--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "tomandcindytraynoratfairfieldlis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Bronte posts snipped: > > When another person's belief is so out of line with our own > > opinions and assumptions, it's almost impossible to bend the > > mind to form an opening large enough to consider the radical > > possibility. I try to bend mine as much as possible. It's let > > me find a lot of interesting stuff. But I wonder how much of > > what may be real my assumptions still manage to block out. > > New Morning's questions make me wonder. > > Tom T: > That is the exact point that Byron Katie is continually pointing > out. When one finds oneself getting all wound up by opinions/ > truths of others there has to be an underlying belief hidden > away in us that is causing the flames to rise and the smoke to > come out our ears. Like the old joke goes if the barn is full of > manure there must be a horse/cow/mule in here somewhere. Examine > all beliefs and see what is left. Tom
If I may interject a more Buddhist perspective here, the smell is *not* coming from the "underlying beliefs." Beliefs are fine. Where the smell of manure is coming from is *attachment* to those beliefs. If it is "almost impossible" to consider an alternate possibility, then that spells *attachment*, with a capital manure smell. :-) If one gets "wound up" by the conflicting opinions or beliefs of others, the problem is NOT in their beliefs and opinions, but in *our own*, and in our own *attachment* to them. One of the values of working with a teacher who can blast you out of your socks with shakti is that when he does, there is nothing left. No beliefs, no opinions, no you to even *have* beliefs and opinions. You're washed clean, for a short time, and then the beliefs and the opinions and "you" creep back onto the scene. But even when they do, you find yourself (or at least I found myself) not nearly as *attached* to my former beliefs and opinions as I had been before. I'd seen them dissolved into nothingness in front of me and within me. So what possible substance could they have? For folks who have not had that experience, beliefs and opinions are easy to fixate on, and to confuse with Truth. And when someone pokes at one of the things you confuse with Truth, you react. The reaction is NOT justified, no matter how hard you try to justify it. It's an expression of your own attachment, and in the final analysis, attachment to something that has no reality -- an idea, a concept, a belief, an opinion. It doesn't matter how long you've thought that the belief or opinion is "true" or "Truth," it isn't. It's just how the world appears from one localized point of view and state of attention/consciousness. Change points of view and it isn't true. Change states of attention/consciousness and it also isn't true. So what's to get bent out of shape about? Attachment is The Big Issue in Buddhism. It's a tough one to work past. We're *all* attached to things that we believe or opinions we hold to some extent. But it appears that some folks here are not as attached as others. I read the messages here and something gets posted that I *know* is 100% opposed to what some other poster on FFL believes and holds to be true or Truth or just how it appears to them that things work. So I watch to see how that person will react. And often, they don't react *at all*, or they react with benevolent humor. That always puts a smile on my face to see. And other times, the other person just goes *ballistic*, as if their buttons got not only pushed but duct-taped down in the ON position. They completely LOSE it, and then do their best to keep the outrage going for days or weeks or in some extreme cases, years. That does NOT put a smile on my face to see. It makes me feel terribly sad for the people it's happening to. Same situation -- nothing more than someone expressing a belief or opinion that runs contrary to what another person believes. But completely different reactions. Suffice it to say that if there IS such a thing as "more evolved," I'm of the opinion that the people who *don't* go ballistic and demonstrate their attachments are more evolved. But your mileage may vary. If it does, flame away...I promise not to go ballistic on ya.
