LetTheNewDayBegin

Hi @abrakamowse, I came to a very similar conclusion lately: no more answers! I'd rather sit and meditate. What do you think?

I've watched this video and I got enlightened... And this: totally holds true. It's just a beginning. Totally agree! I'd add that we are not even the preception itself. We can never pinpoint what we are. From the empirical point of view, it seems like we have no free will, and scientific studies will confim that. But then, from the empirical point of view, we don't know what the hell is going on anyway.

How else can one interact if not by transient attachment, @Echoes ? I have an observation:, you keep saying non-attachment is the recipe, yet you stay so attached to this "nothing". Why is that? Basically, all you're the fallacies of Salaam that you're exposing here, seem rather to describe your state of mind in perfect detail. Investigate, maybe your ego got attached to the concept of things coming out of nothingness?

@Salaam You haven't described in detail how you increase your potential. Do you do a sitting session every day? Let me quote a meditation method from a different thread: Do you do something like this? What do you think about it? Also, increasing the learning ability is that one boosts development in every other aspect. You said: When my mind says "this is too hard", is it already too late to do something about it? Is my learning activity doomed at this point? How do I train the mind to not give so much a power to these fake conclusions?

Salaam. This is great! Thanks for sharing! How do you personally maximize your potential? "Nothingness" is just a concept, a symbol. We can say things arise from nothingness but it's just a simplification of what really is. What is really going on is beyond words. We can only approximate that with more investigation. Maybe we could do that in this thread? So... One one hand, thoughts arise from shifts in contrast between our interconnections and the shifting is the primary property of empty space (see: void fluctuation effects). On the other hand, when we say thoughts arise from empytiness/nothingness we may actually mean the same thing - void fluctuation effects. Any thoughts? (or fluctuations?)

