This thread will probably be deleted. Just saying.

I fucking hate all you fucking losers who are so happy and making so much progress on the path and becoming enlightened. Obviously you have been blessed with good karma and are enjoying the fruits of your labor.

I fucking hate all the people who go on about love and shit. There is no love or compassion in this world. Its empty and void.

I fucking hate all stupid fucking teachers of dharma who talk big but in the end don't give a shit about their students and won't help them when they ask for help. Instead they give stupid fucking creptic answers that juts frustrate. Fuck off you mother fucking wrathful bitches. I hate all of you.

I hate all you people who go on about how wonderful your life is since you have "achieved arahatship or 4th path or whatever" Fuck off you proud arrogant bastards who love making other people miserable.

Basically fuck off everyone.

Except maybe James Yen and CCC. Their stuff is basically the only rational shit I have seen on this site.

Once again,

Fuck off. I hate all of you.

Edit: Watch Father Ted for a laugh

Hey ADR,

Sometimes I feel very similarly, only's it's more of a "fuck off, me. Why do I meditate? This is crazy. Isn't this why we have coffee shops?" Anyway, the changes to me have been slow and useful, but by no means would anyone look at me and think, "Oh, wunderkind... teach me." That's good.

If you're seeing hubris and claims, no worries. Everyone has their own stuff to do.

Anyway, good luck. If there's a better duhhka post, I don't know it. I'm glad you put it here. I'm also glad we're not seeing each other in person.

I'd also like to say-- again-- though I experienced the mental release of stream-entry in 2012-- there's a lot of trouble that comes with stream-enters. Look at the fetters around them...craving, desire, ill-will... not pretty stuff. So it's work, strange work. I feel very lucky when I can afford to just go to the coffee shop or take a walk, just enjoy air, sky, seeing a pair of ravens hopping along the road for food, you know-- just that stuff, simple right here, not knowing what I don't know/experience.

Best wishes,
Katy

{oh yeah, and James, I also liked his take, his candor, but I think he caused work for mods and maybe confusion to people new to the forum?

and, C C C, he's still around thankfully}

I have not attained anything so I'm in the same boat as you.

Here are some things that you'll find helpful :

# Angulimaal, who is a benchmark for bad karma, also attained liberation. If he can, anyone can.

# Never Compare with anyone else. Each one of us is a unique collection of Sankharas, and we're bound to be different in all superficial aspects. Comparison will only create more dukkha and lead to dissatisfaction.

# Take solace in the teaching, and not teachers.

# Watch out of negative emotions such as anger, ill will, greed, hatred or lust and neutralize them before they take over. These are food for dukkha.

# Abandon the desire to attain SE or Arahantship (anything in future) and just fully experience and explore everything there is in this moment.

# Lastly, regardless of whether you attain anything, you're still walking towards the goal. One step forward is still one step forward. Better go forward than go back, right ? If you work hard in this life, your karma will ensure you're able to continue where you left in the next life. This is why some people attain SE with just a little push while others take so long. The first step is to take responsibility of your own stock of actions that have created the present situation.

Some of us have given you non-cryptic advice for FREEEEEEEEE!

A Vipassana Failure

So why don't you pay a psychologist $100/hour for less helpful information and GTFO?

Been there. If you have been deceived by some teaching or teacher, take the opportunity to learn a valuable lesson and don't fall for it again. As hard as it may be to face this particular truth, realize that this kind of abuse requires your active and willing participation. Figure out how it happened.

Once you see the pattern of abuse, you acquire some modicum of protection. For instance, I realized that when I am at my most miserable, I risk being deceived by promises of salvation. When I want something very desperately, I risk becoming a victim of those who claim to have it.

When I had similar feelings to those you are expressing, perhaps even more desperate and vitriolic, I found some comfort in reading "Saints and Psychopaths" by Bill Hamilton (I actually only read the "psychopaths" part). Ultimately what helped was to quit whining and take responsibility for the stuff I decided to do with my life; to pay homage to my mistakes by avoiding at all costs to repeat them.

