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Razage posted:This was enlightening so thank you! Your mind really wants to do what it wants to do. It takes a while to get it settled and honestly the longer you stick with it, the easier it gets to settle your mind down. I still go off on flights of fancy or some weird imagined scenario where I'm explaining some aspect of the dharma to an imaginary person and then I snap back to present time and try to stay with it. Spacing out and being tired or bored are just other mental states - it's just part of it. Like others have said, just be ok with it and realize its part of the process. The more forgiving I got with myself about these little excursions, the better my sessions went. I settled down faster and ended up being able to develop much better states of concentration (during shamatha specifically). What Shambhala center are you going to try out? Just curious. Let us know if its weird  I've met some really cool Shambhala folks -- down to earth, smart about the dharma and kind. Hope you have a good experience.
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Aug 27, 2013 21:58
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he1ixx posted:Your mind really wants to do what it wants to do. It takes a while to get it settled and honestly the longer you stick with it, the easier it gets to settle your mind down. I still go off on flights of fancy or some weird imagined scenario where I'm explaining some aspect of the dharma to an imaginary person and then I snap back to present time and try to stay with it. Spacing out and being tired or bored are just other mental states - it's just part of it. Like others have said, just be ok with it and realize its part of the process. The more forgiving I got with myself about these little excursions, the better my sessions went. I settled down faster and ended up being able to develop much better states of concentration (during shamatha specifically). I didn't mean to say that I don't enjoy meditation because I really do and I am seeing that I'm becoming a much more kind and gentler person because of it. I plan on doing as you guys suggest and keep on returning my attention in meditation. The place I found didn't list it as any kind of special shambahla so I'm not sure. Why would it be weird? Haha. There's also a zen sitting group I want to check out too and those guys seem a lot more structured they do readings and stuff. I don't even know what that means!
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Aug 27, 2013 22:32
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he1ixx posted:Your mind really wants to do what it wants to do. It takes a while to get it settled and honestly the longer you stick with it, the easier it gets to settle your mind down. I still go off on flights of fancy or some weird imagined scenario where I'm explaining some aspect of the dharma to an imaginary person and then I snap back to present time and try to stay with it. Spacing out and being tired or bored are just other mental states - it's just part of it. Like others have said, just be ok with it and realize its part of the process. The more forgiving I got with myself about these little excursions, the better my sessions went. I settled down faster and ended up being able to develop much better states of concentration (during shamatha specifically). Flights of fancy are wonderful and can be observed mindfully. No reason to really shut them down, unless you're driving or it is the 25th in a row and the dishes still aren't done.
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Aug 27, 2013 22:44
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I've actually tried meditating before, just to see what it does, and the visual and kinesthetic illusions really are pretty trippy. I'm not sure I could say it did anything for me mentally, though. Anything in particular to look out for? Concentration, attention span, that sort of thing?
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Aug 27, 2013 22:52
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Cardiovorax posted:I've actually tried meditating before, just to see what it does, and the visual and kinesthetic illusions really are pretty trippy. I'm not sure I could say it did anything for me mentally, though. Anything in particular to look out for? Concentration, attention span, that sort of thing? My advice from my very limited experience is to try some guided meditation! This website from our friends in Australia is pretty awesome: https://www.smilingmind.com.au It might take a few days to notice anything. Although I noticed some changes 3 days in (although from my research I'm told that's rare so give it a week or two.)
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Aug 27, 2013 23:13
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Guided meditation is certainly worth checking out. There are plenty of guided meditation/dhamma talk mp3s available online. I like Ajahn Jayasaro personally - could be the accent, but it is calming. There are some days when I just can't keep my mind from chasing thoughts, so guided meditation is a good thing to have in your toolbox.
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Aug 27, 2013 23:49
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Prickly Pete posted:Guided meditation is certainly worth checking out. There are plenty of guided meditation/dhamma talk mp3s available online. I like Ajahn Jayasaro personally - could be the accent, but it is calming. Thank you for the link! I decided to try that now that I'm all done Smiling Mind and wow, was it helpful! I listened to the 2007-04-01 guided meditation and the tips on posture and particularly the mantra technique helped me focus and let distractions pass me by rather then get wrapped up in them! It was a very different and rewarding experience. The file I downloaded is only 12 minutes long, this threw me for a loop when the guy said 30 minutes and the audio cut out mid sentence. That was certainly a distraction but I didn't even let it phase me to get up and investigate. I just sat for another while doing the mantra and listening to the sounds and feeling sensations in my body and then I ended the meditation myself, interestingly enough, it was 30 minutes long even though I had no way of knowing that. I guess my question though is: Was the file only supposed to be 12 minutes of audio or did I get a partial file somehow?
