Second noble truth "Clinging is suffering".
A practitioner's understanding.
A friend kindly advised me to "not skip steps" in the buddhadharma and to developed the noble 8 fold paths first..
before talking about awakening. ( I think that what he meant)
...which i cannot relate.
As I am practising almost all the time in my waking moments, I am living the paths all moments.
practise = enlightenment is what Dogen encouraged and I fully know what he meant.
Hence I always go back to the noble truths to check each other's understanding for most of the time it is wherein the problem lies.
.
.
I realise,
For traditional explanation/theoretical explanation of the second noble truth - clinging is suffering
It will be explained as - clinging to feelings, sense of self.. yada yada
But have one ever wondered why the Buddha did not tell you directly if it is clinging to feelings if he meant that? Why did he just say clinging ? did we miss sthg?
The Buddha is the clearest, most direct teacher that I have ever know, and he don't speak in riddles, why would he omit half a sentence?
I oft ask myself this. Clinging to WHAT?
How do one even Cling to Self? Who cling to self? you need a Self cling to cling to self! That is not even logical.
It was only after insight that I completely understand. A flash of clear understanding.
An understanding prior to insight is always DISSOCIATIVE.
because that person is seeing from a SELF.
Hence , that person will say
"don't cling to suffering, don't cling to aggregates, don't cling to this, don't cling to that".
But if one is sincere, one is curious, one will know it is impossible to NOT cling to feelings. What do you mean?
Happy but pretend to be not happy?
Sad but try to not feel sadness?
I don't know how to do that!
and the Buddha never teach something that is impossible to do.
one need to contemplate carefully
With insight one will understand CLINGING itself is SELF-ing, it is appropriating.UPADANA.
Selfing the ROOT of all suffering.
If you ask a person with a view of personhood/selfhood, not to cling.
you don't really understand the teaching in an alive way yet and you will give that person more confusion.
It is exactly the SELF = clinging = appropriation.
The problem does not lie in your feelings, nor your 5 aggregates.
They are fine and dandy.
It is that extra imputation of SELF - ing , APPROPRIATE-ing of phenomanas that causes the whole suffering.
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So once you understand, you won't ask a person who still sees a self to "LET GO'.
where can she go?
At most one can only dissociate with the situation, and act accordingly so that good karma can be generated.
Karma will still be generated due to a self.
The stain will be there, no choice, but at least good karma for better rebirth until self is seen through.
So methods have to be practised until insight arise.
You will also not advise ppl who have seen through self and emptiness to NOT CLING.
There is no self to do that appropriating.
Now they need strengthen and deepend their realizations
because in a place where no I or no MINE,
there is NO CLINGING.
to root is cut off, the emotional afflictions as the branches will not grow.
but this is a lifetime practise, and they will know clearly what to do.
with insight THIS will is their sole aim - to not generate karma and let old karma wash off by itself
They will see the teachings so clearly, they will not have doubt.
all small bit of self-ing will throw them back into separation and it is actually very obvious and very painful because
their usual xp is blissful and peaceful.
There is a HUGE contrast
They are seeing clearly.
Hence CLINGING = SELF-ing = APPROPRIATING
UPADANA = APPROPRATION
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So the noble 8 fold paths need to be tailored to where each practitioner is at,
and only THEY themselves could tell,
of course basic understanding is needed so one could practise
ONE right view now is not another's right view
Right view gets updated with each new insight,
The ultijmate right view is full enlightenment, buddhahood.
and i do not know what is that, yet.
One right mindfulness is also not another one right mindfulness.
There is nothing left but the mind post awakening.
Mindfulness become effortless.
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So if one wants to teach
one need to teach from realizations and insights.
from one's own experience.
from an understanding of the conditions of each practitioners.
If one cannot do that, leave it to the Dalai Lama, and the other awakened ppl to teach.
because the path is never dogmatic.
It is alive.
2 Comments

Ng Xin Zhao
Not telling you lah, you're already up there. I meant as advice, teaching tips from the enlightened for the audience of those who are not yet enlightened.
This post is very good!
Some other posts where you just posted the results, without how to get there seems like can generate more frustration. When can I get to the result?
So I requested for more how to get there posts. That is on the noble 8fold path.
Separate point: on what level do you think it's ok to teach the dhamma by unenlightened people? We don't exactly expect Sunday dhamma school teachers to need to be stream winners first before teaching kids and teenagers right?
3rd point: it seems that unless one is enlightened, there cannot be non dogmatic way of teaching the dhamma.
Suttas where the Buddha said we should or shouldn't spread the Dhamma
DISCOURSE.SUTTACENTRAL.NET
Suttas where the Buddha said we should or shouldn't spread the Dhamma
Suttas where the Buddha said we should or shouldn't spread the Dhamma
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Yin Ling
I don’t need teaching tips as I am not a teacher and don’t intend to be one 🙂 I am still on the path and need a lot of practise. 🙂 if you project me as a teacher, you have to be responsible of your projections 🙂
I don’t differentiate who is enlightened or not too. Insight is not that black and white. What really is enlightenment?
So what if we are enlightened? Can don’t practise? Cannot right.
So if cannot, makes no difference, why differentiate? Why not just practise ?
I don’t see a “results”. There is no results on the path until one is Buddha. Then there is buddhas practise.
It’s all practise and more practise and one never reach the end, this is my view.
So when one wants to teach others, imo one need to truly ask themselves, can I give this advice to this person? Is this my practise ? Do I have realizations in this? Have I experience what he experience ? Is the Dalai Lama a better teacher to her or him,? Should I point them to other teachers ?
But imo for me, if one doesn’t have much insight yet, life is too short to teach ppl, practise hard.
You don’t know if you will get a second chance at being human. Why busy go teach ppl when sendiri not kao Tim yet?
That’s my personal view hence have turned down teaching requests . Not gonna delude myself when I have only got a few months of insights and go and simply tell ppl what to do lol.
And truly from my experience,
If one is not awakened,
They really cannot imagine what is awakened state because it is so radical.
The self is so powerful. Don’t underestimate it.
Even an awakened person might not be able to teach well and wake ppl up.
That’s why Buddha always say, you have to liberate before you can liberate others. If you haven’t , please go and practise hard. Don’t waste this life. The buddhas teaching is complete.
🙏🏻
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