kieranperez

You misunderstand self inquiry. Self inquiry is fundamentally not about the question and constantly repeating some question to yourself. The practice can be described and expressed many ways but to assume self inquiry boils down to just asking yourself “who am I?” all the time you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the practice. Self inquiry or working with koans is not something you do for just duration of the time you’re on the cushion. As I already said in the last post but will say again, it’s every waking fucking moment. Eventually the inquiry and investigation or meditation starts doing you as its nature is not about a question. It breaks you open. It is the undoing and the unraveling of the illusion “I” on a cellular level. There is no break from it. Abd fundamentally its nature is no different than classic Soto Zen instructions of “when walking, just walk. When hot, be hot. When cold, be cold. When working, just work.” These are fundamentally still insight practices. It’s nature is no different than maintaining mindfulness 24/7 that eventually seeps into sleep.

Fundamentally, this is really different not all that different when it comes down to what we’re doing with our attention when we’re holding a koan or maintaining self-inquiry or surrender 24/7. Which must be maintained every waking moment as that is the practice.

@KH2 & @StarStruck I would like to confess and apologize for my righteousness, arrogance, and whatever defensiveness I had in this thread and would like to own that. I'm working on this. I do not retract the statements I made when it comes to what's true and what it was I wanted to convey in terms of my statements regarding the subject matter itself and the factual nature of what I was saying. I would like to apologize for the energy and projection of my own anger and defensiveness. I'm would like to cultivate more skillful ways of communicating in the face of whatever projections people have about what I say when it comes my way and trying to outmatch people in this doesn't seem to work. This is the internet and there inevitable gaps in communication and cues that are understandable but nonetheless I would like to own my own and would appreciate to be met halfway there in truth, humility, and peace. May you be well.

I’m not going to pretend I don’t know what I speak about. Psychedelics highs are not enlightenment. That is not an opinion. That is not a need to be right. It’s a fact. And you can go find and look up teachers who’ve done massive dose trips that have also awakened and they’ll tell you the same thing ever time and that’s been valid in “my own path” in so far as that statement makes any sense at all. So I don’t just believe people in what they say. If that’s how you read what I say, cool. That’s fine and you’re free to do what you want but in the end I’m going to call it out. I’m not outright dismissing psychedelics but I’m calling it for what it is and isn’t. You actually aren’t being some innocent “I don’t know anything” seeker with your projections that I’m suggesting some monastic dogmatism is somehow necessary. I was pointing out the demand for genuine real work for most people as that seems to be how it goes. Thank you come out of nowhere calling “that Buddhist dogma” and making false claims regarding psychedelics and the belief that psychedelics trips somehow awaken people when in fact they don’t. They might open people’s minds to resize there’s more to self and life than meets the eye but that’s not awakening. That is what I was calling out and it isn’t an opinion. It’s not just some preference for some teachers over others. Those that think conditioned experiences are realization of the unconditioned unborn nature of that which is Absolute are wrong. In the same way those that think 1 + 1 = 4 are wrong. Or confuse Mexico and USA on the map. It’s not an opinion. And if you think spiritual teachers aren't clear and deliberate in calling out people when they’re wrong, again, you don't know what you’re talking about.

Lol go back and look at how much I call out Leo’s psychedelic delusions. That’s funny. But because I along with many others point out how Andrew Tate is toxic that makes me a Leo worshiper lol. If you need Tate to learn how to be a man God help you. Have fun following a toxic grifter lol @KH2 translation: you have no real worthwhile rebuttal you want to call it quits because you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. I’ll bet good money you don’t meet with teachers, you don’t go on retreats, or anything. It’s just “research” on YouTube university and mental masturbation under the guise of “contemplation”.

