Emanyalpsid

No, consciousness is perception as such. Without perception there is no consciousness, cause what would you be conscious of if you don't perceive it? You are on the right track. Read http://www.foundationsofhumanlife.com if you want to know more about consciousness from a Buddhist perspective.

From the interpretation of whether an observation is pleasant or not, the self grows, through which you like to strive for the pleasant and avoid the unpleasant. The self grows because your interpretation of observations develops into a conviction, as a result, this conviction becomes mentally separate from the observation itself, because you define it. ‘Something’ is pleasant or unpleasant. The conviction from which you pursue the pleasant and avoid the unpleasant is therefore based upon previous observations, which you have interpreted as pleasant or unpleasant. So you seek continuous confirmation, of earlier interpretations, of observations, from your conviction, which is based on these earlier, own, interpretations, of observations, which form yourself. As a result, a person can seem to be boundlessly convinced of him- or herself, if the person gets enough confirmation, based upon his or her own interpretations, by pursuing his or her own convictions. The above shows how difficult it is to see through the self. It is like trying to explain someone that what he or she believes in, only exists so because he or she believes in it him- or herself, and that this self consists of his or her own interpretations. That person consists completely out of his or her convictions in what he or she believes, and pursues this belief throughout his or her whole life, and will continually strive for confirmation of him- or herself on the basis of his or her own convictions. The self will always have a tendency to avoid the unpleasant and to pursue the pleasant. He or she will want to condition him or herself in a state where he or she only experiences pleasant things and no unpleasant things. This makes the person inflexible to deal with situations that are unpleasant, or which gets him or her out of their conditioned state. The person is therefore stressed more quickly if unpleasant situations occur, and will have more trouble dealing with them. In life, unpleasant things will always happen, so it is more convenient to accept this and learn how to deal with them, than to try to create a conditioned state where you do not hope to experience them by avoiding them. A contradiction in, or doubt of, his or her conviction will be experienced as something unpleasant and will be avoided. This ensures that seeing through the self is made even more difficult by itself. The self is the conviction of itself. Letting go of this conviction ensures that the self dissolves itself.

Pretty ironic that you are telling me that I'm stuck in borrowed words, dear. I only referred to dependent origination as one must use words in trying to explain things, dear. The insight into the nature of reality is not intellectualism, dear, it is experiential knowledge as I showed with the flower, dear. If a cause arises, an effect arises also. The whole teaching of buddhism is to forget about using words as they come from thinking. And thinking comes from the believe that reality exists upon itself. If one thinks reality exists upon itself, one can give meaning to it through itself. And you, my dear, are giving a lot of meaning, by using a lot of words. By not thinking one is able to penetrate reality, which I also explained, dear. But not thinking is not enough, one must be aware of what is happening and how this comes to be. Where do your thoughts come from? How come you write all the things you write? So either you didn't understand my previous reply as you don't have insight into the nature of reality yet, or you are trying to somehow downplay my response with fancy wordplay, which serves no other use than mental masturbation, dear. Or worse, a combination of both. Moving right along for the benefit of those with the will to enlightenment. And for those with the imagination to interpretate your words to form their reality to this interpretation.

This is the universe thinking it exists upon itself.

Well, words don't arise spontaneously, they are formed by ones desire to give meaning what you experience and/ or substance to life. It is part of the self. The distance between yourself and reality increases by giving concepts more meaning and thinking up more concepts. This creates a greater distance between your subjective experience of the world and the objective reality (via sensory awareness) as it is. Of course one can let go of their words and not stay attached to them.

If that guy you are referring to said he became enlightened, he was not really enlightened in the Eastern sense of enlightenment. His enlightenment is probably the Western interpretation of it, which is only half of the insight thought in Buddhism. After attaining enlightenment people usually go and tell/teach other people about it. If you read the website and reflect upon your own experiences you will understand.

Well the thing is, her (is she is a she, I imagine her being the hot girl in the picture; witty and open-minded. But the writing style and use of words point more to a man, I presume) writings make way for a lot of interpretation. And interpretation makes way for a lot of error. But who am I to judge?

