Here's something I posted to the Diaspora* network today.



And here's me, always scorning "psychologized Dharma". But the Dharma is universal, and can be expressed in terms of pop psychology. The thing is, the kilesas (greed, hatred, delusion) are universal as well.

Have at it!

Cheers,
Florian

P.S. Dedicated to the memory of Bill Hamilton, in some respects the lineage founder of the DhO

Florian the guru, I didn't know you had it in you :-) I hope that by "have at it" you mean you are willing to take criticism without being upset, so here goes... My own two cents on this little piece of writing you have here.

IMO, the kind of thinking you express in this excerpt is your own way of justifying your own path to yourself. Heck, if others buy into your "meek inheriting the earth" thing, it makes you feel all the better for having "taken the path of the dharma," huh?

I personally think that your whole discourse of "us vs them" is utter bullshit. You think you are wiser, or more "righteous" than others? C'mon!...

The truth is: you're into dharma because you have no other choice. Due to introspection, the internal stress has become too obvious, and the pain has made you feel that the typical way of life (the "game of psychopaths," as you call it) is meaningless and void.

Because of this, you have no choice but to opt out, to dismantle the whole thing. No choice whatsoever, it happens due to principles as basic as minimizing energy and increasing entropy. Less stress, and more uniformity.

That you pretend you have a choice, by calling it or "true Will" or whatever, is you deluding yourself. Even your idea that you are somehow "surrendering," as if the process of "enlightenment" needed your consent, is bullshit. That you then justify the unavoidable path as being somehow more "righteous" than what the rest of the world is doing, is a rationalization with hints of the same perversion you so adamantly criticize.

Maybe deep down you wanted to win "the game," but it has become impossible to play since you so clearly see how it works internally, and are hence disenchanted/disgusted by it. And hence by criticizing society, you kill two birds with one stone: you lash back at those who are playing the game (out of resentment for not having "won"), and simultaneously justify your own path as being "better than them."

Now you are thinking "this is bullshit", but remember the moment of recognition just before you thought that ;-) lol

Thanks! It's Wali Saint Shree Florian 8=3, if you please.



No. I understand Jesus to have used "meek" in the sense of "nothing invested in the self-image". He also used the "other cheek" metaphor, and "... mantle and the shirt as well". You know, that which psychopaths see as weakness and which they can only view with utter contempt.

Let me give you an example. A person I know very well was recently diagnosed with cancer. She had surgery, and is now undergoing chemotherapy. This person has been harrassed by her mother for as long as I know them, which is a couple of decades, and from what I know of their story, this goes back even more.

So what happens is that the diagnosis puts her into focus. She drops what's unnecessary (almost everything - career, household, ... you name it) and pours all her resources into facing her mortality. When her mother came to gripe about laundry, or how she was taking too many painkillers, all these manipulative attacks went right through her. Anything at all - as her mother tried all the old buttons, one by one, they had stopped working. She gave it all up, her pride in being a good housewife, a good daughter, a trained masseuse... she became very meek. So her mother, seeing that all this had stopped working, slapped her across the face, you know, back-handed, such that the stone set in her ring left a little bruise. This meek woman became free in that moment, and it's now her world she's living in, not her mother's any more. Oh, and as a side-effect, my own heart got freed as well upon hearing this.



I've learned to recognize the psychopath patterns. I've been staring at them for all my life, puzzled and bewildered and fearful, and they never made sense.

Greed, Hatred, and Delusion.



It's not void - it's full of suffering. Nor is it meaningless: its meaning is to provide gratification for the psychopaths.



"True Will" is a very specific term from the religion of Thelema.

"Righteousness", like I wrote, is a word that has been twisted out of recognition. It's a central theme in Islam.



Please research the term "drama triangle". Note how there is no solution within that configuration.



It is truly unforgettable.

Thanks for playing. Also, try the many other rides in the park.

Cheers,
Florian

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Bruno doesn't think that's it's possible to stop thinking about oneself all the time? This is perplexing to me. Is not the identity simply one's memory of all pertinent past events, ones anticipation of all pertinent future events, one's preferences (sensoual, idealogical and everything in between) stamped with the seal of "I", "truth", "mine", "justice", etc, one's anxieties towards others and their opinions regarding him and his preferences, one's own fear of mortality, one's own desire to possess dominion? You must think the identity is something more if you think it impossible to escape these silly little tendencies.

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Learning about psychopaths last year was really important to me too, probably for reasons somewhere in between what you have written Florian and what Bruno has said!

The system is infected, we are infected, hence the fascination with trying to overcome zombies/ vampires/ aliens/ demons which has been par for the course, at least my perception of culture.

Meditative/Contemplative practices march straight down the middle of ASPD when it becomes spiritual bypassing and trying to 'kill emotion' etc.

I found myself after a few months of 'breaking down the social identity' (in my own misguided way) as either creating or unveiling some disturbing traits. Decided to back off and go back to calm-abiding / mindfulness.

It was actually chilling to see how we are all 'playing the game'

Interesting stat for you; 4% of adult males are ASPD. 10% of business leaders are ASPD. We breed them and reward them.

Good work humanity.

Isn't it?

Actually, we don't have to. We're coerced into playing along, there seems to be so much at stake if we were to walk out of it. "You're fighting it. Let go." (fighting the game. Let go of pride. Having a heart is nothing to be ashamed of.)

Cheers,
Florian

Great thread Florian,

Language is the main tool of the game though, so no matter which way it is sliced, the rules are adapted to bring the deserters back into the fold.

It scares the shit out of me. but i know that it is some how true; we walk a dangerous line if we actually go through with dramatic personality reorganisation without confronting the elephant in the room with all of this- we were born this way. this is nature. This is 'how it is', we are not going back to some eden, uncovering some pristine 'real actual' reality, but creating one from scratch 'in our head' and if we think we are walking a path laid out by 'others' we are already on the road to hell.

Spiritual bypassing = psychopath breeding

confronting the basic fear of death, the controls of instinct, the 'social identity' can only be done gently. Push it too hard and like I did with the headphone jack in my macbook, it with fuck up the motherboard.

The more one thinks they know what is going on, the more they are involved in manipulating their perception to ignore the before mentioned elephant. Relax. Like you mentioned Florian, it is the boredom, the ordinary sitting, the long moments of letting this instinct burn in the chest, calmly deciding to do something different today (maybe I won't yell at the kids this morning for ignoring me for the millionth time, I'll calmly get in the car instead, they will soon learn to manage themselves)

what I wrote when it first struck me;

http://budoreflex.blogspot.com.au/

I worked for a few months for a psychopath, amazing memory he had. incredible ability to lie without flinching or looking away, could turn on rage in an instant, and the next be completely serene. Ripped of the company for millions and left over 5 million of unpaid debt, and walked away scot free as it was all in someone else's name. Still had a young family though. The perfect ruse.
I didn't spot it then though, simply because it was all in me too. I was immersed in the game, completely, up to my greedy eyeballs. I had, over the 20 years in the building industry, gotten used to the 'white lies' and spin, so much so that there was only the veneer of being 'good', I wasn't at the top of the pile, but slowly but surely I was being groomed for it.

It was sheer luck, pure chance, jaw dropping serendipity that it all fell over and I am not the 'masters apprentice' right now. No skill of my own, I was spared for god knows what reason.

You cannot spot them, you can only ask the question to yourself and watch behaviour like a hawk. they are born that way and have a incredible guile built in. We are all part them also, so all of the traits they have you will find in yourself. But they are real. Really real. Actually really real, and at least one of them (full blown no cure ASPD hominid) has you dancing to their jig, if not a whole group of them, seperately though as they are like the Sith; they can't stand each other for long, and will compete with each other while feinting co-operation and friendship.

The only way out is complete laying it all down. Relax. no guilt, no spin, no little lies about how good you are or bad you are, just sit and watch the wall, the keyboard, what ever lets you see the conditioning squirm, without record*, without fanfare, without anyone to say 'well done'. The scary bit is how much of the very same traits we come to see as 'bad' need to be turned for 'good' and how immensely wrong it can all go if we 'get it wrong'. It is a knot that will not be untied -I've heard...

*says the bloke with a blog and practice thread. doh!

Yes, these escape tunnels are plugged quickly, aren't they?



Yes... (Huge and soppy sigh)



Every single person I've met who has this understanding we're talking about here, is somehow damaged, eccentric, scarred... Being gentle with oneself is one half of the thing.

I've been reading the metta sutta again (actually, I've been listening to a podcast by Mary Grace Orr, called "the wise and frearless heart" - good stuff!) So in the Metta Sutta there is this complete description - including the enigmatic "never again lie in the womb" which I always put off as a reference to reincarnation, but which I now understand to mean "to grow up and take responsibility" the image being that of an adult human body still somehow unborn, unreleased into the world.



Yes! Trusting the kids to be able to do their thing, trusting them to take responsibility. The dead heart is unable to trust.





That is expressed very well.



Weird how that works, isn't it? I've been thinking about people I know, who were in similar situations that made it clear for you and me, and somehow it didn't click for them, or they were too lonely and crawled back... That's a sad thought.

That sense of utter loneliness, did you get it? I was alone for a full two hours until I tried to explain it to my wife and she held me gently while I cried my eyes out, remembering what a blind, deaf log I'd been, not blaming myself, just remembering and feeling the sadness. I'm so incredibly fortunate to have someone close to me to talk.



There are all these movies and books and songs and tv shows - often those with "cult" status, which don't have any high artistic merit, but which portray this ugly game so accurately. At least now I know why I watched "Rock'n'Rolla" so many times. It struck all chords.



Yes, to realize that an action (or thought) is just adding fuel to the system, and to let it go.

Cheers! And Amen and Sadhu and whatever it is they say
Florian

At times I have considered how a psychotherapist following their standard diagnostic manual would label the enlightened state of mind.

Don't like the idea of labeling normitive human psychology as pathology either.

We ought to rather recognize that human psychology and the resultant behaviors are either desirable, average, or pathological relative to the context in which they occur. This is actually quite obvious without the concept of free agency.

Although we are evolutionary programmed as sort of survival and reproduction machines, and there is some sort of regulatory mechanism in the brain that inhibits happiness depending on how well it thinks we are progressing towards that goal.

We as individuals mostly just care about happiness, even if we sometimes strongly associate it with the wrong thing. Further our context is civilization, not the savvanah, our goals aren't necessarily mere survival and reproduction. As it turns out we can hack the happiness mechanism of the human brain so that it makes more sense in this context...

Hi D Z

There's this thing called empathy. It's the ability to feel what the other one feels.

This is a clue.

Cheers,
Florian

well i liked it. I personally find psychopaths, their condition and their affect on society, to be an awesome thing of study.

there's nothing i disagree with. I think you are saying to forge your own way based on your own preferences. to do this, i think u argue, you need to completely forget the values of the world. that you claim those value are pyschopathic may be inaccurate but it doesn't nul the greater point: the world is a mess and following the ways of the world isn't going to help you out any: and as it turns out, even the counter cultural gurus are part of this grand fuckup: don't follow them either.

don't care what anyone thinks. do someting or don't do something for and only for how much pleasure it gives you (not to be confused with doing a pleasurable thing for ulterior and unhealthy motives -- drinking to oblivion, anonmyous sex, over-eating, etc) understand why you do things, don't fear the future, don't assume one emotion or another is proper to the situation (boredom is proper because i've been doing the same thing for hours, a clever disgrunteledness would go over really well right here, etc). this is your life and no one elses. this is the only moment you'll ever know. freedom is right here. don't let the world steal it from you,hold it above you and trick you into chasing it.

loved your cancer patient story.

Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu, as they say. Sing it, Brother!

Cheers!
Florian

Empathy may be another trap that keeps us in the game.

Is it really possible to feel what the other one feels or in reality to feel what you believe the other one feels

Thanks for pointing out the drama triangle, a great pointer for investigation

cheers

Jeff

Research "idiot compassion".

Also, it's not about manufacturing a feeling. This is perception 101. It's not about making a little empath in your mind. It's about all the self-luminous suffering out there, the self-freaking-evident suffering. Those people are truly suffering, this Suffering is True, you know, as in the first damn noble truth.

Man, you guys make me think the Mahayana Dudes may have a point after all. This is about basic human decency.

Cheers,
Florian

I'm sorry Florian I cannot follow the jumps you are making

you mentioned empathy which I have taken the literal means "the power of entering into another’s personality and imaginatively experiencing his feelings" yet you now say "it's not about manufacturing a feeling."

any imaginative feeling for another or even distress and pity for the suffering or misfortune of another, including the desire to alleviate it (which is the literal meaning of compassion) is suffering and does not benifit anothers situation no matter how you justify it.

How is this basic human decency?

Now there is a new term idiot compassion, another division, more justification.

quote from an article - "The The Difference Between Compassion and “Idiot Compassion"
http://mettarefuge.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/the-difference-between-compassion-and-idiot-compassion/"

"There is compassion and there is idiot compassion; there is patience and there is idiot patience; there is generosity and there is idiot generosity."

How can any imaginative projections (idiot or not) alleviate suffering?

Hi Jeff

Fuck the literal meaning. It already has a sick touch to it, doesn't it? Entering another person?

