Me-ness and the Emotions

Our mind has this quality of "me-ness", which is obviously not the other, not you. Me-ness is distinct from you, other, the rock, the tree, or the mountains, the rivers, the sky, the sun, the moon--what have you. This me-ness is the basic point here.

There is a general sense of discomfort when you refer to yourself as "me", which is very subtle discomfort. We usually don't acknowledge or notice it, because it is so subtle, and since it is there all the time, we become immune to it. There a certain basic ambivalence there. It is like dogs, who at a certain point begin to relate to their leashes as providing security rather than imprisonment. Animals in the zoo feel the same thing. At the beginning they experienced imprisonment, but at some point this became a sense of security. We have the same kind of attitude. We have imprisoned ourselves in a certain way, but at the same time, we feel that this imprisonment is the most secure thing we have. This me-ness or my-ness has a painful quality of imprisonment, but at some point this became a sense of security. We have the same kind attitude. We have imprisoned ourselves in a certain way, but at the same time, we feel that is imprisonment is the most secure thing we have. This me-ness or my-ness has a painful quality of imprisonment, but at the same, it also represents security rather than just pure pain. That is the situation we are in at this point. Every one of us is in the situation.

This me-ness is not painful in the sense of outright suffering, like what you get from eating a bottle of jalapeno chilli peppers. But there's something behind the whole thing that makes us very subtly nauseated, just a little bit. That nausea then becomes somewhat sweet, and we get hooked on that sweetness. Then if we lose our nausea, we also lose our sweet. That is the basic state of mind that everybody feels.

When the first of the four noble truths talks about suffering, this what it is talking about. There is that very subtle but t the same time very real and very personal thing going on, which sort of pulls us down. Of course there are various occasions when you might feel on top of the world. You have a fantastic vacation by the ocean or in the mountains. You fall in love or you celebrate a success in your career. You find something positive to hang on to. Nobody can deny that everyone of us has experienced that kind of glory. But at the same time that we are experiencing that high point of glory, the other end o the canoe, so to speak, is pushed down in to the water a bit. That big deal that we are trying to make in to a small deal continues to happen. Sometimes when it comes up on the surface, we call it depression. We think, "I feel bad, I feel sick, I feel terrible, I feel upset," and so forth. But at the same time, it is really something less than that. There is a basic, fundamental hangover, an all-pervasive hangover that i always taking place. Even though we may be feeling good about things, we have the sense of being stuck somewhere.

Often people interpret that sense of being stuck in such a way that they can blame it on having to put up with their parents' hang-ups resulting from some other part of their problematic case history. You had a bad experience, you say, therefore, this hang-up exists. People come up with these very convenient case-historical interpretations, maybe even bringing in physical symptoms. These are the very convenient escapes that we have.

But really there is something more than that involved, something that transcends one's case history. We do feel something that goes beyond parents, beyond a bad childhood, a bad birth, a difficult cesarean--whatever. There is something beyond all that taking place, a basic fuckedupedness that is all-pervasive. What Buddha calls it is ego, or neurosis.

That is the first of the two aspects of the mind we mentioned (cognition, separateness, duality). It's something we carry with us all the time. I'm afraid it is rather depressing.........

~ Chogyam Trungpa ~

("The Path is the Goal" Part Two "Me-ness and the Emotions" pp.57-58)

**Author goes on to speak of the second aspect of mind "emotions" which he more rightly terms "eruptions". To be continued (if I decide to post on this further)...

***Commentary: This is what must be confronted and acknowledged if spirit life is to be anything more profound (eternal) than just a superficial happiness, that akin to a candle wanting to stay lit amidst frequent heavy winds...

Observing bodily pain

All of us know physical pain—a little or a great deal—and we can deal with it medically and in other ways. You can observe pain with a mind that is not attached, with a mind that can observe bodily pain as though from the outside. One can observe one’s toothache and not be emotionally, psychologically involved in it. When you are involved emotionally and psychologically with that pain in the tooth, then the pain becomes more; you get terribly anxious, fearful. I do not know if you noticed this fact.
The key is to be aware of the physical, physiological, biological pain, and in that awareness not get involved with it psychologically. Being aware of the physical pain—and the psychological involvement with it which intensifies the pain and brings about anxiety, fear—and keeping the psychological factor entirely out requires a great deal of awareness, a certain quality of aloofness, a certain quality of unattached observation. Then that pain doesn’t distort the activities of the mind; then that physical pain doesn’t bring about neurotic activity of the mind.

