Playing With Perspectives

[UnbornTao]

What are each of these:

• Having insights and breakthroughs
• Becoming aware
• Achieving dramatic states
• Becoming conscious

What are the differences between them?

[UnbornTao]

Changing your relationship towards teachers and mentors - trust is useful but take care not to turn it into idealization and blind faith.

The role of teachers is to guide and facilitate, not to do the work for you.

Sounds obvious but many relate to another in that way without being aware.

Put your ass on the line and keep it there. 

Edited September 26, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Investigate your own arrogance, especially the subtle forms, the ones you hide from others and especially from yourself! And the arrogance that you show openly and are proud of!

As an example, can you find arrogance in boredom?

Edited November 11, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Linux is probably my favorite desktop OS. First of all, it's exciting and fun to learn. It's so incredibly flexible that for some it may be paralyzing to use sometimes.

macOS goes second due to its consistency, beauty and efficiency (mostly hardware-related anyway). Looks like a polished, stable Linux for the average user.

Windows is my last option in this list because it isn't as secure and private as Linux and macOS, which are Unix-like. Aesthetically, it's a decades-old jungle made out of several design languages put together over the years. A modern OS with such UI inconsistency is frankly depressing.

Granted, it's much more versatile, open and customizable than macOS. Windows multitasking is light-years ahead of Apple's system, too. Lastly, it is obviously more prevalent. It can be found on dirt cheap PCs while Macs are ~~notoriously~~ fucking expensive.

Edited January 27, 2023 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

One way to develop integrity:

Keep your word. You don't have to give it but whenever you do, do what you said you were going to do. Either that or don't say it in the first place.

By saying it, it is also meant through your actions (arriving on time, etc.) and internal dialogue, by talking to yourself.

Start with something ridiculously small, something you would be ashamed not to do. Meditating for 10 seconds, for example.

With time, done consistently, your self-trust will slowly build up, increasing your integrity.

There will come a time when your integrity is such that your word will be powerful. At that point, you'll reflect whether to commit to something or not; you realize that if you give your word, it will fucking get done.

So, better be cautious what you give your word to.

Edited November 11, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

How does one join ~~or align with~~ the feeling-attention in another?

[UnbornTao]

There're no means to enlightenment because it isn't the result of a process.

That doesn't mean that it occurs just by wishful thinking, or that hard work isn't useful or essential in most cases. As a matter of fact, consistent contemplation and a state of not-knowing are your best tools.

Enlightenment experiences are always sudden. Where else but now?

Edited November 2, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Contemplation is setting out to experience what's true.

Edited November 10, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

How does adopting a destructive intent influence your thought, speech and action?

That behavior pattern manifests in subtle ways.

Investigate its forms. Catch yourself doing them. Become aware of its effects on you and others.

Once it is seen as disempowering and ineffective, being free of it becomes easy.

Additionally: What allows you to make a shift towards generating a constructive intent on your predisposition?

Edited October 3, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

What's perspective, angle, point of view?

Is there a true perspective?

A perspective by definition includes X and discards Y. That's what it allows it to be what it is. If it were to include (or exclude, for that matter) everything, it'd be whatever that is – not a perspective.

This doesn't imply that all viewpoints are equally valid or useful. Some may be factually correct while others are plain stupid. None, however, are the truth.

Consider, on the other hand, that the truth isn't limited to perspectives and that it may, in fact, be paradoxical in nature.

Edited November 2, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Beliefs and conceptual inventions prevent you from being fully present in the moment.

Similarly, presence decreases the necessity for beliefs and facilitates, to the degree in which it is enabled, identifying beliefs.

[UnbornTao]

Another empowering principle or rule that aids self-expression:

Call it by its name.

Edited November 2, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Potential solutions and opportunities lie in becoming aware of the situation itself -- in understanding how it comes to exist by how you perceive and contextualize circumstances and events. 

Consider: a "problem" isn't existential but a result of your own sense-making. Holding events a certain way creates the opportunity, problem, etc.

Even when that is clear, effective interaction is still needed. Understanding doesn't preclude managing situations successfully.

Edited November 6, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Do you avoid confrontation when the situation calls for it? What are the consequences of doing so repeatedly?

You think that, by avoiding uncomfortable situations, you're getting away from danger, that you're now safe.

But take a closer look: that's always temporary since you didn't really handle the event. There are negative long-term consequences from this disposition in certain cases.

For example, you might hold a grudge against immature behavior towards you from another person. This behavior has lasted for a long time. And yet, you avoid communicating your suppressed anguish (or rage, etc) to that person. This is when confrontation is needed on your part.

Dealing with that situation effectively demands clearly communicating what you're unwilling to put up with.

Additionally, procrastination seems to be related to this resistance. Contemplate the consequences of continuously putting important tasks off.

In a nutshell, learn to confront what's worth it and needs confronting.

Edited February 10, 2023 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

 

 

[UnbornTao]

 

[UnbornTao]

Before it's considered obvious, first it has to be accepted and adopted.

Edited October 8, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Effectiveness isn't a fixed event. It is relational and is determined by the purpose for the interaction – there's something that you are effective at. 

If you eat ice cream when that is your purpose, you're effective. If, on the other hand, making money is your purpose, any activity that doesn't align with that function is ineffective. In this case then, it is ineffective to eat ice cream (unless you're somehow paid to do it). See how it changes?

Effectiveness can be actualized once the purpose for the interaction is clear.

Edited January 24, 2023 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

What impact does birth have on one's experience?

Edited October 14, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

To elucidate the distinction between intellect and experience, do this exercise:

Recreating Experience with Mind

Pick an ordinary object and observe it carefully. Perceive as much intricacies of it as you can: shape, form, texture, sound, color.

Now close your eyes. In your mind, try to visualize and recreate that object as vividly as it appeared in your perception and experience.

Lastly, notice the result. Can you see the difference between the object and the mental image?

---

With that said, how can we expect thoughts to be able to hold the nature of reality?

Experience is grossly oversimplified by the intellect.

Edited October 14, 2022 by UnbornTao