wow
to even imagine a life without desire is hard. to live a life completely free is a
noble idea, BUT IN REALITY its just a way to justify being unsucessful. some people enjoy simple pleasures, buddhists are a perfect example, they are just ignorant to their own pleasures. peace is good, distress is not. keep it simple to have a greator share of peace? is being free from desire more or less desiring nothing.
maybe i’m the ignorant one though.
how so? the taoists and the buddhists aren’t trying to justify being unsuccessful, it’s just that’s the end result of their beliefs. you’re confusing cause and effect. you assert that because they are unsuccessful, they believe in a way of life where you neither need nor want anything, but it’s just the other way around. siddharta gautama, the man known more commonly as buddha, was a very rich man with a big family before he founded the philosophy of buddhism. he gave up everything he had and returned to complete naturality to find a measure of peace, and instructed others to do the same.
Didn’t he indulge himself first before walking the path of enlightenment?
I think to be completely rid of indulgences means to have experienced everything you ever wanted to experience, to be full.
“Unsuccessful” by whose measure?
The measure of wealth?
The measure of political presitge?
The measure of academic status?
The measure of procreation numbers?
The measure of deaths caused to other humans?
The measure of corporate diplomatic affluency?
Or perhaps they are very successful at personal well being?
Or perhaps development?
Or perhaps purity?
Or perhaps humility?
Or perhaps charity to less privileged?
Or perhaps naturalness?
Or perhaps spiritual ascendance?
Success is a human standard for humanistic endeavors, and little measure for anything else.
Being free from desire relates to desiring things of this world that add nothing to the spiritual journey towards perfection.
am i right in believing that tao and buddhists who are enlightened are free from desire and evermindful? if i were to analogize perception to spider webs
would a buddhist get stuck to the web? am i right to think they let events take their natural course without trying to interfere or dwell on things all the while paying full attention? i’m no buddhist so its hard for me to imagine
This is another reason that you have trouble viewing anyone “enlightened” to be successful.
Their measure is in concord of naturality, not humanity. It is the tethers of willful intelligence, stemming from the ego, that makes these things like peering directly into a solar eclipse.