doc benway

That's awesome! There is little more valuable in life than being able to do that.

For sure, emotions play an important role in our lives and we deny, repress, suppress, ignore, and manipulate them at our peril. Unfortunately, there are often problems that cannot or will not be dealt with and are beyond our control in terms of finding a satisfactory resolution despite all efforts. The question then becomes what do I do with the anger (and other potentially negative and powerful emotions) in the face of ongoing, unresolvable circumstances? Sometimes we may feel like we have done all we can and can be at peace with that. My experience has been that this is not always enough and there can be lingering inner and outer conflict that often gets suppressed or repressed or acted out and leads to violence or illness - physical, mental, energetic, and spiritual. One of the deeper teachings of my tradition is that the beginning practitioner sees their problems as being the responsibility of the outside world, The average practitioner takes partial responsibility, and the advanced practitioner take 100% responsibility for their conditions and response. In this context, authentic forgiveness represents the advanced practitioner's way of dealing internally with offense. It is not in any way a substitute for taking appropriate action, it is more related to how we relate to the associated emotion and perceived offense, regardless of outcome. I think this is a great topic for personal exploration.

There is a beautiful film I highly recommend to anyone interested in the topic of forgiveness called Rubaru Roshni. It was directed by Svati Chakravarty Bhatkal and produced by Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao. @Annnon's point about the real value and mechanism of forgiveness is a central theme in the film. It stimulated some very lively and meaningful discussion about the topic among my family members and may have even shifted some perspectives.

I appreciate the wisdom of your comment and offer my response as an expression of my current feelings, not necessarily as a rebuttal. I don't know you well but well enough, I think, to know that nothing I say below will be anything you don't already realize. I see a lot of sickness in my society, and our global society, and a lot of good also. While it may not always be healthy, seeing clearly is the first step towards change. I think it is important in a healthy society to rail against those causing abuse and harm to the most vulnerable among us. Equally important to spread awareness among those who may be ignorant and well-adjusted to it. Calm and stability are priceless but won't always stop starvation, torture, extermination, and the host of other atrocities going on. Sometimes action is needed and, of course, it is important that action come from that place of calm and stability to be effective and appropriate.

Human madness will not end. There will always be extremes and there will always be differences of opinion regarding what is madness and what is sanity. As Jiddu Krishnamurti famously said, it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to such a sick society. But that does not mean we can't improve our situation and that of others by beginning at grass roots levels. Human "civilization" is at least 5 - 6,000 years old, possibly older, and yet nothing meaningful has changed in our collective and individual psyches. We are evolving technologically and possibily intellectually but not psychologically or emotionally. In many ways we feel more sophisticated, more knowledgable, more capable, but if you look at our situation, inequality is worse than ever in history, our destructive potential is more formidable than ever before, the effects of our presence on Earth more destructive than ever before. When you look at our behavior and its effects, our species acts very much like a cancer - growing without any restraint or sensibility, choking out all competition, destroying our loving host, and putting our very survival at risk. It's nice to imagine that something or someone will come along and change all that but the evidence does not support such a dream. None of our religious, political, or intellectual leaders have made much of a difference overall. Certainly there are regions and groups that do better than others and this fluctuates over time but overall I see little evidence of collective psychological and emotional growth. While this may sound and feel very discouraging, there is a solution as described above. We must free ourselves from the shackles of ignorance and limitation imposed by millennia of conditioning and sabotage. We must discover and remember what it means to be fully human, both individually and collectively. That can only start by turning inward and looking at the truth of our own personal situation. For me, this is the core and purpose of spirituality.

Just saw them live a few months ago doing this song on the Beat tour, sans Fripp but the performance was great! Line up was Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Steve Vai and Danny Carey.

This is one of the more common questions that comes up in my groups.

One challenge for me was hearing the silence in my tinnitus.

I discovered Korean TV series and... WOW... such wonderful stuff! A few of my favorites - It's OK To Not Be OK, Crash Landing On You, Vincenzo, All Of Us Are Dead, Bloodhounds and Extraordinary Attorney Woo. I started watching When Life Gives You Tangerines and after crying through the entire first episode I haven't yet managed to continue but I will eventually. Perhaps we need a TV series thread, I'm always open to suggestions.

I generally like Eco’s writing but when I finished this book I have the vivid recollection of promising myself to never again force myself to finish a book if I’m not enjoying it.

I wonder if Gerard is referring to “The Pit”?

So important, and sometimes so challenging! Especially when those big shifts and profound experiences happen. This can create a major obstacle to progress.

I would caution that if we think we no longer have craving or aversion, and have perfect equanimity, we are probably not paying close enough attention... Extinguishing karma is certainly possible in theory and elusive in practice as there are layers and layers of ever more subtle grasping. Each moment of inner quiet and stillness that gives birth to presence, connection, and genuine caring for self and others is essentially reaching the goal. Little by little these moments become more familiar, easier to access, and more continuous.

Playing some music