anger, what now?

[steve]

I've never practiced Xingyiquan, but I see that it has some Wu Dang roots and so it most probably has some use for strengthening and cleansing energy and organs. If you also practice some qi gong movements for strengthening and cleansing the organs, there might be some similarities in the elemental movements of each system. With sensitivity to the qi gong experience, the movements of Xingyiquan will probably resonate, but I wouldn't be able to tell you how why and when. There's a fair amount of free qi gong tutorials on youtube, so you might be able to test this theory on your own. See how the movements are releasing and retaining. This is the rhythm of Taoism.

 

I'm not a master. Just a haphazard scholar

thanks - I practice a few Qigong forms.

My body often tells me which of the elements in Xingyi I need to practice, I think.

At different times, I find myself gravitating to practicing different forms.

I guess I should have confidence in that feeling - Wu Wei baby

[Otis]

Great post and personal sharing, Aaron!

 

Hello Romie,

 

You are not anger and pain, that's the first thing you need to realize. You may feel anger and pain, but you are actually a human being that feels these things, they are not you.

This reminds me: a friend of mine told me recently about a language in which they don't say "I am angry", but rather say: "anger is near me". What a different perspective that phrasing makes!

[goldisheavy]

I really like your answer, DeParadise.

 

I would add that our emotions are based on two things: either love or fear. Anger rises out of a deep down fear.

 

Emotions are based on our beliefs and our perceptions. When perceptions match our beliefs about what is positive, we have positive feelings. When perceptions match our beliefs about what is negative, we have negative feelings. Feelings are simply echos of beliefs, and they are aroused by changing perceptions. Perceptions are more dynamic than beliefs, which in many important cases don't change even in a lifetime.

 

Anger is aroused when we believe something is not how it should be, and yet we also believe there is a damn good chance to fix the problem.

 

When something is not how we believe it should be, and we also believe there is no chance to fix it, then we experience depression instead of anger.

 

So anger is a more hopeful and more positive state than depression. An angry person feels like there is something that can be done to improve things, but it isn't being done.

 

Sometimes the anger is delusional, and sometimes the anger is correct and appropriate. I think depression is always delusional though. I don't think depression is ever correct.

 

Beliefs are more fundamental than feelings. Feelings are very useful echos that give away our true beliefs if we want to examine the feelings sincerely while looking for understanding, instead of trying to manipulate our feelings in a mechanical way without bothering to understand the underlying causes and conditions of those feelings.

Edited June 12, 2011 by goldisheavy

[manitou]

Beliefs are more fundamental than feelings. Feelings are very useful echos that give away our true beliefs if we want to examine the feelings sincerely while looking for understanding, instead of trying to manipulate our feelings in a mechanical way without bothering to understand the underlying causes and conditions of those feelings.

 

We might be talking about two different things, Goldi. You are saying that beliefs are more fundamental than feelings. Perhaps we're looking at beliefs and feelings as the same thing. When someone gets down to their inner 10 year old in doing the inner work, and purges themselves with tears to the point of having none left for the causative condition, then it's time for the person to look for the underlying fear, once the crying is done; it is then that the fear can be imprinted to the opposite. In a young child's case, it's usually fear of being smacked, or being made fun of, or not being good enough, fear of being abandoned...those sort of things. These are the very fears that self-encapsulate themselves so it won't hurt anymore, and start rolling downhill like a snowball. those fears are the ones that must be dealt with for healing when the contortions of the snowball get in the way of a balanced life for the adult. They say childhood is the very thing we spend the rest of our lives getting over. This has been my experience, and a necessary step for clarity of vision.

 

Beliefs are left brain sort of things. Feelings certainly must stem from the right brain, but I'm just guessing here. But in this sense, I think feelings go down deeper than beliefs and lie at the very bottom of who we are, and they manipulate our actions today, and is often the 1100 pound gorilla in the room that the person can't even see.

 

But perhaps our arguments tie together here. If the 'inner child' (or the actual child at that age) have a 'belief' that they are a piece of s**t, this is because this is the message he picked up from others. At the very very bottom of the child is the original pure Essence - the Dao, if you will. The snowballs all need to be melted and seen for what they are to get down to the Essence.

Edited June 12, 2011 by manitou

[goldisheavy]

We might be talking about two different things, Goldi. You are saying that beliefs are more fundamental than feelings. Perhaps we're looking at beliefs and feelings as the same thing. When someone gets down to their inner 10 year old in doing the inner work, and purges themselves with tears to the point of having none left for the causative condition, then it's time for the person to look for the underlying fear, once the crying is done;

 

I don't think a state of no beliefs is ever possible. If the person fears something, that's evidence of beliefs in action.

 

For example, if I fear death, it may be because I believe death is oblivion and I want life instead of oblivion for myself. That's just a tiny example.

 

it is then that the fear can be imprinted to the opposite. In a young child's case, it's usually fear of being smacked, or being made fun of, or not being good enough, fear of being abandoned...those sort of things. These are the very fears that self-encapsulate themselves so it won't hurt anymore, and start rolling downhill like a snowball. those fears are the ones that must be dealt with for healing when the contortions of the snowball get in the way of a balanced life for the adult. They say childhood is the very thing we spend the rest of our lives getting over. This has been my experience, and a necessary step for clarity of vision.

 

I agree with a lot of this.

 

I don't believe in tabula rasa mind. I believe children have certain propensities from past lives, and this may include certain problems as well. So it's not only that we're trying to get over the psychological damage of the childhood, it's also the case, in my opinion, that we're trying to get over the damage caused by countless lives of beliefs that make life difficult and that make the universe seem like a threatening place.

