LastThursday

If an enlightened Zen master is walking in the forest and afterwards tells you a tree fell, did it make a sound? Every perception 'this' is aware of, is always second-hand - except the perception of 'this'.

I sympathise. Even if I try to broach the sniff of a hint of non-duality with my friends or family or co-workers, they'll think I'm a lunatic. It is indeed very unnerving when you meet someone who will even contemplate it. Thankfully, I had this experience in a pub in Eire with a life coach. I didn't know her too well, but the drinks were flowing and the music was playing. The long and short of it, was that she well understood what non-duality was getting at, she even suggested I try mushrooms. Which I look forward to some time. My retort was that she had work to do on herself. She was bitching about people she didn't get on with, so I suggested she herself 'take on' a behaviour she particularly disliked and tried that behaviour out for herself for a day. She was perplexed, until I said 'the behaviour is not "out there', it's inside you, come to terms with it.' Now there's life coaching in action! And probably some semblance of non-duality.

@egoless Of course, you should lead by example (?). Do it! Don't assert. BE it. My personal mission is to keep re-iterating till I'm blue in the face, STOP HOLDING ON TO YOUR PET IDEAS, reality is smarter than you.

@Faceless its worse/better than that: a kaleidoscope of unfathomable pretty shapes and sounds and feelings and sensations forever dancing? I should be a poet...

I'd go further and say memory is in fact THE thing that makes the whole of awareness of experience possible. WTH is it? Where is it accumulated? What is accumulated? Strip memory away and what are you left with?

Yes and, no. It's one of: They are both parts of the same thing (you, non-duality, AI, god, yadda yadda), and so cannot be separated. So no. The universe is just a construct of our collective minds. You believe in a universe because you've been told a story, which you believe. So no. The mind is a construct of our minds. You believe in a mind because you've been indoctrinated into believing you have one. So dunno. Your mind is real and exists inside a real universe. So yes. Again, being a devil's advocate: You cannot be aware of not being aware. Anything to the contrary is hearsay and stories told to you by others and which you believe. So no. 'You' as body/mind don't actually exist - again more stories - you are actually non-dual, AI, god, yadda yadda. So meaningless question. You were actually born into the world as a human being along with 7 billion others and your conciousness developed from nothing as you got older and there's nothing at all weird going on. So yes. You, your memories and the whole of existence came into being just now. So dunno. There is no time, it's a construct of your mind - more stories. So meaningless question. And my point? Be flexible in what you believe, don't cling too tightly to your beliefs, otherwise it's just blind faith.

It seems like to 'get to' Enlightenment you have to break loose from the grip of reality. I thought I would share some of my mental thought exercises I practice regularly: Easier: There is no cause and effect - it's all one huge coincedence. This is possible in an infinity, you're just lucky to be around when all this coincedence is occurring. There is no yesterday and there is no tomorrow at all, in fact it's meaningless. The death of the dinosaurs and your birth and death are now. The guy in the mirror is not 'you', the voice in your head is not you, and also you don't have a head. Harder ones: I am in my feet not my head. The colour green is exactly the same as the colour red is exactly the same as the sound of middle C. I am not living my life in any particular order, getting older every day, it just seems this way due to habit. I and my memories and the whole universe was just created fresh, just now, right now (not last Thursday as some believe). The only thing that's real is your memory of it being real. I would love if you shared yours.

But for that to happen it takes tremendous effort? My current take on who/what 'I' am, is the awareness for whom the universe was conjured up for its delight and despair. @InfinitePotential thank you. I shall try that out.

@Ether that's exactly what I'm getting at. I'm told I don't see reality as it is because I'm not Enlightened, so I need to learn see it differently no? It's also said that Enlightenment is death, isn't that breaking reality? @cirkussmile if I forget about mind games then how do I 'get to' Enlightenment, will it spontaneously happen without mental effort? Isn't meditation, drugs etc just mind games; or 'playing with your mind', albeit without words?

Notice how the bliss lasts a little bit after you wake up. Keep extending the bliss, a little bit longer each morning, hold on to it, how would you do that? Practice. That bliss is a message.

@vanish Hang on a minute. To awaken presuposes that you're asleep - a.k.a. having a dream. But unless you've awakened before, how would you know you're asleep and that it is actually possible to awaken? How can you trust anyone else's word for it - they're just dream characters? And anyway, where's the 100% certainty that you will awaken INTO something else? And to be honest how do you know this is the same dream every day? Maybe you're awakening all the time? Just chewing the fat...

@vanish @Leo Gura I apologise for being confused. I thought you meant physically die, but actually you meant physically die. I also thought you meant enlightenment when you actually meant awakenment.

