Suffering Revisited

[Kelly Jones]

Hi everyone,

I think it's time this forum was emptied out in a very real sense. Emptied of the nonsense culture. Emptied of the idiotic obstructiveness. Emptied of senseless postings and evasive ditherings. Emptied of the spiritually weak persons dominating here.

The Genius Forum has become a wasteland, with no relevance or spiritual power, because of the culture of idiotic obstructiveness and senseless postings. Very few young men of genuine scope visit here anymore, because they can see at a glance a great many insane and psychologically disturbed contributions.

And yet! --- it is advertised as a source of spiritual and philosophical enlightenment. Ye gods! What a horribly discouraging example it is setting. How many people is it turning off, in its current diseased state? How many has it lost us already? This place is not for people with psychiatric illnesses, or for wannabe sages, or in-between jobs. And I'm heartily sick to death of the state into which the forum has deteriorated.

So the forum needs a total clean-out.

Long-standing members with sincere intentions and ongoing commitment to the original goals of the forum, Diebert, Jupiviv, and others, have admitted the mess it's in. What are we waiting for? There's no time to lose.

The owners of the forum have clearly lost interest, and I don't blame them. While the jungle of crap that the Genius Forum now amounts to, is partly a product of their fade-out, David has also mentioned on numerous occasions the need for him to step back, to allow the next generation room to develop under their own steam. Dan has been ailing in various ways for ages. Kevin uses other venues, though he continues to pay for and administrate. So, it is obvious that the bedlam here can be put down to a lack of careful meditative discipline exercised publicly, in my own generation.

For these reasons, I am now calling for a drastic change in the forum. Machiavelli would have advised a massacre of the ex-government's most powerful figures. But true, conscious change requires thought and self-examination.

I think the best way to light a fire under the arses of the most sickly and impotent, smug posters here, and generally purge the system, is to call for a strong rededication of members to spiritual goals, and to get creating that vital elixir in yourselves. Then let's see a massive, powerful explosion of spiritual works, published here and on other internet sites. We of the next generation need to start firing up the engines.

It's not a revolution or any such thing. It's just a revitalising breath of air into the dank, reeking void of humanity. There is much to do!

Wealth, comfort, fame, honour, love, happiness, and social acceptance are but illusory flowers of imagination. They're not worth a first thought, let alone a second. Where are you, you starving and shadowy phoenixes, hidden in the corners while demons and nitwits run amok in the temples?

Come out, come out, come out, wherever you are!


Kelly Jones

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[Dennis Mahar]

The direct experience of emptiness is not conceptual.

thoughts ultimately have the substance of a summer rainbow.
empty of self nature.
you provide the meaning.

[Kelly Jones]

You are wrong, Dennis.

All things are empty of intrinsic existence, naturally including concepts, meaning, they are all part and parcel of an indivisible stream of causality.

So, first off, everything is always directly experiencing, i.e. subject to, emptiness. Directly, because "indirectly" is a nonsense.

In the second place, conscious experience of emptiness (i.e., enlightened people) are always directly experiencing it as well, and they do so when they are thinking and when they're doing anything else.

Thirdly, such people express their understanding in everything they do, conceptually or not. For instance, they are expressing it whether they're talking to others about Reality or talking about the weather.

If you can't understand this point, and you continue to show an unwillingness to engage openly, directly and frankly in discussion, then you are basically trolling the forum. You can't hang around wisdom university as an entry level student all your life. So, if that is your response, then I would ask you to head someplace else.


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[SeekerOfWisdom]

Hi everyone,

All of that because of Dennis? For the others, posting about it won't stop all the weekly crazies and trolls from creating new accounts.

[Kelly Jones]

As to the view that concepts are empty of meaning, that's more obstructive nonsense. Every one of your replies shows you don't believe such a thing. You'd be posting gibberish, like "Oo-ja - cum - spiff", or, "Wokra got dammy turgidity", otherwise. Like many of the more obviously insane posters on the Genius Forum, come to think of it....


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[Kelly Jones]

All of that because of Dennis? For the others, posting about it won't stop all the weekly crazies and trolls from creating new accounts.

No, not merely Dennis. There aren't many posters now, but Dennis is the most prolific of the culture of insanity prevailing here. He posts like an addict, and he's stuck on a low level, as well as refusing to interact openly and rationally with others. Such qualities tell the crazies they can be safe here, so I'd like to see him flash his lurid trollery elsewhere.

He's lasted as long as he has, partly from the negligence of those who know better, and partly because in a mediocre and insane culture, he's more lucid, logical and consistent than most. Not saying much, but there it is. His values aren't a million miles away from those of the Forum, but it's a superficial alignment. He basically scrolls through some key basic spiritual concepts while playing his mantra records, and this can be helpful for people trying to get the basics. But he's more a record-player than a real teacher. It's like going to any religious temple, and hearing amidst a mass of inanity a few wise words, not because the priests understand them, but because they're pushing a tradition, and haven't deleted the good stuff altogether.

