Consilience

One of the most helpful resources you can have with awakening is inner peace, learning/developing a mind capable of abiding in being and the formless bliss that results from such development. Daily meditation is where Id start. If you already have this practice in place, learning how to develop shamatha, shamatha meditation. This not only develops concentration, it brings unification and harmonization to the mind, both of which are indispensable for deeper levels of awakening.

Appreciate the callout. Im trying to try to reach enlightenment. Lol. Keep in mind, a lotus only blooms in mud. Suffering is not wasted. ❤️ Generally agree with @BipolarGrowth. A fast way to further one‘s development on the path is practicing in difficult situations. However it’s worth noting this can either be done skillfully or unskillfully. Striking an appropriate balance of stress is crucial to be successful with this approach.

In the way that there is no such thing as separate you. You and reality are inextricably whole. All sense of separation from your external environment is an optical illusion produced by the mind for the purposes of self survival. If this lack of separation was seen, not only would your identity expand out to include the infinity of the universe, death would be seen to be illusory as well and all ideas of a self would evaporate.

But it is not the same appearance, therefore what does one actually mean when one says appearance is the absolute? What appearance, precisely?

You’re missing the point/not addressing what my post is pointing towards. Nothing you wrote contradicts the observation here. The very moment experience comes into being is the very moment that qualia of experience passes away. Therefore, how can experience be said to exist when the very moment experience comes into being it passes away? When we say appearance is absolute reality, that demands we understand what appearances actually are. Not our ideas of appearance, the ACTUAL nature of appearance.

You can project and strawman all you want man. It’s not my problem if you don’t believe me. Impermanence is one of the lowest hanging fruit too, but also easily underestimated in its significance. Was simply curious how you reconcile this paradox of appereance. Turns out you haven’t really seen into the full nature of appearance because if you had, you’d understand where my inquiry was coming from rather than going internet forum aggro mode and claiming Im parroting spiritual bs. Which tbh, it’s really strange how defensive you got. The tone of our posts and responses speak for themselves. good luck dude

I agree. The natural next question is what is experience? The reason this has arisen is because of direct experience. It seems we’re speaking from two different resolutions of viewing reality. Truth is unchanging, this is correct. Both permanence and impermanence are unchanging, by definition. The duality between the two collapses. Anyways, thank you for the responses. The second but not just in its lack of infinitude, but additionally in its lack of minutia. There is no such thing as a body when one experiences the body directly, precisely because of what I was speaking about regarding the impermanence above. Tbh I was just trying to make your claims even more of a mind fuck. ?

Sheesh you got really defensive man. I wasn’t trying to argue or even insinuate disagreement, I was asking a question based on direct experience. I understand that. This is as obvious as your post implies. Suchness is the Absolute. I don’t disagree. But what happens when one’s mind becomes so clear, the ignorance needed for the appearance of solidity to appear is no longer present? What is the nature of all appearance when appearance is ceasing to construct itself because time, space, solidity, and separation are all seen through? In simple terms, one can literally and directly observe: “If all appearances pass away at the moment of their appearing (absolute impermanence), how can appearances be said to exist?” Im not playing spiritual or Buddhist games. This is a legitimate metaphysical and ontological inquiry for the serious truth seeker. If the mind is so concentrated on God “a thing” can no longer come into being, what does this say about the nature of appearance? And Im not making any claims here or insinuating anything other than a curiosity on how you hold this deep observation. None of this inquiry comes from Buddhism other than impermanence, which isn’t even strictly buddhist! All spiritual schools have their flavors and comments on impermanence. Impermanence is one of the most foundational, metaphysical observations one can make about the nature of reality. Don’t let your biased against Buddhism bias you from taking seriously the actuality of impermanence. Edit: The clarity that emerges when once actually sees into the depth, significance, and ironically, permanence of impermanence regarding time, space, and all appearances is that it has always been this way. Any sense of solid reality could only have been an illusion.

Yes. Look into Rob Burbea’s teachings on the energy body. That’s going to be the easiest, most practical way to break through the persistent sensory contraction state of body sensations. You can train this skill until the sensations of the body can expand out into infinity, or contract back into nothingness, until this pendulum of expansion and contraction is one movement, the same movement, on a single scale.

If all appearances pass away at the moment of their appearing (absolute impermanence), how can appearances be said to exist?

There actually isn’t even a physical body.

