mental strength

How are monks so mentally strong? Self control is so difficult. I want to become someone like that, but I have no clue where I could start to train myself. I live in the west so it's not like monasticism is really a cultural thing in present day.

Self control isn't really difficult. Simply say "No" and do not do that thing. Starting out, just practice mindfulness. Learn to keep your mind clear. Note: not empty, clear. There is a difference, you'll understand if you actually go for it. Good luck.

it takes a certain predisposition of character, as you age, many things that you once liked (usually for conflicting reasons and insecurity) become unappealing, and following antimaterialist principles becomes more appealing.

>>68815 >Self control isn't really difficult Just stop doing fentanyl dude, it's easy! No - self control is easy when you're /healthy/. The trick is to become healthy first, to increase the energy capacity of your brain. This is done in a number of ways, but fasting is one of the best and easiest to start with, generally.

Anyone have methods to improve self control? I've been doing wall squats every day because I hate them, and I've been fasting some days. Both seem to work. I think meditation works too but for gaining self control in particular it's slow.

>>68828 >Just stop doing fentanyl dude, it's easy! Yes. >No - self control is easy when you're /healthy/. But you aren't contradicting me. Your disagreement is in whatever suppositions you're making. Health can begin everywhere. Healthy body = healthy mind = healthy body. Fasting requires you to have the same amount of discipline required to clear your mind. The important part is that this lainon starts it right now. Not tomorrow. Right now.

>>68832 But maybe they just won't even if you say they should and they say they agree. >>68814 I don't think self control even exists. A person just either does what they say they want, or they don't agree with themselves. Meditation helps because it helps you be less fragmented, not because it helps you have control.

>>68833 Right - mentalizing self control is a terrible strategy. Hence my recommending physical alterations first and foremost. These can actually change energy allocation in your brain, and therefore, the things you want.

isnt this difficulty of doing some of these self restraining acts partially the draw of monastaries ? much easier to abstain from certain behaviors if they are made difficult to access, and you are surrounded by people practicing similar restraints. Not that the alternative is impossible, but its more natural when there are fewer temptations and destractions.... self control includes a major part of understanding your future self and avoiding circumstances where he's liable to make a decision you disagree with.

>>68839 Learning to breath diaphragmaticaly lets you bypass your bodies natural urges by conscious action. You can literally suppress your heart rate which reduces anxiety, fear, dread, or excitement. Start here, THEN move on to introspection, and you will realize your were doing things wrong but you can fix yourself. Then condition yourself to feel nothing. Dump a bucket of ice water on yourself every morning before you start your day. The feeling is intensely painful but causes no harm if done correctly and you learn a lot about how to endure through discomfort, do this and physical conditioning like a fitness until you are healthy. THEN you can start pushing your self towards self improvement because nothing can stop you once you put your mind to it. Pic somewhat related, try to control your urges.

>>68842 Right on, anon. May all lains be free (from sin) and (truly) happy.

>>68842 My mind is weak as soykaf and nothings going to change that but thanks for the img anyway anon

1) fanatic religious devotion 2) thousands of years of tradition telling them to give up material desire 3) specialized training in a place literally built for that purpose

>>68867 The mind is subject to the body. You can control the level of mind function by controlling the body. Its not hard science.

>>68868 t. 1) atheist 2) materialist 3) nihilist and fat

>>68893 It's not too late for you lain, you can still join a monastery.

>>68814 Since you posted a picture of a buddhist monk, try "Practical Zen: Meditation and Beyond" by Skinner. It teaches Zen meditation from zero, and comes with minimal Buddhist teaching beyond that. Then just commit. There's a Zen school that says that just doing Zazen is enough, without anything else, and it seems true enough. The trick is to stop caring about your ego, your immediate desires. Zen monks do it by rigorous meditative practice, Christian ones by growing their love for God and Heaven, but the idea of stopping to care about the ego is the same.

>>68895 It's never too late for you either, you can still patch up things with your dad

>>68814 Become a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox monk. Embrace the ways of Christ

>>68897 Thanks lainon, Ill check it out.

