be fully conscious of, aware of, detect; synonyms: esteem, prize, value; exercise wise judgment, delicate perception, keen insight.
8) Understand: Perceive the meaning of, grasp the idea of, comprehend; grasp the significance, implications, importance of, regard as firmly communicated.
9) Interocept: Feel the sensations in the body.
10) Digest: Process, metabolize, break down and discharge.
A much briefer way of saying all this is that if a drunkard recounts the four noble truths, and you listen to them and ponder them, you can still get some benefit, and did indeed learn the four noble truths, if you never heard of them before. You can criticize the personal failings of the drunkard and not take him as your personal guide and preceptor, but you still learned something from him.
This book and its author's scandal is what ultimately convinced me of Ajahn Nyanamoli's perspective on meditation and jhana. That ultimately samadhi comes from proper establishment of virtue and sense restraint and nothing else.
>"Culadasa" (John Yates)
So some Anglo-mutt adopting le exotic Eastern practices? Was cringe when Alan Watts tried it, was cringe when John Lennon and George Harrison tried it. Convince me this isn't cringe too.
can't cause it is
I imagine it stings for real buddhists to see rich whites piss all over it like this, treating it like a relaxation exercise or another act of rebellion against their Christian parents.
yeah but it's better than nothing
buddhism is for everyone
Buddhism are religions, with all that entails. If you don't like that then why are you acting like it's on the table. You can't revise it away.
This and Buddha fricking hated women btw
Source?
Buddhism is a religion but it isn't protestantism.
You tradlarpers treat everything like protestantism. Protestant catholics, protestant orthodox, and protestant buddhists. Everything is reduced to passing purity tests.
No.
Protestantism ends up allowing less structure. Look at the vast diversity it has also. And I'm not a tradlarper I'm not religious so I'm not going to pretend to be by latching onto a religion. You want Buddhism but don't actually want Buddhism. It is not some unique principle or goal or technique. It is a religion. If you don't want it then do something else that makes use of selective parts of it.
Anyone can be a Buddhist.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/111czog/can_anyone_be_a_buddhist/
All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room, alone.
>tfw haven't progressed past stage 5
Buddhism is a conman "guru" religion just like Hinduism.
It's understandable why you think that if you're ignorant about neuroscience and haven't tried meditating.
buddhist philosophy is unmatched
>think well
>speak well
>act well
>have a job that helps others
>put in effort
>be focused and mindful
how can you beat that?
>think well
>speak well
>act well
>have a job that helps others
>put in effort
>be focused and mindful
Same model applies to Zoroastrianism.
Buddhism at its core is life denying. It’s purpose is breaking out of samsara, a belief that eternal rebirth is real and how you live your life will affect te next.
It’s many wisdoms and teachings are useful coping for living but at some point it crosses over into dogma and starts contradicting human nature.
Not that any of this is bad, it just isn’t a one and only truth.
there is no dogma in buddhism
also there is no belief in rebirth. rebirth is a mundane knowledge. you either have it or you don't. but if you don't there is nothing preventing to get it.
>what if meditation only causes you to become a neet but does jack shit to subdue your cooming desires
samatha meditation reduces lust, it's even its only result see
see
> there is no dogma in buddhism
Define your Buddhism, cause the many schools it has include dogma as well.
Including rebirth which you just hand waved away.
>lust, which here stands for all emotional defilements
>samatha soothes the emotional defilements such as greed and anger
nothing about cooming
All necessarily systems of belief have dogmas, but I get what you mean.
The distinguishing feature of Buddhism is non-self, not its ethical components
>non-self
Like I said life-denying.
The dissolution of the idea of the self is easy to make and also uncomfortable. I can imagine that this makes it intriguing and gives a worthwhile feeling.
It is based on questioning the existence of something (the self) that cannot proof itself (sorry Rene) and following that safely concludes that it doesn’t exist.
The same applies to causality, you cannot proof this exists yet here most people do choose to believe in it. So does Buddhism, and having axioms isn’t necessarily bad.
But Buddhism also gives rise to the idea of Nirvana, enlightenment. The concept that you can be understanding of this and know truths.
This however is contradictory to its earlier tenants of questioning and concluding something doesn’t exist.
