Rant: You need friends

[ivory]

18 minutes ago, Thestarguitarist14 said:

You see how that is just an attachment?  Relationships with others be it platonic or romantic are always filled with turmoil.  This is what Buddhism preaches.

I wouldn't necessarily equate a value to an attachment. And I disagree that all relationships are filled with turmoil. All relationships come with varying challenges. Buddhism does not preach anything about turmoil. But it would say that there is suffering in relationship. All of life has some suffering built into it. You can't escape it.

 

18 minutes ago, Thestarguitarist14 said:

First off, not having any friends does not equate to a mediocre life.  If you have friends who don’t understand you and won’t be there for you, that is the mediocre life.

Sounds like you have some pretty crappy friends. Not all are that way.

18 minutes ago, Thestarguitarist14 said:

But, loyalty, compassion, empathy, integrity, trustworthiness, respect and understanding are some good and rare qualities in a friend.

They are more common than you think, but it takes time to build up a stable of friends with those qualities.

[Eph75]

Also, maybe the denying of a need needs to happen in order to gain the first-hand experience of that being the wrong route to wander, so that we can better allow ourselves to understand the two extremes that when seen in a new light, that opens up the possibility for transcendence. 

We learn from mistakes, mistakes will be made.

Are the mistakes necessary? If so, are they mistakes or simoly an inevitable a part of the journey? 

Help then rather becomes not preventing mistakes but to help better navigate mistakes so that they are easier to deal it, as they happen, and easier move on from them.

In a sense, to make the journey easier.

[ivory]

@Keyhole  Do you have any interest in working through some of those issues? You miss out on a lot living in isolation and it's far from a healthy lifestyle.

[electroBeam]

7 minutes ago, ivory said:

Actually, in most (not all) monasteries you will notice that they are highly community oriented. They recognize relationships as valuable resources and essential parts of the human experience. 

yeah i was being more abstract and comparing similarities between different approaches and results from different contexts. I was saying that the buddhist approach to the path compared to the tantra approach to the path is that of the 'detaching from friends' and 'not being needy at all' approach to friends compared to being a bit intimate with friends approach. Both former approaches seem safer, but miss out on stuff the latter approaches have. 

[ivory]

@Keyhole At least you are honest about it

[Thestarguitarist14]

30 minutes ago, ivory said:

I wouldn't necessarily equate a value to an attachment. And I disagree that all relationships are filled with turmoil. All relationships come with varying challenges. Buddhism does not preach anything about turmoil. But it would say that there is suffering in relationship. All of life has some suffering built into it. You can't escape it.

 

It is certainly an attachment.  You are seeing value in friendships when there is in fact no intrinsic value whatsoever.

Nobody is nice.  We all have a dark side.  Of course all relationships are filled with turmoil to some degree.  It’s just a matter of if the positives out weigh the negatives.

And suffering is a choice.  This is a common misconception of Buddhism.

 

33 minutes ago, ivory said:

Sounds like you have some pretty crappy friends. Not all are that way.

Most are.  High quality friends are rare.  Most people are mediocre.  
 

33 minutes ago, ivory said:

They are more common than you think, but it takes time to build up a stable of friends with those qualities.

Of course there are good friendships just like there are good relationships and Panda Bears.  All three just happen to be extremely rare.  Truth is, good relationships are a rarity, especially with how society is built.  The world is not built to have good relationships.  It is built to have relationships that serve capitalism.

[Akemrelax]

@ivory I completely agree with you.

I know a lot of people will be anger at me for saying this, but many people on the forum seem to be dysfunctional. That is because spirituality attracts dysfunctional people who want to solve their dysfunctions. Counterintuitively, it is better to take the slow road and build a functional life for yourself before you get into spirituality. Dysfunction + spirituality = disaster. People can use spirituality to escape real world problems, ignore dysfunctions or to justify their laziness. 

This type of thing usually happens when you take Leo too seriously. I know I make that mistake without knowing it. We have to realize the truth in the principal of not believing in authority. Ultimately what you know matters, arguing and convincing people will not get you any closer to truth. You are the ultimate judge. You will never get the truth by listening, convincing, or arguing with someone. 

Noticing if you are exerting emotional labour can be a great indicator of whether you are on the right path. Emotional labour is what you feel when you are trying to meditate and resisting temptations.

Dangers of spiritual work was a good video that talked about this trap. You need to have enough self-awareness to make sure spirituality is right for you and that you’re not using the forum or the videos as an escape.

 

[Shin]

«I don't need sex anymore, it's a low consciousness activity, I'm pure !»

«You don't mind If I see your google history then ?»

«hummm ...»

[bliss54]

@ivory

I agree with you, I wish it was the opposite but I seem to thrive the most when I am feeling connected

But how much time do you think we need to spend around people? Do you agree that some people over do it? they spend all their time around people to suppress emotions

The key for me is to find people I resonate with, if I spend time with "friends" but always filter what I say then I feel terrible

 

 

[Gesundheit]

Why would I want more shit factories in my life?! One is more than enough.

[F A B]

@ivory I agree.

All I can say is that I'm really happy with the friendships I got.

They are quite a lot and they come from various perspectives and points of view. Then of course I don't have time to hang out with all of them but I just connect with the closest ones.

