DocAndersen
I have had the opportunity over the past few years to speak with a monk from a local temple; We used to meet in person before his group moved down to Rockville (about 12 miles away). They used to have a facility where my dog and I walked. My dog and the monk were quite close. The monk often had rice candies for my dog, who thinks rice candies are as good as it gets. He and I have spoken of many exciting realities in the world around us. The one thing I worked very hard to talk to him about was his dislike of technology. “It pollutes the mind,” he would often say. To a degree, I do agree with him in the sense that people did and do become hyper-involved in the world via technology.
We were finally able to agree that technology is a tool. I gave him the great analogy of the master who wished to move a mountain. He asked for a spoon. He returned to the village with gold nuggets. The next day the mountain was gone. You only need the right tool to move a mountain. The same is true of technology; you only need the right tool. Handing a cellphone to a person may solve their problem. It may not. Asking them what the issue is first, and then solving the problem works a lot better. He and I spoke and speak now via email at great length about the concept of our world right now.” There is much anger in the world,’ the monk said in his last email. “do we have the tools to fix the anger?” He asked.
The easy answer is yes, we do. We, as humans, are gifted with the choice to ask questions. That will help us with some of the anger, some of the frustration. But what about the offense that is deep-seated and has been around for 100, 200, or more years? What tools do we have to solve that issue? I shared a wander project that is a master’s story shared by my friend, the monk. It is one tool we have to solve problems. If the meaning is not exact, ask questions. But we need more tools, and we need a place where the anger can be vented. Right now, the energy from that anger is bound to a single person or group. It is something painful for that group, and I feel bad. That is the first tool we can use, empathy for the plight of others.
I shared a song my grandfather introduced me to from the great depression (link is below) int hat song the person asks for a dime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4yT0KAMyo
Empathy is simply looking at things from the others persons point of view. In this song the singer is forced to do so, perhaps we can all do it willingly!
This work is Copyright DocAndersen. Any resemblance to people real or fictional in this piece is accidental (unless explicitly mentioned by name.)
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Question of
Riots are bad right?
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Yes
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Question of
But sometimes we have to have a way to express anger right?
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Yes
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Question of
is empathy a tool we can use?
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Yes
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Question of
it is ok to ask questions~
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Yes
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Question of
no one knows the meaning between the letters, except the author, right?
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Yes
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Q: RIOTS ARE BAD RIGHT?
Yes (3 votes) – 100%
Q: BUT SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO HAVE A WAY TO EXPRESS ANGER RIGHT?
Yes (3 votes) – 100%
Q: IS EMPATHY A TOOL WE CAN USE?
Yes (4 votes) – 100%
Q: IT IS OK TO ASK QUESTIONS~
Yes (4 votes) – 100%
Q: NO ONE KNOWS THE MEANING BETWEEN THE LETTERS, EXCEPT THE AUTHOR, RIGHT?
Yes (4 votes) – 100%
Anger. To have the feeling of anger means to have an enemy. Another monk told me that an enemy actually serves a purpose by uniting people. If that enemy will vanish because anger has been solved, then, those people will have no cause to unite 😜😂
it is the opposite energy that pushes you to consider where you are – should I change. I agree!
God looks in most directions, but do we always do so too.
The view must gaze forwards not backwards for it to be true.
Solving riddles doesn’t provide new riddles unless you riddle them free,
so riddle dee dee, see what you can do to be friendly to me, for me to be me.
i suspect that the focus of anything is always the key reality considered. i sometimes wonder the lesson of pain. what does pain teach us?
The Dunce less than a minute ago, threaded in wrong place before.
What does pain teach us?
The obvious answer is for us not to do that painful thing again, but the esoterical answer is that pain is created by a pain threshold of irresponsibility in us, which must be raised by consciousness seeing past pain into love instead, as much as it can do so, as it (it might be life, us, or consciousness itself) progresses up the scale of consciousness.
i do that all the time!
pain creates barriers to learning that in order to learn the lesson you have to get past the pain.
Yes, its often a pain, though, to have to get past pain and then find only more pain there to greet you.
What is pain, and why is it necessary?
Pain is the squeezing of love into you, and which, when it is done, stretches your mind into being able to receive a higher level of conscious understanding then too, of how love really works, and operates.
It is all worth it in the end.
when I was running years ago my coach used to say Pain is the white lines on both sides of the road, you don’t want to cross that line as it makes progress harder. My friend the monk always says that pain is a reminder of life.
Pain exists within a vacuum, when you see that a vacuum contains pain.
When you see nothing in the vacuum, but which you place into it, you will feel no pain then either.
