SOUL

Is the abuse a child may experience all in their mind? The point of your rant is all in your mind..... no need to overthink things, they are just what they are, being aware of them and acknowledging them for what they are isn't being pro or anti in this binary you seem to be caught in. Here, let me break the dualism paradigm for you....pro...anti and..... indifferent. See? It's not even 2 sides in it..... it's 3....and 1..... the 1 being it just is what it is. Peace.

Awakening is possible for anyone and it is a process, when one finds inner peace then the veil of self falls away in an evolving way. By peace I am speaking about the absence of conflict within you. If you are already in a state where your desire for externalities or any of the 'spiritual' things others chase after then you are ripe for the type of contentment that awakens the inner being to liberation. So just be still in your consciousness and observe. If you are hungry then eat, if you are tired then sleep but don't fret over what you think you should or shouldn't do...... Just be present in peace.

I would use the Socratic method when you are interacting with them and they are behaving autonomously. Start asking them questions that leads them to explore and discover why they're behaving the way they are. This is a non confrontational way of awakening them to their unconscious behavior and maybe they will learn to modify it in conscious ways.

You are actually in a perfect place to find inner peace right now because all the external things usually serve as a distraction from finding it. Once you can have contentment in just being present no matter the conditions or externalities this will allow you to express this peace with everything you experience.

It isn't really a matter of loving everything for what it is as it is that we are coming from a loving place from the source of our being no matter what we experience. This allows us to live life in a loving way through everything even if the circumstances we encounter aren't pleasing or appealing to our 'self'. Then how we behave is influenced by this love and the actions we take are characterized by love so can heal the situation to the degree it can be. It's difficult to behave in a healing way if we are acting from a fearful or hateful place because that would inform our behavior. Even if we find the situation contrary to what we seek for ourselves coming from love is the way to heal it.

Most often "wrong" is using a dualistic mindset in perception, which Leo also uses with his teaching. There are a variety of ways to understand our experience, there is the physical world, there is science, there is a psychological perspective, there is spiritual path. With science there is a hard line between "right" and "wrong", with the physical world there are accurate and inaccurate ways of understanding it even though that line isn't quite as hard as it is with the scientific understanding. We all have "right" and "wrong" ideas about the physical world, none of us possesses complete and flawless understanding of the objective physical world. In our psychological perspective we have all sorts of ideas in how we perceive the world around us and ourselves. These are much more subjective perceptions where "right" and "wrong" aren't clearly defined. Is spinach delicious? There is no objective way to find the "right" or "wrong" answer to this, it's subjective. Yet there are some physical attributes that would influence our perspective of this but it still doesn't create an objective experience of it. With our spiritual path we subjectively create our experience of it in our imagination through our ideas of it. What may be "right" for one person could be "wrong" for another and even our own ideas of it may be "wrong" for us if those ideas produce self suffering in us. Our own spiritual path may liberate us from self suffering but that doesn't make them "right" for others because they may cause self suffering in them and does not liberate them from it. When Leo teaches his own personal spiritual path from his own experience of it as a universal one for everyone and makes claims that it is a universal "truth" he is revealing how he doesn't understand the spiritual path....which he has been doing even if he doesn't use the specific phrase 'universal truth' because he spends countless hours telling others 'you, you, you'. He is both "right" and "wrong" simultaneously about the very same thing....which is why it's pretty useless to frame things in the 'right-wrong' binary with thing outside of the scientific and physical world. Also, don't mistake subjective and objective as opposites in a dualism or a binary, they aren't.

Haha

Yes, why frown.

It's pretty obvious to see how people can get influenced by his brainwashing but I'm not sure how many of those that do are aware of the intolerance and misery that is infused with his perspective.

Even though we are all just a figment of the imagination in each other's perception it is a very persistent one so that we may navigate the manifest with awareness, knowledge and wisdom in our consciousness of it.

Observe it......