The basic problem with Dennis is the problem with those priests. They aren't real teachers. They're just parrots, and extremely arrogant into the bargain. They're extremely low-level, but they think they're higher than the highest. So they block real teaching, and misdirect the unfortunate seeker.


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[jupiviv]

Jupi don’t you see that you’re the little bigot you see?

Pardon my attachment-induced logic vomiting, but according to this statement you would be the little bigot that you see me seeing you as instead of myself.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

All of that because of Dennis? For the others, posting about it won't stop all the weekly crazies and trolls from creating new accounts.

No, not merely Dennis. There aren't many posters now, but Dennis is the most prolific of the culture of insanity prevailing here. He posts like an addict, and he's stuck on a low level, as well as refusing to interact openly and rationally with others.
...
The basic problem with Dennis is the problem with those priests. They aren't real teachers. They're just parrots, and extremely arrogant into the bargain. They're extremely low-level, but they think they're higher than the highest. So they block real teaching, and misdirect the unfortunate seeker.

Couldn't agree more, someone who outright refuses to have an actual conversation even about the sentence they post over 3000 times is clearly deluded.

[Cahoot]

Jupi don’t you see that you’re the little bigot you see?

Pardon my attachment-induced logic vomiting, but according to this statement you would be the little bigot that you see me seeing you as instead of myself.

Aw jupiviv. The layers of mirror reflecting mirror can of course continue ad infinitium. I think you’ll find many folk are tolerant of your manifest and acknowledged intent of arousal through abuse.

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Bigot:

a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.

Hmm.

[Kelly Jones]

Jupiviv isn't treating you with hatred. He's being playful.


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[jupiviv]

Jupi don’t you see that you’re the little bigot you see?

Pardon my attachment-induced logic vomiting, but according to this statement you would be the little bigot that you see me seeing you as instead of myself.

Aw jupiviv. The layers of mirror reflecting mirror can of course continue ad infinitium. I think you’ll find many folk are tolerant of your manifest and acknowledged intent of arousal through abuse.

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Bigot:

a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.

Hmm.

Please bear with me as I grapple with your beautiful not-really-unlogic. When I see you as a bigot, I'm a bigot. When you see me as a bigot, I'm a bigot. When I see you seeing me seeing you instead of me as a bigot as a bigot, I'm a bigot. This can only mean that you, by your own definition of the word, have faith in the rightness of your view that I'm a bigot, and thus are a bigot (again, by your own definition and usage of that word.)

I think I understand now - you have been directly pointing to the blissful self-nature of bigotry all this while! We're all bigots! Hallelujah!

[Cahoot]

Jupiviv isn't treating you with hatred. He's being playful.


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Well duh. Of course. Aren’t we all? Or should we all be deadly serious … (Actually his style-parodies can be amusing. A good mimic. He once wrote one that left me chuckling for awhile.)

It’s all perfect, actually, when you define perfection as nothing more than a clear and unobscured apprehension of inevitability. The dualistic concept of imperfect, as the judgment, only enters the picture when faith in what should be, rather than the perfection of inevitability, becomes the gauge against which phenomena is measured.

Faith has moved mountains. It has made mountains. It accounts for much activity, some of the activity is invariable. It exists for a reason, it is a comfort.

[Dennis Mahar]

You do not understand emptiness jones.

you are acting out because you are confused in the matter

[Dennis Mahar]

Your stuff about suffering is yours seeker. Not mine.
you provide the meaning.

dependent arising

The reasoning that leads to the direct experience of emptiness runs along a track like this:

nothing exists absolutely.
suffering is relational and contingent otherwise a case for its eradication would be lost.

bliss.

[ardy]

Kelly and others.

How much dross do you have to live with to interact with someone holding real understanding?

A lifetime in most instances.

Some of the posters here do seem to have some psychological problems but that is exactly why they come here is my guess, or they are experiencing a manic phase. Any of you with a level of awareness know that the insane are drawn to you like a magnet, as they intuit that you have a solid base that they want to learn from or just hang onto.

The nutters and the pretenders are part of the territory and maybe the price you have to pay on this site to get the great interactions that happen from time to time.

Just ignore them and they will go away [unless you think you can help them in which case offer advice offline? if you feel up to it].

The totally illogical postings are amusing and brings some lightness to what can become an intellectual challenge to those of us not as smart as some of you.

If you want to have a clean out go ahead, but for me as a newcomer I am enjoying the forum and several of it's members very much.

