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I personally like non-existence because I find consciousness to be nothing, and I think that's the source. I understand that when all distinctions break down nothing and something are one and the same. Existence always exists, but I think non-existence (total void nothingness) is packaged with it... The void acts as awareness, when there is something to be aware of. Which there always is. What does one call an existent nothingness? It's such a contradiction.

I haven't visited here much, but Leo was talking about something about crossing and taking everyone with him (which I already knew because when I was more active on here he talked about that) So I feel like sharing my experience on 6 grams of woodlovers called Psilocybe subaeruginosa, in Australia these are known as very dark versions of golden teachers. I'm especially sensitive to psychedelics (suprisingly hahaha, I use to think the opposite) so a dose tends to be 1.5-2x stronger. I am curious if @Leo Gura is talking about this experience, and if he isn't then WTF is he talking about. I'd be curious to know where this experience sits on the cone. I don't know how you go deeper then this, but if you can great. So heres my trip: So I had 2-3 trips of these subs beforehand, if you take psyches properly, they get more intense the more you take them, thats because they start getting really serious with you. So this was my 3rd or 4th trip with them and I took 6 grams dried. This experience happened after having "permanent" sober awakenings like no self realization and all the other stuff. So its beyond just being in a state of oneness. So I took the subs at 9am (I picked them from the ground so was a bit worried about eating posionous ones, but thats part of the fun, if you aren't willing to permanently physically die for truth then it aint for you IMO, sorry, will have that stance till the day i really do die hahahaha), and felt really shit as you do on big doses of mushrooms, felt like i was about to physically die and go to the hospital because ive just eaten some poisonous ones, felt horrible for letting my family down because they told me psyches were bad and they were right in the end, blabalbalbalba I had visions of being in the hospital for a period of time that felt like years but it would of been only 20 minutes, my flatmate looked worried and she monitored me for nausea symptoms, then left and went to the shops. I saw machine elves but they dissolved pretty quickly. Unexplainable hell endured, I went through every possible fear I could imagine. Everything from going to jail from taking this shit to never falling in love to regretting things, to letting my family down, contemplated the possibility of being "stuck" in an eternal hell of nothingness devoid of love forever, even contemplated the possibility that love was made up, which is possible on these high doses even if love is the greatest truth of all, its possible to enter those states its absolutely amazing. Then I checked the time and it was 3pm and I was like yes its nearly over. I stayed in my room because I have anxiety of talking to people on trips because i secretly feel bad for taking them, like I'm willing to physically die for the truth, but my family and everyone in hell, and that feels a bit shitty to me, but i have to do it anyway so i try and keep away from people while tripping, also dont wanna get locked up. Then I was like, wait what was i even going through, I totally forgot, wait what even is a poisonous mushroom, totally couldnt comprehend it, was so confused. Then I was like what in the actual fuck is "death", what the fuck was i worried about, I can't even remember. What day is it today? Checked the day and it was "suuuundayyy" what in the fuck is that. then i checked the time and it was 10am, and I was like, wait did I make that entire trip up in my head and it never happened. So then I waited for my flatmate to come home, but she didn't. So I mustered up the courage to walk outside my room, and she wasn't there (she's my ex, and we have a deep platonic connection) and not only that, but all of her photos on the wall were gone. I went wait this is really weird, she's not hanging on the wall, I looked at my phone and she was there in what'sapp but I totally forgot who she was. And I had this sense that I completely made her up. I thought about my mum, and I thought wait did I make her completely up too. I looked around the room, it was 10am (I had memories of it being 3pm and coming out of the trip)... and it was 10am and stuck at 10am. I was walking around my apartment, looking at everything, and the 10am didn't change. And not only that, but I totally became conscious that the entire past didn't happen, and that I didn't actually take any mushrooms. (No joke i really didn't), and I thought, wait if i didn't take any mushrooms, of fuck no that means im high forever, I've got this massive body load and im in this state forever. I had this sense that I was in my room, walking out of my room on repeat. As soon as I walked out of my room, I opened my eyes and i was in my room again, and walked out of it again. And every time, the mushrooms were telling me, there's nothing to fear, no one exists. I tried making the 10am clock go forward, and everytime i tried i just couldn't do it. And I remember thing, omg i can't move it forward because ive completely forgotten death, and i know something which prevents me from moving the clock forward and for my flatmate to be real. Oh no what have i done ive just broken consciousness. But then it got worse, because its not that i broke consciousness, its that consciousness was always like this, and my entire life, literally all of it, was constructed by me walking into my room and getting lost in a thought story... fucken hell all of my family, friends, spiritual path, infinite love enlightenment, jeeeeeeeeze that was all a thought story that i got lost in(for a few minutes hahaha). I went please no, please not this can't be real, i miss my life, i miss my friends, i miss my journey. And there was no controller so even if i tried i couldn't because consciousness was completely in control. I oscillated in an eternal loop between trying to manifest all of my friends and especially my flatmate, then realizing i couldn't because i wasn't in control and I knew that there's no death. So i tried, realized i couldn't, tried again, realized i couldn't, on and on and on. Then i realized (and this fucken hurt) that all my goals were impossible to achieve, because i couldn't understand any of my goals. Its impossible to understand your goals, because "singularity" and that you just pretend to understand your goals because thats the only way to make duality happen. I realized that i couldn't pinpoint what exactly I liked about sex, its just movements, but what is it about those movements that I like, I couldn't figure it out. Then i had to realize that there's nothing in sex, at all. That fucken hurt. And same with enlightenment and everything else. Then finally i accepted it, "alright, I'm god, that entire life was simply a few minutes of me in my room getting lost in a thought story, and none of it is real, ok i gotta man up, take responsibility for my consciousness and make something of this" So I got rice from my fridge, and threw it all over the floor. Next i put a massive dent in my wall, not like anyone's gonna notice, because all there is, is me. Next i went onto my balcony, and looked at the world like it was inception(the movie) my hair was blowing in the wind like leonardo dicaprio, I clinged onto the balcony fence hard like a monkey and wondered "what would happen if I jumped off, should I try? This is afterall my world, I can do whatever the fuck i want, and no one is around to stop me" I got the rest of my subs chewed em, and spat them all over the fence of my balcony. Chuckling to myself "hahahah what an illusion, that these things make you high, im high all the time and those subs(mushrooms) do nothing" Then last minute "nah wont jump off the balcony, that's boring" I felt suffering for not having a flatmate and for realizing my crush was imaginary. I saw how she was empty, hollow, literally like a rock. She was still, not there, her personality wasn't there, made it entirely up. I EVEN MADE UP THAT IM STRUGGLING WITH WOMEN, OH ITS WORSE THEN STRUGGLING, THEY ARENT EVEN FUCKEN THERE. HOW CAN I GET BETTER WITH WOMEN IF THEY ARENT EVEN THERE, FUCK THE STRUGGLING IS DISTRACTING ME FROM THE FACT THAT ILL NEVER ACHIEVE GETTING A WOMEN BECAUSE SHE AINT THERE. FUCK. As god, you gotta man up and take responsibility for it, who else will do it hahahahaahhahahahahahhaha. I messaged her and admitted that i liked her, because she aint real anyway. So I thought, well as im god i have to create a crush, so i went to my phone, and looked at her profile and all of her messages, as a way of my creating her. Then I checked all of my flatmate's messages, as a way of recreating her. And I wondered to myself, how the fuck am i ever gonna come back from this, i know too much hahahahaahahahahahahahahahahha (very crazy madness laugh wahahahahahahahahahahheheheehehhohohohohoho) yeah of course, its impossible to come back from this stupid. And then it dawned on me, its time to live a life where i know that im god and everything is made up. Enough thought stories in my room, dreaming up all that crap, time to just live knowing that they are completely hollow and made by me. I even thought about my gay friend, and I literally took on his voice and acted like him, embodied him, because i made him up so i could, he's asian, and i looked in the mirror, and i was acting exactly like an asian gay dude OF COURSE IM GOD I CAN DO THAT. So as i was recreating everything (while stepping in all the brown rice on the ground) i tried to put my hand through the wall, and i couldn't, i thought why the fuck can't i, this is stupid im god i can do anything. Then i started contemplating, well wait what if my belief of what god is, is wrong. Then i got this grand sense of a super computer, and that consciousness was a super computer. Then this super computer started creating my flatmate's aura, my crush's aura. Then it started creating the aura or subtle body of my body, and i was just going woooooow wooooooow woooooow wooooow I was there watching it create the auras/subtle bodies of everything, just watching it in shock, time was moving forward because of this aura I was there going wooow wooow wooow sitting on the couch and as i was doing that my flatmate walked in and went "WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED HERE!!!! YOU PUT A HOLE IN THE WALL, OMG YOU RIPPED UP MY BOOK, OMG" and i was like, wait, but you're imaginary, you don't exist she still screaming " I CANT BELIEVE YOU DID THIS" in my head im thinking "mushrooms, this aint fair, i cant believe you did this to me" But the bigger question i was thinking, how the actual fuck did i come back from an experience like that. That blew my mind. And nothing was the same after that trip, it was a humongous awakening, far bigger then whatever you've read about. The interesting thing is, I have so much balls, that I decided to try that stunt again, in a months time, this time with 3-4 grams of subs, but lemon teked. And let me tell you, I went to the same solopsis place of omg im all alone and my life is just my in my room doing a thought story, but i remembered, this happened before, it'll happen again, you'll come back, and lo and behold, here i am typing. What happened in that second trip was a trillion times deeper then what you've read above. It makes what ive written above seem like 5 seconds of meditation I can't explain all of it, but some bits of it were: 1. I started actually having delirium level hallucinations, like datura. I saw my parents come into my apartment, and after the trip they actually didnt, it was impossible to tell that it was a hallucination. Like datura. It happened in several occasions including i was watching a yoga video to ground myself, and another teacher came in and interrupted the lesson, after the trip i replayed the video and none of that happened. 2. I saw myself from a 3rd person perspective, and was controlling my body from a 3rd person perspective. I was literally stuck in time again, this this time it was a lot harder to make the clock move forward. Had to do a lot of stunts to get there, the mushrooms really challenged me. I had to watch myself walk backwards to make the time rewind backwards so that i could make it go forward again. 3. half of my phone chopped off as i was looking at the time, like a video game having rendering issues, half the phone was gone and i saw all the components inside it, after the trip there was no cracks to my phone. 4. I got stuck in an alternative universe for a while, when the trip ended the first time, my dad was dead, and died ages ago, that freaked me the fuck out, somehow i got back to this universe where my dad wasn't dead. and much much more.... after that trip i realized that consciousness goes deeper and deeper and there's no end. So Leo, this isn't the pinnacle? This isn't beyond the pinnacle?

