People often imagine the environment as a colosseum. The environment chooses those who suit them, not the strong. It is the weak (the simple-minded) who suit their environment (and become part of the war machine).
War is not that great at all.
In order to adapt to the various war machines and try to be part of them, people are losing the ability to remain independent (especially to think independently) and their talents are diminishing generation after generation. War does not make us better.
People are divided into different prisons of the mind.
Not only are they used to these walls, but they are born into them. They feel secure as a brick in the wall, and they even enjoy it so much that they are willing to sacrifice everything for words like "glory" (or ironically, "freedom").
Modern finance is based on credit (trust in one's own system or government), so these wars of ideas are extremely important.
Money can generate money and it is not necessarily the elite. The one who born with power is not the smartest either.
The 1% is not necessarily capable of conspiracy, but it is easy to reach a tacit agreement.
10% often mistake themselves as 1%.
Be aware of the various slogans, including "freedom first" "my country first" "me first" "xxx(whatever it is ) first", “they evil, we justice”, "weeds rock the world" "we deserve it, let it end".
Why do we have to follow any of them or any other supposed prophecy?
If people keep ignoring their inner loss of themselves and unconsciously clinging to various images (e.g. the body) or concepts (e.g. the Holy Name), World War III and the end of the world is inevitable, and it may have already begun in Europe.
Water does not know that she is water, and darkness does not know that he is darkness. When a man is seeking the light, he is blinded by dreams of various lights.
Most serious or intense busy people are dreaming, while the awakened are at peace because they are comfortable with the darkness that does not know the ultimate truth.
All we need to do is to have faith in ourselves (our unknown true self), whatever it is, it is always there. (If there is an "author", some kind of ultimate power, it must always be there for us too).
Yet within every yang is always a yin, and every belief/hope is based on doubt/fear.
If you are already 100% sure of something, there is no need of a belief.
So the real ultimate war between light and darkness is within us, not outside.(If there is an everlasting war between light and darkness, it has nothing to do with races, nations, religions. It is a war between faith and fear, or hope and fear / faith and doubt.)
Mind yourself first. Loose both inside and outside light and dark.
Let it (mirror/darkness/inside) be. Let it (image/lights/outside) come and go.
Talk, even argue, don’t curse ,fight, even war.
(If necessary, for some kind of emergency, we can bet on a sports match. Every life is unique, not just a statistic.)
The opposition of what can sense and what is sensed, the opposition of mirror image, the opposition of I and non-I, is called objectified thinking，which is growing up with self-knowledge,
both of which end up trapping us into a dilemma. Either be a miserable sensitive person or a happy ignorant beast. This is why drugs are everywhere(including digital ones and “spiritual” ones) .
Every pair of eyes is different, and we see ourselves differently from how others see us. This is why we feel alone.
The reflection of light takes time.
So we can never see us in the mirror as we are now, all we see is history. You have changed.
If the change is so rapid and you are so sensitive that you suddenly find a face in the mirror that seems to be a stranger whose facial expression does not match your current emotions, you too may go crazy.
Somehow we all lose ourselves.
Clinging to any attachment (including concepts) such as the body, mind, thoughtless states, spiritual experiences, the Tao, God, Śūnyatā, etc., ........ that can never satisfy our desire to find the true Self or the real us. For they are all like images in a mirror, television set or other stage or platform. What we really desire is the 'mirror' and not 'any image', so how can we be satisfied?
You don't have to do anything but realise that the real you or the true self is there all the time.
It's like you're looking for a horse on the back of a horse. Once you realise that you have been riding it from the beginning (or before the beginning) you will immediately stop looking.
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Most people look forward to world world war 3 unconsciously.
This is because they have been educated in a different (but practically identical) system of war preparation, where fighting for resources is unquestionable.
For example, hardly anyone questions the logic in "The Avengers' Infinite War" or "The Three Bodies", even though they have been taught the law of conservation of energy separately in school.
War is not that great at all.
In order to adapt to the various war machines and try to be part of them, people are losing the ability to remain independent (especially to think independently) and their talents are diminishing generation after generation. War does not make us better.
People often imagine the environment as a colosseum. The environment chooses those who suit them, not the strong. It is the weak (the simple-minded) who suit their environment (and become part of the war machine).
One would think they could use a war to settle the ultimate choice between faiths. (At first it seemed like other issues, such as "who deserve all sorts of resources")
If the law of conservation of energy is correct.
No energy gets consumed, it just keeps shifting or transferring between different forms.
So, much science fiction is wrong.
The speed (kinetic energy) of anything (such as a spacecraft) cannot be escalated infinitely.
That's why the speed of light seems to be the same for all.
