Enlightened Vegetarianism (and more)

[Asher]

Originally posted by Lorizael
No, you make assumptions about what people are going to say and respond to those. It's pretty asinine.

Don't let him bother you, Lorizael. Not everybody is as blessed, supremely intelligent, and enlightened as we are such that we can apply simple reasoning. Some naive posters here don't understand the power of simple thought.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Blake
Ah, or do I? Do I just speak from experience? What I've actually heard people say in the past? Where is the assumption there?

Oh, I'm sure you use anecdotal evidence to draw conclusions - all humans do. You're just as deluded as the rest of us. No biggy.

[Blake]

Yes, but I understand my delusion FAR better than most .

[Lorizael]

Yes, you do. But don't tell anyone I said that.

[DaShi]

Bah, Buddhism is just misinterpretted Hinduism.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Blake

That is EXACTLY why I call it The Way. Because I followed a Way of life, and after a while, I discovered it was identical to what Buddhists do.

This is absolutely not true. If you fill my brain with weird drugs, it would just make me work harder. I would have to be more skillful.
It is true, that you could put a microchip in my brain and turn my body into a puppet not controlled by my mind. But you can certainly not put a microchip in my MIND, it is completely impossible for someone else to control my mind, regardless of what they do to my body.

Firstly, I must say I am very pleased that I understood you're position concerning the way properly, perhaps there is room for intellectual growth here? Who knows? I am also very interested in the way that you came to similar conclusions before
you became very familiar with Buddhism; could you perhaps speak some more of the meditations, that brought you into this line of thought?

I must confess you're distinction between brain and mind is understandable if disappointing. Are you denying that the mind is the result of the processes which occur mostly in the brain?

Impossible to control you're mind? Ha. There is such a thing as brain-washing and such a thing as manipulation through the control of the information you receive. Primitive chemicals we use today can manipulate emotional states or even change you're view of the world (schizophrenia cures and inducers)!


And is it so unthinkable that a sufficiently advanced microchip linked directly into you're brain could provide additional connectivity- receive electrical impulses and send them? That such a chip could evoke primitive feelings of rage of depression, or for it to disrupt the intricate if a adaptive web of neural connections to drive you into maddens preventing you from achieving nirvana? Or for the chip to be controlled by advanced AI that could bend the conclusions you make, as much as, it or its masters, saw fit?

Could it not rewrite you're mind to gear it towards greater efficiency to impart instant information or to remove any rebellious thought? This my friend would not be the slavery of body but the slavery of mind, of soul.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


Firstly, I must say I am very pleased that I understood you're position concerning the way properly, perhaps there is room for intellectual growth here? Who knows? I am also very interested in the way that you came to similar conclusions before
you became very familiar with Buddhism; could you perhaps speak some more of the meditations, that brought you into this line of thought?

I'd be delighted to.

Actually, I first encountered the concept of Universal Compassion by reading part of a book by the Dalai Lama, that was years and years ago. As I hinted, I didn't even finish the book... but then, it did remain in the back of my mind, this concept of universal compassion. I found it attractive, but I never really did much with it.

Also at one point in my life I was quite nihlistic and it was making me very depressed. I realized that the Buddhists MUST have meditated on that kind of thing a lot (I mean surely, all they do is think), and actually came through it still happy, so even though nihilism seemed insoluble to me, I knew there must actually be a reasonable solution. So I googled "Buddhism Nihilism" and read the first thing which caught my eye, it was an article on what Mount Everest is, covering concepts like "If you take a rock from Mt Everest, is that rock Mt Everest? Is Mt Everest still Mt Everest now that you've taken the rock away? Where is the line between Mt Everest and not Mt Everest? How many rocks would you have to take away from Mt Everest before it stopped being Mt Everest?" and so on and so on, things like that (also going right down to the atomic level and stuff, is that atom Mt Everest...)

Well the important thing to understand really - and what I took away from it, is the distinction between Mindscape and Landscape. In the mind, Mt Everest is well defined. In reality, Mt Everest is undefined.

That change in thinking, annihilated my nihilism - to the point, I came to accept that yes, reality is just like that, you actually can't define it and there's no need to think too hard about what reality really is because you'll just truly never know. And I promptly forgot about Buddhism again, because it was nihilism I wanted to be free of.


Some years later, I had a change in thinking. I saw someone who impressed me a lot. Usually when that happened, I'd just proceed to love, worship or adore them. But instead, a thought struck me "Why not try to understand WHY you are so impressed?". And that seemed like a great idea, and so I thought deeply about it, and at lengths. And finally I really understood what impressed me, and then, I could do that thing which impressed me, because I understood it. I had grown as a person.
And so I started doing the same with other people, whenever I found another to be enigmatic, I set myself to understand the nature of the enigma - instead of leaving it a mystery, I sought to understand it. And I did this all through contemplation, not by reading books or something (and to understand why I found someone an enigma, I had to look in to ME, no-one else could tell me). And every single time, I succeeded in reaching understand, and was empowered for it. I mean sure, it may have taken weeks in some cases for my brain to puzzle out the answer, but it always eventually did. For example one of the hardest ones, was "The most beautiful girl in the world". I had realized there was in fact one girl I found more beautiful than any other in the world. And I wanted to know why - how that could be, I mean was she really more beautiful than any other? Was it the bone structure of her face? Or the way she conducted herself? Or what? I think it took nearly a month for my brain to arrive at the required understanding, and when it did, that was very powerful - that was the moment I came to understand what Charisma and Beauty actually is... and even better, I could use it for myself, be more charismatic and beautiful without changing my face or body - that was something extremely powerful.

