BipolarGrowth

There’s no one to help, nothing that needs to be helped, and no way anything even could be helped in the ultimate sense. It can appear helpful to realize this though oddly enough. It only appears as being helpful though if the person in question is quite aligned with that truth. Otherwise, it might commonly appear to make things worse in the relative sense. Maybe people in a third world country would be wise to move to a different country before spending the little resources they most likely have on a course about awakening.

Life is what you make it.

You are a thought of you being you.

Experience can only access itself. If you want to call something which cannot be accessed real, then sure, everything can be real. I just don’t know why someone would seriously consider something that isn’t present right now real. The point is that if you experience another point of view it is only existing while it is being experienced. Even if you see through the eyes of one million beings simultaneously, it’s only one overarching experience seeing through them or else they would not seem to be connected within the same moment.

The video gives some examples of cases where option 1 and 2 do not cover things fully. Nagarjuna’s point with many of these types of deconstructions of typical ways of viewing things was that there are things that cannot even be covered adequately using any of the four options of the tetralemma. This especially applies to more complex metaphysical “things”. For example, you could look at the question “does the present moment exist?” The most common response would be yes. But the thing that was called the present moment at the point/time of consideration has already changed entirely by the time the question can even be processed. One could look at this change and say that anything pointed to as a present moment does not exist in that sense as it essentially disappears as soon as it arises and is replaced by a fresh, new field of sensations. This does not feel correct though for obvious reasons to say that there is no present moment as there certainly is the appearance of something existing, and the present moment is in many people’s minds one of the most constant and unquestionable things. This might lead someone to conclude that the present moment both exists and does not exist as there appears to be something yet what that something was is gone as immediately as it can be perceived. To consider that even saying that the present moment both exists and does not exist is not sufficient takes the realization that what is being pointed to is in a sense transcendent of that possibility. This would be examined at a very subtle level, and in most cases a “normal” state of consciousness would not allow someone to sense that this explanation is not sufficient. This could lead someone to think the present moment neither exists nor does not exist. It is too slippery of a “thing” to be explained by it both existing and not existing. In a similar fashion, even the neither existing nor not existing way of categorizing the present moment could be seen as too narrow in scope to properly explain what is being pointed at. In practice, what this way of thinking about metaphysical concepts ultimately leaves you at is the recognition that the human logical mind has no possibility of fully grasping what is being considered in typical ways of approaching understanding. It essentially turns the only way of “understanding” such topics as the “being” of the thing itself. It brings one into seeming immersion into the direct experience of the present moment or whatever else is considered, in the case of other potential examples, in a way that still feels to be recognizing something yet no language or thought process can properly encapsulate that something.

Looks like you didn’t watch the video.

There are no enlightened beings ? There is only your enlightenment, and it’s not really yours

What is is. This cannot be known or unknown. Consciousness is just a convoluted word which means nothing compared to what is.

The thought that there is a difference attached to a story which reinforces the interpreted differences is the only difference. I have a suggestion. Allow the thinking mind to do its thing however it wants during meditation and focus your attention on how thought is correlating with changes in your field of experience.

I’d recommend starting with 1g then moving up .5g at a time unless it’s not giving you much of an effect. 3.5g should be pretty strong when you work up to that. If you are taking the penis envy strain, cut those doses in half. It will take about 10-14 days for tolerance to reset to normal in most cases.

If I am considering theory these days, it is altering my state, usually quite significantly. It wasn’t always this way. I combine theory with practice. A thought is a portal into a certain state if you have the experience with practice to make proper use of it. There’s not really any radically new theory I come across these days. At most, it’s usually just a bit of a different spin on something I’ve already gone over quite a bit. States are what is new. They are eternally new, with some varying more than others. I value the states themselves far above the theory nowadays. The theory is like a hammer to help drive in a nail.

I half expected this thread to start off with that lol

Not really. Buddhism promotes developing morality before samadhi and wisdom because it helps to have a solid moral foundation instilled before you show that such things do not matter in an ultimate sense. It’s a way of keeping the worst outcomes of wisdom realizations down as far as relative issues go.

@Striving for more Just letting you know that it might reduce ambition.

I’m curious if seeing who is doing the work is a distraction from doing the work ?

You can be mindful of the breath or plenty of other things throughout the day. If you want quick results, do this 24/7. The Buddha taught that consistent mindfulness is very important and effective. People saying monks don’t get anywhere after 40 years are talking to the wrong monks or have just heard this concept from people who don’t know much about monks in the first place. Most likely, the monks who are more focused on scholarly learning of the principles rather than those who practice skillfully and consistently are the ones who don’t get much after 40 years. It took me about seven years to really get the benefits of meditation to a high degree. If you knew what those benefits are actually like, you’d know it’s a hell of a great deal that it can only take seven years. I wasn’t meditating every single day for hours though, so you can certainly speed things up to a certain degree. Probably 2 years of consistent daily practice is a minimum where you’d see anyone getting to something noteworthy. If you get really proficient at meditation, there’s a good chance you’re going to lose much of this success-focused mindset by the way. When you can get better things on your own in 10 minutes of sitting by yourself than years of chasing success externally, it’s hard to care much about external success beyond just what allows you a comfortable life as far as material things go. This video was made by a Buddhist monk who is incredibly well versed in the Dhamma and is a real practitioner who discusses the importance of consistent mindfulness (sati) throughout the day outside of your sitting meditation practice. Here’s a video from my meditation teacher who discusses the basics of the breath meditation that the Buddha taught which you’ll hardly find most people talking about. It includes some important missing pieces compared to most western meditation teachers.

Michael Jackson would’ve made an amazing Catholic priest.

Full of shit is just a relative perspective and opinion.

Figure 1 seems to show that exercising naturally is slightly better at building strength than not exercising while taking testosterone and that not exercising and taking testosterone builds significantly more muscle than exercising naturally. Not sure how this conflicts with what I linked. Seems to just be more evidence to confirm it. Anyway, psychedelics will still make a difference for people who don’t do much other inner work in a lot of cases. Of course doing inner work and taking psychedelics would be better than just taking psychedelics alone.

https://www.nutritiontactics.com/does-testosterone-build-muscle-without-training/

It depends on what you call attachment and how literal you want to be. If there is experience whatsoever, there is going to likely be much more attachment than something that cannot exist by its very definition.

It’s all just sensations. Also, don’t forget that thought = sensations.

Nonexistence does not exist. No one can have that little attachment and still have experience to any degree.

You gain more muscle by taking steroids and sitting on the couch than going to the gym without steroids. Psychedelics work much like this. But taking psychedelics is inner work if you take them enough.