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No one can understand

Ivy100

SF Supporter
#1
I have been on SF for a long time, although not always that often. It was a great help during some dark times, but now even here I don't know if anyone can understand. For the past year there was a man in my life who made things better for me in many ways. He dropped me, out of the blue and with no explanation. I feel ridiculous for grieving this relationship. I am old, alone, and never should have let myself get involved to begin with. Just a little time feeling more fully human and now it is harder than ever to live in a dark and isolated place.
 

LumberJack

Huggy Bear 🐻 u r warned!
SF Supporter
#3
I can’t say I understand, but I do know what it’s like to feel so awful that I can’t imagine anyone else could ever feel as bad as I do. I have since been exposed to evidence of the contrary. The human condition is mostly consistent across individuals. Including the feelings of being misunderstood, and the worst ā€œinsert bad thing hereā€ in the entire world.
 

Ivy100

SF Supporter
#4
It was good that you were given the opportunity, for a year you continued on with happiness, surely you will continue to find more of that in life.
Thanks for your kind words but I am too old and I was an idiot to think that anyone could want me know. The task is, I guess, to stop wanting. Kinda Buddhist but I don't know how yet.
 

ib4uib

Well-Known Member
#5
Thanks for your kind words but I am too old and I was an idiot to think that anyone could want me know. The task is, I guess, to stop wanting. Kinda Buddhist but I don't know how yet.
Not sure I understand the 'old' bit?
A teenager is old to a toddler, middle aged is old to a teenager...So on and so forth!

Kind of Buddhist but I don't know how yet
reminds me of Jiddu krishnamurti, he was kind of buddhist, but said he wasn't.

Sorry to hear about your relationship, I stopped getting involved in them years ago, more trouble than there worth in my opinion!

Take care
 

Leesa

Well-Known Member
#9
Gee sorry to hear that, life is sure strange x
It wasn't for lack of trying. The first was a blind date and absolutely horrible. My friend and her husband wanted to set us up. But, she invited her and her husband, my other friend and her husband, her dad, and her sister. So there were 8 of us on this blind date. We had nothing in common and nothing to say.

Second one I didn't know was a date. I thought it was just a hang out friend thing. It was very stressful and I spent the evening trying to figure out a way to leave. Fortunately there was a cat to pet.
 

LumberJack

Huggy Bear 🐻 u r warned!
SF Supporter
#10
reminds me of Jiddu krishnamurti, he was kind of buddhist, but said he wasn’t
Buddhism does not have a monopoly on the dharma. All the wisdom traditions I have studied (meaning, systems of thought and investigation aimed at direct experience of reality), agree pretty much exactly once you follow it far enough.

I quite adore Krishnamurti as a Philosopher. He has a short book called, ā€œeducation and the meaning of life.ā€ I think I came across it during the time in between high school and college, when I was thinking about what to major in. It gave me a framework, at least, to think about education as something that happens everywhere, not just within academia.

He’s also the source of a favorite quote of mine: ā€œIt is no sign of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.ā€
 

ib4uib

Well-Known Member
#11
Buddhism does not have a monopoly on the dharma. All the wisdom traditions I have studied (meaning, systems of thought and investigation aimed at direct experience of reality), agree pretty much exactly once you follow it far enough.

I quite adore Krishnamurti as a Philosopher. He has a short book called, ā€œeducation and the meaning of life.ā€ I think I came across it during the time in between high school and college, when I was thinking about what to major in. It gave me a framework, at least, to think about education as something that happens everywhere, not just within academia.

He’s also the source of a favorite quote of mine: ā€œIt is no sign of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.ā€
I totally agree, I've just spent months over on a Buddhist forum trying to say exactly the same thing.

Krishnamurti is great, I've watched hours of his stuff, then I found U. G. Krishnamurti and thought they were related, but though they met in the younger days and share the same surname, they aren't related.
He is worth a watch, but he does come over as kind of angry lol.

I like the quote you posted by Krishnamurti, I like a lot of his quotes. Alan Watts always hits home for me when I find myself over thinking!

58244-Alan-Watts-Quote-A-person-who-thinks-all-the-time-has-nothing-to (1).jpg
 

LumberJack

Huggy Bear 🐻 u r warned!
SF Supporter
#12
I totally agree, I've just spent months over on a Buddhist forum trying to say exactly the same thing.
They are not grasping the dharma if they believe it is only found in Buddhism, because Siddhartha himself said as much in a specific sutra (teachings by the Buddha told as conversations).

I would have to dig up the reference, but it’s the one that starts out with the awakened one heading into a particular village, and the villagers expressed fatigue with the number of wandering teachers showing up. So they asked why should we listen to you? The Buddha answered along the lines of ā€œTry it out. If it leads to less suffering, keep it. Else, discard it.ā€

I interpret this as a teaching that, the truth is the truth, regardless of the teacher. I would show this by an illustration. Does math change if it’s taught in India vs Egypt or here in modern times? The Pythagorean Theorem works or it doesn’t. A teacher who denies this fact is probably very wrong about other important things.
 
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ib4uib

Well-Known Member
#13
The Buddha answered along the lines of ā€œTry it out. If it leads to less suffering, keep it. Else, discard it.ā€
I've read that reference as well, and they're certainly not grasping it. They're just reading all the scriptures and regurgitating them, parrot fashion. Then convincing themselves they'll reach Nirvanna, where they're not born into life anymore.
But again trying to control what I call consciousness, and what other people call the soul, is about as much use as trying to tie your shoe laces up in a revolving doorway, it's nice to think that when we're dead that's the end of all the suffering, but consciousness is un-killable, it only attaches itself to life to experience life, and though I could go into my own opinions of why this is, I'd probably crash the server as it will use up all their bandwidth with words.
This is what I was trying to get at on the Buddhist forum, but they're so busy arguing over what is right and wrong in the suttas, I ended up falling out with them all, I'll let the dust settle and go back in later this year! I may even self promote myself to a Bhante lol.

I only learned about the Buddha last year when I came across a stone ornament in a garden with birds perched on it. That was the only thing that caught my attention. And it was then that I read about how he lived in a wealthy family in a palace, having everything he could ever wish for. The servants kept all the flowers fresh, and he was sheltered from old age and death, never having a day without getting whatever he wanted. Yet, he walked away from all of that and spent six years seeking the truth of life, or enlightenment, as they call it.

The first thing he saw when he left the palace was an old man, and that threw him completely. He spent six years in what sounds like a complete nightmare, becoming so thin that they say his eyes were sunk so far back into his skull they looked like two deep wells.

And yet, he never went back to where he had everything in the palace; he kept going. It's a bit like that famous Winston Churchill quote: "If you're going through hell, keep going." And the Buddha did keep going.

He ended up sitting under a Bodhi tree for seven days, close to death, and only then did he have a premonition that he needed to eat. And that was his enlightenment. The first words he said to the other three who was with him were, "I'm hungry; let's get something to eat." It's said they were so disillusioned by his comment that they left him there and then, as they had expected him to say something profound about his enlightenment.

The scripture (or suttas) were written 500 years after The Buddhas death, and this is what Buddhists learn off by heart. The Buddha never even wrote them, yet I find it odd that they were written at the time Jesus was said to be about.


I would show this by an illustration.
Please do, I'll save it as a jpeg and post it on their forum when I return back there!
 

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