In a way, we can say that life is also a form of energy.
Therefore, there is a limit to the number of any species.
There is no need for any war to reduce the population for fearing that there will not be enough energy to consume.
The Western push for individuality was an illusion and the reality was that the family could not be regulated into a screw or a brick to the detriment of industrialisation.
In the film Shawshank, there is a word called "institutionalisation".
People are divided into different prisons of the mind.
Not only are they used to the wall, but they have become a brick in it, they even like it so much that they are willing to sacrifice everything for a word like "glory" (or ironically, "freedom").
We, Homo sapiens, have used ideas/concepts to organise various war machines and exterminate many species. Maybe we deserve to use it killing each other. (Cf. Homo sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind).
But it is a shame to leave a marvellous universe without anyone to appreciate it. (Allow me to assume that aliens would make the same mistake as we do).
If people keep ignoring their inner loss of themselves and unconsciously clinging to various images (e.g. the body) or concepts (e.g. the Holy Name), World War III and the end of the world is inevitable, and it may have already begun in Europe in the conflict near the borders of Catholicism and Orthodoxy.
Any world will eventually be ended. This does not matter. For, life is an energy which will be recycled, which means that after the death of a life or an entire world there will be a new world.
But it is a shame that a beautiful world like Earth is being ended in a war of names/concepts. What can we do to prepare for it? We should do our best to stop it.
Be aware of all kinds of slogans.
If we are facing the end of the world.
Then it is not a catastrophe from outside, but from the "trap of self-knowledge" and the "trap of modernisation"/"trap of standardisation of extreme development (war machine)".
The trap of self-consciousness is, simply put, that having an "I" obscures the true self (losing oneself) and that one inevitably becomes anxious, nervous and distressed to the point of insanity, often resorting to conceptualised nomenclature.
The so-called "modernisation trap" is that the war machine, which has existed since ancient times, has been given an extreme boost by the application of mathematics in the standardisation of parts and components, and that the so-called nomenclature wars or battles have become increasingly intense and have approached the "singularity" due to the propaganda and ideological struggles of the respective unifying ideas.
Modern finance is based on credit (trust in one's own system or government), so these wars of ideas are extremely important.
Money can generate money and it is not necessarily the elite. The one who born with power is not the smartest either.
The 1% is not necessarily capable of conspiracy, but it is easy to reach a tacit agreement.
10% often mistake themselves as 1%.
Be aware of the various slogans, including "freedom first" "my country first" "me first" "xxx(whatever it is ) first" "weeds rock the world" "we deserve it, let it end".
Why do we have to follow any of them or any other supposed prophecy?
Sorry for disturbing. (Neither side is free, they both blocked my statement.
(We are just bricks on different walls, when in fact the walls are the same).
Eve did not lie, there was a serpent, which is an allegory that talks about a sense of continuity such as time or memory. Without such feelings, there are no conditions for the formation of self-awareness or self-knowledge.
Humans are the most complex animals on the planet. If your body is too simple to perceive your environment clearly, you will find it difficult to perceive the movement and change of everything in front of you.
Without sensing moving or changing images, it is difficult to form the concept or idea of a mirror/screen/stage/platform (self-awareness or self-knowledge), which is often referred to as the ego.
The opposition of what can be and what is, the opposition of mirror image, the opposition of I and non-I, is called objectified thinking，which is growing up with self-knowledge,
both of which end up trapping us into a dilemma. Either be a miserable sensitive person or a happy ignorant beast. This is why drugs are everywhere(including digital ones and “spiritual” ones) .
The reflection of light takes time.
So we can never see us in the mirror as we are now, all we see is history. You have changed.
If the change is so rapid and you are so sensitive that you suddenly find a face in the mirror that seems to be a stranger whose facial expression does not match your current emotions, you too may go crazy.
Somehow we all lose ourselves.
Clinging to any attachment (including concepts) such as the body, mind, thoughtless states, spiritual experiences, the Tao, God, Śūnyatā, etc., ........ that can never satisfy our desire to find the true Self or the real us. For they are all like images in a mirror, television set or other stage or platform. What we really desire is the 'mirror' and not 'any image', so how can we be satisfied?
You don't have to do anything but realise that the real you or the true self is there all the time.
It's like you're looking for a horse on the back of a horse. Once you realise that you have been riding it from the beginning (or before the beginning) you will immediately stop looking.
Yet within every yang is always a yin, and every belief/hope is based on doubt/fear.
If you are already 100% sure of something, there is no need of a belief.
So the real ultimate war between light and darkness is within us, not outside.
The creator (author) could be a monkey who is typing at random. We just happen to be living in a readable novel in which logic seems to be at work, but not really, and it is the monkey who creates all the illusions that is really at work.
