Search the Community

? I understand the motive and reasoning behind its function and yes it makes sense that one would have to do ground work as a foundation prior to the additional support of chemical assistance. I see the reasoning for this and I can see how that may seem sound. But unless one sees that there is still a movement of self/thought projecting/and anticipating that that experience will bring about a freedom from time is still a movement of time/measure. Can the self ‘time’ move from time ‘thought/reality to truth/nothingness? So this is movement depending on an experience to become free from experience? Is this correct? It’s depending on time to become free from time? So this would be a good question to go into... Is this a movement of inviting time as means to that which is timeless?....How can that which has no measure ‘nothingness/truth or that which is independent of thought, be integrated by measure ‘things/reality or what we think about and reflect upon??? When it comes down to it, is the chemical the issue and preventing factor of not becoming free of time? Or is the movement of psychological time the very preventing factor?? Have you gone into this before? It’s pretty cool man?? Check into it if your interested in this ?

so after this chemical is taken ‘one time’ one is cured and lives in nothingness? One is free from conflict in chasing the illusion of psychological time? One is not caught in the movement of becoming?

@Leo Gura Now that you know why everything exists what does it really change? Existence of nothingness "feels' exactly the same as existence of everything - absolute infinity. I had this theory even back when I was teenager at school. It turned out to be the case most likely. I just could not prove it to myself back then. But ultimately it tells me that this knowledge changes absolutely nothing. It is just end of seeking, logging and desire to get answers. You are not getting anywhere... You will still experience everything as it is destined for you as to a piece of infinite puzzle. Now I start to think that knowing that truth is not by any means better then just living normal life. It does not get you anywhere ultimately. There is no escape from Matrix. All there is - Is Matrix itself. That is the only reality you have... Plus, based on that realization you would also realize that any possibility of gods are now possible for you. So after your "Death" you could end up in christian heaven or hell. Or maybe see another god from greek mythology. Because why not? Absolute involves every possibility! Now you see? Your no perspectives perspective is not any more superior then the perspective of the believer person. Your answers lead you back where you started! This is ultimate going full circle. You now realize that your reality is everything that there is. And you gotta live it like every other normal conscious being on this planet.

But Leo will disappear. Leo will not experience it. Moreover one part especially caught my attention when you are mentioning - that there is not even consciousness and awareness it's only absolute infinity. I agree this is the ultimate insight. Groundless ground is not consciousness. It is nothingness which equals to infinity. 0 can not exist without other numbers. 0 means the non existence of other numbers. So after you become awakened to that groundless ground there even arises many questions what could happen to your consciousness after physical death. After Leo disappears.

@MarkusSweden I would guess that Leo meant HOW rather then WHY. Indeed there are no answers to the WHY question because as Rupert explains it is the question devised by our limited mind. Our minds seek to find cause in everything. Why entails that there is a reason and the result. When in reality there is just being. What Leo explained is answer on the question HOW rather than why. Nothingness equals to absolute infinity and that is HOW our reality exists.

it's very easy. Absolute infinity is easy thing to understand intuitively. But you can never grasp it with your logic or thinking. Yes it is precisely what you intuitively understand what it is. every possibility - even the most impossible ones from your perspective. Nothingness is the "Space" for every possibility.

