Joseph Maynor

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Posts posted by Joseph Maynor

  2. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    Ah man.  Aromatherapy works!  Smell is one of the oldest and most profound of our senses.  Things without eyes have smell, so smell is very deeply wired in us.  The smell of fresh alpine air is great.  The smell of rosemary.  The smell of fresh linen.  Takes me back to the womb of childhood.  The smell of incense.  The smell of Muslim scent oil.  It's a religious scent you'll often smell in a Mosque.  It's awesome.

  4. Posted

    35 minutes ago, Paintballer said:

    Try out the following sequence. It is super effective. 

    The 5 tibetans. Breath of fire or wim hofs beathing technique. Mine works pretty well a well but do not feel like describing it atm. It is on my channel. The vid is called the breath is sacred or something. Followed by a good 20-30 minutes of meditation.

     

    What is your channel?  

  6. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    I think for me it would be to add in some kind of cardio practice.  I walk a lot but don't get a lot of cardio at all.  But I don't know how to do this without burning up a bunch of time in my day.  Going to the gym burns up too much time for me.  And sitting there and just riding one of those stationary machines just sucks.  I hate that approach to getting cardio.  It's boring as hell.

  8. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    Mine:

    1.  Suffering -- This goes back to my childhood, but I feel comfortable and contemplative when I'm melancholy.

    2.  Competition -- I get a lot of energy from competing with myself and with others.  I like to fight, especially in writing.  I write arguments for a living.  I'm a legal writer.  I do very adversarial, argumentative writing, and I get off on doing it.  I love it and I'm good at it.  I know how to manipulate in writing very effectively.

    3.  Judging people -- I find that I do tend to do this.  I tend to judge bums, prostitutes, thugs,  thieves, and other people whom I consider to be losers and/or morally degenerate, etc.  It's subtle but I gotta kinda watch out about doing it.  I've improved on this; I do it much less than I used to.

    Yours:

    I think I got over being the nice guy a couple of years ago.  The way I did it was to work on assertiveness.  Get "The Assertiveness Workbook" by Randy Patterson.  That should cure you of nice guy syndrome.  Nice guy syndrome is an unsustainable strategy.

  11. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    I just watched Leo's amazing new video on overcoming subtle addictions.  Thanks for this video Leo, you answered by prayer with this video, and I love you more than ever before.  But doesn't our addiction to awareness, mindfulness, and watching ourselves like a hawk also qualify as a subtle addiction too?  Aren't we, paradoxically, manifesting neurosis by engaging in this conduct as well?  We're like over-eager awareness-strivers seeking to note and label everything accept the neurosis we are creating for ourselves by engaging in this compulsive conduct.

    Awareness alone is curative.  Ok, so that's our motto.  But does this strategy of constant mindfulness leave a neurosis trail in it's wake too, like a boat moving through water creates behind itself?  And if you're in the boat, you don't normally see this trail unless you turn around, so the trail is hidden from your ordinary plain sight, your normal forward-looking view on the boat.  Is it not?  But it exists nonetheless.

    So, what is the sustainable solution to overcoming this problem, if any exists.  Maybe there is no problem and/or no solution, and if that's your contention,  please make an appropriate argument here so we can discuss this issue.  Let's get to the bottom of this.  This question is for everyone.  

     

  15. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    @Tano I agree with the jist of what you are saying here.  Very wise.  There is enlightenment, but not what most people think it is.  It's very simple realization of emptiness, and attachment and releasing.  A separation of theory from reality.  Theory is something we might attach to or release.  Theory does not *underlie* reality in any way.  That's one of the erroneous premises that Indian Philosophers seem to habitually make.  Reality does not contain a Kantian conceptual filter. That too is concept and can be attached to or released.  See that?  Does that make sense?

  18. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    21 hours ago, Emerald said:

    The only time in my life where I was truly at peace and loved myself, was when I experienced ego transcendence. I don't really have the luxury of not taking it too seriously because I know that's the only way that I'll ever really feel okay. I know it is the only thing that will ever give me what I have been seeking for in my entire life. When I experienced ego transcendence, I realized that I had always been seeking it all along through many different endeavors including career goals. I'm unfortunately stuck in the middle of the pipe. I can neither transcend the ego nor can I take my search for ego-transcendence more lightly. I sometimes wish that I had never experienced it, simply because I'd be a lot more successful right now. I had huge ambitions before those experiences. But the ambitions were what was causing me so much suffering, and I saw it clearly without the ego there. Now, I still have ambitions, but I don't take them all that seriously. I try to let go of the need to be seen as somebody or to leave some legacy. But I still enjoy doing things that I like. 