 

Beliefs are left brain sort of things. Feelings certainly must stem from the right brain, but I'm just guessing here.

 

I don't buy this at all.

 

But in this sense, I think feelings go down deeper than beliefs and lie at the very bottom of who we are, and they manipulate our actions today, and is often the 1100 pound gorilla in the room that the person can't even see.

 

But perhaps our arguments tie together here. If the 'inner child' (or the actual child at that age) have a 'belief' that they are a piece of s**t, this is because this is the message he picked up from others.

 

The message might be from others, but we have a choice to believe the message or to reject it. We often don't feel justified in rejecting messages because we believe something like, "But who am I to say something good about myself? Shouldn't others be the main judge of my character?" And so on. We have many beliefs about who we are, and our identity is validated in a certain manner according to those beliefs.

 

In society we constantly get the message that we should let others judge us and then we should accept that judgment at face value. So if someone says "I am great" we say, "No, don't say that about yourself. Instead, wait for others to say so." And we consider this to be useful and helpful. This kind of "I am what others say I am" is so deeply engrained in us as a belief, that when we are reborn into a new life, and if we have shitty parents, we just accept all the garbage they tell us about ourselves.

 

At the very very bottom of the child is the original pure Essence - the Dao, if you will. The snowballs all need to be melted and seen for what they are to get down to the Essence.

 

It's not likely to happen because raw Dao is stupidly scary to a human being. Dao embraces both structure and lack of structure, while humans crave structure. Dao embraces all complementary opposites, while humans have strong preferences for one of the opposites.

 

For example, I believe that I am a being who is limited in space and time. In other words, I believe my body is much smaller than the world and my time in this life is much smaller than all time. None of this can actually be proven to be true. It's just a belief. But based on this belief I've experience great fear when I experienced huge space in meditation and in visionary experiences (such as those that occur during special very vivid dreams). So why am I so afraid of endless vastness? Well, it's obvious to me. I am used to conceiving of myself as something small (body) inside something large (the world). When I feel myself as something endless inside of which appear small things, that's scary. And this type of fear is not something we learned in childhood. This fear is much more existential and much more fundamental than whatever the society, friends or parents can beat into you.

Edited June 12, 2011 by goldisheavy

[Otis]

We might be talking about two different things, Goldi. You are saying that beliefs are more fundamental than feelings. Perhaps we're looking at beliefs and feelings as the same thing. When someone gets down to their inner 10 year old in doing the inner work, and purges themselves with tears to the point of having none left for the causative condition, then it's time for the person to look for the underlying fear, once the crying is done; it is then that the fear can be imprinted to the opposite. In a young child's case, it's usually fear of being smacked, or being made fun of, or not being good enough, fear of being abandoned...those sort of things. These are the very fears that self-encapsulate themselves so it won't hurt anymore, and start rolling downhill like a snowball. those fears are the ones that must be dealt with for healing when the contortions of the snowball get in the way of a balanced life for the adult. They say childhood is the very thing we spend the rest of our lives getting over. This has been my experience, and a necessary step for clarity of vision.

I agree with this. Animals don't have "beliefs" in the same way we do, as dualistic language-based concepts. But they sure do have emotions. So emotions must be primary (although I'm sure there's all kinds of cross-talk between the two).

 

For humans, I think which ideas stick (which beliefs take root) is very much based upon emotional tendencies. Someone can tell you that you're worthwhile, but if you don't feel the same way, then it won't get in.

[goldisheavy]

I agree with this. Animals don't have "beliefs" in the same way we do,

 

Let's not confuse the ability to verbally profess beliefs with actually having them. Animals certainly have beliefs. Often very deluded ones. For example, my dog believes the world is a flat plane. How do I know this? When we come back from our walk, I tell him to "go home". He knows what it means, but he has no concept of vertical axis. So the dog goes to the correct door on the first floor when we live on the second. He does this consistently. We've changed where we live and in our new place we again live on the second floor and again the dog goes to the correct door but one floor below. Other evidence for the same idiocy is when I toss a ball and it lands on the chair. The dog is stumped. The dog has no problem finding the ball on the ground but if it's 2 feet off the ground, it really perplexes the hell out of him. Why? Again, it's the same assumption in his mind that the world is largely flat.

 

My theory for why it is like that is simple: animals that climb or otherwise operate in all 3 dimensions of space understand those 3 dimensions. Animals that spend most of their time operating in 2 dimensions don't understand the vertical dimension as well.

 

It's a huge mistake to think that beliefs are merely the verbal conveyances.

[Birch]

I don't think a state of no beliefs is ever possible. If the person fears something, that's evidence of beliefs in action.

 

For example, if I fear death, it may be because I believe death is oblivion and I want life instead of oblivion for myself. That's just a tiny example.

 

 

 

I agree with a lot of this.

 

I don't believe in tabula rasa mind. I believe children have certain propensities from past lives, and this may include certain problems as well. So it's not only that we're trying to get over the psychological damage of the childhood, it's also the case, in my opinion, that we're trying to get over the damage caused by countless lives of beliefs that make life difficult and that make the universe seem like a threatening place.

 

 

 

I don't buy this at all.

 

 

 

The message might be from others, but we have a choice to believe the message or to reject it. We often don't feel justified in rejecting messages because we believe something like, "But who am I to say something good about myself? Shouldn't others be the main judge of my character?" And so on. We have many beliefs about who we are, and our identity is validated in a certain manner according to those beliefs.

 

In society we constantly get the message that we should let others judge us and then we should accept that judgment at face value. So if someone says "I am great" we say, "No, don't say that about yourself. Instead, wait for others to say so." And we consider this to be useful and helpful. This kind of "I am what others say I am" is so deeply engrained in us as a belief, that when we are reborn into a new life, and if we have shitty parents, we just accept all the garbage they tell us about ourselves.

