The only thing difficult about giving up to skepticism is that there's a certain amount of required reading before you know enough to call it something like 'releasing ego'. The ignorant person who grumbles, "Them damn scientists don't know there asses from a hole in the ground!" in reaction to some article on the evening news is doing the exact same thing, he just doesn't have the mastery of the English language to sound profound in the process. What, I'm supposed to be impressed that somebody studies philosophy for a while and comes to the conclusion that certainty is hard or impossible? That's not the result of some deep quest...it's like the first step. The hurdle we overcome.
An experiment involving two people. For a month, one of them will do nothing but pose [i]and defend [/i] positive arguments for the way he thinks things are- could be scientific, could be religious, philosophical, whatever. The second person will spend that month doing nothing but tearing those theories apart. At the end of the month, we'll see which person is more irritated, which one worked harder, which one had to do more reading and research to accomplish their goals, and so on. WE all know how it would turn out.
Simple, you aren’t me, and we have no line of communication which would elucidate information you erroneously assert about my entity.
Who can tell me when my journey is done? You? I think not. Gautama? No way, he would have been more perceptive than to tell someone else how to live. Have you ever read anything from Gautama’s teachings? Siddartha is not his name, it is a title, “crown prince”.
Life. Corporeal or ephemeral, is nothing short of process.
Who said I was looking for anything? Found it already. Just trying to discern my place within what is already there.
Fear is irrational. Fear of pain, is weakness. Pain is that one thing that teaches us when we are walking the wrong way. Avoiding pain, is avoiding life, no thanks. All part of the experience.
Pain comes without expectation, and must be acknowledged as such. The rest of what you mention requires expectation, which is fruitless.
That’s your assertion, not mine. The inherent difference between us, you can travel your own path, and get a farewell and well wishing from me. It is for you to choose your watercourse, not me. I am quite fine with that as well. Can you say the same?
LOL, my apologies, that I am not so unequivocally perfect and with grace as one such as yourself, is truly disappointing, is it not? Were it that we could all achieve your level, and expound our all knowing certainty on the internets.
Sorry scythe, me and my ego have better things to do, so we’ll get back to you when we feel like it on the rest of your immensely entertaining assertions. We feel like a meal at the moment, so we can contemplate our inadequacies on a full belly.
Pragmatically, one builds whatever constructs they need to “make sense of” the world and their place in it. The words we exchange are part of a construct. It is in seeing the construct and understanding it AS a construct that is the ilusive state of consciousness I was referring to. We give ourselves too much importance. Call it ego, call it anything you like, but what remains is insistent knowing as if that is reality. Until we let go of that, we remain caught in the net of duality. It’s not too bad, really. There is chocolate, bourbon, …
Arrogance in belief that somehow the words we place on objects, and the definitions we assign to those words placed on objects, become the object itself.
Surely tentative “knows” that we define reality, it does not define us … ?
But most people don't wink when they do it. The constructs they 'build' are their honest attempt to get at the truth of things, not a tool to accomplish some other ends. For example, if this guy over here is a Christian because he thinks Jesus is the risen Son of God, that's one thing. But this that guy over there goes to Church, sings the songs, prays once in a while, living like a Christian because it [i]suits some goal[/i] of his, all the while he'd have to confess he doubts any of it is real, that's another thing altogether. You can say the person is using the construct of Christianity, but you can't say that's his attempt at the truth.
And that's where the make-believe comes in. The second guy I talked about above, he may well tell you that yes, he's a Christian, but he's all super enlightened and realizes that his Christianity is just a construct, and that's why he says he doesn't really know anything. But he would be confused. The fact is, he's merely using Christianity to achieve some peaceful state of mind, or state of social standing, or state of something- and his [i]actual[/i] truth, his [i]actual[/i] 'way things are' is more akin to atheism or skepticism. The things he really believes go unexamined, while he thinks he's living an examined life because he has this false second-skin of beliefs that he's savvy enough to criticize.
