Hi DC

However, perhaps the time has come for me to step back. Should I resign and just “let go” of the situation in the Buddhist way? Am I too attached to this?

Just wanted to say something about the “Buddhist way” of letting go as I understand it. A unskillful detachment often leads to indifference and a giving up. A skillful detachment is a doing by not doing, action and stillness…  In the situation you describe a setting of healthy boundary might involve a detachment from outcome while engaged in the process, being true to yourself.

That said I agree with Anita, as in all things their is a time and now might be a time to take a step back and center yourself. Not as a fight or flight reaction to the situation but a middle way.

There is so much injustice in our world its a challenge to know when take a stand, when to ‘be the policeman’, the ‘social worker’, the’ peacemaker’…  all have their time and place. I feel the most important is that when we act regardless of how (which role we play) we do so from our center, being honest with ourselves regardless of result.

Hi Sputnik

Before Sputnik reach orbit their was were a lot of disappointing misses. Your name then answers your question. Yes, keep trying, learning, growing and one day…

I think writing is one of those things that requires perseverance. A great profession or hobby where one can practice the art of detachment. You are are not defined by what anyone thinks about your writing.  Write, have fun, experiment, take classes, talk to other authors, get feedback, learn, grow, learn, grow.

A few years back I talked to a author  Kathryn Craft  who wrote ‘The Art of Falling’ I believe took here 19 years to complete. Her process involved workshopping with a group of like minded people who wanted to write.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Peter.

Board

It not uncommon to work against ones ‘good’.

I disagree, biologically we are meant to seek our good and what benefits us, most of healthy minded people do, unless you really hate yourself or were programmed to please people instead of your own.

Perhaps that might be true if man was only a biological creature that was mostly unconscious and functioned from the position of the Id.

In what I call beginning stories like Genesis the birth of consciousness comes at the price of being ejected from paradise. (I’m using the story as metaphor not literal historic fact so don’t outright disagree with me or tune out based on that).

The eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is not the same ‘knowing’ what is good and evil. It is this confrontation with ‘knowing of’ but not ‘knowing what is’ that consciousness arises. – Consciousness and the problem of opposites, duality, are connected. No confrontation or tension, no consciousness.  Consciousness and the garden can’t exist together.

A baby slowly becomes aware of its being as separate from mother (garden), though the tensions of opposites. A baby relieves itself which experienced as good notices unconsciously mother face of disgust reacting to the smell. Something that feels good is reflected (mirrored) back as not ‘good’, not smiling, a something becomes conscious… ‘knowledge of’ but not ‘knowledge of what is’, just a ‘something’, a feeling…

The reaction to a wakening consciousness of the knowledge of but not what is good and bad, is shame. That something about our being, our naked authentic selves is wrong, does not smell ‘right’.. and must be hidden from others and even ourselves.

We put on clothes, personas, that clothes don’t fit. “Relieving” ourselves a biological good experienced as something that smells and wrong so we “constipate” ourselves, working against our good (and the flow of life) working against ourselves. (I know you don’t like the word ‘self ‘ but what ever part of you that experiences you)

I have never met anyone who was so mentally healthy that they do not struggle with the problem of opposites and its implications.

That said you may be correct that the process which involves suffering and getting things wrong is of the greater ‘Good’. That what seems to me as working against my good, even biological good, can be views as being the GOOD as it results in consciousness – Life desires to be conscious of Life which cannot happen in the garden. Thus, Life is never at war with Life, everything is as it must be (like it or not)… I can never work against my own ‘good’ as even my experience with suffering is Life and so  ‘Good’…

Which is not how I experience myself nor is it a tension I can hold for long (sometimes in meditation)… Which is why We work against ourselves – I do the things I do not wish to do and do not do the things I wish to do.  I am a contradiction.

That was fun 😊

but more to the point that you don’t want anyone to agree with you. You wish to be unique in your suffering

If that’s true i wouldn’t feel so good when anita agreed with me, to me agreeing with my point of view meaning the other person understands it.

Did you feel good, do you still feel good about that?

Your confusing me. You have said multiple that “You are a victim”

I will make it simple for you, lets take an example, a raped person is a victim right? Would you call him a victim or would you say “no don’t say you are a victim, that will make you trapped in a victim mentality”?

I acknowledge that i was a victim just like a raped person acknowledge that he is a victim.

A person  can be a victims of crimes and not take on the persona of victim, not ‘be’ a victim.  When I read through your posts I hear a person who’s life philosophy is rooted in ‘being’ a victim. I could be wrong.

Now let me explain why i think the victim definition works for me, similar to rape, bad things happened to the person which was outside of his control and couldn’t do otherwise, and he has to deal with the consequences of this thing the rest of his life, i have been raped, not physically, but mentally, by many ideas and beliefs, by shame and gulit, i was too young to understand, by my mother and father, by my environment, my mother the so insecure person that will blame a child just so she can feel good about herself, that will use him to satisfy her needs and not care about his needs.

These things, ultimately made me choose what i choose now, if you claim that your suffering is similar, then you would ended up just like me, even if i indeed have victim mentality and it is the reason why im so miserable, it wouldn’t matter now, because it won’t be change by me.

The reality is that for most things Life happens to us that our not of our choosing and control. We control very little even if or limited linear ego consciousness likes to think it can. We do not choose to be born, our parents, the traditions born into…. From such a perspective we are all victims of circumstances. So what?

How it is that so many rape victims transcend the experience?

