fuki wrote: ↑Fri Mar 09, 2018 5:03 pm
Grigoris wrote: ↑Fri Mar 09, 2018 4:33 pm
fuki wrote: ↑Fri Mar 09, 2018 4:17 pmOfcourse/possible but only a Buddha knows, so no reason for me to dwell on it, I consider everything which happens to me a blessing.
1. I find it VERY hard to believe that you would consider getting shot in the face as a blessing. 2. There is no value in considering EVERYTHING that happens to you as a blessing. As a lesson? Possibly. As a blessing? No. Mainly because not everything that happens to somebody, is a blessing. Inconvenient, nasty, awful, horrible, sh*t things happen to people too.
All the horrible shit that ever happened to me I consider a blessing, I cannot explain to you why that is, the experience which made that so is inexplicable in words.
I don't seperate between the good and the horrible which happens to me, meaning good and horrible are not an object of bondage, that would not be in accordance with the non-dwelling mind. However I can cleary discriminate between the two activities. But it's off topic whether you believe me or not, and not something worth dwelling upon.
Strangely... Call me insane... I share Fuji's view of my own life... While I haven't been shot in the face I've survived things most people couldn't imagine that would make for TV drama.
I'm not saying it was great while it was happening. Oh hell no. I didn't think I'd be alive tomorrow... Everyday. I know there are things you never think you could do that when pushed to extremes seem reasonable to consider. There was a hell element Drenpa referred to in the matter of experiencing states that resemble another plane, and I still remained human in this incredibly mortal life...
But Grigoris... I have a life story that resembles too many elements of the refugees you've worked with. And yet... I consider all elements of this human experience a blessing to have been crushed to find out what is truly indestructible ... So can I convey that to anyone else? Short of telling a story someone might empathize to varying degrees based on their own path, I can't actually transmit the result of coming thru a human hell and free them from those fears that somehow my karma already allowed me to exhaust. There's really little ME in that process even though it happened to me.
I made a joke in my recovery that ME sounded like the initials for "Madness Eternal"... I knew nothing of Dharma or Buddhism or karma outside of the Hindu context. Now... It comes back to me sometimes.. this ME... Madness Eternal because it believes it goes on forever...
There's a strong resonance with many points Drenpa made. Our karma or mine? This experience was shared by many of my peers, many no longer live... Now... With all that... And those who are still alive, and actually not completely disabled... Not many of those individuals feel this way and hate the life they've lived. They are still plagued by severe PTSD. But I know it's possible to recover and do even better. To live more than one life in one lifetime. To intimately understand karma by seeing it clearly in what is generated over and over... To break habitual patterns, and most of all to learn identity is purely invented. And with correct reconditioning it is like human programming.
I know very non-theoretically that until they kill your physical body they can't destroy what can't be destroyed. I can't speak beyond that yet because I haven't died yet, so I'll wait to find out.
In my peer survivors there is still so much dread fear pain despair and too much damn trauma to process. And so I can relate to the worst human suffering and at the same time see that being born human... Something HAD to happen.. right? This happened to be my karma and I have come to see it as a joyous process of release. I see this as shared karma, we lived through the same thing, but my actions were my own even if we were all part of it and share the effects of the group trauma. I had a part in the Vipaka, I took actions I made decisions. For sure. Survival is ugly business....yet the mud for a lotus.
Ok so there were fireworks entering this human existence, I came into this world with a grand entrance into the latrine samsara... It happens. After all that... I feel it was all infinitely precious to strip away in myself layers of things that kept me trapped in a defined framework. And I can attest to that compilation of experiences did indeed move me into understanding some experience is beyond the "conventional self." Just a few times I glimpsed it. Enough to know experientially what no words can deny. I have no fear of it being mocked or judged or attacked. No words on this board can destroy or alter the experience I know to be true. Karmas ripened, exhausted, new crap created. So I practice because it is a real method to work with karma, mine and that of my peers who also suffer hugely. Mine or ours... Does it matter? I feel that all the streams in the manifesting consciousnesses are interlaced. Whatever I can give to add some clean water to dilute out the poison in the river, the better.
Now the concept of karma is very strong in my life, to Drenpa's point I also feel like I am the only person who wakes up with these eyes, walks around in this skin, sleeps with my fears and knows the secrets of my mind ... I also know that whatever you want to call the "shared" in our immediate experience, that how I manage this whole thing is directly responsible for blocking or unblocking the causes for another's karma. Not that I decide for them, but my every action is a trigger in their world... I CAN influence their decisions because we are interdependent! I CAN manipulate another's perception of a thing. I CAN have it backfire or succeed.. I will reap its effects regardless... This has helped me lose the fear of terrible things happening and has helped me be equally indifferent to pleasures that promote escape.. somewhere along the way I just learned there is no guilt, no shame, there are just situations and their components... I have a big paintbrush, my strokes are not so finez they're broad at best, I am ignorant and always struggling with relaxing, so I know my intention is key as a human and my clarity is key and my responsibility is utterly the most important thing in everything I choose, body voice and mind.
To Muni's beautiful quotes... I fully agree with your assessment.
In a nutshell, we're all alone in this TOGETHER.