tsuki

@Preetom This post should be sticked somewhere. My respect for you increased 10-fold. It may have been appropriate to talk about death in the context of enlightenment in the past, but unless you have experienced it, the cultural baggage surrounding this idea will mislead you to no end. Harming the body is not a path to enlightenment. It is ignorance grounded in a belief that a mind can be liberated from flesh. Flesh is not a prison.

Leo the white.

@now is forever I think that @Zigzag Idiot referred to that the energy needs to be spread equally throughout the system. If it stagnates in the thinking center, it becomes fuel for imagination and it's counter-productive. There is thinking, feeling and sensing. Don't forget the last one.

@How to be wise He was telling the truth in the context he was currently referring to. I haven't watched that video in a long time, so I can't answer directly, but calorie intake is a very crude model that does not deal with the composition of the food you're eating. My guess is that even if you wouldn't gain weight on KFC, it would decline your overall health due to undernourishment and chemicals.

@How to be wise Just to point out the obvious: Leo said "very very difficult", not "impossible". You sound like you're trying to prove him wrong. You can prove anybody wrong if you want to.

@Staples I consider the School of Life at least green, entering yellow. That, or a yellow enterprise that mass-markets watered down yellow ideas for the general public.

Not to brag, but it became my go-to language for thinking ever since I started posting here. If my relationship with a person is established in Polish, my internal dialogue with that person is in Polish. The inner dialogues with the forum folk are always English. My philosophical inquiry is always English too. I guess that it depends on the language I learned something in. Those two languages sort of flow without me noticing which one I'm using. I would love to think directly in mathematics though. That would be fun. I'm somewhat lost in the book's cosmology though. There is the Oracle, the Sage and numerous Helpers. Do you have any models of those entities? I like the idea that the Sage is my true self that I communicate with using the book. It had helped me tremendously so far. I'm very grounded in the now and very peaceful, emotionally speaking.

@Shadowraix Yes. They are what ego hinges upon. It has something to do with meaning. We can always flip a thought upside down to create an opposite. Meaning is a non-discursive feeling that attracts towards one polarity of a thought as opposed to another. Now that I think of it, beliefs may be the physical structure of the brain. That's a new one.

@kieranperez Are you looking for your own answers then? I know that feeling. My answer would never satisfy you in that case. I hope that one day you will find them, look back at this thread and laugh. Good luck!

@Tearos If you use contemplation as a technique for enlightenment, then yes. It is important to note that the complexity of your ideas will decrease as you progress, but it will be more and more difficult to put them to words and 'explain' them to 'other people'. Once you and your friend both get it, there will be not much to discuss in this domain between the two of you. If you use contemplation as a tool to refine your ideas about the world, then no. It depends on the starting assumptions you and your friend have.

@kieranperez Okay. Why are you contemplating then?

@kieranperez You are looking for answers. Existentially, satisfying answers are what extinguishes curiosity. Instead of satiating it with thoughts, it's more fruitful to balance it with doubt. You're doing great.

@kieranperez Yes, it gives no satisfaction to a mind that rages with curiosity.

@kieranperez There is no such thing as belief in my experience. There are thoughts about beliefs, but there are no beliefs themselves to be found anywhere. These thoughts form theories of cognition that explain the workings of what we call a mind. They are used to justify coherence of experience, which is ultimately unjustifiable. It is a feeling that appears by pure miracle. Metaphysically, I would say that beliefs are the substance of the mind. If I were to get cheeky, I would say that beliefs are a belief.

@mandyjw Yes, striving for enlightenment as escape from fear is counter-productive. The thing is, that you probably wouldn't have realized that if you haven't cleaned yourself with the said practices. The problem is that until now, you have chased enlightenment because your understanding of it promised benefits. Is it a problem with enlightenment, or is it a problem with your reasoning? Didn't you hear that enlightenment cannot be imagined? You have probably outgrown your model, so it may be a good time to re-evaluate your direction. I think that dropping the practices because of it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

We drew a hexagram for my wife. She asked: What should I do with my life? The response was 20. Seeing. The Judgement: The ablution has been made, but not the offering. Full of trust they look up to him. No changing lines. This is not funny at all. If I were to answer her question myself, I wouldn't be able to come up with a better answer. This hexagram deals with looking up to authority for acknowledgement of one's existence. We are both perfectly aware that this is one of her biggest issues in relationships - with me and professionally. Supposedly, it is instilled by the collective ego in childhood as a false belief that a child needs to be seen in order to have its needs met. This is how striving for visibility/fame is born. Out of fear of neglect. This is not funny at all. This shit blurs the line between superstition and transrationality. SHE NEEDED TO HEAR THAT! If I had received this message, it wouldn't fit! It's completely different from what I've received so far. It's also been a difficult test for my translation skills, as I've read this chapter in Polish out loud. I'm getting better at translating things on the fly. This book has very long sentences and unusual words. It's strange that I get the meaning of the sentence without having the full knowledge how each word maps to its Polish equivalent.

