Xian gives too much weight to what “they” say. He has convinced himself “they” are right, and nothing will change his mind.
Until he realizes that the “they” he has arbitrarily decided are infallible, are wrong (or at least provide answers so cryptic they’re useless), he’ll annoy us with endless, non-questions and rejections of our answers to them.
We only ever tell him he is wrong (along with exhaustive reasoning for doing so), so why does he waste time continuing to ask us questions? Since he will only accept answers he likes, maybe he should look for them somewhere that doesn’t use rational thinking to answer questions.
I went back 5 pages trying to find where I stopped actually addressing anything s/he’s asking and instead asking s/he to explain WHAT s/he’s saying and why s/he believes it’s worth saying. So, that’s at least half of a 10 page thread that is nothing but “what he heck” and “you don’t get it”. One of the more bizarre threads I’ve participated in. It’s hard to tell how really annoyed s/he is, but not annoyed enough to give up obviously. I’d say s/he’s a bot, but who would conceive of the “misinterpreting Buddhism” bot and why? More likely s/he’s a run of the mill seeker who thinks it’s better to engage skeptics than gurus. S/he’s got that right, but s/he hasn’t figured out that skeptics won’t say things like “seek within and you will see the true meaning of your journey to the light”, instead we say stuff like, “read a book”.
Ha. Yes, we give boring answers, but they’re also the best/correct answers. Hopefully Xian can eventually see that his assumptions and wishful thinking have no bearing on the truth.
We seekers have a lofty goal, and we come at it from many different directions and from many different starting points. Where we start and what path we choose can trap some of us along a path that leads nowhere but is almost impossible to escape. It takes a lot of work and honesty to change paths, and not everyone can or is willing to do so.
You are trying to help Xian change paths, but it’s apparently not his time yet. The tough call is when to pull the plug on trying to fill a bottomless pit. I did, but you are still working at it. For both your sakes, I hope you make progress.
I’m completely serious when I say I do this for my own amusement. I don’t expect to “fill” anything. Each new tiny bit of data put up gives me something else to understand how someone would end up where Xian is. I run in to this type often enough and as Hitchens used to say, there’s always some new version of the same old trope that they’ll come up with. To anyone who’s seen it before, it’s all pretty boring, but the fun is to recognize them and find a new way to apply the road tested logic. Not everyone’s sport, but it takes practice to do it live. Handling 4 or 5 posts a week from Xian is easy.
I’m also here because it’s fun. But not everyone on here is part of that fun.
The secret to your sanity must be connected to your lack of expectation that there will be progress. I can start out that way, but my good intentions eventually crumble under the lack of any effort by the other side. If they actually made a point, I would enjoy it, but after a dozen posts that all show they don’t care what I have to say, I lose patience and interest.
I have had conversations like this, where the other side was an impenetrable wall of dogma and irrationality, and I actually made progress over time. It’s those rare instances like that make me hesitate before calling it quits, and even then I still keep checking back here to see if it’s worth my time starting up again.
I very recently started to look into Stoicism, and it seems you might follow that philosophy, even if only coincidentally. That would explain how you can suffer through this with a smile on your face.
Hopefully someone comes along who’s actually worth your time and really helps you sharpen your weapons.
The thing is that their claim is that if you can name it or label it then it is t truth.
My initial reaction to the broward people was skepticism. Their pamphlet read like some religious conversion and it was clear by the words they use that they want a response. When I talked they said it was 30 for a consultation and 200 a month for the class. I have NEVER heard of any mediation class offering a consultation and the fact that they wouldn’t answer questions without an appointment was iffy. Even more so when my talk with hear felt more like speaking to a robot.
But I fall for the trap of cryptic wisdom. The fact that you don’t get it means you “aren’t there yet”.
