Monday 19 July 2010

First Noble Truth (Interactive): what is the nature of our experience of life?

The First Noble Truth is the first of four Truths that the Buddha taught in his very first discourse after enlightenment, now known as the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, literally “the discourse that sets the vehicle of teaching in motion”. These four truths seek to awaken us to an understanding of (1) the nature of life, (2) the origin of life, (3) the purpose of life, and (4) the way of fulfilling life’s purpose. 

This quartet of nature, origin, purpose and way is thus a paradigm of Buddhist philosophy. The first object of enquiry might have been “the world”, but Buddha like Descartes two thousand years later saw the need to ground his philosophy in subjective experience, in “life”.

1. What, in your opinion, is the foundation ground of knowledge that, through its understanding, all else will fall into place? 

God? The universe? Life? 

Unlike traditional Western philosophy, Buddha’s epistemological quest is intensely spiritual both in its purpose and its process. Buddha showed little interest in metaphysics or speculations in general except where they were of use in helping accomplish the difficult and personal process of awakening to the truth of life. The Four Noble Truths are found not in the statements themselves, but in our meditative contemplation and understanding of them. This is described in the teaching as a threefold process, though there is actually a zeroth stage that is taken for granted: (0) the opening the heart to the discovery of truth, (1) knowing or at least believing that we know the truth, (2) acting on the truth, putting into practicing what we know, and (3) awakening, for once we are fully awakened to a truth, then the truth acts on us. 

This quartet of being open to, knowing, acting on and being truth thus forms a paradigm for Buddhist ethics. So, the ethical quest is founded by truth, and conversely, we shall see on reading the Four Noble Truths that the seeds of truth are planted in the noble ground of ethics. The Four Noble Truths are so-called because the process of engaging with them is ennobling. And this is the purpose of this blog.

2. What, in your opinion, is the nature of our experience that we call life?

Consciousness? Growth? Unpredictability? Imperfection? Insubstantiality? Fun?




I pass the blog over to you! You can answer in any way you like, but let it be an expression of "life"... I want it to come from you.

Second Noble Truth (Interactive) follows here:
http://itsokei.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/second-noble-truth-interactive-why-is.html

29 comments:

  1. 1. What, in your opinion, is the foundation ground of knowledge that, through its understanding, all else would fall into place?

    Desire

    2. What, in your opinion, is the nature of our experience that we call life?

    Uniqueness

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  2. Ah, desire! You are going to the roots... cool answer!

    And yes, one of the things that makes us "alive" is that we are truly different. I wonder, is there a pride in this uniqueness? :^) But it feels like a good form of pride...

    "Remember always that you are unique...... just like everyone else!"

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  3. Lin (kityhawk99)2 December 2016 at 23:50

    Thank you okei,
    such a wonderful blog, I find it absolutely fascinating, and I so look forward to others posts.

    Before I attempt to answer, as it will become clear from my answer.....it is important to me that I correct a mis-impression, that I am a buddhist practitioner (in a previous blog kity/lin accidentally was placed in amongst those names who were buddhist practitioners, by the time I noticed this mistake, the blog was long and had shifted topics...........to be mistakenly labelled a buddhist is truly an honor, but not a truth. I am truly fascinated by many of the buddhist practices, and they have been instrumental in awakening compassion and understanding or creating a shift in perceptions and self awareness........but I am leary of attaching to any label at the moment and just wish to see what you see, and learn where to look for insights that are beneficial to us all.

    1. What, in your opinion, is the foundation ground of knowledge that, through its understanding, all else will fall into place?
    God? The universe? Life?

    I have come to a point that my understanding of God, the universe, life ....all fall into the same context just merely different content, Wisdom of all that is, they are merely different perceptions/interpretations of the foundation ground of knowledge.

    Personally..Opinion.....The foundation ground of wisdom, has been found in discovering/glimpses of the essence of who/what I am. The primordial, timeless "I". Discovering the field of formlessness(empty, formless consciousness), that experiences the forms.