J.Krishnamurti On Love and Loneliness, p 132

Limitations of Knowledge and Thought

All of knowledge has limitations, and they aren't just the limitations of being somehow provincial. The real limitation of knowledge - however broad - is that it has a way of interpreting our experience.. It sees things through the eyes of yesterday. The thinking mind jumps in front of our experience and tells us what is happening - using past experience as a guide - then runs back into our mind and hides, so we have no idea that thinking ever came along. We believe we know what we just went through. But our beliefs may not be in accord with what actually happened.

That is why don't-know mind opens us up to a new kind of freedom. You learn through awareness practice to see how thought comes out of hiding and interprets your experience. You learn to recognize a thought, to see that a thought is just a thought; it isn't reality. You then have a chance to see what your experience really is. The more you don't know, the more you see.

Larry Rosenberg ~ Living in the Light of Death (Ch.3, p.112)

**Comment-In light of what the author refers to, the above paragraph is relevant to how different religions lay claim to the truth via their own mental interpretations AND how fears of "old age and death" are distorted and made worse by the stories of the mind... For the old (which is our thought) cannot possibly guide one through such a process which requires a total beginners mind, a willingness to let go and be with whatever is happening (without expectation or anticipation) in that final moment.

The Wisdom of Insecurity - Quotes from last chapter

"He who thinks that God is not comprehended, by him God is comprehended; but he who thinks that God is comprehend knows him not. God is unknown to those who know him, and is known to those who do not know him at all" ~ Upanishads

"The highest to which man can attain is wonder; and if the prime phenomenon makes him wonder let him be content; nothing higher can it give him, and nothing further should he seek for behind it; here is the limit." ~ Goethe

"One of the greatest favors bestowed on the soul transiently in this life is to enable i to see so distinctly and to feel so profoundly that it cannot comprehend God at all. These souls are herein somewhat like the saints in heaven, where they who know him most perfectly perceive most clearly that he is infinitely incomprehensible; for those who have the less clear vision do not perceive so clearly as do these others how gratly he transcends their vision". ~ St. John of the Cross

"When you are dying and coming to life in each moment, would-be scientific predictions about what will happen after death are of little consequence. The whole glory of it is that we do not know. Ideas of survival and annihilation are alike based on the past, on memories of waking sleeping, and, in their different ways, the notions of everlasting continuity and everlasting nothingness are without meaning"

"Free from clutching at themselves the hands can handle; free from looking after themselves the eyes can see; free from trying to understand itself thought can think. IN such feeling, seeing, and tihnking life requires no future to complete itself nor explanation to justify itself. In this moment it is finished"

Alan Watts "The Wisdom of Insecurity" Chapter IX

When I don’t compare I understand what I am

…Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself. In a school, in an ordinary school where there are a lot of boys, when one boy is compared with another who is very clever, who is the head of the class, what is actually taking place? You are destroying the boy. That’s what we are doing throughout life. Now, can I live without comparison—without comparison with anybody? This means there is no high, no low—there is not the one who is superior and the other who is inferior. You are actually what you are and to understand what you are, this process of comparison must come to an end. If I am always comparing myself with some saint or some teacher, some businessman, writer, poet, and all the rest, what has happened to me—what have I done? I only compare in order to gain, in order to achieve, in order to become—but when I don’t compare I am beginning to understand what I am. Beginning to understand what I am is far more fascinating, far more interesting; it goes beyond all this stupid comparison.

Talks & Dialogues Saanen 1967, p 86

Can I be a light to myself?

