Joseph Maynor

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  3. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    4 minutes ago, MM1988 said:

    I dont understand how building up a positive self image can make you more confident and give you self worth.

    What if you think very good of you and then something happens and you dont hold up to your high standard. Wouldnt you get depressed? Wouldnt that hurt the credibility of your self image? Doesnt life then become a constant strugge to validate your positive self image?

    I dont get it, this is paradoxical to me.

    I think there’s a lot of confusion in personal development teachings that just make things more difficult than they have to be.  I’ve heard the argument that it’s easier to break thru to enlightenment from a strong ego.  I don’t know about that.  That’s a cute story, but who knows, right?

  4. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    I think you’re on to something here.  People who don’t laugh enough take things too seriously, evidencing a dense Ego.  Conversely, people who laugh too much are often using humor as an Ego defense-mechanism.  So both extremes are probably dysfunctional — no humor and too much of it.  The most self-realized person likely has drawn a natural mean between these two extremes.

  5. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    23 minutes ago, SOUL said:

    I didn't watch it and it doesn't require me to watch it to know it's just him expounding upon an old concept, though I'm sure some may get value from it.

    It’s too dogmatic in tone and tenor in my opinion.  That’s the main problem with it.   One is left wondering what to make of it.  But sometimes art has no point, especially 20th century art.  The point is not to make a point.  It’s like Baudrillard in Philosophy.  Check out some of his writings.  Some of that sh*t is really good — because the intent is to challenge paradigms.  The Frank Zappa personalities among us basically.  That attitude runs from Nietzche on through to today through the conduit of Postmodernism as we are led to term it.  But we are too wise today to get hung up on things that tied up previous generations.  Knowledge and intelligence do advance in the evolving culture we swim around in.

  6. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    34 minutes ago, penazu said:

    Rali is GOD!!!!

    No shit ;)

    How can the world assess that if dude deletes his videos?  See?  You gotta have the balls to stand by your published work, all of it, as an artist.  His insecurities got the best of him.  That’s why artists have to be kinda ballsy and confident about their work, warts and all.  As an artist, you gotta stick through to the end. He violated that.  I wish him well though.  But those videos were great.  All of them were.  I enjoyed them all and learned a lot.  He was unfiltered, for better and for worse.  But that’s his style, his personality.  Don’t run away from your style as an artist — refine it as you go!  It’s that style that makes you attractive in the first place.  The trap he fell into was starting to doubt himself and his work.  Put all the videos back up Rali.  You’re a wise dude.  Work on that insecurity problem you have.  He’s young, so I get it.  I stand here at age 40 with the wisdom gleaned from my youth readily at hand.  

  7. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    15 minutes ago, MarkusSweden said:

    Why is Rali's videos down? Due to censorship? 

     

    I think he took them down, though I’m not sure.  I watched about 75% of them before he took them down.  Dude was pretty wise and had an influence on me, quite profound of an influence actually.  I missed the last 25% of his videos, his most recent videos, because I was watching them from oldest to newest.  That sucks because I like to see how a guru changes on this path.  He should put all of them back up.  ALL.  Don’t delete sh*t.  If you wanna be an artist, you gotta live the consequences of your artwork for better or for worse.  The public identifies with the art and makes it a part of them.  Deleting art after the fact is not right because of that.  I have a bugaboo with this.  It’s a real problem that rarely becomes an issue because most artists don’t destroy their work after publication.  

  8. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    Thank god i’ve watched them all numerous times.  Leo’s videos are all seared into my head — they’ve become a part of me.   I noticed Rali’s vids are gone now too.  Dude was pretty smart I don’t know why he deleted his work.  Kinda lame.  An artist never deletes his art after making it public. Once art is published, it belongs to the public.

  9. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    42 minutes ago, SOUL said:

    @7thLetter  Leo didn't "come up with this insight", it's a regurgitated belief that has been circulating for a very long time. It's also a very slumbering dualism mindset that perceives the physical experience of the manifest as an opposite to spiritual experience and if you wish to transcend any duality in the mind you will not adopt this belief paradigm as your own.

    Haha

    SOUL — What do you think Leo was trying to communicate in the Dream Video, assuming you watched it?  I’ll watch it again now and see if my ideas change about it.

  10. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    21 minutes ago, snowleopard said:

    Well Leo, wherever he may be, will have to address that concern.