Oh the projection. No. I didn’t say people need to become Buddhist monks or go into monasticism. I was very clear about what it was I said so go back and reread what I said. Now let me make sure I’m clear, once again, on this forum. Explain to me how every teacher out there that’s done more psychedelics than probably anybody on this forum will ever do that’s ACTUALLY awakened consistently says the same thing - THAT’S NOT IT. But no, you think you’re up to something different. Ralston can tell you. Lol even Ram Dass himself has said it. I know the guy who was the lead manufacturer of LSD in the world in the 60s and 70s that did doses as high as 20,000 micrograms and when asked if that was it I get a one word answer - NO. Funny how Leo doesn’t share the story of when Brendan Lea, the guy taking over Ralston’s gig at Cheng Hsin, literally went over to Leo’s place when challenged on whether 5-MeO was enlightenment to do it and still said “NO”. State changes, peak experiences, and whatever it is you think and believe it is that’s going on is not enlightenment nor will it ever be. All conditioned states are precisely that - CONDITIONED. Temporary. Transient. They are not the unconditioned Absolute. It’s still the same narcisstic ego and sense of “me” that believes is having all those experiences. But go ahead, deny all those that came before you that will consistently tell you the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Keep thinking you’re special. Enlightenment and the True Nature of Reality is beyond the mind. And regarding your projections on me thinking you need to go to some mountain cave is a projection. There’s also a reason retreats and intensives are 8-12 hours per day of sitting. So although I’m not saying one needs to do that, I’m not stupid enough to believe most people are going to be deeply liberated from the bondage of self while picking up chicks or pursuing a 6 figure career. I’ve never seen it. All the many people I’ve been fortunate to meet in this lifetime put in inhuman amounts of work because by and large that seems to be what it takes for most. All you people that think getting high on your couch for 12 hours is just cute. Awakening on the one doesn’t require anything and at the same time, by and large, takes enormous amounts of work. I’m not a Buddhist nor do I subscribe to any dogma. I report what I consistently see again and again and again and again. And there are patterns. If actually believe a tool like Andrew Tate is somehow a good man and not a scum bag after all that’s been shown of him god help you. Shows how weak your masculinity is.

Andrew Tate is a con artist that runs an Ponzi scheme, engages in sex trafficking, is a misogynist, and so forth. So don’t give me this sort of apologist schtick as if that’s most people. Yeah, it takes discipline to be a kickboxing champion. So? I wonder what’s with up a person that has them needing to learn that from Andrew Tate when they could learn that from so many other sources. Dude is a scumbag. As far as balancing physical survival and spiritual practice… first off not everybody needs to be making 6 figures and doing all this practice. Most people that are busy maintaining survival simply do not have the time to practice the degree to which is probably necessary for most to awaken deeply (and no - psychedelics and peak state experiences are not awakening). For those for whom the monastery is there path (speaking as someone that just came out of monastic residency) it works great for them and it’s not really your business or anybody else’s place to go to them and just think they’re doing it running because they don’t meet your assumptions and standards for how humans should be. There is nothing wrong for those whose life is only sadhana or practice. Those that say they balance both survival and practice (and I mean they ACTUALLY do - they don’t just meditate for an hour and trip on weekends and call that practice) will usually tell you how they need to sacrifice a lot of the potential of their practice as deeply waking up by and large takes a fully concentrated effort and we’re talking much more than just satori (and by that I don’t mean cute psychedelics trips or conflating altered state experiences or whatever nonsense Leo is on now). The reality is a lot of people who don’t commit to serious practice when they’re young usually are just making excuses and putting it off and I’m guilty of this myself. We think we’re going to build it at all, make the money and then do our practice but in my experience, out of all the teachers and masters I’ve been so fortunate to meet, it’s almost never that way. If you look at all the great spiritual festivals in say India, who are the people you see? Rural masses and yogis that completely their life to realization or people that have one foot in and one foot out?

@ardacigin doesn't get enough credit for the quality of his posts on here.

I live in San Francisco, which is pretty much the global capitol for stoners. My rival high school is where 420 started and I can tell you I know a lot of people who smoke weed that are perfectly productive. It contributes to their creativity and they can strike a responsible balance. I also know plenty of people that can go to the extreme with it and their psychology is what can really influence that. Weed has also changed a lot in the last several decades and the overall quality of the plant is not what it was back in the 60s and 70s. The plants now are a lot less healthy because growers are adding all sorts of chemicals to their growing process just to increase the THC content because uneducated stoners don't know the difference between high and low quality weed as they associate the low quality weed that just has a very high THC content that gives a bigger high as simply being better. It's not that different from the distinction between high and low quality foods. Sure, low quality foods can taste better but there is a bunch of added garbage just to give it that taste. So there's a sacrifice. This is true for almost any domain in human life.

