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I was more humouring the situation there and adding some color, but for sure, the ego is incredibly powerful and deep seated. I firmly believe what I had initia

I was more humouring the situation there and adding some color, but for sure, the ego is incredibly powerful and deep seated. I firmly believe what I had initially was profound, and was hijacked by the ego (and this is a very common happening to anyone on a spiritual journey of some sort).

mtalantikite 4y ago
The best book I've read on this topic is Chögyam Trungpa's "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" [1]. He's very clear in pointing out how ego tries to get involved in everything. It sounds like you may have had an experience, to some extent, of dwelling in the union of wisdom and emptiness or what some call dharmadhatu [2]. It's not a teaching I encountered until I started practicing Vajrayana, as Theravada teachers don't often emphasize the teachings on sunyata. It's something you'll encounter in Mahamudra and Dzogchen teachings. [1] https://www.shambhala.com/cutting-through-spiritual-materialism-458.html https://www.shambhala.com/cutting-through-spiritual-material... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmadhatu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmadhatu
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > ... the union of wisdom and emptiness ... Ah, the extent that some people will go through to avoid acknowledging God. It's like some people take stubborn pleasure in being purposely nihilistic and strenuously denying all that's good about the world. How this can be part of a supposedly spiritual practice, I just can't understand.
  - cybervaz 4y ago
    They think they are on a journey yo self enlightenment when they're actually in a very dangerous road to spiritual weakness, causing damage to their souls and leaving gaps to be used by entities that they'll not feel any pleasure of knowing. That sense of impeding doom is nothing more than those spiritual entities oppressing with overwhelming power them by those gaps. We are locked out of that world for a reason. The safe means to get unlocked is by getting your soul to borrow the power of God and slowly expose yourself to such world. Other than that, self enlightenment is just wishful thinking of empty vessels.
    - DontchaKnowit 4y ago
      Word. The more I explore the the world of occult practices throughout history the more I am convinced that it is always an excercise in self destruction. Our intentions, understanding, morality, sense of self, sense of direction, is so frail. A man who believes he can manufacture these things for himself (which is, in my opinion, wfundamentally what occultists are doing) is doomed to spiritual sufferring.
  - akomtu 4y ago
    The original term behind "emptiness" is a lot richer than this english word. That's why many books leave those words as is, e.g. rig-pa. "Emptiness" of your mind means something like a thin soap bubble around you. This bubble acts as a lens, it can enlarge arbitrary things, it can create stable patterns on its surface, and all that is useful, but it blocks whatever is outside the bubble. In its natural state it would be a perfect invisible sphere, letting you see outside: this union of clarity and emptiness creates wisdom. You are still going to use this bubble as a whiteboard for your thoughts, but you'll also know how to see thru it. The concept of emptiness applies to material world in general: the western science calls it space-time, the idea that any thing can turn into any other thing, for both are fundamentally just motions of energy that has no natural shape. Buddhism tries to teach this basic idea in different terms. For some reason that I don't quite understand, the founders of the three religions had fragmented the truth: buddhism teaches wisdom, christianity teaches love and islam teaches action - the three aspects of the spirit. Perhaps they thought that mixing everything into one bag would be too difficult to grasp, or maybe they hope it will make the peoples collaborate to assemble the pieces.
    - elbear 4y ago
      Buddhism also teaches love. The Heart Practices are an example.
  - mtalantikite 4y ago
    It's quite common to first encounter the teachings on emptiness (sunyata) and be confused into thinking it's about nihilism. However, nihilism is considered one of the two extreme views that leads to suffering in Buddhism -- the other being eternalism -- and both are explicitly argued against. Thich Nhat Hanh has a great book that helps clarify the teachings on sunyata [1]. I also would point out that if anything Buddhism is life-affirming and immensely hopeful, not denying what's good in the world. It teaches that there's a way out of suffering right here and right now, and it's available to every being without exclusion. The fourth noble truth is the spiritual practice to make that happen. Every meditation session in Mahayana and Vajrayana lineages have the common preliminaries, which includes love and compassion for all beings. [1] https://plumvillage.org/books/the-other-shore/ https://plumvillage.org/books/the-other-shore/
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- anonymousnotme 4y ago
  Had this tab open, should have responded several days ago, not sure that this will help anybody now. Michael Singer's Books have been very helpful to me so far. The whole problem seems to be one's ego and how to deal with it. https://untetheredsoul.com/untethered-soul https://untetheredsoul.com/untethered-soul https://untetheredsoul.com/living-untethered https://untetheredsoul.com/living-untethered I also found eckhart Toll's book "A New Earth" are also helpful: https://eckharttolle.com/books/ https://eckharttolle.com/books/ I found "A New Earth" better/more details than "Power of Now" probably because it was written later and I read it later.

