Nahm

@Someone here Right, all three year olds would be Nihilists in that logic. Meaningless is still meaning, it basically means not meaningful, just like the thought up basically means not down. Thoughts = twoness. Won’t find oneness there. Don’t settle for logic, imo. Leave the wheels to the hamsters, it seems to be satisfying for them. Go prior, to intention. If your intention is to focus on nihilism and spread the word of it, you’re aligned with what you want. Otherwise, you’ve found the discord....between what you want, and what you’re focused on. If I might...don’t label it anxiety, label it guidance, even...evidence of the true nature.

Will thoughts about anything ever be the direct experience of said thing? Is it reasonable to believe a finite thought could be accurate about infinity?

@Ray “Affirmed”, “traditional”, “teacher”. You’re just making that up as you go. Psychedelics stand to make that crystal clear. If you want the direct experience, directly experience. If you need anything, inspect thought attachment.

@tatsumaru Possibly, this brings “my willpower” into question as the ‘blockage’. It’s hard to imagine how exhausting living my life would be if I was thinking in terms of my will power. Which brought Alcoholics Anonymous to mind as an example. That program started out “take lsd, see truth, free yourself of your ‘self’... no self no problem, and from thoughts of self, limiting beliefs, One is liberated... and there’s not quite the same inclination for alcohol anymore”. With the discrimination of psychedelics, that program became “surrender your will to God, fully admit you simply can not do this, here’s 12 steps”. It’s possible the resistance is in the way what you want is thought of, with the ‘for my willpower’, and ‘not sufficient for me’ - to start enjoying... a ‘strict’ routine. If enjoying now is contingent... and that contingency is ‘something or me’...that contingency can never be met... because the very source of the enjoyment, of good feeling...is the same one holding the contingency. Is ‘strict’ really that enjoyable.... as a way of thinking, framing things up? Outside the right mood, evening, ad dominatrix, I don’t really feel that it is. Who’s disciplining who when there are not two? At least in bed you could point to Hagatha. ?⛓?. When it’s a thought about oneself disciplining oneself, where to point? Maybe the thumb tells us the answer to that ‘riddle’. Consider the paradox of conditioning, and the importance of the scrutinizing of a thought of an experience...vs...the actuality of the direct experience... Feeling, one’s absolute best... that’s unconditional. Don’t like how you are feeling, there’s something to let go, a belief, a condition. Body mind, an appearance of being, of fields, of whatever other label we’d like to play pretend by adding.... feeling one’s (same exact one appearing as) absolute best, in, of, and as the very spheres One is Being... well that seems like the total opposite, in the fitness conditioning regard. Inspection of thought vs direct experience.... have you experienced peak physical conditioning? Are you reference that experience, or a thought about it? How do you know how worthwhile, how good feeling an experience is? Only directly. Were this a movie, it could be entitled “Tatsumaru Vs Well Being”. In the movie, Tatsumaru would totally win. In experience, experience is literally made of well being, and there is no separate self, and there is no “Vs” transpiring. Only a battle appearing to transpire in thoughts, specifically self referential unchecked thoughts, ‘twoness’. How to resolve? There’s no mountain. There’s one molehill at a time, and even still, that’s if I believe that perspective and label. Well Being = What’s Happening = Self. The Way of Well Being is Allowing. Could you allow five minutes of exercise? What if the direct experience, the music, the flow, the energy...actually turns out to be WAY better feeling that thoughts about yourself? The paradigm of motive & motivation can only be employed so far. Inspiration naturally comes next. It so is just the perspective. There are not two of you, such that you’re actually “convincing yourself”. It would be much more accurate to recognize this is how you’re fooling yourself. Try pointing to this self you’re trying so hard to convince, and laugh in the relief

Given that you get that... ...how does it change your perspective about this?

You’re making an enemy out of what you want by reducing the experience of it (the thought of the experience of it) to a means to an end. You’re attempting to utilize motivation (avoidance of unconsciousness and or death) to do so, not recognizing death is another word for you. So this fragments, or, ‘splits your energy’ and distorts focus. As an example... if what you want is to lose weight, get more fit, feel more energetic, take a minute to recognize exercising is what you want, feel the wanting of the experience. Notice thoughts about getting fit being about “fixing you”, and ‘shift’ back to this is what I want, and feel good about doing what you want to do. Motivation: To avoid unconsciousness, and or death. Inspiration: To enjoy life to the fullest, cause I actually love life. One of these is aligned with Truth (...”death”). Alignment of thought with feeling is like the difference between vacuuming a floor with and without the vacuum being plugged in. You can vacuum the floor either way, but without being plugged in, nothing is really changing.

