More about Zen and morality..

[disastermouse]

Re: More about Zen and morality..

Hey man,

Sorry about being snarky...but I'm going to leave the comment because I don't want to edit myself into being better than I am, LOL!

Chet

[chicanobudista]

Re: More about Zen and morality..

Once a very old king went to see an old hermit who lived in a bird's nest in the top of a tree, "What is the most important Buddhist teaching?" The hermit answered, "Do no evil, do only good. Purify your heart." The king had expected to hear a very long explanation. He protested, "But even a five-year old child can understand that!" "Yes," replied the wise sage, "but even an 80-year-old man cannot do it."

[Grizzly]

Re: More about Zen and morality..

Hi Chet

It has literally never been successful for me - and for the brief time it may have been thought of as 'successful', it has taken all of my energy to maintain.

But thanks for dismissing my comment without really thinking about it by attributing it to psychobabble! You display an awesomely ready mind!/sarcasm :mrgreen:

Please forgive me if I came across as being dismissive, my sparring buddy. I really didn't mean anything personal by it. That was one of the reasons I added the 'many people for much of the time' at the end of the sentence. I think my statement does hold true. I had a really bad anger problem many years ago and a few months back had my wing mirror smashed by a numptie who didn't want to wait on for me to pass over a narrow bridge. He then decided to have a massive go at me as if he was on the bridge first. I noticed I'd placed myself and lined him up for a straight right and as soon as I caught this I smiled to myself and it went away. That came from working on it in much this way many years ago and now I've only had it even arise like that once in 15 years or so. Thats just one example from my personal history...

And as for conditioning, your statement is questionable. I'd say we get FAR greater conditioning to repress and 'fight' our inner 'unwanteds' much more than we get the conditioning to work with them. I'll bet what you wrote looked really good on paper (and in your own mind), though.

Our whole society is conditioned by many notions, one of which is this. I have worked with many people who had accepted much of the psycho-babble (as you put it) that is current in how we should live, deal with things, do deal with things, use our minds etc etc. They are surprised when I sometimes throw the exact opposite at that them. The proof of the pudding though is that they get better, and very quickly, in most instances. At other times I'll work with those beliefs about how psychological stuff is IF it helps. I view all those models with some suspicion because they are just models and not necessarily fact. I am only concerned with the result. I also agree we get conditioned to hide our shadows too.

Of course, I'm talking about deeper issues than just 'should I eat that chocolate bar or not?' Even there, I may be able to hold off the urge for right now, but the urge comes back. Ultimately, I must work with it and not just repress it.

But many people have just done that. After a time the desire can just go away for these things. Its not always one way or the other.

You are talking to someone with an Axis II personality disorder here. I can't think of anything that better qualifies as a karmically persistent pattern than that! Following your advice, I'd have just tried to repress the 'wrong speech' and 'wrong action' caused by my personality disorder - which I did try for years. None of that was helpful, deeper work was necessary. These things must be untied at the root, and following the precepts robotically does not achieve this.

Small urges can be blunted with willpower. Large problems or karmically persistent patterns cannot be effectively dealt with this way....

My other posts show quite clearly that I haven't just said this. I have always said use whatever works be it simple stuff like the Theravadin state replacement through to therapy and medication if needed. As I have said before if people get better and happier I'm not fussy about theories or methods. I'm a pragmatist.

None of these words are worth a damn though unless you are happy my friend.

So with metta

Rich

[Grizzly]

Re: More about Zen and morality..

Once a very old king went to see an old hermit who lived in a bird's nest in the top of a tree, "What is the most important Buddhist teaching?" The hermit answered, "Do no evil, do only good. Purify your heart." The king had expected to hear a very long explanation. He protested, "But even a five-year old child can understand that!" "Yes," replied the wise sage, "but even an 80-year-old man cannot do it."

Lovely

[Dosho]

Re: More about Zen and morality..

Hey man,

Sorry about being snarky...but I'm going to leave the comment because I don't want to edit myself into being better than I am, LOL!

Chet

LOL! And we'd be worse off from such editing!