Adyashanti Retires

[Raze]

13 minutes ago, Starlight321 said:

I don't think that this is comparable because the situation you mentioned is a very controlled situation but having a bigger accident and getting beaten up badly has a different flavour which would cause more resistance and put you in a lower state due to survival mode and it would be much harder ro catch your mind while you need your mind to figure out how to get out of there.

No one is saying he is totally free of suffering, he said himself he isn’t, the point is if he can be partially free of suffering theoretically that process can be expanded all the way to completely or almost completely be free of suffering 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Raze

[BlessedLion]

Sounds like the PTSD was from the pain, so it's more in the body, it isn't PTSD like vietnam vet kind so that makes a bit more sense

[Starlight321]

I agree with you on being able to reduce it a lot but my point was that in practice it is highly unlikely that eliminating it comepletely is possible even for the most advanced practitioners. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Starlight321

[Starlight321]

I hope I don't derail this thread too much but this guy has defenitely made progress in trancending suffering @Leo Gura ?

 

[BlessedLion]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You'll understand when you lose your health. All your spiritual bullshit will fly out the window once you lose your health.

I disagree Leo, I think every experience can be used to deepen your spiritual practice and trust in life. Not  to say we shouldn't try to be comfortable or if we are in pain to not do something about it, but I know that difficult situations can be used to grow and become stronger. If all your "spiritual bullshit". as you say, i would say spiritual practice, flies out the window because your health is failing, then you weren't that strong spiritually anyway. You were only spiritual when things were good, no better than a fairweather fan. Your spiritual heart was weak.

 

I know a woman who was raped, gang-raped by 4 men. She lived in a small country where no one gives a shit about this stuff, so she couldn't do anything about it. She knew who the men were. She even told her mom and sister and they called her a liar.

 

One night she was so distraught, that she was ready to commit suicicde, and right before that moment, she felt Universal Love, move through her whole body and save her by the grace of Love. Her healing process was still tough, but because of that moment she got through.

She ended up naming her 4 children after her attackers to never forget that Love is the strongest force in the universe. 

How is that for spiritual bullshit @Leo Gura ?

[Danioover9000]

@Leo Gura

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

I'm not gonna die, I'm gonna metamorphosize into an alien consciousness.

    Will you arrive on earth in a giant UFO ship?

[Jodistrict]

1 hour ago, Starlight321 said:

I don't think that this is comparable because the situation you mentioned is a very controlled situation but having a bigger accident and getting beaten up badly has a different flavour which would cause more resistance and put you in a lower state due to survival mode and it would be much harder ro catch your mind while you need your mind to figure out how to get out of there.

A Zen master would be aware of the bat before it even made contact.  That's why samuri warriors trained in Zen.  Using meditation to master pain has a long history.  

[OldManCorcoran]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Jodistrict If I hit him in the head with a baseball bat he will suffer.

Just trust me on this one.

Is this not a cope, given there are monks who set themselves alight and sat peacefully cross legged on the ground?

It is at least theoretically possible to go an entire life with zero suffering. There are some conditions where people can't actually feel physical pain in any case, so those people at least could completely avoid suffering for a lifetime if they managed to also reign in the psychological side.

[Jodistrict]

Having pain doesn’t mean you are suffering.  Pain is a sensation.  All suffering IS psychological. 

Shinzen often uses the formula:   Suffering = Resistance x Pain.   

Resistance is the sense that you can’t stand it and want it too end.  If Resistance = 0, then by the equation Suffering = 0. 

But the resistance goes deep into the unconscious mind.  That’s why it takes years of meditation practice to root out resistance at the deeper levels.    

A good practice for exploring pain and suffering is strong determination sitting.

 

[seriousman24]

I wanted to say much more about this type of topic but you know you can't avoid pleasure either, that's the most obvious thing to think about, can you eliminate pleasure from your life, no matter what you do and who you are if the sensation of pleasure however subtle or small isn't present for long enough you will die or are asleep or unconscious, the reason you don't understand suffering is because you don't understand pleasure either, you can't stop associating it with particular actions and states of minds, with suffering you are able to look at it objectively so just try to do the same with pleasure, as if it also exists on it's own just like we humans do with our deep logic and perspectives about suffering across all beings and states.

When there's a balancing point between both it allows both their own sustained duality and the potential interaction and integration or non integration with the other sustained dualities, this is time and "others" or complexity or evolution.

[gettoefl]

7 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

@Raze

   Do you have evidence for some who can reduce their suffering to near zero, or zero? Have you been able to reduce suffering to near zero/zero?

have been doing 4hr-3am sits in coldness and darkness, each day suffering is less, one suffers because one is used to coddling one's body every moment, sitting is a way of making your body pliable and insensible so that no outside element touches it, the body has zero awareness, awareness shifts from the body to the whole, i am not any body, i am the absolute

[Salvijus]

6 hours ago, Starlight321 said:

 

 

:Dddddddddddddddddddfddfd#ddfd

[vibv]

1. Pain and suffering are two different things

2. You can’t will yourself to have 0 resistance 

3. Without pain no pleasure 

4. Suffering is often the best teacher 

5. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature 

6. Trying to eliminate suffering leads to more suffering

7. The opposite of suffering is Love

Edited September 26, 2023 by vibv

[Breakingthewall]

When we talk about the end of suffering, we are referring to the end of psychological resistance to what is. It is perfectly possible, there have been many cases of  cancer patients who are in peace, who accept their situation fully. confusing pain with suffering seems like a joke at the point in what it's supposed we are, it's obvious that they are different. 

btw, I always thought that adyasahanti was a fraud, like 99% of spiritual teachers, they are people with advanced notions of spirituality who struggle to get money

Edited September 26, 2023 by Breakingthewall

[Water by the River]

4 hours ago, Jodistrict said:

Having pain doesn’t mean you are suffering.  Pain is a sensation.  All suffering IS psychological. 