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Aug 28, 2013 04:09
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It was most likely a partial file. There should be a few other guided sessions from that same monk. He is quite well known in the Thai Forest Tradition and I find his style really resonates with my temperament. Glad you found it helpful! If it works for you I would really recommend checking out some more talks on that site. All of the monks there are part of the Ajahn Chah lineage, which is what I practice in.
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Aug 28, 2013 05:16
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Also, a 30 minute session for a beginner is great. It took me weeks to get to the point where I could have a comfortable sit of that length. You're doing very well.
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Aug 28, 2013 05:19
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It's important for circulatory reasons to not sit for more than 30 minutes to an hour at a stretch. Get up, walk around a bit, stretch, etc. Also, if a pain doesn't go away within a couple of minutes of finishing, you might have hurt something. It's important to have a sense of the difference between discomfort and what something doing damage feels like. Having some direction and/or goals is pretty good, but there's no rush. Enjoy whatever amount you're able to safely do. Pushing one's body too hard is a reliable way of getting hurt. A little, here and there, consistently, is almost always preferable to getting up and deciding to run a marathon one day.
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Aug 28, 2013 05:50
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Razage posted:I didn't mean to say that I don't enjoy meditation because I really do and I am seeing that I'm becoming a much more kind and gentler person because of it. I plan on doing as you guys suggest and keep on returning my attention in meditation. He meant which city I think! It won't be too weird, don't worry. Some people in this thread have gone to Shambhala centers and met some really hippy dippy people who were into crystal healing and the like, but that is a result of Shambhala being open to anyone who's curious and not that it's actually teaching that kind of stuff. It's also going to be in pretty much any Buddhist group in some parts of the country. I have been in Shambhala my whole life and gone to lots of different Shambhala centers and everyone I've personally met has been wonderful.
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Aug 28, 2013 13:00
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Prickly Pete posted:Also, a 30 minute session for a beginner is great. It took me weeks to get to the point where I could have a comfortable sit of that length. You're doing very well. Thanks! A while back (years ago) I tried to meditate but it never really took. I'd get weird visions and I wouldn't feel very calm afterwards. I think improvements to my life and mindset have allowed me to take to the process much easier this time around. I'm definitely not into new age crystal healing and stuff but if that helps someone feel good then good for them. I'm not going until their introduction thing next week so I'll let you guys know what happens.
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Aug 28, 2013 13:49
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Razage posted:My advice from my very limited experience is to try some guided meditation! This website from our friends in Australia is pretty awesome: https://www.smilingmind.com.au
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Aug 28, 2013 13:52
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Cardiovorax posted:That sounds kind of weird and pop-religiony, no offense. Does anyone maybe have a statement by some ordained Buddhist monks or whatever on what they think about this stuff? This looks like a secular form of meditation practice referred to as MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction) centered squarely on removing the Buddhist parts of meditation and leaving behind what people commonly think is the pith of Buddhist practice -- the meditation. Honestly, this is the type of approach that got me interested in meditation because I was having a ton of stress-related issues, but I quickly realized that it was leaving behind all of the important stuff and I went fully into Buddhist study and Shambhala training. So, in a sense, it isn't that great as a holistic practice of self-improvement but it can lead to bigger things if you have the right frame of mind. This seems very similar to GetSomeHeadspace which was actually set up by a monk from the UK.
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Aug 28, 2013 17:13
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Just do zazen. Sit without trying to make your thoughts be about any subject. Don't care about guidance or suggestion. Just sit, breathe in and out normally, observe the breath. If it helps, count 1 on inhale, 2 on exhale, and repeat up to 10 and start again. Only calmly observe the present moment. Thoughts will arise, don't need to follow them, don't need to force them away. You'll lose count, realize you've been saying "5" in your mind a bunch, or gone over 10, that's okay, just return to 1.
