Ways of thinking

[Morning Dew]

I apologise to all involved into this sodana method. I have no right to laugh at them.

I apologise to Thomas for going off topic. I can remove the last few postts of mine if you feel like it.

All beings are simply trying to avoid suffering.

May they all be freed from it.

[Vivek]

Its not necessarily that he is closed to the idea. He just does not see it... or the need for it. He sees the very surface of it and sees no need to look further.

I think your conclusions are right, Thomas. When things change, and they will eventually, maybe, just maybe, he will start thinking in the line of Dhamma. As his friend, I guess, you can ensure that you always keep an open mind to help him out, in case he ever decides to look the other way.

[thomas]

QUARDAMON

I like this post of yours, Thomas.

Shall we see it as a richness?

He lives from a different heart than you or I do. He is content and safe. That is beautiful. God bless him.
We do not know why we have this need to look further.

I need to meditate in order to make friends with the despair I can feel, lest it hollow me out.

Maybe, after all the visions, after all going beyond the beyond, you and I will end up simply being, content with what is.    . . .    Like your friends were in the first place.

You've identified a big thing there. ' It is' a richness, and I am probably jealous of it. Having lived and grown up in that framework and failed (in my mind) for so many years, the desire to find the contentment that others like him find, is strong.

But I can see that it is a richness within a framework that I can't accept. He actually is much more flexible in his thoughts now than he used to be even a year ago (which is when I returned from about 5 yrs away from home). I never seem to come to conclusions... there seems very rarely to be one answer, one perspective, I think he comes to conclusions which solidify his contentment and understanding of his world. I think it used to annoy him that I wanted to delve a bit deeper in to things... now he is open to talking and thinking.. even if I do frequently find walls.

He feels happy and safe in his world.

I use mediatation to stop my mind from whirling off and getting too involved in destructive and unneccesary thoughts. I find that if I try to think too much about the path and future aims, I feel fear. I need meditiation to slow my mind down, to be more gentle with myself.. and in turn to make my relationships with others more consistantly happy, patient and fruitful.


I apologise for the poor sentence constructions. Words just don't cut it in these conversations...

For a while I internally became quite nihilistic about life.. not sure what the meaning of anything was in a world of physical matter and predictable human nature.. all very dry and meaningless. Found it hard to feel. I have always had an extremely active mind and not so great communication skills. Expressing concepts can be very difficult. Probably 85% of things I've written on this site were deleted, rearranged and/or never submitted. Which is why I will not delete this post.

[thomas]

I have many friends who are similar to that, I can relate to them about current affairs and technology and the like. We never discuss anything spiritual. Some people - maybe most people - are not spiritually inclined. But that said, it is a mistake to be attached to the idea that one is special because one has these interests. Just accept the fact that others may not.

I like the quote

I have accepted that he is completely sceptical about anything to do with religion or spirituality. He is a well read athiest, so in his mind there is a big barrier against all spirituality. He gets caught up in critisizing texts and the hypocracy of some peoples beliefs.

I hope he is able to live his life happily and without the need for extensive self reevaluation.

[Morning Dew]

For a while I internally became quite nihilistic about life.. not sure what the meaning of anything was in a world of physical matter and predictable human nature.. all very dry and meaningless. Found it hard to feel.

I have no words of mine to offer at this time but after reading this part of your post I can offer you to hear this Dhamma Talk;
http://www.tarabrach.com/audio/2010-08-25-Compassion-TaraBrach.mp3

Be well my friend

[thomas]

CHE

I whish your friends all the best Thomas but wait and see how they will react once the Beast of Impermanence starts taking away those things they love, like, desire, cling to, ...
I too was once very content with the life, i had a job, friends, party, girlfriend, an image. And then i lost a very dear friend due death and that content life fell apart. I lost myself in anger and sorrow.

I hope that my friend is equipt to deal with the sorrows of life in a way that suits him. Maybe his fortress is strong enough. It is sad to hear about your friend.

I am a bit isolated at the moment, surrounded by people who don't think like me in many ways. But my life is extremely changeable... almost mirroring my monkeymind.. so that will change

[thomas]

Vivek

I naturally feel a hope that he is always protected by his castle. If he isn't, I'll invite him to sleep under my tree.

ha ha - my first attempt at poetic metaphor

Of course... my tree needs to mature a bit... and build up some strength, only just enough shade for me in the midday sun at the moment

[thomas]

MASAUWU

I don`t consider meditation to be non-scientific, they probably only dismiss things they have not explored in detail; discarding them as religion instead of trying to understand what they are really about. For ages people have only taken care of the education and training of their bodies, it`s about time they start to educate and train their mind. And that is not done by just adding lists of things in memory.

I totally agree. You're comment reminds me of an Aldous Huxley Book - The island - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(novel).
It actually addresses precisely what you are talking about.

I read it a few weeks ago. Very good. It was his last novel before dying. He said that when he wrote Brave new world (30yrs previous) he was being extremely pesimistic and that there is another path that humans could take. He creates a totally pheasable society where our (humans) main aim is to fulfill our full potential, spiritually and sociologically. He descibes using the characters how it isn't idealistic to have a utopian society.

I highly recomend it.  Easy to read.. and very uplifting and optomistic, even though the inevitable end would seem negative

[Vivek]

ha ha - my first attempt at poetic metaphor

And a good one too.

[thomas]

MAtthew

At some point my former brother in law stopped the conversation and said, "I can't hear any more of this - I was brought up to believe that doctors, the police and politicians are doing their best and are honourable people - I can't live in a world where that isn't true".

