Will you ever stop working?

This Good Self, modified 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 8:11 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 7:40 AM

Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 946 Join Date: 3/9/10 Recent Posts
More cushion hours. More, more, more, more, more....

Progress, strive, work. Just keep working. Work, work, work, work, work...

New technique, a bit of coaching and instruction, check in with Dho, diagnose, then more, more ,work.

Cycle for a few weeks, months, maybe a year. Each cycle sits you back where you were. Maybe you climb up another level every few years or so. It's like an Escher drawing with never ending levels. There's always another level, so you must keep working otherwise you'd never progress. Sometimes in your worst moments you realize that progression is an illusion too.

If Life is set up so that everyone has the potential to suffer, ... but wait... you think you're more powerful than Life?

You're going to conquer Life?

Life will squash you whenever it wants. Haven't you noticed? It will snuff itself out in you whenever it chooses. Life decides when you're gone, not you. Life decides who suffers and when, not you.

But you think by adding more cushion hours you can beat Life? You think you're more powerful than Life itself? You didn't even create your own body! That's how much power you have!

Do you ever give up?




Cheers!
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Nikolai , modified 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 8:11 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 8:09 AM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
C C C:
More cushion hours. More, more, more, more, more....

Progress, strive, work. Just keep working. Work, work, work, work, work...

New technique, a bit of coaching and instruction, check in with Dho, diagnose, then more, more ,work.

Cycle for a few weeks, months, maybe a year. Each cycle sits you back where you were. Maybe you climb up another level every decade or so. It's like an Escher drawing with never ending levels. There's always another level, so you must keep working.

If Life is set up so that everyone has the potential to suffer, ... and yet... you think you're more powerful than Life?

You're going to conquer Life?

Life will squash you whenever it wants. It will snuff itself out in you whenever it chooses. Life decides when you're gone, not you.

But you think by adding more cushion hours you can beat Life? You think you're more powerful than Life?

Do you ever give up?




Cheers!



Yes, post whatever came after 4th path (MCTB paradigm), don't really have an official sitting time, don't really sit at all to be honest, don't have any drive to get anywhere, don't have that many urges to work, work, work, just do things when triggered to, cause and effect. No comment on cycles, not sure I notice any cycling but who knows, I'm not looking that much anymore. But what I called 'practice', the observing, contemplation, analysing, letting go, simply watching, recognising, pattern recognition , is now simply what gets triggered more than not triggered, and its not really seen as 'practice' but what the brain is more and more conditioned to do. not give emphasis, nor conceive of anything, simply by paying attention (which sort of insinuates effort via the word 'paying', but really it's just cause and effect, it just happens due to outside and inside triggers, no stressing, no layer of effort involved.)

I added a shit load of cushion hours over the years, and I now don't sit at all, unless on the toilet. I think to some degree, escape velocity was needed to get where i currently find myself, wherever that may be. And it is not bad at all. I'm very ok with life squashing me, as it doesn't seem like there is much in the way of actual free will. Just cause and effect.

nick
This Good Self, modified 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 8:23 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 8:13 AM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 946 Join Date: 3/9/10 Recent Posts
You sound jaded though Nik. Am I interpreting the subtext correctly?

"Not bad at all" isn't worth working for. That's how most people are before all the dharma work, depending on what Life had decided for them. If you interviewed a million non-meditators about the quality of their lives, the average response would be "not bad at all".
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Richard Zen, modified 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 11:39 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 11:39 AM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 1665 Join Date: 5/18/10 Recent Posts
Just keep practicing until your habitual perceptions are the present moment. After that you can develop whatever skills you want and just get on with your life. If you ruminate less and repress less there should be less stress which is the point. Or as Shinzen puts it: "fixation is stress". Attachment to practice is just the last addiction to let go of.
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Nikolai , modified 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 3:40 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 3:39 PM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
C C C:
You sound jaded though Nik. Am I interpreting the subtext correctly?

"Not bad at all" isn't worth working for. That's how most people are before all the dharma work, depending on what Life had decided for them. If you interviewed a million non-meditators about the quality of their lives, the average response would be "not bad at all".
I guess I'm not much of a poet. I would never want to go back to the type of mind that once was the norm. Not bad at all= no es malo (a sort of sarcastic way of saying something is amazingly good in chile amongst the Chileans I know and I'm married to one of them. Lost in translation.)

Nick
Tom Tom, modified 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 5:32 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 4:55 PM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 466 Join Date: 9/19/09 Recent Posts
Just keep practicing until your habitual perceptions are the present moment.


I agree, time has been absent in my experience for over a year now after the standard three distinct mind moments and fruition occurred last June 2012. The past and future do not exist as all sensate experience only arises when it arises. The absence of the responsibility of having the illusion of "will" is wonderful. Life is like an interesting and highly entertaining movie. Much much much much (laughably) superior to pre-meditative conditions as I was one of the most monkey-minded people I knew. (Back then people would often make comments to me like "you're never here, you're always somewhere else).

