I, Unidian, "Naturyl," James Quirk, am a popcorn maker.

[Pincho Paxton]

It sounds like Buddha did a lot of talking in an age when nobody knew very much at all. He talked the talk, but he didn't walk the walk.. he just sat cross legged.

[Pincho Paxton]

Have you ever thought what enlightenment really is? The brain is very symmetrical, and the lines pass through the brain quite symmetrically. I think that you are reading enlightenment as subconscious IQ. If we have an IQ, and it joins up to our memories, then we could have a subconscious IQ that has the ability to think without prior memory usage. So that would be two types of IQ. I think that subconscious IQ is what you guys call enlightenment.

[Tomas]

A child is not enlightened. He is blameless.

What evidence can you put forth that what you say is true?

[Alex Jacob]

Alex, if you can't comprehend the simple notion of the subjectivity of consciousness then there's no point ever talking to you. Let me ask you this so perhaps we can move on and I can address the rest of your response: do you understand the proposition that a husband can never know if his wife loves him (or vice versa gender-wise). Do you get that? Do you agree with that? Let me state in advance that if you don't agree you emphatically don't get it.

Esteemed Fellow Seeker. I do get that. I do. It is really as simple as saying that one individual cannot be inside another individual experiencing what he or she experiences.

Possibly the part that seems the most 'bizarre' to me is that any given person may come to believe or assume they are enlightened, and since it depends only on subjective criteria there is no way to verify it. And as you likely have guessed by now, I am deeply suspicious of any person who would make that claim about themselves. It is essentially a useless term of discourse. Have you thought of selecting another term? 'Enlightenment' is just too laden. If the Buddhist term is 'nibbana' perhaps you should stick to that?

One assumes that in the context of those authentic traditions where the term 'nibbana' is part of their language and concept base (in an 'authentic' sense), that there are always other people who assess the state of a given monk or practitioner. There would have to be checks and balances so to speak to keep a person from falling into the subjective traps that, at least on this forum, become so painfully evident.

[Alex Jacob]

John, I don't even know how to respond to what you have written or what you write. Can you simply accept that our perspectives are not at all in the same field? We do not participate in the same planet even. I do not think that we have even one basic ground or point that we can agree on. What this means is: that if I were to define an 'enlightenment' of a person I would do it with all the criteria that you reject! I believe that I do understand the manner in which the Buddhist school, stemming from the Indian school, defines reality. It has even a definite logic to it: for instance the insubstantiality of all things and the difficulty of 'locating' a 'definite self'. There are many, many different avenues of perception and attitude that open up to a person by entering into that idea-system. I do see this.

Perhaps I might say that I do not accept the 'conclusions' that are made as a result of integrating those perspectives? Or, that I think it 'best' to focus on the tangible aspect of life and ourselves and to function within, say, the limitations that Buddhism (and many Eastern philosophies) recognize. I also think that we Westerners, when once we were confronted with similar if not the same idea structures that originated in the Orient, made radically different decisions in relation to 'all that', and out of those decisions, that praxis, we 'made our world'. I regard Buddhist praxis, largely, as regressive. And I cite you as a prime example! But you are not alone. Nearly every person if not every person who I witness here preaching neo-Buddhist doctrines seems to me to be cultivating forms of conceptual derangement. After examining this, experiencing this in these people for some years now, I can find no redeeming feature in it! I see unstable, unbalanced, unproductive, obsessed, and unrealized persons, and also quite unhappy persons, who are fighting tooth-and-nail to validate a dead-end path.

And it is a 'conversation' that leads into endless silliness, literal preposterousness! We have praxis and method within our own traditions to face the horrors of unstable life, fleeting life, that are superior to this mishegoss! There are far more important things to do with the 'fleeting time' we have available to us. Now, here is the hard statement that you won't like: What you do within ideas, and it seems to me within yourself and within life, is destructive. I also use the term 'neurotic' (in more or less the Freudian sense) and I describe that neurosis as being part of a reaction to our modern present but also to 'reality' itself. We all react against those core 'horrors' though, I do see that. But we do this in differing ways. I suggest, in your case, though I know you do not like this: growing up. You are simply too young to really have an idea of what you are talking about. Your 'certainties' have not been tested. Youthfulness pours out of you and it is not the childishness you cherish, IMO. But that is not the only motivator for your views, and I do recognize that. Dennis, who is 'ancient', also seems to drink from those springs.

