I have learned the same thing, as a born again Christian. I don't wish to become God, that would be ludicrous, but my goal is to become like Him. To have Christ-like qualities, yet I know I will always fall short. But that is OK. I'm OK with who I am, because I know I am the best at being me, who ever that is today, tomorrow... some one once wrote: "If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we are not really living". I'd like to think I'm continuing to grow in Christ's likeness as I am in His word daily doing what He desires of me. Perfection? NO, I'll never be perfect, there has never and will never be anyone perfect. God was the only perfect one on this earth.

See, I've come a long way from who I used to be and I have a long way to go. I am open to being used by God in the lives of those around me. I seek out where I can be useful and I love others, I am kind. I give and give, and as I give, I am also receiving, it's a circle as I please I'm pleased.

We are foster parents, we have adopted three children. I have a heart full of love to give and as I do I receive so much more. this is my ministry. If we had a bigger house we'd adopt a couple more!

Now that I've said my piece, I'll be quiet. I never meant to start anything about religion and don't intend to. I know there are other views other than Buddism! And perhaps this isn't the place to start, I know I'm not the person to carry on any type of confrontation about Christianity. All I know is that who and what I believe in I believe just as strongly as BaldBlake believes in what he does.

I would rather not argue semantics.

Why make confrontation over religion when both Christians and Buddhists can reach complete agreement on the power of goodness .
In fact, most confrontation happens, because people so readily agree on basic things (like the rightfulness of harmlessness), that they then have nothing better to than find differences to argue about .

It's more fun to just be peaceful and get along at that point, arguing over differences just distresses and wastes precious energy.

I love Christians. They are the next best thing to Buddhists. Please note that I am a Buddhist so I do of course have a bias here ) , but I spend more time hanging out with Christians than Buddhists because I'm socially isolated from other Buddhists. We can get along and have fun and that's all I care about.
And while Christians are generally more pleasant to hang out than non-Christians non-Buddhists, I spend more time yet hanging out with hardened criminals. They're the next best thing and we can still get along and have fun .

There really is such little in this world to make conflict over, it's why people have to put so much energy into it.

To use a Christian example (since Christianity is pervasive in the West), often it appears that people from different schools of Christ-following get into heated arguments. From an external perspective, it's just unimaginable how difficult it must be to get motivated over such trivial differences (let along hunting the things down!), motivated to the point of arguing and making enemies, I've even heard of hate-Crimes between Christians in Jerusalem where presumably the most fanatical ones tend to gravitate to and then fight over the prime spots. All an external observer can do is look perplexed and ask "What does it MATTER?!, Jesus said to get along and forgive and that kind of thing, shouldn't you all be agreeing on that and putting it into practise as your foremost priority?"
But people do tend to make conflict over trivialities, which appear absurd to external observers. Be your own external observer and see it in action in yourself.
It's always both frustrating and illuminating to recognize in retrospect you were making conflict over something utterly not-worth-it, it DID seem important at the time, but it becomes unfathomable how it could have become so important as to deliberately hurt someone over, ESPECIALLY hurting someone you either do or rightfully should love (according to your own subjectiveness)

I agree with this completely.

Foxy-we don't have to start an argument about religion, to listen to what has helped you. If you feel something from your Christian beliefs has helped you, you are more than welcome to share, just as Blake has.

i hope i am a not causing any unfavorable currents. i am not attacking anyone or their point of view. i am just saying that i do not have that point of view. i am not providing any alternative point of view, so i am not doing a "religion match".

but i do cause some people to "bristle" i know. maybe i should include words that make me sound happy or something.
my words are deadpan, and if one can not imagine a mood to ascribe to me, then they are correct. but an element of paranoia may make them think i am being somehow nasty.

nastiness is in the eye of the beholder i guess.

anyway a few observations (which are my asperger style perception of the world in relation to what you say (which is why i would say them here, but not on the street)).





that is not a logical extension to my statement.
in my statement, i said i would not abandon who i was to become another person for any reason at all.
of course i would do everything i could to save myself.

