Enlightenment is hard, living with the paradoxes.

[ZX_man]

We know while others merely think they know.

Yet at the same time, we don't know just as much as they do.

 

I understand how nobody is inherently better than anybody else, but I still can't shake the feeling that everyone is missing something. 

How do we live with such paradoxes that create the very fabric of reality?

Edited November 28, 2017 by ZX_man
word change

[Leo Gura]

The real paradox is that enlightenment is easy.

[ZX_man]

@Leo Gura

I never said that it was hard.

[Leo Gura]

@ZX_man The title says otherwise.

[ZX_man]

@Leo Gura

Clickbait. 

It worked, didn't it?

Edited November 28, 2017 by ZX_man
lolz

[SOUL]

The clickbait is that enlightenment exists as much as the self does.....

[ZX_man]

2 minutes ago, SOUL said:

The clickbait is that enlightenment exists as much as the self does.....

Really?

I feel pretty real to me.

[Shanmugam]

living with paradoxes without feeling uncomfortable is what enlightenment is all about. Only in duality, paradoxes are problems...

[SOUL]

1 minute ago, ZX_man said:

Really?

I feel pretty real to me.

The paradox continues......

[Joseph Maynor]

Paradoxes are all duality.  Thoughts are better thought of as tools for increasing awareness rather than as truths or falsities.  The biggest problem is that the Mind is addicted to taking thoughts to be true or false.  That's the source of all paradoxes.  Once you take the expectation of truth and falsity away from thoughts, paradox becomes kind of a non-issue.  Then you can just use thoughts without trying to pigeon-hole them as true or false.  Use thoughts the way a chef uses spices rather than the way a scientists uses thoughts.  Once you take away the assumptions about how thoughts should be, you can just use them without trying to force them into the framework of true and false.  So, there's a deeper issue being played-out here than paradox.  Paradox is a symptom of this kind of pidgeon-holing by the Mind, which is a deeper problem.   When you're convinced you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  The key is to stop assuming you're a hammer, and then the nails dissolve for you -- and then you can get off the hamster-wheel on this block.  Enlightenment works like that.  Enlightenment sees through all the traps of the Mind -- it dissolves all the hamster-wheels so they can't trap and block you.  Paradoxes don't exist!  Don't turn them into limiting-beliefs.  Use them as tools and don't cling so tightly to them.  Don't look for thoughts to yield truth.  That's a trap.  This is liberating.  You do thoughts, don't let thoughts do you.  The Mind wants to imprison you with thoughts.  It's like a chef becoming too anally beholden to his prior recipes rather than simply using those recipes as launch-pads for creating any number of dishes in the moment.  See?  This is a mindset-shift.

This is where expecting thoughts to be true or false leads you => progress-less progress.  Where is the below hamster actually getting to?  Its progress is simply a figment of its own Mind, not real progress in reality.  Our Minds do this to us too in many ways.  The key is to notice the hamster-wheels set up by the Mind, and to have the awareness to be able to avoid them.

Be a holistic creator, not a knower.  Practice not-knowing.  Clinging too hard to thoughts as truths is a trap, a distraction, and a source of suffering.  Get out of the paradigm of expecting thoughts to be true or false.  Sure, you can cling loosely to that paradigm, but beware of the limitations of it too.  Just because the Mind wants to be a thought glutton doesn't mean that that is high-consciousness.  You gotta make a discontinuous-jump to a new paradigm regarding the expectations of thoughts.  This is a hard one because it goes against a deeply-ingrained idea that thoughts are true and false, and that conceptual truths are what we should be seeking without regard for pragmatic application.  Practice trumps theory, not the other way around.  The conceptual-clinger is not the wisest person.  They are in a trap that they don't appreciate fully.  The wisest person is much more flexible, non-clingy, and intuitive than that -- just like the great chef who adds the right ingredients in the moment without needing to conceptualize everything beforehand.  Sure, the chef uses pre-meditated recipes as tools, but he doesn't cling to them unreasonably.  He probably doesn't even use measuring spoons and cups unless the context requires doing so either -- he eyeballs everything and proceeds holistically; he realizes the limitations of conceptual information.  The territory is not the map.

 

Edited November 28, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[SOUL]

The clickbait is that duality exists as much as paradoxes do.....and vice versa.

[ZX_man]

@Joseph Maynor

What now?

Edited November 28, 2017 by ZX_man
eh

[Joseph Maynor]

@ZX_man Yeah?  Even what I said here is just more thought.  What is important is to have keen-awareness in the moment.  Thoughts can cause increased awareness, that's why I use them.  I calculate how I use thoughts to try to raise awareness.  And the only reason I can do this is because I had to go through it myself.  So, I can only target what I can see, which is limited.  But we must work from where we are at.  And we aim to get an insight every once in a while that causes us to go -- oh shit!  Here we go again!  You wanna put yourself in the situation where you are doing this work as much as possible.  Then your awareness will increase as fast as possible.  If people only took more advantage of this forum, we would have many enlightened people already.  The problem is that people lack sticktuitiveness.  They lack that long-term, deep-dive kind of work-ethic; that hardcore attitude.  They are dabblerz.  And dabblers don't become enlightened.  Enlightenment is the end-stop of this work.  It's the reward given to the person who does this work all the time, consistently, every day.  If you dabble in Enlightenment you're just going to turn it into more belief.  You need to transcend belief.  How do you do that?  I mean really do that not just think it's a sexy thing to consider.  No, this stuff is lived.  For some reason I really got sucked into this work and embraced it fully.  I fell in love with it because I started seeing the results, and then those results began to add-up and cause a momentum all their own to pursue this work.  I never have to try to do this work, I just do it naturally.  

Edited November 28, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[ZX_man]

7 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

  I fell in love with it because I started seeing the results, and then those begin to snow-ball.

Snowballed like a good thought/insight! 

 

Do you think a strong enough mind can conceive a paradox? Or is it, by nature, impossible.

 

[ajasatya]

@ZX_man the paradox is only in the mind. you're still struggling with ideas and a monkey mind.

Reality just is. you don't need to think about it to make it more or less real.

[Principium Nexus]

You are missing the point.. Enlightenment is the easiest thing one can do, be at peace and accept anything that arises.

Overthinking and trying to comphrehend reality rationally is the opposite, and that why you are bothered with paradoxes, because you try to think to much.

[AleksM]

I love paradox. Paradox is power to direct your personal experience and give it whatever meaning You wish to give it beyond the subjective relativity.

[ZX_man]

@AleksM

Can you conceive paradox?

[AleksM]

@ZX_man No. This is beyond the physical mind, the job of the physical mind is only to receive not to conceive. (as Bashar calls it). I can only perceive the subjective truth, which is relative to something else. The mind is not able to deal with paradox.

[Alex K]

@AleksM @ZX_man I think paradoxes are just errors of formulation. If one works hard on wording of two sides of a paradox it dissolves. Can you give me example of our paths paradox?

"I understand how nobody is inherently better than anybody else, but I still can't shake the feeling that everyone is missing something"

Where is the paradox here for example? If everybody missing something it does not stop everyone from being equal. Like we are all still living beings, does not matter IQ, illnesses, races etc.

Edited November 28, 2017 by Alex K