    You have a lot to say but then always clam up when we get to the crux of the issue.  I asked if YOU see my concern.  Now — why did you clam up and deflect there as you did?  You need to develop the guts to stand by your positions to the end.  If they die they die — if they live another day, then so be it too.  But don’t run away when you sense danger of being deprived of your cherished notions.  Assume your notions are probably wrong instead.  You wanna be right though.  But if you really wanna be right — you have to see that that never works!  You always end the dispute before you realize that.  The Ego never lets you get there!  I’ve seen that pattern with you over and over again.  You never let things get to that point.  You never dive-deep enough to get there.  You just end the discussion to preserve your Ego every time.  But that is not helping you!  That is keeping you stuck in a trap almost like a self-consistent bubble.  And that bubble will be protected no matter what.  Am I right?  

  11. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    19 minutes ago, snowleopard said:

    @7thLetter  This point has been addressed in other threads related to Leo's 'Life is a Dream' video, and of course I can only give an interpretation of what he's getting at, but I see it as an allegory intended to loosen the grip of the materialist paradigm and the idea that there is a mind-independent world of matter 'out there', and that consciousness is an emergent property of that world of matter. So to turn that around, and place consciousness as the fundamental essence of being and the source of all phenomena, it may be useful to see that all phenomena are the emanations of a cosmic consciousness, and therefore can be called dreamlike in essence. So in that regard it may be a useful pointer. But, of course, like all such pointers and models, it must be seen in the context of the opening few lines of the Tao Te Ching: "The Tao that can be told, is not the eternal Tao." But if it's taken for what it's intended to achieve, and it serves that purpose, then it can be let go of without getting hung up in the allegory.

    Thats what I thought it was too.  But Leo needed to make that clear.  The way he presents it is as a literal truth about reality.  There’s a huge difference there.  Loosening up the materialist paradigm would make his thesis a counter-weight paradigm to the dominant materialist paradigm — with the express intent to deprogram both paradigms from being seen as true.  But Leo never makes that clear in the video.  In contrast, Leo has more of a tone of “let me tell you what’s true here — reality is a dream.”  Ah — no dude — that’s just more dogma if taken that way.  Do you see my concern?

  12. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    39 minutes ago, Rilles said:

    @Joseph Maynor The first time I detoxed from coffee after a 7 year habit/addiction I had a headache for a week and brainfog, I know where you're coming from.

    Yeah.  Caffeine is a tool like all drugs are.  It’s US that misuse these tools, not a problem with the drugs themselves.  What makes it scary is our culture treats it like an acceptable drug — like doing a few lines of coke throughout the day were perfectly culturally normal.  But coke is so bad right?  Wags finger.  But Caffeine is a stimulant very much like Coke.  It’s not as euphoric as Coke, but it’s a powerful drug nonetheless.  Caffeine is kinda like nicotine in a way.  Nicotene gives a similar kind of craving and then shitty withdrawals when you detox from it.  So, what’s worse, a caffeine addiction or a booze addiction, or any other kind of substance abuse problem?  Caffeine is just good for business, so it gets a pass.  But that doesn’t change the reality that it’s a powerful drug and addictive as hell.

  13. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    45 minutes ago, Nahm said:

    @Joseph Maynor That’s not what Dogma is. I am pointing to what you can directly experience.

    Being cannot be encapsulated under any concept.  It’s best to just be reality instead of trying to conceptually know it.  Reality is best known through being it not through conceptual description.  When you can be reality, conceptualization about it loses all importance.  Concepts about reality then become almost like counterfeit money.  In contrast, right now you probably believe that concepts about reality are highly-important.  But that’s part of our cultural predilection for the paradigm that conceptual-truth is an important kind of truth.  Know reality by being it.  Rest as awareness.   It’s like the difference between doing something and reading about doing something.  Reading about having sex is not the same as actually having sex.  I hate to use that example, but it’s a poignant one and drives home my point I think very well.  This is Valentine’s Day after all.  

  15. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    11 minutes ago, Nahm said:

    @Joseph Maynor What is my dogma?

    The belief that reality is a dream.  That’s not reality at all.  That’s an idea about reality.  This is so basic. Am I wrong?  I realize there is a strong desire to defend Leo’s thesis — but let’s not fool ourselves with our stories.  We are monkey-minds, remember?

  16. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    34 minutes ago, snowleopard said:

    @Joseph Maynor  Sure, let's drop it, no problem.