i would cut the cancer out if possible. that is not the same as cutting "me" out.
the cancer is separate from me. no part of "me" is cancerous, just part of the body i own.

nothing i "have" is part of "me".

i am in the place where i "look" from, not in the place where i "look to".
so i can not determine your parallel.

but my autism is probably the reason i may not understand the more subtle meanings in your words (if there are any)


you said you once had low self esteem. i am confused.


you are imagining a negative outline to my words.
i dod not say "mental cancer", i said real cancer.

if was told i had 1 week left to live, i would not accept an offer to jump out of my life now and be someone else.
i would want to live my last 7 days as who i am, and i would not trade that for even the chance to be born into a healthy baby body who will be so much better than i was in my life, and live another 80 years.

for my last 7 days i would want to be alone with myself to see the end of my destiny.

but you refer to "mental" cancer.
i would assume that means "bad thoughts" or "evil ideas" or other negative mental problems.

if i had a bad attitude, i would want to change it.

why is there the presumption that i was saying what amounts to "i prefer to remain impoverished of spirit" ?

all i was saying was that i am never wanting to be any way other than i currently am. it is simple.



i do not "cultivate" myself i guess. maybe that is where i am wrong.
i have just grown into this me without self manipulation. i have just followed the course of whatever i was doing, and i wound up this way (i have little insight into the reasons behind why i am who i am (and i do not care anyway))

even though i have said many times that i think nt's live in more the "world", and less inside themselves, and i live less in the world and more inside myself, this does not mean i think about myself though. i only think about myself when i am responding to people, because i have to search what my opinions are.

when i am alone, i never think about myself and so i have little opportunity to recognize any qualities i "like" about myself, so even if i wish to take a hand in crafting my being, i would not know where to start.



i can not easily tell what is positive.
i have never really felt the urge to "encourage" anything in my life.
things in my world seem to happen as they will, as long as my input is genuine and unmodified, i like the way it is.

a lot of people seem to be searching for that ultimate answer, or ultimate bliss or whatever.

to search for your "true self" implies displacement of self, and therefore it is maybe a mild mental disorder of some sort in certain people (i have no one in mind).

they are never as happy as they want to be, as they are always on a journey toward "greater happiness", and they never stop looking for and rethinking and discussing things that have only to do with "finding happiness" (or "improved" happiness).


some others never search for anything, and are always quite content.

you may say to that, that ignorance is bliss, but if bliss is what you are after, then ignorant is the way to be.
(sorry that was a joke)

as long as an ignorantly happy person is not injurious to the progress of evolution, then that is all that is necessary.

buddhists may say that at our times of death, they are very far in advance of me on the trail of the "souls journey".

well if there is a route to some final place, and buddhists just drive in a straight direction through this life toward it, then their tracks will be straight and their distance traveled longer, and they will be more spiritual than me at death.

if all this is true, then i consider that if we have forever to "be", then no matter what course i take, i will catch up eventually.
no matter what tracks i leave.

if this is the case, i may as well go cross country and have some fun and "do a few donut's" on the way.

sorry, i am losing the greater sight of the issue so i will end here.

i guess i am trying to say that if i was a buddhist style thinker, i would do it in a buddhist way, but i am a me kind of thinker so i do it in my own way.

XB70, you might like the teachings of Ajahn Chah.
Still, Flowing Water
(The opening few paragraphs are quite a bit heavier than the rest of the rest of it)

In any case, you understand the Buddhist concept of "non-self" (there is no self, no soul, there is a "watcher", we can't know what the "watcher" is, but anything the "watcher" can perceive - isn't self).

On the other hand, you are stuck in mental-proliferation (basically mental commentary on what you experience), rather than enjoying the benefit of "direct experience".

The way to think about Mental Proliferation is like this. It's "thinking about the commentary on perception".

You perceive something, and the mind starts making commentary on it, then it starts making commentary on the commentary, and commentary on the commentary on the commentary on the commentary on the commentary - that's why it's mental proliferation.