You know what it means. But you were not sure what I expected (you are so used to being yanked around with your apparent ignorance that you don't trust your first impulse any more) and looked it up somewhere and now it's this gross perversion. I am not condemning this! I am not subtly making fun of you in order to get you to do something! I'm not getting emotional to prevent you from reacting in ways I don't want you to. I assure you of this. You can walk away from this dialogue and I won't ever harrass you with oblique references to it. Were are completely eye-to-eye here, always were, even if I was a pompous arse in here for years.

Cheers! Florian

For those who'd like to do an experiment - (oooh something familiar! Something DhO-like. )

Listen to this podcast. I'll tell you in advance that it's two people speaking truth (not talking about the truth, or displaying their mastery of truthy stuff):

Kyira Korrigan: Gender Equality

That was good to listen to, wasn't it? Two eccentric people, talking about something dear to their hearts, quite openly, without pretense, eye to eye.

Now listen to the other podcast. Again, I'll let you in on the secret in advane: it's someone trying to interview a teacher. Note how it's not a dialogue but a long torrent of... something. Note how what he says sounds glib and true, and afterwards, you can't summarize what he said.

BG 235: A Visitation from the Unknown

What was that? And note how the interviewer was left with the task of closing the comment thread when the uncomfortable questions popped up. After all, the interviewer still owed the teacher something. Years ago, in a magazine, a little plug...

Now who's displaying basic human compassion (not the complicated stuff, just being decent and understanding the suffering of other people to be suffering at all). And who got into the secret of getting people to prostrate before them, like he saw years ago in that documentary and was fascinated by?

Cheers,
Florian

(edit: the first URL was broken)

Hi Florian,
I listened..
So Andrew Cohen is quite possibly a crazy Guru-type. I've seen so many crazy Guru-types, there seem to be quite a few.

I'm not sure about the relation between this, and this thread - the fact that there are Guru-types who are influenced by greed, hatred, delusion?

Also my question about your new revelation is as follows;
Whats new? I thought this has been your intent all along (to finish off with greed, hatred, delusion).
Do you believe yourself now to be free from all kilesas, or if not, are aspiring to be, if so how?

Hi Yadid

For a perspective on Cohen, I can recommend the book "Enlightenment Blues" by Andre van der Braak, which I've read. While reading, compare often with the self-help page linked in the original post of this thread.

The relation between those podcasts and this thread is to show the difference between a conversation between two people with real live hearts, and the imitation of such a thing by someone without a heart, or with a very small, tightly locked-up one, which really amounts to the same thing.

It's a good thing to be able to see the difference. Everybody should be able to, if they want to be enlightened or not. It's your birth-right as a human being.

So what's new? Yes, my intent was this all along. I'm free in the most human, mundane, basic sense; I can see the kilesas clearly, and the other noble truths as well. I see Maro, the dead heart, the evil one, clearly, too, but he can't see me. And yet, as the saying goes, there's a lot of snow to melt under this newly risen sun.

As with previous proclamations of great break-throughs and "being done", this is my current experience. If it holds up, I'll let you know here on the DhO; if not, and something further opens up, I'll post it here as well.

Obviously, I'm aspiring to help others get to this freedom if they wish, as it's really good.

Cheers,
Florian

Thanks Florian, I now understand your intent and message here much better.
Personally, it seems to me that instead of a preaching by Shree Florian, if you just laid out your own personal experience before, during, and after this shift, it would be easier to relate to, and understand :-).

I agree with your assessment about seeing the difference between shit and gold - this seems to be really, really, really important in the spiritual scene and life.

I'm happy you had a breakthrough, it is encouraging to know that practice works.

I'd love to hear some more of the personal side from Shree Florian's life. From the moment of wake up, how he deals with his close ones, family, relationships jobs, etc. If you see any differences in relation, if so how.
If you still meditate, if you do, what happens, and so on.

Thanks for sharing.

Ok, so I did the experiment:

I listened to Kyira and Tom in conversation first, and then I listened to Andrew Cohen. I didn't find what you did, however. Instead of two people with open hearts sharing and one person with a small tight heart, I found one very on-point woman gently schooling her interlocuter out of his received/poorly digested positions on feminism, tradition, authority and the like. She was so very cool. He seemed like a very nice guy and said the right things but it was basically no more than tribalism.

As for Cohen - sure he's quite the bad guy in some aspects and not really that smart. Still there's something there to be had - a great deal, even - so long as it's not swallowed whole. Indeed, to set up an opposition between Kyira and Tom on the one side, and Cohen on the other, is to fall into the very hole that Kyria was so patiently trying to lead Tom out of. People and situations can be very complex, and to hold and explore that very dissonance is part of the challenge.

I've read many of your posts on DHO, and I would place your own astute, sane, and sensitive spirituality very much on par with Kyria's. To view this podcast as you did suggests that you're going through an unusual time. - I won't say more than that. Fair comment?

Yes, it's an unusual time I'm going through. There's my private situation and all that. If it's reassuring to you to see this thread in that perspective, you're welcome. (Here's the little bit of doubt: why do you want to be reassured in this way? i.e. "All is well, Florian is just going through a difficult time")

Cheers,
Florian

Reassures me? Perhaps. Your point about all is well is apt, though. I do believe all is well. I also believe we're all sinners to the bone. Evil motherfuckers. I think it's possible for good and bad to co-exist, and that holding that view in tension allows a movement towards balance and goodness. Attention is love, yeh? My fundamental belief, then, is that there is goodness in everyone and everywhere and that the very moment of evil when grasped is a moment of becoming good. That's how it is.

You on the other hand believe the world is comprised of greedy rapacious individuals along with a number of (a lesser amount, I'm guessing) good people. Andrew Cohen is one of the first group. Kyira and Tom the second. And myself greedily seeking reassurance also one of the bad guys?

I'm curious, also: would there be anything wrong for you to be going through an 'unusual time'. Would there be anything wrong for you to admit that you are especially vulnerable at this moment say? And that for this reason, you find an individual as obviously kind and gentle as Tom appealing? I can certainly imagine myself responding to him in this way.

I don't believe much. I'm atheist, and I like the Phillipp K. Dick quote about reality being that which remains after you stop believing in it.

What I'm trying to express is not a way to sort people into good and evil. I'm European, not American, so this might be a cultural thing - over here, being "divisive" is not such a big issue, but then neither is "unity". Often American displays of "if you're not for me then you're against me" are viewed with amazed bafflement over here. So I may have misjudged the impact my stark presentation of psychopaths would have on an American audience. And this very observation of cultural differences between the two sides of the North Atlantic is, again, is not meant to be divisive, merely a review of what happened in this thread and why.

So to reiterate: I'm not preaching judgement of sheep vs. goats, to use a biblical image. I'm presenting an expression of the Dharma, which could be useful for people who are being bullied - by co-workers, by gurus, by family, by friends, by themselves. Please note that last one: themselves. Since about half of the population is being bullied in one form or another by someone other than themselves, the 50% figure is not that far off, I'm convinced. So, it can be very validating to have a language to express what is happening in one's life. Dharma language is one thing, but it can be a bit hard to relate to one's own experience. The various psychopathy checklists can be very helpful in assessing one's own situation. I am not suggesting to use them within the drama triangle, in order to perpetuate the drama, i.e. for purposes of defending or attacking one of the positions in the drama triangle. They are useful for spotting drama triangles and stepping out of them.



Being vulnerable is the same as letting go. Exposing oneself. Being open. Not defending oneself. Offering the other cheek. The kilesas have no purchase at all on a vulnerable, open, undefended heart. They can't even see it. They might have to go to extremes, such as a backhand slap, in the hope of getting a reaction they can recognize. It takes a lot of courage to be open and vulnerable - such a heart is very courageous. I count myself very lucky to be in the presence of such a heart on a daily basis, as a consequence of my private situation.

In that light, it is no wonder A.C. didn't want to confront criticism in the comment thread of that interview and conveniently had the interviewer close it down (perhaps even without having to mention it explicitly to the interviewer). That would have required courage and responsibility. This is not meant to mark him as a bad guy: it is a conclusion I draw of his conduct, in line with observations other people have made of his conduct.

Cheers,
Florian

Florian: You'll forgive me if I am rather skeptical.

Perhaps you have the benefit of having a true pure heart deep within, or something like that (again forgive me if I'm skeptical), but I personally don't. I do all sorts of petty and devious little mischief. And if I get carried away (e.g. during A&P), I am capable of being a real cunt. Fortunately that rarely happens, not so much because I don't dream of it sometimes, but because there is an array of other forces that make me do other things: compassion is one of them, disenchantment another, the Dark Night a third, etc...

Perhaps this makes me one of your "psychopaths"?

To give you an idea: The other day I was taking a walk with a bunch of friends towards one of whom I have some resentment due to recent events. When passing by his house, he proposed that we all go to his place to take a cup of tea. In reaction to this, I thought to myself, and said out loud, that I would much rather have an expresso, which he (predictably) didn't have at home, and so we all went to a nearby cafe instead.

But lingering inside, was a feeling that made it quite clear that I actually didn't want to go to this guy's place, not because he didn't have any coffee, but because I nurtured some resentment towards him.

Notice the discrepancy between what is said, both to myself in my mind, and to those around me, and what actually made me say it.

Now, this is one instance, but I can remember many more! Heck, if I hadn't been internally attentive, or if I didn't have conscious access to that resentment, it would've been perfectly alright to simply want "coffee over tea," and that particular group decision wouldn't have lingered in my memory. A "forgetfulness" which I am sure has happened in my life hundreds of times before. The assumption that I perfectly know and understand my own internal motivations is something which I have recently questioned.

For instance, if I myself, due to some momentary flash of "insight," were to write in an internet forum that I found a way "out of the game," I would suspect of myself that I was going through a euphoric phase, and that I was actually looking to convince others of this, in order to better convince myself.

In evaluating how full of shit I can be, after a lot of introspective experience, I've decided to err on the side of caution. For instance, if I think along the lines that you imply: that "all I need is to open my heart into the naturally compassionate person that I actually am deep within," that "the world is full of psychopaths but I have managed to leave those ways behind," it actually sounds somewhat fake, as if I am trying to promote myself in a way that is out of touch with reality (which is: I sometimes act compassionately, sometimes selfishly, but anyway mostly out of habit and repetition, rather than "insights" or "revelations" of any kind).

Perhaps you are telling yourself rose-colored truths? Believing you are free of greed, hatred and delusion simply because you get some personal payoff for thinking of yourself that way?

One thing comes to my mind: how can you be so certain you escaped a psychological construction which is so elaborate that it has puzzled you for years? And what is your certainty based on? Richard, apparently, has believed it for more than ten years, and proclaims himself completely free from malice, despite having acted towards some people, at least, with little consideration for their well being. How long ago did you abandon greed, hatred and delusion thanks to the example of your lady friend? How throughly have you tested this? By the way, are you in love with this lady who "set you free"? That would certainly reinforce my skepticism...

And if you haven't actually tested your claim sufficiently, and your impression that you abandoned greed, hatred and delusion is actually just air and fluff (as "revelations" often are, in my experience), then your motivation for posting these words is probably not what it seems (just like my preference for coffee was not what it seemed). Unless you are what you claim to be, then you are instead trying to appear it (to yourself as well as others).

Of course, on the eventuality that you are as you claim, and that such a change happened in the almost miraculous fashion you describe (thanks to the example of someone else), then I can only hope it is easy and straightforward to pass onto the rest of us. Of course, I can immediately recognize that such hope is no more than my own desire for an easy way out. And I am wary of goading you into further preaching.

So perhaps we could be helped by a phenomenological description of the events surrounding your claimed abandonment? Perhaps a list of anecdotal reports of situations where you acted in new ways, and how doing so is like for you? Sensations and facts.

Oh, Wali Saint Shree Florian 8=3, His Shininess Bruno e^{i.\pi}=-1 calls you to come forth and describe your experience!

Hi Florian,

I would very much like to hear about phenomenological descriptions of your ongoing experience. If you are truly free from greed, hatred and delusion in all forms, I would very much like to know how you did it so that I may apply it within my own practice. I understand what you are pointing to and agree that one must ultimately move forward 'alone' and true in ever way to the aspiration that drives our practice/life regardless of how others take it or try and manipulate/keep in the game.

I found it quite prevalent (at least how I projected it in my own head) even within the pragmatic dharma circles. Keeping people in 'my spiritual' game. This seems similar to the practice of dismantling the social identity. I found questioning and dropping the social binds that supported or hindered certain behavior and views very rewarding myself.

In your ongoing experience, do greed, hatred and delusion still arise in some form or another? Perhaps sensations that once implied these three arisings? Perhaps there is no more mental component and one just senses the 'remnants' of greed, hatred and delusion? Is it seeing these three arisings still occur but seeing them as completely 'empty' , yet they still arise in some form or another but now having lost some vital component that made them the experience before your shift? Or is your whole body and mind free from any experience of them in toto? Meaning there are no 'remnants', no physical 'echoes' of them, no mental rumblings/movements either?

Thanks for sharing.

Nick

Edited x 2

Hi Nick

the phenomenological description is all this heart stuff I'm gushing. It is not metaphorical at all. Follow your heart.