Indeed with thinking ones objectivity is lost and therefore you are deluded by 'knowledge.' Only sense awareness is what is real. So you need to forget thinking something exists upon itself, including oneself and others. Only you make a distinction between yourself and others. "Practicing this is authentic 24/7 meditation seeing through phenomena without denying its characteristics." This means; seeing that everything you see is of dependent origin and therefore empty of existence in itself, Including the seeing. But not denying what you see. A flower is still a flower, but it is only there because it consists out of matter and gravity, space and time, soil and air, sun and rain. To see the flower you need something we call a body with eyes. A body depends upon the same things as the flower, so they are both of dependent origin and therefore one and empty of existence in themselves. They are not infinite but impermanent. After one has the insight into the dependent origin of existence this is all one experiences actually. I am only writing this to make your writings understandable for 'others,' cause I can imagine people getting lost in your words. You grow a lot of trees to make a forest. Writing is obviously your thing, but remember that by writing you are performing a lot of intellectual exercise. The more you write, the more you think and the more you are deluded. One could also spend his time helping people in a practical sense, but this is your way. We know you can't do anything about it. It is just the universe in motion. ?

There is the Western view of enlightenment, which in terms of science, dissolves the mind-body separation, which creates a duality, Descartes proposed. Through concepts, one creates a distinction between an object and a subject (the one that is thinking; I). A concept is any word which describes an experience, phenomena, or object. Emotions are reactions to evaluations, through interpretation, of stimuli from your environment (Richard Lazarus). So if you don't separate yourself from your experiences, there is no ground for emotions. There is no one to experience them, there is only the awareness of reality. Of course this is easier said then done. It takes tremendous concentration and equanimity to not be disturbed by what is happening. Especially if you are tortured. The Eastern view on enlightenment goes further and sees that reality also does not exist upon itself. Meaning; it is of dependent origin. If you want to know more about this, read;http://www.foundationsofhumanlife.com Everything is explained there in a way for the Western mind to understand. So enlightenment is not a state of being, but a feeling. One feels enlightened, meaning something dissolves or goes away. Enlightened from egocentric emotions, enlightened from your chain of thoughts, enlightened from frustrations, enlightened from unsatisfactoriness, enlightened from your desire to control or grip, etc.

@Serotoninluv love your posts, you wrote a clear explanation where the problem in science is. One can use science to explain the dependent origin of reality though - meaning its non-dual existence. Einstein found that space is dependent upon time and that matter is dependent upon gravity. This means that the essence of all these concepts are empty, as they do not exist upon themselves but are of dependent origin. This is exactly what is meant in Buddhism with emptiness. One can also show through empericial evidence that life is dependent upon it's environment, this means that they are both also empty of existence upon themselves. Take a read through page 7 till 12 on this website; http://www.foundationsofhumanlife.com It explains the emptiness of essence by looking at reality through science. It depends upon how someone looks at the evidence brought forward by science, how useful science is. The separation between mind and body in science, made a long time ago, presents a problem for medicine and psychology though, as a human is a mind and body interaction. By doing this they separated psychology from medicine. After this separation medicine became specialized in all the different fields, forgetting the holistic whole a human body is. And psychology started to try and figure out the mind, based upon Descartes his duality (I think, therefore I am), which we all know is nothing more than the ego. Dr. Bruker (German) saw this mistake (the separation) though and he found that about 80% of the most common diseases come from a false nutrition eaten over multiple decennia. In medicine they fail to see this as they became to specialized in symptomatic relieve, instead of looking at the human as a holistic whole - meaning mind body interaction, to find the root cause of a disease. Bruker also found the root cause of many psychological diseases. Not surprisingly, they mostly have to do with the will, or the ego. It was very thrilling to read that a doctor, who's focus was curing diseases, found that they mostly come from the will. He found the suffering from the ego from the other way around. He also found that every psychological disease will show physical symptons. Sadly his research was not financed anywhere by a university as no company (food industry, farmacy etc.) wants to invest in a research which will result in them going down. His findings are based upon multiple researches before he came around though. This is a crooked system, research being funded by companys, sadly it is everywhere. It also would be very time consuming to research his subject as it would take a large group of people to eat a full nutrition over multiple decennia opposed to a group who will eat a non-full nutrition. For people who can read German I can strongly advice his books, they will change the way you look at nutrition, health and medicine. So in short, for science to be beneficial for health and psychological purposes, they have to merge the mind-body back into science. Which will probably not happen anytime soon, if ever. For the rest, science suits it's endeavors.

