You have to give it to yourself.
And yet on that same page:
"It amazes me how often I’ve seen the word “is” throughtout this site. Nothing “is”. Things resemble, apeear, or have some qualities of other things, but no thing “IS” another thing. Most grown adults know what “is” means, so most grown adults lie incessantly everyday. “The sky IS blue. The air IS cold. That man IS ugly.” Lies.
Not mistakes, not semantic differences, but mere lies."
“My understanding of koans was that they are meant to break your reliance on language, because the concepts they confer cannot be communicated with language. Sort of fighting fire with fire. So there really shouldn’t be written interpretations…”
Which really just adds to my issues with Buddhism.
I tried that before, really I did. But no matter how heartfelt, thought out, or reasoned I was, fear just ruled out. Fear that I am disobeying or lying to myself, fear that they are right (crazy I know) and that I am wrong by not listening to them. I have given myself permission, but it does nothing.
I’ve read a number of your threads here on various philosophical and religious topics. You come across, in your posts here, as obsessed with the topic, and desperately seeking a way forward. I’ll reiterate the advice that’s already been given several times here: **talk to a counselor or therapist. **
He’s gotten that advice here literally for several years. I see no evidence that he’s seriously looking for a solution to his problem, which as most folks here have concluded has nothing to do with religion.
I can’t afford one.
I have no idea where you live, or if you have already looked into it, but there may be free (or low cost) counseling services available through your school (if you’re in school), your employer, or your local hospital or health department.
Regardless, the amount of angst and obsession you display on these topics (and have for a long while) certainly suggests that you are in need of something beyond conversations with people on a message board.
Thing is that the guy I usually see (like over 4 years) I can’t afford, and I’m not sure about starting from square 1. Last time I talked to one I could afford he was pretty bad.
You have my personal permission not to listen to those idiots. They’re not right, except in the sense (and frequency) of a stopped clock. When it comes to their wild assertions about the cosmology of reality they’re really not right. Incoherence is not wisdom.
I’ll tell ya, the thing that boggles my mind is that you think that these particular idiots have a hotline to truth, when they’re just one voice in a sea of contradicting voice. It sounds like you’re listening to them because they’re wrong, and because the things they say confuse you and make you unhappy. They say things that don’t make sense to you and rather than entertaining the idea that they’re idiots you assume there’s some truth to the nonsensical things they say.
And I assume from this post is that’s what is bothering you?
Given this my suggestion would be to find out what is a ‘friend’ and see if your current friends fit that definition. Now how about to find out what is a friend, that is your journey and if you wish to explore it. In that I can give my own experience.
I thought I knew what a friend was, and thought I had friends. I undertook a long journey/pilgrimage and found out in short that friends don’t leave one lonely, it is a continuous knowing that they are there and you are in their hearts, and that ends loneliness. There is a synergy also that the times you get together is mutually positive with positive after effects, not a longing for more, nor not a demand to be seen. We tend to focus on the wrong people when we count our friends.
I have a solid grasp on what real friends are, rather my issue is that pursuing them is viewed as unhealthy. The same way that Buddhism (in a sense) view imagination as wrong and not living in reality. Like different things mean something to me and when I listen to music I get transported or start painting things in my head. But Buddhism would have me think that such things are wrong and you are living in delusion.
Personally it sounds like “delusion” might be a happier place to be.
The consistent theme I get from Buddhism (in my slight glimpses of it, which mostly come from threads involving you) is fear. They seem to be scared of everything, and approach the world as though it’s fraught with constant peril. Anything that seems to be good is transient and may be ripped away from you at any time.
Starting from that standpoint, they seem to then advocate a mindset where you care about literally nothing. You seem to be allowed to take what pleasure you may, maybe, but only if it’s momentary, reactive pleasure. Becoming attached to things is bad, because things can be ripped away at any moment in this horrible terrifying scary world we live in. Friends? One car crash and they’re a red smear. Better to have not loved at all than to have loved and lost - so erase your longing of friends. Erase your longing for anything. Become zen. Become apathetic. Crave nothing, because the world sucks and you’re not going to get it anyway. Or if you do get it all you’re going to do is worry about eventually losing it because the world is scary dangerous, so so scary scary.
This gibbering drooling nonsense about reality not being real is just a woo attempt to justify this fearful avoidance of attachment by claiming that you’re not avoiding attachment because of fear, you’re avoiding attachment because reality is a hallucination. Which is dumb when a solipsist says it and it’s dumb when Buddhists say it. For the same reasons - reality is way too constant to be imaginary. Statements that reality isn’t real are flat wrong, and anybody who claims otherwise is full of crap.
You certainly seem to have plenty of delusions about what Buddhism says. (eta mean for post #51, not #52.)
If someone wants to understand what Buddhism is in essence about, one can read some of the early Buddhist texts or at least a biography of the Buddha, and not get stressed out over the dozens of schools of Buddhism and their metaphysical arguments (either the actual ones or as imagined by random Internet posters) about philosophical realism versus nominalism.
That is totally, incorrect.
Just because the physical world is a veil covering the deeper reality, and we are all sharing this illusion does not make it “wrong” or “delusional.”
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That doesn’t really help me out. In fact it’s things like that which keep me from letting go. It’s like just when I’m over it stuff like that, and koans, pull me back. That if I don’t listen them then I’m choosing to live life on autopilot.
If there are any I would like to know. I’d just like to get through one day without feeling like I’m doing something “wrong”.
Well, I’m no Buddhist scholar but I strongly doubt that they teaching that “imagination as wrong and not living in reality”, that “such things are wrong and you are living in delusion.” Show me Buddhists saying that nobody should imagine anything or enjoy anything.
That’s a sucky situation, and I’m sorry that you wound up talking to a therapist you didn’t like.
The advice stays the same – you’re clearly profoundly unhappy, and obsessing over religious and philosophical things. Continuing to post about those things here, and picking apart the attempts of people here who try to talk you through things, is highly unlikely to help you at all.
If the last therapist didn’t do anything for you, find a different one. What you’re looking for isn’t something that message board discussions are going to help. For that matter, it seems unlikely that you’re going to find the answers from religion (especially since you seem to be convinced that there must be one religion out there that’s “correct,” and you’re doomed if you pick wrong). GET PROFESSIONAL HELP.
Machinaforce: what is it you want?
No, really. Broad strokes, here: just describe, in general terms, what you think it’d be like if you (a) found enlightenment or whatever, and then (b) just got on with the rest of your life, as someone who now knows what’s what.
What would success look like?