are we too greedy?

[Eva]

Hi everyone,

just something I found in me the other day ..

Considering how we engage with everyday happenings mostly through the news, hearsay, forums, FB groups, friends etc . It looks like we are always at the "getting" something - getting to know, getting to see, getting to hear .. and then more, more elaborately, more in-depth, more informatively etc .
It just struck me that maybe, just maybe, we are too greedy for all the information that is available for us ? Is that much that we come engulfed by information really helpful to us ? Do we even realise when enough is enough and that we can go and sit amidst it before we become too exhausted in all that we have come to know and by all the response that stirs in us - anger maybe, frustration, suffering, pain .. Hopefully at least then we sit
I realised one day that even this innocent or rightful looking "want" - I want to understand! is a nice cover-up . Am I really clear of what I want and whats really prompting that in me ?

What are your thoughts?

Gassho,
eva
sattoday and also LAH

[Jakuden]

You are absolutely right on Eva. I don’t know that I would call it greedy, but eager for the next distraction. I felt the tears coming when reading one high school teen’s story about witnessing the shooting the other day and wanted to immediately go do something else, click on something else. Instead I closed the browser and vowed to sit with the full feeling of this when I can. It’s only right and respectful to grieve and cry rather than click away to the next distraction.
Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Eva]

You are absolutely right on Eva. I don’t know that I would call it greedy, but eager for the next distraction.

Thank You Jakuden,
yes a next distraction .. but from what ? From being with (my)self and taking deeper look beneath that first reaction? Funny how the habit to keep things nice is so deeply rooted. Maybe it's biological I don't know
You did great by giving yourself the time to sit with it .

Gassho,
eva
sattoday and also LAH

[Kokuu]

Hi Eva

I think you are completely right. It is much easier to engage with the world of information than the world of feelings.

There is a part of the recent assigned reading from Living By Vow which speaks to me greatly on this:

"The lessons of the four noble truths are straight forward. We spend our lives trying to fill the emptiness we feel. When we succeed we are happy and feel as if we are in heaven. When we fail we are miserable and in hell."

-- LBV p180


It has never been easier to fill that emptiness inside or patch over the hard feelings and easy too to convince ourselves that we are doing valuable work in learning. Of course, access to information is not a bad thing at all but being able to put it all down is all the more important.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Jishin]

are we too greedy?

Thank You Jakuden,
yes a next distraction .. but from what ?

From death.

My 2 cents.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_ , LAH

[babyleaf]

Hi Eva,

It's a great observation and I felt it was a good reminder for myself as I go about the day...

I wonder if, rather than simply distraction, it's also that we want to "satisfy" ourselves? On a subtle level that we don't often notice I think we like the feeling of having reached something, anything, a finish line; not necessarily the thing we reached itself. So we find an article that produces emotions in us, then we want another article that will produce something else. I could be wrong (please someone correct me if so!) but I think this is one way the famous saying of the Buddha "Life is suffering" has been interpreted; it's not simply that life hurts, but we are conditioned to reach for one thing after another. Each time we reach something it feeds the fire of wanting.

Following your comment about this possibly being biological, I have a feeling it is, and imagine this must have been useful for ancestors pre-civilization. Life must have been a little more urgent back then with real life threats every day. It was probably helpful to survival that you go get things before it's too late. Luckily we're gifted with awareness (and many of us with generally safe environments) now and can recognize when this is useful and when it's not.

I don't think it's wrong to want something as long as we are paying attention to our reason behind it. I think a good "tell" to see if it's not worth following is whether when you pay close attention to the "want", all you see is a sort of mindless "urge".

A slight segway, but reflecting on your comment about understanding, I share your "want" to understand. I can see that understanding does good to ourselves and others, but at the same time, I feel that "urge" behind me A LOT of the time. When I can let that urge go (on good days ), I can get a glimpse that the opportunity to understand things is ever-present. Not something we have to reach for. Thank you for reminding me of this .

Gassho,
Gaby
SatToday

[Eva]

Hi Eva

I think you are completely right. It is much easier to engage with the world of information than the world of feelings.

There is a part of the recent assigned reading from Living By Vow which speaks to me greatly on this:

"The lessons of the four noble truths are straight forward. We spend our lives trying to fill the emptiness we feel. When we succeed we are happy and feel as if we are in heaven. When we fail we are miserable and in hell."

-- LBV p180


It has never been easier to fill that emptiness inside or patch over the hard feelings and easy too to convince ourselves that we are doing valuable work in learning. Of course, access to information is not a bad thing at all but being able to put it all down is all the more important.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

Thank you Kokuu,
everything you said makes very much sense . Indeed that tiny moment when you realise - I can simply put it down and it's completely "right" thing to do . And same time when feelings arise - I can be with my feelings just as they come without reaching for next and next and next etc .
Somewhere in our awareness lies perfect balance .

Gassho,
eva
isattoday and also LAH

[Eva]

From death.

My 2 cents.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_ , LAH

Hello Jishin,
you think you die from boredom when you see "what is" instead of emotional distraction ?

Gassho,
eva
isattoday and also LAH

[Eva]

Hi Eva,

It's a great observation and I felt it was a good reminder for myself as I go about the day...

I wonder if, rather than simply distraction, it's also that we want to "satisfy" ourselves? On a subtle level that we don't often notice I think we like the feeling of having reached something, anything, a finish line; not necessarily the thing we reached itself. So we find an article that produces emotions in us, then we want another article that will produce something else. I could be wrong (please someone correct me if so!) but I think this is one way the famous saying of the Buddha "Life is suffering" has been interpreted; it's not simply that life hurts, but we are conditioned to reach for one thing after another. Each time we reach something it feeds the fire of wanting.