I think he basically was thinking along the lines of "just because you didn't perceive any more than what you did, how do you know there isn't anything more?" Like how a blind person could know everything except color. The infinite nature of total void nothingness is indisputable since any limitation or boundary is no longer nothingness. If there is only nothing and the apparition of something what else could there be but the unity of those two? It's both nothingness and literal everythingness. How could anything be outside that? When he asked you to use the term all-encompassing I think he understood the idea at that point, but the word infinity was tripping him up.

Of course. God loves your bias for sushi, which is why you love sushi but hate dog turd, and God will not force you to love dog turd. That's God's love for you. God's love is so great it allows you to hate. God will even allow you to murder someone you hate. Everything IS pure Nothingness. Your question assumes a difference between form and formlessness. That was his bais. There is of course no reason to end suffering other than that you don't like it.

You are speaking as if unconditional love is something that exists outside of you. It is inside of you. Your bias for sushi creates a split in the unconditional love that makes it conditional. You make unconditional love, conditional. Find out how you do it... Imagine God as a Complete Nothingness. It is so Complete Nothingness that has nothing to compare itself against. It has no language, no concepts, no material, not anything. The question is, how does Complete Nothingness become aware of what it is? Through your Being. God has to exist as something, in order to avoid Complete Nothingness. In other words, God knows himself through you. You tell God what he IS. What you need to experience is this Complete Nothingness. If you don't experience it and don't know it at the level of Being, it is just a philosophy. Because he was born as a mortal, and mortals have preferences. In fact, if mortals had no preferences they would have nothing to do. Imagine you being born in a perfect world and get everything just by wishing it into existence. In a billion years, wouldn't you wish to experience some suffering again?

It's no more than you ego facing his dissolution. keep in mind that the ego is no joke, it is very powerful. I had that experience, it's terror. the infinite nothingness swallows you and annihilates you, and there is no god of love, only death at an unimaginable level. It is your ego that you do not want to let go. that very experience is god without your ego screaming. I had to do it many more times and meditate many hours daily for almost a year until I was able to let go. a real job. I'd say you have to or you can get sick. It is what I felt, it was not an option, it was necessary. the result is liberation

@LastThursday lmao thanks for reminding me of my profile-picture! @Scholar I probably need to observe the mind how it makes sense of reality NOW, because what the mind does is it remembers glimpses, nothingness etc. So it creates a new worldview integrating that glimpse that is not present now, but the respresentation of truth I witnessed in the path is only a Representation of it now, so it can't be TRUE in the now. One more pointer please, I like where this is going.

Great talk man. I'm not really certain "consciousness" is the best term because of the way most people think of the term. I think I tend to prefer terms like void or infinity. 99% of people see consciousness as being a "thing". Like there's actually some "thing" back there seeing everything, rather than realizing that when they look for consciousness they find there is literally nothing behind there, you are it, and it's nothing at all. It is much easier for example to explain form and formless (or nothing and something). Nothingness could never have any boundary or limit. It is outright impossible and easy to explain. So that term is one I greatly enjoy.