Matthew

I get that with a few people around me, including several family members.. in fact.. all of my family. Not even willing to discuss some things, even if to me it's just mulling over an idea.

It seems to be based on fear. The idea that they have already decided the answer and don't want to question it any more. People seem to protect themselves by deciding what is true. Making reality seem secure and explainable. They don't want to have to defend their version of reality.


The matrix scene is a classic.. had a big effect on me then.. and now.

[thomas]

ANDREW

Awesome thread Thomas. I have wondered the same thing myself.

One thing my mere 35 years has taught me is people are awesome bullshit artists; your friends are actors who know their lines well, but take away the stage and props like Che said, they will stumble like anyone else.

Too true!

I'm the youngest of 3 - in a family dominated by very talkative people. That meant that when I was growing up i observed a lot.. not intentionally, i just didn't have the skills to compete for talking space. I remember watching both of my sisters as they grew from girls to teenagers and beyond. People assume kids don't pick up on things... but I watched them learn a persona.. decide how to act.. learn how to bullshit and pretend to be like aldults (the ones who had fine tuned the bullshitting to an art).

Bullshiting to fit in to a world of bullshiting. I found it pretty rediculous and annoying. Then realised I was supposed to do the same thing.

Then you get to where we all are now and you try to unlearn all of it. My 6 year old self wasn't so daft after all.

Our society encourages us to be complete bullshitters.. how strange is that

[thomas]

Andrew

 Broken people tend towards spiritual pursuits.

maybe being "broken" makes people question the system/world which allowed them to become broken... without that, why question.

When I had my worst times I psychologically deconstructed my personality and the world around me...  I guess it was my brain systematically trying to find out what the causes and reasons for the suffering were...  Out of that I began to see fundamental floors in my ways of percieving reality, myself, living, social conditioning etc...  which were the seeds for finding a better way through...

[thomas]

Andrew

Thomas's friend claims to be truly content?. If that is true, then we are all indeed mistaken an should give this shit up for wine, women and song!.

He suffers and desires, he just doesn't see the problem. It's just the way of the world. Ups and downs. He deals with it as it comes and doesn't get flustered by it.

We are looking for a different content.. a very ideal perfect content. He is just content riding the waves of the reality he has been presented with and taught how to live within.

[dragoneye]

Thomas,

Why think like this?

Why do some people need meditation and others seem fine without it?

Why does it always seem to be people who have had some sort of psychological difficulties (minor and major) that begin to look for answers.. and eventually meditation?

I realize that this thread has gone in a different direction; but I was struck by these beginning questions and wanted to respond.
I hope that I am not getting off on a semantics tangent.

That "people seem fine without it" is an illusion. Everyone "needs" some course of action, if what you are asking about is what to do about suffering. The first truth is pretty inclusive. Meditation is the most evolved, natural and sustainable approach.

Maybe Freudian and Jungian diagnosis do not represent so much conditions of pathology as much as the confirmation of this truth and some of us that can explain our conditions in those contexts are really just further along in our journey.

The answer to your first question might be don't.

Just a thought.
With metta,
DE

[thomas]

I was observing that some people live their lives comfortably with the conventional way of seeing things. In their opinion they don't 'need' anything. Others are not satisfied and look to meditation. What is it that determines which you are.

My friend is just a case study for a way of thinking that lots of people seem to have.

I meant why do I think like this? Why do others think like that? Rhetorical really.

I agree with the connections you make with freud and jung... but not everyone who reads freud and jung become meditators.. there is still a leap to be made..

[dragoneye]

Hi Thomas,
I guess I responded to your seeming to equate "needing meditation" with "psychological difficulties."
When we look carefully at the human condition we see the suffering that lead the Buddha to make his discoveries and formulate his solution and that suffering is universal.
What are psychological difficulties to some might be acceptable (or unrealized) to others; a matter of perspective and probably, their relative state of awareness.
The post really is good because it gives rise to our thinking about the differences between those of us on the path that includes meditation and those that are not.
Thank you for starting it.
Warmly,
DE

[Matthew]

All i can say is what is happening ("to me"). That was a nice scene, "do you think that`s air you`re breathing?"... But there is no auto mechanism, no deliverance that takes over once you get a brief glimpse of reality. No guarding angels, no buddhas, no devas, no gurus, no miracles... just sink or swim. You have to dig your way out, even if you feel you have no digging left in you. At least that`s my current experience. And i would love to be wrong.

Correctamundo.

we ought not to get distracted by the millions of methods, ways, teachers, and so on. There is an advertisement that features here on the TV magazine 'Meditate Deeper than a Zen Monk in 10 Minutes!' Ha! What is 'deeper'?

.....

Presumably it involves the use of a snorkel or airtank?

I was observing that some people live their lives comfortably with the conventional way of seeing things. In their opinion they don't 'need' anything. Others are not satisfied and look to meditation. What is it that determines which you are.
.....

That's why I quoted the Matrix dialogue:

    Morpheus: I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice. Tumbling down the rabbit hole?
    Neo: You could say that.
    Morpheus: I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he's expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?
    Neo: No.
    Morpheus: Why not?
    Neo: 'Cause I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
    Morpheus: I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind -- driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?

This describes the answer to your question I believe.

Much love,

Matthew

[thomas]

Matthew - I think you're right. I was trying to clear up the intentions of my post to dragoneye.