The0Self

And in that, there is only love, which leaves nothing left to be said at all.

?? ? Try diligence but have fun and perhaps don’t take it too seriously.

Well first off, love (needless totality) is the natural way things are — that there’s nothing wrong or right with anything, including suffering. So the only one who would ask “why” is an imagination of love as separate from itself and therefore illusory. Just a story. Love longs to imagine, for no reason at all (it has no need), what it’d be like if it could genuinely ask “why is there suffering?” and so here we are. There’s never any separation between love (nothing being everything) and what’s longed for. Again that’s still a story but it points to the unspeakable nature of love — and there’s actually no reason to even call it “love”... it’s simply “all there is.” There’s a big difference between 1. love you can handle, and 2. infinite; inconceivable; unconditional love. The understanding of unconditional love is not even survivable, so it’s truly just inconceivable and it has no answer — it doesn’t need an answer; it doesn’t need anything at all.

Halfway period of uncertainty between bondage and liberation. Perhaps associated with solipsism and/or nihilism.

Yeah if it's neck then idk... I was mainly referring to the general pain caused by profound stillness in half lotus for long periods, usually primarily in the legs.

This simply isn't true. I've seen people commit before sex multiple times. Both parties simply have to be on the same page a far as waiting and priorities go. People don't even necessarily fully commit after sex even when it appears they're committed to another. No one really ever actually commits to someone else anyway, only to their own idea of another separate person, it just plays out as it does and needs apparently get met or they don't. Commitment before sex is usually a ruse, a rarity, a pretense, an anomaly, or a neediness. It's a pipe dream and commitment apparently happens when it does, or it doesn't.

Yeah this. Drop expectations perhaps but also let it unfold naturally.

@Endangered-EGO Yeah I can give instructions, why not. Be very still, perhaps start with some meditative technique like following the breath. follow the sensations in a very relaxed but diligent way with clear bright full awareness of the whole egg-shaped energetic body sense in the background. Appreciate any joy that arises and let it build like a fire which you can add fuel to with continued close unwavering following of the breath. When it gets painful, continue with the breath following until it gets unbearable -- though if there's a lot of joy it might not even be a big deal, but I digress... Then place attention on the sensations associated with unpleasantness and dive into them in a relaxed diligent curious way to see what it is. Dive in completely like you can't get enough of it -- you want to find out what it is. Intentionally try to increase the unpleasantness with a sort of mind-dial on the unpleasantness itself -- it will have the opposite effect. Eventually you might break through and the pain may be just empty space essentially. You can zoom out like you said, but for this instruction it seems a more profound equanimity is associated with zooming in or rather absorbing-in. It's all a huge game, there are all kinds of things the apparent you can seem to learn and do and progress with.

There isn't anything at all whatsoever that isn't simply appearing to happen on its own without a separate controller or guiding mechanism. Even if there appears to be a separate controller or guiding mechanism, that too is just appearing to happen on its own. There's no one, no thing, and no moment neither in, nor outside of, what's simply just appearing to be. The only constant is nothing, which is everything constantly appearing to change. Movement never moves, and nothing controls it.

Fair enough. Anything that naturally elevates or reveals well-being is alright.

SDS. Maybe needle in fingertip? Don't actually do that. SDS is sufficient -- you can't stop anytime if you've determined already that you're going to sit for x hours. I mean you can but not really -- it's SDS. Plus there are techniques that will induce so much equanimity you won't even want to move. Dive into the pain and try to feel into what it actually is. Turn up the dial of pain intensity intentionally -- it has the opposite effect if you've been still bodied and minded for long enough.

Exactly. I'd strongly suggest that it is in the best interest of cjoseph90 to drop this dream of hers like a sack of bricks and never look back.

Okay so this will never ever happen with a quality man. The only compassionate response is to suggest that you drop that expectation like a hot coal. Commitment never ever EVER comes before sex unless it's a rather dysfunctional relationship and/or a pathetic man. Drop that dream. Just a suggestion. Good luck though!

First of all, it was a joke. But also, I have plenty of experience with this type of stuff. Not gay myself, but lots of experience with testosterone, both high and low levels in myself and others. When gay guys use test, their libido goes up, and they're still quite gay. Simple as that. That's what seems to happen. I don't know what has led you believe this is not the case, but all I can do is point out what seems to be the case. See the my-3rd-to-last-comment-in-this-thread (begins with "I used to be on subutex") for more details. And I can go on if you'd like.

If a gay male with low test gets put on testosterone shots, he will be ready to fuck anything male that moves lol.