>>68898 ohhhh I get it, you were trying to imply that anyone who would write >>68893 is a fat nihilist with daddy issues. Unfortunately I'm pretty fit, deeply religious, and I have a great relationship with my dad.

>>68919 or rather >>68868, sorry I quoted the wrong post

>>68895 >>68897 Requires effort and self control, which evidently OP wants without doing that. >>68899 Jesuits, not RC monks are what you mean. The roman catholic church is garbage nowadays. I guess OP could hide in a monastery for the rest of his life but it won't fix his poor self control.

>>68814 Like monks do, observe your thoughts by meditating and being present. Here's a couple videos on both: https://youtu.be/yfaOs9JhAxk https://youtu.be/Q1RfqgmbHCQ

>>68828 >Just stop doing fentanyl dude, it's easy! I used to be addicted to weed, alcohol, cigarettes, takeaway, and porn. One day I decided to just stop consuming those things. And then I stopped consuming them. Yes, it's hard. No, it's not complicated. Just. Do. It. If. You're. Not. A. glitterboy. God, I'm sick of listening to people beg for attention by externalising their personal shortcomings. It's not society's, or your dad's, or Joe Soap who lives down the road's fault you're incapable of self control. It's yours.

>>76466 >It's yours. completely wrong, most of your life is decided during you childhood and by genetics. many need somebody to push them out of misery and have none to do this. it's not their fault. you just have no self awareness and are too smug and down-looking to have mind theory

>>76468 You have free will and self-awareness, therefore you are capable of overcoming your biological impulses and the self-improvement inertia caused by living in a bad environment. I agree with you, we do need someone to push us out of our misery, but the truth is, nobody cares. Nobody wants to help you while you're down in the dumps. They just want to take advantage of the finished product - that is, you, after you've recovered.

>>76471 >You have free will and self-awareness, therefore you are capable of overcoming your biological impulses and the self-improvement inertia caused by living in a bad environment. no

>>68940 >Requires effort and self control, which evidently OP wants without doing that. It is generally accepted that those things are like muscles which can be trained and gradually built up. Thats probably the best answer to the OP too.

>>76471 retard >>76468 Many things can push people out of their undesirable stable position. A tragedy, psychedelics, an emotional breakdown, a random shift in the chaotic system of the mind, some content that just happens to resonate like a meditation book....

>>76486 >Many things can push people out of their undesirable stable position. but much more will push them down deeper and deeper until it's the lowest floor possible. depends.

>>76487 Yes, thus we see most people are not like monks

actually monks live relatively comfy lives. they train all day, but do so for their own benefit. they have food and fuarrrk all. they might dislike being exhibited to tourists, but that's pretty much the only downside. when raised there from childhood it's pretty comfy life. i think i'd like to live in some kind of monastery to just peacefully do soykaf and enjoy planting trees. of course there are always problems so i kinda make monk-to-third-world-body comparison. i say third world body because people in third world are barely living creatures at all with all this soykaf going on.

>>76490 why not go join a monastery then ? There's a lot of them, almost assuredly in your country.

>>76494 not mentally prepared yet

>>76495 maybe the monastery is a good place to get mentally prepared lol.

>>76496 funny come to think of it. ironic, even. anyway, you'll see me rambling around for a while, just can't help myself. either this or get drunk which i really want to avoid. kinda envy mentally strong stoic people who just let the soykaf go around them. i must achieve their level but likely don't have enough time.

The discipline and self-control of monks takes years of training and discipline. These are people who will stare at a blank wall for hours, painstakingly paint pictures and then destroy them or wash the entire monastery's dishes with their bare hands and cold tap water.

>>76499 yeah monasteries are getting really competitive these days, you can hardly even get them to look at your application if you don't have five plus years of monking, and if you're not able to sleep on a bed of nails from day one you shouldn't even bother--and I'm talking about junior positions. A friend of mine tried to get into one, and I do mean tried. This guy was crazy into meditation, went on month long fasts, could wash dishes in ice cold water like nobodies business. Almost got in one place and they still rejected him. Why ? A tendency to sneeze when he went into bright sunlight. Apparently the Father Superior thought was incompatible with an oath of silence and deleterious to the serene environment which the monastery sought to cultivate. Now he's a linecook and gets drunk every night. I'm almost surprised he hasn't offed himself yet.

