What Experience have you had?

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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ardy
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What Experience have you had?

Post by ardy »

I am amazed by the discussions here, but wonder sometimes about the work that has been done apart from writing esoteric pieces here.

I will state my poor credentials:

-Started reading philosophy around 20 years old
-Wrote poetry from 21 to today (mostly rubbish)
-Did a transcendental meditation course for 3 months in 1991
-Joined the School of Philosophy in 1994 and stayed for 5 years
-Between 1994 and 2000 meditated twice a day.
-Had a deep insight in 2000 which forced me to consider leaving work and joining a monastery.
-Decided to continue to work and abandoned meditation.
-Wrote lots of poetry in this period to 2005.
-Continued to meditate but not as intensively.
-Ran a Zen mediation group for a year.
-Life wave riding on as I get older until now!

Nothing special but I have had my moments. What moments have defined your life?
Pam Seeback
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by Pam Seeback »

When I was eight (56 years ago) I experienced two episodes of sexual molestation, one by a loved one and one by a stranger. From that moment forward, the nature of suffering and of conscience has driven my search for truth.
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ardy
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Re: What Experience have you had?

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movingalways wrote:When I was eight (56 years ago) I experienced two episodes of sexual molestation, one by a loved one and one by a stranger. From that moment forward, the nature of suffering and of conscience has driven my search for truth.
Strange that it is what sticks to you that you have to deal with. I was fiddled around with at about 8 years old, crutch rubbing etc , but I never attached much to it. He was a mate of my older brother. Buddhism states that others cannot hurt you (inside your mind), only you can hurt yourself by letting it do so. Still that may be fine for the Buddha, but the rest of us dance to a different tune.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

ardy wrote:Nothing special but I have had my moments. What moments have defined your life?
Instead of what I just deleted, and was not really answering your question, I prefer now to say that I don't know which experiences were defining in any way. Personally I believe that whatever is needed in terms of experience is already there from perhaps even the beginning of life or as a very young child, like some fundamental orientation. It's like that parable of the talents in the Gospels: everyone who has will be given, and he will have abundance, but from him who doesn't have, even that which he has will be taken away.
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by Pam Seeback »

ardy wrote:
movingalways wrote:When I was eight (56 years ago) I experienced two episodes of sexual molestation, one by a loved one and one by a stranger. From that moment forward, the nature of suffering and of conscience has driven my search for truth.
Strange that it is what sticks to you that you have to deal with. I was fiddled around with at about 8 years old, crutch rubbing etc , but I never attached much to it. He was a mate of my older brother. Buddhism states that others cannot hurt you (inside your mind), only you can hurt yourself by letting it do so. Still that may be fine for the Buddha, but the rest of us dance to a different tune.
Knowing you cannot be hurt does not negate the questioning of why the will commits acts it knows has a good chance of causing suffering in another. It was the why of evil that drove my seeking. At no time did I feel like a victim or like damaged goods.
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

movingalways wrote: It was the why of evil that drove my seeking.
Do you think the evil, as event, was necessarily for the why to arise? Or were you such a questioning child that this was just the next big and important question you couldn't ignore?
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ardy
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by ardy »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
ardy wrote:Nothing special but I have had my moments. What moments have defined your life?
Instead of what I just deleted, and was not really answering your question, I prefer now to say that I don't know which experiences were defining in any way. Personally I believe that whatever is needed in terms of experience is already there from perhaps even the beginning of life or as a very young child, like some fundamental orientation. It's like that parable of the talents in the Gospels: everyone who has will be given, and he will have abundance, but from him who doesn't have, even that which he has will be taken away.
Very true D, but you have to get to a certain level to see this fundamental knowledge that has always been there. Have you done any of the 'normal' searching work?

"The Way is not difficult; only there must be no wanting or not wanting." and so the battle goes on from there...
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ardy
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by ardy »

movingalways wrote:
ardy wrote:
movingalways wrote:When I was eight (56 years ago) I experienced two episodes of sexual molestation, one by a loved one and one by a stranger. From that moment forward, the nature of suffering and of conscience has driven my search for truth.
Strange that it is what sticks to you that you have to deal with. I was fiddled around with at about 8 years old, crutch rubbing etc , but I never attached much to it. He was a mate of my older brother. Buddhism states that others cannot hurt you (inside your mind), only you can hurt yourself by letting it do so. Still that may be fine for the Buddha, but the rest of us dance to a different tune.
Knowing you cannot be hurt does not negate the questioning of why the will commits acts it knows has a good chance of causing suffering in another. It was the why of evil that drove my seeking. At no time did I feel like a victim or like damaged goods.
The cause is their work, the why is yours. Who is guilty and who is innocent has no clear answer when you delve into it. Evil and goodness seems to occupy our stage at all times in various amounts. Wonder what the balance is sometimes. Where I grew up several fathers put one guy into hospital for a week for 'playing around' with his daughter. These days the fathers would be locked up and he would be let go. Where is the good and evil in that? Nowhere! it is just a continual swirling soup of ideas we carry around at different times, a bit like fashions.
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

