Neither totally chaotic nor totally projectable

Edit: the title of thread wanted to be, "neither totally chaotic nor totally predictable"

The Buddha told us that "Life is Suffering".
Some say let's plan the life. The others say let's just explore it. Can't they both fall into the trap of a crisis. At least at some point of their lives?

How come the suffering does not keep us from still trying to get through it again and again?

Life is like a walk in the desert.

At times you may lose the hope, "it can only get worse".

At times you tend to distract yourself and seek beauty in it.

At times it inspires you and makes you dreamy:

At times you wonder how Scorpio Sun people flourish under these circumstances.

Then again you fear for your life.

"For I will pour Water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.

I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed (children), and My Blessing upon thy offspring"

Isaiah 44:3 & ref: Galatians 3:14

But you come to the conclusion you better werk baitch.

You gotta keep the good hope...

... in modern times yes you better keep the good hope.

Maybe you fell in love?

Then...
Whether you worried you might get comfortable or you wanted it hard, you'll find yourself once again in the desert.
If you have luck, you'll get a mentor.

Shut up and drive!

Happy wandering!
Specially with your friends.

You'll never be able to get too comfortable.

Even if you learn how to live a life in the desert, Uranus can make you lose the ground.

One day you'll be lost. But not from memories. Cause somebody loves ya.

Cause afterall you're a wonderwall.

Who in the hell d'you think you are?
A super star?
Well, right you are.
Yes, you are.

Yes, we can even get to love our deserts.

Solange Knowles Ferguson Celebrates New Year's Eve 2014-2015 Camping With Friends In Desert.

Posted by Ssupes
Great post dwelling!

Budha says:

I say enjoy your mirage, oasis and desert.

Beautiful

thank to you guys and gals for the feedback and compliments. I'm gold you enjoyed it.

Posted by Nemilicious
this has been a real treat to read and ponder, thank you socrates, or dwelling

^^^^^^^^^^^ for his 80th birthday this year.

Almost there, almost there...

From IG:

stephenjude#fbf - took a little road trip to the desert (East of San Diego) last weekend to catch the rare "super bloom" [...]. we saw all kinds of coolness along the way. this was an impulse stop on the way back, somewhere off the 15 freeway. the hills were unusually alive & golden, covered in these beautiful poppies. I love living in SoCal!

Posted by DwellingOnMove
The Buddha told us that "Life is Suffering".
Some say let's plan the life. The others say let's just explore it. Can't they both fall into the trap of a crisis. At least at some point of their lives?

How come the suffering does keep us from still trying to get through it again and again?

I wanted a deeper read tonight. Hit this thread. And what a coincidence.

From, "the untethered soul" I just read this;

His message has been misinterpreted. What do you think?

Posted by Lunabee

Posted by DwellingOnMove
... "Life is Suffering"... still trying to get through it again and again?

... coincidence... "the untethered soul" I just read this;

His message has been misinterpreted. What do you think?

click to expand

And maybe this is right there that we start worrying. "what if I get put on the spot?" as in the example in your cited text. Right at this relatively peaceful scenery our imagination can picture/depict the opposite in distinctive details. But when put on the spot, people just do themselves. And it can turn out to be good, bad or indifferent for them.

Funny, if we take this approach, then "attachment" means feeling comfortable/needy of that fraudulently peaceful scenery. Cause such oases can only be of temporary nature. (well, unless we can learn to be open to E.V.E.R.Y P.O.S.S.I.B.L.E S.C.E.N.A.R.I.O. and take all of them as peaceful, I guess)

In the desert you can remember your name

'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain

I really feel uplifted from this. Thank you.

Posted by Timon

Posted by DwellingOnMove
The Buddha told us that "Life is Suffering".
Some say let's plan the life. The others say let's just explore it. Can't they both fall into the trap of a crisis. At least at some point of their lives?

How come the suffering does not keep us from still trying to get through it again and again?

I believe he said "pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional".

click to expand

I really love that. "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."

Posted by DwellingOnMove
[...]How come the suffering does not keep us from still trying to get through it again and again?

Because where pain is found previously we have experienced pleasure, even from hope? Uncertainty is the essence of romance.

Posted by Blackburn

Posted by DwellingOnMove
[...]How come the suffering does not keep us from still trying to get through it again and again?

----

Because where pain is found previously we have experienced pleasure, even from hope? Uncertainty is the essence of romance.

click to expand

We have it either vaguely in our own memory that dramatic moments changed to better times,

or somebody tells us to comfort us

(like when a grownup sees your broken heart at your first love).

Posted by Timon

Posted by DwellingOnMove
The Buddha told us that "Life is Suffering".
Some say let's plan the life. The others say let's just explore it. Can't they both fall into the trap of a crisis. At least at some point of their lives?