    2. What, in your opinion, is the nature of our experience that we call life?
    Consciousness? Growth? Unpredictability? Imperfection? Insubstantially? Fun?

    The field of of formless consciousness experiencing this person and experiencing the things of this world. Creating/co-creating of all forms and experiences.

    Thanks again okei
    Blessings

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  4. 1. What, in your opinion, is the foundation ground of knowledge that, through its understanding, all else will fall into place? God? The universe? Life?

    I would have to go with Life. Life is the experience, the flow, the expression of all potential. The creation of something out of nothing. We have 2 lives - one we're given and the other one we make. I think that understanding is the knowledge that allows everything to fall into place.

    2.. What, in your opinion, is the nature of our experience that we call life?

    I think the nature of the experience of life is simply to be...All things that occur, occur because they can - just as another expression of possibility among the infinite sea of potential. If an experience makes us feel growth or fun, or if we deem it insubstantial or imperfect is a matter of our own perception. Personally I favor unpredictability :-)

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  5. I really like your answer, Erica ~ Blessings!

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  6. Thanks! And blessings to you too! :-))))))

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  7. I'll be coming back to reply to comments, and post the thoughts I had, and eventually to what Buddha taught.

    But to quickly summarize, I would answer the first question with Mind, or what the Greeks called nous, and that through polishing the mirror of self-consciousness, we might see Self in self and acquire self-knowledge.

    And my thought on the second question is cycles of self awareness. What distinguishes life from just matter seems to me the reaction to stimuli which themselves act as stimuli thus creating new reactions and new stimuli in ever narrowing cycles in our subconscious which somehow creates randomness. We might imagine that the universe/God lacks this same property of unpredictability, but that would be forgetting that the universe created us.

    Whatever the answers, I think it should be something that makes us sit up and take note. And many of your wonderful comments did just that. I will be coming back to them... Many thanks for playing! :-)

    But really the important thing it seems to me is not the answers themselves, but the act of posing the question and examining it. That this has been "done before" is not relevant because philosophical truth often lies in the questioning process itself... A bizarre idea, but true, don't you think? Lol

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  8. To answer your two questions :

    Dichotomy.

    Elastic Band

    Or the law of resistance.

    Without that, there would not be US versus, well, ... versus about everything else !

    Never mind how much this Dichotomy is an illusion.
    Through it, we exist and have the consciousness of existence.
    In this life time.

    After that the voyage beyond Dichotomy is an unusual one, but not so much so for our Spirit. Spirit loves freedom and divergence.

    All Is Well.

    Take care.

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  9. "What distinguishes life from just matter seems to me the reaction to stimuli which themselves act as stimuli thus creating new reactions and new stimuli in ever narrowing cycles in our subconscious which somehow creates randomness."

    As a lover of FRACTALS I can only agree with this.

    But what is "matter" ?

    Rocks, stones, geological layers, the earth grounds, the earth mountains, roots, trees and plants, animals, physical bodies, and all the Man's made constructions ?

    They too react to stimulis, but at a different SPEED.

    Matter is not inanimate. Even objects are not inanimate.

    They too create FRACTALS and are participators of immense co-ordinated chain reactions.

    Their paces are just more or less slower.

    Next, what is faster than us but nonetheless exist ?

    That which we do not see, hear or feel.

    Take care.

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  10. 1. What, in your opinion, is the foundation ground of knowledge that, through its understanding, all else will fall into place?

    God? The universe? Life?

    Desire, the Universe, Truth, the Essence of Freedom, Causation, Being, Life, Self, God.

    I love Lin’s idea of all these kind of problems being fundamentally the same.

    And we run into the same “problems” for all. In fact, if we look at the origins of each, they lie within the thing itself. One at a time, we can check it out! The origin of desire is desire. The origin of the universe is within the universe. The origin or axioms of truth are part of truth. Though freedom can come about from lack of freedom or restricton, it would be a contradiction if that were so for absolute freedom, or freedom in its essence. The origin of causation is the classic problem of the prime-mover. Etc. To use the analogy of a tree, all these concepts are not branches or flowers, but they are the whole tree. And thus it is natural to find that the roots of each belong within themselves.

    And yet, they are not identical trees because the essence of freedom and desire and life all involve choice, and offer a “way out” from the problem of the roots of truth, of the universe, of being, while in turn truth and universe and being offer a “way out” from the roots of freedom and desire and life. We still have a problem of circularity, but it takes the form of a kind of yin and yang which together explain each other.

    Or as Catherine said, a dichotomy.

    And is there an absolute wholeness, a universal Self or God, that encapsulates this dichotomy? And if there were, surely we could never be free of it and yet it would have to be capable of endowing freedom or freedom and desire and life could not exist, and here we run into the classic problem of free will.

    Erica said, “we have 2 lives – one we’re given, the other one we make”, again expressing this dichotomy, and how this life we make is “created out of nothing” (and perhaps also returns to nothing). So if only we could understand it!

    And perhaps some even believe that this life we make is created and returns to nothing in every instant! But that seems to go against the concept of memory…

    And Kathy gives some good advice to keep learning, staying in the present and try to expand one’s consciousness, and to realize one’s efforts are part of a collective whole.

    Lin also mentioned a transcendental idea of inner stillness, which mirrors my “mirror of consciousness” idea in my previous comment, and that reflected in this stillness, we might perceive all the things discussed.

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  11. 2. What, in your opinion, is the nature of our experience that we call life?

    Consciousness? Growth? Unpredictability? Imperfection? Insubstantiality? Fun?
    Bri said uniqueness, as an expression of individuality.

    Lin, Kathy, okei & Catherine speak of something like formless co-creating cycles of consciousness, creating fractals in nature, and randomness out of determinism.

    Erica speaks of possibility within the infinite sea of potential and how we experience life is a matter of perception.

    okei’s just realized that he should stop summarizing what other people are saying, and apologizes for any misrepresentation… I guess I’m just trying to do it for my own understanding.

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  12. Catherine: Next, what is faster than us but nonetheless exist ?

    Ahhh, I know that we are part of the universe, and so not separate from it... The stones are perhaps slower. But the way you posed the question in such a fascinating way made me think...

    I wonder if birds, who have faster mental circuits than us, can perceive spirits?!

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  13. 2. What, in your opinion, is the nature of our experience that we call life?

    Consciousness? Growth? Unpredictability? Imperfection? Insubstantiality? Fun?
    Buddha’s answer is “dukkha” meaning the unsatisfactoriness of an ill-fitting wheel, but often translated as suffering or conflict. This is a very negative word, and seems very unsatisfactory as a characterization of our experience of life.

    The closest among our answers is Catherine, who said “tension”, a tension which can only be transcended in the realm of Spirit. This reminds me of the mystical notion of living death when the ego is burnt away in the flame of love, and perhaps some mystics have experienced something like the experience of death whilst alive, and yet continued to live?

    For sure, we have the expression in English “that’s life” to mean that we shouldn’t expect life to be a bunch of roses, while in the 17th century, Hobbes famously described the life of man as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. One might retort “speak for yourself!”, but then he did live to the age of 91. Meanwhile, according to the biography "Who Was Albert Einstein?" by Gero von Bohm, his first words, spoken just before his 3rd birthday, were "The milk is too hot." When his parents asked why he hadn't spoken before, he replied "because before, everything was fine!” So it was dissatisfaction that brought his voice to life!

    We notice imperfection, and suffer because of it, and the first noble truth asks us to acknowledge that and not hide from it, but delve deeper and be present with it.

    Buddha said:
    “Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering; sorrows and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; association with the unpleasant is suffering, dissociation from the pleasant is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering – in short, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering.”


    The five aggregates are physical form, impressions (e.g. likes & dislikes), thought perceptions (what I do too much of in this blog, lol), mental formations (habits of thought and feeling) and consciousness (which is like a container for the previous four). So each of these five are being characterized by dukkha.

    First Noble Truth: Our experience of life is characterized by dukkha. This must be known, acted on and awakened to.

    3) What is your reaction to this statement? What is your understanding? Do you see the arising of dukkha as something to accept and embrace as part of life, or as a challenge to strive against and overcome? What about imperfection, something to accept and embrace, or a challenge to strive against and overcome?

    I want to give you an example of a wasp on my window pane to think about, and help relate this to the First Noble Truth. The wasp that has been jaded with its futile attempts to escape will not notice when I open the window and will take much longer to escape, than the wasp that is alive to his suffering and to his desire to return home, and to his looking for a way out. So does the First Noble Truth tell us that, like the second wasp, we should not be satisfied with the way things are and never give up our quest for a "way out" from our problems, or does it tell us that the suffering is inevitable and "a fact of life" that must be borne for as long as it lasts? Is there a contradiction between these two?

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  14. I'd love to hear your reactions to the First Noble Truth in my previous comment and the questions it throws up, so I hope not to overwhelm you with more, but there's one other thought I had which I would really like to share before it's over to you!

    It's perhaps instructive to know that dukkha is one of the "three marks of existence" in Buddhism, which are "anicca" (impermanence), anatta (egolessness) and dukkha, discussed in my last comment. These are all negative words, so in a sense the First Noble Truth could be thought of as one of three statements saying what life is not!

    We are not robots in a deterministic universe, so we must accept the inevitability of change and not fear uncertainty. -> give up certainty -> accept the truth of anicca.

    We are not separate from the universe, so we must accept our dependence and interconnectedness and relinquish greed, hate and pride that set us up against the world. -> give up self-importance -> accept the truth of anatta.

    And finally, we are not the immanent reality of formless consciousness, and with physical and mental form come pleasure and pain, good and bad, perfection and imperfection, which are not intrinsic to things in themselves but only in our perceptions of them. -> give up ignorance -> accept the truth of dukkha.

    I wonder if that helps solve the previous questions... still thinking on it. :^)

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  15. Okay, Okei - I will rise to your challenge. :)

    "First Noble Truth: Our experience of life is characterized by dukkha. This must be known, acted on and awakened to.

    3) What is your reaction to this statement? What is your understanding? Do you see the arising of dukkha as something to accept and embrace as part of life, or as a challenge to strive against and overcome? What about imperfection, something to accept and embrace, or a challenge to strive against and overcome?"

    Define "ignorance." In the dual mentality world of form you mention, and to include the balancing factor of reciprocity (give/take - take/give) that does mean as a matter of course, we would--logically or illogically, contradictory or not--have to do both things/perform both actions. We would need to seek to embrace dukkha by recognizing that we are the impermanent selves/beings we are (perceptions included), while seeking to overcome our ego's attempts to personalize and hold onto it all. I agree that dukkha would need to be known (whether by instruction or experience), acted on (by our working to mentally adjust our thinking in balance), and awakened to (know that we may be prone to reacting in certain ways to the illusive impressions we interpret, because those reactions can be as different from one person to the next, depending on how they process things).

    I would also have to agree that the more we are aware (the less ignorant we are), we are better able to accept things/dukkha as they are, without the many labels we like to assign. It is these very contratictions that make life so challenging. Blessings!

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  16. I think I see what you mean Kathy. Mind on two levels, and on one there is acceptance of dukkha and duality and understanding of how we behave in response to it and on the other perhaps not... I was actually beginning to sway towards the idea of dukkha as imperfection, and that the first noble truth was just saying we're not perfect, so just need to keep learning (as you had said in your very first comment).

    And I had another idea that dukkha was like the suffering caused by addiction, and most particularly the addiction to have things how we want them, just right.....in short maybe a kind of "powerlessness", but to give up our addictions to mental and physical forms, and accept a "warrior powerlessness" is something like Castaneda's take on defeating the third enemy of the warrior: power. By the way, first and second enemies are fear (to which, give up self-importance) and clarity (give up certainty) which I mentioned in my previous comment as corresponding to anatta and anicca, and the fourth enemy being old age which can never be conquered, but must be struggled against... so perhaps dukkha is rather like Castaneda's "old age". If so, it would make "First Noble Truth" a "very very advanced teaching", which at some level makes sense, because though it was Buddha's first teaching, it was also his teaching to his fellow enlightenment-seekers who had been meditating even longer than him.

    Blessings to you too!

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  17. But back to the wasp example I gave... there's a curious balance to be had don't you think, between "accepting one's inability to escape" and "continuing to strive to find a way out". And which way the wasp behaves depends on truly what's important to the wasp... the suffering of "trying and failing to escape", or the suffering of "not trying and thus not escaping as early as he could".

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  18. I totally agree, Okei - except your example has two separate wasps (on two separate paths). We are one person, doing both things. You mentioned aging...but attached it as being a negative thing we may seek to fight against. I am getting older, and there may be many difficulties associated with aging, but there are also realities. I do not seek to fight my aging...I embrace my gray hair and do not offend the eyes of others by wearing a bikini, so I don't need a plastic surgeon on speed dial. Ask me in another 30 or 40 years if I still feel aging is something to fight, and I may have a different answer...but I accept the knowledge that comes to me as a result of the many circumstances (good or bad...no labeling) on my road of life. Blessings!

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  19. Oh no, Kathy, I don't mean to be ageist at all. I'm merely referring to Castaneda's "enemies of the warrior"... the enemy of "old age" doesn't really refer to age, but to illness and death which a warrior despite all the knowledge gained in battles against fear, against clarity and against power, is useless, but the warrior can still "make a stand" against this most difficult of the four enemies and not lie down defeated... from my limited understanding, having read some excerpts ;^)

    But you're right, "dukkha" is a much more general term than Castaneda's fourth enemy... I think the analogy is interesting... but perhaps dukkha's the rather more general "suffering of imperfection, which means ignorance of our true perfection, and addiction to forms", or something? Hmmmm....

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  20. You are doing a great job drawing the parallels between Castaneda and Buddhism :-)))

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  21. Thanks Erica! I wasn't expecting it... The connection of dukkha with "not having power over" makes sense.

    And I'm now suddenly reminded that the big mistake of the warriors of old that Don Juan recounts is that they became addicted to power and saw it as their end, instead of using the power to attain freedom.

    And like the example of the wasp I gave, I think that hits upon the crux of the matter: choice. We want power over things, and will be dissatisfied when they don't work out, but the important thing is to somehow be aware of which choices we make in doing so... so for Buddha, his choice was focused on becoming enlightened, and he wouldn't be satisfied until he had done so.

    To skip ahead, the eightfold path of the fourth noble truth appears to me to be eight things which we choose to strive for whose imperfections we will suffer to accomplish, because not doing so would be greater suffering.

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  22. Hi Okie-saw your familiar face and thought I would check this out

    !-What, in your opinion, is the foundation ground of knowledge that, through its understanding, all else will fall into place?

    The foundation of knowledge, I believe--is accurate and truthful knowledge and accepting that rather we like it or not- (that is simple science to me)- without that, one doesn't progress in life but lives a lie.

    2-What, in your opinion, is the nature of our experience that we call life?

    I have a great respect for this gift we have of life. I belief in return for that gift-I don't want to regret much of the way I am living it. I don't want to waste any more of it than I have too. I want it to be as meaningful as possible.

    No, we are not robots as you mentioned above--we also have been given a gift of free will. How we choose to use that free will will show what is in our hearts

    The animal world for the most part when it is free too- tries to make the best out of their life. Happy with just the basics. Perhaps we can learn from that.

    I believe that life has many rewards--we just need to seek them well

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  23. Hi Had, so you're going with truth. It's a good one, and if you meant to say it's basic, just like science, the fact that we are not robots just shows how complicated it is in theory, let alone in practice...because our free will is 'bound by truth' but also 'free from truth'... Hmmm, contradictory, but if it were not, then we would indeed be robots.

    As for the second question, you're reminding me of the Cynics, of whom your philosopher friend Diogenes was one. I just learnt the other day that the Cynics were influenced by philosophies from India. Could it have been Buddhism in particular? And in turn, the Cynics had a definite impact on early Christianity, whether positive or not I'm not sure because early Christianity was also coloured by Greek 'problems'.

    But back to the question, making the most of life, and that's interesting what you say about the basics and the analogy with animals, because the less we 'need', the more free will we have to 'find meaning'.

    The less bound we are by desires and addictions of the mind, the more we may really choose the things which really matter. And it's the great paradox of freedom that the things which really matter are what we should be immersed in fully, the freedom is freedom from distraction, not freedom to be distracted. Huh! I'm one to talk, lol.

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  24. I liked that last part, Okei. :) Blessings!

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  25. Thanks Kathy! :^)

    Big thanks to everyone for all your thoughts and ideas!!!

    I'm sure there are plenty of things which I still wonder about, like the practicalities of the wasp-situation example, but overall I feel a lot clearer about the "unsatisfactory" First Noble Truth.

    I forgot to acknowledge earlier Lin's comment about being inspired by Buddhism, but not being Buddhist. That's the case for me too and many on this site. And even for those who do consider themselves strictly as followers of the teachings of Buddha, to label oneself "Buddhist" contradicts those very teachings. But for those who do, life is full of contradictions anyway, so it's all good.

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  26. It's a funny thing about wasps-since you mentioned them. There is an orchid in Australia, the hammer orchid and it has a lip that almost perfectly resembles the female wasp. It even emits a chemical copy of the sex attractant of a real female wasp. Now just above are sticky bags filled with pollen. A male lured by the scent and looks will try to grab the female and fly off with her. As he realizes his mistake he will fly off to another impostor only this time with the pollen he picked up on his previous encounter and pollinates another orchid. Life from just matter seems to have a reaction to stimuli as you said-which themselves act as stimuli thus creating new reactions.
    But in time the male when the real females emerge (they come later than the flower's bloom--several weeks after) they will choose a real one not the impostor. Perhaps we can say they become enlightened and start fulfilling their life's purpose more. But along that way and until that time they helped another fulfill theirs. But a few will be lost in the process itself draining themselves of their own engery by these imposrtors. Perhaps there is a lesson there for us too. .

    Interesting about the cynics you mentioned--yes I believe they were influenced by early Buddhism but others too. We have little of their work left in writing so hard to know all that affected them. As many are today influenced by others.. A blending and not always just the good. The four truths certainly has my attention. As I seek the truth in Science as well as my Spirituality
    We can praise the Cynics for their self-discipline, independence, and mendicant lifestyle, but I don't agree with the the bawdy aspects of shamelessness--for it often served no purpose but ego again..
    I think the Christians were influenced by the Greek as you say but was it for their better?
    The fact is, we often become like our environment. . I think close associations, are like two people riding in the same car, inevitably head in the same direction and arrive at the same destination. So I ask myself: ‘Does the road my friend is on lead where I want to go? Will it take me where I want to go in the best way possible? Will it take me closer to my spiritual goals ?
    Unlike the wasp--I don't have the time to flitter around. I don't want my energy lost neither. I know what I want-the wasp is just going by instinct- but like the wasp just getting there is sometimes hard. We have our impostors in life too that will not bring us to and fulfill our purpose. Truthful Enlightening is indeed a treasure to seek

    Good questions Okie-What, in your opinion, is the foundation ground of knowledge that, through its understanding, all else will fall into place? And--What, in your opinion, is the nature of our experience that we call life? Many good answers too. I think it is good to meditate on such questions it will help us along our way.

    On Diogenes (you followed him did you?) I was just fascinated by that quest he had when I read on it.

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  27. LOL! Wow, Had!!! That's just fascinating... Amazing nature... It must be very discouraging for those poor wasps to keep hitting on duds, haha. That's so funny. Thanks so much for sharing. :^)

    And thanks Had for your thoughts and encouragement.

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  28. What is life?

    It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
    It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
    It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.


    Crowfoot, a leader of the Blackfoot nation

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  29. Buddha‘s First Urban Truth: The struggle is real!

    So why is that? The discussion continues here:
    http://itsokei.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/second-noble-truth-interactive-why-is.html

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