Welcome to Gaia! ::

Malicious Toast

Can someone have a personality, an 'individuality' if you will, and still practice the dhamma? Or, as we practice, do we essentially let go any individualism, and take up the personality traits we look up to (in a teacher, or even in the buddha, for example)?

Oh absolutely. In fact, having a personality is unavoidable. The trick is not to get caught up in this personality or the self. Having a self is something that we must endure until the moment of death when the aggregates separate, until then we must be mindful of the ego and take care not to allow it to create suffering for ourselves and others.

Malicious Toast

Can you like, dislike, hate, love.. feel if you "let go" of everything else? Will you have any feeling left other then the feeling of utter bliss and numb the rest of the feelings? Do even the enlightened still have feelings other then bliss, and utter happiness? Do they still have any personality traits, or anything that makes them an "individual"?

Oh yes, even in buddhahood one experiences love. The difference is that when one is awakened, there is no attachment to these feelings. You can experience anger and joy without being attached to these feelings, or without being attached to any external object.

Of course that's easier said than done. Emotion is inseparable from thought, and so long as you are a thinking being, even should you eliminate your karma and awaken, you will experience emotion. There will simply be a radical change in the way you perceive and deal with these emotions.

Malicious Toast

Newbie question, I know, but I lack the teacher to answer them, and I've been pondering this since I started. x_x

These are very good questions, actually. At every stage in the path it's vital to review these things and to reflect upon them. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be able to do so. biggrin

I think that the idea is that when someone makes you angry, you try to not entangle that person with your feelings of anger. It is all about understanding your relationship to that anger. instead of getting caught up in "this person is making me angry," it might be more accurate to think "what this person has said made me angry." Even better still, perhaps you would think, "well, I feel angry now as a result of my aversion to what was said by this person. Perhaps I would feel more at peace if I let go of this anger."

Similarly, in the case of romantic love, the more healthy focus would be towards the feeling of love itself, not a clinging to the person from whom those feelings were inspired. One must accept that all things are temporary, and that it is not very productive to cling to and worry about something that must some day pass. The idea is to live earnestly in the present moment. Living in fear of the future will only hinder you.