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Renunciation

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 23 Jul 2023, 16:37


One way I look at this is. It is more about becoming aware of the mental dispositions that cause us suffering, and when we become less ignorant of these and wise up to them, we naturally let go of them.

The good stuff remains though. It is okay to have a good life, to be comfortable and have some fun. This practise does not have to be a morose and sombre experience. After all it is the way that leads to the end of suffering. Enjoy the pleasant moments, as fully as you can, but practise wise attention to them. Notice how the mind clings and thirsts for more, and how this makes us suffer. How the things we are attached to the most, are the things that cause us to suffer the most when we become separated from them.

All conditioned phenomena is transient and uncertain. If one's happiness is dependent on conditions, it is bound to disappoint. As those conditions are outside of one's control, they will change and then that happiness will end. That is why it is precarious to place one's hopes in worldly happiness. It is not wrong to enjoy this happiness. It is just, material things are not the real treasure in life. The pearl of great worth comes from within. That's what we reach for at death, what we take with us when we die. Everything else is torn away from us.

Mindfulness, wonder, interest, investigation, energy, joy, peace, friendliness, love, kindness, good humour, generosity, empathy, connection, compassion, serenity, samhadi, and equanimity to mention some, are all beautiful states of mind that don't cause us or anyone else any harm. These states of mind are good for us mentally and physically. They also bring good kamma, because they reinforce the mental dispositions that lead to good states of becoming, that lead away from suffering. They make us happier, healthier beings, and enrich our lives and those around us.

All the beauty of the heart remains, and shines the more brightly without the clouds of greed, hate, conceit and delusion. 

It is like someone who has been sick with an illness, with a fever, becomes unconscious. A doctor comes along and examines the patient, knows what it is that is wrong with the patient and how to cure them. He gives the patient some medicine. Their consciousness returns, then the colour returns to their cheeks, they sit up feeling much better, then their composure becomes serene and radiant. Feeling the relief of no longer being sick.

In a similar way, when our minds are clear of greed, hate, conceit and delusion, they become well again.

It isn't the world outside that is the problem. It is the greed, hate, and delusion within us that is the problem. That is what causes us suffering. That is what gets in the way.  

...

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Asoka

Dissolving problems

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I am enjoying meditating on the breath energy at the moment and moving it throughout the body. It helps me maintain interest and curiosity in the breath as a meditation object, and it feels enjoyable and invigorating.

I place my attention on the cool air going into the nasal cavity and the warm air going out, like the waves of the sea going into a cave, breathing in, breathing out. I become aware of the whole body at once, feel the breath energy travel deep into the body, into the lower belly and down into my feet and toes, making them tingle with happiness. I feel it in my hands also as I breathe in and out. The energy permeating the whole body, like the ocean filling inner coves. It feels cool, soothing, and refreshing. The spine tingles, and the scalp and back of the neck lights up with pleasure. The feeling of air and the touch of clothing on skin feels pleasant, and the body is comfortable and at ease. The cool air all around me enters the pores of my skin with each inhalation, nourishing every fibre of my being. It feels wonderful.

After a while of doing this, the energy becomes more settled and serene, and then it feels good to stop moving the energy round the body, and just let it be, resting quietly in the awareness of the inner body. The energy bubbles and flows gently on its own, and the mind settles into a peaceful state, composed, content and lucid. Not wanting to be anywhere else. The body and mind feels satisfied and becomes very still, no longer harrassing itself, tranquilised and at peace (-:

It doesn't matter if this is supported by science, meditation is not about objective reality. Meditation is about the subjective reality. It is about the inner world, the inner body, inner being. In meditation, the chakras, the breath energy, magic can all be real, and it can heal.

I read an article recently about the power of the placebo effect, and I wonder if that is an indication of the magic potential of the mind when it comes to the subjective experience (-:

I wonder if that was the meaning behind the movie: 'Life of Pi'. If that film was about the importance and value of the subjective experience, because that is where we live.

I am starting to realise that many of our problems are not really problems, they are just mental constructs and imaginary fears that don't need to be resolved at all. They just need to be dissolved by tranquility. Then whatever's left is easier to work with and understand.


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Asoka

Moving

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 20 Oct 2022, 20:22


"Start moving
Unless you're dead or a mannequin,
moving
in any way that you're managing
moving
in a way that is challenging.

Just start moving, 

relax 
stop 
panicking.

It's on you
things start happening

When stuck in the labyrinth.
Start choosing
It's highly hazardous.

But start moving

relax
stop panicking
It's on you
things start happening

Relax stop
Relax stop

Moving."


https://youtu.be/_X-ft9J8TdI

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Asoka

Life as it is

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Feeling unwell again today, and that's alright, sickness is part of life. It isn't sickness or fatigue that's the problem. It's my aversion to it that's the problem. Let go of the aversion and one can make peace with anything.

The five wise reflections

' I am of the nature to become sick, I have not gone beyond ill health.

I am of the nature to age, I have not gone beyond growing old.