There are a few things that confuse me, and I do not know how Leo got around them: How do we know that the map is not the territory? How do we know that an idea cannot reflect reality? If it cannot reflect reality, then how can the idea "An idea cannot reflect reality!" reflect reality? If all ideas are illusory then the idea of illusion is an illusion too and thus it is actually not correct. Concerning post modernism and the subjectivity of reality, how do we actually know that validity is non-existent? If validity is non-existent, then the claim that validity is non-existent is simply invalid. It seems to me like this very assumption is what spawns all of spiritual beliefs. And the most fundamental belief is that experience can reveal absolute truth. So, when Leo does have the experience of God, he actually forms the belief that this experience confirms his prior beliefs, which were all attained not from direct experience, but from books. Not everyone who has spiritual experiences actually forms spiritual beliefs. Leo claims that it is the absolute truth though, and yet he claims you need to understand it before you have the experience so you can actually understand absolute truth? How the hell does that work? Isn't all of what Leo is telling us nothing but information he himself has either read, heard or seen somewhere else? He claims that he has direct experience of the truth, but the truth he has attained was already formed before he was even close. He began self-inquiry because he was convinced that it would lead him to the truth, that through direct experience he could attain a notion of the true nature of reality. But before self-inquiry, and he cannot deny that, he already had formed all the notions he is now claiming that were revealed to him. The notion that enlightenment is beyond ideas, that it is nothingness, that reality is non-dual, and that ultimately everything is one. Every single of these notions was attained long before the experience followed. Here is a claim that I cannot wrap my head around: "Reality is beyond ideas, enlightenment is beyond ideas, beyond mind." Now, that claim is made, and that claim is a claim about reality, it is an idea about reality. And from that idea then spawns the notion that direct experience can reveal ultimate truth. Why is Leo so absolutely convinced that the map is not the territory? What if the map actually is the territory? What if outside reality actually does exist, and what if ideas are truthful? How can he ever form an idea that informs him of ideas not being truthful, when that very idea MUST be truthful if he wants to belief it. I don't see a way around this, and I see this very problem in post-modernism. It seems almost like we are using rationality to deconstruct rationality, without actually noticing that the deconstruction is happening with rationality. We use logic to deconstruct logic, and then we claim logic is not truthful, because that's the logical conclusion. But what if reality is partly logical? What if the idea of the brain is actually pointing towards truthfulness? And what if the notion of truthfulness is doing the same? What if the notion of pointing is actually reality? Why wouldn't it be? Because you can attain states in which that notion makes no sense? Because you can attain states that create an absolute notion of oneness? Because there is a state in which reality ceases to exist? Yes, the logical conclusion from these states would be that they are reality, but notice that we need to use logic to even make that claim. It seems to me that the Buddha is actually pointing towards this, the no mind, the not knowing, actually being NOT KNOWING anything at all. And this is not what Leo has attained, or what I would claim most spiritual people have attained. They walk around and make bold claims about reality like anyone else. And even if they don't the notions still exist within them, even if not formed as actual ideas. The experience of oneness creates the notion of oneness, otherwise the subject would not even notice, or there would be no experience of the oneness. The very fact that the "non-experience" of non-duality can be noticed by the mind is pointing towards the creation of notion from logic. The logic is "Experience is reality" and "truth is truth". And we know that Leo does have notions because he can dismiss notions. I think not knowing would actually not change anything at all. If you make the claim that the brain does not exist, and I am not saying that it does, but if you make that claim, you clearly know something. Does anyone understand my problem? I know I should sit and meditate and not think about this, because that's what Leo says, but if I buy into that very notion, which is an idea like any other, I might end up just as deluded as Leo might be. I am not saying he is, but I cannot just assume that he isn't.

Currently tapering off .8 mg of subutex for the last two weeks and every night without fail the withdrawl symptoms start up. I have been reading up on what to expect and depersonalisation has come up as a negative side effect of opiate withdrawl. Which confuses me quite a bit since to me anyway seems smack bang on what bhuddism is all about. Detaching from thought and desire through objective observation. I have had some very eye opening experiences in the last month which would certainly relate to "depersonalising", or "nothingness" . I Depersonalisation is classified as a mental ilness but i cannot distinguish the difference between what bhuddism teaches or what this "illness" is. my first reaction is to reject this as a misunderstanding of what i want to believe to be a fundamental truth about reality, I think "depersonalising" can have many benefits as to help liberate yourself from your pre made self conceptions of yourself and the world. but it's seen as an ilness, This seems absolutely absurd to me. Can anyone help clarify this?

