eputkonen

It is really not about practice at all. There is a permanent cessation of suffering when there is the realization of who/what you really are (deeply, profoundly, and undeniably)...however, you can not practice to become what you already are. We are fooled by the illusions of the mind and suffer because of ignorance. The only way out of ignorance is understanding. All you can "do" is honestly and seriously look at who you think/feel you are...and perhaps question, is it true? This is not a practice. A practice is a doing...efforting. I am just saying be aware. We have no choice but to be aware when we are conscious. So out of curiosity just be aware of who you think/feel you are...and question the belief. This is the way I point, because PRACTICING EVERYDAY can become its own trap. Practicing can be an ego driven activity that reinforces the illusion of the "I". Look at what "I" do..."I" meditate 8 hours a day. Great, but that has not helped in seeing through the "I". Practice can very well become a distraction...a way to keep looking away from the "I" and basic assumptions/beliefs of who/what you are.

Seeing through the "me" and not being fooled by it...but a body/mind still exists and there is a recognition of a localized awareness. Also, speech is still possible...and speech is dualistic...so there still can be a reference to a "me" without being fooled by the conventions of speech.

I am not sure how you are are trying to appreciate, but if you look at something honestly...can't you just see something that you can appreciate about it? This becomes like a game...once you find one thing to appreciate...can you find another. It gets easier the more you do it. We have been conditioned and have wired our brains against appreciating things...we want to criticize things. We take way too much for granted usually...and so this is just recognizing how good things are (as they are). It is relative really. Sometimes you have to look down instead of looking up (so to speak)...and instead of looking at how much further you/we have to go...instead you look at how far you/we have come already. I am not saying manufacture appreciation...like forcing yourself to appreciate something. Just looking for what you can appreciate is enough. Say you are caught in a slow traffic one morning going to work. There are many things you could appreciate: the traffic could be stopped entirely in a jam - due to an accident (appreciate it is not this and no one is hurt). at least you have a place to go...people without jobs wish they could have this. regardless of the speed going...you can appreciate that you have a car and not biking or walking it (especially if it is cold out or raining). if you commute a distance (say 40 miles) and nearly there, you can appreciate that cars even exist...a little over a 100 years ago this would have been a two day trip by buggy. This is a marvel of modern technology. It is sort of reversing the (often) normal flow of thought...negative, judgmental, and unhappy. I found delight in something Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev said in a talk he gave in Minneapolis last year. What he said pointed at the very same idea (in essence). He looked at the clock, joy beamed from his face, and he said, "it's 4 o'clock...and I am still alive. My family and love ones are still alive." He was appreciating the fact that everyone he cares about is still alive...with him. We often overlook such blessings. Of course appreciation may not feel natural (which is what some people would call honest) at first, because your mind has been conditioned in the opposite direction...critiquing, judging, fault-finding...basically unhappiness. If you want to be happy, you need to stop doing this to yourself...and so to help start wiring the brain for looking in the opposite direction...you appreciate.

You can not become happy...your very nature is happiness, bliss, and joy. Happiness is something you are, when you are not making yourself miserable. So the trick is to clearly see how you are making yourself suffer and miserable...and cease doing that to yourself. Also, you might want to actively find joy through appreciation for what-is now and whatever is happening. Appreciation makes joy and happiness much easier to feel. The alternative is not to feel numb to life...just live in joy and happiness. A happiness that does not depend on anything. But this is a bandage only, because you feel shitty and suffer because you believe you are this fictitious "me". Realizing the happiness that dos not depend on anything will not occur as long as you believe you are this illusory "me". The "me" will always have problems and create misery for itself. In a way, it is problems and misery that strengthen the illusion of the "me" and sustain it. What are you...really? Inquire and delve into who you think you are...and see you are not that. At the same time and in the mean time, appreciate as much as you can all of the time. I will conclude that there is a bit of truth in your last question - "do I become happy by not having the need to be happy?" If you need/insist that you never feel pain, never experience unfortunately circumstances, etc...then you won't be happy. The trick is not needing things to always be pleasant.

Even the Buddha said "I am awake"...so I guess even the Buddha was not enlightened according to you. The meaning of the word Buddha is "The Enlightened One". Awake and enlightened are synonyms. So I disagree...the statement can be made that a happening termed "enlightenment" occurred without identification, ego, etc. Enlightenment is not a constant journey...but an occurrence...like the bottom of a bucket falling off and then all the water goes with it (using an old Zen analogy). Enlightenment is seeing through the "me" and the cessation of suffering (as a "me" needs to be believed in order to suffer).

For me, I meditate because I enjoy it. Recently, I was traveling and busy and didn't meditate...but I don't feel guilty or sad or feel bad. I don't beat myself up for missing it. I find I miss it and want to do it all the more the next day. So perhaps you need to clarify why you are meditating. If it is work...a chore...something that must be done...we often resist and procrastinate.

There is no other...to help others is to help oneself. Also, the way is Love, Truth, Harmony, and Unity...and and so if I can spread Love, Truth, Harmony, and Unity, I will. If in increasing Love, Truth, Harmony, and Unity is called "helping others"...so be it.

Meditation quiets and stills the internal environment, so there is less distraction. Distraction hinders seeing what is right now. To realize what is as it is right now is enlightenment.

Thought is an addiction people have...and 95% of the thought is not needed (for the average person). Now the mind/ego then thinks/feels...if I don't think I won't do anything. But that is BS. Don't fall for the tricks of the mind. Right now many of your actions are not based upon thought at all. When you need to take a dump...you just go do it. You don't think about it and how you can fit it into your day. Athletes will talk about being in the zone. This is a time when you are not thinking...you are just acting. Thought and the mind gets in the way from high performance in sports. I used to study the martial arts. A lot of time was spent in letting thought go, because it was when you are thinking that you will get hit more. You can't think about defending yourself and how you will strike back...you just have to do it. The less thought involved the better. This involves trusting your understanding. You know what to do...you don't have to think about it. You can plan...that does require thought...but it is like hiking in the woods - you only need to look into the distance every once in a while to make sure you are still on course and then you look at where you are to make sure you don't trip over something, bump into something, or fall into a pit. The focus is primarily on now...not on what is up ahead. Also choice does not require extensive thought and deliberation (internally). We think/deliberate when we don't know what to do. But when you know what to do, thought is not needed. Furthermore, a lot of the thought we have is reflective thought...commentary on and critiquing what just happened. I hope some of these examples and pointers help. From my own experience, thought has pretty much stopped in the normal course of day to day life. Hours could pass without a thought. Even now...I am just typing and the words are coming out. I am not thinking about what I am going to write...I am just writing. In this way words and more-so actions just come from silence. Spontaneous action based on what is going on and my own understanding/being. You see...a compassionate person acts compassionately because they are compassionate (their understanding and being). It comes from who they are. They are not thinking all the time how to be compassionate. They are not thinking about their actions and trying to determine if it was compassionate. These would be the thoughts of someone who does not know compassion and is not compassionate. So again, this involves trusting your understanding and allowing action to come from who you are. If you know what to do...you don't have to think about it.

Then what Nisargadatta said will make sense... Nisargadatta Maharaj said, “love says ‘I am everything.’ Wisdom says ‘I am nothing.’ Between the two, my life flows.”

That is reforming a "me"...who has to ground what to whom? If the realization is deep enough and clear enough, it is never doubted and so there is nothing to ground. Grounding is an action of a "me" that caught a glimpse and wants to try and practice it now.

Yes, there is no "me". Everything and nothing?

Maybe using the term "appreciation" would be more meaningful for you.