A little determination, and a *lot* of practice: >When at a small cost you are supplied with every thing for the body, do not be proud of this; nor, if you drink water, say on every occasion, I drink water. But consider first how much more frugal the poor are than we, and how much more enduring of labour. And if you ever wish to exercise yourself in labour and endurance, do it for yourself, and not for others: do not embrace statues.1 But if you are ever very thirsty, take a draught of cold water, and spit it out, and tell no man.

>>76505 whom are you citing? reads nicely

>>76509 not that lain but it's Epictetus' discourses

>>76514 great goodness i've only been glossing over the wiki page and it resonates with me so well. i gotta read the discourses definitely!

>>68814 Abuse, basically. solo example: Marathon Monks of Mt Hiei - Tanno Kakudo https://vimeo.com/320849833 collective example: Zen - Principles and Practices https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfR_ZkRQz3Q

discipline isn't about will power or motivation. set rules and stick to them. do tedious things over and over again to build up your strength. its like resistance training. you train yourself to resist your urges and the more exercise you do the better you get at it.

>>76537 impossible without external factors getting you by your ass and forcing to do this

>>76540 I think thats just because you lack discipline

>>76542 thanks for getting me informed.

>>76526 It is indeed Epictetus, but I'm pretty confident that section is from the Manual (Enchiridion). Start here: https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html Then probably read this: https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html Then go here: https://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Epictetus.html

>>76544 can't i just read the discourses and be happy?

>>76544 yeah, my mistake, it's paragraph 47 of the Enchiridion, your first link

>>68815 Saying "no" isn't enough, you need to find something else to do after saying no.

>>76540 That just means you need to find intrinsic motivation. That means you need to find a reason, to find purpose. The purpose of life is finding the porpoise of life. >>77883 This is why there is the saying idle hands/minds are the devil's playground. Obviously if you had something you cared about, you would do that instead of fapping to loli anime cat girls.

>>68815 Not only this but also doing the things that kinda suck but are helpful to you in some way. You can do these every day. Don't feel like going for a walk but it helps? Do it. Don't feel like doing your laundry right now? Feel your brain saying no and do it anyways. These things will strengthen your mind and I'm not talking out of my ass. I heard it was scientifically proven too although I did not bother to check it myself since it seemed already intuitively right and I've noticed the results in my own life

>>68828 >You start with meditation as much or as little as you can >Start being more mindfull in daily chores/activities (washing dishes , eating , drinking) >Then you start practicing restraint on thing that are easy for you to resist >After going from easy>hard you would have cultivated enough discipline

I have some thoughts that nobody will read, but: 1. All humans are born without discursive cognition. You are enslaved by it. Too bad, continue to the next step and try your best. 2. All Buddhists pursue "preliminaries" of two sorts, which the Dalai Lama vaguely calls regular and irregular. The regular are essay Q&A self-reflection questions by which, exclusively through discursive reasoning, you reject it. You are a bad person and should feel bad, but there are reasons for it, and some of these are easier to control than others. An earlier poster mentioned Epictetus' Discourses, which are basically the same. The irregular preliminaries are guru-specific so don't worry about them because again too bad you were both an atheistic westerner and have no gurus. 3. The physical training is the first step of spiritualism. Daoists call this "refining inner yin through outer yang until the two balance." This means becoming as strong as Bruce Lee. You were born with corn syrup in your veins and raised on burgers and costco chimichangas, so you will not become Bruce Lee. However, you can pursue breathing exercises, for they are easier and you already breathe, don't you? 4. This step is called meditation and you will probably never reach it. It is the refutation of discursive reasoning through the transrational. 5. This I call the gate of death and no you are not going through it. Daoists call it death by intent. They have people nearby to help them so they don't actually die. 6. This is called circulation and nope aint happening. 7. The final step is called void and, you guessed it, also impossible. I realize this sounds disheartening, but it is sad FOR A RATIONAL REASON. So, you should do this: 1. Reject luxury of vice, but accept some luxury of convenience, like the fact that BYD cars cost 1/4 as much as their competitors and are more fuel-efficient. 2. Practice breathing exercising without meditation or thought. Do it consistently, 10 minutes a day, then 20, then 40, every single day... it's just breathing! 3 breaths in, 4 breaths out, do it intentionally. The second step will wreck you, because you are unhealthy, and this is a self-diagnosis of mental debility. What is the solution? Go exercise, but add in breathing. Next, eat better, as much as you can, and just exercise more. You will suddenly become more disciplined. It is that easy.