Your making a huge assumption that everyone with the same life experiences as you would come to the same conclusions as you.  You assume that someone can be exactly the same as another and experience the same conditions the some way. A quick observation of others clearly shows that is not true. No snowflake is alike.   You also assume that only such a person could possible ‘understand’ and know you. This is a very limited definition of the word ‘understanding’ and “understood”.

that this is the foundation of your life philosophy, stuckness and anger centers on you being a victim. (could be wrong)

Maybe you are right, does that change anything ?

I don’t know… I suspect that if change is possible we have to own our thinking and beliefs. We don’t tend to do something that doesn’t work for us in some way, even if it harms us. Something in your Life philosophy is working for you but only by owning it will you discover what that is. Only then might you ask the question if it really working for you or against you. It not uncommon to work against ones ‘good’.

“Does it change anything” this triggers my shadow of despair as I also wonder if change is possible, and what’s the point… I’m notice that I’m projecting my need that change is possible onto your posts. I am not saying we are the same, or that I ‘know’/’understand’ you when I talk of shadow.  Actually when we project its not possible to see the other, we are only looking at ourselves we do not recognize.  A shadow consists of the things we do not want to see in ourselves.  Oddly that can be the worst things we fear as well as the best..

I read your posts and find myself imagining a person that has surrendered to being life’s victim.  That is trap I’m afraid of falling into…. again. In those worst moments I wish I had not been born and long for death… but I don’t do anything about it and I don’t live as if I were dead. I imagine a person that lives as if dead would live fearlessly with nothing to lose yet I am full of fears.  I suspect my thoughts of death is really a desire for change which I don’t always believe is possible which I know is a contradiction. Like so many I work against myself.  In that I imagine we are the similar.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Peter.

If it is true that you had similar experience, why i didn’t ended up agreeing with your logic?

I don’t think your great a empathy (could be wrong) but more to the point that you don’t want anyone to agree with you. You wish to be unique in your suffering.

You are a victim and not going to do anything.  Is that the ultimate truth or just your point of view?

Your confusing me. You have said multiple that “You are a victim”.  So yes I believe you when you say that you experience your ‘you’ as being a victim. It is my impression that this is the foundation of your life philosophy, stuckness and anger centers on you being a victim. (could be wrong)

Is it a ultimate truth? I don’t think so, but that is for you to answer.  I’ve seen people change their point of view and so their outlook but you might be right when you say your not capable of such a thing for the many reasons you have given. Even if you were capable you have said multiple times that you wouldn’t try.  Confusing to me your either capable or not… but your going to argue that you are capable but nothing will change, so why bother. Essentially then not capable, or the question of capability is moot.  You have decided to be right.

As with most of the dialog its just going to go in circle. Even when you agree you tell yourself, sorry your you, and us you don’t

When I thanked you for reveling my own shadow I wasn’t thanking you for agreeing with me, or ‘seeing’ me, or understanding me…. I don’t need that from the virtual world. We will always speak past each other. But even in that, the opportunity to learn something about one self  was available.

So thanks for engaging even if it turns out I was only talking to myself.

you think i feel im a victim and won’t do anything about my suffering, you are wrong,

i think its the truth im a victim and i won’t do anything not because of that, but because life is shit, and i hate it all, and you know what, fuck connection, i don’t want it, you can have it.

I’ve read that over a few times… you are a master of…   You arrived at the same conclusion and was still able to say I was wrong.
You are a victim and not going to do anything.

Your reasons of why you won’t do anything don’t matter… unless your looking for some one to argue about your reasons and convince you otherwise,… if true here you show your at war with your ‘you’ as you have shown  no intention of changing your mind – that would be doing something and you won’t do anything.  You don’t want connection, Life is shit  ‘and should not be’ . You shake your fists at a g_d you do not believe in and deny the thing you want.

Not a unique response to Life as it is.  No is in my opinion a valid response if unskillful. So what is your point? What do you want? Permission?

I see your posts as my shadow. My tendency to depression and giving up, wanting to get off this ride, hopelessness… the contraction of doing the things I do not wish to do and doing the things I wish not to do.  Perhaps a difference is that I usually realize when I’m doing those things.

Anyway if your going to be Stuck, embrace your stuckness. Whining about stuckness is just another contradiction.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Peter.

I honestly didn’t understand your point, i feel your answer gonna be “because you don’t want to”

I don’t know maybe. Your responses never change and you appear to deliberately misunderstand those who respond to you.  For example someone uses the word ‘self’ and you demand a definition and miss the point. It comes off as being initially obtuse.  Language is limited especially when expressing personal experience. Words like ‘I’ and ‘Self’, illusion or not, arise naturally in the attempt to communicate. Try talking about a experience you had without the word ‘I’

That’s one of the difficulties communicating with you. You demand a term be defined, often suggesting that you are making a philosophical point but then reject any philosophical response as valid. As someone, the past, trying to tell you what to think… Its very confusing

You post on a site called Tiny Buddha and reject anything related to the tradition even as you express concerns  as it come to suffering and such that the tradition has been attempting to answer for thousand of years.

You pick apart every comment of those responding to you without it seems doing the same for your own where you often contradict yourself from sentence to sentence? I think this picking apart allows you to dismiss or not even see the point someone was trying to make.

So im not a victim???

And there we find your stuckness which you have turned into a life philosophy – you are a victim of your circumstance while no one else is  – the blessed normal’s.  Hate to break it to you but everyone one is a victim of their circumstances no one chooses.  The task is to live the life your given.  That you refuse the task because ‘poor you’, if only…  Its not a unique answer to the task.  I would even say it’s a valid response, if unskillful, but only if you own it. You can refuse the task without being a sad sack.

So yes my answer is that I don’t believe you when you say you want different when your so intrenched in your victimhood and concept of normal. Life devours Life for Life, boohoo. I don’t believe you are looking for a way out. I think you want to pull others down into your life philosophy.