tsuki

You're welcome. Ultimate, as the absolute? No. What I meant is simply that freedom itself is constrained. It is constrained by the fact that we cannot be free from it (from freedom itself). We cannot renounce it. Even if you exercise your freedom by committing to meditation, you are always free to un-commit yourself. This is why self-discipline is difficult if you are a mindful person. There are of course people that are unconsciously self-disciplined. They have been whipped in to this shape by their environment. They are not able to question the validity of this self-discipline and it is easier this way in a sense.

That is very insightful, thank you.

In retrospect, I have been on the path for as long as I can remember. I have always been a curious kid with a keen eye and desire to get to the bottom of things. I stumbled across Leo 2-3 years ago when I wanted to learn about meditation. This is how I learned that there is such a thing as a path. Since then, meditation sort of meshed with my everyday life and I realized that pursuit of wisdom is the most important factor of my life. My first awakening happened around 5 years ago, spontaneously during a few weeks long guided self-inquiry with Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. The method mostly consists of contemplation, meditation (do nothing, zazen, sometimes sds, mindfulness), and self inquiry. The biggest challenge is that I value self-reliance and intuition a lot and my revelations are mostly untranslatable.

How about enforcing them to be degradable instead? That would also solve the problem you're mentioning. Note that I am not denying the importance of preserving the environment. I am asking why banning is a sustainable solution. I have an intuition that it isn't. You can't just ban things that industry is addicted to and expect it to comply.

@Zweistein Can you share your thoughts on why is it a good idea to ban single use plastics?

Wisdom is expressed through spontaneous actions that are appropriate.

Freedom and restraint are not exclusive, but interdependent. Freedom is the possibility of performing an action, but the action itself results in restraint. For example: you are free to choose your style of clothing, but your style is expressed by choosing to not wear certain combination of clothes. if you have money, you are free to spend it, but spending it constrains it to a certain physical form (a good) that is not as easily convertible back to pure potential (freedom/money). you are free to earn money, but this action results in certain set of behaviors that is constrained by the work culture. When it comes to self-discipline - you are willingly constraining your behavior in a way that you find beneficial. No constraint and no freedom are actually ultimate and you can always chose back to not discipline yourself. This is why it is difficult and we admire people that can commit to it.

Hmm, still dealing with ego backlash. Dealing is not the right word. Seeing? Yesterday was very difficult. The mind kept alternating between silencing itself and being afraid of going back to work. Today is much better because my programs seem to have finished without problems, but I still feel bored and worthless. I suddenly want to liberate myself from work, I want to start business and become filthy rich. How does this thing even work? The mind says that the mind is deluded. How do I whip the monkey into submission? Or does the monkey whip itself and gets angrier and angrier? I really don't want to relapse back into my addictions to soothe it, but I don't have any new habits to replace them. The only thing left for me to do is just meditate and self-inquire, but doesn't it make it actually worse? Hmm... did I just get whipped into submission by the monkey? Ohh, you little rascal. You almost had me! Go ahead. Make me suffer. I can take it.

How is "being everywhere with Breath" different from focusing on it?

Is there a problem in this case? The general advice I've come across is: if it ain't broke - don't fix it.

@Tony 845 Can you connect to the other energy centers as well? If yes, then I'd recommend redirecting some of the pulsating energy of the third eye to the lower ones if it's too uncomfortable.

Materialist society was not created by our fear of death. We were able to observe our fear of death in relation to materialist society. We did not create our current condition, as creation implies deliberate intent. All we wanted to do is solve our problem of basic needs by employing our intellect. We succeeded in this enterprise to some degree, but the true value of our undertaking lies in the interpretation of the result. That is because our intellect is both what solves the problem of survival and creates it. This is why we first had to scale technology up to survive (to the point of unsustainability), and now we need to scale down for the same reason. This is not a process of survival, but a process of self-knowledge. This is how we learn to accept ourselves along with our mortality. We are bound to repeat this process until we observe that reality is mirror-like (self referential). That what we resist - persists. So, how does the idea of death come into the picture? It is not universally true that: because contemplation on the passing nature of existence is a method of attaining enlightenment (which entails liberation from stories). First, we unconsciously run away from death, then we try to come to terms with it, and finally - we embrace it. This requires to us to counter-intuitively see that we run away from death because it terrifies us, and it is terrifying because we're unwilling to face it. I personally find the idea of death comforting. No mark that I could leave upon the world is as permanent as my own erasure.

There is nothing to be achieved. The more ambitious goals you have, the more you suffer for your inadequacy. The more you suffer for your inadequacy, the bigger the drive to develop yourself. The bigger the drive to develop yourself, the more work you put in. The more work you put in, the greater and greater trophies you collect. Any achievements you put into your trophy-box fuel your imagination and your mind comes up with more goals. Ad nauseam. But you probably know that. In that case - just a reminder. Cultivate a peaceful mind.

Is it really a problem? If it is a problem, then can you really sit all day being content?

@now is forever I'm not used to people being this nice to me so I don't know what to say other than: thank you.

I really want to chime in, but I have nothing to say. Just saying hi to old friends . Just look what happened to her while you were gone @Zweistein! She sounds so level-headed now.

Can you summarize the process of using I Ching, or give pointers to resources?

Compassion stems from your willingness to recognize yourself within another being. Love is more general and is the subtle force that guides you through your life. You can be compassionate towards a person, or towards an animal by seeing the context in which you are basically the same. Being compassionate towards a spoon is difficult (but still possible). Saying that you love, or don't love another person is a misconception to some degree. You do not love. Love does you.

@How to be wise If you really care about happiness, then don't you first need to know what it is? Without truth, we have no idea what happiness and misery are.

This may have been the most intensive three weeks in the history of my professional career, psychologically speaking. The deadline for the tool that we are making is absurd. I am given a task that nobody understands and is critical to this project. Last time I did something similar I was given twice as much time. This task requires time consuming computations. The computations may fail without any useful errors that point to how to fix the issue. So, basically - everybody is losing their shit and I have to be calm and walk aimlessly because my computer is doing calculations for a few hours. For the past two weeks I've been meditating, contemplating and self-inquiring during work to keep myself occupied. This week my mind decided that it is a perfect opportunity to emotionally shit-test my mindfulness during this havoc. I seem to have passed the test and the work is going better than I anticipated (for now). I feel like a different person altogether after all of this. Like a titan, or something.

Sigh, okay - off I go. But before that: here's a special one-time offer. I never do this. Ever. I can add you to my ignore list on the forum. Nobody gets there. Not even people that piss me off. You would be there forever. Just you. What do you say?

@Athemnajar It almost sounds like you are upset by the fact that working is not hard for you anymore. The question is: do you have a good life? If yes - then why struggle to struggle? If not - then cultivate a peaceful mind. When it comes to growth: we all grow straight to the coffin. Why the hurry? You cannot outpace yourself.

Well, in that case: maybe I can help you? I get that a lot from my wife .

And what if our memories were different? Did my memory change, or did the other person's memory change? We could arrive at agreement if it was a peaceful situation, but what if it was in court and I was supposed to defend myself? (These are rhetorical questions) I'm also thinking about more fundamental things than just situations. I'm thinking about this feeling of continuity of experience. About change. The experience of time. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Endless_knot https://www.wikiwand.com/en/7₄_knot