Joshu was once asked, "does a dog have buddha nature," in the recognition of Truth he answered the koan by kicking over a glass and walking away. Truth is beyond concepts and cannot be understood by the mind. When Ramana Maharshi awakened at16 he threw everything away and went simply sat at the bottom of a temple for years. Saying nothing as there was nothing to talk about. Nothing to figure out. "The teaching is silence." Truth and Reality lies beyond concepts, ideas, and mind. We can make relative distinctions on things all day. That's what people do. That's very different though than believing they're actually fundamentally true or real. Nothing perceived is really real nor experienced. Nothing that's being said implies that Realization is some morbid state of neutrality.

There is no neutrality. More projections. More assumptions.

Another Leo parrot. Blah blah blah.

Already have but you're not listening. Where there is "I" there cannot be the recognition of emptiness. There is no "I". What comes and goes is relative, dualistic, temporal, causal, and conditioned. It is not Absolute. Any notion of "near" is too far. Truth is neither positive or negative. Truth IS.

Read my many posts on this thread. I’ve already responded to the ignorance that is born out of this post. You clearly haven’t worked with actual teachers or other serious practitioners so there’s little point in actually discussing this much further as you simply don’t know what you’re talking about.

You still don’t understand.

Wrong. Once again. Conditioned experiences are precisely that. CONDITIONED. They are thus additives to more and more mental formations. Not deconstruction. These experiences are also very much dependent on one’s interpretation of these experiences. Conditioned experiences are not realization of the unborn clarity of the True Nature of Mind, Self, and Reality. This clarity is not bound to states or experiences. There’s good reason it is rightly pointed out that Ordinary Mind is The Way. The assumption and basis of ignorance “I”. This “I” that is believed to be having all these experiences is false, unreal, and doesn’t exist. All states that come and go are not absolute. Let me be clear, once again, as I’ve been many times on this forum now. Find anyone that’s had actual enlightenment experiences that has had these psychedelics before or after (and have tripped more than any of you probably ever will in your life) and they will unanimously tell you, “THATS NOT IT.” How many more examples do people need? This is not about moral posturing who’s better or who’s worse or dismissing the utility of genuinely powerful and beneficial psychedelic experiences in certain contexts. It is calling it for what it is. At the end of the day, you’re not coming up with something new. So stop kidding yourselves. It’s funny how Leo calls out Peter and Brendan Lea for dismissing psychedelics when Peter sent Brendan to try 5-MeO WITH LEO and then tells him to ‘nope. That’s not it.’ The irony that one guy on YouTube that bashes others for having dense mind has such a dense mind. Smells like an Orange shadow …

This is not enlightenment. These are a bunch of ideas that are couched in language, perspective, ideas, concepts, relativity, and certain presuppositions. The infinite is beyond comprehension. Enlightenment cannot be understood. It is beyond space and time. Beyond experience. Beyond language, concepts, words, and ideas. The core assumption and the basis of ignorance is “I”. The Unborn is unchanging. It is not “mutating” or whatever other fancy ways your mind wishes to think. Realization is beyond causality. No technique can make it happen. The very notion of “something happening” is also false. These are all ideas. And they’re all wrong. But that’s not what people want. People want to be convinced that this enlightenment can be comprehended by the conceptual mind and thought. People don’t want to surrender. They want to think everything else that doesn’t play into their personal bias are bullshit. It’s easy to think that. It’s easy to be so convinced that such a lazy stupid statement that “western Buddhists are idiots”. It’s about as easy as painting all conservatives as stupid. It’s easy to just quit self inquiry and mistake realization for temporary peak experiences and psychedelic highs for enlightenment because the practice demands surrendering one’s attachments, tendencies, and so forth. The very things that is cling to that upholds one’s sense of identity and agenda. To no longer be convinced and be made humble that everything we think is by it’s nature delusional. Self centered thinking is hypnosis and is ignorance. It’s easy to play to a rather Orange cultural bias that “I can do this all on my own” and not be aware that psychedelics are not even shadow work. That shadows that are born in relationship must be healed in relationship. But that’s not what people want to hear.

Gibberish.

