12 Sep 12
2 edits
Perhaps saying "anger can be a fetter to realization" may be better?
'Is" and "All" are problem words.
My view:
Realisation doesn't suppress anger or remove it. It helps one to see how everything is part of everything else, including anger - and essentially how insisting on a self and clinging to a self that doesn't ultimately exist is the root of suffering.
Attachment to a so- called "self" or ego via anger is a primary one. But like the other emotions, how they are part of one's living and being is the issue, not obliteration of a central human emotion. I think one can express anger without attachment. and not attending to anyone's non-existing ego, including one's own.
Well, ego arises but it is an illusion ultimately. As is anger. Arising, subsiding.
Anger and meditation does not go together well. But trying to convince a local nasty satrap to get some decent water to the town may be very much the spontaneous emerging that is needed. Folding meekly and smiling a lot is not going to achieve much, unfortunately, in some situations. If we say the water or the anger doesn't matter, we are wrong on both accounts. Bit of a koan there somewhere.
Here's another view ...
“There’s no such thing as never getting angry. Enlightenment can and does use all the available emotions. The idea that enlightenment means sitting around with a beatific smile on our faces is just an illusion.” ~Maggie Lyons~
12 Sep 12
Originally posted by TaomanYes I would imagine the suppression of 'constructive' or 'instinctive' anger would be as much a fetter to realization as an over reliance on it.
Perhaps saying "anger can be a fetter to realization" may be better?
'Is" and "All" are problem words.
My view:
Realisation doesn't suppress anger or remove it. It helps one to see how everything is part of everything else, including anger - and essentially how insisting on a self and clinging to a self that doesn't ultimately exist is the root of suf ...[text shortened]... ng around with a beatific smile on our faces is just an illusion.” ~Maggie Lyons~
Is it not more a case of excessive anger being a symptom or marker for not having achieved 'realization' rather than a barrier in itself?
13 Sep 12
1 edit
Originally posted by kevcvs57An interesting thought that bears mulling over.
Yes I would imagine the suppression of 'constructive' or 'instinctive' anger would be as much a fetter to realization as an over reliance on it.
Is it not more a case of excessive anger being a symptom or marker for not having achieved 'realization' rather than a barrier in itself?
Strong emotions and realization...we can include the other strong emotions here too...sexual passion... terrifying fear...almost insane grief...uncontrolled anger.
What do we realize? What do we awaken too?
Underneath all the fine Buddhist accretions of the centuries, what precisely - devoid of rites/rituals and moral precepts - found in varying form in all religions - what precisely did the "ThusGone One, the Tathagata awaken too that distinctifies the Buddhist message?
He called it the Middle Way. He apparently sought the answer to human suffering through the varying and often polar views of the teachings, principally Hindu, going around in his time first, If we don't know, Hinduism in all its wonderful richness, has the whole gamut of religious thought and behaviour, some of it quite shocking to our eyes.
He finally tried extreme asceticism, and found and knew that wasn't it either. He decided to sit down under a tree, according to the story, and not get up until he'd got "there". He then really did wake up bigtime, for him and human history. Others have seen it before and since but he was the vital "Awakening" junction point of history, so he is venerated. Other religions have their buddhas too. Sometimes they are not recognised because they are dressed differently.
What did he see?
Does it include or exclude these strong human emotions, that arise?
My thoughts are that what he saw was neither including or excluding events and times of strong emotions, but a true vision that they are, either way, ultimately "empty", because emotions, like all of life, is interdependent on everything else, arising spontaneously and subsiding equally spontaneously of itself. There is no self that is controlling or containing, and to focus on "me" doing so is THE sign of lack of recognition at that moment, or any moment we forget.
Whether "I" am in the throes of sexual passion or deeply grieving, expressing strong heartfelt anger or feeling paralysed with fear, being able to say so, and be so, recognizing it fully, without "you" being there IS liberation. As is sitting quietly before a serene lake and all its joy.
"You" and "I" are wrong (or right) WHATEVER "we" do! So let's do it as it arises in our heart, and jump off!
Stuff-ups will still arise as they do now with all our moralising, and emotional paralysis, but full unbroken awareness of the stuff ups, now, with realization, will mean the endless cycle of the wheel is broken and the Awakened has free flow without all the stuff we pack in our doorways. You become like the Buddha, and all the masters that ever were.
That is finding the Unborn, your Original Face.
And the sun rises and the sun sets, and the storms clear and the dirty streets are cleaned.
taoman.
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13 Sep 12
Originally posted by TaomanDoes this suggest that more generally the emotions or at least certain ones are a hindrance to something important, that thing called realization?
"All anger is a fetter to realization." (From a Buddhist site).
Is it?
Another way of putting it would have such emotions being of some service.
Would "acceptance" be a companion to realization?
Originally posted by JS357Realization happens of itself.
Does this suggest that more generally the emotions or at least certain ones are a hindrance to something important, that thing called realization?
Another way of putting it would have such emotions being of some service.
Would "acceptance" be a companion to realization?
Hindering is trying too hard.
Buddha was trying too hard.
'You' are 'there' right now.
Always have been.
Its not 'mystical' either.
A viewpoint shift.
"I see" becomes just "seeing"
- without the "I".
Trying hard is the opposite of what is needed.
Relax, things will look after themselves.
Do what seems best at the time,
think what seems best at the time,
and go and enjoy a beer, Bible or whatever.
You are certain to be wrong somewhere,
- accept and rejoice that that is
part of the 'Complete'.
Stopping our words,
and just sitting open to it all
many find helpful ...
and keep laughing
at your 'self'.
Things will happen.
Trying to "know" stuff often gets in the way.
Sutras and koans can help.
If you feel like it
- or not.
Choose your poison,
...if you are going to use poison.
The antidote is in the poison.
fear not, it works
...usually, well, sometimes.
14 Sep 12
Originally posted by TaomanGood, good, good.
Realization happens of itself.
Hindering is trying too hard.
Buddha was trying too hard.
'You' are 'there' right now.
Always have been.
Its not 'mystical' either.
A viewpoint shift.
"I see" becomes just "seeing"
- without the "I".
Trying hard is the opposite of what is needed.
Relax, things will look after themselves.
Do what seems best at ...[text shortened]... e antidote is in the poison.
fear not, it works
...usually, well, sometimes.
When you eat, eat.
When you laugh, laugh.
When you’re angry—
bellow! 😉
Realization (a far better word than “enlightenment”!) is not a state of passivity, or of passionlessness, but of clarity.
In emptiness/fullness, what is it that is a “fetter”? If one makes “being angry” a fetter, then for him it’s a fetter; if one makes “not-being-angry” a fetter, then for her that’s a fetter. Can one release the fetter of being angry by—fettering it?
Trust your unfettered mind. Oh, yes—there will be errors, and lots of previously fettered-up stuff will cause trouble. When the dam breaks, and the valley floods—do we blame the river? All was fine before we fettered the river. The same with your original nature. Soto Zen tends to try to uncork it slowly; Rinzai tries to strike the dam at a strategic point where it will burst—but within a safe environment! (we’re not in a monastery or Zen temple or an ashram here, I understand—here we are operating in open space, and deconstructing dams—our own!—can be dangerous business).
I am fortunate: I live as a quasi-hermit, and my wife has steely-Zen in her bones—she says, “Let the river run!”