Buddhism is an educational movement.A system that trains the mind and tries to help an individual overcome unsatisfactory periods.The practice is difficult and great effort is needed because our mind has developed habits that generate the same unsatisfactory periods.We tend to believe our thinking even if it might be debilitating to our contentment.How we view the world and our intentions are paramount in overcoming anxiety,discomfort and fear.Buddhists believe,through direct experience,that humans are part of nature and function due to conditions and causes.Just as plants,trees and animals function with the conditions presented to them. The main problem of an unsatisfactory period is our reaction to the present moment.If we cling to a desired outcome,expect pleasure without pain,control our experience in any way,we condition ourselves to cause anxiety.Our reactions to experience are keys that open or close doors to satisfaction.The educational movement is internal, sees the external as sacred,and accepts experience completely, without identification.Being aware,mindful without aversion,brings a peaceful state because one's personality,ego,isn't involved.All humans are mindful,experiencing the world before self generated thoughts.That mindfulness is non-judgemental and doesn't identify good and bad,pleasure or pain.Once we start to identify and desire certain outcomes,unsatisfactory periods begin.We create the unsatisfactory experience through our thinking.Attachment to outcome develops and our mind remembers our reactions and wants to satisfy the personality that created them.These attachments grow and become stronger if one doesn't practice the antidotes.
According to Buddhist beliefs,there is no permanent self.Everything is impermanent,in flux,moving like a river.Just look at nature,our bodies, to see birth,decay and everything between.Our thoughts are the same,they come and go.We change every day ,even every moment.Nothing is permanent.Even if it is in flux,it is a good world,a sacred one with humans who have the potential,Buddha nature,to be happy and content all the time.Because the mind is impermanent,we have the ability to change the conditions we have created.The first precept of the Eightfold Path is Right View.It is a view to be part of something instead of a separate entity.It posits that humans are part of the body of life,parts of a whole.That we should see ourselves as equals with others on a quest to be happy and content.The impermanence of our lives supports the view that we are not permanent islands but interconnected with everyone on many levels.Our personalities keep telling us the world revolves around us and that we are the most important person in the world because of our experience trying to control the sensual world.But doesn't everyone have this similar experience.We share our desire for happiness,comfort and love.The more one looks to dissolve our personality,ego,the more one becomes one with the body of life.All religions support this concept but use other doctrines.The more our personality grows apart from the whole,unsatisfactory periods will last.Appreciation of life,the whole body of life,brings peace to the mind. The ego is diminished by acts of patience and kindness to oneself and others.The lose oneself is to gain insight into liberation,a freedom from a desire to have something or be somebody that you currently want to be.It is an acceptance of everyone as is, without judgement,knowing that humans are just natural conditions.
More to come.
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