 

 

 

It's not likely to happen because raw Dao is stupidly scary to a human being. Dao embraces both structure and lack of structure, while humans crave structure. Dao embraces all complementary opposites, while humans have strong preferences for one of the opposites.

 

For example, I believe that I am a being who is limited in space and time. In other words, I believe my body is much smaller than the world and my time in this life is much smaller than all time. None of this can actually be proven to be true. It's just a belief. But based on this belief I've experience great fear when I experienced huge space in meditation and in visionary experiences (such as those that occur during special very vivid dreams). So why am I so afraid of endless vastness? Well, it's obvious to me. I am used to conceiving of myself as something small (body) inside something large (the world). When I feel myself as something endless inside of which appear small things, that's scary. And this type of fear is not something we learned in childhood. This fear is much more existential and much more fundamental than whatever the society, friends or parents can beat into you.

 

 

Ah yes. The letting everyone else tell you what you are thing. I can distinctly remember being taken down a few notches and having it explained to me that it wasn't 'done' to trumpet one's accomplishments. Nowadays I do trumpet them, but just to myself :-)

 

So Mr GIH, are you still saying that beliefs are the drivers of experience and never the other way around? If so, then does it follow that ridding yourself of all of them would be the way to best experience reality? Or do you just rid yourself of the unhelpful ones? Replace them? I suppose I'm asking, what's easiest?

[fizix]

Do not discount the possibility that you may have a lower astral entity attached to your aura, feeding off of the negative energy of your anger. This is most likely not the case, but it is possible. Look into entity attachment symptoms and see if any relate to you. This often occurs when practicing new forms of meditation, channeling, or can result from drug, alcohol, emotional or physical abuse in which leaves the aura vulnerable to entity attachment/harassment.

Edited June 12, 2011 by fizix

[Birch]

Do not discount the possibility that you may have a lower astral entity attached to your aura, feeding off of the negative energy of your anger. This is most likely not the case, but it is possible. Look into entity attachment symptoms and see if any relate to you. This often occurs when practicing new forms of meditation, channeling, or can result from drug, alcohol, emotional or physical abuse in which leaves the aura vulnerable to entity attachment/harassment.

 

 

I don't believe in entities that attach to you. Should I?

I do believe that connections are made but if you give your side up (un-attach) then how could it hang on?

[goldisheavy]

Ah yes. The letting everyone else tell you what you are thing. I can distinctly remember being taken down a few notches and having it explained to me that it wasn't 'done' to trumpet one's accomplishments. Nowadays I do trumpet them, but just to myself :-)

 

So Mr GIH, are you still saying that beliefs are the drivers of experience and never the other way around? If so, then does it follow that ridding yourself of all of them would be the way to best experience reality? Or do you just rid yourself of the unhelpful ones? Replace them? I suppose I'm asking, what's easiest?

 

I hesitate to say "never." I've heard of cases when people had life-changing experiences, usually near-death ones. Barring a near-death experience, I think most people die believing largely the same things they believed at birth. It should be reasonably easy for you to get your own opinion on this independently. All you'd have to do is talk to people and ask them, or if you can, just observe how they behave. Behavior reveals beliefs better than anything else. So for example, if someone claims to believe to be able to go through walls at will, but is careful to avoid oncoming traffic in day to day situations, then you know that someone is lying.

 

Should you rid yourself of your beliefs? I don't know about that. I'm not sure you can appreciate how monumental of a task that is and how dramatically different you'd be and feel if you did that. Most people fear insanity. When enough beliefs change a person starts to feel insane, because the person still retains a memory of what a normal sane person believes, and there is a huge mass of fear. Of course sages often tell us that what people commonly consider "sane" they consider insane. But it's one thing to read something reassuring like that, and it's another thing to experience all that happen in your own being. It's like reading that a modern open heart operation is relatively safe, but would you jump under the knife if there was no life-threatening emergency?

 

Real immortals, or real enlightened adepts do end up with a significant portion of their core beliefs altered (compared to a "normal" person). It's not that they rid themselves of beliefs so much as change them. Is that what you want for yourself? I think only very few people can answer "yes" with all sincerity because most people love their lives largely as is. Sure people like to tweak things, but the things people tend to tweak are superficial, kind of like rearranging the furniture in terms of relative importance. This is why when people sign up for a yoga class, what they mostly want is to feel that nice relaxed glowy state. They want a health benefit. They want to retain their ordinary life together with most of their ordinary beliefs, just as is, but they want just a smidgen more fun and a smidgen more health while they're at it.

 

To change your unhelpful beliefs or to even rid yourself of some of them, you first have to become aware of them. This is hard because like I said, beliefs are not necessarily what we may naively think we believe. Beliefs are what we are and what we do. This is where spiritual practice comes in. During spiritual practice there is a chance you'll notice a conflict in belief, meaning, you'll attempt something that you realize you don't actually believe in. If this happens, then that's one access point. That's one way to become aware of a belief.

 

I'll give you a personal example here. This is something that really blew my mind when it happened. I didn't expect it at all. I was convinced I was very independent, right? So if you just asked me something like, "Do you feel relatively independent?" I'd answer "yes." And in some sense I'd be right too. Perhaps I am a smidgen more independent than some other people I know. But am I as independent as I think I am?

