Yes, Mark, I must seem very hateful in your delusional mind.

hateful and the worst sort of human imaginable for wishing you to be at
peace Mark. The business of humanism is 'all our business' if we with
to live life at peace. I suggest you read the 'informal creed' of
atheism that discusses this topic.

Yes, Mark, I must seem very hateful in your delusional mind.

Mark K. Bilbo wrote:

On Thu, 04 Jan 2007 07:12:44 -0800, V wrote:

V:

Yes, Mark, I must seem very hateful in your delusional mind.

Mark K. Bilbo wrote:

On Thu, 04 Jan 2007 07:12:44 -0800, V wrote:

It must being tough being you Mark.

Nope.

You operate by hatred and prejudice and have no foundation in truth.

Aren't you a hateful little *****? Looks like projection to me.

Whatever I submit must be torn down and
disagreed with as to do otherwise would destroy your sense of ego.

Wrong. You're arrogant, insulting, condescending, rude, and you
deliberately provoke people. That's why you get the reactions you do.

Again, you project.

Since
you cannot tear down what I write about as false, you work to tear down
me.

Oh drivel. Your "peace god" crap is off-topic for this newsgroup. You are
proselytizing some silly religion you concocted in your fevered little
brain and you're getting the reaction that you deserve for pimping your
"god" in an atheist newsgroup.

But that will not work since my self worth is not based on what you
or anyone thinks of me as my self worth is based on truth.

Your "self-worth" is bloated to the point of sociopathy and you need
help.

At the end of
my posts, I list myself as 'practical philosopher.' You see, I try to
practice what I preach, Remember ..."A wise mans knows what he says and
a fool only says what he knows." I am not a theoretical philosopher, So
I know it works from practical application Mark.

If your philosophy is what made you what you are, who'd want it?

On and on you go each day harboring hatred and destruction in your soul

Yawn.

with no hope for change. If I could change you I would, but am not God.

You think you are.

Only change can come from you. This change can either be negative or
positive, but one thing is sure...change will come about in your life.
You will either increase the hatred and ill will or decrease it and
replace it with compassion, gratitude and inner peace.

There you go, thinking you're god. You know *nothing about me.

But again, the
choice is only yours and no on can do it for you. The first step in the
direction for change is to apologize for all the damage you have done
in
your prior life of destroying others. You can start this instant by
going back the best you can and changing the wrongs you have committed
against others in your old life. This will destroy your old ego and
create a new you, one that is rooted in compassion for others and not
rooted in destruction of inner peace. When we get rid of one thing it
makes room for something new to enter.

How dare you lecture myself or anybody else here on how to live their
lives?

--
Mark K. Bilbo a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
------------------------------------------------------------
"...The people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them
they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for
lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
- Herman Goering

V:

Yes, Mark, I must seem very hateful in your delusional mind. I am
hateful and the worst sort of human imaginable for wishing you to be at
peace Mark. The business of humanism is 'all our business' if we with
to live life at peace. I suggest you read the 'informal creed' of
atheism that discusses this topic.

(Snip)

"An Atheist loves his fellow man instead of god. An Atheist believes
that heaven is something for which we should work now - here on earth
for all men together to enjoy."

As such I ask if someone is thirsty and needs a drink when I see them
parched. And if I am mistaken, then no harm done. I leave them in
peace, but I do ask. This relationship of interdependent humanistic
balance can best be visualized in the 3 corners of a triangle which
represents the spiritual realm, other persons and ourselves At the top
goes Higher Power / God of Nature and God of Peace / Buddha / The
Dharma / Universe / Karma or whatever you choose as the unseen force
behind all. On the bottom right corner of the triangle goes other
people. On the left bottom corner of the triangle goes yourself.
Keeping this relationship in harmonious balance helps develop
compassion for others and humility within ourselves.

We learn to think about others and the spirit as well as our own needs
and we can then see we are all interdependent and not independent with
all. Once you see this balance you will realize that we all share the
same breath and no need to practice hatred or develop ill will towards
others. It is much better to develop compassion for others. For as we
develop compassion for others we develop peace within. This also helps
me with keeping an open mind for peace generators in my life. As such,
I practice from any spiritual tradition without problems or prejudices
and readily look for such gifts irrespective of what label they come
under. I even use tools from the atheists as I have mentioned with the
creed.