The phrase is impossible. You can't be more nothing than nothing. What we experience as consciousness is literally nothingness. Maybe more objects can group together and appear in that nothingness (you and your mind being one of these objects), but of course the nothingness never ever and could never change. It is exactly like people say, trying to see your eyeballs with your eyeballs. No matter how far you retreat you can never find anything back there. There is NOTHING there. When I see Vedantists say "Brahman has no properties" etc and that it can't be captured in any word, I am sure they mean the same thing as Buddhists, despite commonly using the consciousness moniker...

Man... Nothingness is so rad. It shouldn't exist and yet when you try to find consciousness you find that there is genuinely and literally nothing there at all. Yet we are it so could it be said to not exist in the truest sense? So fucking wild and freaky. I love it.

I would say yes. imagine there is a big bang and something emerges out of nothingness. the idea of "things", protons, elementary particles, forces, physical laws. all this to form a rock. an entity of enormous complexity. the universe is that rock, half a meter, let's say. a divine rock. manifested existence. so yes, it has a pov

First of all, I just want to say that I am blown away by the accuracy of this video. This experience is so incredibly beyond words I am shocked Leo is able to communicate it so clearly. Until about 25-30 minutes in, I related to everything that was said in the video– I mean exactly. But I have some questions about the point where he talked about realizing God inward. So, he talked about how he realized God externally (this is what I related to so much) and then he talked about turning inward and realizing God inwardly. Well, I realized God externally (in the exact way he described) but at a different point in time when I turned inward, I didn't realize God I realized no self, nothingness, and infinity all in one swoop. And because I realized these together, it's like I went from ego-death to no self to self as infinity/nothingness in like a nanosecond. But I knew this wasn't realizing myself as god because although I felt these things as me I still had this lingering feeling of how I didn't know how it was me. Then later I realized myself as Awareness and how awareness is the only thing that could possibly exist. And because awareness is aware, it could never not be aware or 'die'. I still feel like this isn't realizing God. And so I think I am confused on what 'God' even means. Because when I look at reality externally I clearly see God. But if I turned inward, it's like all of a sudden I have a different interpretation of God that is the 'man in the sky' and I cannot identify with that so there's like this block of realizing God inwardly or something. But it's weird because I don't think of God like that when I am looking at it externally I just see God as Reality. I also have realized oneness, life as a dream, and how you are the Creator of this dream (maybe this is my version of God?). One day, I just woke up with extreme clarity on how everything external was one and a reflection of what is internal. And how what is internal (for me it feels like nothingness/infinity) is so elusive and undefined that it is reflected back to itself as 'something' to represent itself in whatever way. In other words, 'something' is reflected from nothing in order to understand or show what nothing is or could be. But it's all happening simultaneously so it's all really just imagination. Idk I guess this is all besides the point. What I am really wondering is if realizing yourself as infinity is the same thing as realizing you are God? What was said on Realizing Scale What Leo describes as realizing Scale (when he talks about the hair follicles on his arm) I have not realized this at all. I have realized– though– No Space. I don't know if that is even a thing but when I realized God externally I realized that there is no such thing as space. It's like when I go on a walk, I have this whole new worldview that I don't actually get closer to anything as I 'move' towards it. But just that those things get bigger or smaller in appearance. It's definitely psychedelic-like I think although I've never had a psychedelic experience. It's like I say to myself, "Are you really getting closer to that tree? Or is the tree's imagery just getting bigger?" That's how I feel now when I go on my walks. haha. It's like I'm walking around as an avatar in a video game. Not all of the time but only when I choose to focus on it without trying too hard. It's like there's no space or even atmosphere. It's all just sucked out of the 'bubble' of oneness so to speak.

I believe that God is nothing and knows nothing, and suddenly it is a lot of energy that explodes and it is only that, and it only knows that, and that energy forms protons and God is protons, no more, know how to be a proton, and he is playing with the possibilities until reach a complexity as unimaginable as the human brain, a pattern within a pattern within a pattern ... all shapes in nothingness, and those unimaginable patterns intertwine in unimaginable numbers creating all this perfect and glorious dream that leads to .... maybe God doesn't know. Only divine improvisation

@Emerald And yet, here are all your beliefs of what masculine/feminine is. You are not becoming aware of an absolute truth, you are becoming more accepting of the variables in life that you have perceived and attempting to find balance/comfortability in said variables. Reality itself is a shared egoic construct that we agree on. But, many of us here have realized the true illusion that is our reality and the Nothingness that is Actuality. But, very few people on this planet actually have become aware of this. If reality itself is that of an illusion, so is the idea of masculine/feminine and the more we embrace these ideas the more we delude ourselves from our true nature. Once I gained the insight of the masculine/feminine I was able to integrate them as well, but the insights didn't stop there. If was to guess, the ego whishes to formulate understanding of these ideas in order to gain a self of control over self and other. The more control the ego has, the better if feels about itself. The grander the identity we have, the grander the ego has done it's job. The ego does not want to release it's identity and will justify it's existence in any way possible. Most people could never accept this is a "dream" for a lack of better words or we are all One. Just like most people can't accept the masculine/feminine are constructs of fabrication within reality itself and not an Absolute truth. It's not about rejection of said polarity, it's about accepting the unknowingness of what we are attempting to tether to. The more we think we know, the less we actually know. The mind does not like this idea at all. Again, there is nothing wrong with this. There are perceived benefits to living within the illusion. I'm only giving a differing take on this, because it's almost everyday we see these topics being talked about. It really seems like no one is getting anywhere except the personal satisfaction of stating their own opinion onto another. Though, I may preach a non-dual way of living with these ideas. It's difficult for me to fully embrace that. Largely, I don't see masculine/feminine anymore within the confines of reality itself. Though, on a overarching scale of how reality is formed I have some beliefs of how these energies manifest reality itself. Though there is an attempt to drop these notions as well for I feel they are still part of self-deception. I'll explain them below: Masculine is the dreamer that dreams the dream, or the mind behind what is formed. Feminine is form itself or anything that our awareness can highlight. (Physical form, emotions, thought, and ect) The masculine watches/observes the form(feminine) in order to evolve said form. The feminine attracts the masculine to be observed, much like a bee to a flower. This creates the illusion we live in. This process repeats instantly for eternality at once. Forever "creating"/evolving reality on itself. Fear is what drives the masculine to be attracted to the feminine. Though this fear isn't human fear, but an attempt to complete itself by merging with the feminine. Absolute Love is the totality of both energies unified. This idea has nothing to do with men or women for our vessels are not defined by masculine/feminine for both male/female would be considered the observed form therefore inherently feminine. But, a product(dream) of the masculine therefore inherently masculine. Though, one could remove all of those above ideas for there truly is Nothing behind them.

