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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:20pm PT
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You just don't get it. Doesn't matter if he existed or not, doesn't matter if the Buddha existed, the myth is there for your benefit or not... it's metaphor.
"Forgive them for they know not what they do." In the face of death let go, forgive and in forgiveness is letting go... and in that is a kind of serenity. That's the wisdom of the myth.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:22pm PT
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Well, I don't know what exploring the unborn means, but if it means something to you - fair enough. It also seems that adding the requirement that 'science can't go here' seems unnecessary. If something lends meaning to your existence, why would it matter whether science was involved or not? I don't get why that would be relevant.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:24pm PT
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Yall are so wrapped up in being right you lost sight of a simple truth... Hmm, I don't think I want either of you in charge of the New Age.
This is nonsense. Double nonsense.
.....
There are a thousand ways to experience death, a thousand ways to respond to it, to come to terms with it...
and the Abrahamic way has had its place in the sun long enough. It's time it was moved over.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:27pm PT
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The crucifixion is a metaphor to you, perhaps, Paul, and I do actually 'get that', but it's not to millions of true believers. It's, as HFCS stated, a blood sacrifice.
I'd say the Romans knew exactly what they were doing - quashing a political rebellion by decapitating its leadership. The Romans could not have predicted the influence of Marcus Aurelius' Christian mother 3 centuries later, however.
Proof positive that we bend ancient teachings to suit us. We all do it.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:30pm PT
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We get it, Paul. Mythologies can be instructional. They can be inspirational. They have their place
I'll take it...
I do actually 'get that'
Yeah, I'll take that too.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:31pm PT
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I don't parse out the philosophy of yoga - I just go with it, doing what the instructors suggest. It works - I don't question why, really.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:33pm PT
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"We all must face the inevitability of death. We can look at that inevitability with a kind of anxious anticipation and eventually go kicking and “raging” into that inescapable state or we can look to the reasoned example of the Crucifixion" -Paul
LOL!
Really, our only two options?
.....
I mentioned it several years ago here. A couple books by Loyal Rue. He's also a Templeton fellow/ award winner and participant in the amazing game-changing grade A Beyond Belief 2006 seminar in La Jolla under Roger Bingham. If you're so keen on the role of mythic narrative in belief systems and their necessity you should check out his works and his lecture from this seminar, no doubt at YouTube. I'm 100% in agreement with him. He's the basis of the view that "what is" is not enough - it is insufficient - for a belief system; that "what matters" and "what works" also has to be integrated into the belief by way of a comprehensive, overarching narrative for such a system to be viable. Of course when I alluded to this years ago now, it went over like a lead balloon. But the basic principles still apply.
As far as an "actionable" narrative goes, call me a modern but I refuse to believe that we can't do better way better than one sourced 3000 years ago on the basis of a jealous wargod and his chosen people. Esp taking into account none of it's real, lol!
.....
Loyal Rue works (all about narrative's role in belief and life guidance, how it's served critically in the past, how it's lacking in modern times, and whether or not, to what extent, a new one or new ones might come about, germinate and flourish)
Amythia: Crisis in the Natural History of Western Culture
Religion is Not about God: How Spiritual Traditions Nurture our Biological Nature and What to Expect When They Fail
Everybody's Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:35pm PT
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I'd say the Romans knew exactly what they were doing - quashing a political rebellion by decapitating its leadership. The Romans could not have predicted the influence of Marcus Aurelius' Christian mother 3 centuries later, however.
Marcus Aurelius was a great stoic philosopher, if his mother was a Christian it's news to me. I believe you're referring to Constantine.
Really, our only two options?
Yes, you can hold on or let go.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:36pm PT
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The greatest release from the fear of death for me is to be found on living in the moment, which is, after all, all we have. With that view, death becomes a non-moment.
I'm glad your father died mercifully, DMT. Mine died very slowly and very horribly.
Yes, correction noted - I meant Constantine.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:43pm PT
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Yes, you can hold on or let go.
Some are so material attached to their gross physical bodies that even after the dissolution of that gross physical body
they remain behind near it in their subtle physical body as (ghost).
They can not let go and move on into a new body.
This is why cremation is used so one can give up the attachment and move on ......
