Sarnyn

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Posts posted by Sarnyn

  1. Posted

    I'm practically still a virgin, and I've never had a relationship with a female.

     

    not even friendship.

    I also haven't really had male friends in my life either. or at least not in a social way.

    I understand,

     

    but why? Why are you still "practically" a virgin, and why don't you have any friends?

  2. Posted

    I know most of you won't take this seriously.

     

    I'm a male, and I'm also very different from all of you. I also have other problems that go beyond the scope of this topic/thread or at the very least do not contribute to my getting better. Ie, that I have other problems which do cause problems but the root is definitely involuntary celibacy and extreme isolation. It causes most of my problems and contributes to most of my problems.

     

    Don't talk to me if you're already healthy, and think this is an easy thing to overcome when you yourself are already healthy from the start and mentally healthy.

     

    This is only for those who can understand that I'm already at the extreme depths of unhealthiness caused by the following.

     

    I've been an involuntary celibate for a very long time. My whole life in fact, and I'm 23 years old. i've also been extremely lonely for a very long time.

     

    I feel it has led to major depression and mental ill as well as physical ill.

     

    I dont want to go to a psychiatrist that doesn't treat me for the root of my problem, first off. And second off the majority of the psychiatric drugs mess you up if taken in the long run.

     

    You have to understand it's very hard for me to do normal things due to this depression and lack of self esteem, that simply does not go away no matter how hard I tried.

     

    It blocks all sort of avenues and opportunity to get better, especially in regards to getting sex, and away from isolation.

     

    Is there anything a person like me can do?

     

    Going to the gym and exercising doesn't help, although I still do it but I oftentimes lack motivation. But this is besides the point. It doesn't treat my illness.

     

    My illness can only be treated by getting that which I need.

     

    But that illness keeps me from getting what I need, and it's not simply dependent on myself (ie others have to accept who I am).

     

    Why are you involuntarily celibate, and isolated? What causes you to be stuck in this condition?

  3. Posted · Edited by Sarnyn

     

    lol, thanks for that link it was a very enjoyable read, though I have never experienced anything like that on any retreats I have been too, sadly.

     

    I will say that it goes both ways. The sexual urge is a powerful one, and I can't tell you how many times I have imagined what any number of nuns would look like with hair, and appreciated them in a sexual way, even if it has always been restricted to the domain of my imagination. I always felt some amount of shame thinking about the nuns in this way, as though I was defiling some sacred religious symbol. Part of me enjoys the fantasy of perverting something that is supposed to be so austere.

     

    But the mind is like that, it will round its way back to the sexual, I don't think there is any avoiding this. Its why concentration is so important to this path. I agree with Gold is heavy. Sexual repression is very dangerous. If you take a healthy plant and put it in a closet, it will grow crooked in the dark looking for any way to sate its need. SO the response is to deal with our impulses with a calm equanimity mind, without judging.

     

    Very little changes about a person when you shave their head and put some robes on them. It is a ritual that is meant to help us affirm a great determination. And that is pretty much it. It is very easy to shave a head, much more difficult to make the kind of personal transformation into this strange, almost inhuman asexual being that most of us have floating around in our heads, that we like to supper impose upon our religious role models. Remember that the difference between a lay person and a monastic is simply that the monastic has made a commitment to walking a path. A lay person can have just as much commitment, but doesn't have the benefit of the ritual to give them an added stick for their determination to lean against.

     

    The real mystery is not that these sexual encounters happen. The real mystery is that we as human animals manage to spend any time at all, that we are able to allocate any time at all to our spiritual purification. That is the real marvel, and is a testament to those who dedicate their lives to this end!

     

     

    with metta!

  4. Posted

    Dance to the music

    chopping water, lifting wood

    watch me drop these pants

     

    watch me drop these pants

    when death comes calling, and run

    naked into light

     

    (two for one Saturday!- Tao Bums take note!)

     

     

    naked into light

    first winds of winter beckon,

    every hair stands up!

  5. Posted

    The past cannot be undone. It is forever gone. It has brought you to the present, but it does not have the power to determine the future. Only the deeds of the present will determine that.

     

    By seeking to remain in the vicious thoughts of past deeds, present deeds can be easily corrupted. When present deeds succumb to corruption, it will be easy to also taint future deeds with corruption.

     

    We cannot change the past, but we most certainly can change the way we think about the past. When we can transform the way we think about the past, we can then be free of the mental weight of the past. Actually we are already free of the past, but we are afraid to let go of the familiar. Somehow, we make the wrong assumption that the past determines who and what we are. So there is a tendency for people to cling ever so tightly to the past, as though it was something valuable and entertaining. Even if its not, people find it hard to shake off the past due to the forces of habitual tendencies at work. However, these forces can be transformed with the proper 'mental' tools. Correct mindfulness is one such tool.

     

    In mindfulness, we will clearly see that it is our present choices that actually decide who and what we are going to become. Freedom does not lie in the ability to undo the past - where it lies is in the ability to choose the right motives, the right thoughts and the right actions, right now, in this present moment.

     

    There is actually no 'good' or 'bad' past karma. Only karma. Positive or negative karma always only occur in the present, which then determines future outcomes. So please think and act with as much mindfulness as you can.

    Be safe.

     

    AHO CowTao,

    great post :)

  6. Posted · Edited by Sarnyn

    If you are set on fire, you can wait till it is gone on its own... or you can use water to put the fire down.

    putting out the fire with water won't erase what is already burnt my friend. It will only stop more burning. But what has happened has already happened and has already left its marks on us.

