What are we doing?! Wake up!

Discussion
1

What is your best memory?
What is your happiest time of your life?
What is your best and most favourite self – the person that you felt was your best ever?
What is stopping you from achieving the same (if not greater) happiness?
What is stopping you from being the best person you can possibly be?

What is stopping you is two things: (1) Your own self and (2) Your lack of cooperation with yourself, lack of self-love, self-worth, self-esteem, self-understanding, self-motivation, self-care, self-acceptance, self-non-judgmentalism, self-protection, self-standing-up, self-everything-good.

In other words, no one else can stop you. No one. Only you are preventing your own happiness and freedom, progress and success. No one else is doing it to you. So you can’t blame them.

It’s called the self-problem (I coined it yesterday). That is at the root of all suffering. Why not be who you want to be? Because you worry about what others will think. Who cares about what they think! In fact, if you are who you are, and if you succeed and become your best and happiest self, they will like you, and respect you. And you will have achieved all your goals. Why not do it? Because you think there is SOMETHING wrong with that. There’s something wrong with being totally happy and being the best you can possibly be. Because who on planet earth is like that?

You could be the one. Who is stopping you?

You.

You, Stephen. You!

P.S. This is life. This is the world. This is the Universe. This is reality. This is serious stuff. We are here. We are alive. We suffer, but we can be happy. We are not perfect but we can do the best with our lives.

Why not? Why allow someone else’s thoughts prevent us from doing that? This is our life. We live it the way we want to, as long as we don’t harm others. If we are not doing any wrong to anyone, why not do whatever we want to do?

Because we are afraid. Be afraid of being afraid of doing what is of the utmost importance in this life in this Universe.

We are dying. Fast. No one knows if you will last until midnight tonight. This is saṃsāra! This is life! Serious stuff. Wake, up! Do your best and strive for the highest happiness regardless. Then you can give it to everyone else, and make this life a more pleasant place for all human and non-human beings. Wouldn’t that be totally, utterly AWESOME?!

In the end, when each of us dies, we are going to get reborn. Again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again…

When are we going to learn what is important in this life? When are we going to get out of this worthless, meaningless circle?

When we solve the self-problem. When we understand life and truth and reality the way they are, and then do the right thing which accords with that understanding.

Why not?

Stephen.

P.S. #2: Another thing that is stopping us is sensual pleasures. We like sex. Come on, it’s so awesome. (Not that I know.) We like love, relationships. We love our family. (That one is good). We need to work to earn money to pay for the food, the rent and the bills, and to have some luxury. Good, appropriate, makes sense. We need money to survive and to follow our pleasures and stuff.

Isn’t there something higher than that?

What about freedom from all suffering? Ultimate Peace, Happiness and Freedom? Isn’t that higher than the former stuff? What about ending the above-described cycle of rebirth followed by more rebirth with all the horrendous sufferings, pains, problems, sicknesses, Presidents, abuse, poverty, wars, hells, and shall I list more (because I can)?

Wouldn’t we rather want the complete end of all that crap? Come on. It is crap! It stinks. It is most unsightly. And yet, we are currently – all of us – wallowing in crap! Some of it more bearable, but still crap. And we are lying to ourselves and to each other that it is OK, if not Great.

Wow!

I would rather wake up. Because I am beginning to wake up, and it already so nice. I can’t begin to imagine what real awakening and freedom must be like! Freedom. Peace of mind. The highest happiness. The cessation of all suffering. Liberation. Bliss. Emancipation. Complete joy. Purity. Safety. Perfect health.

Nibbāna.

For me and for all other beings.

WOW!

2

contentment is better than happiness

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3

Yes. Contentment was praised and recommended by the Buddha as a virtue.

But:

AN 2.5

"Bhikkhus, I have personally known two things: non-contentment in regard to wholesome qualities and indefatigability in striving.221 I strove indefatigably, [resolved]: ‘Willingly, let only my skin, sinews, and bones remain, and let the flesh and blood dry up in my body, but I will not relax my energy so long as I have not attained what can be attained by manly strength, energy, and exertion.’222 It was by heedfulness that I achieved enlightenment, bhikkhus; it was by heedfulness that I achieved the unsurpassed security from bondage.223

13“If, bhikkhus, you too would strive indefatigably, [resolved]: ‘Willingly, let only my skin, sinews, and bones remain, and let the flesh and blood dry up in my body, but I will not relax my energy so long as I have not attained what can be attained by manly strength, energy, and exertion,’ you too will, in no long time, realize for yourselves with direct knowledge, in this very life, that unsurpassed consummation of the spiritual life for the sake of which clansmen rightly go forth from the household life into homelessness, and having entered upon it, you will dwell in it. Therefore, bhikkhus, you should train yourselves thus: ‘We will strive indefatigably, [resolved]: “Willingly, let only my skin, sinews, and bones remain, and let the flesh and blood dry up in my body, but I will not relax my energy so long as I have not attained what can be attained by manly strength, energy, and exertion.”’ It is in such a way that you should train yourselves."

And, in the end, I was not referring to ‘ordinary’ happiness, rather I was referring to the Ultimate happiness (Nibbāna).

I fear being content with remaining in the cycle of suffering and rebirth.

4

in zenish vein i’d say that being content with suffering and rebirth is in itself nibbanic

ordinary people me included are not content with all that, they are constantly projected elsewhere further into the future or lurking sideways all probably in an attempt to run away or reach out

1 Like
5

Yes. I think that first I must be content with and accept suffering and rebirth; then once I have made peace with it, then I must put in the relentless effort and desire (chanda) to get out of that devastating cycle. What is the point remaining in it? To continue to suffer? If I am content to continue to suffer, I won’t make any effort to escape.