But this is the very point I was trying to make. You are creating logical claims, and these logical claims produce the claim that logic is illusory. I know very well that "The map is not the territory" is a completely logical claim, but that claim IS a map, so by definition the statement itself cannot be true whatsoever, because the map is not truth, it is just a map. It cancels itself out, doesn't it? And I do not think that the absolute is an idea, I think it is an experience, or whatever the idea of experience is pointing to. I know you will say it is beyond experience and it is nothingness, but by my definition of experience, anything you are aware of and can make claims about is an experience. You are making claims about the absolute, and you are aware of it, or you claim to have been aware of it, thus it was an experience. The problem I cannot wrap my head around is the claims that follow that experience. The saying "I am the absolute" or "Everything is me". To even have a notion like that requires logic and ideas, but aren't they illusory and ultimately false? Fundamentally, even non-spiritually, I know my entire reality is my mind, there is nothing beyond it from my perspective, and all notions of other perspectives is happening within my perspective. My reality is generated by myself, and all notions of other realities is generated by myself as well. Even the notion of "Me" is generated by "myself", or whatever is creating me. Is it though? It only is if I subscribe to logic, because without logic none of that would be even remotely true. I can only make these claims because I have a notion of casuality. To even have a notion about any of this I need to accept logic, because without logic no claims whatsoever can be made. And the strange thing is that that is a logical claim too! So maybe claims can be make without logic, I mean, only logic is telling me that it is impossible. And who the hell says that logic is absolutely truthful? If it isn't, then dualism and non-dualism can exist both together. I could be generating reality and reality could be generating me. An apple could be a road and a road could be nothingness. So is logic true or is it not? Any statement you will give me will probablybe logical, and that's the paradox. You cannot say anything without using language, so any statement about language is already using language. Thus, language itself is beyond the subject that is using language, and maybe that is something that we just don't consider? Maybe truth cannot be attained, and all is simply delusion? But then, even that statement is delusion and cancels itself again. But only if we subscribe to logic, because without it we can just go ahead and claim anything. And then we claim that there are things beyond logic, beyond mind. Which is another logical claim! How is that not delusional? I do not believe that the experience of the absolute does not exist, I am saying that any claims and notions resulting from that experience are just as invalid as any other claim about reality. Maybe they are more valid, but how could we possibly derive that? With logic? The acceptance of direct experience as truth is logical! To even call the experience anything seems silly to me because it is not an idea, as you would say yourself. But the irony is that you just created an IDEA about the absolute, and that idea is "The absolute is not an idea!". That by itself is an idea, a logical claim only made because you subscribe to logic, either consciously or not. I don't know, I am just utterly confused about this. My line of reasoning is that reason and logic cannot be trusted at all. And if they can be trusted, what the hell does that mean? Even the notion of trust comes from logic! Exactly! So isn't Leo falling into this trap as well? Aren't we all falling into that trap? And isn't the only way to avoid it "not knowing" anything? But then again, all of this is just another logical claim! Reason has its limits is a logical, reasonable claim too. If it is limited then how do we know whether it is actually limited? Limit is a notion itself. Yes, it does seem like Leo is creating a hierarchy of truths. He is saying that there is an absolute truth, and he derives that statement from internal logic. But what if there just are multiple truths? If we consider that, then it would mean that truth could just change. "The absolute" would be nothing but a different truth, one that was changed. What if the present moment is simply truthful? What if right now "I" do actually exist? I can call it an illusion, but it still exists! And then, once I make it disappear, and once the truth has changed, I now claim the new experience as truth? Why is there the assumption that there is depth to truth? That there are deeper truths? What if they are just different truths, and one is attained taking a certain path and another is not? Why is there a truth beyond all truths?

I'm fairly new to the no self concept and a couple of question I can't get my head around are as follows: If I am limitless nothingness then why do i feel localised to this body and not other peoples? Is this something that occurs when enlightenment happens? You can become every other person? Also, what if an ego completely identical to mine was constructed? Would I feel as though I was in two places at once?

You are Carrying your Wound You carry your wound. With the ego, your whole being is a wound. And you carry it around. Nobody is interested in hurting you, nobody is positively waiting to hurt you; everybody is engaged in safeguarding his own wound. Who has got the energy? But still it happens, because you are so ready to be wounded, so ready, just waiting on the brink for anything. You cannot touch a man of Tao. Why? - because there is no one to be touched. There is no wound. He is healthy, healed, whole. This word whole is beautiful. The word heal comes from the whole, and the word holy also comes from the whole. He is whole, healed, holy. Be aware of your wound. Don't help it to grow, let it be healed; and it will be healed only when you move to the roots. The less the head, the more the wound will heal; with no head there is no wound. Live a headless life. Move as a total being, and accept things. Just for twenty-four hours, try it - total acceptance, whatsoever happens. Someone insults you, accept it; don't react, and see what happens. Suddenly you will feel an energy flowing in you that you have not felt before. - Osho; from 'The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness'