mtalantikite 4y ago

The best book I've read on this topic is Chögyam Trungpa's "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" [1]. He's very clear in pointing out how ego tries to get involved in everything. It sounds like you may have had an experience, to some extent, of dwelling in the union of wisdom and emptiness or what some call dharmadhatu [2]. It's not a teaching I encountered until I started practicing Vajrayana, as Theravada teachers don't often emphasize the teachings on sunyata. It's something you'll encounter in Mahamudra and Dzogchen teachings. [1] https://www.shambhala.com/cutting-through-spiritual-materialism-458.html https://www.shambhala.com/cutting-through-spiritual-material... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmadhatu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmadhatu

zozbot234 4y ago
> ... the union of wisdom and emptiness ... Ah, the extent that some people will go through to avoid acknowledging God. It's like some people take stubborn pleasure in being purposely nihilistic and strenuously denying all that's good about the world. How this can be part of a supposedly spiritual practice, I just can't understand.
- cybervaz 4y ago
  They think they are on a journey yo self enlightenment when they're actually in a very dangerous road to spiritual weakness, causing damage to their souls and leaving gaps to be used by entities that they'll not feel any pleasure of knowing. That sense of impeding doom is nothing more than those spiritual entities oppressing with overwhelming power them by those gaps. We are locked out of that world for a reason. The safe means to get unlocked is by getting your soul to borrow the power of God and slowly expose yourself to such world. Other than that, self enlightenment is just wishful thinking of empty vessels.
  - DontchaKnowit 4y ago
    Word. The more I explore the the world of occult practices throughout history the more I am convinced that it is always an excercise in self destruction. Our intentions, understanding, morality, sense of self, sense of direction, is so frail. A man who believes he can manufacture these things for himself (which is, in my opinion, wfundamentally what occultists are doing) is doomed to spiritual sufferring.
- akomtu 4y ago
  The original term behind "emptiness" is a lot richer than this english word. That's why many books leave those words as is, e.g. rig-pa. "Emptiness" of your mind means something like a thin soap bubble around you. This bubble acts as a lens, it can enlarge arbitrary things, it can create stable patterns on its surface, and all that is useful, but it blocks whatever is outside the bubble. In its natural state it would be a perfect invisible sphere, letting you see outside: this union of clarity and emptiness creates wisdom. You are still going to use this bubble as a whiteboard for your thoughts, but you'll also know how to see thru it. The concept of emptiness applies to material world in general: the western science calls it space-time, the idea that any thing can turn into any other thing, for both are fundamentally just motions of energy that has no natural shape. Buddhism tries to teach this basic idea in different terms. For some reason that I don't quite understand, the founders of the three religions had fragmented the truth: buddhism teaches wisdom, christianity teaches love and islam teaches action - the three aspects of the spirit. Perhaps they thought that mixing everything into one bag would be too difficult to grasp, or maybe they hope it will make the peoples collaborate to assemble the pieces.
  - elbear 4y ago
    Buddhism also teaches love. The Heart Practices are an example.
- mtalantikite 4y ago
  It's quite common to first encounter the teachings on emptiness (sunyata) and be confused into thinking it's about nihilism. However, nihilism is considered one of the two extreme views that leads to suffering in Buddhism -- the other being eternalism -- and both are explicitly argued against. Thich Nhat Hanh has a great book that helps clarify the teachings on sunyata [1]. I also would point out that if anything Buddhism is life-affirming and immensely hopeful, not denying what's good in the world. It teaches that there's a way out of suffering right here and right now, and it's available to every being without exclusion. The fourth noble truth is the spiritual practice to make that happen. Every meditation session in Mahayana and Vajrayana lineages have the common preliminaries, which includes love and compassion for all beings. [1] https://plumvillage.org/books/the-other-shore/ https://plumvillage.org/books/the-other-shore/
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
anonymousnotme 4y ago
Had this tab open, should have responded several days ago, not sure that this will help anybody now. Michael Singer's Books have been very helpful to me so far. The whole problem seems to be one's ego and how to deal with it. https://untetheredsoul.com/untethered-soul https://untetheredsoul.com/untethered-soul https://untetheredsoul.com/living-untethered https://untetheredsoul.com/living-untethered I also found eckhart Toll's book "A New Earth" are also helpful: https://eckharttolle.com/books/ https://eckharttolle.com/books/ I found "A New Earth" better/more details than "Power of Now" probably because it was written later and I read it later.