ardy wrote:you have to get to a certain level to see this fundamental knowledge that has always been there.
Clarity only arrives by clearing up. Only then it's seen that it already was there all along and I don't mean some esoteric nonsense like higher consciousness but really that you're still doing what you've been doing already your whole life while calling it "my life", "the world" and "existence". It's like realizing one has always been moving furniture and changing garments but still is living in the same shit brick house.
Have you done any of the 'normal' searching work?
Luckily I've largely avoided the fairly self-absorbed world of New Age, Zen, Mediation and attempts to Westernize some Eastern culture and thinking. In that sense I've never been "seeking" anything in the cosmic sense, although there's always been a lot of curiosity. My younger years I've spent on Christianity: study, prayer, healing, community, outreach etc. That was based on the surprisingly sane assumption that this was "all a given" like a truth that cannot help but to arise in a righteous man. But that was also because I grew up in that culture and it became just one particular road to follow, explore, walk through, examine and understand. At some point the desire can rise to understand the ignorance and evils in the people you would least expected it from - and that can become a real challenge, a question mark over ones ability to trust. My own thoughts and serious doubts, amplified and affirmed by reading Nietzsche and some Eastern material provided enough shaping to abandon that path and follow a different, narrower one. After that some vivid experimentation with introspection, unguided mediation, intuition and a few times entheogenic drugs (MDA derivatives especially had an impact) helped me to get past a whole lot of ignorance about my self and the world. But turning the mind towards existential philosophy like promoted on this forum I still see generally as the best path when combined with inquiry, simplicity of life and patience. When the mind is ready, any truth carrying source can suddenly appear like a blast. But it's a bit deceiving, there's a lot of preparation there and the "blast" is not necessary the best thing. Often suffering still follows in its wake.

When I wrote about it "already being there", I really meant the inclination and love for truth, reason, wisdom and practicing it in every situation. All the rest is just fruit growing when the seasons allow for it. This is my protest against all "attempts" at breaking through, looking for "those moments" or alternation as it seems like the wrong way around because only self knowledge opens doors and the foundation for that is already laid in the times from way before we can remember.
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ardy
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by ardy »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
ardy wrote:you have to get to a certain level to see this fundamental knowledge that has always been there.
Clarity only arrives by clearing up. Only then it's seen that it already was there all along and I don't mean some esoteric nonsense like higher consciousness but really that you're still doing what you've been doing already your whole life while calling it "my life", "the world" and "existence". It's like realizing one has always been moving furniture and changing garments but still are living in the same shit brick house.
Have you done any of the 'normal' searching work?
Luckily I've largely avoided the fairly self-absorbed world of New Age, Zen, Mediation and attempts to Westernize some Eastern culture and thinking. In that sense I've never been "seeking" anything in the cosmic sense, although there's always been a lot of curiosity. My younger years I've spent on Christianity: study, prayer, healing, community, outreach etc. That was based on the surprisingly sane assumption that this was "all a given" like a truth that cannot help but to arise in a righteous man. But that was also because I grew up in that culture and it became just one particular road to follow, explore, walk through, examine and understand. At some point the desire can rise to understand the ignorance and evils in the people you would least expect it to do so - and that can become a real challenge, a question mark over ones ability to trust. My own thoughts and serious doubts, amplified and affirmed by reading Nietzsche and some Eastern material provided enough shaping to abandon that path and follow a different, narrower one. After that some vivid experimentation with introspection, unguided mediation, intuition and a few times entheogenic drugs (MDA derivatives especially had an impact) helped me to get past a whole lot of ignorance about my self and the world. But turning the mind towards existential philosophy like promoted on this forum I still see generally as the best path when combined with inquiry, simplicity of life and patience. When the mind is ready, any truth carrying source can suddenly appear like a blast. But it's a bit deceiving, there's a lot of preparation there and the "blast" is not necessary the best thing. Often suffering still follows in its wake.

When I wrote about it "already being there", I really meant the inclination and love for truth, reason, wisdom and practicing it in every situation. All the rest is just fruit growing when the seasons allow for it. This is my protest against all "attempts" at breaking through, looking for "those moments" or alternation as it seems like the wrong way around because only self knowledge opens doors and the foundation for that is already laid in the times from way before we can remember.
I can relate to what you are saying as existential philosophy seemed to 'ring' with me. "This is my protest against all "attempts" at breaking through" In the tao it is stated that to look for it is futile, to not look for it is foolish, to rely on didactic efforts is a waste of time, nothing comes from learning or discussion. Where do you jump in? Anywhere. It is very strange and too simple for our sophisticated minds to grip onto.