 

So one time I was meditating and post-meditation I'd often have visionary experiences of a mind-blowing nature. In one of those experiences I was feeling my being expand to the point where I felt I was dying. As I felt myself to be on the verge of death, I was gathering my inner strength to allow myself to die. I've died many times in such experiences, so I know I can do it, but it's not always easy for me. And as I was readying myself to die, suddenly my father's image appeared and gave me a very stern disapproving glance. And right after this the whole experience collapsed. I was shocked. I felt deep in the core of my being I knew exactly what all this meant! It meant that everything I was doing required my father's approval! I was shocked and bewildered for weeks after this. I was so disappointed in myself, that I had always believed something terrible like that and bam, it got revealed to me clear as day in a visionary experience.

 

I realized something very important that day. I realized that all this talk about overcoming one's ego is pure garbage. It's pure trash talk. The real barrier is not oneself! It's one's family and the world itself! Wow! Talk about a huge discovery. I was ready to die. I had died many times, so it's no joke when I say this. But at the same time I found that it wasn't my body I was afraid of losing the most, but my family's moral support. And when I looked at this carefully, I realized that more than losing my own body or my own personality what I feared the most is to lose my world, my universe as I know it. I was ready to lay down my body in death if I could just assure myself that the world as I knew it would go on, and that my loved ones would be safe and sound.

 

So in other words, after I realized a significant degree of detachment from myself I found myself attached to other people and to the world even more thoroughly and more intricately than I was attached to my own imagined self.

 

I am ready to kill myself, but am I ready to kill my father? Am I ready to destroy the whole world? The answer turned out to be a resounding "not yet."

 

So when you're talking about ridding yourself of all beliefs, you're talking about eliminating the world as you know it and all that you hold dear.

 

I'm not going to tell you what you should be doing. You decide. I just want to tell you, "be serious." Try to understand the implications of what you're saying.

 

Some beliefs are relatively easy to modify. For example, if you believe that without your make-up you are ugly, that's something that can be modified with ordinary effort. That's just an example. This kind of belief is what I call a superficial belief because whether or not your believe such a thing, your life is largely the same.

 

Some beliefs, the ones I call core beliefs, are as hard to modify as it is to perform an open-heart surgery on yourself by yourself while trying to also have a normal day to day life.

 

Real significant change is a slow process. I think it's best not to rush. The heart of the mind needs time to adapt to serious changes. Beliefs change over the years in the course of being under constant examination or in the course of being in constant conflict with your day to day practice, or something like that.

 

Becoming open to change is something you can accomplish in an instant. To become open means to admit there is a possibility of believing something different. Openness isn't that hard and it's something everyone should try to accomplish, in my opinion. But from openness to the real transmutation of beliefs is a huge long road, often filled with some very threatening-looking parts, and only you can walk it.

Edited June 13, 2011 by goldisheavy

[Jetsun]

I agree changing your fundamental beliefs is an incredibly difficult thing to do, personally I had to have an almost complete mental breakdown to really challenge mine and even when I could see that they were causing me such suffering that my life was in ruins I still didn't want to let them go. So I tend not to believe people when they say they are changing their beliefs unless they are going through some deep suffering or had some sort of shock which has shaken up their perception. I agree it's all about your parents which is why I think Jesus says those strange things in some scriptures of abandoning your parents or hating them, which I don't think is meant lierally rather you have to let go of trying to win their approval or rebelling against them as either way is a form of slavery.

[RiverSnake]

I agree changing your fundamental beliefs is an incredibly difficult thing to do, personally I had to have an almost complete mental breakdown to really challenge mine and even when I could see that they were causing me such suffering that my life was in ruins I still didn't want to let them go. So I tend not to believe people when they say they are changing their beliefs unless they are going through some deep suffering or had some sort of shock which has shaken up their perception. I agree it's all about your parents which is why I think Jesus says those strange things in some scriptures of abandoning your parents or hating them, which I don't think is meant lierally rather you have to let go of trying to win their approval or rebelling against them as either way is a form of slavery.

 

Yeah, i've gonna through that a bit myself. The first one is a doozy but IMO it gets easier with practice.

[Birch]

I hesitate to say "never." I've heard of cases when people had life-changing experiences, usually near-death ones. Barring a near-death experience, I think most people die believing largely the same things they believed at birth. It should be reasonably easy for you to get your own opinion on this independently. All you'd have to do is talk to people and ask them, or if you can, just observe how they behave. Behavior reveals beliefs better than anything else. So for example, if someone claims to believe to be able to go through walls at will, but is careful to avoid oncoming traffic in day to day situations, then you know that someone is lying.

 

Should you rid yourself of your beliefs? I don't know about that. I'm not sure you can appreciate how monumental of a task that is and how dramatically different you'd be and feel if you did that. Most people fear insanity. When enough beliefs change a person starts to feel insane, because the person still retains a memory of what a normal sane person believes, and there is a huge mass of fear. Of course sages often tell us that what people commonly consider "sane" they consider insane. But it's one thing to read something reassuring like that, and it's another thing to experience all that happen in your own being. It's like reading that a modern open heart operation is relatively safe, but would you jump under the knife if there was no life-threatening emergency?

 

Real immortals, or real enlightened adepts do end up with a significant portion of their core beliefs altered (compared to a "normal" person). It's not that they rid themselves of beliefs so much as change them. Is that what you want for yourself? I think only very few people can answer "yes" with all sincerity because most people love their lives largely as is. Sure people like to tweak things, but the things people tend to tweak are superficial, kind of like rearranging the furniture in terms of relative importance. This is why when people sign up for a yoga class, what they mostly want is to feel that nice relaxed glowy state. They want a health benefit. They want to retain their ordinary life together with most of their ordinary beliefs, just as is, but they want just a smidgen more fun and a smidgen more health while they're at it.

