Playing with Perspectives

[UnbornTao]

Made flan!

 

Edited January 26 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

 

Made this today. The sweetness of the onion was fantastic. Not the best look (understatement) for my first Spanish omelette, but it was quite tasty.

Edited August 14, 2024 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

What is prior to interpretation?

[UnbornTao]

Notice your state when listening to the video below. 

I'd like you to contemplate that it might be manipulation, and why that is. Also, don't think of manipulation as a negative thing, or confuse it with the conventional social form of covert, deceptive manipulation; the word itself means managing or handling something skilfully.

 

For example, the calming effect it may produce on you, which might be its purpose; the video affects your current internal feeling-state.

Now contrast that with what plain communication really is and contemplate the difference between them.

Edited August 28, 2024 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

[UnbornTao]

[UnbornTao]

What do you assume about the world?

[UnbornTao]

Limitation makes possibility real.

Limitation actualizes possibility.

Limitation allows for the realization of possibility.

[UnbornTao]

Quote

"Nothing can be gained by extensive study and wide reading. Give them up immediately."

– Dōgen.

Why would he say that?

[UnbornTao]

Denigrating "enlightenment" into an experience, state, or perception, however new, healing, or dramatic, is a trap.

Edited August 28, 2024 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Your approach to happiness is backwards; that is to say, you actually hold happiness to be a product of externalities, of producing desired outcomes, and of being at the effect of such results. In this model, happiness is derived from circumstances.

Consider:

1. Whenever you've been happy, where did that happiness originate?
2. What makes you happy in your experience? 

Two possible angles from which to tackle this contemplation:

• a pragmatic one, dealing with what's conventionally considered to be happiness
• an "existential" one, seeking to uncover what is at the source of what happiness is.

Edited January 26 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

If a communication sounds familiar to you in the context of consciousness work, watch out! Consider that there might be something deeper to understand about the experience and consciousness than what your intellect makes of it, especially if it comes from an authentic source.

Edited September 7, 2024 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Quote

"Nowadays, people are shallow and their resolution is not in earnest. They dislike the strenuous and love the easy from the time they are young. When they see something vaguely clever, they want to learn it right away; but if taught in the manner of the old ways, they think it not worth learning"

Quote

"The demon said, 'The Way cannot be seen or heard. What can be seen or heard are just the traces of the Way. But you will be enlightened about what has no traces by the traces themselves'"

––Issai Chozanshi

Edited September 3, 2024 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Quote

"The ultimate reality is not an object of perception but the very consciousness that perceives."

Quote

"True freedom is the liberation from the bondage of thought and the realization of the infinite nature of consciousness."

––Franklin Merrell-Wolff

Edited September 3, 2024 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

 

[UnbornTao]

Something

 

[Leo Gura]

@UnbornTao Lots of wisdom here. Good work!

[UnbornTao]

@Leo Gura Thanks Leo, appreciate it.

[UnbornTao]

Stop avoiding pain

A few consequences of avoiding pain: 

1. Numbness, decreased sensitivity and awareness
2. Lack of profundity
3. Childishness
4. Growing shadow
5. Weakness and fragility
6. Loss of presence and vitality
7. Addiction
8. Reduced capacity for wisdom

Therefore, embrace pain and contemplate it: What is it, fundamentally? What is the distinction "ouch!" in your experience? What function is it serving?

Can you notice how you might be conceptually superimposing "stuff" onto the sensation? What is the relationship between what you do and the degree of pain that you go through? Does willingness to look into your suffering reduce its impact somehow?

A few suggested practices for you to start looking into your experience of discomfort, hence pain:

• Cold showers
• Semen retention
• Fasting
• Intense meditation
• Exercise
• Stretching
• Doing nothing, sitting alone in a room, for several hours
• Eliminating an addiction

Edited January 26 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Quote

"Awareness of your frantic state gives you power over it. You see, you cannot control a state that you are identified with, that is, a state you do not observe in yourself. But there is a calm self within you that can actually stand aside and observe another self, the frantic one. This is self-awareness. This is what gives you command.

Do you see the tremendous power here? Listen carefully: When you become aware of a frantic state you can then see the difference between a frantic state and a calm one. You see that there is an alternative to pressure.

That alternative is calmness. When you are unaware of your pressure-state, you mistakenly think that it is the only state that exists. But now you are aware of the other way — calmness."

--Vernon Howard

 

Edited January 25 by UnbornTao