Mason Riggle

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'.

"How do you let go of things? This means you leave them as they are; it does not mean you annihilate them or throw them away. It is more like setting down and letting them be. Through the practice of letting go we realise that there is the origin of suffering, which is the attachment to desire, and we realise that we should let go of these three kinds of desire. Then we realise that we have let go of these desires; there is no longer any attachment to them. When you find yourself attached, remember that ‘letting go’ is not ‘getting rid of’ or ‘throwing away’. If I’m holding onto this clock and you say, ‘Let go of it!’, that doesn’t mean ‘throw it out’. I might think that I have to throw it away because I’m attached to it, but that would just be the desire to get rid of it. We tend to think that getting rid of the object is a way of getting rid of attachment. But if I can contemplate attachment, this grasping of the clock, I realise that there is no point in getting rid of it - it’s a good clock; it keeps good time and is not heavy to carry around. The clock is not the problem. The problem is grasping the clock. So what do I do? Let it go, lay it aside - put it down gently without any kind of aversion. Then I can pick it up again, see what time it is and lay it aside when necessary." (found on the internet.. I didn't write it).

@Quicksilver Bingo!

People can be educated. Humans are capable of learning. Just recognize that they have no control over whether or not they do learn. They either will, or they won't, and it's not up to them. It's perfectly fine to want people to become more educated, wiser, etc., for pragmatic reasons. If I'm stranded on an island, I'd rather be with people better adapted to helping me survive than people with no survival skills. 'Anger' is the part that's unnecessary. That's like being angry at a volcano for being a volcano. Better to recognize what it is, and that it has no choice in being what it is, and behave pragmatically.

@CBDinfused are you looking for a 'conceptual model' of existence? There are plenty to choose from.. but remember, the map is not the territory. No matter how good your map is, it will never be completely accurate representation of the territory, because to be completely accurate, is to be the territory.

"Do Things Exist Independently Of Me?" Another way to contemplate this- "do 'things' exist 'separate' from 'me'? Look for the 'you' that is separate from 'that which is not you'. Is 'your hand' separate from 'you'? Are 'you' your hand? 'you' seem to be 'aware of your hand'.. is 'your hand' aware of itself? It can be recognized that the 'separation' between 'you' and 'that which is not you' doesn't exist. "I have no other self than the totality of that which I am aware." - Alan Watts.

“The biggest ego trip is getting rid of your ego, and of course the joke of it all is that your ego does not exist.” ― Alan Watts

"Before enlightenment, carry water, chop wood. After enlightenment, carry water, chop wood." - Zen Proverb.

@m0hsen needless to say, I won't be looking to the skies for dragons every time I leave the house.

"Degrees of certainty" Even though you can't be 100% certain the bottle of water is still there, you can behave as if it is, because you're 'pretty sure' it is. If I told you I my car was parked outside.. without any way of knowing 'for sure'.. it's reasonable that my car is outside, so it's reasonable to behave as if it is. If I told you I had a dragon in my garage.. without any way of knowing 'for sure'.. it's not very reasonable to behave as if I do. Even though we can't know things 'for sure'.. we can have degrees of certainty.

@Someone here who are you trying to convince? If you find it uncomfortable that existence is a mystery, perhaps try fully embracing that it's a mystery and be done with it... try to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I agree that it's not generally useful to pretend to know things you don't know... remain skeptical of things you can't verify for yourself. Always keep in mind that the map is not the territory. When someone tells you, 'it's raining cats and dogs!', don't be so foolish that you spend your time proving to others that there are not actually cats and dogs falling from the sky. Some maps are better than others.. none are perfect, or they wouldn't be maps.. they would be the thing itself. Philosophy is a language game.. a game of creating useful maps.

Heyyyyyy.. It's Geo Lura, for dematerialized.org..

I like to think of 'suffering/desire' as attachment to the notion that things should be different than how they are. I see suffering/desire as a necessary part of 'being', without which there would be no cause for change. Everything would be static, and unchanging. How would you desire to eat, if you never suffered from hunger?

@Someone here It's always Now.

When? Now?

@Someone here Does it?

"I am. Ohhhhh.. I AM!" - Leo Gura It's all happening, and no-one is 'doing' it. How hard are you trying to 'be' yourself? Not hard at all. It's effortless. You simply 'are'. 'Trying to do something' is something that happens without 'trying to do it', otherwise you'd have to 'try to try' before you could try, and you'd have to 'try to try to try' before that, ad infinitum. Any attempt to 'do something' is just more 'what is already happening'. 'Trying to be how you are' and 'trying not to be how you are' are both 'how you are being' (without trying).. You are ALWAYS 'being how you are', effortlessly. 'trying' is just more 'effortless being'. It's sooooo easy to 'be me' (and it doesn't matter how 'me' is defined, human organism, or the Entire Universe).. it's Absolutely effortless.

Hide and seek. Difficulty: Impossible/Effortless "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.

@Holygrail Ask him where the Universe is. "Where is the universe? Ever thought of that one? Where is it? Well, you can’t say where because everywhere has to be in relation to something. There would have to be another universe to say where this one is. But then, since those two together would constitute ‘the universe,’ we wouldn’t—still—be able to say where it was. It isn’t anywhere." - Alan Watts

There are thoughts you can't have because you lack the vocabulary to have them.