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jock

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  • October 27, 2015 at 11:44 pm in reply to: Buddhism for Beginners #86287
    jock
    Participant

    On a minor note, some hardcore Buddhists won’t kill any living thing and that includes cockroaches or mosquitos. I feel for those Buddhist monks meditating in Thailand, and not being able to swat insects that are biting them. 🙂

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by jock.
    October 27, 2015 at 5:13 pm in reply to: Dealing with loneliness? #86263
    jock
    Participant

    I guess I feel I have drifted away from my friends….that conventional path of getting promotions at work, then getting a house, car, kids….I feel that is very empty. I am trying to find more meaning to life….through mindfulness meditation, through reading zen books & listening to TEDtalk. Yet I feel a very small population is opened to talking about this stuff.

    well, there are a few of us here very willing to talk about that stuff. See thread on spirituality started by moongal.

    Making a living and money, I find are obstacles to happiness, in my view. We get stuck at survival level, worried about our finances, and we neglect spirituality. Unless of course we make use of our suffering, and become more compassionate.

    October 27, 2015 at 2:37 pm in reply to: Buddhism for Beginners #86255
    jock
    Participant

    was wondering what exactly do you mean by a higher power here?

    God.
    12 step drug/alcohol rehab programs use the term “higher power” to cover the term “god” more broadly. For me it is Jesus Christ, as it is for other Christians.
    Buddhism has Buddha but Buddhists don’t pray to him. They study his teaching to learn how to be happy but they don’t worship him.
    If you follow the “enthusiastic Buddha” series on youtube, a lot of this is covered. But the learning is all fun in my opinion.

    October 27, 2015 at 9:25 am in reply to: Buddhism for Beginners #86214
    jock
    Participant

    I think I’ve seen some ajahn sumedho videos which were good.

    October 27, 2015 at 9:23 am in reply to: Learning self love #86212
    jock
    Participant

    IST is all yours. I got burnt out already on those board meetings. Writing them out anyway. You can take sole ownership.

    October 27, 2015 at 9:19 am in reply to: Buddhism for Beginners #86211
    jock
    Participant

    moon, that is a FAQ for those starting Buddhism which I’m not going to answer because I’m not exactly sure myself. Some of my issues with Buddhism include:
    -reincarnation, come on, do I really come back as a orangutan?
    -no relationship with a higher power. To me this is the advantage of Christianity. In times of trouble you can turn to a higher power for help. That is why I’d couldn’t fully commit to Buddhism. But that doesn’t mean I don’t respect most of its tenets. I love the idea of the eightfold path.

    October 27, 2015 at 9:11 am in reply to: Learning self love #86206
    jock
    Participant

    yes good suggestion anita

    October 27, 2015 at 12:04 am in reply to: Learning self love #86174
    jock
    Participant

    thanks anita
    Also I’d like to add that it is all done unconsciously. We are not aware of all the internal politics that goes on , between out inner selves. One second I’m berating myself for getting fat, the next minute an inner self takes the bullet for the rest of the team. feeling “ouch! Not again!” Then other members want to have their say.I’m continually switching from bully, insulter, victim, ally of bully, ally of victim, fence-sitter, umpire, adult, child, Republican, Democrat, male, female, etecera, etcetera. Actually I think in reality there is a cast of a 1000 inner selves, because we can only access a small part of the unconscious. Small wonder it is so hard to find peace of mind and self-love!

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by jock.
    October 26, 2015 at 11:45 pm in reply to: Buddhism for Beginners #86173
    jock
    Participant

    What do you think about this tendency to ruminate?

    Well, it is a big one for me Moon, as I imagine it is for a lot of people. I still think about events that happened 20 years ago in a negative light. And I do have a tendency to demonise other people in the story I tell myself. The story usually has me as the heroic victim 🙂 But at least these days, I am aware of when I am doing it. I catch myself before I start getting caught in the web, the vortex which drags me down. One negative thought leads to another. It’s like a vicious cycle. Thats why when we are in a positive frame of mind, we create a positive aura, which attracts lots of positives.
    Meditation definitely helps. I am now more aware during the day of a potential negative “spiral” as you say.In meditation, that continual “back to the breath” “back to the breath”, trains the mind into good habits of not spending too much time worrying about anything, just focussing, and refocussing on the breath.

