Monks do it via meditation. To feel a oneness, a harmony, to be serene, passing through life observing it and existing. That is all. Not to possess. Eating when hungry, sleeping when tired, drinking when thirsty and so forth and so on. With all the bounty that their karma, sufferings and strivings have provided for them. Other try to get beyond the wants, still others try to get beyond the needs, living without shelter, not truely sleeping, not eating, not drinking, only existing contained.
I haven't seen it, those that get beyond the needs of the flesh conquering the matter.
What I have seen is a Western man, a friend of my grand father before and after he went to Tibet. He says that he stayed in a stone box for four years and was denied human companionship, light and sound. Conditions people are meant to go insane under.
Now, you may argue that I admire him and will believe what he says because a part of me wants it to be true. So tell me, when he walked into the restaurant to meet my mum and me for dinner; why did this man, wearing a normal jersey, jeans, glasses, with a normal haircut, looking like a professor or possibly; why did all the people who looked at him stop mid conversation, as soon as they were aware of him, stop to look at him; why did everyone in that restaurant watch him walk in and sit down. Why did we all relax and talk more quietly?
That is something I can't work out no matter how much I replay it over and over in my mind.
I admire them but for me, I don't want one way of living, thinking, existing until I die. I change, I look for new experiences. People who knew me at different times in my life remember me as polite, quiet and shy; others as loud, aggressive, active and violent, still others and cheerful, full of life and always quick with a joke or a compliment.
Now, I play games, that are not on my terms. I think on the things I should do. However, the things I had a burning passion to do, I have done. They have been experienced until I was sated. I ponder my next steps but they are more of a logical progression not based on any passion.
Each to their own.
"... serenity to accept,
the things I can not change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
..."
I have tried, but there is free will. I won't change the way a person thinks. They may see it they way I want them to for a time but they will revert, never having wanted to or having actually altered, bending but springing back to how they were before.
What can I change? My environment to some extent. The way I think and perceive. Do I want to change? Why? How? What to?
If I don't, I won't.
If my presence offends you, we have choices and options. You can ignore me, attempt to remove me or change me. I can adapt to how you will be more comfortable. While together, we will find a compromise, part company, dominate each other, struggling or destroy each other.
We are individuals, having slightly or different stimulii, we are unique just like everyone else and even with controlled stimulus we will react differently, even twins are born in succession, do not occupy the same space and so forth and so on. So, we are the product of our nature, our nurture, environment, experiences and choices.
Live your life, take what you like from others and be who you want to be there is no way that you have to live, there is so much room between immediate self termination and a long off death. Society is growing and it is all around us.
I go to work, go shopping and have chosen to do those things in order to sustain being alone at home with a computer, book, out cycling and just having quiet, I don't take on your problems, you are not welcome here so I will not assist you even if you break in and sleep on my floor. I don't care about people, shut them out.
Even saying, "Live your life, ..." you can chose not to, seeking the money and all the material things that will magically make you happy, magically getting through your flesh and skull to strip away your sadness and depression, anxieties and fears to make you happy and content.
Buying a gun and keeping it in your cupboard will magically keep you safe.
Getting a gym membership will magically make you fit and healthy.
Having a computer, internet connection and playing the most "challenging" social, multi-player game will magically distract for the rest of your life until you are dead without knowing it.
Having serenity from mediation takes effort, years of practise.
Being zoned out on drugs takes effort to get the drugs and sacrifices the duration you will have that experience and your health.
Having a gym membership means you still have to go to the gym and burn as much or more energy than you take in.
Getting the gun means you need to keep it in a gun safe with the key around your neck at all times, you only have it if you can get to it before the danger gets to you. Then you need to have practised using it and be able to use it well enough to remove the danger.
Sitting, not breathing, thinking and doing nothing, means you are going to die very soon.
Now we go from conscious to subconscious decisions. I have faced my doom and embraced it consciously. I risk my life often pushing the boundries of safe, telling myself that last time I held the window and didn't fall so that is safe, now if I let go the ledge under me is still safe, trying to not let thoughts of the wind enter my mind and change it from safe to not safe. I didn't overcome the organism that is my body, I survived.
Even, not chosing is a decision for you know what will happen if you don't do something. You have more choices than you are aware of. Thinking, therefore processing you are making decisions.
What they are and their concequences are up to you. If it doesn't threaten other peoples' decisions and their way of living you will not be stopped.
Consider the difference of walking out onto a ledge of a high rise building and walking out onto the ledge of a mountain cliff where there is no one around.
At each of those points, what things are stopping you from stepping out into the void?
Stoned for Life (Or how to switch Hate to Pity)
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Originally Posted by Mastablasta
Thank you for a new word