We depend on experiences—pleasant or painful—to keep us awake; every form of challenge we want to keep us awake. When one realizes that this dependence on challenges and experiences only makes the mind more dull and that they do not really keep us awake—when one realizes that we have had thousands of wars and haven’t learnt a thing, that we are willing to kill our neighbour tomorrow on the least provocation—then one asks, why do we want them and is it all possible to keep awake without any challenge? That is the real question—you follow? I depend on a challenge, experience, hoping it will give me more excitement, more intensity, make my mind more sharp, but it does not. So I ask myself if it is possible to keep awake totally, not peripherally at a few points of my being, but totally awake, without any challenge, without any experience? That means, can I be a light to myself, not depending on any other light? That doesn’t mean I am vain in not depending on any stimulation. Can I be a light that never goes out? To find that out I must go deeply within myself, I must know myself totally, completely, every corner of myself, there must be no secret corners, everything must be exposed. I must be aware of the total field of my own self, which is the consciousness of the individual and of society. It is only when the mind goes beyond this individual and social consciousness that there is a possibility of being a light to oneself which never goes out.Talks & Dialogues Saanen 1967, pp 111-112

Five Realms, Three Bodies, One Liberation

Emptiness/Awareness/Energy (Causal) -- The Spirit (Divinity Self)

Thinking/Feeling/Vibrating (Astral) -- The Soul or Mind (Human Self)

Breathing/Attention/Perception (Physical) -- The Body (Animal Self)

Action/Sensation/Expression (External) -- The Ego or Personality (The Individual)

Doing/Devotion/Service (Social) -- The Role or Reputation (The Collective)

*Liberation-Unification-Evolution-Transformation-Realization & Absolute Perfection (The Universe)


JDZ

Why can’t we…not seek an answer to a problem?

…The answer is in the problem, not away from the problem. I go through the searching, analysing, dissecting process, in order to escape from the problem. But, if I do not escape from the problem and try to look at the problem without any fear or anxiety, if I merely look at the problem—mathematical, political, religious, or any other—and not look to an answer, then the problem will begin to tell me. Surely, this is what happens. We go through this process and eventually throw it aside because there is no way out of it. So, why can’t we start right from the beginning, that is, not seek an answer to a problem?—which is extremely arduous, isn’t it? Because, the more I understand the problem, the more significance there is in it. To understand, I must approach it quietly, not impose on the problem my ideas, my feelings of like and dislike. Then the problem will reveal its significance. Why is it not possible to have tranquillity of the mind right from the beginning?
The Collected Works vol V, p 283

To look at life not as a problem

First, we must be very clear that you and the speaker are treating life not as a problem but as a tremendous movement. If your brain is trained to solve problems, then you will treat this movement as a problem to be solved. Is it possible to look at life with all its questions, with all its issues, which is tremendously complex, to look at it not as a problem, but to observe it clearly, without bias, without coming to some conclusion which will then dictate your observation? You have to observe this vast movement of life, not only your own particular life, but the life of all humanity, the life of the earth, the life of the trees, the life of the whole world—look at it, observe it, move with it, but if you treat it as a problem, then you will create more problems.
J.Krishnamurti Mind Without Measure, p105

Journal: On Confrontation versus Letting Go

With Regard to Inner Darkness, Resistance & Conflict
"In terms of "solving the problem" I believe it about letting it be there and being fully present with it, or "sit with it" in meditation... the moment we try to DO anything about it we add more fuel to the fire... to the problem. That is important to realize... if I view something as a problem to be solved, rather than just see it directly and let it be, then I set up unnecessary conflict and resistance where there was never any to begin with.. and on this ground we are free to let go and think/feel happier thoughts/feelings :-)"

With regard to the outside world:
"I deal with things directly or I deny and forget about them long enough to let the moment keep flowing. The one thing that I cannot and will not do is think about an issue or situation without also taking immediate action... act now or surrender, maybe act later, listen to what the messages of the universe say, with faith. To escape or take a path of least resistance can be as effective as directly confronting..."

