The art of happiness

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by Dream

....I agree with Seattlegal's "Perhaps."

Hi Dream, what part of SG's "Perhaps" position do you agree with?

I think you once said, NettiNetti, that you have to recognize the tragedy of living while maintaining a positive attitude, which sounds to me like a balance of left & right perspectives.

I was raising a basic issue: Redemption without a condition to be redeemed would be a moot point.

I don't see how one can make a case for a "progression towards truth" without recognizing fundamental problems like false consciousness, illusion of control, craving, clinging, and various delusional emotions that feed misguided action. If all this makes for an acceptable state of affairs, why make an effort to overcome any of it?

If suffering is not a problem, why seek relief from it? If sin is not a problem, why seek salvation?

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Perhaps.

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

Hi Dream, what part of SG's "Perhaps" position do you agree with?

[satire] Kewl, do you also have a sure-fire cure for the hiccups? If not, a sure-fire means of salvation should be marketable without the added bonus hiccup cure. Have you contacted a patent lawyer about it? Just think of all {money you can make,}--err, I mean good you can do with it. {not to mention all the fame you'll get,}--err, I mean good karma you'll generate. There is just one slight glitch: there is some fine print. You can find it on this thread. [/satire]

I was raising a basic issue: Redemption without a condition to be redeemed would be a moot point.

Christianity stipulates repentance, and Buddhism stipulates renunciation.

I don't see how one can make a case for a "progression towards truth" without recognizing fundamental problems like false consciousness, illusion of control, craving, clinging, and various delusional emotions that feed misguided action. If all this makes for an acceptable state of affairs, why make an effort to overcome any of it?

If suffering is not a problem, why seek relief from it? If sin is not a problem, why seek salvation?

Wouldn't recognizing these things, even in hindsight, in a progressive manner, and making corrections constitute progression towards truth?

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

[satire] Kewl, do you also have a sure-fire cure for the hiccups? If not, a sure-fire means of salvation should be marketable without the added bonus hiccup cure. Have you contacted a patent lawyer about it? Just think of all {money you can make,}--err, I mean good you can do with it. {not to mention all the fame you'll get,}--err, I mean good karma you'll generate. There is just one slight glitch: there is some fine print. You can find it on this thread. [/satire]

The statement you were responding to was framed in a question form to reflect appreciation for the tenative quality of the suggestion made. There wasn't anything about the language that indicated unwarranted certainty. I think perhaps you're off on a tangent here.

Christianity stipulates repentance, and Buddhism stipulates renunciation.

Very different approaches.

Wouldn't recognizing these things, even in hindsight, in a progressive manner, and making corrections constitute progression towards truth?

Of course.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

Actually, no. Let's go back and review:

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Perhaps.

My satirical post was asking this question: Can you consistently hold Right Mindfulness and Right Intention without any help? {I highlighted some examples of how Right Mindfulness and Right Intention can become twisted, and how we might cover these twists up with rationalizations, deceiving ourselves in the process.}

Very different approaches.

Both having the possibility for the same side effect of fooling yourself, no? Hence the need for testing and reflection.

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Not being happy, and not doing what it takes to purge the hate we cling to? (Forgive others?)Forgiving oneself even.

Strange to think that it would seem as though it's better to hold onto the hate than to let it go and give one's heart to the L-rd. In effect, this is hate claiming priority over G-d's love. Isn't this yet another form of clinging to self?

So why would one fail to do what it takes to purge the hate? Wouldn't it be because of the effect attachment has on judgment. Attachment clouds the mind and helps perpetuate wrong intent by clogging up the spiritual channel.
Attachment keeps the person from seeing that they should be doing something different from what they are doing.

Not being happy, and not doing what it takes to purge the hate we cling to? (Forgive others?)

Perhaps holding onto hate and holding one's heart back from G-d bespeaks the sense that G-d wouldn't respond to the turning toward G-d. This feeling of being doomed to remain forever unworthy of G-d's Blessings and therefore without hope of receiving the Blessings makes for grievous unhappiness. From Dark Night of the Soul:

But what the sorrowful soul feels most in this condition is its clear perception, as it thinks, that God has abandoned it, and, in His abhorrence of it, has flung it into darkness; it is a grave and piteous grief for it to believe that God has forsaken it. It is this that David also felt so much in a like case, saying: 'After the manner wherein the wounded are dead in the sepulchres,' being now cast off by Thy hand, so that Thou rememberest them no more, even so have they set me in the deepest and lowest lake, in the dark places and in the shadow of death, and Thy fury is confirmed upon me and all Thy waves Thou hast brought in upon me.'

