Astral Projection, OBE’s and other spooky things.

This is why I didn’t want to get into any metaphysical philosophies. They just go around and around and around and go nowhere. I happen to think the Advaita/Non-Duality philosophy of Self is the closest that comes to my experience but all philosophies are just mind games and the Advaita masters are the first to agree. As they say: the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon. Even if the pointing is incredibly accurate, it’s still not the moon.

I’m not trying to convince anyone to believe anything just to understand what is being said (i.e. the pointing). Once understood, then it can be accepted as a temporary understanding or rejected completely but it must be understood first. That’s the same for every philosophy; it must be understood first.

Ultimately, all metaphysical philosophies will be rejected because nothing remains except one’s realization. Like a map that got you from A to B. There’s no longer any need to keep it. I’ll leave it at that and bale out. Good luck with your AP, gib. Thanks for playing. :smiley:

“To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self” Dogen
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Very sorry if I put you off, Chakra, that was not my intention. I wholeheartedly agree that philosophy and “theory-build” is a game (played with others and with one’s self). I just find the game fun to play. I like getting into philosophical arguments with people and hashing out the logic of the ideas we convey to each other. I guess I’m a bit of a logophile.

If it’s any consolation, I sometimes like to think of philosophy as meditating on one’s thoughts. If the “unspoken” truth can only be apprehended in states of quiet meditation, then this to me is equivalent of finding truth in the experience of our sensory perceptions. This leads me to wonder whether the “truth” can also be found in some of our other “inner” experiences, like emotion or thought–that it can be apprehended by meditating, not on the world out there, but the world “in here”. I find that when I try meditating on my thoughts, focusing on concepts and ideas themselves, I can describe them based on how they feel to me. This turns out to just be an analysis on the meaning of my thoughts, which in turn leads to arguments, conclusions, implications, and ultimately other thoughts. In effect, what this means to me is that philosophy is just the art of describing one’s thoughts (how they feel) and thereby uncovering the logical structure of thought.

Again, sorry for putting you off. I always do enjoy conversations with you, Chakra.

I think what this thread is missing is a soundtrack.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgCWgfwlk0M[/youtube]

There.

We might ask the Buddhist, What’s wrong with the ego? What’s wrong with my feelings when I fear or dislike death? IOW why do you seem so judgmental when you take the position of making others the judgmental ones? (you being the hypothetical Buddhist, not you Gib)

Ultimately, the true Buddhist answer to all these questions ought to always be: nothing.

However, Buddhists are biased from the start (this is one of the aspects of Buddhism I’ve always thought makes it inconsistent): the Buddhist has a goal–to achieve peace of mind and enlightenment. Whatever contributes to that is “good”, whatever doesn’t is “bad”. It is the one attachment he needs to cling to just to be a Buddhist. He will answer your question about ego with: the ego prevents you from achieving inner peace and enlightenment.

However, I’m being unfair. I think most Buddhists would most likely recognize the inconsistency in this answer, and might just answer “nothing” instead. But I think the Buddhist will always be inclined to speak about the ego as something to be done away with rather than something to cling to… simply because they’re human too and want peace and enlightenment just as much as anyone else.

Sure. When presentedwith the issue in the abstract or at a meta-level, they know the ‘right’ answer, but what their behavior, focus, emotional reactions, and the implications of how they interact and even their texts tell us indirectly is that desire is bad, emotions are bad, fear is bad, not being ‘in control’ is bad, etc. Any system or organization or person has official policies and often these sound great, when in fact the way that system or individual functions gives off a set of messages that may not be so great or may contradict the official visions and policies. I am not talking about exceptions or specific individual hypocrites. I am talking about as a rule. Buddhism does judge, has a sense of good and bad, and any setting or individual will give off these judgments.

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I don’t want their version of enlightenment. There is this idea that there is this one state and the various mystics, gurus, masters, are all heading toward that one via different tools. I don’t think this is the case. For me once they get done paring the self down, they do manage to experience certain amazing things WITH WHAT IS LEFT.

“The face that faces faces that we face” (Eliot)is a necessary POV for getting anything done. It is problematic as ego only when it forgets that it is an integral part of a larger whole, a plenitude of faces in which each deserves life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We forget we are part of an ecosystem at our own peril. As is true in most religions enlightenment is translated as selfish. It’s always what do I get out of it? Will I get Hell? Nirvana? Oblivion? Ego sillyness!

gib,

Here you are simply speaking of hubris, correct?

I never speak hubris, Arc, but sometimes Buddhists do. :laughing:

Would it not rather be “it ties you to the wheel of suffering”?

Oh so thats what you said, yes.
Why then the “ought”?

Good observation about the Buddhist attachment to non-attachment, which is compulsive enough to cause a whole new wheel of suffering into being.

It seems to be that Siddharta was rather egotistical when he sat down below the tree and said fuck you all to his family. I think it is egoic to aim for personal liberation. And I find most Buddhists radically egoistical in pursuit of the same not-caring independence.

In the West, the ego is the agent of morality. Morality and indifference aren’t compatible. Thats not an argument for morality or against indifference, or egoism. Just an observation.

Fixed Cross,

Why?
By personal liberation, do you mean the capacity to feel “free” and “autonomous”?
Think about the person who does not have this inner experience?
How does that person affect others?

Why would that be a negative, why would it be selfish?
Do you think that that would take away from a person’s sense of inter-connectedness?

Why does ego (not hubris) also have such a bad name? Without it, how could we possibly survive?

As someone above said, even trying to detach from ego is an attachment or a desire in itself.
If ego evolved as part of the conscious mind, why would we choose to do away with something which is important for the survival of the species?
Would it even be possible to do away with something which is so ingrained within us and necessary?

Without “true” ego, how could the human mind perform this balancing feat?

balance.jpg

That is where we would want our ego to take us, no? We help it find its rightful place ~ we do not want try to do away with it.

How do we discover true value and meaning in particular things without that landscape which is the sense of self and identity?
How do we share our selves with others if we are always trying to do away with this important aspect of our being?

I mean the liberation from the wheel of suffering.

I am sure someones feelings of freedom and autonomy don’t come from release from the wheel of suffering.
Meaning I am no Buddhist. I don’t share Buddhas convictions or aims at all.

I think Buddhism produces people who victimize their environment in the belief that it is justified to stand aside from the worlds suffering.
Buddhism is like the antithesis to Christian ethos of empathy, to which I feel a it more connected, as it is at least not as cowardly.

Its too broad of a term.
I consider the ego necessary and thus good at heart, but only good if it is proud and overt - which doesn’t mean it can’t be modest in expression.
But the ego tends to be sickly and wounded. Thats what most therapists would call the ego - ones egoic wounds.

Yes, exactly. Could it have been me who said that?

No, I don’t think it would.
Thus the conundrum; I think it is egoic to want to do away with the burden of the ego.

Indeed. My honest assessment, based on twenty years of experience with such cases, is that the loss of ego amounts directly in psychosis.
The two are the same. Psychosis is the fracturing of the ego, of the sense of being an autonomous entity.

Agreed.

Yes. It is impossible to share ourselves with the whole entire cosmos. It is egoic narcissism that makes Buddhists think that what they experience is “the great all”. It is just their calmed nerves.

Yes, I think this is a very important point. I’m always one for demythologizing religion. Demythologizing results in recognizing where a religion’s strengths lie and where its weaknesses lie, what aspects of it are real and what aspects are ungrounded dogma. I think what the Buddhists have stumbled upon is a way of life and a set of practices that result in a calmer mind that is more able to handle the challenges and adversities of life. And this has been proven by many studies, including ones that involve brain scans (there is a noticeable difference between the brain activity of the Buddhist while in a state of meditation vs. less practiced individuals). But this easily has a psychological explanation. Personally, I think it’s just Maslow’s state of self-actualization. The thing about natural explanations is that they are never absolute. The devout Buddhist would like to say his methods bring him absolute peace and enlightenment, that he is completely detached from the material pleasures of the world, that it works for everyone, that they can maintain this state through any kind of adversity. But the psychological explanation only says that it works most of the time, that it’s possible to fall of the horse sometimes, that it isn’t perfect, that it may not work for everyone (those with ADD for example are better off using different methods than meditation). And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s okay that one maintains an attachment to the Buddhist practices and beliefs–if they work as a psychological tool to bring one peace of mind and better coping skills for dealing with challenges and adversity, then it’s probably a good attachment to have; that one would insist on having no attachments is unnecessary.