I went too far this time. I really got myself in the deep end. Let me present to you the biggest ego backlash to date! This is what ego's rant on everything looks like. After being blissed out and up on cloud nine thinking I actually got somewhere, reality showed up and decided to wake me up to the biggest degree yet. I have no idea what to do with the realizations that initially created endless joy, later existential terror; like these: I actually thought reality was real and solid. I thought I knew what reality was. Why did I ever wonder about death if I don't even know what life is?? Doesn't make much sense. I thought I knew who I was. Even after having so many moments of clearity and insights about no self, I've always had the story of me back in my mind: " I'm sure I'm somewhere here" I thought mystical states and positive emotions meant I was moving forward towards this thing called 'nirvana' lol. Looking back, my first enlightenment experience was very important to get me started, but from this new perspective, it was an utter delusion. " I became a chair, wow, I'm nearly self realized now" I thought I was pursuing enlightenment and not the other way around. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. End of suffering sounds nice, right? Here's a bit of unconditional love to get you hooked and a whole new belief system to serve as a complete denial and an escape from truth. I had no idea how serious this was. I signed up for my death. I thought I knew things about life in general. All of it is complete fiction. I've reached the point of ultimate doubt in everything. The doubt is so huge it feels like it will annihilate me. I used spirituality to avoid death, but spirituality = death. It's funny how all my so called problems seem to disappear when I come into contact with the truth. Because then my survival is on the line! And let me tell you, I'm in the process of dying. It's not some abstract death, it's LITERAL. The realization I saw is something that every human being is running away from and it has sent me into full on panic mode. I started to run again with others, full speed. Due to the constant fear of nonexistence and insanity, I've made my way back into comfortable lies. I did my best to distract myself as much as I could. Tried the usual sensory pleasures: junk food, music, movies, reading and all of that. When that didn't work, tried with other people, with working out, with yoga and with meditation. I can't even meditate anymore. It's too painful.I get heart palpitations, feeling like I'm going to pass out and be sucked into nothingness just 10 minutes in. Naturally, I stop and distract myself with something. And I come here, writing being my last straw, and it fails too. As I'm writing this, I know exactly what I'm doing - postponing my death. All I ever do is try to prolong this illusion of existence. Resistance is futile. Distractions are futile. Thank you Morrissey. Thank you Jed. I'm almost ready to die now.

@tsuki the meaning of silence lies in the context of nothingness. wisdom, is refer to the real nature of you (or to the real nature of reality in this context), to the one that does not change, to the one that was never existed, does not exist, nor never will.

In fact, they go together like two halves of a whole, although western civilation is indoctrinated as science being the totality. This is an incorrect assumption, ONLY in the respect that it causes suffering. The science we are thereby educated is only one half: the science of the "observed" or the "third person." Our civilization is missing the other half, the science of the "observer" or the "first person" which is foremost and utmost in the epicenter of truth, the one reality, and the only authority for the truth. Douglas Harding, who I'm channeling here, I'm a huge fan of, and he refers to these subjects as Science 1 (observer) and Science 3 (observed). The two seem so contrasting, but if you really look hard at the evidence of both worlds, they truly confirm one another, they cooperate and verify an immense amount of confusion. First bold statement: The earth is flat. But.... It is also a sphere. Because it all depends on the position of the observer. Einstein's genius shines as relativity can help tie in both what we see and what is seen. The first person perspective, the only one true nature of reality, in this place, and this position, from my point of view, sees the world as a flat plane, that can roll up into hills, mountains, bounding streams and lakes and rivers, deep canyons, and eventually terminating at a vast ocean which eventually resolves into nothingness. Even if I managed to walk in a straight line, and ended up in the same place I did before, I might have a hard time convincing myself of roundness, because my experience would still be of flatness. It is only science 3 that would confirm that from some great distance, the flatness of the earth is now seen to be in fact not flat at all. Now I never have, but I imagine if I took a rocket and burst straight out of the sky and looked back over my shoulder I'd see what resembled a sphere, and further still a pale blue dot, and even further still a tiny blip of light, and eventually nothing at all. It's incredible to see that indeed science is not an enemy of spirituality, but rather a part of the sum total. The issue in today's society is that science is seen as the totality of reality. For example, I see the sun move in the sky, and I wouldn't be wrong for seeing it. From the observer, it indeed moves. From the observed, it is indeed stationary. Neither is right or wrong, it's all a question of what perspective you take. It's only when either party takes the side of righteousness that we run into problems. If someone insists the world is flat, and only flat, they'd be only be looking at half the picture, and it's the same for the opposite. Science 1 AND Science 3 together, and only together, not apart, have a sane perspective. The two are actually one whole. So, in my opinion, both are valid perspectives, one might have a more practical application when it comes to manifestation, but we can no longer ignore the first person as just a fluke or passerby, it's really ground zero for reality. You could argue, and might be correct, in saying that it is the only reality possible. I would start with the assumption that you have a head and face, if you're really honest with yourself you might find you have no face, no head, no eyes at all, but a seemingly clear, colorless, empty capacity for the entire world to appear in. After all, the idea that the world is stuck inside a skull is just insane, but that seems to be the belief of society at large.