It is your right to not like me and you are free to think about the me
as you please. But, if we are seeking to find the truth about a
subject, I find it a good policy to concentrate on principles and not
on personalties. Concentrating on personalties and name calling just
fuels the passions and makes it hard to discuss the real issues.

The Buddhists have a set of rules they use to determine what are
definitive truths and what are not. This can also be a help to those
that prefer to put personalities before principles. But only if you
choose to apply them. And if not, feel free to concentrate on 'who'
writes what instead of 'what' is written.

1) Do not rely on just the person but rely on the doctrine.

2) With respect to the doctrine, do not rely on just the words, but
rely on the meaning.

3) With respect to the meaning, do not rely on just meaning requiring
interpretation, but rely on meaning that is definitive.

4) With respect to definitive meaning, do not rely on just dualistic
understanding but rely on the wisdom of the direct perception of the
truth.

Tired of being angry? Just relinquish control and anger will be
diminished. Anger and control go hand in hand. Some of these tendencies
come from habit other times they stem from ignorance. Either way we can
change our habits or extinguish ignorance with knowledge, mindfulness
and practice. The first step is realization that something is
disturbing our peace needs to be changed, so glad you have taken this
first step for without realization that there is a problem nothing can
be done. I get stuck here as well with wrong thoughts and wrong speech
and am thankful for your post as a reminder to be on guard of this
tendency and to work on being mindful of the Buddhist eightfold path. I
already have the knowledge but sometimes am not mindful of walking the
path.

On page 90 of the AA's 12 and 12 the writers mention how the addict
cannot afford "justifiable anger" and it should be left to those better
qualified to handle it. With reference to this statement -- it is
gospel - there is no argument here. We can always settle such disputes
by looking deeply into the person, place, thing or emotion in question
and ask if it helps or hurts our practice? Does having anger and
hatred in our hearts ever increase our peace or serenity or does it
diminish it? Even is we are justified, so called, in having this
emotion does it suddenly become a peace generator in our life with this
newfound license to hate or is it still a peace buster whether we have
an excuse or not? The path is clear about which direction to take and
all that remains is the release of the anger.

Some people get confused with this anger question and beat themselves
for still experiencing this emotion thinking they should be a
"perfectly spiritual individual" and above such lowly emotions as
getting angry. They think they can perfect their lives and wipe out
natural law with one blow called spirituality. Due to the diversity of
thought we humans are capable of we have all sorts of thoughts and
emotions that pop up in our heads. Without this ability we could not
think as we do. But, just because thoughts or emotions pop up in our
heads the choice is ours alone whether we foster and build on any
particular thought or emotion. Spirituality does not eliminate such
thoughts - it just helps decide what we do with them.

Anger is also part of our natural make up. Anger is an emotions that
can serve us when we need to summon it up in a life or death situation
such as self defense or when our species had to hunt big game for a
living - hunt with spears, clubs and rocks. Even if we are dealing with
life or death self defense and must generate anger, the byproducts is
still a disruption of our peace as we recover from the circumstance as
a shaking and rattled mess. So, even if anger is justified, so called,
it does not magically become a peace promoter in our lives instead of a
peace destroyer. Anger is also an important emotion for self
preservation in less dangerous circumstances than big game hunts, for
without feeling anger we wound not seek out change - changing our
environment that might be an unhealthy one for us. So, we should never
regret feeling anger, but just as anger and excretion are two naturally
occurring parts of being a human, we should let them serve us instead
of we being enslaved to them.

But, I am here to remind you that besides justified anger, there are
HUNDREDS of other things that one cannot "afford" in their life is they
desire inner peace. Sure, we can all white knuckle it and just scrape
by with, ready to slip off at a moments notice if we want to put our
desires before our practice. But, learning what fits and what does not
fit comfortably in our life is the ongoing battle we all have to
undertake if we want peace. In short, we have to ask if our practice
can "afford" the many things we come into daily contact with and the
measure of our success will be determined by how well we live within
our comfortable means by asking this "affordability" question.

