All buddhas are great beings. What great beings practice is called the eight awakenings. Practicing these awakenings is the basis for nirvana. This is the last teaching of our original teacher Shakymuni Buddha, which he gave on the night he entered pari-nirvana.
The first awakening is to have few desires. To refrain from widely coveting the objects of the five sense desires is called “few desires.”
"It is useless to argue over the condition of the world. It may not be necessary for us to correct the whole world, to make everybody good, but we can correct ourselves..."
~Samuel Lewis, Murshid, Pir, and founder of the Sufi Ruhaniat International (San Francisco, 1967)
The Buddha said, “monks know that people who have many desires intensely seek for fame and gain; therefore they suffer a great deal. Those who have few desires do not seek for fame and gain and are free from them, so they are without such troubles.
Having few desires is itself worthwhile. It is even more so, as it creates various merits. Those who have few desires need not flatter to gain others’ favor.
Those who have few desires are not pulled by their sense organs. They have a serene mind and do not worry, because they are satisfied with what they have and do not have a sense of lack.
Those who have few desires experience nirvana. This is called “few desires.”
@deepthoughtsaid I intend to get hold of a copy of the Glass Bead Game - I read the synopsis on Wikipedia. Mein Deutsch hat total im Eimer gegangen, but I can give it a try in German.
Everything I have ever read of Herman Hesse, including a bit of Steppenwolf, I have found difficult to understand. It could be my German, but I also find philosophical ideas tough to get through in print. It seems one has to make assumptions on meanings.
The second awakening is to know how much is enough. Even if you already have something, you set a limit for yourself for using it. So you should know how much is enough.
The more sure I am that I'm right, the more likely I will actually be mistaken. My need to be right makes it more likely that I will be wrong! Likewise, the more sure I am that I am mistreated, the more likely I am to miss ways that I am mistreating others myself. My need for justification obscures the truth.
The Arbinger Institute, The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict
@suziannesaid Everything I have ever read of Herman Hesse, including a bit of Steppenwolf, I have found difficult to understand. It could be my German, but I also find philosophical ideas tough to get through in print. It seems one has to make assumptions on meanings.
I haven't read any yet, it's a future project. One that's quite daunting for the reasons I laid out in the post you replied to. With philosophy what I've found is that analytic philosophers are a lot easier to read, they try to be clear. Postmodernists and the Germans such as Kant just witter on and on. Sentences ought to be shorter than a page.
I wandered lonely as a cloud,
and then I read some Kant,
I read it to my friends aloud,
understand it we just can't.
@deepthoughtsaid I haven't read any yet, it's a future project. One that's quite daunting for the reasons I laid out in the post you replied to. With philosophy what I've found is that analytic philosophers are a lot easier to read, they try to be clear. Postmodernists and the Germans such as Kant just witter on and on. Sentences ought to be shorter than a page.
I wandered lonely a ...[text shortened]... I read some Kant,
I read it to my friends aloud,
understand it we just can't.
DeepThought 2019.
Interesting. You never seem to fail to live up to your moniker. 🙂
The few introductory philosophy classes I've taken were difficult for me as well. It appears that the German philosophers are beyond my ken, then. Maybe it's not my German after all. I wonder if the German 'wittering on' is somehow intrinsic to the language, since I've noticed some German psychologists 'witter on' as well, albeit not nearly as extensively.
The third awakening is to enjoy serenity.
This is to be away from the crowds and stay alone in a quiet place.
Thus it is called “to enjoy serenity in seclusion.”
...
18 Nov '19 14:29
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