"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the AP Award is a temptation of the devil himself.
"Give thy nominations to the poor and follow me.
"He who hateth not his AP awards cannot become my discple.
"The door of heaven openeth for him who hath abandoned his AP awards.
Posts made by THE SEA
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RE: AP Awards Discussion Thread
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RE: General Philosophy discussion
Sure, take your time. :)
Time to reply. (or time for bad joke?)
I planned to answer this shortly after you posted but due to the love problem I forgot it.
Actually I didn't really confuse mental time with physical time. Just a mischoice of words I believe.
What I mean is, when you are in a Zennish state, you see time stop, and only then you can perceive reality as it really is (or more accurately than you normally do), because time doesn't exist beyond our mind. The quotes I posted arr largely about the non-duality of all things. -
RE: Tell me of this "Love"
@Monkey:
Why did you 'love' her. You have to be able to answer this.
So it all boils down to your forcing me to speak out a reason. That is, to logicalize love. You are the type who wants to understand everything rationally, aren't you? But, okay. Let me reflect on that.
Because she is a wonderful girl. She is wonderful, fascinating, passionate, compassionate, honest, sensitive, lovely, caring, considerate, sympathizing, empathizing, sweet, modest, intelligent, extremely adorable, quite knowledgeable, ingeniously humorous, good-willed, golden-hearted, radiant with vital force and positive energy, that even if she is just talking to you through a computer you can feel overwhelmed with her cheerful aura.
She is the opposite of being egoistical and drama queen. In a conversation you can't see her having any other motive aside from making the conversation as fun and enjoyable and spirit-lifting as possible. She put her best energy into working forward that goal, and doesn't at all think about expressing herself as cool, showing off or any kind of such attitude.
She makes you feel what you say are extremely interested in, cared about, far beyond common etiquette, and she has enough knowledge and insight to enrich the conversation. If you are sad, she can cheer you up better than anyone. She has exceptionally great talent in maintaining or improving the mood.
I just felt drowned in bliss when I talk with her, greater than any other bliss, which made me forget time. She sparked tremendous warmth and joy in my heart.
You would say, a girl like that deserves to be happy. It is only logical and rational that I should try to make her happy with the best of my ability, right? -
RE: Tell me of this "Love"
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–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Kitsune, I hope you understand that I simply have trouble in explaining myself and sharing my view.
@Silence:If there was a misunderstanding or distortion, it most certainly spawned from this:
[hide]I understand better what you mean, now that we've broken it down to little tiny pieces, but without question it didn't need to take so long. I thought - it was implicit - that we were all talking about romantic love, so Idunnowaddafakk this was. Fox and Zephos are right in this being a (largely unnecessary) argument about semantics.
So I'm going to - purposefully - quote some Shakespeare here: "More matter, less art."
[/hide]Sometimes less is more, Sea!
Nope, it was not a semantic argument.
This argument was really tiring, but thanks to it I have come to understand my idea of Love more clearly. I can't explain it as well as I wish to, because I am not enlightened myself.[hide]
My definition of love is definitely different from the rest of us. To me, Pure love's manifestation is those moments when the ego is absent, and the self-consciousness has extinguished. I respect everyone's definitions, so I hope you respect me.
You define Love as a relationship, or a bargain, or possessive desire, or an emotion. I define the manifestation of it in normal humans as some moment, some occasional flash, some state. I gave some examples, like when you are with your loved one and your ego completely melt away, or when you jump to shield your loved one in a moment of danger, free from fear, selfishness, and you see time stop. In this state there are incredibly enhanced empathy and awareness.
I think for most people, pure love only manifests directly in some special moments. Most of the time it lies in the sub-consciousness and deeper. I guess we can say that, in daily living, this love is mixed/tainted/polluted with the presence of the ego; overshadowed and hindered and weakened by selfishness, therefore not 'pure'. Not the best way to put it per se, but I hope you get what I mean.
Such choice of words may make it sound pretentious or fanactical, but how else do we define 'pure' love, as is, 'selfless love'?
I believe all human being has potential for it, but most, if not all, human beings just aren't pure.
I have reorganized my previous posts to make it clearer. The state of pure love, as I experienced it, has deep inner quietness, and my ego is the noise that just can't shut up for long.
[/hide]
[hide]
When Monkey King asked me, "why is the part of egolessness and void of self-consciousness true love, while the daily living part where the ego is involved not love?". I answered that because if a relationship is void of such moments, such state, it is no different from other relationships, that are all based on benefit and self-interest. In my humble opinion, no matter how artfully it is handled, a relationship without such love deeply rooted in the sub-consciousness is simple a clever manifestation of fear and selfishness. Hence the egoless parts are the most important parts in defining whether a love is real. That is where we differ.
[/hide][hide]I am going to quote Krishnamurti here:
"One may try to give meaning to life, as most people do, saying life is this, or life must be that, but putting aside all these romantic, illusory, idealistic nonsenses, life is one's daily sorrow, its competition, despair, depression, agony - with the occasional flash of beauty and love."
http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Life_of_Masters/Jiddu/Krishnamurthy-Death.htm"Thought has built one's vanity, thought has said, "I must achieve, become somebody, struggle, compete". That is what thought has put together, which is one's existence. One's gods, churches, gurus, rituals, all that is the activity of thought, a movement of memory, experience, knowledge stored up in the brain, a material process. And when thought dominates one's life, as it does, then thought denies love. Love is not a remembrance. Love is not an experience. Love is not desire or pleasure. "
[/hide][hide]
I said, that only a Buddha, an enlightened man is capable of such love. By that, I mean, only a Buddha can be in such a state of egolessness constantly, or in a huge amount of time. While a normal human being can only experience it as some occasional flashes, if ever at all. A buddha would love everyone. While a normal person can love very few person to such extent sub-consciously and it only manifest in very special and rare circumstances. My way of expressing it sometime made people confused with one's conscious behaviors. In everyday living, to handle conflict inteligently, we, as normal people, should strive to lessen our selfishness as much possible, for we cannot always in an egoless state.I hope I have made thing clearer. I said previously in another thread that I have experienced such moment when I unintentionally entered some Zen state.
"There is a life in which there is no centre as `me', a life, therefore, walking hand in hand with death; and out of that sense of ending totally, time has come to an end. Time is movement, movement is thought, thought is time."
Krishnamurti went on talking about his experience of Truth-Love for more than sixty years and very few understood him. I think it is only normal that people would misunderstand me.[/hide] -
RE: Tell me of this "Love"
Sorry for not quoting all but, well, perhaps I only need to to answer Monkey King to clarify.
http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=34415&page=6&p=2472471&viewfull=1#post2472471
[hide]irrational obsessive creepy behavior toward single women they actually didn't know anything about and decided they were madly in love with.
I proceeded to gain understanding about "that person" before I 'loved'. Surely I didn't 'love' someone who I knew nothing about. I couldn't really explain why I loved her so much, but I did fall in love (the 'love' as understood by most people). Maybe there was a reason for that, but I am not totally aware of it.
you think you fell in love with but didn't
I did, in the common sense that everyone was talking about. Angst, immense loneliness, heartache, burning jealousy, selfish desire, unsatisfied physical desire, waiting and waiting hopelessly… all those pains, I suffered to its utmost. I was so miserable I didn't know what to do with it. Destroy it? Finding a temporary relief? No, that is self-destruct. Just stop loving? That was... too hard. The only way was to try to understand its root and maybe my pain will cease.
@Monkey:You aren't grim or obtuse. You're hurt, scared, and confused after recent or maybe even long term events,
Well, I admit this was true. Recent events are recent events, they are too personal to speak of in a message board. I believe I was cured, but I am not sure.
But I can tell you my long term problem.
My childhood ended when I realized that
@Monkey:There is no pure love.
And that
@Monkey:Love is a bargain.
These notions somehow depressed me. "Is there nothing more to human relationship than a bargain?". I am going to tell you my thoughts in my naivest days, so don't laugh at it. You would accept love as a bargain and live happily with it, but I in my younger days couldn't. I questioned the meaning of love, sought all kind of wisdom. I so wanted the answer for that. Which is why I studied Buddhism from the first place.
Are "To love" and "to want to be loved" the same thing? "To love" and "to be loved", what is more important? Some says they are like the two wings of a bird.
Can one love without demanding to be loved? Are the origin of all loves the desire to be loved? I understood that it was only human to want to be loved, that humans were selfish. Could it be humanly possible for a normal human to be more than that? Does selflessness exist in any extent? It was not really semantic, because "love" and "to love", are they the same thing? Is "to simply love" the same with "to simply give"? "To be loved" and "to take", aren't they the same thing? I deel that I must reconcile those concepts before I could decide about love. Perhaps the problem with me was that somehow I was trying to solve some sort mathematical equations with the concepts of romance. I wanted to understand it thoroughly, rationally. Say, is love rational or irrational?The words of Jesus somehow affected me: "whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also", etc. I thought it was beautiful, at them same time I didn't think it would be possible for me to love all of mankind like that. And could one survive in this world with such love? So I decided that I can only show such love to a limited number certain people. Still, I hated the word 'love', I thought it was all cheesy and naive and over-idealistic if not deceptive and hypocritical. I didn't believe in Love. I however did believe in compassion. I avoided love and was anti-romantic in the surface, but in the back of my head I so much hoped that an idealistic love, a purely beautiful love would indeed exist. I created armor to protect myself and told myself not to get too emotionally involved with anyone. I was thinking, that if there was no pure love in this world then I should never engage in a relationship at all because I wouldn't be able to live with a lie. Such were my teenager days, questioning the meaning of life, with utter frustration in the nature of humanity, yet keeping in the deepest corner of my heart a tiny hope. I tried to focus on my ambition, but in the back of my head I was somewhat depressed. Ambition implied selfishness, and I accepted myself as such, a very selfish man.
