tsuki

@9thlife Because you're ignorant. You believe the stories you tell yourself about death - that it will bring you peace. The truth is that you don't know. What if even greater horrors await you there? With correct practice you can die while you live and see for yourself.

Yes, indeed we're talking about two different things. I just realized that. What you call common sense I would call practicality. Indeed, practicality seems to lessen in highly educated people, but I think that it is a byproduct of how we educate them. During education, we need standardized tests that have correct and incorrect answers to effectively grade students. Problems that spring organically never have "correct" solutions. All solutions inevitably fail, sooner or later, and we usually implement the most plausible one, so there is no room for comparison. This is never taught in schools because it undermines its whole philosophy. In real life problems, there is always this sense of uncertainty, shakiness. Theoretically-minded people try to solve this uncertainty by trying to analyse the problem down to its fundamental parts, but there are no fundamental parts. Depending on the theory one uses, the parts are different. There can also be no theory of which theory to apply, so this open-endedness of organic tasks is irreducible. It is a sign of being lost in the mind. The mind does not fix problems. It matches patterns. Theories are patterns. So, is there any point in learning theories? YES! This is the mistake that many practically-minded people make. Theories are distillation of practice to core principles. We can simulate reality using imagination using these core principles. The missing ingredient of education seems to be deliberate theory-making and theory deconstruction. A hand works with a hammer, but the mind works with theories. They are tools. What practically minded people often miss is the fact that they have their own theories of how things work, but these theories are much less developed than the ones that are taught. Scientists are the the people that craft the tools for the mind to work with. These tools are industrial grade, not just home brewed. I called common sense belief, because in my epistemology everything the mind works with is a belief. It is fundamentally grounded in ignorance (blindness). Simple unwillingness to deconstruct it. This is the tier one ego's job.

@kieranperez Your problems stem from mixing the relative and the absolute perspective. You are projecting your current meaning onto the world. The endgame is not to raise consciousness, or to enlighten everybody. Once you get it, there will be no point in enlightening anybody else. There will be no anybody else anymore. You are trying to play a spiritual version of a lesser jihad. It's a distraction.

@MellowEd If you want to state what you feel - wait until you can tell the difference between love and infatuation. If you want to declare your commitment - wait until you know that you want to devote your life to her.

I associate common sense with unexamined beliefs. Stages in tier one try to stabilize their sense of reality by constructing increasingly sophisticated (and inclusive) belief systems. These belief systems are grounded in ignorance (blindness). It manifests as a convenient loss of lucidity when the belief system is challenged. A person is unable to hear what the challenger says, as if he was speaking a different language. Words are grammatically and semantically coherent, but they do not connect. They are listened to solely for the purpose of formulating a coherent response. Emotions are given in to and they trigger pre-trained defensive thought loops. Blue ego is the first one to acknowledge the existence of belief. It uses its own belief system as a standard of validity of other belief systems. Orange ego recognizes the possibility of questioning its own beliefs. It uses consistency as the degree of certainty of a given belief system. Left brain thinking. Green ego recognizes that no belief system can ever be fully consistent. It believes consistency to be inferior (incomplete) and focuses on right brain thinking. In this sense, the first tier is driven by the examination of beliefs, a departure from common sense. Of course, common sense is still present because the exploration does not transcend belief, but simply makes it more and more subtle. This is the root cause of inter-stage conflict in my opinion. Because each stage expects other stages to behave according to their own unexamined standard. Green is a difficult stage because it is a kind of a dead end with respect to beliefs. Everything has been explored, but it needs to be integrated. Left and right brain seem incompatible because if one tries to use both, the result is a paradox. It seems like no answers can be given this way. The shift comes from using paradox as a lens to see the truth. Yellow sees it is a pivot of a given perspective. Transcending beliefs in tier two comes from recognizing that common sense and introspection are a paradox. From one point of view, common sense is a basis for communication, but on the other hand - it needs to be examined to find one's individuality. These two ends are a root of conflict in tier one, but in tier two they form acausal loop that is not disturbing for the ego In tier two, common sense is more about gracefully resolving situations without referencing belief systems. (I'm tagging you @Joseph Maynor because it seems to be compatible with your work).

@Viking Can't you see that you create these obstacles for yourself just so that you keep being engaged with life? This buying into reality of life, into realness of suffering is samsara. Suffering will not cease post enlightenment. You will still suffer, but you will realize that it's your own doing and it will lose its grip. You will not treat it so seriously even if sensations will remain the same. Your life will be exactly the same after enlightenment. You will be even more clueless after you experience kensho. Accepting this cluelessness is the gateway to liberation with respect to overcoming doubt.

@Viking The only liberation there is comes from acceptance of aimlessness of existence and being okay with its darkness. Don't you get it? The first rule of the show is that show must go on. This is why you will always wander aimlessly. Enlightenment doesn't change that. Realization is when you know that you're okay with life. You are okay with it as you are right now, but you don't know that yet.

@Viking Do not bind yourself by seeking liberation. Looking for meaninglessness is meaningful. When you doubt, start doubting whether you should doubt or not.

In my experience, the maze always keeps up with me. When I reach a stable plateau of peace, I can't wait to see what crazy stuff is going to happen to upset it. The anticipation is a reward in itself.

@okulele It's called the law of conservation of effort .

