What Is Is That 'Makes' Someone Choose To Become Bhuddist?

[christiaan]

The difference is gradual?

Have you ever listened to the Chello suites from Bach?

Ever learned to know the at that time unique Greek Mathematics ?

Did you ever go to a museum and observed an old Roman sculpture or a painting of Kandinsky?

Did you ever read the philosophical works of Hegel or the poems of William Wordsworth?

Did you ever fly in a fighter-Jet?

or other wise:

Why didn't monkeys follow us in a development the last 2500 year like we had ?

Did you ever learned to know a monkey that did do something like building an engine as Tesla did?

Did you ever see some animal write a book?

Ever seen an animal meditate under a Boddhi tree and start teaching other monkeys after this, or start to grow peanuts?

Ever seen a chimp or other animal learned himself to play piano?

Well in fact animals almost did not evolve in the past human written history.

And when animals learn to do something extra-ordinary it is teached to them by humans.

But this all is just gradual difference cos man posses a few more skills?

I would say it is clear by observation humans posses some inner quality animals do not have and that is the inner quality of reflecting thinking.

I do not mean to write this as an insult but also as an observation : (and then I am not implementing anything else as what I write. So when people write I do implement something to their opinion that is on their account and not mine) I would say to explain the difference between humans and animals by thinking humans just have a few more skills as animals, is at the least a convenient way of thinking.

As you can see the difference between animals and man for me is not about the same as a division between concrete, experienced knowledge (animals and man) and abstract knowledge (man) By concrete experienced knowledge I can - also in myself - see healthy humans have inner reflecting knowledge that not only can make them aware of their concrete life experiences but also can make them choose to act in a concretye selfeducational way with regard to those life experiences. And yes, humans can show abstract thinking and mathematical thinking, that, ........animals also cannot do.

To me the 'I' is not the ego, allthough the ego itself can have something to do with proces of developing human culture in time.

I do not indentificate my I with any race, religion or belief, but I am aware I was educated in that way before.

I do not have the idea I am a separate being, ( I am an ' I ' as other ' I ' s ) I know that I am in my thinking a separated being towards the world outside my I. As Schiller wrote to Goethe (something like) how can you see your self swimming in the water when you are inside the water?

To learn to know (by our thinking awareness) the world we have to be - with our thinking - outside this world. We have to be 'free' from this world. That is why we can know this world and animals can not know, they are inside.

You did not answer the question WHAT is seeing you are dreaming the ' I ' does exist and the ' I ' is merely a dream. My self is my ' I ' my self is not my ego. 'My self' is the expression I am aware the ' I ' I am aware of is my ' I '.

I think I understand what you write about ' Self ' and ' I ', since you now explained about your view.

For me there is a spiritual world , so I can write about it, and when you do not experience or have 'knowledge' of a spiritual world you can not write about it. Then there is no difference in language but difference in awareness.

It is quite clear all people on this forum write out of their own awareness, that is one of the laws of the world we are dealing with. And that is a fact , no delusion, just as it is no delusion to see we are actually do-ing writing out of our ego or ' I ' awareness.

Yes, it is ok to end this subject, the original question, here. It is very obvious we all have lots of problems to stay on topic in most contributions.

[dutchguest]

You did not answer the question WHAT is seeing you are dreaming the ' I ' does exist and the ' I ' is merely a dream. My self is my ' I ' my self is not my ego. 'My self' is the expression I am aware the ' I ' I am aware of is my ' I '.

I have no answers to the ultimate questions. The ultimate truth is beyond words, rationalisations, the thinking mind. It all ends in silence and mystery. If you go on rationalising you walk in circles and are fooling yourself.

[SweeneyAgonistes]

we have selfawareness, and no animal on earth has selfawareness.

It's not particularly germane to this thread but that's not really true. If you paint a mark on an animal's head. place a mirror in front of the animal and the animal responds to the mark, it's generally agreed that that shows the animal is self-aware. All the great apes - along with certain other animals - have been seen to respond to this test.

I think the difference between animals and people is only gradual. Man has developed a few more skills then e.g. monkeys (like using tools, making fire, growing crops) which allowed him to settle down and create cultures, civilisations.

Not perhaps the best examples to distinguish humans from other animals. Tool use is pretty widespread among other animals, ants grow crops and chimpanzees have developed culture!