What I say, in the end, is What a waste...

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The usual and broadly used definitions of enlightenment range from ""full comprehension of a situation" to "seeing clearly [into one's ] (true) nature". It reasonably follows that any total verification cannot be done with anything else but enlightenment itself. And like Dan wrote it's like with asserting anything else in this world: one forms opinion by reading the signs and picking the fruits - but the highest ranking fruits always have caused the most trouble, naturally, since it is inherent to the topic and not a surprise or revelation of some kind that it is so.

[Bobo]

"Let me state in advance that if you don't agree you emphatically don't get it."

If you don't agree you don't get it, if you agree you don't get it.

[Tomas]

Nearly every person if not every person who I witness here preaching neo-Buddhist doctrines seems to me to be cultivating forms of conceptual derangement. After examining this, experiencing this in these people for some years now, I can find no redeeming feature in it! I see unstable, unbalanced, unproductive, obsessed, and unrealized persons, and also quite unhappy persons, who are fighting tooth-and-nail to validate a dead-end path.

Oh, come on, Alex! How are you not any different with the morass you find yourself in?

By your admittance, you are boning a woman with a minor child in her care. You buy them niceties and such but can not quite make a commitment to her beyond the sexual aspect of life. How are you realized?

It's much like the question Dan asked, .. how do you know that a woman loves you completely?

I've asked that to my wife of 45 years who is still a good looking woman and yes, she takes care to look good to me. Yep, she has her unkempt days but the ups and downs of living together for so long outweighs the negatives one can think about on the off moments on this road called life.

You probably have some money salted away (with a legal will and last testament) because you, I guess, have no offspring to leave your booty to. So you'll give some to charity, the government gets their cut, some peanuts maybe to your present girl-friend and her child (maybe some college education money), some to that cause and some to your favorite brother or sister and the rest to .... ?

Nobody on this forum has all the answers including me and you..........

[Alex Jacob]

Nobody on this forum has all the answers including me and you...

My dear Tomas! Definitely not you! ;-)

(Joke)

I am 'different' perhaps because I see it. I am talking about it. That is a big difference. I guess I would call it a first step. It doesn't mean that we are not all in a difficult position.

[Would you consider---hypothetically of course!---the local equivalent of Yale Law School and a private Jesuit college for the child 'niceties'? A real comitment to another human being: now that is a subject for another thread!]

But what one does with a woman or in relation to a woman is not evidence of 'spiritual groundedness' or even clear-thinking. It is only a decision that one has made in relation to a person, to a woman.

_____________________________________________

The usual and broadly used definitions of enlightenment range from "full comprehension of a situation" to "seeing clearly [into one's ] (true) nature".

And all of that is 'considerable' as far as I am concerned: and very good topics for thought. But unless I am very very VERY mistaken what Dan and Q-S refer to is some derivative of 'nibbana', and though 'nibbana' might include the above, I am not so convinced their methods and conclusions are on the mark.

[Tomas]

My dear Tomas! I am 'different' because I see it. I am talking about it. That is a big difference. I guess I would call it a first step. It doesn't mean that we are not all in a difficult position.

[Would you consider---hypothetically of course!---the local equivalent of Yale Law School and a private Jesuit college for the child 'niceties'? A real commitment to another human being: now that is a subject for another thread!]

Well, of course (insert happy face). The education for a child is always a building block to the next day which none of us are promised.

Money is a fungible asset designed to be used for the moment, the next year or for someone elses enjoyment after the donor has given it or died off.

Be happy in your gifts while you are still alive!

Side Note: As far as the Jesuit thing is concerned I'd flee from sending a child to a non-marriage life training institution such as Governor Jerry Brown of California who is Jesuit-trained and educated but cannot marry because of his oath to stay single but still found time to bone Linda Ronstadt in their earlier aspect of this life.