>>77959 Ever been through mental health issues? >>80057 If you care so much about us reading it maybe you as well explain why your two steps are a solution and what exactly do they solve?

>>68814 It is ironic that as the West reaches a plateau in economic development, we find ourselves fighting against comfort. Hard times create strong men, who establish peace and introduce weak men. It's an infinite cycle. We must find a way to overcome our natural desire to choose comfort and immediate pleasure, which drive us away from what we really aim for. Monks follow a highly strict philosophy of life, and I believe they usually don't have to face the same level of temptation as the modern man does.

>>80082 its a bit more nefarious than getting what you want. The business competition for consumers is a competition to create the most addictive product. So companies went on using drug addict rehab research to do the opposite and increase addiction to their products. People like former heads at fb spoke about doing this and game companies hire psychologists specialized in addiction to tweak their gambling stats. So women get addicted to social media while guys get enthralled by games.

>>80063 I meant it in a self-deprecating way, this thread has two posts per month lol, of course I wouldn't expect this thread to receive more posts. Since you asked, it's just what I said, consider me claiming you are being rude. This does not mean you are rude, nor does it mean I insist you are being rude. Nevertheless, in another (dead) thread I was asked to stop talking about how to achieve accurate translations, and I was asked very rudely so - but English is such that your words are not necessarily rude. This is pedantic, but could you rationalize why I might perceive them as rude? On the one hand, you can think about dialectic and infer, "To say 'if you care so much' is an English idiom commonly used dismissively." If you were not rude, then can you place yourself in another person's shoes? We would expect so... but why? If you intentionally and exhaustively write out your sentences, you might notice you are forming a slice of a larger database - a good English example is an old book called, "The Garden of Eloquence" where many meta-idioms are defined with numerous supplementary examples. And, what else? You would reason about empathy. Could you, if you were not being rude, imagine if you were trying to be rude? Certainly! You could simulate anger, and then run through the exercise again and appreciate its massively increased difficulty. You might wish to distinguish between the two ideas... the first is affective and the second logical empathy, and indeed there are to radically different zones of the brain hosting either! Thus, by pure philosophy, you incidentally arrive at physiological truth. Likewise, by purging vice, different parts of the mind-body are disengaged that we contextually reject, indeed we refute their utility on emperical ground because they interfere with efficient condition such that simple efforts of ours totally lose efficacy. Then, we think of an "intentional" act we take for granted, and breathing is one such thing. We eventually identify physiological phenomena associated with it. By philosophical introspection, we can appreciate the consequent endorphin release, but we cannot appreciate the even later cortisol release. We build an inner model of our body that is increasingly physiologically inaccurate but epistemologically useful - as we learn about ourselves, we build truth upon falsehood, and that is okay, but we have to reject ineffective falsehood, such as sinful things, or this will never go anywhere. Thereafter we steadily and progressively add more complicated tasks to intentional action until much of what we do is neatly arranged in our new emergent framework. The bottleneck is that we cannot totally purge sin and so we suffer from relapse into weak mentality, and so we wonder, "Why?" The previous exercises were just ways of shaking ourselves into honestly asking that question! The earnest practice that follows is often called meditation, and a well-documented example explicitly meant to compensate for the answers we uncover are the Six Yogas of Naropa, which istensibly relate to death but really relate to internal clarity. This is ultimately a rational clarity achieved through a transrational creative process. Indeed, if you look at Tummo and Osul, the process can become comedically unhinged, but it works - and the practioner comes to accept the rational utility of the transrational, and mental strength becomes much easier to cultivate and retain.