I agree that the Buddhist path isn’t always an ethical path. I don’t know if I agree with you on this specific point (that Buddhists are just standing back from the world’s suffering) but I’ve considered this: to disengage one’s self from all worldly attachments might sometimes mean abandoning one’s family and loved ones. Those who choose to live out the rest of their lives in a monastery, for example, would have to leave their spouse and children (if they have them), and I’m not so sure that’s ethical. The Buddhist path only promises enlightenment at the end, but it is not a “thou shalt”.

Nope, it was me. (You even commented on it.)

I think it might be possible, just as it’s possible to remove one’s liver or kidneys, but just like removing one’s liver or kidneys, one runs the risk of compromising their health (although these operations are usually done to improve one’s health–for example, liver damage due to alcohol abuse–but it does come at a cost). However, like I said earlier, the Buddhist tends to devalue any attachments to the world, to this life, so if the dissolution of the ego puts one’s survival at risk, they may not even care.

On the other hand, I can see the Buddhist retort: by dissolving the ego, one becomes better at taking on the challenges and adversities of life, including staying alive itself. I can see this being the case if modern day life has corrupted the ego–a sickly wounded ego like you say–and drawn us away from the state of ego from long ago. If a species best fits its environment right at its dawn, then we best fit our environment 200,000 years ago (when they say human being, in the modern form, first evolved). Maybe back then we had a “healthy” ego, and what the Buddhist practice does is not to dissolve the ego but to return the ego to the state it was in during those prehistoric times.

Do they however take it too far, going beyond finding a good resting state of consciousness, to a detachment from the world? Better, I should phrase it, is this really good for me, given my values, which include being engaged in the world and wanting it to be more X than Y, and wanting to be a creator, through various art forms, and wanting to be expressive and intimately involved with others as an authentic self not a void that is good at not getting upset? It might be the goal of some, but is it everyone’s goal?

They don’t have a thou shalt in the Christian coversion violence sort of way, but they do think that one must, in the end, follow this path and give up the ego, detach from desires and that Karma will force you to do this in the end. That is might be a specific choice suiting specific people, rather than a sign of being more highly evolved is something not really considered in Buddhism. So you will still end up being judged and vibed.

I don’t see any basis in scripture or practices to indicate this. The meditative states they seek are not ones stone age humans were likely to have achieved.

One’s values will always drive one to choose the lifestyle that those values perscribe. If your values perscribe a life of engagement in the world and with people, then those go against a set of values that perscribe a life of withdrawal from the world and people. I would say the latter are bad for your values, but I don’t know about bad for you (<-- there, we’d have to define what it means for something to be “good” for you or “bad” for you). Values always act as blinders. You can’t really tell what’s “objectively” good for you or bad for you outside your values. Your values will always perscribe “good” or “bad” for you regardless of whether they really are good or bad for you.

And keep in mind, we’re talking about a set of values, not Buddhists per se. Some Buddhist would follow the path of withdrawal from the world and people, but many others will not. The Mahayana Buddhists, for example, practice charitable engagement in the world as a response to the “universal compassion” that the Buddhist practice as a whole supposedly nurtures. I think most Buddhists would disagree that withdrawal from the world is required to achieve peace of mind and enlightenment (it’s just easier).

But ultimately, I think you’re right. There is no “ought” when it comes to the Buddhist way of life. It’s just offered as a path one can choose to take, and the promise is that enlightenment awaits them at the end.

I think this comes from the human side of the Buddhists. Humans will judge. They will assess right and wrong. As for the Buddhist doctrine, however, I don’t think it emphasizing any moral imperative when it comes to the path towards enlightenment.

Of course it’s not in scripture. Buddhism arrived on the scene two and a half millennia ago. They had no knowledge of “primitive man” back then, or anything about humanities pre-history. The practice of meditation, once you learn to go deep enough, is supposed to bring you to states of consciousness well beyond what human beings are typically used to. But the overall effect of cultivating a peaceful mind and being enlightened is supposed to be an after effect of meditation, or the state of mind you maintain between meditation sessions (you know, going about your daily life). ← It’s that state which I’m suggesting might be closer to primitive man. It just requires meditation in today’s world in order to get back to it.