The reason I say the above is because I had a doctor of philosophy here in Minot, North Dakota (at the local university) who was trained and educated as a Jesuit but he gave that up because he found a woman and they married. He was the best professor with a doctorate I've ever had and we and our families had many a good time he died some five or so years ago but the good times are still reflected upon and some reflections find their way here on this letter to you and Genius as a whole.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Nearly every person if not every person who I witness here preaching neo-Buddhist doctrines seems to me to be cultivating forms of conceptual derangement. After examining this, experiencing this in these people for some years now, I can find no redeeming feature in it! I see unstable, unbalanced, unproductive, obsessed, and unrealized persons, and also quite unhappy persons, who are fighting tooth-and-nail to validate a dead-end path.

Oh, come on, Alex! How are you not any different with the morass you find yourself in?

By your admittance, you are boning a woman with a minor child in her care. You buy them niceties and such but can not quite make a commitment to her beyond the sexual aspect of life. How are you realized?

It's much like the question Dan asked, .. how do you know that a woman loves you completely?

Haha, he's a fiction writer Tomas, try to be more skeptical. These are all literary devices generally in his case. Didn't he say that somewhere already? He allows himself to make up things but you're still too much a believer in the goodness of the ones just writing good.

Anyway, are you unhappy Tomas? I don't know many people on this forum but I'm just struggling to see unstable and depressed people more than average is the case in society around me. Perhaps a bit less even. What do you think from your perspective which can be reasonably neutral at times? If the forum would be a health hazard we need to warn the authorities!

[Alex Jacob]

You have to work within context, Tomas. It is either Franciscan or Jesuit (or totally secular). The colegio is adored and valued by the kid. The education is mostly secular with an emphasis on 'values'. The child was taken out of public school where the influences were not good and were starting to show up in him. He is thriving there. The difference between previous behavior and how he acts now, is dramatic.

[Tomas]

Haha, he's a fiction writer Tomas, try to be more skeptical. These are all literary devices generally in his case. Didn't he say that somewhere already? He allows himself to make up things but you're still too much a believer in the goodness of the ones just writing good.

Anyway, are you unhappy Tomas? I don't know many people on this forum but I'm just struggling to see unstable and depressed people more than average is the case in society around me. Perhaps a bit less even. What do you think from your perspective which can be reasonably neutral at times? If the forum would be a health hazard we need to warn the authorities!

As to your first paragraph, I guess I am too much of a sad sap as far as believing. My bad. Perhaps I'm still in regression from my days in Vietnam killing people I never said "hello" to and seeking a certain kind of forgiveness for what I had done over there. It continues to grip me a couple days a month in the middle of the night and is something I deal with on a regular basis it helps to have a few fellow veterans to talk out things with though their numbers decline more and more as I age. My darling wife has been through thick and thin with me but she also can do only so much. It is a loneliness I cannot describe even to the best of my childhood and adult friends.

I'm unhappy in that it has been a very cold winter here in North Dakota. The sun has been out five times since December. It is not suntan weather up here. We were in Oz about three months ago for a family reunion on her side but that was when it was still late fall here and somewhat warm. The high temperature yesterday was -15 Farenheit, today is not much better about +5 F. The wind makes it feel like 25 below 0 F. This winter is completely unlike last winter where there was hardly any snow and the temperature was like 27-37 every day. And yes, we have a lot of snow, too.

It probably does show in my posting behavior of late but spring can come anywhere from early March to late May. The two seasons this far north are winter and summer the other two (spring and fall) can be a blur and last but two weeks or so.

As a result some depression sets in as no sunshine is coming through the pupils and reaching the inner recesses of the body, soul and mind. Nothing clinical though I probably take my political forums on Yuku.com too seriously but since JFK was murdered life in America is different than what should have been growing up but that was then and this is now. There are so many people flocking to North Dakota because of the good economy due to the oil and natural gas boom. Suicides are up here and that is never a good sign about the present times when the economy should produce just the opposite result. The homeless situation didn't exist 5 years ago but people are sleeping in cardboard boxes, their cars and inside apartment doorways. I volunteer on Wednesday's at a homeless shelter and feeding station the misery is everywhere I know and I grew up in a very poor family so all in all life is life.

