tsuki

@Zweistein I showed the connection between polishing of the mirror and loneliness in this post: The question is: is loneliness suffering to you? This word is commonly associated as such. When the mirror is clean, you may encounter I=you=we in its unity, but unity is associated with loneliness. There is nobody anymore. When the mirror is dirty, the I=you=we is disguised by reaction to projections. Then, you experience separation, but there is also potential for connection. So, in terms of suffering - there is a choice between loneliness and disappointment. In terms of pleasure - there is a choice between unity and connection. From this point of view, the question of suffering is a projection from wherever we are now. Inspect your dirt closely - it may give you directions. Pleasure and suffering are however something that can be overcame by short-circuiting, as explained in this post:

@Zweistein I'm having trouble understanding this question. From my point of view, I=you=we cannot benefit from anything, ever. Benefit is a result of projection through beliefs. It is the dirt on the mirror. Sure, but I haven't read the book. It doesn't matter to me that it is a children's book. It always fascinates me how children dressed up as adults pass secret notes to their successors. Yes it does! I enjoy our conversations tremendously. There is something common between the three of us. Is it the child, which is neither male nor female?

@Zweistein This 'gene' is a rationalization of the very nature of a woman. We could even say that to some, the woman is defined by this gene. The punching question is: if polishing the mirror makes a woman suffer, then is she really watching over everybody? She can watch over everybody only in so far as she neglects her own suffering. That in itself is a very ruthless stance towards her own being, which is a predominantly male trait. The more she watches over everybody else, the more ruthless she has to become. In a sense, she is every bit as ruthless as a man, but the direction of ruthlessness is different. In this sense, there is not much difference in nature. The only difference is in direction.

@now is forever Sorry, I didn't get you the first time. I read some of your journal and should have made the connection with the high heels. To me, there are no concrete dualities. The point from which I discuss these issues is impersonal. What I'm trying to explicate is the mechanism through which ego/personality/identity perpetuates itself. It is the mechanism in terms of which the distinction between men and women can be made and upheld. In this sense: no, I'm not talking to a woman. Neither do I talk to a man. The I=you=we, as I discuss it has no traits whatsoever. Nothing positively descriptive can be said about it. I do understand however that the issue of mirror-like nature of yin is important to you and I'm not dismissing that. I am simply clarifying my previous posts. So, coming back to your question (taken seriously this time): The only answer I can give is from that impersonal perspective. The moment that you make the distinction between a man and a woman and identify as a woman - there is nothing else to do. Just keep polishing that mirror and if it makes you suffer, then you will have to overcome this duality by 'punching hole through it'. To do that, you have to understand how men and women are exactly the same. I went into the equality of yin and yang in this post: Does this make any sense to you?

@now is forever Punching a hole is a figure of speech. It's about saying clearly what I mean and seeing my own folly. I'm not there yet. And how did femininity slip into your understanding of whatever I was saying? I said nothing about women. @Zweistein said that we need to clean our mirrors to break the cycle. I simply said that there is no way to escape the cycle. There is one cycle, or another cycle. That's all. There is also a relationship between cleaning the mirror and loneliness that I wanted to point out. Reading it now, it feels like I projected too much onto that little metaphor. I'm sorry if I missed.

@Zweistein As non-originated disappointment, as described in this post: Or did you mean my disposition towards it? I generally treat it as a way to grow. To increase my=your=our intelligence. It is a pleasant feeling, even it makes me uneasy/annoyed at times. Right. For that to happen, I=you=we would have to be infinitely intelligent=totally at peace. That is what I am doing right now. Going back to the original post: I'm making my context explicit through contemplation. This way I can punch a hole the context it and return to the unknown. It's a cycle. (read the quote carefully ^^^^^^) You feel lonely because you meticulously keep polishing your mirror. I don't. In the effort of trying to stop the cycle from repeating itself, you repeatedly polish your mirror. This very polishing is what makes you lonely. That is because there is nobody else than you=I=us. 'Others' appear through disappointment because you project meaning onto the world. This projection is dependent on beliefs. If you polish your beliefs out, then the world becomes meaningless. Doesn't that make you lonely? You can only have company if you allow your dirt/beliefs to grow and let 'others' disappoint you. This is how the world is meaningful. To see the I=you=we despite the dirt. I take care of my mirror in a different way. When I see something beautiful, I enjoy it. When I see a monster, I acknowledge that the mirror is dirty and study the dirt curiously. There is no need to polish the mirror this way, as long as you keep in mind that there is dirt and mirror. Does this metaphor make any sense to you?