It is fundamentally flawed and its conclusion is life denying; escaping samsara (this realm of existence) to attain a higher one. Buddhism offers no proof of such a thing existing and this is where it falls apart.
Removing samsara and the logical conclusion would be death. Buddhism failed to make a case for consciousness beyond samsara.
Belief in a permanent, unchanging self is life denying
That’s not what I stated.
At most I’m making a case that consciousness is life-affirming.
https://julyandavey.com/books/seeingthatfrees/
These are just TMI but worse. TMI is genuinely a great book.
You can gain from reading more than one book. No need to draw comparisons.
What about metta?
Observe other animals and you'll realize that all they do is:
>Excrete fluids
>Move around looking for food/water/shelter
>Build a shelter if needed (some kind of hole or nest)
>Play with others of the same species (mostly just running around)
>Have sex if it's mating season
>Sleep
That's it.
Yet, humans think they need so much more.
They socialise, have languages, politics/hierarchies, etc. Also grooming.
what if meditation only causes you to become a neet but does jack shit to subdue your cooming desires
Understand the neuroscience of addiction and the benefits of meditation will make more sense.
Someone tl;dr me this book. Theres no way it couldn't be summed in a paragraph or less.
" Meditation is a science, the systematic process of training the mind. It is the science of meditation that allows people from all walks of life to experience the same amazing benefits. A regular sitting practice has been shown to enhance concentration, lower blood pressure, and improve sleep. It is used to treat chronic pain, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Meditators develop valuable insights into their personality, behaviors, and relationships, making it easier to recognize and change past conditioning and counterproductive views that make life difficult. They have a greater awareness and sensitivity to others, which is enormously helpful at work and in personal relationships. The calming and relaxing effects of meditation also translate into increased emotional stability when confronting the inevitable stresses of life. Yet, these are only incidental benefits.
Fully-developed meditation skills also give rise to unique and wonderful mental states characterized by physical comfort and pleasure, joy and happiness, deep satisfaction, and profound inner peace—states that can open the mind to an intuitive appreciation of our interconnectedness and dispel the illusion of separateness created by our egos. Furthermore, these fruits of meditation can be enjoyed all day long, for many days at a time, and we can renew them whenever we like just by sitting down and practicing. I will describe these mental states in detail, and the systematic training presented here will lead to them with unfailing certainty. But even so, these peak experiences aren’t the ultimate benefit of meditation. While bliss, joy, tranquility, and equanimity are delightful, they are also transitory and easily disrupted by sickness, aging, and difficult life circumstances. They also offer no protection from the corrupting influences of lust, greed, and aversion, nor their consequences. Therefore, these states are not an end in themselves, but only a means to a higher goal.
That higher goal is Awakening. Other commonly used terms include Enlightenment, Liberation, or Self-Realization. Each of these refers to a complete and lasting freedom from suffering unaffected by aging, disease, or circumstance. True happiness, the bliss of perfect contentment, follows upon liberation from suffering. Awakening isn’t some transient experience of unity and temporary dissolution of ego. It’s the attainment of genuine wisdom; an enlightened understanding that comes from a profound realization and awakening to ultimate truth. This is a cognitive event that dispels ignorance through direct experience. Direct knowledge of the true nature of reality and the permanent liberation from suffering describes the only genuinely satisfactory goal of the spiritual path. A mind with this type of Insight experiences life, and death, as a great adventure, with the clear purpose of manifesting love and compassion toward all beings. "
What is special about his form of meditation? I already meditate often so am I good already? I don't need to be sold on the benefits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samatha-vipassana
It's what the Buddha taught.
You have two options:
1. Suffer more
2. Suffer less
If 1 - Don't meditate.
If 2 - Start meditating.
Out of curiosity, is it possible to reach nirvana when you have committed a crime like rape in this life? Like, purely hypothetically, you've had sex with an unconscious girl at a college party (without her finding out)?
Or is this seen as somewhat of an unforgivable sin?
Be mindful of your breath, body, emotion, thoughts, for anything you do.
Maybe you realize that some things you thought were good, actually weren't.
Being impeccable with your word is not using the word against yourself. If I see you in the street and I call you stupid, it appears that I’m using the word against you. But really I’m using my word against myself, because you’re going to hate me for this, and your hating me is not good for me. Therefore, if I get angry and with my word send all that emotional poison to you, I’m using the word against myself.