J D Z

A Pilgrimage

If we could take a journey, make a pilgrimage together without any intent or purpose, without seeking anything, perhaps on returning we might find that our hearts had unknowingly been changed. I think it worth trying. Any intent or purpose, any motive or goal implies effort—a conscious or unconscious endeavour to arrive, to achieve. I would like to suggest that we take a journey together in which none of these elements exist. If we can take such a journey, and if we are alert enough to observe what lies along the way, perhaps when we return, as all pilgrims must, we shall find that there has been a change of heart; and I think this would be much more significant than inundating the mind with ideas, because ideas do not fundamentally change human beings at all. Beliefs, ideas, influences may cause the mind superficially to adjust itself to a pattern, but if we can take the journey together without any purpose, and simply observe as we go along the extraordinary width and depth and beauty of life, then out of this observation may come a love that is not merely social, environmental, a love in which there is not the giver and the taker, but which is a state of being, free of all demand. So, in taking this journey together, perhaps we shall be awakened to something far more significant than the boredom and frustration, the emptiness and despair of our daily lives. J.Krishnamurti The Collected Works vol XI, p 243

The Third Dukkha

*Here in the west we understand and respond well to the positive and more extrovert attributes of Spirit... as love and wisdom, service and compassion, etc. I believe it also important to address/understand spirituality from a Buddhist (and generally eastern) perspective of what the author refers to as "deconstruction"...

Although dukkha is usually translated as "suffering", that is too narrow. The point of dukkha is that even those who are wealthy and healthy experience a basic dissatisfaction, a dis-ease, which continually festers. That we find life dis-satisfactory, one damn problem after another, is not accidental-because it the very nature o an unawakened sense-of-self to be bothered about something.

The first dukkha includes being separated from those we want to be with, and being stuck with those we don't want to be with (the Buddha has a sense of humor!). The second type is suffering due to impermanence. It's the realization that, although I might be enjoying an ice-cream cone right now, it will soon be finished. The best example of this type is awareness of mortality, which haunts our appreciation of life. Knowing that death is inevitable casts a shadow that usually hinders our ability to live fully now.

The third type of dukkha is more diffiuclt to understand because it's connected with the delusion of self. It is dukkha due to sankhara, "conditioned states", which is sometimes taken as a reference to the ripening of past karma. More generally, however, sankhara refers to the constructedness is anatta, "not-self". Thee is no unconditioned self within our constructed sense of self, and this is the source of the deepest dukkha, our worst anguish.

This sense of being a self that is separate from the world I am in is illusory-inf act, it is our most dangerous delusion. Here we can benefit from what has become a truism in contemporary psychology, which has also realized that the sense of self is a psychological-social-linguistic construct: psychological, because the ego-self is a product of mental conditioning; social, because a sense of self develops in relation with other constructed selves; and linguistic, because acquiring a sense of self involves learning to use certain names and pronouns such as I, me, mine, myself, which create the illusionthat there must be something being referred to. If the word cup refers to this thing I"m drinking coffe out of, then we mistakenly infer that I must refer to something in the same way. This is one of theways language misleads us.

Despite these similarities to modern psychology, however, Buddhism differs from most of it in two important ways First, Buddhism emphasizes that there is always something uncomfortable about our constructed sense of self. Much of contemporary psychotherapy is concerned with helping us become "well-adjusted". The ego-self needs to be repaired so it can fit into society and e can play our social roles better. Buddhism isn't about helping us become "well-adjusted". A socially well-adjusted ego-self is still a sick ego-self, for there remains something problematical about it. It is still infected by dukkha.

This suggests the other way that Buddhism differs from modern psychology. Buddhism agrees that the sense of self can be re-constructed, and that it needs to be reconstructed, but it emphasizes even more that the sense of self needs to be de-constructed, to realize its true "empty", non-dwelling nature. Awakening to our constructedness is the only real solution to our most fundamental anxiety. Ironically, the problem and it solution both depend upon the same fact: a constructed sense of self is not a real self. Not being a real self is intrinsically uncomfortable. Not being a real self is also what enables the sense of self to be deconstructed and reconstructed, and this deconstruction/reconstruction is what the Buddhist spiritual path is about.

(from "Money, Sex, War, Karma" by David Loy; Ch.1 The Suffering of Self, pp.16-17)

From Ego to Essence

"IT'S ALL A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE"

Making things more important than they are is one way the ego keeps us out of the present moment. This is particularly apparent when something truly important happens, like when you or someone close to you nearly dies or goes through some other crisis. This puts the other things the ego magnifies in importance into perspective. The ego doesn’t have perspective, which is one reason we suffer when we are identified with it. Its perspective is narrow: To it, life is good when we’re getting what it wants and bad when we aren’t. The trouble is that the ego’s desires aren’t a good guide for what’s important in life or for what will make us happy. And the ego often overlooks what might really make us happy, such as taking some time to just be, to connect with loved ones, or to do something fun or creative. The ego tends to drive us to achieve, improve ourselves, and get more things, and while there is a place for all of this, focusing exclusively on what the ego wants can leave us feeling empty, disconnected from life, exhausted, and never having or being enough.