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Aug 28, 2013 17:50
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So I'm doing some reading on Karma but am having a real problem wrapping my mind around it. I guess for me it's going to involve some letting go. I have a hard time believing that wealthy or powerful people in our society today are there because they generated a lot of Karma in a past life. Especially considering how much of a jerk some of these guys can be. I also am having a problem believing the opposite about impoverished people. Is that how it works or am I getting something wrong.
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Aug 28, 2013 22:04
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Razage posted:So I'm doing some reading on Karma but am having a real problem wrapping my mind around it. Karma isn't punishment, isn't reward. Karma just says there is no phenomena that arises without previous action. It's Causality, it's cause and effect. Broken glass is on the floor. It did not appear there by itself. A glass is knocked off a table, and breaks on the ground. I knocked it off because I was angry, or I was surprised by good news. Is that punishment, or reward?
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Aug 28, 2013 22:11
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This is included in the first page links, but there are a number of guided meditations available at dharmaseed, and you can search by teacher, talk and even retreat: http://www.dharmaseed.org/
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Aug 28, 2013 22:24
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Well I was reading this thing: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/karma.htm and it just seems a bit too weird, it also talks about superpowers and people literally flying (what?) I don't think I'm going to go that far but your explanation of Karma makes sense to me.
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Aug 28, 2013 22:35
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Venerable Master Hsing Yun's explanation of Karma made the most sense to me. Read about it in "The Core Teachings (Essays in Basic Buddhism)" If you ever get a chance, I'd pick up that book. Also this may seem like a silly question, I know that fat guy statue isn't the buddha, then who is that fat guy?
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Aug 28, 2013 23:01
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Razage posted:Well I was reading this thing: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/karma.htm and it just seems a bit too weird, it also talks about superpowers and people literally flying (what?) I don't think I'm going to go that far but your explanation of Karma makes sense to me. There are accounts of people (including the Buddha) flying, teleporting into different dimensions to talk to gods and devas, reading minds, stopping charging elephants with a small hand gesture, and all kinds of other things in the suttas. They are usually attributed to high levels of meditative absorption (jhana). How seriously you take those things is, of course, up to you. As I recall, a lot of those stories come from the Digha Nikaya, which also contains a sutta in which the Buddha cautions against using these kinds of psychic powers to gauge a monk's attainments. As these things are not important to the goal of ridding ourselves of suffering, they are not terribly important. The link you posted about karma was written by a very well known and respected monastic, but it might be a bit overly technical. Ajahn Sucitto has a book called Kamma and the end of Kamma that deals with the topic at length. The Dhamma center that I attend was using this as their dhamma study text a few months ago. If you like listening to talks more than reading (like me), this talk by Bhikkhu Bodhi covers rebirth and kamma. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le4vQ_5uKl8 People Stew fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Aug 28, 2013 |
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Aug 28, 2013 23:04
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Well, it's good to know that it was written by someone well respected. I don't think I can accept that people have or had super powers, documented or no, but I'll just keep that to myself as I don't want to upset people that might be trying to attain these things. Same if I encounter crystal healers when I check out Shambahla next week. I'll check out that talk once I get home this evening.
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Aug 28, 2013 23:22
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I get up with at the same time the brothers and sisters at the monastery in my tradition get up at, and then meditate for about 10 minutes every morning, time permitting. While I've been capable of meditating for longer than 10 minutes, I find it hard to do it at home where I don't have my own space, so I rely on my own guided meditation to sink down. I usually start with, "Breathing in, I know that I am a breathing in. Breathing out, I know that I am breathing out. In, Out." and when I get that down, I switch to "Breathing in, I know that I am taking in a deep breath. Breathing out, I know that I am taking in a slow breath. Deep, slow." When I have that down, I go to whatever my object of meditation is for the day or I just try to relax. I found being told, "Just sit!" was really difficult to understand at first. There are definitely some mornings that I sit and just pet my cat for 10 minutes or just sit there and think about the air. I find mindfulness and meditation to be two sides of one coin. I want to set up a small alter at home with some incense and a little bell and what not. Does anyone have any suggestions on where to pick that stuff up? I checked online but I want to get it all from some place nice
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Aug 28, 2013 23:30
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Razage posted:Well, it's good to know that it was written by someone well respected. I don't think I can accept that people have or had super powers, documented or no, but I'll just keep that to myself as I don't want to upset people that might be trying to attain these things. Same if I encounter crystal healers when I check out Shambahla next week. A lot of Buddhists don't accept those kinds of things. They aren't very important in terms of the noble truths or the eightfold path, or your meditation practice. I don't give much thought to whether or not the Buddha actually spoke to Brahma on the eve of his enlightenment. I have my hands full remembering practice metta and keep the precepts. 