@Leo Gura I am not bringing Wittgenstein to the table to treat him as an authority on what language is. Nobody should ever care what anybody else meant by what they wrote. The only important thing is what was understood. All language, regardless of what is being said, is a metaphor. There is not much difference when it comes to complexity. So, for now it seems like you are not acknowledging the question that I asked, but that's okay. We're not dealing with the same thing yet, so perhaps there is nothing to share. Thank you for your time, Leo. I appreciate it. I just hope that I can ask you some more questions in the future, as I am a curious fellow and I respect you very much.

@now is forever It is not pointless and empty. As you zoom in, it is meaningful, then you zoom in some more and it is meaningless, then some more and it is meaningful, then meaningless, ad infinitum. There is no difference between zooming in and out. Zooming is zooming.

@Feel Good No amount of emojis or explanations can transmit the context. Symbols are empty by themselves. They arrive at us unexpectedly and are observed only through the filter of beliefs. We project all meaning upon them, and by doing that, we push our own buttons. It is the willingness to move our own buttons in a way that pushing hits the right ones is what establishes oneness of the I=you=we. It is the precondition of any perception.

@Leo Gura The notion that language is inherently dualistic is what is both the reason for, and the conclusion you draw from your example. The dualistic nature of language is what lets you understand the question about trash as relative. This is what you bring to the table when your spouse asks the question and it determines the possibility space of answers. Duality of language is a cyclic dependency that upholds the distinction between the relative and the absolute as a necessity. From my point of view, language is not inherently dualistic. It is a choice you (consciously, or unconsciously) make. I am sure that I am projecting, because this response is dependent on my personal understanding of what you wrote thus far, and if it somehow misrepresents your understanding of language, then please guide me out of it. However, if you disagree that language can be non-dual, then please hear me out as I will try to sketch a perspective from which it is apparent to me. The dualistic notion about language is the 'filter' through which we project meaning on the question about the trash. Broadly speaking, this filter treats language as a tool to establish relationships in the relative domain. Asking: "Hey, did you take the trash out?" is the question about the relationship between the trash and our living space. If I wanted to answer this question, I would then establish relationship as positive, or negative. Say that the trash is out, or not. From this point of view, any other answer would not be an answer to this question, because it asks about the relationship. This notion is most prominently explained in the Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which he concludes just like you: The problem with this approach is that language is not only used to establish relationships, but also to carve the absolute into pieces between which the relationships are established. So now, 'the trash' and 'the living space' can be described, by pointing finger at them and calling them names. But pointing a finger is also a form of a relationship that has to be understood first! How do you point a finger at pointing a finger? How do you explain what pointing a finger is without prior language? Therefore, by the very nature if it - the dualistic notion of language can never be completed. I believe that this is the true meaning of the Tractatus - it is a critique of the dualistic view of the language, and not a defense of it. The non-dual view of language is more in line with his second book, Philosophical Investigations. From this point of view, language is like trying to learn the game of chess from a Chinese master through the internet with no chat. All you can do is move the pieces and let him correct you. This is only possible because we both arrive at this context with presupposition that I am supposed to learn, and he is supposed to teach. With this presupposition however, it is incredibly difficult for the student to establish a rule and change the game of chess. How much time would it take for the master to understand that he is supposed to let me do the illegal move? This way, in real communication, it is absolutely crucial that we approach the situation as neither the teacher, nor the pupil, so that we can understand each other. This undifferentiated openness, the unknown, is the absolute that underlies all language. From this point of view, all interactions are ways to establish oneness. Even conflict is nothing else than one person doing an illegal move and the other correcting them. It takes time to understand that there is a mismatch of context, but approaching the situation as neither the pupil, nor the teacher is what preserves the possibility of interaction. From this point of view, there are no 'bad situations' one may get when he does not distinguish relative and the absolute. It is that any distinction between us is the root of all problems. In this sense, asking whether I took the trash out is not about the trash at all. It is a question whether our relationship (I=you=we) is complete enough so that my spouse does not have to concern herself with this banal matter of taking the trash out. So the proper response is not saying: yes I did, or: no, I didn't. The proper response in this context is: don't worry about the trash, honey. And yes - you can say that the trash do not exist and it can be a valid answer, if oneness is established in relation to spiritual culture. Problems that arise when you respond in this way come from 'the other' when what you do is so unlike any other interaction that you previously had that they do not even recognize it as a form of communication. It's like meeting the Chinese master, and starting up front with establishing a rule that it is okay to throw pieces at your opponent. The trouble it gets you in is predicated on the lack of intelligence on both parts. One is hasty enough to establish a rule too quickly, and the other is not open enough to notice his will to do so. First, you need to learn to play chess, then show the master that you are his match, and only then you can start to make your own rules so that he understands it. It is entirely possible to throw pieces at each other intelligently, but it takes time and skill. Or unconditional willingness to stay open, which is an inner relationship to the Absolute. A more civil conversation in this tone would be: "Hey, did you take the trash out?" "Why would we want to take them out if we just brought them in?" (the trash are the same as grocery = the trash doesn't exist)

