Barney/Life is Suffering

[Guest guest]

Barney said:

"As you can tell, I am NOT comfortable with with ANYTHING, and have a

growing despair, even after honest stretches of "lots-of-effort"

AND "no-effort" that ALL "spiritual" practices, experiences, and

scriptures are desperate measures to keep humans from going insane

because they cannot face mortality. THIS is NOT where I thought I

was going, or wanted to end up. I sure wish I could be SURE of

something. So what do I do, hunker down with SOME practice /

philosophy, try to fit in with the sangha, and TRY to lie to myself?

Ok, here's the only thing I can be sure of: the truth of suffering."

 

Barney, the hard truth is that there are no intellectually

satisfying answers to your questions. Is awareness just a product of

the brain like some scientists believe? Or is all experience a

product of a self existent awareness like various spiritual teachers

say? Can you even really know? Is creation just a meaningless,

aimless impersonal physical phenomenon and all spirituality a form

of trying to find meaning and comfort where in reality there is none

and is therefore just another sham? Self delusion?

 

If these are the kinds of doubts that are tormenting you right now,

I understand it. Its these kinds of questions that drive most people

into a spiritual practice and which seem to dissolve and even appear

childish later on so it can be a huge shock when they come screaming

back with such ferocity years later, so much more intensly than

before, and you see how much you really were deluding and comforting

yourself with your practices and beliefs and spirituality. At least

I have been through such a cycle myself.

 

My suggestion, if your interested:

 

* Stay with the not knowing. Dont try to repeat the process of

replacing the state of not knowing the answers with someone elses

comforting answers or beliefs about reality.

 

* Notice that believing that you are only physical and that

awareness itself is only the product of brain chemistry arrived at

through a process of physical evolution only brings a sense of

tremendous emptiness and pain. This definetly indicates that it may

not be true. If it were true, why would your heart rebel against it

and torment you? Just notice this point and quietly examine it

within yourself.

 

*Consider that various people throughout history have attested that

the real nature of the human being is pure, non-local existence-

awareness. They all attest to knowing this nature directly as their

own self, and that this nature can only be described as divine. The

knowledge is accompanied by such qualities as bliss, joy, love,

compassion etc. Some people have arrived at this state spontaeously

without a pre-existing belief in it, others after a long period of

time engaged in meditation or other such practices. They also attest

that when there is a cessation of even the slightest identification

with mind/body/world, there is at that time a permanent cessation of

suffering.

 

*Ramana in particular taught that you can confirm this for yourself

by continously fixing your attention on the feeling "I exist" with

the aim of finding out what it is. The two points in regard to this

practice are

1) The pure I, which your own existence awareness exists free of any

thoughts of "I am this or that or like so". Therefore as thoughts

arise, ignore them and attend to the sense of "I exist" or "I" or

the awareness to which these thoughts arise.

2) The practice must be one pointed. A mediocre effort will bring

mediocre results. Do not give up until you have learned to be one

pointed.

 

*You cannot lay your doubts at rest about the nature of the

self/awareness until you have known it directly. Therefore take the

inensity of the depair and use it to fuel the endeavor to find out

directly by one-pointedly attending to your own existence-awareness

with the aim of finding out for yourself directly what it is.

You dont have to believe that the result will be as they say. You

only have to endeavor totaly to find out if it is, or it is not, as

they say.

 

*Quietly take some time to consider that the only alternative to

this inquiry will be to continue as you are, spinning round and

again with otherwise unanswerable doubts and questions and the

torment this brings.

 

 

N.

[Guest guest]

, "Narayana" <bhujagendra>

wrote:

>

> Barney said:

> "As you can tell, I am NOT comfortable with with ANYTHING, and

have a

> growing despair, even after honest stretches of "lots-of-effort"

> AND "no-effort" that ALL "spiritual" practices, experiences, and

> scriptures are desperate measures to keep humans from going insane

> because they cannot face mortality. THIS is NOT where I thought I

> was going, or wanted to end up. I sure wish I could be SURE of

> something. So what do I do, hunker down with SOME practice /

> philosophy, try to fit in with the sangha, and TRY to lie to

myself?

> Ok, here's the only thing I can be sure of: the truth of

suffering."

 

Namaste,

 

The Gautama Buddha said that all is dukkha. Which doesn't translate

as all is suffering, but as all is potential suffering. A pleasant

experience carries with it the fear and knowledge that it will end.

Like a child with a toffee bar and trying to make it last, expecting

the dukkha to come.

 

The only thing I can say about suffering is...'Who is this suffering

happening to?' There is no past present or future, only now. Pay

attention to the now. If you have difficulty then split now into

seconds and concentrate on one second at a time..........ONS..Tony.