Hi Dharma Overgrounders

For those of you who are into the first and last practice - morality or virtue or whatever you call it - here are a couple of things to think through and examine in yourself, which I find useful and helpful and skillful to think through and examine in myself.

1. Taking responsibility is not the same as taking blame.

2. Forgiveness is not the same as "pretending it never happened".

And here's a nice video that was recommended to me. This is so far the only video by this person I've watched, so I can only recommend this one video in particular. I think it's full of good stuff.

The Philosophy of Forgiveness

(edit: I mentioned compassion in the thread subject but not in this post. This Is A Clue.)

Practice well!

Cheers,
Florian

On second reading, the "clue" bit was needlessly flippant. So here goes:

Compassion is not the same as trying to predict how someone will react.

Cheers,
Florian

I don't get it. Can you expand a bit please?

There isn't much to "get", actually.

I listed a few common confusions (such as confusing blame with responsibility), which I've been examining in myself.

I also posted a link to a video on the subject of forgiveness, which I think is quite good.

Just grist for the mill, posted to the "Morality and Daily Life" sub-forum. In MCTB, morality is called "the first and last practice" in a couple of places. It's a good practice, I think.

My interest is shifting to this subject matter more and more. I find it no longer fun to ignore it.

Cheers,
Florian

My interest is also shifting to this area... karma in particular, because I had a few wrong ideas about it. I really rebel against the whole idea of karma and yet it's inescapable. Right/wrong and guilt is built into the nervous system. Guilt means "You're free to do what you want, but watch your back...!" I hate that. I hate that Nature has decided to build the nervous system so that we're not really free. And so we all must surrender to it. I'm not in charge, IT is... whatever IT is! And IT dictates that I behave a certain way. If a control freak school teacher did that, I'd rebel, I'd have the guts to look him in the eye and tell him where to go... and now here's Nature doing the same thing, trying to manipulate and control!! I feel like I'm living with the commies in China, saying "yessir, no sir" to the thugs that run that godawful country.

I think this is where my ego gets most frustrated and annoyed (could you tell?!), because it's up against something insurmountable. Eventually I must surrender my will. Surrendering my will and my freedom is what enlightenment is all about. So I shouldn't really complain! HA!

Guilt - interesting... sometimes guilt feels a lot like the resentment of having a secret exposed.

Good stuff for investigation!



Surrender is not the same as letting go.

Letting go is cessation of the act of holding on. It is not an act, it is cessation of action.

Surrender on the other hand, is an act. It is a deliberate statement of intent, pointing at letting go/cessation. It's kind of "fake it till you make it". Surrender is practice. Letting go is the fruit.

You're onto something there. Good work!

Cheers,
Florian

CCC,

Considering your interest in surrender, fear and desire specifically, which you have often mentioned as being the aspects of experience you have used as the basis of much of your practice... have you looked much into the tantric texts dealing with Kali, Shakti, Shiva, etc? I'm reading a book online right now called "Aghora: At the Left Hand of God" by Robert Svoboda and it occurred to me that it might be interesting to you when reading one of your posts. One aspect of aghora practices directly deals with fulfilling all one's worldly desires and ultimately surrendering to one's chosen god or goddess in order to have their desires ultimately extinguished. Also part of the practice involves worship of god/goddesses who invoke fear, as a means to be able to totally love/go beyond even what seems terrifying. Obviously you don't necessarily have to take these gods & goddesses or practices totally literally (or hey, maybe you want to.. who knows). Either way, reading it might provide for some good investigation.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23252775/Robert-E-Svoboda-Aghora-At-the-Left-Hand-of-God

Aghora practices are extremely pungent to most and I don't want to even write about them in case someone finds it disgusting. I don't think that someone can practice them in a western society as they are difficult to perform even in India. Though I think that aghora goes beyond tantra, tantric practices seem like a child's play when compared with aghora practices.

to clarify, then, i wasn't suggesting that ccc should necessarily actually take on some sort of full on aghora practice - i am aware that type of thing is extreme and although extremity isn't always a "bad" thing, it isn't always necessary either. i meant more to suggest he read the book and extrapolate the basic ideas of goddess/god worship in the context of his interests - because that type of worship is thematically similar to the interests he has repeatedly expressed regarding fulfilling one's ultimate worldly desires, confronting one's fears, and what he mentions here about surrender. when i said to take it literally or not, i meant more about the deities involved and whether or not he chooses to assume they actually exist, etc.

what experience do you have with any sort of aghora practices?

(sorry florian, i think this is probably way off topic from your original post)

I've just finished reading the Amazon reviews, which are very interesting in themselves.

Thanks for the link steph.

Don't worry Aman, I have no appetite for human brains!

Ok, thanks for the clarification.

I have no experience with any practical aghora practice, just some visualization. I don't think I would be able to do any of the hardcore aghora practices in which one has to act as well.