The Ideology of Constructing, Making, Producing, Creating

The Watercooler
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It is not that Buddha really teaches the unsatisfactoriness of life. Rather he teaches there is satisfaction in this world too. But being satisfied for some time or being not satisfied for some time, these are just mundane mentalities. This is all temporary.
This has nothing to do with wisdom or love. But with conceit ‘I am’.

Buddha teaches the path to peace that is not temporary, supra mundane, not of this world. It has nothing to do with satisfaction. Peace is not a mentality. But more like a home one lives in. When that home is clean, it is peaceful home.

We are raised in a world that teaches us we must work hard to make a better world for ourselves or others, i at least am. Make a perfect body, mind and world. With effort. Work hard.

The whole world is totally obsessed with this idea that all must be made, produced with effort. Like that can ever end suffering. BUT, really, It is exactly this what Buddha found to be the driving force of samsara. This wrong ideology.
It is all just very mundane. It is not the supra mundane noble Path to the end of suffering Buddha found and taught.

What the world and we people really need, i feel, is to make contact with what is already perfect and pure! Really. We are only making a mess of life when are disconnected from what is already peaceful, perfect, pure.

This mundane ideology of making, producing, creating is not the solution for suffering. It will never result in what we long for. Whatever we create will also cease. And when the results of our efforts cease, we are again sad, suffer, even more, because there was so much effort to create it.

In the end we have to see and understand that even this kamma that is bright leads to fruits that also cease. And when that fruit ceases there is again sadness, fear, unsatisfactoriness. This is merely the mode of samsara. How can we ever escape it this way?

In fact this obsession with the effort to construct a perfect body, a perfect mind, a perfect soul, a perfect world, is only a mundane ideology that cannot lead to what we seek. That is what the EBT teach, really. I am convinced it is true.

Buddha showed a very different understanding. Peace, purity, Nibbana, cannot be made nor produced nor constructed but only arrived at when all this obsession with constructing, making, producing comes to an end. His Path is opposite to the worldly stream.

The safety, the peace and coolness of Nibbana cannot be constructed because it is not some building. It is the unmade.

Dhamma is not an ideology of making, producing, constructing a perfect body, soul, mind, world. All that will cease too and make us even more suffer when it ceases.
This is not the Path to Peace.

Ofcourse Buddha did not reject the mundane ideology of making, producing. There is really some merit in creating better conditions, circumstances but ofcourse also these will cease. It can never lead to the end of suffering.

The EBT are very clear about this. What we need is knowledge of the supramundane path, that what is unmade, unbecome, not a result of effort. This requires that we here and now connect to what is already perfect and pure and peaceful.
Really this is the only way to stop creating trouble for oneself, others and the world.

To see this difference in mundane path and supra mundane, i feel, it is so crucial.
If one cannot relate to peace, perfection and purity here and now, one will go on an ignoble search for that and think one must construct it. This is what drives samsara, these kind of actions.

We are all trapped in the wrong understanding that what is based upon passion (mundane path) can make an end to suffering or makes an end to suffering.
This ideology of making will fail.

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"Here, Ananda, a bhikkhu develops right view, which is based upon seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturing in release. He develops right intention . . . right speech … right action … right livelihood … . right effort . … right mindfulness
. . . right concentration, which is based upon seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturing in release. (SN3.18)

And what, bhikkhus, is the path leading to the unconditioned? Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu develops the faculty of faith, which is based upon seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturing in release: this is called the path leading to the unconditioned.
“And what, bhikkhus, is the path leading to the unconditioned? Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu develops the faculty of energy . . . the faculty of mindfulness . . . the faculty of concentration . . . the faculty of wisdom, which is based upon seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturing in release: this is called the path leading to the unconditioned… . .”

“And what, bhikkhus, is the path leading to the unconditioned? Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu develops the power of faith, which is based upon seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturing in release: this is called the path leading to the unconditioned. Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu develops the power of energy . … the power of mindfulness … the power of concentration . . . the power of wisdom, which is based upon seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturing in release: this is called the path leading to the unconditioned.”

"And what, bhikkhus, is the path leading to the unconditioned? Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu develops the enlightenment factor of mindfulness, which is based upon seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturing in release: this is called the path leading to the unconditioned.