 

To change your unhelpful beliefs or to even rid yourself of some of them, you first have to become aware of them. This is hard because like I said, beliefs are not necessarily what we may naively think we believe. Beliefs are what we are and what we do. This is where spiritual practice comes in. During spiritual practice there is a chance you'll notice a conflict in belief, meaning, you'll attempt something that you realize you don't actually believe in. If this happens, then that's one access point. That's one way to become aware of a belief.

 

I'll give you a personal example here. This is something that really blew my mind when it happened. I didn't expect it at all. I was convinced I was very independent, right? So if you just asked me something like, "Do you feel relatively independent?" I'd answer "yes." And in some sense I'd be right too. Perhaps I am a smidgen more independent than some other people I know. But am I as independent as I think I am?

 

So one time I was meditating and post-meditation I'd often have visionary experiences of a mind-blowing nature. In one of those experiences I was feeling my being expand to the point where I felt I was dying. As I felt myself to be on the verge of death, I was gathering my inner strength to allow myself to die. I've died many times in such experiences, so I know I can do it, but it's not always easy for me. And as I was readying myself to die, suddenly my father's image appeared and gave me a very stern disapproving glance. And right after this the whole experience collapsed. I was shocked. I felt deep in the core of my being I knew exactly what all this meant! It meant that everything I was doing required my father's approval! I was shocked and bewildered for weeks after this. I was so disappointed in myself, that I had always believed something terrible like that and bam, it got revealed to me clear as day in a visionary experience.

 

I realized something very important that day. I realized that all this talk about overcoming one's ego is pure garbage. It's pure trash talk. The real barrier is not oneself! It's one's family and the world itself! Wow! Talk about a huge discovery. I was ready to die. I had died many times, so it's no joke when I say this. But at the same time I found that it wasn't my body I was afraid of losing the most, but my family's moral support. And when I looked at this carefully, I realized that more than losing my own body or my own personality what I feared the most is to lose my world, my universe as I know it. I was ready to lay down my body in death if I could just assure myself that the world as I knew it would go on, and that my loved ones would be safe and sound.

 

So in other words, after I realized a significant degree of detachment from myself I found myself attached to other people and to the world even more thoroughly and more intricately than I was attached to my own imagined self.

 

I am ready to kill myself, but am I ready to kill my father? Am I ready to destroy the whole world? The answer turned out to be a resounding "not yet."

 

So when you're talking about ridding yourself of all beliefs, you're talking about eliminating the world as you know it and all that you hold dear.

 

I'm not going to tell you what you should be doing. You decide. I just want to tell you, "be serious." Try to understand the implications of what you're saying.

 

Some beliefs are relatively easy to modify. For example, if you believe that without your make-up you are ugly, that's something that can be modified with ordinary effort. That's just an example. This kind of belief is what I call a superficial belief because whether or not your believe such a thing, your life is largely the same.

 

Some beliefs, the ones I call core beliefs, are as hard to modify as it is to perform an open-heart surgery on yourself by yourself while trying to also have a normal day to day life.

 

Real significant change is a slow process. I think it's best not to rush. The heart of the mind needs time to adapt to serious changes. Beliefs change over the years in the course of being under constant examination or in the course of being in constant conflict with your day to day practice, or something like that.

 

Becoming open to change is something you can accomplish in an instant. To become open means to admit there is a possibility of believing something different. Openness isn't that hard and it's something everyone should try to accomplish, in my opinion. But from openness to the real transmutation of beliefs is a huge long road, often filled with some very threatening-looking parts, and only you can walk it.

 

Ah well, that would partially explain the insanity-feeling thing (another reason to learn 'techniques' to calm yourself down when you're in that 'But, b-ut, but' space, I suppose). But not entirely, I'm guessing. We had a discussion a while back about self-structure and 'outside' influences and infectious memes. Sort of reminds me of the discussion about dogma of scientific content vs non-dogmatic scientific method. I digress :-)

 

I currently believe that without a strong sense of self (that includes openness to change and having your beliefs invalidated pretty often BTW) then you end up getting buffeted about and defined (defining yourself) by everything and everyone else, on their terms. I can see why this could be blissful. No more personal responsibility! But I also believe that this is a cop out (given the current state of weird that the world is in).

 

It was only recently that I uncovered this belief that I didn't actually deserve anything good and that everyone else was better than me. Now I wasn't born believing this. It was definitely drilled into me. I also don't believe in 'past-lives' but I do believe that structure might be 'there' and growing during gestation. Birth is about getting free of someone else :-) Do we see 'momma's boy' lions? Or 'daddy's girl' wolves?

[goldisheavy]

I agree changing your fundamental beliefs is an incredibly difficult thing to do, personally I had to have an almost complete mental breakdown to really challenge mine and even when I could see that they were causing me such suffering that my life was in ruins I still didn't want to let them go. So I tend not to believe people when they say they are changing their beliefs unless they are going through some deep suffering or had some sort of shock which has shaken up their perception.

 

Well said. People who talk lightly about changing beliefs really don't have the slightest clue. Even superficial beliefs can be hard to change.

 

Changing beliefs is possible though. I hope no one interprets anything I say as pessimism. It's just that you have to be ready for nothing less than a total voluntary insanity if you want to change a nontrivial belief.

 

I agree it's all about your parents which is why I think Jesus says those strange things in some scriptures of abandoning your parents or hating them, which I don't think is meant lierally rather you have to let go of trying to win their approval or rebelling against them as either way is a form of slavery.

 

Yes. It's not really the parents per se, it's simply that our egos are not what we think they are. We think our ego is just our personality. Our ego is the entire universe as we know it. Parents play a big role in that, but it doesn't stop there.