[christiaan]

Dutchguest:

I have no answers to the ultimate questions. The ultimate truth is beyond words, rationalisations, the thinking mind. It all ends in silence and mystery. If you go on rationalising you walk in circles and are fooling yourself.

Christiaan:

When I notice you did not answer the question WHAT is seeing you are dreaming the ' I ' does exist and the ' I ' is merely a dream, I would not call this one of the ultimate questions,.

Just observe and tell what you 'see' when you 'see' something.

When such a question is an ultimate question to you it might be part of an ultimate situation and it could be you are not realy aware of this situation. No problem with that.

Then, it might be better, not knowing, also not to walk around in circles of illusions and delusions, but to continue to observe in silent attention to solve this mystery with growing awareness.

[dutchguest]

Dutchguest:

I have no answers to the ultimate questions. The ultimate truth is beyond words, rationalisations, the thinking mind. It all ends in silence and mystery. If you go on rationalising you walk in circles and are fooling yourself.

Christiaan:

When I notice you did not answer the question WHAT is seeing you are dreaming the ' I ' does exist and the ' I ' is merely a dream, I would not call this one of the ultimate questions,.

Just observe and tell what you 'see' when you 'see' something.

When such a question is an ultimate question to you it might be part of an ultimate situation and it could be you are not realy aware of this situation. No problem with that.

Then, it might be better, not knowing, also not to walk around in circles of illusions and delusions, but to continue to observe in silent attention to solve this mystery with growing awareness.

For me you -if I understand you well- your question points in the direction of a point, a place, a proces beyond the mind, the thinking and dreaming mind. And you want to answer this question by using the thinking, dreaming mind. This way you are walking in circles. No-mind is not a "what", it is the absence of "what", the mind is no more thinking, dreaming. So there is no such point, place, process. You can not describe, verbalize emptiness, nothingness. You can describe only the positive side, something.

One more remark about the evolution proces: i.m.o. it is a dialectical proces. One of the laws of this proces is that by adding quantities of energy at a certain point the quality can change. If you heath water to certain point, add quantity of energy to water, the quality changes at a certain point into steam. The same might have happened and still happening to the human brain, mind. If you focus your energy on mindprocesses, instead of on fysical efforts like climbing trees, there can be qualitative changes in the mind, e.g. the faculty of abstract thinking, some forms of creativity etc. I.m.o. when somebody becomes enlightened there is also such a qualitative change, "quantumleap" of the mind.

[christiaan]

When there is 'no-mind' then there is no 'thinking' at all. So then there is no positive thinking and no negative thinking, there is no-thinking. So then there is no opinion to exchange in thoughts about matters concerning Buddhisme or any other human awareness with regard to a or the spiritual world. In fact to no world at all. Then in fact a person is like a complete deaf and blind entity.

The strange thing however is that there is an exchange of opinion(s) of thoughts but hey are in fact by the deniers of manifested spiritual life in material existence on earth, only negative, just one track thoughts.

They are as negative as the philosophy life means: suffering.

Reading this in many contributions I get the strong impression of ' copy thinking ' of what is told or written or interpreted to be the truth of Buddha. The exchange of thoughts often stop when there is no more text available from Buddha.

But : Life is not only suffering.

Life is living dynamic experience, with or without awareness

Maybe it was 2500 years ago only suffering (besides for the young Siddharta, but to me it is certainly not now.

Looking at my life I would say in general most of my daily life is more or less routine. Then there is sometimes some suffering. Then there is sometimes happiness.

Looking at my life I can say I am gratefull I live and have lived the life I lived.

The suffering I had disapeared to a remarkable extend, even in my memory I cannot recall it as it has been at the moment it occured.

But I still can remember the first time I listened to the chello suites from Bach, they deeply touched my soul to meet my inner spirit in unspeakable experience

I still can remember this intense feelings of miracles happening when my children where born.

There are so much things , experiences in my life that touch and touched me so deeply.

And looking back I see the enormous development I have experienced in my life.

And I am aware this deep feeling of the meaning of life - and death - is related to the fact that my inner spirit more and more can see and experience the spirit all around me in the world where I live in.

And this I should deny and reject?