I used to be on subutex, which tanked my testosterone to near zero. Can't remember the exact units, but normal is about 400-1200, and mine was 18... Well, I was absolutely just as straight with no testosterone in my body, just with a slightly decreased libido. Testosterone has nothing at all to do with orientation. Just has to do with aggression, confidence, motivation, and libido (my level is well above 1000 now and I can notice all four of those traits increased slightly relative to when I was at a rock bottom level of 18) -- partially because it indirectly potentiates catecholamines via the sensitization of certain receptors (beta adrenergic, I believe).

Gratitude doesn't necessarily have anything to do with duality. It can seem to, but even then I can't really think of anything more powerful than gratitude... Except for maybe humility. Or futility. I don't know... When liberation apparently happens, gratitude is about all that's left -- it survives the apparent collapse of duality. I mean... So does basically everything else though, except for maybe guilt and shame and self-hate and self-esteem etc... But the thing is, gratitude is likely to be rather extremely prominent. In the dream, gratitude is just about the fastest way to so-called "higher states."

Sure, that all has to do with the expansion of consciousness, which has nothing to do with enlightenment. This is enlightenment. There just might be the appearance of someone who knows, in that, hiding the natural way things are which is that there is only enlightenment and it's not for anyone nor is it any particular thing or state nor does it know itself dualistically.

Repressed anger comes out of the position that not-anger is actually better than anger. There's no basis for that position. Preference for not-anger is fine! But perhaps just notice it as a mere preference, if it is indeed an actual preference (you might actually have a preference for anger, at least some of the time, lol). Expressing the anger in a safe way perhaps could be relieving.

Appreciate the contribution, but from here all I can say is that whether she "puts out" on the first date or even in the first hour is completely irrelevant and I wouldn't think even slightly less of her, neither in relation to how much of a catch she is nor to how much she's compatible with me nor to how much I should worry about her cheating. In fact, even cheating itself is actually completely irrelevant to me now, and THAT's the only thing I'd say most others won't relate to, as it wasn't always that way for me... But now, as far as I'm concerned, if she wants to cheat, then as long as she tells me, I'm totally fine with it -- and that's actually never even happened to me. In my experience, if you don't care if a woman cheats, she generally will not cheat, because you're quite secure. And even if she does, no one gives a fuck. If anything the only problem this presents is the woman getting jealous (of other women you talk to) rather easily because you're perceived almost as un-have-able, unless she has the same outlook on cheating, which takes a very, very mature (and/or perhaps naturally polyamorous?) woman. Of course if you both have that same outlook, there's no such thing as cheating anyway.

Can kind of relate but not in the same way at all... I wouldn't wish it for myself but I have wondered how it would be if I were bi. Seems like it'd be pretty awesome! Being straight is awesome too though, so it's whatever. But yeah I've definitely seemed to want to be bi in the past. If there is a scale of straight 0 to gay 10, then I would literally be 0.000... I actually can't really even tell if any given male is attractive or not, and certainly not how he compares to others (other than merely by societally recognized negative traits such as overweight, etc, but hardly even then...) -- Perhaps that's why there was a longing curiosity about being bi... it was just so unknown and foreign. There was certainly never any longing whatsoever for being gay though -- I loved women so much it's just too magical for me to have let go of that preference in favor of something else... aside from open mindedness exercises, of course... And about that: I used to feel disgust at the idea of gay sex, but one of Leo's open mindedness videos suggested a technique of imagining myself having gay sex -- I think it was aimed at people with repressed homosexuality, which I never had, nor do I have now, but I did it anyway as a simple open mindedness exercise. It actually seemed to be worthwhile! Because, while I still had absolutely no passion for homosexuality, I was no longer disgusted by it. Not that I ever thought it was wrong, it just made me feel disgust, which was a rather uncomfortable trait which Leo's vid helped me to solve (in my story). Not that it needed solving, of course, but it was at the very least... neat. Thanks Leo!

Hey, it's better than Jim Newman's response from something similar: "I'll buy you the rope."

@Twega “What can I do to become enlightened” is the whole misunderstanding.

No idea what to make of dreams. Sort of off topic, but the only thing noteworthy I can say about dreams, is that after getting pretty skilled at meditation, it apparently unlocked the ability to read in dreams. Used to try to read in dreams and the letters would be all jumbled -- now I can basically pick up a novel and read it if my dream body did so. It's kind of cool Just last night I was dreaming that I was shopping and I could read all the labels as if it were waking life.

Exactly. What is unreal appears as real when a knower arises in the appearance. Apparently hiding the lack of any separation of any kind at all between real and unreal, which are the precise exact same, and in fact... not even the same! Because they aren’t even two separate things that could be called “the same.” ?