XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.zen   
   From: nottony.nokingsbury@ngmail.com   
      
   On 12/09/2016 3:31 AM, noname wrote:   
   > Ummmmmmm  wrote:   
   >   
   > I'm still uncertain as to whether when replying to Ummmm I'm replying to   
   > tony or Bill.  They were both absent for a while, then both returned at the   
   > same time.  And I'm just not that freaking bright.  But since I tend to   
   > reply to what is written rather than who writes it, there's probably no big   
   > deal, just a little mystery, which is not a bad thing.   
   >   
   >> On 11/09/2016 3:37 PM, liaM wrote:   
   >>> On 9/11/2016 4:50 AM, Ummmmmmm wrote:   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Really, really, wanting something - and knowing that it's possible -   
   >>>> means you don't give up until you've found it.   
   >>>> If we have only one life - surely we have to aim for the highest?   
   >>>> Otherwise we let ourselves down.   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>> Aim for the highest may not be so simple..  Do you mean "Enlightenment"?   
   >>> That, in fact, imo, is the simplest to achieve, if one is of age to   
   >>> understand the 4 Noble Truths and follow the way to achieve liberation.   
   >>> No hocus pocus is needed. One or a few kind teachers, maybe.   
   >>   
   >> If it's so simple, why don't more people achieve it?   
   >> Could it be that over three thousand years of muddled transmission &   
   >> mis-translation the original message has been warped beyond recognition?   
   >> The recipes don't work anymore?   
   >>   
   >   
   > I hold the opinion-de-jour that the recipes have been shaped by everyone   
   > who transmitted them, due to the simple fact that their conceptual network   
   > was non-identical to that of the person who originally wrote the recipes.   
      
   I think the recipe was first corrupted the moment it was written down. A   
   secret which is transmitted from one living human heart to another can't   
   survive being modulated into written words or dead formulae.   
      
   > When water flows through a pipe filled with krud, it isn't as pure on the   
   > other side.  Maybe it turns blue on the other side of the different place,   
   > but unless the admixture leaves it totally changed, it still acts like   
   > water.  Water with more of this, less of that, but water nonetheless.  So   
   > the few who can see the water in the old recipes may be able to cook up a   
   > better result when using them, while others, basing their work on the color   
   > of water (that has been turned blue over the years), might not fare as   
   > well.   
   >   
   >> In the same way as Jesus's teaching that "the Kingdom of Heaven is   
   >> within you" has been completely forgotten by modern Christianity.   
   >   
   > Organized religion may be called non-profit but somebody is paying the   
   > upkeep on the churches and preachers and whatever, which gives organized   
   > religion its own motivations, disconnected from, in some cases   
   > diametrically opposed to, the message its founder tried to impart.   
   >   
   > With regard to what Jesus is said to have said, consider the idea that what   
   > "kingdom" means to the common man, basically another description for a   
   > geographical area within which certain characteristics adhere, what   
   > "kingdom" means to its King is not the same.   
   >   
   > Likewise what "Heaven" means is something an individual might profit from   
   > considering.  Most of the crap I was told about "Heaven" by   
   > organized-christianity leaves me ready to hurl, with all that "goodness",   
   > and all that "Love", embodied in the very form of "Heaven", it seems like   
   > Hell is where I'd be more likely to encounter those few truly real and   
   > earthy people I've encountered during life; anything has to be better than   
   > listening to a choir of Angels playing bad harp music and singing praises   
   > to some made-up-being that is supposedly almighty but still needs the   
   > praise of the doll-toys it claims to have made out of mud.  Frankly, the   
   > Heaven described by Organized Christianity is nothing I'd care to be   
   > involved in, and it's the last placed I'd expect to find Jesus,   
      
   I'm not a praying sort of a person, but the first time I ever prayed, at   
   about age 8, was after hearing a sermon on a priest about Heaven.   
   When I went to bed I prayed that if I died in the night, I wouldn't have   
   to go to Heaven. It sounded unbelievably dull and boring.   
   Nothing I've heard/read about the Christian Heaven in the 70-odd years   
   since then has caused me to change my mind.   
      
   But the space of light & peace inside of me - that's a different story.   
   I'm rather fond of going there.   
      
     unless he   
   > developed a taste for harp music at the very end, you know, after hanging   
   > out with a bunch of drunks and prostitutes, and getting crucified by the   
   > establishment, while his disciples looked on powerless, proof of-itself   
   > that they were, none of them, able to move any fucking mountains to save   
   > flealess leader.  They were, bluntly put, the mark of his failure.   
      
   Jesus didn't fail - he succeeded in telling the truth about what a human   
   being is. Of course the priests had to have him bumped off - he   
   threatened their livelihoods.   
   >   
   >>>   
   >>> For me "the highest"is a life well led through its seven or so stages.   
   >>> A Japanese guru years back asserted that each stage has its flowering,   
   >>> he was referring to actors' lives in his troupe, from the youngest to   
   >>> the oldest..  And the last flowering, of the oldest actor.. perhaps one   
   >>> who plays a maiden in the Kabuki, is the best.   
   >>>   
   >>> But I prefer Gurdgieff's view, that humans are endowed with   
   >>> potentialities that not everyone has the chance and the will to   
   >>> realise to their fullest.  To have known creativity, to have experienced   
   >>> fusion with one's contemporaries, to have worked hard and succeeded   
   >>> (or failed) in Love, Sex, Music, Children, Kindness, Gourmet cooking,   
   >>> Zen or Buddhist Enlightenment, to have considered God - or not,   
   >>> to have found out who one's parents are or were, etc. etc. is part of   
   >>> "the best"   
   >>   
   >> All the paths in this bucket list lead to happiness of one kind or   
   >> another. (if they don't make you happy, why pursue them?)   
   >   
   > Sometimes we think we need to disclaim all desire, rather than just   
   > attachment to desire, and in those places it might be quite sufficient to   
   > suffer-less as a long-term-prelude to enjoying-more.  Freedom from desire   
   > doesn't mean you don't desire, it just means you've learned to listen   
   > instead of just talk.   
   >   
   >> But they all lead you out, away from your essential self, not in towards it.   
   >> There may be a path that leads inwards, towards your true being.   
   >   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)