[85IbLcwQ]

Hello everyone,

It has been only three days since i joined this forum and here i am asking questions again, i am so sorry for that but as you know the beginning is always hard. I already started reading books and listening to audio files provided by other members, i also started practicing meditation (not very successful though).

I will try to organize my thoughts in three main points:

1- Have any of you experienced fear at the beginning? have you felt that its too risky to become buddhist? Let us have a look at what sort of things you have to give up to become a buddhist:

A- To abandon my ego: maybe the ego can cause suffering and can be troublesome somtimes, but it still mine and i have been identifying myself with it my whole life, and what is the substitution: something incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it! and there is no guarantee that i will ever get there (or it may take me many lifes!)

B- To give up passion: according to existentialists, being passionate about something is the only way to have a subjective meaning to your life in a meaningless world.

C- To liberate myself from desires: how dry and boring my life could be without desires?

So is it too risky to become a buddhist (considering things that you have to give up)? have you guys expeirenced this sort of fears? what is the best way to control them?

2- One of the most interesting concepts in psychology is "cognitive dissonance" which is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying, blaming, and denying. To have better understanding please read the following story:

"Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked, 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.' People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves"

Could that be the case with buddhism (renouncing material stuff when you cannot attain them)? does that explain why buddhism flourished in poor countries and started to decline when economies in asia started to boom?

Buddhism asks us to drop our ego, so is it possible that the dropper is the ego (in a more subtle/cunning/harder-to-detect way)? is buddhism another way for the ego to strengthen itself (so instead of calling people poor/lazy/failures we call them modest/ content/spiritually rich which is quite fulfiling for the ego)!

3- (this question might sound strange to some) last night i was watching Tv and then i started to look at my nephews playing around, chasing each other and laughing out loud! then i started to wonder why kids (generally speaking) happier than adults! isnt it because they do what buddhism tells us to do? they live in the present moment (they dont think much about past and future), they dont have complex ego and they are quite simple and happy , then i started to think about newly born babies who dont have ego at all, they dont think at all yet they are conscious beings, they see things as they are without interpretation, judgement and they dont take things personal. As such, is it safe to assume that we are all born somehow enlightened untill adults/society spoil us?

Finally, once again i apologize if my posts are a bit long, but i dont have any buddhist temples or buddhist communities in my country and i have been looking for so long untill i found this forum.

Cheers

[fluistulkn]

Conflicting emotions sums up how I came to understand the results obtained from chasing desires in the search of happiness - even when able to focus on the moment like a child does, without right view of desire, rather than finding peace and serenity one is more likely to end up having a temper tantrum in the moment. Any fear that practice has shown me was already there; denied or hidden maybe, but driving me never the less.

[Maydayvar]

Hi Bundokji,

There are rather a lot of different things to address in your post.

In response to the first part of question 1 :

1- Have any of you experienced fear at the beginning? have you felt that its too risky to become buddhist? Let us have a look at what sort of things you have to give up to become a buddhist:...... No, personally I didn't experience any fear. Studying and practising Dhamma results in increased understanding rather than ''having to give anything up". If we change in any way, then it happens naturally as a result of our understanding.

I hope you don't mind me saying this - but personally I'd appreciate it if you could split up your questions into just one or maybe two with a similar subject per topic thread - and in that way more members might be inclined to respond to them and we could have threads with specific themes.


with kind wishes to you,


Aloka-D

[Bbjhjxfy]

Hello Aloka,

Thanks for your reply. While i totally agree with you that if i split up my questions into different threads more members will be inclined to answer them, but i believe that raising questions is good in its own right even if kept unanswered.

Sometimes i ask questions when i already know the answer, my intentiion is not to question other member's knowledge (that would be silly) but to examine different interpretations to the same issue as everone of us look at it from a different angle.

My questions could be food for thought for beginners even if kept unanswered. Those with thirst for knowledge would contemplate on the issues raised and do their own research.

For the more experienced members, my questions might remind them of some basics while they focus on more advance issues. One of the disadvantages of having advanced knowledge is that you spend most of your time looking at details and you forget about the big picture hence we found many sects in buddhism and many scholars got too deep into buddhism to the extent that they forgot the orginial message of Buddha. I am not sure if you ever heared about Osho and his large collection of Rolls Royce!!!

From my understanding, the Buddha treated all bhikkhus the same to aviod the most senior ones of having high opinion of themselves hence the second question in my orignial post comes in as handy reminder how cunning and decptive the ego can be even to the more senior members of this forum. My question about kids can be taken as a reminder that we can learn even from kids how to be happy without a reason

To sum up: questions does not have to be answered to be beneficial.

Peace

PS: Osho was NOT Buddhist but a spiritual teacher

[MilenaJaf]

Buddhism is the middle way, It's not about extremes, though it can be interpreted that way by some people.
take your time with it, and enjoy it

[M1iFiNmC]

1- Have any of you experienced fear at the beginning? have you felt that its too risky to become buddhist? Let us have a look at what sort of things you have to give up to become a buddhist:

No. On the contrary. When I read for the very first time the Four Noble Truths something resonated telling that this was the true path to be followed in absolute confidence.

Agree with Aloka, Bundojky... try to make shorter posts...

[MightyMasd]

A- To abandon my ego: maybe the ego can cause suffering and can be troublesome somtimes, but it still mine and i have been identifying myself with it my whole life, and what is the substitution: something incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it! and there is no guarantee that i will ever get there (or it may take me many lifes!)

To abandon ego happens when impermanence is realized, understood, experienced. When there is the realization that there is no such thing as "I", "me" or "mine". That nothing really belongs to us, because of impermanence.

B- To give up passion: according to existentialists, being passionate about something is the only way to have a subjective meaning to your life in a meaningless world. Buddha recommends dispassion, a quite mind, awareness so to find happiness in the world as it is and not as we want it to be. Passionate feelings are because we crave, we cling and we get attached to what is by nature impermanent and will lead us into endless unsatisfactoriness due bringing pain, lamentation, sorrow, stress and all the bunch of sufferings.

C- To liberate myself from desires: how dry and boring my life could be without desires? Try to be liberated from craving and clinging... experience it and then decide Bundojky.

Could that be the case with buddhism (renouncing material stuff when you cannot attain them)? does that explain why buddhism flourished in poor countries and started to decline when economies in asia started to boom? Not at all. I live in a poor country and what has flourished is Catholisism not Buddhism. In the US and United Kingdom, there, Buddhism has flourished in an outstanding way. Japan has a huge Zen Buddhist tradition.

Buddhism can give us happiness with out the need of an outstanding set of material things around us. This do not mean that we have to live in poverty. The Buddha never advised that.

Buddhism asks us to drop our ego, so is it possible that the dropper is the ego (in a more subtle/cunning/harder-to-detect way)? is buddhism another way for the ego to strengthen itself (so instead of calling people poor/lazy/failures we call them modest/ content/spiritually rich which is quite fulfiling for the ego)! There is no such dropping but realization that there is no real "I", "me" or "mine" through deep contemplation of impermanent nature of things.

[GAGNAPPEAPH]

Bundokji, I had some anxiety early on when I started realizing what anatta entails. I thought that Buddhist practice would somehow erase my Self, and "I" might become some sort of zombie. But then I read and realized that there was never a Self in the first place, except as a perceptual illusion, and that realizing anatta wouldn't change any inherent aspect of being. Getting rid of the illusion is not losing your Self; it's realizing that Selfhood has always been an illusion. Realizing that opens a practically infinite number of possibilities and helps free one of the imaginary chains that bind us to a static, pre-programmed state of being. That's not to say that you will never experience any unpleasant feelings, but that you will start to not identify with them, cling to them, or see them as any sort of threat. Fear will dissipate as your understanding of how things are deepens, in my experience. Trust the mind. It knows a lot more than the "person" does.

[glazgoR@]

Hi Kaarine,

Do you know what causes disappointment? its the gap between expectations and reality lol, you and Aloka practice meditation so you guys have clear minds and the ability to focus on one point at a time! me, my mind is messed up and keep on drifting from one idea to another and i think this is obvious looking at my posts lol

Last night i tried to practice meditation to calm my mind but it did work!! First of all i have a very rigid body so i could not make the lotus position, then i tried meditating lying in bed but i started to feel sleepy then i tried to sit on the chair but i could not calm my mind, not even a little lol so instead of feeling relaxed i got more stressed for my inability to meditate and first thing i ve done is to go out and buy cigarettes (i am not a regular smoker) so now when i hear the word meditation i wince!! lol

I ve read about meditation from different sources and everyone explain it in a differnt way! some say just stop thinking and focus on your breathing, others say observe your thinking, a third source described it as living in the present moment, a fourth source defined it as "lack of measurment", i dont know why things always have to be complicated? lol

If you have any sources that describs meditation is an easy-straight forward way please send me the link so i can start practising and i am sure that the quality of my posts will imporve afterwards

[MFSSCW2c]

You could try this Buddhist meditation series by Ajahn Jayasaro which can be found on YouTube. This first one is the introduction.

