Og

Yeah, I understand what you're saying. The answer is pretty simple. The "feeling" you talk about when you think of the negation of fear and desire is TRUE happiness and true love right here and right now.

Clinging and rejecting (desire and fear) are feelings that get in your way. Removing fear and desire is the equivalent of the saying "if you love it, let it free, if it comes back, it was meant to be."

It's basically a path of harmony with the world. Your happiness doesn't lay in the future somewhere (i.e. desiring things). Your happiness doesn't lie in the past (i.e. regret or fond memories). You will not "get happiness" if you have this thing or that person's affection or that person in your life or praise from that person.

What you have is the capacity for happiness and love for all things right now.

I recommend Anthony deMello's book "Awareness" to get exposed to what I'm trying to say here. He does a great job of talking about fear and desire keeping you from happiness and love and he does it in terms of christian symbols. His work is exactly buddhist in nature but he's a jesuit priest.

To me, buddhism is the MOST feeling because you are actually FEELING NOW right here where you are, in the present moment. Samsara (cast about by fear and desire) keeps you away from that. When you remove fear and desire you have just the current moment which is an expression of the past and the future.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Og

yeah, I guess that's mainly it. Fear and desire cast you out of awareness of yourself and those around you. The buddhist philosophy is exactly as you say it. It appears empty to someone who's whole life is the nightmare of fear and desire casting them about in the world. No one wants to wake up from it because its all they know.

The reality of buddhist awareness is where the trees bloom and the desert gives way to lush life giving land. It brings your mind into the present moment and allows you to TRULY be full of life instead of to be living everything BUT the present moment and thus having an empty life... a void moving through time driven by what's ahead of it and what's behind it and never knowing what it is right now.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

harleylove

I will get DeMello's book. I actually wanted to get it too when I bought myths of light but they didn't have it.

Thanks for putting it in perspective. I can admit that my life is driven almost completely by fear and desire and I guess one of my biggest problems is that I can't disconnect desire from happiness. Although I can relate to pure bliss(if you read my post in Spirituality) and it's true what you say about living your life in a void when you have fear and desire, which is how most of us live. The ironic part to me when comparing the western forms of religion is that they actually feed off of this.

__________________
If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs--that is your success. All nature is your congratulation.
Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862

Og

Yes... If you remember campbell's description of the hindu spiritual path in terms of the kundalini yoga system of 7 chakras, the bottom three were basically "health, wealth, and drive to power".. The reproductive, the consuming, and the will to enforce yourself upon others.

This is the basis of western religion. This is a spiritually inert individual in terms of hindu/buddhist forms. The 4th stage is the fulcrum of the entire process (where you get the term Aum from) at the heart. This is why the buddha was "born from a slit at his mother's side"... They don't actually believe this (as Christopher Hitchens would have you believe), the point is that it is a metaphor for the teachings of the buddha (i.e. that their source is the heart as opposed to the baser vaginal opening in the more fundamental bottom 3 chakras).

Western religion feeds off of a desire for health/wealth/power and offers their followers rewards for their faith (desire) and punishments for straying (fear).

They keep the human psyche in the future or in the past and never in the present. The entire point of buddhism is that THIS is it.. right now. Buddha held up a flower and that was it. You've been brainwashed into thinking that if you don't fear losing or desire to have a thing that you can not love it when in fact the opposite is true. But it seems so natural to most people.

THAT is the suffering that you must experience. You don't need to get drunk and end up in a ditch somewhere or lose a loved one. What you need is to realize that you ARE suffering because of these things... Your mind is cast into the future and into the past by both fear and desire (guilt/anxiety/regret/self esteem/etc). You live there (future/past) instead of here and now. All of it is about pairs of opposites and categories of thought (future/past is another) and the cessation of suffering comes when you transcend this duality of the mind and just breathe here and now.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

harleylove

You know Og, you really should be a teacher, your writing is eloquent and easy to grasp. You have been very helpful and informative and I hope your posts can help others explore and understand Buddhism as well.

Now that I've sucked up , I believe that in an earlier post you mentioned western Buddhism, what are the main differences?

__________________
If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs--that is your success. All nature is your congratulation.
Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862

Og

Western Buddhism? I'm not sure what you're referring to. Buddhism is purely an eastern philosophy and has very little direct expression in the western world. Most people have no idea what buddhism is about.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

harleylove

Ok, well then scratch that. I was going by memory I thought maybe people that practice Buddhism here followed differently. Sorry.

__________________
If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs--that is your success. All nature is your congratulation.
Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862

debdodd

I think what harelylove is talking about is earlier in the thread when you said this .... "From my experience, Buddhism is all this poetic. But my experience with Buddhism is very western. It's all inclusive."

I have been following the conversation between the two of you ... Og got me hooked on Campbell also, but I haven't finished them all ... busy summer ...

anyway, I sure don't mean to speak for for you harleylove but I am with you on the understanding level of all this ... I'm still an infant ... okay maybe up to toddler level but still I have many questions ... I'll have to check out the "awareness" book also.

__________________
"Ubi dubium ibi libertas."

"We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again ....."

Og

Awareness is a fun, quick read. It's a transcription of a seminar that deMello gave. It's entirely in terms of christianity and does not reference (directly) buddhist ideas as buddhist ideas. But you will be able to see how clearly he expresses the ideas of christianity in eastern terms in order to address attachment and happiness.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

harleylove

Thank you Deb, yep that is what I was referring to. I'm glad you've been following along too.

Now it's your turn to ask questions.

__________________
If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs--that is your success. All nature is your congratulation.
Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862