Joseph Maynor

In a sense nothing changes with enlightenment. All that changes if your identification with and connection to a Dream that you never had any control over to begin with. So, the circle completes itself. Accept the little you in the Dream — it’s not yours! The little you in the Dream is no more you than the little anyone else in the Dream. The only Matrix is Ego — a false set of beliefs about reality. Why would you ever want to go back to suffering and ignorance? That tells me the jackpot on the Path hasn’t been hit yet.

Before enlightenment, carry water, chop wood; after enlightenment, carry water, chop wood.

I'm a fan of Cosmopolitanism. When you're exposed to a lot of differences, it's hard to form too many prejudices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitanism

Just let go of Ego and let whatever happens happen.

An hour is a nice long meditation. I usually meditate for 30 mins. 20 mins is the shortest amount of time I like to meditate. I try to meditate every morning.

Get audiobooks and listen to them at twice speed. The Audible app lets you do this. Sometimes I do it. I try to only listen to audiobooks now so that I can adjust the reading speed to the way I want it.

Cremated. I don't think it's necessary for me to take up space in the Earth after I'm gone.

What if neither the Harvard Lawyer nor the Islamic Fundamentalist chose their lives? What if that's just the way things are? We assume the president of Fortune 500 Company and a bum on the street are different in some way. What if neither had a choice? What if that's just the way reality is? And how can you say that one person's life is objectively better than another's? Maybe the bum on the street is totally content with his life and the fortune 500 guy is looking to jump off a bridge somewhere.

What is consistent is just sensations not necessarily a material world. We could be Phenomenalists and take what is sensed as what is real -- all the while rejecting the Materialist Paradigm. So, consistency in sensations alone do not prove the beliefs that constitute the Materialist Paradigm. A Phenomenalist takes the sensations to be real, but is not a realist as to the External World -- or the Mechanistic World. That requires beliefs that go beyond the sensations. You could re-frame your question this way -- Why are sensations so consistent? Why do sensations often behave in a pattern of behavior, often predictable? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenalism

The Absolute is always here, it's not a state.

It's hard for the tongue to taste itself. It's hard for Awareness to notice itself. Reality hides in plain sight. The problem arises due to our conditioning that truth comes via beliefs. Truth is pre-conceptual actually. People need to slow down and reconnect with that more basic mundane reality. That reality that is always lurking there, but rarely paid any attention to directly. We are bedazzled by thoughts. We run off with thoughts like children with toys. How can we pay attention to reality when we're always thinking about something? It's because consciousness is so mundane that it doesn't notice itself. Awareness is not sexy, it's not dazzling, it's not distracting. It's just always there.

I think one of the major themes that the Buddha was teaching is that nothing is separate. Everything is one unified whole.

Leo has no choice as to how his life is going or where he's gonna end up. Neither does Eckhart Tolle.

Unchanging Awareness is not anyone's mind. This was a major insight for me. This broke me away from the psychological conception of Ego. The mistake I was making was assuming 'my mind' was Awareness.

Where does growth stop?

Here's a deep question: What is a concept? Notice that even asking this question has some philosophical baggage to it. What am I presupposing to even ask this question? What are my expectations for what the answer should look like?

Idealism is conceptual. Non-duality is not conceptual. Non-duality is best pointed to as follows: BE-ing unchanging Awareness.

Maybe the world's oldest profession is the pseudo-guru.

Those are all great questions. What you’re gonna do on the Path is deep-dive all those questions. What you have there is like an investigation itinerary. You’re gonna go on an expedition to try to find answers to those kinds of questions. That’s the Path. You already got a great sense of what the beginning of the Path looks look like. You can see the issues. That’s great. Being puzzled is the first step of the Path.

When you see through Satan, you will no longer have to fight him. That’s what the Path is leading to.

What do you think you are? Give me a couple of paragraphs. I need more information.

1. Passion. 2. Have something you really want to say. 3. Care enough about your art to do a fine job.

The word ‘observation’ can have more than one meaning. The way ‘observation’ is used in one context might differ dramatically from another context. So, we need to be clear about what we are using words to mean.

This gets into what you take to be real. I could say this is the subject of Metaphysics, maybe it is maybe it’s not, that distinction doesn’t necessarily help us. This is where contemplation becomes relevant to get at the root of this. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of defining our terms, I don’t see an issue there. To me the key question is: “What is there?” What are you prepared to say in response to that question? Can you give me like a couple of paragraphs? Dealing with theory divorced from your actual intuitions is gonna lead to conceptual chicanery.

Maybe he was a pragmatist. A naturalistic pragmatist. Some people think the deeper philosophical-type questions are ridiculous and a waste of time. It’s true — I remember interacting with science professors who thought that way.