@robdl Language is partial only as long as the mind takes possession of it. To me, there is nothing that can be said that cannot be misconstrued. No distinction can be made if the intent is to pick it apart. We can, but it won't help in the slightest. Unless the audience knows what is being talked about, no amount of distinctions and clear, logical, deduction can help with this task. I think that the core of your teaching that can be explicated into a message like @Faceless wrote, has no effect other than opening potential for religion. Unless it is understood by the audience, the clear distinctions will be turned by the mind into dogma. Dogma being the repeated usage of terms that the mind assumes it understands, but misses the point completely. This is often seen in communication between non-dual beings that try to assert their mutual hierarchy by talking about non-duality. It is impossible to see the non-dual nature of the other if you try to 'understand' their message in the traditional sense of the mind. Most successful spiritual traditions deal with this problem by passing their knowledge in form of riddles that point at the insight upon solution. Unless you understand them properly, they seem like nonsense. If you do, they reveal themselves to be jokes at your expense. Take zen koans for example.

@Faceless Okay, so here goes another question: From what I understood from our previous interactions, unless insight is found, the only movement that is at play is the movement of time (I). If that movement is mechanical, fragmenting in nature - then how is it possible to point at insight to that movement? If insight is opposite in its nature to the mind, then it is impossible for the mind to find it. So: insight has to be always present if it is ever to be discovered. In this sense, everybody have always been timeless without noticing it. Wouldn't then your call to find insight be an assumption that you make about others? Wouldn't it be much more efficient to change your assumptions about them?

@robdl The intent of this distinction is clear to me if you're trying to establish clear communication. However, even if the I is the accumulated past, the accumulation is being perpetuated by the so-called fear that is caused, again, by the accumulated past (or, in other words: I). Therefore, I is not only the accumulated past itself, but also the accumulation. So, saying that 'I' accumulates the past is not wrong.

Hi @Faceless , Out of respect for the connection we've made in the past, I will refrain from my impulse to pick your message apart, strand by strand. This impulse however compels me to ask the following question: You are the main advocate for abandoning of the accumulation of the past by the 'I' and seeing the world, as it manifests itself in the now. How is it then, that 4000 posts that you wrote on these forums use the exact same method of communication, very reminiscent of Jiddu Krishnamurti? What is it other than the very accumulation of knowledge that you advocate to abandon? You may treat this question as a projection on my part and approach it by trying to help me resolve my issues. However, only the answer to this very question will be helpful to me. Do not trouble yourself with questioning my own accumulation of knowledge. That is because I think that this question undermines all of your teachings, and until it is resolved - I remain indifferent to their meaning.

