Harry ji,
As a Buddhist, you have your own take on life, and I completely respect that, but I am not a Buddhist, and as such, I do not feel limited by the concepts of aversion and attachment.
So what you are saying is that I am limited by Buddhist concepts in interpreting my experiences and don't realize that in reality things can be different? I wouldn't respect me for this!
To feel love, as well as feeling unpleasant about it, is not a hugely alien concept for a lot of people, for instance falling in love the wrong person, or for a gay man to fall in love with another man, because society validates everything we do (unless you reject society), this blessing from society can make many things unpleasant. For anyone with fetishes, again, to love will always have the tinge of unpleasantness about it.
Please note that I am pointing to moments of consciousness which rises and falls away at the rate of trillions in one finger snap. This means that many different states can alternate in what seems to us like an instant. Your own example, “falling in love with the wrong person” points to the fact that love is one experience, the perception of a person another, and that person being wrong yet another. So you are not talking about what happens in one mind moment, but a “situation” which can only be a concept and not a reality. But I did point to the same kind of process in my previous message. Does this mean then that you do not agree with this? But before you answer, consider the following:
Quote:
Attachment has the characteristic of grasping an object like “monkey lime”. Its function is sticking, like meat put in a hot pan. It is manifested as not giving up, like the dye of lamp-black. Its proximate cause is seeing enjoyment in things ….<end quote>
Does it make sense to you that there would be grasping of an object which is unpleasant? One desires an object because the experience is accompanied by pleasant feeling re: the proximate cause. And one hates an object when it arouses unpleasant feelings,
Quote:
“proximate cause of aversion are “grounds for annoyance, like urine mixed with poison””.
A masochist does what he does not because he likes the pain, but because the pain triggers pleasure. That someone continues to live with a person he or she dislikes may be due precisely to not being able to sort out one’s thoughts and feelings, as it is with all of us to a lesser or greater degree much of the time.
OK, I hate front wheel drive cars, I positively loathe them, in fact, if we are talking about a car with all the hated characteristics, then it would be a two door, front wheel drive, diesel, in yellow, with no cd player, a noise when you dont put the belt on, and a complicated start system that involves pressing the clutch in, pressing a button, whilst headbutting another button, oh, and a manual gearbox. This car I would love to hate. I would get excited at the prospect of hating it, I would crunch its gears and rev it up, delighting in the painful howl of protest, I would hide rotten fish under its seats, pour jam into its engine, .. I think you get the picture,. hatred can be enjoyable without attachment/aversion.
Hating something and the idea of hating it are two different experiences. In your case, the latter is conditioned by attachment accompanied by pleasant feeling.
I can only base this on my own animals, Dan, my dog, I have never seen in a condition of restlessness, if we take a starting time of say 9pm. At 9pm I am normally watching south park, and Dan is normally sat at the window watching the fox. He will spend till around 10pm being teased by the fox, and generally running between the living room and the garden whilst getting more frustrated until, depending on his mood, he will give up and come to bed, or headbutt the window, smashing it (3 panes this month). He will then jump on the bed, and wriggle in between the two of us until he has his head near my knee, and his feet in my face. When I wake up, Dan will have migrated to the end of the bed where he lies on his back with his legs in the air. Wife feeds him at around 9am, and then he watches TV, licks the cat, runs to talk to the ferrets, his favourite place is in bed with my wife and the cat, and three of them sit there all day watching tv and eating ice cream, I have to confess Confusedji, I have never noticed my dog to be not at peace, I mean, he can lick his own genitals!.
Each writer of stories will be revealing his own prevailing view and mood.
Restlessness is a mental state not measured by any outward behavior. Someone listening to a particular music will outwardly appear still and serene. In truth however, being that he’d be listening with attachment, there is restlessness all the way through.
Restlessness is a mental factor which accompanies all unwholesome states. There is restlessness with attachment, with wrong understanding, conceit, aversion, envy, guilt, sloth, torpor, miserliness, doubt and so on. Free of restlessness are the wholesome states including, wisdom, generosity, kindness, compassion, faith, sympathy, equanimity, respect, mindfulness, moral shame and such.
You either have to insist that your dog experiences the wholesome states most of the time or that the Buddha was limited in his knowledge about such things, and that I am someone who follows his teachings unthinkingly like sheep.
I would admit one thing though, that after hearing the Buddha’s description of reality and having some glimpse with regard to my own ignorance, I began to not take the impressions about my own experiences seriously. You could say that as time passed, I started to see more and more how ignorant I am and how little the ability to discriminate correctly, one experience from another. Would you suggest that I lack confidence or something?
Confusedji, I am a Sikh, and therefore we all have the same Karma, as I believe this is my one and only life.
Are you saying that you disagree with the often stated idea here on SPN, that human beings according to Sikhism are superior to animals? I don't understand your reference to Karma and why you then state that this is your one and only life?
Superiority has no relevance here, I can do things Dan cannot do, Dan can do things I can only dream of, he is a dog, I am a human. It is interesting to note that I look upon Dan as a Sikh dog, and he has been brought up that way. It is interesting to note that depressives are normally quite intelligent people, some might say the more intelligent, the easier it is to question so much it brings you down. Dan does not question, he is brave, polite, he treats every other living animal with respect, once, while chasing rabbits, he cornered a baby one. I ran after him and found him looking at this rabbit, he looked around at me with a look of utter confusion, clearly like a lot of people, having chased something and obtained it, he had no idea what to do with it. Dan turned round to the baby rabbit, and gently started licking it and nuzzling it, and then ran off.
Well, I was asking with regard particularly to the idea of “consonance”. Do you not consider this the goal and therefore sign of success as a human being? If so, would not a dog than be considered more “successful” than a human being? And given that he does it without having to learn how to do it, does this not point to it being in fact a superior life form?
How do you come to see that your dog has respect and is polite?
I think it is a curse or a blessing depending on how you deal with it.
Let’s say you could have any car in the world you wanted, or that you had the resources to build your own, some would buy the car of their dreams, and they would be happy. Some would build their own, but not all would be happy. Some would fail miserably even given free choice on the components, some would be ecstatic at the end result.
The context was your statement:
“with all our intelligence and abilities, finding consonance is supremely easier for a dog than it is for a human.”
Now, being that consonance is the ultimate goal for a human being, and animals achieve this easily, does not your suggestion above point to the fact that the human being’s ability to think is a hindrance / disadvantage?
An animal would buy a Bentley, an enlightened human would build a dream machine, and the rest of us would make a complete pigs ear. That is the danger of choice, of being human, of being happy enough to shoot into the sky like the brightest star, or of being miserable enough to drive into your house wishing it could all end now, of going to university and ticking off all your goals, of learning moderation, being aware of consonance, or of spending all day dirty, filthy, penniless, in a stinking pit of drugs and vice, the choice is ours,
The choice is yours, so how come you can't become enlightened or achieve consonance whenever you want? How come a lion often fails to catch its prey? How come your dog can't do anything about your being late in feeding him? How come when you are sick, you can't get well just by wishing it? How come you get angry even though you know that it is not good? You love your wife, can you decide not to love her and see it happen? Can I ask you to stop believing in God? Can you refrain from thinking about me while reading this response? Can you choose not to be able to make a choice?
and it has nothing to do with previous lives, sins of our fathers, and everything to do with just how seriously we view the gift of choice, or the ability to discern, sometimes I wish I had been born an animal, then I would not the have the responsibility of free thought, I could just buy a Bentley, instead of trying to build my own and failing every time.
So do you have a choice or you don’t?