    October 26, 2015 at 11:27 pm in reply to: Buddhism for Beginners #86170
    jock
    Participant

    I wonder why the mind tends to attach so strongly to the negatives?

    Ok Moon,I’ll have a go at answering this one.
    1) negatives are more interesting? Think of the news report on TV. How much positive news is there?
    2) the mind likes to focus on problem-solving, well not solving, more problem ruminating. It likes to feel busy.
    3) The monkey mind doesn’t like sitting still doing “boring” stuff like watching the breath
    4) our personality. If we are more perfectionist, we like to have zero problems. Zero tolerance for problems 🙂
    5) our education. especially at higher grades we are taught to think critically. This encourages a restless, sceptical mind, that won’t accept things at face value.

    One of the Buddhist speakers on youtube compared thoughts to children. You (the observer of the mind)have to ignore the attention seeking trouble-makers and give more attention to the well-behaved ones.

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by jock.
    • This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by jock.
    October 26, 2015 at 5:43 pm in reply to: Learning self love #86141
    jock
    Participant

    I liked to beat myself up for my mistakes

    I just reread the original post and noticed this. The fact that you (we) liked to beat yourself(ourselves)up.
    That’s interesting isn’t it. The fact that part of us gets pleasure out of self-recriminations. Otherwise why would we do it?
    Part of us gets reward for the abuse and then it becomes a habit.
    So actually we sometimes identify with the internal bully instead of the victim part of us.

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by jock.
    October 26, 2015 at 1:37 pm in reply to: Buddhism for Beginners #86127
    jock
    Participant

    Moon
    This woman was a Buddhist nun for 3 years. She is one of the best Buddhist speakers I’ve seen on youtube, in my opinion.
    Her other videos are good too.
    I’ve watched that Richard Gere one. I liked it a lot. There was a problem with the last 6 chapters of the series being broadcast which is a shame.

    October 26, 2015 at 1:33 pm in reply to: Buddhism for Beginners #86126
    jock
    Participant

    October 23, 2015 at 10:28 am in reply to: Transference #85958
    jock
    Participant

    Anita
    Hopefully we can remain civil here by agreeing to disagree. From my point of view this is what happened a few days ago.
    I saw a post from Inky and the words that stood out for me were “we are not trained therapists, take our advice with a pinch of salt.” Now the actual topic on abortion was irrelevant to my post. I thought what she said was a fair comment and one we all need to remind ourselves on here, now and then. But perhaps “the pinch of salt” part was extreme and inflammatory on reflection. I see now that someone who takes time to give concerned, respectful replies might take offence to that part. Or maybe you take offence to the other part as well, that you are not a trained therapist? Do you see yourself the equal of a trained therapist? I don’t see myself as a trained counsellor, so I don’t expect people to take my advice as gospel truth. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect your writing though. I do.
    So Inky’s words concurred with something in the back of my mind. Some doubt I had about forum advice in general and the tendency for us to take ourselves too seriously. My post was not an attack on you. But I definitely get the impression that you took it personally and I can understand why to an extent. “jumping on the bandwagon” to me was not up to your usual standard of analysis. I agreed with one thing Inky said and I am “jumping on the bandwagon”? That is more like you jumping to conclusions. You being defensive. And maybe it is the first time I noticed. It seems to me now that you were immediately going to your analyses of my inner selves, as if you know everything about me. But that is your illusion I’m afraid. Because you don’t know the real me, the one in real life, you only know the cyber version.

    October 22, 2015 at 11:22 pm in reply to: Projecting #85924
    jock
    Participant

    This is why people like me aren’t in charge of commonsense operations,, 🙂
    Where decisions need to be made on the spot!

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by jock.
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