Blah, blah, blah Nick. One word, Compassion.
Practice it. Then, tell me how it feels.
Dunamis
Dunamis,
Thank you for taking the time to give your explanation.
My understanding of Buddhist concepts are limited, however I was of the impression that non-attachment can be extended to personal relationships also, rather than solely material objects. If this is the case, shouldn’t this non-attachment tend to reduce compassionate acts and feelings, for isn’t it those that we are close to that receive most of our compassion? Or is this the underlying point, that compassion should not only be extended to those we care about, but to all?
Dunamis
I’ve learned by experience that those that speak of love and compassion the most more often than not, understand them the least.
“Conscience and compassion are inseparable.” But the truth is that we have neither but only exist for us as subjective expressions of our acquired personality in the cave.
Jesus’ expression of “Forgive them for they know not what they do” is compassion. The quality of his death is nourishing those who react to him but his understanding of the human condition was such that conscience manifested as compassion and the free giving of himself.
Compassion easily becomes a “feel good” word but its depth is beyond us as we are.
Better to respect compassion and stick with the possible which is hard enough.
Noel,
Most certainly. This I would think is the difference between Compassion and Passion.
Dunamis
Nick,
More blah, blah, blah. All I know is I can tell compassion when I see it. Grip fiercely all your reasons for not making Compassion your path. Make a fist around them. Tell yourself all day, and all night long, “The Cave, The Cave, The Cave.”
When you get tired of the bull, the words, the theories, the “wretchedness”. Start again with Compassion.
Dunamis
Heh heh heh…Would you believe that the anti-Christ would give the appearance of compassion that in comparison would make even Osho seem like a war monger.
This is one of the accelerated paths to becoming a card carrying expert. Since we are incapable of true compassion and only selective compassion, we will devise ways to give and be locked into the “appearance” of compassion.
There is nothing wrong with being a nice considerate person. It is a fine thing. It is just not necessary to degenerate such concepts as objective compassion which we are incapable of as we are. It really is much better to strive to be a good person and be a little humble towards attributes like compassion.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Simone Wiel says, "…"blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Plato, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, wretchedness, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blahblah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the Cave, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You are nice guy Nick. But I’ve never heard anyone talk such a pile of “spiritual” cr*p. 
One word Nick: compassion.
Dunamis
Dunamis,
I am still wondering about this sentence. Non-attachment, extended to personal interactions, seems to contradict compassion. Doesn’t compassion require some attachment to another individual, however fleeting and momentary? I suspect I may be missing something.
Why do some have an urge for compassion and why do you think this urge is related to unwretchedness? Is it related to empathy and does it involve the projection of aspects of the self onto others? Or is true compassion acting without necessarily relating?
I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but I am interested in investigating this.
I can honestly say that instead of compassion, you’ve given me a case of the “blahs.”
Have you ever considered that it may be a certain lack of humility preventing you from appreciating the human condition in yourself.
Noel, I’m not a Buddhist, and I sure someone will pop up here and explain the whole thing with this little tidbit from Google, or even from personal experience, or study. By my understanding Compassion is measured, that is put to perspective by non-attachment. The balancing of these two conceptions into a single state is what is difficult to understand and at the highest level live out. They appear to be logically incompatible in some manor, but instinctively I believe compassion is known when it is seen. If I could describe it as I know it, it would be something along the order of Compassion without investment, Connection without involvement, Closeness without proximity. The highest levels of such things become very conceptually abstract, but the point is not to “get there” from here, to make a single leap. But to ask yourself the very simple question, “Am I feeling Compassion in this situation?” It is a question that can always be asked. If you would like a more expansive view of this, might I recommend the very easy to read and understand book, “The Art of Happiness”, which puts these rather abstract ideas into simpler terms. I think there is a sense in which, if you practice compassion. And I mean practice it. You come to recognize it. You begin to feel when it is you are actually being compassionate, and when you are being something else. Like riding a bicycle, you can analyze it, calculate all the angles of force each pedal must have, but when you actually get on your bicycle, you can feel the momentum of “doing it right.” Which doesn’t mean that its easy, or if you get the hang of it you don’t begin to understand that there are deeper, or higher ways of doing what you have already begun. The important thing seems to be beginning it.
