How long?

[chicka-Dee]

Sounds to me as if "someone" would be well advised to forgive and accept and penetrate his or her own actions and not worry too much about what any revered religious society might think.

Even at the most superficial level, think it through: Let's suppose someone is a murderer. S/he was a murderer at the time of the action. From various standpoints, murder is not an activity to indulge ... and yet everyone must face the murders large and small s/he has committed. No one else can face or condone the act of murder on behalf of the murderer. It simply cannot be done, no matter how much consoling or profound or sweet talk there is. Likewise the act cannot, with accuracy, be condemned by another.

Any damnation or redemption that occurs must occur within the one who has or will commit the act. And it is within that one that the investigation must begin and continue until the matter is clearly resolved. It may take a lifetime or longer ... but I see no other sensible or realistic choice.

Just my two cents.

Perhaps you two should go rent a meditation retreat together. I hear that they can be quite relaxing.

I genuinely appreciate what you've had to say in this thread, flyingOx, but I also wanted to recognize the advice and insight, that I find value in, given here. I thank you both.

With Metta

[flyingOx]

I genuinely appreciate what you've had to say in this thread, flyingOx, but I also wanted to recognize the advice and insight, that I find value in, given here. I thank you both.

With Metta

I do not condemn nor do I self-condemn, and as far as murder being an example, it is way out of context of a social faux pas. My concern with social traditions is that they lead to dead rites and rituals that get in the way of any actual productive results through honest deliberation, because that honest deliberation may not bode well with the traditional mandates of the highly rigorous members of that particular social group. This is a matter of added hindrances caused by the too rigid of religious tradition leading to unnecessary inhibitions created by the coaxing through fear that have nothing to do with the heart of the matter but do get in the way of actually achieving anything beneficial because of the overly dogmatic, patrolling activities that always ends up occurring no matter in what particular religious group it might be manifesting whether Buddhism, or any other religion for that matter. It makes people be too timid and afraid to engage in much needed dialog, if you ask me, because of always being afraid of committing some kind of social faux pas. I am very much an anti-traditionalist, and if being that way makes me unacceptable, then let it be known so that I know on whose toes not to step.

[chicka-Dee]

Your assessment sounds about right to me, flyingOx. Perhaps we could start a non-traditionalist area to post in? With some barb-wire fencing for protection, perhaps? But maybe I've already said too much.. I'm not sure I'm very well liked in this neighborhood...

P.S. the murder would be in the metaphorical sense, I take it