Something and nothing

Are there really a lot of people who seek to eliminate all emotional response? That seems just as quixotic and non-Buddhist as trying to eliminate all painful sensations.

I don't think there's a lot, by any count.

But think about your question a minute. How many people, if you said Buddhist meditation would make them feel peaceful and happy and reduce stress and even make them enlightened (which they envision as a state of endless bliss and heaven on earth) would say "awesome!". Now if you said Buddhist meditation would teach you to pay attention to each moment just as it is and notice how everything is empty of intrinsic self, how many people would say "oh, cool!".

I'm being silly with the above, but the point is, it's a natural animal tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain. That's how the nervous system is designed. And for most people "emotions" tend to be dominated by sorrow, fear, anxiety, envy, rage and so on, not joy, bliss, happiness, contentment, and so on.

(ETA - cross posted with Chris, and intending my answer only to be psychological and generic, not necessarily addressing the thread he's referring to at all)

I can't type well enough or fast enough to answer that as fully as I'd prefer to, so maybe the best thing to do is ask that you read this:
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-cmarti

that's weird, I just sent Zach that thread in a PM.

He found it odd, I think I can safely say.

Anytime I've seen stuff on "grounding of emotions" my eyes glaze over and I don't read much of it or in any detail.

But, I often wonder if what they are talking about is something that happens a lot I think in an open, choiceless awareness practice -- one is just right there as a feeling pops up and the awareness is so open to it that it just dies away before the mind/body has a chance to fuel it, fight it, resist it -- do something to keep it going, give it life, make it worse.

It's sort of a movement, a flow -- but it's no big deal I don't think and it certainly doesn't mean that one has eliminated their sense of self for ever and ever.

I should add a couple of things Chris has said here do strike a chord with me, and that is that everyone has their own path of practice, and it is really nearly impossible to say any one person's practice is "crap" and another's "amazing" - because we are all following our own roads. It would be like saying Picasso is crap because he didn't paint like Da Vinci, or vice versa. Each was expressing his own vision of the world in his own art.

Even if a person is "stuck" or practicing badly, that's where they are, that's what they are dealing with, and their life is taking them along a journey of their own.

You couldn't pay me to eat bugs. I don't think. How much?

isn't dukkha/suffering the fact that -- since we are just moment to moment creations of our brains and not solid like we think -- that we can't apprehend and hold onto and keep the stuff that we think will make us happy and satisfied and feel good?

isn't dukkha/suffering the fact that -- since we are just moment to moment creations of our brains and not solid like we think -- that we can't apprehend and hold onto and keep the stuff that we think will make us happy and satisfied and feel good?



-michaelmonson

I thought it was the trying to hang on to pleasant things or resisting unpleasant things that constituted suffering. When one ceases this grasping and resisting, then there is release from suffering into peace.

But I might be wrong, or there might be different ways of understanding it. I'm not the scholar in the family.

I like to eat crawdads -- they are kind of like bugs.

I probably shouldn't have said that Zach found that thread odd, but maybe part of it was that he really hadn't been exposed to that kind of material before. I wonder what my friends in the Modesto Zen Sangha would think of it.

I thought it was the trying to hang on to pleasant things or resisting unpleasant things that constituted suffering. When one ceases this grasping and resisting, then there is release from suffering into peace.
But I might be wrong, or there might be different ways of understanding it. I'm not the scholar in the family.

-ona

I think what you just said is included in what I at least meant to say. The reason that hanging on to stuff hurts is that since nothing is solid and lasting that it is impossible. It's like poor sissyphus.

I had snails once at a fancy restaurant in Houston, Tx. Tasted pretty good.

One time I was riding my bike - I was about twelve at the time - and a large beetle flew in my mouth and I swallowed it.
Now that's suffering.


-cmarti

Why was it suffering? Because you were afraid it might kill you? Because you'd violated a taboo against bug eating? Because you felt a painful or nasty taste or sensation in your throat and wished you didn't?

I ate my first oyster last month. The whole table watched in fascination while I scrunched my eyes shut and put it in my mouth. It didn't taste as bad as it looked, but I didn't have a second one.

I should add a couple of things Chris has said here do strike a chord with me, and that is that everyone has their own path of practice, and it is really nearly impossible to say any one person's practice is "crap" and another's "amazing" - because we are all following our own roads. It would be like saying Picasso is crap because he didn't paint like Da Vinci, or vice versa. Each was expressing his own vision of the world in his own art.
Even if a person is "stuck" or practicing badly, that's where they are, that's what they are dealing with, and their life is taking them along a journey of their own.
You couldn't pay me to eat bugs. I don't think. How much?

-ona

I don't know, I do think a lot of the "beyond technical fourth path" stuff is odd mostly because it's a person talking about not being a person. But ... I want to be nice about it.

I don't like raw oysters -- fried ones are okay. I love to eat things like steamed mussles, clams, scallops.
I like seaweed a lot.

Chris: are you serious that that taco menu was actually something part of the BG conference itself or was it at a place separate? If it is the latter I am amazed beyond measure and I find it ... odd.

Mike, yes, that was really on the menu. It was catered. It wasn't forced on anyone. The food was very good, lots of choices. You need to get out more, my friend

-cmarti

Not shocked at the food, shocked that such food would be at such an event and my shock is reasonable based upon all known facts about the world.



I like tongue burritos.

I don't know, I do think a lot of the "beyond technical fourth path" stuff is odd mostly because it's a person talking about not being a person. But ... I want to be nice about it.


-michaelmonson

I think that's a misunderstanding, though. The "self" or "sense of self" is the clusters of sensations, perceptions, thoughts etc we think make "me". No self doesn't mean non-existence, it means no longer identifying the sensations and thoughts and such as defining an individual "me" separate from "everything else", and recognizing that the flow of sensations, perceptions etc is a flow, not a solid permanent object.

You've said as much yourself, before, no?