“And what, bhikkhus, is the path leading to the unconditioned? Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu develops the enlightenment factor of discrimination of states … . the enlightenment factor of energy . . . the enlightenment factor of rapture . . . the enlightenment factor of tranquillity . . . the enlightenment factor of concentration . . the enlightenment factor of equanimity, which is based upon seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturingin release: this is called the path leading to the unconditioned… …” SN43.12 and many others.

Here i see that all these qualities are based upon dispassion. They never root in plans, intentions and tendencies nor in a mind with any notion of a self or anything to belonging to self. What is based upon dispassion is pure, selfless.

There is also the mundane noble path: right views, intention, speech etc etc, that is
still based upon passion and notions of self. It is not completely selfless and pure. For example, any deed done with the desire that it will result in good fruits for oneself is passionate and of course not based upon dispassion. Any deed done as investment is based upon passion. Deeds based upon dispassion are not based upon a notion of self that seeks something for him/herself.

What is based upon conditioning is based upon passion. It can be bright, dark or mixed but does not free from suffering, from samsara. All this has a certain karmic load and potential to ripen as something in the future.

MN117 is also very important about al this, i feel.

Expacting some return is passionate, not pure. That is not so difficult to see, right?

Buddha saw that what we call pure altruistic deeds arise from a fully wholesome base, a dimension that is desireless, egoless, empty, uninclined. They have no karmic load because they do not arise from having plans, intentions, tendencies, not even good ones.

One can also say it like this i believe: What arises as part and result of our make up, those habitual patterns inside us, these conditionings, that is all passionate. Certaintly that can be bright but never pure.

Whatever arises as conditioning is never based upon dispassion. That is also why freedom does not come from conditioning. One can invest in conditioning but how must such lead to freedom?

What arises from that dimension that is signless, a oneness, desireless, that is pure and dispassionate. Never absent.

Peace is not the same as equanimity because that is a mentality and not peace. The absence of any mentality is peace.

One cannot shape/form/mould/fashion/configure oneself into an arahant or a noble by making certain habits/conditionings strong. One will only become a machine. An artificial intelligence. A Buddha is not wise, loving compassionate in a conditioned habitual way. And if we think that is the Path, sorry, i do not doubt that is wrong.

I hope this is helpful

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I see right effort as the part of the path that is a constructive process. I believe we can cultivate good karma in the here and now, by which we can overcome the hinderances and focus on jhana. And jhana requires a special type of effort, so it seems. It’s the kind of effort that informs one of the jhanic process. Where one attempts and attempts and attempts until they make progress. Then they see that it is all much easier and far more successful when less effort and better technique is applied.

The path is obscured by ignorance. Effort is required to walk the path. When jhana is perfected, I believe, only the first requires definitive effort. I believe that “directed thought and evaluation” are the “kneading and moulding of the bath powder” in the first simile.

“No jhana without wisdom, no wisdom without jhana” - the Buddha

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Thanks @Pondera , yes, i do not doubt the use of effort. We need effort.

If one wants pure water or gold that really needs effort but in no and any way one creates, makes, produces, constructs water and gold. That is, of course, already present. One cannot purifiy something when it is not already present, right?

The same with mind. If one removes all passions, the peace that now has become apparant is in no way created or made. It was always there but not yet apparant. It is called the unmade, unbecome and unproduced in the suttas like gold and water is also not the made, the produced and the created in a proces of purification.
It is not that purification makes water or gold, right? It only removes adventitious defilements. Same with mind.

I see the idea that one must create, make, construct the peace and coolness of Nibbana as an obscurance. This is also expressed in AN1.51.
But, again, i do not doubt we need effort, but we also need to see, i feel, that our effort will never ever create, make, produce the coolness and peace of Nibbana.

By the way, this is really not some idiosyncratic interpretation. Many buddhist teachers teach this. Nibbana is not some building that is constructed by effort.
Of course not, that is what the Buddha saw as the cause of suffering!!! This building of a house that cannot but also again desintegrate. That is of course not something Buddha sought.

