UnbornTao

That's what I'm claiming can't occur without language! The possibilities of "something being gotten across by another" and "listening to another's internal state" wouldn't exist without such context. "Language" isn't found in the drawings, the concepts, or the sounds being made. Yes, that's basically what communication is - getting your experience across to another. The medium used, for example writing or speaking, is a tool aimed at conveying that experience. As said, there would be no notion of transferring your internal state to another, nor of listening to another's experience as we know it. So how could communication exist in such case? You'd hear the sounds being made by another sentient being, but they would be mere utterances - meaningless vocal vibrations not directed at you as something to grasp, make sense of, or decipher. It's hard to tell what feeling would be like without language, since language constitutes so much - perhaps even the majority - of our conceptual abilities. In fact, feeling itself may be conceptually based, though that's a different topic. Whether all concept and thought depend on language, I'm not entirely clear. As for less conventional forms of communication, a Zen-like silent transmission may be possible - or so the stories go. It's hard to know what's being conveyed in the rare cases said to happen. Perhaps 'enlightenment' could be transmitted, as it were, yet 'transmission' is still a form of communication, which is still subject to this context. What we call transmission might actually be an opening in the receiver, which he or she then uses to make a breakthrough themselves. Think of the Buddha and his cousin Ananda - again, extremely rare occurrences. I also suspect that people sometimes confuse things: for instance, "getting high" in the presence of a master and believing that awakening is being handed to them. But the absolute doesn't play by any rules, so I don't know. I haven't researched communication in other animals, but I speculate that some species - like birds - might possess a kind of primal language, if they do in fact communicate with one another. It's this context that generates 'symbol' and the transferring of information as a option in the first place - the space that allows something, like a chirp, to represent something different from the sound of the chirp itself.

@Breakingthewall Go back to contemplating what the self is.

"Ground" (background, foreground) is synonymous with - or points to - space, even if the space of context doesn't appear to be physical or objective. Within that space, the possibility for something to show up is created. The invention of language as a context instantly brought with it the possibility of Spanish, German, allegory, writing, misunderstanding, symbolism, etymology, rhetoric, influence, culture, manipulation, thinking, and so on. Is context conceptual in nature? It may sound abstract, but try to notice context in your daily life, and how it influences your thinking, feeling, and perspective. Your self is a context. It is the "space" where your experience is made sense of. Shift into a context of living life from self-expansion. This is a beneficial shift, one that naturally focuses the mind on this topic.

@Breakingthewall All of that is irrelevant. Do the work. You think you can trivialize contemplation or genuine understanding - as if it were just about picking the right answer on a test, knowing what to say, or mimicking similar-sounding language. But that's not what becoming conscious is about. Start by inquiring into true listening and openness. And do some serious work on assumptions. Then, learn to increasingly distinguish concept from experience. All of this is foundational to our work here. And these dynamics are not something you eventually outgrow, but principles to which you must remain constantly sensitive. Depth is also a factor. I'm out.

You tell me. In the conventional sense, peace and acceptance sound helpful - though a bit lame and ordinary. On the other hand, there might be a relationship between being and happiness.

Seriously: Who's the one experiencing the anger? Do similar circumstances "produce" the same reactions in other people? Circumstances may stimulate certain knee-jerk responses in you, since you interpret and relate what's perceived to your self-agenda, and act accordingly. This is fine, by the way. "What happens" is what happens and how we respond to that is up to us, even when we don't know we're doing that. But the one who is hurt is you! Don't overlook this point. We often want to blame something external for our experience and internal state - this is a victim's stance. Sometimes it may be valid to feel victimized, but most of the time it's disempowering and not true. Neither should you blame yourself; just become responsible for your experience. Hurt underlies anger. You feel hurt for a reason, and you use anger to cope with that pain. See if you can feel the hurt before it is turned into or manifested as anger. That should provide a more "rock-bottom" experience to work with. The reaction is a function of how you relate to events, rather than the events themselves.

Investigate it. Start by recognizing that you are the one being angry - anger doesn't come from the circumstances.

Yes, poignant metaphor. And a worldview isn't true - or the truth - by itself either. It is invented. It is by definition a way of seeing the world.

Loved this theme:

@Breakingthewall You figure it out. I already explained it to you somewhere else. You keep operating from the same arrogance and want me to validate your assumptions by engaging in these kinds of exchanges. Consider what listening as a principle demands of you.

@Ishanga And what is it?

@Breakingthewall No examples. You figure it out.

@Breakingthewall It seems to me you fundamentally misunderstand the basic theory and are confusing things. Beyond the theory and hearsay, however, what is the self? Something to… drumroll... contemplate!

Thank you! What's believed is irrelevant - and gets in the way. Whatever is true can't be reduced to an idea. Ideas are great tools when used appropriately, but when it comes to tackling the nature of things, they can't do the job. The rest is just babbling. Revisit what belief actually is. You don't know what the self, consciousness, or reality are, so why not start by recognizing that - not intellectually, but as a reality? This applies to all of us, most likely. There's a lot of stuff we have yet to become conscious of.

@Breakingthewall Trying to make some use of this mess.

@Sugarcoat@Puer Aeternus I might be a bit paranoid because of some of the recently created troll accounts. AI-generated content is rampant. It doesn't help she used an entirely AI-generated response to answer to one of my DMs, and now the weird formatting. Or that she keeps being evasive about my questions. @Cathy92506 If this is your only account and you aren't a troll, sorry for being a pain in the ass.

Hey but what's happiness?

Could you clarify it in a short paragraph or two?

@BlessedLion

@Natasha Tori Maru Going through the motions.

Mastering a physical skill can help with that. Beyond habits, you might ask yourself what it means to be grounded. And again, start with your body. Practices like feeling connected to the ground, as if being absorbed by it, are incredibly valuable. Breathing from your center and consciously relaxing also go a long way toward achieving this. It's interesting to me that being able to stand on your own two feet, both emotionally and psychologically, is, in my opinion, a rare quality. We constantly seem to be looking for others to validate our experience. Without that, we may feel less than or unworthy, perhaps. Just a consideration.

The whole place you're coming from - look at it. Refer to the metaphor of the kid who hasn't learned to walk yet but criticizes skillful people. Can you see how the content itself is secondary to the issue here? You're stuck in concepts - very ungrounded ones at that - and you confuse blabbering with actual understanding. That you can't see this boggles my mind. Do the work first, and you'll clearly see how this is the case. Sorry, I've been derailing the thread.