That’s a belief. Lots of people work full time and go to college. Not to imply that you shouldn’t live at home, if that’s what you want, but it’s much easier to feel appreciation for how good your situation is when you uncover the belief of that ‘have to’. Misunderstanding and misidentifying motivation veils inspiration and is an energy zapping clog or blockage in a way. Your true self is unconditional, and allowing of all to be as they are, without need of being right or anyone being agreeable with anything. Take a toll on you only in focusing on the thoughts which create discord for you. Allow him his thoughts & feeling, and you realize they’re not yours. Focus on what you actually want, financially supporting yourself. Parents, boyfriends, etc, no one can supplement the desire for independence.

Amen brother.

That’s a belief. Give it some slo mo contemplation. Put what you think aside momentarily, to see what you indeed are advocating simply by focusing on. Notice it’s what you’re sharing...while claiming you don’t advocate it. You’re the one sharing it, attempting to engage others in the same! ? Consider.... “maybe this is transpiring in other aspects of my life as well”.

@MusicalMillipede Embrace and allow what is true for you in your experience... that you do want a relationship. Feel good about it! Excitement, eagerness, enthusiasm. Scrutinize the beliefs about yourself in regard to needing a relationship. Specifically, notice if sometimes you interpret excitement as anxiety, or nervousness. ‘Come clean’ with yourself that you actually love excitement. One perspective is you need a relationship to ‘fix’ something, and or so you can be happy. Another perspective, or experience, is being happy with the feeling of wanting in and of itself. Desire is indicative of a creator, and of love experiencing. Don’t take feeling in and of itself, with or without an object, person, or relationship in mind, for granted.

@benjhenry That there are two, as in a separate self and or separate objects is the belief, or, the believing of thoughts, or, ‘thought attachment’. Labeling what is ‘in’ perception doesn’t actually make it what we label it. Your consideration in the original post is ‘is the right direction’, but belief is being projected, rather than the orientation of inquiry further examined. If you are to realize this is a lucid dream, there is the small matter of becoming lucid of this. Beliefs, yours, other, or projected, won’t do. Try to ‘prove’ you are a separate physical object moving, doing, thinking. Make a case for it. Google what stuff is in more and more literal scrutiny. What you find, or rather what beliefs you uncover, would make for the ideal sharing on your blog (imo). Maybe start with questioning wether you ever actually experience ‘there’, other than the thought that there is a ‘there’, and same for past and or future.

There’s nothing to ‘solve’ per se. Feel the relief just in changing the orientation of intention. Start a dreamboard, so you’re more focused on what does feel good to you. Give improv writing a try for five or ten minutes. It has only one rule, super simple & very effective. When trying the exercise, if you notice you’re stuck on a resistant thought, pause, and then instead say ‘yes, and _______’ ... to continue. What comes to mind as to how ‘getting out of a state’... differs from ‘focusing on thoughts which do resonate’? Do you see how the first is focused on what you don’t want, and the second is focused on what you do want? Write down what you do want on one side of a piece of paper, and what you don’t want on the other side. Notice how it feels as you look at & read the words on each side, for just one or two minutes. Then consider that momentum builds in whichever of those two directions you go. Is the healing sought bodily, physical so to speak, like you could point to the body somewhere and a physician could address it? Or is the healing sought maybe more so that of a change in orientation about how you think about yourself and what you want? If so the dreamboard is imo the ideal way to go about this. Writing what you want feels good because you want what you want because of how the thought and or experience feels. If starting a dreamboard feels overwhelming today, feel the relief of the subtle change in intention, by writing it down on a post it to do tomorrow or the next day, or set a reminder, or write it on your calendar.

??

There are people who suggest considering that reality = you. It’s a thought you’re experiencing, about you.

@Javfly33 Self demeaning & diminishing thoughts about yourself are clearly what you don’t want. What do you want?

Appreciating the feedback, all very insightful.

@JosephKnecht Appreciate the feedback, thanks! What is it you sense I’m trying to teach you? What would I be trying to be?