Somehow I did fall in love. I can only tell you as much. The most painful thing to me was my selfishness, which is the root of all my pains. I would reject love because I couldn't accept "to love" as the cover of "To want to be loved", I couldn't accept the hypocrisy in that. But I was so "in love". I tried to find a way out of this. Trying to destroy my selfishness is pointless, for the ego cannot end itself. If it ever comes, it is luck.
Then I read Krishnamurti and he said "selfishness and selfish desire is not meant to be destroyed, but understood". He showed me hope, and he showed me all the ideas about different states of human consciousness and whatnot. And I want to, honestly, lessen my selfishness in my attitude toward others, as much as possible. And even if I cannot do that toward all of mankind, I hope I can at least do so toward one person, and perhaps a reason would be needed. I don't know, Zeph, is that creepy? In order to say whether I can attain some selfless moments in my dark life for love or not, I must proceed to understand myself first. And that is what I am trying to do.And I told a certain girl :"If I could love all of mankind as much as I love you, I would be Jesus Christ. But no, I can only show such love to only one person. I can only be so patient and tender toward one person".
Somehow it was stupid, but I didn't regret saying that. My love toward her was not entirely Christlike love, because it harbored deep attraction and affection and passion, and I knew if she had been a sadistic killer I would have come to love her in the first place. But I have loved her, and I felt that, from that point forward, I stress, from that point forward, I could forgive her basically anything. If there is anything close Christlike love, it is that. I didn't say it as a supplicant, but as an equal.
The one thing that often pissed me off (even though I know I shouldn't be), was when I heard some people say "I love X more than myself". Is there such a thing? How do they know? Can they know it without going through certain trials? Can they be aware of their deepest level of consciousness without certain ordeals?
Thanks to Krishnamurti, I came to believe in such love, and that it exists in normal people too. But if this True love does exist in a normal man, directed toward only one person, then it must be rooted in him deeper than what his consciousness can be aware of, that will emerge in times of need even though he can be somewhat selfish in his everyday living. And unless he is enlightened, he can't be 100% aware of it.
That is the best extent I can tell. Perhaps I have dropped my cloak, but I don't think what just told you now have contradicted what I posted before in this thread. I don't know.
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RE: Tell me of this "Love"
[hide]@Silence:
But setting yourself on fire and burning yourself down to embers for a person who isn't even watching, appreciating, or feeling the slightest bit of warmth from these gestures which have symbolic meaning only for you is the twisted thinking of a creeper.
Well, to be clear, you have distorted it so much it come off as some sort of selfish love, like, consciously wanting to be a perfect lover. That is truly a self-righteous projection of ego-inflation.
My principle is: trying my best to make my loved one happy. If she doesn't want me, well, of course I will stay away, wishing for her happiness, and if she ever needs my help of any level, then I will try my best to help her.
Well, I hope I am not a Zoro who would go bragging to everyone about how he sacrificed for Luffy when Kuma was about to kill him. I am sharing my view. I said, that I must consider the other's nobility of soul and pride and principle as well, and that implies I won't give help if she doesn't accept help. (or maybe try to help her subtly without letting her knowing it. )
How can one love someone else without loving oneself first? That, I don't know. I have a lot of self-love, that is for certain.–- Update From New Post Merge ---
is your strategy here to make your posts so incomprehensibly dry and tangential so that way everyone will just give up on arguing with you?
I am trying to achieve mutual understanding. If you can't understand me after this post, then I give up.
You are basically arguing that true love does not exist?
I think it was Monkey King who said pure love doesn't exist. I just say it doesn't exist in many people. This pure love, as I understand it, is moments of self-consciousness being void in a person as the love has become deeply-rooted in one's sub-consciousness and deeper.
I agree that in everyday conscious behaviors, even toward our loved ones, selfishness is most certainly involved.
@Kitsune:and is only capable in godly men?
I don't believe in 'godly men'. I only believe that there are men who have attained full self-knowledge. I don't know, is full self-understanding something worth striving for? Is it inhuman? Is it impossible?
And that true love can only be obtained by throwing away the self, devoting yourself entirely to that person?
The self is not meant to be throw away, but to be understood.
Devoting oneself entirely is most certainly not a self-conscious action.Love is an emotion most of us experience everyday. "True love", as we mean it, more closely defines romantic love.
I don't believe so. Consider me someone who has a grimmer look on the world.
I think nobody can know for sure whether one actually loves another more than oneself without going through certain ordeals.Whatever point you are trying to make is lost behind your walls upon walls of text. I applaud Monkey King for his attempts to understand you, but you're arguing a debate that, as Zephos put in the very beginning, a matter of semantics.
I believe the word love has certainly been over-used and mis-used.
Even as you continue, you contradict yourself with practically every paragraph. I don't mean any disrespect with this, Sea, but your obsessions with "good posting" and "becoming a Buddha" and "revolutionizing" everything have put you so far out into space, I don't know how to take you seriously anymore.
A Buddha wouldn't care about good posting. I am not a Buddha, but stating my opinions at the cost of arguing against popular opinions doesn't seem like an attempt to be recognized as having "good posting". And certainly I don't revolutionize for revolutionizing's sake.
Maybe you are being too conscious attentive to my non-existent ulterior motives instead of trying to understand what I am trying to convey? Just saying. Honestly, from the beginning to the end I have had not a slightest notion of hostility.[/hide] -
RE: Tell me of this "Love"
@RobbyBevard:
I was just quoting Good Will Hunting. It's a great speech about love. I wasn't talking to anyone in particular or from personal experience on that one. I haven't been to the Sistine chapel, in a war, or had a wife who farted in bed.
If you think the words apply to you… then they probably do.
Oh, you…
I blame Silence's complimenting you for putting it eloquently. -
RE: Tell me of this "Love"
[hide]@Kitsune:
I'm not Silence, but I'll bite.
Because then you're trying way too hard for something that shouldn't require you to kill yourself. There's a point of diminishing return there, you know. Love's not a contest, or a trial. You can't just say you're going to dedicate all 100% of yourself to somebody like that. You don't need to climb a fucking mountain or write theses on why she's the most important girl in the world.
You just love her, and guess what? If she feels the same way about you, she'll love you back! She doesn't want a knight in shining armor or someone to treat her like a queen. She wants someone to be there for her. To stand beside her, not in front of her.
Do or do not, there is no try.
Perhaps you have misread my posts. I wasn't not trying to, well, being in front of any one. And really, to contest "my love is greater than yours" is the last thing I want to do. Don't accept my words immediately, my friend, go into it yourself.
I was defining pure true love as something that goes beyond one's consciousness. I have heard stories about many a man who suffered amnesia and yet his body would act to protect his loved ones as if the body has its own memory that his consciousness is unaware of.Do our conscious mind really fully decide how much we should love someone? Tigerlilly said, the head just has no say. True. Experience say, it even takes quite a long time for sane people to realize they have already fallen in love with someone.
Perhaps my wording caused misunderstanding. 'To truly love', "to devote', etc… may lean toward implying simply self-conscious actions, which self-conscious action cannot be selfless. Let me clear that. When I said, 'our entire-being', I implied something more than what our consciousness is aware of. IMO Love in its totality brings harmony between the conscious, the sub-conscious and unconscious.
I believe such love exists, and perhaps it exists inside me as well. That, I can't make too certain a claim. But nonetheless I have taken serious attempts to look into my sub-consciousness, and deeper, to gain full self-knowledge, and observe my subtlest behaviors, of the body and the mind.
Anything that we decide with our self-consciousness, the trickiest thing in the universe, may just be self-deception, may just be fabricated, which I try to avoid. I am not speaking against anyone's way of expressing their conscious behaviors in their relationships. Forgive me if I am being repetitive, but I just want to be clear.[/hide] -
RE: Tell me of this "Love"
[hide]I don't know, Silence, how is it unhealthy to love someone with all your heart, with your entire being?
http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=34415&page=5&p=2471440&viewfull=1#post2471440And Robby: [hide] my insight come from my contemplation and self-observation of my experience, combined with knowledge I gained from… books. It is my interpretation that define my character. And what I expressing here is based on my experience with love, which is unique to myself, and my insight on it. Nobody's experience is like another's, so, I am not criticizing your experience on it and won't ask you "Have you done this? I bet you haven't done that." I am sure there are things I have done for love that you have never done too, and I don't claim my experiences are superior to yours, so I hope you respect that. I am not demanding you to learn from me anything. [/hide]
! My principle in a loving relationship is to give undemandingly and to make the other's happiness the highest goal, and if I can get/take, it is a bonus. That is my way, and I don't advice anyone to follow it. I have loved, and due to many conditions, which I would like to keep private, I have not gotten into an official relationship. But I don't regret my love at all. That is all I can tell. I am sorry but revealing my personal love issue and dicussing my deepest feelings on a public message board is not my policy.
! Zeph, I see that you understand that you don't love anyone more than yourself and you don't work toward that, but to love equally. It is nice actually and I concede that point. Robby, maybe you can discuss this with him about our self-consciousness trick us into thinking we love someone more than ourselves.
And as for my "to love with every fiber of one's being", IMO it is not worship. I thought I was far from being the only one who made the claim to love someone with all one's heart. To worship is to see someone as perfect. IMO love doesn't mean unawareness of my loved one's flaws. I do love crazily and extremely lovesick so I don't claim to be literally 'healthy', but certainly I certainly don't see or aim to degrade anyone into an object. Let us be clear on that.
! You divided my post into too many parts. I think you should try to see the main point. What I was trying to get across, how do we define another person's characteristics? I mean, we act out of character from time to time; not to mention to our family we act differently, to our bosses we act differently, and to friends, etc. And there are also sub-conscious and unconscious behaviors that can define us more than we could think. Many of us don't even see ourselves as we truly are, left alone other. What I am trying to do, is to see the essence of a person's character, that is unique beyond his/her culture, traditions, environment, upbringing, educations, circumstances and other conditions.! Well, we agree that we should not love someone because of their beauty.