And complete ignorance of what is meant by “unchanging” which reveals he doesn’t actually know The Absolute.

not a bad idea lol

You’re just projecting what you think about me. Buddhism at the end of the day is just a form of practice that can serve to liberate people. I don’t believe in the form. Truth is formless and yet shines through form. I questions all group think (including the group think and dogmas of this forum). I have never claimed Buddhism is some end all be all. Realization at the end of the day is beyond conditions and that’s really the bottom line. All mind states, all psychedelics, etc. are all conditioned. The unconditioned Absolute Reality is beyond all of this. It’s beyond and unsullied by thought. So yes, if one takes whatever formations or projections or views about reality (that they don’t realize they have) it will appear that way. Thought is pointed out as delusion because that is its nature. One might say it’s a state of hypnosis. Whatever states arise as a fruition of Realization is besides the point. Peter was right to point out to you from the beginning that enlightenment is not a state, it’s an experience, it’s an emotion, it’s not even an insight as those are all functions of mind. Enlightenment is not ultimately about the mind. You didn’t listen though.

So long as there’s still that belief that “I” have anything, you do not know what awakening is. And awakening is not conditioned. It is beyond causality.

I know many Zen masters and serious practitioners of Buddhism that are comfortable speaking about things in terms of God. The Buddha didn’t speak about God for many reasons. God is a concept. It’s an idea. That which “God” refers to is beyond concepts. This goes into what the Buddha called the unanswerables since at the end of the day, Truth is beyond words. You don’t understand dependent origination. Particularly experientially. All the different states of deep meditation that could be roughly translated to what might be called “God Consciousness” are conditioned states of mind. That even states of consciousness are conditioned. So experiences like Infinite Consciousness and other such matters are still conditioned experiences. Like when it comes to the unanswerables, it’s not that Absolute Truth cannot be known it’s just that it can’t be known by the mind. It can only be known through direct realization. And direct realization is beyond causality. It is unconditioned. More reasons can be listed but that’s besides the point. I have never found a serious practitioner of Buddhist practice that was never not focused on Truth. Truth is that which liberates suffering. That doesn’t mean Truth is going to cure cancer in the sense that enlightenment or realization is going to just make your cancer go away. That’s just silly. So this idea that those are engaged in Buddhist practice aren’t concerned with Truth is ignorance. As far as whether or not the Buddha ever existed, again, I’ve yet to meet a single Buddhist practitioner who wasn't open to such a possibility. Thought is more convincing evidence of his historical existence than say someone like Jesus. Regarding thinking, thought doesn’t know anything. Plenty of cowards like to pretend they’re skeptical because they’re too much of a pussy to shut the fuck up and put their ass on the line and actually listen and being willing to open to the possibility that they don’t know anything. It can actually be a voracious form of egotism. It’s easy to just look at someone’s love and devotion to their guru, laugh at them, and call them an idiot. Of course. It’s lazy. You never have to put your ass on the line because you just stand on the sidelines and never truly know from direct experience what is actually going and truly make yourself vulnerable to being wrong and seeing how full of shit you are. Another point is, Buddhism doesn’t do anything. People do. It’s about as dumb as saying, “well science says ___!!” Science doesn’t say anything. Certain particular scientists that do science say certain things. Who are you actually referring to when you make these criticisms? You’re just reading some stuff about The Buddha and lumping a bunch of ideas you have snout Buddhists, interpreting it however you do in your mind, and then calling that truth. That’s just nonsense. You don’t know every Buddhist practitioner so you’re just bullshitting yourself. Thought I’d cautioned precisely because of the demonstration of your ignorance and delusion. Because fools like to just believe their mind and are too cowardly to surrender themselves to someone who might point out their nonsense and tell them they’re not actually doing the practice. And this idea that you think you’re some sovereign individual that’s just doing his own thing and doing something new is just silly. The very kind that believes it’s contemplating for itself (first off doesn’t even exist - so that’s total delusion right from the start) is completely made up of language and other more subtle forms of mental impressions that al comes from the so called “outside”. So, who is this so called separate entity that believes is so damn sovereign? Because that’s really the heart of the assumption yet again. You are not coming up with something new or original as there is nothing truly new or original in and of itself. All the books you read, all the videos you watch, everything thought you have, every view, every attitude isn’t “yours” and it can always be traced to stuff outside.

I just said in my answer I know people who know Ken Wilber very well personally.

I know a lot of people who know Wilber personally and he's a machine. It's kind of crazy his ability to synthesize massive amounts of work. His 20's and 30s he simply dedicated his life to writing, Zen, reading, and his job as a dishwasher. Not everybody can do what he does.