“My” hell denotes possession of, which is identification with, as in “this suffering is mine”. There are certain thoughts which are in discord with feeling, your true nature. By ‘listening’ I essentially mean focusing on. In listening to feeling, the thought is let go and you feel better. In listening to the thoughts, more beliefs are created to label, cover and suppress feeling. The ‘answer’ is expression & understanding of how you feel, not identifying as the sufferer. If anyone else focused on the same thoughts, anyone else would experience the same discord. We all share in common that we each experience one thought at a time (the finite mind, or lens). The term ‘thought attachment’ is often equated with the word belief and the word suffering, to denote how believing one thought, like ‘I have (possession) 100 different problems at once’. That is not one hundred problems at once, it is one thought...about having one hundred problems, being believed, and focused upon, even though it feels quite terrible. Imagine someone cutting their hand while telling someone how bad it hurts. What can someone say, but “... do something else”? What if one says “but I need an answer, I need to solve this cutting my hand!”. What would you tell someone in this situation? Eventually the pain would be such that, they would stop cutting their hand and focus elsewhere. Contrary perhaps to popular belief, there is no actual direct experience of a thought, which is true, about you. One veils this from oneself by labeling feeling, such as “negative feeling”. That is a thought, not feeling. There is literally nothing negative about you, or reality, whatsoever. There is the belief that there is - and this is precisely why that belief feels terrible, because there isn’t. If one focuses on stand up comedy for days on end, one will be laughing. If one focuses on horror movies for days on end, one will be scared. If one focuses on thought that don’t feel good for days on end, one will not feel good. It is always now, and focus is always free. You can change the channel. A dreamboard is an easy way to begin to consciously focus on what you do want, which is the same as saying, what feels good, to you, to think about. Indeed. The miracle you’re looking for is focus. Don’t wait for finding it though, just note you’re already ‘using it’, and point it at what you want to create & experience. The paradigm shift would be no longer holding your hand on the hot stove (focusing on what you don’t like) and instead focusing on what you do like, which feels good, to you. “The only thing which could save me” is a thought. You are the awareness focusing on that thought. Attempt to point (with you finger) to who or what that thought is about.

@Bazooka Jesus ?? ??

Awareness is directly aware of the thoughts; paradigm, and solipsistic. In direct experience, what’s a “there”?

@SoonHei ???

That one’s kind of a word play situation. In being aware of the thought / word / expression... “what”, it can be noticed “what” is experience / experienced, and is not outside of or prior to experience such that any answer would be, anything other than, experience. Here is an existential explanation of actuality, or experience as a whole if interested. That is one of the greatest questions possible imo. Given the duality of language, to communicate or ‘point’, I say “put feeling first”. In more inspection, it can be readily seen that this is impossible as far as something one could ‘do’, because feeling is already, and is always, first. So to answer in regard to the previous comment... one is already feeling the reaction. Consider the reaction of a high five. Something fun or celebratory happens, and someone holds up their hand for the high five, and one reacts by holding up their hand as well, and, high fiving. That could be said to be a reaction, and it highlights that a reaction in and of itself is not a ‘problem’ (suffering / discord) per se. Then consider a different experience of reaction, and I’m picking something extreme to draw out the difference.... Imagine someone says to me “you’re a total fucking pompous arrogant asshole”. It might be that I feel the reaction of the body tensing, and thoughts arise, and in this example let’s say that I react and say “fuck you, you don’t know me, you’re an asshole”. My saying that to the person didn’t feel good, but, it seems justified, because them saying that to me didn’t feel good. BUT... them saying that to me does not equal or cause, how I felt. Me holding beliefs about myself, being pompous, arrogant, and or an asshole....that is what I felt. So conversely... again, an extreme example to draw out the distinction....a response....which includes “checking in with” or “putting feeling first” might be.... taking a few seconds before reacting / replying / responding, before saying anything, and first noticing that I resonated with the comment / insult...recognizing I don’t like how I feel, because either I’m holding these thoughts / beliefs about myself and that is resonating...or because I am actually aware my behavior is pompous, arrogant, or assholeish... (again, extreme example here).... my response, in taking a minute to check in with feeling first, might be... “thank you”. Why right? For the opportunity to notice and be aware of, my reacting. Why would I want to become more aware of my reactions? Because it is causation. It is the duality of thought running the show. It is essentially me believing & operating / being as if I am a thing in this world (only), and I am not creating my experience consciously, but am basically like a domino, a pinball in a pinball machine, experiencing at the whim of whatever happens, whatever people say to me, what my situation or circumstances is, etc, vs consciously creating my experience, situation, circumstances. In short: feel the reaction, be aware of the thought which arises, and the bodily reaction and or verbal reaction....but....just be aware of it - don’t do or say the reaction....let it fizzle out....and then respond how you truly want to, in a way you might say is in accordance with your conscience, your true nature, or simply, how you’d love for someone to respond to you...even if you are having a shit day, and are being a pompous arrogant asshole. Still though...why? Cause life is too short not to be yourself, to truly live. The more life throws at you, the more you respond rather than react, the more you know ‘who’ you really are.