@Gligorije It is a problem only if it is limiting. It is limiting, when there are conflicting evidence for something and you dismiss the evidence to uphold the belief of gravity. For example: What if I said that I can make you enlightened, but you just have to follow this technique and first learn to levitate? Wouldn't you think up front that I am a charlatan and dismiss my promise? What if I was legit and not only I would teach you to levitate, but also make you enlightened? You wouldn't even give yourself a chance to hear me out. Of course, this example is fantastical, but there may be such situations in everyday encounters that we don't even notice because we assume that it is impossible to beat gravity without special equipment. It prevents us from even trying and block our capacity to notice. The question is: when is it warranted to question this very basic belief that it is true? To an everyday human, probably never. But for science, for example - this question is much more relevant and scientists are not willing to make half of its knowledge irrelevant. They are not even willing to look for evidence to disprove gravity any longer. And what is the scientific world made of, if not everyday humans? Also: where do everyday humans take their theories from, if not scientific world? This is how this belief is circular. The sheer amount of depth you need to explore to notice it is the reason for why it is universally held as true.

@Mount Bananas Repeat after me: The only normal people are the ones that you don't know. The only normal people are the ones that you don't know. The only normal people are the ones that you don't know. The only normal people are the ones that you don't know. The only normal people are the ones that you don't know. The only normal people are the ones that you don't know. The only normal people are the ones that you do not know. You, the first-person perspective of the world, by definition, cannot be normal. You know every single fuck-up you ever did and every single idiosyncrasy you have. In fact, you are the one that decides what is a fuck-up and what is an idiosyncrasy. Stop judging others to stop feeling judged. Stop judging yourself to stop judging others. There is no single normal person in existence. Normality is an abstraction. In a sample of two specimen (me and my dog), the normal amount of legs is 3. Internet strangers such as myself have nothing of value to say about you, to you. All we can say is how we see the world (which you are a part of). Our judgement is a judgment about our own little fucked up reality that we inhabit. Now go on and self-actualize the shit out of yourself.

@zoey101 Beautiful story. Thank you for sharing. I really liked the analogy with the glass of water. It reminds me of Jung's collective unconscious.

@exhale I can only tell you what my personal criteria are, so here it goes: If you recognize your emotions as they occur and give them their proper place in the context in which they arose. For example: when in conflict with another human, you recognize that your suffering is exactly as important as their suffering. Not less, not more important. Exactly as important, regardless of who they are. You do not give ground, but you do not take ground. You stay exactly where you are and wait for the storm to pass. Once it is gone, you address the problem that you know existed because of your (mutual) suffering. When it comes to pleasurable emotions, my guidance is to enjoy them, but expect them to end. It does not mean to get upset that the world is gloomy and you shouldn't be happy. It is more like the world can be gloomy, so we should be happy every time we get the chance. For me, emotions are like waves that come and go and they convey important information about myself. They are just that: important information. They are, however the only reliable source of information about myself. In a sense, they are like thoughts in that they show meaning, but the meaning is personal.

@zoey101 Congratulation on starting your practice! I wish you best of luck. Commit to it and it will take you places. Remember that in order to change you cannot become the old you, or make the old you bearable to the current you. You have to understand what is good and bad about you now, and what was good and bad about you in the past. This goodness and badness can only be determined by feeling into what is right for you. What feels right. Like if you try on a new pair of shoes and you take a walk to see if they fit comfortably. New shoes can sometimes give you blisters before they feel comfortable, but those shoes (like high heels) usually look nice, don't they? It's really up to you whether you want sports shoes or high heels and what 'comfortable' means. You wouldn't feel 'comfortable' in sneakers at a fancy restaurant on a date, wouldn't you? You wouldn't feel 'comfortable' running on a track in high heels as well. There is nothing wrong in having both in your closet and picking what's right at a given situation. So, if your family is important, then go ahead and take care of it. It may give you blisters at times, but it may feel right for you. For now, most things may feel uncomfortable for you, but that is because you haven't learned them yet. Stilettos are extremely uncomfortable if you don't know how to walk in them, but aren't they sexy?

@Leo Gura This distinction between relative and absolute is the root cause of the hierarchy of people with respect to consciousness. Is it really so convenient to make this distinction from this point of view? Aren't we (both?) creating our own problems this way? From my point of view, this distinction is the prime mechanism through which the mind 'deceives itself', like you said here: If it feels like I'm pulling your leg over something you casually said back to me, please let me know. I do not mean it that way.

