Archived_member14
SPNer
Harry ji,
I couldn't find time to respond and later decided not to do it. But now I changed my mind and will comment this once and not bother you anymore in this particular discussion.
Imagine the following:
In a busy shop, you see an opportunity to walk away with a Rolex watch but suddenly think to refrain and not do it.
You see an opportunity to kill the rat which has been sneaking into your house every night and eating things, but experience kindness and refrain.
You are angry and about to shout at someone for an obvious wrong that he did, but see the ugliness of anger and refrain.
You feel horny and about to wake your wife up, but suddenly think that she needs a rest, so you don't wake her up.
Do all these not clearly point to mental actions?
When you steal or kill, these are bodily actions, but are they not conditioned by the mind? What you refer to as discipline, is this not about will, determination and restraint all mental phenomena? Body is body, it is a physical phenomenon and physical phenomenon, unlike mental phenomenon, does not know anything.
So you still think Hesse had something substantial to say and understood what enlightenment means…..
But frankly I don't understand your response, what point are you making? Besides what I said with reference to the past is not that there is no learning *in* the past, but rather that there is no learning *from thinking about* the past.
And in case you doubt this, allow me draw your attention to the fact of wise people of all traditions, including I believe Sikhism as well, pointing out the uselessness of thinking about the past and future and the importance being in the present. Indeed given that we think almost all the time with attachment, aversion and ignorance, in this particular case of seeking to learn from the past there must also be wrong understanding involved. And this more than anything else, takes one further away from the possibility of understanding the reality of what is “now”.
Furthermore, I'd like to point out that one should not underestimate the power of underlying tendencies. And understand also that it is the nature of mental phenomena, both good and bad, that with each arising, the tendency to it accumulates and the only way that the bad ones can become less is through accumulating more and more understanding as to their nature. The reason you don't feel lust towards Scarlett Johansson wearing a bikini and touching you, is more like in spite of your past experiences and not because of it. If you have not directly understood attachment, more of it has and will continue to accumulate each time that it arises.
You are attached to the story of your life as we all are to ours. What is recalled, how different scenes are arranged and what value is given to each and the overall story is dictated by the ignorance and attachment now. Would you want this to continue on or would you rather develop more understanding of thinking and what motivates the thinking?
There can be no real learning when ignorance and attachment is at the root. And it is clear that when such thinking goes on, conceit or ego is being encouraged as well. Knowing this, I'm sure you'd not want this to continue, would you?
You do not know thinking well enough then.
Except for instances of the raw experiences of sense objects such as sound, smell, heat, taste and so on, all other experiences involve thinking. The moment you perceive 'fire', already billions of thought processes have taken place, some of which involving conditioned responses based on past experiences. Even Freud was perceptive enough to have noted that the moment there is vague perception of another human being, immediately the reaction "man or woman?" happens. This means that he acknowledged past influences involving much thinking even before one recognizes whether it is a man or woman there. And I'd add that it is ignorance all the way through, and therefore if you judge any of it as worthwhile in terms of knowledge gained, you are only deluding yourself.
That said it could be that on the other hand, one has in the past reacted to a particular situation with wisdom, with kindness, or with restrain. And because of understanding, all kinds of good got developed and more easily arose. But I think that this is not what you are pointing at in your suggestions, because if you were, you'd end up agreeing about the need to understand "now". Instead you are trying to make a case for thinking about the past.
Sometimes we think of doing good, but do not have the necessary energy or zeal. Knowing that this is what we lack can motivate us to right action, but this should not be without understanding because otherwise what invariably happens is that we end up "doing" with ignorance and desire for result.
Indeed when we say "do" and "just do it" and no understanding is present, this is stuff of mischief. While there may be some idea as to the difference between good and evil, one fails at seeing the greater danger in ignorance and attachment to 'self'. This leads to actions aimed at making the self feel good at the expense of knowing what the truth is. And while caught up in the habit, any good maintained can only be due to past accumulated tendencies hence more like in spite of the habit rather than a consequence of it. But there is more.