It’s normal as in it happens, people experience this. It’s a reaction between mind & body, to a yet distilled belief, most likely self referential. It’s not per se ‘automatic’ in regard to well being, aka flow state or stream entry... the difference being reacting (a ‘same old’ pattern) vs creatively responding with a new approach / perspective. The thing to inspect imo is the corresponding thought when the tension occurs. One way to think of this, is when the thought arises, the relaxed meditative body is tensing which is the experience of the ‘holding onto’ that has been going on.. the holding onto of thought ‘ perspective, or belief / interpretation which is of discord. The way to release the ‘holding’ of it, is to relax the body again, and while relaxed breath into the tensing area of the body. It is as if you are breathing well being into that area, more & more deeply relaxing it, and bringing awareness ? attention and well being to it / into it. Analogously (for the muscle which is tensing, not you) you might think of how a little kid brings a troubling matter to a parent, wanting resolve. One resolve, is for the parent to think logically and offer a solution, which will often suffice. A ‘deeper’ resolution would be for the parent not to provide a solution, but to give their full attention to the kid... and though to the kid, this power of this receiving of attention is unknown cognitively, the experience of it transpires nonetheless, as an untangling of the tension and the kid ‘looks’ deeper into it, thus bringing the light of awareness to the matter, which is always ample. If... the present situation is such that “...but I’m not experiencing that ‘corresponding’ thought though!?’.... nonetheless, in allowing the body to relax and breathing into the area of tension... the thought will arise and ‘reveal’ itself.

I’ve worked with people who’ve ended up in this place in specific regards as well, as in specific roles in relationships and even in regard to sexuality. What arose as relief & liberation, is the inspection of how they ‘got there’. ‘There’ being a certain lens, an idea of a fictitious relationship, which ‘exists’ solely in mind, a means of psyche protection based on fundamental misidentification, which has become the ideal, such that ‘actual relating’ pales in comparison, and more specifically, falsely “feels unsafe”. (Engrained misinterpretation of that feeling due to the misidentification and protection of it being furthered instead of uncovered and received). If there is a ‘high note’ thought or insight of the relief, it is the recognition of momentum. To see how one got here is the empowerment to see how can get where one now desires to be and experience from more so. If there is a ‘low note’, or what can be painful to purify of, it is what was suppressed or bypassing in the first place. Most practical advice (will be initially disregarded, deflected and projected, and that is perfectly fine) is no longer operating blindly, as in by thoughts, and getting what is presently most wanted in front of one, such as with a dreamboard. We tend to really fear the very relief of the up and out, because it’s like barfing up something that didn’t taste good when we ate in the first place. A point of suffering comes in which the lessor of two evils is barfing, expunging. Analogously you might think of someone getting so sick & tired, of being sick & tired, that they choose well being over how anything tastes. We come to an expanded place of understanding though, and just like taste buds, perspectives change. What was very much interpreted and believed to be pungent or even grotesque, reveals it’s true ineffable beauty. If there is a ‘last floor uncovered’ fulcrum in the letting go of such a matter, it is judgement of oneself. Why it’s confusing, is the pain & suffering upon innocence did not know, but the clues begin to add up, pointing to something missed nonetheless. Most simply said perhaps, one feels as one does at the whim of others, but these clues point to one is choosing how one feels in every moment. If there’s a key, it’s understanding how one is doing so. Post realization of this, as an example... whereas before it seemed true, that ‘just trying to be social sucks’...compounded upon that belief, is the secondary belief, or the attributing of this feeling of discord, to something other than one’s own perspective...such as ‘they already shot me down before I start engaging with them’. With scrutiny, it is seen that isn’t actually possible for you to know, and it brings up the unaddressed discord. It touches on arrogance and pride of “knowing” or “being right” being chosen, over feeling amazing. More truly of course, notions of pride & arrogance are just a facade, a cover up, a smokescreen, just like the ideal relationship in mind which veiled the psyche from it’s true nature of unconditional love, ineffable beauty, and wholeness. With proper inspection and realization, the facade is willingly discarded like an umbrella when the sun comes out.

@intotheblack Fear, imo, not trauma. More deeply, identification as a changing thing, and aiming via reactionary thinking, to prevent change. If the trauma perspective intuitively persists, look for a change in childhood which parents wanted, but kid did not. Changing towns, schools, and perhaps most significantly the intensity of the change of environments. A child moved from urban to rural or vice versa. A “way to control change”, is never to again.