@deci belle In another thread I already replied to such a question. You were also in that thread, so either you didn't notice my post or you neglected it. It is very simple actually, I'll just copy paste my post here; Enlightenment in Buddhism just means 'to dissolve' or 'to blow out.' Like in the enlightening of pain, meaning the pain goes away. Pain is just used as an example here. However, people who didn't gain the insight into the nature of reality yet, which relieves one from the endless cycle of rebirth, look at Buddhism and draw their conclusions based upon their view on what Buddhism is. Therefore, only someone who attained insight into the nature of reality can explain what Buddhism is truly about. People in the Western world will compare the word 'enlightenment,' which is used in Buddhism, with the Western interpretation of enlightenment. The Western interpretation of enlightenment however is not the same as used in Buddhism. @Misagh gave a pretty clear definition on what enlightenment means in the Western world in his topic; https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/26538-answers-to-some-common-questions-about-enlightenment-pt-1/ "What is enlightenment? Enlightenment is the realization that you are not an entity within reality, but rather reality itself." From a Buddhist perspective this is only half of the insight into reality, because what one is left with is 'itself'. This is the believe that reality exists upon itself. This is the self of it. The self of it remains, which is part of your ego. Not your personal ego, but your 'higher' ego; the ego of it. This is the universe thinking it exists upon itself. Insight into the dependent origin of reality relieves one from itself. Itself is the source of a lot of suffering, just as the self. Therefore, one is not truly enlightened if this insight is not gained. So, enlightenment is not a state of being, but only a feeling, from a Buddhist perspective. One feels enlightened. If you want to read more about this; http://www.foundationsofhumanlife.com. everything is explained in a manner for the Western mind to understand. If you are already aware of the self as an illusion you can skip to page 7. Page 7 till 12 explains the dependent origin or reality. If you only scroll through the text you will not understand it. It requires deep investigation. Read and reflect upon your experiences.

Enlightenment in Buddhism just means 'to dissolve' or 'to blow out.' Like in the enlightening of pain, meaning the pain goes away. Pain is just used as an example here. However, people who didn't gain the insight into the nature of reality yet, which relieves one from the endless cycle of rebirth, look at Buddhism and draw their conclusions based upon their view on what Buddhism is. Therefore, only someone who attained insight into the nature of reality can explain what Buddhism is truly about. People in the Western world will compare the word 'enlightenment,' which is used in Buddhism, with the Western interpretation of enlightenment. The Western interpretation of enlightenment however is not the same as used in Buddhism. @Misagh gave a pretty clear definition on what enlightenment means in the Western world in his topic; https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/26538-answers-to-some-common-questions-about-enlightenment-pt-1/ "What is enlightenment? Enlightenment is the realization that you are not an entity within reality, but rather reality itself." From a Buddhist perspective this is only half of the insight into reality, because what one is left with is 'itself'. This is the believe that reality exists upon itself. This is the self of it. Ahah indeed. The self of it remains, which is part of your ego. Not your personal ego, but your 'higher' ego; the ego of it. This is the universe thinking it exists upon itself. Insight into the dependent origin of reality relieves one from itself. Itself is the source of a lot of suffering, just as the self. Therefore, one is not truly enlightened if this insight is not gained. So, enlightenment is not a state of being, but only a feeling, from a Buddhist perspective. One feels enlightened. If you want to read more about this; http://www.foundationsofhumanlife.com. everything is explained in a manner for the Western mind to understand. If you are already aware of the self as an illusion you can skip to page 7. Page 7 till 12 explains the dependent origin or reality. If you only scroll through the text you will not understand. It requires deep investigation. Read and reflect upon your experiences.

Who's talking about Leo?

Hold your horses, I never said I want readymade answers, I said I want someone to explain me "how I come to," if I wanted a teacher. You say I am lazy, but do you know how much time and effort it takes to reflect upon what someone says? And I mean really reflect, not only think, but test it in practice. I would never just blindly implement what someone says. Don't draw conclusions too soon boy or you may end up making presumptions. Now get to work yourself. I already found everything there is to find.