Dunamis
Nick, I have been through that process. I have known “wretchedness” and have learned it to be self-indulgent. I’m not saying that it can’t be transformative, but I sense that in your expression of it, its out of balance somehow. News: Its not about you. When you realize that, the wretchedness question seems to disappear. As long as it IS about you, the wretchness will remain. If I have given you the blahs, I was only returning what you have given me. Despite your spiritual leanings, I never heard anything that sounds to me like you being in pursuit of anything that has anything to do with anybody other than Nick. Nick, Nick, Nick, doesn’t it tire you? Nick is wretched. Nick is trying. Nick sees the Truth. I suppose I’m not really getting through here. If this is due to my lack of humility, this very well may be the case. Take from my words the distorted mirror that I am. See yourself in whatever dark, unreflective glass I might be. But see yourself.
Dunamis
Dunamis,
Ah yes, I think I understand this. A tempered compassion, tempered to attempt genuineness.
Wow. That is a beautiful way of saying this.
Dunamis
Dunamis
Wretchedness has a negative connotation but really it is just acknowledging changing states of emotion in which our plurality has put us in opposition with ourselves. This is nothing to get melodramatic about. Just admitting it, getting to know it, and be willing and needing to outgrow it is the beginning. Slitting ones wrists doesn’t help.
The idea isn’t to be egotistically self-indulgent but to acquire the attention to become open and not lose ourselves to egotistic self-indulgence. The idea is to experience our emotional states from an impartial higher perspective and it requires being open.
I know the attraction of losing yourself but for me the purpose is finding myself and distinguishing it from egotism. Real change occurs from finding oneself, not losing oneself. Otherwise the cycles just repeat and repeat.
It’s not just about me. I’m involved with things that are primarily for the benefit of others. But if you hold any value for the expression: “know thyself” as I do, then that has to be about me.
Right now I’m beat so am knocking off. Until tomorrow: “Always know when and where to stick your bishop.”
If I may interject for a moment. Compassion or ‘benevolence’ is a virtue of your spiritual nature. Returning to one’s spiritual nature (revealing it) means ‘growing’ one’s virtue. So practicing virtue even if the concept of virtue comes from the intellect is the starting point. Slowly slowly the practice of compassion becomes ingraned in your human mind and then slowly slowly your actions begin to be aligned with your spiritual nature. Your spiritual nature is revealed or manifested. Then all your actions arise out of your spiritual nature and the mind becomes the servant.
Non-attachment is holding the thing in the palm of your hand (with compassion, with understanding), the thing is free to move in any direction, attachment is holding the thing in your fist. If you release your fist the thing falls to the ground. Both ways you are holding the thing.
EDIT: This is applying your knowledge to become wisdom which incidently is also a virtue of the true nature.
At least that is how I understand it.
A
May I interject my 4 pound gorilla?
It’s not so much that you become un-attached to others, it’s that you learn to become un-attached from yourself. What good is helping others if you do it for purely selfish reasons? You can only truly experience empathetic compassion by lowering your selfish responses.
Are you helping others to advance your position on the path to enlightenment?
To help you look favorable in the eyes of your god?
Or to help the situation of the other person? Only the person vested in other people’s emotions and the emotion’s of the world at whole can truly help other people.
remember though, that you can become too attached to that as well.
The Art of Happiness is a good book. Ironically, it was given to me by a murderer! I’m a slight skeptic about the author though (just a little).
The Art of Peace (Shambhala Classics) (Paperback)
This is another great book that I’ve read and reread.
It is not just the envisioning of the Perfect Being, but then add the claim of alignment with that Perfect Being. So that the imperfect man can hide behind the image of the Perfect Being, posing as a servent or someothe kind of earthly respresentative. The imperfect man borrows a bit of the influence and authority of that Perfect Being.
“…posing as a servent or someothe kind of earthly respresentative. The imperfect man borrows a bit of the influence and authority of that Perfect Being.”
Interesting point.
Dunamis
Is the implication that there is something sinful about wanting to eliminate the world's problems? I agree with the quote above to an extent: When we hear about God's being "All-Powerful" or "All-Knowing", a sinful human cannot help but put it in terms of what [i]they[/i] could do with that power or knowledge. I see no reason to take it a step further and say that it's an example of man making God from our own sinful image, rather, it's just one of those things about God that are difficult for a sinful man to understand in a pure way.
I tend to disagree with theories that say that the idea of God is a way of expressing some other, more abstract human need. I think the idea of God is what the people who believe in God claim it to be, and little more.