Playing with Perspectives

[UnbornTao]

The Trap of Pretending

Say you learn a new model on human growth, and you take it up as an operative conceptual framework. You adopt the model superficially, as a system of belief. Said model stipulates that being non-judgmental is a highly evolved characteristic.

What happens in your experience? You may suppress certain emotions such as anger, adopt particular roles that fit your self-image, etc. By pretending to be X, you believe you've somehow made progress and changed in a significant way. I disagree.

Consider the Buddha: he didn't repress his impulses. We can imagine that how he behaved wasn't enforced as a discipline but rather arose naturally out of profound understanding and awakenings.

Yet, we try to manufacture growth by faking traits that don't arise authentically in us as a result of personal understanding. Remember that pretension is antithetical to this work, and it doesn't help.

Watch out for this dynamic. We can fool ourselves in similar ways.

Ask yourself: Does this behavior arise naturally for me, or am I manipulating myself?

To summarize, be increasingly authentic and continuously move towards that direction.

Edited May 14, 2024 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

The search for truth and the search for comfort aren't compatible. 

It is inappropriate to base your search for truth on the search for comfort and pleasure.

[UnbornTao]

Contemplation and existential thinking demand always starting from scratch, that is, without assuming anything about the object of inquiry. It has to be independent from your study and so-called knowledge. In order to do that, your relationship towards beliefs needs to be changed.

Concurrent with that, identifying assumptions is essential. It's a key aspect of contemplation.

Genuine investigation starts with not-knowing, otherwise it becomes an attempt to validate preconceptions.

[UnbornTao]

What is implied by the nature of something doesn't need to be reassessed in expression by complements or qualifiers. It's redundant:

• Biased judging
• Wise discernment
• Aware intelligence
• Mindful presence
• Additional complement
• Different distinction
• Fear about the future
• Honest communication

Think of your own examples.

Edited November 10, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Trying (and failing) to locate pain. What is it? Where is it? How does it arise?

First, bodily sensations. When pain takes the form of stress, there might be constricted and shallow breathing, tight muscles and tense body overall. But pain doesn't seem to reside within these sensations themselves.

Where is it? What is it doing? Why does it exist?

I'm starting to suspect that pain is heavily influenced by me. It may even be of my own making! However, that is extrapolation. As such, it should be dropped. To be sincere, I don't know yet.

Then, look into thoughts.

"Negative" thoughts of various kinds -- fearful, angry, anxious, envious, depressed -- may be held while experiencing pain.

Pleasure may also paradoxically be involved, both forming a dynamic.

Do thoughts cause pain? Dig it.

Edited August 24, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Social and culture are held as real.

You assume they're "out there," somehow existing as a fact or a reality. They're not!

They're held by minds. In other words, the social world and culture are being imagined by individuals. Stop imagining them and they disappear, so to speak.

Take a look take a look take a look

Consider the shift in perspective that grasping this experientially would have on you.

Edited August 23, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

What principles are effective when it comes to becoming conscious and having insights? 

What is one to do?

A lot of thinking, thus intellect, seems to be pointless. In the end, what has it allowed you to become conscious of? Has it really increased your understanding?

Most of the time it's rather superficial when each of us is focused on convincing others of our preconceptions. That occurs often. Sometimes we don't want to listen, although we may not acknowledge that.

That turns into an exchange of opinions and beliefs.

[UnbornTao]

What does it mean to be oneself?

First, I'd assume you'd have to know what a self is. That would free your consciousness from your current confusion, taking yourself to be you. 

Getting who you are frees your self. You grasp that it isn't you, but a persona you've crafted mostly throughout childhood.

This matter is fundamentally about authenticity.

[UnbornTao]

Truth is itself. Limiting it to a model, thought, framework is silly.

We could bring up the words discipline, creativity, integrity. But what are those experiences/principles really about?

They aren't what the symbol aims to represent.

Has presuming to be on a higher stage according to a model genuinely increased your understanding, or is it a conclusion you've made? Have you wishfully and intellectually adopted certain characteristics that are uncommon of you? 

Analogously, thinking about riding a bike vs riding a bike are completely different worlds. This sounds evident intellectually, but emphasis is made so that the distinction is made and sharpened on the experiential level.

The focus should be on the reality of an event, condition or action, not on our ideas, preferences, assumptions and imaginations about it, whether collective or individual. When you take something stripped out of all that isn't itself, what remains in your experience?

In the context of direct experience, concepts are secondary add-ons and may even be obstacles to realizing what is so now.

Edited May 14, 2024 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

We tend to overrate our own selves, giving us special importance because they're about me and mine. We like to think of ourselves as unique and special. Watch out for that.

Edited May 14, 2024 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Perceptive awareness: the less you add to it, the more pristine it gets. Or:

To the degree that you step aside is the degree of clarity your perceptive awareness gets.

In other words, see what you're adding onto bare perception. Let it be as raw as possible.

[UnbornTao]

Pretend you know nothing.

See what happens.

[UnbornTao]

Create the following distinctions and take them into account regularly:

• Intellectual understanding and;
• Experiential understanding

[UnbornTao]

Being is prior to meaning.

If you think meaninglessness is bad, then you're still operating from a meaning paradigm!

Get that.

You could say that Being is itself, and that it transcends good and bad. That sounds better.

Edited November 11, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Provisional thoughts:

Psychedelics neither allow nor generate. You do. Making breakthroughs and having insights are possible now. With that said, psychedelics can catalyze, kick ass and open your mind, induce healthy states, etc.

Many seem to have the tendency to make the work about psychedelics, or to give them too much importance. You miss the point by taking them as more than useful tools. This appears to be widely known but it'd be wise to reconsider its message often.

In the end, the truth is the truth; it doesn't matter what path you took before becoming conscious of it.

Edited November 11, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

I've been getting into plant-based eating as of late, practically speaking.

Theory was pretty clear to me. That is, the fundamental principles of a nutritious, health-promoting diet.

My intention is to slowly (or not so slowly) optimize each aspect of my diet.

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/flashback-friday-dr-greger-in-the-kitchen-my-new-favorite-beverage

Come up with new variations of your own. My preference is adding blueberries to anything I can.

[UnbornTao]

 

[UnbornTao]

I'm once again inquiring into the nature of pain. Haven't grasped it yet.

What is it? 

Physical sensations seem to be fundamental. Pain, however, might be an addition to stimulus that is processed by the nervous system.

Where is it? 

It seems to be readily accessible. Right now you may be sitted. If you were to stay in that position for long, your body will get uncomfortable. Is that a form of pain?

Is discomfort a form of pain?

There are very subtle forms of pain that you may not consider to be that. Envy, for example, is based on it. Ideals create pain. Not avoiding what you don't want causes it too.

Edited September 3, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Self-concept:

• The image you have of yourself
• The image of who you would like to be
• The image you have about what others hold as you (characteristic personality)
• Another's actual image of you

When another's image about you is inconsistent with your self-image, you'll attempt to manipulate her in order for her image about you to more closely match your own.

[UnbornTao]

If you're honest with yourself, the degree to which you're selfish is recognized and acknowledge. Self-survival is that. Your very life, breath, and self are premised upon this drive. This isn't bad in itself -- it's just the case.

Look into your own selfishness. What you find might surprise you.  

Edited January 27, 2023 by UnbornTao