    Everything you say and do is a reflection of you telling us who YOU are.  That’s because all there is is you.  There is no conflict, that’s an Egoic interpretation of reality.  There is only reality.  And reality is one.  So any perception of conflict is an Egoic mis-interpretation of reality — a clinging to beliefs about reality.  Do you see?  Sorry to use you as a test case here, but this fell into my lap.  This is a teachable moment for all of us.  Are you really as much without Ego as you believe you are?  How much have you actually transcended the Ego versus the extent to which you believe you have done so?  Do you appreciate that the Ego might hide this truth from you?  The Ego who believes it is without Ego is pretty sneaky indeed.  So, I’ve shined a light on this issue here.  We should all examine this issue within ourselves, including myself too of course.  The Spiritual Ego is a huge trap in this work.  It’s a well known but incredibly sneaky and hard to see blind-spot.  It’s almost unconscious in its operation.  

  17. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    7 minutes ago, snowleopard said:

    Yes, hence no conflict mode.

    You shouldn’t continue to lie to yourself.  We can see plainly that that’s not true from the record here.  You have not transcended “conflict mode” as you allege.  I’m gonna drop this now as the issue is resolved and therefore moot.

  18. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    8 minutes ago, snowleopard said:

    @Joseph Maynor  Used to be in conflict mode too, so I can empathize.

    You appear to be blind to certain things about yourself and tend to project.  Have you done any shadow work?  You’re not saying anything about me — you’re telling us who you are.  Who is in conflict mode as you allege?  You and I are engaging in a side discussion that YOU prompted initially.  I just held a mirror up to you, and that made you uncomfortable — and you dealt with that by turning attention to me in a quite desperate and funny way.  Am I wrong?  We have the record here to review.

  19. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    7 minutes ago, Nahm said:

    Jo, it’s literal. This is what waking up is. It’s not tongue & cheek. It’s not a metaphor. 

    You seem pretty certain.  Almost as certain as I am that it’s false.  Who’s right?  See?  This is where dogma is at issue.  There’s a deeper lesson here.

  23. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    51 minutes ago, snowleopard said:

    @7thLetter 

    Leo did not come up with this insight ... It is as old as the most fundamental original spiritual insights, including the Vedas and Buddhism ... from wiki:

    According to contemporary teacher Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, all appearances perceived during the whole life of an individual, through all senses, including sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations in their totality, are like a big dream. It is claimed that, on careful examination, the dream of life and regular nightly dreams are not very different, and that in their essential nature there is no difference between them.

    The non-essential difference between the dreaming state and ordinary waking experience is that the latter is more concrete and linked to attachment; the dreaming experience while sleeping is slightly detached.

    Also according to this teaching, there is a correspondence between the states of sleep and dream and our experiences when we die. After experiencing the intermediate state of bardo, an individual comes out of it, a new karmic illusion is created and another existence begins. This is how transmigration happens.

    According to Dzogchen teachings, the energy of an individual is essentially without form and free from duality. However, karmic traces contained in the individual's mindstream give rise to two kinds of forms:

    forms that the individual experiences as his or her body, voice and mind

    forms that the individual experiences as an external environment.

    What appears as a world of permanent external phenomena, is the energy of the individual him or herself. There is nothing completely external or separate from the individual. Everything that manifests in the individual's field of experience is a continuum. This is the 'Great Perfection' that is discovered in Dzogchen practice.[8]

    It is possible to do yogic practice such as Dream Yoga and Yoga Nidra whilst dreaming, sleeping and in other bardo states of trance. In this way the yogi can have a very strong experience and with this comes understanding of the dream-like nature of daily life. This is also very relevant to diminishing attachments, because they are based on strong beliefs that life's perceptions such as objects are real and as a consequence: important. If one really understands what Buddha Shakyamuni meant when he said that everything is (relatively) unreal, then one can diminish attachments and tensions.

    The teacher advises that the realization that life is only a big dream can help us finally liberate ourselves from the chains of various emotions, different kinds of attachment and the chains of ego. Then we have the possibility of ultimately becoming enlightened.[1]

    Different schools and traditions in other strains of Tibetan Buddhism give different explanations of what is called "reality"

    The fact that it’s  so old just tells me it is probably dogma.  We don’t need any more dogma.  If I want dogma I can read Philosophy.  What we’re focused on is personal development I thought.  Philosophy can be a distraction to personal development.