Helpful lessons for me are not through storytelling. Especially when the lesson doesn't bring you anywhere. For me, a good teacher explains how I come to 7, 6 or 59. After that I can reflect upon how he came there to verify if it makes sense. After this I can explain this to others. Else I will keep trying to figure out how I come to 7, 6 or 56 my whole life, while someone else already figured this out. But I guess it depends upon what you want out of life. You're the bogeyman.

You are spot on right, but, alas, that is the way the world works. You can spot an inconsistency, but to make this clear to other people you have to explain it.

Lol, da fuck, I have almost never heard more bullshit than this. The story of course is made up, there is no word from the Buddha himself written anywhere. If someone is contradicting himself, that can mean two things; 1 the context is different and you interpret it differently (you are right there). 2 he is actually contradicting himself. If 1, a 'good' teacher should explain the difference and not let people be in confusion. Sadly, there are almost no good teachers. Leo is young and still on the path, so he is unable to explain it clearly to himself and to you as he is still searching and doubting himself. Therefore inconsistenties can appear as he is learning himself and sees that what he thought before might be different. No good teacher would ever let his "students" dwell in contradiction and let them dwell in a see of questions, if he knows where the student is stuck. Thst would be sadistical. But again, there are almost no 'good' teachers. Thich Nhat Hanh might be the only one in the western world. Sadly, the Dalai Lama is a poor teacher from what I have seen. All the Western 'spiritual' teachers are just jackasses, trying to exploit Buddhist and new age interpretations. So nice storytelling but you are not fooling me. You are a loyal servant though.

@Violinpracticerdude I already knew through Buddhism that the non-self is only half of the insight into reality. So I can see clearly what they are imaginating/ holding onto. You guys believe that it (infinite consciousness, absolute infinity, or whatever you call it) exists upon itself. Therefore you are holding on to itself. @Girzo Read it thoroughly and try to see what I try to explain. The non-duality of existence is not only non-dual because the ego creates an separation. But it is also non-dual because it (infinite consciousness, absolute infinity) does not exist upon itself. It requires deep investigation to see this.

@Violinpracticerdude Hey dude, you're basically shouting to people in a church that God does not exist. Here they all believe they are god, or infinite consciousness or absolute infinity, because of their non-duality experience and their believe in enlightenment. They all abandoned reality to stay in their mind bubble, thinking it is all consciousness. Spare your time and energy, they are beyond salvation. I also tried to reach them with no results. Read these topics and see how they, by ignoring reality, are attached to their believe in infinite consciousness because they do not understand the nature of it. They believe in a truth (infinite consciousness), which they defend by coming up with arguments, instead of focussing on reality. So, they are all happy in their minds as long as they don't have to deal with reality, by ignoring it or dismissing it as ignorant. I trew everything out of reality at them, but they keep holding on. https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/25468-the-definite-guide-to-non-duality-enlightenment-and-the-nature-of-reality/ https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/25857-the-egg-experiment/ https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/25637-leo-guras-sick-logic-on-happiness-youtube/ There is a test however to verify if consciousness is infinite or that it is created by the brain; by slamming someone on the head with a baseball bat to see which prevails; consciousness or the brain. However, while they are so convinced, no one volunteers to take this test... I wonder why The difference is, they will stay on this forum and you will leave. This is their Church.