Yes, dismantling the social identity is what happened to my wife. No more buttons to push. The kilesas went straight through the ceiling, resulting in that slap which could not be explained away any more, that moment of sheer, unclad reality. In that moment, they had dropped the mask, and were visible for what they were. I chose the psychopath/pop-psychology language because a) family really seems to have serious issues in that respect (I am not a trained specialist, and yes, we have access to such people, and are using it), and b) because that language is still largely un-tainted. See? If I say "greed, aversion, delusion", it gets put into that compartment of "dhamma language". If, on the other hand a self-help website on bullying states that "greed and disgust are the only emotion-like things psychopaths are able to feel" and that they have to "construct or simulate" the reactions which are simply expressions of emotion in other people - then that's greed, hatred, and delusion right there. The kilesas.

Incidentally, this is why meditation works so well in getting people released: it's boring. The kilesas love chaos and confusion, and they love to push buttons. In the highly "pure" mental states of meditation, there are very few buttons for them to push. Sooner or later, the situation escalates, and the kilesas do something so enormous that they are starkly visible for a moment.

Cheers,
Florian

Hi Bruno.

I forgive you fully. I have that power now, you know. Forgiving is not acting as if something didn't happen, by the way. It's the perception of the memory of what happened, including quivering of the heart as that memory is being perceived.

Yes, you are right, we are all to some extent psychopaths. That's what I mean by "the kilesas are universal". That's why we recognize ourselves in some of the criteria which can be found on the site linked in my initial post. If we didn't, we'd be real, true psychopaths. If we do, it means we have a heart, and it's intertwined with greed, hatred, and delusion. If you can bear it, re-read the initial post. It says so right there.

So, your coffe experience. You had this impulse that it wasn't right to manipulate the group. Listen to that impulse, because that is your heart stirring.

Yes, I sound like an euphoric basket-case. I am! By all criteria of pop psychology, I'm probably teetering way over the edge of something or other. I get weepy. I think Jupiter and Venus, burning in close conjunction brightly in the evening sky every day now for weeks, are somehow two liberated hearts, two new stars flung out of the abyss. I think most human beings are zombie-like android-like alien-infested husks, and I feel terribly lonely some of the time, and unbelievably relieved and validated when I talk to people (in person I'm not doing the Wali Saint 8=3 number, at least until I've stitched together my Coat of Many Colors ;) ) and see them light up with longing and recognition. I've taken on a bizarre title cobbled together from various traditions, claiming all kinds of deep religious insights. I speak the truth with utter conviction. By what possible definition am I *not* experiencing some kind of episode?

And you are right, I'm in love with Holy Lady Awakened. She's my wife, and we've been married for 20 years. Remember, I already forgave you. That quivering you felt right now, just before you felt stupid or callous or whatever it was the kilesas wanted you to feel, that was your heart pulling in the direction of some Brahmavihara or other. Please follow it instead of the kilesas. You'll be glad you did. You can trust your heart utterly.

And seriously - don't you think I'm acting in new ways? This entire thread is one big chunk of anecdotal evidence. Please draw your own phenomenological conclusions.

But here's something from everyday experience, maybe this will interest you: for years, I've had this inexplicable aversion towards doing household chores. I knew it was no big deal to do the laundry and vacuum the floor, but I rarely did, and neither did my wife, and she experienced a similar aversion. We kind of supported each other, so our house was not a complete hovel - but all in all, regardless of our efforts, it was always way below expectations when my in-laws came to visit (on a weekly basis), and it was always a matter of controversy, drama, and chaos, when they were here, and one of low-key guilt when they weren't. So now, after our hearts got free, it's no big matter. My wife is in no shape physically to lug around the vacuum cleaner, but I do so, twice a week, without remorse, without a bad conscience, without this inexplicable and confusing and nagging resistance to doing it. And here's my explanation: My heart had always moved against the manipulative tug of war - regarding family life, it was with our in-laws, but it's a universal pattern, remember? -, to the extent that I started to resist any kind of suggestion or order or request at all. That's how confused and distrustful I was (distrustful because I though any request at all was an attempt at manipulation). This resulted in a lot of problems in all areas of life: for example, there was a lot of bleed-through into my professional life.

As for passing it on in an easy and straightforward way - I'm trying the best I can. This is so freaking hard, because even innocuous words like "heart" are subtly, deeply tainted. Look at what happened in the other sub-thread, when Jeff looked up "empathy". For fucks sake! Doing the Wali Saint schtick is at least a way to express it in such wildly exotic and hopefully amusing terms that people are willing to look for subtly different meanings in the words. This doesn't stop the occasional detour to the dictionaries, and the resulting weirdness - but it's all good fun, really.

Cheers,
Florian

Sorry to hear about your wife. Is she doing ok?

Hi Nick

Thanks for asking. Well, Chemo is taxing. Good prognosis. Great team caring for her. She's strong and courageous.

And man, the change in her is awe-inspiring and beautiful. A free heart is a beautiful thing to see.

First and foremost, I was reluctant to mention her because she's not associated with the DhO or the Dharma at all.

And also because it would fit so well into the well-known pattern of manipulation: "Here, my wife's got cancer, you've got to listen to what I say". It's not like that at all.

Cheers,
Florian

I think narcissism is a better term than psychopath but I get your meaning. Everybody has an angle (including family) and you always have to be on guard with being manipulated. Most people give up and play the manipulative game in response.

Florian, I admire and publicly salute your courage. This is an amazing thread, both for the evident honesty and the cynical denial. You've exposed a real gift that we who practice can give to the rest of humanity. Do not, under any circumstances, support the psychopaths' "game." Once seen through the only forthright way is to drop out. Just stop. This dilemma must be faced and dealt with, not run from. Inside that half second of doubt lies an awakening.

Best!

Chris

I think Florian is talking about dismantling the social identity which has been talked of around here for some time. It was just couched in language and other stuff that may have put some people off. I think Florian is using language that seems to gel with some now. To a great degree dismantling the social identity involves stepping out of the game as it is generally our social relationships that have us being manipulated/manipulating, conforming and acting out greed, hatred and delusion.

We often play the game for self-serving reasons but unaware of how self-serving they, such actions, can be. So sublte these game moves can get. 'Validating our own paths' is one I have seen in my own actions via attempting to convince others of how special and right 'my path', views and experience is. It happens subtly within the pragmatic dharma crowd. I can't be true to my aspirations because this person said what I'm called to do (via listening to my heart) is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Playing the game to conform and fit in with the crowd and goad others to do the same seems only to strengthen this social identity, a pawn on the chess board..

People display their views and opinions at times like peacock feathers to subtly goad and lead others to conform to their ideals, views and opinions. I have seen this in my own actions in the past. In fact this post could be classified as a means to manipulate the opinions of others to satisfy such an urge or prop up a fact or thought to assert some perceived authority. Still in the game? It is good to at least become aware of the causes for such actions and if possible let go of those causes and see their cessation. Perhaps though, there wouldn't be as many posts to read here and at other pragmatic dharma forums if everyone dropped such 'moves' all at once.

Questioning why we act a certain way around certain people and in certain situations can expose those subtle 'urges' to conform or make conform and play the game and continue the flow of greed, hatred and delusion. When you step out of it, when you can, it seems much easier to see how others are so stuck in it in my experience. From there karuna as I see it, is the base from which you act.

My 2 cents.

Nick

Edited a few times because...

Richard B


Hi mate,

They are two related but distinct personality disorders. Along with the horde of other mental illness the account for 20% of people at any one time.

http://www.mindframe-media.info/site/index.cfm?display=86529

However you will note that it is all couched in how 'debilitated' they all are. For all it's 'debilitation' and relegation to Cluster B, ASPD runs rife in business. The are prized for the ability to be ruthless, to make the 'hard' (read: greedy) decisions, sexual magnetism (even when butt ugly) , they usually have incredible powers of concentration and apparent 'intuition' (reading people instantly, they know which button to push with you and your particular 'daddy issues'), ability to turn on a dime under pressure (be exposed doing the wrong thing, yet walk away with everyone still on their side) Along with their poor cousin- Narcissist - it's hard to name a business leader (especially public companies) that does not have a healthy dose of one or both. We breed them and reward them highly; everytime we buy their stocks, and believe the share prospectus offer, we fund their depravity and wars. Which are of course then our depravity and wars.

the challenge is to stay relaxed after seeing it though. I was like 'don't remind me Florian, i just got back to some sort of calm' but is it a calm based in denial worth it really?

We can't fight them, but we can make it hard for them to breed. Everytime we don't act out of greed, hatred and delusion, we starve the world of the environment needed to fuel this insanity.

As a friend says

"Don't rely on anything to save you. Don't believe politicians will help you. Don't believe the newspapers tell the whole truth."

There is no normal life and normal people, no happy place were there is just the right amount of everything and everyone singing the same happy suburban song. There is just this, and whatever you are in response to that.

Shift over Florian, i need to fit my soap box near that light pole; it makes my flecks of grey glint in the light, imparting an air of wisdom...

edit; politeness....

Actually, if anyone is interested in doing something to starve some psychos of a bit of profit, helping these raped women win against a corporate giant would be a good start;


https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stop_murder_and_rape_for_profit/?copy


Give because you can.

(My insincere apologies if this is breaking DhO rules... )

Andrew,

which school(s) are you currently basing your practice on?

Calm-Abiding. Sittting, standing, laying down etc. Informed by 3 websites, this one, vipassanaforum and hamilton project.

I still have some respect for the AF stuff, in so much as it introduced an(other) iconoclastic element to the way I look at things and made a real buddhist out of me!; hence not being a buddhist at all. And it made me re-read bhante g again. All stuff I didn't take notice of in my hurry to jhana up.

I do not have physical contact with any other meditators. I did try that, but I find the buddhists in my area far too immersed in the religious aspects which I really don't need. I mean really don't- had plenty of that shit growing up.

Calmly remembering to be present , to take notice without recrimination of any previously unmindful moment. Smiling gently at the inevitability of such self judgement..Finding myself grinning at the world around me sometimes is a nice change.

The flip side being I prefer to confront my situation from as many angles as possible, including making hard decisions to change my career and look carefully at questions like this thread. This stuff i file under 'contemplation', as though i don't imagine I can fix it all, knowing about it and being active yet calm is preferable to my previous attempts to find a philosophy which made it 'all good' (you know the ones; 'the universe is perfect, there is nothing wrong, go about your business people, nothing to see here ')


Oh, and lately I've been sitting staring at a rock and I've started taking cold showers morning and night, especially before sitting.

the way i see it (correct me if i'm wrong) there are two approaches. going for SE and transforming the idenity to one of peace and happiness. You can do both simultaneously. Which one are you going for? If you're trying to do both then what is your method e.g. how do you get out of negativity; how are you accumulating insight?

Oy! biggie up, I love every word.

Jon T
GAAAAAAH. Ignore! Enjoy. Ignore goals! Enjoy (not denial as per your avaaz post).

(My tranquility practice is still clearly nascent.)

are u saying that if you sit simply to sit and observe simply to observe then one of those two things, perhaps both, will happen all on their own? avaaz post refers to what?

It is all good fun and thats what we are here for, different views are just that

my thoughts are with you and your wife, I have been along a similar road which gave me the opportunity to discover the dharma and take an honest look at life for which I was ultimately thankful

cheers
Jeff

Nice work Florian. Your words are fresh, biting, and they make me slightly uncomfortable - that's how I know they are coming from the right place. Rare!

how does your discomfiture level relate to the "right place"? what is the right place? I presume you mean sincerity/honesty or perhaps you mean truth? i imagine a hypothetical scenarios.

pit of snakes. you are in it. you feel anxious. ah. the right place then would be danger. your discomfiture re: the snakes would indicate that the snakes are coming from the right place i.e. a danger place or or a dangerous situation.

a political speaker speaks. you feel anger i.e. a form of discomfiture. are his words coming from the right place? in the above situation that would mean danger. do his words represent a danger?

does this mean florians speech is dangerous? is that danger good?

jon

PS: i am feeling discomfiture that my words may seem preposterous to you and that you may judge me harshly. does that mean there is danger in your judgement? does it mean anything at all? if so, what?

I'm enjoying your posts Jon. Regarding the two approaches, i wouldn't say i have either in mind. for me just staying calm, and achieving some level of moment to moment attention of whatever is going on; in alot of ways just healing up somewhat for the challenges I have as a householder/ father/ husband/citizen.

One of those challenges is to take a stance on what I accept as acceptable and what I do not. I may find too much pleasure in it from time to time, (having a strong opinion that is), however by simultaneously being mindful I'm generally catching the moments when I become obnoxious to be around...like Florians advice to notice the psycho traits and get back to the moment before they started by calming them down. they are usually based in some sort of fear, so it's all the same practice really.

i have a little mindfulness game that I also play called 'fractal contemplation' which most usually ends in me grinning stupidly to myself.

I think I may be hi-jacking an otherwise useful thread if i go on about any of that...(see that was one of those moments I caught the obnoxion quotient rising in my post )

So, do I find it acceptable that the lowest and dirtiest of human derivations run the planet? No, I do not. And I will not, anymore, look for cosmologies or philosophies that otherwise get me off the hook of doing something about it in myself and the world (as i am able).

It does bring the stress front and centre though, all the pain, the fear, the hundreds of little moments flooding the memory when you experienced how sick the human animal is.