My sister went to a Scientology “consultation”. Luckily she did not see any value with continuing further. They ask a lot of personal questions and tell you they can help you. What they are really doing is looking for your fears and weaknesses that they will later use to manipulate you. The person doing the interview doesn’t need to know that is the plan. They are likely also being manipulated and are passing it along, getting others to volunteer for the org and get more people to buy their products. So, just because someone is doing something that is not beneficial, that doesn’t mean they are “shysters”. They may sincerely believe in what they are doing. They can still be wrong.
Anyone can make you feel better about yourself in the short term. It’s a lot harder to help people live long and productive lives.
Good grief Xian. Get a grip. You make Eeyore sound happy.
And anyone who says, “But I fall for the trap of cryptic wisdom”, isn’t falling for it, they’re willfully embracing it. You can’t know you’re wrong and still pretend to be innocently wrong- that’s being ‘willfully ignorant’.
‘Willfully ignorant’ is probably the worst thing anyone can be. Seriously. The worst. Full stop. Don’t do it. EVER! It’s not just a thing I dislike, it’s an actual acquired personality disorder, and if you even pretend to be more ignorant than you really are, you’re starting down a very dark and slippery slope. Being wrong is fine, just never let it be an act.
I’m not being willfully ignorant. That’s really the main thing about Eastern religions. Something are purposely vague or cryptic and the claim is that what they know is “non-conceptual” in that words can’t portray it, only experience can. If you don’t get it then you are still in the dream. Naturally that is tasty bait for me because I want to know but allegedly words can’t describe it.
As for the claims about the Broward center, it was rather the case of what their teachings said. That the picture world (what we think things are) isn’t reality’s it is false. That you “aren’t really alive” because you are living in the world inside your head (with ideas, concepts, and projected meaning), that clearing that away leads to truth (hence their poster that showed colored in drawings, followed by a blank circle, followed by the same drawings with no color).
It it is tempting to think they are right because we like to think there is a “who we really are” underneath it all and it can’t get much more “underneath” than forgetting lives experience to get at what you really are (the universe they say). I have been trying to find something to discredit that idea but it sounds legit to me (mostly because I can’t disprove it).
So I experimented with their ideas a bit, but the result was just feeling null inside. It’s like my imagination burned away. The wind just blows against my skin rather than I feel it, music is just sound and I no longer get the urge to dance. I just feel null. But supposedly this is the truth and reality so I guess I have to live it. It makes sense what that link I posted earlier said that pleasure is based on what we believe something to be. I don’t believe anything to be other than what I see, I don’t add anything, therefor I don’t feel joy or pleasure. Not exactly what you would expect from such a practice.
So, the concept you have chosen to believe is true (but still need explained because you have no idea what it means) is, “allegedly”, indescribable?
You might not be aware of this, but that’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.
I’m really trying to have fun with this and get something out of these exchanges like Lausten does, but I think it’s hopeless. You’re not even trying to be interesting or smart or fun or anything else I can use to get a benefit from this. This stuff was boring the first five times I’ve said it, and it is certainly not getting more interesting.
I don’t believe anything to be other than what I see, I don’t add anything, therefor I don’t feel joy or pleasure. Not exactly what you would expect from such a practice.
No, not what you would expect. Not what I can accept either. You are either lying about your personal experience or you need professional help. I'm not a psychiatrist, but you can't believe your feelings away. There is no null you that you then think into existence, I don't care what you've read. If that were true, mentally ill people could decide to not be mentally ill. You can't meditate joy away.
I don’t think you get it Rat. The whole point behind such cryptic wisdom is that if you aren’t on the path it just sounds like nonsense but if you are “there” you get it.
I did my best trying to illustrate the point they were making and I did say that I can’t really find a way around it. My logic seems to point back to them being right. I don’t know if that makes it right, but I don’t know what else to do. I was thought that you have to reject something based on finding a flaw in it, not just labeling it nonsense with no proof because that would be close-minded.
And for Lausten, there is science to support the idea. I think I linked something to NPR that said that pleasure is based on what we believe something to be (or its essence). Meditation is about getting rid of that idea and realizing there is no essence. Watts said the same in the video about emotions being based on our thoughts about reality and not reality to us.
