UnbornTao

- Rumi

@Sincerity You can always set new goals and focus your attention into achieving them while being happy. Try looking at your situation from a different perspective; this can help in not taking oneself too seriously. Also, let go of unhelpful patterns. Enjoy! Maybe read some Rumi.

A look into the principle of willingness. Explanation by ChatGPT: Me: What is willingness as a principle about? GPT: Willingness, as a principle, refers to an individual's openness, readiness, and acceptance to engage in a particular activity, task, or change. This principle can be applied in various contexts, including personal development, psychological practices, relationships, and professional settings. Here are some key aspects of willingness as a principle: Openness to Experience: Being receptive to new experiences, ideas, and perspectives without immediate judgment or resistance. Readiness for Change: Showing a readiness to adapt or change behaviors, attitudes, and mindsets when necessary. This involves a proactive stance towards growth and improvement. Acceptance: Accepting situations, emotions, and thoughts as they are, rather than fighting against them. This is often highlighted in mindfulness and acceptance-based therapies. Commitment to Action: Demonstrating a commitment to take action towards goals or values, even when faced with challenges or discomfort. Willingness involves moving forward despite fears or uncertainties. Flexibility: Being flexible in one’s approach and not rigidly clinging to preconceived notions or plans. This adaptability allows for better handling of unexpected changes and obstacles. Engagement and Participation: Actively participating in life’s events and processes, rather than passively observing. This means being fully engaged in activities, relationships, and responsibilities. Responsibility: Taking responsibility for one’s own actions and decisions, and understanding the impact they have on oneself and others. In psychological contexts, particularly in therapies like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), willingness is crucial for accepting unpleasant thoughts and feelings and committing to behavior change that aligns with one’s values. Overall, willingness as a principle emphasizes an active, open, and accepting approach to life’s experiences, promoting personal growth, resilience, and effective action.

Made the recipe on the second video:

@bambi Fair. Also, you might have misinterpreted my use of the word "embrace." Enjoy.

@A Fellow Lighter Contemplate it and have insight into it, if you want.

Take it lightly as a physiological need. It's an example. You don't suppress your hunger. I suspect OP is coming from an ideal.

Embrace them. You wouldn't ask the same thing about hunger.

It might be. But notice this assessment doesn’t specify what it is, other than making a generic claim that might not reflect actual experience. Our current experience of sentience doesn’t seem illusory, except perhaps as a conceptual overlay that hinders investigation. I'm inviting contemplation without presuming to know what it is. It's a complex, advanced topic. How does sentience arise, and what is it composed of?

Good speaker.

Hey, no need for an answer, just contemplate it.

Good and tricky subject to contemplate for oneself. What's sentience?

Are you asking something?

Listen, guys. Wisdom. Another thing: people will eat up anything that sounds good and validates their preconceptions.

I'd say this is a function of mind and relates to mind control, which might be facilitated after enlightenment. Don't forget Jesus:

Nice, thank you.

There is a fair share of fantasy in the way he's speaking about it. To start with, he may be referring to a state of some sort. Enlightenment isn't about achieving something like a different experience, no matter how unusual or powerful. If this business is not about the relative domain and is already inherently true, would it affect the brain? What would be measured, and how would we go about measuring it? A causal relationship would have to be established between what we call "enlightenment" and its effects on the body, which may be non-existent in the first place. Then again, the brain might be rewired as a byproduct of the increased consciousness, even though this would still be a secondary process and may not be guaranteed. It might also be the case that such realization empowers you in ways that facilitate health, learning, and other things, but this has to be accomplished by you. Besides, different results occur for different people. For example, after a direct consciousness, certain characteristic behaviors and attachments might not come up for you anymore which would yield positive results, yet this would be a function of freedom and of what your self "does" with the realization, so to speak. In any case, we'd be talking about side-effects. Regarding happiness, wanting it precludes yourself from being happy, since this search produces a split between happiness and you. Pursuing it implicitly concedes that you're unhappy now and need to achieve things and manage specific circumstances in order to get "it". However: Is the "it" in this case happiness or something else entirely? There, something.

@Ramu I'd be careful not to presume that one is "awake" so readily.

What way is that?

I’m not sure whether it is possible to stop it altogether. It can likely be reduced a great deal, such as when you’re relaxed and highly focused, but this is always temporary. This seems to be a non-random dynamic. Try to stop thinking for a minute. Then again, thinking mostly shows up for us as the internal dialogue. Meditation would yield positive results, depending on how often and intensely it is done.

Sounds good. I'd do it and see what happens. If you'd like, set a clear intent to experience who you are. Perhaps start with 3 days to get a sense of what the practice is like. Maybe add some variety like stretching exercises and walking and cooking meditation in order to break the long periods of stillness with some movement. Good luck.

In any case, learning a new language helps you create a contrast to help you see that how your culture thinks isn't set in stone. It can bring new ways of thinking and provide new words that describe experiences that may be inaccessible on your native language. So learning a new one is generally positive.

Pizza God.

That one. I was referring to how we consider the distinction of "social" as a reality that is occurring, but is not. A body as an object exists, but there is no such thing as "marriage." A social setting is a good way for the individual to hide behind that act and offload responsibility on that presumed reality. We could begin to think that that means something or is special when referring to enlightenment, and that it is a "collective" effort. Not literally. Is stretching your body a different action before becoming a Yogi than after? What changes? You can do anything free from the wishful thinking attached to any set of belief. Why do you need a system to validate it or give it meaning or a narrative? It just wouldn't lend itself to fantasizing. If you can do something without added pretension, then no need for it. The problem is getting stuck into these fictions and not recognizing them as such. You can see how many Buddhists relate to activities from within a "Buddhist" worldview, with particular expectations that filter their interpretations. And most just believe in it. And this is the trap I'm pointing out. You already subscribe to a few good-sounding cosmologies. Others could be made that are as convincing. I don't often talk in those abstract terms. I used it as an umbrella term to make a point. As I alluded to throughout the interchange, spiritual can mean almost anything, like reciting ancient scriptures, performing rituals, attending a concert. It depends on your goals. My focus is on real experiential confrontation and becoming conscious. This demands honest observation. As any cult member would attempt to justify. When looked closely, besides having a good time, releasing tension, moving their bodies, etc., they're operating from within a certain kind of BS, thinking that something else is occurring that isn't. Again, nothing against dancing and having fun. Thinking that dancing itself will increase your consciousness is wanting something to be true that isn't. This pretension is what "spiritual" pursuits usually end up degrading into. The work itself is already challenging enough without having to fabricate more nonsense. Contemplate why the need to fantasize.