WorthyBird

Wanted to offer this as an alternative or refreshment to the popular "Awareness" and "What am I" contemplations. I've been enjoying this contemplation because I seem less inclined to try to objectify the now, as I tend to try to do with "awareness" or "me". The nature of the now is the same as the nature of awareness, and is the same as the nature of you. If you get the now, you get you. You may consider that you are always and only now. You may also consider that the now is never touched or stained by any thing appearing within it. When one comprehends the endless moment, He realizes the person who is seeing it. (The Gateless Gate, Zen Flesh Zen Bones) All the best.

Today I got that everything is nothing. I'd been doing pretty rigorous "Who am I/ What am I" contemplation (including a Ralston camp), with frustratingly little "progress". Recently my contemplation turned toward "outward" and I somewhat quickly had the realization that everything is nothing / reality is not physical / there are no things. Along with this came the insight that reality, through the perspective of the individual mind, is basically an ink-blot. I wanted to share that mixing up the contemplation seemed to be helpful and refreshing, and also just needed to dump it cce style. I had practiced this meditation / contemplation exercise a couple times. All the best.

Alright, booked. Attending the Insight and Enlightenment Workshop April 22-29. Haha looks pretty intense. Lmk if anyone else is going!

Anyone planning to attend the "Insight and Enlightenment Workshop" April 22nd? Think I'm going to pull the trigger and register.

It seems like there has recently been a lot of discussion regarding concerns of potential negative "post-enlightenment" side effects, such as impaired ability to function in daily life and even mental conditions such as depersonalization disorder and depression. Therefore, I would like to share one of the insights/understandings that has resonated most strongly in my experience in order to hopefully help cultivate a more positive context in which to interpret the realization of no-self. This is a post no-self insight/understanding that has enabled me to become exponentially more effective in life (including career, social interaction, fitness, etc.) than ever would have been possible for me in the self-bound paradigm. The insight is that the only thing stopping you is you. When you realize the conceptual self literally does not exist, it's limiting beliefs and various unconscious self-limiting mechanisms are exposed for what they are- complete and total bullshit. You now enter a paradigm of boundless freedom and previously inconceivable potential, free from your own self-limiting bullshit that was the only thing holding you back all along.

from the wiki for DP-DR... People who are diagnosed with depersonalization also experience an urge to question and think critically about the nature of reality and existence.[11] The urge to think critically about the nature of reality is literally considered a symptom of a mental disorder... interesting society we have. (this is not intended to trivialize any disorder)

"Ugh no, dad. It's not that you don't exist. It's just that what you currently think you are doesn't exist, and what you actually are is eternal nothingness, which is infinite God consciousness." - Thanksgiving 2017

It may helpful to contemplate specifically whether there is an experiencer. (or to consider the possibility that there is no experiencer)

"Illusion of time" contemplation/exercise: Try to experience time without thought. Conversely, try to experience eternity by thinking of it.

@Leo Gura This sounds as if you are saying a distinction you make in the visual field is more "real" than a distinction you make of a thought (which I doubt is what you mean but who knows with this stuff). When you think of a hungry child, what exists is a thought of a hungry child. When a hungry child appears before you, what exists is a sensory experience of a hungry child. Both distinctions are equally "real". Either way, there are no hungry children as public objects sitting somewhere in space (and the fun doesn't stop with hungry children!) Reality is such a mind-fuck. I've posted this once before, but I will leave the link here as well- a relatively easily digestible account of quantum mechanics corroborating the "no public objects existing in space" (no)thing. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/

Forgive me (and please re-direct me) if a similar thread already exists elsewhere, but thought it may be valuable to start a list of suggested readings on the topic(s) of enlightenment and consciousness work. Of course not suggesting these books will "make you enlightened" (you have to do the work etc), but you never know what may lead to new insights and I'm sure there are many others in the community who enjoy reading anything they can get their hands on related to the subject. I will start with a few favorites. Suggested Readings: The Book of Not Knowing (Peter Ralston) Pursuing Consciousness (Peter Ralston) This is It (Allan Watts, essay) The Gospel of Thomas Waking Up (Sam Harris)

If you are looking to seriously do the work, I can't recommend enough "The Book of Not Knowing". It's like a heavy-lifting book of consciousness work.

Yes I believe this warrants further discussion and that there is no reason to hold "enlightenment work" as anti-scientific. Advances in scientific discovery seem to corroborate the insistences produced by enlightenment or direct consciousness experiences. For example, the non-existence of a "self entity" is a pretty plain psychological fact, and modern physics seems to be making continuous advances regarding the interconnectedness of particles and even the non-existence of public objects sitting in space. “A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness." - Albert Einstein

@Leo Gura Thank you for the insightful reply. I agree with your perspective on post-enlightenment fitness, although I find it interesting that some people do seem to struggle with fitness issues after varying degrees of enlightenment (motivational and relationship issues seem to be commonly reported). It is incredible how many of our emotions are ineffective and often counter-productive self-manipulations. Ralston's "Pursuing Consciousness" was an invaluable resource in cultivating a practice of investigation into this matter. haha invariably so.

Could enlightenment actually be detrimental to survival fitness? Cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman's theory states: "According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness." I found the below article particularly interesting and pertinent to our discussion of the nature of reality, including this gem- "I’m emphasizing the larger lesson of quantum mechanics: Neurons, brains, space … these are just symbols we use, they’re not real. It’s not that there’s a classical brain that does some quantum magic. It’s that there’s no brain!" Full article here: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/

There is an analogy from the field of psychology that may be useful in the investigation of no-self. We often think of ourselves like a spider with certain innate characteristics that spins a web of behaviors, thoughts, feelings, etc in accordance with our innate characteristics. Really, the web is a self-referential feedback loop that spins itself and creates the illusion of there being a spider. Perhaps a question we are left with is, "What is aware of the web when we realize there is no spider?"