How come the suffering does not keep us from still trying to get through it again and again?

I believe he said "pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional".

click to expand

*********

I know some people commit suicide because of pain or suffering (depending on how fast they reacted). But most people move on. (and some are so damaged that they become the root cause of others's suffering: victim=criminal)

I think it could also be a matter of many other facts: like

- you have to move on cause a helpless baby depends on you.

- or you have to move on cause you're scatterbrain anyway.

- or you have to move on, cause there's something you feel appealed to finish before your last day comes.

- or.. [insert what you recall]

Posted by Timon
... have a choice in our pain.

... You have to move on because you are in this life for a reason...and that is not to end it.

Posted by seraph
"Life is suffering", etc., is often misunderstood.

... whatever we experience has no independent reality apart from our own (mental) condition... "interpretation".

... Meaning is assigned by our thinking.

... unexamined (or rather, incorrectly examined) relationship with what comes through our senses (including mind).

... through our own concepts – superimposing our thoughts, feelings, inadequacies, fears, expectations and projections on to person/place/thing, and then we invest in them emotionally on that basis. ... living life through a thick fog of very personal stuff.

... chief problem is not life nor experiencing, but rather ignorance (Avidyā) about what the real nature of all experiencing actually is. We have a "thinking" problem, not an "experience" problem.

I think I understand what you are saying.

Such thought always remind me of how Hollywood's sience fiction tried a few times to analyze this for us, including the invocation of Mr. Spock. in Star Trek. They claim we need emotions cause without them we would lose also good emotions. It's like when a conservative (Cap?) thinker would say we need prejudice cause it protects us against deception and betray. Of course we suffer and lose a lot right because of prejudice, but it seems as our whole civilization put a lot of effort to daily produce new prejudice. What to say to mothers? "Let your children talk to strangers?"

I for myself should better prefer to lose good and bad together cause with transit Chiron in square to my natal Venus and Mars at the same time when transit Saturn is conjunct to them, I have enough of this "bleeding soul". Total detachment or self-dissipation as Jupiter in 12 might be the answer. (no drug abuse yet) But how would this permanent remembering of the EMPTINESS of the observed targets work for somebody in his good days? Have you tried to keep remembering it in all good and bad days? Are your days different from each other? Or would you say the nature is still the source of happiness? So that we won't lose the basic pleasures anyway. Do you know people who live the healthy SIMPLE life?

Posted by Timon

Posted by DwellingOnMove

Posted by Timon
... have a choice in our pain.

... You have to move on because you are in this life for a reason...and that is not to end it.

yeah, that's a good one. even if the reason itself is not known to me. ok, maybe simply to have impact. I donno.

For me the reason is that this is a journey our souls are supposed to make. That is what I believe. 🙂

click to expand

Physically it seems not to impact this big universe. We seem to be high in number. Like rats do. And there's this cycle of living to non-living and vice versa.

@seraph, I'm so sorry that I missed your posts. bad idea to rely on notifications in this case. I'll read your lines. thank you so much for the time you dedicated to this.

@seraph and @ManInTheMoon,

it's an honor to have your posts in here even though they gave me a hard time in the past days.

It was hard to answer because (!check for the irony of life!) the answer and my thought on these concepts

would affect an important&expensive step I'm about to take in real life which needs a clear frame of mind as well as

a clear value system. So I need to be honest right out of egoistical reasons. :-)

Yes, this is a good opportunity for me to draw how to look at me and life in the next year.

The importance made that my thoughts go everywhere and I can barely collect them.

I started writing them knowing two days later my written word wants to be object of modification.

I started writing so we have to start with. So you would not wait further.

@seraph,

I think your concept is a good method to let a child find what it likes and what not. Some parents put children under pressure to take this and that class. Better parents let their children try this and that and find their talents or passion.

Posted by seraph
...

In reality the conflict is entirely fabricated: it is only believed into existence based on the erroneous understanding that life and experiences are personal.

[...] emotions can't be eradicated or even controlled, [...] Instead, a tacit, patient acceptance addresses the same concerns,

... for a time, until it settles ...

All things are temporary from thoughts, to objects, events, experiences, and people.

So we don't actually "need" emotions, [...]

a number of factors, most of them having to do with conditioning [...].

well, seraph, your text was very good to read and understand. I guess you went through extra effort cause you knew I'm weak at high level English.

also if this talk takes more time from each of us, any examples of real life would be appreciated. of how this approach serves you. and such. For sure I give mine.

