It also sounds like your thoughts are possessing you, rather than you possessing them and taking control of their ebb and flow… thoughts could then be thought of as tide-like, but what is it that causes them to be so? internal and external factors perhaps.
I don’t think that matters now.
…and what is it that they are obligated to think about death, exactly? Such thoughts come and go… why force them or give them such importance in your life, at the detriment of the more conducive ones?
Surrep’s post in the Reincarnation thread, is identical to my thoughts on this matter… star stuff, and all that.
You’d make a good Life Insurance salesman, I’ll give you that…
Why do you think they should?
Just because it was written in a Canonical book somewhere, doesn’t mean it needs to be adopted and replicated ad infinitum, and wasn’t the concept used to foster wrong-doing via the vehicle of terrorism. I’d say that that concept has lost its utility… however much it actually ever had in the first place, for most… it is an unhelpful hindrance of a mental contraption, that impedes and stunts mental and personal growth.
That may be you’re equation for life/existence, but it certainly isn’t mine… mine is a much more freer/less structured existential modality than that, and is different than even that of my siblings and parents and everyone else.
Do you not get bored? of thinking and re-repeating your mantra for life… may I ask how it came to be?
I don’t currently have a mantra, and the ones I did have are far too moderne for this joint. My ancestors wrote Mantras and designed Mandalas… their surname even signifies that they did, as they were seers during the ancient Indic period in the time of Dravida.
I think that’s in desperation, gained from fear, but of what… the unknown?
Some things are not that simple, and so do not fit within the confines of your mantra… my decisions in life are not bound up and made in the same way as yours… and so my mantra, and therefore my path, are very different to yours and others and very unique to me.
Individualism… the new (ir)religion.
I, and others, have read those OPs in your signature threads, and yet here we still are…
Why don’t I find you a new mantra, and you can try it on for size… after-all, it’s what We did. ; )
Again, from my frame of mind, we are in two very different discussions.
Being decisive or indecisive about what particular behaviors in what particular context? Same with being “possessed” by thoughts. In rergard to what?
What are those “internal and external” factors – existential variables – that go into creating a particular “I” when confronted with conflicting goods such that one’s religious values kick in in order to make distinctions between moral/enlightened behavior here and now as that then becomes translated into a frame of mind revolving around that which these “spiritual” paths are said to bring into fruition on the other side of the grave.
You and the Buddhists will either bring this down to Earth in terms of your own behaviors in particular sets of circumstances or you will continue to make me the problem for insisting that this is where it makes the most sense for these discussions to go.
So, in a discussion in which we are exchanging views on a particularly contentious set of conflicting goods, you can note how I am indecisive and possessed by my thoughts. And I can note how “I” [both yours and mine] seem more embedded subjectively/existentially in dasein than in some definitive conclusions that religion or philosophy or science might provide us.
Choose the context yourself. Otherwise how are we not just wasting each other’s time?
You want to find me a new mantra and I want to explore how moral and political mantras themselves are derived existentially from the arguments I make in my signature treads. As opposed to one of hundreds and hundreds of spiritual paths out there, the adherents of which basically argue “repeat after me and you will choose the right things to do here and now in order to attain immortality and salvation there and then.”
And you also claim to have read my signature threads.
Note behaviors that you have chosen of late given your moral and political value judgments here and now and note how the argument I make here is not applicable to you.
Then I will note my own reaction to these behaviors given the points I make in the OP.
Could you guys possibly take that discussion, if Mags is interested in a discussion of her political positions in that way, to another thread, since it seems like it will not have anything to do with Buddhism?
Our discussion has everything to do with Buddhism, but if Iam wants to take our discussion towards a more political one, then that would be a separate discussion to be had, in a separate thread… as well as us continuing in this one, as I am not the one interested in taking this down the political route, in here.
Thank you for your suggestion.
…a suggestion for Gib! start with a mandala and mantra, and see how that goes/where it takes you. Buddhism 101, if you will.
This from the guy who, over and over and over again, attempts to hijack the thread and reconfigure it from what we don’t get about Buddhism into what he does get about iambiguous. And, therefore, perforce, what all rational men and women are obligated to get too.
You know, in my own personal opinion.
Besides, my post above makes a number of references to spiritual paths and religion, of which Buddhism is certainly one of them.
Unless, of course, his post is just tongue in cheek.
First, of course, my interest in religion focuses in part on how those who practice one or another denomination almost always include a moral narrative said to be linked to immortality and salvation. And that moral narrative can then come into conflict with the moral narratives of other religious denominations. As well as any number of secular No God ideologies. And what does that precipitate in a particular human community but politics. Embodied in, among others things, the law.
With Buddhism however it gets trickier [for me] because there is no God and thus no Judgment Day as most Western denominations adhere to.
To separate a discussion of religion from a discussion of morality from a discussion of politics is utterly alien to me. Why? Because my understanding of human identity itself here necessarily intertwines all three in dasein.
As for a discussion of MagsJ’s politics, I would very much like to commence a new thread with her. She can focus in on her own political values, and I can focus in on mine. And then in regard to one or another pressing political issue that has been in the news of late, we can compare and contrast our own political philosophies. Just say the word and I will start it. An entirely civil exchange in which we explore the components of our own thinking here.
…only as long as you don’t use the phrase “…interactions that revolve around conflicting goods in which we connect the dots between morality here and now and immortality there and then”, or any variation or derivative there-of… otherwise, sure. ; )
Haha! …but analysing people (in a healthy/inquisitive way) can be fun, is probably why in a rude, brash, and unhealthy hostile way… not so much. coz it ain’t an inquisition, nor a competition, or an interrogation.
Postby MagsJ » Wed 23 Sep, 2020 13:03
Conduct… thought over fought, so when man stopped being beast.
