r0ckyreed

I don’t know. Maybe to find and rewatch the clip that you really liked rather than having to flip through the whole video. It’s like rereading a chapter rather than the entire book. I liked Actualized Clips. I think it is just an algorithm problem right now that some day it will switch around in favor.

It’s not possible. Reality is infinite and understanding is always finite. The part cannot grasp the whole because the whole will always be greater than the part. This should be obvious. Omniscience doesn’t exist at least in this finite human form. Anyone who says they understand all of reality should be able to demonstrate understanding and clear articulation of all mathematical equations, mental health disorders, how electricity works, how AI and computer coding works, etc. All of those are part of reality and you will never understand everything in this lifetime period. Please read The Book of Not Knowing and check out Leo’s video on The Power of Not Knowing. Leo already admits that total understanding of reality is impossible. He admits that the only thing he knows is that reality is infinite. That’s all we can know.

OP makes a good point and is asking good questions. If everything is a hallucination that would mean hallucinations are also a hallucination which makes everything real. Hallucinations are occurring in existence/reality.

Death is imaginary. The self is imaginary. Lol.

Studies show that religious people in general are typically more happier. This could be because nonreligious folks may be more pessimistic, which makes sense when you realize everything is a lie. Ignorance is bliss in that sense. But there could be many other factors as well such as community involvement gives people more sense of a purpose.

No character in your dream can awaken. There are no enlightened beings.

I have been thinking about this thought. How do Buddhist Monks live any different than from being dead? They spend their whole lives confined in a monastery sitting and counting their breaths. The few monks who leave to meditate in a cave are also not living any different than from being dead. Meanwhile, there are those who are traveling the world, following a purpose to improve society and make a difference. They are improving themselves, facing conflict/stress, are actively overcoming their fears, and are living ambitious lives. One of my first thoughts when watching Leo Gura is why is he not spending his life meditating in a cave if that lifestyle is so important for enlightenment? Why is he wasting his time by teaching and running a business. But that is when the thought came that the people who take up a monk life are actually fooling themselves because they are existing and not truly living. They actually believe that if they spend their entire lives meditating that they will reach so-called enlightenment. The thought never comes after 10 years of practice that maybe enlightenment and the whole monk life is a self-deception and a way of lowering a man’s ambition. But who am I to judge, the eastern culture values the man who abandons his ego, not the one who builds it. Why do we desire to abandon our ego if the point of life is to develop it? Why would the Universe create an ego in the first place to only want to go back to the Source? Why not enjoy the game life is and work on maximizing our character and growth while we are alive rather than pissing it away seeking an enlightenment that does not exist. There comes a point when one must stand up and take action and not spend most of their lives on a comfy meditation cushion. The Jedi meditate, but they do other things too that make them men and women of action and service. There is more to life than formal sitting meditation. Learn to meditate while doing hard work in the moment. If Buddhist monks can meditate high consciously in a monastery, why not carry that over to meditate in a business and life purpose? These are just my thoughts here about the self-deception of enlightenment and Buddhism. I hope it is helpful or not. Don’t get me wrong. I do formally meditate. But 10 minutes is all I need. The rest of the day, I am striving to following my ambitions as mindfully as I can.

Profoundly wise person. I plan on exercising, reading many books, contemplating reality, and writing books and producing original work based on my contemplations. 30 minutes of meditation can be spaced out during my day to help me find balance in using my mind and quieting it and learning to just be satisfied with what is right now. But at the same time, there are goals and things I want to create. I wanna be a creator since apparently I am God. I cannot create much if I am meditating 3 hours a day. I don’t have that kind of time to achieve all I want in this lifetime. I find 5-10 minutes of meditation is helpful. Any longer is counterproductive to my goals at this point. My reasons for meditating are to help me improve my thoughts, creativity, and happiness.

Good point! I’m still young and trying to find myself. It would be wise for me to explore the stage Orange stage to its fullest. Then move on from there.

There’s a lot of noise in the River. With that being said, let’s focus back on the topic at hand and not on petty human BS. Why spend anymore than 10 minutes on your ass meditating when you got crap to do in life? Why spend 2 hours a day? Why can’t monks meditate while running a high conscious business that will impact the world even more than chanting and charities in a monastery? You might argue that there is the connection paradox of the more one isolates themselves from the world, the more connected to reality they will be. This may be true to a point, and we do need solitude and silent space for reflection, but this lifestyle seems like an excuse. At some point, isolation from the world is isolation from the world. One needs to connect the insights from solitude to the social world. Before enlightenment, run a business. After enlightenment, run your vision.

There is no mastery without understanding. They are linked lol. ? Andrew is correct on value and challenge being linked. But I don’t think you are correct in stating understanding and mastery aren’t.