We need to get well.

ty



k





it is a heady responsibility you have undertaken. i wish u well. i am glad u have found at least one wholesome coping mechanism. may you feel peace.

jon

i like the way you put that. wholesome coping mechanism. that would be about the size of it. Coping with what though? Powerlessness? I haven't given it that much thought recently, but i did alude to the search for cosmological and philosophical inclusion I have done before. Bascially, it's not that a person has to do anything about anything, i just feel that alot of suffering is caused by forces within our control, including seeing/ not seeing the obvious about large portions of the population.

Even today I did the fatherly thing and took the kids to the pool in the arvo. there was a large line of kids waiting for the inflatable obstacle course they had set up on the olympic pool. My kids looked a bit uncomfortable waiting in line, which is not like them. So a waited on the bleachers to see what was going on, in between swimming a few laps.

After a while i saw what was happening. A group of kids where having a turn, then because they knew other kids at the front of the line they would skip to the front again. Not just one or 2 kids ding it, around 5. In a line of 20. with 2 main ring leaders.

I did the math.

In training. Anti -social personalities in training. Working against society. Working against the happiness of others. Not passively, actively and with malice.

I walked up to them and asked them 'is it fair what you are doing?' they sheepishly looked at me in disbelief that they had been sprung and answered correctly, 'no'. I said 'no it is not fair' turned and walked away. Later, after another couple of laps, I sat and casually monitored the line.

At a particular moment I happen to glance over, and they saw me look and quickly went to the back of the line. they were at it again.
Reminds me of wall street actually.

Talking with my sons later, they told me how a group of them stared them down, and stood around whispering about them.

what does this behaviour remind you of?

'Oh it's just kids, that's what they are like' ?

Really? No, my kids are not like that at all. these bullying kids are being actively raised to cheat and manipulate.

Coping with my own powerlessness in the face of heartlessness. that has to be more 's'es than any single sentence should have to bear.

in the same vein of story sharing:

at starbucks, group of 4 tweeners were huddled around a small circular table. each one immersed in his/her own cell phone. i laughed and my imaganation was aroused. i imagined elbowing the pretty girl next to me (who had just got up to look over some coffee beans for sale, fwiw) and talking to her about 'meaning'. (the general jist being that each was creating an ad-hoc meaning for themselves that they assumed was real.) the words i used in my imaginary conversation were peaceful but the feeling in me was hostile towards that group.

of course, i recognized this and began the healing process within. it is good to take long walks and contemplate. even if one is far far away from recognzing this moment, it is still good. the only prerequisite is the desire to heal.

yes, very much the heart of it, Jon. that feeling of separation, that creation of 'natural' social divisions, the controlling of the images of simulacra (facebook friends are only friends if they were already friends, the others are borrowing friendship reality from the reflected reality of the real ones. they are not friends in other words. Facebook is to me, in the words of bob dylan; "she is a hypnotist collector, you are a walking antique" i delete my account and the wife's -with her permission-there is enough fake friendship in my life without adding 200 more to that. People do look at us strangely though when I tell them that, like I had just cursed their grandmothers memory)


That anger is real. It has at it's heart the cause of the stress. But we can't ignore the anger, we need to deal with the world still. Being free is not about being free of the knowledge of injustice, but rather free to do something about it. If one has found a cosmology that lets them of the hook of confronting that, then one is lost. Dealing with the reality that one was born into is the only way to any peace worth having.

the more calm, the more peace, the more that anger is a source of life. Florian is right, what good is a life lived with a dead heart?
A fearless anger, the main tool of the sick of this world, is but a shadow of an unshakeable peace. Not an avoidance leading to living in a cave type of peace, but the real deal.

Psychopaths are natures abortive attempt at getting free. enlightenment is when it gets it right. If we pretend for a moment that there is such a thing as 'nature', for the sake of the point, then nature has got it wrong alot of the time. They are (Saints and Psychopaths) , in my opinion, often confused with each other, as the first mimics many of the traits of the second yet fails to deal with the rage. hence I perceive there to be a place for 'enlightenment' in the psycho game, the version when that anger is not overcome but transmuted into denial.

i would edit out the preachy tone of this post, but i have to go, so please excuse it as best you can.

[redacted 4/12]

Guys -

I have been enjoying this thread so much. The stories of the pool-like-wall-street (great comparison, there are there a lot of people also standing around just trying to have a good day, abide in the park and turn a blind eye to the psycopathy), Florian's interpretation of lying in the womb.

I wrote a friend this morning who is becoming increasingly disturbed by how animals are treated in the world (this person has spend a lot of previous time and energy on human suffering and well-being), and I wrote back:

"I am a ----- --- by training, know its tempting to speak of evolution and survival of the fittest here (dominance, hierarchies, etc). But, it is biology (bios logos, study of life) that speaks of right now and the will for a good future, offspring's good future. Many past things are dropped in evolution, some retained things remain as vestigal limbs. Psychopathy may easily become such a vestige.

When I consider the 32,000-year ago Chauvet painter , his/her work and images, I think of how recently came the great teachers and their ability to be passed on through generations by written language. We are a mere few thousand years into our changing animal mind that sees survival as relating well to others*. I am not so conceited in science as to think that it wasn't always so, and this is also why I left biology, finding little room for empathy then and studying connectedness. (It is terrific to see the change in 20 years in the sciences generally). The internet expresses so much communication and so much faster (see "We love you Iran/We love you Israel" campaign).

Personal choices*: the thoughts, feelings and physical impulses behind them are key to choices. The mind is extraordinary, and the words "Human Condition" can be a profound joy."

It is a tall order, a beneficent interior and exterior challenge.

I also mentioned to this friend MIT Peter Senge's book the Necessary Revolution. He is a social systems ("family") thinker.

_______
The golden rule across some religions (and we've talked about the golden rule before too, here):
Christianity: All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets. (Matthew 7:1)

Confucianism: Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state. (Analects 12:2)

Buddhism: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. Udana-Varga 5,1

Hinduism: This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you. Mahabharata 5,1517

Islam: No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself. Sunnah
Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary. Talmud, Shabbat 3id

Taoism: Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien

Zoroastrianism: That nature alone is good which refrains from doing another whatsoever is not good for itself. Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5

EDIT: There's always The Grid Plan
_________
Jon T: Yes. I think of the Insight Stage of Equanimity as being the place at which one just practices and one stops directing mental energy for any outcome or result. Part of this results because returning to the way one was is impossible and because it is clearly unsatisfactory. A natural candor arises that just drives a more and more singular effort ("pure intent"). Actualism is, in my opinion, an insight practice and I started there - started with "who am I?", "What am I doing?" though usually not with words. When I got to the point of not caring about outcome - literally forgetting it, I just started naturally sitting again at the windows in the morning and being with sunset, and the dark pre-dawn hours. I worked and felt the pleasantness of sensateness (this is the extremely valuable opportunity of having a comfortable situation: one can practice in good conditions to see the mind, versus horrible conditions) - then, from this state of just practicing, aspects of the mind-with-out-katy could show (and I, katy, would re-form and recognize them - "wow" or "huh, that was boring and profound").

Now, I have added concentration practice (i.e., anapansati...these are sensation experiences versus sensate experiences and perhaps I will add something about that to the sensate-v-sensations thread, as much of this was raised in there). Concentration practice vastly sharpens the mind to deal with actuality. And as this thread well notes, stream-entry/self-study/the practice isn't worth much if it does not afford one autonomy to take responsibility for one's urges, feelings/thoughts, choices and actions.

It's great to get your perspective on it Katy.

The thought that 'greed, anger, ignorance' can be personality type and as irreversible in some people as enlightenment is in others is just plain scary.

Though for me it brought into sharp focus my own personality and snapped me out of my spiritual malaise. It is very easy to relegate the root poisons to some backwater of our practice file under 'not nice' and get on with what we consider 'nice'.

They are front and centre for me now, being observed all around me and in me. So when I remember to 'calmly observe' it is a sincerely joyful calm, (or at least a goofy grin calm) which is very much the legacy of the AF style which I assimulated.

Only that calm, happy, relaxed attitude has had any good effect on me.

I don't go searching for a psyche to lead towards 'psychic suicide'. Perhaps that extreme approach would cure a psychopath, and maybe indeed has already. (I say that with hope, not as an insult to those who have coined and used this term). Whatever google throws up suggests that no one has ever been cured of ASPD, infact all attempts make it worse and more dangerous.

culturally I find this discussion very powerful. 100's of millions (if not billions) have been spent of mythologising the psychopath in pop culture. When people are told that these people are real and that you cannot spot them easily, and that they most likely have great affection of some of the more well known ones, they reject it.

They prefer not to know that the lions long since stopped prowling the plains and that it is antelope like themselves causing all the trouble.

Old habits die hard it would seem.

Hi Jon, for me, the 'right place' is from the heart, with no influence from the intellect. And my discomfort would indicate to me a potential for stepping into new and unchartered territory. If it's comfortable, I'm sure there's no growth potential there for me. Past experience tells me that.

Discomfort was the word that came to mind at the time. What I wanted to describe is a mixture of 'attraction to truth' with 'fear of loss'. When I read posts, I mainly read for tone. The tone of florian's posts was very good. The content was ok in parts, good in others (just my opinion here), and I made an effort to absorb some of the content as I read.

Hi C C C

I'm glad you're getting something out of my words.

Cheers,
Florian

hello Florian,



the first sentence of your ‘revelatory’ proclamation sure does indicate a starkly generalized polarity. could it be that the age old battle of good vs. evil is still raging on (inside of your heart)?



surely you're joking… one of the five hindrances is one’s way to safety?



this is pretty absurd. when the heart quivers, it does so in the opposite direction of immeasurable joy, equanimity, friendliness and caring. what about ‘quivering’ has anything to do with equanimity, for example?



that you’ve written this in the same thread in which you imply ‘being done’ is peculiar to say the least. let me get this straight, you (can) feel a terrible aching void (of lacking intimacy) in your heart, and yet you think your heart is purified of all defilement?



the mind’s suffering and stress-- that swirl of instinctual passion-- is the only darkness; it is the corruption of the mind’s otherwise pure luminosity… it has no luminosity of its own. none whatsoever.



this looks to be quite a perverse condescension... did Bruno indicate that he was intentionally offending you, or did he ask for your forgiveness? i do not see that anywhere in his post, so unless there was an off-thread conversation, the entire pious act looks to have been played out by your super-sized conceit.

*

what you have foolishly advocated throughout this thread is utter madness… and by no mere coincidence, you’ve conveyed your message in concert with a remarkably incredulous and evidently elaborate projection about how ‘other people’ are ‘psychopaths’.

maybe now is the time for you to scrap your soapbox in order to fashion from it a boat for crossing the raging flood of morose that swells before you? at the very least, please rethink your reckless approach to posting here; unfortunately, the kind of heedless conviction you display is insidiously contagious.



having been corrected by Andrew on the below section, i moved this from the above "*" (although, i will also note that Florian did respond to this quoted section with: "Yes... (Huge and soppy sigh)"):



are you really trying to influence people to embark on or stick to a self-righteous path crafted from (delusional) fabrications which suggest danger, fear, and beliefs which condemn oneself and others to perpetual turmoil? are you, perchance, a sadist?

That last quote you attributed to Florian was me. No I am not a sadist.

Are you referring to me when you say his 'heedless conviction' is 'insidiously contagious'?

If so, can you see how on both accounts you have made sweeping judgements of your own? I was on this train sometime around last October. I have never read much of Florian before this thread and I don't take his advice as any more than his opinion, to be considered like anything else.

Last year it was the question of sanity in the context of AF that lead me to investigate this topic. And as I am not suffering so much that I'll swallow any pill presented to me, I investigated the topic alot.

This lead me to understand that infact there are both very true and real things being communicated through the AF writings, but also some particularly scary possibilities as well.

on one hand we have the claims of irreversibility of attainment. Ok, no worries, it certainly seems to have more than one person supporting that. Good. i don't want to do all of this to find it lasts for a short time. Good, and scary as it was always going to be.

on the other hand it opens up the question; if one end of the spectrum is permanently changed for the good of the person and arguably for those around them, then there is the other end where there exists those who are also permanently fixed in something psychology currently calls 'Anti-Social Personality Disorder'. Psychopath to the lay person.

There is nothing I can find of any cure for that either. One spectrum two ends, both permanent, by all accounts.

That one would discuss the one end and ignore the other, points to a greater danger than simply not being up to date with some random mental illnesses.

we are, after all, in this together.

hello Andrew,



thank you for correcting my misquotation.



oh, okay.



no, i was not referring to you.



since i was not referring to you, there were no sweeping judgements made. thank you for clarifying.



while i appreciate your having taken the time to write this, i don't really have anything in particular to say about it. although, it seems to me there would be many other more relevant topics to contemplate. here's a hint toward such a topic: how am i experiencing this moment of being alive?

I understand your point; 'how am I experiencing this moment?' is indeed the king of contemplations not to be let go of. Otherwise called mindfulness which is my main practice.

That you have nothing to add to this thread that isn't either a misquote or an avoidance of it's topic, and I assume are 'done' to your own satisfaction, if you seek to instruct others you may do better to;

1) read thoroughly and in context.

2) Actually ask real non-leading questions to the satisfaction of your genuine naive curiosity.

Most people can respond to that and you may be of real value in your opinion. One thing I value about the DhO is if people don't want to know they don't ask and will let a thread die a natural death.

