Thanks Larry, your comments about on-line poker being somewhat unreal interest me. I've asked this before but can you say more about the possibility of making a living from on-line alone. Is it harder or easier than at a real table? Should one go for tournaments or ring. Limit or No limit? (I play texas hold'em only.
"POKER RULE #97: Resist the allure of failure... You must keep the focus on winnning, no matter how seductive some of these darker states of mind may be." Like Larry suggested, we all know how to bring the focus back to the basics. I remember when I was a beginner Buddhist (I still am), I fantasized this pure state of mind and when one of my great teachers asked me if I have any problem with the teachings. I told him that when I am meditating everything is great but during day to day activities, I sometimes get this really dirty images flashed in my head. He frowned his brow and looked into the air as if he was trying to see what I saw, then he smiled and said: "Leave it alone. This is not 'you.' It is like a horror movie. Right?" As I studied further, I understand now that we are not looking for purity and rejecting impurity as a Buddhist but rather to realize the nature of everything is equal. You cannot become good by rejecting bad. The very opposite occurs when you restrict your mind in such narrow manner... you react and get even more stimulated by the very thing you try to push away. The honest solution is to recognize their equally illusory nature in the expanse of mind... be more compassionate to everything appears.
To play for a living in real games would virtually require moving to somewhere like Vegas or Foxwoods-- since you'd be doing it for a living, you'd need a constant game, and constant availability of games. Online poker has the advantage that it's always there, always available. Ease of use is off the chart. So I think you'd want to go that way. As far as beating the game, simply playing by the book, ABC, at low-limits, and refraining from going on tilt, you should be able to make a certain amount each day ($50, $100, or whatever) as an average. Moving up to higher limits you're going to encounter better players, of course, but if you took all this in a step-by-step fashion, it could be done. Best, Larry P.
Hm, cool. And well written. One thing that jumps out at me: strange images like that which jump into one's head are an occasional manifestation of anxiety. Serendipidously, when anxiety lessens-- whether from Buddhism or other solutions-- the images tend to disappear. One could almost use such images as a measure. Similarly, in some forms of anxiety, one's eyes can hurt. Why? Because, going back to our ancestors, during anxious times (bear prowling outside the cave?) one strains one's eyes, or one's eyes become supersensitive to pick up signals. This too could be used as a kind of measure. When we get ourselves in the right "zone", Bhuddistically or otherwise, such things diminish. Best, Larry Phillips
Just recycled from things I've read. Strange images which pop into our heads (What if I blew up the office? What if the secretary and I ran off together to Martinique? etc.) may be just (A) The way God made us, (B) signs of an unregulated racing mind, or (C) actually signs of a creative mind which is smart enough not to censor itself, and is thus always endlessly trying out new scenarios-- and that would be a 'good thing', as Martha would say. Best, Larry P.
The more one try to control the images and voices... the more stimulating they becomes and the more likely they will appear again in the same manner. The pith instructions from the Tibetan Buddhism lineages suggest that we could: (A) leave it alone and don't get involved with its content (tranquility meditation) (B) transform poisons into compassion (I know other sentient beings have the same problem, let me take all their shit in their place instead.) (C) transform impure to sacred (visualize ordinary into the images and symbols of Buddhas and their mandala - Buddhist Tantra... Everything is always sacred from the very beginning) (D) look directly at it and resolve its nature... (Mahamudra meditation) By far the best in my ignorant opinion are (A) and (D) because you don't get your hands dirty but sometimes the images get so wild (entertaning) and disturbing that (A) might not work.
This might seem like a ridiculous subject, but it is not. The same mechanism (IMO) is involved in the worries/ fretting /job anxieties/ can't sleep nexus. I like the 'clouds come and go' approach myself-- let it pass, don't hang onto it, don't "build a bank" out of it, and fasten on to it... Simply experience it and move on. (Isn't this what we used to do, in youth?) Also, I think a person should seriously look at the following idea: How did I use to deal with stuff like this? I'm a believer in the idea that a person can, and ought to try to access qualities from his own past and his own future. I.e., what strengths did I have in the past that dealt with this sort of stuff-- and what kind of person might I be in the future who could more easily downplay and deal with this-- Just a couple rambling thoughts, Larry Phillips
This subject is indeed important. I can see myself tangent off into some unhealthy way and waste years without looking at this. For instance, I know many schools of thoughts (including some Buddhists) encourage this cold turkey brute-force approach to discipline the mind which is compared in the traditional analogy (found in both Buddhism and Taoism) as trying to tame a wild horse by tying her to a post. The horse will get even more restless and wild. One needs to provide the horse with some safe space to run about. Likewise, one need to give way and provide "enough" space to tame the mind. The straight cold turkey approach can work temporarily but the mental imprints introduced from the efforts will lead to future actions (karma). In Buddhist theory, if one can recognize the true nature of thoughts, no subsequent dualistic imprint due to the thought will be left in the base consciousness. But again... this is in theory because not many people really practice nowaday. I agree and I also think the idea of specialization is very important. Expertise comes from repetitions of the very few things that works.