Jhana is samadhi in a mundane sense. Jhana also does not free from samsara but binds to samsara. Only when mind is fully cleansed and one then enters jhana such does not bind. Many suttas reveal that jhana an sich does not free from samsara but that positive kamma give rise to birth in a deva realm.

The right samadhi that is based upon dispassion, noble, is not karmically active. It cannot give rise to a birth as deva. It is very different from abiding in a volitionally produced temporary peaceful state.

MN117 and others sutta’s constant stress this difference between what is based upon dispassion, purity, not karmically active (supra mundane) and what is still connected with passion, not pure, karmically active (mundane).

I really do not understand why some people even think this distinguishment is not really made. To see this distinction is really crucial , i feel.

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Hi

I regarded Krishnamurti as a spiritual guide for some time. I am a male, heterosexual, but i have never witnessed such a beautiful man. So lovely, sensitive.
I think i was more or less in love, maybe i felt he was a kind of soulmate.

Read all the books i could find, attended Krishnamurti gatherings in different cities,
watched video’s, discussed his teachings with others, read biographies. I never felt any critique that time. My mind was only like a sponge.

Krishnamurti was very much concerned with the world in crises. Especially: What is the root of all the violence in the world?

He was convinced that more rules, more surpressing, more restraint, more conditioning, more organisations would not really be helpful. We need something else, was his idea. He was very convinced that we live in a violent way. And we live in a violent way because we are in crises.

He shared the same insights of the Buddha, i believe, >BUT>he was certaintly not in line with Buddha’s wisdom and skills. Buddha was not against conditioning. People can make good use of, for example, making unwholesome habits weak and wholesome habits strong, or, for example, work with perception of decay to remedy lust etc. Buddha taught conditioning can be of great use. Krishnamurti did not seem to see any use in such. He was more a radical i think. Buddha was much more practical, i feel. Maybe Buddha better understood the human condition or was able to align his teachings to this.

K. focussed an a radical path of transformation. Gradual change over time is not transformation. K. central theme was always the same…the world, the mind, needs not a gradual change by gradually re-conditionering …it needs a radical change, a breaktrough, a revolution, things must really shift in the mind.

K. did not really have a Path, a method for such. His idea was that his speeches were able to make this sudden transformation happen. While growing old he seemed to have bitter thoughts about his succes in all this.

Anyway, for myself i have seen it is so important to see the difference between the mundane noble Path that the Buddha teaches and supramundane. The first is still not based upon dipassion and purity because still an element of craving and conceit plays a role. Not in the supra mundane Path which is based upon dispassion.

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Due to the habitual power of conditionings, made strong in past lifes and fed in this life, very quickly an attitude develops towards what is perceived. Views regarding what is perceived arise. And also very quickly conceit and mental proliferation (conceiving) arises too. A whole aggregations of formations.

But this is all not really minds nature. Minds pure function is only a bare knowing. It is not emotional (dispassionate), it has no attitude (uninclined) it has no views (signless), it is not conceited (free of mana). All such is merely adventitious and incoming defilements. It is not really mind (AN1.51). When AN1.51 says…" This mind, mendicants, is radiant"… i believe it says…it is this element of light or clarity that makes it possible mind knows. Knowing is an element of light.

I like the simile of the mirror . The function of a mirror is merely to reflect. It does not distort. However, if the mirror is corroded, covered with a lot of dirt, it hardly functions anymore in a pure reflective manner. It distorts.
But if over time gradually this corrosion, this dirt, is removed, its natural function gradually restores and comes to perfection. It is not that one creates, makes, produces that natural function of the mirror but one only restores it. The same with mind. We can only restore the natural function of the mind as a bare awareness without all those attitudes/emotions, views, conceit and conceivings that distorts its natural functioning. At least we can understandthat all these things are adventitious (AN1.51). When they do not hijack the mind anymore, merely suffering gets lost.

I believe Buddha saw that the escape from suffering lies in restoring minds natural or original function. We must learn to see what is adventitous and not.
Mind may very easily give rise to emotions, views, conceit, conceiving, but that does not mean that this is mind basic function of seeing things as they really are.

Did Buddha create, produce, make mind? I believe he re-discovered what mind really is when it is stripped from emotions, attitudes, views, conceit and conceiving.