Following your comment about this possibly being biological, I have a feeling it is, and imagine this must have been useful for ancestors pre-civilization. Life must have been a little more urgent back then with real life threats every day. It was probably helpful to survival that you go get things before it's too late. Luckily we're gifted with awareness (and many of us with generally safe environments) now and can recognize when this is useful and when it's not.

I don't think it's wrong to want something as long as we are paying attention to our reason behind it. I think a good "tell" to see if it's not worth following is whether when you pay close attention to the "want", all you see is a sort of mindless "urge".

A slight segway, but reflecting on your comment about understanding, I share your "want" to understand. I can see that understanding does good to ourselves and others, but at the same time, I feel that "urge" behind me A LOT of the time. When I can let that urge go (on good days ), I can get a glimpse that the opportunity to understand things is ever-present. Not something we have to reach for. Thank you for reminding me of this .

Gassho,
Gaby
SatToday

Hello Gaby,
thank you for your reply,

as I'm rather laconic with my own writing, I do appreciate more elaborate writings .
Yes, that's probably an important point to see that we want to see or feel literally that something gets accomplished, achieved, completed . That - yes, we have actually "done" something and hopefully "good" . Sometimes I even think of posting in Forum as "need" for doing something/anything that is measurable . This is one of the reasons why I often refrain from posting . But that's another topic (or not).
I also think that for the thinking mind it's natural to find solutions, to search for new ways . That's perfectly fine as long as its directed to the world of phenomena. I just think that the same habit kicks in when we actually "should" and "could" slow down a little or completely to be with what is .

I'm very happy for your input , thank you so much !
Gassho,
eva,
isattoday and also LAH

[Jishin]

are we too greedy?

Hello Jishin,
you think you die from boredom when you see "what is" instead of emotional distraction ? [emoji3]

Gassho,
eva
isattoday and also LAH

Hi Eva,

I think everything we do in this life has to do with avoidance of death. People stay busy to avoid addressing the great matter of birth and death.

My 2 cents.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_ , LAH

[Rakurei]

From death.

My 2 cents.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_ , LAH

I'm a big fan of Jishin. Just wanted to vocalize that.

[Eva]

Hi Eva,

I think everything we do in this life has to do with avoidance of death. People stay busy to avoid addressing the great matter of birth and death.

hmmm, I see .
Maybe not avoiding life/death itself (how could we) but of acknowledging the matter . Yes that can be indeed a reason for that.
However I tend to think that people in this particular Forum have awareness in these questions so that it could not be accurate reason . And still sometimes we grab for "more" .

Thank you Jishin,
Gassho
eva
isattoday and also LAH

[Jakuden]

Thank You Jakuden,
yes a next distraction .. but from what ? From being with (my)self and taking deeper look beneath that first reaction? Funny how the habit to keep things nice is so deeply rooted. Maybe it's biological I don't know
You did great by giving yourself the time to sit with it .

Gassho,
eva
sattoday and also LAH

Well, I haven't sat with it yet, but I sure will tonight after I get home. Jishin is absolutely right--I pop on my phone to check for messages while I am at work, get drawn into the news, read an emotionally devastating story, then have to put it aside so I can go back to work, even though the images of dead teenagers are now flying around in my head, along with the voice of the traumatized teenage witness. Although I try to check in here often because it is my responsibility, I know that I also often turn here for the comfort of the voices of my Sangha-mates in our shared humanity.

I think Gaby is correct also in that we probably get a "hit" of some kind of brain chemical from clicking on all those stories (Dopamine?) and there are reward pathways that require more and more clicking to stimulate and satisfy. Sitting is the antidote to that addiction, IMHO. Of course, Kokuu's explanation is much less Scientific and much more Unsui-like, but I think the two explanations are Not Two

Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH

[Kyonin]

Hi Eva.

Yes, I agree. We have become too greedy for pretty much everything. We have to know more, have more, go faster, live lazier. Consumer society is based on how much we lust for stuff and how much debt we get ourselves into.

This is precisely why I find our Zen practice so important. When we sit zazen we let go of all this constant searching and thirst for achieving stuff. We sit and we look at thoughts come, fight for attention and then dissolve. They come and go like waves in the sea.

We sit with what is accepting life as it is. Then we live life... but in my experience, the more I sit, the less I need to be well.

Gassho,

Kyonin
Sat/LAH

[Rakurei]

One of the main issues with social media, is that it makes people feel the need to say something, when they really don't have to.

We find ourselves having opinions on people, places and things that we normally wouldn't. Then we find ourselves making posts, status, tweets and sharing information and then becoming emotionally invested in something - namely, because we felt the need to be "active" on social media. At least this is vastly true for my generation. Or, maybe it is something we are passionate about, but we make a hairtrigger decision to retweet or share, without reading the article attached or doing our own research.

How many times do we share a post that has an article without reading it? Happens often. Click through rates and share rates never match when looking at digital marketing. lol

I wish I couuld find a link to a study, but social media/technology exposes our brain to two things that it wasn't made to do:

1) Multi-task. I currently have 16 tabs open on my internet browswer. Two of them are social media outlets, and then I have an awful habit of checking other social media apps on my phone. Our brains just weren't meant to do this, and studies have shown that multi-tasking increases the stress hormones in our body.

2) My favorite - OUR BRAINS WEREN'T MEANT TO HANDLE THIS MUCH INFO - ESPECIALLY THE BAD STUFF. Our minds were never meant to take in the thousands of sassy tweets, political arguments, and just outpouring of bad news. It's likely why we become numb to some of it after a while, our minds just can't process all this information.

What's the solution?

I don't know. I'll be sitting again today though, and logging off at 5:00pm.

ST/LAH

Rakurei