That is like rejecting to have dinner when I am awarwe I have to do the dishes after that over and over again.

Suffering is connected to awareness.

When we feel pain we can become aware of a physical disorder and react to it to act to it according the physical laws.

With some knowledge and faculties in humans we could take care the origin of pain.

What would we do when we would not feel the pain when our body is damaged in some way? Just ask the people who has to deal with such a state of physical being. Very often they only survive because of the awareness of other people who compensate by their attention their inabbillity

Why was Siddharta so strucked by suffering?

Because he did not know about suffering

.

Is it not strange to realise he could live a life without suffering before as the son of a wealthy important man?

How many can?Nowadays? And in his time of history?

He had an extra-ordinary life.

And why?

Maybe especially to be strucked by the suffering normal life?

It was the suffering that made him aware, it was the normal life that made him aware.

Just imagine he would never ever had met the suffering around him (impossible to imagine however)

He would not have become aware!!

So one could say he should have been gratefull to become aware ...in his case.... by suffering.

And I would not be surprised when he was.

But to interprete his life by wanting to escape this suffering in life in denying the reality of life, the awareness of life, the meaning of such life is in my opinion almost bizarre.

Life to me is no dream, no delusion, no illusion, it is the reality of a spirit, my spirit meeting the spirit in the world all around me in a dynamic living increasing transforming. The thinking is in this time of development the stepstone. Observing thinking, not just rational material thinking. In observing thinking you cannot go in circles because life doesnot just go in circles.

[dutchguest]

Indeed no-mind is beyond words and thoughts so the ultimate truth can not be said. Nevertheless we can use our minds as an instrument to think and communicate, just like we use our legs as an instrument to walk. The difference is that we identify ourself with the mind as "I" and become entangled in its games.

For me the message of Buddha is mainly positive: it is not only life is suffering but it also offers a way out of this suffering. And most people will be somewhere on that way. Whether they know the old scriptures or not is not so relevant as for me they are mainly timeless universal truths that everyone can experience in his/her life.

[rockyysdt]

..

..

Life to me is no dream, no delusion, no illusion, it is the reality of a spirit, my spirit meeting the spirit in the world all around me in a dynamic living increasing transforming. ...

Is your spirit immortal?

What relationship does your spirit have to your ego?

What measure do you use to know this?

Aren't spirit relms just impermanent levels of existence until the cycle of re birth is broken with Enlightenment?

Edited October 3, 2010 by rockyysdt

[christiaan]

Is your spirit immortal?

My spirit is immortal, It came from spiritual world to live inside a physical existence and it will continue to live fully again in the spiritual world when I die after my body dissolves again.

What relationship does your spirit have to your ego?

My ego is very much connected with my physical existence in its specific situation in the material, social and economical way, it is to some extend conditioned, different from person to person, my spirit in its spiritual activity is my awareness of this ego by wich I can control it, change it, educate it. My spirit makes me free from my ego as I choose.

What measure do you use to know this?

Selfawareness. Reflective thinking. Spiritual activity.

Aren't spirit relms just impermanent levels of existence until the cycle of re birth is broken with Enlightenment?

It is just the opposit, physical realms are impermanent, I am born, I die, my spirit is immortal. How could spirit realm be impermanent and enlightment be not impermanent? Is enlightment physical?

Is enlightment some other quality beside material and spiritual realms?

[rockyysdt]

It is just the opposit, physical realms are impermanent, I am born, I die, my spirit is immortal. How could spirit realm be impermanent and enlightment be not impermanent? Is enlightment physical?

Is enlightment some other quality beside material and spiritual realms?

I don't know.

The Buddha stopped short on the subject of describing enlightenment and the state of Nibanna other than to say it was permanent & unconditioned, and that we are capable of discovering the answers through self experience.

When you say you are conscious of your spirit, does this mean you are enlightened?

What does it feel like?

How different is it compared to your ego or physical state?

Does this state give all knowing power & knowledge?

Does it place you above man kinds frailties such as worry, anxiety, hatred, greed, lust and other mind thoughts?

Are you permanently free of these or do you lapse between the ego and spirit?

Edited October 3, 2010 by rockyysdt

[christiaan]

The life of the Buddha is in an important aspect a model for the evolution of the I

It is by the I- awareness, the self awareness, a human can know about the world and about himself .