All is vacuumlessly existent within nothing, but the something arises because of pain, and when pain is gone, you see yourself back in the whole again.
Pain is the separator, like a glass pane in a window; you need both to see through it, and to realise that nothing is really there either, neither the window, nor the pain/pane.
For me, recovering from surgery, i find that the pain invites the monkey brain in. The one thing the monkey brain is good at (at least mine is) is the initial distraction from the pain.
physical pain and mental pain are different. But I do like the concept of the pain vacuum.
Mental pain in the mental pain part of us is harder to take for me too.
Toothache is annoying, headaches a headache, as they are distracting, chest pain, is scary, and indigestion, is fiery, but also something I can bear.
Spiritual pain of separation from God, which I feel, but which could be a phantom pain, feels very real to me, just the same too.
For me the physical pain right now forces me to stop and think. But I can move past it, center, breathe and the physical pain rises above me like a cloud. Still there, but now impacting the part of my brain that I can shut off.
the pain of understanding (the journey to spiritual wholeness) plagues me as well.
How do we remove this pain of understanding?
This pain is of the mind, and of the heart too, but when you understand, both with the heart, and the mind, no separation exists between the two, and this separation, is what causes the pain.
as my dear friend always reminds me, we can support each other, but we cannot act within the inner realm of the mind and heart.
that is a me journey.
the only way to remove that pain is to find the path within ourselves.
That’s an interesting coining of words, “a me journey”.
The me journey has to have some input from other than me to be me entirely, as you cannot be me in me, until you allow yourself to allow me to be thee in me in thee.
The “me journey” takes place on a path made by all of us, not just on one made by ourselves.
The “me journey”, is not cutting the melon, yet alone sharing it with others, as melon trees cannot grow on our own path alone.
you have to be to me, before you can see that there is more. Me is the first stop on the journey to more. So in a sense, i disagree, but i also agree. You are sharing the larger journey of discovery, i am sharing that first step.
first you step to me (a me journey) then you are ready for more.
Yes, some famous Indian spiritual master agreed with you there, when he said that the first step is achieved by continually asking ourselves, “Who am I?”.
In other words, the “me journey”.
it also comes from the US Self-help craze of the 1980s every other book was about the color of your parachute and serving your soul chicken soup. What I got from all of that was that many are disconnected from who they are. It is a revelation that often comes when we retire from our careers.
we are suddenly no longer X. we are now retired.
Personally speaking, I have never been interested in taking that first step approach.
I am not even interested in connecting to who I am.
I want the last step first; only then can I decide if the first step is worth going back to take….lol…
I have always been like that.
I always read the last page of a book first.
I never watch a movie unless somebody has told me the ending.
I never watch live sport. I enjoy it only if I already know the result.
Some might say I will get nowhere fast because the first step is a necessary step, but no, how does anybody know that it is for me, just because it might be for them.
There are no steps in God, I would say.
Enlightenment can be achieved at the click of a finger, not by spending years and years climbing useless mountains, although, that might work for some too, it is not what I want to do for myself.
The beauty of “the path” we have before us is that we take the steps to get where we are going!
The beauty of the path sometimes makes many try to beautify the path, and worship the path, and plant flowers alongside the path, and live on the path forever.
The master
A student went to the house of a master once, and he asked the master to show him the way to enlightenment, as he assumed that the master was already enlightened.
He further asked the master, to show him the steps that he needed to take on his path, or life journey, to master-ship too.
“Please teach me the necessary lessons that I need to have, to go through, to reach mastership, and to see the truth in my experiences, as you do,”
he requested of this great master.
The master smiled, as he answered him somewhat poetically,
“All steps are missteps.”
“All lessons confuse.”
“All paths go nowhere.”
“All journeys are not journeys.”
“There is nowhere to go.”
“There is nothing to do.”
There is nothing to step away from.”
All experiences are cannon fodder.”
The student, looking perplexed said,
“Well, how then?”
The master replied,
“How, indeed!”
Then, he went on:
“The greatness of truth never leaves you”
“The love of all loves is loving you.”
“The emptiness is never emptied.”
“The fullness is always full.”
“Do nothing, and see all is.”
“Forget your mind. Be ‘me’ now.”
And he was.
The student was enlightened on the spot.
He was himself now, but never himself as he was.
We know it all.
We do not need to train, teach our mind anything, nor give it lessons, just let it be, and be yourself, go past it altogether.
The master’s poem was entitled by the way:
“There is nothing to learn. All is known.”
the tome is interesting, i find lots of points within it that makes me nod my head, and some that do cause me to stop and say, no.
I don’t believe in instant enlightenment. Buddha himself sat for a long time to achieve that goal as did those masters that have gotten there.
the perfect soul perhaps might be able to, but perfect souls don’t often arrive in imperfect humans.
