We should all try tickling people who are frowning today and report the results. It could be very interesting...

Someday, I'll sell or give away all the crap I've accumulated over the years which I don't need anymore and never "use" again (games, movies, etc.).

The long term plan for me is to live a simple life, focused on creating stuff, instead of on acquiring more and more useless garbage. Currently I'm still too attached to that garbage to let go.

"Letting the mind do whatever it wants" sounds like a wonderful idea. For me that implies not having to worry about anything and life should be easy that way, because you'll never force yourself to anything either, it would be some kind of autopilot mode where you can sit back, relax and enjoy the view.

I thought it was desire. If you desire nothing, there is no pain. But desiring nothing leads to an empty life in my opinion - basically doing only the necessities to survive and meditate all day. Will that bring happiness? For some, I guess. But if you have an ounce of ambition, I think not.

Buddhism is certainly in my experience not about not desiring. It does seem to involve a certain realization that we do desire, in much the same way we think, and breathe. The point so to speak, is not to become identified/attached to those concepts/rituals/habituations as self, as we are mutable personalities that change with the weather and seasons, even from moment to moment. Or so it seems, and is said.

One of my favourite descriptions of Buddhism, is that it is the start of an opening dialogue of exploration.

Show me a person who claims they are without desire, and I will show you a liar.

Buddhism generally expounds the "middle path", which isn't generally about negating aspects of the self, but waking up to what one was, is and always will be, buddha incarnate, in the here and now.

Trying to eliminate suffering/desire is just as daft as stop breathing, or stop thinking by an act of will(other than such silliness as suicide). But the "masters of old" generally liked to encourage this in the student/sleeper, along the reasoning of "the fool who persists in his folly will become wise".

There are no tenets of Buddhism per se, the "central core" is merely a bunch of sayings alleged attributed to Siddhartha/Gautama Shakyamuni written down many years after his death, collected in the Dhammapada. And one would be as much a "fool" as thinking this was Buddhism, as the Bible is Christianity. The whole real point is to find out/experience for oneself (that one is gOd/an aperture of the universe/divine), which is why Buddhism is considered an opening dialogue (of which there are many threads across millenia), a place to start the process of waking up, equally this could be psychoanalysis for a more modern approach. IMHO

The difference between Buddhism and religion is that Buddha himself said that if you find evidence that he was wrong you must disagree with him. The truth is more important than his teachings according to his own words.

But there is of course buddhist traditions that make people behave just like any religion, regular "buddhists" don't read the teachings just like regular christians don't read the bible.

Does anyone here who suffers from anxiety think it's possible to be happy in anxiety ?

Sure. I'm almost constantly anxious. I have my moments of happiness. It tends to actually make me less anxious

I certainly can feel more than one thing at once emotionally.
Rather than being "this or that", I find myself, some of this, a lot of that, and not very much of the other.
I always found it strange that people seem to misunderstand my ability to be both happy/sad/angry/calm at the same time. I think the problems seem to come when we tell ourselves that we have to be this or that (especially the happy=good, sad=bad nonsense). I guess it is just a reflection on our juvenile society and language, that we don't allow ourselves to be many things at once.

I've spent the last couple years consistently trying to feel better again. And its only within the past few months that I've actually wanted and enjoyed working on my own projects again.

The anxiety is a lot easier to deal with, it completely doesn't go away... but it is easier to manage.

When I heard a tune on a Carl Cox Hardcore set from a club called Amnesia House with a sample on it saying "We want zero repsonse", I thought it meant that when people say things to you they don't want any chatback and so I stayed quiet for months when people were talking to me.

I thought I was doing the right thing.

After a decade of madness I realised that zero response is a desirable things for a sound system to have, nothing to do with how to react when people are saying things to you.

This goes to show that I do misunderstand things, but I'm not sure despite not being able to articulate clearly when Antony meant that I've ever misunderstood anything I read that he wrote. I need to find it in the book. I've been looking today.

Who excommunicated him BTW. Wasn't John Paul II ?

Makes sense. Excommunication sounds a bit unpleasant and I think John Paul 2 was the pope who would have been around when Mello was about (I think ) and John Paul didn't seem at all unpleasant to me.

At least that explains why I asked (it didn't seem likely).

Sometime I ask questions to check reality

Anyway, if I ever find what exactly it was that he said on the topic of anxiety or tension I'll let y'all know.

Will signs off (4 bottles of Stella Artois cidre in his belly