tsuki

To reject the ego is to suffer because of a mere possibility of suffering. It is to fear any suffering because that would mean that you haven't rejected the ego hard enough.

I'm afraid that there is no such thing. Identity is a by-product of self-awareness. Everything is you. Consequently - there is no you. At the same time. The moment you ask 'who am I?' - you simultaneously, genuinely don't know, and are something that does not know what it is. Self-awareness is born out of the ability of non-dual reality to become dual in a way that does not contradict itself. Self-awareness is equally awareness and unawareness. Anything you grasp as 'you' comes with a blind spot. The moment you become any concrete you (as in body) you will have an impulse to defend yourself from the other (the world). If you do not see how your body is the world - you may have an impulse to fight it back so that it will not hurt you. If you try to kick the wold - you will kick yourself in the ass precisely from the place that you are blind to. If you try to fight the world, it will seem like the world is a threat. It will be a perpetual fight for survival that has not been caused by anything and will go unnoticed. This is why paradox is the symmetry of reality.

And that is a very crude way of putting things. I haven't mentioned the first-perspective side of being engaged in the worldly affairs. The usefulness of a cup does not come from the clay it is made of. It comes from the empty space it has in it. If all you see is material - you will say that the cup is full of air, and yet call it empty. You are the emptiness of a cup. You are not found inside of your skull, but intertwined in everyday object's usefulness. There is no difference between you and the 'outside world'.

That is an invalid assumption. Even from the standpoint of so very much 'debunked' science. Each microsecond cells that you call 'you' die and are born. There is nothing that separates you from 'outside' of your body. Is the air that you breathe 'you'? Is the food that you eat 'you'? At which point they start to become 'you' that you so much defend? Any choice of such a point is simply that - a choice that upholds the duality you live in. The other duality is the duality of sleep/no sleep. If you do not remember your sleep - how are you so sure that you're not sleeping right now and the 'the other side' is the dream? What if you go to sleep and the moment you're 'out', you wake up as another person and live their day? You don't necessarily go back to your 'current' body back when you wake up as your memories are not a reliable basis for identity. What if the body that you call 'you' from before you went to sleep is just the part of the dream that you've woken up from? So many assumptions...

@DocHoliday What do you rely your certainty of constant identity on? Memories? What constitutes their reliability for you? Do you perhaps remember that you remember correctly? Isn't that a little too self-referential as a basis for certainty?

If everything needs a point, then what is the point of having a point? You know the ultimate point of all existence, don't you? What is the point of rushing there?

It seems that you have an emotional response to the use of logic. Logic is in many ways symbiotic with emotions. If you learned about logic, then you know that it needs assumptions to produce conclusions. Logic cannot provide the basic assumptions. These are emotional. So is the moment to 'stop' using logic and carry out the plan. Same goes for implicit use of logic when you simply read and judge whether I write truth or false. Truth is emotional, friend.

What do you need this awareness for, friend? Awareness itself is not a problem. It the compulsive need for it that is ruining your life. Why do you need to need something to pursue it? Why do you need to like something to pursue it? Would it be perhaps that you need to like, or would like to need? Isn't that a little contrived of you?

@Tearos From the way you answer my question, I have a hunch that you were suffering because of fear of suffering. If there was nothing wrong with your life as you claim - why would you have an impulse to change it by introducing meditation? Would it be perhaps that you were trying to secure it so that you would be more balanced? When you stand soundly with two feet on the ground and tell yourself that you need more balance - you will surely fall flat on your face. There are times when meditation is 'used' to gain balance, but other times it is 'used' to express it. If gaining balance does not work in your case - try to express it with it. Treat it as a form of art. Perhaps, you are expressing your suffering and framing the problem so that meditation is to blame?

Can you provide an example of such a situation?

I just came up with an incredible idea! Forum should sit still for 30 days. If anybody says anything, somebody else should silence him.

@Charlotte Only if there will be anybody to wake up. We humans have strange attachments to all sorts of different things. We think that the bronze age is different from out current age, so we say that it has ended. We think that Venus is different from Earth, so we try to stop the greenhouse effect. Ultimately we think that life is different from death, so we struggle to fight it off. Life comes from death and turns to death. To say that life comes from life is to miss the point. To live in fear of death.

Yep, everybody knows it, including me. Not enough to stop this madness though. When everybody knows everything, ignorance is the greatest wisdom. If we could only understand our madness, then perhaps we could see that sometimes right is wrong and wrong is right.

Oh, but we do catch and hunt for food and suffer for it. Our food is not as easily recognizable though - we chase edibles too, of course, but we also need food for thought, boredom, loneliness, etc. We all need to fulfill our all needs. Some are basic, as food, but once you have those - other become basic instead. Our hunting is also very contrived to the point of not recognizing it as such. Our hunting is called work, so we chase money instead of grass. We are every bit as unaware of our behavior as animals. They are not aware what is to hunt, and we are not aware what is hunting for the human animal. Oh, and animals chase us off their gardens too. But instead of individual animals fighting us, we fight ourselves by polluting the planet. We may very well be on the brink of extinction thanks to our excessive hunting. We hunt by blinding ourselves to hunting. This is where excess comes from. By trying to control the planet, we unwillingly took control of controlling ourselves.

Now that would be very unfair towards @Faceless. He may understand his own concept of time as a movement of measure and would be back to square one with his ability to communicate enlightenment.

Ego can also screw up your interpretations so that you link meditation with blood dripping from your ears. Cause and effect are powerful tools.

So, @MarkusSweden since I got all personal and non-zeny let me as you a question: Why do you post like you do? You start a thread and watch it unfold. Don't you have any comments to add?

@Faceless Thank you, that soothed me a bit. I'm not keeping it though

Everything I read today mocks me. Even my own stupid posts that I thought were pure gold yesterday. Knowing that suffering is a force to toy you around doesn't help. Today's suffering is directionless. It's like the game is simply to fuck with me. So be it. I'm gonna sit and suffer like a proper martyr. @MarkusSweden When you try to race with Ego - it will turn your sharpness against you just to cut deeper. I truly envy you for your wisdom to lay low, friend.

Well, for me - today's game was to suffer until you give up and go along with it by showing aggression. That was pure happiness. I would have never guessed it given my recent advice to @MarkusSweden. Funny how you can screw yourself over by trying to help haha . As for the OP - one more advice just to screw myself again: You never know what other people think. It is you thinking up their thoughts as you read their behavior. There is no guarding your happiness. Once you start to guard it - you've lost it as you are defending it against yourself.

There are always 3 stages of this game: I don't know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing. I try to use my knowledge to conquer the game. The first stage is when you feel lost. The second stage is when you feel progress. The third stage is when you suffer because you don't know that you play a different game. When you know the rules of the game (like you laid them out in the OP), there is only the stage of conquering and suffering. It signifies the moment that you should know that you don't know. To return back to square one and feel lost. This is done by surrendering to your suffering. To give up. If you give up so thoroughly that you give up yourself, you become the spectator. You can enjoy the irresistibility of your suffering. The game just goes on without the player.

@Shakazulu It always really seems that way until you really have to go, doesn't it?

@Maycol So, in short: you do not understand what enlightenment is, but you understand what it isn't? That anything you pick that claims to point towards it is not sufficient? Could it be in fact related to the ability to always discard something? Why don't you discard your discarding and try a different approach? Assume from the start that all is one and see how many problems you can fix. Wouldn't it be that all problems are fixed that way? In one swoop? Or would it be that it would break logic that you so dearly hold on to? Would you be willing to become insane to reach enlightenment?

From Leo's blog.