Consilience

@CARDOZZO Wow these are honestly great. Thanks for the post. 👊

What changes is the spontaneous self-recognition of the nature of reality/mind/awareness/consciousness/God Which then: "changes is your relationship to your thoughts and emotions" "still arise, but you’re no longer automatically identified with them. You’re not building an identity or a story around every feeling." " There’s a natural sense of presence—of being here—without needing to control the mind. You’re still human. You still fall down—but you don’t get lost in it the same way, and you get back up. Life stays ordinary. The circumstances don’t transform. The shift is internal — in how you relate to the voice in your head." Basically everything you mentioned is true, but without the actual "aha" moment of recognizing what's absolutely true, all of what you said can be achieved with metacognition from normal meditation. I'd recommend checking out Peter Ralston's definition of enlightenment.

Right. This passage I'm quoting is a mechanistic description of karma which is why I shared. Setting aside the question of control, karma is generated based on our actions.

This excerpt from a Buddhist sutra comes to mind: "To the extent that there are beings — past and future, passing away and re-arising — all beings are the owner of their actions, heir to their actions, born of their actions, related through their actions, and have their actions as their arbitrator. Whatever they do, for good or for evil, to that will they fall heir." - Upajjhatthana Sutta (AN 5.57) In other words, whatever karmic momentum we generate in this life will unfold in the next. The way I see it is that reality is too intelligent, too in balance for our actions not to influence the results of our lives, whether in this current expression or beyond. And furthermore, we see this mechanism of karma playing out all the time in this single life - why would the intelligence of cause and effect, karma, suddenly stop from one life to the next?

@Ziran

Lmao. Nah I'm done with spiritual arguments. Surprised Leo had enough patience not to boot me lol.

@Leo Gura Thank you

Don't really participate much on the forum these days but still check in occasionally. I'm still very much dedicated to the path and to practice. These musings came through this evening after spontaneously meditating and this is probably the only community I'm apart of that would appreciate or gain anything from the writing, so I thought I'd share. It's not a logical argument or intended to convince or explain. The coherence will either resonate at an intelligence beyond the egoic mind, or it may come across as incoherent and at worst, arrogant. It's the reader's choice. - Compassion is the functional expression of absolute love which are words pointing to the absolute truth. The truth of the matter is that suffering can only exist when there is ignorance of truth. This is why meditation is so powerful in the long run, it is a direct excavation of the conditions leading towards suffering. While meditation may not offer the full range of the infinitude of consciousness’s myriad forms which may otherwise be accessed through other means such as psychedelics, meditation does offer a meta-contemplation into the nature of reality by way of resolving suffering. The ignorance of what form is, in any expression regardless of state, is what allows for suffering to unfold and therefore is ignorance of form’s nature. What do we see when we see clearly into form? Many things. One of which is that there is no one looking which is to say there is only God. Noticing the contradiction of logic, how could no one and God be identical? But such paradoxical thinking becomes coherent in the aftermath of direct experience of what you really are. When looking at the world, what is there? Cyclical existence, filled with countless beings? Or one wholeness, impossible to divide? Any perspective held onto as preferentially true is used as the prejudice needed for self-deception; the self arises in clinging to any perceptual unfolding reflecting either the full range of relational reality or the unspeakable expression of formless space as absolute now. We see that form is not merely infinite distinction, but that more specifically, distinction only exists as relationship, dependent co-arising. There is no such thing as distinction outside of the meta-context of relationship. A more accurate depiction of relative reality, ie form, is relationship. Reality is infinite relationship. When self arises, so too does other. And the moment other arises, how could anything other than love arise? When we truly see other, when we’re truly with the suffering found in our own hearts and minds, right within the distinction there is union. We see through separation into the paradox of other that there is neither other nor solipsism, neither no one and me here now. And yet, it is not my suffering or your suffering, but our suffering. There are no sentient beings to save, and yet nothing for the Love of God to do other than vow to save all sentient beings until perfect happiness is achieved by all, by one, by no one. Compassion, therefore, automatically arises in responses to seeing the truth. When the truth of one’s deepest desires are found, when the truth obstructing the truth is seen in every corner of the mind, when original primordial perfection is seen to exist in the same place as hell, as being endlessly lost on the rounds of cyclical existence, there is only a single wish - may all beings be free. Relative Bodhicitta is discovered in relationship with all beings and is non-dual with Absolute Bodhicitta as being the nature of God. Shantideva’s ending dedication then makes sense - For as long as space endures For as long as living beings remain So then too may I abide To dispel the miseries of the world We see suffering is simultaneous with being a perfect expression of God and the very mechanism by which God is ignorant of itself. We see that there is really nowhere to go or nothing to do, perfection was always already the case. And we vow to exert ourselves to the fullest, committed to endless rebirth until all beings are happy. Knowing with absolute certainty there is no birth, death, or self Only original reality Our original face What we really are And when what we really are stares into the eyes of what another really is, there is just love; there is just the compassion that sees one being doing its best in face of samsara, as though two mirrors staring at one another, unfolding into an infinite hall.

