Apech

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Everything posted by Apech

  1. Help on the spiritual path

    The Buddha used whatever beliefs were current in order to teach dharma. Clinging to the aggregates is valid. Also there are some things which are true in a relative sense but not in an absolute sense - so yes he might have said things which we know to be factually inaccurate today but it makes no difference to the dharma.
  2. Help on the spiritual path

    Emotions are linked by the identification of self with compounded phenomena. This is clinging. The Buddha did not propose an ontological analysis of the nature of the world but just worked with the current interpretations of his day. Hence Mount Meru and so forth. It makes no difference whatsoever if these descriptors of the world are true or not.
  3. Help on the spiritual path

    yes but it is irrelevant to his teachings whether it is complete or not
  4. Help on the spiritual path

    The Buddha was not presenting an ontological solution so all this is irrelevant.
  5. Also proves that @Taoist Texts has watched the Barbie movie!!!!
  6. Help on the spiritual path

    I wonder about that. Maybe at a certain time or stage this is true in a practical sense but ultimately will it not be uncovered.
  7. Firstly thank you all for the helpful and warm replies. It's very nice to see and feel how supportive this place can be at times - perhaps we are really building a community here which is what I always hoped for (especially when I was moderating). Second, slight apologies for the melodramatic nature of the the topic title. I did write it from the heart - I have had many varying and strong emotional reactions like this over the years and at certain times they were quite common. I remember one time I received a vajrayana initiation (Amitabha) and when I got home I just sat and wept for hours. On that occasion it wasn't so much rage as regret - that somehow I had to tell my self how hard I had been trying - but failing again and again. My rage when it surfaces is mainly about what others have done to me. I am by nature quite ingenuous and have to learn slowly over years that the intent of others is often disingenuous - so I have in my younger years blundered into situations where others took advantage. What happens I think, is that when this kind of thing is not assimilated or understood it sort of 'pickles' inside where deep down you have the awareness to see but somehow cannot express it to your self. Then when it breaks out it can be hot and angry or bitter and resentful ... etc. etc. @Bindi has often spoken of something called 'spiritual bypassing' where all this inner content is kind of ignored or buried by supposed 'higher thoughts' and wot not (I think I've got that right) - this is a great danger to the likes of us, especially if we form the idea that we are somehow advanced enough to be beyond ordinary human concerns and so on. The other problem is that meditation is currently 'sold' (literally or figuratively) as a way to relaxation and calm. Actually, in my experience meditation (or any spiritual process) is the opposite - it is a great work full of challenge and needing great effort - and particularly the courage to face into those things you would most like to avoid. But again this does not mean indulgence in one's emotions in a way which just feeds self importance - i.e. 'how I feel is the most important thing in the world'. @Taoist Texts stagnation of qi in the liver is interesting - but is this not just a technical description of the bodily store of certain emotion? If the qi moves and causes a feeling like rage - how is that different to rage? Isn't the subtle body qi movement simply the correlate to the human emotions anyway??? Last point perhaps is that I take the view that emotional responses are a positive sign. They are there all the time un-noticed and bringing them into awareness is what is needed even if it is painful.
  8. Help on the spiritual path

    Oh so so soooooooo Buddhist New thread
  9. Help on the spiritual path

    Ok but .... this is to me slightly theoretical. 'Want' in itself suggests lack. I want something because I don't have it. If the emotions are unwanted then why did we hold on to them anyway? They are stored up certainly and mostly they are unassimilated. They are energy that we cannot digest. Non food - which can become food if prepared in the right way. In a funny way - a deep way - we do want those emotions. They affirm our importance. Our justified anger for instance. Doesn't that mean we want them in the first place but later maybe we regret wanting and holding them? Is it bad to feel anger? Say we sit for five minutes and start sobbing. Is that bad or good? Is it what we intended anyway? why did we start sitting in the first place? It's all very strange and submarine.
  10. Emotions are the path

    Thanks bumper
  11. Help on the spiritual path

    ohhh your sooooo Buddhist
  12. Help on the spiritual path

    I have an old thread called ‘emotions are the path’ -
  13. Help on the spiritual path

    i have a problem with ‘unwanted’ as a descriptor
  14. Help on the spiritual path

    what shall we call this thread?
  15. Help on the spiritual path

    well done on lasting five minutes!
  16. Help on the spiritual path

    a subject that deserves its own thread
  17. Help on the spiritual path

    There’s a lot of bad teaching and misapplication of meditation out there. Very few people even know what it is really.
  18. Unpopular Opinions

    Anything that can be accomplished by movement and forms can be accomplished without them. Meditation is not meditation. The only guru is you. Most western Buddhists and Daoists are Christian. All of those reading this are incomplete beings. There is nothing wrong with thinking. Everything presented as non-conceptual is essentially conceptual. Jhanas lead to more suffering. Compassion is sheep quietly eating grass waiting for the slaughterman's wagon. To love fully destroys you. Wisdom means to know less.
  19. Wise TDB members

    Mirror, mirror on the wall, Who is the wisest DaoBum of them all? Apech, Apech you little shit, Whoever it is, you're not it. Mirror, mirror, in the trash, With a brick I did thee smash, What's the point of your reply, You could've at least try to lie.
  20. Can jing be replenished?

    Great wisdom Brother Luke.
  21. 0

    How very mysterious!
  22. 0

    Grumpy? Us!!!!! Hurrrrrrrmph!