Elessar
New
I guess I approach this question from two directions.
On the one hand, my life has been utterly blessed with all sorts of incredible synchronicities, ones I simply cannot explain away due to cognitive, confirmation, or post-hoc biases, ones that continue to happen to me daily, some "merely" idly curious, others completely mind-blowing.
But, more to the point, the import of many of these events has also had the effect of completely altering my psyche, ever since the first one happened 23 years ago. You see, when I was a young man, I was as lost and depressed as anyone could ever be-completely hopeless in any endeavor I tried. Now, all of the darkness has been blown out of me, my psyche feels a neverending flow of joy, and I feel constantly connected to Something much bigger than my ego. [I just got a synch as a typed all that-I play my favorite songs on shuffle mode all day long, and one called Removed From Darkness came on as I finished this paragraph, whose lyrics I dovetail very closely with what I just typed. This is how my life is now, all day, every day.]
But, on the other hand, if I approach this from a Buddhist direction, am I still trifling with the bits and pieces of Maya? It may be a series of higher-level illusions, but still illusions, ultimately.
From Wikipedia:
[For me personally the metaphor of the "beautiful lady" here cuts especially close to home, to make a very very long story short, and leaving it at that for the nonce.]
At the same time, I have learned to cultivate that kind of perspective on these events-for the most part. [If I didn't, I would likely go insane at some point! When I say I get a flood of this stuff each and every day, I am not exaggerating.] So, on the spiritual path, do you need to eventually junk the quest for meaning, and just take in all phenomena, be they of apparent high or low quality or import, and move beyond them all?
And, getting back on topic for this particular forum, just because phenomena X is demonstrated to be significant, does that also make it meaningful, either in a relative (more conventional) or absolutist (esoteric perspective as outlined above) manner?
On the one hand, my life has been utterly blessed with all sorts of incredible synchronicities, ones I simply cannot explain away due to cognitive, confirmation, or post-hoc biases, ones that continue to happen to me daily, some "merely" idly curious, others completely mind-blowing.
But, more to the point, the import of many of these events has also had the effect of completely altering my psyche, ever since the first one happened 23 years ago. You see, when I was a young man, I was as lost and depressed as anyone could ever be-completely hopeless in any endeavor I tried. Now, all of the darkness has been blown out of me, my psyche feels a neverending flow of joy, and I feel constantly connected to Something much bigger than my ego. [I just got a synch as a typed all that-I play my favorite songs on shuffle mode all day long, and one called Removed From Darkness came on as I finished this paragraph, whose lyrics I dovetail very closely with what I just typed. This is how my life is now, all day, every day.]
But, on the other hand, if I approach this from a Buddhist direction, am I still trifling with the bits and pieces of Maya? It may be a series of higher-level illusions, but still illusions, ultimately.
From Wikipedia:
Depending on the stage of the practitioner, the magical illusion is experienced differently. In the ordinary state, we get attached to our own mental phenomena, believing they are real, like the audience at a magic show gets attached to the illusion of a beautiful lady. At the next level, called actual relative truth, the beautiful lady appears, but the magician does not get attached. Lastly, at the ultimate level, the Buddha is not affected one way or the other by the illusion. Beyond conceptuality, the Buddha is neither attached nor non-attached.
[For me personally the metaphor of the "beautiful lady" here cuts especially close to home, to make a very very long story short, and leaving it at that for the nonce.]
At the same time, I have learned to cultivate that kind of perspective on these events-for the most part. [If I didn't, I would likely go insane at some point! When I say I get a flood of this stuff each and every day, I am not exaggerating.] So, on the spiritual path, do you need to eventually junk the quest for meaning, and just take in all phenomena, be they of apparent high or low quality or import, and move beyond them all?
And, getting back on topic for this particular forum, just because phenomena X is demonstrated to be significant, does that also make it meaningful, either in a relative (more conventional) or absolutist (esoteric perspective as outlined above) manner?