Vasiel
The Seeker
I guess the key to mindfulness comes through discerning whether the voice you are listening too is the ego, or the deeper "Buddha Nature". From my own personal experience, my inner non-ego voice is nearly always calm, holds no judgements and maps out everything without holding a biased opinion.
Sort of like going "Here's the menu, now you choose the dinner you want!"
The Buddha Nature is the force that you rely on to get down to the nitty gritty of the menu. You ask it what's "skilful" and what's "unskilful" and it will give you an unbiased opinion on the circumstances. The unbiased opinion I will say, may rock you to your core.
It's almost like when I was reading Buddhist Scriptures (yesturday). Sure what I was reading was pointing out all my inconsistencies, but my deeper "Buddha" could laugh along knowing on it's own non-dualistic level that I had made mistakes, but that I could also learn from them.
Buddhist ideologies have a tendency of cutting a person off at the ego-knees with compassion. Yeah sure you're humbled, but you certainly have a laugh. If you start going "oh woe to me, I failed" then that's also ego clinging.
That's why words like sin become absolutely dangerous in the context of being such an easy word for the ego to latch onto and then berate you for. It's taken me a long time to get to the point where sin doesn't actually go into my vocabulary.
I do occasionally get hooked on it still though, since it is so conditioned into the western psyche. But I am learning. Small steps. Basically mindfulness teaches you to question every single motivation from the standpoint of a third person looking inwards on the situation.
I know I went waaaaayyyy off topic, so I apologise. I do hope you get something out of this.
Even if you only get more questions, I consider that a good thing. Question everything! hahahaha
Sort of like going "Here's the menu, now you choose the dinner you want!"
The Buddha Nature is the force that you rely on to get down to the nitty gritty of the menu. You ask it what's "skilful" and what's "unskilful" and it will give you an unbiased opinion on the circumstances. The unbiased opinion I will say, may rock you to your core.
It's almost like when I was reading Buddhist Scriptures (yesturday). Sure what I was reading was pointing out all my inconsistencies, but my deeper "Buddha" could laugh along knowing on it's own non-dualistic level that I had made mistakes, but that I could also learn from them.
Buddhist ideologies have a tendency of cutting a person off at the ego-knees with compassion. Yeah sure you're humbled, but you certainly have a laugh. If you start going "oh woe to me, I failed" then that's also ego clinging.
That's why words like sin become absolutely dangerous in the context of being such an easy word for the ego to latch onto and then berate you for. It's taken me a long time to get to the point where sin doesn't actually go into my vocabulary.
I do occasionally get hooked on it still though, since it is so conditioned into the western psyche. But I am learning. Small steps. Basically mindfulness teaches you to question every single motivation from the standpoint of a third person looking inwards on the situation.
I know I went waaaaayyyy off topic, so I apologise. I do hope you get something out of this.
Even if you only get more questions, I consider that a good thing. Question everything! hahahaha