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Isn´t the whole salvational enterprise based on an "intervall" (J. Krishnamurti), that is, on aspiring towards the "other shore" (historical Buddha)? Is it Orwellian "double think over it"?
@@gunterappoldt3037 Aspiring towards the other shore means understanding the danger of want, aversion and attachment and simply doing the work of uprooting them. Want may motivate you at the beginning, but in time one would need to let go of that too. But what is a spiritual experience? As brad described it, he wanted to feel something special, something supermundane, a moment "wow!". But that's not what Buddhism is about. It's about uprooting desire, aversion and identification with things you think you own in order end suffering and come to a state of perfect mindfulness and equinimity.
"The "wanting" part of wanting a spiritual experience is the problem..." The wanting is called 'aspiration' and is the driving force of every practice. Every great teacher knows that its critical to the path. Aspiration is not the same as what Buddhism refers to as clinging or attachment.
Barney Miller bass line! Fun stuff. Yeah, I stopped the ‘wanting of spiritual experiences’ a long time ago. One time I remember people sharing their experiences and later was told that people felt compelled to make up something to share. They either felt left out, unworthy, etc. Spiritual experiences unexpectedly happen in the strangest of places - 99.9% of the time not in idyllic settings and expected. On another note, the Apple dongle fiasco is something I can relate to. Go Ziggy!
Love ur videos. It's funny how we are supposed to "not want or not attach" and I agree with u, as it's more about finally just giving up, and just allowing whatever happens to happen and just watch how u work and how the universe works, and who knows maybe a spiritual experience just happens sometimes ;) love that.
Dude Barry Miller was taught to me at a group home! Which I ultimately forgot how to play. As a fellow psilocybin user, my ah ha moments lead me to where I am today, still am amazed that I am alive with the wonderment that has helped carry me to where I will be. I never looked for spiritual guidance, just to stop feeling so empty. I never stopped after 3 years of undergoing incredible weird experience, it has shaped me to be better/underwhelming and be okay with with both spectrums.
The bit between 4:10 and 5:50 sounds eerily familiar if you replace "zazen" or the like with "smoking cigarettes" and "Kent State University" with "the older boys behind the garages" :)
I happened upon your page because of a friend. I’ll look deeper in another moment. Thank you for the inspiration, fellow earthling. Keep wandering. Stay free. 🙏🌀🦊
It's such a paradox. I went on this path because I was seeking a deeper understanding of this universe and my existence. Though the knowledge I seek will only come once I stop seeking.
The last part sounds like Heideggerian "pre-coursing decisiveness" (´vorlaufende Entschlossenheit´), which works by anticipating upcoming events, yet (if one is epistemo-ontologically attentive, that is) conscious of the fact that anticipation as one basic "mode of temporalizing" (´Modus des Zeitens´) almost never will be totally congruent -- at best, approximatevily "overlapping" (via constants) -- with what comes up, by "realizing itself to myself, in the way..." (Husserl), yet hoping (´verhoffen´), while "walking towards a star" (Heidegger: "Auf einen Stern zugehen", Husserl talks of the "horizon", and the "horizonal structure of consciousness, Bloch of the "principle of hope", religions unfold diverse soteriologies, also primarily as "horizons", and so forth). Buddhism somehow promises the absolute (绝对, operationalizable, e.g., as Schelling´s trying to transcend the basic subject-object divide) solution of this human dilemma (´human´, because we are much more conscious of time, since our forebears opened the box of Pandora, so to say, than most other life-forms on earth). Eihei Dôgen Kigen ("eternally in peace, hoping for the source of the Way"), on his part, unfolded in "Uji" (Being-Time, Having-Time, Sometimes) an especially zen-ish scenario. However, there is also "doubt mass", and one may critically ask: "Does it work?"
You are already that which you seek, it's the egoic mind that is in the way and feels it needs to look for it. The egoic mind is like a prism, it can never be the light it refracts, though it loves to think it can.
I literally read Sawaki Roshi every day … and that man … intuitive connection for me. On a divergent note, it’s the Soto Zen Centers that seem to be so restrictive. Totally understood it in 2020 and 2021, but not 2022. COVID is not over, but things are much better and can be done more safely. The Center near me wants people to do Sesshin in N95 masks. Didn’t appeal to me before. Doesn’t now. Just stay home! 😂
I just spent a month in Europe doing talks and sesshins with groups without masks and without any requirements for vaccinations. Everyone was fine. All that stuff that centers in the US are doing is just fake "compassion" purely for show. They do it because these Zen centers are largely supported by donations from retired wealthy donors who listen to way too much NPR, CNN, and MSNBC and demand such "safety measures" even though they rarely set foot in the centers. It's an ugly reminder of where the priorities of these Zen centers really lie.
How I Stopped Wanting Spiritual Experiences??? There is only ONE alternative to spiritual experience...and that's material experience. Thats easy...every being is having a material experience, even reptiles and slugs. Buddhism is a way upstream requiring aspiration and effort...not downstream.
"Parallax Sangha #3, Owen Cox - A reflective note for dialectic..." argued for Hegel´s more dialectic approach, which tries to overcome the common dichotomy of "material versus spiritual". Seems even more Dao-Zen to me, just saying.
@@gunterappoldt3037 "to overcome the common dichotomy of "material versus spiritual" The founder of Buddhism did not try to overcome this dualism...but some of the later Mahayana schools did through the miracle of panentheism.