Good luck.

What used to help me was:

• Notice how 99% of the sensations you're feeling right now are actually not a problem.
• Remember the positives in your life.
• Don't forget the small comforts that keep you sane - like a nice cup of tea/coffee.
• Just surrender to reality as it is.

We all had to pull ourselves kicking and screaming out of suffering.

How does it help you to be jealous or envious or hateful of people who are happier than you? Think about it.

Thank you all for your responses. I appreciate your sincerity and kindness. I think I had some issues coming up I didn't want to deal with and so I vented steam in the wrong way. So please accept my apologies.

ADR, you have written posts like this quite a few times. I have written similar ones in the past and I don't judge you for writing them because i know that the mind is totally malleable, this isn't the "real you" and neither is any set of personality characteristics or actions or whatever. So you can forget about being sorry or worrying that you are stuck the way you are or anything like that.

What you do have to realize is that every time you follow (believe in) your thoughts and moods to the extent of writing posts like these you are setting yourself up for similar failure in the future. When thoughts and emotions like these come up, notice them, experience them, but don't get into a struggle with them. Don't "invite them to tea" as they say in Zen.

In my experience if you no longer invite a certain belief or emotion to tea (instead just noticing it when it comes up, and letting it take its natural course) then it will simply become more and more peripheral to the point where it is not emphasized at all by your attention. It will just be like any other sensation in the body, just a happening in awareness without any meaning or importance given to it. Without the emphasis and the visceral holding of the sensation of the thought it simply won't bother you anymore.

Obviously you are dealing with thoughts along the lines of "my practice isn't working, everyone else knows something I don't, i have to figure out (through analysis) how to practice correctly". When such thoughts arise, simply stop giving them importance as described above, be impeccable in your heedfulness remembering the suffering they have caused you in the past.



http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Opening_Dhamma_Eye1.php

And there's a good chance you can get rid of the 1% by discovering the world of:

- physical exercise
- restrained eating
- metta or equivalent
- wearing a smile
- adjusting your walk to put the heels first (free foot massage!)
- keeping your back straight

so essentially part of the world of sila, as I understand it.

Basically tweak your day so that it feels as healthy as possible. Even that last point about the back can make the difference between chilling out and posting a "Fuck Off" thread. Don't underestimate the potential of even minor physical discomfort to kick the ass of your meditative progress, as measured in happiness.

EDIT: Sorry about the formatting, no idea why it came out this way.

I've been there, know how it felt for me at the time although I wasn't even aware of any kind of spirituality at the time.

I say go with it, it's as valid an attempt to find what you're searching for as any other. In my experience its one that not only does not work but also upsets others and so ultimately upsets ourselves, and I think we all instinctively know that even at the time. But in attempting this as a release and ultimately hoping it will make us feel better, we get to witness the feedback from life which demonstrates how interconnected everything is, how much our state of well-being (happiness) depends on the well-being of all those around us, and it basically give a fantastic insight into why all those does and don'ts exist as they do in the 8 fold path / precepts.

A true demonstration of understanding, for me, comes in the form of compassion when it is needed most. Don't worry about all that achievement stuff if you don't see a little compassion Good luck buddy!

What the dharma doesn't do:

It won't ease your pain.

It won't magically cure any quirks.

It won't get rid of anger.

I would challenge anyone to prove me wrong on these points.

Adam:

Correct. "It" isn't going to do these things "for" you, just as "it" isn't doing them "for" me, and I think stream entry happened for me in August, which I mention only to point out that the path is very gradual, and the work is moment-by-moment, and attainments are like birthdays ultimately: just other days full of moments in which one needs to practice.

When Pawel K first posted his claim to 4th Path, I felt envy, and it was painful. I also felt genuinely happy for him, so it was a strange mixture, as envy always is. How do I deal with this kind of discomfiture? First, I also acknowledge the embarrassment and shame I feel for feeling envy, because that embarrassment is mixed up in there, as well, and also is painful. Then I see and acknowledge, as others have so wisely said in this thread, that this chain of reaction from happiness, to wish, to envy, to shame/embarrassment is a proliferation, a blind indulgence.