@Leo Gura There is another thing I've been meaning to ask you for quite some time, Leo: Given that we agree on the strangeloop of context and content: how do you cope with the fact that all of what you wrote in the above paragraph is what you are? All of this is determined by your current context that decides that it is obvious that there are other people. Anything we perceive from within reality is not what is the basis for its creation, so other people (regardless of their level of development) are what is being injected into your perspective. Not only that, but the hierarchy of development in which you 'sort them' into more and less developed people is entirely decided by your (internalized) understanding of your theories of development. It has nothing to do with 'them'. 'They' are like a tree that is completely blank on their own. All of that is dependent on how you pulled on the threads of obviousness. Even the naivety part is predicated on your understanding of human nature. To me, all of that: top to bottom are thoughts about yourself. I am not saying this to somehow call you out, because I'm 'struggling' with this myself. This is what I'm doing here on the forum. Integrating this obviousness into lack of separation by making my theories account for everything. In doing that, they become ambiguous.

@Leo Gura Yes, the word 'fact' that I used is very popular and it generally means something that we can collectively agree on (through various means). That indeed means that there is the external objective paradigm at play if we assume that his word is used in its popular way. From the way in which you responded I have an intuition that you wanted to (friendly) point at an unquestioned assumption in my reasoning, but I read your post as if you agreed with me. So, just to make sure that I'm not projecting let me elaborate on what I meant by a fact: At this level of abstraction, there is nothing more of value that I can say about them. You're right, a popular way of use of the word 'facts' as in 'information that we can agree on' fits it, but so do many other uses! For example: a tree that we see is a fact as long as it is obvious what a tree is. As we look at a tree, the very act of looking is what makes tree a tree. We can look at a tree from various angles and the 'snapshots' of perception look nothing like the original angle but a tree is still a tree. This is what I meant by calling facts explicit: the always-present contrast of beings against themselves. Facts 'stick out', or so to speak. That of course doesn't mean that there is anything within the concrete tree that makes it a tree. Not even in conceptual/philosophical sense of asking: 'what is common among all trees?', but in raw, perceptual sense of drawing a boundary (distinction) between the concrete tree we observe ('through our eyes') and its background. This process in which we draw boundaries is not a fact in a sense that it is not explicit/obvious. There is nothing 'sticking out' (by itself) that we can point at and say: 'this is the obviousness itself!'. This always-absent obviousness is the link between the context and content (facts) within perception. A point at which these two disjoint categories meet. So yes, in a sense - all being is completely groundless, but there is this non-originated grounding which seems illusory when you inspect it. However, this illusory grounding is the basis for (any) reality and I prefer to treat reality with respect (by not calling it a lie). That's right! The measuring stick (context) is what determines facts (content). The problem with the measuring stick of the first-person perspective of the 'I' is that it is always absent from what 'I' can perceive. The only hint of its presence is through the present-but-absent obviousness at which we can pull to uncover the device. However, the measuring stick (context) which we uncover by pulling on the obviousness is not the one that we're currently in. By the very act of pulling on the thread of obviousness by contemplation we create a new shiny measuring stick to explore. This is the ausal strangeloop of context determining facts and facts determining context. That is what I meant by the rest of my post:

@zoey101 This is what this video is about! It gives you a perspective that lets you keep your dignity when you work on your relationship. There is no right person for you. This is why all relationships are difficult. Please watch these videos. They will not suggest you to leave your partner. On the contrary!

@Ferdi Le You think that because you live in a paradigm in which there is a one single truth that we all try to arrive at. This understanding is superficial. Just like @Arkandeus said: everything you experience is true. That is, at the same time, saying that nothing is true. The fact that a large chunk of your identity fell off, doesn't mean that it was not real. When you were in the middle school and had a fight over your crayons, was that real or not? You had your fight because your crayons were the most important thing there was at that moment. This is how an enlightened being can treat himself seriously.

@WorknMan You will know that you are truly contemplating when the idea of sharing the contents, or the method, of your contemplation seem absurd to you. Like: How can I possibly transmit this understanding to others?! Or: How do I even ask others questions about the things that I'm contemplating?! Take this statement as a positive description of what you should do and answer your own question.