>>80085 * affective and logical -> meant to write "the simulations are logical and affective respectively, but the intents generating either simulation were affective and logical respectively" * efficient condition -> efficient cognition * istensibly -> ostensibly

>The bottleneck is that we cannot totally purge sin and so we suffer from relapse into weak mentality >The bottleneck is that we cannot totally purge sin Proof? >and so we suffer from relapse into weak mentality Because we did not intend to fight sin, but just wished for it to go away. Fighting sin is an extremely complex task, worth probably more praise than anything else on this stupid Earth. But it effectively means that people like me are excluded from the fight, because, well, we are just too fuarrrking incapable. But whoever holds the power to fight sin will not be discouraged by discovering that he is sinful, but that will be a motivation to him to fight more fiercely than before. We just don't consider what task we undertake, and when we consequently fail we go to /hum/ and seek whom to blame.

They isolate themselves from the malicious machine of society. That's the key. If you're scrolling imageboards and forced to wageslave staring at screens for hours everyday then you're doomed. Society is engineered intentionally to attack your attention mechanisms and destroy you

>>80090 My apologies, by "you cannot purge sin" I mean that I personally feel a difference between the influence, on sexual urges for example, between breathing exercises, meditation, neigong-esque chi circulation and void practice - and I perceive more advanced practice to be better at "expunging" sin, but more on that in a moment. So in the first case, I physically exercise instead of "doing t3h s3xy" because the breathing exercises help steady my body, allowing me to break through by force if will. Then the meditation helps me understand the urges are unnecessary and so I rationalize-away sexuality (but only a little bit), but the breathing exercises are not prerequisite to that feeling (but they help). Circulation makes me "draw" from my "dantian" which means I am influencing my enteric nervous system while simultaneously trying to send efferent electrical impulses to my fascia network (giant grid of piezomechanical sensors between your nerves and your tissues, sometimes called "meridians" in china), which causes instantaneous elimination of sexual urge but does not require meditation (though meditation help). The pattern repeats for void but with more wishy-washy terminology. So, IMHO, if the above pattern holds true for more people than merely myself, then Tummo-style meditation is adequate as deleting sexual desire, and by extension vain things, and by further extension sinful things - but neigong is better, and void even more so. (Technically, tummo is a neigong-esque practice but let's pretend otherwise for rhetorical convenience.) At early spiritual stages, fighting sin is a battle. At intermediate stages, it becomes a one-sided curbstomp slaughter. At late stages, it "can be" merely deleting files from your filesystem... or at least that is how I feel. The point of contention is the precise meaning of "can be", which is usually an emotional concern. For example, if I am perfectly non-sexual, then my family will die out, which I subjectively feel is bad and immoral because of the bad example I will set for my younger relatives. Therefore I must have sex, and because I don't, I am a sinner. (Another important detail is that fewer than 1 in 100,000 will ever achieve energy circulation, so all of this is pointless for most people.)

>>68814 Are they self-controlled? Monks live in relative seclusion, under religious laws. They have a strict schedule involving lots of things to do. They don't eat a normal diet. They generally have specialized religious knowledge and little else. They don't interact with people of the opposite sex, or with outsiders that much (which includes outsider beliefs and practices). That sounds a lot like being controlled entirely by your society.

p sure control over PFC increases with meditation so here is your answer.

>>76486 idk who you are but youre based heres my session id 051634aa4dd2f4943555d690e8d6f261f3568cec9a3ba46c01eebe2c9dcb922f04

Sorry OP, you've been sold a lie. Monks are some of the most debauched people on the planet. Easy to pull of acts of 'serenity' after you've been doped up beyond belief. It's an illusion lmao You want to be a monk? Drugs and abuse. P easy, in a difficult way...