How to stop this proliferation in order that practice may resume? First realize that asking this question is itself practice, is "progress." Most people in the world simply react, vent, and lash out. They go no further. They don't ask. You are asking. You are asking. You are asking. If you weren't asking, then you would not take the trouble to post that we all need to fuck off. You wouldn't take the trouble to list out all that the dharma doesn't do for you or anyone in general. Inside this suffering you are feeling is a question and a plea. Really the suffering itself, the anger, the envy, is the wish to be happy. If you can see that your suffering is the wish to be happy and acknowledge that wish, then compassion will arise, for yourself, for all suffering beings.

Beyond connecting with that, what I do is meditation practice. Suffering is one of the Three Characteristics, and Satisfactoriness is one of the Three Illusions. So when suffering arises, you have the perfect meditation object right there. So you sit down and you feel it as it is, all of it, but without proliferating a chain of emotion-level stories. You focus on the sensations that make up that suffering. You sit upright with open-hearted posture and lean into them, bravely, and feel, see, smell, and hear the pain completely, sensation by sensation by sensation by sensation. What happens for me is that this sensing of pain/suffering, seeing it fully as it is, places it where I can "see" it: over there. Over there, it is seen through as impermanent and as not really me or mine. Conversely, enmeshment with and indulgence in suffering, I'm lately finding, is one of the chief, largely subconscious ways I identify over against something, or someone, in order to fabricate my identity, my self, my otherness from Pawel K and the rest. Suffering is just one of the main "selfing" processes. Placing it over there and seeing it as such begins the process of disassembling this separate, continuous self.

So, you see, regardless of progress toward a milestone "attainment," diligent practice can move these feelings through faster and teach you a lot about how they formed in the first place and why you continue to indulge in them when you do. Even with that knowledge, knowledge alone isn't enough. Practice, practice, practice--sit by sit--rewires these processes. You don't need to wait for an attainment to make every single practice and every single moment count. In fact, Daniel has reminded me repeatedly that my fascination with attainment is an unfruitful detour and trap--a form of suffering that also needs to be brought to the cushion and seen through. This is the work, but it is also a joy and a privilege. The dharma and the Teacher aren't going to do it for you: You have to connect with the compassion for yourself to do it.

Incidently, after I sat, the next day I felt only joy for Pawel K, only celebration. No envy. This is how it goes: Things as they are.

EDITED

Out of curiousity, what are you hoping for Adam?

You're obviously not dumb, so you know that meditation can lead to both physical and mental pain reduction. Quirks are a non-issue. Anger, especially self-hatred, obviously decreases in a big way, but probably doesn't go away completely and that's not a big problem because rare moments of anger can actually be appropriate.

So what's up?

Getting "rid" of anger is more aversion. What you want to decondition is the attitude created by unrealistic "musts" and "shoulds" which plague people's belief systems. Anger is only bad if the beliefs behind them are distorted and unrealistic. Sometimes you need to get angry but the practice can show you which anger is useful and which anger is just draining your energy. I find that the mistake meditators make (including myself in the past) is trying to stop the push and pull of dislikes and likes with more push and pull.You need to relax ALL push and pull and (as someone else posted) you need to make major decisions in your life only when you feel better and delay those decisions when you don't.

There's also an entire area of Buddhism (that meditators often ignore) which is about intentionally moving your intentions in positive directions based on Right Effort. I think one shouldn't ignore any area of the 8 fold path and expect the same results as someone who does it all. What I like about the dharma is that it points to the fact that even if you're angry you're not angry 24/7 and the cessation of that happens when you're not actively building stories to prop the emotion up. The goal for us is to notice that and let go of the push and pull more and more so that those gaps in stress become a larger part of our lives.

Fuck off. Ban me

G'day Adam.

Well, i can't  help ya mate.  But before i fuck off, i just wish i could give you a real big Hug.


Much love friend Adam.

Man, I really hope things are okay. Be good to yourself.

