It is inevitable ... My thoughts on spiritual practice.

[Scott1989]

This post is based on my understanding of the final steps of spiritual practice.


There is no I that can do anything, just a process. This means everything is inevitable, including your thoughts and feelings.

Thinking that I shouldn't do anything then and should just lie on my bed is not productive. But even that thought was inevitable.

This means that nothing can go wrong ... or right for that matter.

But of course lying on your bed the whole day is not something you want, so you could see it like this:
The future is still undetermined, but what happened now was inevitable. Your mind and body can still change and make the best of it, but there is no you doing it. It's just a process.

YOU have no control over whether you will be enlightened or not. What happens happens and couldn't have happened any other way.

When you start to see that everything is inevitable you will automatically be led to the eightfold path. When you start to practice the eightfold path you will automatically be led to see that everything is inevitable.

You will then start to realize that it doesn't matter WHAT you do, but from which perspective. Do you see it as 'I am doing it', or do you see that you have no choice and action comes from that perspective? The first brings problems and the second brings perfection. So it will be an exercise it maintaining the proper attitude: everything that happens is inevitable.

Now losing the attitude is not problematic either, even that was inevitable and there is nothing YOU can do to regain proper attitude, but it will lead you to look for an answer and then you will realize again that you have no choice.

So the search for wholeness (driven by ego) transforms into a search for who you are and what you can do and then dissolves. That is true spiritual practice.

Dont even try to regain the proper attitude, just ask: what is the problem now? what can i do about it? If you are ready for it, you will see that there is never a problem NOW and there is no I that can do anything.

When succesful the I that tries to control the inner world is gone, you realize it doesn't exist. Everything controls everything now, without a controlling thing around which it spins. So what dissappears is resistance/clinging/craving/suffering. You will stop your fight with the inevitable.

You will realize the true 'self' cannot do ANYTHING.

Your mind and body will start to become aware of the true self and settle the feeling of 'me-ness' there. I feel it in the chest, but maybe this is different for everyone.

But if YOU try to become aware of the true self you maintain the delusion since you identify with the one looking for the true self, while the true self can't look for anything. It is already there. So finding the true self is never something that you do, but it is something that happens.

YOU cannot become enlightened since YOU cannot change. When the fake self realizes this it will automatically be enlightened.

[James the Giant]

I was going to write something bitingly sarcastic, but instead I shall go back to cooking food for dinner, cleaning the house, and staying with my feet on the earth.

[Scott1989]

Ha thank you for that post, sir. I think that was a helpful thing to add to my post and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way. Both posts have an important place in this, so mine too. Maybe this is not the right forum for my topic, but some people will not be drawn to spiritual practice until it makes sense to them, even though the spiritual practice itself should be simple. You demonstrated that last part perfectly.

[Dan74]

I don't know about you, Scott, but I guess I tend to think a bit too much and talk a bit more still.

So predictably I went through a period when I tried to figure out enlightenment and tell everyone about it. I thought I did a fine job of it too. But at the end of the day, dinner does need to be cooked and the house does need to be cleaned and while theorising is a fine and noble pursuit, it doesn't make things happen.

So I suppose most folks here would be more interested in how you do these things you wrote about. To hear about your practice. The rest is what sometimes goes by the name of "papanca" - mental proliferations. Buddhism, I guess, is walking the walk, and there is no substitute for those sore feet, it seems.

[Ben]

I don't know about you, Scott, but I guess I tend to think a bit too much and talk a bit more still.

So predictably I went through a period when I tried to figure out enlightenment and tell everyone about it. I thought I did a fine job of it too. But at the end of the day, dinner does need to be cooked and the house does need to be cleaned and while theorising is a fine and noble pursuit, it doesn't make things happen.

So I suppose most folks here would be more interested in how you do these things you wrote about. To hear about your practice. The rest is what sometimes goes by the name of "papanca" - mental proliferations. Buddhism, I guess, is walking the walk, and there is no substitute for those sore feet, it seems.

(Sensible) post of the day!

[Scott1989]

Yes, but this is my path.

I have nothing to gain from posting this, since no one knows who I am and I have no questions to ask. I am hoping that my post will help those who are stuck in thinking, like I have been for so long, which is why I can explain the theory now even though I do not need it anymore. If you read my topic you will find that it gives knowledge that explains why you do not need knowledge. If that makes sense.

But maybe it is true that a Buddhist forum is not a place for this kind of topic since a Buddhist would have no need for it. In that case I will stop posting these things on this forum.

[James the Giant]

In that case I will stop posting these things on this forum.

No, don't stop, there was sense in what you wrote, I got what you were saying, it was just a bit mind-boggling, head-spacey, and overwhelming to read. Made me want to run away and dig a garden or something.

Just, don't claim to be enlightened.

[Ben]

Yes, but this is my path.

I have nothing to gain from posting this, since no one knows who I am and I have no questions to ask. I am hoping that my post will help those who are stuck in thinking, like I have been for so long, which is why I can explain the theory now even though I do not need it anymore. If you read my topic you will find that it gives knowledge that explains why you do not need knowledge. If that makes sense.

But maybe it is true that a Buddhist forum is not a place for this kind of topic since a Buddhist would have no need for it. In that case I will stop posting these things on this forum.

You might want to read a bit and ask questions.
At this point it is best not to regard your perception of your knowledge or experience/s as true facsimiles of things as they really are.
All the best.