From: Reginald Ray, Secret of the Vajra World. Shambhala 2001, pages 274-278. Wangchuk Dorje divides mahamudra meditation into two overarching categories, mahamudra shamatha and mahamudra vipashyana. The practices grouped under mahamudra shamatha aim to bring the mind to a state of stillness. In mahamudra vipashyana, within the state of stillness, one recognizes the nature of mind itself. Mahamudra Shamatha Mahamudra shamatha contains instructions on how to sit properly in meditation posture, outlined in the so-called seven points of Vairochana. In one version of these, (1) one should sit cross-legged, in lotus posture; (2) place the hands in a comfortable posture, such as held together below the navel; (3) straighten the spine like an arrow; (4) adjust the shoulders back and align evenly; (5) bend the neck slightly forward to press the throat; (6) place the tongue gently against the roof of the mouth; and (7) sit with eyes neither wide open nor shut tight, but gazing ahead with a loose focus. The posture that one takes in meditation is important, particularly in retreat, where awareness opens in such an unprecedented and dramatic way. As retreatants over the centuries have discovered, maintaining good posture in retreat· practice has a direct and immediately perceivable impact on the meditator's state of mind. Good posture enhances the clarity and power of awareness, while poor posture encourages discursiveness and mental confusion. Wangchuk Dorje next instructs the practitioner to engage the practice of quieting the mind by focusing attention in the shamatha style. This focusing may be on an object-for example, a visual object such as a stick, a pebble, or the flame of a butter lamp. Or one may focus on another sensory object such as a sound, a smell, a taste, or a tactile sensation. The breath is suggested as an especially useful object to take as the focus of shamatha. As we saw in chapter 4, the shamatha practice consists of placing attention on the object that one has chosen and maintaining focus on that object. When discursive thoughts arise and pull one away from the practice, one gently but surely brings the attention back to the object of meditation. Sometimes the discursive distractions are gross thoughts and fantasies, but they may also be extremely subtle, such as the thought that we are meditating or that things are peaceful. In addition to practicing shamatha by focusing on an object, one may also focus on no object whatsoever. In this kind of shamatha, the eyes are open and one gazes straight ahead into space, directing one's mind to nothing at all. When the mind drifts into discursiveness, one brings the attention back to the emptiness of no object. The mahamudra shamatha teachings also include specific instructions on how to work with a mind that is agitated, overly energized, and inundated with mental contents, or with a mind that is dull, without energy, and sunken. These instructions are ordinarily given by the meditation teacher as the need anses. Through this process of mahamudra shamatha, one progresses through various stages of settling the mind. A series of three analogies suggests the nature of the journey. At first, one's mind is like a steep mountain waterfall, with thoughts cascading roughly one upon the other in a never-ending torrent. As one progresses in shamatha, one's mind next becomes like a mighty river, wherein thoughts occur but are more even and slow. Finally, through the practice, the mind becon1es like a vast, still ocean in which thoughts appear only as ripples on the surface and then subside of their own accord. Mahamudra Vipashyana In his teaching, Wangchuk Dorje gives ten separate contemplations that are to be used to disclose the wisdom mind within: five practices of "looking at" and five of "pointing out" the nature of mind. All of these assume that some stillness has been cultivated through mahamudra shamatha practice. I give here the briefest description of each, to suggest the nature of mahamudra meditation. Those wishing to enter retreat to carry out these practices will find the actual retreat instructions of their meditation teacher quite detailed and extensive. In retreat practice, the following ten contemplations are usually assigned specific time periods. Thus, in a year-long retreat, one might spend one month on each practice. The final two months might be spent reviewing each of the ten, dividing the sixty days into ten sections of six days each. PRACTICES OF LOOKING AT THE NATURE OF MIND 1. Looking at the settled mind. One looks at the state of stillness over and over. When thoughts arise, one returns again and again to contemplate that stillness. One may ask oneself certain questions to provoke awareness, such as "What is its nature? Is it a thing? Is it perfectly still? Is it completely empty? Is it clear? Is it bright?" 2. Looking at the moving or thinking mind. One looks at the arising, existence, and disappearance of thoughts. One tries to see a thought as it abruptly appears out of the stillness. One may ask questions such as, "How does it arise? Where does it come from? Where does it dwell? Where does it disappear to? What is its nature?" 3. Looking at the mind reflecting appearances. One looks at the way in which external appearances-the phenomena of the sense percepMahamudra tions-occur in experience. A visual object is usually taken as subject, such as a tree, a mountain, a vase, or whatever may be available. One: looks at the object, then looks again, to try to see how it is that appearances arise in the mind. What is their nature? How do they arise, dwell, and then disappear? Do they arise as already interpreted, or is their initial appearance otherwise? 4. Looking at the mind in relation to the body. One inspects the relation of mind and body. What is the mind? What is the body? Is the body just our concept or thought of it? Or is the body our sensations? If the body is sensations, then what relation do these have to our mental image of the body? One investigates these questions. 5. Looking at the settled and moving minds together. One looks at the stillness of settled mind and at the thoughts that arise in the moving mind. When the mind is still, one looks at that; when the mind is in motion, one looks at that. One looks to see whether these two modes of the mind are the same or different. If they are the same, what is that sameness? If they are different, what is their difference? PRACTICES OF POINTING OUT THE NATURE OF MIND Having looked in each of these ways, one now looks again at each but this time asks oneself over and over, "What is it? What is it?" One is attempting to recognize and realize the exact nature of settled mind (6), moving or thinking mind (7), mind reflecting appearances (8), the relation of body and mind (9), and settled and thinking mind together (10). Conclusion None of the above investigations have an end point. They are practices for looking more and more closely and deeply at our experience, seeking to find within its subtlety what is ultimately and truly there. None of the questions asked in the exercises can receive definitive answers. The point of the questions is not to be answered, but to provoke ·us to actually look at our experience. Even if in one meditation session we have the experience of having "gotten it," of having seen the answer to a question, m the next the memory of this experience will become an obstacle, because we will think that we know. This thinking, of course, covers over and hides the very facticity of what we are seeking. In each meditation session, indeed in each moment, we need to begin the contemplation afresh and ask our questions all over again. Insight is not something that we can obtain and then carry around with us like a possession. It is always fresh, always momentary, and continually needs to be rediscovered. The moment there is the thought of having attained insight, it has been covered by that very thought and we need to look all over again. Tibetans usually advise against reading books on Essence mahamudra prior to carrying out the actual practice. This is why my own description is brief and no more than suggestive. The danger of reading about the practice is great, particularly for Westerners, who live in a culture where thoughts and concepts are taken as real, where our concepts parade around as reality itself. For anyone, but particularly for Westerners, reading about mahamudra practices can give us the impression that we understand them, that we "know" what they are pointing to. This thought can serve as a further covering over the buddha-nature and make one lazy, bored, and unmotivated. This is why many Tibetan meditation teachers have, at best, mixed feelings about the translation and publication of mahamudra (and dzokchen) meditation manuals. The formless practices of mahamudra shamatha and vipashyana serve one in meditation from the very beginning of practice to the time of attainment of realization. In the early stages of practice, we may spend most of our time distracted by thoughts, returning to the natural state only infrequently. When we are not sitting on the cushion, the natural state may seem remote indeed. As we progress, we may find ourselves able to contact the wisdom mind in our meditation more frequently, and we may be able to return to it sometimes when we are not sitting. For a highly attained person, distractions are transparent and fleeting, and only serve as springboards back to the basic state, whether he or she is meditating or going about daily life.

