#Buddhism and the #Uncertainty #Principle of #Nowness
There is no hotter topic in Buddhism these days, or New Age-y esoteric philosophy, than nowness—the Eternal Now, the Infinite Present Moment, etc.—not even mindfulness nor lovingkindness. This is at least partly due to Eckhart Tolle’s popularization of the topic, no doubt, but neither is there any doubt about where he got it, either—Buddhism and/or Hinduism…
So I’ve got two questions in relation to this subject: 1) What exactly are we talking about, anyway, and 2) why is it so popular? Well, part of the problem with this issue is that it’s never really been defined, exactly what’s being referred to, as if that should be obvious, and any discussion would destroy some of its mystery, and hence some of its power, SO: I’m going to do the same, for the time being, and head to question number two… (More …)
Buddhism is not supposed to be a religion to get all excited about in the first place, if it’s even a religion at all, but just the opposite, regarding the excitement, that is. That’s Christianity, or Hinduism, singing and dancing, playing organ and banging drums, maybe even a guitar or two, if you’re lucky, and a bottle of wine, singing about Adam and Eva, “In a Gadda da Vida”…
Karma is one of the major tenets of Buddhism, and one of the most misunderstood. The issue of past lives I’ll save for later; first let’s deal with this life. The basic idea is that if you do good things, then good things will happen to you. And if you have to take at least one religious tenet on pure faith to qualify as religious, then I’ll take that one, which I firmly believe, that by doing good, the world is thereby incrementally vaccinated against evil. Thus karma is frequently called the law of ’cause and effect’, BUT…
The Smiling Pilgrim are discussing. 
One of the first glimpses of consciousness—self-consciousness—for any self-respecting member of angst-ridden rebellious existential youth is that, “life has no meaning.” And apparently that is a rite of passage from adolescence into adulthood, as palpable as puberty, as awkward as rolled-up jeans, as unforgiving as suicide–or so I hear…
So now that I’ve self-identified as Buddhist for almost a year, I figure I know pretty well the heart and mind of the Buddha, and so should begin second-guessing him, in order to clarify a few points that remain confusing after 2560 years (cue snickers). Okay, so here goes: everybody knows the Four Noble Truths, right? 1) The prevalence of suffering; 2) the cause of suffering: craving; 3) the cure for suffering: don’t do that, and 4) the way to accomplish that: follow the Middle Path, avoidance of extremes… 
Christianity is the only modern religion based on emotion, rather than reason, submission, devotion or some other. Christians apparently LIKE suffering—read: passion—and so don’t avoid it but seek it out, with daredevil stunts, extreme sports, torrid romances and hot hot bodies, buffed and tanned and laid in the sand, for hours at the time, until well-done…
No, I’m not a Trump apologist, though I know a few of his supporters, and they’re not bad people, not necessarily, though there are always a few baddies on both sides. I have yet to ‘un-friend’ anyone simply because they’re a Trump supporter, though that possibility rises in direct proportion to the extent that they choose to talk about it. When you’re from Mississippi you learn to choose your words carefully, if not STFU entirely, which is my greatest lesson so far from Buddhism: we all talk too much and say too little…
streaming consciousness... 
quantumpreceptor 12:27 am on June 12, 2017 Permalink |
Hello HK,
Great blog I very much appreciate your take on the uncertainty principle it rings very true for me.
However I might add that thoughts are definitely allowed in meditation. There are teachings that tell us not only that they cannot or should not be avoided and that they actually can be used as tools on the way. A good example would be this. You are meditating and you have a thought that keeps coming back and distracting you from your object of meditation. What to do? Focus on this thought and watch where it comes from, where it stays for a while, and where it goes when it ceases to exist. In this way the thought becomes the object of meditation and you will realize that you cannot hold on to the thought any better than anything else. This is explained in detail by the 9 th Karmapa in the book “ocean of deep meaning”
Have an amazing day,
QP
hardie karges 12:42 am on June 12, 2017 Permalink |
Thx, good to hear from you…