Thank you. Was he actually enlightened? I think Soryu has had direct experiences of the Absolute yes, but that it's not as deep or transformative as would be expected of a man claiming global spiritual authority. The lack of realization slowly revealed itself the more time I spent in the community. On the surface he's very impressive, very charismatic, very persuasive, and has an enormous amount of energy which creates a kind of transmission by being in his presence, which is indicative of having access to very deep states of consciousness via meditation. Yes the whole experience was enormously transformative, spiritually, in so many ways. And thank you for the kind words of encourage.

A friend sent me a link to a medium article that was posted July 9th, 2025 completely unrelated to my release of this video, but that shares another story of these same dynamics. Very interesting timing. It's a very quick read, you can check it out here: https://medium.com/@monasticacademyresident/my-experience-inside-soryu-foralls-ai-centered-monastic-academy-769deefe6e34

Yeah it is, and to make the decision despite the overwhelmingly toxic group think and social pressure is a lesson in mental resiliency and integrity. It's very sad in this particular example because of how different it was when I began there. However in hindsight, the possibility of its devolving into a more run of the mill like cult were there from the beginning. Appreciate the vulnerability and share!

Thank you. I was looking for hardcore, full-time spiritual training which MAPLE does indeed offer. I was also looking for work around the intersection of contemplative practices like meditation and existential risk, which MAPLE also did and technically still does offer. It's just that this offering has slowly morphed into typical cult dynamics over the course of my time in the community. It was a very different community when I first began training there.

It's also a demonstration of incongruent values, self-deception, and domination on the part of the collective. You're also not going to be able to understand the exact mechanisms of abuse, even from this one small "inconvenience" of an example, from an internet comment when the context is completely removed and how this example fits into the larger relational web of my place in the community and the history and culture of the community. There is: - The act itself - what is communicated implicitly to those who have stayed - what is communicated explicitly about me to those who have stayed - the mind/karma that is reinforced with this act Rather than getting hung up on the smallness of the example, look at the collective mind that gave rise to that decision and the implications of that mind. Also you've got to remember - these were my supposedly close, spiritual friends. To have them essentially flip and turn on me over night is more than an inconvenience. But that's all relative to how much value you place on friendship. Perhaps I should have given more specific examples in the video. I suppose I could pin a comment giving a list of the specific examples. Many of the vague examples I give only those who are connected to the community will know what I'm referring to, so it is a fair point. And was an intentional move on my end that does three things: 1) Speaks directly to the MAPLE community. 2) Protects me. 3) Is hopefully communicated powerfully enough to ward off others from going to MAPLE. It's difficult because as of right now I'm the only one who has really come forth who has the authority to speak on MAPLE and therefore it puts me in an incredibly vulnerable position should any legal action be pursued. Unfortunately, airing out all of the dirty laundry entirely alone would be a difficult thing to do that does not feel entirely safe to pursue, at this time.

@Leo Gura Also thank you for watching and giving your feedback.

Because MAPLE is explicitly self-proclaiming unilateral spiritual authority over humanity it is precisely not a typical Zen monastery hierarchical structure nor a typical organizational hierarchical structure, such as the military. It's emphasis on using one man's ideological framework as the basis for civilizational, spiritual transformation makes it distinctly different. Many of the mind control techniques you list in your own cult psychology video I also listed in mine so I'm curious whether you watched the full video or perhaps missed them? Here is a list though: Extensive meditation, chanting, sleep deprivation, a constant high stress work load, very limited amount of free time or room for individual contemplation, instances of public humiliation, an environment that swings between love bombing and harsh anger, a total lack of personal space, constant 2-3 hour talks around ideology of head teacher, a constant emphasis on ideology (rather than contemplation) as the path to truth, a putting down of non-Buddhist teachers or spiritual teachers or thinkers that disagree with the ideology, an us vs. them mentality reinforced through mechanisms of fear, a replacing of one's personal identity with a new identity (taking on new name, dress code, etc.), very intimate, vulnerable one-on-one interviews with head teacher, warped expressions of Buddhist teachings centered around the demonization of thoughts, feelings, and the mind which act as mechanisms of the erosion of one's own self-sovereignty, authority, and trust, and of course, the classic "The world is ending!" framework. As far as harm, I did name multiple instances of abuse in my video that I personally witnessed. But even to take my own story - notice how little the organization considered the financial and physical vulnerability of giving me less than 24 hours notice to leave as a type 1 diabetic. The emphasis was on the suppression of dissent rather than the well being of a three year community member.