Hey all, I'm here to more or less post my last post, and finally leave you guys alone. At the same time I would like to air my complaints again. Don't get me wrong, you guys are cool, and for a lot of my life I looked up to you guys and desired to reach Enlightenment so that I could end my suffering and all that, it's just that, while this community was one of the greatest back in the day, it has (not so recently) fell and declined greatly.

Problem #1:

The entire of practice of Buddhism, is to readily and quickly identify what dukkha (friction) is, its cause, and eliminate it. The people of this community do no such thing. They do not head toward the cessation of suffering. But rather they practice incorrectly, the way they do this is by attempting to "hammer out" unwholesome emotions.

This practice is incorrect. Instead of letting one's inner direction, dictate where to go, in order to find the remainderless cessation of suffering. The practitioners of this site, try to hammer out bad emotions, in a vain, and hopeless attempt at eliminating suffering.

It's quite similar to cutting weeds, but not eliminating the root.

Problem #2:

The practitioners of this community, have wrong views, have gone over to another teacher, grasp the teaching incorrectly, do not discern.

They possess many wrong views, among them: incorrectly discerning suffering and the end of suffering.

They do not regard the Buddha as authority, but instead contradict or misinterpret his word.

They take the Buddha's word as a way to reinforce their views, instead of as a way to correct their views.

They do not (some) even discern the four noble truths exactly as they are.

They dwell heedlessly.

Note:

I do discern, exactly as it is, this is suffering, this is the cause of suffering, is the end of suffering, this is the way to the end of suffering. I do discern, there is no other teacher like the Buddha. I feel the pull, I have genuine insight disease.

Actually for a while I have been an accomplished Buddhist, not only was I a ditthi-patta, I was by my own assessment, a sakadagami, I was accomplished in certain perceptions (satta-sanna), I was also a sekha according to the sekha sutta.

With my wisdom I discerned the correct path to cessation, but did not follow it. I was dwelling heedlessly.

[end note]

The entire, correct, practice of Buddhism, is to accomplish the perception of suffering, and, with this pull, consummate it, and eliminate it. Thereby eliminating suffering.

The more intense the perception, the higher the degree of enlightenment.

I no longer do this, I am an Actualist now.

As Richard correctly describes, Actualism is 180 degrees opposite to Buddhism.

Any genuinely enlightened figure discerns the four noble truths, and this knowledge is painful, I repeat, painful. It is accompanied by something called a: "yearning".

The following and consummation of this yearning, is what Buddhist practice is, when it is completed, the practitioner discerns, birth is ended.

But this doesn't work, the more one follows this yearning, the more fuel the yearning is given, it intensifies, and grows, and thus the pain increases.

I am sure you guys have practiced hard, and have accomplished various ASCs.

But as far as I'm concerned, I see no correct discernment of these four truths here, and thus any evidence that any of you are real Buddhist, let alone real Actualists for that matter.

The practice of Actualism is to not give into the affective, pull, or yearning, which leads to the aggrandizement of the "good" emotion. But instead to minimize, both good and bad emotion, and come to the present moment.

Waiting only begets more waiting, partially enlightened people constantly think: when I improve myself, when I get better, when the cessation of suffering comes... in the *future*.

But the point is, now is the only moment you have, accept yourself as you are.

[]

Anyways I might have gone off-topic, I was going to write some other stuff, but I forget.

I'll be posting in this thread if you want to argue or have questions.

As I have always maintained, a movie, or some form of book, or at least a wiki page, should be made about this community.

tldr

buh bye

Oh, in sum:

You guys are not Buddhists.

Yep, that's basically it.

Also, I would appreciate a lack of sarcasm, as sarcasm is not a part of the dharma at all. But if you decide to persist in that then it basically makes you guys a bunch of hypocrites.

Also, another point I wanted to make.

You guys are not moral, in fact you completely bypass and ignore the teaching on morality.

But in Buddhism, mastery in morality, comes first before anythint. As per the three teachings schematic.

So it throws considerable doubt on your attainments.

A few years ago, there was a witch who kept coming over to the livejournal Buddhists community to tell us all what bad Buddhists we all were. It was very useful.

Please keep telling us we're not Buddhists. It is very useful.

Yep, definitely the case for me. Big Sid was an amazing guy and I love the Buddhist models...but I'm not a Buddhist.

Shame you're going James, for all your trolling you've made some good info available (sutta references in particular) and made me laugh on more than a few occasions, hopefully you'll do whatever it is that you need to do with your life to make you happy.

