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Correction: Instead of “Still attached to this life.” (True though, but not in context of taking care of my body) I would rather write “Still determined to reach Nibbhana (at some point)”.
Thank you Yash RS, this made me see it in a new light and I should not call it sila. You’re right that it’s not immoral in that sense. I think I just want to focus my time More on dhamma.
And then, for a while, I had the wrong view that it could therefore be wrong to do something else (like cooking). A better word might be that it feels unfruitful right now.But as I said, now I’m open for that feeling to change so when I feel like it I will (and have) cooked.
And do not worry, my body feels fine and I take care of it. Still attached to this life.
Im appreciating all your answers as it gives me opportunity to develop my understanding.
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I can see that I havent expressed myself in an understandable way and will try to explain further. I am simultaneously learning about myself during this conversation. :)
I understand perfectly that I need to have a healthy body to learn and share what I Know (not what I don’t yet). That is why I said I might have to occasionally break sila if I’m to stay close to my family and help the people I owe first. Right now it feels ok to go without that much food actually. The mental suffering of breaking this is bigger than the bodily of enduring hunger, which doesn’t feel like any suffering right now.
I also just feel like eating once a day around 12 o’clock. This one is harder to Know for sure if it’s innate and it doesn’t feel like such a crime if I were to break that. I’m open for change though, I can always decide differently if a new (True) feeling would arise.
I think its perfectly ok for laymen to have a job and earn money. It may seem like I was being judgmental, which I apologize for in that case. I just mean to say that I have a natural stop sign telling me not to earn money in exchange of work anymore.
Donations are different because they are not associated with an expectation (I’m not asking for them either). I didn’t know how to express this before, even to myself, because I didn’t have the proper understanding of from Where these feelings were arising. The proper framework.
What Im trying to convey is that I have had an intuitive feeling growing for months before this realisation that seem to be in line with the “rules” that monks and nuns follow. Which is why I’m seriously considering joining a monastery. But first I feel like paying my debts with people who have been significant for me to reach this point in life by helping them back.
As I said in the first post, I can now see that I have had this quest to become wiser for a long time in life. Starting in young years. It was just a whinding road and now I can make more sense of it all.
I might seem to rush, but it’s a necessity for me to align my life as soon as possible with what I Feel is true. In truth I was quite upset when I first thought I had committed a horrible crime, but it’s getting clearer and clearer and I am calmer and calmer.
Im immensely grateful to have found your homepage, Lal. Thank you for providing this platform of knowledge for people to see what rhymes with their inner truth.
Thank you for correcting my view of the concept of Sangha. I’m sorry and I will be more mindful of my use of words. I didn’t see your answer before posting my previous message.
Money is another issue I’m struggling with. I don’t want to earn and preferably not deal with money anymore. I quit my job about a year ago and have tried to find some spark to find a new one. But seeing more and more truth in life, the thought of it seems almost disgusting and a waste of time.
Sorry if I look like Im repeating myself, I already mentioned I grew up in western society, but I want to explain that I was Not well read on specifically Buddhism or Dhamma before this so it’s been just a few weeks of trying to make sense of my sudden experience of more clarity to myself and others.
So I still experience occasional thoughts of disbelief and have to be very mindful to identify and not slip into for example vain talking. Or teaching the wrong dhamma, which I was/(am?) afraid that I did after the vipassana retreat, ascribing my increased clarity to it and teaching the method of breath meditation and body scan.
I have since sent messages to most people I talked to about the retreat to update them on my view of vipassana as taught by Goenka as an incomplete method. I hope I didn’t do irreversible damage. I suffered severe anxiety when realizing the possible repercussions of teaching the wrong dhamma.
It’s the sila of not taking what is not given. After the realization I had, Ive had this strong sense that cooking for myself would be fruitless because I would deprive others the joy of giving and that I should just wait for that urge to arise in someone else.
Also I cannot ask for a service that doesn’t come from the heart so I cannot ask for it explicitly. That is why I had a feeling it’s important to be around Sangha/“community” where you would naturally cook for each other. And Noble Sangha is important as inspiration because I need to get further on this journey.
So if I want to have food I have to cook for someone else to eat with me. The thing is that even that feels like somewhat of a waste of time as all I want to spend time on now is to understand and spread dhamma.
First of all to share with the people that I owe in my life (a lot of people!) and secondly everyone else who wants to learn. And for the people I owe, who haven’t asked to learn about dhamma, that can be to simply ask them What do you need help with and do that. If they would ask me to clean their backyard then that’s the thing.
