eskwire

Very nice. How long are you fasting? I am currently doing OMAD, one meal a day, 23 hour fast every day. The longest extended fast I've done was 6 days. Fasting is helpful in a number of areas. To me, it's easier than fussing with food. Many people use food to tamp down uncomfortable feelings. It's a distraction from discomfort. Of course, it is key not to generate aversion to discomfort. To face it with awareness and equanimity. For those who use food dysfunctionally, it's like removing another abused substance from your life. You are sober in a sense and can grow from that place.

Nah. The orange is strong. The green people are orange with nascent green, so the kind of green where they like hippie stuff because it's cool/hip/fashionable. I went to high school there and have lived there twice. I would absolutely never live there again. If you aren't rich, you might end up sharing a house with 5 strangers and lots of roommate drama. The CA hippies are in the north.

San Diego is orange.

Returned from a 10 Day Vipassana Course. I've sat 3 courses and served one (cooking and cleaning for the meditators). This time, I fought boredom instead of pain. That is a much subtler and deadlier beast - it can make you quit meditating or going to retreats altogether. Because you get delusional and think you already know everything about it - there's nothing more to do or get. Total delusion and indicates lack of beginner's mind. Strong, ambitious people know they can get through pain. They do it all the time. Strong, ambitious people do not like being bored, though! This course was grindy. All about the work, remembering to come back to the work, and do it very correctly without added delusional bullshit. It was hard. And I didn't feel all happy and high at the end. I did feel wiser and humbled, though. Learned some hard lessons on this one. And was inspired to make this meme. If you have questions, hit me up.

@Mulky That is a good way to put it. Highly recommend moving away from Blue and Orange areas. You can organize a Green event, meet a few friends, but friendships are tenuous at best. Very shallow, easy to break. Friendships are for joy, not need. Blue and Orange places have festivals anyway, but the people are still the same. They are just partying.

I live in an intentional community in Washington with inexpensive rent. That's a super green situation. But also kind of a lucky situation. Washington and Oregon have many green pockets. CA has A LOT of Stage Orange, so be careful. I was born and raised in Southern California and would never move back.

No, please stop saying that for the love of god. ???

Yes, exactly! Thank you for understanding and contributing. ?

"You don't know what I know, you haven't seen what I've seen. Justification for making a circus of what many more humble people have come to feel and rejecting the teachings of others." It's ok to experience what other people already experienced and wrote down in books and Wikipedia. That's not playing it cool. It's part of the human experience. Attaching to being the MOST and the FIRST and the DEEPEST SO DEEP - this is delusion and intoxication. But whatever, do you. Guess you have to. You're all there is.

Asking @Leo Gura. Many of us on the forum have had enlightenment experiences - experiences of oneness, being alone, being one with god, even solipsism - so why the sudden drama about this? If this is truly a big breakthrough for him, I would be interested to see if this elevates his compassion level any or makes it worse.

Why is oneness way more radical and insane? What's with the drama?

I wrote a post about breaking my ankle and the resulting changes in my outlook on people. Some forum folks responded in a judgey, critical, unfeeling way without having read the post completely. This triggered me intensely. Sure, it was partially PMS, partially my actualized.org troll commenting and fanning the flames, partially that someone whom I admired hurt my feelings. But what part of myself was I reacting so intensely to? The part of myself that berates me no matter how hard I try or how well I do. The part of myself that doesn't listen to how I feel. My inner asshole who judges others and thinks everyone is lazy. In short, I was reacting to my toxic masculinity. I am a woman. There's a lot one could say about toxic masculinity imbedded deep in the psyche of an American female, but I've never done gender studies and you - the reader - prolly don't care. I grew up in a household whose ambiance was very, "Work harder, don't bother me with shit, stop having fun, and nobody cares about your feelings." My father was an alcoholic and my mother didn't want to be a mother. She was a career person. Maybe this is why I was so drawn to Leo's masculine, no-nonsense style. Between my family, the karate school in the South where I lived/worked recently, and listening to hundreds of hours of Leo's hyper masculine style...I have been steeped in masculinity and I think it's currently doing me more harm than good. As an experiment, I am leaving the forum and not listening to Leo's vids for six months or more. I'm not on here much anyway but I've heard 95% of Leo's vids and done the LP course. His voice has been ringing in my ears for 2.5 years. It's been helpful for some things but now I want to try opening myself up to nurturing, surrendering to all of my experiences and feelings. I will follow females like Emerald and work with female coaches, listen to Sade, relax and file my nails. Whatever! I am swinging my pendulum over to the side of femininity until I am recalibrated and balanced. We'll see if it helps. ❤

What works for me is "not breaking the chain." So, for example, I have a meditation habit of 20 minutes before work. If I am running late one day, I still do a meditation even if it's just 2 minutes because that stops me from "breaking the chain." This keeps momentum but gives room for life to happen.

Hilarious. And so true - I grew up in the desert and I have zero interest in ever feeling that again.

@PsiloPutty @luckieluuke Great. It's certainly worth it. Let me know how it goes! Another note - One thing that helped me through the 5th and 6th days when I kept wanting that segment to end so we could move on to the next activity (which was usually just more meditation, right?), I thought, "You have to just do this until you die. You have to pay attention until you die so just get over it - there's nothing else." I understood the gravity of learning meditation - coming out of delusion - and surrender.