Need Help With Leos Video

[Chumbimba]

 

This was a really powerful video but I need help understanding the exercise

So when he says a thought has two components 

1. Content

2. Actuality- what is actually 

What do you mean by content? Like the example: I hate my boss

isn't that itself the content or is there more to it ?

[Leo Gura]

1) The story it tells

2) How it shows up in your consciousness, its being

If you had a thought in a foreign language which you did not understand the sounds would register in your consciousness (that's the actuality or being of a thought) but it would have no meaning/content/story.

速い茶色のキツネが怠zyな犬を飛び越えた

That sentence has being for you but no meaning (unless you know Japanese).

Notice that being is what's primary while meaning is secondary. You can have being without meaning but you cannot have meaning without being.

[Girzo]

I think that a genuine Japanese speaker would say that it's a computer-generated gibberish.  It has latin characters in the middle of the sentence.

[Matt23]

Thought:  "I love my dog."

Content:  My dog, the feelings I have towards it, perhaps thoughts of things we do together, perhaps its name, it's color, what our relationship is like, etc., etc., etc..

Actuality:  When the thought "I love my dog" is recognized, when I see it or experience it, I experience or see the sounds "I love my dog" and perhaps thought-images of my dog or even thought-images of letters that spell "I love my dog", etc.  

So, "I love my dog" means something to me.  This is the content.

"I love my dog" is also an experience, from which I derive meaning (i.e., content).  This experience, the raw experience of the thought "I love my dog", and nothing more, no meaning whatsoever, is the actuality.  

Another example (sometimes I don't like giving more examples because I think they may confuse people more... so read with care!  )

You see a rock.  But, for you, this rock was given to you by your grandmother, so it has a certain meaning to it.  

But, when someone else sees the rock, it may have some other meaning for them.  Like maybe they went to a psychic and the psychic told them they'd see a grey rock today.  Weird!  In both these cases, the people are adding or deriving meaning they connect with the rock.  This is content.

But, if you only see the rock, and have no thoughts about it and make no additional stories or associations with the rock (I think this would be very difficult to do since you'd probably have to stop all your thinking), then the rock is the actuality.  The actuality is your direct experience of the rock, not the thoughts or associations or stories you have in regard to it.

I see this as being similar to thought.  Thoughts in actuality are like seeing the rock without the additional associations.  A thought's content is all the meaning behind it.  

 

Edited January 7, 2020 by Matt23
Spelling correction

[Chumbimba]

Got it. Thoughts have no inherent meaning within themselves. I project meaning onto them. Okay , y whole reality is going to get flipped upside down and I sense another existential crisis on the way 

[cetus]

8 minutes ago, Chumbimba said:

y whole reality is going to get flipped upside down and I sense another existential crisis on the way 

@Chumbimba Think of them as mile markers along the path.

Or as reminders if one strays off the path.

[Chumbimba]

But if thoughts have no meaning why do I suffer so much? Why do I do what my mind says? How come they have so much power over me and can elicit so many emotional reactions, fears and so on? 

[cetus]

1 minute ago, Chumbimba said:

But if thoughts have no meaning why do I suffer so much? Why do I do what my mind says? How come they have so much power over me and can elicit so many emotional reactions, fears and so on? 

Thoughts only have the power you give them.

[Chumbimba]

Are the emotions just being too and in just projecting meaning onto them ?

Example: Heartbreak because my ex is dating someone new  

Actuality: feel tightness and pain in chest and throat.

Is that not because my ex is dating somebody new? 

[Shin]

2 minutes ago, Chumbimba said:

But if thoughts have no meaning why do I suffer so much? Why do I do what my mind says? How come they have so much power over me and can elicit so many emotional reactions, fears and so on? 

Because you believe the meanings in them are true.

And since what you believe becomes your reality, if the thoughts implies suffering, you suffer.

[remember]

4 minutes ago, Chumbimba said:

But if thoughts have no meaning why do I suffer so much? Why do I do what my mind says? How come they have so much power over me and can elicit so many emotional reactions, fears and so on? 

how do you know it’s not the other way round? your fears and emotions maybe produce your thoughts...

1 minute ago, Chumbimba said:

Are the emotions just being too and in just projecting meaning onto them ?

Example: Heartbreak because my ex is dating someone new  

Actuality: feel tightness and pain in chest and throat.

Is that not because my ex is dating somebody new? 

why did she become your ex?

[Consilience]

Peeling back layers of content to get to actuality can be deceptively challenging. Especially when it comes to analyzing how our experience is being influenced by microscopically subtle thought patterns and beliefs. Self-psychoanalysis has been a very important practice towards understanding actuality vs. content/interpretation. 

[Chumbimba]

2 minutes ago, Shin said:

Because you believe the meanings in them are true.

And since what you believe becomes your reality, if the thoughts implies suffering, you suffer.

I'm lost bro... Really confused. How do you stop believing them? Just watch them? I meditate almost daily. Some thoughts are super subtle and hard to catch. 

[Shin]

1 minute ago, Chumbimba said:

I'm lost bro... Really confused. How do you stop believing them? Just watch them? I meditate almost daily. Some thoughts are super subtle and hard to catch. 

You are asking those questions, you're far from lost ?

If you really want suffering to stop, yes observe thoughts passively, but not just when you sit and meditate.

All the time.

[Chumbimba]

@Shin i got it. All day everyday no matter what in doing. 

What's more important the thought or the emotional reaction to the thought

I watched Leos video on self-deception too 

To stop self-deception you must do self-reflection

How does that process work ?

[Chumbimba]

Sorry for all the questions on just fascinated by the trickery my mind plays 

[remember]

@Chumbimba seriously how do you know what was first? know your emotion and you will know your thought.

[Omni]

1 hour ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Japanese speaker here, it says ''The fast brown Fox jumped over the lazy dog''.

i think you missed the point being conveyed here.

[Shin]

33 minutes ago, Chumbimba said:

@Shin i got it. All day everyday no matter what in doing. 

What's more important the thought or the emotional reaction to the thought

I watched Leos video on self-deception too 

To stop self-deception you must do self-reflection

How does that process work ?

They are both important, from my experience an emotion ist a subconscious belief triggered in your body as a wave of energy, which get triggered by certain sets of thoughts.

If you want to go even deeper and faster, you can trigger yourself by imagining scenarios that scares you and inquiring why you feel bad about it for real (not the bullshit excuses and blames your mind feeds you).

That is self reflection in a nutshell, asking yourself why you feel/think a certain way about a subject, and the goal is to have an insight and not an intellectual answer.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Shin

[Omni]

33 minutes ago, Chumbimba said:

@Shin i got it. All day everyday no matter what in doing. 

What's more important the thought or the emotional reaction to the thought

I watched Leos video on self-deception too 

To stop self-deception you must do self-reflection

How does that process work ?

self reflection comes in usually the varieties: observation of the things you do - how you interact with the world and within your mind as well as contemplation and or questioning one's self, beliefs, biases, emotions and the cause and result of those emotions.