All the best.

: )

O.o

A few years ago (literally three years ago), a young boy named James, then a devout Buddhist, encountered the DhO.

Ever since then he was full of remorse, and a sad sad little boy.

He does not think it was a coincidence.

:-D

Hey Tommy,

I figured I might as well oust some more information that I have gathered from my brain.



What is a body-witness? According to the Pali Canon it's a type of Buddhist saint, who is strongest in concentration, or samadhi.

The key is to touch the jhana, with one's body.

I used to do this, back when I was younger, no longer.

Such a path is said to be pleasant:



Obviously if you want, you can link the unpleasant path to Nibbana to dukkha-patipada.

The so called: Dark Night.

Again, the same concept comes up:



You claim to practice satipatthana, but what is it:



What is actual satipatthana?, here it is:



The key is in observing the arising and passing away of said phenomena, a reference to the A&P.

BUT.

What is the method of observing the arising and passing away?



The Noble Eightfold Path itself.

It all comes together quite nicely doesn't it?

lawl

Do you mean you regret some developments in your own life which you associate with this website? What happened?

My dude snapped

Sorry but the 3 characteristics are definitely taught here. You can't "hammer" out the emotions. That makes them stronger. You have to look clearly at suffering to create dispassion. When the brain sees what it's doing to itself it naturally lets go of the cortisol button. Even my immune system has improved due to precisely this practice.

Agreed, I'm not sure which forum YOU'VE been visiting, but the theory that practitioners here 'hammer out" emotions as opposed to understanding their nature and watching them arise and pass away of their own accord, is completely antithetical to anything i've seen here.

No need to be hard on him. It seems his misunderstanding has cost him pretty dearly.

you have a deft way with skillful means on message boards, Fivebells. Viva la compassion.

Well, I might as well be honest.

Basically, I used to be a good person, now I'm a bad person.

But the moment I started becoming a bad person, coincided with encountering the DhO.

Odd.



Damn, that sounds really sarcastic. Not sure if it's meant to be hurtful or not.



This is exactly my point, but of course, not everyone here does that.



I've been visiting this exact forum, Brian. Which forum have you been visiting?

Addendum:

Basically this is what I feel:

I feel a pull, a compulsion, that asks me, if you will (maybe you know what this is), to do certain things.

I intrinsically know, that if I follow through with what it asks me to do, the pull will go away. But if I resist it, then it causes pain.

This has never happened to me before, and I became like this when I was 16. I'm 19 now.

It just doesn't go away, and there is, I know this, NO OTHER WAY, for it to go away, then to do what it asks, simply NO OTHER WAY.

I don't talk about this often, but that's basically how I feel, it asks me to do pretty embarrassing things, such as:

Go outside and scream: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Or just do weird Obsessive-Compulsive behaviors.

As far as I'm concerned this problem of mine most closely matches Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder from the DSM-IV.

You could of course ask me to lighten up and ignore the pull, or even do what it asks. I've tried both. Of course I never have done EVERYTHING that it asked, because if I did, my volition would be exhausted, and blah blah blah, there would be no more volition.

I'm trying Actualism in the hopes of medicating this.

My daily life though, is actually quite fine:

I'm happy, calm, often quite euphoric. Have lots of fun in general. Good appetite, sleep a lot. Plenty of friends. I just experience a constant existential pain or pull.

Cheers.

Haha, its kind of a joke. Not sarcastic, not meant to hurt you at all.

This is confusing to me. Can you explain why you think the DhO made you a bad person?

Most definitively:

The DhO did NOT make me a bad person.

But I became a bad person, the moment I encountered it.

Very succinctly:

I was a devout Buddhist from the age of 11 onwards, the moment I encountered the DhO, coincided with the moment I would have: "gone extinct".

And this caused me to freak out, so I headed in the exact opposite direction, in the hopes of avoiding such an... event.

Ever since then:

Me = bad person.

Sad aye?

At the same time: I can't be a good person, because I know being good only leads to an end, which is cessation.

So there really is no in between, it's either: suffering or not suffering.

Gone extinct? What do you mean exactly? And what are you afraid of in your practice that you "headed in the exact opposite direction" ??

