UnbornTao

I'm sure there's a lot of stuff yet to be understood, you just have to be honest and get over this "I'm done" feeling. Unless you want to stop wherever you're at, but it's possible you're fooling yourself. This is where a master comes in handy -- she can point out one's ignorance and blindspots. You might be going through a plateau. Also don't confuse truth with feeling good. Do you know everything there is to know? Do you understand everything, absolute and relative? Have you transformed completely? Have you mastered mind and life?

As usual I was coming at this discussion from intellect so I'll have to look into the matter first; might share my discoveries in the future. In the meantime, I'll say a few things. I don't understand why you bring up taste and emotions in the same conversation. They seem to be two different matters -- perception and emotion. One can actually learn to "perceive" or hold things differently with practice. We'd first have to cognize the way we're currently holding something (the assumptions you have about it, etc). A few months ago I was practicing at looking at dog shit and holding it as something beautiful/positive. Serious. Generate an emotion deliberately. Try doing: Joy Fear Anger Love Excitement Boredom "That's faking it since there's no circumstance causing or justifying your state". That's the assumption we're challenging. In your example, I'd say that with practice you can learn to perceive things differently. Things don't taste "bad", they taste however they taste in your experience. "Bad" is superimposed on experience. As a kid I didn't like kiwi and now I do, even though its taste is the same.

Study with as many masters as you can. I'm not a master and there doesn't seem to be an easy answer. So first become a master at something and then tell us about how to become one.

You actually create your emotions. Who else? They don't come from circumstances. They're not something that you somehow come across. I fear this might be heard superficially but consider that the reality of it is deeper than how it sounds. Haven't you sometimes felt excited, sad or angry and deep down suspect that it is of your own making? Sort of like an actor playing out a character. The emotion is there in the first place because it's serving a purpose. You're going through it because you want to do it. Otherwise, the same event would cause the same emotional reaction on everyone, but we can see that that's far from the truth. Now that doesn't mean we're creating them consciously, though.

I really like his emphasis on openness.

It empowers your contemplations, gives you the land to cultivate, so to speak. Study, contemplation and practice are essential aspects of any subject or activity that is multi-dimensional. They feed each other. But study is different from reading. The point of the former is to gain a rough, incomplete, intellectual understanding of the subject matter, not merely to memorize information. Reading could be used as a way to experience what the author is pointing to, which seems to me the most effective way to go about it. The way most of us do it is by consuming words, much in the same way as watching TV. Try to bring in some mindfulness to the activity.

Under the airy-fairy, spiritual-sounding BS, a deeper principle might be expressed. Look into the principle itself without getting distracted by the fireworks. What's the principle about? What do these kind of practices point to? When it works, what really happened in your experience? Of course in order to accomplish something, wishing and focusing on what you want isn't enough. But that's an adequate starting place. Certainly when your mind goes down ineffective thought patterns, for example, you might start to get stuck into a certain way of thinking. In the same way, one can imagine having achieved her goal. That mind image is going to set an empowering disposition for you, helping you be more effective and flexible. Positive thinking needs to be balanced with groundedness: "If wishes were horses, the homeless would ride." I mostly agree with its underlying principle but it needs to be contemplated and experienced for oneself and not adopted as dogma.

Primarily to make a living. Ideally you'd want to turn what you like (your life purpose) into your career or business. But yeah, you work primarily in order to be able to buy groceries, rent an apartment, own a car and computer, be able to travel, buy books, etc. If you don't, it'll be harder for you to fulfill these needs -- by hunting your food, building your own shelter, etc. Not very practical for my needs and wants. You can also live austerely and reduce your expenses so that the need to work is reduced. You'll gain time but lose some capacity to buy stuff you'd probably want (smartphone, internet, car, console, various services, etc).

"Through" implies process and medium, which are indirect. When it comes to enlightenment those are irrelevant. The only real "requisite" is consciousness.

@Leo Gura maybe you're still under its effects, you're just dreaming that you aren't.

Playfully grab the guy's ass. Jokes aside, I'd confront and tell him, "What the hell dude?" Something along those lines. I rarely see the need for violence, unless the guy didn't get your point, kept being an idiot, etc. You'd be creating more problems for you down the road.

I'm watching Life of Pi right now. Love it. It deals with spirituality and metaphysics.

Make decisions deliberately, or you will likely default to the most comfortable option. Do not be passive or complacent. The operative verb here is make -- a decision is created.

You're likely being too harsh. That doesn't mean moving away isn't a good choice. Perhaps avoid causing more harm; try to communicate with them in little ways, begin to establish some boundaries. These situations can be challenging. But we don't know what's best for you. Just some opinions and suggestions.

@Oeaohoo Thanks for your input. I suggest checking out the creation vs destruction video.

Not you in particular but people in general. Truth as a term sounds too abstract in this discussion. The truth of what? Objects? Being? Perception? An emotion? Relative or absolute? I'd imagine that once you are conscious of what those are -- and that's a big if -- looking for agreement will be seen as irrelevant, and you'll be in a much better place to facilitate others get clear on what you became conscious of, if that's something you want to do. So why worry about it?

Because you don't know what it is.

No ideology will change the fact that you don't know what anything is. Assuming one thing or another is irrelevant in this regard. What's reality? What am I? What is an object? What is perception? The goal should be to contemplate those questions and become directly conscious of what they are for oneself, otherwise what's the point?

You could compile them all into a textbook. Actualized.org Textbook Lite.

In a Russian accent lol

haha, cool.

Useful reminder, thanks. One trap you can continually fall into is assuming that you're already open, which fundamentally seems to be just disguised closed-mindedness. That stance might be based on arrogance too, even if just in a subtle form. It might not be recognized as close-mindedness until you open up -- until the space or contrast for the recognition to take place is created. Or some such.

Mainly, you just have to do it. Read a book and take notes. Choose a topic, research it and then take notes however you want. A digital format is best, imo. A fun aspect of this process is coming up with your own system/structure and customizing it to your liking. At some point you'll likely intuit ways to go about organizing your notes organically. There're also many templates and ingenious ways to structure your commonplace book out there. Check out the Second Brain by Tiago Forte and Obsidian tutorials on YT.

Better learn to interact and communicate effectively with them.