UnbornTao

Sure. The difference is that I've been contemplating this for awhile.

By necessity, listening precedes understanding. The first danger is automatically assuming you know what is being said - because you understand the language, it fits your view, and so on. The problem with putting your focus on 'understanding' is that it feeds into your assumption that listening is restricted to the conceptual. Since we take words to be symbols, we think this is merely a conceptual endeavor. But there is a deeper kind. Read Krishnamurti's quote and see how what he says applies to you. He's describing the process as it occurs for most people.

Maybe - to you.

That's a lot of time to practice, thanks.

This better not be delayed this time.

It was entertaining.

No, but taking some time with it helps to reveal everything that tends to get in the way.

@Someone here You're invited to do the exercise. Notice the baggage that tends to immediately come up. Krishnamurti alludes to this above.

It depends on why you're claiming it, and especially on what you're actually claiming. It seems to me that nobody deliberately claims falsehood, so that's some sort of feedback. Which is to say, we don't like being wrong, and when we recognize that we might be, we quickly adapt so that we're positioned on the "right" side of things again. But I digress. Vanity is about you, and the truth does not care about you. These are totally different motivations. What you think telling the truth is is different from actually knowing and telling the truth, so this is a gap to bridge for oneself.

To the Ground and beyond, then.

It's tricky to discern, especially when evaluating how something is expressed. Many people may confuse bluntness or straightforwardness with vanity, but these serve different purposes.

Couple of quotes: It's likely that many of you will overlook or even outright ignore this topic, which partly explains the issue of poor listening.

Masturbation Awakening™

What is this referring to? Anyway, do the exercise:

Yes, turn to the dark side.

Either that, or he finally attained Nirvana.

Amen! Praise the Lord.

It's certainly not an intellectual process. Be brutally honest with yourself. That's the first step, and essentially the only one. Don't pretend one thing is another, or that something is happening when it isn't. Don't misrepresent. Pay attention, listen to feedback, stay open. Ask yourself: is this a belief - something that requires a mental leap? Do I just want this to be true? Take Adi Da as an example. We grant that he actually knew what he was talking about. The word actually matters - it's what earns him our respect. So when he asserts that psychedelics don't increase consciousness or lead to enlightenment, what do we make of that? After genuine consideration: even if we think we understand what he's saying, we're probably wrong. So we take him at his word - not blindly, but in a specific sense: we acknowledge there's something we're not currently getting. That we don't truly know what he means by enlightenment or realization. That our own awakenings may be something else entirely, if we believed the substances lead there. In short: realize what he realized. Which, to be clear, no one does. If you think you do, you may be deceiving yourself in a fairly significant way - and the fundamental difference in stance on this topic is itself the evidence of that.

How long have you been working on the exercise?

@Breakingthewall It wasn't personal, to be clear. First, I was pointing out the stupidity in thinking you understand what's being conveyed. Second, confusing musings and intellectualization with what’s being discussed. But I've realized that exercises are far more useful than… well, just jerking off. And don't worry, you haven't been blocked.