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Aug 28, 2013 23:36
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Pepsi-Tan posted:Venerable Master Hsing Yun's explanation of Karma made the most sense to me. Read about it in "The Core Teachings (Essays in Basic Buddhism)"  This guy?Hotai. He's a sort of Santa figure, an ecstatic saint. My granddad was a merchant marine and one of the cool things he sent us was a carved rosewood hotai sitting on a mastiff. hotai images
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Aug 29, 2013 01:02
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He's not the Buddha, but he's considered a Buddha in some traditions. There's actually a bunch of those and many are kind of esoteric, like Maitreiya, who is a prophesied future Buddha that fills kind of the same religious niche as the second coming of Christ. Messianic archetype, eschatology, those things.
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Aug 29, 2013 01:23
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On my phone, so quick and dirty, check out Tibetan Spirit for shrine supplies. I know the old owners personally. Good store and people and prices.
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Aug 29, 2013 01:25
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Shnooks posted:I want to set up a small alter at home with some incense and a little bell and what not. Does anyone have any suggestions on where to pick that stuff up? I checked online but I want to get it all from some place nice Our little altar has grown over time. We have a little Buddha, a small box which holds matches and incense, a crystal ball, some offering bowls (7), and a plant or flower of some kind. Each thing has some meaning for us or is meant to snap our mind to the practice of meditation. The Buddha represents well... the Buddha -- someone who has become awakened. The crystal ball represents the clarity of mind, the offering bowls (filled with water) are a representation of giving and sacrifice. The incense is really, for me, something that helps me remember the day's session with the lingering of the smell throughout the day. The plants or flowers are a representation of impermanence. Hope that helps. he1ixx fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 02:53
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Do you guys know anything about the Tiriatna Buddhist community? The only groups I can find local to me are either SGI (which was already discussed on page one, and said to be cultish) and Tiriatna.
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Aug 29, 2013 03:15
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Prickly Pete posted:There are accounts of people (including the Buddha) flying, teleporting into different dimensions to talk to gods and devas, reading minds, stopping charging elephants with a small hand gesture, and all kinds of other things in the suttas. They are usually attributed to high levels of meditative absorption (jhana). How seriously you take those things is, of course, up to you. As I recall, a lot of those stories come from the Digha Nikaya, which also contains a sutta in which the Buddha cautions against using these kinds of psychic powers to gauge a monk's attainments. As these things are not important to the goal of ridding ourselves of suffering, they are not terribly important. Thanks for that youtube link, I listened to it and it helped make things gel together for me a bit more. This is starting to make a strange kind of sense. I didn't quite understand how say, someone could be born rich but then do or say terrible things. If they were born rich then they must have been good people previously, right? Although it seems that as it goes the bad fruits of previous bad karma might return from the past at some point and then the person might end up reacting badly to that bad fruit and then create more bad karma. Hence they could be rich but still commit bad deeds. Infact they could have been bad people in a previous life but did a good thing before death and apparently 'game the system' that way to get born into a good life next rebirth, but then continue their bad deeds. Like I said, I don't think I understand yet but it's starting to make a weird bit of sense.
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Aug 29, 2013 03:43
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Extreme lay person here, but what about the possibility that they were an even better person in the last life, like someone who was this || close to enlightenment (or whatever) and then screwed up right at the end? Maybe they were even just someone who was more rich in the last life than they are in this one, and they lost some of that as a result of bad karma, but not enough to drop them down into 'not rich'. None of that even gets into the ideas that karma is just cause and effect, not reward or punishment; or the impermanence principle (rule, law, whatever) which says that there is no 'same person' that's reborn over and over again.
