Comments on: Sitting, Full of Shit

By: Bartek

Bartek — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 18:43:39 +0000

I think there is many type of boredom. Mayby it depends how people react on boredom.
In this link is different perspective on the phenomenon of boredom
http://www.thirdage.com/body-mind/boredom-can-be-hazardous-to-your-health

By: sometimes

sometimes — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 19:47:35 +0000

Ananda, nice work.

By: Ananda

Ananda — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 17:50:00 +0000

Proverbs

What so ever a man sits full of
That will he defecate
________________________________________________

I was just bored to death or bored stiff, I guess! I’m not telling.

A little wine
Infused with herbs
Of a bye gone time

Break some bread
And let the fungi
Tickle your head

A Eucharist at play
In a ritual day
As this and that
Lost its way

O to wish
That I was bored
A notion
So self absorbed

Then I could
Finally be
Something other
Than me

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 22:51:12 +0000

Tom (#44):

Thanks for the comments about the Ordinary Mind folk. They were kind of my last attempt at practice, but it’s been impossible for me to develop any sort of daily practice. I wonder, though, is there a way to practice non-buddhism that has both daily, dare i say, ritual component that cuts directly into the ideology of it all and is empowering one to initiate social change?

Have you ever heard of Nipponzan Myohoji? They are a monastic order that came out of the Nichiren traditions. Their practices is focused directly in social justice. They walk and they chant. I never really considered practicing buddhism until i saw them at a school of the americas protest. pretty cool, i thought. they’ve focused a lot on nuclear proliferation as well. They seem to have a daily buddhist practice that IS speaking truth to power.

http://www.dharmawalk.org

By: Tom Pepper

Tom Pepper — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 20:38:07 +0000

Re #42: Self psychology, Ezra Bayda, Joko Beck are all producing ideologies meant to produce better-functioning capitalist subjects. Sometimes, they even succeed. This would be fine if they always began with “this is just for the fortunate and wealthy; we will teach you to adjust your subjectivity to be a properly functioning capitalist subject unbothered by thought, truth, or the suffering of the billions who produce your wealth and privilege; if you want to understand truth or to see reality as it is, this is not the teaching for you, we deal only in delusion and emotions.” How many followers would they have if they did this? But only and ideology that can admit it is an ideology is capable of reducing suffering in the world and allowing people to think, and think about the truth. These “enlightened” teachers with no enlightened disciples are in exactly this dilemma: if you reveal to your student that you are producing illusions and calling them truths, she will be “enlightened” too, but will she still accept your teaching? If you don’t know that you are producing ideology and calling it truth, how can you possibly “enlighten” anyone?

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 20:28:08 +0000

I always found zazen to be utter boredom and nausea inducing. Seriously.

42: My experience is that teachers are geniuses at tiptoeing around emotions and/or manipulative of them…hence the enlightened teacher with no progeny. that being said, i read a quote by joke beck that she had students she was finished with. i guess they ‘got it’…Ezra got it and then Joko decided he didn’t so arbitrary these enlightened ones.

By: jere14

jere14 — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 19:28:05 +0000

#39. I stand by my words. I have been to enough sanghas to see the pervasive suffering and especially confusion that abounds. Why did Sensei Rappaport liken a Buddhist monastery to a dysfunctional family? The only aspect of Buddhism that I see helpful is residing in difficult emotions such as proscribed by Joko Beck. Every Buddhist student, teacher, or author will run from such a practice, no one else other than Ezra Bayda even mentions it. Buddhism considers itself an ultimate healing technology but so much is based on very old psychological principles. Buddhism has largely ignored modern Somatic and Self psychologies that have worked out means of healing emotional problems. As far as “tasting the fruit”, from my perspective such is either a lie or a hallucination. How can you have an enlightened teacher with not one student that has made any tangible advances, this is not uncommon in many sanghas. Such teachers come into practice with no advantages, and suddenly they are enlightened and stand apart from every else. Something is wrong here on the face of it. The false depiction of ones enlightenment and proclamation that others can obtain it if they are your students is no less than criminal in my mind.

By: Glenn Wallis

Glenn Wallis — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:01:54 +0000

“The periods of transition that separate consecutive adaptations …represent the perilous zones in the life of the individual, dangerous, precarious, painful, mysterious, and fertile, when for a moment the boredom of living is replaced by the suffering of being.”

Beckett on Proust via Alan.

By: Matthias Steingass

Matthias Steingass — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:20:27 +0000

re #39:

Boredom is the direct opposite of buddhist practicte!!

I really hope so, really!

By: "Phra" Michael

"Phra" Michael — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 09:32:39 +0000

@ Jere14 and those sharing his opinion:
Coming into this discussion a little late, i just want to make a short but clear statement: Saying what Jere14 says equals talking about a fruit never tasted. Prof Miller hasn’t got the faintest idea of what he is talking about, which can be seen in his ignorance of Dependent Origination. Noone who hasn’t had at least some knowledge and vision of Dependent Origination, the basic principle od buddhist teaching, can give a half-way reasonable statement about Buddhist practice and the basic idea behind it. I myself feel sorry for those who ignore that in psycho-therapy loads of the insight of the Buddha can be found.
Half-knowledge is, here again, the direct way of blaming ONE path (perhaps not the only one) to the cessation of suffering.

May You all be happy and free from suffering )
Metta (Loving-kindness) 2 U
“Phra” Michael
PS: Boredom is the direct opposite of buddhist practicte !!