So to that end, do you think your challenges and questions have lead to more freedom today? Perhaps you do have something useful to say beyond your dismissive answers.

hello to you too Trent.

okay... although you might actually need to let go of it to really understand it.



if i thought i had nothing to add to this topic, i would not have posted. and although i appreciate the thoughtfulness, it is somewhat inappropriate to include these 'instructions' since i have not asked for them.



perhaps there is a variety of reasons why one might respond, eh?



i do not know whether these particular challenges and questions aided anyone toward anything at all, it is their choice to do what they will with what has been written. though it might be worth keeping in mind that i haven't the slightest ill intention... i sincerely care about what is going on here.

By the way Trent . the way you have misquoted Florian is masterful.

re first quote;
If you had done any of the research on the subject you would know that for every clinical ASPD there are a hoard of synchophants carrying out and playing their game. They are practically the same minus the clinical diagnosis.

second quote;
Lining 'doubt' up out of context with the buddhist hinderance, bad form.

third quote;

Florian expressly couched his posts in 'pop culture' terms. Heart is not being used here to describe fear, but rather the remembrance of some purity.

fourth quote;

'being done' to Florian may not be what you consider being done is. He did not claim any of the things you want to get straight. His thread was again couched in 'pop culture' hyperbole.

fifth quote;

he was making again a non techical 'pop' statement. Like 'it is so obvious, a neon sign couldn't do a better job'

sixth quote;

Florian and Bruno were exchanging there posts with a tongue in check banter. Bruno used the turn of phrase 'Forgive me..' to start one of his posts. i'll let you actually read the thread to find that one.

seventh quote;

that was me not Florian.

Basically Trent, you are more than entitled to your opinion, but if you were actually trying to communicate something with your post that wasn't condescending and humourless, you missed it.

masterful huh? well, if you say so... i guess.



firstly, who says i haven't done any research on the subject? secondly, i was responding to (and pointing out) the "starkly generalized polarity", so i can't really see what the rest of your reply has to do with what i wrote.


well then, let's include the full context of the paragraph:



hmm ... still looks like somebody advocating doubt as a way to remedy a situation to safety.

*



my response was not meant to include the connotion of the heart being fearful (although it is), and remains the same regardless of how the terms are couched.



let's let Florian respond, shall we?



given that this is the "insight and wisdom" category of the forum, i consider everything technically (regardless of whether other posters do), especially when somebody writes something 'like it is so obvious' that actually indicates a startling lack of insight and wisdom.



i 'found that one', yet my response remains the same because the insincerity is just as apparent either way. if Florian chooses to respond, he might simply say 'no, that was not the case' ... and that would be just fine by me.



although i appreciate your responses, they don't seem to have changed anything at all... but maybe that's because i was responding to somebody else?

More than likely.

Hi Trent



Well, look around you. I'm a bit surprised to hear this particular objection from you, of all people.

With me, there is still a lot of stuff to be done, yes, what with the snow only starting to melt and all that. That's why I recommend that little phrase. Recognize the battle, stop fighting, let go. Or whatever. HAIETMOBA works well, too, of course, as you know.



That moment of doubt right before the rationalizations kick in.



It's held back, locked down, so it can only quiver in that direction. You know, strain a bit. This is figuratively speaking.



Implication is partly in the eye of the beholder. I stand by what I wrote - that I see Maro, the Dead Heart, manifesting very clearly nowadays - and will let you draw whatever conclusions tickle you most regarding doneness on my part. Also, I claim thay my heart is free, not necessary purified.



The thing is, that's not suffering, that swirl of instinctual passions. That's the origin of suffering. Important difference.

Suffering has to be understood. The origin of suffering has to be abandoned.



Yeah... best read in context. Did you catch where I explained what forgiveness is?



Well now. If you can bear to read my original post again, the one at the top of this entire thread, you'll notice how I locate the psychopath game outside the skull as well as inside.

But you're right about my heedless conviction. What exactly should I heed? What, in other words, is at stakes here? What game are we playing here, on the DhO, whose rules I seem to have violated, judging from your stern admonition?



No, I never much cared for the Marquis' writings, and I certainly don't enjoy doing what he so keenly observed.

As for fabrications suggesting danger, fear, and beliefs which condemn oneself and others to perpetual turmoil: that's exactly what I'm pointing out. That's what suffering is. That's where I wrote, "...confused and miserable because you have no clue why the situation you’re in is so shitty..."

And yeah, as I wrote, that word "righteousness" has been twisted beyond recognition and used to inflict suffering. It could be claimed back... but judging from your reaction, that was a bit too optimistic.

You did read and comprehend my initial post, did you? Makes me wonder.

Good to hear from you, btw, even if I didn't expect the tone and thrust of your reply at all.

Cheers,
Florian

I am having trouble understanding, what are you defining as suffering and what as its cause (and why are you limiting the definitions as such)? I couldn't tell with all the "that's".

Hi a da m

All the "that"s refer to the "swirl of passions" Trent mentioned.

Cheers,
Florian

The 'swirl' still sucks balls IMO.

That's why it should be abandoned.

Cheers,
Florian

I always understood suffering to mean anything unpleasant, split up into the suffering of the mind - the swirl of passions - and the suffering of the five aggregates. The cause of the swirl of passions would then be ignorance about the 4 noble truths.

Isn't passion unpleasant? If so why don't you label it as suffering?

And if it is the cause of suffering then what is suffering?

-Adam

Suffering is a translation of dukkha.

m m a, I don't see your point. I assume that you are trying to correct something I said or answer one of my questions but could you be more explicit?

I'll just jump in to say that my understanding of the term "suffering" in the western tradition is shaped by the roots of the term: it's the translation of the Latin "pateor," to be acted upon (passive) as opposed to acting (active). So a person suffers, or undergoes, loss, trauma, whatever. Suffering means allowing, submitting, enduring, permitting, opening up to another's action. In the 2nd oration against Catiline, Cicero comes out with a string of three deponent verbs that are usually translated "I will not suffer it, I will not allow it, I will not endure it." The word "passion" is the noun form, as in "the passion of Christ." Christ wasn't feeling passionate about being on the cross; more subtly, he wasn't just experiencing torture there; what he was doing in essence was submitting to death on the cross.

"Dukkha" seems to me to be something else again. I think the term "unsatisfactoriness" may be a better translation because it avoids all the baggage of suffering, but it sounds kind of tame unless we realize that it means there's an intrinsic lack of satisfaction in pursuing life's pleasures and rewards as we commonly understand them (the Rolling Stones were right on the money). This stems from the effort we make at keeping our illusion of the separate self intact, an effort that is inevitably doomed to fail. Personalizing pain, for example, is dukkha, as is personalizing success or failure in an enterprise. So in a sense, dukkha occurs when we try to act, when we refuse to allow things to be as they are, when we struggle against what is. Maybe if we want to stop "suffering" (dukkha) we should learn how to "suffer" (pateor). Whatever.

Obviously our understanding of words changes over time, and most people don't think of suffering in the traditional sense of the Latin verb; nonetheless, it appears to me that vestiges of its original meaning linger, creating confusion.

I apologize for the lecture.

EDIT: More on passion: the original Latinate meaning is that it is an experience we undergo. So passions such as lust, rage, or even certain kinds of manic joy are what happen when the soul is acted upon by some outside force. In this sense, when we experience passion, we lose control. This is considered to be a form of deep unhappiness, according to the Stoic philosophers in particular.

Moving now to dukkha, I get the impression that such emotion is not dukkha in and of itself, but it becomes dukkha when we grab onto it and allow ourselves to build a story around it with ourselves as the main character. At that point it proliferates and spirals into something huge. A person could have a tug of something, fear or anger, for example, notice it and let it pass. That's not dukkha. If we can regard whatever goes on in the limbic region of the brain as something we can take or leave, then it's not dukkha. Others may disagree.

great info thanks Jane

Nice one Jane, I love a bit of etymology in the morning!

Dodge.

Any time! It does at least help sort out word-based confusion.

Hi Adam . .



The five aggregates are 4/5 mind(heart), if you count "form" as physical, or all mind/heart if you think of form in a more general sense of the image we're trying to project (which has a physical component in our body's appearance and condition, but which is, after all, perceived by our minds).

Many things that are unpleasant are not suffering in the sense of the four noble truths. The Buddha died in pain from food poisoning or a ruptured colon or something like that, for example



You can see it like that, but then it would be more in line with dependent arising than with the four noble truths.

Either presentation is fine. Just don't get them confused.



Greed isn't always unpleasant, is it? It can feel quite good, the time looking forward to Christmas or Birthday. Hatred can be enormously elating. Delusion, well, it doesn't even know how unpleasant it is, it can be exquisitely blissful.



Getting what you don't like. Not getting what you like. Bait and switch, in other words. Being miserable and confused because you're trying to understand greed, hatred, and delusion (they can't be understood, because they are insane and don't make any sense). Being born into a psychopathic world. Being sick of a psychopathic world. Becoming old and still confused and miserable because you still can't figure out greed, hatred, and delusion (the psychopath "emotions"). Dying miserable and confused, never having figured out what was wrong with your life.

Or, in terms of the aggregates: form - trying to uphold an image to the outside world which you think will withstand derision and other forms of hatred, or will satisfy some kind of greed, or will dispel some kind of delusion. Feelings - trying to get your feeling-tone in tune with the confusing and chaotic and insane pattern of greed, hatred, and delusion. Memory - childhood wounds. What people said about you yesterday. What you wanted and never got... Fabrications - future plans and machinations trying to get a position within the drama triangle or the game of greed/hatred/delusion. Consciousness - deluded perceptions, greedy perceptions, hateful perceptions (these include thoughts).

Cheers,
Florian

I highly recommend that you investigate this.

In particular, the thing that I found crucial to investigate was the difference between the mental representation "this is pleasant" and an experience of pleasantness.

The mental representation "this is pleasant" need not be pleasant. In fact, I found it to be unpleasant. But, by its nature, it biases a person who experiences it towards thinking that it's pleasant, because it represents itself as being pleasant.



(This sutta is remarkable because it explicitly points out that, being subject to passion, one is thereby subject to the mental representations which distort one's judgment concerning the whole affair. It's a big deal, worth being confirmed or disconfirmed in your own experience.)

The more you see the passions as unpleasant, the more disenchanted you become with them, the faster you let go of the process that [re-]generates them.

Seconded. Everything that End said.

In my experience, the more I looked into even the 'exquisitely blissful', the mental representation of it, it was always spiked with a mental 'tension' no matter how subtle. A subtle mental movement of lunging on the corresponding physical sensations, giving them status, high evaluation, perhaps giving the experience a name (exquisite blissfulness), a mental movement/reaction which then gave rise to the affective mental overlay of 'me-ness' or sense of existing or 'being' or something taking birth again and again as an affective high, but tense at its core when looked at from a wide panoramic focus, juxtaposed with the rest of the field of experience where no mental representation was overlapping. Stuck out like a sore thumb, and like the thumb, was sore to see and experience. A very unsatisfactory turn for 'exquisitely blissful' (mental representation).

This has led to cultivation of dispassion, relinquishment for such mental representations regardless of how high, low or meh they get, and has seriously and positively shifted how my ongoing experience continues. My current pointer: Are there phenomena that are being given status still over other phenomena (via any corresponding mental representations no matter how subtle, high, low or meh)? Are they manifesting a base for the arising of dukkha (1). Does stripping such phenomena of status (manifested as the mental representation), seeing them as no more and no less than all other phenomena lead to the cessation of dukkha? So far, yes.

Nick

(1) it might depend on what you see as 'dukkha'. Personally, these mental representations/fabrications that End mentions, that accompany any mental movement to give status to sense objects whether high, low or meh, are dukkha.

Edited x 4

Nonetheless, first things first. When AF is seen as the goal too early in the process certain negative emotions may be overpowering. I'm speaking of frustration, doubt and resentment. Why not encourage people to move away from the most negative fabrications first and then they can decide if that is enough or if they want to shed the entire self? I suspect that most people will eventually decide to shed the entire self. The habit of unwinding those negative fabrications will always be present and at some point it will occur to them that this pleasant daydream is not as satisfying as the actuality before him/her. In fact, they never are. The self will be seen as what: an attempt to find purpose and/or happiness? Actuality will be seen as it's own purpose and the only purpose one could ever need; happiness itself and the only happiness one could ever need.

But first thing first. Unwind those dreadfully unpleasant fabrications. They are utterly ridiculous but it takes time to realize it because you have lived your entire life under their spell. Your entire world view is warped by those petty concepts. A fish is not just a fish if it is your only source of sustenance: it becomes a god. Make logical deconstruction another source of sustenance and be proud of yourself each time you unwind something (however temporary). Make actuality yet another source. Make wholesome thoughts and behaviors yet another source. But do yourself a favor and put actuality on a slight pedestal.

