Are we born with purpose or do we create it?

Perhaps its a false choice as it is dependent on how one relates and or defines the notion of purpose.
Is it viewed with perspective of observing ones life from the outside and or from within? Is it within the scope of ‘all time’ and or a moment of time? Is it a objective and or subjective experience? It it a something we measure and or others measure? Should it be measured at all?

It is said all things happen for a reason. Some associate that statement with purpose and fate. We assume the saying means something but does it?  We can’t create something from nothing so yes their was a moment that came before this moment and influenced it. Is that what we mean when we say things happen for a reason?

Ego Conciseness is linear, cause and effect but Life isn’t, In life everything is connected. It is only in measurement that things are separated. But measurement is man defined and doesn’t exist in Life. It is only in hindsight, in memory, (karma) that we  string together events and say look thier is a reason, and look here, here is meaning. Of all the information that exits in a moment of time, however we measure that, we base our findings on very little.

so many people here will find their faith in buddha

It is my understanding that Buddhahood is a state of becoming, a state of consciousness. Gautama becomes Buddha when he awakened. When Gautama became Buddha he had to face the problem of teaching what could not be taught.  He did not want his  followers to blindly accept his teaching but to experience them, find the truth. the path, for themselves.

Fear is to Courage as Doubt is to Faith.  The opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty.

 Buddhism finds meaning by ending suffering. Stoicism finds meaning by accepting suffering.

I don’t believe that is a accurate statement about Buddhism. For a Buddhist the question of meaning is unskillful, the notion of ‘finding meaning’ itself a source of suffering.  The question of meaning being pointless when you are the answer. Nirvana, the end of suffering, is a state that Transends the opposites/duality (measuring) and thus bliss. (end to measuring which we are really, really, really bad at)

no matter what you practice, we all believe we are here to promote the common good, through improving ourselves and leaving the world a better place

I would agree. The difficulty of course is the very notion/awareness of THE  ‘Good’ and ‘Better’. A Buddhist might say that it is in the defining, attaching, measuring and judging that we create suffering. How to avoid the trap of measuring (dualism – ego consciousness) and attachment and remain fully engaged with Life as it is.  How to avoid the ‘why bother?’ – or ‘suicide’ as Camus might say)  Thus the birth of all philosophy and wisdom traditions.

What is the point of prayer and meditation?

Old woman: To bring you closer to the Great Mystery.

So I can understand it?

Old: woman: No. So you can participate in it.

– Richard Wagamese

I was wondering why sometimes it happens just like that without any effort, anyone has any experience on how to reach and maintain such a state?

Ah to be the still point that is also dancing.

Its a paradox. The moment we ask the question we are out of the moment. The moment we realize were in the experience we are tossed out of it. The moment we try is the moment we fail.

Their is not try only be. A exercise of Will that is a letting go of Will, a surrender of expectations, desire, thought.

Dear Berta

Which practices you engaged with?

Before one practices, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.

We are not meant to live on top of mountains. Thus all spiritual experience and practice must incorporate the return. The return to Life as it is. In my opinion that is something most traditions don’t do well. My Experience with Buddhism is that the challenge of the return involves the practice of detachment. Healthy detachment, healthy boundaries where one accepts things as they all while remaining fully engaged in life .

From your post it sounds like you have fallen into the trap of Indifference.  Its a fine line between detachment and Indifference. One of my observations with the Buddhist practice is it often involves a loss of energy to engage. The unskillful detachment from ego, goals, relationships, identity, hope… leading to indifference. If I am not my ego, my experiences, my emotions, my memory why engage, what’s the point = loss of energy.

Sitting by a calm lake in meditation and or contemplation nothing touches us and we think what bliss. Then life interrupts, we need to eat, relive ourselves, work, the stuff of life, everything touches us. The goal of the practice is to take the experience of the lake with us as we engage fully in the stuff.

We return from the mountain/lake and see for the first time. Nothing has changed, everything has changed.

 I have smacked myself many times but I only get dizzy.

🙂 that sounds like Zen to me. Begs the question what is enlightenment and how we would notice when a moment of enlightenment was achieved?

My observation is that its kind of like happiness the moment one thinks… ah their it is I have it… it disappears.  Enlightenment like trying to grasp and hold on to air with ones hands. The problematic word in that sentence being ‘grasp’ as it tends to be attached to the word ‘I’. In Zen thier is no I so no-thing to do the grasping.

When I picture the stone being thrown at the student (or slap) in that moment thier is the stone and body labeled student. The body spontaneously ducks. No thoughts like… Why did master throw the stone, The stone is a illusion, the body is a illusion, what does this mean, why, why me, not fair, vengeance, anger, fear… If such thoughts did arise the student is going to get hit and its going to hurt.

The body/mind/spirit, labeled student, “knows” this and engaging fully in the moment as it is  moves. The rock flies past. A moment of enlightenment. A moment not measurement in time or space and so infinite -“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities” 🙂 (The Body and rock are not illusions the  ‘student’ is)

In Zen a act of Free Will is the act of letting Will go, (In my opinion the only act of free will possible) , Doing by not doing. A state of being where one is fully Engaged in Life as it is and at the same moment fully Detached.  I’m reminded of those infomercials selling the some slow cooker or something. ‘Set it and Forget it.