Yesterday I asked for hexagram for today and I received 33. Retreating/hiding. Changing line 6. The judgement: Retreating. Success. In what is small, it furthers to be firmly correct. Line 6: Cheerful retreat. Everything serves to further. The hexagram was useful yesterday. We watched Taxi Driver and it proved to be very unsettling emotionally for me. We had a discussion about the movie and it triggered a lot of guilt in me. This guilt is what is referred as 'small' in hexagram. Being firmly correct refers to the inner no. Priming my subconscious mind with hexagrams and the text is very fruitful for deprogramming. We're still struggling with the aftermath of the fight. It was not without an argument, but I followed the Sage's advice given in line 6. It refers to the fact that the Sage retreats for the sole purpose of teaching the person that he is acting from egoic standpoint. Depriving the ego of energy it feeds off is the best strategy to resolve the situation. We were even able to transform this energy to ahem, cardio exercise. My wife had a lot of insights about herself today. She even uttered something about working on her relationship with her father. She admitted to projecting a lot. Fingers crossed. Today, I consulted the sage on a method I'm supposed to use and I received guidance to keep reading all changing lines, but also transform the hexagram and read it as well. So, today I drew: 49. Renewal/Revolution/Ending fate. The judgement: On your own day, you are believed. Supreme success, furthering through perseverance. Remorse disappears. Line 4: Remorse disappears. Men believe him. Changing the form of government brings good fortune. Line 5: The great man changes like tiger. Even before he questions oracle he is believed. Line 6: The Sage makes changes like a panther. Without help, one molts only in the face. To be firm and correct brings good fortune. Hexagram transforms to 22. Grace: The judgement: Grace shows success. It is not favorable to create form for its own sake. Hexagram 49 mostly deals with renewal and its difference from revolution. It is explained in terms of Oracle's cosmology, the former being a Cosmic term, while the other is Collective ego's. The most important fact that I spotted is that Renewal has to do with removal of mistaken beliefs without installing any other in its place. Revolution on the other hand overthrows one egoic system with another. Apparently, it is a sign of ending of fate, which I associate with the banishing of my demon. My wife even asked me to ask the oracle for directions on her behalf. Let's see how this unfolds. The changing lines are an encouragement, but also contain warning. I am believed in by the people, but I am not to believe that I can lead them. I am also to be weary of trying to change them. Lastly, I should be weary of forming self-images with respect to this process. Hexagram 22 is about grace, which manifests as beauty of something through its uniqueness. This hexagram warns against creating form for its own sake and it clicked with my recent detachment from my work. I'll be mindful of that tomorrow.

@Zetxil When I was talking about the world built of hierarchical theories, I was referring to a psychological perspective of a hypothetical CEO, not a "physical" world. You misunderstood my point. No, we're not. We falsely attribute the invention of civilization to ourselves. We humans flowered out of nature and civilization flowered out of us. Human nature is still nature. Not going to argue with you, though.

@Pouya So, you are saying you live because you have ambitions. Wouldn't the reverse be true as well? You have ambitions because you live. So, you live and therefore have ambitions so that you can live. Isn't it the same as just saying that your survival takes care of itself? Your brain came up with thoughts to convince itself that it needs to live and you are watching those thoughts and buying into them. It is not wrong to buy into thought-stories as long as you do not put the cart before the horse. You are chasing your own tail, don't forget that. Your mistake is that you think that you think. Thinking is like breathing. You do not have reasons to think. Thoughts arise, like saliva drools. If you will require a reason to live, your brain will come up with one, and if you won't - it won't. You can only die now. Regardless of what plans you have, they will all be obliterated upon malfunction.

@Pouya Are you afraid that you will have no reason to survive once you lose your ambitions? Is this why you are not awakened yet? Enlightenment is realization of the absolute truth. It has been true your whole life, unbeknownst to you. Why would it change your life?

Do you need a reason to take care of your survival?

Only the ones that think they need reasons to do things. What is the reason you breathe for?

Chase, like a dog that chases its own tail not realizing whose tail it is? No. Chase, like a dog that chases its own tail for no reason in particular? Yes.

@mandyjw This whole business of afterlife sounds to me like an outdated vehicle for being detached from the present moment. Fortunately/unfortunately, we have science now and people are suspecting that something's up and the payday will never arrive, so they lose the benefits while retaining the downsides. How is enjoying the present moment foolish? Is presence opposed to thinking and planning? Don't you have to be present first, in order to plan? When exactly do you think about future? Aren't thoughts about future appearing always now? People get the weird idea that once you become enlightened, you become a catatonic that is unable to attend to himself. You are realizing the absolute truth. It has always been that way, even if you were ignorant. Don't expect fireworks.

@Truth Addict While I think that your observations are poignant, the depressing part comes from the fact that you're not taking it far enough. The company built on the shoulders of its employees is only possible through slapping an oversized cortex on a chimpanzee without giving it instruction manual on how to operate it. We are losing ourselves in ideas of future and past and the enslavement does not come from external exploitation, but through our unwillingness to admit that our plans are full of holes and external dependencies. This forces us to become blind, which manifests either as ferociousness, or compliance that gets us to the so-called top, or locks us as a helpless piece of the system. Living in a world that is constructed of hierarchical theories never leads to liberation. A CEO that builds his company by exploiting employees will find himself at the top of the human ladder only to see that he's now competing with companies instead of people. Companies that are waiting to bankrupt him and strip him of his luxuries. This is ignorance, samsara, fate. The truth is that we're animals, but we have the capacity to bullshit ourselves otherwise. We exchange energy freely, to eat, sleep and procreate, but our minds convince us otherwise. This bullshit is what we have to wake up from to be free.