And humor, it is a nice ability, but the importance is to see whether it come from the heart. I mean, some wants to be humorous to make others merry, while some does it to prove how witty one is.
And kindness, it is easy to be kind when you have the condition to. When you have a burned leg do you have time to worry for another? Well, it depends. Can we really predict how a person would act in a certain situation no matter how well we know them?
What I am trying to say is, we are stuck in the traps of word.
"My brother, when thou hast a virtue, and it is thine own virtue, thou hast it in common with no one.
To be sure, thou wouldst call it by name and caress it; thou wouldst pull its ears and amuse thyself with it.
And lo! Then hast thou its name in common with the people, and hast become one of the people and the herd with thy virtue! "
I find it hard to convey, but I feel cultivated virtues is fabricated virtue. I am trying to see my true self here, and I am also trying to see my loved one's true self, that is, maybe even unknown to her.
! This discussion on ontology, anthropology and psychology is really too convoluted and easy to state incorrectly with what I actually had in mind. I can feel it but can't really express it very clearly with words.
When I say, she is still her, only her outward cover changes, I mean, what it is that shape her personality from birth to her current age? Are all outwardly expressed characteristics not conditioned? What is the essence that expresses itself differently depend on the environment?
As I said, my mission is to understand.Only when I get my loved one's permission to enter her heart of course. Only when we understand that essence love will come in its totality, as it is said "loving someone's soul".
[hide]
The word Dasein popularized by Heideigger is exactly an attempt to avoid seeing a human being as the same as other organisms and objects. Traditional metaphysics tend to define human conceptually, instead of specifically. 'In Being and Time, Heidegger criticized the abstract and metaphysical character of traditional ways of grasping human existence as rational animal, person, man, soul, spirit, or subject. '
I feel it is too troublesome to explain this properly to people who are unfamiliar to his philosophy.[/hide]! In the matter of conflict, I believe if any conflicts happens in my relation (if I am to get into any relationship at all) can be handled well, because, I put my loved one's happiness above all else. My greatest goal is to make her happy and I always keep that in mind. That is not to say I will apply a method that only work temporarily and leave bigger scar in the future. I must take into consideration her pride, her personal principal, her nobility of soul, her future as well.
In the matter of being respected, well, because of privacy, I can only tell you that my way works. I don't lower my self-esteem to gain my loved one's favor. Trying to make someone happy and trying to gain someone's favor is different.
I admit the ego is involved in much time of a relationship, even a best one, but our sub-consciousness can make command us to act differently at anytime if accidents happen.
Of course we can't act like our loved ones are in danger of being shot all the time. What I was trying to say is, when you love someone deeply, it penetrates your sub-consciousness and deeper. You may not even realize that you love someone that much, unless you let your mind become quiet and listen to most subtle voice of your heart, which is what I am doing. I mean, people can even act as if they dislike each other on the surface and even deny their love for another, but when things happen…! I am trying to be aware of my heart here, not to fool myself in any manner. IMO, when we act against our survival instinct without our superficial consciousness commanding so, it implies we have loved someone else more than ourselves. But it could be argued. I am understanding "love" as something that has gone far deeper than what our consciousness can view clearly, a pure feeling, which was what I mean when I say the ego goes away in the presence of love. But Zeph, what you you are trying to convey about our conscious behavior in everyday loving relationship is also love, but in a more "surface" level. I guess that was where the misunderstanding and disagreement come from. I suppose we can agree with this one and be done with it, and I actually think your way of expressing of love is nice.
! I can't really argue with you about whether love needs a reason. I feel that, but I can't really explain to someone who doesn't feel the same, just as someone who fell in love at first sight can't really explain it to those who have never.
About personal flaws, I won't say "destroy your flaw" or "keep your flaws", but "understand yourself to see where your flaws come from". To help my loved one understand herself is I strive to do as a lover.
We are not perfect, and I have no interest in perfection, but understanding. The only thing I wage war against is self-deception.@RobbyBevard:
Try falling in love some time. Deeply and truly. For at least a month.
Then come back and we'll talk.
You can't tell someone to fall in love, Robby.[/hide]
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RE: Tell me of this "Love"
@Monkey:
Well see this is what I'm talking about. Why is that unconscious peace, nice as it is, part of love.
But the part where the ego is involved not? The part involving daily living?
The part involving daily living is arguably the most important part about love. Because you're going to be doing a lot more of that over the years, a lot more than the cuddling and fucking and stuff that makes up the creamy stuff on top of the cake.
You're going to go to work, you're going to go to school, you're going to go to the hospital maybe (definitely eventually). And you're going to feel like shit a lot. And in those times, to feel more complete and hardy and sturdy, for the fact of having another person interconnected to your life, and that you do the same for them….to me is far more important than a meditative snuggle.[hide]
! By daily living I mean dealing with the world, not with the person I love. I need to earn money, and I have lofty ambition too, and I would need my ego to deal with all those people, businessmen, politicians, co-workers, bosses, publishers, editors and whatnot.
! I mean, you said selfishness needed to be involved in relationship with the loved one.
I don't really agree with this. If both are selfish, it will inevitably lead to conflicts. And a broken relationship. And one may end up in regret and self-hating. I think, sometimes, in a conflict, one of the two needs to step back not to harm the relationship, if one truly loves the other. Well, I concede that, we can not always be in egoless state even when dealing with our loved one, but with self-knowledge, we can lessen our selfishness a lot.
! What does selflessness in love mean? It means to love the other more than you love yourself.
How do we understand this self? What does this self mean?
Does it implies one's body (relatively)? Or one's soul? Or one's principle? Or one's self-esteem? I think the most accurate term for it is Dasein (google it).
! If after carefully and deliberately measuring, calculating, weighing benefit and loss, one ends up choosing to sacrificing one's body (or career, or fame and whatnot), then one does it because one thinks doing so would make one feel better than doing any other choice. One does it for one's self-approval or approvals from others that would offer one's some sort of comfort. This is not selflessness, no matter how much it appears to be. It is projected self-esteem, and one must admit one loves nobody more than one own, that one love this self as "Oh I am noble and heroic and selfless", which is a self-deception. And one doesn't love other at the cost of losing this projected self-esteem. I think you agree with me on this, and you said this kind of projected self-esteem plays the most important part in love.
! I agree that everyday relationship would need this self-projected esteem to many extents. But let's see where we differ. In my opinion, pure love is to love with all one's heart, soul, body, one's entire being, and thus dedicate oneself to that person's happiness. In this devotion there is no petty comparison, no jealousy, no barrier, no ego.
! An example: When a woman jumps to shield her lover from a bullet, does she even think about doing it? Thought is too slow, and it make one's body stiff, and her lover would die if she does it out of consideration. She does it because she has loved him with all her heart before the accident, so much that every nerves, every cells in her body would protect him with their finest impulses. She doesn't think about gender, sexuality, social position, caste, religion, belief, profession, benefit, self-interest, self-esteem, self-consciousness, gain and loss. Not any of that, for they are activity of thought, and thought is of the ego. In this state there is no mind, only action. She will see time slow down or even stop.
! Why do I say this is the most important part in defining what love is? Of course we cannot be constantly in that state, for, as I previously mention, the ego is necessary for daily living, but without it, how is this so-called love any different from any other kind of relationships, that are all based on benefit and self-interest? I say I love a girl, do I love her/the Dasein that is her, or do I just love what she has to offer? To define "What is man", "What is self" is important, because otherwise we may mistake that we love a person while in fact we love something else that belongs to that person, that are in fact some conditioned, outward expressions of that person's true inner self.
! If I say I love her because she is beautiful, lovely, humorous and she gives me pleasure, then what if an accident happens and she loses all that beauty, loveliness, humor, and she gets a bad-temper, an rude manner, and she gets easily angry, and she stops giving me pleasure, (or maybe even stops loving me) then I will stop loving her? If I still still say I love her, is it because of pity and gratitude and duty? Pity, Duty and Gratitude are quite different from love, IMO. If I stay by her side just because of the favors she gave me in the past, then I am living in the past and not the present. The past is dead, only the present is life. I only need to know that She is still her, only her outward cover, her outer expressions change.
! Then, to love her, that which is truly her, is to tenderly care for her happiness regardless of all that can happen, and love her just as she is in the now, regardless of her temporary flaws, and striving to improve her conditions, work toward her happiness.
Come what may, love stands firmly by the river of truth.
Gentlemen, I beseech you, does love always need a clear, rational reason?! I don't compromise with love. That is to say, I can't make a half-hearted commitment in a relationship. If I can't love someone that much then I won't say "I love you" at all. I would rather live alone for the rest of my life than uttering a half-assed statement, living with a lukewarm love, a selfish love, a fabricated love. If we would deceive ourselves to feel comfortable, then when truth, when reality slap us in the face, how do we cope with it?
! I love my solitude and love myself for doing it. I devoted myself to art before love robbed me away. I didn't seek love at all, it just came. If love is sought, chance is it may just be fabricated. I told myself not expect anything to begin with, that is why love to me is no bargain.
I am one of those who don't care about preserving my genes. You say, if everyone is like this, then mankind may extinct because they don't care about reproduction and marriage. I think, if one is truly honest with oneself and other, then when one marry without true/pure love, the best thing one can say to one's partner is "I love you, but not more than I love myself. And you love me, but not more than you love yourself. Deal. Happy marriage".
I can't find myself saying that. I am unable to compromise with it.[/hide] -
RE: Tell me of this "Love"
Or maybe you have never experienced what JD is talking about?
[hide]Well, I can't tell you about private love life but I can make a claim that I have experienced love, and shouldered its burden as much as my conditions would allow.
@Nami:Have you ever been able to tell someone that you love him/her even if you were fuckin raging at him/her atm? Have you ever experienced the same kind of routine every day and haven't gotten bored of it, but still excited like the first day?
No offense, really.I did.
Have you ever had a fight with someone and were still happy because you knew no matter how harsh you'd be, you wouldn't need to be afraid that this someone wouldn't be able to take it and vice versa and with the strong knowing that this fight would turn out good in the end?
