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Are there any reasons why you can't take love and compassion yet do away with possessiveness, attachment and the other negative emotions?

The intelligent brain is as much of a hindrance as it is a blessing, and causes us all kinds of unnecessary problems. I think to really understand some things we need to make our heads empty.
 
Hey, on reflection that doesn't look too melancholy and/or nihilistic for one of my drunkposts. It does however stray from the point again.

The intelligent brain is as much of a hindrance as it is a blessing, and causes us all kinds of unnecessary problems. I think to really understand some things we need to make our heads empty.
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It certainly does cause problems, because we become intelligent enough to ask questions before we are able to answer them. But I don't think that's a hindrance. Believing as I do that there is no meaning to life beyond that which an individual chooses to give it, searching for the answers to the unanswered questions (and coming up with more questions) seems to me like the only worthwhile application for human intelligence. But the only people who promote that way of looking at things is the scientific community. Religion thinks it already has the answers. Most people don't even think about the questions as long as they're fed, housed and entertained. Blissful ignorance doesn't appeal to me though.

Are there any reasons why you can't take love and compassion yet do away with possessiveness, attachment and the other negative emotions?
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In the cold light of day and coffee I'm normally happy to embrace both the pleasure and the pain of existence (when I'm depressed being entirely unfeeling is generally preferable to the pain), but to think that you can free yourself from negative emotions without also freeing yourself of the positive ones - I don't see how it's possible. How do people feel compassion for others when they no longer feel the same pain that they feel? It's a massive contradiction I see in Buddhism. Particularly devout Buddhists for example do not strike me as compassionate or loving, because they attempt to free themselves from passion altogether. The aim is supposed to be happiness, but what are people supposed to be happy about if they have no passions? They do strike me as being more like machines, but seem to spend all their time maintaining this state of mind rather than actually using it for anything.
 
ayase said:
ilmaestro said:
What is your opinion of WWII Nazi soldiers, in general? Because I don't even think the people fighting against them day in and day out "blamed" them for what they were doing.
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Conscripts is difficult, as is anyone forced to do something rather than merely persuaded. That's a big difference. The bravest people are the ones who refuse to do harmful things even at gunpoint. I can understand people who would do so at gunpoint. I can't understand people who do so willingly. And I think there are more people who force harmful religious beliefs on others willingly than not. Like I say, it's not like they all have the Taliban on their back if they refuse to go along with what their religion and its leaders decree. Some of them do, but not here in Britain or America.
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To step into the philisophical convo and add my 2 penneth:


The coined phrase for the above is "the sword is mightier than the pen"
To take a slight spin on things with an anime touch - those that are up to date with naruto will know that manipulating and controlling a mind is in itself more dangerous than a loose cannon let loose on innocents.

An idea, the power to create and destroy both stem from this and whichever way you look at it, if an idea or ideology can be implanted into someone, you will have full control over them. as-apposed to merely pointing a gun at them and telling them to jump they will "freely" follow your directions to the letter.

Conscription was needed in the world wars both sides played over by propoganda and media control, the nazi's side to implant to their kinsmen's minds that the ideology of hitler was the best way forward, ofcorse we are all free thinking people and by todays standard we would say "i wouldn't fall to that ruse" but mass brainwashing on a countrywide scale still exists today.

With so many directions trying to curb people to its will and ideas its no wonder that wars break out. To each side they believe that the other's way of thinking is wrong or destructive. The Taliban hate the west and the western leaders along with the media have returned that hatred. Though if i was to sit in a room blindfolded, listening to them both arguing through a voice changer .... i would believe them to be the same.

To change things or move forward i can't say for certain, but to quote einstein: i do not know with what weapons world war 3 will be fought, but i do know that world war 4 will be fought with sticks.

The destructive ideas outweigh the creative, in the end nobody will survive, the human race will effectively end itself one day.

So to stay optimistic, enjoy each day as if it where your last and do so with a smile, despite the **** that life throws.
 
ayase said:
Hey, on reflection that doesn't look too melancholy and/or nihilistic for one of my drunkposts. It does however stray from the point again.

The intelligent brain is as much of a hindrance as it is a blessing, and causes us all kinds of unnecessary problems. I think to really understand some things we need to make our heads empty.
Click to expand...
It certainly does cause problems, because we become intelligent enough to ask questions before we are able to answer them. But I don't think that's a hindrance. Believing as I do that there is no meaning to life beyond that which an individual chooses to give it, searching for the answers to the unanswered questions (and coming up with more questions) seems to me like the only worthwhile application for human intelligence. But the only people who promote that way of looking at things is the scientific community. Religion thinks it already has the answers. Most people don't even think about the questions as long as they're fed, housed and entertained. Blissful ignorance doesn't appeal to me though.