If I love myself I will express that love in my interactions with you, and then I am being impeccable with the word, because that action will produce a like reaction. If I love you, then you will love me. If I insult you, you will insult me. If I have gratitude for you, you will have gratitude for me. If I’m selfish with you, you will be selfish with me. If I use the word to put a spell on you, you are going to put a spell on me.
Nothing can survive without food. Everything we consume acts either to heal us or to poison us. We tend to think of nourishment only as what we take in through our mouths, but what we consume with our eyes, our ears, our noses, our tongues, and our bodies is also food. The conversations going on around us, and those we participate in, are also food. Are we consuming and creating the kind of food that is healthy for us and helps us grow?
When we say something that nourishes us and uplifts the people around us, we are feeding love and compassion. When we speak and act in a way that causes tension and anger, we are nourishing violence and suffering.
We often ingest toxic communication from those around us and from what we watch and read. Are we ingesting things that grow our understanding and compassion? If so, that’s good food. Often, we ingest communication that makes us feel bad or insecure about ourselves or judgmental and superior to others. We can think about our communication in terms of nourishment and consumption. The Internet is an item of consumption, full of nutrients that are both healing and toxic. It’s so easy to ingest a lot in just a few minutes online. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use the Internet, but you should be conscious of what you are reading and watching.
When you work with your computer for three or four hours, you are totally lost. It’s like eating french fries. You shouldn’t eat french fries all day, and you shouldn’t be on the computer all day. A few french fries, a few hours, are probably all most of us need.
What you read and write can help you heal, so be thoughtful about what you consume. When you type a comment that is full of understanding and compassion, you are nourishing yourself during the time you write that message. Even if it’s short, everything you’re writing down can nourish you and the person to whom you are writing
>thich nhat hanh
I really can't stand this guy. Preachy flowery long-winded platitudes. Watered down spirituality about being nice to each other. He sounds like he was absolutely insufferable in person. Are women into this stuff?
Look Ajahn Nyanamoli, literally his exact opposite and speaks straight from the actual the suttas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCYWGlw3cSE&ab_channel=HillsideHermitage
Mahayana is loved by women precisely because it's shallow while saying they are already enlightened
Buddhanature is just a potentiality. We are obviously suffering sentient beings and not Buddhas, no Mahayana Buddhist would deny this.
When you say something really unkind, when you do something in retaliation your anger increases. You make the other person suffer, and he will try hard to say or to do something back to get relief from his suffering. That is how conflict escalates.
Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.
You can walk up a mountain.
You can walk down the street.
You can walk in your backyard.
If you want to walk up a mountain, then you can do that.
If you want to sit in your bedroom, then you can do that.
Walking is good. Notice the feel of your feet touching the ground.
Sitting is good. Notice the feel of your breath at your nostrils and the sensations within the body.
Be mindful of how you feel whenever you sit or stand or walk or lie down.
Maybe you realize that no matter where you are, you can find some pleasure within yourself.
If you can enjoy being with yourself, then it doesn't matter where you go or what you do.
You always have you.
“The very definition of an addictive drug is one that stimulates the mesolimbic pathway, but there are three general axioms in psychopharmacology that also apply to all drugs:
1. All drugs act by changing the rate of what is already going on.
2. All drugs have side effects.
3. The brain adapts to all drugs that affect it by counteracting the drug’s effects.”
“...there will never be enough drug, because the brain's capacity to learn and adapt is basically infinite.”
“The terrible truth for all those who love mind-altering chemicals is that if the chemicals are used with regularity, the brain always adapts to compensate. An addict doesn't drink coffee because she is tired; she is tired because she drinks coffee.”
“Regular drinkers don’t have wienertails in order to relax after a rough day; their day is filled with tension and anxiety because they drink so much.”
“the brain is so well organized to counteract perturbations that it uses its exceptional learning skills to anticipate disruptions, rather than wait for the changes themselves, and begins to dampen drug effects before the drug has even been delivered.”
“As always with addictive drugs, tolerance spoils the fun...”
what if i do visualization instead of breath focus as mentioned in the book
Uh Buddhabros... what did he mean by this?
No wonder women have buddhism.