This is the mutual understanding I strive for.
[/hide]
The only thing I want to avoid is self-deception. The only thing I wage war against is self-deception. It is all that.
There is a misunderstanding. I am not condemning anyone or considering myself to be morally superior to anyone. Let empty our prejudice and think for a moment.
What people mistake for perfection is a complete self-understanding. This understanding doesn't make one perfect. I believe it simply makes one happier, to see life in a more meaningful manner. Such a thing is worth striving for, is it not?. I am not telling you to reject or hate any part of you. I say, wholly love yourself and understand yourself.
I am not yelling. I am whispering as gently as possible. There is no argument to be won, only mutual-understanding to be attained.
[hide]Everyone poops. Thought is a product of a brain. Thought is no more sacred than any other other product of the body. Doesn't matter if it is thought about love or god or toalet. Sacredness is self-deception. Only the unknowable, that cannot be approached by thought is sacred.
Only with understanding this one can think about anything without fear and self-hating. Self-hating is a self deception.
If I love someone I will strive for mutual understanding. Not condemning, rejecting. Fears cease when you understand that there is nothing to fear.
Have you ever had this feeling when you you spend time with your loved one? When it is absolutely quiet. Nobody says anythings. Nothing needs to be said. But you feel warm and joyous and calm and peaceful. You forget time and forget yourself. Your self-consciousness is absent. There is no longer any barrier between you two. You understand each other without uttering any words, and even if you need to say anything, you say quietly, knowing the other will hear.
That is love. In its totality.
The ego and self-consciousness are necessary for daily living, but in relationship they are unnecessary. They go away in the presence of love. Naturally, not forcefully. I strive for such moments of love and I know it is wholly humanly possible.
[/hide]–- Update From New Post Merge ---
[hide]
I can't tell you my love story because it is too personal. But I can tell you my personal principle. In the past I often said "I love you" too carelessly and easily, but after I experienced true love, I came to understand I should only say it if I mean it with all my heart and there is no need to say it at all if we truly love each other. Love changed every way I looked at life.Before I decided: "I love this girl", I would ask myself many questions about whether I would keep saying "I love you" in various challenges and ordeal.
And only if my heart answers: "Yes, I will still keep loving her unless she resents my love" then I can tell that girl: 'I love you' without fear.
That is my personal vow. I imagined every kinds of situations that can ruin my love, and if I felt my love cannot be ruined by those situations, only then would I confess my love. And I did it. I did tell a certain girl that I loved her with all my heart. I did it not to feed my self-esteem, but because it was what I truly felt. I expect nothing in return, accept her as she is unconditionally, with every strengths and flaws, love everything that makes her her. And at this very moment, even though I am not in any relationship, I feel warm and joyous and peaceful, for I can feel love filling my heart, a deep, quiet kind of feeling, not stormy and vehement like my early day. Romanticism or not, if one lives it, it is real. That is not striving for perfection, but understanding, and to be serious with relationship.[/hide] -
The teaching of Jiddu Krishnamurti.
I have always wanted to make a this thread to introduce the ideas of one man, who has saved my life from depression through his words, and I guess this is the time for it. "What, Sea?!! Have you gotten so bad as to follow some sort of cult?! What a pathetic loser!" No, sirs, it's the opposite. This man, who was known as Jiddu Krishnamurti, enabled me to stop following anyone, any authority. He is not my personal Jesus and he wished nobody would consider him as such. I don't follow him. I want to understand him and I wish to see my friends understanding him.
If you think this thread is inappropriate, please delete it at any moment you like.
Let me borrow the words of the renowned writer Henry Miller to open his story:"There is a name I have withheld which stands out in contrast to all that is secret, suspect, confusing, bookish and enslaving: Krishnamurti. Here is one man of our time who may be said to be a master of reality. He stands alone. He has renounced more than any man I can think of; except the Christ. Fundamentally he is so simple to understand that it is easy to comprehend the confusion which his clear, direct words and deeds have entailed. Men are reluctant to accept what is easy to grasp. Out of a perversity deeper than all Satan's wiles, man refuses to acknowledge his own God-given rights: he demands deliverance or salvation by and through an intermediary; he seeks guides, counsellors, leaders, systems, rituals. He looks for solutions which are in his own breast. He puts learning above wisdom, power above the art of in-discrimination. But above all, he refuses to work for his own liberation, pretending that first "the world" must be liberated. Yet, as Krishnamurti has pointed out time and again, the world problem is bound up with the problem of the individual. Truth is ever present, Eternity is here and now. And salvation? What is it, 0 man, that you wish to save? Your petty ego? Your soul? Your identity? Lose it and you will find yourself. Do not worry about God – God knows how to take care of Himself. Cultivate your doubts, embrace every kind of experience, keep on desiring, strive neither to forget nor to remember, but assimilate and integrate what you have experienced.
Roughly, this is Krishnamurti's way of speaking. It must be revolting at times to answer all the petty, stupid questions which people are forever putting to him. Emancipate yourself! he urges. No one else will, because no one else can. This voice from the wilderness is, of course, the voice of a leader. But Krishnamurti has renounced that role too."
Selected biography:
[hide]
Krishnamurti was born in May 12, 1895 into a Telugu Brahmin family in what was then colonial India. When he was 14 years old, he was 'discovered' by the high-ranking theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater in the grounds of the Theosophical Society headquarters at Adyar in Madras (now Chennai), who was amazed by the "most wonderful aura he had ever seen, without a particle of selfishness in it." Krishnaji was subsequently raised under the tutelage of Annie Besant and Leadbeater, leaders of the Society at the time, who believed him to be a "vehicle" for an expected World Teacher. He and his brother suffered under their strict education and as a result his brother died, which affected Krishnaji immensely. "His belief in the Masters and the hierarchy had undergone a total revolution."; the news "broke him completely." ,but twelve days after his brother's death he was "immensely quiet, radiant, and free of all sentiment and emotion"; "there was not a shadow … to show what he had been through". The experience of his brother's death seems to have shattered any remaining illusions, and a "new vision" was now "coming into being."To their surprise, as Krishnamurti grew up he dissolved the worldwide organization (the Order of the Star of the East) that was established to support him. At Ommen, the Netherlands, on 3 August 1929. He stated that he had made his decision after "careful consideration" during the previous two years, and that:
"I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path. ... This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies."He claimed allegiance to no nationality, caste, religion, or philosophy, and spent the rest of his life traveling the world, speaking to large and small groups and individuals. He authored many books, among them The First and Last Freedom, The Only Revolution, and Krishnamurti's Notebook. Many of his talks and discussions have been published. His last public talk was in Madras, India, in January 1986, a month before his death at his home in Ojai, California.
A few days before his death, in a final statement, he emphatically declared that "nobody"–among his associates, or the general public–had understood what had happened to him (as the conduit of the teaching), nor had they understood the teaching itself. He added that the "immense energy" operating in his lifetime would be gone with his death, again implying the impossibility of successors. However, he offered hope by stating that people could approach that energy and gain a measure of understanding "...if they live the teachings". In prior discussions he had compared himself with Thomas Edison, implying that he did the hard work, and now all was needed by others was a flick of the switch. In another instance he talked of Columbus going through an arduous journey to discover the New World, whereas now, it could easily be reached by jet; the ultimate implication being that even if Krishnamurti was in some way "special," in order to arrive at his level of understanding, others didn't need to be.
Krishnamurti died of pancreatic cancer on February 17, 1986, at the age of 90. His remains were cremated and scattered by friends and former associates in the three countries where he had spent most of his life: India, England, and the United States of America.[/hide]Krishnamurti would often refer to the totality of his work as the teachings and not as my teachings. His concern was always about "the teachings"; the teacher had no importance, and all authority, especially psychological authority, was denounced:
"All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary."
The core of Krishnamurti's teaching: http://www.prahlad.org/gallery/krishnamurti.htm
Useful insights on his his uncompromising way of teaching the Truth: http://www.buddhanet.net/khrisna.htm
The following are opinions of famous people on him.! George Bernard Shaw called Krishnamurti "a religious figure of the greatest distinction" and added, 'He is the most beautiful human being I have ever seen."
The Dalai Lama: "Krishnamurti is one of the greatest thinkers of the age"
! Aldous Huxley, after attending one of Krishnamurti's talks, confided in a letter, "… the most impressive thing I have listened to. It was like listening to a discourse of the Buddha - such power, such intrinsic authority... "; " The reader will find a clear contemporary statement of the fundamental human problem, together with an invitation to solve it in the only way in which it can be solved - by and for himself."
! Time Magazine named Krishnamurti as "one of the five saints of the 20th century".
! Khalil Gibran: "When he entered my room I said to myself, 'Surely the lord of love has come'."
! Publishers Weekly, as quoted on the jacket of To Be Human (2000) by Jiddu Krishnamurti: "Few modern thinkers have integrated psychology, philosophy, and religion so seamlessly as Krishnamurti."
! Professor David Bohm (associate of Einstein), after meeting Krishnamurti said: “The sky is different; it’s bigger.”
! Pepe Romero: "He was the essence of love."
! Franz Beckenbauer: "I keep a copy of 'Freedom From The Known' by my bedside… you should also read that book."
! Henry Miller wrote, "There is no man I would consider it a greater privelege to meet". "I know of no living man whose thought is more inspiring." ;"[His] language is naked, revelatory and inspiring… Instead of an obstacle race or a rat trap, it makes of daily life a joyous pursuit. There is something about Krishnamurti's utterances which makes the reading of books seem utterly superfluous."
! "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Benares, January 1910". - Episode in Emmy Award winning American television series created by George Lucas. The series explores the childhood and youth of the fictional character Indiana Jones, and in this episode, "old Indy attempts to enlighten a down on his luck trucker by telling him about the most extraordinary person he ever met: Krishnamurti."
