UnbornTao

Since you were asking a particular question at the time ("Who am I?"), this is your mind coming up with ways to distract you from looking into that. "Thank you, next." (This is you saying that to your thoughts while contemplating.) If your intention is still to become conscious of that subject, proceed. You can always unpack the whole thought-business after your self-inquiry session, just to give it a name. To address your point, we could ask what a thought actually is. Without taking it for granted, what is a thought? Where is it located?

It's a core dynamic of life - What isn't completely free and at peace in our experience right now? Why does it exist in the first place? In my view, it's helpful to distinguish between struggle as a condition and other, more evident forms of suffering. The latter can be transcended because it's an activity we're actively engaged in! That means we can stop doing it. The short version might look like this (as a guided meditation): Can we love our suffering? What if we fully embraced our experience, whatever it is? Sorry, a bit of the blue. Just some questions to ponder.

Finally.

Yeah. An exercise: see both your mind and your body as the same unit, not separate.

Damn, that's some Socratic wisdom right there. Hey, can't complain:

Yep, sound advice.

"The Tao that is Unborn is already immortal." - Someone, probably.

Yay! Deals with the themes of conformity, the human condition… and also, what the heck is going on? Isn't it more like an incredibly popular or universal cult-virus rather than a "Turquoise" society?

Struggle - the only battle we can't live without.

Haven't written too many poems myself.

If no perspective is true in itself - and let's say that everything you have regarding life, reality, and yourself is a perspective, a particular way of seeing things - then what can be said to be true about these things? What are they, in themselves? Certainly, neither the accumulation nor the elimination of perspectives will resolve this dilemma. A perspective may be sound, accurate, illogical, functional, or outright foolish - but the truth is not to be found in any perspective (not even the truth of perspective.) What is outside your perspective or view of the world, for example? What do you think is true about yourself and reality, emotions and the body, society and others, success and health? Is every perspective believed, or a belief? How do you see perspective? Beyond that, we could also ask ourselves what perspective itself is, and how it comes to exist.

If you're asking with the expectation that taking it would produce an encounter with the Absolute, it would not - for him or for anyone else, for that matter.

We already won that competition - Jesus's been dead for a long time now. At least until we get disqualified too. And pretty much everyone is afraid of death - perhaps even on a genetic level.

@Mellowmarsh Okay, thank you for sharing that. In any case, those were rethorical questions meant to be personally contemplated. I emphasize the experiential component because we tend to get easily lost in the intellect. Are we enlightened yet?

God herself is on the Forum, hi.

Perhaps. At the same time, wouldn't what you said above be an aspect of overlooking the very one that you are - or take yourself to be? Contrary to what we might think, asserting an opinion or believing in something doesn't really get the job done. If you want to get at the truth of what you are, then by definition it has to be the truth of that matter. Can you locate your "real-self"? What are you? Anyway, I'd say hang in there. It sounds like you are looking into it. Remember to keep it experiential.

Yes, as @Thought Art said above, the Forum and the main website storefront use different accounts. So you'll have to create a new account for that if you don't have one already. If you've bought the Book List or signed up for the newsletter (I think), you might want to use that account.

Then that isn't the entity doing the perceiving, right? (Since you say you are observing it.) Again, if it is being perceived, that is different from the you that is perceiving it. Consider that you are not perceived or found within that activity. The observer is not located in what's observed. Even though taking yourself for granted is common, find out what it is - if that's your goal. It helps to once again refocus on an immediate and experiential sense of yourself now, even if it's a vague or ill-defined sense.

Fair enough. Let me bring up the etymology of reason... 🤓 Do you see that as one of the main goals of "being rational"? Dissecting or constructing a particular worldview, maybe one based on a certain logical coherence? Talking out of my ass here.

What is?

The power of belief, I'd say (for the most part, at least). You, I, and everyone else do the same. The main difference is that, for us, this activity appears as "reality" rather than as an adopted notion that is inherently distinct from the truth - whatever that may be.

Have you heard of this channel?