[aAaBecker]

Hello FBM,

After reading your post i just realized that the idea of rebirth in Buddhism is different than reincarnation in hindusim!!! Most of the posts here are so deep and informative so thank you for that.

Can i ask you a question? what is the nature of mind according to Buddhism? is it moism or dualism? what is the source of Qualia according to buddhism?

Also yesterday i ve read one of your posts and you quoted "If it wasnt supposed to be that way, it would not be" which sound like fatalism to me!! in addition, i noticed many on this forum keep on talking about cause and effect which implies that they believe in a determinstic universe!! so how can you believe in a determinstic universe and believe in free well at the same time? (in a determinstic universe there is no such a thing as free well)

Thanks mate

[Thigmaswams]

Thanks Aloka, much appreciated.

Cheers

[darieBarexish]

Hi Kaarine,

Do you know what causes disappointment? its the gap between expectations and reality lol, you and Aloka practice meditation so you guys have clear minds and the ability to focus on one point at a time! me, my mind is messed up and keep on drifting from one idea to another and i think this is obvious looking at my posts lol

Please do not desperate Bundokji. I have to confess that the most hardest aspect of Buddhism, at least for me, has been meditation. So I recommend you, from my very personal experience, that before being started at meditation read about the teachings of Buddha.

"Handbook for Mankind" is a very good introduction to what the Buddha taught. Meditation is one of three aspects that are covered by Buddha. The issues that are to be understood as non self, for example, need a preliminary understanding before one starts to meditate.

Last night i tried to practice meditation to calm my mind but it did work!! First of all i have a very rigid body so i could not make the lotus position, then i tried meditating lying in bed but i started to feel sleepy then i tried to sit on the chair but i could not calm my mind, not even a little lol so instead of feeling relaxed i got more stressed for my inability to meditate and first thing i ve done is to go out and buy cigarettes (i am not a regular smoker) so now when i hear the word meditation i wince!! lol I practice Zazen. The meditation system of Soto Zen schools. Here you can access a good resource for this kind of meditation. I suggest that to get started in meditation, a group, a dojo, a temple and a teacher are important so to learn well the system you have chosen and bring it to home and private practice.

Shearing meditation with a group is a wonderful experience. Meditation retreats are of great help. Share together experiences, pitfalls and doubts about meditation with others is great too.

I ve read about meditation from different sources and everyone explain it in a different way! some say just stop thinking and focus on your breathing, others say observe your thinking, a third source described it as living in the present moment, a fourth source defined it as "lack of measurment", i dont know why things always have to be complicated? lol The very first step is the honest desire to meditate, to chose a comfortable posture, to take not more than just five minutes, breath smoothly, tranquilize mind and body and never rush yourself with it.

[Angelinaaiiiiiiiii]

Just briefly on two points. I am with you on cognitive dissonance; our minds are often full of a lot of conflicting trivia that makes us more miserable. I "meditate" ongoingly in my own way.
While I find what I know of Buddhism as somewhat confusing and contradictory perhaps I am looking at aspects contrary to where I am presently at (if anywhere?).
Sorry make that 3 points, Osho, in my view, was a materialistic fraud who used fudgy logic to the extreme.

[Assungusa]

Hello Kaarine,

Thank you kindly for being so generous and sharing your knowledge with me. I already started reading the book and i think its quite impressive. The book seems to be emphasizing on the importance of practicing rather than reading:

" To establish mindfulness, to watch and wait, to examine in the manner described the suffering that comes to one-- this is very best way to penetrate to Buddha-Dhamma. It is infinitely better than learning it from the Tipitaka. Busily studying Dhamma in the Tipitaka from the linguistic or literary viewpoint is no way to come to know the true nature of things. Of course the Tipitaka is full of explanations as to the nature of things; but the trouble is that people listen to it in the manner of parrots or talking myna birds, repeating later what they have been able to memorize. They themselves are incapable of penetrating to the true nature of things. If instead they would do some introspection and discover for themselves the facts of mental life, find out firsthand the properties of the mental defilements, of suffering, of nature, in other words of all the things in which they are involved, they would then be able to penetrate to the real Buddha- Dhamma. Though a person may never have seen or even heard of the Tipitaka, if he carries out detailed investigation every time suffering arises and scorches his mind he can be said to be studying the Tipitaka directly, and far more correctly than people actually in the process of reading it."

