eskwire

The Heart of the Revolution by Noah Levine discusses forgiveness as a moment to moment letting go rather than the hard and fast, "I forgive you because I know shit happens and I also totally forget about it forever." That's unrealistic. You can feel resentful one moment and forgiving the next. What's wrong with that? Maybe with time and constantly letting the grudge rise and fall, it will die because you're not feeding or resisting it. My last bf had a Jesus complex and reminds me a zen devil. He judged me for not "FULLY" forgiving my parents for my childhood. He said that "working on it" was not forgiveness and having any remaining negative emotions ever meant that I had not forgiven. Many people see it this way. I think it's a childish and simplistic idea. I also felt that it was devoid of compassion for me. Anyway! To me, forgiveness is a state of NOT feeling a grudge and that is temporary. It may last for years at a time, but it's a phenomenon like any other.

@STC Hmmm true, that is a belief. Thank you.

Do you ever catch yourself involved in an activity, process, or path that started innocently enough but the ego latches on -- becoming competitive and achievement hungry? This is an experience I had with this today. Please share if you've had a similar experience: I have been doing kenpo karate for about 2 years. Today, I belt tested for a recommended black belt. Last night, I read a comment from Leo about many people starting martial arts for neurotic and insecure reasons. Of course, he's right. You see it all the time. People who are deeply insecure and who watch too many action movies -- compensating. I felt discouraged this morning before the test. Testing always sucks but I felt so over the whole thing. Quitting and not attending was a very tempting option. I know the belts are meaningless. So why am I doing this? Good question. WHY AM I DOING THIS? I have gotten competitive and stayed with karate way longer than I intended out of a sense of obligation to the dojo (I also work there now). Meaningless. But why did I start? I remembered. I remembered driving by the dojo and thinking, "Oh, there's something to do here." I had moved from San Diego to my family's land in the woods of Arkansas. I was driving 20 miles to a grocery store, knew nobody but family, and exercised only in my home. So, why I'm doing it now is a sense of obligation to keep achieving...but I started to get some exercise and meet health/goal conscious people. I went to my belt test just *to get some exercise and see my friends.* It was great. Totally different tone. My instructor is a good friend of mine and we went to a trampoline park after the test, playing as children again! Enjoying our bodies spazzing around and flying through the air. An additional plus is that I got a serious blow to my ego. A young, insecure teenaged boy took me down to the ground during the sloppiest, stupidest sparring match I've ever had. It was filmed and it's on Facebook for all my acquaintances to see. His ego got a huge boost at the expense of mine. But that's how ego works. To feed it, it must take from others. He is needs deficient, though, still needing to strengthen his ego before he can let it go. I am much further along on that, so it was something I could give to him with joy. It was a wholesome, joyous day and the only thing that got me to even try was remembering why I started. Not the egoic reasons I had continued.

@STC The story doesn't say because the moral of the story is that belts don't matter. But yes I did get the new rank. Recommended black belt - the belt before black. You're right. The exercise is really the point. I feel so sore today and that's what feels like an accomplishment. Not the rank. The rank's not hard. Goofy children do karate.

Why do you want to have them all? You make this sound as if it is necessarily and obviously true. Perhaps look inside and see what beliefs you hold about options and question them. Like really question them. Like a child asking "why?" "why?" "why?" to every response you give. Also, yes, Life Purpose Course is probably a good move.

Has anybody been doing shadow work or have a solid grasp on what this is? Someone in the YouTube comments recommended this book to me for shadow work but I'm not seeing it in the index. Google searches have provided nebulous definitions. Thanks!

@Mattylonglegs Have you worked on keeping your awareness on your awareness? It feels too cool to get sleepy imo.

Populations can reach a critical mass and crumble on their own without laws against children or premature death. Unconscious social psychology can shift so that procreation is no longer desired. We can see this budding now in some societies. I think we overestimate the necessity of our meddling. We aren't even meddling. It's happening through us.

@Leo Gura What fear comes up the most?

@Emerald Wilkins Got it! Mindfulness and inquiry! Woohoo! The psychology of it really helps you see what you're looking at mindfully with clarity.