This sense of separation from the Divine may be projected as fear of abandonment or fear of loss of social support:

'Thou hast put far from me my friends and acquaintances; they have counted me an abomination.' To all this will Jonas testify, as one who likewise experienced it in the belly of the beast, both bodily and spiritually. 'Thou hast cast me forth (he says) into the deep, into the heart of the sea, and the flood hath compassed me; all its billows and waves have passed over me. And I said, "I am cast away out of the sight of Thine eyes, but I shall once again see Thy holy temple" (which he says, because God purifies the soul in this state that it may see His temple); the waters compassed me, even to the soul, the deep hath closed me round about, the ocean hath covered my head....

-------------------------------------
Recognizing that idolatry will mean losing salvation, Jonah proclaims "Salvation is of the LORD."

Then the Lord spoke to the fish and then spit Jonah out on the dry land.

You can run, but you can't hide from yourself.

That never stopped anybody from trying.

[Netti-Netti]

Right Mindfulness and Right Intention can become twisted, and how we might cover these twists up with rationalizations, deceiving ourselves in the process.

True. It's easy to fool the most unsuspecting victim - oneself. So you would suggest being doubly mindful?

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

True. It's easy to fool the most unsuspecting victim - oneself. So you would suggest being doubly mindful?

Buddhists take refuge in the Three Jewels to deal with cutting through delusion.

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Buddhists take refuge in the Three Jewels to deal with cutting through delusion.

Interesting.

Should we look into specific mindfulness practices?

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

Interesting.

Should we look into specific mindfulness practices?

That would be up to the individual and their sangha to decide.

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by Ciel

What do you notice first, the weeds or the flowers?

The original poster wrote:

One way to get rid of these negative mental states, which keep one away from true happiness, is to realize the usefulness of compassion. From a buddhist perspective, anybody want to share how they would overcome these problems?

Some would say that Buddhism is a pessimistic philosophy because it is largely concerned with the weeds. Kunzang Pelden:

The Buddha has given his Bodhisattva children four forces so that they can accomplish the welfare of beings: aspiration, steadfastness, joyfulness, and relinquishment (the ability to let go or desist). The latter three derive from the first. Aspiration is based on fear of suffering.

Logically, one way to maintain high levels of aspiration is to sustain a high level of fear. The practitioner is constantly on the lookout for the weeds for fear that they're going to take over. The weeds are the effects of negative action.

Arguably, the Buddhist paradigm is essentially a model of avoidance learning - "the process by which an individual learns a behavior or response to avoid a stressful or unpleasant situation." (Encyclopedia of Psychology).

In Buddhism, happiness appears in large part as the absence of suffering.

[Ciel]

Well, all beautiful flowers were once only weeds.........
And weeds as flowers of natural freedom manifest their own beauty in resilience and strengh of being...... even joy.

If there were only one book of Buddhist wisdom I would choose it would be...
"the bliss bestowing treasure" [Wiki quote, and I agree] of "The Lotus Sutra".

Watson Contents - Lotus Sutra

For it shows another face of the many facets of Buddhism and proves by transmission of frequency utmost joy and bliss if one is able to remove themselves from the plough share of mud and mundane.

Yes it is possible to move beyond suffering through mindfulness and no mind if to live in empty space of no matter, yet there is an all encompassing level to a far greater existence where it is realised bliss is as the very breath and ultimate connection of life......and beware it is contagious.....

Sometime all we need do is allow ourselves the natural state of happiness and drop the fear, for it is the antithesis to love and natural being.

- c -

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by Ciel

And weeds as flowers of natural freedom manifest their own beauty in resilience and strengh of being...... even joy.

Indeed. What if a weed is just a flower that no one appreciates?

Sometime all we need do is allow ourselves the natural state of happiness and drop the fear

In describing the human's relation to the Divine, roughly half of the English translations of the Bible use the term "fear." The other half use the term "wonder." Perhaps attitude makes a difference??

[Snoopy]

To be happy requires acceptance of what is; not striving after what is not and cannot be.


"A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.”

- Dogen.

s.

[Netti-Netti]

"The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for."

- Maureen Dowd

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Ciel

Never read a thread as this creating such complexities out of nowt.

Happiness rises outside the realms of complex...... it is not a complex thing.

But if you want.......
It is a matter of discarding the layers of should and should not towards the simplicity of the core of inner being where life is spontaneous, acting without external cause, gracefully natural and unconstrained..........

Happiness is opening to love and inner God space where life flows outward generating the positive.

- c -

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
~Dalai Lama

Interdependent co-arising?