 

People sacrifice themselves for the betterment of mankind all the time -- this level of sacrifice is sadly not sufficient if you want Daoist immortality. Why not? Because all those people die fully clinging to the world as they knew it. They died protecting it. This is the true extent of the person's ego.

 

This is why I hardly ever talk about ego. Talking about ego generates so much misleading bullshit in people's minds, it's counterproductive. Telling people to be more humble is a very self-absorbed thing to do. Demanding humility and punishing arrogance -- all that is egoism of the highest order, the deadliest possible egoism, in fact. That's why talking about ego is a waste of time.

 

It's much better to talk about fears and to talk about hopes than it is to talk about ego. What do we fear? What do we hope for? Before we dare to move beyond hope and fear we have to know what they are first. One doesn't move beyond obstacles by a way of ignorance, by ignoring those obstacles or by pretending they don't matter when they in fact govern every breath you take, not to mention every important decision in life.

Edited June 13, 2011 by goldisheavy

[goldisheavy]

Ah well, that would partially explain the insanity-feeling thing (another reason to learn 'techniques' to calm yourself down when you're in that 'But, b-ut, but' space, I suppose). But not entirely, I'm guessing. We had a discussion a while back about self-structure and 'outside' influences and infectious memes. Sort of reminds me of the discussion about dogma of scientific content vs non-dogmatic scientific method. I digress :-)

 

Practice can help when those moments come, but in my opinion, when the real deal happens, no amount of technique practice will keep you stable. The only thing that helps is the real ability to face death, disfigurement, torture, and 10,000 demons, and nothing less will do. How do you practice for that? I don't think there is a single technique that can prepare someone for this. Contemplation can prepare a person for this, but contemplation is not a technique. Simply put it's just a fancy way of saying that you consider something deeply, steadily and repeatedly over the years. That "something" better be something pivotal, the root of the matter, or it better be something very close to the root. And the whole process has to be honest. There is no way to trick oneself into courage.

 

I currently believe that without a strong sense of self (that includes openness to change and having your beliefs invalidated pretty often BTW) then you end up getting buffeted about and defined (defining yourself) by everything and everyone else, on their terms. I can see why this could be blissful. No more personal responsibility! But I also believe that this is a cop out (given the current state of weird that the world is in).

 

I agree.

 

It was only recently that I uncovered this belief that I didn't actually deserve anything good and that everyone else was better than me.

 

I find this belief in myself in many forms. I am not anyone special to know anything good. I am not good enough to defend myself from accusations. I don't deserve to be respected or valued by women. I am not smart enough. You name it. I see all that as basically the same belief in personal insecurity and personal worthlessness, just expressed in different words that apply to different situations personal worthlessness tends to manifest in.

 

I like to think I have squashed most of this nonsense through constant examination and vigilance, but I am not so stupid anymore. After my father vision debacle, I now understand it's quite possible for my subconscious to have beliefs about myself that I don't consciously approve of. Yes, imagine that. Imagine going through life constantly pissing and shitting on yourself from the inside. The damage the world can do to you is nothing compared to what you can do to yourself internally.

 

We are our worst enemies and we are also our own best friends.

 

Someone who has become his own or her own best friend is feared in society. Why? Because such people are hard to control. Such people are hard to intimidate, hard to bullshit, hard to manipulate, and so on. When a person like that appears, people who feel threatened call for humility right away. What it means is that they want you to either take a sincere shit on yourself internally, or they at least want you to hide your power, to stop showing it in public.

 

Now I wasn't born believing this. It was definitely drilled into me. I also don't believe in 'past-lives' but I do believe that structure might be 'there' and growing during gestation. Birth is about getting free of someone else :-) Do we see 'momma's boy' lions? Or 'daddy's girl' wolves?

 

It was drilled into you? Don't be so sure. The drilling certainly happens, but we do have a choice to go along with the drilling or to reject it. I accept personal responsibility for all the drilling that's been drilled into me. In my next life I am almost certain my parents will have a job of drilling conventional nonsense into me and I am equally certain I will reject everything negative and disempowering they say. I am already set to reject it right now.

 

People are free to drill us. And we are free to ignore them.

[Birch]

"It was drilled into you? Don't be so sure. The drilling certainly happens, but we do have a choice to go along with the drilling or to reject it. I accept personal responsibility for all the drilling that's been drilled into me"

 

" accept personal responsibility for all the drilling that's been drilled into me"

 

I don't. Perhaps therein lies my failing so far? I can't hold myself responsible for other people's failure to treat me correctly in all circumstances. Which is exactly what I figure I was doing to get myself drilled in the first place. I can however, hold myself responsive to whatever the situation requires (and if someone is kicking me, I will get away :-)) So seems like we're saying something similar? Not sure.

 

If we're discussing choice in this matter, why small children would prefer to choose the option of seeing themselves as responsible, over the admission that their parents are selfish a44es and don't actually give a toss to take care of them very well...well, I've heard this and that about it. No real conclusion thus far. Is this an error of childhood?

 

Just part of human development?If it's just part of human development, then there ought to be better ways to mitigate as it's happening rather than having to adopt a range of practices to go digging it out after the fact/damage done. And don't get me started on the religious/authority/society/therapy industry stuff that plays into the whole mess.