We identify good with particular outward actions instead of understanding that good as being states of mind, each with different characteristics and functions, for example, kindness is different from morality and both from giving. This leads to overlooking opportunities for good in ordinary situations and going about trying to do good in an idealistic way, driven by self. Indeed often it happens that while we involve in "doing good" in some recognizable way, we do much wrong at other times during our day to day living. For example a businessman may like to give donations to organizations, but is very quick to cut the salary of the housemaid if she breaks some fine chinaware. Or he will hurt anyone in doing business and not feel any shame at all even when it is pointed out to him.
If there is improvement, this must refer not to the attachment, but something else.
If there is no wisdom, can anything of value be seen for what it is?
You say on one hand that there is no wisdom now, yet you go on to make a statement about the need to focus on a bigger picture and how important 'habit' is?
I used to consider myself intelligent, but not anymore. (And this is an example of the deception that comes with thinking in retrospect about oneself) But then again, I don't particularly value intelligence, but wisdom, yes. Wisdom to me is Right Understanding which I consider myself to be only at the kindergarten level given the depth of ignorance. But even at this level I can see that it is wrong to judge the value of anything by whether or not it "works for me". The reason is that for those of us who are still essentially fools, desire arises all the time playing the role of both teacher and of student. So it is the teacher who happily leads and the student happily follow, and both are blind due to the presence of ignorance.
You can go on with your life as it is without the need to judge any of it as 'progress'. Indeed if you think this way with attachment, this is a step backwards is it not? You should take care not to judge any reduction in sense-indulgence as 'moderation' as this in fact is an aspect of wisdom. If what you do is diversion and / or suppression of some kind, you'd need to know it for what it is and not think that you've made progress in terms of morality and wisdom. And why would someone who seeks to understand, look for peace? So again you should not judge the value of what you do in terms of how much peace you now experience.
I couldn't find time to respond and later decided not to do it. But now I changed my mind and will comment this once and not bother you anymore in this particular discussion.
Imagine the following:
In a busy shop, you see an opportunity to walk away with a Rolex watch but suddenly think to refrain and not do it.
You see an opportunity to kill the rat which has been sneaking into your house every night and eating things, but experience kindness and refrain.
You are angry and about to shout at someone for an obvious wrong that he did, but see the ugliness of anger and refrain.
You feel horny and about to wake your wife up, but suddenly think that she needs a rest, so you don't wake her up.
Do all these not clearly point to mental actions?
When you steal or kill, these are bodily actions, but are they not conditioned by the mind? What you refer to as discipline, is this not about will, determination and restraint all mental phenomena? Body is body, it is a physical phenomenon and physical phenomenon, unlike mental phenomenon, does not know anything.
So you still think Hesse had something substantial to say and understood what enlightenment means…..
But frankly I don't understand your response, what point are you making? Besides what I said with reference to the past is not that there is no learning *in* the past, but rather that there is no learning *from thinking about* the past.
And in case you doubt this, allow me draw your attention to the fact of wise people of all traditions, including I believe Sikhism as well, pointing out the uselessness of thinking about the past and future and the importance being in the present. Indeed given that we think almost all the time with attachment, aversion and ignorance, in this particular case of seeking to learn from the past there must also be wrong understanding involved. And this more than anything else, takes one further away from the possibility of understanding the reality of what is “now”.
Furthermore, I'd like to point out that one should not underestimate the power of underlying tendencies. And understand also that it is the nature of mental phenomena, both good and bad, that with each arising, the tendency to it accumulates and the only way that the bad ones can become less is through accumulating more and more understanding as to their nature. The reason you don't feel lust towards Scarlett Johansson wearing a bikini and touching you, is more like in spite of your past experiences and not because of it. If you have not directly understood attachment, more of it has and will continue to accumulate each time that it arises.