Before I could find lasting and peaceful recovery I had to learn to
refuse many areas of my old life that did not serve me any longer. This
is how I coined the phrase, "You are not recovering until your start
refusing...refusing the old sick ways that got you here." The 3 paths
that addiction (Yes, anger is addictive) can take are these: the
addiction can be increased, it can be decreased or can be frozen. These
3 paths shows us which direction we are headed in with our recovery at
any given moment. Clarity about affordability comes from a continual
orientation of putting our programs wants first and our personal wants
or desires second and by asking the question of how any person, place,
thing or activity will affect my recovery program? Once the addict has
this affordability mindset in place they can direct their thoughts
towards the cultivation of recovery, so that whatever action they are
engaged in - it is always evaluated from this perspective and they can
find great success from applying this single minded dedication to
change. Suddenly they find their recovery practice and life can become
as one and asking such questions becomes second nature for them.

But again, this is the textbook or idealistic way of looking at this
affordability question, we need practical application in the real
world. Many of us have families and jobs and to be a total renunciate
of all things disruptive to our peace and our recovery program is not
always possible or desirable when looking at the big picture. I often
hear excuses from other addicts saying they can't stop this or that
because of their family, jobs or other obligations, so we need to
balance these two extremes of being a total renunciate with the other
extreme of being paralyzed and not changing a thing because of excuses
and justification. We have to work towards a balance if we want peace
and just like exercise, we always seem to find reasons for not doing
what we know is right.

The way I work it is to be aware of what is disruptive to my peace and
to change it if possible as a first choice or work on accepting it as
the serenity prayer says as a second choice. I try to stay away from
justification or looking for excuses to continue on the wrong path. I
either change things or work on accepting them. If we base our
decisions of proven principles of recovery it helps takes us out of the
decision making process and rests our recovery on solid foundation
instead of excuses. I don't beat myself for not being able to perform
well in every given circumstance under the sun. I know that I do not
mesh well with everything and everybody in life and I have certain
limits and abilities. To do otherwise would say that we have the right
to be perfect and violate our make up and that we have no limits or
boundaries to govern us and are godlike. The 12 step programs reminds
us to work within our limits by "staying right size" on pages 122-125,
so it tells me right there I am not immune to all things destructive
just because I work the 12 steps.

In SCA they have a tool called abstention. They abstain the best way
they can from people places or things they have found to be detrimental
to their recovery program efforts from past experience with them. My
recovery success is based a lot on abstaining from people, places and
things that do not mesh well with me and if I cannot avoid them, then I
work to make the unavoidable fit better by changing things on my end.
Yes, we cannot change others, but we do usually have control of
ourselves and how we participate in dealing with others. Even though
we cannot completely change or wipe our many problem areas in our life
we can usually change *some* aspects of most problems to make them more
bearable. So, I am always looking for small changes to make in the
right direction and this recovery orientation towards the direction of
change helps by giving hope of possible larger future change as well.

In addition you can work practice a meditation on the 4 Immeasurables
aka Divine States of Dwelling. Radiate the 4 Immeasurables in all 4
directions as well, as above and below you so it emanates from your
being throughout the universe.

Meditate on:

Limitless Compassion for all suffering beings.
Limitless Joy for over the salvation of others from suffering
Limitless Peace for all beings whether friend or enemy
Limitless Kindness towards all sentient beings.

But bottom line is either you must change from the inside out - or life
will change you 'its way' from the outside in and this tends to rot
your insides.


A quote on finding peace from Thich Nhat Hanh

"There is no way to peace, peace is the way. This means that we can
realize peace right here in the present moment with our look, our
smile, our words and our actions. Peace work in not a means, each step
we take should be peace. Every step we take should be joy. Every step
we take should be happiness. Are you massaging Mother Earth every time
your foot touches her? Are you planting seeds of joy and peace?
Enlightenment, peace and joy will not be granted by someone else. The
well is within us and if we dig deeply in the present moment the water
will spring forth. If we are determined, we can do it. We don't need
the future. We can smile, breath fully and relax Everything we want is
here in the present moment. Peace is every step. Shall we continue our
journey?"



Take care,


V (Male)

Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
AA#2