So it would stand to reason that I would feel nothing and no joy if I lived reality according to what it really is: empty of value and meaning and what I paint it with. Hence why my imagination kind of went away. Makes me sad, but if it means I’m living in reality and according to what is true then I guess it’s ok. Though everything seems a lot more bland now, or null. Wind is wind, music is sound, clothes are clothes. Everything is what it is, not what value or meaning I project onto it.
"The whole point behind such cryptic wisdom is that if you aren’t on the path it just sounds like nonsense but if you are “there” you get it."
According to whom? The folks who spread this stuff? Wow, what a shock- next you'll try to tell me that the experiences of religious people, UFO abductees, and ghost hunters, are all legitimate because "they" say they are.
"My logic..."
Sorry dude. You don't have your own logic. You can have your own point of view, biases, preferences, likes, desires, urges, personality, and ways of thinking, but you can't have your own logic.
"I was thought that you have to reject something based on finding a flaw in it, not just labeling it nonsense with no proof because that would be close-minded."
Nope. We are free to call something nonsense if you provide no proof of it. If we had to do things your way, we would be forced to prove a negative. That's impossible. You might think it's reasonable to demand proof that something is false, but that's because you don't really understand that the demand requires us to do something that is literally impossible.
I asked a long long time ago for you to tell us something that does not and cannot exist in the universe, but you never responded. So I will ask you again because it is relevant: name something that cannot exist(my example was a 23 kilogram hummingbird that has been living on the moon for the last 17 years.) I will wait for your example if you don’t like mine. And don’t simply dismiss my example unless you provide a way it could exist, and then provide your own example of something that cannot exist.
I will kinda have to insist on a response with an example before moving on (I bolded and underlined what I want you to respond to so you don’t miss it.) It’s a fun mental game, so let your imagination soar. Be as crazy as you want. I look forward to enjoying your cool example.
3point’s analogy to ghost hunters is dead on. It shows the illogic of your logic. And as he says, there are standards of logic. You can compare your thought process to those standards and determine if you are being logical. That’s how we figure out what’s true.
I’m not going to engage your other points because it’s obvious you aren’t interested. But I almost spit out my coffee when I read this:
Makes me sad, but if it means I’m living in reality and according to what is true then I guess it’s ok.
Something you did, had a result, and it made you sad. But you reasoned that feelings would go away if you lived the true life. Joy did, but not sadness. Seems like you've created some logic so you can feel sad. This guy doesn't see it that way:
Something you did, had a result, and it made you sad. But you reasoned that feelings would go away if you lived the true life. Joy did, but not sadness. Seems like you’ve created some logic so you can feel sad. This guy doesn’t see it that way:
Well Buddhism was thought by some to get part of the way “there”. But since they still feel joy and happiness that they haven’t found it.
Like I said before, and according to the like from NPR (I forget how long ago it was) that pleasure is based on what we believe about the world. If I stop assigning value and meaning then you see the world as it is.
According to whom? The folks who spread this stuff? Wow, what a shock- next you’ll try to tell me that the experiences of religious people, UFO abductees, and ghost hunters, are all legitimate because “they” say they are.
Well its it’s more like they use the same rules of logic against me. You say that you can’t prove a negative but there are some doubt about that (I think I have a link somewhere about it). But in regards to the self, wouldn’t it be on me to prove that there is a self? That the real me is NOT what you get when you “throw everything away” like the meditation people say?
Also what you mention about your own likes, preferences, dislikes, etc. isn’t true. Because apparently there is no “you” and one of that stuff was born from you, it was conditioned so it isn’t you.
It’s not like I want to believe this stuff. But I don’t have an alternative or the know-how to handle it.
It does make me sad to know that the self is “built” rather than born. Makes it sound cheap and flimsy, like what makes me “me” isn’t me but more like a robot built by something else .