I try to be neutral regarding people here but I have my like people. You and Alex happen to be a couple of the long-timers here and are my like people (insert happy face).

I've no clue any more who the authorities are but in my home they are the wife and daughter

Good to see Dan is posting again after his stroke we all need to hang on to this life it is all there is.

[Tomas]

You have to work within context, Tomas. It is either Franciscan or Jesuit (or totally secular). The colegio is adored and valued by the kid. The education is mostly secular with an emphasis on 'values'. The child was taken out of public school where the influences were not good and were starting to show up in him. He is thriving there. The difference between previous behavior and how he acts now, is dramatic.

That is very good Alex. The children are the future (I know we are on the Genius side of the forum and not the Worldly section) but bless you for your assistance to this child.

Like I said a long time ago I've probably read no more than five books (excluding comic books and MAD magazine) in my life but since the advent of the Internet my reading online has gone through the roof. I would merely scan the school texts provided us but would ask the guys and girls who took good notes if I could borrow them for a few minutes and scan them that was enough to give me mostly B's and a few A's.

PS - I know you and Diebert and I would get along in person, this I know. (insert happy face)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

PS - I know you and Diebert and I would get along in person, this I know. (insert happy face)

It's always has been well Tomas. My friends are always allowed to have their faults and obsessions but it needs some special maneuvering at times to allow some space. And with obsession I mean the scarring which many in and outside this forum have independently detected within Alex, surfacing as some supposed "crusade" against the failure of guru's and teachings especially in the modern spiritual movements. But what was his "Vietnam", what makes up his loneliness? As you indicate, some scars do never really heal and there's no "therapy" or miracle, no "fix". Not even in enlightenment, even the whole of the universe cannot make whole the things that were broken to begin with. Perhaps this is the frustration, the idea that a final but false fix or escape route for psychological scars or other shortcomings would be in the offering somewhere? As many have pointed out by now, this is not what it's about at the heart of the good tidings.

[Dennis Mahar]

Tomas,

As to your first paragraph, I guess I am too much of a sad sap as far as believing. My bad. Perhaps I'm still in regression from my days in Vietnam killing people I never said "hello" to and seeking a certain kind of forgiveness for what I had done over there. It continues to grip me a couple days a month in the middle of the night and is something I deal with on a regular basis it helps to have a few fellow veterans to talk out things with though their numbers decline more and more as I age. My darling wife has been through thick and thin with me but she also can do only so much. It is a loneliness I cannot describe even to the best of my childhood and adult friends.

I'm unhappy in that it has been a very cold winter here in North Dakota. The sun has been out five times since December. It is not suntan weather up here. We were in Oz about three months ago for a family reunion on her side but that was when it was still late fall here and somewhat warm. The high temperature yesterday was -15 Farenheit, today is not much better about +5 F. The wind makes it feel like 25 below 0 F. This winter is completely unlike last winter where there was hardly any snow and the temperature was like 27-37 every day. And yes, we have a lot of snow, too.

It probably does show in my posting behavior of late but spring can come anywhere from early March to late May. The two seasons this far north are winter and summer the other two (spring and fall) can be a blur and last but two weeks or so.

As a result some depression sets in as no sunshine is coming through the pupils and reaching the inner recesses of the body, soul and mind. Nothing clinical though I probably take my political forums on Yuku.com too seriously but since JFK was murdered life in America is different than what should have been growing up but that was then and this is now. There are so many people flocking to North Dakota because of the good economy due to the oil and natural gas boom. Suicides are up here and that is never a good sign about the present times when the economy should produce just the opposite result. The homeless situation didn't exist 5 years ago but people are sleeping in cardboard boxes, their cars and inside apartment doorways. I volunteer on Wednesday's at a homeless shelter and feeding station the misery is everywhere I know and I grew up in a very poor family so all in all life is life.

I try to be neutral regarding people here but I have my like people. You and Alex happen to be a couple of the long-timers here and are my like people (insert happy face).

I've no clue any more who the authorities are but in my home they are the wife and daughter

You are playing the Victim.