Introspection is something that you need to have a predisposition for, few people can sit down and say 'now I am going to do some introspection'.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

ardy wrote:In the tao it is stated that to look for it is futile, to not look for it is foolish, to rely on didactic efforts is a waste of time, nothing comes from learning or discussion. Where do you jump in? Anywhere. It is very strange and too simple for our sophisticated minds to grip onto.
And yet at the same time sophistication and subtlety of a certain kind is needed to ever get anywhere near simplicity. This also holds true in the sciences by the way. The easy, "stupid" ways always lead to complications, obscuring of these complications, mindless multiplication and contradictions. The warnings you cite from "the tao" are just a version of the general and sensible warning about how easy it is to confuse words, images and sensation with the deeper issues of existence, reality and truth.
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by Pam Seeback »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
movingalways wrote: It was the why of evil that drove my seeking.
Do you think the evil, as event, was necessarily for the why to arise? Or were you such a questioning child that this was just the next big and important question you couldn't ignore?
I questioned the why of evil before the events in question, so no, the event did not cause the why to arise. Rather, it was the intimacy of the evil (body memory) that, as you say, I just couldn't ignore. Especially the act by my loved and trusted one, the question that haunted me was: how can love of innocence and lust for innocence exist in the same consciousness?
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by Pam Seeback »

ardy wrote:
movingalways wrote:
ardy wrote:
movingalways wrote:When I was eight (56 years ago) I experienced two episodes of sexual molestation, one by a loved one and one by a stranger. From that moment forward, the nature of suffering and of conscience has driven my search for truth.
Strange that it is what sticks to you that you have to deal with. I was fiddled around with at about 8 years old, crutch rubbing etc , but I never attached much to it. He was a mate of my older brother. Buddhism states that others cannot hurt you (inside your mind), only you can hurt yourself by letting it do so. Still that may be fine for the Buddha, but the rest of us dance to a different tune.
Knowing you cannot be hurt does not negate the questioning of why the will commits acts it knows has a good chance of causing suffering in another. It was the why of evil that drove my seeking. At no time did I feel like a victim or like damaged goods.
The cause is their work, the why is yours. Who is guilty and who is innocent has no clear answer when you delve into it. Evil and goodness seems to occupy our stage at all times in various amounts. Wonder what the balance is sometimes. Where I grew up several fathers put one guy into hospital for a week for 'playing around' with his daughter. These days the fathers would be locked up and he would be let go. Where is the good and evil in that? Nowhere! it is just a continual swirling soup of ideas we carry around at different times, a bit like fashions.
I agree, it is not a matter of guilt and innocence and that each party is moved to explore the why. For me I discovered that if there is a metaphysical balance between good and evil in the universe, I have no way of knowing it or attaining to it. All I have is my knowledge of what is good and what is evil and it is up to me to send forth my will according to this knowledge. Which means that you and I do not see good and evil in the same light. Where you see them as a swirling soup, I see them as the dual nature of our conscience.
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Re: What Experience have you had?

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Movingalways wrote: "I agree, it is not a matter of guilt and innocence and that each party is moved to explore the why. For me I discovered that if there is a metaphysical balance between good and evil in the universe, I have no way of knowing it or attaining to it. All I have is my knowledge of what is good and what is evil and it is up to me to send forth my will according to this knowledge. Which means that you and I do not see good and evil in the same light. Where you see them as a swirling soup, I see them as the dual nature of our conscience."

I agree from a personal point of view, but I was referring to the continual change that sweeps through societies. Strange that 'they' claim their latest stupidity is the absolutely correct thing to do, and in 10 years it can be something entirely different. Currently: not disciplining children, green anything, PC language, support of emerging nations as if they are children, support for girls education whilst ignoring boys, preference for discussions and meetings over work, and so it goes on.
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by Pam Seeback »

ardy: I agree from a personal point of view, but I was referring to the continual change that sweeps through societies. Strange that 'they' claim their latest stupidity is the absolutely correct thing to do, and in 10 years it can be something entirely different. Currently: not disciplining children, green anything, PC language, support of emerging nations as if they are children, support for girls education whilst ignoring boys, preference for discussions and meetings over work, and so it goes on.
To live consciously and authentically, every man and woman must question for themselves what is the compassionate and logical thing to do in a given circumstance. Does everyone want to live consciously and authentically? Obviously not. I used to agonize over the unconscious choices I perceived to be rampant in the world (sexual molestation clearly being one of them) but no more. I always come back to the same wisdom - the desire to live wisely must come from within. The scripture "give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you" comes to mind.
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Re: What Experience have you had?

Post by ardy »

movingalways wrote:
ardy: I agree from a personal point of view, but I was referring to the continual change that sweeps through societies. Strange that 'they' claim their latest stupidity is the absolutely correct thing to do, and in 10 years it can be something entirely different. Currently: not disciplining children, green anything, PC language, support of emerging nations as if they are children, support for girls education whilst ignoring boys, preference for discussions and meetings over work, and so it goes on.
To live consciously and authentically, every man and woman must question for themselves what is the compassionate and logical thing to do in a given circumstance. Does everyone want to live consciously and authentically? Obviously not. I used to agonize over the unconscious choices I perceived to be rampant in the world (sexual molestation clearly being one of them) but no more. I always come back to the same wisdom - the desire to live wisely must come from within. The scripture "give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you" comes to mind.
One of the great downsides to being in the public eye. They love to unreasonably build you up, then violently rip you up. The media adopted this as a way to sell papers some time ago.
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