yin and yang. Nonduality: There is absolutely nothing I need, ever. The Dream: As a video game character in a simulation-less simulation, I have many needs. A good idea is to fulfill them. Gives me something fun to do while I'm waiting to die. Nonduality: There is absolutely nothing to seek. I am that I am. Tat tvam asi. The Dream: I can spend my entire life seeking and still not find everything. How cool is that? Nonduality: I am Nothingness/God/Brahman/Consciousness/Awareness/Einsof/Abyss/Allah/White Whale/Flying Spaghetti Monster, and I just sit there, being myself. The Dream: I am a unique video game avatar, with quirks, strengths, weaknesses, and apparent free will. I can spend my entire life in the dream discovering myself. That involves lots of suffering, but also lots of peaks. The cool part: I can learn to make suffering just as meaningful as the peaks. As mah neighbah Nietzsche once said, "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how." Nonduality: In order to discover myself, I have to die. The Dream: In order to discover myself, I have to live.

If everything is "God's" will and not our will so we don't have free will but we are "God" then we are the one who chooses yet is the divine no one of misperceived awareness of nothingness illusion.......hmmmm

Well, except there is no one that reaches the misperceived awareness of nothingness that is only an illusion of truth.

@Torkys This resonates with me so much! What I will add from my perspective is that by trying to understand anything at all we make a symbol out of it and create a different real thing out of it. This is what the world is made of! Nothingness! I would rather state that as: All analyses are true! The funny thing is that it means exactly the same thing as yours for me while explicitly stating the opposite. Insane!

bulls-eye. you've gone all the way to nothingness, all the way to the the one and only truth that there is, and there is nothing more to say about it. it is no one but you to say that you have reached the nothingness.

Mary had a little lamb (masculine) Whose fleece was white as snow (feminine) Woman, the everchanging life force aka motion. Men who are dead in the depth of nothingness. Rhythm is an art of variation, stopping and continuing. Could it be that the masculine is like the stable rhythm that ends and the Feminine is the unstable rhythm that continues?

Yo im getting back on topic. I had lsd experience where there was a gap bettween me and floor, there was additional layer. I was confused since i was expecting oneness and that was wierd. I contemplated about non duality and is life is a dream and i had some really shaky ego experiences. Weeks after going through contemplation leo put out a video and i was high on cannabis and could easy go with what he says. Then I "realized" that the gap was nothingness. Still no sure if its true experience but Im open towards deeper experience of it. It can be easy to trick yourslef into believing that but the only thing you can do is open yourself to a possibility that it can be true.

Hahhahaha! But don't touch my nothingness bro, im serious.

To start off I must say that I am not enlightened anymore and therefore extremely prone to misconceptions and mind traps when talking about this subject. Background: I was always a very skeptical person throughout my life. Have been an atheist for my entire life and was also extremely deep into physics but also loved philosophy. With that said, for someone who has never experienced any sort of awakening before all this meditation and spiritual growth all seems like new-age hippies bull. I had not studied this concept before and even watching Leo I would avoid any spiritual video because they seemed so far off. How it happened: I have a very special connection with music, I play the piano and the guitar and have meditated (without realizing what I was doing) pretty much my entire life. I have had visual hallucinations before, euphoria and bliss using only music, no drugs or anything. So this particular time I was listening to my favorite song and was doing this extremely profound and deep meditation with it (again without even realizing it's meditation) when I just caught myself not existing anymore, I was so into the music that I had literally forgot about my own existence, I had killed myself without knowing. I open my eyes, looking at a white board and was extremely confused. Then it hit me as an spontaneous insight: "The self, what a preposterous concept" Still confused a bit, repeated it to myself once more and it was at that exact moment that I had awoken. What happens next the lower self cannot explain or understand, but I'll do my best to share as much as humanly possible on this strange subject. I was everything in that room, literally, physically speaking. The floor, the dust, even the sounds. I didn't exist at all. I was nothingness, also literally. It was a moment of infinite bliss, a pleasure that is beyond any sensation a human can experience. Take all the good feelings in humanity's entire existence and it would still not even be close to this feeling. Awareness is everything that exists. Not as in consciousness, as that concept is too deeply enlaced with brains and human minds, but literally awareness. It is all that exists. It's funny because on a day to day life whenever we try to think of "god" and such metaphysical, airy ideas, we always approach it with flawed concepts like time or physical presence/influence or even with science that strives for perfection and evidence cannot find awareness for it is not a physical phenomena. My awakening experience was very profound, but was far from complete. I saw some facets of the truth but not all of them: -I grasped what reality is, I became aware of awareness (which I guess is a must for any awakening experience) -I understood nothingness -I felt infinite "love" in lack of a better word- -I did not understood the infinite self part. I knew I was everything that existed but I couldn't see it infinitely, I did not see it as finite either, couldn't really grasp infinity no matter how much I tried -I knew it. I simply understood life. -I was confused about other people existing, I knew for a fact I was literally them, but shouldn't have I become omniscient of their feelings and lives? Very confusing -I was in paradise, so when I came back I got a bit depressed I wasn't there anymore -I laughed so much thinking back to all my humanly problems or anyone's problems really. Even though I have no idea why (since I don't see the truth anymore) I still remember many insights and not a single problem exists. The devil exists though, and Leo understood this very well, it is you, who reads this that creates all the issues in the world. (I can't grasp this truth, it sounds super bs writing this but I believe my enlightened self's memories and notes) -Also ultimate certainty of what I saw. Some people are afraid of illusions and traps or scared that once they see the truth they won't know it it's just another trap. It's impossible to have this experience and not understand it's legitimacy. If you think you had an awakening and had the slightest of hesitation then your ego is creating a very sophisticated trap. There are so many things to write. This changed my life and it's so strange because I don't even believe in life or death anymore. I'm sharing this, and also asking for help attaining this experience again. I feel cursed with the ego now that I have been in paradise and I'm desperate to see reality again. Thanks for reading, remember to be open-minded and kind, I'll be sure to answer any questions presented here.