Now partway through this process, I also stumbled upon a very skillful Buddhist teacher, an english monk called Ajhan Brahmavamso who resides in an Australian Monastery, and his friday talks are available on the internet, for example on YouTube, all his talks are excellent, but a couple of ones with eye-catching titles are:
The Right to Believe
And

Investigation into the Ethics of Murder
(Just to show that Buddhists are not spineless and unwilling to seriously investigate hard topics)

There's also about a bazillion more talks available on the BSWA website, all are freely downloadable,
look at this list and just browse the titles of the talks, it's amazing what he's willing to talk about, particularly scroll down to Panic Attacks and read the description! He's a funny monk not a boring monk.

I want to point out, that listening to someone speak is a lot more powerful than reading words. If you like the idea of Buddhism, but find the reading to be too heavy or general mumbo-jumbo, you might enjoy listening a lot more (If you don't like Buddhism I really don't know why you're still reading my post). I actually heartily recommend listening to this monk, if only because it is entertaining - you can listen to be entertained, and if you're lucky, might get some enlightenment in the process . Don't listen to become enlightened, it doesn't work that way anyway.

There's one MP3 talk I want to highlight in particular:
Read your Heart, not the Book.
This describes well the difference between Buddhism and other religions.


Now anyway, I did listen to some talks by this monk - only a small fraction of them though. In doing so, I estimate I accelerated my progress along The Way by about 2 years - not a huge amount on the grand scheme of things, but also useful. You see, such teachers, they help teach how to think, and here's an interesting distinction. I quickly realized, that there was NOTHING I could learn from this monk, not a single thing, he was no wellspring of random knowledge, from the way he conducted himself, I could learn little, and from the way I felt about him, I could learn nearly nothing. But in helping to actually change the way I thought about things? Immensely useful. I don't listen to his talks anymore because I've learned what I can - that is unattachment . You've think that because I take the time to rave about him, I must listen to his talks all the time and have a little buddhist statue of him on my desk. No. I just learned what I needed to then let go.


It's entirely correct to say that My Way, has been my Own. I have not followed any Buddhist school of teaching, and while I am something of a disciple of Ajhan Brahm's, he says he follows "Hahayana", I occasionally say I'm a Hahayanist because I have the same light-hearted attitude - teachings are NOT a thing to be taken seriously as gospel and more importantly, the joy in life is in having fun. So everything I do, I have fun with.

I'm also very proud to say I've never ever read a single buddhist book. Because that one by the Dalai Lama? I only half finished it .


However while My Way has been my own, it's also true, that contact with Buddhism has acted as a catalyst. If there was no Buddhism in the world, it's entirely probable I may never have started following The Way... I mean, not in this life time.

It is also true that every Buddhists way is his own way, anyone who has merely memorized buddhist scripture is not actually a buddhist - as in the Buddha would most definitely not approve of people who merely parrot what the Buddha said, and indeed the Buddha said that people must not believe what the Buddha says - they must understand for themself.

I must confess you're distinction between brain and mind is understandable if disappointing. Are you denying that the mind is the result of the processes which occur mostly in the brain?

PERCEPTION occurs in the brain. That which makes sense of perception, is the mind. The mind is a process, not a thing. It's obviously helpful to have a brain for the process to run on, but the brain is not the mind.

I'll give you a useful exercise. Find I. Find the Self. Find where that thing which says "I am me" actually resides, what it actually is.

[Thoth]

Blake: Another fun exercise to give people is to ask them to find where their mind stops and their body begins. Focus your attention inwards, and lift one arm. As you do so, focus on finding the line between the physical flesh of your arm and the mind that is directing the muscles.

[DaShi]

Summary: I read a few pages and listened bits of a few speeches about Buddhism. Dismissed them. Now I'm an expert on it!

[Asher]

I'll give you a useful exercise. Find I. Find the Self. Find where that thing which says "I am me" actually resides, what it actually is.

How can someone be so full of himself to say such **** with a straight face? I reckon you got smacked around a lot at school.

[DaShi]

I'm thinking he's just playing with us. Of course, that paints a different unflattering image of his personality than what he posts now.

[Blake]

Originally posted by DaShi
Summary: I read a few pages and listened bits of a few speeches about Buddhism. Dismissed them. Now I'm an expert on it!

I never claimed to be an expert, I just know more than nothing .

[chequita guevara]

That is debatable.

[Elok]

I think I might have found my Self. I pondered Blake's exercise and identified the part of me that responded most strongly. But I'm perplexed by the idiosyncrasy of the result I got. Is the Self supposed to be located between the ring and pointer fingers? Anyone know?

[Blake]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
That is debatable.

Nope.

Nothing can be known of the world, for sure.

But of the mind? Things can be known, for sure.

Hence, I know more than nothing.

Originally posted by Elok
Is the Self supposed to be located between the ring and pointer fingers? Anyone know?

If you wish to know for sure you could cut both fingers off and see if the self still identifies as being between them.