I also have not sat to meditate in over a year and don't cycle much other than in dreaming and perhaps subtly while awake. My experience is clearly the continuous unremitting embodiment of 4th equanimity jhana while awake. However, I believe I have not yet reached the full completion of 4th path yet. I am somewhere between late 3rd-4th because there are some quite subtle dualities left and I will get around to finishing that eventually as the desire and conditions to do so manifest.
B B, modified 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 5:02 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 5:02 PM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 69 Join Date: 9/14/12 Recent Posts
Here's how I see it in my admittedly limited life experience and learning:
- The universe appears to tend towards ever-greater complexity (or at least is tuned in order to allow this).
- A human mind is an inconceivably rare peak in this complexity.
- This makes all living things, and especially human beings, enormously precious.
- The fundamental problem for all human beings is suffering - we are defined by our reactions to it. Personally, I would say that suffering has been more "real" to me than anything else in life.
- There is a means of vastly reducing one's suffering (and possibly even ending it in this lifetime) that can be utilized by all human beings.

And so, I feel my life is best spent helping the most precious known entities in the cosmos (including me) to solve the most fundamental problem of their existence. Yes, there's a vast sea of ignorance out there that's only growing larger by the second, but at least I can die knowing I tried my best to do what I believed was right in the face of such a cold, indifferent universe - the ultimate act of defiance!
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Hermetically Sealed, modified 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 11:56 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/24/13 11:43 PM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 113 Join Date: 6/27/13 Recent Posts
C C C:
More cushion hours. More, more, more, more, more....

Progress, strive, work. Just keep working. Work, work, work, work, work...

New technique, a bit of coaching and instruction, check in with Dho, diagnose, then more, more ,work.

Cycle for a few weeks, months, maybe a year. Each cycle sits you back where you were. Maybe you climb up another level every few years or so. It's like an Escher drawing with never ending levels. There's always another level, so you must keep working otherwise you'd never progress. Sometimes in your worst moments you realize that progression is an illusion too.

If Life is set up so that everyone has the potential to suffer, ... but wait... you think you're more powerful than Life?

You're going to conquer Life?

Life will squash you whenever it wants. Haven't you noticed? It will snuff itself out in you whenever it chooses. Life decides when you're gone, not you. Life decides who suffers and when, not you.

But you think by adding more cushion hours you can beat Life? You think you're more powerful than Life itself? You didn't even create your own body! That's how much power you have!

Do you ever give up?

Cheers!


I try to stay positive about life and about my role in it, but sometimes life throws you a curve ball. Never the less I remind myself that I am Life itself. I'm helping Life carry out an exploration of itself by temporarily experiencing myself as something smaller, separate, and more vulnerable. I am doing this Willfully out of an act of compassion and therefor life is not something that is being forced upon me unfairly. I often temporarily lose this perspective and have to re-find it through meditation and contemplation. To put it more simply I sometimes have to remember that I am not a victim, I am a warrior. I find that the more I stay centered in this attitude the more the seemingly external parts of Life seem to cooperate with what is most conducive to my practice.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/piyadassi/wheel001.html

If you are currently feeling frustration when you focus on the enlightenment factors of concentration or mindfulness (which often happens to me) then sometimes it helps to shift your attention towards the development of other enlightenment factors such as joy(piti) and tranquility(upekkha). If you meditate, or study the suttas, with the specific intention of trying to learn about and develop the enlightenment factors of joy and tranquility then eventually you will have some success just as I'm sure you've had success developing concentration and mindfulness. I find that such practice can directly counter the tendency towards frustration that can arise during practice.

there are some good dhamma talks here about such topics but you'll have to search for them:
http://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_index.html

good luck
B B, modified 10 Years ago at 8/25/13 2:27 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/25/13 2:27 PM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 69 Join Date: 9/14/12 Recent Posts
Could you please explain why you think this? Because at the moment it's looking like I just hit on some insecurity.

It seems to me that this outlook has essentially been held by countless individuals from a diverse array of backgrounds over the millenia... Apologies for the slightly awkward/grandiose way it was put - I'm not naturally in tune with the affective tone of things.
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Bailey , modified 10 Years ago at 8/25/13 2:33 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/25/13 2:33 PM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 267 Join Date: 7/14/11 Recent Posts
Do you believe in hell CCC?
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Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem, modified 10 Years ago at 8/25/13 2:41 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/25/13 2:41 PM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 2227 Join Date: 10/27/10 Recent Posts
Nikolai .:
I guess I'm not much of a poet. I would never want to go back to the type of mind that once was the norm. Not bad at all= no es malo (a sort of sarcastic way of saying something is amazingly good in chile amongst the Chileans I know and I'm married to one of them. Lost in translation.)

Hey Nick,

Would you care to wax poetic - or at least talk about - some of the positive aspects of your current experience, ones that don't have to do with absence of negative things? From what you wrote here it sounds like you're just going through life without any particular interest in what you're doing, without deriving any particular enjoyment out of it, but there's just a general neutralness which is unaffected by what actually happens in your life. It sounds like whether life is squashing you or or whether life is going great, you just react to it the same (i.e. not at all) and keep doing whatever it is without taking a particular interest in this or that, etc. Is that a fair assessment - a sort of absolutely unwavering equanimity (neither ups nor downs but a particular neutralness) - or is there something more to how you experience your daily life?
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Nikolai , modified 10 Years ago at 8/25/13 5:10 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/25/13 4:40 PM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
Nikolai .:
I guess I'm not much of a poet. I would never want to go back to the type of mind that once was the norm. Not bad at all= no es malo (a sort of sarcastic way of saying something is amazingly good in chile amongst the Chileans I know and I'm married to one of them. Lost in translation.)

