You did say that your practice resolved your suffering. So you must have thought that you have had some sort of suffering and now resolved by your practice. May be this is what I mean by self-fulfilling prophecy, and if things are what they are then what is your practice for?
My practice doesn't resolve suffering, it just gives me a healthy way to deal with it. Reality is what it is, simple as that. What I believe or don't believe doesn't matter. Now I have the choice to get upset because reality isn't behaving the way I want it to and that's ok, for me it just seems like a lot of wasted effort. If I stub my toe on a rock, that's real. It doesn't matter if I get ****ed at the rock. I can either get mad or I can think, dude, you really need to pay more attention to where you are walking. You can either fight the waves or learn to surf.
But you are trying to make a difference to your suffering like you said either fight the waves or learn to surf. The Taoist sort of suggested that if you leave it as it is it will resolve itself. If you stub your toe, it will heal itself eventually. Learning to surf will make you comfortable with waves and that makes you happy as well.
Your decision of not to act is a course of action but the point of doing something in time of suffering to reduce suffering is a kind of self fulfilling prophecy. It sort of making one feels good in doing something even such suffering will be gone in time to come.
If it speeds up the feeling of wellbeing and ends the pain then you are a pillock if you don't take such action The angry man curses the rock, the honest man curses his foolishness for not seeing it and the "enlightened" man just accepts it Personally I would move the rock so no one else trips on it
Most of us would do the same and feel good about it as well. Does that make us spiritual or just self actualization?
To become spiritual, you first leave this life, then if you 'believe' in spirituality, it could theoretically, take some form. Everything else is tosh.
Depends on what you mean by spiritual. Words are like that, they seem so solid until you try to really grab on and then they are so slippery. Me, I would add another rock or two just to give someone else a chance at sudden enlightenment. To help another strive towards enlightenment is the pinnacle of compassion. You know, if you actually read some books on Buddhism you might not spend so much time blathering about it. The Dude abides.
Enlightenment is not the same as having a religious experience, and what I do not understand is why people "strive towards enlightenment is a pinnacle of compassion" if it does not matter anyway. Actually removing a rock is not a good deed as that will prevent others to be enlightened.
No it won't - it means that they have to find it elsewhere Enlightenment is overrated...I prefer a good RPG
"Spirit" doesn't actually mean anything. Enlightenment is merely awareness, but couched in mystic and/or religious terms. You begin your endless journey of enlightenment when you realise that your beliefs and behaviour are mainly arbitrary and conditioned responses to your environment. The journey consists of trying to untangle the Gordian Knot that is your mind. If all you do is focus on the semantics of mystic writings, you won't get off the starting blocks.
I personally do not know anyone aspiring towards 'enlightenment', a heightened state of spiritual well-being. Occasionally I do meet some hippy-dippy types looking for some "bio-pixie fairy tale toothpaste" (I think these were words I used here a few years ago); but honestly, I think that what most of these folks are looking for is some affirmation of conformity and comfort from some peer-group Guru factor, in some cuddly place out in the country. Something like that.
I'd go a bit further and say that I accept that my perceptions are an internal projection, some of which has a basis in "real" stimuli, and much of which that is a distortion, or complete fabrication, of "reality". It was my practice in post-modern occidental occultism that gave me my "don't know mind". Shift your paradigm enough times and you realise that the "why" is merely window dressing, and makes little difference to the "how". "Spirit" is mainly a symptom of the illusion of "being". Once you grok that only "doing" can exist (as everything we've ever observed is energy doing something), then most religious/mystical philosophies becomes meaningless. Here's a fun exercise: Eliminate all verbs "to be" from your writing (is, am, was, were, been, being). Once you get the hang of that, try it with speech, then thoughts. This will enlighten you more than any mandala staring, mantra chanting, pathwork visualisations or any of that other guff (which is fun, but tends to reinforce beliefs rather than tear them down).
I was reading this post and then realized, coming from you, that I had no idea whether you were talking about a role playing game or a rocket propelled grenade.