Aakash

isn't it more like buddha was buddha but he realised the true nature of himself was nothing or nobody.

@Leo Gura is this because form is emptiness and emptiness is form? all it can ever be is the exact thing it is for everything

i see. getting stuck deciding between two variables is what your talking about

@Jack River both are illusions in truth, but i would still sit there and think about what i should and should not do then do it; instead of thinking of the first thing and then getting up and doing it through action, how does this sound?

but it still wants to know what it is ?

WOW @cetus56 that was actually a much better answer than all of mines put together!

neither the heart, body, soul, mind, brain , kidney , spleen, lungs , life , death, sight, sound, smell its all an illusion of emptiness

the one demoninator is the answer - its all an illusion, no matter what you come up with- with the mind

nevermind lool maybe i just read it wrong.

@ahmad ibdah i'm not gonna lie, i don't agree with anything you just said there. did you just say vegetables aren't a plant?

then to answer the top question, as a person whos pretty much used self inquiry to get where i am and hardly any meditation. yes it is a form of meditation with your eyes open. Its just a very dangerous ones, because you can get lost in concepts and create your own world out of thin air. whereas in meditation, the thing that is you is always there with you.

if i understood the question right, i would say there is still deeper levels. as far as i've come to understand it, the space/ silent doesn't exsist. once you notice this it can't be divisable by anything. so you don't have to question the nature of it throughout anything. you can't even imagine it or focus on it. you just know the nature of it.

@Ninie the problem is the mind is an illusion; the mind is an accumulation of thoughts technically. so letting the thoughts be is letting them pop up in your head and then just staying still not reacting to it by coming up with another thoughts example of these thoughts would be "ohh no i shouldn't have thought those thoughts" " i shouldn't be thinking, mind be quiet" "no mind , no mind , no mind , no mind mmmm" letting them be, is finding a space or gap in your thought stream where the thoughts on that category stop and you just remain in silence, after a while of attempting to do this you will get better at it.

how does one improve thought quality then?

@EvilAngel i think "being in the moment" your version of it, isn't quite what eckhart tolle meant, it comes after alot of spiritual work to understand what being in the moment is completely. i would advise you just look for psychological reasons as to why you it may be that your feeling lonely and maybe youll find an answer for example, 1) is it because i'm not happy with myself, that i feel lonely 2) why don't i feel lively and active 3) is being alone so bad in the first place, what does society say that makes me feel that being lonely is such a bad thing 4) should i be the one to generate my own love for myself then have an external love come and care for me make the questions up if you have too, just use these as guidelines to come up with your own questions. Don't stick to the questions i wrote, they're only to give you an idea for yourself.

i am in pain i am not in pain i am suffering i am not suffering both are in of itself false notions to truth but you will ultimately feel the pain and not the suffering by choice is "which came first is it the chicken or the egg" not the name of the game we are all trying the play here today

you should use it as spiritual practice, go past the pain, what is the awareness currently behind it? is it the one who is suffering and in pain pain and suffering in my opinion are one in the same thing

ill just give you a quote i heard once that i found very true you are the average of the five people you are closest too. with most of us here on this forum, i find the people around us aren't as conscious as we are, so they aren't able to make the same decisions we can from our knowledge and education. Therefore you have to make them for yourself and stick with them yourself and just see where it leads. normally, it will just go the way you don't want it to go. but hey, lool its just because you understand some things about happiness etc.. that others are still looking for in their own ways.

@Shakazulu i've been exactly where you've been once, probably much worse. My advice: just stop it completely- you don't really get anything out of it in the end . but its up to you

nevermind actually

@winterknight emptiness is emptiness why is there something and not nothing? there is not something at all, everything is nothing and that can not be put into words question: if i laugh at someones misery; because nothing is real when apparently an enlightened person is meant to cry alongside them or feel the pain of that person as they are hurting and cry with them would that be immaturity and ignorance as its not compassionate? but then knowing the truth i help them out after, is that still ignorance?

@Shadowraix what was your experience of it, so far? if you don't mind saying it that is. people obviously like to remain sincere and nice about it but i'm just curious for joyful reasons.

what if emptiness - empty of fullness, absolute emptiness - empty of the word emptiness, making it totally empty of anything , as in does not exsist nothingness- nothing if something absolute nothingness- did not exsist in the first place, was not even there, but is there as something. void - an area with nothing inside except itself absolute void - does not exsist inside void doesn't exsist - exsistance from non exsistance absolute non exsistance - does not exsist at all none of these words can actual encapsulate what it means to be itself non exsistance because of their counter parts, what if what was actual was that: none of it exist, i don't mean one second was there and next minute does not, i mean the most rawest nihilistic way that you can put non exsistance, without the use of time, space, location, form, colour, isness , wasness, thereness, sexyness, literally without anythingness. see i don't mean draw a concept in your minds eye about what it is because its simple the very thing doesn't exsist. lets do practical in actuality pick up a can of your favourite drink (can even be water) , look at it as if it doesn't exsist in front of your vision right now trick: you have to image yourself that you don't exsist aswell so the perceiver subject/ object vanishes but this is not the point lol... everything comes form the thing that does not exsist at all (nothingness) but you can't imagine nothingness its always dualistic so what is non exsistance - the being in everything the emptiness itself! that emptiness creates form so i mean lol the very thing you hear. see , smell , everything literally is just the formless as the buddist say emptiness is form and form is emptiness btw i'm not actually contemplating, i'm just sharing my results lol!

if everything is nothing, well the better word here is empty. empty of anything at all. Then where is perception occuring? is it perhaps that perception is not occuring then ; if everything is one , there is no truly one person percieving then that means that perception is also a belief because theres no such thing as perception. as everything is one. so it also means i'm not sensing anything either, the mechanisms of life are just turning in emptyness or actuality. there is then a self after determining dualistic factors. is hot, is cold , is nice , is not nice but really emptiness is emptiness; life is just occuring but this is in your being, your pure awareness thoughts in the same way are just thoughts, they are not happening in emptiness we are giving rise to them with our mind really the true emptiness is no thoughts being then and then if thoughts do come, we say it as it is truth (non egoic if non duality has been met) everything is emptiness therefore not real it is emptiness playing the character in the moment maybe even synchronicity and infinite intelligence