Thank, I am serious about wanting to be taken off line

Dear Adam,

Instead of acting out to in order to make someone change your situation for you (ban you), why don't you take a break from the Internet? Practice self-reliance instead of this loop you are caught in?

Much loving-kindness to you, and I don't mind at all if you feel you need to hate on it. I too have huffed off this site and others. It happens. And it passes. And we're still here, together, in this together.

Jenny

Good on ya Jenny...  Push your path moment down some suffering yogi's throat!

Hi Adam, 

First, thanks for dealing with one of the "higher up" harder things mentioned in the fetter model: ill-will.

Second, thanks everyone for their replies. I liked them a lot.

Third, which will be a re-iteration in different language of what the other DhOers have said, is that I see anger coming up in me in two situations:
1) non-control anger arises in me-- first towards me-- for being impotent in regards to conditions I don't like.

• Example 1: If I fail in making in making an effort in something and I fail at that something, I can become very angry at my failings, and (here's the rough bit for everyone around) I can take that failing to everyone around me and get angry at their flaws, too.
• Example 2: The terms of life-- knowledge that beings not only die, but often in pain and sometimes even deliberately caused pain and/or humiliation-- that I cannot control that, that impotence has often made me angry. Or I lack the patience to change something slowly.

2) pain-based anger arises in me

• Example 1: I slam the car door on my thumb or a bite my tongue. For whatever weird reason, not only will I experience pain, but I will also know that there is a surge of anger-looking from my mind out to blame someone for this.
• Example 2: If someone accidentally causes me pain, I may also have to be careful about not snapping at the person for a mere accident.

By far, the examples in category 1 are hardest. How to have a good life knowing there are refugees hungry, there are indignities and abuses happening anywhere all the time in our world, sometimes willfully as cruelty or willful ignorance? Also, when I also give a hostile response to someone, or worse, treat a living being as an object, this is sickening. 

So long as I am not trapped, then I have the free will to study my anger arising in me and let it go. It is first painful to me, prevents the brain from learning outside of fight-flight-freeze motions, and then it causes painful/hostile relationship moments with me and others.


So dharma, and many theistic traditions and secular humanism, ( just as other respondents to you said) does not cure anyone.
The dedication to the effort and renewing the effort over and over and over again is what works on anger.

So step-by-step:
1. first one knows, "I am angry"
2. one knows how anger gratifies the mind/ the person
3. one knows how anger makes the mind/ the person miserable
4. one sees how the mind/person has habits
5. one sees the consequences of those habits
6. one sees the ability to change the habits
7. one resolves to change the habits into skillful habits
8. repeat

It's not easy and I'm not a master at all, however, I do see that, for me, the fetter model is apt, albeit slow for one of my habits.


Best wishes and thanks for your post, Adam D.R. For those who follow the fetter model in buddhist science of mind this ill-will is the rough terrain of everything prior to the release of certain mental prepartions called 3rd path (releasing ill-will and sensual desire after the sotapanna releases), on which 3rd path I am not. I do not worry about "attainment", but I do steps 1-8 above and deal with my habit of anger, the anger that may arise from pain and the anger than may arise from impotence to some conditions. Over the years it has improved and patience grown. 

Very important: self-respect, self-love as a living being. It's very hard to be kind to others when one loathes one's own living being.


Katy

Edited: format and, hopefully, clarity. Apologies to those who get an email with every edit. It is taking me several times to get the formatting to work and I don't know why.

Adam, 

I'm going to try to simpify my reply to your thoughts one more time (oh, boy..), and chiefly because replying is useful to me-- and maybe useful to other pratitioners using the same model as I use, the fetter model of buddist science of mind. But I'm talking with you about my experienced findings in the most recent 4+ year practice I've had. 

Anyone can relate to your post if they use the fetter model and have observed their own mental  preparations associated with ill-will (including anger).

So for me there are actually three ostensible forms of anger I see in myself.
Two forms are associated with first anger at myself and which anger I have allowed to go external into anger at others thinking it would somehow help. The third form of anger I can easily see is foolish, but a natural mental rejection of physical pain.