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Aug 29, 2013 04:59
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You guys are talking about reincarnation, as popularly imagined by Westerners. Reincarnation is when you die, and then your soul gets put into a new body, either human or animal, and inhabits that body for another life. It operates under the assumption that you have an eternal soul which contains the essence of your being, and gets passed on after the death of your physical body. Buddhism denies this. In Buddhism, there is no eternal soul. Instead, we're made up of aggregates which have serendipitously combined to form us, and we have no unchanging essence underneath it all. We're constantly changing from one moment to the next, and have no fixed identity underneath it all. Our true nature is that of emptiness because when you take away all these changing elements that form ourselves, what's left? It appears to be nothing at all. We are empty because we lack inherent existence, which means that we don't exist separately from the rest of the world but rather we're connected to everything else. Buddhism teaches nonduality, that our existences as separate beings is illusory because the truth is that we're a part of the whole world. Everything is connected to everything else, and everything depends upon everything else in order to exist. Humans are no different. So when we die, there is no eternal soul to reincarnate into a new body. Instead, our existences as individual beings comes to an end, but since it was illusory to begin with, its not like anything is annihilated, either. Its more like we get broken down and our constituent parts get recycled into the world, going on to form new phenomena. The obvious analogy is our organic molecules which get broken down and recycled by other organisms, but it can apply to our actions and deeds as well. Since everything is connected and nothing exists as a separate entity, the same is true of ourselves and our actions. A wealthy man can use his wealth to influence the world either positively or negatively. Whatever he does, the outcome of his actions (his karma) will outlive him and will go on to effect the world for long after he's dead. Those effects are rebirth, and what his rebirths are depends on what his karma was. Blue Star fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 05:37
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Mr. Mambold posted:
Yeah, exactly, thanks. Whenever I tell someone about the Buddha that's what they think, then I point them to my little Siddhartha statue. Much skinnier.
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Aug 29, 2013 06:51
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Budai statues are way cooler than Buddha statues. He just seems like he's in such a good mood!  Prickly Pete posted:If you like listening to talks more than reading (like me), this talk by Bhikkhu Bodhi covers rebirth and kamma. Interesting, thanks for this. I have a question though. He describes the thought-stream as passing from one body to the next, more or less as a reincarnating soul might. Am I wrong in viewing it that way? What's the mechanism behind this supposed to be? In the analogy of the candle, there's a clear, physical event that links the two flames, when you touch the new candle's wick to the fire. When I die, how does my thought-stream get to a new body? I know this might seem like a silly point to quibble about, but it's a major sticking point to me, since everything else up to that point makes intuitive sense and doesn't even seem supernatural, but then here's this bit that basically seems like magic.
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Aug 30, 2013 01:03
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It is different than reincarnation in that there is no distinct self or soul making the transition. This may seem minor but it is a crucial difference. All conditioned things are impermanent and without self, constantly in a state of flux, even the bundle of conditions that make the leap between bodies after death As for the exact mechanics, I don't have a good answer for that. I don't really ponder those things very often, to be honest, but I think it is a perfectly valid question. It is probably addressed in the commentarial literature but I don't recall ever reading the Buddha discussing it directly. In the sutras he usually confronts such questions with a "this is not important to the cessation of suffering" kind of answer, which can be frustrating but is also ultimately true. I'm on my phone right now but I'll take a look sometime this weekend as it is an interesting question.
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Aug 30, 2013 01:34
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I think the idea is that the reborn being is a new being. Just like the new candle is a new candle. All of the parts are different. Although the Citta (Did I spell that right) is imprinted with the previous Citta's knowledge it's still a new Citta in a very long line of Cittas and this new being in all likely-hood, due to new experiences in childhood and even new cultural experiences, would end up very different by the time it gets to adult hood then the being that came before it.
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Aug 30, 2013 02:09
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What tradition do these stories belong to? They kind of make it look like there are at least a few Buddhist groups who consider rebirth essentially the same as reincarnation.