Are there any reasons why you can't take love and compassion yet do away with possessiveness, attachment and the other negative emotions?
Click to expand...
In the cold light of day and coffee I'm normally happy to embrace both the pleasure and the pain of existence (when I'm depressed being entirely unfeeling is generally preferable to the pain), but to think that you can free yourself from negative emotions without also freeing yourself of the positive ones - I don't see how it's possible. How do people feel compassion for others when they no longer feel the same pain that they feel? It's a massive contradiction I see in Buddhism. Particularly devout Buddhists for example do not strike me as compassionate or loving, because they attempt to free themselves from passion altogether. The aim is supposed to be happiness, but what are people supposed to be happy about if they have no passions? They do strike me as being more like machines, but seem to spend all their time maintaining this state of mind rather than actually using it for anything.
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Musing over the above i can only come to the conclusion that to truly know peace we should be at a state of innocence and free to see the world with wonder but also caution, in other words: to truly know peace.... you must be a child, innocent to most of lifes temptations, thirstfull for knowledge but cautious enough to know when that may lead them astray.

The easiest days are indeed our childhood, protected from lifes stresses and pains by youth and limited understanding.

I know myself that whenever i am asked "what age would you travel back to" it would be year 10 of high school, i was old enough to understand most concepts around me, relaxed enough and patient. Life changed the year after that, stress of exams began.... and life has just continued to teach me lessons ever since, some good some bad but mostly unwanted or sprung up on me.

So to me, to know peace was a place in my childhood/teenage years. But given the chance to change anything, i would change nothing. Each lesson learned was one that has helped me later in life.

Though life can be stressful or annoying at times, peace can be replaced with happiness, so even if you feel that all is lost... if someone can still make you smile or laugh, lifes just teaching another lesson and you must come to understand that everything may happen for a reason or not but eitherway it will help you in time.

Its about seeing the silverlining in every situation
 
How do people feel compassion for others when they no longer feel the same pain that they feel? It's a massive contradiction I see in Buddhism.
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I don't think it's impossible, most definitely hard, but I don't think it's impossible. It's a vastly different mind state to what we're used to, and no doubt takes a lot of work to get to that stage. It's the same kind of thing as if a truly loved one passes away and yet one still doesn't become saddened by it, only remaining happy. I think if someone understands that ultimately nothing can really be lost in this life and, so achieves a healthy level of detachment from everything within it, it's easier to understand. It's just a very different way of looking at things, and like I said, so much comes down to perspective and the angle that we look at things.
 
Saturday is my little brother's 8th birthday and today I asked him what he wanted me to get him for his birthday.

He wants his own copy of season 1 of K-ON!. Hell yes. However, when we started talking about K-ON!, he said he liked the episode where Mio falls on stage and the crowd sees her panties.

Er...
 
It could just be that he finds it funny. Kids are interested in finding out what's in the other gender's pants a lot earlier than society gives them credit for, though in a fairly innocent manner. I can't recall being 8, but I do remember I used to like to kiss girls I liked when I was about 4 or 5... Simpler times. How come we have to go through all this relationship ******** now we're adults? It's hardly fair.
 
ayase said:
It could just be that he finds it funny. Kids are interested in finding out what's in the other gender's pants a lot earlier than society gives them credit for, though in a fairly innocent manner. I can't recall being 8, but I do remember I used to like to kiss girls I liked when I was about 4 or 5... Simpler times. How come we have to go through all this relationship ******** now we're adults? It's hardly fair.
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I know, I just found it hilarious that he said it xD. One of those "Out of the mouth of babes" kind of situations.

Me and him still disagree on who the best member of HTT is - I say Mio, he says Mugi. Can't get everything right can I? xD
 
Went to get a paper passport application today, as the internet wants me to prove my parents' nationalities even though I already have a British passport and have held one for over ten years. Now, I find that because my old passport is damaged (went through the washing machine) I need a counter-signatory to my application. Great. So despite the fact that I already *have* a passport, NI number and f*ck knows how many other ways of proving my identity, they can deny me a passport just because I don't know anyone the government considers a "professional" person to tell them I really am who I say I am? Like an accountant or a solicitor is any more trustworthy than a shop assistant or a mechanic. What an outdated, elitist load of old bollocks that is.
 
ayase said:
So despite the fact that I already *have* a passport, NI number and f*ck knows how many other ways of proving my identity, they can deny me a passport just because I don't know anyone the government considers a "professional" person to tell them I really am who I say I am?
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Are you sure you are who you think to be?