! Times (London), Literary Supplement: "There is nothing vague about Krishnamurti's teaching. It is precise and penetrating."
! Van Morrison: "I feel the meaning of Krishnamurti for our time is that one has to think for oneself and not be swayed by any outside religious or spiritual authorities."
! Joseph Campbell: "…I can scarcely think of anything but the beauty and wisdom of my friend(Krishnamurti)…"
! Deepak Chopra: "Krishnamurti influenced me profoundly and helped me personally break through the confines of my own self-imposed restrictions to my freedom." ; "My first encounter with Krishnamurti was in the mid 1980s. He was giving a lecture at the Felt Forum in Madison Square Garden. lt was a cold wintery morning, there was sleet and snow and a thousand people were waitin9 outside. I was one of them. Krishnamurti spoke for two hours. He was direct, profound and ruthlessly honest. When I walked out the sleet and snow had stopped and there was bright sunshine. For some reason I was feelin9 that the sun was bright and warm because I was feelin9 bright and warm inside. I never met Krishnamurti personal1y although I have been close to many who were close to him and I see the remarkabIe effect this man had on their lives. In my own life Krishnamurti influenced me profound1y and helped me personal1y break through the confines of my own se1f-imposed restrictions to my freedom."
! Angelo Gilardino: He taught freely, he taught freedom - he taught lovely, he taught love - he taught beatifully, he taught beauty - he taught simply, he taught simplicity. He was a gift of heavens for humanity.
! Joe Lewis, a world Karate champion and student of Bruce Lee said that two of his favorite books are Talking about Think On These Things, and A dialogue with K. He said that Bruce Lee applied a great deal of K’s teachings to both martial arts and acting.
! Atlantic Constitution: "The author's reasoning is so clear, so straightforward, that the reader feels a challenge on every page."
! Alan Watts: "A strong ally who awakened responsive chords in me by the freshness of a way of thinking that was quite outside the usual ruts of moral and spiritual teaching."
! Richmond News-Leader: "Mr. Krishnamurti has written a most revolutionary book. With a sweep as wide as Gibran's The Prophet, he investigates such universals as 'The Individual and Society,' 'Self-Knowledge,' 'Fear,' 'Simplicity,' 'Awareness' and 'Self-Deception.' "
! Anne Morrow Lindberg: "Krishnamurti's observations and explorations of modern man's estate are penetrating and profund, yet given with a disarming simplicity and directness. To listen to him or to read his thoughts is to face oneself and the world with an astonishing morning freshness."
! The Personalist: "A thought-provoking book, Life Ahead represents a first-hand account of the struggle to transcend human limitations. In its wider context it is an attempt to answer man's gnawing recognition of his own fear and his personal inadequacy."
! Fairfield Osborn "His word, 'Education and the Significance of Life' expresses clear and untrammeled thinking regarding some of the profound cultural problems of our people."
! Margueritte Harmon Bro: "Here is the work of a free mind curiously intent on truth without self-interest."
! Francis Hackett: "Krishnamurti is no other than he seems, a free man, one of the first quality, growing older as diamonds do but the gem-like flame not dating, and alive in these Commentaries (On Living). It is a treasure."
! Rollo May: "These calm searching thoughts of an eastern thinker pierce to the roots of our western problems. A profound and fresh approach to self-understanding and deeper insights into the meaning of personal freedom and mature love."
! Reza Ganjavi: "I've read the works of all major Western and Eastern philosophers and in my humble opinion Krishnamurti is the greatest philosopher who ever walked the earth. " ; "He was just a freelancer, didn’t belong to any organization, ideology…, just a very intelligent human looking at the problems of living and he had amazing insights into the nature of the mind."
List of works on Jiddy Krishnamurti: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_about_Jiddu_Krishnamurti
A chapter on Krishnamurti from Henry Miller's book:http://www.jkrishnamurti.org.cn/archiver/?tid-624.html
I don't claim to have completely understood his ideas, but I have dug deep. If you have any trouble in understanding him, I will try my best to explain. I can only show you the way to the river. Whether you can go there and drink the water is your own choice.
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RE: Tell me of this "Love"
Or maybe you are missing my point and mistake it as a quest for perfection?
http://www.jiddukrishnamurti.org/perfection.htm
Love never strives after something; it does not make itself perfect. It's the flame without the smoke; in striving to be perfect, there's only greater volume of smoke; perfection, then, lies only in striving, which is mechanical, more and more perfect in habit, in imitation, in engendering more fear. Each one is educated to compete, to become successful; then the end becomes all important. Love for the thing itself disappears. Then the instrument is used not for the love of the sound but for what the instrument will bring, fame, money, prestige and so on.
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RE: Tell me of this "Love"
[hide]Not to be the quoting man, but I like these particular words from Einstein: "I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity." We fear solitude because we fear facing ourselves. None but ourselves. We fear discovering what is going on inside us. Self-knowledge begin with looking inwardly and blossom in solitude. Perhaps it is only when we can love our solitude that we can love ourselves and then truly love others.
http://www.abrahamingle.com/krishnamurti-on-friendship/–- Update From New Post Merge ---
[hide]@Monkey:
You'll find that they are not. You'll find she is flawed, imperfect, selfish, taking her enjoyment from you for her own stimulation, jealous, all these things you seek to reject in yourself as making bad love.
If you reject these in yourself, how can you really love another person unless they've done this same nigh unattainable thing you are trying to do.
Because no matter who she is, those are true of her as they are of you.The idea is not to reject jealousy, or selfishness, but to understand them. I have all those flaws, selfishness in me and I don't reject them at all. How can I reject my loved one just because she is humanly selfish when I was basically the same. Each person is humanity as a whole. All this joy, sadness, selfishness, immense sense of loneliness.
In my humble opinion, perhaps only when one comes to thoroughly understand his jealousy or other flaws, will they ceases or are lessened, in a natural way, not forcefully.[/hide][hide]
Seeking perfection in love would just cause you to reject every single man, woman, and child as not good enough until you wind up alone, hating yourself, on the top of an empty hill wondering what went wrong.
Enlightenment is not perfection IMO, just complete understanding of oneself. Nobody attains enlightenment by hating himself. I don't think it is the right thing to hate one's flaws that make one what one is, but to understand and accept.
This is not about religion honestly. Krishnamurti himself rejected every organized religions on Earth, and I myself is standing apart from all traditions (see my sig). Blindly following rules doesn't help you to understand truth. Christ and Christianity aren't quite the same. Christianity itself is the betrayal of the idea of the Christ. [/hide][/hide] -
RE: Tiers of manga.
@Monkey:
I think it's more about unlearning things you assume of the series.
I've watched a certain…someone :ninja:..... discover it all for the first time. And watching her just waltz on through from Golden Age to Vritannis in the course of a week or two without any of the incredibly well entrenched Berserk fandom biases and hypes defining for her where high points are, where they end, at one point "classic " Berserk is supposed to be, what isn't "classic"..... it's been amazing. It made me realize that even though I was the haggard Berserk veteran...that maybe my overfamiliarity and experience among the fandom of it....has actually instead of wise...made me blind.
She has accepted each new arc and character in some way or another, she doesn't know what's not right or not according to the Berserk fandom.
And in reality she is the wise one. And I'm the baby.
And she's forced me to relook at the whole series, and it's been rewarding.She sounds like a good friend.
Maybe it is time for me to relook Berserk as well. -
RE: AP Awards Discussion Thread
@Monkey:
Fire First Ace is the secret motivator of greatness in us all.
He lurks behind the Arlong Park. His power to rip down all our walls and masks and show us to each-other naked.
And in turn this forces the question upon us.
What is wrong with our naked selves? Are we ashamed of our real faces? Our real shapes? Our real lives? Our dead end jobs and absent fathers? Our small idiot towns? Of people in real life finding out we post about pirate comics?
Fire Fist Ace than forces us to comprehend the truth in this.
Do we hate ourselves so?
To not want to be truly seen?
If we did not hate ourselves, than his terrifying power would not be terrifying at all.
It would be nothing.
Fire Fist is a hero, he dares us to love ourselves. To learn to not fear him at all. To be comfortable with our real skins.That's if you ignore that he can probably steal your credit card information and social security number.
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RE: Tiers of manga.
This is my dream. If you want to share, how long have you been reading manga, out of curiosity? I've been watching anime since 2007 or 2008, but only recently started reading manga. Like, reading reading. Not seeing an anime then continuing where it left off in the manga.
And I'm amazed that Greg / Aohige have read more than you. Makes their adoration of One Piece all the more profound.
I'm not gonna make a tier list on this thread probably for another year or two :P
Well, not wield my manga-penis, I read a lot partly because I want to get into this profession. I started reading from when was 6 years old. But in Vietnam seinen are kinda banned so I only started getting into mature manga since the last 2 years through the Internet. And I have read more manga during these two years than all I have read before combined. That said, before that I read more manhua.
Aohige is a monster. -
RE: Tell me of this "Love"
http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=34415&page=6&p=2472471&viewfull=1#post2472471
@Monkey:
[hide]Love involves a lot of give and take and selfishness and gratification and feeling better about yourself and all those ignoble things.
If it didn't it wouldn't be human.I think that is romance. In my opinion, love and romance is not quite the same thing. Jealousy, worries, etc… all the ideas of a romance. I mean, love as understood in romantic novels and the likes, are they true love yet?
I agree that acceptance and love must go with each other.It also involves showing all your fears, warts, worries and ugliness in the first place. Because it involves trust and honesty.
For a great working love, no masks can be worn. And even with all your selfishness and green eyed monsters and falliability on display, they don't mind because they feel comfortable showing you there's too.
A philosophy that would deny that as love just sounds, for all it's sophistication and even self rewarded "realism", like a seven year old's girl's idea of love.
