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RE: The Slacker's Guide to the Great Remission: UNTYING THE KNOT: THE PARADOX OF CIVILIZATION (part 2)
I would say I am half a Slacker. Though the bandwidth seems to me to be a little more broad than what I got the impression from reading your Slackers Guide. Do you feel pain in the same amount as you feel pleasure from being a Slacker? I decided a while ago that I won't take the burden of civilization on my shoulder. Do what I can, help where it is needed. Consume with sanity.
Not many people are able to live slackerish or half- slacker wise. And like you said you depend on the other ones and they on you to mirror each other. This civilizations will die for sure. In one or another way. That's what happened to all of them. In the review they fascinate us. If there will be no humans left to be fascinated something else will appear. :)
If we seek happiness it will elude us. Those who seek the most comfort are the most uncomfortable. Being a Slacker is about doing the right thing, about waking up to truth, not about self fulfillment. That's why nobody but you appears to be interested. At first I was disappointed, but now I've rexposed myself this this wisdom, thanks to you.
Thank you.
What touches me is the simplicity and truth in those wise words.
Pictures speak through centuries. That is why language can better be used by picturing things instead of trying to communicate in an abstract way. I must say I am trying to lose the habit of the latter. But it's difficult.
Thank you for that.
hm.. I would think many people are interested. It depends on factors I cannot look through or argue with you. But I am sure, they are.
Words and pictures are necessary for communication between individuals and groups, but these symbolic representations are inaccurate and prone to misinterpretation. But they are all we have.
What the sages say is to not use words or pictures to communicate with yourself. That is what meditation does (and psychedelic drugs to some extent). Meditation seeks to stop the thought process while drugs scramble it beyond interpretation. One is active and is something to be learned and adopted. The other is passive and temporary but very revealing, a sideshow along the path.
I'm sure there is interest somewhere, but I doubt that a platform obsessed with financial gain is the place I'll find it. It's not the choir that I want to preach to, those already awakened. It's the alcoholics in the bar and the customers and prostitutes in the whore house that interest me. They are by far the majority, the ocean liner steaming toward the precipitous rim of the world that I'm trying to turn before its too late. I know it's foolish, but I have no motivation for anything else. This is what I'm supposed to do.
I guess I perceive it different - but again, I won't argue.
It seems you feel attracted to the special ones, who experienced pain. I don't know if they are the majority. Maybe yes, maybe no. ...
If this is what you are supposed to do I don't want to talk you out of it. In the meantime enjoy the time with us other steemians who give breaks from alcoholics, whores and insane or broken ones:) ... though everyone carries some part of painbody and brokenness within him or her.
You don't have to accept what I say. I'm interested in your perceptions. That is why I'm here. I realize that I'm way out there. Tell me what you think.
Everyone experiences pain. It's how we deal with the pain that is important. We can believe that the world needs perfecting in order to alleviate that pain, or we can accept that the world is perfect and accept and experience our pain as part of a path of spiritual growth.
Avoidance is aversion, the flip-side of desire, the Second Noble Truth. One path destroys the very planet on which we all live and the other does not. We aren't going to turn Earth into a paradise based on human desires. The Earth already is Paradise and we are part of it. All effort to make it better makes it worse. People used to adapt to the planet, live within its natural boundaries for millions of years. Now we try to make it fit some abstract idea of perfection. Man created God in his image, not the other way around.
If we believe we are this ego inside a body we will suffer and we will die. If we identify with that which brings the ego and the body into being we cannot die.
In an ultimate sense, none of this matters. Humans can continue to ignore their ignorance right up until their last gasp, be happy in their delusions, eat up the Earth the way a fungus shrivels an apple.
Consciousness will continue beyond the human form. Though it isn't important in any real sense, the path of pain Humanity travels is totally unnecessary. It's done because people don't know how to behave otherwise. It's done because of their social programming.
People are free to do what they will. I wouldn't have it otherwise. I just want people to make conscious decisions based on reality and not delusion. If they simply did that, the world would right itself and the Earth would heal.
Actually I am on the same path you are on.
In my daily profession I deal with people who suffer and/or need some other support like communicating with government and the officials. I am helping people to get along within what difficulties they are facing or do their share that problematic things happen to them.