However, there is something i ve read in the book and started worrying me which is the methodolgy Buddhism use to obtain knowledge. The buddha has already given us his conclusion regarding the true nature of things (reality) through the four noble truths and the three universal charachterstic and then he showed us the bath to exmine his claims. The problem with this methodolgy is that it puts the cart before the horse!!! The correct way is to make your research and then reach a answer (this is what the Buddha has done), not having the answer and then trying to prove it through research (what his followers have been trying to do).

So if i started studying and doing my own research on the true nature of things and then reach a conclusion that differs from the one the Buddha has given us then its ME who has to be wrong!!! have you ever considered that the Buddha himself might be wrong and that everything he experienced was mere hallucinations??!! (no offence or disrespect here but a genuine question)

To be honest with you being a skeptic and my lack of belief in anything did not make my life any easier!!!

Tomorrow first thing i will do is to look at the video provided by Aloka and the link provided by you to have a better understanding how to practice meditation.

Cheers

[corkBrobe]

Hi Murchovski,

Osho is a very controversial figure and his life can be divided into two main stages: 1- when he was in india 2-when he moved to the US.

I would agree with your despcription of him if you are talking about the second stage, but not the first one.

Cheers

[jacknates]

Hello FBM,

After reading your post i just realized that the idea of rebirth in Buddhism is different than reincarnation in hindusim!!! Most of the posts here are so deep and informative so thank you for that.

Can i ask you a question? what is the nature of mind according to Buddhism? is it moism or dualism? what is the source of Qualia according to buddhism?

First of all, you're welcome. A lot of people fail to distinguish reincarnation and rebirth.

The nature of the mind? Fleeting, I'd say. All sensations, perceptions, thoughts and feelings are fleeting phenomena, and clinging to them only brings disappointment, stress and confusion. The monist/dualist question is a false dilemma, I think. In Buddhism, mind is ongoing activity of a pluralistic set of conditions, not entities, as far as I know.

And most Buddhists I know wouldn't know qualia from quail. Qualia is, in my opinion, just another label for or classification of experience. If the concept is useful, it will survive, but not so many people are finding it useful, outside a few philosophers.

Also yesterday i ve read one of your posts and you quoted "If it wasnt supposed to be that way, it would not be" which sound like fatalism to me!! There's nothing fatalistic about it, to me. It's just another way of saying that there's nothing unnatural in the universe. Everything behaves according to natural laws. Whatever happens is natural, therefore, if it wasn't supposed to be that way, it wouldn't be. If you have a pessimistic outlook, you could interpret that fatalistically, but if you have an optimistic outlook, you would see the opposite. Buddhism is, in this case, the middle way. Neither optimistic nor pessimistic, just realistic.


in addition, i noticed many on this forum keep on talking about cause and effect which implies that they believe in a determinstic universe!! so how can you believe in a determinstic universe and believe in free well at the same time? (in a determinstic universe there is no such a thing as free well) A lot of people are unversed in the free will vs determinism issue, so that may explain why so many people (on this forum or elsewhere) make contradictory or equivocal statements about it. Buddhist philosophy avoids the issue by pointing out that, first of all, the existence of enduring entities that might make choices is an illusion (anatta). Also, paticca samuppada (conditioned co-arising of phenomena) is the observation that certain prior conditions tend to give rise to a limited number of new conditions, which in turn give rise to a limited range of fresh conditions, ad infinitum. This is much more in line with a probabilistic cosmology, not a deterministic one. That said, Buddhism does not assert or claim to teach a cosmology, anyway. The Buddha taught the existence of stress, its cause, its cure, and a practical means to set up the conditions that lead to the ending of stress. Everything else in the suttas is either connected to this path or is superfluous, I think.


Thanks mate Thank YOU for the interesting discussion!

[Herimoisige]

Hello Kaarine,

Thank you kindly for being so generous and sharing your knowledge with me. I already started reading the book and i think its quite impressive. The book seems to be emphasizing on the importance of practicing rather than reading:

You are welcome Bundokji. It is a book I have found really useful. Hope that, going through it, can make easier the understanding of the teachings of Buddha.

