steve

Hi Karin, Welcome! Yes, you are certainly welcome to post your map of the energy body here. There are people here with a wide variety of interests and backgrounds.

A friend of mine had a hip replacement and his doc gave him a scrip for oxycodone. He came back to see doc a week later and gave him the full bottle of oxy. Doc says, how did you deal with the pain? Mike says -

I recall a formerly active member mocking me for suggesting that we should value kindness over information exchange here. We can access unlimited information on any subject instantaneously these days but genuine kindness remains far more rare and valuable. You and Luke are two of a handful of reasons why this is a worthwhile place to visit, IMO.

One of my absolute favorites since childhood! I have fond memories of my face and hands being covered in the astringent juice...

Paw paw is a fruit bearing tree native to North America. It's in the custard apple family and is the largest edible fruit endemic to North America. The technical name Asimina triloba comes from the Powhatan word Assimina which was their name for the fruit. The word pawpaw probably comes from early Spanish or Portuguese explorers likening the fruit to papaya. They are rarely seen for sale commercially due to short half life which makes storage and shipping problematic. The fruit has a custardy texture with a flavor profile that can range from banana to cantaloupe to mango, even a bit like pineapple.

I think we often misunderstand the message here, or maybe focus on a limited aspect that’s frightening. I don’t feel like I am being told I must suffer, or that there is no hope. I am being reminded that they are suffering. The people I come into contact, and particularly into conflict with, are suffering. And btw if we’re honest with ourselves we all suffer at times, so there is truth in that… This gives us an opportunity to feel empathy, to connect and to help each other. This is our best hope to not suffer. It’s all about perspective.

Bad experience in school perhaps?

Any time you see a warning about offensive posts and can’t find the posts it’s a good bet they’ve been hidden. I don’t always have time to explain in the moment so your patience is appreciated.

Moderator Warning @Invisible Acropolis Your posts targeting @liminal_luke are offensive and unacceptable. An apology is in order and you need to cease and desist. If you would like to post here, please show everyone respect. Thank you Steve for the mod team

🤣 Truth is I have felt anger and frustration from loved ones on occasion when I’m not angry or sad enough to meet their expectations. The flip side is the stabilizing effect one can have in trying circumstances and the appreciation and open heartedness I can feel from others as a result. Try it! But read the room…

You’re probably right but I don’t generally get to choose how I feel,. My experience is that the feeling is just there, like thoughts - I don’t choose what thought comes up if I watch closely, but I can choose not to feed it or suppress it or I can be so identified with it that I lose my shit completely, completely unaware, and that is the response. The emotion comes before the response and for me it is not destructive if the response is appropriate. Yes, the key for me is in the “without harboring” which is a part of not identifying. I do think all of the trainings we do lessen our tendency to get swept up in thought and emotion, making the emotion less destructive but not necessarily less powerful; and deeper insights into the nature of our mind can profoundly affect how we experience what positivity and negativity mean. Unconditioned compassion is like the sun and shines on all equally but don’t imagine it is so naive as to not know hatred. It subsumes and pervades all of it. Hatred exists in this world, it is “hard wired” in our karma, as do love and lust and as a human it is as it is. It’s OK to think and feel and allow it to guide but not by getting swept up unaware, better to express the fuller context in action. When I’m enlightened I’ll pay careful attention to see what emotions are there and try to report back. 😘

I used to date a bird well oliver 180 and yes, she could be quite aggressive! Big claws and awesome speed!

My comments were genuine but I’d say more like responsive thoughts in the moment than a fixed position. 😄 You’d have to ask them, not sure they’d tell me the truth… What I can say is that my relationships with my family are far more meaningful, open and direct than ever before, much closer and less judgmental, less reactive. I don’t see the emotions or thoughts themselves as destructive, they are intangible and transient experiences. When seen for what they are they can be allowed to come and go. Of course emotions are linked to karma but karma means action, quite literally, and in the presence of thought and emotion we have, or can cultivate, the ability to choose our actions independent of the transient thoughts and feelings, no? I can be furious and murder someone or I can be furious, pause to reflect on the consequences of my actions, and let it pass. These things happen. It is not the emotion but our choices that are destructive IMO. Wonderful questions that are very fertile until stifled with intellectual answers. This is the fuel on the path. For myself I have experienced that reducing my identification with passing feelings, thoughts, roles, and circumstances has allowed me to be more loving, more open, and kinder. As such changes have occurred in my life and relationships my faith in my path has grown.

If by authentic you mean unconditional, then I would say positive and negative do not apply as unconditional compassion is beyond judgement and discrimination. If you do not mean unconditional then I would say that conditional compassion is not inherently positive, there is often a self-serving component to it. Hatred for slavery can be constructive, as can hatred for corrupt leaders, environmental destruction, and abusers of the vulnerable, and the list goes on.

I disagree with both the aim and premise, with all due respect to you and Venerable Chöje Lama Phuntsok. Emotions are not inherently destructive or constructive, they are simply transient flows of energy. It is our relationship to emotion and the associated actions that can be destructive or constructive. And "destructive" and "constructive" need to be defined, either can be functional or dysfunctional. In my view, the aim of practice is not to eradicate emotions, even "destructive emotions," but to reduce and ultimately eradicate the over-identification with emotion that results in dysfunctional reactivity. This is why the central focus of understanding and practice are related to the nature and experience of self.

