macrobiotics and unitarians

I did a macrobiotic diet for about 6 months long long ago. It was interesting, but kind of a pain to sustain IMO. I think perhaps I am too lazy in the kitchen.
I went to the unitarian church periodically. It often felt like a history lesson to me, which was cool. I like history. It did not feel particularly...enlightening, but it seemed like a nice community of people who go out of their way not to judge or hate. Hard to argue with that philosophy.

gods

so annie took me to a unitarian church, where the speaker discussed concepts of god.
supernaturalism, deism, pantheism, panentheism, naturalism. trouble is, when a label is attached a mental fabrication is created. what i like about being a 'buddhist-at-large,' is that the un-named remains un-named... you know by direct experience not by a received belief. why set boundries around the boundless? it only gets in the way.

Indian Cooking

Back when I was a full time jazz musician, I lived on macro-biotic & Indian food. Inexpensive and nutritious. All you need is a wok, 2 place settings, and a spice box.

Posters Welcome

compose post here

The Real Secret....

Back when I was playing drums for the great downbeat poll winning, grammy winning, Buddy Montgomery,He said, "Playing time is concentration." [time being swing, groove, the pocket, soul: the life force of the music] He also added, "You got to have the fahr!! (fire). Concentration? The secret? The key? The meaning of life? concentration?! Usually the answer has been, "I don't know man. I just play."

But when a Buddy Montgomery tells you something, you take it as a koan and wrestle with it. What he was talking about was Flow (c.f. below). All of those elements obtain.

And what of "fire?" Obviously, passion ....

What is concentrated is not a grimacing ego-directed focus, but the 'psyche' the aggregates ... The physical body, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness.

1. "form" or "matter"[4] (Skt., Pāli rūpa, Tib. gzugs):
external and internal matter. Externally, rupa is the physical world. Internally, rupa includes the material body and the physical sense organs.[5]
2. "sensation" or "feeling" (Skt., Pāli vedanā, Tib. tshor-ba):
sensing an object[6] as either pleasant or unpleasant or neutral.[7][8]
3. "perception", "conception", "apperception", "cognition", or "discrimination" (Skt. samjñā, Pāli saññā, Tib. 'du-shes):
registers whether an object is recognized or not (for instance, the sound of a bell or the shape of a tree).
4. "mental formations", "volition", or "compositional factors" (Skt. samskāra, Pāli saṅkhāra, Tib. 'du-byed) :
all types of mental habits, thoughts, ideas, opinions, compulsions, and decisions triggered by an object.[9]
5. "consciousness" (Skt. vijñāna, Pāli viññāṇa[10], Tib. rnam-par-shes-pa):

(a) In the Nikayas: cognizance.[11][12]
(b) In the Abhidhamma: a series of rapidly changing interconnected discrete acts of cognizance.[13]
(c) In Mahayana sources: the base that supports all experience.[14]

So what Buddy laid out was not only the secret of swing, but a key insight into Buddhism, not to mention David Hume's notion of "the self is a bundle of perceptions."

And what of "the fire?"

From the Greek,

Psyche: 1647, "animating spirit," from L. psyche, from Gk. psykhe "the soul, mind, spirit, breath, life, the invisible animating principle or entity which occupies and directs the physical body" (personified as Psykhe, the lover of Eros), akin to psykhein "to blow, cool," from PIE base *bhes- "to blow" (cf. Skt. bhas-). The word had extensive sense development in Platonic philosophy and Jewish-infl. theological writing of St. Paul. In Eng., psychological sense is from 1910.

Maybe Freud said it best when describing the sublimation of libidinal energy.

So what is to swing? The concentration of the body-mind in the one-pointed sublimation of sexual energy.

An end to suffering...

As a psychologist, as Buddhist, a musician, a philosopher, and as a human being, one has chosen the path to the end of suffering, stress, existential anxiety, emotional dysphoria, mental illness on the road to happiness.

The first step along this path is as follows:

I. Samma ditthi .... Right view

dukkhe ñana .... understanding suffering

dukkhasamudaye ñana .... understanding its origin

dukkhanirodhe ñana .... understanding its cessation

dukkhanirodhagaminipatipadaya ñana .... understanding the way leading to its cessation

In other words the end of suffering starts and ends with seeing things as they really are.

At first this 'right view' is a conceptual one. Over time it is a matter of direct experience. Try it, you'll like it.

So is life suffering? Indeed much of it is. Although, our culture is based on denial. But, we all age, get sick and die. While there is much joy in between, love affairs end, cars rust, the bills are due, the stock market collapses. But with it all, the insideous thing is that we often feel a sense of discontent. As the song says, "Is that all there is?



Is there no higher meaning? Is my purpose a true one?

The root cause of this discontent is desire, craving and clinging. Losing what we've got. Not getting what we want.

What is the end of discontent? First realizing that everything is impermanent and subject to change. (e.g., "We've grown apart, my love.) This impermanence denys us a sense of security. (What if I lose my job?) Finally, there is the sense of existential groundlessness to find that all is without an eternal essence. Phanthoms, ghosts, evanescent mirage.

OK, so what leads to the end of this discontent? That is the subject of this series of posts. We've seem step one. Only seven more to go..


Comments? Let's make this a dialogue.

Here's some temporary release from stress & discontent:

FLOW

I would be most interested in what situations the reader has experienced FLOW.
Components of flow Csíkszentmihályi identifies the following as accompanying an experience of flow:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities).

2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).

3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.

4. Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.

5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).

6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).

7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.

8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.

9. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.[2]

Not all are needed for flow to be experienced.