However, there is something i ve read in the book and started worrying me which is the methodolgy Buddhism use to obtain knowledge. The buddha has already given us his conclusion regarding the true nature of things (reality) through the four noble truths and the three universal charachterstic and then he showed us the bath to exmine his claims. The problem with this methodolgy is that it puts the cart before the horse!!! The correct way is to make your research and then reach a answer (this is what the Buddha has done), not having the answer and then trying to prove it through research (what his followers have been trying to do). The teachings of Buddha are about ethical conduct, contemplation and meditation. The way to practice its teachings is through understanding, then practice what has been understood and then evaluation of the results given by such understanding and its practice.

The evaluation is quite simple. It is about the achievement of a peaceful state of mind, no craving, no clinging and awareness of the present moment; those will bring you sooner or later to have a peaceful existence within yourself and with the environment and the loosening of the learnt sense of selfhood.

The understanding is the very first step. It gives you confidence in the teachings. You can experience glimpses of peacefulness that can encourage you to further understanding, practice and evaluation.

The teachings are numerous and varied and are given at many levels for the mundane and the supramundane; for monks, lay people, householders, man and women, married and single. Some teachings fits better than others with us. Patience, quietness and contemplation. Do not rush the teaching. Let it do it's proper work within yourself. Give yourself time. It is needed confidence, not blind faith, and confidence comes with evaluation.

A good field for contemplation and investigation is the notion about the ultimate nature of things suggested by Buddha in terms of impermanence. Impermanence will never guarantee satisfactoriness so that clinging to any sort of thing or idea will result sooner or later in an unsatisfactory experience. Buddha encourages us to review our relationship with the mundane reality.

So if i started studying and doing my own research on the true nature of things and then reach a conclusion that differs from the one the Buddha has given us then its ME who has to be wrong!!! have you ever considered that the Buddha himself might be wrong and that everything he experienced was mere hallucinations??!! (no offence or disrespect here but a genuine question)

To be honest with you being a skeptic and my lack of belief in anything did not make my life any easier!!! I am skeptic too. I do not work with blind faith but with understanding, practice and evaluation. A core aspect of the teachings of Buddha is to test them. But to test them through our own research it is needed to proceed under the guidelines that Buddha has given us to practice his teachings. It is like science too. If we have a protocol to do genetic engineering so to come to a result, we need to proceed in the precise way that it is stated. If we have come to the conclusion that the teaching has no sense then we can leave it. Some teachings do not work properly maybe because it is not the proper time to test them until further understandings have been realized.

[venediene]

Hello FBM,

Your posts can be described in one word : Beautiful

The simple fact that i confused rebirth and reincarnaton to me shows that i know nothing about Buddhism lol. I ve always mistakenly thought that buddhists believed in the soul! what led me to this belief is the techniques tibetan monks use to search for Dalai Lamas, so if everything is impermenant and there is no soul so things start to get really confusing lol.

In addition, if there is no soul, then my understanding of meditation must be worng (have not watched Aloka's video and Kaarine's link yet about meditaion) as i always thought that meditation is all about observing the ego (the false centre or the false identity) and realizing that its the source of all suffering. This realization will lead to the emerge of the real centre/identity (the soul/subconscious mind/god/the one/nothingness...etc)!!!

In relation to determinism and free will, it depends, when we use general physichs then the laws of cause and effect apply and we live in deterministic world. However, when we look at quantum mechanics the rules of cause and effect are no longer applicable and replaced by the laws of probablity and uncertainty. Personally, i believe that buddhism is better understood when linked to quantum physichs especially when we take about emptiness, interconnectivity, and the nature of reality.

The concept of impermenance is a bit tricky and debatable. Hiraclitus for instance believed in the changing nature of things when he said "you cannot step in the same river twice" while Parmenides believed that nothing really change. Its quite amazing how we can have two opposing interpretation of reality and each one of them provide good reasons to support his argument!!

"There are no facts, only interpretations" Nietzche

Regards

[Heessduernbub]

Karrine,

Thank you for your reply. The tricky issue is how to test a subjective phenomena objectively??!!! In addition, when we describe Buddha as "enlightened" or "awakened" the power of suggestion here is so strong that might affect our judgement. This is somehow similar to the placebo effect in medicine which is the phenomenon whereby a patient's symptoms can be alleviated by an otherwise ineffective treatment; most likely because the individual expects or believes that the treatment will work!!!

Cheers