Shinzen often uses the formula:   Suffering = Resistance x Pain.   

Resistance is the sense that you can’t stand it and want it too end.  If Resistance = 0, then by the equation Suffering = 0. 

But the resistance goes deep into the unconscious mind.  That’s why it takes years of meditation practice to root out resistance at the deeper levels.    

A good practice for exploring pain and suffering is strong determination sitting.

 

Excellent. I agree.

PTSD caused by chronic pain has strongly direct body/stress impact. It doesnt mean Adya is in automatic psychological resistance (psychlogical resistance suffering) to that.

Apparently, some here like to deny the possibility of that - and the possibility of truly realizing ones True Nature. Why denying this potential? Probably because it would mean its necessary to actually seriously engage in regular practice of transcending the self-contraction/ego. Sitting down and meditate.

Building conceptual castles of declaring Ego=God and no practice/transcendence/meditation necessary and sometimes doing psychedelics is a lot easier than actually seriously undertaking long-time transformative practice.

That would be all fine and well, much better than doing nothing spiritual at all. But declaring that higher as the transformative/transcendence path needs a lot of denying and blind spots. Including denying and blind spots on the topics of psychological suffering/resistance to what is, and enlightenment. Which is exactly what we can see here...

A challenge to all of these aficionados: Sit down 5 hours and face the wall. Bored or resistance? Well, there are the ego arisings to be transcended/cut-off, delivered free house.... Too annoying or not enough will-power? Bored and unable to push through? All fine and well.  But then please at least some honesty and integrity on the topic of what is possible and what not and not all these defense-mechanisms of the e**.

Seriously    Selling water by the River

Edited September 26, 2023 by Water by the River

[How to be wise]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

PTSD from what?

But this is a good lesson. It's important for you guys to understand that the end of suffering is nonsense. More Buddhist bullshit.

Byron Katie seems to have achieved the end of suffering. 

[RickyFitts]

10 hours ago, Hafiz said:

All I’ve found is that Arya was at one point a pretty extreme cyclist, and maybe had a bad scrape or two that messed up his spine. Also maybe a strong allergic reaction.

I was wondering if it was connected in some way to his cycling, I know that he was pushing himself so hard at one point that he ended up laid up in bed for six months on a couple of occasions, completely debilitated.

[Display_Name]

12 hours ago, Raze said:

If it’s possible to reduce suffering why isn’t it theoretically possible to reduce it to the point of being non-existent?

Everything is still always a mix of conditions and phenomena subject to change as infinity wills it?

[Display_Name]

22 minutes ago, RickyFitts said:

I was wondering if it was connected in some way to his cycling, I know that he was pushing himself so hard at one point that he ended up laid up in bed for six months on a couple of occasions, completely debilitated.

I think he had kidney or liver diseases or something like that

 

10 hours ago, BlessedLion said:

I disagree Leo, I think every experience can be used to deepen your spiritual practice and trust in life. Not  to say we shouldn't try to be comfortable or if we are in pain to not do something about it, but I know that difficult situations can be used to grow and become stronger. If all your "spiritual bullshit". as you say, i would say spiritual practice, flies out the window because your health is failing, then you weren't that strong spiritually anyway. You were only spiritual when things were good, no better than a fairweather fan. Your spiritual heart was weak.

 

I know a woman who was raped, gang-raped by 4 men. She lived in a small country where no one gives a shit about this stuff, so she couldn't do anything about it. She knew who the men were. She even told her mom and sister and they called her a liar.

 

One night she was so distraught, that she was ready to commit suicicde, and right before that moment, she felt Universal Love, move through her whole body and save her by the grace of Love. Her healing process was still tough, but because of that moment she got through.

She ended up naming her 4 children after her attackers to never forget that Love is the strongest force in the universe. 

How is that for spiritual bullshit @Leo Gura ?

So she was blessed by grace or whatever, it's still certain favorable or unfavorable conditions coming together, or not coming together. What if that love or grace never came? How is this relevant when speaking of a consistent, self directed process of eliminating suffering?

[Display_Name]

1 hour ago, Water by the River said:

Sit down 5 hours and face the wall. Bored or resistance? Well, there are the ego arisings to be transcended/cut-off, delivered free house.... Too annoying or not enough will-power? Bored and unable to push through? All fine and well.  But then please at least some honesty and integrity on the topic of what is possible and what not and not all these defense-mechanisms of the e**.

You cannot even begin to compare the "boredom" and "resistance" of sitting in meditation posture for 5 hours infront of a wall with true suffering, like physical torture or real mental hell.

I think Leo is right on this one, your physical health and resting state of your nervous system is a baseline blessing no amount of spiritual training will ever fully conquer.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Display_Name