UnbornTao

Okey-dokey.

You can start taking responsibility for your own thinking, feeling and acting. They are activities done by you. Taking ownership of one's experience requires recognising its nature, as an activity done by you. If that's the case, you can choose to do it differently. This is a profound point that needs contemplation on my part. A few superficial manifestations of this principle: If I'm overweight, I can start eating healthy. If I smoke, I can stop smoking. If I'm unhappy, I can be happy. If I feel myself as incapable, I can feel myself as capable If I'm uneducated, I can go to college. If I'm poor, I can develop valuable skills. If I can't focus for long, I can read and meditate consistently. If I dislike my environment, I can either move or change my disposition. If I do disempowering shit, I can do powerful shit Etc.

@vibv Are you committed to ignorance or to whatever's true? You can't lie your way to the truth. In any case, live however you want. Happy contemplation.

Why bring up things such as evolution and omniscience when talking about one's nature? Confabulating is not contemplating. It's possible for you to become personally conscious of your nature. You only need you, everything else -- belief, concept, conclusion, knowledge, hearsay -- gets in the way. So dropping them leaves you with less crap added on top. What you've got of enlightenment is all fantasy. You can trust me on that, or not, I don't mind. Advancing evolution is a completely different pursuit, awakening is not relative. Again, avoid jumping to conclusions, remain open, face the "wall" of uncertainty and stay there. Listen, be honest. Be ruthlessly honest with yourself. Once that's done, be even more honest. It's actually OK to not be conscious of what one is. It's not a bad -- neither is it good, it's just simply the case. This is not meant to make you or anybody else wrong but to put you back on track on contemplating. I apply this advice to myself as well. I'm starting to think people don't like their fantasies being destroyed.

Set out to experience what it is.

@vibv @Yimpa barking up the wrong tree. What you conceive can't possibly be it, idea, belief, expectation is all fantasy and you don't need it. This matter is inconceivable. Mind will make stuff up about it regardless. Just get you. If it's absolute, the only thing to do is grasping what is. The experience of grasping the nature of something is fundamentally different from the expression that arises out of that understanding. Hearsay is of no use when engaging in self-inquiry. You pretend that by convincing yourself with explanations, you now understand the matter while you also lack the consciousness that sourced the expression in the first place, if it was an authentic experience. In your experience, are you absolutely certain of who and what you are? Are you deeply conscious of that? Remember, be honest. Bottom line: pretty much nobody knows so there's a shitload of contemplation to be done, not just about you, mind, life, other, and reality but also about relative aspects such as emotions, perception, experience, skill, the body, etc.

@Yimpa @vibv you guys should stop making up nonsense. Is it that hard to contemplate? Everything you have about enlightenment is crap, seriously. Toss it. It just gets in the way.

Ok then.

I doubt it. Give it a decade or two.

Got The Historical Jesus by The Great Courses. I find it fascinating to study Jesus as a person and historical figure. What was the individual like? What happened in his "lost years"? Did he study Buddhism?

Why hasn't he predicted the next lottery number winner and gets rich already?

Thinking of enlightenment as a paradigm, something to transcend. If it's absolute it can't be grasped by mind and is best left as an unknown. I don't think you can truly understanding life, self and reality without "enlightenments". Are you absolutely and completely conscious of everything there is? Is there more you could become conscious of, both in the relative and absolute domains? Be honest with yourself. It's OK you don't know. As a matter of fact it's the game in town.

@vibv Have several enlightenments first. Can't transcend what you are not conscious of. In any case, it is silly to think that it can be transcended. You are talking about something relative, perhaps an insight, and may have concluded this is all there is to the story. I'm suggesting you might actually not know what enlightenment is. In that case, remaining open and contemplating, as if you were waiting, is better than making conclusions. In your post there's a lot of "stuff", not you.

No. Not offended. It's just clear you are conflating relative things and are trying to concoct or validate a certain cosmology. That has nothing to do with enlightenment work. Your mind is trying to rationalize the matter which is OK but it isn't it.

You're full of it. It's possible you've had insights but enlightenment is a different matter and there's nothing to work out. Have several enlightenments first. Until then, it is best not to presume to know what that is.

Speculation is making stuff up based on conclusions and assumptions whereas contemplating is truly aiming to grasp what's true about any subject matter beyond belief and ideas. The boundary is set depending on how you hold these distinctions. One is based on not-knowing, the other on ignorance.

I use it as simply another word. As long as it is becoming deeply conscious of your nature or some absolute aspect of existence, call it kensho, awakening, realization or Starfield. No to the "X belief system is closer to the truth" part." Zen is probably the least contaminated practice there is but zen people still fall into the trap of looking at the finger rather than the moon. Cute and overused expression and yet it still occurs to many.

@vibv What I mean is that short of direct consciousness, the rest is at best unnecessary add-ons. Contemplation should be the main activity and not speculation. No matter what the mind comes up with relating to enlightenment, it is not it.

It's an unknown. Get enlightened first and save yourself the nonsense, because it is seriously bs.

Yes. On the other hand, to play devil's advocate, they invented democracy, and the argument could be made that our current society has declined in many ways. But I agree overall.

If it's an activity that you are doing (assuming, believing, holding as real), then you can stop doing it. Recognizing experientially the source of the activity itself would allow for the possibility of dropping it. Maybe. Something to look into.

Delaying instant gratification is hard to do. Clearly, you will go through pain and discomfort as you will not be acting out your habitual impulses. Doing that is a good training ground for this type of mindset. This practice builds up your resilience and makes pain an experience that is easier to confront.

Some of the early greeks were powerful thinkers, much more so than the average person of today. Outlines of Phyrrhonism is an excellent book on the principle of openness. Study it.

True. But consider emotions, for example. They occur "within" mind and are considered to be an aspect of it. Even then, they seem to be more than just memory. Something to look into.