Agree that suffering decreases when you remove social conditioning, though you also get increasingly more lonely as you realize that everyone around you is fucking crazy.
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Replying to @Failed_Buddhist @euvieivanova and
this is a really big part of the "waking down is hard" thing.
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Replying to @danlistensto @euvieivanova and
Yeah, it's easy to turn it into some kind of superiority complex, but it's not about being better than anyone -- it's about suffering less than most people, and seeing just how terrible people are at addressing their suffering but not being able to do anything about it.
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Replying to @Failed_Buddhist @euvieivanova and
hmmm, wasn't thinking superiority complex though I guess you're right, spiritual pride is a problem for some people. was thinking more that you need to wake down and reintegrate because you still have your mundane life to deal with (unless you retreat to a monastery forever).
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Replying to @danlistensto @euvieivanova and
Oh I didn't get the sense that you were thinking about that, just wanted to clarify. A life-long retreat sounds great, though that seems a bit like escapism to me. Being awake in the world is indeed much harder than being awake in a cave.
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Replying to @Failed_Buddhist @euvieivanova and
more to the point, I don't see how permanent monasticism is AT ALL compatible with ethical living. one of the contradictions about so much of the Mahayana traditions that I can't quite reconcile. You literally take a vow to save all sentient beings. You have to be engaged.
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Replying to @danlistensto @Failed_Buddhist and
Yes, but according to that worldview, you are *magically* engaged. Your thoughts and prayers are beaming out of the monastery and influencing reality in a positive direction. (Not saying I believe that, but that's how it works in that tradition.)
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Replying to @OortCloudAtlas @Failed_Buddhist and
Yeah. This is a big part of the archaic metaphysics that needs a reckoning imo. To be fair, it doesn't seem to be that big of a problem in Western Buddhism afaict. Bernie Glassman's approach seems more typical, and an appropriate update for American life.
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Replying to @danlistensto @OortCloudAtlas and
The dharma will be at its peak when the West is good at calling Buddhism on its bullshit, and vice versa. Though the flip-side of Western Buddhism dumping everything it finds too mystical is that it makes you wonder if there are useful parts that we just don't understand yet.
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Replying to @Failed_Buddhist @danlistensto and
Unfortunately, nobody can claim to know how deep reality works.
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Not true, people do that all the time! But yeah, the feeling of certainty is literally just a body sensation. Though my body sensations are more enlightened than yours.
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