The human is living in a body, a body built from outside by means of the mineral world.

In the body lives the soul.

In the soul lives the I of the human and in the I of the human lives the spirit.

With our physical body, ou physical side of being, we know about the physical world

With our spiritual I, our spiritual being, built from the inside by spirit, we know about the spiritual world.

We cannot become aware of spirituality just only by means of our material existence and biological processes..

The ears and sound are both parts of the same, the eyes and the light are both parts of the same, and at the end our I and the spirit are also both parts of the same.

Like our body can and has to deal with bodily relations to the material world around us, it needs food and drinking to survive, our spiritual

I needs 'food and drinking' from the spiritual world to survive and be a life in a healthy way in the soul and the body.

In our material existence we have an independent living body, separated from, autonomos to, material world, but in exchanging relation.

In our spiritual existence we have an independent living I , separated from, autonomous to, spiritual world, but in exchanging relation.

Without bodyprocesses we would die, without spiritual processes like selfawareness, we still would be like animals.

It is by living in (high) selfawareness, by being a spirit in a living I, by choosing, by action, and not by a simple cause and action conditioning, Siddhartha Gasutama could make his journey' to enlightment.

I.m.o. the effort of Buddha and of everybody who is seeking enlightenment, is to free oneself out of the unconscious, blind forces of nature, the laws of cause and effect.

You can not change those laws but by knowing how they function you can in a way transcend them, free yourself out of their grip: if you know you will burn yourself by touching fire, you don't touch it. You do not change the law of cause and effect but use your understanding of it. And your understanding comes not out of some separate spiritual world but out of the experience of pain. So in a way you have freed yourself from blind cause and effect, you have transcended blind, unconscious nature.

Buddha wanted to end suffering. So he tried to find out what are the causes suffering. If you know the causes you can transcend suffering. This is the way evolution functions. (i.m.o.)

We in fact almost agree. But the 'difference' is that all the actions you describe, as seeing, freeing, transcending, knowing, awaring, understanding, are all actions of the I. They are all individual actions. There is only personal liberation as Buddha modelled by his life. If they are not actions of the ' I ' what is it that is doing all the actions? And no, the understanding comes not out of some separate spiritual world but it comes out of the integrated inner spiritual I . My I is built up out of the spiritual world and living by my soul within the physical world, as my body is built up out of the material world and living by it.

When it would only be the experience of pain (or suffering) itself that frees the self , why did this not happen before in thousands of years of human existence before Siddharta Gautama came to live on earth? Why did it happen in a human, and not in a sloth or in a horse.? They experience pain too.

(I hope nobody will start to tell it is happening in all organismes everywhere on earth but we just do not know)

If people would look at the way there is often written in these topics, many contibutions would tell, the contributors do have the - aware or unaware? - opinion everything in the world - also thinking - is pure material evolution. Only a pure material way of thinking can come to the conclusions I often read here.

But that often also shows there is a lot of inconsequence in this. Because when everything is pure material, then also all our thoughts are products of material processes, then the thought of enlightment and all thoughts and words about enlightment are material products - of the material brain - too.

And what ever you see , within a closed material explanation of the world there is no escape out of that world. There would be nothing to see or recognise any non-material enlightment.

Then the only escape is to imagine or dream some methaphysical existence of enlightment. But those imaginations and dreams are just effects of the cause people are suffering enclosed inside their material life and way of thinking.

The strange thing is sometimes people point at me as someone doing so. But to be presice, in my view the ' I ' is from spiritual origin, starting to wake up 2500 years ago as we can see by all philosophical actions that started at those times, also within Buddha. So the ' I ' coming out of , being of spiritual origin, in my opinion is more and more active inside human souls. As we can see by growing awareness in the world. That is no dream, that is no fantasy or imagination, that is selfexperience.

When the insights of Budda is taken as the way to end organic suffering is understood in its full consequences, we have to be honest about it and realise that this suffering will end at the moment material existence ends. Like all problems with my car will end when it is in its existence dissolved again. Maybe it is right in some - material - way to have this opinion, but then the question still stay how to deal with life , evoltion, suffering, in the next 5600 years.

Only growing awareness will help us to face the future. Like only growing awareness will help solving the problems in Thailand .