UnbornTao

Okay, sounds good. I'd say it depends on what distinction you're using for knowing - awareness could be called a form of knowing, and yet it's prior to intellect and mental understanding. Don't combust, though.

The frustration may arise from deeply experiencing our apparent impossibility - or the elusiveness despite all our effort - of grasping things in themselves. Language and thought are never the thing itself. What you may be pointing to, perhaps, is our shared ignorance of anything that exists for itself. The more we do the work, provided we are honest about our experience, the more we realize our consciousness is currently out of alignment with the nature of pretty much everything. Getting to the core of reality involves becoming conscious - an "act" that intrinsically transcends human faculties. It is deeper than figuring something out or coming up with an explanation, as you suggested. Perhaps the place you are speaking from is the very source of our drive to adopt so much beliefs and "knowledge" - which, by the way, never seem to hit the mark either. Yet this is a useful and powerful vantage point from which to ask deeper questions about anything, such as: What is language? What are experience and perception? How can we reach direct knowledge of something, if such a possibility exists in the first place?

I share that sentiment, it can be frustating. Like trying to hit a target that doesn't exist.

Open or unrestricted perhaps - and ill-defined, in a sense. Not easy to locate its source.

It'd be like Shangri-La - an ideal.

I haven't even personally verified the existence of Antarctica, let alone aliens. Communist aliens.

Or turn you into the Lisan al-Gaib.

Hey, who's hallucinating whom?

In our experience, the truth is profoundly unknown, is it not? That said, your post is somewhat vague. While bias is likely universal and the tendency to deceive oneself should be guarded against, I would argue that as long as you uncover what is really true about your subject of inquiry, other concerns are largely secondary.

Cheers! Still, you should've asked more and better questions.

God helps those who help themselves? God-help - a new subgenre.

You have a point. The power of a belief comes largely from the fact that it's seen as "reality," not as an adopted or made-up notion. It makes sense to say that recognizing your beliefs as such can feel threatening to your self-identity. Still, I think there's room for someone to consciously hold a belief and operate from it while remaining aware of what it is. For example, you might think of yourself as a kind person (or reserved, loud, whatever), and behave according to that self-image. Yet you can also see that as a "belief" - an aspect of yourself that was adopted at some point and isn't inherent to your person. It isn't who you are, existentially. The main distinction to be made is that no belief is, or can be, the truth. Even when a belief is valid or sound, it's still a thought about - a representation - and in that sense, untrue.

Check whether it's truly existential. Is it actually there? Pay attention to your objective, physical surroundings, and ask where the suffering can be found. Certainly, existence itself seems quite "unconcerned and at peace." So where is the suffering?

Unsolved riddles everywhere.

The first "supplement" in his stack is a joint.

The term awakening gets thrown around willy-nilly.

We keep looking for an answer. I don't know.

Hmm, how accurate is that? For example, you can't have 'positive' without 'negative.' Perhaps what you're referring to is the experience of equanimity, or a kind of peace. But this shouldn't be confused with the absence of emotion, whether positive or negative. If something is regarded, recognized, or distinguished as positive, then negative - and vice versa - is created when that initial assessment is made.

And your state never stays the same. The contrast is what allows you to recognize one state from another. You might ask what the substance of such open-mindedness is - what it's based on. You're essentially asking for a drug high to be permanent and then complaining that it wears off. It's best to see whether you could generate for yourself a state of radical openness, this will be different (perhaps more real and grounded) than a chemically-induced one. I'll agree that it is an experience - hopefully, you gained some insight from it.