tsuki

You are seeing yourself as yourself because you resist "clicking" into another perspective. The resisting is what most people call Ego. Ego death is something that breaks the resistance. It's called death because you fear it. The more you fear "clicking" into something else, the more resistance to "clicking" will be gone once you break. The ultimate goal is to let the thing "click" itself. No resistance at all. Every other person is itself because they resist being something else. Once you stop resisting you see many things that cannot be expressed. One of them is how they are you even if you don't resist and they do.

@Joseph Maynor Any unchanging wisdom is a path. You can look at your feet, or you can look at the trees. The first will guide, the other will amaze.

The end always seems to be here, or just around the corner.

I'll keep that lesson in the mind.

@SOUL Yes, we need opponents to keep playing the game. With others, or by ourselves. Funnily enough, they always seem to pick themselves for us. haha.

@SOUL Man, you are so peaceful that I can't even argue with you for your own good. I love you so much

@Patang As my mind plays itself and your mind plays itself, the Forum plays itself.

I think that the Soul is the thing that erases what the mind writes. Some people don't see it for the process it is and accept the Soul for their being. They go to the other side, but they don't accept that they can go back and forth.

Oh the mind. The meaning-making machine. Why do you keep it, if you can make it? Why do you make it, if you want to keep it?

The growth is not a straight line up. It's a path. Let it be, even if it meant giving up meditation forever.

You are getting caught up in your thoughts. As long as you think that you are supposed to control your body, you will freak out. Let the body be, even if it was to do that forever. The end will come. The body will end by itself at one point.

One person's Ego is another's Shadow.

It's both. I do the "who am I" path to enlightenment. This is the path you observe the movement of the mind. Once it breaks, the shadow is released. Once you inquire the self in the shadow it breaks as well. Do the cycle enough times and you are me.

The plan was not to keep it a journal, but i have a great experience to share, so here it goes. Last night, when I was laying in bed trying to sleep I went into a meditative state. When I meditate, I feel a "sensation" that seems to reside inside of my head. There is a "tension" somewhere behind my eyes that I always thought was caused by unconsciously crossing them. I always associated that with the thing I did when I tried to go to sleep. I now accept it as a sensation that occurs regardless of what I do with my eyes as it started to manifest itself during my waking hours. Like I said, I was trying to go to sleep and noticed that the tension was not where it always was. It was somewhere further back, behind my head, outside of it. As I focused my attention on it, it shot up. Exploded pleasantly. Then the "trip" began. As I focused on the blackness of my closed eyes, colors started to appear. First I was seeing a painting sketching itself I don't remember what it was about. I remember that it transformed itself fluently into a painting of some sort of Christian saints bending over the bed I was laying on. It reminded me of the waking world in which I was laying and it scared me. I opened my eyes to see if they remain and they didn't. Then, there were symbols that reminded me of the Jung's Collective unconsciousness. There were some sort of "primal" pictures one would find in caves and scriptures of ancient civilizations. In the end, there was the multicolor paint itself that formed the painting. It formed a mask that flushed itself to its own mouth. Constantly, without eating itself. It all happened fluidly, with no breaks/flashes. The only interruption were my eyes opening in fear, but at this point I don't even know if it really was a part of the dream or not. I don't remember the rest of the night as I took a sleeping pill since I didn't sleep too well for two days out of excitement. I woke up energetic, despite having a big headache. I had a great morning in which I had an emotional release that brought me to tears, smiling. It was triggered by seeing the beauty of the world in one of the songs I used to listen to: I saw the mind's clockwork in it.

There is no difference between them having distinct personalities and you seeing them as such. To them, it is all the same. Each one of them could explain to you how are they exactly the same, which is what they are doing in their work.