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All I’ve got from Mr Krishnamurti is to observe, and not think.

I guess if he’d just said, ‘observe and don’t think’ his talks would of only been one second long.
And nobody would of understood what he meant!
He died rather disappointed that all his efforts never changed anything in the world, I guess if he had wrote a book full of instructions, people could of learnt these off by heart and then quoted them to others, talk the talk so to speak, not walk the walk!
:dove:

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He might not have thought he changed the world in some major way, but many people on a spiritual path don’t realise in a given moment that something they have said or done has changed someones world.

Sometimes they get to hear about it somewhere further along the road, and realise they actually are changing worlds, … just one person at a time, here and there, … and to my mind, that’s enough! That’s a life well lived. :blush:

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Yes, K. talked about choiceless awareless, like the Buddha also points to a dispassionate awareness.

I feel in the core he shared the same vision with the Buddha that an ideology of making, producing, constructing peace is not the real Path to Peace.
Avijja makes us believe that we can ever possess things like health, peace and happiness. As if we can own such. But this is impossible. The end of possessiveness THAT is happiness, health and peace. I do not doubt this anymore.

By the way, also the idea that we can possses wisdom, love, compassion is delusional. And if one thinks one possesses that, this is merely our own conceit.
I have still enough conceit i notice.

Dhamma practice is not like becoming more and more convinced that one possesses wisdom, love, compassion and is so wise and such a loving person.
Pfff…what a mess…not at all. It is about emptying oneself of such conceit.

It is exaclty like the mystics say…(i believe :blush:) : one becomes a vessel of Truth, a vessel of Love, Compassion, Wisdom, but one cannot own it. The more one empties oneself the more in contact with reality.

If Dhamma practice means that we become more and more present in this world as owner of wisdom, love, compassion, that is taking a very wrong turn. We must leave this idea of ownership.

Why was the Buddha so wise, loving, compassionate present in the world? Because he left all ideas about being wise, loving and compassionate. All conceit. He left the idea of self and anything belonging to self.

Why are we failing in love, compassion and wisdom…because we think we own it.
From this conceit we relate to others. It is fake news. No person can possess wisdom, truth, love, compassion.

It is really not the purpose of Dhamma that we feed the conceit that we or others own the truth, own insight, own wisdom, own love, own compassion. It is the opposite. Jesus called this …being poor in mind. Having no acquisitions. Only this empty heartedness is able to give rise to real wisdom, real love, real compassion because it is not conceited.

If you look at good deeds, good intentions, they are often still also based upon conceit. This the noble mundane path. Bright kamma but still connected to defilements. Not pure. The sutta’s say we must not be afraid of it. Not see this as problematic, but we also must not see this as the Path to end suffering.

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I’ve always imagined what it would be like if nobody had taught me a language.
If I could not speak or understand a language, then I would not be able to think at all.
Thinking is done in a language, and that language is heavily influenced by the people teaching it, is it safe to assume your very being is influenced by language. I believe mine has been…

So what would life look like if you hadn’t been taught a language, you couldn’t contemplate the past, there would be no words, you couldn’t contemplate the future either. You wouldn’t be able to contemplate anything at all, you’d just be.

The senses is all you would have, everything would be based around how you felt and what you saw.
Hungry and you’ll eat, thirsty and you’ll drink, cold and you’ll look for warmth and vice versa.

One thing I am certain of, living in the now would be the only time anybody would be able to remain in, there would be no need to remind yourself or meditate to get into the now.

Things are worse in a way now than they ever have been, not only is there so much information about every subject you can imagine, but the goalposts are constantly moving, so much knowledge can be bad for ones health…

This is why I find Mr Krishnamurti so fascinating, he’s explaining it in a way that I certainly can’t.
I just simplified his whole years of talks into a simple language I could understand. ‘Observe and don’t think’.
And I find that pretty easy to do because I’ve never trusted the language in which I was taught to use.
I never trusted the people who taught me it either. The extreme violence removed all of that trust at a very young age.

Apart from nature, I simply don’t look at anything else!

Lm

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I can’t speak for someone else of course, but the language-free thinking process is called “mentalese”.

I think concepts exist and precede the language. An example of that is cats playing catch with random objects.