Everything can be known including the Truth that nothing ever happened. This doesn't mean "nothing is happening" lol. Don't get deluded by "this life is an illusion, nothing matters". Life is the realest thing there is. Your body and mind is real, your feelings are real, your thoughts are real, everything that has ever happened to you is real. It may seem like I'm contradicting myself and I totally get it, it's the trickiest riddle for the mind to "understand" because the ultimate Truth of Nothingness is beyond understanding, it can only be experienced.

@Leo Gura yeah, I'm saying that as a figure of speech. It means the pursuit of enlightenment is a means to an end. How can the ego not use it for its own selfish purposes? I mean sure you can argue one is in search for the Truth. For what? For it's only selfish purposes. Once you discover the Truth/nothingness/infinity/no-self/Love then what? If you were truly selfless we couldn't be here to discuss it. All the consciousness in the universe then back to your self. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing more pleasurable than infinite consciousness and awakening. And in saying that, I will continue to dissolve the self for years to come. My point remains, love is the only answer. Loving unconditionally. Not because it's a saintly, moral fantasy but because I am everyone and everything. If you feel I'm still missing something, please let me know. Maybe I'm wrong. I know nothing but what I've gathered from my own experience of awakening.

Well the individual attempting to be free is an illusion. Freedom is the unconditional love for everything exactly the way it is which includes the judgments, the happiness, the fear, the confusion, the anger, the bliss..... Freedom is that free completely all inclusive. No it is not an illusion, if there is individual, trying to be free is real for him/her. Therefore, when individual loves everything there will be no more judgments, happiness, fear, confusion for the individual there will be only love there for him/her, which is the way to nothingness. Of course you can say you are already nothing. Yes it is true. However, as you mentioned above that if your house is burned or your sister is get raped, this is not even close to be nothing. These shows that your thought process is still so active. Because, you maybe never see the house burns or anyone getting raped. Just because of you learned and thought of it, therefore you suffer. So illusion is still is real for you and being free is real for you. Just an advice, Dont get me wrong but contemplate brother and meditate. This is stuff can not be learned by reading, you have to walk the path. Peace ☮️ much love !

How can there be something from nothing? The ULTIMATE TRUTH is NOTHING EVER HAPPENED. The Terrifying TRUTH of Nothingness. Enjoy!

reality is nothingness, in the sense that there is not real content. So right now it's nothingness but it seems to the mind that there is content, many things, ideas, memories, images. they are false. It is not that they are a lie, it is that it seems that they are happening but they are empty images that do not mean anything. a steak is the same as a beggar, or humanity, or philosophy. nothing, empty. but we are addicted to that false content, so if in a moment they take it away, what remains, what we call emptiness, seems lacking in something, absence. It is not like that, emptiness is empty because it has no content, but it is full, it is being. it's pretty straightforward once you see it. The important thing imo is to recognize the adiction to the content, and see it's unreality. After the void is starting to be less threatening

Well, I don't think it would be conscious alone, because it was like I could only know it through the objects which weren't it. Alone it would be nothing at all. So that is why it is confusing imagine how it works. The self-mind evaporates, the nothing is still there. But I won't know it... Yet it is what I am. So I will. But I won't... The only way I got it was when someone used an analogy where nothing is light and minds are prisms diffusing the light out. You can't go back in your fractured form. I get it that way. But I am not sure what it is experientially like. I understand there is no "my" consciousness in the true sense, rather I belong to it. But experientially from a first person perspective what continues (or second person?). This is where it gets hard to think... It is easy to understand consciousness (the nothingness) is everything that exists, but you see relatively in this form we don't know each other's experience. I get that the same nothing does know both of our experience. It's just weird because it's like, it's me but not me at the same time.

Yeah, the Nothingness cannot be known. You can only BE it. Because knowing is dualistic but Nothingness is nondual.

Sorry to hear you're feeling rough again I hope it gets better soon. Trying give you a glimmer of hope. The very fact that it feels like a struggle and a fight means there's a part of you which is resisting the loneliness and sadness, which believes there is an alternative. Then there's this other voice which insists there is no reward. So you're conflicted, split and fighting yourself between hope and hopeless. Please please don't give up on the hope. "and when you die, then what? You'll lose it all anyway." I've already lost my childhood, my youth, my parents, many friendships, etc loads of good things. But I've never lost the present moment. If we can find contentment in the here and now we can carry that with us even through death, if there is an after life. If not, then there won't be any awareness of loss anyway. Pure nothingness, pure everythingness.

Are you same James that was here, who was into nothingness? if so what happnd to that account?

@m0hsen And progressing in jhana is about releasing attachment to the current level — the later Jhanas basically have no room for physical pleasure because it’s old news — it’s recognized that the ultimate reason you like the pleasure is the peace it provides, and then you essentially absorb into pure peace, which interestingly is immeasurably more sublime than pure pleasure. Though you can always revisit earlier Jhanas. You generally pass through each one distinctly on the way up and down — known as the jhanic arc. Letting that arc flow naturally is the best way to practice them. With great skill you can enter into specific jhanas without having to follow the arc, but again the best way to practice is to let them progress naturally: i.e. the mind naturally begins to sense that the overwhelming exhilarating body buzz of 1st jhana is less sublime than the bliss itself produced by that exhilaration and so it absorbs into the blissful happiness of 2nd jhana like a warm bath (ecstasy/exhilaration now in the background); then mind begins to tire still of the overwhelming orgasmic exhilaration and so turns away from it entirely, giving way to pure happiness completely divested of bodily-exhilaration (3rd jhana), which is almost certainly not something humans are capable of outside of jhana. Abandon pleasure for peace itself (4th), abandon materiality; space; consciousness; nothingness; perception-landing (8th)... Even 1st jhana will knock your socks off though, so don’t worry about the later ones. The best word for 1st jhana is probably YEE HAW!! ? ?

