Quote:
Ewen Ebsworth wrote:
so the practice is the spiritual but it is not to be valued by the person as spiritual because that would cause some sense of 'desire' to have or be spiritual, which is the root of suffering? Am I right in interpreting your point about Buddhist traditions as relating to the four noble truths?
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It's not that convoluted, really. Going back, I said that your conception of "spiritual" seemed to me to be one purely of mind; you gave examples of spiritual moments seeking expression in some physical form. I pointed out that in all these cases, the "spiritual" proceeds from the mind -- mental state first, then (maybe) physical practice or expression -- and offered an example of a different conception, in which the root of the spirituality is in the practice. So, in that view, you don't wait for the spiritual moment to happen; you practice whether you're feeling "spiritual" or not, you practice (you do the work) regardless of your mental state, you don't wait for your mind to be right and then start to practice. If your mind comes along (as it will,
with practice), there's a good chance that you'll have what might be termed a "spiritual moment" in your practice...or you might not. Either way, though, the idea isn't to cling to that "spiritual moment" and try to hang onto it, to prolong it or get it back.
Anyway, I'm not promoting that as what "spiritual" is, or should be. It just seemed to me that you were seeking after definition in this thread, and I'm just pointing out what seems to me to be a pretty different take on things, but bearing an identical label.