@Emerald Wilkins That is pretty much the size of it! My family was quite dysfunctional (alcoholism, enabling, violence) and expressed disdain for sensitivity. I was very sensitive and emotive. They were stoic. I now have a "stop being a crybaby" mentality about others, even toward people who are in physical pain. There is even some degree of jealousy! In romantic relationships, I seek out men who treat me with disregard. Living with their disregard seems like the difficult but more evolved or correct way. Like I've matured enough to handle it. In response to this disregard, I become very needy. I repress the neediness to keep the relationship and act equally "chill" (lies). I see other people being "needy" (expressing their needs, asking for things, demanding attention or time). I view this as greedy. What happens in their relationships seem like the smallest of slights in comparison to what I've "endured" from family and men. This brings up a lot of animosity toward them, the sense that they are crybabies, and also jealousy...because I want to be able to ask for what I need. This is very clear now! I was wondering why "neediness" made me SO ANGRY. Thanks for walking me through that. It will be interesting to think about how to reintegrate neediness. Perhaps inner child work will help me do that -- just showering the inner child with love, attention, and babying. That might get me to a place where I'm not needs deficient anymore and I can select mates on less dysfunctional patterns.

@Marc Schinkel The difference between your first post and your last post is pretty big. You've like bullet train matured. If youth is wasted on the young, then getting old as hell as young as possible is the workaround for that, no? I just started a public journal here and I'm wondering how helpful it will be in the long run. It made me stick to my word today at least.

Day 1: Eggs and Toast While cooking the food, I felt guilty and also embarrassed that I would be writing publicly about eating eggs and toast. It was an achievement to me that I hadn't eaten any wheat or dairy products for 3 years, and there was the toast, in the toaster, about to have butter put on it. It wasn't even bread. It was hamburger buns. The streak of forgoing those foods has been over for a while. Upon stopping, noticing, labeling "internal feeling" and savoring, the guilt disappeared. There was no guilt to savor. The feeling was generated by thoughts. When the thoughts stopped, so did the feeling. I stared at the food before I ate it. Focusing on "feeling" was the more spontaneous response most of the time. If I focused on sound (like the fork scraping the plate while chopping up the eggs), it was forced. This produced some hope about the realms of sensuality that could be enjoyed in life more. Like stopping to feel the roses.

Leo once mentioned that thinking was perhaps the worst addiction of them and all and he would go into that more in another video in the future. This struck me as important because my life is in my head. It is obvious that I do not live in the real world because my real world results are garbage. It looks like a flurry of careless spurts and starts and nonsense and disregard. I don't live there. I check in occasionally. The benefits people mention are probably real; however, this has to be done in moderation. There are benefits to trying some drugs, but it's a problem to be addicted. There are benefits to eating, but it's a problem to be addicted. Moderated "daydreaming" can be done in time set aside specifically for contemplation and planning, as well as time set aside for visualization. Never heard the term "maladaptive daydreaming." Learn something new every day!

Dig it.

@Emerald Wilkins Duuuude, I also had fixations on misogyny and "all metal, no punk" in my youth. This video was very clear and spoke to me. An insight into a current fixation already came up. I harshly judge people who are "needy" and identify as independent. This is because there is actually a trend toward codependency under the surface that I hide and repress as much as possible. Thank you! I look forward to checking out your channel.

@Martin123 That was a very thorough and helpful explanation and it definitely gives me some guidance on how to proceed! Thank you!

Let the teacher teach you. And control the classroom. Is it good practice for a teacher to allow for bad habits in the students, knowing how difficult they are to undo? Does debate more frequently open the mind or entrench one's preconceived position? This is just how I see it. Most likely nobody's upset with you, btw. That's projection. <3

Reminds me of the movie A Serious Man.

Firstly, COOL!! I'm not certain if terrible head pain was mentioned, but Leo made a video called The Dark Side of Meditation that addresses unexpected symptoms that may arise. I don't remember it well, but most likely, he gives advice on how to proceed. Good luck.

Osho may be speaking of legends. He was very much a storyteller and a comedian. He said many contradictory and odd things. I saw a video of one of the talks he gave at his commune and it was basically Osho's HBO stand-up special. He just cracked jokes for an hour. This is not to suggest that he is spiritually fraudulent. He may or may not be. He shared a lot of wisdom. He is just not completely serious or to be taken at face value alone.

Perhaps the solution is to truly confront the emptiness but not be discouraged that you didn't confront the emptiness for 5 hours in an early attempt. Keep at it.

Perhaps I wasn't being clear. I don't think you have to read a hundred books in both formats to determine the answer. The effects of reading/looking at screens have been studied. Attached is one study that I came across with a Google search of your question. A comparison of reading on computer screens and print media_ meas-1.pdf

This is a great question. I do not have a hard and fast answer for you, but the key may be in how screens affect brainwave states (gamma, beta, alpha, theta, delta, infra-low). The results you get may be dependent on physiological effects rather than lifestyle preferences. Do some Google searching about brainwaves and screens. PS I prefer paper. Screens bum me out. #science