Get off the pity pot.

It's just a Story.
A conceptual overlay of a situation you got 'swept up' in.
You ran with the herd.


It's empty and meaningless that it's empty and meaningless.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

See Dennis, how does that console some one who has murdered? It doesn't at all, instead make them understand its non- reality so there is nothing to feel bad about.

[Dennis Mahar]

See Dennis, how does that console some one who has murdered? It doesn't at all, instead make them understand its non- reality so there is nothing to feel bad about.

causes/conditions murdered.
ignorance murdered.
same shit, different day.
herd runner.
weak as piss.

[Alex Jacob]

Esteemed Diebert.

But the question here is why do you constantly make me the subject of your own 'obsession'? Right now, at this juncture, with so many opportunities to speak in human terms about your own self, you are trying to get to the bottom of me. It's weird. But it is what you have done, continually, for the last 4 years! And I am usually glad to take advantage of the opportunity because it gives me a way to expand on my ideas. But I really do think a little self-examination of your own part here is needed. I look over my posts and, though they are not composed of the same stuff as 'certain of you here' compose your own posts, I am by and large happy with them. I think any doctrinal environments, as this is, needs a 'dissident' voice. A jester. A Talking Ass.

If you yourself took up more your own side of conversations and all their possibilities, in that way you would do more service to the forum.

Perhaps this is the frustration, the idea that a final but false fix or escape route for psychological scars or other shortcomings would be in the offering somewhere? As many have pointed out by now, this is not what it's about at the heart of the good tidings.

Though you should really be speaking about the reasons you appear so regularly in this space, and what the 'secret' reasons for that are, you seem only to be able to focus on others, such as myself. But if I give you a straight, honest answer, you will not accept it. Or you'll twist it around in some way to work it against me. I have not necessarily really minded to be truthful. The reason is because I am always looking for an opening to expand on my ideas. My sense of what is 'spiritual' is quite a bit larger than what you allow to it. But again, you are nothing but questions questions questions about me, but where are you in all this Diebert? That question has been asked numerous times and you have roundly avoided it. This is suspect. You call that 'Hello Kitty' confessions or girlish chatter. But I say something quite different: our spiritual life is being conducted in the midst of all sorts of heavy things, and immediately in the life we lead.

And the actual fact of the matter, as I have painstakingly explained, is that I have strong feelings about 'making the life we lead real', and about maximizing our impact on it, and about actually living it and dealing with it, and not avoiding it. And you know very well that I take strong positions against what I call 'neo-Buddhism' and this particular Edifice that is supported here, and for reasons that I carefully explain. You just do not like---no you detest and resent---this focus! Be truthful! It makes you very angry. There is something you are very closely defending, and I know this because I have been arguing with you for quite some time now. You are formidable in your way. We know about Dutchmen in the US. Some few of them have left quite an impact. You are very stubborn and very prone to the defense of your positions. But that is neither here nor there.

The actual fact of the matter is that I write, mostly, 'as an American'. That is just a fact and it is one that I cannot hide (nor do I wish to). And I write from a 'post-Sixties' perspective, with something like 7-8 years of difference between us. That placed me sub-generational to Tomas, a half-generation apart. And my country had an almost inconceivable splitting-apart as a result of that war and so many other things. And those things fractured people, or fractured them off into all sorts of directions. And that is the 'reality' that I grew up in. And there is a reason, a good and a genuine reason, why I am concerned for 'spiritual paths' and articulated spiritual paths that also seem to me to deny a part of the human being, or to cut it away, or to 'poison' it. Now, you know so much of this. You don't agree with it. You have other ways and means of looking at the issues. Fine. But why not speak about that in your own terms, in your own threads? Why must you always take my views or my orientations to task? And why do you always keep yourself out of these conversations? Where were you, and where are you, in all this? What happened to you? What was your Christian experience like? Where, how did you grow up? What impacted you? What about your own wounds and your own loneliness?

You are a fucking coward at times, Diebert! (And I am saying it in that way mostly for effect...) ;-) (Note the wink).