So here are the three forms I see.

1. My own failure in making a proper effort and successful prepartion for a goal; this may sometimes cause me anger at myself and sometimes further I have been grumpy or rude to others because I am ultimately in a moment where I am grumpy/angry with myself, my failed preparation somewhere. That is anger based in ignorance and that anger is an immaturity of patience and new skill development.

2. This second one is most serious in terms of subtly and harm: the anger of impotence. Not being able to overtly or quickly change many conditions. These conditions may be close to my life, such as a person's current temperment, or these may be global conditions to which I may be able to offer only a few dollars and moral support, but which conditions I cannot change noticeably right now. That frustration and lack of power can be anger. Some people do convert this anger into skillful concentration to effect great, prosocial, beneficial effects.

3. The third one is anger related to pain, such as when I slam the car door on my thumb, when I have a chronic issue in need of surgery, or someone accidently stomps my foot. This is sort of ridiculous anger in response to a painful accident., but understandable frustration. It can be related to impotence anger-- an inability to relieve pain can make many an animal angry and I have been there, too, but have lucked on relief from pain, too. Not everyone gets that relief and they still have to deal with it.


So dharma and theism and secular humanism practices, these often coach a person to develop beneficial skills to deal with the cause of anger.  I agree with you that dharma does not do anything for anyone not making the sustained effort themselves. 

The eight points I already mentioned up thread still apply.

As usual, this is long-winded. If you made it this far, you may have some patience.

I have to compliment the Dhamma Overground for letting this thread survive.

I often feel that Westerners citing "Right Speech" on Buddhist web boards is often code for "shut up".   I haven't read the entire thread, but nicely there seems to be very little of that.   


If you can't stop surfing the web and coming here, make a rule for yourself that you only do it after a certain time of day.

Get a shrink, get a new meditation teacher, get an exercise routine, a friend to vent to, go see a movie, take walks, etc..

Adam, life is tragically short.

Do whatever it takes to make you happy.

Hi Steve,

I know you're addressing Adam, here, but I'm just going to put in my two cents on your last line: "Do whatever it takes to make you happy." 

I'm not sure what you meant by "happy" so this may be sort of a footnote to your thinking or it may be completely different.

Whenever I've made a great effort at something, generally the result does not matter so much to me: I have a reliable ease in knowing I've done my best effort in a given set of circumstances.

But when I've made no effort or a poor effort or when I've looked to so-called instant gratification, then the result is usually a sense of self-disappointment and low self-esteem-- non-reliability to myself is not a happy occasion if the non-reliability is based on non-effort. I can definitely accept a lot of failure if I've really tried and indeed, technically, a lot of my tries in something are not successes out of the box. They're trial and error by in large, culminating in some skill. This is how the training in meditation also went for me (and this training is not inherently good for everyone all the time).

So there are many gratifying actions that bring instant pleasure, but which are followed by miserable feeling and self-loathing. 

Therefore, many systems are not teaching a gratification "happiness" so much as they are teaching one to make a sustained, sincere effort in new skills, which skills can give the practitioner a reliability unto themselves, which skill they can see for themselves, test for themselves, and know the benefit themselves.

Effort and skill and study of conditions and results become the reliable "happiness".

Effort can be harder to do than instant gratification at first.

So in buddhist science of mind, sometimes nibbana is called "reliable happiness" or "reliable contentment" or the "reliable experience of what is". I think though, from my limited experience of the last four years of recent meditation (as opposed to the first 15 years of on-off half-hearted practice), the buddhist path is like many other studies and practices or trainings (like atheletic training even) in that this science of mind notes that only one's own effort to train in, test, and keep trying, and implementing the new skills' training will result in a reilablity that one's knows for oneself.

And often the effort in meditation is just to sit with one's own mind, see how it works, see what's valid, see for oneself could abate one's own mental suffering. That can be very, very challenging. And it can be as simple sometimes as "Oh, I'm crashing 'cause i had a ton of sugar..."