Hey Nick,

Would you care to wax poetic - or at least talk about - some of the positive aspects of your current experience, ones that don't have to do with absence of negative things? From what you wrote here it sounds like you're just going through life without any particular interest in what you're doing, without deriving any particular enjoyment out of it, but there's just a general neutralness which is unaffected by what actually happens in your life. It sounds like whether life is squashing you or or whether life is going great, you just react to it the same (i.e. not at all) and keep doing whatever it is without taking a particular interest in this or that, etc. Is that a fair assessment - a sort of absolutely unwavering equanimity (neither ups nor downs but a particular neutralness) - or is there something more to how you experience your daily life?


Im enjoying life. Constant neutrality can be a trap if it goes unquestioned. I'd inject a bit of 'is this it?' (Put a question mark over it) or wonder or curiosity into such constant neutrality. As it could simply be yet another means for 'meness' no matter how subtle to set up shop as an infintely disembedding neutral witness. Disassociated neutral becoming, becoming, becoming....it may be somewhat 'peaceful'' and 'still' but it's still becoming. Not for me. Ccc, up for a lovely shiatsu?
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Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem, modified 10 Years ago at 8/25/13 6:24 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/25/13 6:24 PM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 2227 Join Date: 10/27/10 Recent Posts
Nikolai .:
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
Nikolai .:
I guess I'm not much of a poet. I would never want to go back to the type of mind that once was the norm. Not bad at all= no es malo (a sort of sarcastic way of saying something is amazingly good in chile amongst the Chileans I know and I'm married to one of them. Lost in translation.)

Hey Nick,

Would you care to wax poetic - or at least talk about - some of the positive aspects of your current experience, ones that don't have to do with absence of negative things? From what you wrote here it sounds like you're just going through life without any particular interest in what you're doing, without deriving any particular enjoyment out of it, but there's just a general neutralness which is unaffected by what actually happens in your life. It sounds like whether life is squashing you or or whether life is going great, you just react to it the same (i.e. not at all) and keep doing whatever it is without taking a particular interest in this or that, etc. Is that a fair assessment - a sort of absolutely unwavering equanimity (neither ups nor downs but a particular neutralness) - or is there something more to how you experience your daily life?


Im enjoying life. Constant neutrality can be a trap if it goes unquestioned. I'd inject a bit of 'is this it?' (Put a question mark over it) or wonder or curiosity into such constant neutrality. As it could simply be yet another means for 'meness' no matter how subtle to set up shop as an infintely disembedding neutral witness. Disassociated neutral becoming, becoming, becoming....it may be somewhat 'peaceful'' and 'still' but it's still becoming. Not for me.

How does your current experience differ from constant neutrality/from disassociated neutral becoming?
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Nikolai , modified 10 Years ago at 8/25/13 8:50 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/25/13 6:48 PM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
Nikolai .:
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
Nikolai .:
I guess I'm not much of a poet. I would never want to go back to the type of mind that once was the norm. Not bad at all= no es malo (a sort of sarcastic way of saying something is amazingly good in chile amongst the Chileans I know and I'm married to one of them. Lost in translation.)

Hey Nick,

Would you care to wax poetic - or at least talk about - some of the positive aspects of your current experience, ones that don't have to do with absence of negative things? From what you wrote here it sounds like you're just going through life without any particular interest in what you're doing, without deriving any particular enjoyment out of it, but there's just a general neutralness which is unaffected by what actually happens in your life. It sounds like whether life is squashing you or or whether life is going great, you just react to it the same (i.e. not at all) and keep doing whatever it is without taking a particular interest in this or that, etc. Is that a fair assessment - a sort of absolutely unwavering equanimity (neither ups nor downs but a particular neutralness) - or is there something more to how you experience your daily life?


Im enjoying life. Constant neutrality can be a trap if it goes unquestioned. I'd inject a bit of 'is this it?' (Put a question mark over it) or wonder or curiosity into such constant neutrality. As it could simply be yet another means for 'meness' no matter how subtle to set up shop as an infintely disembedding neutral witness. Disassociated neutral becoming, becoming, becoming....it may be somewhat 'peaceful'' and 'still' but it's still becoming. Not for me.

How does your current experience differ from constant neutrality/from disassociated neutral becoming?


I'm not really interested in discussing this at the moment for reasons of not wanting to be a part of anyone's agenda of proving or disproving whatever. I like what is said in the comment section here.

Jeje,

Brother Pussycat, modified 10 Years ago at 8/26/13 6:34 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/26/13 6:34 AM

RE: Will you ever stop working?

Posts: 77 Join Date: 12/21/11 Recent Posts
"Will you ever stop working?"

Nope, the retirement system's shot already, never mind in a few decades.

Breadcrumb