The way to alter the unconscious mind is by ceasing to reflexively believe what springs from it spontaneously. Then be selective about what one believes to be real because what we trust as being real and behave in accordance with we empower in us. Eventually the unconscious mind will transform into one that expresses itself in the pattern we create in present moment experience that eventually passes away to become part of the memory bank the mind uses to construct self identity. This consciousness work can be used to transcend any conditioning the mind may have acquired in life and attune our awareness to a clarity and equanimity that liberates the self from suffering.

It's all story telling conjured up in the imagination.

So you say 'nope'... then go on again to describe what you imagine is an elaborate conceptual paradigm which you trust is the 'truth'.... you know what that is called? A belief system. It doesn't exist unless you believe it does but it only does exist to you and those who also believe it does. It doesn't even matter how many agree with the belief it is the truth or the volume of media that details the belief system. Although, this doesn't make it exist or the 'truth', capital 'T' or not, beyond the imagination of those that believe it.

All you're talking about is how there isn't really a duality that yes, is very mind blowing once one transcends that illusory paradigm of the mind and perceives reality without it's filter. Yet, instead of abiding in clarity you are creating an archetypal hierarchy and mathematical formula in your imagination then calling it truth. The cessation of self suffering doesn't require running on that hamster wheel of the mind, genuine liberation's source is in just being present.

That's quite a story you got there, I'm fortunate my liberation is so simple..... just be.

Divine manifest!

It's so hilarious to me how people are eager to tell others there is no free will but I guess they have no choice to not do it.

People are white knuckle clinging to their conceptual beliefs using every form of mental masturbation reasoning to justify it, that is zen devilry. It's not the person, a person isn't the 'devil', it's the attachment to the conceptual beliefs that is makyo. With Christianity the 'devil' is the personification of evil, it isn't an actual person, it's the personification. Both of these are creations of imagination and don't exist unless they are empowered by belief. It seems some people conflate the two and call people who are trapped by zen devil as the personification of that trap themselves. If one uses conceptual dualism to teach it results in more dualism, it doesn't transcend dualism.

It has the word evil right in it.... it's d(uh)evil.... yea, how would anyone think it's moralizing, right? That was my initial post in this thread. If everything is all one then transcend the mythical mind of god and devil. It's a figment of the imagination, it only exists if you think it does. A chair is a chair. the desire for a chair makes you feel like the absence of a chair is a thing. It's really the desire for a chair that is the thing, there isn't really a chair shaped hole in the universe where you think a chair should be. The desire creates the feeling of absence....it feels like a hole in the universe that needs to be filled yearning out of a perceived incompleteness. It's not really there unless you think....and believe it is. Right, 'gods'? hah

I totally got distracted and meant to offer on the topic, @kev014. that in Jesus' commonly accepted biblical words I do hear a message that speaks to the cessation of self suffering... in a western theology way. Yet, religion often gets manipulated by humans to empower themselves through exploiting others. They do that through mental, emotional and yes, physical abuses with every societal tool at their disposal.

@Truth Addict In my own experience it has nothing to do with being opposed to using the word devil, it's just I'm aware of the mindset that results in it's use and the effects from it so I will speak about it. Even using it in context of 'zen devil' that is tossed around here constantly is misused. Someone else isn't a zen devil to another, it's one's own experience which becomes a conceptual trap that is it. Our own mind's attachment would be the 'devil' in it's more traditional use.

If you believe every concept is dualistic it is dualistic.....for only you and those that agree with that belief. It's your mind that sees the dualism in it, it's not inherent in concepts, words, the world or existence. A chair is a chair in concept, word and function but a banana isn't the opposite of it because a chair isn't a banana. Chair doesn't have an opposite, the absence of a chair doesn't exist, it's not a dualism. Truth and true have opposites inherent in their definitions, like good, right and any of the morally loaded words. Sure, there are some dualities, there are some trinities, there is unity and all the other 'ities'. All perceived difference or separation doesn't form duality. It's not surprising that someone would get caught in the conceptual trap of the consciousness' hierarchical mythos of deity when the mind has repeatedly been primed for it, some would call that makyo even.

So you are saying the dualism and demonization is a reflection of Leo's own state of consciousness... hmmm hah

Oh look a sock puppet appears to defend the master, how quaint.... it's still dualism even if you want to feign cognitive dissonance on the moralizing.