A stick is not a prey, and a cat knows it’s not a prey. But still, she’ll pretend as if the stick is prey, act theatrically (especially when teaching younglings). This confirms a couple of mental processes - the difference of prey and non-prey, the make-believe of play that pretends as if it’s prey, and the acknowledgement that the other party (the human or their children) will actually pick up these processes as well.

All of it is done without a verbal language. I think it goes to show the depths of conceptualizations.

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I only ever base my thoughts on my own observations and experiences. Its all I’ve ever gone on.

When I lived outside in a field for 2 years, I would observe the feral cats.
They were illusive to start with, and it took a few months until I actually got a proper glimpse of one.
Once I became aware of their presence, I’d feed them some biscuits in a small metal bowl, the biscuits I would acquire in the same way others around here acquire their food.
People are quite kind when they hear you are helping cats.

At first the one cat would show up, then after a few days another would come along, it wasn’t long before a whole litter of kittens came along as well. Yet nobody else ever saw these cats, I think people thought it was me eating the cat biscuits lol.
Then one day I had no biscuits to feed them, I’d run out…

The next morning, no further than a couple of footsteps from where I was sleeping and in the metal bowl, there was a mouse. At first I thought it was sleeping and gently nudged it, then I realised it was dead.
No sign of claw marks, no signs of blood around its mouth. Just a freshly dead mouse which had not gone stiff yet.

I don’t believe for one minute it was a coincidence, they saw there was no food and was returning the gesture, they were bringing me food.
Obviously I never ate the mouse, and I left it in the bowl for 2 days, but they never took it. I buried it in the end, then gave them a strict talking too for killing something for no purpose lol.

I will look up the word ‘mentalese’ because it’s highly likely I’m getting the wrong end of the stick with this reply! :dove:

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Thanks for sharing.

I think the language of the world is a language of making, producing, constructing.
a feverish language. And this fever is in us. Never any moment able to relax, let go of all desires and ambitions. If not directed towards some worldly goal we are feverishly involved in a spiritual goal. Always feverish.

In the future…then we will be happy, we will be safe, we will be wealthy, we will prosper, we will awaken, cease etc. This language is so common. In the future we will finally realise what we seek…sure…

But it was exactly this that K. and (i believe) also Buddha saw as the mundane ignobel stream or search. It will never lead to the end of suffering. It is exactly this stream that is the stream of samsara. Having this vision of a great future (all tanhas are like that)

The language is always …work hard and you will reap the greatfruits…yes, oke, but also fruits will cease, right? What is left of the socalled great Roman Empire? Or other empires. Biljons of people are slaughtered. Cruelty all over the place. And what is left but ruins and probably a mountain of dark kamma. Also the fruit of health, wealth, high rebirth, long living, will cease. The same feverish search even can make this Earth uninhabitable.

I feel this would be a depressing message if Buddha would not have taught what does not cease and is unmade. I feel he does not leave us in some hopeless state. He teaches: …because there is the unproduced, there is also really an escape.

But to arrive there, i believe, the Buddha teaches that we need to see the dangers, the disadventages, the limitation of the mundane stream of producing and its vision or great future.

If we seek peace, we must not try to create it or construct it, because that peace will cease. But if we seek peace we must understand and see that peace is arrived at when all constructing activities in the mind are gone.
A not constructed peace cannot desintegrate. A constructed can, such as jhana or the peace we can experience when we feel all goes well.

The language of the world only feeds the fever in us, i feel, and only feeds an ignoble search. The world makes us more and more feverish and i feel it is not easy to escape this stream. If all people are so much involved in making, creating, producing, and feel that this is the goal of their lifes, well, i feel, one must be very strong to choose for something else. There is almost no desire more strong then the desire to be loyal to the world, to boss, government, friends etc. Even if that loyality means we all end up in misery. Strange but true, right? We have strange feelings of loyality.

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I think I understand what you’re saying.
The buddha tried to put into words a feeling. The enlightenment feeling I guess.
After he got up from sitting underneath the tree for a week, the others he was with expected him to say something enlightening, and he just said about going to get some food lol.
So the other Herberts abandoned him there and then!

I personally don’t get to caught up in the human world, if I start observing that one I’d be admitted to the local funny farm within a week.