I wanted to copy and paste Butler’s 10 axioms so I could study them a little. Being that he was giving it away I thought it would be okay to post it. He gets the credit for it. This journal often shares his podcasts. Although I don’t agree with him on everything I feel I’ve profited quite a bit from his podcasts over the last couple years.. https://c10.patreonusercontent.com/3/eyJhIjoxLCJwIjoxfQ%3D%3D/patreon-media/p/post/55099220/a8b3553b041d4f248220042ac1731876/1?token-time=1630540800&token-hash=6hKxXJhCJfiVt0DS7pghuoh8XIOWxCgiLv4Reg6ViO8%3D Axiom One - Life is a Self-Optimizing Survival Machine Nature is not divine, but demon-like. - Aristotle Some religious movements, philosophers, and writers have seen life as nothing less than a demonic manifestation. The Cathars and Gnostics come to mind, as do philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Aristotle, Mainlander, and contemporary film makers and writers such as Lars von Trier and Thomas Ligotti. This is not a popular view of life in our optimistic, but very unhappy culture. Nonetheless this theme is probably as old as the human race and comes from some deep sense of the cruelty and futility of life. We can put a more modern spin on the dynamics of life by considering the forces at play. They are in essence very simple - creatures that are good at survival and procreation become dominant. Life is a ruthless self- optimizing survival machine. It has no morality, takes no account of cruelty and suffering, and efficiently weeds out the weak from the strong. The primary qualities needed by a species, if it is to become dominant, are strength and cunning. So, since these qualities promote the success of a species we might expect that they become exaggerated in the most successful species - and so it is. As far as cunning is concerned no species does it better than human beings. Some psychologists believe we have developed language so we can lie more effectively, allowing us to take cunning and deceit to a whole new level. The lie is ubiquitous in life, and indeed life would hardly function without it. Men and women could not seduce without the lie, children would find life too brutal to bear if they were not told lies, and business would grind to a halt without the lie. The ultimate purpose of all this lying is enhanced survival, for the individual and the species. Of course, it is not only homo sapiens that lies, angler fish, venus fly traps, stick insects, and pretty much every species employs the lie to further its survival prospects. Since human beings are not known for size and muscular strength (chimpanzees for example are several times stronger than the average person), it is obviously our cunning and ability to deceive that we have to thank for our dominant position on this planet. This dynamic also plays out within the species. Successful people are often those with the most cunning, using their skill to outwit and disadvantage others for their own advantage. In the mating game men will lie about their resources and resourcefulness to attract a female, and women will use cosmetics and dress to exaggerate their sexuality and reproductive potential. People will often say it's a dog-eat-dog life, but that is being way too kind. Human life is dominated by a level of deceit that no other animal is capable of. So, the self-optimizing survival machine grinds on leaving a trail of dead, deformed, and injured species and individuals behind it. At the head is the current winner in this race, although the lead is always tentative. At a personal level we need to wise up to these dynamics. This machine has molded our physiology and psychology for its own ends - not for ours. We are anxious, ever vigilant, stressed, forever striving, and used up in the process of trying to ensure our survival. This is how we have been shaped, but thanks to our reasoning capabilities we can moderate and modify the forces that drive us forward and have no regard for the suffering they create. After considerations of this nature it may not seem too far fetched to say that nature is demonic, and it's most demonic protege is the human being - you and me. But to be eaten up with desires, emotional passions, lies, and insatiable ambitions is to truly live in hell. Happily there is a way out provided we are prepared to pay the ferryman to take us to another shore. Axiom Two - Our daytime consciousness is concerned with survival fitness, not truth. Suppose the human race is the most successful species on Earth. In that case, it must finely tune its consciousness to the things that promote survival and procreation and similarly be highly sensitive to the things that threaten survival and procreation. Our daytime consciousness must be driven by survival utility and wholly shaped by it. Survival utility implies that this consciousness does not need to represent the world accurately but must provide a survival advantage. It seems to be true that the only world we know is a representation of the world that our mind creates for us. We cannot know anything other than as a mental representation. As such, it would follow that the nature of our representations is such that they are optimized for survival, since were it otherwise, we would not have survived and become the successful species we are. Nietzsche well describes this utility-driven consciousness: The measure of that of which we are at all conscious is so entirely dependent upon broad considerations of utility for consciousness ... This shaping of our consciousness by survival utility goes very deep. Even the framework for our experience of the world, namely time and space, is a product of our mind. This was stated by Kant over 200 years ago, and more recently by Donald Hoffman in his book The Case Against Reality where he says: Our perceptions of space, time, and objects were shaped by natural selection not to be veridical - not to reveal or reconstruct objective reality—but to let us live long enough to raise offspring. Perception is not about truth, it's about having kids. So, we come back to survival and procreation and the fact that these drives wholly shape the simulation of the world our mind produces. The net result of this is that we live inside a representation of the world that is wholly concerned with survival and procreation and little else. This is easily proved by the fact that the overwhelmingly dominant driver for activity is survival and the acquisition of resources to guarantee survival. In other words, the acquisition of money, healthcare, shelter, food, a social context, a mate, all occupy the main part of the waking day. Even our entertainment in movies and novels is again almost wholly concerned with stories of survival. Since our waking consciousness is not primarily concerned with an accurate representation of the world, but one that confers a survival benefit, it would be senseless to say that we human beings can know "the truth". We are just not equipped to know "the truth" but only the characteristics of our representations of the world, which are shaped by survival utility. We live inside our own survival consciousness "bubble" and there is no way to see outside the bubble. This survival consciousness can be seen as a kind of dream. Various traditions call this dream Maya, and Gurdjieff said our daytime waking consciousness had nothing of reality in it. The obvious question is, how does this affect the way we live? This is best answered through a child's nursery rhyme: Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream, Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. We cannot know what the world is or what we are since we are trapped within our survival consciousness bubble. We can give up on the quest for "the truth" simply because we are not equipped to know the truth of our existence. This understanding of our entrapment in a survival consciousness is perhaps the most significant of all understandings. It allows us to consider our behavior from a single principle - that of the survival consciousness. We can then modify our lives so that this consciousness does not create the suffering that it might otherwise do. Rowing our boat gently downstream is not an inherent feature of the survival consciousness, but it is something we can learn. Axiom Three - Our emotional state is a measure of our survival status. All our emotional states are driven by one thing; the desire to exist. When our survival status is diminished, we experience the so-called negative emotions, and when it is enhanced, we experience the so-called positive emotions. A diminishing of our survival status, no matter how indirect, creates emotional pain in the form of anger, hatred, fear, depression, melancholy, and so on. Enhanced survival prospects create joy, confidence, excitement, love, enthusiasm, optimism. It's all entirely mechanical, and it is not uncommon for one type of emotion to pass into another: fear into hope or love into hatred, for example. Because we are so attuned to our survival status, our emotions change all the time. This volatility of the emotional states is unique to human beings because we have a highly developed sense of our survival status. We are aware of our current situation and can imagine any possible changes of status in the future. As a result of this volatility and the ability to imagine future events, we suffer a great deal. At the root of our emotional nature are pleasure and pain. When our desire to exist is fulfilled, we feel pleasure; when threatened, we feel pain. These are actual bodily states and are not just in the mind. Each emotion will comprise a physical condition; for example, clenched fists if angry, and ideas associated with the state; in the case of anger, maybe the idea of the person we want to destroy since anger is always a desire to destroy the thing that has given us pain. Our emotional nature is a property of our animal body, and the brain function developed in animals known as the limbic system. The curse placed explicitly on human beings is that we have a highly developed limbic system coupled with a very active conceptual mind. In this way, we tend to exaggerate existential threats and opportunities with resulting anxiety, stress, and intense emotional states. Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of our psyche is the notion of a self. Not only do we respond to the environment via our immediate emotions, as indeed does an animal, but our conceptual mind creates the concept of a self, of being a definite psychological entity. This evolution of a sense of self is a master move on nature's part since it motivates us to strive even harder to maintain our existence. Animals seek enhanced survival status and avoid diminished status instinctively. We also do this, but the notion that we have a self causes us to strive to maintain this psychological mirage. The result, yet again, is even more anxiety, stress, and striving. The living proof that our striving for existence has become dysfunctional is the large number of people taking antidepressants and anxiety medications and the need to escape the very existence we crave through alcohol and drugs of various kinds. This inherent contradiction in our existence; that we desire it while often feeling the need to numb ourselves to it shows the conflict that is an integral part of our psychological makeup. This contradiction is quickly understood when we separate the instinctive and emotional aspects, which crave existence, and the conceptual mind that looks at our situation and can be less than enthusiastic about it. If our emotional life is to become tolerable, we need to manage it, and with the appropriate skills and application, this is indeed possible. Either our emotions dominate us, or we dominate them; one is mechanical and the other requires conscious effort. Axiom Four - Life is Decay Life has the name of life, but in reality it is death. - Heraclitus That life is decay is a blatantly obvious but eagerly avoided fact. From conception, every creature is sentenced to death and to a gradual unwinding of its integrity through ongoing decay. Generally speaking, we call such decay aging, but we tend to see aging as something that happens when a person reaches forty years of age or an age in that vicinity. In reality, the aging process begins at the point of conception. The fundamental mechanism of life is that it creates many generations of the same decaying individuals. It's such an irony that we call our physical existence life when it is a decay process. It looked at unsympathetically, we can say that life is an iterative process of generating decaying creatures. Since each generation undergoes decay, this iterative procedure is the only mechanism that will ensure the continuation of life. Life can be viewed as a fire that creates its own fuel. When it comes to human life, we find a strong dissonance between the life of the body and that of the mind. The body has a one-way ticket to eventual death, during which it will progressively decay. The mind, on the other hand, fully aware of but in denial of its ultimate fate, acts as though it were immortal. This dynamic is particularly true of young people with their plans and ambitions, never giving a thought to the inevitable endpoint. Despite the denial, the dissonance takes its toll. The illusion that life is going somewhere has to be maintained, or like a puppet with its strings cut, most people would lose all motivation. This illusion can become more exaggerated as people grow older and their decaying body signals more loudly that the end of their existence grows ever nearer. They try and cram as much into their life as possible, a kind of desperate attempt to deny the obvious. The solution to all of this is simple but challenging: we remind ourselves regularly that our life is a process of decay and that it leads exactly nowhere. Most people will find this way too difficult, and it will probably have a depressing effect. However, once our psyche gets over the initial shock, a practice of this nature makes it much easier to live, as our unrealistic expectations of life drop away. The Bible talks of the "valley of death", and this is precisely what life is: a place where everything around us is dying, and during that process all creatures strive with all their being to create the next generation of dying things, with an offset in time. In the case of human beings, the offset is typically around twenty or thirty years. If someone becomes a great-grandparent, they will see four generations with offsets of twenty years or so. A situation such as this is often a comfort. An older person can see his or her continuation through the younger generation. These dynamics are full of problems, and not least the pain encountered when offspring or grandchildren either create a lifestyle that meets with disapproval or die. This is very problematic ground, but not the topic here. It is much healthier to see the nature of life from a wholly egotistical perspective. Given the facts, how do I live a life with a minimum of pain and distress? Axiom Five - Nature is Indifferent and Amoral We find an indifferent universe so repugnant that we create fictitious entities such as a caring God. There is no shortage of evidence that nature is indifferent and yet many choose to ignore it. One hundred and twenty million people died in wars, revolutions, purges, and the like during the twentieth century, and each of them believed they were the center of the universe and most will have been loved by others. This is misery and suffering on a scale that is hard to imagine and yet the laws of our existence continue to grind along with no consideration of the hell they create. Individuals will turn a blind eye to the day-in and day-out carnage on this planet if they come to believe that some supernatural power has bestowed a favor, such as recovery from a serious illness. They will tell others, assume a special status, and totally ignore the millions of others who strive and suffer. Such is the human condition that we too are uncaring, but dare hardly admit it. And so we fluff up our egos with notions of being a caring and kind person while all the time ignoring the misery that is right on our doorstep. This indifference of nature, and particularly its indifference toward sentient beings demonstrates that existence as a whole is not cognizant of suffering. Consider animals and the way they treat each other; it is as if they do not recognize that the other is sentient. Animals will eat others, while still alive, and treat the distress and agony of the other with complete indifference. It would seem that only when we come to man do we see empathic behavior and a sense of the suffering of others. Why we should have this ability is something of a mystery since we are incapable of reducing the suffering of most other creatures and it causes us to suffer unnecessarily. There is a certain beauty to the cold, hard, laws that determine the way we exist. The indifference of the laws of the universe does at least leave no doubt as to what will happen in a given situation. Plunging a dagger into someone's heart will kill them every time. Closely related to this indifference is the fact that nature is amoral. Philosophers and religious folk have struggled for millennia to convince us and themselves that an objective moral code exists. The brutal fact of the matter is that most of us will steal, lie, enact violence and sexual abuse, if we feel we can get away with it. This is what we are: creatures like any other, that will do whatever is necessary to enhance our power and survival prospects. And so we create a state and laws to control human behavior, but these laws are not an appeal to our morality, they instead appeal to our fear of punishment. Without such laws we would make the violence in the animal kingdom look like child's play, and even with the laws we still periodically go to war and carry out the destruction of millions of our species. Spinoza has something to say on this: Nature does not frown on strife, or hatred, or anger, or deceit, or on anything at all urged by appetite. Nature will not allow us to walk through walls but it will permit the slaughter of millions of human beings in wars, and as Spinoza points out, lies and violence are just an accepted part of Nature. This amorality is linked very nicely with the indifference of Nature in another quote from Spinoza: Yet that which our reason declares to be evil is not evil in respect of the order and laws of universal Nature, but only in respect of the laws of our own nature. Nature runs according to its own laws, not ours, and if those laws spell misery and suffering for us then so be it. As always we need to understand these things so we can organize our life for our own best advantage. Denying these facts, that the universe is indifferent and amoral, will only lead to more misery through frustrated expectations. In any case the need for a caring and moral universe is nothing much more than the search for a cosmic mummy and daddy. So, let's grow up. Axiom Six - We are Automatons With no Free Will For many people, the