I posted some stuff here recently, now I feel completely fucking confused and completely fucking confused also. And, also completely fucking confused. Is there some way I can like maybe gain some benefit or help from this forum? Or should I just leave and figure out how to get enlightened on my own?

- Daniel

Hi Daniel,

All anyone can do is offer you advice based on what they think helped or did not help them or what they think will or will not help them. I emphasize the word think because you only get one pass and so you don't have any real comparative data to look at. No one knows what will work for you. No one actually even knows for sure what worked for them.

In the other thread you got lots of good advice but I think the best advice in that thread was: "I think what I really need is to go at the "perfect pace"... neither too fast, nor too slow. The more perfect the pace, usually the more quickly I progress anyway. But, it doesn't seem like it's up to me to decide how fast that progress happens, but rather to just keep fine tuning into whatever the "perfect pace" is for me."

Of course, that will lead to all kinds of questions but then you have a built in feedback system in that you can reflect 'does this feel right to me'. My advice is run with that. Listen to advice and run it through this filter. If it works, use it.

By the way, I still feel completely fucking confused. I just don't worry about it much any more.

Good luck to you,
-Chuck

Chuck is right in ways, but there are still fundamentals that have a very good track record of working when applied.

Some are:

See doubt, frustration and confusion as they are, as sensations, experiences, patterns of flux, transient stuff, all of it, seen with the light of the Three Characteristics just that simply, that directly, can be enough. Do this again and again with everything, whatever it is, and the thing will eventually crack.

It can be that simple and it really is.

Daniel

maybe you could do both!

"Leaving and trying to get enlightened on my own" in the sense of putting in lots of cushion hours (and walking meditation hours) is the very foundation upon which Hardcore Dharma rests. Not participating in the forum anymore is a sucky idea, to be honest. Keep asking the questions you want answers to, and if you don't get a helpful response, then clarify exactly what you need more understanding of, and why the existing responses didn't clear the issue up. That said, if all the experienced ones tell you that you're at a point where further discursive thinking and reflection is unhelpful and you just need to put in more meditation hours, there's probably a very good reason that they're saying that.

Wow.. I feel the love. You all are some lovers at heart, I can tell. Behind that thin veneer of "Hardcore Dharma"... you've all got soft spots. It's so sweet.

I think I'll respond to each of you one-at-a-time

Yeah, I wasn't too worried about it either. In fact, the confusion certainly seemed to have wisdom to it, as it inspired this thread.

Thanks a lot for honoring the built in feedback system. It seems to me like this is the most important thing beyond any stream entry or enlightenment or whatever. It seems like this could be called the voice of God himself. I think anyone who claims to know the divine plan better than God is just full of shit. (to put it in god-language)

Yeah. That sounds like what I've been doing. And, yeah, it seems pretty simple. But, not necessarily easy.

I may not have been very good at it so far, as I seem to be one of those "human" things which are somewhat imperfect by nature. But, I don't get how that should matter, since we're all starting from the same place - ignorance and suffering.

Yeah. I think that's the plan.

Thanks

Agreed



I think that could take hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours to clarify all that. I think I'd rather just give it a good shot, see if it helps and if not, just go back and meditate some more. It seems like the questions always clear themselves up through the practice eventually anyway.

But, thanks. I appreciate your response and all these responses.