Markus

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Everything posted by Markus

  1. A hypothetical brain surgery of some type that does not currently exist as a possibility and never might.
  2. Fuck...the first post is gold. Though I'm not sure whether it's following forum rules.
  3. Chrome has an extension called "kill news feed". It kills your news feed and lets you do everything else. If I had the power, I'd make such an option for Android and make Zuckerberg pay for it. Scrolling the news feed has such a nasty consciousness to it. When people post their ideas on Facebook, they're not posting their best. They're posting hate, they're posting gossip, they're jealous. Some of them, I assume, are posting good stuff, but just look at the news feed and it's telling you exactly what you're getting.
  4. @Mat Pav I think we can sense a lot of things about people's internal state. We can sense confidence, neediness, desperation, shyness etc. I don't know how exactly - I haven't contemplated it. But clearly, a person's tone, body language etc gives us quite a bit of information about what's going on for them. Of course we make tons of projections based on that and get lost in those, at which point we're no longer talking about the person but our idea of them.
  5. I'm doing enlightenment first, since more mindfulness and less egoic obfuscation will likely lead to being driven by more authentic motives, also helping clarify/morph your life purpose. Plus I imagine being content (at least way more so than someone who hasn't had any enlightenments) just feels better. What's the point of success if you're not content? Of course, take care of your education and such. I'm in med school so that takes up quite a bit of time.
  6. Trump quite obviously is suffering. Put yourself in the shoes of the Donald for a moment, imagine doing the things he does and saying the things he says. It should become quite clear. Or just get only 3 hours of sleep for a night or more (that's how little he allegedly gets/got) and notice the Trump-like impulsiveness arise in you.
  7. Why ask us? Listen to your body. The vast majority of Western people are sleep deprived. It's not the end of the world if you are, but it certainly has some negatives.
  8. SDS = no voluntary movement. Either for x amount of time or as long as you can handle. Says nothing about technique: you can do do nothing, self-inquiry, noting, etc. DN = no manipulation of attention (if you notice an intention to control your attention, drop that intention).
  9. You've mentioned in some of your videos that it's important to open the mind before practicing self-inquiry. In one of them (don't know which) you especially stressed its importance. So what does one do and for how long? I'm noticing how rarely I get even a glimmer of the possibility I don't know who I am during the practice.
  10. @bazera It's part of a larger documentary as far as I know. I once embedded one of the interviews on one thread but Leo didn't want it posted and thus removed it, which is bizarre to me since Ralston has released them.
  11. @Frogfucius "This is an illusion" is another belief you've picked up. If you had a direct understanding of this being an illusion, you wouldn't be complaining.
  12. It's fine. The point of mindfulness practice is that you NOTICE these things. You notice when there's inner talk, you notice when it vanishes, you notice when there isn't any. The labels are just there to make sure you're actually noticing and not self-deceiving, and to help maintain your concentration.
  13. I don't believe in reincarnation. With beliefs about science and evolution in my web of beliefs, it just doesn't make any sense. Do I know it doesn't exist? Nope. I can't think of a conceivable way it could be proven one way or the other. You didn't ask any specific question about suicide, so I'll go on the things others have commented. Is it selfish? Sure. So is moralizing about suicidal people being selfish. I use selfish as in "stemming from the ego" rather than society's seeming definition of "this person did something I don't like, thus they're selfish for not having considered how I'm affected by it".
  14. @avk123 You've got to make a distinction between pleasure and contentment. Pleasure is temporary, and exists relative to pain. People chase pleasure in hopes it will bring them lasting fulfillment, but it never does. Being minimalist by itself doesn't guarantee contentment though. If you've got neuroses, it's gonna suck to be you. It's just that minimalism allows you to focus on pursuits bringing long-term fulfillment, those being consciousness work and to a lesser degree life purpose, while not being distracted by all the pleasures material things bring you.
