Seeker_of_truth

I have had this experience of unexplainable awe and wonder at simple things (like the sound of leaves rustling, seeing and hearing birds, etc.) when my mind gets quiet and I'm very mindful of what is happening around.

Omg! As I read I seem to agree to one thing then when the other person is refusing it I also seem to agree to their logic. This is showing me how much I don't know. This is one heck of a discussion. ???

I read books because its enjoyable. Sometimes summaries with their one liners are not enough, I need more explanation for why something is true. That is why I prefer books. But sometimes I do read summaries to decide if I want to read a book or not. Downside about summaries is not everyone learns the same things from a book. For one, insight A might be relatable and thus deemed useful where as another might not understand it and simply ignore it. So I don't rely 100% on summaries to say anything about the book.

Would there be a fundamental difference between a zebra and a taco in your dream? They'd both be figments of your imagination. I think that is what Leo is extrapolating to life.

Without meditation I'd probably go insane. It is indeed very helpful. It may not change your life, but it will change how you see your life. I highly recommend to try it for at least a month. Ideally you should experiment with various techniques to figure out what works for you. For me do nothing meditation works the best when it comes to calming my mind / be more accepting, etc. I've had various circumstances where I've felt pressured, trapped, anxious, etc. and after 10 minutes of doing nothing, I would realize that I have been worried over nothing and go back with a fresh mind. It may not be 10 minutes for you when you start but once you get the hang of it, once it becomes like riding a bicycle, it'll be.

My parents did a shit job in providing me love. I mostly got love from my grandparents or other people in my life. Loved Feeling protected - seeing that someone was willing to fight for me or cares about me. When my pain was their pain. Believing in me blindly even when situations make them doubt it. I don't think I'm capable of that but seeing someone do that was wow, someone who doesn't love me would not do that. Seeing the best in me. Appreciating me. Making me feel good about who I am. My grandfather used to take me to the store and let me buy whatever I wanted. I think this made me feel free. This was in contrast to my parents who'd put so many conditions before buying a small thing even for my birthday - where everything had to be earned by doing what they liked me to do. Being taken care of and being treated as if I mattered. As for love from siblings, I saw my older siblings as cool and whenever they thought I was cool, I felt belonged and loved. Going back to these memories is making me cry like I haven't for years. Those were good times and I was a joyful kid, I'm kind of sad about the person I have become now. Unloved Not approving me when they didn't like things I liked to do - from smirky remarks as if they know everything, scolding and getting physically punished. Not approving who I am and instead constantly speaking negatively about it and wanting me to change it. When someone believes in a lie about me. This is the most hurting of all and I remember unable to hold in my tears whenever these happened. When they believe in a lie (especially when that lie is so wrong about me) and act as if it was true even after arguing that it was a lie, I can't stand it. I think I have lost a large capacity to love them after these incidents. They also lose my respect completely and I start seeing them as disgusting. This is like the opposite of blindly believing in me, they blindly unbelieve me. Feeling unbelonged.

Apart from the very good suggestions given by others, I would like to suggest one thing to try the next time you want to binge eat... I don't binge eat but I do have a number of other similar addictions. What I've found recently is that I engage in these to distract myself from some pain or unease. When I get the urge to engage in some compulsive behavior, I stop and feel into my body. I would always find some unpleasantness / unease in the body. I would then be with the unease, almost like hugging and loving it. I accept the unease and let it stay. After a while either the unease magically disappears or it isn't that bothering any more. Then there is no more compulsion / pull to engage in the behavior that was initially hard to resist. It doesn't seem to work always because sometimes I make up some rationalizations to not be with the pain - like the pain is too much, or its ok to distract myself from it etc. But still I think is one good tool in the toolbox. See if you are also binge eating to distract yourself from some pain...

You seem to indicate that mortality is some huge thing that you have to work hard to deconstruct. All I had was one small realization and I feel like I've already understood death (at least the fact that I'm not affected by death of the body/mind). Once I realized that I am the awareness to which everything appears (I am the subject to which all objects appear), it is apparent that this awareness never changes or is affected in any way. Death was a belief. This body and mind may die, but death is just another thing that appears to awareness. Do I lose my sense of seeing when I close my eyes? When I close my eyes what ceases is the objects that I used to see. I think of death in a similar way. I don't see how a fact about the death of the body can affect realizing that you are awareness and seeing that you cannot be affected. Your arguments for immortality is like you are trying to prove some math formula. Immortality is in your direct experience, mortality is a belief caused by societal conditioning and false identification with the body/mind.

This is how I do it: I watch the thoughts/feelings. I realize that I am the witness/awareness to which these appear. Can a thought/feeling affect awareness? Does awareness care or know whether it is aware of a good feeling or a bad feeling? Thoughts interpret feelings as good or bad, not awareness / you. If I am identified too strongly with any feeling or thought, I may question "who is identified"? Mostly it just turns out to be another thought. This way I keep reminding myself that I am the unaffected witness to which everything appears and by doing so I disidentify from thoughts and feelings.

I see, interesting experience

I'll keep trying this... I seem to have a bad habit of imagining a physical world. Even when I close my eyes I keep imagining a world and body outside. That's interesting! If you were "nothing" wouldn't you be boundless? Maybe there still were slight sensations / outline that seemed to separate you from everything else around?

If this seems insightful for you and you want to continue this then great! But from my point of view it seems as if you are getting stuck with the content/feeling of thoughts and making the practice complicated. From my understanding the point of the practice was to create a space between yourself and thoughts. You are neither your thoughts nor feelings. It doesn't matter if you have bad feelings, just like thoughts they come and go, the witness you - remains unaffected. I think that is a much better goal (to realize you are the unchanging/unaffected factor) than wanting to have thoughts that make you feel good.

I had some experiences in the past where the sensations that make up the body disappeared and I couldn't find a boundary or container for me. I remember distinctly at least 2 times it happened as I was falling asleep out of which one happened 1-2 weeks back. I didn't understand those when it happened and I panicked as I thought I was going out of my body. But now I think what happened was the sensations did disappear and I saw the infiniteness of consciousness. Now I can see that I'm assuming my body to be my limit because the sensations stop at the skin. If the sensations I have in my body disappeared but I remain awake to see that of course it would make sense again that I'm infinite. Right now in my experience consciousness doesn't have a location but it doesn't seem to be infinite. How do I see the infiniteness of consciousness? I couldn't find the answer in books as they all seem to take the infiniteness for granted. When there are sensations until my skin it makes sense to consider that as my limit. I know experientially that consciousness is nothing. How do I also see that consciousness is infinite? I can kind of imagine if suddenly my body disappeared but I was still here then I would have no location and be infinite. So two questions here - is my understanding of infiniteness correct and second is my belief that I'm the body is what keeping me from experiencing infiniteness or could there be something else as well?

No that doesn't sound right... This is confusing, I guess I just need to self inquire more.

Hmm. So are you saying that consciousness is the seeing but the seer is the mind?