This simplistic 'snap out of it' ideology belies and belittles the very real issues of fear, discouragement and depression that underly much of what people berate themselves over as 'laziness'.
IIRC, from the Diamond Sutra: a cloud, a flash of lightening, a dew drop, a star...view all created things like this.
If that doesn't divert one's attention from sex, beer, or a pint of Ben & Jerry's, nothing will ;-)
IMHO, the Buddhist recommendation to exercise this type of necessary skepticism is to try it out, to experience it. If your experience confirms what the received wisdom is said to be, you are probably on the right track. Of course, there are lots of other basics, including the most basic of all - get a good teacher. Needless to say, the meaning of "good" in this respect always requires a modicum of circumspection. :)
Yup, there's lots of stuff like those you mentioned to divert your attention. The idea is to give you a reason to get started. In this case I'd say something like Nike's Just Do It as mentioned in some of the other threads is a tad overconfident. The Buddhist way would more likely be Life is Short. Just Get Started.
Buddha: "No teacher have I"
Jesus: "Know thyself"
I'm not convinced there is a "Buddhist way", but rather ways. I mean, Vipasana is almost entirely technique oriented, apparently following the historical Buddha's extant teaching to the letter. Tibetans do a boatload of visualization, while Zen tends to emphasize open eyed sitting and posture without any focal point.
Same deal in Christianity, Islam, etc., many ways.
And yet, mystics like Ramana Maharshi, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Eckhart Tolle, etc. all say, dispense with practice and teachers, these are extraneous to the fundamental matter. For Tolle it was rock bottom chronic depression; for Maharshi it was some kind of death experience, and for Krishnamurti it was talking a lot (heh, heh, kidding, he was apparently born without the sense of "I").
My view of Buddhism is heavily Mahayana and Vajrayana based, and I know little of Hinayana and the other 'vehicles'. In this context, emphasis is placed on one's teacher mainly because it is believed that it is very, very easy to understand things completely wrongly and to go off on a tangent that is harmful to oneself and others. The teacher is thus your guide, while the work of attaining enlightenment is still very much your own.
This of course is not to say that Buddhahood isn't possible without a teacher; it's just that it is rather more unlikely and difficult.
Add to that the fact that practice in the Buddhist world is almost always an ass kicker of the highest order (hello screwdriver in the knees), then one wonders why take it up in the first place? The whole process seems a bit like the Christian, "yours is not to reason why"; i.e. it will become clear(er) later.
Saying that, I did meet someone who awakened without a teacher. I suggested that he attend a couple of sitting groups that I used to go to. After the Dharma talk/discussion at each group, without having said a word, both teachers came up to him and basically said, how on earth did you do that?
Talking with him later he said he came into this life to awaken; i.e. it wasn't difficult and he was only just scratching the surface.
Pretty rare obviously, but then again, practicing for 5, 10, 20+ years and awakening is also not guaranteed.
That's an awesome story. I'm only scratching at the surface, and something tells me that it's going to take a lot longer than that, if ever, for me.
but then again, practicing for 5, 10, 20+ years and awakening is also not guaranteed.
For most of us, for sure. However, on the positive side, even many lifetimes of trying is but a mere tick on the clock of samsara. :)
Hang on a second, there is no you, how could you not be awakened?
Then why practice? Good question, it must be that delusions are endless; otherwise, we'd be lazy in the most wonderful sense of the word (see Ramana Maharshi for example).
These are all known mental health issues, with physiological markers, but ultimately they are aspects of human mentality that are present in everyone.
So, to ignore these, and ignore the myriad other mental and environmental issues, and suggest that 'just do it' is actionable advice goes against the grain of much that is valuable in Bhuddism: namely mindfulness and the purposes of meditation. Essentially, it is telling people to achieve presence through force of will, instead of using insight to accommodate their mental situation: only the unencumbered can succeed.
Is anyone saying "stop being such a crybaby" is the solution for all problems? No way. And certainly not the Buddhist way.
Returning to your points on PTSD, schizophrenia, BPD and ADDHD, I can state quite positively that I've read no Buddhist texts so far that discuss these disorders, let alone prescribe Buddhism as the cure. So again, we are more in agreement than not, unless of course you believe that all fear, discouragement and depression amount to PTSD, schizophrenia, BPD and ADDHD (in which case I would have to level the round trip fallacy charge at you!).
However, personally I believe modern medicine is far from understanding properly any of these disorders, and the treatment for them - mainly drugs - is an unhappy one even if that's all we have.
At the same time I also believe that there is a tendency to find the quick fix (what better than a drug) or a solution outside of ourselves (psychotherapy). Not every condition requires this sort of intervention, but there is a very strong trend and tendency to provide it and that's a pity.
What are loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity if not emotion?
As you have correctly stated, Buddhism is not about escaping from life but meeting it head on. I don't think I've said anything that would suggest I'm for escaping.
Yes going beyond the everyday meaning of the words we use, I agree with you fully. I'm just a beginner on the path, full of the fabrications and paradoxes we all live with, and I'm really looking forward to having them all blown away, or more likely - dissolved - as I dive deeper into it. Ah, aspiration!
Do or do not. There is no try.
If you want to do something (anything), you can break down actionable mechanisms all you want, but at some point it has to move from theoretical into action.
It's tougher with this stuff (lazyness) because it's all in your head - it's less physical - so it seems like you could hypothetically break something down into a million actionable steps - so people do and keep wondering why it never leads to action. That's the very trap you have to escape in order to DO something.
I can tell you all the mechanics in the world on how you're supposed to walk, but until you put one foot in front of the other, you'll never be able to learn. That's not condescending at all - it's just the process of learning. All the knowledge in the world won't help someone who's not willing to take that step.
The crux of the issue for me, is that intelligence research (to my rather limited knowledge) seems to be converging on the idea that people have different inherent [genetic?] constraints on learning ability. Not learning capacity mind you, just that it might be more challenging for certain subsets of people to understand quantum physics (for example) than others, and that that could be traced back to how much 'actionable' material they are exposed to -- if they're not exposed to enough, then they could easily be left behind and be blamed for not 'choosing' to get it. This is what bothers me. Especially since I know I often find myself struggling for ages with things that other people seem to grasp with significantly less information than I needed to 'get it'.
Thank you for this.
I'll keep this in mind next time I'm losing steam through a particularly tough CrossFit WOD.
"Today, I want to win." Amazing. Thank you. +1
In my case depression usually manifests as extreme fatigue coupled with disinterest in everything. Choosing to do anything is very difficult if nothing has meaning.
More recently I've been taking a nutrition based approach. I went off Zoloft in January, had an episode in late March/early April, then went to see a nutritional therapist. It seems to be working so far.
In my case, though, I was also diagnosed with adrenal fatigue a couple years ago and have been taking supplements to help with that.
Adrenal fatigue is a controversial diagnosis (some people think it's a made-up "disease") but a saliva test indicated I had low cortisol in the morning, which made it very difficult for me to get going before noon. The supplements helped with that even after I weened myself off caffeine.