Joseph Maynor

You’re good at spotting issues. Very good for discussion. Sometimes you gotta use a system to change a system, almost always in fact. If you’re trying to teach, you gotta give people something that they can relate to — you gotta kinda meet them where they are. I can’t speak for Leo, but I understand the situation he’s in. He can’t just assume his audience is Enlightened and speak to them that way. He’s gotta communicate with people in a way that they can relate to.

Existential Truth is pre-conceptual. BE-ing is only one thing — or more accurately, what this language points to or refers to, right. BE-ing being Perspectival is already a though-story within BE-ing.

For each bad habit you’re doing, try to see what else in your life is reinforcing that bad habit. Then realize that to quit the first thing you gotta quit or restructure the things that are reinforcing it. Get pen and paper and do a bit of reflection. I do A to help me with B. To quit A, I gotta quit or restructure B. If you try to quit A without dealing with B, you’re gonna get a backfiring mechanism PLUS a craving for A every time you wanna do B. If you eat Cheetos to make watching TV fun, if you quit the Cheetos but still watch TV, you’re ensuring that you’re gonna get cravings for Cheetos every time you watch or think about watching TV. You gotta quit or restructure the TV component to quit the Cheetos sustainably.

Create and develop your own Course of Study.

Enlightenment work

Maybe Donald Trump uses the Forum, who knows, right. It would be a great place for him to work on Personal Development, just like the rest of us. This would be a great healing place for Donald Trump, if he were willing to put in the work a little bit everyday, just like we do.

Buk is one of my top 5 poets no doubt. I wanna share this with you — the best lecture on Sartre I’ve ever heard.

Discovering Existential Truth Creating and developing your Life Purpose Creating and developing your Conceptual Understanding

I hope you can get some peace soon. Each person gets these kinds of life crises. Control what you can. What you can’t control, don’t stress about it, it’s pointless. Exercise very well all the control you have to bring peace to yourself and to resolve the crisis.

I’ve learned so much from listening to music. It’s amazing. I got a lot of exposure at a young age from listening to music lyrics.

Welcome back Leo! I hope you had a relaxing break.

Existential Truth is one. It’s not conceptual. BE-ing is not two. It’s one experience. You only get duality when you start creating thought-stories. Then you create all these schemes, right. But BE-ing reality is a single experience. And I try to maintain that Holism in how I conceptualize reality too. For example, I like the scheme of thinking of reality as a Network of Perspectives (the entire Network being the ‘one thing’) , I find this scheme useful. But I don’t mistake this scheme, this conceptual system, this thought-story for Existential Truth. They’re two entirely different animals! But they work together, once you learn how to SYNERGIZE them.

Existential Truth sees all talk as thought-stories. You can’t carve up Existential Truth with concepts. BE-ing is just BE-ing — It’s what this language points to.

For about a year it did for me. During the time I was going through Enlightenment. All your furniture is gonna move around with Enlightenment. It’s a good investment. You gotta kinda think of it like this — Enlightenment is like hitting the reset button on your whole life. It takes a while to go though that. But it’s a true investment for the rest of your life. You will live a more ‘wise’ life, for lack of a better adjective at hand at the moment. Video on point to watch

I don’t know, but I need that Subconscious Programming Course he’s been talking about creating. That would be very useful to me right now. I’m tee’d up for that right now.

No, because even that’s a thought story. Existential Truth laughs at thought stories. But the conceptual Understanding laughs at existential truth too. They’re co-workers. They respect each other’s boundaries.

Let's create a big-picture conceptual picture of Enlightenment. Ok. Is this supposed to be some kind of irony? Like -- watch me try to do what you guys are looking for. I get a flavor of that, but I need a second opinion. There's kind of a satire thing going on here.

I wanna visit Finland. Finland is a big tech country. I think I would fit in well there.

I don’t think so, man. Probably one of the Northern European countries. Consciousness means much more than being Existential Truth. A baby can be Existential Truth. Stage Beige. Now, we wouldn’t say the baby is Enlightened, because it lacks a certain conceptual understanding. Being Enlightened requires more than BE-ing Existential Truth, it requires a conceptual understanding too. Otherwise we wouldn’t have to study to become Enlightened.

This is a little tricky. I accept the fact that I am nothingness. I have confirmed that and am working to accept it. But awareness seems like a sense in nothingness. Therefore I may not be awareness. You wouldn't say that you are your sense of sight. But maybe awareness is like a sense in nothingness too.

I look forward to his new videos. It will be interesting to see which directions he goes with the content.

Absolutely. I'm going through the process now. It's absolutely possible. It helps to have a vision for where you want to get to and to realize that addictions are hindering you from getting there. With alcohol is as simple as don't buy any. It doesn't get in your mouth without you putting it in there. Alcoholism is an easy one because all you gotta do is "don't do". Nothing could be easier. It's the mind games and the cravings that you gotta recognize and not fall into rationalizing why it's ok to buy some. The mind will do some funny things with addictions. You just gotta put your foot down and say no damit no! I think total cessation is also a good strategy. It's a lot easier to quit when you know you can't have any more. If you're just doing one of those 'I'm quitting for now' things, you'll start back. You can't 'lukewarm quit', it's gotta be a done deal. No more. If you leave the door open, you'll succumb sooner or later. Some Friday afternoon, to celebrate something, to assuage boredom -- there's always an excuse to drink a beer. And the mind will do some twisted things to make it seem a-ok to drink in almost any circumstance. That's why the only sustainable strategy to addictions is total cessation. Same goes for pot. You can't lukewarm quit pot. It's gotta be -- I will never smoke pot again! You gotta be ready to leave pot forever to sustainably quit -- otherwise it's just a matter of time before you smoke again. This whole -- I'm gonna cut down -- yeah, that doesn't work. You can't half-ass quitting something. You gotta say -- the gig is up. It's over for good. I had great times with this -- but, now I realize I gotta let it go for good. And then you just never buy any more ever again. It's that simple. I think one of the worst things the mind does with addictions is convince you that you need the substance to be normal. You don't. And it's not until you quit -- ironically -- that you can appreciate that lie. It's a big lie. You're gonna be just fine when you quit -- and you're gonna feel better too. I feel much better. Sobriety feels really good. It's just that you gotta be sober for a while to appreciate that. It's a perspective that you don't have when you're beholden to some addiction. You're thinking -- man, what am I gonna do without my alcohol, or whatever. Life is gonna suck! But actually, what sucks is to have a bunch of addictions running your life. That really sucks. You don't really appreciate the guilt that addictions cause either until you're sober. Addictions cause huge guilt. You feel guilty and dirty and like a loser. I know. It's something that I'm glad to be leaving behind me, all that guilt and frustration. When you're an addict, you're living with huge amounts of guilt and just plain suffering -- and you know that. You can perceive it. It's there in the background. Nobody wants to be an addict. It's an assault on your dignity to be one. And you pay for that. It takes a toll on your self-esteem and self-image. You almost feel like a fraud, like you can't function without some crutch or mask. Nobody would rationally choose to live that kind of life. It's a shitty life. And you can see how people destroy their lives and end up homeless and selling their bodies, etc. Sometimes I wonder what would happen to the homeless population if all drugs suddenly went away. Would they wake up one morning and go -- I gotta get the hell outta this situation man! What the hell am I doin'!

There is a value to being provocative as a teacher. Here’s Part 2

Here’s a good exercise. Lay down on your bed with this video playing and just maintain mindful awareness of the passing sounds and concepts as Leo talks.

I think so. Same reason that limited nuclear weapons proliferation might be keeping the world safe, ironically.