UnbornTao

Is it just me, or do more posts seem to be written by AI?

@Oppositionless Change your environment, and you'll encounter new people, circumstances, and situations - both positive and negative. No need for wishful thinking to back that up. Have you watched the ad?

The point is not 'astrocartography' per se, whatever that even is, but the blatant fantasy being sold, feeding off people's gullibility and sense of hope. I thought that would be obvious to most people.

The entire forum to this thread:

Anyone else getting an "astrocartography" ad when playing the fake spirituality video? The irony.

Loving Season 3!

C'est la vie.

Use that as an exercise to unpack each of those activities. Ask yourself questions such as: What am I seeing? What does it mean to me? Judgment is a form of meaning, and labeling may be a subset of identification - but you tell me.

Nice, thank you.

Nein, I don't. Just know a few simple words.

Feeling and connection reside within the world of process and activity, and so they are still too far from 'direct.' It is consciousness being in the same "place" as the thing being contemplated - or so the theory goes. In the end, it's better left as a possibility one can personally have and verify for oneself.

No one likes cockroaches - that's the truth!

The one who knocks?

Sure, thanks. Maybe in this discussion it'd be like asking: What does a cookie mean? Or thinking of the cookie as a good sweet. We'd have to have a cookie awakening. "Bad" is essentially an assessment of meaning. Seeing war as physically harmful may be more accurate in terms of identifying it (or rather, its effects) than making a value assessment of it as something bad. Two different activities. Obviously, since it's already been established as harmful, that is estimated to be negative. Yes, it is never about the existence of anything, but about how that something relates to you in a way that serves yourself - for example, by assessing whether it is positive or negative, which show up in various forms: interesting, irrelevant, worthy, trivial, valuable, significant, useless, important, etc. For instance, you could ask: Worthless for what? Or: Useful for whom?

cool!

Whatever the self is attached to gives it meaning. But does it have to be attached to those particular things? Not necessarily - it can attach or identify itself with all kinds of things. Another perspective: at the end of the day, do we really care what the meaning of life is? We seem to simply go about the business of living, and the meaning appears to underlie the activities we engage in. From yet another view, we might say everyone's purpose is ego survival, and the meaning - perhaps - to be happy. People already seem to live their lives assigning to them the meaning they want, even though meaning isn't intrinsic.

I'd say assigned or added, but I like that! meaning: a charged interpretation made on top of or after the existence of some thing to orient the behavior of one's self and one's relationship to that thing, in a way that aids self-survival - is another definition that came to mind. Not sure if it is accurate or tells the whole story, but I felt cute.

@zurew It's all survival-based. To use an analogy, survival is the kernel of your operating system - your self. It's not an extraneous or trivial matter. Life is survival; we just prefer the nicer-sounding term. What use would "meaning" have otherwise? I've noticed we've been speaking about two related but distinct domains or applications: meaning as it's experienced in the course of living, and the meaning of life. "The monk" is just a label. She's a person who "finds" meaning in whatever resonates with her. As an individual, she can do - and identify with - all kinds of stuff - but none of it changes the fact that life and self are without inherent meaning. Still, within this context, she'll continue operating from a meaning paradigm. You can stop generating meaning in your life, but it's always temporary. For example, realizing this doesn't stop you from halting at a red light. You still interpret signs and signals; you still deeply care about your life. You still live and want to keep living - therefore, meaning will be operative. In that sense, it seems unavoidable to a certain extent. Historically, there have been enlightened Chinese warriors - men who fought and killed, yet also studied sutras, meditated, wrote poetry, wished to end all sentient beings' suffering, and what have you. Just an example. A better analogy might be a video game. Within the game, there are enemies, goals, obstacles, story-lines - and to progress, the character must act. You can imagine all sorts of characters and villains, each with their own backstory and behavior. Just like us, they assign meaning to situations based on survival and progression. Not everything goes. Actions have consequences. If someone throws rocks at you, it's likely going to be interpreted as bad and as something to be avoided because it threatens one's physical well-being. This gives rise to a kind of internal logic or "rules" of meaning within the game: "does this contribute to my self-survival or not?" Every character will answer that slightly differently. The player is free to assign meaning - but the game still has structure. It has rules and consequences. That design shapes how meaning unfolds within the game. Still, the game is the game. So what does it mean? What is it for? You can make the game mean anything: a path to evolve your skills, build community, pass the time, or get educated. You, as the player, are both independent of the game and embedded in it. So you're also bound by its rules - if you want to play it as it is. Existentially, it is without ultimate meaning - because meaning is not existential. The game just is. Its "meaning" is its being. The meaning of the game is that it exists. Or, to put it differently, "it is because it is." I've just realized: it's easy to conflate something having purpose with it being meaningful. It might be worth exploring that distinction more carefully. Maybe the real issue is that we haven't yet grasped what meaning is. Most of what we've been doing is exchanging ideas - engaging intellectually. That's useful, but it doesn't quite touch meaning itself. That's why it can be helpful to design practical exercises - to examine meaning in a more grounded, experiential way. In terms of life, what might be needed are a few enlightenments into its nature. But that may not arrive immediately, so… best to keep contemplating. And just for fun, a question I once heard (can't recall where): What's the meaning of a toaster floating around in outer space?

https://github.com/iWebbIO/obsidian-decentralized/ It isn't optimal, but it's worth a try.

I don't think it does.

Sensible excuse. Now, what is it accomplishing? I agree - the key is to stop imagining a negative future scenario. You could also conjure up a positive one and feel hopeful as a result. Also, it is useful to recognize that you can't possibly be depressed in relation to the now. You mentioned the lack of 'prospects for progress' as a likely cause of depression in your previous reply. But that, too, is something you're making up in your mind; it's not a function of circumstances. So, why would it have to cause depression? You can always set goals and move towards them every day without needing to conjure up a future scenario where all your needs are met or not. If you believe depression is caused by circumstances, then the only option becomes manipulating circumstances in an attempt to manage the emotion, without addressing its root. Notice the "resisted" aspect - you might be engaging in some of that, especially in your dissection of the roller coaster example. Stories and justifications aside, all it takes is recognizing, in your experience, that and where the negative future ideation is being generated - by you - for you to be able to drop it. We usually aren't aware of this fact, even though we understand it intellectually. But we can recognize it by paying close attention to what we're doing and 'thinking.'

@Carl-Richard It sounds like you assume that the only option available in this contemplative work is to believe in something - usually something handed down from the outside. But personally encountering whatever is true is possible. We understand this intellectually, but I feel like you might be holding it as not truly possible - in the background of your experience. Odd thing for me to say, but take it into account. I've personally encountered this 'sentiment' before, subtle as it might be. There's a difference between a follower and someone who questions by themselves.

Hmm, you tell me!