It doesn't matter who the author is. (It is the eternal ultimate question and secret, hidden not only behind all that we sense, but also by all the concepts we imagine, including the Tao, God and emptiness.
One might think that the creator (the author) is so important that all meaning depends on him. But is the meaning of an author complete if he has no readers, especially the author of a detective novel? You might even ask: does he really have any meaning, no matter how big he is, how long he lives, or how great he is in any way?
I asked my son the other day, when he was a little boy, "Is the sky blue?" ." No, at night it's black." He's clever." If there was a superman whose eyes could and always did see infrared or ultraviolet light, would the sky be blue or black for him?" Without the eyes of life, colour means nothing to the sky.
Why should we doubt the meaning of life, why should we not doubt the meaning of the universe, or even the meaning of the creator. No matter how small we may be, no matter how short our lives may be.
Lao Tzu: The sky/heaven and the earth (representing the Mother who created all things) are without mercy.
In order to fulfill the author's meaning, the reader must be ignorant.
A truth-teller (the fortune-teller who is always right) would be a spoiler who ruin everything.
Ignorance of our true nature is the source of our stress, anxiety, misery and suffering. Is it worth it? Depends on how much beauty, joy, love you can find in your life (sometimes just a simple blue sky can move you). If very little, you may deeply question why you were created.
Water does not know that she is water, and darkness does not know that he is darkness. When a man is seeking the light, he is blinded by dreams of various lights.
Most serious or intense busy people are dreaming, while the awakened are at peace because they are comfortable with the darkness that does not know the ultimate truth.
What we need to do is to have faith in ourselves (our unknown true selves), whatever it is, it is always there.
However, within every yang is always a yin, and every belief/hope is based on doubt/fear.
If you are already 100% sure of something, there is no need to believe.
So the real ultimate war between light and darkness is within us, not outside.
See you. When there is no war in the news, I stop.
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What was Adam's original sin?
It is good to see some of you using the Bible as a kind of allegory. However, I don't think this sin is about honesty or lies.
Self-consciousness, self-knowledge, is itself the source of sin, which is why it is called original sin.
Eve did not lie, there was a serpent, which is an allegory that talks about a sense of continuity such as time or memory. Without such feelings, there are no conditions for the formation of self-awareness or self-knowledge.
Humans are the most complex animals on the planet. If your body is too simple to perceive your environment clearly, you will find it difficult to perceive the movement and change of everything in front of you.
Without sensing moving or changing images, it is difficult to form the concept or idea of a mirror/screen/stage/platform (self-awareness or self-knowledge), which is often referred to as the ego.
I hope I have made this clear enough for you to understand.
If not, please refer to my other answers.
By the way, there is no need to confess to anyone other than yourself. If you can't forgive yourself, how can you forgive others.
And that despite everyone who is self-conscious or self-aware is selfish and has sinned, without us, there is no meaning of God, or at least any meaning of God must be done by us.
Please refer to my other reply. Min John Zhou's answer to "Why we were created (a Buddhist perspective)".
Why were we created (the Buddhist view)?
I don't think a Buddhist would think he was created. (I am not a Buddhist, by the way).
He might think he is a castle built on Lego bricks, or some forest based on woods.
And he may refer to the Lego factory or the seeds of the woods as a kind of emptiness or nothingness.
If so, this means that they (the Buddhists) are assuming a closed room, a hermetically sealed space. All detectives should be looking for the murderer within its confines.
By the way, some scientists (if not all) are doing the same thing. Otherwise, all their logic could be an ineffective effort at any time, because it could be undermined by some external factor anywhere.
People love Sherlock Holmes and admire his ability to be logical.
And we are justified in not liking chaos. Without a stable environment, such as a sealed room, which serves as a better weapon than our arms and hands, our logic seems weak. It is like a small boat in a rough sea. Although this boat is so stable, as in the logic that 1+1 always = 2, how can we expect it to be able to handle the chaos of the ocean?
But there is always a different voice.
Ludwig Wittgenstein: It is superstition to believe in causality.
(It is possible that 1=1 is an illusion and that 1+1 leads to 2 is also an illusion that we believe in as fact or truth, just as we do with other superstitions.)
To me, this means that the creator (author) could be a randomly typing monkey. We just happen to live in a readable novel in which logic seems to be at work but not really, and it is the monkey who creates all the illusions that is really at work. There are other unreadable books, possibly infinite, including some novels in which there is a different logic to ours, which must be absurd to us. If we happen to get into them, we might deny all the strange things we encounter in order to defend our own logic.