But that’s my point, every soul is perfect. Every so-called imperfect human has such a perfect soul.
When we fully connect to it in an instant, we are enlightened. When the connection is not there, we remain imperfect.
Many Zen masters have become enlightened in an instant of such connection, (if we believe the stories written about them) by something someone says to them, or from suddenly feeling the truth, so deeply their perfect soul light turns on.
my dad always said throw the word every like it is a manhole (or personhole to be PC) cover.
heavy
doesn’t fly well
and shouldn’t be used often.
I start at the top. I assume that if there is a God, he is perfect. We each have a part of God within us, I would posit from there. This, I call the soul.
So, this part of us is perfect, in the sense that it is the part of us, made from the same perfection as God. It is our perfect God part. Our higher self, as some call it.
That’s how I see it working.
The human is only imperfect when it is not being perfect, bt following this perfect part of itself.
Every either applies, or it doesn’t.
There is no middle ground with the use of every.
When I use the word every, I mean every last soul, is perfect. There is no soul that is not perfect.
that is why i avoid every, always and never. they detract from the messaging. if every soul is perfect than at some point all souls are perfected.
My English teacher used to tell me things like that too, to not use the word, “can” but to use the word “may” instead, or do not use, “can’t”, but to use “won’t” instead.
I never took much notice of her, because I just couldn’t be bothered playing games with words. The message goes beyond the words, I think.
Is God perfect, is every soul perfect, should we avoid the use of all-inclusive words, or not?
God is not perfect, as perfection applies to something uncreated, and yet God is perfect because of who he is, the top of the creation pile, beyond creation, where all is perfection in its own space, or vacuum.
A soul exists here with God, so it is in his perfect domain too.
It is the connection to life and creation that breaks down because of the freedom granted to creation to try to be itself on its own, an experiment of God’s, and his souls, in a way.
The use of words is up to the user of the word, and I choose to always talk in inclusive language, because I want to be total in my truth.
I do not want anyone to lead me away from espousing the totality of my own truth in its fullness of love, in the inclusive way, that love exists, at its core.
Love is for everyone, and love always loves all.
We carry in this world two burdens. The first is the memories we created to the point in life we have arrived. The second is all the things we learned but didn’t. The two burdens can and do slow us on our journey.
It is only when we are able to lighten those burdens that we can rise and see the sunrise!
My greatest burden is not one of your burdens at all.
It is the burden of carrying all of that stuff that I still yet do not know, the unexplained.
It is a huge burden to carry the unknown like that, and to never unwrap it.
We also carry the same burden as God, all knowledge, in our soul, so if we link to our soul, we carry another huge burden, but to me, that is a weight that I would love to carry.
I also believe that we can carry the burdens of others at times too.
So, to my mind, there are more than those two burdens you mentioned.
Should burdens slow us, or do we more gain extra strength to be able to carry those burdens then on through our lives?
So did you really want all the answers to be yes?
no I did not in fact want them all to be yes.
in answer to your other question –
Kenosha WI shows us the anger on both sides right now. It makes me sad that neither side started with dialogue they both moved to shows of force.
You are lucky with the experience with the monk. I only had monks in the pictures but I was not able to have a private conversation with them.
it can be an interesting conversation to have. We would have never started talking if he had not been sweeping the front of the porch while my dog and I were walking.
Talking and asking questions are always helpful in life. I have never had a conversation with a monk.
Riots are killing and destroying and need to be stopped.
i agree the riots have to be stopped, but the anger has to be dealt with in ways other than more violence.
Yes, there has to be another means other that what is happening.
finding a path to empathy is so important, I just don’t see one right now.
Sadly others cannot find an alternate route either. In the meantime our country is being destroyed.
i do worry that way too much hatred and anger is exposed. I would love to see both sides sit down and talk about what could be done.
What two sides are you talking about?
That would be a perfect work I am afraid for both to sit down and agree. Just let the police do their job.
that is a good point, i do agree let the trained professionals do their jobs.
Conversations with monks can be very interesting. I am very interested in these topics.
my friend the monk, is an amazing human being. I have learned much from him!
I visited the monastery where the monks live. I learned a lot of new and interesting things from them.
they have much to see and much to share. i love talking to those dedicated to understanding. it helps me understand!
What does pain teach us?
The obvious answer is for us not to do that painful thing again, but the esoterical answer is that pain is created by a pain threshold of irresponsibility in us, which must be raised by consciousness seeing past pain into love instead, as much as it can do so, as it (it might be life, us, or consciousness itself) progresses up the scale of consciousness.