How do we know he hasn't already? You don't know that. Nobody does. Maybe you will become enlightened, maybe it will just be another dream. This dream is just a dream, but you gotta admit it's a fucking awesome experience? And just maybe you can be enlightened AND enjoy the dream. Anyway, read this, it makes a good analogy for your situation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager

I've taken on board 5-Leo-Dmt's teachings (I love him BTW. But non-sexually I hasten to add). So. I'm living in a dream. The thoughts that occurred to me, are many-fold. Firsty: am I living one dream at a time? Secondly: if no, what is it like to live more than one dream simultaneously? Thirdly: exactly how many dreams am I living at once? Fourthly: does one dream influence the other? These are my basic conclusions: I live in three dreams. 1. The dream of the ever present NOW. This is the world of of sensation, colours, and lights and sounds and feelings and and and... 2. The dream of the thought. The world of concepts and constructions and rationalization. Monkey Mind. Ego. 3. The dream of night dreams. Spurious situations and weird incoherent happenings whilst I'm in bed. So what about it? It seems to me like dream 1 is sort of like Enlightenment, pure, unadulterated; without judgement, bias, etc. Dream 2, is permanence. It's what give the world substance, memory, recognition, structure, this sensation begat this other sensation. Dream 3, is fluid, little thought, very much like dream 1, but less intense, more ephemeral, beautiful, calm, easy. It appears then that Dream 2 is the bully. It sprays itself over the other dreams and pretends to be King. 'I am dream 2' it declares. Dream 1 doesn't care, it asserts itself as much as it can and goads Dream2 into its fantasies. And Dream 2 ensures that Dream 1 comes back day after day. OMG, I've had this dream before, it's sooo familiar. Dream 3 is completely free and cares not about the other two. Except it's too flaky and gives everything up to the other two at a moment's notice. However. Dream 3 is where it's at. That's where the peace is at. Is there a dream 4?

@deci belle sorry, I hope no offence was taken by my reply in any way - in fact I hope it's the opposite - I appreciate your response. I can be somewhat blunt or sarcastic, but mean no harm. I guess it's easy to say "don't use mental models" to achieve enlightenment, but in practice this is a difficult thing to do (for me anyway). I suppose meditation and other practices are ways around this problem. My particular way to go about things is to build up a mental model and then knock it down, by a kind of reductio ad absurdum. I reckon if I do this enough times, something will eventually go pop. So fire away! This is exactly the response I like. With regards to my three dream model (3DM), I can see both sides. Firstly, it's as ridiculous as saying my body is composed of three things: limbs, torso, head. Well... yes it is, but that's not really my body. My body is a single entity (from a materialist standpoint) and hence can't be divided. So as for 3DM: I pretend there's parts to my awareness (whatever that is) only so that I can eventually discover it's actually indivisible. So how to prove my model is ridiculous? Here goes: There's a kind of 'flow' between the dreams. Dream #2 is clearly influenced by dream #1, thoughts often revolve around what's happening now, I miss the bus, I thing angry thoughts. Dream #3 also seems to often have elements of dream #1, familiar faces, places and situations and sensations. Dream #3 also often affects dream #2 especially on waking up and may even put you in a bad mood with negative thoughts. Dream #2 also greatly affects what you experience in dream #1. You decided to take a vacation abroad and hey, everything's different! So clearly there's an interplay between the different dreams in all directions. This already smells. It's hard for something to be separate, if it commingles with other things. This is why entanglement in quantum theory actually breaks the materialist paradigm. QED. By the way, this is why I often think that expunging thought from enlightenment is like proving the body is indivisible by cutting an arm off. But slowly slowly the impression I'm getting is that enlightenment, is actually inconceivable by my present self.

Just do any boring task. In my experience time goes very slowly. I find meditating 10 minutes, seems like three days. Note: that is neither a good thing or a bad thing - phew.

This is terse: Thanks . Dream #3 followed by dream #1 and then dream #2 will answer tomorrow.

I don't know about psychadelics. But honestly, what is insanity? Non-conformity, inconsistency, irrationality? What else? Is it good or is it evil? Can you embrace it, or is it too weird and scary?

Life is a like a dance. You foxtrot with some and salsa with others. And eventually you realise every step is a joy. But it doesn't come easy. EDIT Obviously, that's the soundbite answer. I'm I awakened? Probably not. But one realisation that I've applied is that neither the past nor the future can touch or hurt me (they're illusory). There's a great freedom in this if you can fully embrace it. It involves great a mental practice of 'letting go' and 'letting things be'. If you can just not grip on to things so tightly, life becomes a great deal easier and less painful.

5-Leo-DMT ahahaha soo sorry ahahhahaha

Bingo. You are the one dream that rules them all. Those three dreams are bullshit. They vie for your attention, but you are not the dreams. What are you?

Can consciousness be captured inside a machine? To a certain extent, yes. We watch TV, play computer games and listen to music. And we can escape into those media. What exactly about conciousness can be captured? Well, a computer is all numbers. Numbers are ordered into a one dimensional number line. But computers can reproduce sights and sounds and even touch. What's the common element between all these computery happenings? Intensity. That's what allows computers to reproduce a slice of reality. They encode a slice of 'reality' by using a sliding scale of intensity. The insensity can be anything, from 'black' to 'bright red' or 'silent' to very loud 'drum beat'. Take a moment and think about why computers are so good at reproducing reality. Why do you get completely absorbed in a TV programme or computer game or pornography? What about our ordinary concious happenings is so special that it can be captured and re-played? What is it exactly?

Did you know that the crescent of the moon always points towards the sun? But if not for the sun, the moon would be invisible. And likewise you are the sun that illuminates the world and the whole world always points towards you.

My two cents: I would be a different person everyday and throw away the old me when I sleep.

Intelligence is just like enlightenment, if you truly have it, you either don't realise you have it, or you don't brag about it, because it's nothing special.