Hmm, how do I call this? A discussion? A fight? It took place yesterday evening and today morning. I was getting accustomed to red energy and to get the feeling of it impartially and what struck me is that it feels like bliss. Fucking bliss masquerading as anger. Why would I act this way in reaction to this feeling? It's sub-fucking-lime. Why would I lash out? OH. I want it to continue. I get high on it. I drown in it and lose lucidity. What the fuck? Who designed this shit? I want this guy fired haha.

No, I got over it. It was not a problem large enough to start a fight like that. Now that I think about it, what happened was actually good - it is just the surprise factor that got me. The problem is that I express red energy via verbal fighting. It dissipates it, but it is just stored 'in' other people. I want to be able to transmute it internally, but these kinds of situations are too rare to fit within my attention span. I should start a practice regarding that.

I have a problem with communication. Things are kept secret from me because I'm scary. I'm scary when I get angry. I get angry when I uncover secrets that concern me. How do I cope with people that have less volatile personality than mine? I get over stuff very quickly, but emotions keep coming back because they are stored in other people. I don't want to get angry, what do I do? Does the problem lie in my aversion to anger? Can I somehow transmute this anger into something else? Letting it out changes nothing. It's like want to cry, but I can't be honest with myself and lash out instead. I know that I've been hurt, so why can't I act appropriately? What is the appropriate action to being hurt? What I would really like to do is to laugh when I'm hurt, but I can't do that. Why?

I shouldn't have responded. I blew it. Sorry.

You're doing great. Why can't you handle responsibility?

You know deep down that it makes you suffer. That place you don't want to look at. You can wait, but it's much more patient than you are. It's easier now, when it's still fresh. It'll hurt but it's much better than picking scabs or cutting scars.

I got lost in the forum's wilderness again. I have to stick to this place. I'm here to journal, not to mindlessly browse irrelevant questions. Having a sharp mind is double edged sword. It helps as much as it hurts on the spiritual path. I can easily get how people express enlightenment through theories, but these theories are mostly an obstacle to awakening. The problem with enlightenment theories is that theories are used to train patterns of behavior and the point of enlightenment is the exact opposite. They can be used constructively only in so far as they are treated as food for deconstruction so that they are seen for their underlying meaninglessness. I suppose that this is how koans work. EDIT: Why do I even use declarative sentences? Now I have the urge to deconstruct this theory of deconstructing.

? The funniest thing is that once you mention how important you are - you've already lost it. I wonder if I ever be so in touch with reality to not even notice that I'm in touch with reality. I'd love that.

@Hansu Bingo! Yahzee! Ding ding ding! The discomfort of being called 'gay' is caused because you associate this stereotype with behavior that you would feel uncomfortable expressing. Other people may call you that, but would you feel hurt if you were actually okay behaving that way? No! So, 'healing' the discomfort comes from actually behaving like a flamboyant homosexual publicly until you're okay with it. People will find it funny, but your ego won't and that's the point (you may want to skip doing that at your new job ). Ancient stoics (or was it cynics?) stood in front of statues and begged to practice rejection for this reason. We eradicated the nerd stereotype by incorporating its usefulness. Nerds are the cool people now because they run the technology show. This is shadow work. Find the other side of things you reject to cure your hate towards it. Once you're free from it - you will be perfectly fine with people calling you that. @Nahm I'm sorry for cutting in. I hope that I'm not misleading him - please correct me if you think so.

@Hansu It depends on how important this stereotyping is to you and why. If you do this to be kind to others and not hurt them in the way you've been hurt - it's much more constructive to work on your vulnerability and do shadow work. This way you will develop sensitivity and resistance that will help you connect with people more deeply. I think that it's important to not demonize the mind for stereotyping because this mechanism has its merits. For example, instead of matching 'bisexual' with 'gay', you can train it to match whole theories and complex causal chains for problem solving. Of course - you do that every day, the question is - how conscious you are of that. I think that this area gets better as you become more conscious overall, so perhaps you could try some psychedelics if you are ready for them?

@Highest Bring the ox home. You're halfway there. And cut the white spaces. It just shows your insecurity.

@Highest What about the duality of: duality vs non-duality illusion vs truth attachment vs non-attachment samsara vs nirvana Aren't you just preaching spiritual ego's morality of no morality?

It's the minds job to match patterns with experience and it is not its fault that it picks them up randomly from culture while it's not self-aware. Sexuality is a big part of our personal identity, but taking those remarks personally is a mistake in my opinion. Most people do not care to deconstruct their thought patterns and therefore simply serve as transmitters of culture (and there is nothing wrong in being that). In this sense - your friends were not talking to you, but playing back prerecorded and unexamined messages. I may be abnormal in this regard, but I think that describing the depths of personality that you refine is simply a waste of breath. Unless you have a person you've been growing along with, there is a small chance that he/she will actually understand what you're saying. I find that the most fruitful way of communicating with people in 'real life' is simply being who you are and letting them drift in and out of your social circle. I don't think that there are any easy answers to your question. Deconstructing your thoughts is one of the big themes in spirituality and there is a great depth to it - even in Leo's videos. Journaling with this intent is a good start.

Reasons lie within the realm of ego. When you talk about highly awakened people, you may refer to: Ones that abide in eternal ego death. Blank mind. Those 'people' have no reasons whatsoever and interpreting their actions through this lens is nonsensical in my opinion. Ones that developed the ability to see through the egoic mind while retaining it. This ability can be used to put your self-refinement on overdrive, but it also means that you are still egoic and prone to errors. I have a hunch that Peter Ralston is in the second category.

I'm playing the "you're projecting" card before anybody else does.