tsuki

That's the difference between idiot and a fool/jester. A perfect idiot in @Zigzag Idiot's sense cannot know that he is an idiot, as the notion of idiocy itself is a manifestation of the common delusion he's secluding himself from. A fool on the other hand is self-aware and uses his detachment from society in a constructive manner. A fool is not an idiot as he takes a vital (albeit counter-intuitive) role in the circus of the human affairs. A fool cannot give away too much of the show, however, as that would be destructive. The best fools look nothing like fools. They become Zen masters. Hmm, it is safe to discuss fool's matters with other fools?

Yes, to some degree. I think of it like this: all understanding is local. It's like a linear approximation of non-linear reality. Having a plan and following it is great for some time, but after some point - you have to evaluate its accuracy and be ready to abandon it. If you stick to it for too long, you are bound to suffer. It is not that understanding and growth are necessarily evil, but our clinging to it past its usefulness make them such. This is how Ego ties with intelligence. All of that being said - just try to not understand things and not grow and observe the immense amount of suffering you will experience. So, the only way out is to simply understand the operating system you run on and let it do its thing.

To fuck up is yet another sentiment of the human mind. I'm not saying that it is an invalid sentiment, as there are better or worse ways to spend your time on this planet. Nonetheless - applying strictly human logic of good and evil to something that we are a manifestation of is unwise at best. Think of it like this - if you cut your hand with a knife, blood will run down your arm. It's bad. As you zoom in, a scab starts to build to stop the blood flow. It's good. As you zoom in, the cells in your bloodstream constantly eat each other and fight. It's bad. As you zoom out - without the process in your blood, you wouldn't even be alive. If you stay stuck at the perspective of the mankind - it's obvious that people killing each other is something disharmonious, but harmony and chaos are two sides of the same coin. You can say that god is so perfectly harmonious that it incorporates chaos into its perfection. Or alternatively - god is so chaotic that its chaos is unstable and results in structure. To pick a side and believe that we need to defend against evil is how suffering is born.

Didn't we? As far as I know we all came from Africa and turned against each other out of our own ignorance. Why would god (reality) adhere to rules of minds that it manifests? Common plain field is our ignorant notion sentiment.

I'd say that the world is a chaotic system and these are the results of its sensitivity to initial conditions. It's similar to our cosmological models where random fluctuations of minuscule universe grew into galaxies.

@WindInTheLeaf So, it seems like there is something rather than nothing because of expectation. What is the experience of expectation? How does it feel like? Can you point your finger towards it?

Here's a great talk from Alan Watts that shows the difference between the two terms: @now is forever @Zigzag Idiot In short, a fool is a role incorporated by society that serves to remind it that it is a form of play. Not a play in a childish manner, but in a sort of theatrical way. Like Hamlet. It is reminiscent of what a Bothisattva is - a person that gives away that this whole thing is a sham, but in a respectful manner. He/she does it in such a way that does not make people resent themselves for participating.

@WindInTheLeaf How about this question: How is nothing different from something?

I'm not familiar with Gurdjieff's mysticism but I strangely resonate with this passage. Losing sight of wisdom (conscience?) is not only about forgetting, but even forgetting that I forgot it. Strangely enough - it always comes back, although at its own pace. Do you find that the trust in what happens 'behind our back' is important? I mean - that, which happens without self-remembering.

Are you familiar with the Enneagram? Your video about 5 fools seems a lot like it. It gives no room to escape. Too bad that it does not elaborate on the foolishness of the zero fool. Maybe I am a zero fool and I can't see why it's foolish? (nevermind, I found another video!) Here's a channel with good type descriptions. I'm a type six:

You're welcome. Ultimate, as the absolute? No. What I meant is simply that freedom itself is constrained. It is constrained by the fact that we cannot be free from it (from freedom itself). We cannot renounce it. Even if you exercise your freedom by committing to meditation, you are always free to un-commit yourself. This is why self-discipline is difficult if you are a mindful person. There are of course people that are unconsciously self-disciplined. They have been whipped in to this shape by their environment. They are not able to question the validity of this self-discipline and it is easier this way in a sense.

That is very insightful, thank you.