There is no pure love.There's a strong bond between two people who find a good common third and fourth leg to walk through life with, as flawed and as damaged as they and the other can be, knowing that, accepting that, and ultimately not minding that about the other. Drawing strength and energy from the other one. And giving it back. And feeling that sense that maybe there's no other person to fit their particular strange battered edges and shapes. Like two fitting crazy looking puzzle pieces.[/hide]
Plus they bone.
That's love.[hide]
Pure love, true love, that I was talking about, is something capable by a… Buddha, or a Jesus. I mean, not really, but only a Buddha or a Jesus would be able to be in such egoless state of love constantly, and for normal humans such love just appear as some moments, some flashes in darkness. Perhaps my idea of love, sub-consciously or otheriwse, was partly influenced by those notion, but I am not sure. Attaining Buddhahood is not that uncommon, and in fact that is what all serious Buddhists attempt to do for it is the goal of Buddhism. I kinda want Buddhahood, but it isn't really important.[/hide][hide]
Perhaps our issues is that we don't want to be a 7 years old. We want to be…. adult. We don't want innocence. The problems, the conflicts of humanity are exactly from this. And living in world like this we came to compromise our innocence.
Zen is the activity to recapture this innocence, but it is more profound than just that (7 years old children are egocentric and selfish as hell). We say it is inhuman, but who among us have experienced the state the Buddha was in, the state Krishnamurti was in. They radiated energy that can be felt by others around them. The state that is called enlightenment. Is it truly just fiction?
Miyazaki maintained that conflict is necessary. But he has not been aware of the state where there is no conflict in the mind.
And BTW, Tantric Buddhism believe they can attain enlightenment through sexual intercourse.[/hide] -
RE: Nominations Thread
@Uncle:
THE SEA for most indecisive.
Ken-Ken the Uncle for most indecisive.
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RE: Tell me of this "Love"
@The:
[hide]I am on a journey of … self disc-GRRah-very. Patooey. I have been cursed by a fiendish hound and left to dwell on idiocy. I just ask, Arlong Park... grr, what in the devil's name is "Love"?! Does any mongrel here have any experience with this monstrosity?! What is it? I hear tales of how it "comes", how you "feel it inside", and it leaves you with anxious feelings like.... a cage of butterflies in your intestines?! What ggrrrARBAGE! It leaves me wanting to pull out my mane, it makes me glad Hol--... that... fool is dead and buried. I can embrace this life, but I still find myself...grr...curious..
[/hide]
So… so go ahead... Mongrels... Tell me about "Love". Convince me it exists, tell me if you've ever, ahahaha, felt it tug--grr-- at your goo guts!! Do you pine for it, like a fool? Do you think you truly understand what it is?! Go ahead, tell me...What is "Love"...
“Love… no such thing.
Whatever it is that binds families and married couples together, that's not love. That's stupidity or selfishness or fear. Love doesn't exist.
Self interest exists, attachment based on personal gain exists, complacency exists. But not love. Love has to be reinvented, that’s certain.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat[HIDE]
Anyone who has interest in modern philosophy can as well read Jean Paul Sartre's interpretation of this so-called love in his magnum opus Being and Nothingness. But in short I find myself in agreement with many existentialists that the word 'love' as we understood in common sense is but hypocrisy and self-deception. Instead of loving one another we love the way others make us feel about ourselves.
But do I believe in pure love, selfless love? Well, I do.[/HIDE][HIDE]
It is true that we cannot define what love is with logic and reason, because love is meant to be felt by the heart. But we (and by 'we' I mean those who have experienced true love, not anyone particular) can use logic and reason to negate what love is not.
IMHO, "Give and take", that sound like more like a bargain. Is love a bargain? Is "to love" = "to simply give" and "to be loved" = "to take"? If one is not given back love, what happens to one's love then? All are loves originated from the desire to be loved? Relationship and love is not quite the same thing. Do-gooders feel 'high' when they do good deeds, but is that love, or simply projected self-esteem?
Is being emotionally dependent on loved ones love? Or is that more like 'using' them as 'something' to satisfy certain emotional needs, to escape the immense dread of solitude? Is emotional attachment love? Is pleasure love? Is love a desire? Is love a duty? Is love a projected self-esteem? Is love trying to possess, trying to attain the other's favor? Is love "I want you!", "Become mine!"?
Perhaps that would be love to many people. And that is also what I used to believe to be love. But as of now, to me, true love is…
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To love without first demanding anything in return, not to see ourselves having the so-called 'greatness of heart' and 'nobility of soul', not to project 'being-for-itself' into 'being-in-itself'. This love only comes when self-consciousness extinguishes, and the ego is absent. In true love there is no comparison, no barrier, no jealousy, no agony of being unloved, no angst of loneliness. It is all-encompassing and ever-renewing and eternal. It is not blind, but possesses the clear vision of Truth. Even in the best relationship among us mundane humans, this kind of love may not be ever-present, but I believe there are moments when one can develop and mature into this deep, quiet kind love in its totality, when one becomes love itself.
Such is my current take on love. Based on my experience.
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RE: General Philosophy discussion
I forget myself when I draw. My self-consciousness, my awareness of the ego is void when engaged in artistic activities such as that, or when engaged in conversation with the girl I love.
I will mediate more on time before I reply.
@Wagomu:(though I do agree with Sartre on many things).
Must be because existentialism is coined by Sartre, though it owned its root back to Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. His contemporaries, like Heidegger (whose works influenced Sartre's own), Gabriel Marcel, Albert Camus, Karl Jasper refused to be called existentialists even though their principles can be considered existentialism, because 'Sartre stinks'. Especially Albert Camus. Mersault from Camus's the Stranger is essentially Roquentin from Satre's Nausea.
Sartre has done great injustice to Camus, and Faulkner, and Heidegger, etc… by misinterpreting their works. (See Sartre's Explication de l'Etranger which misinterpreted Camus's l'Etranger, and Heidergger's A Letter to Humanism which is an attempt to correct Sartre's misinterpretation of his 'Being and Time' in the latter's 'Being and Nothingness')
I can respect Sartre's intellect and his pointing out the hypocrisy and absurdity of love and morality and such. He saw the problems, but he couldn't see the solution. That is Zen. -
RE: Tiers of manga.
Fair enough, there are a lot problems with it.
but how far have you gotten?
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Looking back, Devilman has a shit load of problems, goofy, oversexualied situations and some pretty awful dialogue in some places, I think it hinders my rating of it a bit.
But I enjoyed those last volumes like crazy so much so I ignored, or accepted the many failings the manga had and put it in literature when its at least for the last few volumes Jaw dropping, but its not 'god'.
I'll change my rating of it to Jaw dropping it ain't really literature, but to me those last few volumes had something at least approaching that level.
But to many folks in this thread, I still recommend you at least give it a try just for those last few volumes which are so damn great IMO.
Devilman is awesome. So says The Sea.
The Guts-Girffith dynamic is essentially Akira Fudo-Ryo Asuka.
Devilman Lady is more pulpy, but it is good fun nonetheless.In all honesty Berserk never really impressed me aside from the shocking violence. There were a lot of pointless things. I don't see why Miura should prolong the 'direct visual depiction' of Caska's rape in near a chapter so I can only interpret it as an attempt to arouse 'readers with strange fetish'. And I just get bored seeing Gutt slaying monsters again and again and Caska dumbing around.
My feeling toward Berserk is too mixed. But I am not here to ruin your fun.
My tier-list had definitely changed a lot and become far different from that of you or Zephos. I stand on my ground.
Though, I won't make a definite tier list because doing so is pointless. I have read near 1000 titles of manga (still little compared to Aohige or Greg) and it is too troublesome to list.Nausicaa is literature. But it isn't anything like Dostoevsky's The Possessed and The Borther Karamazov, or Albert Camus's The Stranger and The Rebels, or William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. Hell, I dislike Sartre, but I would even put Nausea above Nausicaa. The existentialist novels started from Dostoevsky's era has far preceded Miyazaki and dug far deeper into the problems of humanity, as they pushed nihilism to it utmost to overcome it with existentialist heroes creating the value of life. And I don't care about Dickens or Tolstoy. Or Time's 100 best novels list.
Back to manga.
Hiroshi Hirata's Satsuma Gishiden make Lone Wolf and Cub look vanilla and I am not talking about literary merit shit (it is grim, but of course isn't anything pulpy like men in fancy armors going around slaying monsters like Berserk). Take a sample of his artwork from Two Warriors.!
!
Bonus:[hide]
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RE: General Philosophy discussion
Say Sea, is there any subject you would like to discuss? Personally I'm good at evil but… I dunno. Besides it would be nice to see your own reflection on these quotes. I'm sure you know the strength and fault there is to be found.
There is no time if there is no memory to record it. I am talking about mental time of course. The hand in the clock only points at one number at a time. If you look at it without using your memory to remember its previous position you will feel like time has stopped. This is not easy to do but it is possible. Time is created by thought and thought is an activity of the ego. Timelessness implies egolessness. Time and space cannot be divided, as proved by modern physics. In an egoless state, which I call Zen, you go beyond time and space and there is no barrier between you and the world. I experienced this several times.
Thought is too slow to capture the movement of life, and it divides energy, as the ego divides one from others. -
RE: Tiers of manga.
Since you are from Detroit: http://www.mangareader.net/318/detroit-metal-city.html
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RE: Nominations Thread
Fire-Fist for best researcher.
I don't think anyone else on this site can match this. -
RE: Confession Session - LOCK THIS THREAD
What do you mean, solid real bedrock to apply it?
You can become my disciple so I can show you the way to light and truth.
:) -
Also Sprach Liberty Sea - Ecce Homo (Collection of harmful commentaries and poetry)
EDIT: The opening post is my pre-enlightenment experience.
Welcome to my thread, ladies and gentlemen, and… get out.No, sirs and madams, in all seriousness, if you have low tolerance for strong-egotism and overly self-conscious explores, I would advice you to, by all mean, stay away from this thread as far as possible. For it is going to be full of me as I am full of myself. For you are going to read the book that is me; and you may not gather enough interest in me and my absurd philosophical problems to take the time you spend reading this book as something more than a waste of time, if not an intoxicated waste of time.