That's what nobody can escape from. Nobody can in good conscience say "I realize that what I believe is probably false". If you believe something, you think it is true or probably true. If you have a whole network of constructs, morals, religious claims and ideals that you 'live by', or 'use to make sense of the world', and yet you can honestly claim they probably aren't true- then you are in the situation of the second man. You've created a useful strawman (pragmatic indeed) to criticize, so you get your Reccomended Daily Allowance of self criticism, while your truly sacred cow goes untouched.
There you go again. Reality is all external, isn’t it? I am the center of the universe looking out, seeing, naming all the things, knowing all the relationships, knowing all that can be known. Of course we define reality.
why are you referring to yourself in third person removed?
anyways, we have this line of communication, and from it and your previous posts I can ascertain that you have tendencies leaning towards nihilism, but not completely, as you stated yourself you are heavily focused on the pain side of life, and see it as your center.
so… the eightfold path isn’t telling others how to live?
right view
right thought
right speech
right action
right livelihood
right effort or diligence
complete or thorough awareness.
thus the first level of meaning is concentration when the mind is fixed on a single object. The second level of meaning goes further and represents the establishment, not just of the mind, but also of the whole being in various levels or modes of consciousness and awareness.
the question is have you. It’s easy to be “buddhist” when your so far away from the country of origin, and proper teaching.
right, but… did you not still know who I was referring to? Thus a game of semantics is merely that.
Right, but that is knowing.
So do you know, or don’t you?
Do you know how to define reality? one minute you are saying that the process is life, the next you are contradicting yourself, stating that we can really never know anything, and that:
So do you know, or don’t you?
you can’t claim to know the processes of life, while in the next breath, saying that certainty of knowledge is a ruse and a subterfuge to fear.
if you are searching, it is because you have nothing.
Found what?
where in my statement, did I even mention fear? That’s twice for you.
Fear is not irrational, fear like love, pain, anger, sadness and frustration are all pieces of the puzzle that makes up humanity.
Where did I say to avoid pain? I said, that you shouldn’t focus on the pain. as if it were, the only thing that’s real.
what I said again quoted below:
wrong… and it’s sad that you think so. I don’t expect to make friends, it just happens. I don’t overlook, when it happens thus intentionally self sabotaging myself and focusing on the pain.
I’m not trying to psychonalyze you, frankly been there before, and it’s not comfortable trying to tell someone else what quirks they have.
we’ve all got quirks, some of us can still function as people in society as a whole with the quirks we’ve got. some of us become obsessed with one aspect of emotions, or feelings and can no longer function normally. as you yourself stated you turn others away.
I feel you probably do the same thing with any sort of knowledge. You come to a conclusion but reject it out of fear… because you also reject fear.
that’s all fine and good until you come into a public forum stating that knowledge is futile, and that “pain is the center of life”…
if you state something in public that’s not true, do you expect to not get challenged?
guess what, being challenged is par course with life too, not everyone is going to agree with you. If you want to go on your merry way, or only be around with people you agree with that’s fine too. Just don’t expect that within confines such as this.
I’ll wish you well, but not farewell, because I think you need to push yourself more.
your mis-stepping again. Did I say I was perfect? far far from it. I’m a classic F**K up. Did I say that you have dissapointed me? No.
Of course we do. Just like we know that we, inside, are really the external, watching watchers, who determine the words the internal uses to define the subjective objects of external determinate reality, within the confines of perpetuated actuality, of the unintelligible happenstance of unspecified materiality, unintended.
Pfffft … where the hell have you been? It’s all old hat really. Didn’t you know that?
Time for a sugar pill! Sorry, just screwing around. This all gets over-whelmingly serious too often. hmmm, forget the sugar and go straight to the alcohol. That may be my answer as well…
Just for amusement, I am going to pick apart your post as I wish … LOL.
Awareness of being and knowledge are hardly the same.
I just depends upon where we are in ourself at the moment I am responding.