Really cool poll!

Im not super familiar with their work but it seems great! Opposite for me. And in fact, the overwhelming majority of individuals Ive met who are serious about spirituality have used psychedelics and found great benefit with them. I don’t really disagree with what you’re suggesting though.

I see the legalization/mainstream use of psychedelics as being a pre-requisite for spirituality to become mainstream. As it stands right now, the amount of work required for meditation to become spiritual to those locked in mainstream paradigms is too large, requires too much questioning. Psychedelics will begin forcing the larger population to question everything though. In fact, if spirituality does not become mainstream in some capacity, I personally do not think humanity can face the many mounting existential threats. And I view psychedelics as a sort of white night capable of helping facilitate a radical, perhaps exponential internal and collective transformation needed to face these threats. So many moving pieces!

This is just a belief/judgement you've adopted from Leo. If you actually did the work for decades, you would understand. Even if you did the work for a couple of years, you would be able to intuit just how deep the work goes and where you may end up as a result of decades worth of work. When someone is enlightened, all doubt dissolves.

Somehow missed this question, my bad. In short, purification. Purification has to two main consequences as far as I can tell, 1) The frequency of clearly experiencing the truth increases. The moments where there is mindfulness, attention recognizes the truth, when there is headlessness, ignorance of the truth. 2) The way the body mind expresses the truth increases. This involves the uprooting of the conditions of suffering and conditions which block deep emotional, human oriented well being, virtue, integrity, fearlessness, authenticity, energy, etc. Furthermore, there also seems to be depths and degrees to which one can realize the truth yet this is somehow in accord with the truth being completely absolute and always present. How this so is an active inquiry for me and where I personally don’t have much clarity around. It seems to be as though Im running into absolute paradox. Continued practice usually involves this deepening.

Compassion for your self. How awake are you really when the totality of existence is marred in illusion and ignorance? The compassion I speak of is totally transrational, totally transcendent of mind and will never make sense to the ego who’s adopted solipsism as a belief system. Notice how the ego mind is trying to create rationalizations and draw logical conclusions. Again, what Im talking about is so far beyond the self clinging mind, it will never make sense. However, notice, if it werent for other beings and to some extent the whole of realty attempting to wake you up, you would have never stumbled into the truth. It’s only out of the compassion of these masters, and more deeply, the compassion from the self that you are in a position to be speaking from truth. Don’t take credit and don’t underestimate how dependent you were on reality for waking you up, like a child to its mother. That compassionate force that conspired to wake you up may or may not proliferate in your body mind, thus continuing this cycle of self-awakening in other beings. If what I said about others cannot be reconciled with the illusion of others, you haven’t awakened to the true depths of solipsism. No. The reason masters don’t use psychedelics is the realizations they provide are a waking, moment by moment, lived and embodied reality for the master. Of course this goes against the actualized.org dogma, cuts through a certain flavor of closed mindedness the forum has adopted. I never claimed you were parroting Leo. It is interesting you offer that up and attempt to side step it though.

Well exactly (not being sarcastic this time). Once the fundamental point has be realized, there is little need to dramatically alter one‘s state. The truth is as it is in all moments, otherwise it wouldn’t be the truth. However out of compassion for others, there may still be the motivation to purify the mind. Purification = the cultivation of virtue, character, integrity, etc. Or the joy for creating a life well lived in a relative sense.

Right. Couldn’t be any sort of deep cultivation of wisdom and clarity from enormous amounts of practice.

Interesting how the overwhelming majority of masters have walked away from these tools huh? Im not aware of any that use psychedelics regularly. In the past as part of their spiritual journeys, sure.

Happiness is a fundamental quality of the spiritual path. Unconditional love is usually only possible once one begins to discover unconditional happiness. Further, the two are intimately linked, but how and why this is so is best to discover through direct experience.

Wow didn’t think it could be quantified but this is a great description… ?

Such an amazing milestone dude. Amazing report. ❤️ How do you think this will impact your daily practice? Has it shifted your perspective on how you view meditation?

@Raptorsin7 This is so great man! Would love to read a report! ?

Believe it or not, but you can actually feel into this emotional signature in the present, as though examining how it will feel on the future as a nostalgic memory. This imbues present life circumstance with a beautiful, emotional tone. Enormous reservoir of appreciation before having to wait for the future nostalgia to kick in. Beautiful post.