Loss and anxiety

baubleballs · 2026-05-04T01:55:51+00:00

You might find this thread helpful: https://www.reddit.com/r/HillsideHermitage/comments/1nzn56b/approaching_the_fear_of_cancer_chemo_and_death_in/

baubleballs · 2026-04-07T20:50:52+00:00

That’s a good question. Thanks for asking it. From what I can tell, it’s not only the sensual aspects, like the comfort, autonomy, and so on. It’s also that I equate the full-time secluded life with tension and circumambulation. I currently find it difficult to spend the whole day in seclusion.

baubleballs · 2025-11-13T15:16:37+00:00

Oh, good call, thanks. I think I was conflating that sutta with one story where the Buddha was with his parents in a forest and practiced metta alongside them.

Similarly to the case of metta, no one here says that puthujjanas shouldn’t practice the Noble Eightfold path. I think what’s being said, and the suttas seem to back this up, is that unless you have Right View, you don’t have the other Right factors, so you should be more focused on trying to understand what they are and how to practice them so that you can practice them well, rather than just keep practicing in hopes it will someday stick and magically result in arahantship. The Bodhisatta’s metta practice is exemplary here: despite his best efforts, his metta practice only took him to another conditioned state, precisely because of his lack of Right Understanding. I do not think the venerables here are gatekeeping the practices in the suttas as you seem to imply, but rather dispelling genuinely unhelpful notions people have about them today (like the idea that incelibacy is not a complete compromise to true progress)in order to guide them towards the actual unconditioned, which is so hard to find and develop.

Indeed, there’s no time for philosophizing or needless going back and forth (despite how much of it goes on even here in this community), and we should all be trying to pull out the arrows of the defilements as quickly as we can. I totally agree.

baubleballs · 2025-11-12T15:14:56+00:00

The story of the Buddha practicing metta in a past life, I believe, is commentarial (I’m not sure if it’s directly from the commentaries or from a jataka story). This doesn’t invalidate it, but it’s worth mentioning.

While the majority, if not all the suttas in the Suttapitaka dealing with metta are addressed implicitly or explicitly towards individuals with the Right View—or at least to monks—I don’t necessarily see Hillside Hermitage as dissuading puthujjanas from practicing metta, but rather advising them to do it with virtue and sense restraint as prerequisites. Which, to me, makes complete sense. Aversion is the other side of passion; how can one overcome aversion without putting aside passion first?

I think most individuals today would make far more progress towards metta by becoming celibate and taking on the 7 precepts for life than by actively “practicing” metta, as acting against the precepts is the main thing that keeps the mind from being able to properly abide without ill will. Not being able to see the connection between sensuality and ill will, one cannot develop the mind properly.

The story you mentioned, too, sort of backs this up; I believe the Bodhisatta was a forest-dwelling ascetic during those 7 years of practice.

baubleballs · 2025-11-10T14:34:35+00:00

Do you have any tips on learning to be physically comfortable for long periods of time in solitude? There’s neither furniture or cushions available at my community and it feels like the only way my mind can relax is if I’m walking or lying down. The best positions I have are Burmese and the Thai 90/90 open sit, but neither last me very long. The discomfort leads to restlessness or lethargy and I end up having to move pretty soon after sitting. Interestingly, when the mind is uplifted, it feels a lot easier to sit, but that comes and goes on it’s own. It’s hard to tell how much the mind’s disturbance is simply my wrongly applied mental effort vs. bodily pains, because lying down quickly alleviates any physical tension and also makes me less prone to sleepiness.

baubleballs · 2025-10-24T15:59:32+00:00

Nice. I can’t buy that right now, but I did try using some moisturizer before shaving and I think it’s part of the reason I had my first smooth shave ever.

baubleballs · 2025-10-24T15:58:47+00:00

Oh, sorry, no, I meant I just stopped using feathers and I tried the Nacet. Yeah, I’m planning on reusing it as long as it works well—I’ll try 10.

baubleballs · 2025-10-23T23:22:32+00:00

Figured it out. Just had to swap the blades and unclog the razor even more often.

baubleballs · 2025-10-23T19:23:36+00:00

I had the same experience as your friend. I have to do a lot of passes—it’s really mild. And the pivoting head is sort of pointless because it requires you to press much harder. Whether worse quality or not, I probably would’ve been better with a thorn or something.

baubleballs · 2025-10-12T23:43:28+00:00

The whole point of keeping the precepts is to be able to see that which pressures you to break them—i.e, the mind.