Incorrect. I never stated any of those things in that fashion. Nihilism doesn’t exist as far as I am concerned, so that would be antithetically moronic. I never stated I was “heavily focused on the pain side of life”, you are taking liberties not afforded with symbology not represented by your person. Again with the last part of the sentence, that is your assertion, I never said pain was the center.
Pain is the rectifier of delusional, egocentric narcissism. That’s all.
It’s an enumeration of a logical methodology, singularly engaged by each particular entity. It’s not “telling”, it’s a suggested manner to reach a path.
What is “right”? An angle? Perspective? Calculated move? Morally relative? Meta-ethical view? Who has that answer?
Really not sure what you’re on about here, but I never claimed to be buddhist … ever. Rather non-sensical and pointless statement really.
For someone so certain of “knowing”, you seem to not take enough issue with “wrong knowing” … you could have been referring to any crown prince of India … there have been a “few” of them …
Nope. Awareness of entity has no semblance of similarity with the “knowingness” of scythekain.
We are aware that we don’t know.
I didn’t say “know”. You did. Next you are going to tell me I have to wear thongs of a color prescribed by you because I used the words “boxer briefs”.
Perfect, then I am as the uncarved block, and life will avail me at the end of form.
Asking the question means the answer escapes you because you know but aren’t aware.
Ultimately we will disagree here, so this we will let pass.
Skip down a few lines …
Truth is subjective to the entity, relative to the platform and undiscernable by the form … how then, do you challenge by that which obviates the truth by its’ very nature?
Again we think your arrogance will be your own undoing, but that’s just our opinion.
See, we find that to be ludicrous. Knowledge of nothing, is still nothing, unless one can hold nothing, and make it into something.
Which “I”? and by doing so you only prove my point. Not only do you get off on giving yourself pain, you get off on seeing how much pain you can cause others.
really… what is awareness? In order to be aware, you have to know what exists around you is real. If you don’t know you aren’t aware. If you aren’t aware what are you?
I think you’re lying.
degrees of nihilism do exist though. and like any “category”, most people are a lumping together of many different “archetypes”. You are a bit of a narcissist, a bit of a nihilist, etc.
yeah, you did.
from your actions and your words, I can tell that pain is your center.
being that narcissists are delusional and egocentric, you are double qualifying the word…
it’d be like me saying “that was a very big, large whale.”
And pain is the rectifier? are you sure you know what that means? If someone is TRULY a narcissist nothing will “rectify” their behavior. The egoist is immune to positive and negative feedback.
no it’s specifically telling them how to live, their lives. Don’t be so dim sighted. If the “buddha” truly told people to live their lives how they wanted, do you think so many temples would’ve survived to this day and age? do you think the religion would’ve survived?
Many such religions as you’re describing have come and gone. Any religion that tries to destroy heritage and tradition is doomed to be a paragraph in a history book. (sometimes less to nothing.)
not you, that’s for damn sure.
right action. Obvious common sense stuff… Helping others is good, lying and causing pain is bad.
right view. Again common sense. accepting all life has to offer versus focusing on the pain. (another quote from you below)
This is why I see you as a quasi nihilist, obviously not a complete nihilist as you believe in pain. BUT, you don’t believe in any other healthy, good aspect in humanity.
You expect the worst, you’ll get the worst.
You overlook the best, and you’ll miss it!
you claimed to have knowledge of buddhism, and claimed that buddha would not tell you how to live. Both sentiments seem false to me.
For someone so obsessed with not knowing, you are wrongly obsessed with telling others how you think they are wrong. How can you know WHO is right and WHO is wrong, if you yourself don’t know?
If you don’t know, don’t be hubris and tell others how they are wrong. Don’t engage in egoism and try to pick apart posts that you can’t know are wrong.
see above.
you are right I did. but after you:
I wouldn’t engage in such hubris of trying to tell you how to live your life, I’m expressing what I know, and what I see as a mistake on your part. Whether or not you engage in it, is of your own accord.
wrong. I’m asking the question to prove you have no answer, and just dance with semantics around it.
wrong. Gravity has the same force here as it does there. Atmospheric pressure (given some variance for weather patterns) is about 14.7 PSI, near 0 M. no matter where you are on earth. What’s my point?
