Vercingetorix

@Whywolf I agree with you as well, the truth is I'm super picky about what I eat and health and nutrition are one of my top values. My father is an Ayurvedic doctor and I see that adjusting what I eat and what I do to my type of mind and body according to Ayurveda really help in balancing my emotions and physical discomforts like heat waves. So I totally agree, in fact, I forgot how important it is as I take it almost for granted, thanks for reminding me

You have to understand that the fast road to enlightenment goes through our daily obstacles. it's true that they are an illusion bus as long as you are not free from them, not having any resistance and negative emotions towards those things, you are living in fear and resistance towards what you wanna do, you suppressing your need so you are getting far from enlightenment. It's true that if you will now meditate for ten years all the subconscious stuff will surface and you could deal with it and finally maybe get your enlightenment, but the much faster route is to confront all your demons directly: feeling and dealing with all the negative emotions, watching them and conquering them. So even if all those obstacles are "imaginary" to the mind, body and unconscious they are very real and contain the energy to make us whole again. So don't the mistake of dividing the world into spiritual and "illusory" mundane, they go together. All in all, I'm saying that this realisation should boost your motivation because mastering the domains of life you have problems with will also advance you the most spiritually, if mastered correctly

@Annie ah ok I understand thanks! it's plausible

@Annie How do you connect epigenetics to it? I'm not familiar with it so much.

@Mondsee you're welcome, hope it will help you. I suffered a lot from my parents arguing too so I feel for you.

@Peace and Love I see what You mean I completely agree, It's not something you are likely to force by willpower.

@Peace and Love DO you mean not to look for something specific, for "love", "girlfriend", "relationship" and just be open and spontaneous with what happens and from this position I have good chances to attract the right person?

@Peace and Love well nice to see creatures from Absolute infinity hanging around with us here thanks, so far I had limited luck in (acro)yoga and meditation group, but to be fair I just started searching recently.

1) focus your attention on your bodily sensations, see that you resist those sensations by trying to solve the situation and by contraction of muscles in your body. The pain and suffering you feel are not caused by the external situation nor by the sensation. Rather, your thoughts about the situation is the resistance to the sensations and it's what is causing the suffering. 2) share what is happening to you, don't "hold it inside you", describe objectively (without blaming) what is happening to you - "when you shout like that it creates a heavy burning sensation in my throat, my breathing becomes short." when you say it you might think that you become more vulnerable but actually when you don't hold it inside you lessen the resistance and it weakens the sensations and you are freer from the emotions thus less vulnerable. Your parents may also acknowledge what you are going through and take it into consideration in their fight.

I don't know why I'm here but I notice that when I'm happy I don't care. So my goal is to become happy. I tried for years to discover the "truth of lif"e but came to the conclusion that you can't understand it conceptually. Now I'm going through the spiritual path that supposedly can bring you to the experience of understanding life and beeing happy at the same time maybe this video can give you a different perspective:

After years of bothering me, this simple Alan watts explanation satisfied my inquiry on the topic.

@Whywolf my view is that all are negative emotions, even depression, are not the sensations we are sensing but rather the resistance to it. So people may have chemical imbalances and strong unpleasant sensations but they still have the control - they can accept the sensations and observe them with equanimity or they can resist them. The "Irony" is that by resisting them we also perpetuate them. That's why My opinion is that meditation on the sensations of the body (Vipassana) can solve maybe all of our emotional problems.

@100rockets If's it's meaningless how come you take your thoughts so seriously? aren't they meaningless either? can you see the blind spot of the ego? It thinks what's it thinks is true, even when it contradicts the thoughts it is thinking themselves. The irony is that only through the mind division to good and bad, beautiful and ugly the world becomes such. that is to say, only if you are thinking the world is ugly, it becomes so. drop the thought and the world becomes beyond ugly and beautiful, which is quite beautiful How can you see this for yourself? Notice that every external situation that you judge creates a sensation inside of you. Together the sensation and the thought create an emotion. through observation of what's happening inside you, you can gradually see that the problem is not in the external situation but in the internal sensation that you are sensing and you were conditioned to resist. When you see that for yourself you can stop trying to solve the external situation with your mind and focus on the sensations. Then you can also become aware that the sensations themselves don't have the characteristics of "good" or "bad", "painful", "hurting", but rather more neutral traits as "pulsing", "itchy", "strong", "sublte", And the only thing that causes your pain and suffering is the resistance to the sensation. the resistance comes in two forms, mental activity of the brain, trying to solve the sensation (again cunningly the brains tells you it try to solve the external situation) and resistance in the body - contraction of muscles. If you understand this you can start to develop concentration and awareness to the bodily sensations and see them for what they are. Paradoxically, when you stop resisting the sensations and accept them as they are, they tend to vanish as if never existed (But if you watch them in the hope of making them disappear you will be still resisting them so it won't work, from experience ). And then when you stop seeing the sensations as good or bad, you will also stop seeing the world as good or bad, but just as it is. which is quite beautiful