I think trying to bring peace to others is a bit like trying to do your shoelaces up in a revolving doorway…
Whatever helps anybody to be at peace whether it’s Buddhism, Christianity or even The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Yes it’s a true thing) then that’s a good thing, as long as nothing is harmed in anyway!
My thing is nature, that’s my religion, if I’m not out walking in it, then I’m staring out of the window at it, and most of the time it’s crawling around the floor or on the ceiling in some shape or form anyway.

I can’t honestly answer that, I’ve never felt it, lived it or experienced it.
My name has never been attached to anything on paper regarding ownership, not a car, home or anything else, nor have I ever had a wage packet or a boss. I purposely kept my life under the radar because I just refused to join in, I lost all trust in everything from the violent Christianity upbringing I experienced, which I’m kind of thankful for now otherwise I might be up to my eyeballs in debt by now lol.

It is possible to live within the system, without getting attached to it…

I may of gone completely off subject here and I’ve deleted paragraphs of text because when I read it back it looked like a load of waffle.
My bottom line core/base/being is ‘don’t hurt anything and it wont hurt you’. That includes myself. :dove:

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I believe cetana can be understood as that kind of volitional activity what makes our mind/understanding strategical, somewhat crooked, impure. Like a trademan.
Not that it is evil to be like a trademan but it is also not pure. I feel that is very easy to understand.

For example: if one plans to give something to a monk motivated by the merits one will reap (already envision oneself being reborn in heaven), that is, of course not really a pure kind of giving. It is a strategical kind of giving. One has the mentality of a trademan. Typical for deeds based upon cetana. Those deeds are loaded with avijja, always. Those deeds are also never based upon dispassion or the pure, of course.

The christian mystics (and i think also Jesus) call this the mentality of a trademan.
I like that. I can recognise this and also recognise this is not purity. This is not the supra mundane Path. The holy path.

‘One must not live like a trademan’. That is their core message. Their attitude towards this seems to be a bit judgemental. Or at least, it seems to be rooted in the notion that life is not meant to be lived this selfish way. I must admit i also feel it this way. A world in which people only become more and more strategical/rational, trademans, becomes uninhabitable.

I see Buddha approached it not like the christian mystics, while he has the same message. I also like that very much. While also Buddha teaches that this strategical way of living cannot end samsara and its suffering, Buddha does not reject this kind of strategical behavior. Apparantly he saw that such strategical behavior, although not really pure or holy, can still be meritorious and become a long standing support for ones own well being as long as one is in samsara.

So, even strategical giving (giving as example) is meritorious according the EBT, although Buddha also does not see this as perfect giving, of course. That is also very clear. But Buddha certaintly does not have ideas that life is not meant to be lived this strategical way, or that we are not designed this way by God and not meant this way.

Avijja supports the whole impure strategical and rational way of living. Avijja means that one does not see yet that this is not really the Path to escape the fetters and samsara. This strategical way of living is still the a Path of becoming, of passion, of continuation of rebirth. Meritorious oke, but merit is also still a bond. I feel Buddhims is very nuaced about all this.

This ideology of making is not the supramundane Path. That Path based upon dispassion, purity, not selfish, not strategical. But, like i said, i believe, Buddha did not reject this Path of making, producing. I still feel it must be very clear that he also does not teach it as the Path to escape the fetters and samsara and end suffering.

The beauty of real goodness, or real Sila, is, of course, that it is for nothing, for free. One does not expect something in return. Holiness is not strategical. What a world…if such gets lost! I see the Sangha as those who see the great value of this purity and want to protect it from being lost. Because when this purity is not seen anymore or protected Buddha, Dhamma an Sangha get lost.

The supra mundane Path must not get lost. That is for every being and the world a disaster.

So, oke, we are inclined to become strategical. As long we are, we can better be strategical in a wise way then foolish way. But never think this is the holy path, the supra mundane Path. The Path that makes an end to suffering. It is not, of course really pure. MN117 is very important. To see in ourselves that whatever is based upon passion is not really pure and cannot free from suffering.

May this be helpful and may we protect the grace and beauty of purity and not overestimate nor underestimate the role of being strategical.