You are attached to the story of your life as we all are to ours. What is recalled, how different scenes are arranged and what value is given to each and the overall story is dictated by the ignorance and attachment now. Would you want this to continue on or would you rather develop more understanding of thinking and what motivates the thinking?
There can be no real learning when ignorance and attachment is at the root. And it is clear that when such thinking goes on, conceit or ego is being encouraged as well. Knowing this, I'm sure you'd not want this to continue, would you?
You do not know thinking well enough then.
Except for instances of the raw experiences of sense objects such as sound, smell, heat, taste and so on, all other experiences involve thinking. The moment you perceive 'fire', already billions of thought processes have taken place, some of which involving conditioned responses based on past experiences. Even Freud was perceptive enough to have noted that the moment there is vague perception of another human being, immediately the reaction "man or woman?" happens. This means that he acknowledged past influences involving much thinking even before one recognizes whether it is a man or woman there. And I'd add that it is ignorance all the way through, and therefore if you judge any of it as worthwhile in terms of knowledge gained, you are only deluding yourself.
That said it could be that on the other hand, one has in the past reacted to a particular situation with wisdom, with kindness, or with restrain. And because of understanding, all kinds of good got developed and more easily arose. But I think that this is not what you are pointing at in your suggestions, because if you were, you'd end up agreeing about the need to understand "now". Instead you are trying to make a case for thinking about the past.
Sometimes we think of doing good, but do not have the necessary energy or zeal. Knowing that this is what we lack can motivate us to right action, but this should not be without understanding because otherwise what invariably happens is that we end up "doing" with ignorance and desire for result.
Indeed when we say "do" and "just do it" and no understanding is present, this is stuff of mischief. While there may be some idea as to the difference between good and evil, one fails at seeing the greater danger in ignorance and attachment to 'self'. This leads to actions aimed at making the self feel good at the expense of knowing what the truth is. And while caught up in the habit, any good maintained can only be due to past accumulated tendencies hence more like in spite of the habit rather than a consequence of it. But there is more.
We identify good with particular outward actions instead of understanding that good as being states of mind, each with different characteristics and functions, for example, kindness is different from morality and both from giving. This leads to overlooking opportunities for good in ordinary situations and going about trying to do good in an idealistic way, driven by self. Indeed often it happens that while we involve in "doing good" in some recognizable way, we do much wrong at other times during our day to day living. For example a businessman may like to give donations to organizations, but is very quick to cut the salary of the housemaid if she breaks some fine chinaware. Or he will hurt anyone in doing business and not feel any shame at all even when it is pointed out to him.
If there is improvement, this must refer not to the attachment, but something else.
If there is no wisdom, can anything of value be seen for what it is?
You say on one hand that there is no wisdom now, yet you go on to make a statement about the need to focus on a bigger picture and how important 'habit' is?
I used to consider myself intelligent, but not anymore. (And this is an example of the deception that comes with thinking in retrospect about oneself) But then again, I don't particularly value intelligence, but wisdom, yes. Wisdom to me is Right Understanding which I consider myself to be only at the kindergarten level given the depth of ignorance. But even at this level I can see that it is wrong to judge the value of anything by whether or not it "works for me". The reason is that for those of us who are still essentially fools, desire arises all the time playing the role of both teacher and of student. So it is the teacher who happily leads and the student happily follow, and both are blind due to the presence of ignorance.
You can go on with your life as it is without the need to judge any of it as 'progress'. Indeed if you think this way with attachment, this is a step backwards is it not? You should take care not to judge any reduction in sense-indulgence as 'moderation' as this in fact is an aspect of wisdom. If what you do is diversion and / or suppression of some kind, you'd need to know it for what it is and not think that you've made progress in terms of morality and wisdom. And why would someone who seeks to understand, look for peace? So again you should not judge the value of what you do in terms of how much peace you now experience.