Before diving into my second awakening - I would like to address some points regarding my first. As the first awakening happened, I understood that I gave up something precious. What I thought I gave up back then is the notion of objectivity. I was a very scientific person, heavily oriented on mathematics, physics and engineering while also being born atheist. There was no possibility that I would come up with the thought that my mind was not seeing the real world without philosophy. The book I was the path to the fully subjective world. What it did to me is lay in terms of the logical mind: why the logical mind is not sufficient to account for all phenomena I was experiencing. By following the breadcrumbs it gave me, mindlessly, I went to the other side and woke up in Wonderland. What was of extreme importance is that I did not anticipate the end of the journey as I would not have picked up the book at all. The amount of obscure words contained in the work was a deception to the mind and a riddle it was supposed to solve. By picking up the book - the mind turned itself, on itself ignorantly as it always is. When it blew itself up, it left me with emptiness. The emptiness was unawareness of what to look with. The Unfamiliar. In the end, I turned away from the Nothing because I didn't learn the lesson that it gave me: "The Voice is not the thing I am". I followed his lead and turned away from what would take me down the rabbit hole. The second awakening started getting traction when I began to doubt the Voice. The second story begins 6 months ago. The first awakening happened because I felt like pursuing philosophy to become wiser, a more well-rounded person. The second one came about for the same reason. Youtube suggested me Leo's video about various meditation techniques. I always knew that meditation was key to wisdom in Eastern traditions and I was interested in its benefits and scripture that accompanies it. At that point I had no clue about Enlightenment whatsoever and I did not dare to link my experience to Buddha or Jesus. As I'm writing these words it still shocks me that I'm open to this possibility, as I indentify myself as an atheist, which I know is absurd at this point. Meditation quickly sticked with me, as I had some pleasant experiences early on. After closing my eyes during the "do nothing" technique I started having a vision. The blackness changed into a night sky, and the periphery of my vision changed to a forest, as if I was lying on my back looking up. It was very calming and helped me to keep the practice running. Other experiences included feelings of energy shooting up, or shooting down. They felt as if I was infinitely tall, or infinitely heavy. It was literal, visceral, "thing" that occurred and I was shocked that they could happen. They did 3-4 times. Visions were more frequent. I also did some mindfulness meditation. It was important for me to see that the Voice narrates the world. What I quickly picked up on with Zazen is that I simply cannot still my mind. Not a chance. This led me to realization that if I can't make myself quiet, then why the actual fuck do I think that "I" think? If I can't really shut up for a second, then how am I supposed to have more control over my life that I so desperately seek? I switched technique back to "doing nothing" and started to simply listen to whatever the Voice was saying as if it was something I heard "outside of my head". In the meanwhile I went on a trip with my fiancée. I was in the process of blowing my mind with Leo's podcasts at the time (they were simply interesting) and so it happened that I came across the guided meditation one. After the session, when I opened my eyes and saw the river and the sky, I felt so much beauty and connection to the world that it brought me to my knees, crying. I also stumbled upon some of his videos about Enlightenment. I quickly connected the river episode, and the Nothing with awakening, but at the time I thought that Enlightenment is a flip switch - either you are it, or you're not it. The information I had at the time suggested that it is something one arrives at after thousands of hours of meditation - not something I would stumble upon by accident. I was instilled with the idea of being someone completely ordinary. Nevertheless, it resonated with me and once more I recognized that it was something important. I was also working with Stoic philosophy at the time to let me see perspective that would let me control my emotions to a greater degree. I was literally, physically, trying to live it and it worked to some extent. The first words I remember that "pushed" me through the edge of awakening during the self-inquiry are: "Who is the Voice?" "I am not the Voice." "The Voice is not the Voice." That gave me some traction and I used that to bring awareness away from the Voice. The rip was not as great as the first awakening, but gradually, over time, I saw that what I am seeing is not real. It was compounded by the fact that at one point I remembered what I did to disassociate from anything. During the first awakening it took me a week to purge myself. This time took around one day and I didn't crumble like the first time. Every day I would wake up in the morning "asleep" and work my way up to being "awake" in the Enlightenment sense. I did that by relentlessly fighting the Voice each waking minute of the day, even at work while doing my stuff. There was a day that I was so determined to wake up that all of the 8 hours at work, the Voice was silencing itself. Other days, it has turned against itself producing innumerable amounts of nonsense chatter. At one point It was very much convinced that we are THE enlightened, the Buddha, and we are going to be appointed the new Dalai-Lama. LMAO. The trouble is that I was constantly switching between being it and not being it and I was scared that I was going insane. In order to progress I had to give up my sanity. This period lasted a week. It was a gradual wave of disassociation. Disconnecting from the Voice brought the disconnect from what I saw as "real". I was not moving my body, it moved itself. I did not say anything - the thing was saying itself. Out loud to other people and inside to itself. It was scary at first, but I was determined to go as deep as I could this time and not to trust the Voice. I had seen it for what it was: scared, as it is always is when you are "it". At one point, the Voice became frightened that one day we will wake up "asleep" and not become "awake" by the end of the day. That thing became a big struggle. The harder "I" pounded it, the more it became scared. The Voice understood that in order to progress it had to give up enlightenment. So It did and went back to sleep, ending my second awakening episode. I did not crumble like I did the first time. From that point on I knew the experience of surrendering sanity and the experience of surrendering objectivity. There were two beliefs I took with me as I once more started to "be" my body and be in some control of things: People did not see my complete and utter insanity during this episode. What's even more funny is that they opened up to me and my relationships became better! I KNEW that I didn't have to be in control of things for them to play out orderly. I consciously started to let things be as they are. Step by step. It is very important to understand that I did not really contemplate what happened. The points I took from the experience were completely intuitive and I did not use them on purpose at the time. What I did to arrive to the second awakening was pure coincidence as it was happening. This is the Voice narrating my life doing its deceptive work through the text. My story was NOT a story as it was playing itself out at the time. It was a bunch of episodes that resulted in connection called "Awakening". When all of this comes together, this shit rips you to shreds and rearranges you so that you become less orderly. It is for the best, despite of what you fear. If anyone is interested I have more words I used to bootstrap my awakening during the week that the Voice turned against itself. For now, I have some chores to run, so see you later in follow-ups, clarifications and the part three.