I'm throwing this idea out there for you to consider, if you like. It's likely other stuff was going on in your life around the same time and for some reason joining DhO sticks out as something prominent for you around that time. Perhaps you should do some further investigation of cause/effect if you think that one event, such as joining a message board, coincides with the moment "you" became a bad person. I know you say that the DhO is not the cause of you becoming a bad person... but still consider that lumping certain events together in a chain like that means you are trying to deduct something cause/effect out of what may be two totally unrelated occurrences. You'd also do well to investigate what a "bad" person is and why it seems "you" are "bad". You say you are onto Actualism now. If you want help to that end there are plenty of people here who have lots of experience with that method. *Raises hand* - me being one of them.

Here's another thing to consider. You've been posting here between the ages of 16-19. Any chance all this change in behavior and attitude is the natural effect of hormonal changes and resultant excess emotions that come with simply being a teenager?


Steph

It's quite possible. I was kicked out of the High School I was attending at the time, and I was kicked out of the place I was living in.

I was very depressed, and had attempted suicide more than once.

By this I mean, I viewed the end of suffering, as synonymous with the destruction of my self.

Wrong view.

So I desired to escape this.

How do you resist the pull? How does it cause pain?

Well you resist it, by not doing what it tells you to do.

This is impossible by the way.

So I'm only "temporarily" avoiding the end.

Edit:

Pain is caused because you're not doing what is right. Which is what the pull tells you what to do.

After a few years full of extreme experiences, such as cessations, EEs, powerful A&Ps and DNs, panic attacks of all kinds, etc, I am finding some calm solace and much needed comfort in going back to the basics. Eating healthy food, doing exercise, and engaging in a very simple, calming meditation.

I don't know about you, but for me AF was clearly motivated by the same existential yearning you seem to be blaming your misfortune upon. I found that being desperate for a solution is a sure way to shortcut clear thinking and buying into all kinds of rushed, sloppy reasoning.

For instance, I was seriously underestimating the value of a healthy diet. A lot of the pain I was going through seemed to be caused by poor eating habits. Particularly a certain background of soreness and fatigue. After having generally improved these habits for two months now, the last three weeks of which I maintained an impecable and carefully studied dietary program, I can happily report that I am feeling much refreshed.

All the while, my tendency for dissociation led to foolish narratives about how my pains were actually caused by some deep existential anguish, manifesting in the body. This dissociation between what caused me pain and what I thought and said about it was one of the most valuable lessons I learned in the last few years, because it has shown me just how misleading language can be.

For instance, instead of discussing any of your comments about the DhO, I thought to write this post about diet and exercise. This is because I think that actually your comments arise from your own personal pain, and what you actually wish to discuss is this matter, rather than whether the DhO participants are true buddhists or false buddhists. If I were to engage in the false discussion which you proposed, we would waste our time trying to discern what buddhism is, and whether DhO participants are adequate representants of that, and other stuff which in the end is completely unrelated to what (I think) actually caused you to begin this thread.

Here is a reference I liked to read. The book It starts with food, by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig.

Maybe you will find what I wrote interesting, and maybe not. In either case, I wish that your anguish will diminish and your well being will improve.

It's not your fault.










It's not your fault

I'm still not sure I understand. Is this correct? Around the time you discovered DhO, you uncovered a compulsion to self-destructive behaviors. You believe these compulsions are pointing you to correct behavior, and it is painful to refrain from it as a result. But you have a conflicting belief that indulging the compulsions will in some way destroy you.

I'm not sure I understand because these beliefs don't make sense to me. Why is running outside and screaming correct behavior? (Was there an emergency inside?) Why would running outside and screaming destroy you?

Yes, around the time I discovered the DhO I uncovered a compulsion to outlandish nonsensical behaviours.

They supposedly compel me towards right action, and, the intuition is, is that if I follow them through to their end, I will reach the end of suffering.

Of course, whatever it asks me to do is often questionable, but I never doubt that if done fully, it will have a desirable result. The action are typically morally neutral, and simply socially embarrassing.

For example, going outside and screaming is embarrassing, so it loosens attachment to what people think of you, it also may be a stress release.

Sounds weird, but this is honestly what I experience.

In sum:

I'm compelled to do things that are questionable socially.

These actions, if consummated, lead to lack of stress.

The reasoning behind them, I do not know.

Their result, I know for sure.

Sounds fucking weird.

As per a request from James Yen via private message, this thread will be deleted shortly. Just in case anyone was still replying.

EDIT: Apologies, I'm unable to delete the thread at present due to pending replies.

That's a shame, it was interesting. But no point if it's making James uncomfortable.

James, if you're interested in continuing to talk, feel free to PM me. (It's not actually clear to me how to do that on this site, but I assume the PM notification will stand out.)