Buddhists wouldn’t necessarily describe it that way because Buddhists are religious. They don’t interpret their practice or experiences in terms of “primitive man”. I’m only interpreting it this way because I’m demythologizing it.

It’s not withdrawel from the world, one cannot do that. Even the hermit must relate to his cave or hut and food and nature or his or her civilized ‘hut’ and what’s there. That’s still world. The withdrawel in Buddhism is from themselves, from their own limbic systems, from expressing themselves and loving the whole thing. From strving from desire in this world. They take themselves out, leaving only this sliver of neocortex noticing present.

But they are not truly engaged with it. It is a set of passing forms to them, something not to attach to. And yes, I am glad that some do nice things for suffering others.

Once one has judged and pared off those parts of the self considered evil, in the Buddhist sense of the term.

It is built into doctrine to judge desire and emotions. This leads to its presence in the human participants.

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I didn’t mean that we should find references to CRoMagnon minds in Buddhist scripture, I meant that I see nothing to indicate in Scripture the kind of minds neolithic people would have had. I do get that they were not stuck in their cellphones and likely less enamoured of BS conversations of abstractions. But they were hardly meditators, certainly functioned from very clear subject object splits and did not function out of judgments that desire was problematic as a rule.

And to try to turn this back to at least indirectly related to the thread, I notice that in the OP chakra seems to think one must let go of the ego to experience OBE’s and/or will let go of the ego if one has these. This is simply not true. There are old ideas about the self and what is bad in it, that come through Buddhism and other systems, and they have not, in general helped us.

In this case, withdrawal means from civilization or the social world.

Whatever Buddhists are withdrawing from, it’s not the limbic system. If anything, the limbic system gets better expressed due to the silencing of the neocortex. The neocortex is the ‘programmable’ part of the brain, the part of the brain loaded with all our cultural values and beliefs, our codes of conduct and proper social ediquette (at least, certain parts of the neocortex). By turning that off once in a while, the Buddhists gets to know themselves better–the true self, the animal self which is closer to the limbic system.

This exercise, that of silencing the neocortex during states of meditation, is not a permanent state the Buddhist tries to maintain throughout his life; it simply exercises the skill of being able to turn on/off all the crap that’s loaded onto the brain from one’s culture, turning it on/off more easily than other people. It’s not the practice of getting rid of any part of the self, but rather to gain control over it.

There’s a difference between being engaged and being attached, about as much of a difference as that between having a drink and being an alcoholic.

Do you have any evidence for this? Any passages from scripture?

Again, meditation wasn’t required back then. The only reason Buddhists meditate now is to get themselves out of the frame of mind that modern day society puts us in.

As a demythology, I don’t see why primitive man needs to disolve the subject/object split (not that you or I would know whether or not they perceived a split). And to understand that desire is problematic is about as necessary as understanding that alcohol is bad for you if you live in an environment in which alcohol doesn’t exist. I’m not saying primitive man never experienced desire, or that desire didn’t attach him to certain worldly pleasures, just that as a demythologization, it’s not that unthinkable that the desires of primitive man were relatively simple and not too difficult to satisfy–and therefore desire didn’t stand out as a candidate for the root cause of man’s suffering.

It is clear in Buddhism that the Buddhist way of life cannot help you unless you actually practice it. It isn’t like a new medicine that is handed over to you on a silver platter. How many of us really practice the Buddhist method with reasonable and honest effort?

I disagree. Buddhist and Buddhist communities require the disengagement of emotions from expression and the disidentification from emotions. And if you express a range of emotions, you will find yourself under social pressures. The injunctions against desire are even more explicit. Yes, certain functions of the neocortex are also disidentified with, but the neocortex, for example sensory perception and control and focus. It is a top down control system - as are many religions, but very much focused on learning not to embody and express emotions.