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:45pm PT
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Cremation's cheaper, too.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:59pm PT
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Dignus wrote,
Graceful acceptance of death and peace with the world...
You're suggesting the above requires Abrahamic narrative or bible stories? Who's gone round the bend?
Like a few others, you're out of your depth here. At least as far as new thinking re belief in the 21st century goes.
Have at it, if the Abrahamic practices work for you.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 18, 2014 - 02:06pm PT
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LOL ....
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 18, 2014 - 02:10pm PT
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"My father died of from his 2nd round pneumonia while under care for terminal leukemia. He found the internal source of power to accept his end and he met it with peace and dignity. He was not a religious man. He never once preached to or at me. He didn't go around telling other people how to live their lives. He found ways to delight in his fellow humans, small ways to laugh and share a good moment.... If I can meet my death with half his courage and more importantly, his preparedness and acceptance?... Why I will have lived a more complete life."
You're not the only one with this sentiment around here.
Name calling are we now? Just remember how it started. And who started it (up) again.
PS, I did go back and re-read it, dignus. Your turn...
.....
With this sentiment... or this experience. Recent experience. X2.
So mind your manners.
So who am I? Just someone who's been interested in belief systems all his life in addition to science. And for that you ridicule. As you have many times in spurts over the years. There's the shame.
There is no preacherman here, either. You caricature and it's not always productive or courteous. Right back at you, then.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 18, 2014 - 02:17pm PT
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Yep. All yours, you lightweight.
hcfs, out...
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Above, dingus wrote,
Sweet jesus you are obtuse.... Tell you what preacherman, go back and read what I wrote word for word. Fak, you are hopeless.
For the record.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 18, 2014 - 02:30pm PT
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He couldn't handle you DMT. lol
He ran away ..... :-)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 18, 2014 - 02:37pm PT
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These are very worthwhile comments here because what is said seems so true to the speaker, so the drift feels honest - a welcome change from a forked-tongued world.
Tvash said: It also seems that adding the requirement that 'science can't go here' seems unnecessary. If something lends meaning to your existence, why would it matter whether science was involved or not? I don't get why that would be relevant.
I say things intentionally. The comment about not doing science, and going where science cannot go, was also a reminder that no perspective or mode of inquiry has unlimited applications. Science is discursive, and as we have seen, and as anyone can readily verify for themselves, all discursive explorations are the direct result of narrow-focused attention.
For example, if you are instructed to remain fully present but NOT pay attention to the "trees," so to speak, to keep your attention on the infinity setting as you do with a camera lens, you will not generate any discursive content. Of course with no attention training your mind will lock onto something, narrow focus and the discursive magic will flow. But when you are doing open focus work on experiencing the "forest," and ignoring the trees, and discursive commentary about said trees, then the later becomes irrelevant. What make it relevant to this discussion is it is helpful to understand where the discursive leaves off and the non-discursive pics up. Otherwise the discursive will unconsciously try and do the work, and you end up "making up your own practice," as Psp pointed out. The other thing is that this kind of talk helps us understand that the experiential adventures are not after merely personal meaning, but are after a glimpse and experience of the all, which is an objective experience having to do with existential truth above and beyond the personal meaning one might merely imagine or wrangle down for themselves. We really do have a fundamental nature, ans so does mind, in the objective sense of the word.
JL
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 02:45pm PT
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Are you guys actually arguing about the best way to die?
Some wisdom:
"Dying ain't much of a living, boy" - The High Plains Drifter
I want to die peacefully, in my sleep, like Grandpa...
...not screaming, like his 3 passengers.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 02:58pm PT
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A forest is just trees viewed at a different scale. When viewed at another scale, all forests become oxygen absorption lines.
We share a genome, so yes, I understand that there is a commonality of experience and traits among our species. At some meta-level point of view, we appear to be identical. We are all equivalent to donuts topologically, for example.
But at the finer detail of experience, we all 'make up our own practice', JL included, because one's practice lives within the individual. Dutifully follow any amount of formal training - and it's still your practice in the end. No one can or will experience it quite the way you do.
You can't know what another experiences, just as you can't know where science will tread in the future, just as you can't know what the future will bring.
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