UnbornTao

Then delve into the material. Enjoy it as if it were a hobby.

Snob elephant. Cats, dogs, chimpanzees, dolphins, and birds presumably seem to respond to music, too.

Those bastards.

What music do elephants like?

No magic pill. Perhaps consume foods that promote the brain's health such as blueberries, tea, dark chocolate. These processes have to be dealt with prior to finding yourself pressured against the wall. In any case, delve into the material and enjoy it.

Bad and good are relative. There're also good people.

It is

Outline of key points by Claude Opus:

Sure.

I wonder what an optimal use of AI would be. One that serves honesty and accuracy, without being overly agreeable, validating our biases, suspicions and unfounded beliefs. Not saying this is necessarily the case here, just curious.

Even if it's about you in the end, the help was provided and another got something out of it, as you say. It is still selfish as it promotes one's self-agenda, even when your agenda includes another's wellbeing. So, call it a more intelligent collective survival. Helping doesn't have to take away from either party involved. Essentially, your approach here is "How do I avoid losing?" It's not either them or you exclusively, although many may act from that disposition. Relationship is about two people. It'd be useful to distinguish between competing and non-competing, or cooperative, types of relating. About teaching, it is itself a manipulation. It involves moving students into a new experience and understanding, and helping them see something they didn't see before.

You seem to be talking specifically about perception rather than consciousness. I haven't made a distinction between these two in my experience yet. Perceptive organs appear to be sourcing what you identify as, or assume to be, yourself, hence the sense of being located behind the eyes and between the ears. What you refer to as when you say "spread equally" may not be consciousness but likely feeling-sense or awareness perhaps. It's best to contemplate openly, without presuming what things are from the beginning. Let's look at perception with the following exercise: Isolate your experience of a static and small object. Start by distinguishing between perception of the object itself, and other added activities such as meaning, association, use, value, worth, feeling, and thought. What is perceived to be there? Without additional activities placed on top of bare perception, try at best you can to distinguish between the act of perceiving itself, and everything else such as thinking, feeling, meaning, language, etc.

Some people are able to be more effective than others in various domains. Consider--that's not a coincidence. You're using an excuse that gets you off the hook.

We do act and behave already in spite of our fundamental ignorance, so this isn't an impediment. What works is not the same as what's true. As long as it works, it is effective and doesn't need to be existentially true regardless of our wish to the contrary. Aside from the domain of skill, getting after what's true is recognizing a dynamic, becoming aware of something, grasping a principle, experiencing something differently in a way that is more aligned with the truth, and other relative aspects and it requires just that, seeing them as occurring in your experience. Then, there's the possibility of the absolute which is off the charts and has to be personally grasped. P.S: now that we are at it, there's a book titled Useful, Not True by Derek Sivers which deals with this dilemma; it might help you in this regard.

Is that true or a perspective you've adopted? Haven't you experienced wanting to help someone? Ever helped your grandma set up her phone? You fail to acknowledge that some people might want to make positive contributions to others, whether it is a word of acknowledgement, emotional support, or something else entirely. A teacher may genuinely want her students to learn while at the same time she's paid to do so. Even if the child doesn't learn much, she could still go through the motions rather than insisting on teaching.

No requisites, except getting it.

Shogun!

"Reality conspires to make you enlightened," or something like that, can't make good woo woo myself.

We may be out of luck.

Don't be reckless, guys, thinking that an extreme ascetic ritual will make you enlightened or some such. Occasional and moderate fasting may be physically and mentally beneficial, but if starving yourself for long periods got you enlightened, neanderthals would have started a renaissance. Certain practices may promote discipline and focus but no practice can produce awakening. So, be safe and reasonable out there.

Okay, you now can take a serious look into what each of them are. Regarding uncertainty, there might be a bit of superficiality and pretending with what you say in that it isn't bad but a profound condition that's the case already. We can go deeper with our uncertainty, making it real and palpable in our experience, not as a conclusion or intellectual artifice.

It's worthless and most likely hearsay, too, even to the sources from which you heard it. Tackle what being and experience are for real by contemplating them. It's no use explaining a simplistic phrase and confusing an intellectual conclusion with a genuine personal understanding of the reality or condition of something.

What do you mean by passing? I smell a belief system of some sort. In any case, whatever your state is, enjoy it.

What do you want? Why do you want it? Clarify that for yourself. Take at look at capacity. You can do stuff. What's actually stopping you? Ineffective behavior patterns such as intellectualizing, making up excuses and stories, falling into useless emotional states, etc, have to be dropped in favor of effective ones. Of course, thinking about it won't cut it. You need to perceive reality "objectively" and take appropriate action. Generate what works and is appropriate given your strategy and goal. You'll then have an overview of what might lie ahead of you. Step after step, consistently move towards your goal; remember to enjoy the process while you're at it. Notice whenever you've gone off course and failed and correct when necessary, and instantly make use of feedback.

Opportunism is often an antithesis of integrity.