So, this is just one more explanation offered to you, Diebert. One more request for information satisfied. My thing is a desire to understand, essentially, how a people (that is to say America and Americans because I don't really have another context to refer to, not in any depth) had been uprooted from their own selves by powerful forces outside of them. Waldo Frank is a big influence for me. Nineteen twenties and thirties. Strongly anti-capitalist, anti-militarist with Randolph Bourne and others. Very pro-Latinoamericano with Virgin Spain and other works. Defining humanism in its deeper, spiritual sense. Stuff that you and other here hold in stark contempt I don't doubt. But there is a whole, great slew of stuff that is held in stark contempt here, and that is the place's own 'poison'. And yes, I have certainly extended myself (to put it mildly) to make a case against what I think is dangerous and destructive. And I know too that many folks who read here lack the literary skills and the knowledge of history skills to make good judgments about 'things' (though they are top-filled with easy opinions). But the work of understanding the Present is hard work.

I do think you get a lot of this. You are not a simple intellect and there is a good deal of shading to you. Bravo! You also seem a quintessential Christian. Has anyone ever told you that? I mean that in the best of all possible senses. But why you have taken it into your soul to oppose little old me, who can guess? (Maybe I am more Satanic than I even know?)

Another thing that I have done is to have insisted, and then insisted more, and to resist every wall that is thrown up and every trick and jab to get me to stop saying and thinking and believing what I think and feel (this notable tactic and tendency to cut someone's ideas down, to say (in so many words):

• 'You are stupid for even thinking such a STUPID thing, you STUPID LOOSER!'

These are the sorts of formulations I first came across here. They are imbedded, perversely, in the doctrines themselves (or haven't you caught that yet?) Well fuck you, fuck the mother that bore you, and the backassward horse who carried you both! ;-) That, in those and similarly colorful terms, has been my charming modus operandi. I've made some friends and more enemies.

Is that the explanation you had been looking for? I have others too...

Now, I gather that for you this is not 'doing philosophy' but I hope you have also gathered, by now, that I don't hold you or Dan or Kevin or David as a model of philosophy. So I am doing something then altogether different. It works for me. I put a HUGE amount of time and thought into my studies. You have likely no idea how I have taken this Forum seriously, but not for the reasons it might desire to be taken seriously. I have covered a huge amount of ground. I understand myself and 'my world' much better. I have used it to my advantage. Shall I be blamed?

But yes, 'A=A' still flies by me, thumbing its nose, shouting 'Looooosseeerrrr!'

[Tomas]

Tomas,
You are playing the Victim.

Get off the pity pot.

It's just a Story.
A conceptual overlay of a situation you got 'swept up' in.
You ran with the herd.

It's empty and meaningless that it's empty and meaningless.

Just like your recent attachment with the electric dog collar.

Are you within the past few months understanding pain?

You are only recently discovering that pain is empty and meaningless?

Did the dog tell you this?

I still haven't heard back what the dog told you whether it was a-ok to electrocute a helpless puppy in your care.

Did you try out the shock collar on your neck?

Doubtful.

"Care", haha.

[Alex Jacob]

It's just a Story. A conceptual overlay of a situation you got 'swept up' in.

No, they were and they are real things that we have to live. And we have to deal with them. That is a stronger position, as I see things. You can't 'abstract' your life away.

I also have pretty strong feelings, Dennis, about including a man's war experience, of which you have no concept at all, in these particular discussions.

[Dennis Mahar]

You completely miss the point Tomas.
What happened didn't happen.
The Story about what happened happened.

[Dennis Mahar]

I also have pretty strong feelings, Dennis, about including a man's war experience, of which you have no concept at all, in these particular discussions.

Take a bex and lie down.

[Tomas]

You completely miss the point Tomas.
What happened didn't happen.
The Story about what happened happened.

You know it would sure be great if you'd write a normal post every now and then. Hiding behind your prose doesn't get through thick sculls every single time. Huh?

Put a few paragraphs down every now and then..........

[Dennis Mahar]

I repeat.

You completely miss the point Tomas.
What happened didn't happen.
The Story about what happened happened

Your Story isn't what happened.
causes/conditions happened.