Now that I think about it, if I were to cook it would be to enable More Noble Sangha to teach dhamma. Because when with other people I would rather spend my time helping with psychological issues/teaching dhamma (while cooking for them is no problem). :)It’s just a very big and sudden change in my view, or rather Feeling of life, that I’m trying to integrate in the best way possible. To a good part I’ve been able to explain gradually to my family and friends what’s happening, but I’ve also made misjudgments (wrong view) of what/when to share and how to express myself in front of some.
Thank you for asking that! Trying to type down what I’m feeling is a good way to understand these very things I want to make sense of.First of all, Thank you Jittananto for the advice. I have looked into the center and booked a guidance call with a monk that will happen today.
Second, I want to give a small update. Since I wrote my first message here in this thread, I have done nothing else but reading, contemplating and adhering to the best of my ability to perfect sila/“moral”. I realized that without planning for it, I’ve lived very close to a monastic life at home these days, contemplating all that I read. Only thing where I might have to break sila is to cook for exclusively myself. The thought brings me some suffering though, so it would be an inspiration to hear about examples of keeping perfect sila in life outside a monastery. The main thing being that I currently live in western society and I’m expecting to go many days hungry and some part of me is afraid of creating feelings of alienation in people. I still want to be here to help my family and wider community to find real happiness, but I don’t want them to think I joined a sect, so I might decide to break sila to not make them uncomfortable. I don’t live very close to them either so the practical aspects are still something I’m pondering on how to solve. Another option is to actually move to a monastery, but it doesn’t feel right at the moment. Now I’m thinking It might be breaking the sila occasionally that is the right thing to do..
So far I have been able to relate various texts on this page to my own life experiences and haven’t found inconsistencies or contradictions yet. There is ofc also a lot that I still don’t fully grasp and need to contemplate, but faith is growing even in the more complex subjects.
Lal, it is true what I said that I was new to the forum when I wrote my first message. I will post an explanation in my first thread.
Thank you for the reference. I will read it in time.
Thank you all for sharing!
I was inspired by your experience, Cariyaputta and what Lal wrote “Paying back previous debts is very important. These connections prevail though many lives, and can block the path to Nibbana.” and started crying and sat down to do metta directed towards all the beings in the 31 realms who possibly owe me anything, forgiving and releasing them. Then I started shaking for some while, letting it happen as I have done since it started happening occasionally since last autumn. I don’t know what it is but I feel I should just observe the shaking while it lasts.
One thing that I didn’t grasp fully was what “offering your merits” actually means and therefore I didn’t do it this time, but of course I would like to pay as much of my own debts in the future.
On the breath, I think I used more of the focus on ”cooling down”/nothingness before the course. That was the one that felt/feels more intuitive now that Im aware. I also read several other texts which have given me what I feel like is greater insight.
I now feel like your teaching is purer and more complete and therefore I might have promoted Vipassana falsely among friends and family, therefore “missing the shot”. Have I?
It also led to a new insight that after seeing Some truths, I was thinking it was ok to go against what I knew to be true for a little while just to relieve some temporary, personal suffering by creating a bit more suffering. For example continue to apply for jobs that I didn’t really want (lying) and in general failing to live a “perfect” life according to my new truth, trying to integrate my life before realizing certain things with the one after. I said I wasn’t done suffering, not really understanding How much suffering this could possibly create in the “eternal”/eternal future. Now I think I understand that I might go to apaya next and I felt intense fright for some hours. What made me think it’s ok, was the thought that if life is impermanent, then don’t we all eventually find nibbhana?
This seems like a paradox to me, that the suffering is Immense and at the same time everything is fine (I dont know how I know that, but I had that strong feeling once in meditation). Then why do we even feel it’s that important to reach nibbhana?
I think it’s because we love, I love. We are love and want everyone to know that. This is what’s making me sad here, that I feel like I missed a chance to make myself and other beings happy.
I feel like I’m oscillating between deep insight and illusion which makes me unsure of what is true and how to live properly. I get very bad conscience when I do something that goes against what I think is right at the moment, but then that “right at the moment” is not always clear and then I get bad conscience for past actions where I should have known better. Feels impossible.
I have very practical questions like how do I get food when I feel I can’t ask for it and don’t feel I should prioritize it over dhamma but feel the desire for it? Right now I have difficulty seeing the highest actions.
Sorry for being all over the place with my thoughts but I’m thinking that my back and forth probably gives a pretty accurate picture of the current state. And I believe that you understand better than I do. Thank you for giving me more food for thought!
Yes, people are first to observe the breath as it Is, to gain concentration. If possible I would like to get some personal guidance over private email (as I sent you).
I have now had some further insights which make me want to erase this post since I think I wrote it with wrong view. I don’t want it to sound like I support Vipassana as Im now thinking it might lead on a stray path, as it might have with me. Im saying might because at this moment Im very unsure about anything and everything and I don’t want anyone else to get hurt in the process.
