UnbornTao

Just a silly joke

This is now our thread, comrade.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (for some)

Sounds good! It's the ultimate koan.

And the fact that you watched cooking shows haha. I bet it probably helped in certain ways too. A bit specific, but no, I don't think so, at least when it comes to relatively short fasts.

You're that masochistic The longest I've gone is 24hrs. Apart from the occasional horniness and irritability, I also get a sense of elation at times - maybe the nutritional equivalent of a runner's high.

Have you ever caught yourself dramatizing your pain, adding more to it? I imagine there have been times in your life when you experienced pain yet didn't suffer it - maybe when playing a sport, or with other physical activities. It's not at all about dissociating from or suppressing your experience but about recognizing that you're at the source of most of it. Is the stress actually caused by "life," as you seemed to suggest, or do you have an active role in it? How does a problem exist except in relationship to you? Fasting is a practice that some people take up. The fact that it is intentional tends to change their relationship to hunger. Maybe the physical sensations themselves don't have to be suffered. There's a guided meditation somewhere in there: be a rabbit. Have the experience of a rabbit. Once you can make that real in whatever way works for you, contrast it with your usual experience. What doesn't the rabbit do?

Yes. It depends. Are you holding happiness as an emotion? Do you see neutrality as a kind of equanimity? Are we ever in a truly neutral state? I'm not sure. Everything we encounter is automatically regarded as either positive or negative. What's neutral tends to recede from our awareness; it goes unnoticed. Yeah, that's fine. Stopping something doesn't mean that "the opposite" will be experienced, just that the former has ceased. To suffer requires that you create both a self and a situation in which it can suffer. Suffering arises after a long chain of associations, attachments, agendas, and assumptions have been activated, interconnected, and called "real," whereas happiness is your primordial condition. Consider that the beingness of something is inherently free from suffering. Becoming happy does not require you to create happiness. Rather it is a matter of letting go of everything that obsures the happiness that is inherently there. I was going to include more flowery language, but I think that illustrates the point well enough.

A vacation from food.

Leave God out of this bullshit

"Folks, my speech — and everybody’s saying this — was the greatest speech, maybe in history. People were crying, people were cheering, some even fainted. I looked at the teleprompter and thought, ‘Wow, this guy’s good!’ Then I realized, it was me. Nobody gives speeches like I do, believe me. The fake news? They didn’t like it. But that’s because they don’t understand words… or sentences… or winning.”

Let's, eat Grandma!

Soup! https://www.reddit.com/r/soup/

@Someone here A belief by definition is different from whatever is true. We're experiencing something pretty much all the time, but let's see how he answers.

That is fair, thanks. What question is being answered, and in what form, though? Usually it's an idea that one likes rather than an experience of the truth. I'd ask how hearing something - in particular a "voice" presumably from another entity external to you - would be possible without - or outside of - the body, to start with. Where was he located, if not in the body? It sounds like a subjective state to me, and calling that proof of anything is premature. I'm not dismissing the potential psychological or emotional benefits that one may have by going through such states, by the way. But I get irritated when they're taken as gospel.

What turns a physical sensation of pain into something suffered? @Someone here

Great to hear!

Sorry, I can see my tone may have been a bit harsh. Since there seems to be a fair share of assumptions operating in the background, you may ask: "What is God?" "Is it true I was shown something by another being?" "What did I actually experience?" Setting aside hearsay and bias, making those questions can help clarify all this.

Perhaps a more effective way to approach this investigation is by noticing that everything you end up doing, you intended to do - even when you say you "didn't really want to." When it comes to taking action, intent is the main component. It is essentially the same as the action itself - a concept that generates and co-arises with action. Contrast this with desire, which is the wish for an imagined future scenario to come to pass, without necessarily requiring action. If you did something, you intended to do it. Intent obviously comes prior to the consequences of the action. In your experience, intent shows up as the action. This focus tends to simplify the matter. Stand up and sit again - what made you do that? Notice that concepts like motivation and desire aren't required in order to take action.

Yes. It requires consciousness. The paradox is that everything in our experience - which is where our life happens and the place we'll look in - is relative. We find that we can't find ourselves there, and yet, direct realization is possible at the same time. How come? Go figure. And openness isn't limited to the mind either; it could be applied to feeling, the body, and awareness. It's based on not-knowing. It's a bit tricky. Regardless, it's useful to remember the mind isn't limited to logic or intellect, as useful as they can be. Your last sentence is a good way of putting it. Don't you dare invalidate my suffering It's your condition now so there's no need to reach it or do anything extra, only to recognize it. That's apparently easier said than realized, though. Still, whenever you've been happy, you've accessed that. What stands in the way of this possibility is our selves. Remember Ramana: he lived in a cave while insects were eating his body, and yet he was blissful. He was free from life and death. It's independent of circumstances. What you're referring to is survival or conventional happiness, which is fine too. But notice: being happy doesn't mean being complacent, dumb, or lazy, nor does it mean we can't create what we want in life. You can be happy and still pursue a certain degree of comfort, for example. It's not like happiness has to keep you stuck with your circumstances. 'Freedom' is a good term to use for that.

Oppenheimer The Count of Monte Cristo @Schizophonia French! I watched it in Spanish, though.

Is that cheetah a nazi?