If you can’t beat them then can you join them? Silly enough. If she walks on eggshells then don’t you do the same when you have to control your speech? What do people say? You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your relatives? If you change yourself then will that makes thing better between you two? If you really do care about the person then do they feel the same? Yeah, more questions than answers. Personally, I don’t have many close friends. What friends I do have .. are separated by quite some distance (thank God).

To be held as an inspiration is to be held to a higher standard. Being judged as a person better than someone else makes one think. If you should fall then would everyone else who looks up to you fall? Are you responsible for another’s life? It is a difficult place to be when people hold you to a different standard. Some might take it as a compliment and leave it as that. Others would let the ego grow. And then there are those who self reflect. And wonder what that means.

Hello Anita,

You are trying to reconcile conventional wisdom with absolute wisdom. In conventional knowledge, we know animals have a sense of family. Other animals that are well known. Versus the other animals not part of their family. People have this too. A sense where if one inflicts pain and suffering that it doesn’t have to be them that also has to suffer. If a person experiences one’s Buddha nature then it is possible to realize that people are from a common essence. Like people are from the same source of water. When we fall back into the source, we are just water. All the same. Of course conventional knowledge is how we live at this moment. Where absolute knowledge would say that life is an illusion. Illusion doesn’t mean it is false. Just that from the perspective of long lasting. Oh, never mind me. It isn’t easy to make sense of this non sense.

Not judging but trying to wrap my head around this. A transgender person in a relationship with a girl who themself had poor self image, poor self confidence and suppressed gender dysphoria. Happy they broke up with this girl. Now wants her back? But, she is in a new relationship. Well, it is good that you got vent. Releasing emotions is sometimes tough. I have found that writing things out sometimes helps to understand what happened. And sometimes not.

Getting over an ex is always tough. It is easier said than done. It begins with a little time not thinking about her. Then more and more time not thinking about her. Soon, it gets easier not being with her. Wish you luck.

Tee

So perhaps the real question is what is it that each of us needs in the next phase of our spiritual development, which can help us reach freedom from suffering. If our thoughts keep us in pain and suffering – keep us in the illusion of separation –

Getting rid of all thought is not the goal. Getting rid of wrong thought – thought that keeps us in separation and consequently suffering – that’s the goal, in my opinion.

I believe Buddha said that all that we have thought is what we are. The meaning is our world is made from our thoughts. When we sit in meditation, we are not trying to get rid of thoughts. We are letting go of thoughts. To not chase them. Not identifying with them. Gradually releasing our grip of the world thru our thoughts. So, Yes, Getting rid of thought that keeps us in separation. Thank you.

Peter

The Buddha offered distinct teachings for laypeople, emphasizing ethical living, mindfulness, and a gradual awakening of the heart. While liberation remains the ultimate aim, the path for householders, those whose lives unfold within the messiness of daily engagement often centers on integration rather than transcendence. The invitation is not to bypass life, but to meet it skillfully, with presence and compassion.

This I believe is to teach according to the ability of the people to understand. If feeding a child then one does not put the whole plate of food into the mouth of the child at once. But, breaks the meal up into spoonfuls or bite sizes. And so, the teachings are given to laypeople in bitesize eventually learning the whole thing.

It is all mind game

Is that your wish?

Dear James123,

Please explain how something (I or soul) that is not found has a death?? If it does not exist then neither does your spirituality.

If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice