Vineeto: If you genuinely realized that “‘hope’ is a waste of sleep time” and apparently doubt is as well, and therefore you are ”giving up the psychic energy”, then why do you consider this “giving up” of fruitless feelings/beliefs a ”very generous donation”?
In other words, where is the virtue in throwing out rubbish?
Andrew: Hi Vineeto, I was making a joke, however it was not well set up. Perhaps also, it was an example of what Kuba was noticing about deliberately wanting to be misunderstood.
The context I was thinking but did not explain was that the aim is to channel all one’s emotional energy into happy and harmless feelings, so the image was one of 2 feelings donating the psychic energy to the cause.
It makes it funnier actually to picture two feelings (like two church goers) putting something in the collection, but that something is bits of rubbish! (…)
Hi Andrew,
Thank you for explaining the joke to me – I see you already understood that abandoning useless/fruitless habits and beliefs is something to rejoice in and not a loss at all.
Andrew: On that topic, of how consistent it is, reading Srinath’s website he emphasized using the scale of rating how one is generally feeling from “bad, neutral, good, great, excellent, perfect” which obviously I had read, but not considered using this scale consistently.
It was a good way to be able to better gauge my day, as in the way I could get the noticing of a dip in feeling good, without any immediate need to be too specific in that moment. Which has always been the opening to intellectualism. That is, I know I am feeling bad, but I don’t call it that. I will start looking for reasons, and such.
So my day is far easier to gauge how it is going. For example, today was mostly “neutral” with decent pockets of “good” and a few spikes of “bad”.
With that in mind, it’s far easier to now think back and contemplate each part of the day, what triggered the spikes of bad, why there was so much neutral (what feelings are hiding out in anonymity there I wonder? Hmm), and what got me back to feeling good.
This gives me useful “homework “.
A decent percentage of the feeling good times are triggered by remembering that I am having success.
Excellent – appreciating success is a great habit to cultivate – it increases enjoyment and gives encouragement to proceed.
Andrew: This morning, driving in the traffic again, I reacted with instant anger, swearing out loud and honking the horn at someone cutting in. Without describing the whole event, it really gave me a lot to consider on the rest of the drive. It was so automatic and instant, I was stunned actually.
To discover the full force with which one’s anger can erupt is certainly educational and can give you pause to contemplate how such a relatively unimportant trigger can produce such an effect. Was there perhaps already a build-up of frustration? Is there an underlying belief of principles of ‘my’ rights? Or something else?
Andrew: I have plenty to contemplate now. As your clarifications about Peter’s quote, and Richard’s quote have injected new enthusiasm into just what I can do more of. (link)
You are welcome, Andrew. Even if the question might appear trivial it can provide astounding clarity when answered.
Cheers Vineeto