Existential Crisis

On the cultivation of insight/wisdom
Tehuti
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Re: Existential Crisis

Post by Tehuti »

Kim O'Hara wrote:
Theses groups of words all look and function pretty much the same way but the even-numbered ones have no meaning - they don't fit or describe anything which exists in the world, or even could exist in the world. Here's another pair:

7. The meaning of my statement
8. The meaning of life

Now do you see?

:meditate:
Kim
Yes, I think I see.

Perhaps it is a case of asking the same questions over and over, but not taking the opportunity to know.

I recognise that I may have been chasing shadows, trying to prove something to myself when there is nothing to prove.

The desire is within me to reach out and grasp something that can't be grasped; the feeling that there is essentially something 'not-right' about my perception of existence, but not knowing what it is, or how to go about finding it out.

With the above I am simply trying to express how I feel, not make a thesis, so please excuse my confused state of mind. ;)

Thank you.

:anjali:
Tehuti
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Re: Existential Crisis

Post by Tehuti »

DAWN wrote:Existential crisis of what make you suffer?

Crisis of form?
Crisis of feeling?
Crisis of perception?
Crisis of volitional formations?
Crisis of consciosness?
I think I have finally cracked the shell of the problem.

It's a crisis of loneliness.

Reading the chapter on intimacy in the book 'Art of Happiness' helped me understand.

A particularly touching link can also be found here:

http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/arc ... liness.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
There are those individuals, however, who peer into the abyss and do not cower. We think of Gautama who gave up an opulent life and family in his late twenties to travel the world alone in search of meaning. Or Thoreau who retreated to the woods for a few years so that he might gain a decent perspective upon the world...
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DAWN
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Re: Existential Crisis

Post by DAWN »

Tehuti wrote:I think I have finally cracked the shell of the problem.

It's a crisis of loneliness.

Reading the chapter on intimacy in the book 'Art of Happiness' helped me understand.

A particularly touching link can also be found here:

http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/arc ... liness.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
There are those individuals, however, who peer into the abyss and do not cower. We think of Gautama who gave up an opulent life and family in his late twenties to travel the world alone in search of meaning. Or Thoreau who retreated to the woods for a few years so that he might gain a decent perspective upon the world...

I see.
Actualy is a good kind suffering, this suffering tell you that your ego is destructing, in decompotition.
Why?
Because ego is conditioned fenomena, like a home thet need some support for this walls, and when there is no more support, ego is destructing, become instable, and if you have contact with it, if you tuch your ego, if you identify with what is heppens, you suffer.
Dont try to support the walls with your hands, let it fall and go forth. Dont be afffraid to go out of your home, there is shiny and warm, no need any home, freedom.

It's an very important moment, study the decomposition of your ego, watch how walls are destructed, and by doing it without triyng to reconstruct or find some support, you will see how the light enter, you will understand that sunshine was here for ever, so now you have just to wait when the home will be destructed and you will be able to go forth, to go out, to be free...

Actualy, there is many peoples who suffer of lonelyness, they dont understand what the tresure it is. Tesure that have no price.

Dwell alone my friend. Go forth. Ascetic among ascetics... :meditate:
Sabbe dhamma anatta
We are not concurents...
I'am sorry for my english
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BubbaBuddhist
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Re: Existential Crisis

Post by BubbaBuddhist »

Here's our dilemma: That we've been damned by giants sound asleep, or by great scientific principles and abstractions that cannot realize themselves: that little harlots have visited their caprices upon us; that clowns, with buckets of water from which they pretend to cast thousands of good-sized fishes have anathematized us for laughing disrespectfully, because, as with all clowns, underlying buffoonery is the desire to be taken seriously; that pale ignorances, presiding over microscopes by which they cannot distinguish flesh from nostoc or fishes' spawn, have visited upon us their wan solemnities. We've been damned by corpses and skeletons and mummies, which twitch and totter with pseudo-life derived from conveniences.

It is our expression that the flux between that which isn't and that which won't be, or the state that is commonly and absurdly called "existence," is a rhythm of heavens and hells: that the damned won't stay damed; that salvation only precedes perdition.

A procession of the damned.
By the damned, I mean the excluded.
We shall have a procession of data that Science has excluded.

Amen.

BB
Author of Redneck Buddhism: or Will You Reincarnate as Your Own Cousin?
Tehuti
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Location: Gloucestershire, UK

Re: Existential Crisis

Post by Tehuti »

I found the following lyrics to be appropriate:
Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You’ve come to journey's end
Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across the distant shore

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping
:buddha2:
rowyourboat
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Re: Existential Crisis

Post by rowyourboat »

Perhaps some metta meditation to help light the darkness, not being afraid to learn from the darkness as well. It is time for reassessing your life, actions, and speech. I suppose you find a way to have a meaningful life either changing yourself/beliefs or your actions/livelihood.
With Metta

Karuna
Mudita
& Upekkha
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DAWN
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Re: Existential Crisis

Post by DAWN »

Existance have no crisis.
Sabbe dhamma anatta
We are not concurents...
I'am sorry for my english
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marc108
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Re: Existential Crisis

Post by marc108 »

mikenz66 wrote:It's not uncommon for things to get rough if practice is effective.
right! i came to my teacher with similar problems and questions, when my practice caused in me an 'existential crisis'. he said it was perfectly normal and something along the lines of 'this is the stuff we dont tell beginners or they would never start to practice'... lol.

insights that come up around the 3 characteristics can be extremely traumatic in my experience. it's wise to start digging into the Suttas & find a good teacher if you're at that point.
"It's easy for us to connect with what's wrong with us... and not so easy to feel into, or to allow us, to connect with what's right and what's good in us."
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