The idea in Buddhism, is to start unraveling the layers back to the source, to the perception. A little commentary doesn't hurt, but once your mind becomes consumed by commentary you can't perceive much of the world at all - you are trapped in your own world, thinking about the thinking about the thinking about the thinking... sure a LITTLE bit of perception does enter the system, but it's so very little, and it's only the loudest, most coarse, aspects of the world (the mind only stops thinking, to pay attention to the most attention-grabbing things, which are the loudest and most coarse things).

Perception is a very fun thing, it's how you "see something new", you never see something new with the mental proliferation. The path of increasing your perception, is thus an enjoyable one. You get to see a lot of new things and as your mind proliferates less and perceives more, you get to see more of the subtleties, the more sublime aspects of the world, instead of just the loud and coarse.

This DOES tie into unconditional love. It's because when someone sees someone or something they love, their mind starts proliferating (fantasy, desire, fear, planning, worry etc etc), it proliferates like crazy, until the ONLY thing they can think about, is the object of desire, ALL other perception has been blocked off, is ignored (except the really loud and coarse stuff)
Unconditional love, is stopping the proliferation, leaving perception open to other things. It's greeting perception with openness and letting it be, rather than having the mind proliferate endlessly on it.

The talk about mind proliferation has me thinking that maybe this is our way to share a perception. Particularly the NT person seems to want to share or have others join in, so starts to analyze what is being perceived. Many aspies do no share, or try to tell what is inside us, as we perceive the world. In fact, we don't usually even try to talk about it, even to ourselves. When I line up water glasses on a table, I don't think about it, I just do it, and it feels nice. Only if someone comments on what I've done do I even notice it, and am at a loss to, and have no desire to, explain it.

The thing is - you don't know your mind is proliferating.

For example - you find it pleasing when the glasses are lined up nicely. But that ISN'T the perception, when you perceive, the glasses just are, the bench just is. Then at some point, there's a layer which makes the glasses lined up, pleasing.

So what you're doing, is talking about your mental proliferation ;-).

Most of western pyschology is "A study of the way the mind proliferates", it's like studying the common formations which are found in minds. Like "Okay, this is a common mental formation of lust towards women, that mental formation is a normal one".
"A mental formation which makes things lined up pleasing... hmmm... that's not a typical mental formation, you must be abnormal"

The thing about Buddhism, is it just knocks down all the mental formations, regardless of how commonly they get built up in peoples minds, they are viewed as things which only lead to suffering, whether they are common formations or uncommon formations, they still do the same thing, consume your mental energy, get in the way of happiness, get in the way of actually perceiving the world clearly.

The Aspie mind DEFINITELY proliferates a bit more than the NT mind, it can form such strong formations that they kind of fill the entire mind and deadlock it.

I do not understand this idea of "proliferation", obviously.

I do not understand how someone can look at a bunch of glasses lined up and think only "the glasses are, and the table is".

I can imagine looking at them and not thinking anything, then turning away to focus on something else.

I can imagine noticing a crack in one of the glasses and trying to determine if it goes all the way through the glass and will lead to a leak. I then can imagine investigating the crack further.

When I watch my fish swimming around in their tank, I am simply watching them. I can watch them for hours and loose all track of time. I am not consciously thinking of anything while I do this. Is this what you mean when you talk about "stripping away the layers"?

If so, I cannot imagine going through my life in this state of mind. I enjoy it, but accomplish nothing. I am reminded of BK_G's idea of the drooling but happy person who would not last long.

However, I have yet to meet an "NT" who can sit like this and be satisfied. They begin to get fidgety and agitated if they are left to do something as "mindless" as watch a fish tank. I believe (but cannot confirm) that they get this way because they are thinking about other things they'd rather do, or maybe thinking about when they will feed the fish, or when they will clean the tank, etc etc.

If I am correct in my interpretations, then it seems to me that NT's would have more of a problem with stopping this "proliferation" of the mind.

When I focus on a problem, or something I am drawing, I can focus on that completely. NT's always seem to be mildly to moderately distracted at the best of times (this is my perception of their behaviour).