I have the impression that I got your points and that I do not find them illusionary or pure theory. As if mostly I tend to think the same. But of course this is not the whole truth. Maybe because I am a 1st house (ego) criminal. 😉

Ok, what is the basis of my thoughts? I think we are biological beings. That makes me believe that "life and experiences are personal".

And a lot of things we do or feel (or not) has to do with survival.

Life is distributed|divided|shared. Everything gets an ego of its own. And as much as short-sighted or short-lived they may be, they are allowed to fight for themselves and destroy others.

But as youtubevideos have shown us (cat cuddling with dog with baby with goat with donkey with bird with fish with...), there are also times when these separated egos come to love each other.

As you wrote: "All things are temporary from thoughts, to objects, events, experiences, people". That is me being nice to an animal is transient. Me being in fear for survival is transient.

So the point is

- either mysterious things realy exist or

- mistakes happen. Like confusing animal from another specis with your own.

My text above complies totally with your recommendation of "emotions can't be eradicated or even controlled, [...] Instead, a tacit, patient acceptance addresses the same concerns, without battle ... What arises is allowed to arise". Because I think ego is highly involved and feel responsible and notices that it makes mistakes because of its restricted means.

Now depending on the teacher (a person, prison time, other penalties or life) a simple ego can become skilled. The impatient ego can learn to wait for more input data before reacting to an emotion. Or simply ignore some input. Like insults from a mad person.

I noticed from first hand that my ego became more skilled and learned that it can be wrong despite the so-called facts. When? In the period of Saturn in Sagittarius with tNeptune on nMercury, on the days when Uranus was opposed to Venus, Sun opposed to Jupiter, Sun square to Sun.

I became the "witness" and observer you mentioned. I saw how everything or anybody was to play their part in the 2-3 days transits although one week ago everything was totally the opposite. Friendly people became my critics. I had to wait until the transit was over.

I don't know if experts would agree with me to see ego "the whole me". That is including the "true me".

Have you read the texts of Daniel Kahneman about system1 and system2 thinking? I think what people call ego is the "fast" part of me as a data processing system. When my brain does not want to lose time and assumes it has all the facts and means.

Ego is for me the sum of "fast thinking" and "slow thinking" ME.

Why do I need to take the sum? Because, at least in my case, for moving forward I need motivation and impulses. The slow thinker would witness and sit there and do nothing (or please, you tell me how the witness comes to change profession!).

Only the wild involved fast thinker knows what it wants and what not. And when it is confused due to interest conflict, the slow thinker is asked for damage reduction or the middle path.

And sometimes even the skilled ego, the slow thinker, the mature rational person does not know what is the better solution and has to pick one by random choice.

All in all I agree with you that we should never stop observing and learning. Because all the things are in transition. What seems to be bad for me now can turn out to be good later. Vice versa.

Fast thinking ego is short-sighted and does not take abundance into account. But only as long as nobody has trained it to function better. There's abundance in chances, abundance in reasons and facts. For taking one step (Microsoft strategy) we can rely on the little we know and ignore the mountain of things we don't know for the time being or forever. But it is too early to be proud of it. Or on the contrary to give up on it. Here the emotions are restricted or mixed. Shame and pride and fear. Like in economy. They bring things on the market and still pitfalls can force them to call the product back.

So these types of ego learn to have a little of every emotion at the same time. Or none. Cause let's wait.

You said the Universe does not play favourites. Yes, because of the abundance. Every creature has enough of what it needs to be there. And cause enough is enough we die. Even if we die too early and find no time for detecting our mistakes and tending to self-growth. That void you mentioned.

@ManInTheMoon,

I'm mad at you (that is my fast ego was) cause you brought your text right after seraph and it overloaded my thought process.

But I like your contribution. It's exciting. Maybe such models have been drawn in the times of Rumi and the likes. I think those days they used 7 stages. not sure. just a vague memory.

Let me tell you: in 2017 I went through most of these episodes. well, up until "reason".

I sabotage entering the "love" stage cause I delegate it to God and the Universe. But the real reason might be that there's enough problems for me on the lower stages. Cause my ego is still childish. More interested in adventures than in other people. I help people a lot but I hate how inconsiderate they are. "Give him an inch and he will take an ell." What is behind this? Ego? freedom-loving sag does not want to commit?

Posted by seraph
(Continued)

When you do your daily sadhana, no matter how simple or elaborate it may be, whether it’s just a few moments of quiet time or an hour of sustained, disciplined meditation, check your ideas, concepts, biases, expectations, learning, what you have been told, what you assume, and all of your reactions, at the door. Leave them there. You can have them back when you’re done, because what you’re doing while they’re waiting outside is learning what they actually are. Then you can go back out, pick up the ones you think are useful, and use them correctly, from your true position as one with the Absolute, and not as the small, imagined jiva with all its personal nonsense. ...