I actually don't agree with a basic assumption in your post - that there is a real different between the pleasant daydreams and the unpleasant negative fabrications. There isn't one aspect of the self that deals in nightmares and another that deals in "pleasant" dreams, they are both the same, the same frustration, fear, anxiety, boredom, loneliness etc. comes in just the same way when there is a dream of good or a dream of bad. For example, imagining out some sexual intercourse in a way which you are extremely attached to, when you look at the experience of it happening, is composed entirely of anxiety and frustration, those are the emotions which are felt. Your negative fabrications are just the other side of the same coin of positive fabrications, they are both pure desire and purely unpleasant - they are just thought of differently.

perhaps you've heard that excitement and fear are physiologically the same, the sensation is actually the same also - the delusion about what it is changes however. in fear it is thought of as a break from peace and in excitement it is thought of as a break from boredom, peace and boredom as emotions are also the same. but thought of differently, as breaks from insecurity and fear vs. breaks from excitement.

If one is clearly aware of 'pleasant daydreams' as they happen you don't need present moment actuality to compare them to, they are unpleasant all by themselves.

i agree adam. and your examples and language are right on the money. my only assumption was that this is a long process; it never or rarely happens all at once. Best start somewhere and since the measurement of progress (though mostly counter-productive) is completely inevitable then let's start with the most unpleasant and measure our progress at how often they occur.

We could measure our progress without how often we stay with the actual. Staying with the actual is very difficult unless you know why you "should" stay with the actual. And that takes some clarity, which is impossible when within the swarm of petty b.s.


But on the other hand, perhaps I didn't spend enough energy looking at my pleasant daydreams before this point. And maybe that is why so much more work needs to be done.

Hi Jon,

I am not sure Florian or this thread's category shares your goal of Richard's AF. Though i do agree that refining the flow of 'being' (via addressing and subduing the negative tendencies of mind and cultivating the opposite) is a good first step before discerning the senses at the point of contact with complete affectless neutrality to interrupt the sequence of dependent origination.

Nick

In case it's helpful, this basic point is made in a number of ways in the suttas. Here are some similes concerning sensuality that are frequently used in a variety of other places in the suttas, and how I understand them:



i.e. there is nothing substantively satisfying about the passions, just the insubstantial mental representation "this is pleasant".



Same as in Magandiya sutta, i.e. passion is unpleasant in itself.



i.e. one imagines (mentally represents) all kinds of good qualities concerning the passions and their objects, but, when looking for those qualities, one realizes that nothing is there.

Magandiya sutta again:



Do greed, hatred, and delusion have good qualities, or are they just fabrications that one, being fooled, cheated and deceived, clings to? Is their continued appearance and re-appearance, to whatever extent they appear and re-appear, an indication that one is being fooled, cheated and deceived to that extent at that moment?

In my opinion this whole issue is the foremost thing to investigate with respect to spirituality.

(Bhikkhu Buddhadasa on clinging: http://www.suanmokkh.org/archive/arts/ret/prison1.htm)

I highly recommend that you burn all your holy books, because obviously they are not doing you any good at all. Makes for a great kasina, a big smoking pile of burning holy books.



Well, that's a perfectly good insight. Don't be so quick of making a belief out of it right away. Just note "insight, insight" and keep practising.

Cheers,
Florian

On the contrary, they've done me a great deal of good.



The interesting thing is, this insight tends to occur to one only when one reduces their thinking (and thus does not conceptualize things such as "this is an insight"), as that reduction leads to a reduction in the weight given to mental representation in one's cognitive economy, which leads to a reduction in the hold that the mental representation / skewed perception "this is pleasant" has over the mind.

Noting "insight, insight" would likely (IMO) move things in the wrong direction.

Feel free to confirm or disconfirm it for yourself.

EDIT: As a general point, you might be interested in considering, "why do greed, hatred and delusion stick around in people?" Is it because people, seeing the harm that they cause, simply haven't made the decision to forego them, as a person on a diet foregoes dessert for the sake of better health? To what extent do you think greed, hatred and delusion can be abandoned, so long as they are looked upon as positive experiences that unfortunately causally lead to suffering?

Hi EIS (that's "ice" in German, fun bit of trivia)



Sure. Note the tense. Right now, they aren't doing you any good.



Because people can't let go of greed, hatred, and delusion. It's all in your holy books. They are not doing you any good.

You quoted my earlier posts as if to prove a different point. But that is exactly what I am saying. You have quoted me correctly. Throw away your beliefs/views/opinions built upon the corpses of previous insights, burn the holy books, and keep on doing your practice.

Cheers,
Florian

On the contrary, they are also doing me a great deal of good.



And the most significant reason why that is (insofar as it relates to this discussion), according to the suttas, is that people don't see greed, hatred and delusion with right discernment, as they actually are. Here is what the "holy books" say:







This is exactly what you said:



When you stop believing that, you may be in a better position to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

But, if in saying what you said, you meant something other than "greed / hatred / delusion aren't always unpleasant", then I must have misunderstood you.

Hi End In Sight.

Thus I heard. At one time, Florian was reading the entire Sutta Pitaka. As he was reading the Book of Ones of the Enumerated Section, while reading the letters and words and sentences and paragraphs and sermons, he came across the following passage:

Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements. The uninstructed run-of-the-mill person doesn't discern that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person — there is no development of the mind.

Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is freed from incoming defilements. The well-instructed disciple of the noble ones discerns that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones — there is development of the mind.

Reading this, he read on, and forgot all about it for the time being.



Yes. It is. Your quoting skills are untouched by rebuke. Let me spell it out in Buddhist Hybrid Engrish for you:

To the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person, greed isn't always unpleasant, is it? It can feel quite good to the unistructed run-of-the-mill person, the time looking forward to Christmas or Birthday. To the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person, hatred can be enormously elating. To the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person, delusion, well, it doesn't even know how unpleasant it is, it can be exquisitely blissful.

To End In Sight, greed is always unpleasant. It can never feel quite good to End In Sight, the time looking forward to Christmas or Birthday. To End In Sight, hatred can never be enormously elating. To End In Sight, delusion, well, it knows exactly how unpleasant it is, it can not ever be exquisitely blissful



I don't know, it's not that important. Maybe your Divine Eye has developed some slight spiritual myopia. Nothing serious, this is a natural consequence of reading too many holy books, what with one thing leading to another, and the bad lighting and the crumbling palm-leafs. I should know, I read almost all of the holy books. It will pass.

Cheers,
Florian

Grüß dich, Florian.

Wie geht es dir?

Perhaps on your extensive and thorough readings and memories of such extensive and thorough readings (twice mentioned for full effect), not all of what was read corresponded to your ongoing experience? Still even? But no, this 'burn the holy book' angle is hard to drop when having already read the whole series and especially, when life says to drop them and pay attention to THIS! My nama rupa trumps your nama rupa!

I've read the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit (about 10 times), the Chronicles of Gor, Harry Potter series (I enjoyed it at the time), and even the Da Vinci Code (stop judging me!). My favourite series though was Tin Tin and Asterix. I once read the novel Jaws while on holiday at the beach with my family at 10 years of age. Bad idea.

Humour can hide so many things, nasty and benevolent, and sometimes hides nothing at all. And now for something completely different....

Sehr erfreut.
Mach's gut.

Nick

P.S. kannst du beatboxen?

Hi Nick



Really well, thanks for asking. You?



Hell no, nothing as bad as that. I was just having fun sutta-thumping with EIS. In any such dick-size-war, it's important to present your credentials.

As for the "burn the holy books" angle: my way of saying I wasted about 3/4 of my life as of this moment, reading this stuff. Maybe someone in that spot reading this will sigh with relief and put the books away - it's often a case of grinding through some commitment that's no longer binding except within the mad game of greed, hatred, and delusion. Who knows. Worth a try.



Same here, with slight variations. Nowadays, I really enjoy HP more than on my first read. All that heart stuff, you know.



Sadhu sadhu sadhu.



Your wife is a big hippo. My face is melting! My face is meltinnnngggg!

Cheers,
Florian

For the sake of clear communication, it would help if you explained what you meant in a very simple, very linear way. I can't quite say I have much confidence that I know what you're trying to say.

What do you think about starting with a selection from among these?

* Yes, EIS, I agree with what you've said [concerning greed / hatred / delusion and suffering] completely.
* Yes, EIS, I agree with what you've said, but with these reservations...
* No, EIS, I disagree with what you've said completely, because...
* Well, EIS, I'm not sure what I think about what you've said and will have to investigate.
* Actually, EIS, I don't care to discuss this topic.

There is beauty to this thread.
Though I've been seemingly on one side, both (apparent yet illusionary) sides converge on extolling the moment to moment practice of 'practice'.

some points that sunk in;

escaping the game is not what I thought it was.

HAIETMOBA has a power I hadn't notice to actually change the outcomes

There is something very subtle that I keep getting glimpses of ever time I enter this territory. It has something to do with not having a leg to stand on, embarrassment, and feeling that burn in the chest while being mindful (how am I ...etc).

Confusion only happens when we are about to learn something new and I've learnt plenty.

thanks peeps.

Actually, EIS, it's like this: a lot of people really like being greedy, hateful, and deluded, and I gave examples why (Christmas etc). You don't so that's good for you. I don't, and that's good for me. But that's not the point here at all. The point I'm trying to get across is that a whole lot of people are really suffering because they like greed, feel empowered by hatred, and are happy to zone out into delusion when the going gets tough. Let me repeat: those people are obviously suffering and causing suffering for other people.

Right? Sounds kind of obvious, but so what?

It's this "so what" reaction I'm trying to get past with this entire thread. Because the "so what" is the kilesas speaking, not the heart. If you re-read all the posts in this thread, looking for this "so what? That can't be what he means, so what is he really going on about" attitude, maybe you'll see it really clearly.

Cheers,
Florian

Thanks, that clarifies things.

It's easy to mistake a person's intention to be one thing when it's apparently something else. Hopefully this sub-discussion also helped Adam to understand your answer to the question he previously asked you (which was approximately where I became interested in joining the discussion).

It seems to me this all boils down to the following: if you can see (see not with the eyes in a conventional sense but truly, deeply see with the heart and mind working together) then you have a responsibility not to contribute to the shit that human beings perpetrate on each other. This is not about how the seeing works, or how to get to this kind of seeing. It's about not perpetuating the shit - which is delusional, painful, causes suffering and all the stuff we all practice to avoid. Which is a great second point - unless you plan to live in total isolation, you will inevitably encounter this kind of delusion and suffering. You cannot avoid delusion and suffering if you are in the presence of other human beings. So... grow up, become an adult, stop being a victim, and start being an agent of change.

This is about looking outward, not inward. Further, if you cannot look outward for whatever reason, get your ass back on the cushion so that one day you can be of some kind of help to others ;-)

Well, when you get what you don't like/don't get what you like, what is the actual suffering? It seems that it is in the greed/hatered - the tension which arises in those situations. How is this tension different from the tension which you experience while anticipating a birthday or w/e else? It seems all to be suffering to me, it is unpleasant and thus I am interested in choosing not to experience it if the choice exists, in this case it does.

hello,



surprised by the 'trent' residing in your imagination, i guess? i’m looking around the room and all i see is innocence.

whether or not somebody is mentally ill or ‘psychotic’ depends on the specific evaluative criteria applied and what the criterion mean to the person applying them. that means you or i could be psychotic by one person’s estimation, and sane according to someone else. what follows from there is that these kinds of evaluations are arbitrary and are not concerned with fact.

that arbitrariness really shows how irredeemably useless vaguely generalized evaluations like these are as far as sagacity is concerned… and when further applied to the dubious generalization that ‘the world is about half full’ (of people you consider sane/insane), it becomes clearly evident that you are not talking about the world we all live in.

however, practically speaking, this does provide an excellent opportunity. since estimations like these stem from nescience, they can be examined closely in order to bring light to something (beliefs, loyalties, motivations, etc.) previously opaque… but this can only happen if one first takes responsibility for whatever disassociated aspects are present. this means not only taking responsibility for your ‘first impulse’, as you recommend, but also the ones that follow it. [1]

dissociation of any kind (either in part or whole) hinders one’s ability to act with sensible regard, which is why i pointed out the automorphic nature of your ‘psychosis’: “and by no mere coincidence, you’ve conveyed your message in concert with a remarkably incredulous and evidently elaborate projection about how ‘other people’ are ‘psychopaths’.”



while standing in ‘a lot of’ snow, it can be quite difficult to see what is below… what if you’re standing on a thick layer of ice which only seems relatively stable?

and although i will not be going into the details here, i do not think the actualism method 'HAIETMOBA' is anything like the other approaches you mention.



the very function of doubt is an impediment of the mind, regardless of any rationalizations as to 'when' it occurs or 'why' it does. it never, ever aids in discernment, concentration, or virtuosity in any way. here are some specific examples: it does not aid evaluation or comparison, it does not engender pliancy or equanimity, and it is incompatible with friendliness and appreciation. it is actually diametrically opposed to those, and that is why it is appropriately called a ‘hindrance’. obviously then, that it is also diametrically opposed to one’s very well-being means that it is not safe, and that it cannot lead to safety.



figuratively speaking or not, i think you’re turned around completely backward here. although, i am not very surprised… that does tend to be the result of following one’s (quivering) intuition.

and again, regardless of whether you mean 'strain' figuratively or literally: since when did genuine appreciation require a strain? how is strain at all compatible with peacefulness? what part of unconditional friendliness and care could possibly cause a sense of strain?



no, not necessarily. look, it barely qualifies as an implication… here is what you wrote: "As with previous proclamations of great break-throughs and "being done", this is my current experience. If it holds up, I'll let you know here on the DhO; if not, and something further opens up, I'll post it here as well."