In this I realize my own resistances when I want them to be okay again, when I try to push them to what I think is right. Being open minded (accepting) is one of the most challenging tasks I realize every day. Though it is the best practice I can imagine. Not avoiding situations where my inner judge comes into play is what saves me from becoming ignorant too much.
Through steemit - and other meetings - I am confronting myself with the noble truths, the causes for suffering. The stings I feel when I notice my envy. Then to accept that I do feel that way. Then let go of it. Then feel the release. Then view what else I have in my heart and mind, what is not envy.
From Buddhism I learned that there have to be three things to gain wisdom and awake eventually to reality. Buddha (as an ideal figure), Dharma (the teachings) and Sangha (spiritual buddies). I find it very useful and I am most thankful that this religion/philosophy/psychology is actually very much practicable and transferable to daily life. I am sure that studying the teachings for quite a while has already changed my life.
Your article was confronting me with pain. As to take care of me not letting myself being carried away by that, I used the term of not wanting to argue. Because - of course - I felt resistance to what you've said - thinking that I know it all and I am having enough of it for a liftetime (exploitation, destruction). I gave my wish up that humans should act as they are part of the earths organism - it caused me too much head/heartache and nothing good came out of it other than I was contagiously handing my pain over to the next one.
Sangha is something I do not practice. As I am not a member of a Buddhist center and there are actually no people in my circle with whom I can exchange what I learned or what I think about the teachings. Through writing communication it's quite time consuming:) So maybe I am ahead and searching for Sangha and where I can find refuge once in a while. Also, another part is missing in my journey, that is meditation. I did it only on occasion and don't dare to do it on a regular basis. But when doing my stuff consciously already counts as meditation, then I do :)
This is excellent practice. Judgement is simply a survival tool. We need it at times. It isn't something to be avoided or thrown away. We need only recognize where judgement originates and see that the decision we make by using it isn't correct or incorrect in any fundamental way. It is just one of those thought bubbles that pop up from time to time that need to be examined and then let go.
I decide whether I will stop at a red light or ignore it and continue into the intersection. I stop not because it's the law but because perhaps that is the most appropriate action, a decision that will potentially protect me from physical damage. We get into trouble when we take great pride in our decision and feel that somehow it is superior to not stopping. It isn't. It's just our judgement call.
Somehow society has gotten the notion that judgement is a bad thing, that avoiding that suspicious looking black kid or that cop car parked behind the bush is being discriminatory. And of course it is. It is discernment, a necessary survival skill. Entangling your ego with judgement is the stumbling block.
Please don't take any of this as a personal attack. It isn't. I totally understand where you are coming from because I've been there too. Pain and discomfort avoidance is another interesting cultural change that I've experienced within the span of my lifetime: people's belief that pain is to be avoided and not experienced to it's fullest and that being challenged to examine themselves and their actions is inconvenient and detrimental to their well being.
Pain is a wonderful teacher. It tells us that something is amiss. A person could walk around with a stone in their shoe and simply take a pain pill rather than discovering the problem and then remove the stone. By avoiding the pain, they're damaging their foot and not taking care of themselves. People who refuse to examine their actions because it makes them feel bad about themselves, damages their "self" image are the reason the world is dying beneath our feet. Problems must be recognized before they can be fixed. Avoiding issues because they are painful perpetuates them.
If you'll recall Ekhart Tolle's story of his liberation, how he was suicidal and utterly despondent; he could no longer live with himself. He hit bottom and from that emotional pain he experienced tremendous growth. Had he avoided his pain, he never would have evolved and nobody would ever have heard of him.
Thank you for sharing. You'll see yourself grow as you continue to monitor your thoughts and emotions. I'm nothing like I was even just a few years ago. It is a difficult and potentially dangerous path, but if there is any purpose to this crazy life, this is it.
I have yet to find my sangha. This is my 40 years alone in the wilderness. Thanks for the conversation.
I thank you, ... @citizenzero. Would like to know your real name :)
that is another good picture to get the message. Now I hang up the phone. LOL!
Yeah, this is it.
I am having a hard time to see it as dangerous any more. I rather look at it as a blessing. But still attach a good amount of heaviness in it. But this is going to be of lighter weight, I guess when time goes by. At least when death is knocking on my door :)