Of course many buddhists just do the disidentification and suppression mainly in meditation, but the goals is to do this all the time. Moving around in mindfulness, disidentified with emotions and thoughts (the latter not all that the neorcotex is) and controlling expression. You get good at that the emotional body does not develop and it does not participate in the life of the individual.

They are attached to not identifying and expressing emotions. Try going in to one of these communities and temples and being a passionate, emotionally expressive person. You will find that they judge and have a dualism at the heart of their supposed non-judgemental acceptance, and it will not be pleasant, even if they behave ‘calmly.’

Desire is considered the root of suffering. As far as emotions, I do not know if scripture directly leads to practice. I can only say that practice is universal. I have been to Buddhist organizations all over the West and East, and it’s a rule. These guys are not like, say, shamans or druids or pagans, for example.

Modern society? It has been the rule in many rural Eastern societies for a couple of thousand years. IOW people living off the land either in hunter or fishing type sustenance groups or farmers. It is meant as a universal cure for the ailment of being human.

Neolithics very directly accepted his or her desires and passions. And we can see this in hunter gatherer societies also that survived up until contact with Europe and anthropologists. The seeing desire as problematic would be alien to them. Their religions were often quite expressive and interactions tended to be quite passionate, especially with other tribes or groups.

I did, for years. Good discipline. It did not help me, except to the extent that I learned what I do not want and what I do not want to disidentify with. I understand and have sympathy for their fear of emotions, especially the deep, cut off ones that people generally avoid and do not even realize are their. I would guess they noticed these emotions, deep in their, and decided the best thing to do was suppress, disidentify, control emotional and physical expression, and that the full self could not be enlightened, so they labeled certain parts obstacles, not the buddha (though always also the Buddha). But despite my sympathy I don’t like that path or set of paths. And they are not honest about what they do. Many teachers and masters will say that we should accept our emotions, but they tend not to mean the so called negative ones, and they certainly to not mean expressing them. Observe them. It’s like if you say you accept your kids, but you do not let them make noise or move with passion. It’s ain’t love, and in the end it ain’t compassion.

And just as you think one cannot judge it in the negative if one has actually practiced it, one cannot judge it in the positive either. I do think many people do not want their full emotional presence - I mean just look at how much we distract and medicate our emotions away - and if they choose that path, then they are choosing what they want and that is the right choice for them.

But it’s not my.

I want my limbic system fully integrated and expressive, not compassionately watched through a telescope while holding a single position for hours, perhaps even having someone hit you with a stick if your back is not straight enough - the for Zen fans. Of course Zen is just one branch and I doubt many do that anymore especially in the West. But really, I like the honesty of that version. That is what is happening inside anyway.

Fantastic posts. Thanks for a great read.
You’ve described my own very extensive experience with Buddhism and Buddhists flawlessly.
Buddhists are ultimately emotionally lobotomized and are very boring and judgmental semi-humans.
And indeed of all this, Zen is the only version that is clean in an important sense, as it is honest and therefore ultimately allows the practitioner some autonomy in what he regulates.

Or rather, Zen is the least micromanaging form of Buddhist “acceptance” - it is truly ready to accept a lot, as long as it can suffer silence.

Western people that meditate and call themselves “mindful” are the very worst sociopaths I ve personally known.

I haven’t met many who describe themselves that way, but I see mindfulness EVERYFUCKINGWHERE. Cherry picking pieces of religions and making every fucking worker do this so that they don’t mind their work so much, being more detached from it. I mean, fuck with some jobs, I get it: anything to reduce the boring, stressfilled meaningless shit. I get that. But the way people say the word - like we are talking about magic fairy dust that is also certified by science makes me nauseous. Anti-political solutions that make the individual responsible for tolerating BS. Similar to the utter fascination with cognitive-behavioral solutions to the human situation. That is shallow, reorienting mental apps, to get you back in there, with no new self-knowledge and nothing to get at the profundity of being alive. Though CBTs are coming out of Western mind hacks, it comes down to the same kind of shit for me.

I am no fan of Buddhism, obviously, but at least certain practitioners take it seriously and it fits their values and they put some work into it. I don’t like it but I can respect their commitmentment and holistic approach. But this, hey, let’s take this one trick since it seems to make people complain less, one trick pony garbage…

Ugh.