 

IMO Wholesale taking of responsibility is another cop out :-) And when some people try to do it, they end with with grandiose visions of themselves as 'the whole shebang' when they're plainly not (is this Zen sickness?) Most certainly an aspect of the whole shebang that knows it is, per the Diamond Sutra perhaps :-) But a 10,000th thing nevertheless :-)

 

Hence 'your' immortality is a given but 'yours' is also not. So no point in wasting a life on it :-)

[goldisheavy]

"It was drilled into you? Don't be so sure. The drilling certainly happens, but we do have a choice to go along with the drilling or to reject it. I accept personal responsibility for all the drilling that's been drilled into me"

 

" accept personal responsibility for all the drilling that's been drilled into me"

 

I don't. Perhaps therein lies my failing so far? I can't hold myself responsible for other people's failure to treat me correctly in all circumstances. Which is exactly what I figure I was doing to get myself drilled in the first place. I can however, hold myself responsive to whatever the situation requires (and if someone is kicking me, I will get away :-)) So seems like we're saying something similar? Not sure.

 

I think we are talking about the same thing here. I am responsible in the sense that I always have an option to disbelieve. So if I internally rubber stamped some brainwashing, then who should I blame for this? Seems like I should be blaming myself in this case. It doesn't mean I beat myself over the head. It just means I do what I can not to get caught in that trap again.

 

If we're discussing choice in this matter, why small children would prefer to choose the option of seeing themselves as responsible, over the admission that their parents are selfish a44es and don't actually give a toss to take care of them very well...well, I've heard this and that about it. No real conclusion thus far. Is this an error of childhood?

 

Well, children want to believe that their parents love them and that they only have their best interests at heart. And for the most part it's kind of true. Parents don't think of what they are doing as brainwashing. They usually think whatever it is they impart on their kids is for the good of the kids.

 

I know my parents tried their best with me. They wanted to give me the best future possible.

 

Just part of human development?If it's just part of human development, then there ought to be better ways to mitigate as it's happening rather than having to adopt a range of practices to go digging it out after the fact/damage done. And don't get me started on the religious/authority/society/therapy industry stuff that plays into the whole mess.

 

IMO Wholesale taking of responsibility is another cop out :-) And when some people try to do it, they end with with grandiose visions of themselves as 'the whole shebang' when they're plainly not (is this Zen sickness?) Most certainly an aspect of the whole shebang that knows it is, per the Diamond Sutra perhaps :-) But a 10,000th thing nevertheless :-)

 

Hence 'your' immortality is a given but 'yours' is also not. So no point in wasting a life on it :-)

 

What??? You're being so clever in the last paragraph that I can't even understand what you're saying.

 

I'm not going to get into a discussion on the scope of one's being at this time.

[Birch]

"What??? You're being so clever in the last paragraph that I can't even understand what you're saying.

 

I'm not going to get into a discussion on the scope of one's being at this time. "

 

Ah. Is that another cop out? Accusing me of being to 'clever' to avoid discussion is a neat one

 

Parents can't know anything about the future :-)

[goldisheavy]

"What??? You're being so clever in the last paragraph that I can't even understand what you're saying.

 

I'm not going to get into a discussion on the scope of one's being at this time. "

 

Ah. Is that another cop out? Accusing me of being to 'clever' to avoid discussion is a neat one

 

Parents can't know anything about the future :-)

 

Yes, it is a cop out. I don't always have the energy to expound at length about how I view things. I'm not doing it to be mean.

 

Also, I wasn't accusing you. I was saying actually I didn't even know what you were saying to me in the last paragraph there:

 

As for the future, they really sometimes can know some things about the future. They can't know every detail, but for example, my dad predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union and we left right before it collapsed. That's one example of knowing something about the future.

 

Hence 'your' immortality is a given but 'yours' is also not.

 

If you can reword it so that a 10 year old can understand, maybe I can reply to it.

Edited June 13, 2011 by goldisheavy

[Birch]

"If you can reword it so that a 10 year old can understand, maybe I can reply to it. "

 

 

Alright. I'll try. I don't know how good at it I am since I don't speak to today's 10 year olds very often.

 

You are a unique part of life. Life goes on and even if you die, life doesn't. So don't worry about it and get on with living :-)

 

(I don't know if there's a smile in there for a ten year old :-))

 

 

How did your father predict the fall of the Soviet Union?

[goldisheavy]

"If you can reword it so that a 10 year old can understand, maybe I can reply to it. "

 

 

Alright. I'll try. I don't know how good at it I am since I don't speak to today's 10 year olds very often.

 

You are a unique part of life. Life goes on and even if you die, life doesn't. So don't worry about it and get on with living :-)

 

(I don't know if there's a smile in there for a ten year old :-))

 

I see. Well, I prefer honesty above all. For me to say "just don't worry about it and have fun" is dishonest. I enjoy my life, and not just any life. I enjoy life as I know it. I also don't enjoy my life. In other words, generally I enjoy my life, but there are many aspects I don't enjoy. So to be perfectly honest, I would be OK with all the life stopping as long as I was alive. I am OK being alone. It doesn't bother me. I know how to entertain myself with nothing but my own mind.

 

I also happen to enjoy other people because I like surprise and I like reflections. Other people offer me reflections of myself and they also bring surprises. This makes life better. But I like other people for purely selfish reasons. I just enjoy them for myself.

 

I am not afraid of death anymore, and haven't been for some time. I am afraid of transfiguration. So for example, when my body becomes infinite, that's scary. I also fear a state of mind where I don't know what is real and what isn't. As it happens, such a state of mind is crucial to freedom, so I am basically afraid of freedom.

 

Now, the reason I don't fear death is because I don't associate myself with my body or my personality. I've seen myself without the body and without personality and even without a shred of humanity in me. I know I can exist in those other forms. So when those forms end, that's no longer a cause for panic. So I don't fear death. But I still have a preference. So while I no longer panic at the idea of my customary form going away, I still fear what would happen if I become altogether different from how I am now. The main reason is that I don't know if it's going to be comfortable or not. I don't like pain or discomfort.