@username I like how you moderate your topic. It's effective. Summing up the previous posts we've broken down the relationship to a kind of connection/separation either between two things or just one thing sensing a conection and separation with itself. There is also some structure to the relationship. I believe the structure is required to maintain a connection in dual world. Leo's questions guide us towards pondering relativity of the dual world (and maybe non-relativity of the non-dual world?). Things are always related to something else. They also point towards unity - everything is in relatioship with everything (because a thing is always in relation to the other thing). What I'd like to encourage everybody is to take the next step after seeing that everything is one (through the infinite amount of relationships). Start contemplating what relationship is for you personally. What is the nature of your relationships? What do you like about them? What is the way you form relationships? What are the most important relationships in your life? What is their purpose? What do you dislike about them? What is the ideal relationship? Everything is connected, don't separate yourself from the object of contemplation.

@username Learn from Loreena

Why are you contemplating "relationship" as a concept? You're getting only the observations about concepts in general. Have a look: - Concepts seem to require distinction - Concepts seem to be dualistic in nature - Concepts are a connection between distinct entities -To really understand what concepts are we must understand what distinction is and what connection is. See? Stop contemplating the finger and start contemplating what it points to.

Total awaresomeness! :-)

If I don't have a free will then who am I?

@Old Soul The point is: stop hating, start loving.

It's so funny to read all these gloomy comments. I, for example, know exactly how the world will be in 100 years, because I'm working on it. Instead of posting silly comments, how about you put an effort and create the future you actually would like to see? How about we join efforts and start right now?

@mostly harmless Note that asking if the brain can be described by maths is asking if a number of brains can come up with maths that can describe the brain itself. I think the population of mathematicians / scientists working on the formula would need to be at least 10 000 000 000 to analyse and write it down. Unfortunately this description would most likely by probabilistic and not deterministic. So given the same input and initial conditions we would only get the probabilities of the possible output states. It would be nice to see then how much choice we actually have over our lives. So then if you want to put this formula into the computer all you would need is potentially just a proper source of random numbers. Question is: what is the proper source of random numbers in this case?

I believe this might be relevant: Source: http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/who_am_I.pdf

It is undeniable that we experience "making a choice" in our lives. As @Neo brilliantly pointed out, thus, there is always a choice to make. It doesn't matter if it's an illusion or not. Experience of it is undeniable. Stating "Reality is just an inevitable chain reaction of cause-and-effect events" (as @FindingPeace said) is totally ungrounded. You see, without an observer, the reality ceases to be cause-and-effect. It becomes just this ever expanding field of probablities that manifest as something on an act of observation. Also, the saying that "you have no free will" I believe is meant to guide you to realisation that there is no "you" in the first place, because everything is just one. These kinds of thoughts are meant to guide towards enlightenment. There is just one observer in this world and it observes itself. Bear in mind though, that all knowledge drawn from enligthenment experiences remains biased towards enlightenment. To sum up, as you can see there's a strong coupling between the observer of reality and the reality observed and maybe that is the underlying mechanism of the process called "making a choice".

Hi, Leo. Your questions prompt me to ask myself further questions: Do I conceptualize myself as a human being? What is a human being? What is the highest wisdom that I can discover? Why would meaning or significance mean anything? Does it look like I am on the right track?

@Bob84 Good points. Here's a picture of a fox in the snow on the wood for you: @Tancrede Pouyat You are right. It seems so. Here's a picture of rad flowers for you:

In order to get enligthened one needs to get rid of cravings and attachments. I've done a lot of work about not being attached to the past, pleasure, money, things, situations, arrangements, food, media, thoughts and so on. I've stopped eating cheetos and I've stopped watching TV. I even know exactly what my life purpose is and what I do for work is aligned with it. Yet, after work, I still sit in my couch most of the day. It's clear that I'm attached to the comfort and the status quo. How does one get out of this deep low-energy comfort hole? Please help.

Thank you guys! It turns out it wasn't a problem with my attachment to comfort. It's just that I was partitioning my life very unnecesarily. And when I had realised that, in that moment, my couch turned into a Golden Budda. Here's an authentic picture: I'm so happy now, you wouldn't believe :-)

I don't believe it's guilt. Or maybe there's a bit of it? Anyway, I'm not anxious about it. It's just that I am aware of the fact that I tend to head in the direction of lowest energy expenditure. I take long warm baths and I sit in the couch. It's great! It is what it is. Yet, I see it could change, but it doesn't. Maybe it just needs to be waited out as you all say.

Small enligthenment - a realisation that you are always only in your head and nowhere else.

@abrakamowse What you're talking about is sense of identification. Everything we see, touch, hear, smell or taste is only ever a creation of our mind and it's all in your head and nowhere else. We project it outside but it's only a projection. Literally all our experience is just manufacturedby the brain. Once seen, the sense of identification moves not only to the heart but to everything in sight.

@Mattylonglegs What do you do then after you meditate? Have you discovered yet your life purpose?

It is easier than finishing high school. It's just that nobody here wants enligthenment strongly enough to get enlightened. What a shame.