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There is a connected lesson in thinking
One can conceive a whole nature landscape in one long glance
Solution centered answers
What is the Tao?
Beauty of the world READ THIS
The world is of love and beauty
About being allowed to live in this way
Emotional and objective
Effortlessly better
The spreading of this may be connected to my unusual teaching skills
How I taught my rabbits
My zen
Our thinking is confused. That's one reasong why our lives are a mess. Also the thinking of others is typically confused, so our social lives are a mess too. With compassion and no maliciousness, together with a holistic view of the world, we could all live happily. Freedom isn't uncatchable, it is just unforceable, otherwise it gets destroyed, it is understandable and even controllable if one does not try to force things but just follows the flow of life. Do not have theoretical plans in your mind about how things should be. Instead let the world be like it wants to be. This is the taoist wisdom and connected to the buddhist understanding: like this you give room to naturality, reaching meditation in daily life. Life is in the living, it isn't in our thoughts, grasp each moment of your life to the fullest, advices Tao-te-ching.
My buddhist/taoist perspective: to give up my old theory perspective and to build a new one based on my experiences, based on the sensed world in all its complexity. The atmosphere of this is that of giving up (the old theory) and of flowing with the sensed experiences. So it is like a religious experience, like a prayer which widens one's capacity lightly, easily and enjoyably by giving up bad habits and placing trust in the higher or in the world and in the human nature. Flowing with life.
If it is just enlightenment that you are interested in, I feel that it may be easiest to grasp via the Japanese Zen Buddhist teachings, via the short zen buddhist poems and short stories about someone having gotten enlightened suddenly. Referring to life at the level of natural experience.
"Buddha-babble blocks the way." i.e. all theory is mistaken, is at the wrong level, is pointing to the reality instead of being the reality itself, you must trust life at the level of experience.
There are two kinds of emotions: ones born out of sensations, out of the experienced reality, and ones born out of thoughts. The sensed things are a sure source of information for us and feelings based on them are often positive and trustworthy. But thoughts can often be mistaken, so emotions based on thoughts are often mistaken and hard to bear. Of course we need also thoughts and serious-minded attitude toward thoughts with emotions too understanding about the important matters of life. But the stupid competitive thoughts we should forget and instead concentrate on life in the living and on emotions raised by life at the level of experience.
I tried to explain what buddhism is to a rational atheist relative of mine who didn't know anything about it:
One should live life at the level of experience - that gives happiness - and not in memorised thoughts.
One should not measure things in points or analogiously by some theoretical measure scale of good and poor performance, and bind one's feelings to that result - such is the cause of human suffering, believe the buddhists (if I have understood right!). Instead one should bind one's feelings to the level of experience, to what life feels like in practise.
About reducing also physical pain this way: by paying attention to how one moves one can reduce the strain in the hurt part and so lessen the pain.
One should live fully in practise and not just make theretical plans about the future: maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe after a ten years... Since if ten years pass, it can happen that we lose our health and cannot put our plans into practise. Then we feel betrayed by life as if we were supposed to life for forever. But if we live fully and expess ourselves fully -especially in social relationships and other things which we feel very important - at the present, we can feel satisfied with how we have used our chances, our precious moments upon the Earth.
Like we Finns, buddhists too think that one should feel compassion toweard all living beings and live one's life truly conscientously according to those feelings.
I have practised the Japanese art of defending oneself without hurting anyone, aikido, and learned from it bowing while sitting on my knees. Such a bow puts one's preconceptions down and lets the higher ideals and aware perceptions of the reality into power in one's being. It is good to do every now and then: bow to things which you truly respect and which truly deserve great respect in the world, bow to moral and emotional truths at the same time as to the world at large or maybe to a god that you respect. Give up your old theory perspective and accept the sensory and emotional experience as a source of information.
Flow toward the things that you like and away from the things which hurt you. At the same time be aware of them both. Do not put edges to your perceptions, do not shut away even other things, accept the world in all iots sensory and emotional richness. When you have a thought while meditating and you achieve to just to observe it, do not restrain from reacting naturally to it: do not react as if it were the only thing in the world or in your mind but instead by letting that reaction to be a part of the flow of life in you: just be AWARE of EVERYTHING at the same time, of even things that do not seem of much importance. That is not intellectual awareness but sensory awareness, the kind of noticing how things are instead of putting them to some box in your ready made theory perspective about the world and about maditation. Do not put yourself to any box, just enjoy the complexity of sensed life without needing to react any more than what is natural to you or any less than what is natural to you when you watch things from a sensed and even compassionate point of view instead of from the point of view of feelings which are based on competitive selfish greedy thoughts.
About trying to increase compassion. The easiest way to do this is to love yourself in a way which respects the rule "Live and let others live." When you are happily enjoying life you naturally feel warm toward others. That warmth is a good natural base for compassion. Besides, by following the above rule you set a good example for other to follow, so they will be likely to treat you friendly and compassionately too, since they too will feel warm feelings toward "all" the others.