According to the Buddhist and Bön traditions every one of you has been my mother through the endless cycles of rebirth. Happy Mothers Day to all of you, my mothers past, present, and future; and to our dear Mother Earth! May she find the wherewithall to continue to tolerate and bless her needy and careless children...

Some very good points here. One challenge in the 21st century is finding air, water, and food that are unpolluted. The entire planet is rapidly becoming a "dirty environment," at least the areas most of us occupy and can access and the areas and processes from which we can obtain what we need. So much of our food and water is routinely stripped of nutrients and tainted in some fashion, especially water which should be a rich source of minerals but for most of us is either filtered, distilled, or modified such that it actually leeches minerals from our system rather than providing them. There is nothing necessarily healthy about a vegetarian lifestyle, nor unhealthy about an omnivorous lifestyle IMO. The devil is in the details, as they say. I mostly abstain from eating animals and birds for humanitarian reasons, not health reasons. It's simply a personal choice based on the horrific conditions we create for the creatures whose lives support ours. When we look around us it is clear that all living creatures consume other living things, it is simply the way of things. I don't disagree that there is a sentience of sorts in all living things, all things that can sustain us, and I am knowingly biased towards protecting mammals and birds from the terrors of humanity more so than sea creatures and flora. Am I a hypocrite? Probably so. I recently had a wonderful meal at a small vegan restaurant and got to chatting with the chef/owner and her mother. She had a background in chemistry and culinary arts. She went into the plant-based food industry and was so put off by the processes and products that she left it behind and decided to find her own way. Her feelings about the plant-based food industry are quite negative from a health and sustainability perspective. She nows crafts beautiful vegan food without trying to imitate meat but rather featuring and promoting fresh ingredients for what they offer as they are.

Another point worthy of making is that the objective is not to divert emotional reactivity. Emotion is necessary and valuable but often becomes dysfunctional for us due to poor processing. We repress/suppress/avoid due to aversion which makes it stronger and more tenacious. We grasp, hold on, and chase due to attachment which has a similar result. This is what Apech is pointing out from his chariot. The idea of reducing attachment and aversion is not less engagement at all, if anything it is more. In lessening aversion we engage more completely and nakedly with that we tend to avoid. In lessening attachment we engage more completely with everything else that was neglected due to our infatuation. The nature of the emotional reactivity in general becomes more clear and skillful practice aids in processing. This type of dissolution is not avoidance and not diversion, it is meaningful liberation. It allows the emotional content to express itself as much as needed until it naturally runs its course.

Thank goodness that’s not the case for our Daoist sisters and brothers! 😎

This reminds me of an amazing and powerful film called Rubaru Roshni, a documentary about victims of horrific crimes and the power of forgiveness.

One thing that may be worth mentioning here is that in working with attachment and aversion, I don't look at them as emotions in and of themselves but more as actions related to emotional content. Attachment is my tendency to hold onto or chase after things that generate positive emotion. Aversion is my tendency to deny, ignore, push away, repress, or suppress things that generate negative emotion. Reducing aversion does not mean eliminating the negative emotional content or invalidating powerful experiences, it means to reduce the tendency to avoid, suppress or repress the experience and associated emotion. Reducing aversion allows me to get closer to the negative emotions which is necessary for processing and ultimately reducing how these things can control my life, very often without conscious knowledge of what is happening. The same can be said for dealing with attachment. It's not about avoiding the feelings, if anything it is about experiencing those feeling as fully as possible and for as long as necessary until they have served their (important and valuable) purpose and are able to move and possibly release. As I've developed experience and skill in my meditation practice I've noticed a few changes. I seem to feel things far more deeply, both on the positive and negative ends of the spectrum. It can be overwhelming at times. Prior to getting involved in my current practice, I would have described myself as an emotional imbecile; repressing and suppressing things unaware, not recognizing or appropriately responding to my own or others' emotional needs, reacting or acting in a conditioned pattern, often coming from a place of distortion and negative emotion. Currently, even as I feel things more fully and powerfully, I find myself being less reactive and less predictable. Rather than conditioned patterns and emotional reactivity guiding my actions, there is more space and openness, more patience and clarity. I find myself doing and saying things that sometimes surprise me and others, in a good way. In my opinion, it is inaccurate to propose that Buddhist practices remove emotions or invalidate powerful life experiences, be they traumatic or thrilling. What has happened is that emotional reactivity is seen in context, with less personal identification, and has far less control over my choices and patterns of behavior. This leads to more sensible choices and fewer regrets. This is what freedom from aversion and attachment have meant for me and the only way to discover this is through working with the emotions directly and consistently. Emotions are an extremely important part of my path and will be until my end.

This is an example of the beauty of using the word space as a metaphor for the ground of being. Space is all-pervasive, even when occupied the space is still there. One cannot say there are two spaces, or more, as it is continuous and unbounded. On the other hand, it is imprecise to call it one space because space is insubstantial, it cannot be defined, limited, or imputed. Space is indiscriminate, everything is allowed to arise and to release, it does not block, resist, grasp, or prefer anything in particular whether physical, mental, or energetic.

In the tradition I follow stillness and silence are two doors leading to the same "place." There is a third as well, spaciousness in the heart/mind. Each door can be effective by itself or in combination with others depending on our individual circumstances, proclivities, and needs. Once we have a taste of where these doors lead we can see that the experience has qualities of each - stillness (of the body), silence (of the speech), and spaciousness (of the heart/mind).