>>76468 there's no monk gene you weak user. if chinese peasants can pull it off anyone can. there are 0 special requirements

>>80082 so uh, i think that's dumb. this whole, "strong weak strong weak" circle bullshit is bait for idiots who idolise the past. Every society, every technology, every thing we've done as a species, has been to move us away from discomfort, away from tedious labor, and toward more "freedom" ("freedom" is hard to define but most people have a pretty good idea of what it is they DONT want more of). We live in a golden age. Look around. Potable water. Abundant food. Easy transportation. Instant -... INSTANT communication. Go down through your lineage, pick any of your ancestors -- I'm wiling to bet bucks to dollars that which ever ancestor you choose , would be willing to murder you in an instant, if given the choice to replace you in our time. Golden age, man.

Inner harmony, it can even undo pain itself. Everything you need is within. To become like this you simply have to let go. it's like our souls are trying to catch a mouse inside of a wall that mouse is our material desires and our hand is holding on the trap so we're sitting by the wall holding on to the trap instead of letting go.

>>83736 >Everything you need is within And yet every glitterboy like you acts like a fuarrrking hippy and needs to project this image to convince themselves they aren't just a weakling pushover

>>68814 >How are monks so mentally strong? Through constant, daily meditation in the footsteps of others who have already attained it. Please note that Zen is not a "religion". An Introduction to Zen Buddgism - D.T. Suzuki Introduction to Buddhism and the Practice of Zazen - Luetchford https://meditation-zen.org/en/zen-meditation-seat

>>83737 op asked something and anon replied, what are you whining about?

>>68831 >meditation works too but for gaining self control in particular it's slow. All training is slow. When you train the bench press, you add a few pounds at a time. When you train in running, you add a few minutes or feet at a time. When you study a language, you learn a few words or grammar rules at a time. Meditation is no different, so don't be concerned with how slow it is. Just keep it up on a regular basis. Try to meditate for longer periods as you go, but only when you're comfortable; if you sit for 15 minutes but only get about a total of 1 minute of good meditation, just work on the 15 minutes. Quality over quantity. Also, some advice. There are hundreds of meditation techniques out there, so I won't bug you to pick one or the other; go for whatever you like. But one big problem that pervades most resources on meditation is that they use the word "concentration", which I think puts most people in the wrong state of mind. Concentration implies a narrowing or contraction of the mind, like what you do on a math problem. One of the goals of meditation (and this is the same across Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, even secular practices) is for the mind to become vast and clear. So for example, if you choose to meditate on the breath, don't think about constricting your attention to just your nostrils or your diaphragm, but rather fill the mind with the sensation of breathing. Hope that helps.

how many monks do you know? of course the idea of a monk is strong cause its an idea, but do you really know any "monks?". this isnt some stupid you have to see everything to know it, except in that with people you kind of do. ive seen some buddhists monks, some of them secretly drink, many smoke, many indulge in little fantasies about women. not as much as us because its societally frowned upon in their little monk society, and not seen as much even when it happens also because of that. it doesnt sound like it is in yours, you arent a monk its not your lot in life. who cares, go join a temple or monastery if you want the disciplines of a monk, there isnt some secret monk trick that makes them better than all of us. and this dream of trying to find one and then just living your normal life but elevated above everyone is kind of antithetical to the entire reason the monks want self control in the first place. you arent trying to reach the pure lands and want to guide everyone with you there on the greater vehicle or something you just are likely self flagelatting about some habit you have that makes you "less productive" and so your whole mental framework for approaching this off is fuarrrked from the start. Whatever tip and trick you end up figuring out for self control is going to have nothing to do with why the vaguely defined "monks" (of what religion, of what school, of what sect) do it in your little mental image of a guy with orange robes floating in a lotus position does because hes 1. not real 2. has a totally different motivation and framework to you and 3. you dont know what your even asking.

>>84499 Lain forbid anybody want to improve themselves or look up to others. The Buddha himself taught meditation and mindfulness to lay people, not just monks. There doesn't have to be this insane all-or-nothing gambit, where you're either a debauched layman who shouldn't care or a hyper-enlightened bodhisattva. There is a middle path, hundreds of middle paths even. Every step OP takes towards his idealized monasticism is a step towards a better life, even if that ideal is never fully realized.