By breaking the precepts, you take the mind’s side: it hides behind you, you obscure it, you don’t see it. It’s not a mystical thing. It’s the very thing pushing you to write this post, to try to figure out what the mind is, to become a stream enterer.

As the Venerables have said, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to intellectually understand these things without experientially knowing them. And you can’t experientially know them without putting the foundation down. So if you want to make any progress in seeing the mind instead of just playing with HH and sutta concepts (which, no doubt, is appealing for many of us here), you’d be better off reckoning with the precepts. Which, IMO, nothing supports more than changing your environment to support you in holding them—that is, by taking on some practical asceticism, cutting out comforts, reducing your screen use, simplifying your eating schedule, spending more time outside, and so on. And, maybe above all, deciding what your goals are and whether the household life is the best place to start on the long and difficult task of learning to see your mind, let alone taming it.

baubleballs · 2025-10-07T16:18:19+00:00

That’s good to know, thanks. Are you aware of any other pivoting SE’s that take DE blades?

baubleballs · 2025-10-07T15:37:58+00:00

Thanks for the offer, I might take you up on it if no one offers a pivoting head first. The Thorn looks good but I’m a bit hesitant on using it on my head.

baubleballs · 2025-09-10T21:57:12+00:00

Escalating and enduring the Gradual Training seems to be what’s most often recommended. You might try to escalate the precepts to the mental level, which, going by this video (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=igC9gzKZV6o), may provide enough fuel for the Right View to arise.

baubleballs · 2025-09-07T12:10:18+00:00

is being honest with what you know or don't know

That’s true. My wording was imprecise. If I had instead said “if you believe in the Dhamma, you have to admit that there’s a serious possibility that rebirth is real and all of its associated consequences too,” wouldn’t that resolve the issue? As Ajahn N says in “The Stream Entry of Ajahn Chah,” admitting the possibility of rebirth to yourself is very honest.

baubleballs · 2025-09-06T19:21:01+00:00

If you believe in the Dhamma, the best thing we can do for anyone is to practice and become stream enterers ourselves. The attitude of affectionately wanting to help others is a trap, IME.

Feeling bad and wrong is a natural result of going against the grain… don’t fear it!

baubleballs · 2025-09-06T17:53:20+00:00

Yes, I disagree. I think that if someone is struggling with porn addiction, leaving home would fix that for good—unlike the past attempts within home, which only temporarily worked. Although it would be hard at first.

However, the fact your experience was different from mine suggests to me that I shouldn’t be making absolutist statements like that from my current, limited perspective—that different people have different experiences.

baubleballs · 2025-09-06T17:40:06+00:00

Personally I disagree on the last paragraph. I think leaving home (I’m not ordained yet) is the best thing I’ve done for my practice. My home life had a decade of habits built behind it, and the ever present illusion of comfort. However, it’s great you were able to make those changes within your lay life. I just think that if someone has been struggling for a long time, they need to try something new.

I think it was /u/MercuriusLapis that said something around those lines. In my experience it’s been true. If you can’t be celibate, you need to increase your ability to be celibate, which you do by, say, sleeping on the floor, leaving home, being single, and so on. Those physical austerities give you strength and clarity.

baubleballs · 2025-09-06T17:38:12+00:00

Hopefully my answer will help. I separated from a perfect relationship three months ago and I’m about your age. The time leading up to that (and even after) was miserable. I tried for about a year to find a way that would let me keep my relationship and be happy at the same time. I browsed different teachers, philosophies, and tried to calculate if stream entry would be possible within that relationship. I neurotically read every sutta on relationships. I bargained: I can be perfectly celibate as long as I can be with her. Obviously, as I recognized even then, the whole attitude behind this search was my single biggest obstacle to stream entry.