Sorry to say this, but I think that the cause of suffering is too much wrong kind of schooling. One has to do away with the harmful effect of written language while still keeping the wisdom and understanding bought by schooling. That means that one's thoughts have to be transformed from memorised rules to one's own observations about the world. This is the aim in the Finnish speaking Finnish culture which tends to make people extrely rational in a holistic way and compassionate.
The buddhist teachings say that one should restrain from lying. How to do that in practise in a constructive way, without being harmfully outspoken and without making of oneself a target for others to attack to? Start by talking about things which all humans share: there is nothing dangerous in them and they touch everybody. Follow in your talk the rule "Live and let others live." since it is the most constructive one and most moral one that you can use, with it you can even critisise others because that too will be seen to affect things toward good if you just explain yourself clearly enough. By using this perspective more you will learn it better and your environment will learn it too bringing happiness and harmony to your society, with an increased amount of compassion.
If you could really understand what thinking is a question of, maybe you could become enlightened. Since thinking means noticing how things are. In your mind you build a picture of the reality which should be as much as possible like the reality so that it as a map will guide you correctly in the world. But the right way to use the map of thinking is with your own eyes open so that you can see the whole landscape instead of just the things on the map. That way you can correct the map of your thoughts which is just a tool and nothing to replace the reality with. Life is in the living, thinking is in noticing things and life too is in enjoying the senses - which are your means of making correct observationbs about the world. Also, when you bacome better at thinking, you begin to notice how you yourself affect what you observe: at some moment you may be sensitive to sounds i.e. you are listening, at another moment you may be so preoccupied by thinking that you can hardly notice what happens around you. In order to make the best possible observations about your environment you must be in right mode for it and do things in right ways to succeed as well as possible. That means that you must pay attention to yourself in order to cevelop in thinking and noticing things. In the end rationality equals sensitivity. A completely enlightened person should easily learn to be very rational: by making slight observations about oneself and about the world and about thinking one could correct the thought errors away and follow rright practises. But it may be that a conscious non-neglecting practise in thinking is an easiewr road to that - unless you manage to be like the taoisrt master who does everything without doing anything, also in questions of thinking. That trick has to do with naturality: the most natural ways are the most effective one since they follow the principles of functioning of humans, human societies and of the natural world. And naturality in ways of action and in ways of using the attention is what buddhism is about too. No wonder that meditation makes one's capacity manyfold!
To be aware = to awaken to the reality with all your senses and soul
Suffering is born out of INTELLECTUAL attachement to which we bind our feelings. Instead we sould bind our feelings to what life feels at the level of living it, at the level of the senses with a wide awareness and in our soul, and live each moment to the fullest.
How and why does enlightenment bring excellent moral? Enlightenment means natural sensitive light attention everywhere, it means a non-forcing way of doing things, kind of flowing with the natural flow of life, with the soul of things. So enlightenment is not possible if one wants to shut away parts of things like is typical for evil ones to shut away the feelings of others and the good of others, the needs of harmonious social life, the needs of the future of us all etc. So evil ones try to flow with selfishness and that produces just tangles and unhealthy attachement instead of the attachement to naturality which brings freedom and is the base of enlightened life. Free light attention flows with the lives of others too, finding the easiest most harmonious routes in social life WHEN WATCHED FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE WHOLE WORLD WITH ALL THE FUTURE TOO TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT. That means justice and not a non-harming attitude toward those who use such softness as a helping aid in hurting others. So a holistic view may be essential in order to get the buddhist advices to work.
The buddhist enlightened one is one who has found the one and only right healthy and natural way to live. So the enlightened one is not out of order but instead fully functioning in all respects. Such means an enermous capacity in everything that one is enlightened in. The enlightened one is at the same time free and completely in control, stabile and moving, effortless and achieving, aware and relaxed, very emotional and very rational, sensitive and strong,...
Intellectually a non-neglacting attitude is constructive for enlightenment. That is one side of the required wide awareness.