I thought of an experiment to figure out if one can make a distinction between it and itself. 'It' being the universe, reality, consciousness, absolute infinity, or whatever you call it and 'itself' being the self of it. Who wants to try this experiment and see if they can figure it out? Take a raw chicken egg and hold it in one hand. Now most of you already know that the concept of the egg is created by the ego, therefore creating a duality. So we lose the concept. For the sake of explaining the experiment I will still refer to the egg. Now you will only see and feel the egg. The egg is there because you see and feel it. Now you didn't lay the egg, a chicken laid the egg. So before you saw and felt the egg, the egg was already there. Being shipped to the supermarket where you bought it. So you didn't create the egg, it came into your consciousness. You could deny all this and say; everything is created through my consciousness! Well could you then create anything you want? Can you let an elephant lay the egg? No, apparently your consciousness is bounded. How is it bounded? Well, something, we all call a chicken, has to lay the egg. So you have the egg, which you do not define, in your hand. You see and feel the egg, you are conscious of the egg, but you didn't create it. It came into existence outside of your consciousness, which we just realized. Now the goal of this experiment is to figure out if the egg exists on itself. With which I mean; is the egg there to be perceived? Can it be perceived? You see an oval object, you feel it is a hard oval object, and you see the object has a colour, which the ego could define as sand-like, or beige, or white, depending on what kind of chicken egg you have. Probably, most people will now, subconsciously, assume that the egg exists on itself, as it is perceived. But what happens if you relax your fingers? The egg will fall on the floor. The egg which was once oval breaks into pieces. Now take another egg in your hand and ask yourself again; does the egg exist on itself?

Woop there comes another argument. Yes you become what you believe, thanks for the example. Consciousness outside the context of the human brain is your believe. Feed it with an argument. Yes we all create the words to label our reality, or infinite consciousness, or whatever you want to call it. But that doesn't mean you created it. Can you create anything you want? No! You just experience it! Nothing more. You can name it everything you want. But that you think you are god or you experience absolute infinity and there is nothing beyond that, are only thoughts in your mind, therefore solipsism. You only experience it, maybe with less ego or more ego, but there is nothing beyond experiencing. And guess what there are other people experiencing. Whaaat no shit, this can not be. You are all appearances in my consciousness, else my believe would fall apart. That is why it is so hard to get through to believers, as they become their beliefs. You will have to admit to yourself that you might have been wrong. But you believe in the truth, so you see why this is so difficult? Reality goes against your beliefs, you have left reality to start believing. So to come back to reality, by letting go of your believe in the truth, by admitting you were wrong, is very difficult for the narcissist ego (god) you have become. But you will have to face reality someday. Still, no one volunteers to get hit on the head with a baseball bat to see what prevails; consciousness or the brain... I guess you are not so convinced of your beliefs after all.

Well if all the "legit" "spiritual" "teachers" say so, it must be true... "Truth" is a word, "believe" is also a word. "Words," which is also a word, exist in the mind. One uses arguments, often through logic, to make sense out of words in the mind. With words you try to make sense out of the things you experience. By doing so, one starts to believe that they can make sense. However, this is still only in the mind. Everything you don't experience, you don't experience. How the fuck did you come up with that something you don't experience is a believe? You don't experience it! You only believe so, because Leo and all the other "legit" "spiritual" "teachers" told you this. *I keep posting here although I know it is useless. Even if some of you get it, I will be gone in a week or so and new sheeps will flock in. Please universe let this not be my destiny.

This comment summarizes it all very well. But I guess someone will come up with another argument to defend their beliefs. You believe in the truth. The truth is a believe. You believe in the truth. The truth is a believe. You believe in the truth. The truth is a believe. You make up arguments to defend your believe. The believe is in your mind. Therefore you need arguments to defend it. You believe in the truth. The truth is a believe. Maybe now someone will see through it.

Yep, it is just the same old new age bullshit which is going on since the 70s, only packed in another name. Every decennia a bunch of guys trip their asses off on psychedelics and start to believe they are god, it is all consciousness, they created everything or whatever you will. But now you have the internet and easy access to psychedelics and bullshit believes. Which almost makes this an epidemic, hitting the psychological unstable people the hardest. All becoming numb for reality and others around them. Living in their own bubble. And keep on wondering why all the other people don't see the obvious...^^ he who is insane does not know he is insane.

Lol you just disregarded the post of Echoes completely by dismissing the person immediately only based on your beliefs. Listen to the explanation Leo gives in the video Richard Alpert posted, it doesn't make any sense. And yeah Leo says be objective, but he also promotes the use of psychedelics which blocks your objectivity and emerges you in a total subjective world. Psychedelic experiences are never objective, they are the farthest thing away from objectivity. It is only your imagination that makes you think it is objective. How can you not see this? I can't stop posting because of the total ignorance being spread here.