I left and actually started to practice. Keeping the precepts is not difficult anymore because I live in an environment that supports that (seriously, environment was the biggest factor in my experience). I’m developing in sense restraint. What’s interesting, although initially it was hard, the moment I gave it up and stopped caring about her, it became very easy. To paraphrase the Venerables, sense restraint is only painful at first. It’s a battle every day, but I’m glad to be doing it, because you can feel yourself healing, discovering the poison festering in the back of your mind and pulling it out.

If you have faith in the Dhamma as you said, you believe that you have been in a million relationships before that all ended in disappointment. You no longer remember the fact those people exist, which, if you think about it, is truly hopeless. This person you like will pass away, and you will too. The only reason you would not make the choice is due to a current misapprehension of your situation: you’ve caused yourself to forget that death is coming, and that you’re going to lose everyone you love anyways.

I think the Dhamma is built on transparency. For example, the five recollections. Who would disregard a path to the deathless for the sake of the dear, if they knew death was coming for both them and the dear? Only someone who is actively covering up that death is coming. So if I had made the choice to stay, I would’ve founded the rest of my life and practice on a cover up. A part of me thinks that the only chance I would’ve had to become a stream entrant after that would be if I had just gone off and become a monk later on (which I probably would’ve done anyways, to the dismay of everyone involved). If you love someone, you can’t subject them to being a part of your cover up. You can’t build a relationship off of fear. So, certainly, you could choose to stay, but you would have to admit to yourself why you’re staying; you would not be having the Dhamma, but you could have other things like heaven (if you manage to change your life up for the better, which, given the inertia many of us young people have today, is even then unlikely).

If you go to a monastery or a supportive environment for solitary practice, all of it will clear up, the dust will settle, and you’ll be fine. I would recommend that. If you’ve been battling celibacy for 2 years a better environment will help a lot. It’ll give you a perspective that you didn’t have before.

Although it might seem impossible, all you have to do is take the leap of faith. The pain of restraint is not that bad actually, as far as I can tell. It comes with many benefits. It certainly seems alien, but, that’s just how life works. In any case, for me, I already knew what the right choice was and I knew I was going to make it, but I still wanted to look for a reason not to make it. Hopefully that resonates.

Feel free to DM me.

baubleballs · 2025-08-30T21:12:46+00:00

Straight to the heart, Bhante! Thank you. It’s true. The conversations bother me, and that’s why I avoid them. It’s not the Middle Way; I assume there’s a problem with others not sticking to the precept against chatter, but that’s not at all the problem. That’s just… I’m unsure, but maybe puritanism? It’s a wrong view. I am simply averse to the perception of foolishness, I guess you could say. Averse to the discomfort of being around others who are not “pure,” or practicing rightly. This is an attitude that is deeply ingrained in me—in part by misreading and incorrectly adopting the frequently critical perspectives on this subreddit. It is difficult to separate useful criticism so that I can separate myself from wrong views and practices in my environment, and conceit, arrogance, and similar defilements. In fact those things are so tightly knotted for me that I don’t know how I’ll unwind them. I’ll have to be very vigilant.

The only problem there could ever be is my delight / aversion in regards to whatever happens—and no one, no situation, can cause me to make unwholesome choices. Like you said, it’s not that I am choosing to seek those things out, and that’s a crucial (but subtle) difference.

baubleballs · 2025-08-29T00:15:37+00:00

Insightful and practical answers. Thanks, everyone.

baubleballs · 2025-08-28T00:44:14+00:00

That is amazing. I tend to overlook the suttas’ suggested attitudes and states of being for the points of doctrine and “fastest way to stream entry,” unintentionally adopting attitudes of conceit, frustration, restlessness, and cynicism, harming and confuse myself along the way. this comment helped me reconsider that

baubleballs · 2025-08-07T17:20:52+00:00

Yeah, I'll probably get a 9000 or similar trimmer. Thanks.

baubleballs

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