----------------

Let me see if I can live this way for one month. see what changes. what remains. what motivates me. how do I come to decisions and actions. Actions need necessity. Going with the flow could be confusing or ineffective. But enough painting the future. I'll land in it and will see.

Posted by seraph
[...]

It's like when a conservative (Cap?) thinker would say we need prejudice cause it protects us against deception and betray.

What needs protection? What exactly needs to guard against ideas and imagined phenomena like "deception" and "betrayal"? What can be deceived and betrayed? Yes, the person. He/she whom lives life personally (or as we often say, "takes" life personally) will always feel the need to guard, protect, run from, run toward, pursue, love, hate, fear, and so on.

[...] We've imagined a dualistic life into being – which is fine; it's useful, and we need some social structures in place in order to facilitate everyday practical life. The problem occurs when we take them personally, beyond their practical application; e.g., you did me wrong and now I feel hurt and victimized and now I've got a problem that needs addressing, work, and resolution. In reality your true self remained unaffected, but you keep indulging in reactions instead of looking into appropriate responses. This is only scratching the surface here, and if I go on about it in one post it'll just be a can of worms. But suffice to say that we generally have a problem with taking the fundamentally impersonal as very personal. In Vedanta it's known as a lack of discrimination (between our true self and our experiences.)

[...]

Still there remain those scenarios where you have a comfortable house before and a noisy one after the betrayal. So you would sleep worse which has impact on your efficiency at work. Or health or other similar things.

I just want to say we can survive lots of situations but at times the physical impact of our loss is not to downplay. It's the conservative's job to care for such cases. Of course they exaggerate as is known with capitalism.

Not to forget that things can always get better. Or you can get accustomed to sleep in a noisy environment. At the end of the day there are enough conservatives who knew Jesus said, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" He knew about abundance.

Posted by seraph
[...] your own position vis-a-vis these concepts. Are you seeing and acting from the position of the person (or jiva, as we find in Vedanta), or from the position of true self (or Parabrahman, found in the same)? It isn’t that there are two separate selves, it’s just that due to conditioning we’re generally ignorant about the fact that the jiva has dreamed itself as something separate from its own self.

Realizing your true relationship to the concepts you’ve created and taken on about yourself, enables you to then go ahead and deal with all things – be they prejudices, physical difficulties, feelings, and so on, with equanimity, dispassion, and with the tendency to respond rather than to react. Take care of you and the world takes care of itself. [...]

You see the young people are confused about what is a hater. Freedom of speech is translated into "criticism that is uncalled for". Why do we feel hated when it's only a small part of us that is criticized? At the same time they share their opinions about everything that may need an opinion or not. Now they're encouraging each other not to fear to be what they are.

This comes from the school and parenting methods. punish or reward. conditioning. The same goes for group dynamism. can sit with us if...

"dualism occurs within consciousness, and it's just another play of the Absolute."

I think the same.

Also I always say, "good people are bad people. only in another point of time. or in another perspective".

Posted by DwellingOnMove
Edit: the title of thread wanted to be, "neither totally chaotic nor totally predictable"

The Buddha told us that "Life is Suffering".
Some say let's plan the life. The others say let's just explore it. Can't they both fall into the trap of a crisis. At least at some point of their lives?

How come the suffering does not keep us from still trying to get through it again and again?

Because there is joy in suffering...

Posted by DwellingOnMove
Edit: the title of thread wanted to be, "neither totally chaotic nor totally predictable"

The Buddha told us that "Life is Suffering".
Some say let's plan the life. The others say let's just explore it. Can't they both fall into the trap of a crisis. At least at some point of their lives?

How come the suffering does not keep us from still trying to get through it again and again?

Buddha aunt told me shit!

Is it because I am Jewish? 😩

@seraph,

I may have found something that can help marry your model with mine. I'm reading a book about Ego-Depletion. On the web I read experts don't want to recognize it. Yet they suggest "Cognitive dissonance".

"[...] ego depletion, and studies mainly observe it by measuring how long people persist at a second task after performing a self-control task (the depleting task) [...] Researchers have questioned whether subjects are truly experiencing ego depletion, or whether the individuals are merely experiencing cognitive dissonance in the psychological tasks."

In both cases the result might be confirming your model on how to approach life events. Also own thoughts. The more detached we are to the learned (externally infused) beliefs, ideas, or values, the less we are prone to exhausting our biological resources.

Multiple experiments have connected self-control depletion to reduced blood glucose

When we have to control our rages due to unjust or impolite behavior of other people, it is time to

- keep physical distance to this kind of people

and/or

- question our persistence that people have to be just or polite.

I'll check this for one week and make notes on how practical the idea can be.