My thoughts are that you have outlined two rather limited scenarios, neither of which encompasses this one's view of things. Your selections seem very focused on Christian norms and ideas.
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I find I can disagree with just about everyone :)
- Thread starter Geoff-Allen
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RedDragon94
Love everyone, meditate often
I'm not sure that comfort should be equated with joy. People can be happy without being in a developed country.
Geoff-Allen
Resident megalomaniac
Been surfing around a bit ... here's a bit of Osho which might be vaguely relevant 2 the thread 
Bliss is not happiness. Bliss is more like peace than like happiness. Bliss is neither unhappiness nor happiness; it is peace from that turmoil, that conflict. It is peace, absolute peace, because it is a transcendence of duality. Happiness always lingers with unhappiness; unhappiness is always with its other side, happiness. They are two sides of the same coin. When the whole coin drops from your hand you are neither happy nor unhappy.
It is because of this that Buddha never had a great appeal to the Indian masses. Who wants peace? Everybody wants happiness – and everybody knows that happiness is followed by unhappiness, as day is followed by night, as death is followed by birth, birth is followed by death. It is a vicious circle: if you are happy, you can be certain that soon you will be unhappy; if you are unhappy, you can be certain that soon you will be happy again.
Seeing this game of happiness and unhappiness, the watcher, the meditator becomes unidentified with both. When happiness comes he knows that unhappiness will be coming, so why get excited? When unhappiness comes he is not at all disturbed because he knows happiness will be coming just around the corner, so why become disturbed? He is neither excited by happiness nor disturbed by unhappiness. This is peace. He remains the same, in a deep equilibrium; his silence is undisturbed. Day comes and goes, night comes and goes, everything comes and goes. He remains a witness, unconcerned, cool. That coolness, that unconcernedness is peace.
All the best!
Bliss is not happiness. Bliss is more like peace than like happiness. Bliss is neither unhappiness nor happiness; it is peace from that turmoil, that conflict. It is peace, absolute peace, because it is a transcendence of duality. Happiness always lingers with unhappiness; unhappiness is always with its other side, happiness. They are two sides of the same coin. When the whole coin drops from your hand you are neither happy nor unhappy.
It is because of this that Buddha never had a great appeal to the Indian masses. Who wants peace? Everybody wants happiness – and everybody knows that happiness is followed by unhappiness, as day is followed by night, as death is followed by birth, birth is followed by death. It is a vicious circle: if you are happy, you can be certain that soon you will be unhappy; if you are unhappy, you can be certain that soon you will be happy again.
Seeing this game of happiness and unhappiness, the watcher, the meditator becomes unidentified with both. When happiness comes he knows that unhappiness will be coming, so why get excited? When unhappiness comes he is not at all disturbed because he knows happiness will be coming just around the corner, so why become disturbed? He is neither excited by happiness nor disturbed by unhappiness. This is peace. He remains the same, in a deep equilibrium; his silence is undisturbed. Day comes and goes, night comes and goes, everything comes and goes. He remains a witness, unconcerned, cool. That coolness, that unconcernedness is peace.
All the best!
Geoff-Allen
Resident megalomaniac
Fair point! I never mentioned Buddhism which is very pragmatic - it says there is suffering but there is a path to cessation of suffering ...
Cheers!
This is how Brahma Kumaris explain it , I find their explanation reasonable and convincing and this is mostly why I leaned towards their ideologies, and this after struggling hard to justify the apparent inequities of life and its unbothered Creator.
This entire drama of life has many actors which are the souls , some have larger roles to play where they move from one character to another changing their costumes each time and descending in power and purity along the way. Half of their lives is happiness and in the other half sorrow creeps in gradually and increases over time till their last birth where there is the most sorrow.
The souls keep entering this drama of life one by one with the later souls experiencing lesser and lesser joy and sorrow when compared to the predecessors.
The Souls which enter this drama first experience the most happiness in The Golden and Silver ages collectively called heaven , their share of both happiness and sorrow is more than the later ones.
When souls reach their last birth at the end of the cycle , every one is filled with sorrow and this is referred to as Hell (Kalyug) which is now.
It is the greatest Mercy of God which is being exhibited at this stage that He lifts the souls from Hell , purifies and refills them and returns them back their homes which is the soul world.
The nature , each element is purified and returned back to its glorious stage where souls start entering once again to have their share of happiness , joy and bliss once again without knowing what would follow.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Geoff-Allen
Resident megalomaniac
Including that?
"A Zen master once told me to do the opposite of what he tells me. So I didn't."
Not sure of the exact quote but that is close enuf!
Geoff-Allen
Resident megalomaniac
Geoff-Allen
Resident megalomaniac
Geoff-Allen
Resident megalomaniac
Geoff-Allen
Resident megalomaniac
Ooops!
A dud link on that page - 101 Zen stories - so I found this -
ZEN INSPIRATION: 101 zen stories
Cheers!
A dud link on that page - 101 Zen stories - so I found this -
ZEN INSPIRATION: 101 zen stories
Cheers!
Ben Avraham
Well-Known Member
Is that so! I have just posted about the Wedding of Jesus. Take a look and tell me if you disagree with me.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
tough mentor you got there.....Including that?
"A Zen master once told me to do the opposite of what he tells me. So I didn't."
Not sure of the exact quote but that is close enuf!
Geoff-Allen
Resident megalomaniac
It wasn't a quote from me personally - just read it at that Zen site ...
"Things are not as they seem; nor are they otherwise."
~ Zen proverb.
I know you've moved on. My thoughts were mostly a level of confusion around terms like 'luck' or 'accident' in terms of how they're used in the OP. I think they're used as replacements for processes not guided by sentient thought? Dunno. Always confuses me, and seems an odd conflation, but a lot do it.
Geoff-Allen
Resident megalomaniac
Thanks 4 your input but I am not entirely sure what you are trying to say.
I had to look up conflation in the dictionary!
If you are saying I am too emotional and sometimes not too clear in my thinking you may have a point.
Been re-reading a little Osho since I started this thread ...
The modern mind has become too rational; it is caught in the net of logic. Much repression has happened because logic is a dictatorial force, totalitarian. Once logic controls you, it kills many things.
Logic is like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin; it does not allow the opposite to exist, and emotions are opposite. Love, meditation is opposite to logic. Religion is opposite to reason. So reason simply massacres them, kills them, uproots them. Then suddenly you see that your life is meaningless - because all meaning is irrational.
Thanks for your interest anyway ... feel perfectly free to explain your position differently if I have got you wrong ...
Cheers!
Geoff-Allen
Resident megalomaniac
Where did you post?
I'm OUT of my disagreeing mood so it probly doesn't matter much ...
Geoff-Allen
Resident megalomaniac
I like this one -
Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.
Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no realization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received."
Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.
"If nothing exists," inquired Dokuon, "where did this anger come from?"
Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.
Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no realization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received."
Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.
"If nothing exists," inquired Dokuon, "where did this anger come from?"
Ben Avraham
Well-Known Member
In this same sub-forum under the title, "The Wedding of Jesus."
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
No worry. What's within my arena of control, I at least attempt to wrestle, and what's not - I try not to have expectations - and I am therefore able to react fairly quickly and succinctly when ill-fitted circumstances come knocking - I try and leave myself no allowance for complaints, self-pity, lamentation... or any of the other nearly useless affectations of emotional suffering. Get in there and get the job done.
The idea of God will always raise more questions than it answers if you have anything close to an inquisitive mind at all. I believe that only if one is satisfied with completely inadequate answers for things will they even entertain the notion of God.