A no-self perspective wouldn't care to have a self. Don't get too hung up on words, I give up the quest to make you give up your quest. Peace!

That work you speak of: who's agenda is that? It is Ego pulling the carpet it stands on. Do not focus on on the opposing statement I produced but on the possibility of making one. That is the reality I seek. Let the mind come and go.

There is no throwing away of the mind. Letting go is no throwing away. The mind will come back if you throw it away. Be open for its return.

What I do is I shake the pool so much, that I don't even see the ripples. Stilling your mind is one end. This is the other. There is no need for fear.

@Patang I get a feeling we're talking about the same thing in two different languages. Let me SHOW you what I mean: the real nature of me is that there is something. Then, there is something else. Or nothing... and all of that is okay. Until that it isn't... If this gets too tiring for you - let me know. I'm mapping the territory

It seems that we agree. Wisdom is all openness. Wisdom lies in the process of change. When I say what wisdom is, I need to be able to change that as well. Wisdom is silence that stops. Do we understand each other?

I do, irregularly. The pattern so far seems to be a every other week - 20 mins to 1 hour of do nothing everyday. Recently I've been mixing meditation with everyday experiences. Things trigger meditation states with deep concentration by themselves.

But one that knows everything cannot speak. Thoughts make things something other than what things were. They are no longer unfamiliar! What do you need wisdom for, if you remain silent?

@deci belle At one point I understood that even if I picked the original version of Being and Time written in German - I would understand all of this by simply staring long enough and trying to make sense of it. And I don't even speak German! There is this joke about Heidegger, that he's fundamentally intranslatable - even into German ;). @Patang Your post brought me to tears. Thank you! I can now summarize this post like this: Wisdom is like a muscle. You flex it by accepting the unfamiliar as it is and by not trying to make it familiar. Wisdom will tire. When it does - it's time to speak.