[Kelly Jones]

You do not understand emptiness jones.

you are acting out because you are confused in the matter

Yes, so you keep repeating ad nauseam. You clearly believe you're right, but when your errors are pointed out, you refuse to respond to the points raised. You just go on repeating, "You're wrong, I'm right, everything is empty." You're a troll, Dennis.

Repeating the same spiritless mantras day after day is more trolling. Repeating mantras like "nothing exists absolutely" and "suffering is relational and contingent" has no spiritual power, because you don't apply it. It doesn't matter if the words you speak are true, if you yourself don't understand nor believe them.

Your spiritlessness shows by how restricted and jammed-up your behaviour is. Rather than being qualified to speak on the ending of suffering, you're still in the thick of it. Your relationship to your mantras is like a homeless man's to a concrete bunker, during a bushfire.

Once one has recognised the truth of all things, one can act freely and enlightenedly in everything one does. You can choose any words. You don't have to cling to the sacred ones from your authorities.


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[Kelly Jones]

The nutters and the pretenders are part of the territory and maybe the price you have to pay on this site to get the great interactions that happen from time to time.

Just ignore them and they will go away [unless you think you can help them in which case offer advice offline? if you feel up to it].

I don't think ignoring pretenders, of Dennis' kind, works at all. Spiritlessness is so widespread, that his kind actually appear plausible. He has to be tackled front-on, or else he infects others with his spiritlessness. Do-nothing Zen is a terrible disease. His words are just the kind of thing that world-weary newcomers will gravitate to, in the belief it's real Zen. And they'll have given their treasured minds to a thief.

The obvious nutters like Lox can be deleted when they become tiresome.

The totally illogical postings are amusing and brings some lightness to what can become an intellectual challenge to those of us not as smart as some of you.

If you want to have a clean out go ahead, but for me as a newcomer I am enjoying the forum and several of it's members very much.

Thanks for the feedback. We can certainly find better ways to create comical relief, than the low-grade mush or mindlessness from Kunga and Lox types, or the more subtle delusions of Dennis types.


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[Dennis Mahar]

Sophistry is useless
total avoidance.

[Kelly Jones]

Try to present a rational argument explaining how you reached your conclusions, Dennis. Simply stating your conclusion is not engaging in discussion.

If you can't do that, you're a troll.

[Dennis Mahar]

Troll?
Am I meant to be affected?

what does it mean.
a term for a speaking you don't agree with.

[Kelly Jones]

Words are meaningless, aren't they, Dennis. That's why you choose to respond with words like "Uga buga budjum udgum," instead of something more coherent.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Your stuff about suffering is yours seeker. Not mine.
you provide the meaning.

dependent arising

The reasoning that leads to the direct experience of emptiness runs along a track like this:

nothing exists absolutely.
suffering is relational and contingent otherwise a case for its eradication would be lost.

bliss.

Dennis if you were able to confront very straight forward questions your words would be worth considering.

It is a very simple question, would you still be in bliss while undergoing torture?

Are you aware of what it means if you answer, and hence you avoid it?

[Dennis Mahar]

No existent exists absolutely

[SeekerOfWisdom]

You're afraid to admit "there would be pain".

[Kelly Jones]

I think it's a mistake to treat Dennis as a rational being, Seeker. He comes across as an elderly man of some senility, with a strong crush on appearing Zennish.

Presumably it was trained into him by a reward feedback mechanism. He liked Zen ideas, and simple communication. But more than that, he liked the figure of a Zennish master. His mimicry of a conventional Zen master (not real Zen, just the modern religion) attracted people to ask him questions, and he thrived on their attention to him. Just what he wanted all along.

If you point out his errors, he starts fidgetting with the mantras awkwardly, trying to reassemble them to maintain his persona, and preserve the illusion of being knowledgeable. His entire mantra repertoire, small as it is, is based on the assumption the critiquer is unenlightened and doesn't "geddit". So, that's all he has to do: repeat the mantras as the authority, and hope the critiquer is cowed into confusion or irritation --- whereupon he crows with glee: he's right, they're wrong; they're unenlightened, because they are disturbed and agitated in mind.

If they aren't cowed, then he just keeps repeating that they're wrong. Even if they disagree with him, and point out his errors, he believes he's still right, because he assumes any lengthy disputation and non-Koan-like behaviour, doesn't tick the list of qualities in his little box of enlightenment. So he can't be moved.

Look at the fact he's been here three years or so, posting three times as much as I have in that time than I've done in seven years. And no change, no direct engagement in discussion, no response to stimuli to make progress. He's a deadweight.

I've contacted the three admins, so I'll just have to wait and see if they care to do anything about him and/or the forum administration problem. I'll give it a few days.


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