Ben

[Caraka]

Scott, have you ever thought about our ability to choose? I can choose not to break the Precepts, and I can choose to continue give myself happiness through friendliness with other beeings.

[kirk5a]

everything is inevitable.

It looks to me that you are advocating a view like that of Makkhali Gosala - an "ajivaka" - fatalist. The Buddha did not accept that view.

"'Though one might think, "Through this morality, this practice, this austerity, or this holy life I will ripen unripened kamma and eliminate ripened kamma whenever touched by it" — that is impossible. Pleasure and pain are measured out, the wandering-on is fixed in its limits. There is no shortening or lengthening, no accelerating or decelerating. Just as a ball of string, when thrown, comes to its end simply by unwinding, in the same way, having transmigrated and wandered on, the wise and the foolish alike will put an end to pain.'

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajivaka

[Scott1989]

It seems I might still have a lot to learn when it comes to finding a method of sharing knowledge, that is beneficial and points to something behind the words. Thank you all for pointing this out.

To the last two posters: It's true, there is a choice and there can be change, but wouldn't you say that the only true and free choice comes from a place of no-choice?

Karma is real and produces fruits, but the goal is to become free of karma and see that it is a process.

Maybe a helpful way of putting it is this: what happens in the future is still undetermined, but what happened now was inevitable
I will add that statement to the original post.

[kirk5a]

Your mind and body will start to become aware of the true self and settle the feeling of 'me-ness' there. I feel it in the chest, but maybe this is different for everyone.

You also are advocating a "true self" view. That's another area where what you say comes into direct conflict with what the Buddha taught.

"This is how he attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?' Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?'

"As he attends inappropriately in this way, one of six kinds of view arises in him: The view I have a self arises in him as true & established, or the view I have no self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self... or the view It is precisely by means of not-self that I perceive self arises in him as true & established, or else he has a view like this: This very self of mine — the knower that is sensitive here & there to the ripening of good & bad actions — is the self of mine that is constant, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change, and will stay just as it is for eternity. This is called a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person is not freed from birth, aging, & death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. He is not freed, I tell you, from suffering & stress.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

[SDC]

It seems like you are describing the way you would prefer the path to be, having carefully considered what you currently understand. Some of your ideas are valid in theory, but is your approach applicable? Have you gone all the way yet? Have you lived this approach or is it in the planning stages?

[Scott1989]

To kirk5a, true self is just a label I used. When you are in this state, you cannot call it a self, since you cannot judge or do anything. Self is the limited perspective.

The wrong idea of true self and thus getting stuck in ideas can only arise when you are still identified with the limited self. When you are no longer identified with the limited self you have no more way to describe your essence. I only used those words as a pointer, not an absolute truth.

It seems like the Buddha said that as a warning to what I described in the original post:

"But if YOU try to become aware of the true self you maintain the delusion since you identify with the one looking for the true self, while the true self can't look for anything. It is already there. So finding the true self is never something that you do, but it is something that happens."

To the previous poster, realizing 'I' cannot do ANYTHING would be the complete path. Maybe the way I described it was not helpful for many though. I am starting to see that now after it has been pointed out by all of you.

[Dan74]

It seems I might still have a lot to learn when it comes to finding a method of sharing knowledge, that is beneficial and points to something behind the words. Thank you all for pointing this out.

To the last two posters: It's true, there is a choice and there can be change, but wouldn't you say that the only true and free choice comes from a place of no-choice?

Karma is real and produces fruits, but the goal is to become free of karma and see that it is a process.

Maybe a helpful way of putting it is this: what happens in the future is still undetermined, but what happened now was inevitable
I will add that statement to the original post.

Well, the thing is for me, as a Zen practitioner, your original post is kind of old news. Read the oldies, like Huang Po and Lin chi for example. In Theravada, they tend to put things a little differently.

But even if you've really got it, you cannot just give it to anyone else. We all have to walk our path, overcome our obstacles and doubts. The trouble is - it is relatively easy to arrive at an intellectual position like the one you describe. It is much much harder to live it in every pore of your being and in every situation. Especially once the initial high wears off.

Like an old dharma friend once said: "attend carefully."

[SDC]

I was curious because realizing something makes sense in theory is not the same as being able to apply it to life.

EDIT - Dan beat me.

[Scott1989]

Yes, I agree with you.

This what the Buddha said in the Eightfold Path and what I should study:

"In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, yet unendearing and disagreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them."

"In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, but unbeneficial, yet endearing and agreeable to others, he does not say them."

"In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, and endearing and agreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them. Why is that? Because the Tathagata has sympathy for living beings."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path

[santa100]

If we look at the life of the Buddha, it'd serve as a great reminder about Right Effort(sammavayama), an extremely important factor of the 8NP that "salón" Buddhists often neglect. After studying under 2 meditation masters and already attained the highest levels of the immaterial attainments, the Buddha did not stop there. He continued to press on and used every bit of his effort to attain final liberation. On the last night before enlightenment, He made a resolution that He would sit and never rise up until He attains enlightenment. If an extremely gifted individual gave His 200% for the final goal, then we uninstructed worldlings will need to take a good close look at what we needs to do for our Right Effort..

[Alobha]

For how long are you practising now Scott?

[Scott1989]

For five years. Why?