In retrospect, I have been on the path for as long as I can remember. I have always been a curious kid with a keen eye and desire to get to the bottom of things. I stumbled across Leo 2-3 years ago when I wanted to learn about meditation. This is how I learned that there is such a thing as a path. Since then, meditation sort of meshed with my everyday life and I realized that pursuit of wisdom is the most important factor of my life. My first awakening happened around 5 years ago, spontaneously during a few weeks long guided self-inquiry with Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. The method mostly consists of contemplation, meditation (do nothing, zazen, sometimes sds, mindfulness), and self inquiry. The biggest challenge is that I value self-reliance and intuition a lot and my revelations are mostly untranslatable.

How about enforcing them to be degradable instead? That would also solve the problem you're mentioning. Note that I am not denying the importance of preserving the environment. I am asking why banning is a sustainable solution. I have an intuition that it isn't. You can't just ban things that industry is addicted to and expect it to comply.

@Zweistein Can you share your thoughts on why is it a good idea to ban single use plastics?

Wisdom is expressed through spontaneous actions that are appropriate.

Freedom and restraint are not exclusive, but interdependent. Freedom is the possibility of performing an action, but the action itself results in restraint. For example: you are free to choose your style of clothing, but your style is expressed by choosing to not wear certain combination of clothes. if you have money, you are free to spend it, but spending it constrains it to a certain physical form (a good) that is not as easily convertible back to pure potential (freedom/money). you are free to earn money, but this action results in certain set of behaviors that is constrained by the work culture. When it comes to self-discipline - you are willingly constraining your behavior in a way that you find beneficial. No constraint and no freedom are actually ultimate and you can always chose back to not discipline yourself. This is why it is difficult and we admire people that can commit to it.

Hmm, still dealing with ego backlash. Dealing is not the right word. Seeing? Yesterday was very difficult. The mind kept alternating between silencing itself and being afraid of going back to work. Today is much better because my programs seem to have finished without problems, but I still feel bored and worthless. I suddenly want to liberate myself from work, I want to start business and become filthy rich. How does this thing even work? The mind says that the mind is deluded. How do I whip the monkey into submission? Or does the monkey whip itself and gets angrier and angrier? I really don't want to relapse back into my addictions to soothe it, but I don't have any new habits to replace them. The only thing left for me to do is just meditate and self-inquire, but doesn't it make it actually worse? Hmm... did I just get whipped into submission by the monkey? Ohh, you little rascal. You almost had me! Go ahead. Make me suffer. I can take it.

How is "being everywhere with Breath" different from focusing on it?

Is there a problem in this case? The general advice I've come across is: if it ain't broke - don't fix it.

@Tony 845 Can you connect to the other energy centers as well? If yes, then I'd recommend redirecting some of the pulsating energy of the third eye to the lower ones if it's too uncomfortable.

Materialist society was not created by our fear of death. We were able to observe our fear of death in relation to materialist society. We did not create our current condition, as creation implies deliberate intent. All we wanted to do is solve our problem of basic needs by employing our intellect. We succeeded in this enterprise to some degree, but the true value of our undertaking lies in the interpretation of the result. That is because our intellect is both what solves the problem of survival and creates it. This is why we first had to scale technology up to survive (to the point of unsustainability), and now we need to scale down for the same reason. This is not a process of survival, but a process of self-knowledge. This is how we learn to accept ourselves along with our mortality. We are bound to repeat this process until we observe that reality is mirror-like (self referential). That what we resist - persists. So, how does the idea of death come into the picture? It is not universally true that: because contemplation on the passing nature of existence is a method of attaining enlightenment (which entails liberation from stories). First, we unconsciously run away from death, then we try to come to terms with it, and finally - we embrace it. This requires to us to counter-intuitively see that we run away from death because it terrifies us, and it is terrifying because we're unwilling to face it. I personally find the idea of death comforting. No mark that I could leave upon the world is as permanent as my own erasure.

There is nothing to be achieved. The more ambitious goals you have, the more you suffer for your inadequacy. The more you suffer for your inadequacy, the bigger the drive to develop yourself. The bigger the drive to develop yourself, the more work you put in. The more work you put in, the greater and greater trophies you collect. Any achievements you put into your trophy-box fuel your imagination and your mind comes up with more goals. Ad nauseam. But you probably know that. In that case - just a reminder. Cultivate a peaceful mind.

Is it really a problem? If it is a problem, then can you really sit all day being content?

@now is forever I'm not used to people being this nice to me so I don't know what to say other than: thank you.