hmm alright then… what exactly is it free of? here is a metaphor to illustrate why i am asking:

suppose there were a man stuck in a fenced off pen with a temperamental bull as his constant companion. having not seen the escape from the pen, he must vigilantly avoid the bull each and every day. one day while being terrorized and pursued, he notices a sturdy tree in the middle of the pen and thinks ‘ah! why don’t i climb that tree to escape the bull, rather than running and dodging it all day?’ so he scampers up that tree and, after settling on a branch, reflects thus: ‘this is quite restful, and i can see that evil bull very clearly from here’. now, what do you think- is this man free from the bull’s tyrannical influence? can he relax and be completely at peace while knowing that one slight misstep will land him right back into the pen?



i don't really agree with what you have written here, but since other correspondents are already pursuing the subject with you, i will hold my reply about that for now. regardless of that, you seem to have ignored my point … there is no such thing as ‘self-luminous suffering.’



i was responding to what you wrote (in context). here is the full paragraph:

“I forgive you fully. I have that power now, you know. Forgiving is not acting as if something didn't happen, by the way. It's the perception of the memory of what happened, including quivering of the heart as that memory is being perceived.”

your account of experiencing a ‘quivering of the heart (about) something that (did) happen’ is what i am referencing. what is it that happened which required your ‘power’ to ‘fully forgive’? needless to say, that your heart ‘quivered’ indicates that you took 'that' (whatever it was) personally; and presumably, it was taken to be offensive… otherwise, what forgiveness would be required? now, if you are the offender, the offended, and the forgiver, don’t you think that is oddly hypocritical and perversely self-centered?



i took note of that the first time i read it, but i don’t know why you’re mentioning it here... when something is dissociated, the nature of the dissociation does not fundamentally change depending on whether it is perceived to be ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ the skull, or 'both', or 'neither'.



since the readers and correspondents of (this section of) the forum are presumably striving to be less and less heedless—because heedfulness is the very thing that enables all sensible progress—it would behoove you not to demonstrate it at all. as you mentioned in a previous post, 'we learn by example' ... so the question is: how do you find it at all appropriate to exemplify a lack of thoughtfulness and consideration?

to be exact, try heeding everything… and i’m not trying to be tricky here, i really mean that. as it pertains to the forum specifically, it would be a good idea for participants to only speak in accordance with what they know is factual and to only act in accordance with what they know will be beneficial.

what is at stake here is your health and well-being, and also possibly that of the other readers and correspondents in the community, depending on how your words influence them. so although you have not violated any explicitly stated rules, perhaps you now see why i responded the way i did.

trent

[1] when you take responsibility for all of them, there will no longer seem to be a ‘first’ impulse … but at least then you’ll have a chance at seeing a ‘last’ one.

Hi Trent



It wasn't always like that, though. You did something (or rather, stopped doing something) to find this innocence.

That's what I'm getting at here, in this thread. There are lots of people out there who are really, truly suffering from the stuff I'm describing.

My surprise is at your written reaction, which is plainly visible on my screen, self evident and without need for some model world in my head.



Yep. Note the words "pop psychology" I purposefully sprinkled throughout my mad rants. You noticed how I described the psychopath tendencies as outside as well as inside the skull - i.e. I have them, and while I can't tell about your current experience, you certainly had them, at least up to some point. Almost everybody has them, and we torture each other because of them. Now there are clearly some differences - some people strive to reduce them, unconsciously fight against them, try to follow their hearts instead, and get into a lot of trouble trying to reconcile the kilesas with the dhamma in their hearts. Others live them out to the fullest.

That's what I'm saying. If you read what I wrote with that in mind, you might actually see that.



Yes, I am talking about that same world, as there is no other. If you have forgotten what it was like to live like that in this same world, then that's a bit of a shame, because, you know, a whole lot of people truly (as in Truth) suffer from that. It doesn't matter if it's expressed in cheesy, irredeemably useless, vaguely generalized pop psychology terms or similarly cheesy Dharma terms or Christian terms or Actualist terms - that's what the vast majority of human beings are suffering from.



I said the world is half full of psychopaths. I am half full of it, too. That's not so difficult to see, if read in that light, is it?

You're very good with words and command a large vocabulary. But mincing words won't get us very far here.



I'm in free fall. That's what "letting go" means.



Sure. Actualism is extra special. On Sunday, I was talking to a Christian, and he was convinced Christianity was extra special, too. I'll paraphrase MCTB - it's the similarities which make them extra special, not the differences.



But I was talking about the heart. The mind can do a lot of things, but it can not let go. It's the heart that's wise, and the mind that knows all about wisdom.



With doubt I meant that which sticks out of an otherwised closed-off world-view. That bit of reality you can't integrate, and which is therefore ignored. That bit of reality which makes you doubt the otherwise closed-off world-view.



The strain comes into play when the appreciation is not being allowed.



That's called "honesty", isn't it? I could also have chosen to pretend that further developments aren't happeing. That would have been dishonest.



There are lots of other possible scenarios, it's not limited to these two, of course.

But even within this narrow scenario, I get the bull's perspective as well as the tree-climber's perspective. I am neither, but I know both. Furthermore, I can see how that situation is preferable over the previous one for both of them.



But there is such a thing as people suffering, who can be perceived as suffering, and that perception is self-freaking-luminous, and it takes an active part to ignore that simple fact, or Noble Truth.



Context is Bruno's Post of March 15, starting with the words "Florian: You'll forgive me if I am rather skeptical." This thread is becoming long and unwieldy, and the tree view is a bit hard to use. I was replying to that post, and not including any quotes.



Nope.

Incorrigible, as well as heedless. Oh my.



Well, you've mentioned "dissociation" a few times now with reference to my take on the kilesas, Maro the Dead Heart, the pop-psychology language of psychopathy as a way to articulate the human condition etc.

Anything in particular you want to say here, or is this word "dissociation" just a general expression of disapproval?



"Not in front of the children", is that really it?

Oh, come on. We're for the most part quite well-experienced, adult people here, who will think for themselves. No real need to protect the huddled masses. I don't think that is at stakes here at all.

"The poor unwashed forum participants, what will they think?" is just a smoke grenade.



Um. Wat Samma Vaca is over that way. There are lots of Dharma Forums where the "Right Speech" card has a lot of weight - it never had here on the DhO, that I can remember.



It's nice of you to be concerned for my and other people's health and well-being. My health and well-being are quite good, in fact - I haven't felt this good in decades. And even though I know things are always well in the Actual World, I'd like to express, out of a genuine motion of my heart, in a ritualized fashion, but without any ulterior motive, that I wish you well.

Cheers,
Florian

hello Florian,



well, i appreciate your taking the time to reiterate, but i'm quite sure i understood the first time.



when i wrote “the world we all live in”, i was referring to the factual, physical universe we all live in. i was not referring to the ‘human world’ where ‘beings are suffering’.



ah, so because you cannot find a fault with what i’m saying, you find a fault with the way i’m saying it? well, okay then… but what if i have written as clearly and appropriately as possible?



what i am concerned with here is distinguishing the difference between a method that effectively eradicates human suffering, and other(s) which do not. if i thought you were practicing effectively, then i would not have made this distinction. but since you are apparently not practicing effectively, it is also clear that you are not practicing the actualism method.



the ‘heart’ you are referring to is the soul corruption of the mind, and with that established, the rest of what you’ve stated here follows as nonsense. doubt is just one of the many horrors the ‘heart’ has in store for those who do not dare to question its sacred self-appointment.



okay… that is a pretty elaborate concept that you’re trying to shoehorn into a clearly defined word like ‘doubt.’ and, if you are in the habit of defining ‘doubt’ that loosely, it is very improbable that you are discerning it reliably when it arises.



do you mean that when appreciation is not being allowed, one may strain to bring back the appreciation? or do you mean that it is the strain coming into play which disallows the appreciation?



it is interesting to me that your analysis of the metaphor treats the bull and the man as two separate entities, since i wrote it to convey principles regarding a single mind. but maybe the metaphor just wasn’t very clear? well, anyway, your response clarified one thing for sure: your heart’s bull-shit is preventing you from seeing that it is the bull.

one of my original questions was left unanswered… would you please respond to it? if your heart is ‘free’, what exactly is it free of?



of course people are suffering within the human condition... so there is really no need to use a confusing mix of terms like ‘self-freaking-luminous suffering’ to convey that simple fact, which is why the use of that phrase (and the way in which it was constructed) appears to highlight a problem with your views. furthermore in the vein of unskillful views... applying one of the four noble truths to other people, rather than exclusively to your own here-and-now experience, is highly prone to folly.



care to explain why your response is ‘nope’?



this reply is mostly aimed toward pointing out various dissociations.



since i have never said or suggested that the members of this forum are ‘children’, i can't really respond.



firstly, i do not think the members of this forum as being ‘huddled (in) mass’ any more than i think of them as ‘children’. secondly, it is because ignorance (about suffering) spreads blindly (nobody knowingly consents to being ignorant) that our fellows on the path are not always able to discern what is or is not sensible. that is why it is important for those people who can clearly discern the difference to point it out whenever beneficial and appropriate.



since it is clearly you—and not i—that has (in some odd way or another) entertained the idea that your fellow forum participants are ‘poor unwashed’ ‘children’ ‘huddled (in) masses’, i can only take it that this is your diversion (‘smoke grenade’). unfortunately, diversions like these won’t help our conversation any. what might help, though, would be daring to feel, and being okay with feeling, a little bit ashamed… the alternative means feeling cornered and desperate.



are you saying that people do not have a responsibility to act skillfully in their speech and/or conduct because they might not have done so in the past? or maybe that we should only do so in certain communities? in either case, what would that say about one’s personal integrity?



your kind regards are appreciated, thanks.

trent

"Oh, come on. We're for the most part quite well-experienced, adult people here, who will think for themselves. No real need to protect the huddled masses. I don't think that is at stakes here at all." -- Florian

"firstly, i do not think the members of this forum as being ‘huddled (in) mass’ any more than i think of them as ‘children’. secondly, it is because ignorance (about suffering) spreads blindly (nobody knowingly consents to being ignorant) that our fellows on the path are not always able to discern what is or is not sensible. that is why it is important for those people who can clearly discern the difference to point it out whenever beneficial and appropriate. -- Trent

"The poor unwashed forum participants, what will they think?" is just a smoke grenade. -- Florian

"since it is clearly you—and not i—that has (in some odd way or another) entertained the idea that your fellow forum participants are ‘poor unwashed’ ‘children’ ‘huddled (in) masses’, i can only take it that this is your diversion (‘smoke grenade’). unfortunately, diversions like these won’t help our conversation any. what might help, though, would be daring to feel, and being okay with feeling, a little bit ashamed… the alternative means feeling cornered and desperate." -- Trent



Wow.

I read this exchange and had to do a doubt take. It's just dishonest to intentionally misinterpret the comments of someone like that. Is defending whatever you're clearly defending worth compromising your integrity for? Really? It's like a paradigmatic example of what Florian is talking about here - people treating other people like crap and with a disregard for the reality of the situation and what is actually being said.

We encounter this kind of thing regularly. People who are perfectly willing to make shit up, to willfully misunderstand, misquote, mistake and impugn others to defend some personal agenda, and in every case that little bit if doubt that Florian has mentioned on this thread goes off and can lead us out of the woods into the reality. This is where it matters that we pay attention to that little flash of doubt, and where that doubt, if listened to and acted upon, literally sets us free of the tyranny of this kind of behavior, in ourselves and in others. We all do it but deep inside we all know better.

I don't always act on that doubt, but I should.

Hi Trent



Suffering is a fact. "Noble Truth of Suffering" is an old-fashioned way of saying "Suffering beings are a part of the factual, physical universe we all live in." I don't want to close my eyes to such facts any more. I don't want to fool myself any more.

If you've managed to convince yourself that suffering beings are somehow not there, then, well, take another look. They are all around you.



Well, if that's what you have done, then you are a word-mincer, highly skilled with the details but not integrating them into context.

Not finding fault with this. Just pointing out that there isn't very far to go in that direction.



I'm not an Actualist (i.e. someone practicing the Actualism Method), and this thread is not about Actualism or Actual Freedom, which is why I posted this to the "Non-specific/Broad/Generic" category.

It occurs to me that you might be under the impression that I'm attacking Actualism by proxy of the "psychopaths". I'm not, just to get this elephant out of the living room.



You've almost said it yourself in that sentence: "... dare to question its sacred self-appointment ..." That's what I mean by doubt. "... doubt [the heart's] sacred self-appointment". Same-Same from where I read it.

So it's about the word "heart"? Well. There is the heart defiled by the defilements, the heart which has this sacred self-appointment thing going. There is also the pure heart, the one without defilements. Purity, as Andrew put it in one of his early posts in this thread.



Discernment is a matter finding the right words, of language? So if I were to move to a different country where they speak a different language, I'd lose my discernment when talking to the locals? I'm getting the sense we're trapped in a Mullah Nasruddin skit here.



I don't see any difference. That's the same thing.



Confusion.



Yeah, of course people are suffering within the human condition. Took you some time to see my point, but I'm glad we got there.

Now we only have to get the idea out of your head that I'm talking about "other people" (i.e. excluding myself somehow) here. What do you think, another 10-20 posts?

