What Shapes Our Lives - My Response to TribeSteemup's Bi-weekly Question...
@Tribesteemup had this question for us these last couple of weeks -
"What makes you into the person you are today? Is it all destiny or do we play a hand in shaping who we are?
I believe the effect of Kamma (Karma in Sanskrit) has a lot to do with the unfolding of your life.
With this in mind, also knowing that we create our Karma, that certain actions will bring about certain resultants, and adding to it the impermanence of life and the human condition of attachment to this life, I can see that we do have a great deal to do with shaping our lives.
If we have a positive and compassionate outlook of life, cultivate good karma, and work towards improving the spiritual quality of life, we will find more happiness in our life. If we live a happy and full life when it comes to an end, to the point that of death where we seek out attachment to a new body and new life. it's that knowing how to live well, be in an awakened state - for me that means having a loving attitude, being responsible and compassionate with no regrets, That knowing how to live well will allows a person to die well, to be able to let go without a struggle for something that is inevitable.
Just as a well spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings a happy death. - Leonardo Da Vinci.
That impermanence becomes clearer as I age and I know it will become more so as I approach my final moments. But with this knowledge and wisdom, I'm motivated to live a a better life, cultivate good karma and improve the spiritual quality of my life.
From Buddhist teachings I've realized that it's the final moment of our consciousness that is the most important moment. That's when the accumulated karmic forces are activated. It is this death moment that brings about the birth moment.
I take up the philosophy of
living each moment as if it were your last.
Once you are born there is a lot of potential as a human being but it has to be developed.
We are all born with certain instincts and behaviors that enable us to survive, have our base needs met.
Along with these base needs there is also the need for security, love and belonging.
It's really interesting that when these needs are not met in children, how it effects their development and behavior. This attachment need with our parents, who we are totally dependent on, comes at a time when the child's brain is only just coming into being and the adult's brain is fully developed, which makes for an asymmetrical relationship, which can be difficult to navigate.
Gabor Mate shares some wonderful insights into this and how parents or caregivers can work towards fulfilling these needs in their children.
For a more expanded talk from Dr. Gabor, an expertise on childhood trauma, stress, and the mind-body connection, and more of his view on human development tune in below -
A lot of Gabor's work is on addictions and how it can reveal underlying traumas and effects they have on our behavior.
Looking at addiction, which most of us have had at some point in our lives, although they may be very simple addictions such as to sweets or social media, You can see what's behind this addictive behavior by asking such questions as
What kind of problem were you trying to solve with that behavior?
What is it you were really wanting from it?
What need(s) are you trying to fulfill?
Answer those questions truthfully and some truths about yourself may be revealed.
I'm fascinated with that, for how much of our lives do we live out by our conditioning and how can we be free from that conditioning and be more our true selves.
Here's a great quote from Socrates
The unexamined life is not worth living
Let's say those needs I mentioned previously were being met, there is also the need for esteem, having meaning/purpose, doing something worthwhile.
Here is a talk from one of the great thinkers of our time - Jordon Peterson "FIND MEANING IN YOUR LIFE"
And more from Gabor Mate
Then there is one more thing we need to address - that of self-actualization, where you transcend the mundane and you find fulfillment, with desires falling away. A wonderful state of being! Something worth pursuing!
Have you heard of the Mindful Life Community which resides in the @naturalmedicine server here.
We run group meditations and support each other as we grow through conscious awareness. With much love!
Discord 🧘About Image from Pixabay
Grateful for the curation and support of @tribesteemup
Great response porters, Karma is the ultimate truth of life.
Great response porters, Karma is the ultimate truth of life.
Living each moment as if it were your last...
I love that advice. I'm not sure I always live it... I mean, right now on on Steemit haha.
This really resonates with me. I think Dad is going to die in a way that really shows understanding of what it means to live well. You put into writing a lot of the stuff I've been thinking about lately. Thankyou xx
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I know, I don't always live it either but it is always good to have reminders!
You know I was thinking of you when I wrote this @riverflows. I was wondering if people would find it too heavy. But death is a part of life and they are so tied together that if you live well you will die well and knowing that you will die helps you live a more fuller life. So happy your Dad has that understanding! Love to you both!
That's a wonderful read @porters, a different perspective making me think about this whole subject. Yes as we near death the consciousness awakens more and more and we realize how we have shaped up our life with our actions. There are so many factors controlling our life. As children we have no or very little control over our life and what happens at that stage of our life decides our personality and character. As we grow up the personality and the character decides our type of actions and behavior. It is all a vicious circle. As we mature we start realizing that so much of drama is not required and we start moving towards simplicity, i.e. if the realization comes through.
Well said! And yes, all depending if the realization comes through!
I think it all comes back to what we are doing right now, this moment are we living true to ourselves, to our best intentions. It is a big question really, where both destiny certainly plays a part but then we create that destiny as well. It is kind of one and the same if we really are living true to ourselves xx
Yes, it's fascinating really, when you get right down to it ,it is only this moment that we really have!
As I was reading your post, to each point you made I just kept nodding my head in agreement... until I came to the part about self actualization. It's not that I disagree with it, but I guess I just don't understand it properly.
Your description sound like nirvana, in a way. Shedding desires, transcending the mundane, reaching enlightenment, and just being. Without needs and wants, without happiness or sadness, just being. Now, as peaceful as it may sound, to me this seems awfully close to being dead. Not in a bad way, (or a good one, for that matter), just absent from whatever else we have going in here, in the ups and downs of life.
Please don't get me wrong, this isn't the first time this question came up for me, but so far I haven't been able to get my head around it. So I brought it up, because from your article it seems like you have.
Actually I did want to mention the ultimate goal of Nirvana (Sanskrit: nirvāṇa; Pali: nibbana) - the ending of clinging and suffering. For it is that clinging which gives rise to suffering which, in turn, gives rise to further clinging. It's kind of a self-perpetuating process that continues on and on and is the “fuel” for rebirth. So the ultimate goal is to break out of that cycle. I didn't mention it in my post for I thought people would think I was just spewing a bunch of religious jargon but my understanding is growing where I can see the Four Noble Truths (as the Buddha puts it)
Same here "live each moment as if it were your last". I try to live by it each day but sometimes there are days that you would just want to breathe, relax and do nothing at all to recharge. I am thinking more of the physical stuff but good thing you brought up the spiritual improvement.