Amos

Hello Eudaimonist, you seem to always be intruiged by this topic and I love it myself.

I should first tell you that Catholics (as I see it) love the creative sinful side of life and their apology is often just a way to ask for space and time so they can do it again until they've exhausted it.

Happiness does include material things but not our enslavement to it. I once wrote that "the true beauty of gold lies in our ability to walk away from it" and this means that we must first have collected it as if it was the end of happiness. Then, if a greater good is found the the earthly riches will become secondary and purely for our enjoyment without the need to protect what we have (as in "my poor money").

"Yes, they shall find rest from their labors for their good works [converted into worldly riches] accompany them" Rev.14:13.

Aristotle is nice to use but in the end he himself failed to reach this infinity happiness described above.

I think development of your own character is most important because it must become your teacher. Your own character is built out of the complicated web we weave during our involutionary period and in religious terms becomes the ark that must keep us afloat during our midlife crisis (the flood).

Infinity Lover

To put it in the simplest possible terms...

...our brain want's questions answered.
And it doesn't like having it's answers questioned.

If there's a demand in the body (?) interfaced to the brain, it will subsequently start producing certain substances, or transmit the desired signals.

But on a more 'thought' based scale, our brain isn't always as picky in choosing it's answers as it should be.

We can, for instance, succumb to substance usage (or abuse) up to a point, where we don't like to second guess our behaviour. (Addiction).

Or jump to conclusions... or give in to primal urges we should, technicly speaking, be capable of suppressing (like urinating all over ourselves or all over the place)... or go for the easy way out...

We're so anxious for solutions, answers, supply for our demands, that it can drive us to wiser or less wise choices.

What happens to us when we die?
Is there a certain part of us that lives on after we die?
Where did it all come from?
What does the future offer?
Who are we?
Why are we here?
How do we think?
How should we live?
What is love?
What is life?

I think we all know where the desire to know the answer to those questions has led us throughout the devolpment of both our species in general, and ourselves in particular.

(Blatantly plugging his 'word of infinity' thread in the philosophy section, and running off to hide behind his couch).


Marcel.

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: Infinity Lover ]</p>

Amos

You better hide Marcel becausewho is it that places all these questions in our head and where do those primal urges come from? If they are primal they are prior to us by nature and second to our faculty of reason.

The questions you posed all point towards a dual nature.
Why should something happen when I die?
How can something survive my death?
Things only exist in our imagination.
Only the eternal moment is real.
Don't you know who you are?
To be of purpose is to have no purpose.
Just as it takes two of us to dream so does it take two of us to think.
In life we should let love be our guide.
Love is the continuity of life.
Life is the illusion maintained by love.

Infinity Lover

The way you answer those questions are decisive for the value you ascribe to life, your sense of reality, the way you relate to yourself and others, your selfknowledge, and your attitude towards life in general.

Interesting to see how you deal with those questions. Even hiding behind my couch.

Mark_Chid

How can it be an ideal if you don't desire it. It makes no sense. Buddhism is a pile of tosh, like all other religions. Treating it differently because Buddhists are peaceful isn't justified. irrational nonsense is irrational nonsense, be it violent or peaceful.

Amos

Well, it's just philosophy and I like the extreme positions to make a point known.

Infinity Lover

I can't say that I can see, for instance, wearing standard issue robes and matching bold heads as the part of any solution, and I only have a very vague understanding of Budhism.

Perhaps desiring not to desire isn't the most suitable way to put it into words. Personally I'd translate it to eliminating the element of expectation.

I have learned that expectations are potential disapointments, and that an expectation of result can negatively impact preformance. Considering results are the outcome of your preformance, expecting is a way to canibalize your efforts. Expectations (the desire for a specific outcome) can basicly be replaced by aspirations to cut down on that factor.

Because you desire an outcome that won't disapoint you, you're taking expectation out of the equation, but with a specific desire as the motive for doing so.

The intent do apply yourself, regardless of outcome. That way you get your kicks from the knowledge that you gave it an honest whack, and whatever progress you've made. And finding enjoyment in what life offers you, rather than getting hung up on what you're supposedly lacking.


[ September 06, 2002: Message edited by: Infinity Lover ]</p>

Heathen Dawn

Buddhism is, like Christianity, just another religion in which humans fancy themselves to be separate from nature and want to break all ties with the natural All.

The truth is we are animals. We are part of Nature, and there's no escaping that. And we are here because of desires.

sweep

Amos:

hello amos, I think that what you wrote is partially true, as what I suggested was also partially true. For me drugs were an escape, and a replacement for other goals that I was initially unable to meet or accept conceptually. Drugs were also part of a new identity and a rebellion against convention. They offered an entirely new outlook, a lifestyle, a way of thinking, and a community, that ultimately led to falsehood.

One of the prevailing slogans in the midst of the rave culture, in England during the early 1990's was, "you know the score". Everybody nodded their head, but the truth was there was no score, that was the score.

In line with buddhist philosophy attachment by desire to any particular mode of life results in stagnation. Fluctuation requires a proper separation from the past, and possibly something to do with an existential feeling of literally 'being & nothingness'. In other words, I had to lose the raver, druggie identity and try to find a new one.

Might I suggest that babies exist in a state not bound by any particular condition. they are free and unpredictable. their values are what we, as their guardians prepare for them. They're also bloody annoying because I don't want to pay them much attention.

alright, that's enough rambling for me- tell me about spiritual fulfillment, if you will, Amos

sweep

heathen dawn

true, but will (or desire if u like) depends upon preference, which in turn depends upon the contingencies set by those 'in control'- there's no'thing' in our nature, aside from the urge to breed and the urge to eat, that can't be created socially.

we do try to escape from nature- and here's how It seems relevant:

how do we believe that we can predict and control the natural forces of the universe? Through clever intellectual manipulations and tool usage. We accept this notion so completely because we have been conditioned to believe implicitly that only by so using our intelligence can we, in fact, survive nature. Interaction between the mind-brain and its source of information [the earth] has been rigorously, religiously denied by Western logic, if not most cultural logic. Interaction with the living earth would imply that the earth responded in kind, interracting with us. And the one cardial rule of all classical Western academic belief... is that the mind has absolutely no relation to the world other than to be informed of that world through the senses and to make some sort of intelligent reaction to that information. This belief has automatically robbed us of personal power. Having no personal power to draw on, we are reduced to only one source of power: tool usage. And so, we have evolved a continuing body of knowledge concerning the employment, creation, enhancement, and service of tools. Our real criterion of value becomes the culture's body of knowlege offering or promising enhanced tool production, possible domination of nature, and so some security. Potential is seen as an increase of tools. [our emphasis] The training and education of children is designed to lead to better tool invention, production, consumption, and handling.

Our body of knowledge and tool development has never given, is not presently giving, and almost surely will never give us either physical security or well-being. The more vast and awesome our tool production has become, the greater our anxiety, hostility, fear, resentment and aggression. But the direct correlation between our anxiety and tool production is almost beyond our grasp because our intelligence is itself the result of our conditioning by and within that very body of knowledge. Our intelligence is trained to believe that any imperfections in the reality resulting from our activities, such as personal anguish, misery, and fear, simply indicate the need for improvement in the body of knowledge and/or improvement in tool production, distribution, and application. Even as our body of knowledge splits us off from our lives and creates anxiety and unhappiness, it conditions us to believe religiously that escape from our misery lies in perfecting that body of knowledge.

Joseph Chilton Pearce, Magical Child