 

How did your father predict the fall of the Soviet Union?

 

That's a complicated question to answer. This is how I think he did it.

 

First, he's a widely read individual, so he had a very broad knowledge base spanning many topics of human knowledge. Also, it's not just reading books, but it's having a genuine interest in the topics. Genuine interest is the key because without genuine interest, you can read for years and learn nothing.

 

Secondly, my father is highly skeptical and he imparted this skepticism on me, and to this day I consider it the greatest treasure. He told me never to believe anything 100% and to always leave room for doubt. I took that advice to heart as soon as I heard it. So my dad looks at all things with a critical eye. Naturally this means he had the capacity to look at the social order and the actions of the government in that light.

 

Thirdly, my father was working at the management level, and he socialized with a lot of people, some of whom were pretty high up in the hierarchy of power. This gave him access to some amount of privileged information. That amount was small, but it was better than nothing.

 

Fourthly, even though the government controlled the media, if you knew how to read between the lines, you could see the criticism of the government all over the place. In other words, control of the media can never be total. Meanings are much too subtle and nuanced to fully control. My dad always emphasized reading between the lines when I was growing up. In this manner you can learn things even if someone tries to repress information. But reading between the lines is not easy because it relies a huge deal of inner honesty. It's an art.

 

So my dad would simply reflect on all that he knew about the situation and he determined that the situation was not sustainable.

[Birch]

"For me to say "just don't worry about it and have fun" is dishonest."

 

No, I said, 'get on with living' which is actually pretty challenging in many respects. And why should 'having fun' be antithetical? I happen to 'have fun' un-brainwashing myself and learning how to challenge my own stupidly received ideas about many things :-)

Every day, I think to myself, 'what do I want?'. Even allowing myself to entertain the thought is 'practice'.

 

The story of your Dad was interesting!

 

I was pondering my earlier statement about 'Parents can't know the future' and I wanted to add that if they did, they would treat children as being already on the correct trajectory for it from the start, rather than attempting to turn them into a model of their failed past or missed opportunity.

 

An example would be just 'working'. I was brought up to 'work hard' with the distant goal of being a corporate cog. Had my parents recognized me from the start, they would have understood the 'best' trajectory and so in effect 'done their best'. But what they recognized was, someone else. And so didn't 'get it' and probably had quite a hard time in their 'not getting it'. They actually still don't :-)

 

But I do think there are things that can be imparted to children that are useful ('good for them') whoever they are. Skepticism is one of them. I'm sure there is a list of workable things :-) And I'm almost also sure that teaching kids some of them would be frowned upon:-)

[goldisheavy]

"For me to say "just don't worry about it and have fun" is dishonest."

 

No, I said, 'get on with living' which is actually pretty challenging in many respects. And why should 'having fun' be antithetical? I happen to 'have fun' un-brainwashing myself and learning how to challenge my own stupidly received ideas about many things :-)

Every day, I think to myself, 'what do I want?'. Even allowing myself to entertain the thought is 'practice'.

 

This is more or less how I live my life.

 

The story of your Dad was interesting!

 

I was pondering my earlier statement about 'Parents can't know the future' and I wanted to add that if they did, they would treat children as being already on the correct trajectory for it from the start, rather than attempting to turn them into a model of their failed past or missed opportunity.

 

An example would be just 'working'. I was brought up to 'work hard' with the distant goal of being a corporate cog. Had my parents recognized me from the start, they would have understood the 'best' trajectory and so in effect 'done their best'. But what they recognized was, someone else. And so didn't 'get it' and probably had quite a hard time in their 'not getting it'. They actually still don't :-)

 

But I do think there are things that can be imparted to children that are useful ('good for them') whoever they are. Skepticism is one of them. I'm sure there is a list of workable things :-) And I'm almost also sure that teaching kids some of them would be frowned upon:-)

 

I think the future is neither completely obscure nor completely predictable. If you are well informed and if you have access to a relatively dispassionate area of your being, you can feel the future moving and crystallizing inside your being. You can feel where the state of the world is going. It's not a scientific process and it does not give one a way to predict the future in every detail, but I think we can see certain trends develop.

 

When you are talking about personal future, such as what is the best possible future for you as a person, that's much more complicated to know. It's almost impossible to know for anyone other than you. My dad could not really predict my own future as an individual. I've done many things that have surprised him in terms of the details, but when it comes to my general development, I don't think he's surprised.

 

I've read somewhere that whatever we try to consciously teach kids only ends up being 5% of what they learn. Kids learn the other 95% through subconscious cues and hidden assumptions. In other words, kids absorb parental body language, they absorb unspoken implications, and so on. All that hidden stuff makes up 95% of what kids learn and the consciously spoken stuff is only 5%. I tend to agree with this assessment. So in other words, even if you don't try to teach the kids much, or if you do, it almost makes no difference. Kids will pick up all the bad ideas and all the good ideas that the parents have simply through all the subtle cues they can perceive subconsciously. Of course kids also learn from their peers and from strangers as well. They learn from the whole of society.

 

So the best way to teach kids the right thing is to transform one's own being before having a kid. Then no matter what you say, the kid will pick up on the hints of that being.

 

Still, even with the best efforts, kids are their own persons. We can't really control them. Kids will walk their own path anyway. It's futile to try to manipulate them beyond just giving them some starting tools.

[C T]

 

 

So the best way to teach kids the right thing is to transform one's own being before having a kid. Then no matter what you say, the kid will pick up on the hints of that being.

 

Said well, Gold!

 

Absolutely... to how kids pick up/sense the vibes of those closest to them, as mentioned above.

Edited June 14, 2011 by CowTao