If 10 minutes isn’t even worth doing, then 2 hours is just a waste. I get more out of my 10 minutes than you may get out of your 2 hours. My whole point is that you need to get off your ass and do other things besides doing monk meditation. We only need 8 hours of sleep. We only need 10 minutes of formal meditation practice. You telling me to do 2 hours when 10 minutes makes me calm and peaceful is like we telling you to sleep 12 hours a day when 6 hours is enough for you. Too much sleep has its consequences and so does too much meditation. It becomes another comfort zone that you must break through. All growth requires a change in routine and challenging yourself while pursuing goals. If you spend your whole life meditating, you will never travel around the world. You will just be a drone sitting in one spot for your life. And then you will be living life as if you were already dead, just sitting and focusing on your breath. When instead, you could’ve been focusing on your goals, desires, and purpose. I do 10 minutes of formal meditation mindfulness practice and then I move on with my life. I see the benefits at 10 minutes. I have done 5 hours of meditation before and lost all the benefits after the first 30 minutes. Diminishing returns. Some days, I don’t even formally meditate at all, and I still live meditatively and ambitiously.

It is so obvious to me that Buddhism is an ideology. But it wasn’t until after I deeply questioned it. Thank you Jed McKenna. It’s just another authority game. If you take Buddhism teachings to its fullest, the attachment to the label and philosophy of Buddhism is also let go of. No true Buddhist would identify as a Buddhist because that becomes another attachment lol. You can see the circular reasoning there. But it’s funny because The Buddha is so worshipped in those communities, and they are attached to that authority figure.

I totally agree. I see my hikes in nature as a meditation. I don’t need to sit down for one hour to empty my mind. I only need 5-10 minutes a day of that. But most of the time, I am just observing and contemplating whenever and wherever I can. I value adventure and you could call that a meditation. But I don’t. I just call it mindfulness adventure.

Yeah. I call this mindfulness. When I say meditation, I mean sitting down and doing a formal mindfulness practice. When I say mindfulness, I mean an informal process of standing, sitting, running, driving, etc. while being aware of the present moment without judgment. I am not against mindfulness. I am against the monastic lifestyle of long-term meditation and other stuff. One should not make their life about meditation but rather about being mindful. I can be mindful and engaged in this moment while working out and growing a business. I can’t do any of my ambitions if I am on my ass.

Awakening is. But I realize that I am not ready to pursue that yet. I am 26 and need to focus on building my ego before I deconstruct it. Not a good idea to put the cart before the horse.

Access to our true nature is here and now. We don’t need to confine ourselves to a monastery to attain it. Exploring the world is self-exploration. Nobody creates a video game to meditate in it. The same way, the Universe doesn’t create life just to meditate in it. We need 8 hours of sleep. No more than 20 minutes of meditation is needed.

It is a paradox for sure. I call it the satisfaction paradox. We pursue our goals and ambitions to satisfy our desires. But too much satisfaction at the start can inhibit us from pursuing our goals and being satisfied in the future. Satisfaction to one extreme is complacency where one is content and has no desire to improve. Whereas, the other extreme is never being satisfied until the result is produced. Both forms are toxic. Balance is essential. Meditation is the way of being satisfied with little. But too much meditation can inhibit our ambitions. That’s the point of this post. I cannot live a monk life because I desire too much in life. That’s like playing a video game and only playing in the monastery when you could be exploring the entire world. Imagine playing a video game where all your character is doing is sitting down and meditating the whole time. You’d be like WTF is the point of that game?

Of course not all live in caves but that way of life seems glamorized by spiritualists. Books and teachers. My point still stands that if all you do is live to meditate, you will live no differently than being dead. There comes a point where time spent in meditation is time when your learning decreases. You can meditate for 40 years and still have the same IQ and level of knowledge/intelligence. Meditation hasn’t taught me anything new but that which is already the case.

A Sage is what I strive to be. The truest test to meditation is being able to be peaceful while running a business and having a family. It’s easy to be peaceful when you have no obligations.

I am unaware of homeless people right now, but they still exist. I am unaware of fentanyl, but it still exists. Edit: I asked Leo about this. He said his toilet exists even if I am not aware of it, and that is because God hides things from itself. My only concern is that it doesn’t seem parsimonious. That’s my concern with Berkeley’s idealism. Why invent such complex explanations when you can just stick with the simplest idea and accept that the external world exists of things perceived and not. Berkeley posits that God holds everything in its consciousness so it doesn’t disappear. But how is that explanation any different from just admitting that external world exists. The latter is much simpler.

The RAS is a huge problem for sure. There is a difference between a misleading title and knowing how to keep an audience engaged. Deception isn’t the only method, but it is very effective for sure. It is easy to sell my soul to the Devils and play their game. I am gonna be as honest and truthful with my content as much as I can. Now I am curious as to the statistics on books now. I would bet that reading is going out of trend now.

I value authenticity and truth. I don’t need to mislead people to feel secure. If my content is high quality truly, then clickbait is not needed. That’s ultimately what clickbait is about. Get attention through mastery not deception.

Click-bait is a form of deception. I instantly lose respect and cannot trust anyone who uses it intentionally. The ego will justify deception all day. You have to deceive yourself to think it’s okay to deceive others. Edit: I could care less about one’s knowledge of if they read 600 books. I care more about one’s level of self-deception, which is more of an indicator of one’s level of consciousness.

How did you read 600 books in 4 years? That's insane man! Congrats! Tell us what you learned from them. It is about quality of learning, not quantity of learning.