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So I haven’t been able to get over the article on Buddhism that I can’t find. It’s just the one line about “if buddhism isn’t true then our worries and correct…..”. I can’t really remember the rest of what it said but it was along the lines of how if Buddhism wasn’t true then doing the opposite of it would be our only hope in the world (attachment, clinging, etc). That was the gist of it.
But for me it seemed like irrefutable proof of Buddhism being true, and that I have spend a great deal of time trying to dig this thing up but going nowhere, thinking that it is the final conclusive evidence that proves it once and for all. That I have to follow Buddhism because it is true, and if it wasn’t (accord to the line I read) then “business as usual” would be our only hope. Even now I am struggling to remember every bit of the line I read but it’s hazy and unclear.
Yet part of me sees this as an obsession. Focusing on one line that I barely remember clearly yet deeming it to be utterly decisive when it comes to Buddhism. It’s odder that for someone who doesn’t want Buddhism to be true I spend much time “proving it”. It gets me thinking that letting this go would be better, and the times when I forget about it show that. But it always comes back,and it gnaws and eats at me, and I work into a frenzy trying to dig up the article. Because if I don’t find it then it’s going to haunt me like all the other unresolved questions or philosophies in my mind.
“The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.” ― Neil deGrasse Tyson
A pebble in the middle of the desert exists because it exists.
An ant on that pebble exists because it exists.
A bacteria in the gut of that ant exists because it exists.
The hoof of the camel that steps on the ant exists because it exists.
The child on the camel exists because she exists.
But, the child on the camel also loves her parents and wants to become a nurse and is anticipating eating her mom’s special dessert that they’re having tonight and can’t wait to play with her cousins that she will see in a few hours and is admiring the beautiful clouds in the sky and is shifting around in her seat to get more comfortable. The child has meaning in her life because she gives it meaning by feeling emotions and having goals and striving to live according to her wants, need and morals.
Only humans can have meaning in their life greater than simply existing, the only rule is that each human create that meaning- without the meaning they create, a human merely exists.
You are a human. You exist. Now, what greater meaning are you going to choose to give your existence?
<p style=”text-align: left;”>You sounded worried that you were obsessing over something that you admit is trivial and not worth spending time on.</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>I was hoping to show you a way of getting out of your head and getting on with a productive and happy life.</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Sorry for not solving your problem.</p>You missed the point because it’s not an issue of creating meaning or not, that isn’t close and therefor it wasn’t going to help.
Meaning is meaningless because it is created and not inherent: https://www.speakingtree.in/allslides/is-suffering-real/31716
Not to mention talking about how we are perfect, so to me that just means that we shouldn’t strive for anything or to do anything.
I don’t know, it just seems to me like Buddhism is a mire that I will never escape.
we are perfect, so to me that just means that we shouldn’t strive for anything or to do anything.
Except, by nature, we strive. We aren’t comfortable doing nothing, so your logic doesn’t work. I said this a long time ago to you, just try doing nothing. Sit there, do nothing. We are perfectly designed to survive, propagate, and desire. You can’t change that with your actions. The link even sorts out your questions for you perfectly.
But nonself doesn’t mean there’s no self. We exist, obviously. What nonself really means is non mistaken self. The “mistaken self”—sometimes called “ego”—is a single, separate, unchanging entity. It doesn’t exist. But because we believe it does, we generate anger, greed, and indifference to protect it, and cause ourselves and others endless suffering.
…. That’s also why many Buddhists criticize self-help: in trying to ease our suffering, it can solidify the very ego that causes the suffering.
And your ego is pretty well solidified!
The 4th noble truth is, follow the path. It isn’t sit on the path and waste away.
You have a right to reclaim yourself, but you have to do the work of finding out how it is that who you truly are has been obscured.
Learn the stories. Learn your own. We can’t know our own personal minds without understanding the conditioning and the fabrication of that mind. Our social conditions are what make our mind. You don’t get your own mind—you only have a collective mind. You have only ever had a collective mind. It’s ridiculous to say, “That’s not the path of the Buddha. Buddha never talked about social justice.” The path of the Buddha was explicitly rooted in de-casting and de-classing—it was so much what he did that he didn’t even have to say anything about it. It was all that he did.
Apparently those who follow the Buddhist path can “not strive” according to them.
But the worst is thinking that my mind is not my own or that I don’t have one of my own. Makes it seem like I am just some kind of puppet who is a slave to others.
Apparently those who follow the Buddhist path can “not strive” according to them.
I appreciate it when you quote things, because then I see how you are misunderstanding what you read. That quote says the Buddha worked for social justice, against the caste system. The legend is, he was raised in an isolated and privileged environment and he went out and learned that there was poverty and suffering, he began to study how the world worked and why such conditions existed. Your mind is your own, and also you are the product of the conditioning of culture. Buddhism is about accepting that human condition, and using your mind to leave a better world behind. I know it’s a paradox, both acceptance and change, but that is what it is to be human.
But it’s more than that. It’s mostly referring to how much of what we take to be daily life is a lie. That there is some kind of persistent emptiness in us that no amount of money or love from others will fill and can only be quenched through spiritual cultivation? Or how it’s about forgetting ourselves and that we I take to be me is really false? The whole thing questions a lot of what makes me happy to the point that I can’t look at it the same anymore. It’s like everything I do is wrong and Buddhism is the only way forward. I wish I never picked up a book on Buddhism, I would likely have been far better off.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.lionsroar.com/fear-and-fearlessness-what-the-buddhists-teach/amp/
It’s essentially telling me to not bother with my dreams or desires because there is no me and they won’t make you happy anyway.
All of which just makes it harder to ignore the original article that I can’t remember the line of. But it read like that if Buddhism wasn’t true then our worries are true and we should cling to things or suffer, and that there is no help or hope. Essentially saying that we would have to do the opposite of Buddhism (more or less).
In the articles they do.
But the biggest problem I have is the article that I can’t find that is driving me crazy.
But the biggest problem I have is the article that I can’t find that is driving me crazy.
We’ve all been there. If whatever it is you are looking for is truly based on the original Buddhism, plus all the Buddhist masters that have had centuries to think about them and added on the many new discoveries of how the mind works and how the Buddhist philosophies actually work out in real time when you try to apply them, then, you should be able to find that in more than one article. It sounds like you are looking for some words that confirm the bias that exists in your mind, instead of opening yourself to all of the ideas out there and synthesizing them into a healthy world view.
You are attached to that article. The opposite of what Buddhism teaches.
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