One thing which we have discussed at the buddhist center of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order in Helsinki, the capital of Finland and a neighbouring town, is that what should be one's attitude to tough experiencies in life. I think that one's life is based on the good sides, so that's what one should build upon and go through the tough things only as much as one has strenght each moment. Meditation can help and give extra strenght and a good way to live. If the tough thing is already past and its memory does not leave you alone, try to rebuild your picture of the world based on your experiencies, so that both the good and bad sides are represented: from the good things you can get strenght and the bad things you can from now on guard against - the world wasn't like what you imagined it to be like, that's one reason why you were hurt. If someone close to you died, you an think of the impermanence of things: as a child your parents were not always with you, somethimes they were doing something else that de,manded their attention, sometimes they were in a shop, sometimes they were at wqork, sometimes travelling far away, even each time that you were with them was slightly different. When your parents were not present you built upon other things that you had, like friends, other adults, nice things that one can do alone etc. So life is never twice exactly the same. There isn't a box like hole in your life demanding to be filled just by your mother - she has a place in your life, yesw. but thoings are more complex than that. Just shift your weight to rest on the things that you still have in each kind of things. And if someone is uglier than you rthpought possible, refuse to be social with them and barry their bad deeds like you would barry if they were wild animals doing those things during the night. Surviving through something really tough like losing something essential: live at the level of experience with a wide meditative awareness, that can give you some contect to your life, some joy of life, make you stronger, lessen the pain and lessen the danger of more damage since it makes you more reactive. Avoid measuring your situation on the former scales on which you now do very poorly. Instead build new scales based on the level of experience as it now is and on your present observations about how your life is like and what are your possibilities in life. Guide your life according to the new theory perspective and not the old one. Remember that even though you lost a lot (Maybe one could use this method even if one had lost a limb, but I do not know anyone having tried, anyway, one could learn new ways of moving and new strategies of life this way.), your experience maybe taught you something (the above) which makes you nearer enlightenment... Just live your liufe with all your understanding and especially at the level of experience: admire the beuty of nature, of fvlowers, pictures, of people, music, sport, poetry - whatever you happen to have, beauty lifts the mid to a less depressed, more fractureless state and can cause continuous enjoyment even if things are not otherwise well. Religion typically affects so too. Let your new theory scale and living the life at the level of experience become habits. Now youy know that theory isn't as trustworthy as you believed before.
Do not guide your observations by your theory perspective. "This exists and that not." Instead let your awareness cover all kinds of things and take the time to do each thing that your perception ability demands to have. Do not shut your mind's eyes to the reality. Do not make edges to your attention, let it instead cover a wider and wider space. Just sensing lightly can be meditation, so you can widen the meditation to cover your whole life.
1) No measuring of one's life in point scales 2) A wide awareness, not closing anything away, especially not the level of experience 3) Flowing with life, having a gliding glance instead of conceiving the world as if consisting of word like blocks, flowing from one experience to another: oh how beautiful here the blue colour, and that form of a plant, those people over there, the wind blowing and the sun shining... And going on like this forever, even thinking in this way: like this feels this phenomenom which is like this, its environment and its importance in the world feel like this and are like this etc., the attention shifting glidingly from one thing to another neighbouring one via fact associations (including structural analogs, i.e. atmosphere and emotional associations - see my texts about the rationality of feelings and about objective thinking with feelings and atmospheres.) in one's holistic view of the world which is formed of life at the level of experience so that it is meaningful and pleasant to experience at the same time as being very objective since it is not imagination and since its connection to the reality is surely right.
Read my text emotional and objective in order to understand how one can be objective at the same time as being completely emotional and/or sensitive to atmospheres and sensations which have nothing to do with one's thinking.
Enlightenment in Finland in Europe is a different thing from enlightenment in Asia because the cultural inheritage is different. There is no counter force like in Asia where the sticking to non-violence creates an opposite unenlightened end of the spectrum which seeks power via the use of force. Intead with my emphasis and with the emnphasis of the local culture of justice and responsibility over the whole world without unrealism cure the need for opposing forces away and enlibghtenment becomes everybody's movement for a better life, better world and success in all areas of life. We find from ourselves what enlightenment is like. There is no separation between it and our culture. Even Christianity is not separate: the moments of buddhist wisdom of life have often been my moments of religious awe in the Christian sense, so one could see buddhism as a road which leads toward christianity too ibn addition to bveing a road toward a grerater happiness.
The following letter of mine connects so clearly to the Buddhist enlightenment that I add it here.
"I have watched a video of the Swedish Royal Ballet dancing Swan Lake. I enjoy watching it but at the same time I wonder: what is that feeling of stiffness, weakness of spirit that I often have noticed as a part of the atmosphere of ballet when watching it in TV or otherwise, even in the movements of those whose hobby ballet is. Having read many times the Taoist classic Tao-Te-Ching which tells about masterful skill, I notice that the problem may be the one described in that book: One forms oneself a predetermined idea of what the dance movements, beauty and love are like and so in fact stays in contact only with one’s memory and the level of thoughts instead of with the lively ground for these goal like things, the ground which makes them forever new and enthralling and dazzling in the eyes of others. This ground is the true naturality of all intentions: free life completely according to the emotions and to the wishes of each moment, of each part of a second, it is life at the level of the senses, at the level where you flow (instead of being a fixed thought structure “this one is in love”) lingering for a moment in one things, aiming for something else the next moment, where you do not form yourself fixed rules of behaviour “I am now in a situation demanding behaviour like this.” But where the action rises from the needs of the situation in a completely natural way, where you use your whole capacity to the fullest without being enclosed inside some borders defining the situation – where your love for dance and for the things that in your eyes connect to it, is what makes you perform the movements at all – while your mind wanders freely to whatever yourt herart wishes and that love for those things and the love for life born from that enjoyment of those things is expressed also in your dance. Well, this is very far of what I ever could myself do – I have never danced ballet, not as a child – but this is one thing what masterful skill is about. So maybe it is your task to try, to see the idea between my lines and to try it into your lives… "