If you have lots of experience with other girls and you are sure what you want in a girl and she fits this then go ahead and be with a "relationship" with her until you meet. If when you meet her you continue to be sure about this then IMO you have to live with her as soon as possible for a period of time to really know her. If you have to wait years before doing so then it's a big risk! If you haven't been in a lot of relationships before it's a big risk! Careful not to "live for the future", if you enjoy the distant relationship you have right now, it's good enough for you then fine, but don't think ok I'll sacrifice my present for the future, because this future may never come. Another option for you is, for now, to just keep a good friendship with her and start to know her better, meanwhile having other girlfriends and gaining experience, and then when you finally meet her you will know much better if it's "worth it".

It is also my experience that health problems are deeply connected to emotional states and resistance, but how can you explain stuff like children/babies dying of cancer or other horrible diseases? Does it come from the emotional state of the mother?

@Whywolf @Peace and Love Thanks for the confidence boost I wonder in what social circles equivalent women hang around?

@Scholar my opinion is just continue to be with the experience, try to see it for what it is without concepts and thoughts, any trying to reach it and hold on to it will only bring you suffering, enjoy while it last and enjoy when it ends

@ElenaO maybe something like " are you sure this is best way to do this? in my opinion/experience it's better done this way". It's true that it's tricky to be sincere without bringing the ego/judgment to the equation, but it can be learnt with experience. I also work in a place that everyone look at me like I'm an alien when I mention meditation, but still when I say what I think, even if everyone laughts at me or think I'm crazy, I'm not withholding what I wanna say and it makes me free so much that I don't really care about others opinions.

@ElenaO if you would be 100% sincere at work, and continue to do the same work, would you still feel that it lowers your consciousness? You think it's the work itself, or all the psychological/ego/social aspects/pressure?

Being yourself at work Is paramount in my opinion, other wise you literally live in a lie, worried and anxious. I found that developing sincerity is crucial to developing peace of mind. Start being sincere with yourself, then with your close friends (about anything! ) And family, after your learn the gist of it you can also apply it at work. Sometimes it can be really emotionally challenging but the reward is so so worth it. ( I'm still working on that...But see a big difference already). Meditation can help uncondition the mind from its habit of always choosing the emotionally momentarily easy option;)

@Martin123 for both of us

Right now most days I have at least 3.5 hours to dedicate to consciousness work, I divide my time as follows: 1 Hour meditation 1 Hour self Inquiry 1 hour "research" (forums, youtube, mainly exposing myself to new teachers, ideas, questions) 1/2 Hour reading (mostly Leo's spirituality book list and zen stories) I feel that I need to change the balance, focus more on self Inquiry and reading, maybe something like: 1.5 hours Self Inquiry 1 hour meditation 1 hour reading of course anyone, depending on his/her circumstances and place on the path will have a different balance, but IMO it would be fruitful for all to know what other people's balance is, so please share Also some days I have more free time, like 10 hours a day: I would think 5 straight hours of Self inquiry can be really powerful, have any one tried? gonna try it in my next free day. what would You do if you had full free days dedicated to consciousness work?

@Martin123 I agree on theory, but my experience is that yes I can meditate and self inquire doing other activities which is great, but to really become aware of all the subtle sensations and strains of the body I must sit still. And the quality of self inquiry is different while sitting still, I actually think it's necessary to inquire both alone and when we are interacting with other people! Celebrating life is great, but if you are avoiding boredom be careful to not to avoid part of yourself, your true self may be hiding behind the boredom

@Oneness pain in ass is the way I'm sure it will be so worth it.

@ElenaO first step is to understand all external situations that trigger negative emotions in us can be mapped on the body. When you think that you are lonely and you are sad about it, you are not really sad because you are lonely, but because the thought of you being lonely triggered a sensation in your body. then you react to this sensation, you are sad because you sense an unpleasant sensation. This is super important to understand because then instead of trying to solve the external problem you can work on the sensations level, which is much much easier So I say that this fear is just an unpleasant sensation and thoughts. If you can observe this sensation and accept it, be totally with it, be equanimous to it, then you will see that after a while it just disappears! awareness alone is curative So all negative emotions consist of just sensations and thoughts. we resist the sensations because we perceive them as bad. The way of meditation as I understand it is to learn to accept what is instead of the normal way of the conditioned mind - to resist and avert unpleasant sensations and to crave pleasant sensations. You do it by putting your awareness on the sensations instead of the usual attempt of the mind to think of solutions to the external situation that is causing the unpleasant sensation.