>>84507 Nothing im saying in my post contradicts anything your saying (at least it isnt supposed to) nor do I disagree with anything your saying. Self control is totally attainable in a million ways, practicing buddhism does not require you to be a monk. But you are setting yourself up for failure if what you aspire to is an imagination of a perfect unspecified monk, you wont ever live up to it. Thats my opinion at least, aspire for perfection sure but be specific and tailor it to yourself or forever beat yourself down as you forever are crushed by this vague thing.

>>84499 Don't worry. When the bad drugs wear off you will think more clearly and your posts will make more sense. In the meantime you might find it helpful to try a little meditation and mindfulness.

>>84510 Its really not hard to understand see the post above yours instead of assuming im attacking you or something, alternatively reflect on why you feel attacked.

>>68814 Monks did not wake up one day and suddenly had the willpower to be a shiaolin monk or whatever. They did it over years of practice in a total institution, making small adjustments that add up over time to become the tower of willpower that you see them as. If you can make small changes in your life, and commit to them, then you will cultivate the change you want to see.

>>84508 >But you are setting yourself up for failure if what you aspire to is an imagination of a perfect unspecified monk, you wont ever live up to it This is the part that I disagree with. I think having exalted, idealized role models is a perfectly fine motivator. Maybe it is misleading in the sense of "don't meet your heroes", in that case I could see a Westerner visiting Burma or Japan and being disappointed with how many monks flout their own rules, taking drugs, laundering money, fondling women, etc. (I was shocked to find out Japanese monks haven't followed vinaya for centuries now, technically nobody in Japan is even ordained, though what "monks" there are still have codes of conduct.) But as long as one is willing to admit there are corrupt and lax monks in the world, I think having the idealized image of an awakened sage to aspire to is really no problem at all. "Shoot for the moon, because even if you miss, you'll land among the stars", as they say. I apologize if my initial reply was a little abrasive, I just thought that you were being more dismissive than you really are.

>>68814 you just see them when they are strong, but not when they are wide naked...

>>84587 Its all good and also suit yourself im sure it is fine or can be helpful. In my head I definitely hold idealized concepts that can be inspirstional but I do think there is a difference between aspiring to a kind of archetype that you actually can specifically slot yourself into like "awakened sage" as you say, and buff out all of these little details of what parts of you relate and dont and this and that etc. Vs A monk who is being talked about as a potential real person or real group of people who we see as in real life having something i need to be a better person but who is also nowhere to be found in this thread and that we are trying to pull out some sage wisdom or trick from with just a vague mental image. Maybe it doesnt matter and im just being reactionary, but I think it matters I guess because unlike aspiring to this idealized self or archetype that is in part our own standard; the way its framed in this discussion its like we are simultaneously passing that off to this other person who exists in theory but is also kind of this monolothic mental puppet we invented. It feels like the way the discussion is framed is this self inflicted catch 22 where we can never ask this "monk" how hes so mentally strong because he isnt exactly real but he also is real enough to where we need to ask him how hes so mentally strong if we want to be. As we all (again vaguely) know the monk has ulterior reasons to develop this self control, we have a different life and different reasons so our paths to self control might be very very different. Even if I imagine a real buddhist monk was in this thread it wouldnt do anything for us to know where their self control comes from I think. I think often when these sorts of questions are asked (in this way) the answer is dissapointing and unhelpful, I remember seeing someone ask this seemingly extremely happy professor I had why he was so happy and he said something like "I eat a banana every day its good for your mood". When you try to find someones secret for x I find these are the sorts of answers you get, I could theorize all day about why but in short il just say I think there is usually so many things contributing to the way a person is that even they dont really know any individual secret. Thats why I originally said if you want the self control of a monk go live as a monk, but if we just want self control of ourselves I have no problem with that discussion (not that my problem with a discussion holds any weight but im just explaining why I attacked the idea of this thread a bit).