  15. What is enjoyment? I don't know, but it's a question worth contemplating. I have a theory though, based on some conclusions drawn based on memories of my experience. Enjoyment is not pleasure. It inherently has nothing to do with pleasure. I can enjoy pleasure, but also pain, discomfort, sorrow - it's happened a few times, with milder forms thereof. Enjoyment is the product of non-resistance to whatever experience is occurring. When you resist any experience, whether generally considered "positive" or "negative", you suffer. If you resist pleasure, or joy, you also suffer. If you don't resist fear or anger, you enjoy them. People generally look for enjoyment in activities that produce pleasure: sex, food, drugs, music, etc. They do enjoy these activities, but they also suffer due to them - it's often a constant alternation between the two. Pleasure comes in waves - so people enjoy the oncoming of the wave, but suffer when they resist the passing of the wave, or in other words, grasp on to the memory of greater pleasure than is present at that very moment. When I jerk off, it's really an intertwined experience of enjoyment and torture. I'd really like @Leo Gura to chime in on this.
  16. Indeed, but what does it mean to enjoy? And how is it different from being content? So many fascinating questions, but I'm still gonna work on this "What am I?" shit for a few thousand hours, lol
  17. I'm no expert but I presume that having more muscle produces more heat, and having more fat preserves more heat. Not telling you to become a fat fuck , that carries worse problems. Gold showers and building a bit of muscle are probably both a good idea, for your specific concern and for overall health. I still think temperature tolerance is individually variable, leaving aside any measures you take.
  18. Addict or recreational user? Heavy, moderate, or light? Recreationally, there isn't too much wrong with these drugs. Shrooms have legitmate therapeutic and personal growth related uses. Weed is mildly euphoric and relaxing. Speed is an upper, helps with lack of energy due to sleep deprivation. Now yes, being addicted to weed can screw you up mentally and being addicted to speed can screw you up physically on top of that. But the druggie spectrum is wide and multi-dimensional so I don't know what to say.
  19. @Martin123 Well, you think exactly the way I do on this topic. My intention is to become a psychiatrist and specialize in psychotherapy, so my chosen education path is somewhat different but it's definitely in the same domain. As for the ":(" emoticon, there's no point in it. As of now, it is what it is. It's not just the domain of therapy where people do things suboptimally - the problem is literally in every domain that requires humans to make decisions more abstract than building a piece of technology. Economics, politics, personal relationships, ecology, ethics, etc are all tainted by lack of awareness. So whatever you as a person who's into personal development and consciousness work do, dealing with decision-makers who lack awareness is depressing in a sense, because you can see how stupidly they behave, yet only they can help themselves. It's all outside of your control, so work on giving up resistance to it, allowing it to be. I am first and foremost excited about the possibility of doing things differently in the domain of therapy. Developing a system that actually works, either with curing or coping - either changing the circumstances or accepting the circumstances. Starting a private practice should give plenty of autonomy to try things your way. I don't know what the system is, but raising a person's level of awareness seems fundamental. And different coping strategies and medications can certainly have their place, just not as a be-all and end-all. And if other practitioners see that this way of doing things actually works, they'll also become interested in it. Your primary directive should be developing a form of therapy that is in alignment with what you think therapy should be about. So keep your head up and stop worrying about shit outside your control - that's a distraction, an unfulfilling and unproductive one
  20. He did say that. And not just after awakening, which he got in four years of practice, but after decades. The realization of no-self, or classical enlightenment, should be seen as just the beginning if one takes this path seriously. Something being a behavioural issue is of course just an idea. There's no such things as one perfect way of behaving so you could always find something to work on changing.
  21. It's true I can't fathom it. I have had a few experiences where hatred of anyone or anything no longer made sense, and these have motivated me to serve, so I can logically see why an enlightened person would want to not be an asshole. I'm just trying to connect the dots of the big picture. I have the assumption infinite divine love is kind of a natural byproduct of enlightenment, at least one deep enough. In that case, why are there enlightened assholes other than those who've had an 'incomplete' enlightenment? If it's not a natural byproduct of enlightenment, what drives one to seek it out?
  22. But Leo...what if one is content with being an enlightened asshole? Why would they then give a shit? Maybe an enlightened person would have the preference of living in a 'better' world, treating others well, etc. But what if they don't? As long as they're not acting egotistically and thus causing themselves suffering, there seems to be no motive other than preference. This reminds me of a part in a McKenna book where someone asks him for help with a suicidal loved one, and he tells him to buy her a suicide handbook or something...Lol