All these objective facts make up our existence, and thus truth cannot be merely subjective.
What was the speed of light? How is that valid? we both see light 8 minutes after it’s left the sun.
Even if some moral truths were relative, there would still be a discernable way to judge which morality was superior. How does my action affect those around me?
only a truly arrogant person would even respond to such a statement… (or with.)
Can you hold love? you know you feel love, you experience it… can you hold it?
For centuries philosophers, poets, and scientists have all tried to explain love. Some have come close, but none can truly put to words and fact what love is.
We don’t know. but that doesn’t make it “nothing”.
We don’t know why god chose such a complex path to get us here, (evolution), why not just pop us into existence? And if he/she couldn’t maybe perhaps there is no god? And if there is no god, does life still have meaning?
That’s not nothing…
That’s everything. And we can’t ever know. Admitting that is the first step, to truly knowing anything.
How can you know what you know, without admitting what you don’t know?
Well, I might if you could tell me the difference. Seems pretty much the same to me, maybe a little fuzzier after two or three, but the muddled stumbler doesn’t change much.
Is there any way to make sense out of this? What role does the mind play in it? First an excerpt from one of Jacob Needleman’s interviews with Krishnamurti entitled “The Awakening of Intelligence.” What is intelligence without knowing? Perhaps, the following offers some suggestions:
Aha! a clue, Humility is intelligence. It brings a person to the ability to appreciate what it means to experience “I don’t know.”
Typical Simone .Offering the dagger for someone to stab their own ego. OK so it isn’t easy. Grrrrr.
But does this mean that thought is bad or that we shouldn’t think?. No it just means that its value lies in interpreting the known as in science. When it helps to degrade the known into imagination, then it becomes a hindrance. From this perspective there is no contradiction between religion and science since both seek the experience of reality.
From Jacob Needleman’s “Sense of the Cosmos.”
So how do we become open to the external world as suggested by the sage. How can we be present to the ordinary. It requires a balanced harmonious reception of their differing impressions. But if we live by literal thought and both our emotions and sense perception have been dulled and even worse, this thought is believed to be consciousness. So the consciousness that would require balancing and opening and expanding all three means of contact with the external world: Thinking, feeling, and sensory, that would, through the balanced perspective, allow a person to find their place in the universal scheme is denied through warped imagination.
So, as Simone suggests, a teaching should primarily be concerned with what it is to know rather than knowing. But to profit from such a teaching requires taking ourselves seriously. Most do not and only take their pride and vanity seriously. It is through imagination based primarily on aspects of pride and vanity that we define ourselves and what to take seriously. We’ve lost the “respect” for ourselves from the lack of awareness of it so do not know what to take seriously. We don’t have the genius to admit “I don’t know.” Yet is through taking our selves seriously that I believe the message underneath what all three are saying becomes clear and “knowing” actually begins to mean something important.
As long as the “I really don’t know” realization is in place, then we may construct any ‘knowing’ we wish. But it always remains a construct within the “I really don’t know”. Any connection between our constructs and reality are serendipitous. It is a difficult thing to accept, and most refuse to let ego go.
I’ve said I have no where to go, nothing to do, nothing to seek out. That statement was met with a chorus of howls, either because it was misunderstood, or worse yet, because it was understood. We never escape the cave until we see it as a cave, and then we can make the shadows whatever we wish. A simple, almost elegant realization. But it is a difficult almost impossible thing for an ego accustomed to control to release. This is why I adhere to the watercourse way and why Tao Te Ching in all its terseness is my guide. It constantly brings me back to “I really don’t know”. As many poor practicioners, I stray from the path - and often.
thus the first level of meaning is concentration when the mind is fixed on a single object. The second level of meaning goes further and represents the establishment, not just of the mind, but also of the whole being in various levels or modes of consciousness and awareness.