Politics… fought over thought, when a disagreement turns into tribal warfare, and becomes an Us v Them situation… as seen throughout history.
Yes… but Buddhism stems from the pre-religious, pre-political world, of the beginnings of humanity, until a disagreement turned into tribal warfare and became an Us v Them situation, ergo… politics, founded on disagreement.
Iam said: “As for a discussion of MagsJ’s politics, I would very much like to commence a new thread with her. She can focus in on her own political values, and I can focus in on mine. And then in regard to one or another pressing political issue that has been in the news of late, we can compare and contrast our own political philosophies. Just say the word and I will start it. An entirely civil exchange in which we explore the components of our own thinking here.“
Reincarnation: What do modern research and traditional Buddhist teachings say?
BY SAM LITTLEFAIR
MAY 11, 2018
at Lion’s Roar website
Lion’s Roar describes itself as “BUDDHIST WISDOM for OUR TIME”
Sure, but in the spirit of “good fun”, the sky becomes the limit. Anything you can “think up” that makes sense to you need be as far as it goes. Bottom line: you believe it just enough that the belief in and of itself comforts and consoles you. And there are hundreds of “spiritual” paths to choose from here. As long as the bottom line remains not what you can demonstrate to be true but what, in believing it is true, anchors and reassures you psychologically, there will never be a shortage of alternatives.
Which prompts me to once again note that if any of this is encompassed in a particular internet link which provides us with an accumulation of evidence that skeptics would find very, very difficult to refute, it would be circling the globe. What could possibly be more astonishing to the human species than substantive and substantial evidence that past lives and/or future lives are in fact not only possible but clearly demonstrable?
So, for those here inclined to believe it, take us to the link that you are convinced best confirms it.
Next up: Christians examine the story of Jesus.
What does it matter what Buddha claimed to remember when it is by far more important to note what he was actually able to account for in regard to past lives as in fact true?
I don’t have a million dollars to give to someone able to convince me that he did do this, but I am more than willing to grovel here by way of begging the forgiveness of all Buddhists for ever doubting them.
Whether the source be science or religion, it seems that any efforts here able to produce truly substantive and substantial evidence for past lives or future lives would be really, really, [b]really[/b] big news.
This is some version of the ad populum fallacy … “If this was true then it would be a popular topic of discussion and news reports. It’s not, therefore it must be false.”
It’s third on my list from Lion’s Roar. The reincarnation thread above is first, then “the case against ‘Buddhism’” by RANDY ROSENTHAL and then that one.
And, yes, it is certainly true that an “appeal to the people” is not the most propitious approach to such questions. But, come on, isn’t it also true that if anyone was able to accumulate “substantive and substantial” evidence of past and future lives it would the number one topic of discussion around the globe?
How about this: You note for us the most convincing evidence in that piece above. What demonstrated to you that past lives are a very real thing and not just something that most of us would want to believe psychologically because it seems to suggest that death is not the end of “I” for all of eternity.
Although with Buddhism I’m still rather fuzzy regarding the extent to which it is “I” that will be reincarnated…or have a chance to reach Nirvana.
Let alone how this all unfolds in a No God religion.
The people who are reporting these reincarnations are not trying to promote their beliefs and they are not getting rich or famous by doing it. Therefore, they have little motivation to lie or fake it.
The researchers have a reasonable methodology and they appear to be conscientious in investigating the reports. Of course, they could be fabricating the data.
Still, these sorts of events are reported by various people all over the world. So it’s likely that something really is being observed.
As for why it’s not making headlines, there are lots of fairly obvious reasons …
It goes directly against the beliefs of Christians, Muslims, Jews and atheists.
It’s downright creepy that your child’s body is “possessed” by another “person”. What parent wants that??
It’s not the kind of immortality that most people imagine or would like to have.
You all have all the memories of existence. You’ve lived every possible life. Buddhism is a soul ideology. Christianity is a soul ideology. You are so much greater than that. We’re all different. Drops of water in the eternal ocean… we come from it and go back to it, and every drop is different. When it comes back to the ocean, it slowly expands back to everything. And then molecules of your drop are part of new droplets.
That is how life works. The question you should be asking is:
I guess making decisions is easier for some than it is for others… some decisions taking longer to arrive at than others, dictating how a person would go about making them all. We can break our decisions-to-make down and then compartmentalise them, in order to enable us to prioritise them. The mind as a filing cabinet and To Do list… just like many here like to label, some prefer to compartmentalise.
Is there always a context (which you seem to think needs to exist) before we ‘do’ anything… so a reactive, rather than active, process. I’m sure we do both…
Not every decision we make has to be a moral dilemma… I guess you could say that religion does indeed guide some’s life and every day decisions, like what we eat and drink etc., but then that becomes known as a trusted way of life. I, for instance, cannot eat fermented foods… even though they’re all the rage at the moment, so that would dictate where and what I eat, and so somewhat alienating me from those that can, in a short and then over a longer-term period of time… leading to the diversification and divergence of those different types, who can and cannot eat fermented foods.
I said: “I, for instance, cannot eat fermented foods… even though they’re all the rage at the moment, so that would dictate where and what I eat, and so somewhat alienating me from those that can, in a short and then over a longer-term period of time… leading to the diversification and divergence of those different types, who can and cannot eat fermented foods.”
That’s my long-term existential-crisis… having had to change my eating habits and social behaviour, in order to accommodate a dilemma I had become faced with over the years. Now that my ‘alien’ need has started to become more commonplace, the ‘need‘ is now one of humour than contention… towards my kind. Food… being just one of many defining factors, that forms our current Self.
in a rude, brash, and unhealthy hostile way… not so much. 
coz it ain’t an inquisition, nor a competition, or an interrogation.