It doesn't matter who the author is. (It is the eternal ultimate puzzle and secret, hidden not only behind everything we sense, but also by all the concepts we imagine, including "Tao", God, nothingness.) Let it be. Whether it is a monkey, some kind of chaos, nothingness, or something more ridiculous, anyone is the same to us.
One might think that the creator (the author) is so important that all meaning depends on him. But is the meaning of an author complete if he has no readers, especially the author of a detective novel? You might even ask: does he really have any meaning, no matter how big he is, how long he lives, or how great he is in any way?
I asked my son the other day, when he was a little boy, "Is the sky blue?" .
"No, at night it is black". He was clever.
"If there was a superman whose eyes could and always did see infrared or ultraviolet light, would the sky be blue or black to him?"
Without the eyes of life, colour means nothing to the sky.
Why should we doubt the meaning of life, why should we not doubt the meaning of the universe, or even the meaning of the creator.
No matter how small we may be, no matter how short our lives may be.
Lao Tzu: Heaven/Heaven and Earth (representing the Mother Nature that created all things) have no mercy.
In order to fulfill the author's meaning, the reader must be ignorant.
A truth-teller (the fortune-teller who is always right) would be a spoiler who ruin everything.
Ignorance of our true nature is the source of our stress, anxiety, suffering and pain.
(Refer to my other answer Min John Zhou's answer to What is causing Dhukka?)
Is it worth it? Depends on how much beauty, joy, love you can find in your life (sometimes just a simple blue sky can move you).
If very little, you may wonder deeply why you were created.
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What led to Dhukka?
As far as I know, many Buddhists (I am not a Buddhist, by the way.) believe that what causes Dukkha (pain, suffering, stress, anxiety ......) is our desire to cling to various attachments.
This seems better than blaming the world or life.
As Lao Tzu once said, our real enemy is ourselves.
We should not blame what we are attached or attached to; we should scrutinise the suspects who may be committing such attachments , namely ourselves.
But as Mao Tse-tung once said, there must be some reason behind all hatred or love. Is it possible that we are blaming ourselves too much?
Although according to Ludwig Wittgenstein it's superstition to believe in causality.
But if you have this belief that there must be a reason behind everything.
Then why do we have this obsessive desire to do so.
There is a parable in the Bible.
A madman passed a mirror as he walked.
For some reason he thought that the image in the mirror was of another person.
He admired the person's beautiful face and head very much.
Suddenly he panics, for if this head belongs to another person, where is his own head?
Where was his own head? Why could he not see his own head?
So, from then on, this madman ran around looking for his own head, but he could not find it.
Is this just a crazy person without a reason?
Is it absolutely ourselves that we see in the mirror?
You know it takes time for light to reflect.
That's why we can never see us in the mirror as we are now; all we see is history.
You have changed. If changes are so fast and you are so sensitive.
You suddenly realise that the face in the mirror seems to be that of a stranger whose facial expression doesn't match your current mood, and you too may go crazy.
Somehow (probably because of the self-knowledge), we all lose ourselves.
Clinging to any obsessions such as the body, mind, thoughtless states, spiritual experiences, the Tao, God, Śūnyatā and other concepts, ........
can never satisfy our desire to find our true self or the real us.
For they are all like images in a mirror, television set or other stage or platform. How can we be satisfied when what we really desire is 'the mirror' and not 'any image'?
This dissatisfaction leads us to try even harder to cling or attach.
And this dissatisfaction or this desire itself implies anxiety or stress and can be called 'Dukkha'.
"Images" are constantly changing and the fact that we have gained them at one time means that we can lose them at any time.
We can never see the 'mirror or the stage' or feel it in some way so that we can be sure we have found it. (It is always the one ultimate secret hidden behind all that we feel and all the concepts we imagine).
Let us suppose that the madman in the parable had no hands and that he could never touch his head to be sure that it was there all along.
If that were the case, how could he stop his madness?
Śūraṅgama Sūtra tells us that once we can stop this madness, we will get the peace we want, which is called Bodhi.
It seems easy because you don't have to do anything, just realise that the real you or the true self is there all the time.
It is like when you are looking for a horse on horseback. Once you realise that you have been riding it from the beginning (or before the beginning), you will immediately stop looking.
(According to Da Jian Huineng, this sudden realisation is the ultimate path and the only path to awakening or enlightenment or eventual liberation called Nirvana.)
But if this enlightenment was really that easy, you would all know it already, so why should I bother typing so much.
All we need to do is to have faith in ourselves (our unknown true self), whatever it is, it is always there.
However, within every yang is always a yin, and every belief/hope is based on doubt/fear.
If you are already 100% sure of something, there is no need to believe.
So the real ultimate war between light and darkness is within us, not outside.