It doesn't make for a good, short Hallmark card, like "happines is...", but I wanted to add it. 

People might think I would take this personally, but I'm used to it.

Last weekend, I was at a farm and a chicken said "cluck off, pluck me." So strange...





















( Adam, it's no big deal. Be cool man. )

X X:


You've always such a nice light touch. It helps when being plucked. 

Hey.
Relax man. Sure there are people very advanced in their practices and they feel awesome but learn to relax a bit. Maybe read a little Stoicism, it's helpful to give you some instant relief. (You can read Meditations by Aurelius or Discourses by Epictetus)
Other than that, I myself got into meditation by doing anapanasati. Just breath observation. That was like 9 months ago. I never could get into Vipassana because it's too streneous for me and I don't think the Theravada cycles happen in everyone. I attained great relief via advaita style direct pointing. I still do get caught up in self-patterns but most of the time there is relief. No individual selfhood and it feels great. Knowing that I don't type these words. I still do anapanasati meditation because i love sticking with the original instructions given by the Buddha. Seeking has ended. Maybe it is SE maybe it is AP. Who cares. I do the practice for the practice itself. It gets so totally silent in meditation. 
Learn to take life a little bit less seriously. Realize that no matter how advanced in their practice someone is they still operate as human beings. It's a human tendency to want to be more than others. Even though you may be depressed or suffering try to be kind towards yourself and others. I know it is hard at times. But is also hard to progress in other spheres in life as well. Do it for the journey. Who cares if someone is at the top. You focus on your effort. The rest will handle itself.
Cheers.

Adam, I've found concentration training magically erases anger and fear and turns physical reality into a wonderland.  Might be worth a try.  Concentration practice spills over into "real life" in a way nothing else does.  You'll read everywhere that jhanas are temporary states, and they don't help you with anything, and that once you're done meditating life goes back to normal.  This isn't true.  Concentration practice slows down the mind.  It becomes very easy just to be still.  After a bit, it just doesn't take effort at all.  Even if you can't reach a jhana, you'll still see a huge difference in everyday life.

Vipassana is kind of a bad joke.  "Just accept the fact that you feel like crap and this will make you enlightened and still feeling like crap."  This isn't worth doing, there are other practices that actually work to get rid of anger and fear and feeling like crap.  Some of the responses you've gotten on here (most of them) seem to be pretty bad to me.  I think the general assumption on this forum must be that suffering is a sign of progress, so people egg each other on when they see someone going through a "dark night."

Anyway, I know you've gotten lots of advice and rude commentary here, so I don't know if this will help at all.  I just feel like I can relate and I have found a way to solve the problem.  (Like, actually solve it, not just telling you it isn't a problem in the first place.)

I am such a person who well benefitted from the jhana training articulated in the anapansati writing (meaning: "minding" or "recalling" the "inhale-exhale"). It offered very positive mental states (as a direct result of my own long efforts), but other people who are dealing with negativity attest to Goenka or to visualization, prayer, mantra, etc. 

Many say it, but again: one has to follow-through on a practice to the point of seeing its skillfullness arise in you. One has to find such a practice for themselves, a practice that claims to cause some healing and peace in oneself.

If there is no interest in trying another mental practice, then a person may be getting more gratification through their misery and they remain relatively discouraged by the natural difficulty of trying to develop a new skill.

It's quite challenging to "lose" or to feel at a loss in developing a new skill at first, when it's hard to see or feel the reward of skill coming on. 



Adam, I don't know what you're trying these days, but you sure get a lot of responses when you post here, so you get a fair sampling of what we co-posters feel we need to do/say, anyway. For me, I guess it's helpful for me to review some things. But now I do wonder why I reply to your thread when it doesn't seem to do much for you in the way of helping you develop for yourself a reliable practice.

