On 3/31/2012 6:47 PM, robenzo72 wrote:
Hello all,
I just joined after searching the net for a couple of hours. I'm
enduring some considerably demoralizing persecution. I'm mainly
talking of verbal/mental/emotional abuse. I'm curious what Zen or
Buddhism in general recommends for this situation.
Compassion - for ignorance (delusion, belief in separation) and
resultant suffering. Desire of a remedy is still part of this cycle.
Some might say compassion for self and others, but compassion cannot
separate these.
Equanimity - seeing no way of life as better or worse, seeing pan and
pleasure as inseparable aspects of life, neither grasping nor rejecting,
abiding in/as what arises, responding to this as it is an not to out
fantasies/nightmares about this. Equanimity is not detachment, but a
simple dropping of the whole attachment/detachment game, allowing full
engagement.
Cessation - not a doing, rather the result of seeing our/minds true
nature. There's no ignorance of this any more, so no grasping/rejecting
arises, so no suffering is created. Pain, both physical and emotional,
continue to function normally (though may be experienced differently
once there is no added suffering over any of this).
I know it's not good for me, and I try my best to live an ethical
life, but I have chosen the spiritual path and it seems to be a crime
anymore to not be pursuing an industrial life.
I think I can relate, as most days I feel as if I am trying to walk a
line between these apparently different worlds. Only problem is there is
no line. I am simply functioning differently, and my mind has not fully
integrated all the old conditioning (some of it still quite useful day
to day).
Body/mind likes a place to sleep and food to eat - which where I live
requires money - and people expect something for it.
Expectations, are simply the grasping rejecting I mentioned above. Two
of Buddhisms 'Three Poisons" (the third being the ignorance I already
mentioned). Engaging in exchanges of goods and services, need not
include sharing in such expectations (as pain need not include suffering).
Find a way to give, some way to be of service, or let one find you (no
difference).
K
PS - Sorry for a somewhat generic/heartless/empty response to such an
impassioned plea, but I was moved to respond and that's what came. Its
emptiness, says more anyway. Standard disclaimer - I'm not a "Buddhist'
- by others expectations/definitions of this anyway.