The ego tells us we have to have certain things or be a certain way to be happy, and the ego is wrong about this; we don’t. It also assumes that every step along the way toward its plan for happiness has to work out or the plan will be ruined, and we will never achieve happiness. Every little difficulty and challenge we encounter is felt to be proof of failure and therefore a cause for unhappiness, rather than a natural part of the process of life unfolding. Every action and event is examined from the standpoint of whether it will get the ego what it wants or interfere with that. The ego has many goals, and it sees events in life as either helping it toward those goals or hindering it. If something helps, it’s good, and a successful and happy life seems possible. If something hinders, it’s bad, and a failed and unhappy life is assumed to be your destiny.

The suffering starts with an evaluation of something as good or bad, and that is followed by a story of what that will mean—being a success or failure, being happy or unhappy, being loved or lonely, having ease or having to struggle, being rich or being poor. The ego thinks in terms of black and white, never shades of gray; and life just isn’t like that. The ego’s reality is black and white, but real reality is messy, complex, unpredictable, and no one story you can tell about it is true. The ego doesn’t like that, of course. It likes its stories of good and bad and the drama and suffering they cause. It likes its stories because they give it a false sense of security, a sense of knowing how life is. The ego isn’t looking for truth; it just wants a story it can believe is true so that it can pretend it knows how and where life is going.

The ego is in the business of creating suffering because your suffering keeps you tied to it and allows it to exist. If you stopped suffering, you would no longer be identified with it, and it would stop existing—you would stop experiencing yourself as this “me” who has this problem and that problem, this desire and that goal, this self-image and that past. The ego only exists as a story about “you.” Nothing else. So, that story better be a dramatic one, or you’ll lose interest and drop out of your mind and into the present moment, where the ego disappears.

The ego has quite a racket going: It makes even small things a life and death matter to keep you involved with it. If something is important, and it’s going wrong, which is the ego’s basic story, then you’d better pay attention to the ego’s solution for fixing it, or you’ll really have a problem. It keeps you attentive to it with its stories and then with dealing with the feelings those stories generate and then the actions needed to make those stories turn out better. Yes, it has quite a racket going.

Meanwhile, life is happening in its own way, in its own time, and you are missing out on what is really going on because you’re busy trying to live out your story and make it turn out the way the ego wants. Most people’s lives are about getting their story to turn out the way they want, regardless of what Life, or the greater Intelligence behind it, might have in mind. People suffer so much when their ego’s desires don’t match what life is bringing them, and this suffering is so unnecessary.

The ego’s desires are created by the ego. Why build your life around them when something much deeper is at play, living and directing your life? You might miss what Essence is moving you to do if you’re too busy being moved by the ego. You can live your life as the ego intends or as Essence intends, and most people’s lives are a combination of the two. Paying attention to the ego’s stories and what’s important to it, however, will bring you a lot of pain because it tells sad and scary stories most of the time, and you will design your life to ward off what it fears rather than enjoy the life that Essence can create through you.

To the ego, life is a battle it’s trying to win, and every little difficulty feels like a threat to its self-image, life, and happiness, but that’s its perspective. To Essence, life is an experience to be enjoyed, an opportunity for exploration, discovery, growth, love, and service. Who is there here to battle with? The ego tilts at windmills. When you know yourself as the Oneness, it is a friendly universe, where you welcome and accept difficulties (including the challenge of your own and other people’s egos), not as your enemy but as your friend, or at least your teacher. When you are happy and aligned with Essence, the unimportant, small things in life stay small. They are seen in proper perspective. Essence gives you back your perspective, which is a very good reason to join with it rather than with the ego. When you do, life becomes easier, not because anything has changed, but because your perspective has.

by Gina Lake

http://www.facebook.com/l/;www.radicalhappiness.com