  7. Posted

    when you throw a stone in the water, is there any way to stop the ripples? If you stuck your hand in the water to obstruct a ripple, look what you did! More ripples!

     

    Those ripples are just going to have to calm down on their own, and the bed of the lake will be forever changed. Sadly there is no going back.

     

    So forgive yourself, do better, and move on.

  8. Posted

    1.3 billion Chinese must be quite misguided in their thought process then...how sad for them. As one told me about a couple of week ago he would be more than happy to practice Buddhism, Taoism and Christianity at the same time and sees no contradiction even if you did point them out to him. These contradictions only exist in the mind of westerners. I can't even begin to explain how the thought process works, it takes some years to 'get it' and when you do you will wish you hadn't.

    What you said.

     

     

    Hmmm.... I just wanted to briefly say that there are teachings in Tibetan Buddhism, specifically about the rainbow body, which is very similar to the concept of the Taoist diamond body.

     

    When I say the same, what I mean is, functions the same in a cosmological sense, but might have subtle distinctions in what we see as the ultimate deep reality of either. In other words, the rainbow body is said to be composed of the "five pure lights" and the diamond body is said to be similar in substance to light as well. Both are described at times as existing in as an enduring... timeless quality.

     

    What is interesting about Tibetan Buddhism is that we could probably say (if we wanted to make a broad generalization) that it is among the schools of Buddhism that have had the least influence from Taoism, and yet, the we find similar teachings in tibetan buddhism to the Taoist "diamond body."

     

    I of course would not be the one to say that the practices are interchangeable... so that's not my ultimate point here. What is my point then? I'm not sure.

     

    Sorry if that last post was a bit of a thread derail, it's not exactly on topic.

  10. Posted · Edited by Sarnyn

    The existence of the ego is not an inherent weakness. It it only a weakness if you acknowledge that the existence of suffering is a real problem. If you accept the existence of suffering in the world, there is no reason to battle the ego. Indeed, the ego can be utilized as a tool.

     

    Since nothing has any inherent value, we ascribe value to things according to our perception. When our perception is violated, it is not necessarily wrong to get angry or attempt to fight what jives with our aesthetic values of what we find to be pleasing to behold in the world in the manor of acts or states of being, objects, or relationships in the world.

     

    If I am honest with myself and you all, I will admit that I am a violent person. I am prone to short burst of powerful emotion. However, that is part of my nature. Rather than eradicate that aspect of myself, I choose to learn to control my violence in such a way that my violence functions in accordance with my will and desire. Would you tell a wild animal not to act violently when its hunting ground, or domain is violated? Of course not because that act, the act of inaction, could be disastrous to the animal. But since we as human beings live in a higher realm of awareness and mentation, should we not learn to utilize our anger to even greater effect, to even higher manifestations of honestly and pure acts of identity?

     

    If I am offended, its because somebody has gone against my aesthetic view of what is right (i.e. pleasing) or beautiful in the world. As a man living in the world it is my right to shape the world into the vision that I find most pleasing, just as it is the right of every living creature to exert their will in the world. Of course there will be conflict, but conflict is not to be avoided, but embraced as part of the natural manifestation of the presence and power of will and intelligence in the world. Harmony isn't always perfect balance, sometimes it is the endless interplay of opposite and opposing forces.

     

    When I see a starving child, I am offended.

    When I see an innocent man prosecuted, I am offended.

    When I see a helpless person made the victim of violence, intolerance, or hatred, I am offended.

    When I see a person who is sick but can not afford insurance or medical care, I am offended.

    When I see a person denigrated or made low by a powerful majority, I am offended.

    When I see a helpless ignorant majority, usurped and controlled by a selfish and elite minority, I am offended.

    When I see an animal abused or mistreated, I am offended.

    When I see a child abused or mistreated, i am offended.

    When I see a person litter or throw trash on the street I am offended.

    It offends me to see people destroy their beautiful bodies and minds.

    Intolerance offends me

    Apathy offends me

    Laziness and Sloth, offends me.

     

    Oh my, look at my ego, out of control.

  17. Posted

    I've always felt that the phrase, "There is no permanent, solid, unchanging, independent self" was another way of expressing that, 'there is an impermanent, un-solid, changing, dependent self"

     

    This is an interesting thread, and great points forest.

     

    The concept of nihilism should not be confused with the concept of anatma, because nihilism isn't the same as solipsism, which says that only the self exists (and no other selves or things) or even the concept of philosophical skepticism which holds that nothing exists. Nihilism is a statement about value, not a statement about the deep nature of being. Nihilism states that nothing has any inherent value, not that nothing inherently exists. In this way nihilism becomes much more meaningful and valuable, as a stepping stone to what I see as the truth, that we have the ability, and indeed the only way things get value, is our assigning value to them.

  24. Posted

    asking a person to verify objective reality through the use of the senses, is like asking a person to see without eyes, hear without ears, taste without a tongue, smell without a nose, or feel without skin. We cannot verify objective reality by way of the subjective senses. Its like hearing the color blue, seeing the sensation of softness, smelling a sound, or tasting a beautiful scene. The problem arrives in false comparisons.

     

    However the limitation of the senses should not be an argument, for dismissing the reality of the objective world. No we can't experience or verify the obejctive reality, but that is merely because our sensation is limited to the subjective world.