I am of the nature to die, I have not gone beyond death.

Everything I hold dear and everyone I love will become separated from me due to the nature of change.

I am the heir of my kamma, the owner of my kamma, born of my kamma, related to my kamma. Therefore I should try to remember whatever I do good or bad, becomes the kamma I inherit.' - [attributed to the Buddha]


Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Richie Cuthbertson, Friday, 1 Apr 2022, 20:27)
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Asoka

Gonna give hemp buds a go

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Thursday, 16 Dec 2021, 20:29

Fuck it it is too risky buying regular cannabis online, too many scams out there, and I don't want to risk it.

Going to try hemp flowers out of desperation, problem is they don't have much THC (less than 0.02%), they just have high levels of CBD, but at least the supplier seems trustworthy, and it is a natural product, with buds and resins, plus there will be the other cannabinoids in them that are beneficial. Their squidgy black product looks interesting.


I'll give it a go anyway, I have tried the CBD oil products and teabags and they were shit, didn't do nothing, so I am going to try buying the buds and hash made from hemp flowers which have much higher levels of CBD in than the health shop tat. See if that helps, I fucking hope so.

Don't worry it is all legal in the UK. You are allowed to buy CBD products but only if the THC is below 0.02% lol. Fucking nanny state eh? It's bullshit as well with all the alcohol, it makes no sense that the most harmful drug of all (alcohol) is perfectly legal and destroys far more lives than all the other drugs put together. I also fricking hate seeing alcohol adverts, it feels like Mara trying to tempt me and make me fall. Grrr

https://gethemp.co.uk/


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Asoka

I do not trust the media or politicians

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Saturday, 27 Nov 2021, 13:54

There are reports of footballers and athletes collapsing from myocarditis on the field and going to hospital, all quite close together in a short period of time, one cannot help but wonder if it is something to do with these COVID vaccines?

I also disagree with the decision to vax kids with experimental COVID vaccines, as the chances of getting myocarditis from the vaccines are much greater in young people, and the virus hardly touches young people anyway, they get it very mild and sail through it. These COVID vaccines don't stop one from catching and transmitting COVID, so I don't understand why the government is planning to vax children as young as 5 years old. Something doesn't feel right and I again feel the need to speak out about it, as the mainstream media is full of misinformation and as it has done repeatedly in the past over other things (such as the Iraq invasion, the Hillsborough tragedy and the blatant lies about and character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn being just a few examples), it has a track record of misleading people into believing things that aren't true to support the government's agenda.

 I have a heart murmur, and as these vaccines do carry a risk of developng myocarditis I don't feel comfortable injecting experimental MRNA technology into my arm. Because if something does go wrong noone can help me, or (like what happened to someone locally who had an adverse reaction to the vaccine) the doctors and nurses will fob me off and tell me it is nothing to do with the vaccine. There is this vibe now in society that nobody is allowed to criticize the vaccines at all, and anyone who does so is ostracised and made to feel bad. Things are way too biased at the moment and I don't trust it at all when things get like that.

Besides, I think I may already have had COVID (twice), so does a doctor I saw when I described the symptoms, but I never got tested because it was early in the pandemic during the first lockdown and there were no tests available at the time, so I may already have natural immunity which research is showing is much better than a vaccine. See what is happening in India where it has become endemic and the virus has stopped spreading and mutating due to natural immunity.

There is also strong evidence showing asthma sprays are able to prevent one getting severe COVID as well as vitamin C, Zinc and vitamin D3. The treatments and medical knowledge about COVID is also much better now than at  the beginning of the pandemic. 

And by the way I am not anti-vax or a conspiracy theorist, I have had vaccines in the past, and I believe the tetanus jab saved my life. I just do not feel comfortable with being coerced into having a new experimental technology injected in me that nobody can possibly know what the long-term effects on my health might be.

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Asoka

Murmurations

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Edited by Richie Cuthbertson, Sunday, 12 Sep 2021, 14:08

I am depressed at the moment. It is a struggle each day just to get out of bed and do anything. My energy levels are low. Studying is difficult, my cognitive abilities are getting worse and I am finding reading difficult, constantly have to read and re-read the same paragraph for the information it contains to eventually sink in, and even then I am not sure it has. Starting to doubt if I have what it takes to finish this degree. I'll keep going though...

It could be this dark time of year, I find November a difficult month. I feel like a hedgehog that wants to go hibernate somewhere, maybe humans should hibernate, that would save energy and resources and maybe help the planet not die from over-exploitation.

We got some cool starling murmurations here, look really amazing, and when they pass overhead you can hear their collective wing-beats.

There are some that think everything is conscious, even molecules and atoms, that it is a natural consequence of an interconnected Interdependent form. Meaning every level of reality could be conscious from atoms, to molecules, to cells, to neurons, to a human. And consciousness could even go beyond that, to perhaps a family, a neighbourhood, town, city, nation, the Internet, an eco-system, biome, planet, solar system, galaxy, the whole universe might be conscious.

A lot of things in reality are like fractals.

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