Teo
 
teonzo said:
Are you sure you are who you think to be?
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Let's get metaphysical!

Continued from football thread:
Mutsumi said:
ayase said:
Mutsumi said:
How can they get so deeply in debt? It is stupid, they should have had people checking the numbers, telling them "STOP SPENDING, WE'VE RUN OUT OF MONEY". Their own fault.
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You talking about western governments there Mutsu? No business ever folded with zero debt, that's not the way things work. A business / govt / individual thinks "financial situation isn't great, I'll borrow some money to tide us over until things pick up, or to invest in something which will hopefully pay off". Then it doesn't, and they are left with even more debt. If they can, they'll probably keep repeating that scenario until no-one will lend them any more money. Once you're in that hole you might as well keep digging - The worst that can happen these days is bankruptcy, and the money you're borrowing has been conjoured into existence on a computer screen anyway.
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It is just as bad, if not worse that governments have also been doing this. Letting a business die is ok, but governments are playing with the futures of their people by doing so. You shouldn't try to borrow your way out of debt, surely that much is obvious to everyone here?
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You have to spend money to make money, as the old adage goes. Or at the very least, to keep your head above water. If you don't have the money to spend you've gotta borrow it. Otherwise what do you do?

For an individual or a business the only other choice is bankruptcy, with all the negative side effects that entails. For a government, it's more along the lines of "Oops, sorry public sector workers, you're all fired because we managed your services incompetently and can't afford to pay you. Same goes for anyone or anything receiving government subsidies I'm afraid. Anyone want to buy some prime real estate right on the Thames in Westminster?" - Cue collapse of civilisation, but more importantly for the people in charge, the collapse of their power. Pretty much the only goal of the people in charge is to remain the people in charge. And the goal of individuals is to retain their wealth. I think the most widely held attitude is to screw your creditors, screw your citizens, screw everybody else - do whatever's necessary to ensure that you're all right at the end of the day.

I don't know if that's a bad attitude or just a natural one. No-one wants to be at the bottom of the wealth/power pyramid after all, and if people have to lie, cheat and steal their way to the top that's what they're going to do.
 
Being a public sector worker in the NHS, i need to quote 1 line to sum up exactly what goes on:

"Oops, sorry public sector workers, you're all fired because we managed your services incompetently and can't afford to pay you"

Looking at the management in this department alone, i escalated 2 urgent complaints this afternoon, 1 senior member of staff batted it away saying she was busy and the other took 2 hours to pick it up, in which time a service manager processed a formal complaint.

With most things in life the ones in charge are mostly **** at their job and shouldn't have been allowed to get into that power in the first place.
 
ayase said:
The Peter Principle in action, Tach!
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I do what i can to bring real life examples to the table.

FourthLion said:
People always rise to their level of incompetency I'm afraid.
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Almost an oxymoron there, but you are correct. It seems that the higher a person gets the less they feel they have to try to earn that position and the lower people should be thankful that they are here to help them.


I'd love to crush a few idle minded, egotistical pricks misconceptions of authority and their worth in life.

Without the lower men to do the hard graft, the higher people would go nowhere. I guess its a case of burning those ladders for idiots trying to get into power before they acsend too high. (I'm accruing evidence to get rid of 2 people in this team already, one on competence grounds and the other on conduct, breaking trust policy and fraud)
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/18441163

Just once, I'd love to see people in the public eye grow a pair and say "Yeah, we put a replica of George Bush's severed head on that pike because we'd like to see George Bush decapitated". Instead it's always grovel, grovel, apologise, grovel some more... Pathetic. Even if they didn't mean it as a political statement, they should say they did to piss all the "offended" people off. That's what I'd do.
 
Yeah i'm alittle concerned that the "stiff upper lip" attitude that once made this "great britian", a 1/3 of the planet strong empire. Has diminished into the pitiful grovelling, back-peddling britian we are today.

And again, i blame the government. If they didn't bend over for every other country and accept everything the others say and never stand up, have a backbone for their own country's people and say "no" we wouldn't be in this overly P.C world we are now.

Bring back the freak-show circus just to piss off the P.C Brigade i say
 
I don't think people should be pushing in to the point of arrogance or believing they're in the right, but it seems so many fall over themselves to apologise for any perceived offence now. Whether that's due to litigious culture or people in the media world having doors shut in their faces due to negative publicity I don't know.

Tachi said:
Bring back the freak-show circus just to piss off the P.C Brigade i say
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Did it ever go away?

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