[ivory]

@Akemrelax You are exactly right. Nice observation.

 

4 hours ago, bliss54 said:

But how much time do you think we need to spend around people? Do you agree that some people over do it? they spend all their time around people to suppress emotions

It varies from person to person. Introversion extroversion is a spectrum. We all have different needs. I think most need to focus on spending more time with friends. I suspect very few here spend too much time with friends as a means to avoid stuff. The way I personally manage is that I hang out with friends until I feel full. Then I go back to my cave to recharge.

[ivory]

7 hours ago, Akemrelax said:

Counterintuitively, it is better to take the slow road and build a functional life for yourself before you get into spirituality. Dysfunction + spirituality = disaster. People can use spirituality to escape real world problems, ignore dysfunctions or to justify their laziness. 

One more thing I want to clarify, what most people don't realize is that there is no separation between life and spirituality. Spirituality should be ingrained in everything you do. The problem on this forum is that most people think that life isn't spiritual, and that spirituality is something you do when you renounce life. And that is what leads to dysfunction.

[Thestarguitarist14]

A lot of you guys are still way too attached the physical.  Good for you.

[bliss54]

8 hours ago, ivory said:

@Akemrelax You are exactly right. Nice observation.

 

It varies from person to person. Introversion extroversion is a spectrum. We all have different needs. I think most need to focus on spending more time with friends. I suspect very few here spend too much time with friends as a means to avoid stuff. The way I personally manage is that I hang out with friends until I feel full. Then I go back to my cave to recharge.

I agree 100%, thanks for this post

I need to stop hiding so much, it's not healthy for me and doesn't help on the path to being actualized

[Eph75]

5 hours ago, bliss54 said:

I need to stop hiding so much

What you are hiding from, why and how it is that you come up with the answer is important, much more important than meeting expectations.

"Hiding" is a coping skill. Equally, "not hiding" can be a counter-reaction and thus equally unhealthy, especially if we do because it is somehow expected.

Seeing how these interplay allows for detaching from our pathological need [or disortions of basic needs] so that we can "be/do" with less restaints and more freely fullfill what is needed to cover the basic needs. 

It is important to remember, and clearly see that extroversy is the external expectation of these times, it hasn't always been so, and it varies with culture, yet our world is strongly leaning towards a need to be extrovert i order to meet today's expected version of being "successful".

In a competitive world we "need" to be extrovert in order to cover our "need" to become "successful" and accepted by that very world view, a world view that is operating from seemingly ever increasingly unhealthy aspects. 

The exaggerated or distored needs that we create [out of e.g. these kind of factors] are not basic needs.

So that leaves the strive for understanding of self to such a degree that we see where the line should be drawn, where authenticity stops and where constructed false needs begin, and what the implications of self are, when straying too far towards either direction from this line.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Eph75

[Arcangelo]

On 10/24/2020 at 11:02 PM, ivory said:

I see a lot of people on this forum who seem to believe that the need for friends is transcended once you achieve a certain level of consciousness.

No. Who says that? Name one person please. Or quote it and delete the person's name so they can stay anonymous.

 

On 10/24/2020 at 11:23 PM, Thestarguitarist14 said:

I have cut out all my friends and quite frankly I feel better.

I cut almost all my friends out of my life years ago. The only thing I regret is not doing it earlier. SD is all about cutting ''friends'' from your life.

[ivory]

49 minutes ago, Arcangelo said:

SD is all about cutting ''friends'' from your life.

So are you saying that SD is all about transcending the need for friends? You asked me for an example, and my example is you (among others). Also, I'm really curious where you got this idea that SD is about cutting friends from your life.

[ivory]

@Keyhole It's just classic spiritual bypassing.

 

 

Quote

I’ve often seen how attempts to be nonattached are used in the service of sealing people off from their human and emotional vulnerabilities. In effect, identifying oneself as a spiritual practitioner becomes used as a way of avoiding a depth of personal engagement with others that might stir up old wounds and longings for love. It’s painful to see someone maintaining a stance of detachment when underneath they are starving for positive experiences of bonding and connection.

To grow into a healthy human being, we need a base of secure attachment in the positive, psychological sense, meaning: close emotional ties to other people that promote connectedness, grounded embodiment, and well-being. As John Muir the naturalist wrote: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe.” Similarly, the hand cannot function unless it is attached to the arm—that’s attachment in the positive sense. We’re interconnected, interwoven, and interdependent with everything in the universe. On the human level we can’t help feeling somewhat attached to people we are close to.

(REFERENCE)

 

Quote

I’ve often seen how attempts to be nonattached are used in the service of sealing people off from their human and emotional vulnerabilities. In effect, identifying oneself as a spiritual practitioner becomes used as a way of avoiding a depth of personal engagement with others that might stir up old wounds and longings for love. It’s painful to see someone maintaining a stance of detachment when underneath they are starving for positive experiences of bonding and connection.

(REFERENCE)

 

[F A B]

In a sense, aren't we all friends on this forum?

I mean, we dedicate our time to each other, we are willing to give support as better as we can, we ask for help and advice when we have issues or when we just need to let off steam and be understood.

Where I live, those traits are called friendship.