    Maybe you are looking in the wrong place for what you want.  Or maybe your idea of the end result is wrong.  Consider those possibilities too.  I find you to be very successful right now Emerald.  You're doing exactly what you need to be doing with your life right now, heavy personal development work.  And you're practicing contribution heavily too by contributing to others' growth, helping them along on their paths. Pretty awesome life.

  19. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    About a year.  It started with meditation and culminated with my ego death last March.  But I was meditating for about a year before my ego death.  What precipitated it is I had watched all Leo's videos, including the one ones on Enlightenment.  But more importantly I started to heavily contemplate the question "What am I?"  

    But I was already advanced in personal development work and work in philosophy and psychology before I started meditating.

  21. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    @Dizzy Ego Transcendence seems like loss of self image.  You realize all there is is emptiness and attachment or releasing, nothing more.  That's where I'm at the doorstep of right now.  There is no life to improve.  Why cling to that concept?  That's a fiction.  All that matters is awareness and choice of what to cling to and what to release.  And what to do based on this of course.  This journey has been pretty cool.  Realizing what I am, which has paradoxically been mostly realizing what I am not.  Releasing some bad default-positions, bad theories of self.  This stuff is not airy-fairy to me.  Reality doesn't lie.  I'm a very practical and tough-minded dude.  No woo woo.

    I'm a little leery about Dizzy's next stage which she terms "Enlightenment" though.  That's a theory, a concept.  Do you see that?  You're clinging to that.  You don't wanna be clinging.  You wanna be empty and aware.  No default-positions are needed.  So to me Self-Transcendence in something like Dizzy's sense just is Enlightenment.  Do don't need to cling to the theory of non-dualism even.  You folks are idealistically clinging to ideas that are adding another layer of theory onto this very simple obervable fact about reality.  

    You're rationalists, theoretical-idealists basically building up a snowball matrix which you then use to look at the world with new, wildly-distorted eyes.  Googly-eyes, not sober eyes!  You're clinging to thoughts that are supplementing and distorting what is real at bottom -- the counterintuitive simplicity of reality.  Release those theories!  Release your thought-stories about Enlightenment.  I've heard so many!   

    Paradoxically, in the case of Enlightenment, more thinking leads you further away from the goal rather than closer to it.  It's like trying to solve a math problem with carrots and sticks instead of pencil and paper.

  22. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    @Anna1

    11 minutes ago, Anna1 said:

     

    @Nichols Harvey

    "Can we stay on topic please?

    It's incredibly rude and actually disrespectful to derail Dan's thread with an unrelated grievance."

     

    Didn't you say this above ^ just yesterday? But, now here you are derailing talking about Emerald.

    Also, you haven't said a word to @Fidelio about derailing either. So, it's ok to derail as long as you're interested and/or participate?

    "Do as I say, not as I do"...got it.

    Lol.  Consistency is a beast!  I love it!  Do as I say not as I do.  And living inconsistently is violating ones integrity too.  It's  self-induced harm.  A peeing in the pool of one's self esteem basically. Just thought I'd chime in and add that.  

  23. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    @Maxx Then why isn't the lower self part of that mix too then? Why throw the lower self away if there is no self.  Seems like that goes against non-duality.  The ego is there, why not accept it as part of the whole and learn to love the ego?  I've kinda done that.  I've harmonized with my ego.  To me you non-dualists seem like dualists because you are trying to deny part of your self.  You're beating yourself up big time with this war and rampage against the evil ego.  The distinction between the lower self and the higher self is illusory.  That's concept.  Does that make sense?  You guys cause yourselves a lot of neurosis with your theories paradoxically.  Do you see that?

  24. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    I know some of you spiritualists on here seem to think that positive thinking as a personal development practice is a fools errand.  This actually surprises me, and I think that that's too bad.  Care to elaborate and debate/discuss this with me?  Let's do some hashing out here.  Some getting to the bottom of this.  

    I believe positive thinking is the holy grail after enlightenment.  The final solution so to speak.  The last move one can make in personal development.  The hallmark of the true sage.  Peace and positive thinking go together like ham and eggs.

    Please watch Leo's video on "Positive Thinking" first before responding to this question.  It is a prequisite to this discussion.  So if you haven't done that go do that first.  Otherwise we're not gonna be focused in our discourse.  We're gonna be talking past each other which is no good.