Mason Riggle

@LastThursday "You find out that the universe is a system that creeps up on itself and says 'Boo' and then laughs at itself for jumping." -Alan Watts ????

The separation between 'self' and 'that which is not self' is imaginary.. where are 'you'? Inside your organism somewhere? Are you your organism? All of it? If you remove your hand, don't 'you' remain?.. so 'you' are not your hand. What part of your organism is 'you'? Your brain? What part of your brain? All of it? Well.. there is no boundary to say.. 'I' am just as much 'my body' and 'my hand' as I am 'my shoe', or the sounds I'm hearing, or the things I'm seeing. "I have no other self, than the totality of that which I am aware." - Alan Watts.

@LastThursday Typically, the 'ego' is this notion of some 'separate self' that exists somewhere.. The ego doesn't really 'disappear', because it was never there... 'notions of there being an ego' occur sometimes.. and sometimes not.

@LastThursday who are you asking? Are you the organism "LastThursday" asking the organism "Mason Riggle"? Or you are 'Consciousness', thinking there are organisms, so it can ask itself? Does it matter which it is?

Recognizing that the 'ego' is just thought, doesn't stop an organism from behaving like that organism.. it just realized there isn't some 'other separate self' somewhere within itself, 'doing' what it does.

"If you really understand Zen. You can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because... the sound of the rain needs no translation." - Alan Watts

@LastThursday My wife teaches lessons that I don't know. I teach lessons my wife doesn't know. Hopefully our children will know more than either of us.

@Mason Riggle it's like 'wanting/not wanting'.. they are the same thing.. When I quench my thirst.. did I 'want to be not thirsty' or did I 'not want to be thirsty'? Just two ways of saying the same thing. Do I want to go outside? Or is it that I don't want to be inside? Same thing. Can you ever do what you don't want to do? Only if you want to.

Why doesn't lightning follow other paths? Are there other paths the lightning 'could follow'? There is just one path.. the path of least resistance. Call that path what you will.. 'least resistance' is relative to 'more resistance'. We could use the word 'easiest'.. lightning takes the 'easiest' path.. Don't get caught up in the words 'love' and 'hate'.

Recognize that love/hate is a duality, like up/down.. They only have meaning in relation to each other.. Up is really just 'not down'. What is happening is never 'what is not happening'. The Universe does what it does, because it Loves to do it. If you are inclined to take the the perspective that you are 'God' or 'The Universe' or 'Consciousness' and you are 'doing all of this', you must Love to do it, otherwise you'd be doing something else.

@Roy yep. No 'doer'.. no 'doing'.. just 'being'. It's so simple.

@CBDinfused I like the analogy of 'lightning'... what is 'the path' of lightning? Well, it's 'the path of least resistance'. It doesn't make sense to say, 'why doesn't it take the path of most resistance?' "Love" is the 'path of least resistance'.. it's 'what's always happening'. It's the only thing that 'can be happening'. Reality is how it is, because that's how it loves to be... and you're all of that. It seems that sometimes reality Loves to pretend it's not itself.. that it's separate from itself.. that it's you.

"It's all happening, and no one is doing it" - Me

Pulling what strings? Doing what? What am 'i' doing that "I" am not doing? I don't see a difference. Isn't 'the puppeteer' pulling it's own strings? Who else is? This notion of a 'doer' that 'does things' (a puppeteer pulling strings) doesn't seem accurate. When I pay attention to experience, I recognize that it's all 'happening' without anyone 'doing it'.. and even this 'paying attention' and 'recognizing' are just more 'what is happening'.

@SoonHei

There are microscopic variations, too small for the eye to see. When you say 'same', what you mean is 'similar' (alike in almost every way).

identity (n.) c. 1600, "sameness, oneness, state of being the same," from French identité (14c.), from Medieval Latin identitatem (nominative identitas) "sameness," ultimately from Latin idem (neuter) "the same" (see idem). Are the 2 iphones the "same" phone?

There exists a 'state of the Universe' where the Universe does not exist?

When you stop caring what your college mates think of you, you will have overcome your inferiority complex. "Inferior" is just a concept that has meaning when you give it meaning. Does a hamburger taste 'better' than Pizza? It's totally subjective.. it only does if YOU think it does.

Every time I've fallen in love, it was never something either of us pursued.. If I 'went after' a girl, things never went past a first or second date. Stop thinking about it so much, and start feeling about it. When it's right, it's right, and it's unmistakable. You won't have to wonder 'is she in to me? should I pursue this?'.

This is a just a word game. 'two identical' is a 'round square'. Can a square be round? No, by definition, squares are not round.. if a square is round, then it never was a square. Can there be 'two of 1 thing'? That question doesn't even make sense.

It only matters whether or not 'It' is real if it IS real... but if it's illusion/imaginary.. then it only imaginarily matters (doesn't really matter). If you're asleep, and lost in a dream, and you 'realize' (wake up to the reality) that you are just 'lost in a dream' ("oh.. I'm dreaming") then you are no longer lost in the dream. It is only when you 'wake up' from the dream, that you can 'fully realize' that nothing in the dream 'mattered', including 'the realization that it was a dream'. If 'real you' dream that 'dream you' is being attacked by a shark, it doesn't matter to 'real you', because it's just a dream. 'Dreaming about being attacked by a shark' only 'seems to matter' to 'dream you' while you are dreaming. If the shark attack is just a dream, the dream shark attack doesn't 'really matter' to 'dream you'.. and the 'dream shark attack' definitely doesn't matter to 'real you'. Who would an 'imaginary reality' 'really matter' to? "If this is all just a dream, then it doesn't 'really' matter that it is. it only 'really matters' that it is a dream, if it isn't."

@Meditationdude perhaps it would be helpful to consider that the 'you' you imagine yourself to be doesn't 'do' anything, other than 'be itself', and it does that whether it tries to or not. Consider- How hard are you trying to 'be yourself' right now? Isn't it effortless? Aren't you just always 'being you', without trying? Can you stop 'being how you are?'.. any attempt to 'be other than how you are being', is just more 'being how you are'.