Let's start here: why do you think "other people" are not part of "my own here-and-now experience"?



You snipped your question to which I answered "nope".



Anyway, my explanation is, "I answered 'nope' because I think people in here are grown-up enough to take responsibility for their posts". This answer requires a bit of context, all of which can be found up above in this thread.



You didn't use the word "children", that is true.

"Not in front of the children" is a phrase expressing the sentiment I read in your answer. I just spelled it out.

This is an example of you zooming in on a detail and not integrating it into context. Not finding fault, just observing and pointing out that there's only so far to go in that direction.



You're welcome. Have some more. There's lots where that came from.

Cheers,
Florian

hi,



although i don't think i have minced words or disregarded the context of our discussion, i will bear your comment in mind while replying.



yeah, i’m aware of this. however, you made a comment which likened the actualism method ‘HAIETMOBA’ to other methods which are not similar to it. i replied to that because drawing a distinction there is important, and because—if i hadn’t done so—you or other readers might have taken it as implied that i agree with that association, and of course, i don’t.



i was not, and am not, under the impression that you have done anything of the sort. again, i only replied to what you wrote for the reasons i stated.



so, is this an indication that you also question and contemplate (applying your type of ‘doubt’) the direction your heart sways you, even when it seems to ‘move in earnest’, and even when it moves regarding people and things endearing to you?



well alright, that looks like a pretty common use of the word ‘heart’ in the buddhistic sense. but to be sure, i think what is important to ask here is: what is a pure heart, and what exactly are defilements? does a pure heart feel love, or compassion, or beauty? does it ‘move’ or ‘stir’ in any way? i for one emphatically say ‘no!’



no, not really... where did you get an idea like that?



i dont think those are at all the same. here, allow me to illustrate it differently:

1) appreciation is restrained or not present -> strain occurs -> appreciation is present or unrestrained
2) appreciation is present or unrestrained -> strain occurs -> appreciation is restrained or not present

which one do you mean?



okay, does that also mean that your mind is free of confusion (to reference your terminology)?



haha… and you say i am the one not reading in context. look, this is predominantly a buddhism inspired forum where—as of writing this paragraph of my response—12,894 posts of the total 30,897 are in the ‘insight and wisdom’ category of the forum. that means well over 12,894 posts have been written here directly pertaining to ‘(the) suffering within the human condition’, which is over 42% of all posts written on the DhO. i will also venture to guess that the majority of those posts were written and read by people who do not consider themselves suffering-free.

now, if you factor in that i think that one of the biggest issues facing modern buddhist communities are the various defeatist views regarding what is possible, what is attainable, what is factual, and what that all entails, maybe it will become clear to you why i write the views that i do, rather than reinforcing the common, problematic ones.



i have not said that you are wholly excluding yourself; what i have implied is that you are excluding part of yourself, although it is all 'you'.



i don’t know if i’ll respond past this post (although i might), since you seem to be either unable or unwilling to: respond to many of my questions, or respond in detail to the questions you do respond to, or elaborate on your thoughts fully enough to discuss them easily and fruitfully, or stay focused and on topic without using flawed or evasive logic, making hazy or lazy references, or simply read and respond to the words i’m writing without presuming a wide range of odd things.




could you please rephrase or elaborate on your question, preferably noting my exact words (so that we do not get lost in paraphrasing)?




i don't know what to make of your response, since i can't seem to figure out what it has to do with the reasoning i responded with, which came before your ‘nope’ response, or the conversation before that. i reread our entire conversation in search of the ‘context’ you note here, and i’m not finding anything. this looks to me like deflection through ambivalence, since there is really no reason not to be clear and forthright, especially if your response (‘nope’) is accurate.



how do you think i zoomed in or ignored the context? the pertinent context here is that you not only used that phase—an expression of the sentiment that arose in your mind (not mine), which you read into my answer—but also the other two; all sentiments which were entertained and written by you (not me)… a diversion (from the discussion) claiming that my writing—which those expressions and sentiments of yours were read into—was a ‘smoke bomb’.



i wonder, does it arise and pass?

trent

Wow, I haven't been reading many posts here lately (been busy with other stuff), but I've thoroughly enjoyed skimming through this exchange between Florian, Trent, and those others who have joined in.

In particular, I've learned a lot from your posts, Trent. So, I decided to chime in with this little comment because regardless of how Florian may be receiving your communication, this thread still may be helpful for the lurkers who are following along. This has certainly been the case for me. I've been learning from both the content of your posts (regarding the nature of suffering, doubt, heedfulness, etc.) and also from the way in which you have been communicating. Thank you.

What strikes me is how the energy of the initial compelling inquiry of this thread is repeatedly sidelined by slippery rhetoric and, for lack of a better term, mis-honest quoting, and rhetorical feints (both attacks and retreats) that Trent deploys. These are well worn tactics. What a drag.



Maybe from here:



Yeah, to some degree, Florian's take on Trent's accusation is not in the original statement, but if one follows the logic...it sort of is. Why not own it? Isn't owning and recognizing these (bullying) behaviors exactly what Florian is advocating in his original post?

There's a post on this board on memory loss--maybe that's what this behavior is about...but like as not since it happens again and again.

Sorry for quoting from wikipedia, but it's a clear definition:


It's a drag, literally, in the physics sense, on the energy of this exploration, because Florian's intial post and the many sincere and questioning replies (including Trent's shrill, but relatively sincere, intial reply) are all very compelling and worthy of real-time, personal testing, inquiry, consideration.

bf

I could go through wikipedia's list of logical fallacies and pick some out for you too, or florian, or me... i believe that we need to find the shores of a place that is neither rhetoric nor logic; not objectively true yet somehow not wishy-washy.


I also believe that your other point is spot on. It is quite easy in this or any conversation to attack the foundation of any position: its definition. We can tweak each nuance of each word to support the mental gymnastics that twist the situation for each of us uniquely.

Sitting back and seeing my own words in front of me I realize that both of these first-order reaction responses to your posts, and florian's latest revelation are manifestations of the attempt to have others relate to one's own first-person experience of the world. There's bound to be a transcription error between subjective and objective more often than not, because whatever THIS is is so much simpler than words.

Ever since I read florians first post, I've found myself counseling people to not feel bad about ditching sociopaths(an activity that is not new for me) but with a new level of awareness, a slightly different viewpoint due to a different persons attempt at accounting the same experience. In the end, isn't that what it is all about; awareness?


I disagree that Trent and florian disagree with each other. I think they disagree with being disagreed with.
In the end, dharma.

I don't see why you chose to interpret this part of the conversation as you did. Here is the relevant section:

(1) Trent: [...] if you are in the habit of defining ‘doubt’ that loosely, it is very improbable that you are discerning it reliably when it arises.
(2) Florian: Discernment is a matter finding the right words, of language? [...]
(3) Trent: no, not really... where did you get an idea like that?

You seem to have interpreted the exchange as follows: When Trent said (1), he really meant (2). (or: (2) is an accurate re-expression of (1)). Now, by (3), he has either forgotten what he said (despite that only 6 days have passed and he has access to the full text of the conversation), or remembers but refuses to acknowledge that he ever said (1), in any case not not owning up to the fact that he did, and is now just sidetracking and dragging on the conversation for no good reason. This behavior is indeed perplexing.

There is another interpretation, though. Maybe Trent meant what he said, namely, that (1) is not the same thing as (2), and he was pointing out that they aren't the same in (3). This behavior is entirely rational and sincere. To me, it seems more likely that this is the case.

You almost had it when you said "Yeah, to some degree, Florian's take on Trent's accusation is not in the original statement, but if one follows the logic...it sort of is." That "following the logic" and concluding that (1) and (2) are "sort of" the same thing - that is what Trent was refuting, when he said (3). What logic did you follow to get from (1) to (2)? What assumptions did you make? What was your reasoning? That requires some re-examining of one's thought processes.

This is perhaps a case where following one's first impulse is not the most skillful thing to do. If one steps back and looks at the whole conversation, it turns out that some self-examination is required - why did I think (2) was the same thing as (1), when Trent thinks they aren't? I don't mean to say Trent is always right, but he is the one who said (1), so perhaps when he said (1) and (2) aren't the same, he had some good reason for that, and he wasn't being blatantly dishonest. However, if one follows one's first impulse then one assumes (2) is the same as (1) and that Trent is just being unreasonable for no good reason. This can then give one enough conviction to attack "Trent's" conversation tactics, and one will never realize that it is one's self that made that leap from (1) to (2), not Trent.

(One might question one's thought process as laid out above and conclude that Trent was indeed being dishonest/insincere/needlessly difficult, but I see no good evidence of that questioning having been done.)

---

I might not have commented except for the fact that the same exact thing happened earlier in this thread when Chris commented on an earlier exchange:

(1) Trent: since the readers and correspondents of (this section of) the forum are presumably striving to be less and less heedless—because heedfulness is the very thing that enables all sensible progress—it would behoove you not to demonstrate it at all.
(2) Florian: "Not in front of the children", is that really it? / Oh, come on. We're for the most part quite well-experienced, adult people here, who will think for themselves. No real need to protect the huddled masses. I don't think that is at stakes here at all. / "The poor unwashed forum participants, what will they think?" is just a smoke grenade.
(3) Trent: since it is clearly you—and not i—that has (in some odd way or another) entertained the idea that your fellow forum participants are ‘poor unwashed’ ‘children’ ‘huddled (in) masses’, i can only take it that this is your diversion (‘smoke grenade’).

Chris's comment, referring to (3): "I read this exchange and had to do a doubt take. It's just dishonest to intentionally misinterpret the comments of someone like that." (1), (2), and (3), in the exchange boeuf commented on exactly correspond to (1), (2), and (3), in the exchange Chris commented on.

Here, Chris assumed that Trent's statement, (1), was accurately represented by Florian's statement, (2). Thus when Trent denied that he ever meant (2), it was totally perplexing to Chris - he obviously just said it, right there in (1), no? - and this led to Chris's attack on Trent. The alternative would have been to consider that Trent really meant that (2) was not what he meant when he said (1), and that he was thus making an honest comment when he said (3) [1]. This requires some examination, e.g.: "Hmm, when Trent admonished Florian to be heedful, I thought he was treating the forum-goers like children. But, Trent indicated that that interpretation was not what he meant to say. How might one think it's a good idea for people to be heedful while at the same time not considering they are children?"

The irony is that Chris's comment, "It's like a paradigmatic example of what Florian is talking about here - people treating other people like crap and with a disregard for the reality of the situation and what is actually being said.", accurately describes Chris's own post - where Chris did not read closely to see exactly what was said [2], and makes a dig on Trent's integrity to boot[3]. Maybe 'doubt' is not all it's cracked up to be[4]?

---

To preempt potential reactions to this post, re: "treating other people like crap", I mean to do no such thing. I'm merely attempting to facilitate communication by pointing out where I see unwarranted assumptions being made. I'm also not trying to take sides, just trying to interpret the conversation in the most sensible way possible. Apologies if my post comes off otherwise.

Comments on whether this post was helpful would be appreciated. It quickly gets hairy when one starts commenting on what other people are saying, but I hope that my post will help elucidate one small aspect of human communication.

--- (footnotes) ---

[1] Trent: "the pertinent context here is that you [...] used that phase—an expression of the sentiment that arose in your mind (not mine)" (emphasis mine)
[2] viz. assuming Trent did not mean what he said, that (1) and (2) are the same, etc.,
[3] Chris: "It's just dishonest to intentionally misinterpret the comments of someone like that. Is defending whatever you're clearly defending worth compromising your integrity for? Really?"
[4] Chris: "This is where it matters that we pay attention to that little flash of doubt, and where that doubt, if listened to and acted upon, literally sets us free of the tyranny of this kind of behavior, in ourselves and in others."

Actually, what I was doing was expressing my exasperation. What I really wanted to raise was the "drag" issue, and the way in which certain rhetoric takes more energy than it contributes. But in the process, I've created and possibly encouraged, more drag. "He said, she said." etc.

to wit, the footnotes are longer than the post.

Not so. The footnotes are just 4 lines starting with [1], [2], [3], and [4]. The '---' lines split the post into 3 sections. I've re-arranged the post to make that more clear.

Hmm, so what would you suggest, to make the conversation flow more smoothly? If when someone says (1), the other person understands (2) - which is not what the first person meant to say by (1) - should he not point that out, in a (3), so that misunderstandings don't compound further? I guess you could just ignore the misunderstandings, but if you ignore misunderstandings whenever they arise, that's hardly a useful conversation, is it? (EDIT: I am actually curious what you would suggest. It seems really difficult to have clear communication sometimes. I don't know the best way to handle these situations.)

My point was that it wasn't the (3)s that were the source of the drag. The 'drags' - though I prefer to say, breaks in the smooth flow of conversation - happened when the misunderstandings arose and prompted the (2)s[1]. The (3)s just attempted to clarify those misconceptions that were apparent from the (2)s. By correcting these misunderstandings, the conversation can flow more smoothly in the future. But if those misunderstandings are ignored, those same misunderstandings can just arise again at a later point in the conversation, and useful communication will likely become more and more difficult.


I did not mean to drag, just to clarify. Perhaps me not posting further is the way to go.

--- (footnotes) ---

[1] which (2)s prompted Trent's reply here, I think (emphasis mine, relevant to the examples I gave):