That’s not what I meant. Desire is happening now…for a new car, a new girlfriend, a success at something or other…desire for fulfillment. We don’t have to wait for it. I think K was implying that we repress it or judge it or condemn it. We don’t let it flower. Not totally sure…it’s been ages since I read the talk about that.
Desire is part of suffering, the other part is aversion - together they form the self. Condemnation of desire is aversion. Whether desire is allowed to flower or whether it is repressed - its still the movement of self - The flowering of desire is the prison of the self.
Investigate the flowering of desire, but do not be its slave.
(Go find that speech about the flowering of desire - please get rid of the idea that some flowering of desire will save us)
I think “flowering” was always used as allowing what arises to be…not to indulge in it but not to suppress or substitute it for something else which was escaping from the fact. Staying with it would allow it to arise, flower and wither? Such as ‘anger’ which I think he called a facet of the complex ‘jewel’ of the self. (But I could be wrong but something like that.)
That judgement about what arises in oneself was a “minding” of what happens in oneself psychologically?
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Thanks for sharing your obersvations Voyager - I found them very interesting. I agree that it is important to move from the theoretical to the practical and actually do as K suggested - experiment, inquire and discover.
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Thanks for clearing out my mistake, Tom!
I had that impression after reading your words and i just wanted to know what others thought about it.
Yes, the desire or any other feeling must be allowed to flourish in order to be fully observed and without being repressed or judged as our habit usually does. Though “letting it flourish” does not mean that one has to surrender oneself to that desire, fear or any other feeling in order to observe it.
What exactly does “staying with it” mean, Dan? Because for me every human being “stays with” whatever feeling/sensation arises in him (even escaping from it is also another way of “staying with it”). So the only difference seems to be the quality of that “staying with.” Is that so?
This is precisely what Tom is trying to say, only in his own words.
It would be interesting if you could explain how one is going to observe desire without letting it flourish (which of course does not necessarily mean that one surrenders to it). On the other hand, no one (to my understanding) has spoken here about salvation. Whose salvation?
Yes, another ‘art’, the art of staying with what is taking place in yourself?
As if it is ‘sacred ‘?
Not sure about this - for starters I’m under the impression that both an “egocentric” observation or a choiceless awareness of the desire would mean that the initial moment would be lost anyway.
The question is badly formulated. It seems to me another of your Pindaric flights which makes you be lost in clouds (
It’s not a matter that I (we) think those images may disappear. I wonder whether you are a human being with a real body and real desires. Don’t you live a life where you find beautiful or important things which you should like to have? Or maybe you are an angel who lives on pure spirit? If you are a real human being there is no point in asking: “what is that “something” that gives such images so much power and influence”?
In real world we prefer something pleasurable and beautiful to something ugly or painful. Why should it not be like that? I’m talking of real things which I know make my life better. The images are only a remembrance of those things. There is no point in discussing why or how we want them. Either our perceptions of their pleasurability is wrong or is right and then our desires are justified.
Yes, but this fear and pleasure principle is what’s behind human suffering. We want to hold on to the pleasure and when it’s threatened we get frightened or angry or violent. The world we created…human societies…is a freaking mess, no? And we’re interested in the ‘teaching’ because we want to know why that is. That ‘something that gives such images so much power and influence’, to quote fraggle’s post, is fear isn’t it? If I had no fears or worries or anxieties my attachments would lose much of their power and influence, I think. Maybe. Let’s see how fraggle responds to your message.
Isn’t the answer to that both yes and no? It is mess but we’ve also done some ok sh*t too right?
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Replying to eye, above:
If you were a Jew in Hitler’s Germany in the 1930’s the OK sh*t might lose all its meaning for you when the Nazis come to take your children off to the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
I live in the same world as you, I find many beautiful things like you … and no, I don’t feel any need at all to possess them, unlike you. Now you can think whatever you want, it is not my business.
In real world such division is called ignorance and the cause of suffering.
I wish you good luck with your beautiful life full of “real things”.
Wish i had your wisdom to not have to see your suffering.
I agree with that Thomas, but that is cherry-picking some of the worst parts of our history. I’m not saying that no part of our culture/mind is horrifying and cruel. And of course I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to stop such things from happening again.
Well then that’s what needs addressing. We don’t need to do anything about the positive stuff…it’s fine as is. Its the other that needs changing…if that’s even a possibility.
I don’t agree with that, we have to learn about where we have done well, as well as where we have gone wrong. You want to forget about anything good that has been done, and focus only on our failures? It seems pretty imbalanced and unhealthy. It’s no way to teach right?
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No we want to fix the bad, not the good. The good is fine as is. That’s all I’m trying to say. If your roof leaks and the kitchen sink is fine you don’t fix the kitchen sink. You need to address the problem right?
On the level of a ‘self ‘ deciding what is good and what is bad, this sounds alright but it doesn’t address the possibility that the self itself may be the “evil”, does it? It may be the ‘I process’ that is / was the ‘wrong direction ‘, ‘wrong turn’ not the horrors that have resulted from it? The nazis,etc may have been as ‘lawful’ an occurrence as ‘when it rains, the streets get wet’.
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Sure, but I think you can end up with quite a skewed view of humanity if you only focus on the bad. You can really really build up some rage and negative feeling by doing that. I’m suggesting that might not be healthy. I don’t say you are doing that, but your example of the concentration camps is pretty emotive.
Please fix your sink, but maybe enjoy it for the useful tool that it is too?