Don't care what is beyond the known...the trick is accepting and being comfortable with the unknown. Also unconditionally accepting the realities and certainties. All forms are temporary and ever changing. If you believe the idea that this form (that you identify with) was born...then there is a death of this form. However, there is no other...no separation...between this form and the world (i.e. everything). A whirl pool forms in a river and passes, but it was just the river the whole time. A wave forms and passes, but there was just the ocean the whole time. Death only exists as long as you identify with the temporary form. Fear only exists as long as you identify with the temporary form.

It is insane to attach to material or non-material. You can be attached to form and you can be attached to emptiness.

Just to know. For its own sake. I wasn't looking to get anything out of finding the truth...just wanted to know the truth.

Prior to realization - which was nondual in nature, I really wasn't trying to get enlightenment. Ever since when I was a child, I was curious about the world and wanted to know the truth. I somehow sensed there was something more. So although I was not raised in any religion or faith, I became interested in spiritual topics in my later teens (much to the confusion of my parents). From about 1991 to 2004, I was a ravenous reader and spiritual seeker. I just wanted to know the truth...and it kept me going. In 2004, it seemed I hit my limit of reading and studying. Funny enough, I hadn't read anything about nonduality. But at that time, every new book I read seemed to just be saying something I had already read. So I gave up the search. I no longer really cared. A year later (November 2005), I happened to keep bumping into the name - Eckhart Tolle - and so decided just to watch a video of his to get a summary of his teaching. I watched the Flower of Human Consciousness and he gave an exercise on inhabiting the body and I truly became present for the first time (instead of thinking I was present). In that moment of silence of mind, there was realization. So it started out as a search for truth.

Perhaps, because someone who is attached to self-esteem and identifies as someone with high self-esteem really does not want to realize there is no "me"...and that there is no one superior, inferior, or equal to anyone else. And so they will push realization/enlightenment away and continue to deny what is.

What feels sadness? It is the ego...messing with you again. It is the ego that is sad...but you say that person does not exist...so what is the problem? You are lying to yourself...if there really was the realization that there is no "me"...there would be no sadness. "And I'm trying to hold on whatever is left of the ice." This is exactly my point...the "me" is trying to hold onto whatever "me" is left. This is something only a "me" could say. You want to believe "that person does not exist"...but it still very much exists and is kicking and screaming (hence the sadness). You are allowing yourself an escape by saying "my real self is formless"...this still leaves you with an identity...something to identify with. The thing is...there is nothing to identify with. There is no "me". So delve into this "me" that you are still believing and identify with. Is it real or just a thought? Delve into the sadness...what is its source? There is no escape...the only way out is through (so to speak). There has to be a clear seeing (clarify) of what is. You have no choice but to be aware when conscious, so just look at what is going on...the "me"...etc. Look deeply.

There is a Zen saying...before enlightenment chop wood, carry water....after enlightenment chop wood, carry water. Such a person could be a laborer...in which case he could have thought his career/life purpose was to labor (chop wood and carry water)...and afterwards he realized it was a role he played (and continued to chop wood and carry water). After awakening, I continued my day job as a corporate recruiter. After enlightenment, I met a woman who later married me. You worry about what happens after enlightenment needlessly. From an egoic point of view, you call it reality sodomizing you...but I call it radical freedom and loving what is (i.e. reality).

Sure there is a sense of self...just a lot less thinking about it.

The ego is a thought (albeit a frequently recurring one)...and thoughts create other thoughts. You may think about visiting a relative, and then think about how it was nice seeing them last time...and then maybe think about the relative who died and no longer is able to be seen...and so on. Thought follows thought...and often thought helps create the next thought.

None of my past lives (that I remember parts of) were historical or noted figures...there is no way to verify. And so there would be no way for you to know if what I am recounting is a past life or a story I am making up on the fly. Also, this is a distraction from realizing enlightenment. I let my past go long ago...let me leave it in the past. Furthermore, this is off topic from the discussion at hand.

For what reason?