Agreed - except there is nothing magical about calming the surface of the mind and abiding in deeper levels of contentment and peace - this has been a well known affect of one-pointed meditation for millenia. Not Tao whether you realize it or not you have a lot of insight (Vipassana) to support your concentration practice - without it you would be utterly lost


This is a ridiculous statement. Not Tao, you are very smart and insightful and I know you don't fancy yourself an arrogant person, but from one to another I would say, be mindful of your sweeping generalizations. Vipassana is insight meditation and it means perceiving reality as it is - and it's not always a magical wonderland. When you are very sick you won't have access to the jhanas - but your general perspective and sense of humor will carry you through - that is insight - that is Vipassana. 
I respect you because I find many of your posts contain lots of insight and you offer detailed and compassionate advice to many that come here seeking it. That said, to brush aside the experience and insights of so many other wise people here and elsewhere is not wise and, given your track record of having constantly shifting and conflicting breakthroughs and always being convinced that the most recent is the most authentic, I'd say this particular statement of yours is more an illustration of anicca and dukkha than a mature abiding in clarity and calm.
One reason why 'dry insight' practice can be so difficult for people is because deep seated subconscious tendencies (sankharas) are brought to the surface, and it can be destabilizing. These are tendencies that are not accessible through samadhi alone. The faster one progresses in insight practice the more destabilizing these reactions can be, but one isn't creating new problems, simply unearthing latent tendencies that abiding constantly in jhana may not uncover. Once you see how mind effects matter and vice versa you naturally stop unvirtuous behavior as it is not in your own best interest (you realize on a intuitive sensate level that you harm yourself immediately first by acting 'unwholesomely'). Unrelatedly that is why the discussion of the Three Trainings being utterly distinct makes no sense to me at all, Vipassana is a part of Samadhi which is a part of Sila - they are all practiced together and they all support each other, heavily overlapping at the very least . Unless I misunderstood the whole crux of that discussion. 
Still, I can imagine you discovering Vipassana in a way that speaks to you in six months time and then reading you eloquently extoll the virtues of that newfound practice as you continue to help others with their path when they come here seeking advice (or when they come telling everyone to fuck off). That would not surprise me at all.

katy steger:


I think the plethora of replies have to do with the fact that people identify with the sentiments and have been in a similar place at some point in their lives, it's like everyone is talking to a version of themselves in a way, with beautiful compassion (considering Adam has consistently told everyone to fuck off). don't fuck off everyone

Hey you would probably like UG krishnamurti (not J krishnamurti). He argues that no path ever creates any transformation and that everyone practicing a path is just getting high on hope before eventually falling into despair, also that they never get rid of any of their anger, but just pretend to be nice for their own benefit. Also that spiritual teachers are all "con men" who sell people hope for material benefits, admiration, and other goods and services. He has a lot more to say on those topics... there are alot of videos of him chatting with (shitting on) spiritual practitioners of all sorts on youtube. Maybe he is just the most honest person out there... or maybe he is just a bitter failure or something... shit gets confusing yo. if you are interested this vid would be a good intro starting from around 6:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxZUJUyPiik

and thanks for your honesty and bravery in posting this. I feel like this with different intensities fairly regularly and it has a few times made me feel like life is a cruel joke and I have been suicidal over such thoughts a few times.

What do you think? Is everyone who has ever thought they made progress in those categories you mentioned (by the way those are the categories that actually matter, at least to me) full of shit? Or at least fooling themselves?

What triggered your anger, why are you mad? Is it because of....you know...?  Maybe it isn't right....  Maybe it wasn't fair....  Maybe it was self-righteous...  Maybe it was hypocritical...  Maybe it was egotistical...  Maybe I am wrong....  Maybe you are right....  

Maybe there is more to say about...you know....

Psi

Daniel, if it seems like I have insight, it has all come from concentration practice. You pointed out that my posts have been conflicted - this is because I stopped concentration practice and was essentially attempting vipassana. The proper term is "grasping at straws" - I stopped getting results except for rare instances, and these results made me excited to relive the glory days. Lo and behold, though, once I just started concentration practice again, I am back where I was before. So the conclusion I've come to after restarting concentration practice was that actient wisdom and ultimate reality (and meditation aimed at learning about it - like "vipassana meditation") are a wastes of time (for me) since all noticable changes comes from concentration practice. This all seemed especially relevant considering the original post.

