UnbornTao

Ah shit, breaks my heart. Recently saw a video on Reddit of people saying goodbye to their dogs. Broke me in half. My doggy is ten. Time really flies, God.

Why do you expect another to fix your life?

@Human Mint Fantasy is a much broader term here, by the way. I recommend you go through some of the past threads. Essentially, we could say that no perceptive experience is 'closer' to the truth than any other. It is a fallacy.

-- Max van Manen

@Human Mint Didn't you listen to Pene_Descomunal77's video a while ago? Or read the Teal Swan thread?

I'd say that consciousness and cognition are not the same thing.

It provides a hopeful path in one's mind, and I think that's what underlies much of the clinginess. It's discouraging to drop something that essentially turns out to be a fantasy - in the context of consciousness work. It might have value for other purposes, such as healing or opening one's mind. But as you say, you always come down, for a reason. It's also easy to be swayed by dramatic shifts in state and mistake them for enlightenment, especially when there's no real prior contrast to help you discern what's what. Adi Da spoke about this trap somewhere.

We want a pill that could finally solve our personal and societal struggles, don't we? It's more snake oil than reality, in my view.

Which is all we care about.

You have a body - and diet obviously plays a role in how it operates. What do you consider to be spiritual work? This isn't to say that they're directly related in the sense that your diet determines whether you can have an insight or not. But again, it depends on how you're holding spiritual work. For example, fasting and caffeine are likely to influence your meditation sessions if you sit down to meditate. I guess the overall point is that consciousness of the truth isn't determined by your state. And you can contemplate regardless of your experience, whether you are bored, enthusiastic, sad, or jealous. Something something.

"Why can't we ask a question?"

Gave Slay of Spire a try and I'm liking it so far. Got it on Android too.

I'd have to agree with the quote. But show your face, Jed! 😈

I would say it is trickier because it seems to me that everyone assumes they are their mind. I hate to use this analogy, but the fish in water does not know it is swimming in water - because that water is its reality. I am just pointing to this dynamic and the difficulty of escaping it sometimes. A physical pursuit like sports reveals this disparity more clearly. One might think they understand something, but then the feedback provided by objective reality proves they may be missing something - even though, in their mind, they believe they understand. In consciousness work, this distinction may not be so sharply defined at first. Assessing one's own progress and understanding is likely to be biased if this point is not taken into account (and even then...). For example, you mentioned thinking in relation to understanding. Why? It might be that there is a real possibility of experiencing things - a deeper form of knowing than intellectual comprehension. The traps you mention may be related to this: striking a balance between open-mindedness and being grounded, which can be tricky. It seems many people in spiritual circles conflate open-mindedness with gullibility. Oftentimes, they're just plain gullible. In the case of ambition, illusion may apply to the motivation behind it. More often than not, you think that achieving the object of desire will bring about something that resolves you. This is one possibility, and it is what could be labeled as illusory in this context. You pursue something because you think it will complete you, fix you, or do something along those lines.

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