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Aug 30, 2013 02:21
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Cardiovorax posted:What tradition do these stories belong to? They kind of make it look like there are at least a few Buddhist groups who consider rebirth essentially the same as reincarnation. I'm on my phone but those look like the Jataka stories, which are part of the Pali canon. They detail the previous births of the Buddha. His realization of his previous lives is one of the three knowledges that came to him on the night of his enlightenment. I think this is constant across most traditions but I could be wrong. These recollections are not to be viewed in the same way as reincarnation is understood. They indicate the ability of a fully enlightened Buddha to discern the chain of events that led to the birth in which he could achieve complete enlightenment. People Stew fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Aug 30, 2013 |
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Aug 30, 2013 03:43
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Prickly Pete posted:It is different than reincarnation in that there is no distinct self or soul making the transition. This may seem minor but it is a crucial difference. All conditioned things are impermanent and without self, constantly in a state of flux, even the bundle of conditions that make the leap between bodies after death That much I understood, I just meant that there's something, whether it's a discrete thing or an ongoing process, that somehow gets from point A to point B in both systems. Prickly Pete posted:As for the exact mechanics, I don't have a good answer for that. I don't really ponder those things very often, to be honest, but I think it is a perfectly valid question. It is probably addressed in the commentarial literature but I don't recall ever reading the Buddha discussing it directly. In the sutras he usually confronts such questions with a "this is not important to the cessation of suffering" kind of answer, which can be frustrating but is also ultimately true. I'm on my phone right now but I'll take a look sometime this weekend as it is an interesting question. Thanks. Don't spend hours researching just for my benefit, but if you happen across something I'd love to hear about it.Razage posted:I think the idea is that the reborn being is a new being. Just like the new candle is a new candle. All of the parts are different. Although the Citta (Did I spell that right) is imprinted with the previous Citta's knowledge it's still a new Citta in a very long line of Cittas and this new being in all likely-hood, due to new experiences in childhood and even new cultural experiences, would end up very different by the time it gets to adult hood then the being that came before it. The candles/bodies are different, but in that talk Bhikkhu Bodhi specifically says that there is a continuity between the dying thought of one lifetime and the first thought of the next, like how the flames from both candles could be said to be the same flame. The new being will have a different body, a different culture, a different set of memories and so on, so it won't be the same person by any means, but there is supposed to be some sort of continuity there regardless.
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Aug 31, 2013 16:23
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Third Murderer posted:The candles/bodies are different, but in that talk Bhikkhu Bodhi specifically says that there is a continuity between the dying thought of one lifetime and the first thought of the next, like how the flames from both candles could be said to be the same flame. The new being will have a different body, a different culture, a different set of memories and so on, so it won't be the same person by any means, but there is supposed to be some sort of continuity there regardless. The continuity is causation, not of any type of substance. If I take a tree and fashion it into a chair, one cannot say the tree and the chair are the same, but yet one cannot say they're distinct. Shantideva uses the example of the candle, where if one candle lights another, then the cannot be said to be the same flame, but the source is the same. He further elaborates that if the first candle goes out at the time the second begins, they are not the same flame but there is a causal chain. That chain of cause and effect is karma. When we die, this creates the immediate cause for consciousness to manifest elsewhere (rebirth) and our merits and so on create the cooperative cause that dictate where the consciousness manifests. It cannot be said to be the same consciousness or the same person, but it is part of the same causal chain. In Tibetan Buddhism, we use the example of a mindstream, which is not to be understood as a linear path, but rather in the sense that when we look at a stream day after day, we say "that is the same stream" and yet none of the water is the same. It is an unceasing stream of change, a process rather than a result. It is both the same stream and not the same stream. So too are our minds, so too is our consciousness, and when "I" die, I am no more, but another "I" will arise, distinct but part of that same mindstream, that same unceasing stream of consciousness that has never stopped since we were born and will not stop after we die. A large part of this hinges on the understanding that "I" in terms of being a separate, distinct, differentiated being is entirely illusory. The concept that we're distinct beings is a fabrication. So when this particular string of consciousness which I call "I" ceases, another will arise, but in terms of "consciousness" in general, it continues, only changed slightly. Our cells die and new cells are born every day, not one single cell of your original body exists today as it did the day you were born, yet we refer to this as our "self." Similarly, when a being dies and another being is born, the process continues with only the smallest details changing. If we consider ourselves with right view to simply be the union of appearance and emptiness, then we are merely a small component of the much larger universe, all of which has the same nature of being emptiness. Therefore our death and rebirth does not belong to us as a distinct entity - that's illusory to begin with. This body dies, another body is born. This body's death creates causes and conditions sufficient for another body's birth, with the unceasing flow of primordial consciousness manifesting in that new body. Our specific merit and karma contributes to determine whether that being will be born a human, a god, a hell being, an animal, whatever. It is simply cause and effect, and the hangup comes from the idea that "you" and "I" are distinct entities. We're not, there is nothing intrinsically real that separates us, merely appearance.
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Aug 31, 2013 16:36
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