If you want to be happy and free from suffering, vipassana meditation is a waste of time. I don't think people who practice vipassana meditation would disagree - it isn't about ending suffering, it's about changing the perception of a self.

EDIT: This post is full of "I"s, haha.  Sorry about that.  Here's one more ego for the pot, I guess.  

And changing the perception of self isn't reducing suffering?

Why hello there.

Sup Adam, just wanted to let you know that I'm with you in spirit, ever watching over you (and this forum).

Just come back from the Nether World of being banned, (it's dark down there). Not too much food or sunshine either.

Anyways, not too much to report from this side.

Peace out.

P.S

If this post self destructs (), know that my intention counts.

[quote=John
]
And changing the perception of self isn't reducing suffering?



it is the self that is lamenting "woe is me" so changing the perception of self only rearranges the deck chairs on the Titanic.   

Its a new day

Amen.

Hi, I often find that the only way I can break out of my own head is to get angry. It makes me feel more in control

I’m new on this forum, and this thread makes me realize that there’s a good family here. A good place to stay.
Great source of inspiration (and desperation) from good practitioners, and open and constructive discussion.

Thank You!

METTA4ALL!!

Hi Adam, 

I can understand this and indeed to read the news, there's a lot of company here.  I, too, know this perception well, that anger somehow exerts an extra control-- and it does to an embarassing limit. I mean, when I get some point across out of anger, the result is just embarassing and it invites me to be treated the same or to live in the embarassment that I got something done through intimidation. Someday I will be sick, weak and/or old and I really have to ask, "Do I wanted to be treated like this, controlled via someone's anger?" 

So it is repuslive I find to be on either side of the anger action and I appreciate the training which instructs that even subtle anger/ill-will is an embarassment of mind, a rightly repulsive stream of cause-and-effect as is greed and even subtle greed. So for me the training is deeply motivating while I am far from perfect in it.

You wrote earlier
Would you like to be prevented from posting in this website area (to be technically banned), Adam?

Sometimes people do want help in being prevented from some activity and if you do want to be banned from the site, please confirm and you can be prevented from posting to this site.
___________
Edit x2, typos

. . . Keeping in mind that bans are now set to be "forever," whereas they were temporary before.

I likely would have treated you differently if I knew you were a moderator.

Okay. So, if it matters to you in how you engage, I did email the moderator group maybe a week or two ago that I recused myself of moderation in this thread.  

I wrote this to the moderators because the group was weighing should someone be banned because they ask in a thread to be banned.

I raise it again here because it dawned on me you actually may want this as a form of some help. Some people, for example, cite DhO addiction and want help not posting anymore.

__________
edit x1 typo

Granted, this was a pretty nasty thread, and granted I did ask to be banned...I see your point. I backed myself into a corner that is somewhat problematic. 

It is true that I often have felt superior or indignant toward various spiritual groups based on my not getting exactly what I wanted when I wanted it. 

The main force in keeping me off this site has been my mother. At this moment I don't feel any pressure from either side. I am ready to give reality another shot. That's about all I can comfortably say.

Edit, I guess my only concern is that maybe this thread can take a rest

So I've been thinking about this and other posts I wrote on here. While its true I am currently under the influence of various meds for mental and physical ailments, it seems that much of my anger that fueled these postings has served its function.

I don't know what exactly has changed, but it seems there might very well be room for forgiveness in the vastness of it all. I was so far removed from some perceived reality and so I felt what I was writing was justified. Now hopefully I can put most of this behind me and live a more amicable sort of life with those around me.

So if it pleases the moderators, perhaps this thread can be slotted for deletion? BC I can't really see the use for it anymore.  .  .

Thanks.

May the 4th be with you.

The concept of this site was conceived when Adam was naked, hiding behind a bush.

Hi Sleeping Buddha Syndrome, 

How are you keeping? I recall you seemed to be having a rough time a few years ago. Glad to know you're still trucking away. Are you still practicing?