The topics of the writings in this thread can be anything, from the pettiest matters to the greatest issues of mankind. The quality standard I aim to is nothing less than perfection. I take responsibility for my works and welcome all kind of criticism, but understand that I am in no way begging for any sort of attention, recognition, approval or pity from anyone, and therefore would not try to please anyone's personal taste.
So, good sirs, why would I chose to expose a part of my inner world (the more superficial part, I would say) in a public thread, you ask? Because I, as previously claimed, is quite an egoist who rarely stops thinking, especially thinking about himself. And those thoughts, which I consider rather vital for my personal mental growth, would die off if they are not in some way written out. Due to their highly abstract and vague nature, I find it hard to observe them mindfully and express them clearly if I don't write with the aim to make it readable and understanble to someone other than myself. I could never find anyone of my social circles in whom I could confide those thoughts, not because of my shyness and lack of interactions, but rather because of the level of complexity (and tediousness, if you will) of the matters I am concerned about, which would require serious investment and certain special areas of knowledge. Writing in the Internet, especially in a personal thread, gives me the feeling that I am speaking to everyone and at the same time, no one; which is quite comfortable and convenient. And, rather than bothering and annoying people in various threads of various topics in these forums with my absurdly lengthy rambles, or flooding the Facebook's New Feed of my friends with boring and random philosophical statements, I choose to throw them all in this one thread, in which I will study me, as you do. And for one more time I would warn, what you get from this thread may just be pure poisons, so if you have no favor for my cocky and tedious manner, please find something else worthier to spend your precious time.
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For various reasons, I tend to think of myself as the most honest man, and at the same time, the most deceitful man of my generation. Honest, because I can always face the kinds of self-conscious notions most people would avoid thinking about. Deceitful, because despite the previously mentioned ability, I too often deceive others, and myself, in various subtle levels. This shows not a lack of courage, I believe, but rather the unstability of mind. I deceive others without even knowing it, as I was also deceiving myself and believing in every last bit of my life. I can trick myself into liking or hating someone and change my image like a mirror. If even I myself am not sure whether I am being serious or not, how can you? If you are to judge me, then my brethrens, believe not in my words, but look at my deeds, as the ancient wisdom would teach you. Why do I lie, my brethrens? Because of fear, or for the sheer joy of lying? I am a mind-gambler, not a mind-gamer, therefore I lie for the tension and anxiety I get from my lies.Ironically enough, the greatest concern of my life has always been one thing: Truth, or more specific, Ultimate Reality. It is my ambition to find Truth, and yet this very ambition is the one thing that prevents me from finding it, the Ultimate Reality that cannot be comprehended by logical or scientific means, and cannot be approached with desire. I can say that, and can somewhat confirm what the mystics have been saying, because I have, in deed, had vague experiences of this so-called Ultimate Reality. People call me a determined man, and here I detest both my determination and lack of determination. For without determination, nothing is possible, and yet with determination, Truth is not within reach. I see it that my determination has long buried my deepest inner voice and my poetic essence, for my poetic essence cannot be determined in any definte direction, as aimless as existence itself, and as solitary as a trash-bag lying at some corner in the street after the rain. But it is free. No, it thirst for freedom like a drowned man thirst for air.
The ship is sinking! Hurry! Hurry! The house is on fire. Hurry! Hurry! Truth awaits nobody. You search your own heart and wait for it to come. Is determinism truth? Is one simply a prisoner of fate? Is man but a slave of his conditions, his actions no more than inevitable results of the network of causes and effects, his thought just a definite process of particles and waves working in strict accordance of certain physic law? To find truth is to see whether I am a puppet that can see the strings, or a puppet that can cut the strings and move on its own. Truth brings Love and Freedom, so is the meaning of my chosen name: Liberty Sea."Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” - John 8:2
Ambition is all there is to my suffering. That is all there is to human suffering. And I am extraordinarily ambitious. I harbor and at the same time try to suppress this absurd impulse that is eager to best everyone at everything, when their talents are exposed to my eyes. This troubled me greatly, and rob me of that innocent enjoyment I so much want to capture. When was the last time I can admire a great work of art without comparing it to my own work? When was the last time I can forget myself in the beauty of art? I can't recall.
I am overly prideful, and even if I lacked the self-awareness to recognize myself as such, there would still be too many people ready to inform me of that characteristic for me to ignore it. If anyone finds himself wise enough to advice me, I would first be pissed, then I would silence this disturbance in my mind to listen to the criticism, because I am for progress even more. My pride is a fruit of my ego, my longing for progress is a bigger fruit of my ego. There are few people who could advice me without pissing me off first, and they are all women. I am softer toward women, not because I am biased or discriminating, but because these women are more ready to be sensitive and understanding.
However prideful my impulses tend to be, I put the sake of my progress at greatest priority. And for its sake, I trampled on the images of all idols I have worshiped, and even the images of those who are dear to me. I was always in need of an absolute to guide my way in life. Be it Karl Marx, or Ho Chi Minh, or Einstein, or the Buddha, or Nietzsche, or Krishnamurti. They are important pillars that built my mind, and once I have entered the temple, I must destroy the temple and overcome their influences. I can always, say, picture myself holding a sword slaying the people I loved, respected and idolized. It is said, "Meet the Buddha, Kill the Buddha. Meet your parents, Kill your parents". That is the only way to let the words of dead men bear fruit. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."
Self-consciousness is the seed of human illness. The love that is born from self-consciousness is not real love. To truly love is to forget oneself. Any other appearance of love, no matter how poetic and heroic, is simply playing with the ego, to aim for some sort of self-approval.
The feeling I have toward my family, the family that gave birth to me, raised me, is not love. It is gratitude. Gratitude is a matter of mutual interest. It is not universal love. My family never understood me, and they never show serious attempt to. From childhood to adulthood, I live in the solitude of not being understood. Nobody ever came even close to my heart. Not even the girl I so loved. You, Mr. and Miss strangers, are simply looking at the surface of the abyss that is my heart. I am being clear and transparent, like the purest water in the purest lake, but its bottom you see not.Whether you find me witty and humorous or not, I don't find myself having inborn talent to be a comedian. Only he who is sure of himself can be humorous. I can rarely be sure of myself. To laugh in ignorance is something I am not very fond of. For a man who is unaware of truth to ridicule and mock someone else is unsightly. Playfulness is a privilege of the enlightened, Humor is a privilege of the mature. Maturity means the end of growth. My growth and my evolution has not seen its end. If one is ripe, one is rotting.
Some times we would joke about life, about how bitter it is, how absurd it is, to avoid facing it, to lessen the pain it caused to us. It is temporary relief, which prevents us from seeing the root of suffering, then we will suffer again and again. If I laugh, then I laugh. If I cry, then I cry. I don't laugh to wear off my sadness. I don't smile to hide my tear. I face my life with an attitude that is nether optimistic nor pessimistic, but simply with a glistening curiosity, eager to understand, rationally or otherwise. I am not entertainer material. I am a questioner who goes on questioning everything and can yet to stop questioning.
I am laughing.[/hide]
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RE: Confession Session - LOCK THIS THREAD
Jesus: "The world is not able to hate you, but me it doth hate, because I testify concerning it that its works are evil." John 7:7
"If the world doth hate you, ye know that it hath hated me before you; If ye were of the world, the world would love you as its own property: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." John 14:8
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RE: The Writing Process: Discussion & Tips
Please elaborate.
Another example of my genius not being understood.
Imho
@Uncle:Doubt this is serious but it is something I'd like to mention; writing is a lot like art (and since you're both a writer and an artist, this should be relevant to you). You must always strive to be better and never be satisfied with what you put out. If you're not your own worst critic then your development halts and you'll be unable to view your work objectively. Many will claim that their work is perfect but even if it's true that whatever it is is really great, I guarantee you that you'll look back in 20, 10 maybe even 5 or less years and say, "I could have done this" or "This wasn't as good as it could be".
To cultivate your greatness, you must have a love/hate relationship with your work. Love the story and the characters but hate the writing and your treatment of them.
Holy shit!
Doubt this is serious but
Why, of course, the serious part was my being a (humble and modest and great) genius. ^_^
I guarantee you that you'll look back in 20, 10 maybe even 5 or less years and say, "I could have done this" or "This wasn't as good as it could be".
I look at what I wrote several months ago and I already can't stand how badly it smells.
Nice post, Kenny. Great to have you back. -
RE: Monthly Writing Competition: Keep Up The Standard!
@Uncle:
Yeah, and completely ignore his edits because that won't affect the quality of the piece at all. Whatever you wrote as a review will remain true even after Vixen "edits" it.
Holy shit!
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RE: Confession Session - LOCK THIS THREAD
I somewhat share your sentiment, Kappa. Though, I am rather a semi-anarchist.
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RE: The Writing Process: Discussion & Tips
Why is my genius under-appreciated and misunderstood? How do I cultivate my greatness?
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RE: Lets stand up against bullying!
Anti bullying campaign?
Just forward the Casey Heynes video over the Internet again.
Why not this?
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RE: THE SEA.
Thanks everyone for the nice words.
@tigerlilly:Extremely extremely extremely great shading job here!
Perspective wise the hand that points at us is well done, the other hand placed at her hip however looks slightly off. A bit too bulky I'd say.
Other than that the hair and the lines around her chest, up to the trees, and her face. it all looks superb. Well done.I am happy that you like it and paying such close attention and observation to details, hehe. ^.^
That hand, I had much trouble with it but I had to leave it at such. I will see if I can improve.; -
RE: THE SEA.
Had not much time. Drew this in 2 hours. No scanner at home. Went to the shop. Terrible quality.
!
This character is based on a friend of mine.
Oh, and, drew this long ago. Won't update this thread often. Limited internet access.