My experience of Zen is that it seems to be a practice intended to ‘break’ the mind. Break the habitual thinking, thoughts, memory’s that we believe/feel is a I. One returns from where one started and ‘sees’ it for the first time (the mountain becomes a mountain)  We work for that which no work is required (doing by not doing) “You” are/were always buddha

Thanks for humoring me letting me play 🙂

Hi Leaagain

How did you overcome learned traits from childhood trauma?

By making them conscious and realizing at a deep level that you are not your memories, you are not your past – you have memories, you have a past.  By making them conscious, perhaps with help from a therapist you take ownership of what belongs to you and what doesn’t. The aim is to develop healthy boundaries that being healthy will aid in the developing or relationships with your self and others.

Relationships are crucibles in which we discover ourselves. You don’t need to be in relationship to discover yourselves but nothing like a relationship to push/pull a person into the process.

A purpose of relationship is to heal the past. What I mean is that in relationship your ‘ghosts’ of the past are going to come out to play with your friend and or partners ‘ghosts’ . Thus that need to be conscious of them, shine a light on them. Healthy boundaries will help work through those times when a person in relationship is triggered by the past. A healthy relationship can be the best place to coming to terms with our past hurts, shadow, and projections (Projections, shadows, hurts… usually all mixed up together)

Do you risk relationship, is it worth it?

That is something only you can answer. As humans we are really good at justifying the answer to such questions. However I might argue that if your answer is all justifications  your probably not being honest with what you really want. (Justifications tend not to make healthy boundaries as the tend to lock away all possibility. )

My advice for what its worth. Be Brave, do the work in coming to terms with your past/memory (you are not your memories) know your boundaries and see what might show up.

Its said Only Love can break a heart. That I believe is a truth if a ironic one.
Yet a broken heart is a open heart and oh what that might a open heart experience.  Scary I know… but scary can be fun?

A friend of mine had a experience/vision in which she felt connected to every thing. She described it as being very vivid, colorful… and being loved, of being Love.  She didn’t use the words enlightened.  She told me that as time passed she fell into depression. How to return and hold on to such a experience. She  suspected part of the problem was the holding on which was really a desire to remain. The view from the top of a mountain is wonderful but the oxygen is thin. We aren’t intended to live onto a mountain.

I had a experience equally vivid but not colorful as my experience was complete darkness/emptiness. A emptiness in which there was no fear, no anxiety, a awareness of everything which was no-thing. Perhaps pure consciousness. Like my friend everything/no-thing connected….

And then I thought “I”.

Their is a scene in the Matrix where Neo  enters the void of the matrix (here the void was white) and rows of clothes and weapons appear. The racks coming from nowhere and whizzing by Neo only stopping when he selects a item until he is fully dressed. Once dressed he enters the ‘world of the matrix’

That was what it was like the moment I thought “I” a peace of “clothing” (memory of identity) thrust onto me, forming me and pushed me from the void into the “waking”  world.

With the thought of “I” I remember thinking Nooooooo!!!! as I left the bliss of emptiness and experience of everything, clothing myself in my fears, hopes, anxiety… memory of I.

My memory forming my physical and mental bodies and pulling/pushing me into, I will use the words “waken world”.  Oh how I wanted to longed to go back, longed for home, but life is experienced in the matrix and I was formed to experience it.

I didn’t fall into depression… or maybe I have at times. No experience as been more vivid to my mind

The moment I think “I”…. I wonder if the clothes (and weapons) were chosen by me or for me?

The moment I thought “I”, I thought Noooo… what if I would have thought Yes?

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

“Before one studies Zen, “mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.” ― Dōgen

Thus we return home and see it for the first time.

What does it mean to be enlightened? To ‘see’ life as it is? Then the challenge would be how we respond to that Do we respond with a detachment leading to indifference or a Detachment that remains fully engaged. The problem of ‘sudden awakening’ what do we do when such a thing is experienced?

In the wisdom traditions its important to remember that words our symbols (the finger that points to the moon is not the moon)  thus the word death can be physical death and or phycological death.

With regards to the book of the dead and reincarnation one could read it as pointing to the now. That we die and are reincarnated many times in a life.  Enlightenment possible with every breath as is rebirth to a lower state of awareness. A ‘sudden awakening‘ could be followed by a ‘sudden un-awakening’

Many associate justice with the word Karma. A person gets what coming to them. Such a desire that karma be justice would be bad karma. 🙂

What is Karma?

We see the world as we are not as it is. Karma the filters/memory through which we see through. Sadhguru argues Karma is memory. “karma is like old software that you have written for yourself unconsciously. And, of course, you’re updating it on a daily basis! Depending on the type of physical, mental, and energetic actions you perform, you write your software. Once that software is written, your whole system functions accordingly. Based on the information from the past, certain memory patterns keep recurring. Now your life turns habitual, repetitive, and cyclical. Over”

Moments of enlightenment are moments when Identity (ego) is detached from memory. One experiences the moment as it is without filters. The martial artist trains so that their reactions are responses. The dancer dances when they stop trying to dance. They ‘forget’ what they learned (no memory)  and allow what the leaned to happen.  The act of free will is a forgetting. detachment, letting go… what ever words work for you,  of will.  = Sudden problems after awakening. Being, Allowing… while  remaining fully engage with life as it shows up.

And perhaps one step further…. “KNOW ” it as Love. Mountains are mountains and waters are waters. You are the mountain, you are the river. ..