From what I understand of the video, @Leo Gura is basically saying that idealism (the belief that all of reality is fundamentally a form of experience/consciousness) is true, because reality is groundless. What kind of leap is that to make? So we agree that reality is grounded in nothing, where anything is possible. Then why is it suddenly such an obvious thing that physical reality is an illusion and that brains do not generate consciousness? If literally ANYTHING is possible within this nothingness, why is a physical reality — where dead things eventually merge to become what we call awareness or consciousness — suddenly not possible in this context? Leo uses unfalsifiable inductive reasoning of the kind you see solipsists use ("you can't view the brain outside the brain") to claim that human consciousness is not generated by the brain, and that's just not sufficient to constitute a logical conclusion. You only have to refer to the "Russell's Teapot" thought experiment to prove how unfalsifiable claims are insufficient by themselves. Even if we grant Leo's assertion that what we call "our universe" is physics within consciousness and not the other way around, we now run into some problems: What happens after death? After all, the idea of death as the end of experience only makes sense in a physical context; if consciousness is generated by the brain. If we were to take seriously this extreme skepticism to what our "minds" tell us, we would have to go through life completely agnostic about what happens after death. Suddenly reincarnation seems plausible — if reality is a groundless "dream machine" that just churns out one groundless experience after another, as Leo also claims. A terrifying scenario, indeed. I have always found comfort in the fact that I know my existence is finite. Becoming an idealist completely shatters this notion. Is this what Leo is suggesting, or have I missed something? Believe it or not, there's an even bigger problem with dismissing all of physical reality as an illusion grounded in experience: Suddenly, everything can fall apart any minute. Why doesn't it? What reason do we have to be shocked if a UFO comes landing or the moon suddenly develops a face that talks? I imagine that the response would be: Because it would all be a dream and it wouldn't matter outside that context. But what about those "dreams" in reality that never end? Dreams featuring infinite lives of suffering? Surely the existence of such "dreams" is unacceptable? I know that my moment-to-moment suffering — whether in a dream or in waking life — is undesirable and would be unacceptable if it were to last for an infinity. This is the reality Leo seems to believe in, and I find it to be not only an amazing leap of logic for an otherwise smart individual, but also a deplorable demonstration of apathy that he seems completely fine with this. He's effectively dismissing all forms of suffering, no matter how gruesome or everlasting, when he admits to believe this suffering actually exists.

I may as well ask this question here rather than create my own thread since it is of a similar nature to Joseph Maynor's question: If the dream allegory is to be used, then everything is to be seen as illusion arising within 'nothingness'. That is, things lack substance and innate existence to them. Why then, do people who claim to be in this 'state' speak to other people as if they're independent minds, whilst appearing to ignore their assertion that 'people' are nothing but paper-thin fleeting illusions? Please explain this to me.