notion we have no free will is perhaps the bitterest of all pills to swallow. It offends their sense of autonomy and belief that nothing and no one can dictate what they do. The understanding that we have no free will comes easily enough. The world we know operates strictly according to cause and effect. Every effect, such as a decision made, must have a cause. No one doubts this is how the universe operates, from the behavior of atoms through to that of galaxies. Yet when it comes to human behavior, we make an excuse; we make ourselves a special case. Even today, with mounting scientific evidence that we have no free will, and the greatest minds coming to a conclusion we have no free will, the topic is still hotly debated; such is the resistance to this blatantly obvious truth. So, let us state the precondition for a belief in free will and then move on to the implications. A belief in free will is a belief in causeless effects. If a person believes that things can happen with absolutely no cause, they can claim to believe in free will. Such a person would then have no right to accept the findings of science, psychology, sociology, economics, medicine, and so on since effects might not have causes. The madhouse might be the destination for a person who believes in causeless effects. Let's be clear about what is being said here. That you are reading this is not the result of some free act of will on your part; you were never going to do anything differently given the chain of cause and effect that preceded you reading these words. Put in its most devastating form, we can say that we are automatons responding to events both in the world around us and within ourselves. One of the principal implications of our being automatons is that there can be no praise or blame. If a machine does the only thing it is made to do; it seems ridiculous to praise it or blame it for its actions. The Buddhists are right when they say "no blame." Equally, we should not entertain feelings of guilt, remorse, regret, shame, or responsibility. How can a machine be responsible for its actions? It didn't make or program itself; it is simply carrying out the activities resulting from its construction. Similarly, remorse and guilt are futile emotions that rest on the notion that we had free will when we did something that we now regret. While the realization that we are automatons with no free will might be very damaging to the ego, ultimately, it is a very freeing realization. Of course, some people desperately need us to feel we have free will because then we can be blamed. Naturally, I'm talking about religious folk and the power brokers in society. Even the people around you will not be happy with you if you say that you no longer entertain feelings of responsibility, guilt, shame, remorse, regret, and so on. So, it's probably best to keep these realizations to oneself and wallow in the freedom that the realization that we have no free will brings. To put it another way, we can say that everything happens necessarily. All our decisions and actions were the only decisions and actions that were ever going to happen because of the necessary play of cause and effect. There is no contingency in the world; no should have, could have, would have, or any other sentiments that rest on the notion of a free act of will. Once again, this realization is very freeing The realization of the fallacy of free will can have deeper effects and particularly the feeling that we are not autonomous units but that we are deeply connected with the rest of the world through necessary chains of cause and effect. Axiom Seven - Existence has no purpose or meaning. The most beloved habit adopted by the human race is projecting its modes of operation onto the rest of existence. Perhaps the most common form of anthropomorphizing is assigning a purpose to things, even to existence itself. In our everyday life, we do things with a result in mind. This result is our purpose or final cause, as the philosophers might say. Animals seem to work the same way when they build nests and the like, but it would be a complete mistake to extend this notion of a purpose beyond the behavior of living things. Perhaps the first mistake we make is to assign purpose to our lives. We are not self-created and, as such, cannot possibly know whether our existence has a purpose or not. It's pointless to speculate, but nonetheless, people do speculate. Religious folk will buy books and listen to talks on topics such as "God's Purpose for You" - as if God has nothing better to do than plot out a course for our lives. This notion that we all have a purpose collapses when we consider the fifteen thousand or so children who die every day from malaria, polluted drinking water, water-borne diseases, and so on. Was their early, possibly agonizing death a fulfillment of God's purpose for them? If so, we might be better off without such purposes. Not only do we extend the notion of purpose to our existence, but we also do it for existence as a whole. Again, religious and spiritual folk are particularly adept at creating such theories, but in the end, it is just anthropomorphizing again. The notion that the universe and existence do not serve a purpose is quite distressing for some people. Closely related to the notion of purpose is that of meaning. The essence of meaning is that what we do should have some value. Assigning value is a bag of worms since how do we define value? Most people want an objective measure of value and will happily invent one or adopt one that suits their purpose. For many people, family might be the ultimate measure of value and particularly its flourishing. Nothing new here; this is fundamental survival dynamics and the propagation of genes. We serve the forces of life very well if we consider family to be the thing that is of most value and gives life meaning. Other examples of value include acquiring money, power, fame, or anything else that serves the survival drive. In reality, the fact our life has no meaning unless we invent one, and similarly with purpose, is the greatest of all gifts. If life had an "in the box" ready-made purpose or meaning, we would be constrained by those things. As it is, we are indeed free to invent our meanings and purposes if we so desire - but there is a twist. With one hundred percent certainty, our bodies know what their meaning and purposes are - to survive and procreate. It doesn't go any deeper than that. So, all the efforts that are made in life are usually directed toward achieving these things. On the other hand, our minds might not be wholly satisfied by these basic biological urges, and so it invents its meaning and purpose. These inventions are always trouble since they are of no interest to the body as long as it gets sex and food, and our mind always knows when it is duping itself - sooner or later anyway. The best but most challenging solution to all of this is to accept the meaning and purpose that comes with having a body, but not to fabricate some phony purpose such as "I want to help people." Leave the intellect out of it, and you give it freedom that most people cannot bear. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so most will invent purpose and meaning to satisfy their ego. Living with the vacuum is infinitely more rewarding than filling it with some phony nonsense. Ultimately we have to recognize that the very concepts of purpose and meaning are man-made ideas that give us a certain view of life. The universe knows nothing of meaning and purpose, how could it, it does not have a human mind. Axiom Eight - No Self When we look inside ourselves, what do we find? The overwhelming answer is thought. It might be objected that we find emotions and desires too, but in reality, these belong to the body. When angry, it is the chest that tightens, and maybe the fists clench. There may be some associated thought of the person you would like to harm, but make no mistake about it; the emotion is experienced in the body. It's the same with desires; salivation when presented with some delicious food being a good example. There are usually accompanying thoughts in both emotion and desire, and it is the thoughts that we consider to be activities of the mind. Our sense of self is founded on the illusion of some inner permanence. If nothing within us were permanent, we would be a stream of thought, but no self to experience the thought. But this statement begs the question as to whether there is anything within us other than thought. As Nietzsche says in his usual terse manner: "If I analyze the process expressed by the proposition "I think", I get a series of audacious assertions that would be difficult if not impossible to prove; for example, that I am the one who is thinking, that there has to be a something doing the thinking, that thinking is an activity and an effect on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that an "I" exists, and finally, that we by now understand clearly what is designated as thinking—that I know what thinking is." Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio believes that our sense of self is located in a small area in the brain stem. When this area becomes damaged, a person tragically loses their sense of self. Memory also fools us into thinking that there is something within us that is permanent. It is challenging to justify anything within us other than the stream of thoughts that pass through us. As Nietzsche indicates, we assume that there is a thinker, but the thinker is invisible at the end of the day and all we are left with is thought. That there is no little homunculus in our heads thinking was well appreciated by Spinoza. He says: "... in the mind there is no absolute faculty of understanding, desiring, loving, etc. Hence it follows that these and similar faculties are either entirely fictitious or nothing more than metaphysical entities or universals which we are wont to form from particulars." Our "faculty for understanding" is fiction, and all we ever have is particular thoughts about this and that. The Zen Buddhists appreciated this right from the start. A famous conversation between a zen master and his student in the classic work "The Ceasing of Notions" goes: Student: "What is called the mind? And how is the mind pacified?" Master: "You should not assume a mind, then there is no need to pacify ti. That is called pacifying the mind." The unsettling reality is that we find nothing within us other than thought, but there is no evidence of a thinker. Because we identify with our thoughts so heavily, so we believe that they are associated with something within us that is permanent, an "I", a thinker. But there is no such thing. As Plato and Heraclitus would say - we are a becoming, not a being. We do not exist, and all that does exist is the matrix of phenomena that form the objects of our experience. In any case, our "I" disappears every night during deep dreamless sleep, and as such can be seen as a product of our waking consciousness. I'll let Shakespeare have the last word: We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. Axiom Nine - No Truth In everyday life, we know two kinds of truth. Truths of fact confirm some relationship between concepts; for example, the concept sky and the concept blue might be related by the statement "the sky is blue." Logical truths express relationships between assertions. A simple example might be if A=B and B=C, then A=C. But we are not satisfied with these truths; for as long as people have thought, so they look for metaphysical truths that take us beyond the realm of experience. A list of such dearly sought metaphysical questions might include: Why is there something instead of nothing? Do I have a soul? Does God exist? What is consciousness? What is being? Is there an objective morality? Does an overall purpose drive life? Why do cows have four legs? (maybe not) As axiom two states, our daytime consciousness is not the least bit concerned with truth but has evolved to optimize our survival and procreation prospects. I any case, what kind of truths are we looking for? The metaphysical truths are simply beyond our reach, and it might be that the questions don't make much sense anyway. No shortage of spiritual and religious traditions claim they have the answer to some or all of the questions listed above, but all of them require that we abandon our reason and accept dogma. The philosophers have been equally profligate in their assertions about the truth. Most of them have created some kind of ontology, or proofs concerning the simple nature of the soul, and so on. There is a sad fact hiding in all of this. Religious, spiritual, and philosophical folk create their answers to our most pressing questions driven primarily by their own biases. Kant, a pietist, was desperate to show that there is a God, we have a soul, and that we can know freedom. Spinoza's central bias was that everything is one, and his philosophy was engineered around this central fact. Religious folk have usually swallowed some happy ever after story because they find life unsatisfactory. It took the genius of Nietzsche to point out what the purveyors of truth have been doing for millennia, namely weaving stories that comply with their own biases. In Beyond Good and Evil, he says: Little by little I came to understand what every great philosophy to date has been: the personal confession of its author, a kind of unintended and unwitting memoir We do need to ask ourselves why we are so addicted to "the truth", and particularly the truths that we have no access to at all. The very notion of truth may be a kind of madness. Again Nietzsche sees it all very clearly: Given that we want truth: why do we not prefer untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? As humbling as it may be, the best way to approach all this is to realize that our world, and all that we can know, is limited by our sensibility. Experience is the bedrock of our thinking, and if we try to go beyond it, we end up with unverifiable stories about the absolute, God, spirit, fairies, and aliens. However, there is another side to this coin. When we acknowledge that the world we know is our mental representation of it, we realize that science, that which naught can be said against, is nothing more than the study of our representations, so there is no great truth here either. It looks like we are cornered, and indeed we are. But when we realize that our quest for metaphysical truth is a fool's game, we can drop it; and once dropped, life becomes so much sweeter. Axiom Ten - There is Experience. There are very few things that can be said with absolute certainty, but one of them is that we experience. By experience, I mean everything we experience - thoughts, physical sensations, emotions, desires. The notion that there has to be someone experiencing and an object experienced is also unnecessary, but I'll get to that later. To doubt that we experience would be even more radical than Descartes doubting that he doubted. Experience is synonymous with consciousness since when we are in deep, dreamless sleep, there is no experience. We are also not particularly concerned whether our experiences are "true". We know rail tracks don't meet in the distance, but it really doesn't matter as a visual experience. It is the fact of the experience that is important here. The traditional division between subject and object has caused a great deal of mischief. In the context of experience, the subject is the thing that experiences - typically you or me. On the other hand, the object is the thing experienced - a thought, emotion, desire, the body, or a physical object. This duality raises some awkward questions, such as; what is the subject? Schopenhauer would say that the subject is the thing that sees but is never seen. As we will shortly see, there is no need to philosophize around these issues. For most people, the nature of the object can also cause some confusion. While we would not consider a table or tree to be part of us, it is, in reality, no more minor part of us than an emotion or thought. The table that we perceive is a representation formed by our mind, and we can quite legitimately say that it is "part of me". Traditionally we think in terms of myself and other things; everything that is not connected via the nervous system is other, which creates a world of duality. So, here is a critical point. Perceptions, sensations, desires, emotions, thoughts all stand on an equal footing as experiences. There is no preference for experiences that we think are "internal" (an idea, for example) and those that we believe are "external" (the smell of a rose, say). The whole of our existence reduces down to "there is experience". The phrasing of this is crucial. We do not say "I experience", for to do so would introduce the subject-object duality. We say "there is experience" because phrasing it this way assumes neither subject nor object. Instead of dealing with the subject-object duality, we now have a unity - the world of experience. The experience becomes the starting point instead of being a bi-product of the interaction between the subject (you or I) and an object. Just in case you missed it, I need to emphasize a particularly weighty point. A thought is an experience in the same way as the taste of chocolate is an experience. Whether you decide to say they are both in your mind or the world is irrelevant - they have equal status as experiences. Unfortunately, our subject-oriented language doesn't help here. Words such as I, me, we, you, yours, reinforce the notion that our world is more than experience and that something experiencing exists. From a practical standpoint, this means we can say "there is anger" or "there is a thought about chocolate." in the same way we say there is a table. This practice is part of a more important topic concerned with forming the correct attitude toward our existence - namely to see all experience as self-supporting without a "self". This approach comes quite close to phenomenology, a philosophical tradition that took shape through Edmund Husserl, although Nietzsche was already on the scent with statements such as: I maintain the phenomenality of the inner world, too ... We experience phenomena, and as far as I am concerned, the words phenomena and experience can be used interchangeably. Sartre also expresses this move away from the subject-object duality, with its very undesirable side effect that the subject (you or I) feels isolated in the opening lines of his masterpiece Being and Nothingness. Modern thought has realized considerable progress by reducing the existent to the series of appearances which manifest it. Its aim was to overcome a certain number of dualisms which have embarrassed philosophy and to replace them by the monism of the phenomenon. To re-orientate our thinking to that of our existence being experience is challenging, mainly because of our subject-oriented language. But to say "there is anger" instead of saying "I am angry" creates a certain distance that means we do not get so tied up in the notion that we are something.