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RE: General Philosophy discussion
[hide]
"If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say ‘no’; if we ask whether the electron’s position changes with time, we must say ‘no’; if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say ‘no’; if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say ‘no’."
(Robert Oppenheimer, quantum physicist)"It moves. It moves not.
It is far, and It is near.
It is within all this,
And It is outside of all this"
(The Upanishads)"Nothing is more important about the quantum principle than this, that it destroys the concept of the world as ‘sitting out there’, with the observer safely separated from it by a 20 centimeter slab of plateglass.
Even to observe so miniscule an object as an electron, he must shatter the glass. He must reach in. He must install his chosen measuring equipment. It is up to him to decide whether he shall measure position or momentum. To install the equipment to measure the one prevents and excludes his installing the equipment to measure the other. Moreover, the measurement changes the state of the electron. The universe will never afterwards be the same. To describe what has happened, one has to cross out that old word ‘observer’ and put in its place the new word ‘participator’. In some strange sense the universe is a participatory universe"
(John Wheeler, Quantum Physicist)"Natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves."
(Werner Heisenberg)"What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning."
(Werner Heisenberg)"Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems."
(Niels Bohr)"One is led to a new notion of unbroken wholeness which denies the classical idea of analyzability of the world into separately and independently existing parts… We have reversed the usual classical notion that the independent ‘elementary parts’ of the world are the fundamental reality, and that the various systems are merely particular contingent forms and arrangements of these parts. Rather, we say that inseparable quantum interconnectedness of the whole universe is the fundamental reality, and that relatively independently behaving parts are merely particular and contingent forms within this whole."
(David Bohm, quantum physicist)"That the ‘that’ and the ‘this’ cease to be opposites is the very essence of Tao. Only the essence, an axis as it were, is the centre of the circle responding to the endless changes"
(Chuang Tzu)"That which lets now the dark, now the light appear is Tao."
(Chuang Tzu)"My connection with the body and its parts is dissolved.
My perceptive organs are discarded. Thus leaving my material form and bidding farewell to my knowledge, I become one with the Great Pervader. This I call sitting and forgetting all things.‘"
(Chuang Tzu)"Entering into the samadhi of purity, (one obtains) allpenetrating insight that enables one to become conscious of the absolute oneness of the universe."
(Buddhism)"The Buddhist does not believe in an independent or separately existing external world, into whose dynamic forces he could insert himself. The external world and his inner world are for him only two sides of the same fabric, in which the threads of all forces and of all events, of all forms of consciousness and of their objects, are woven into an inseparable net of endless, mutually conditioned relations"
(Lama Anagarika Govinda)"The fundamental idea of Buddhism is to pass beyond the world of opposites, a world built up by intellectual distinctions and emotional defilements, and to realize the spiritual world of non-distinction, which involves achieving an absolute point of view.
(D.T. Suzuki)"Suchness is neither that which is existence, nor that which is non-existence, nor that which is at once existence and non-existence, nor that which is not at once existence and non-existence."
(Ashvaghosha)"Where there is a duality, as it were, there one sees another; there one smells another; there one tastes another... But where everything has become just one’s own self, then whereby and whom would one see? then whereby and whom would one smell? then whereby and whom would one taste."
(The Upanishads)
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"The real revolution that came with Einstein’s theory… was the abandonment of the idea that the spacetime coordinate system has objective significance as a separate physical entity. Instead of this idea, relativity theory implies that the space and time coordinates are only the elements of a language that is used by an observer to describe his environment.""The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."
(Hermann Minkowski)"The significance of the Avatamsaka and its philosophy is unintelligible unless we once experience... a state of complete dissolution where there is no more distinction between mind and body, subject and object... We look around and perceive that... every object is related to every other object... not only spatially, but temporally... As a fact of pure experience, there is no space without time, no time without space; they are interpenetrating."
(D.T. Suzuki)"Let us forget the lapse of time; let us forget the conflict of opinions. Let us make our appeal to the infinite, and take up our positions there."
(Chuang Tzu)
"The absolute tranquillity is the present moment. Though it is at this moment, there is no limit to this moment, and herein is eternal delight."
(/-hi-neng)
"In this spiritual world there are no time divisions such as the past, present and future; for they have contracted themselves into a single moment of the present where life quivers in its true sense... The past and the future are both rolled up in this present moment of illumination, and this present moment is not something standing still with all its contents, for it ceaselessly moves on."
(D. T. Suzuki)"If we speak of the space-experience in meditation, we are dealing with an entirely different dimension...
In this space-experience the temporal sequence is converted into a simultaneous co-existence, the side by side existence of things... and this again does not remain static but becomes a living continuum in which time and space are integrated."
(Lama Govinda)"Time, space, and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen... In the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation"
(Swami Vivekananda)[/hide]
Henry Miller: "We invent nothing, truly. We borrow and re-create. We uncover and discover. All has been given, as the mystics say. We have only to open our eyes and hearts, to become one with that which is."
Krishnamurti: "Thought, which is matter, cannot seek that which is beyond time, for thought is memory, and the experience in that memory is as dead as the leaf of last autumn. "
More:! "That morning the sea was like a lake or an enormous river without a ripple, and so calm that you could see the reflections of the stars so early in the morning. The dawn had not yet come, and so the stars, and the reflection of the cliff, and the distant lights of the town, were there on the water. And as the sun came up over the horizon in a cloudless sky it made a golden path, and it was extraordinary to see that light of California filling the earth and every leaf and blade of grass. As you watched, a great stillness came into you. The brain itself became very quiet, without any reaction, without a movement, and it was strange to feel this immense stillness. "Feel" isn't the word. The quality of that silence, that stillness, is not felt by the brain; it is beyond the brain. The brain can conceive, formulate or make a design for the future, but this stillness is beyond its range, beyond all imagination, beyond all desire. You are so still that your body becomes completely part of the earth, part of everything that is still.
! And as the slight breeze came from the hills, stirring the leaves, this stillness, this extraordinary quality of silence, was not disturbed. The house was between the hills and the sea, over- looking the sea. And as you watched the sea, so very still you really became part of everything. You were everything. You were the light, and the beauty of love. Again, to say "you were a part of everything" is also wrong: the word "you" is not adequate because you really weren't there. You didn't exist. There was only that stillness, the beauty, the extraordinary sense of love. The words you and I separate things. This division in this strange silence and stillness doesn't exist. And as you watched out of the window, space and time seemed to have come to an end, and the space that divides had no reality.
That leaf and that eucalyptus and the blue shining water were not different from you.
! … If you could walk alone among those hills or in the woods or along the long, white, bleached sands, in that solitude you would know what meditation is. The ecstasy of solitude comes when you are not frightened to be alone no longer belonging to the world or attached to anything.
! Then, like that dawn that came up this morning, it comes silently, and makes a golden path in the very stillness, which was at the beginning, which is now, and which will be always there. " -
RE: AP Awards Discussion Thread
Best Chew Out: Thousand lion-chan's epic Parable
http://apforums.net/showthread.php?t=19188&page=239&p=2316850&viewfull=1#post2316850
I'm touched:,)
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RE: Tell me of this "Love"
Ah… love, I have nothing to say about love.
Pushkin, old fellow, you have something to say?Pushkin:
"I loved you; and perhaps I love you still,
The flame, perhaps, is not extinguished; yet
It burns so quietly within my soul,
No longer should you feel distressed by it.
Silently and hopelessly I loved you,
At times too jealous and at times too shy.
May God grant you to find another who will love you
As tenderly and truthfully as I did."Oh Pushkin, my poor Pushkin, let go to a bar to drink something. And sing some random song.
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RE: General Philosophy discussion
The greatest philosopher of the 20th century and his contemporary, the greatest 'spiritual teacher', on truth and being.
http://lildualgrl.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/truthfreedom-and-the-concern-for-man-heidegger-and-krishnamurti/–- Update From New Post Merge ---
"The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking." - Martin Heidegger
"Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man." -excerpts from the Core of Krishnamurti's teachings. Their opinion seemed to be opposed at first glance, but in reality they were in agreement. Heidegger's idea of 'pure thought'- the true logos, as opposed to our normal thought with which we live everyday - is essentially what Krishnamurti meant by 'The ending of thought'. -
RE: Confession Session - LOCK THIS THREAD
How to post well in a forum: Do whatever you want, but let it produce joy, let it yield ecstasy.
Worrying that you don't get enough attention, or worrying that you get too much attention, same thing. Worrying that you are not following a trend, or worrying that you are just following a trend, same thing. Conforming for conforming's sake, or being controversial for controversy's sake, same thing. Either way it's just posing.
Better not care at all and just enjoy yourself. -
RE: Confession Session - LOCK THIS THREAD
This seems to be taking the problem to a completely higher degree, but, in my humble opinion, to be what you are you must not compare yourself to anyone or anything. Absolutely nothing. By comparing we are destroying ourselves.
The self I am speaking of, is it me or is it just a collection of what people think of me and what I think about myself in relation to other people and other things? 'I am taller than this man, I am smarter than this man, I am more generous than this man, I don't make the error this man made. I am liked by this person and hated by that person'. How do we say "I am good" without thinking about how some others are bad, as good and bad, like all other concepts, define each other, and can't exist in man's mind without each other. That is how most of us define ourselves, and to a stupider extent, some even defines himself by the products he uses "I am a Mac, I am not a PC. I am a Coca Cola fan, I am a Pepsi hater", not to mention all the traditions and cultures and nationality that controlled our mind.And that is what Martin Heidegger meant by "Everyone is the other, and no one is himself. " What Heidegger called Thrownness is what Buddhism meant by Non-selfhood (anatta).To truly be ourselves me must have no thought at all, must completely abandon this consciousness of self. Such is basically what the Buddha, or Krishnamurti, Henry Miller, U.G, etc. had been saying, but stop caring about those teachers and just be. Just be. And once you accomplish that you won't care about getting recognized in a message board at all, and just say what need to be said. As long as you desire for any sort of any recognition from anybody you cannot be you.