Consilience

Sheesh you got really defensive man. I wasn’t trying to argue or even insinuate disagreement, I was asking a question based on direct experience. I understand that. This is as obvious as your post implies. Suchness is the Absolute. I don’t disagree. But what happens when one’s mind becomes so clear, the ignorance needed for the appearance of solidity to appear is no longer present? What is the nature of all appearance when appearance is ceasing to construct itself because time, space, solidity, and separation are all seen through? In simple terms, one can literally and directly observe: “If all appearances pass away at the moment of their appearing (absolute impermanence), how can appearances be said to exist?” Im not playing spiritual or Buddhist games. This is a legitimate metaphysical and ontological inquiry for the serious truth seeker. If the mind is so concentrated on God “a thing” can no longer come into being, what does this say about the nature of appearance? And Im not making any claims here or insinuating anything other than a curiosity on how you hold this deep observation. None of this inquiry comes from Buddhism other than impermanence, which isn’t even strictly buddhist! All spiritual schools have their flavors and comments on impermanence. Impermanence is one of the most foundational, metaphysical observations one can make about the nature of reality. Don’t let your biased against Buddhism bias you from taking seriously the actuality of impermanence. Edit: The clarity that emerges when once actually sees into the depth, significance, and ironically, permanence of impermanence regarding time, space, and all appearances is that it has always been this way. Any sense of solid reality could only have been an illusion.

Yes. Look into Rob Burbea’s teachings on the energy body. That’s going to be the easiest, most practical way to break through the persistent sensory contraction state of body sensations. You can train this skill until the sensations of the body can expand out into infinity, or contract back into nothingness, until this pendulum of expansion and contraction is one movement, the same movement, on a single scale.

If all appearances pass away at the moment of their appearing (absolute impermanence), how can appearances be said to exist?

There actually isn’t even a physical body.

Really cool poll!

Im not super familiar with their work but it seems great! Opposite for me. And in fact, the overwhelming majority of individuals Ive met who are serious about spirituality have used psychedelics and found great benefit with them. I don’t really disagree with what you’re suggesting though.

I see the legalization/mainstream use of psychedelics as being a pre-requisite for spirituality to become mainstream. As it stands right now, the amount of work required for meditation to become spiritual to those locked in mainstream paradigms is too large, requires too much questioning. Psychedelics will begin forcing the larger population to question everything though. In fact, if spirituality does not become mainstream in some capacity, I personally do not think humanity can face the many mounting existential threats. And I view psychedelics as a sort of white night capable of helping facilitate a radical, perhaps exponential internal and collective transformation needed to face these threats. So many moving pieces!

This is just a belief/judgement you've adopted from Leo. If you actually did the work for decades, you would understand. Even if you did the work for a couple of years, you would be able to intuit just how deep the work goes and where you may end up as a result of decades worth of work. When someone is enlightened, all doubt dissolves.

Somehow missed this question, my bad. In short, purification. Purification has to two main consequences as far as I can tell, 1) The frequency of clearly experiencing the truth increases. The moments where there is mindfulness, attention recognizes the truth, when there is headlessness, ignorance of the truth. 2) The way the body mind expresses the truth increases. This involves the uprooting of the conditions of suffering and conditions which block deep emotional, human oriented well being, virtue, integrity, fearlessness, authenticity, energy, etc. Furthermore, there also seems to be depths and degrees to which one can realize the truth yet this is somehow in accord with the truth being completely absolute and always present. How this so is an active inquiry for me and where I personally don’t have much clarity around. It seems to be as though Im running into absolute paradox. Continued practice usually involves this deepening.

Compassion for your self. How awake are you really when the totality of existence is marred in illusion and ignorance? The compassion I speak of is totally transrational, totally transcendent of mind and will never make sense to the ego who’s adopted solipsism as a belief system. Notice how the ego mind is trying to create rationalizations and draw logical conclusions. Again, what Im talking about is so far beyond the self clinging mind, it will never make sense. However, notice, if it werent for other beings and to some extent the whole of realty attempting to wake you up, you would have never stumbled into the truth. It’s only out of the compassion of these masters, and more deeply, the compassion from the self that you are in a position to be speaking from truth. Don’t take credit and don’t underestimate how dependent you were on reality for waking you up, like a child to its mother. That compassionate force that conspired to wake you up may or may not proliferate in your body mind, thus continuing this cycle of self-awakening in other beings. If what I said about others cannot be reconciled with the illusion of others, you haven’t awakened to the true depths of solipsism. No. The reason masters don’t use psychedelics is the realizations they provide are a waking, moment by moment, lived and embodied reality for the master. Of course this goes against the actualized.org dogma, cuts through a certain flavor of closed mindedness the forum has adopted. I never claimed you were parroting Leo. It is interesting you offer that up and attempt to side step it though.

Well exactly (not being sarcastic this time). Once the fundamental point has be realized, there is little need to dramatically alter one‘s state. The truth is as it is in all moments, otherwise it wouldn’t be the truth. However out of compassion for others, there may still be the motivation to purify the mind. Purification = the cultivation of virtue, character, integrity, etc. Or the joy for creating a life well lived in a relative sense.

Right. Couldn’t be any sort of deep cultivation of wisdom and clarity from enormous amounts of practice.

Interesting how the overwhelming majority of masters have walked away from these tools huh? Im not aware of any that use psychedelics regularly. In the past as part of their spiritual journeys, sure.

Happiness is a fundamental quality of the spiritual path. Unconditional love is usually only possible once one begins to discover unconditional happiness. Further, the two are intimately linked, but how and why this is so is best to discover through direct experience.

Wow didn’t think it could be quantified but this is a great description… ?

Such an amazing milestone dude. Amazing report. ❤️ How do you think this will impact your daily practice? Has it shifted your perspective on how you view meditation?

@Raptorsin7 This is so great man! Would love to read a report! ?

Believe it or not, but you can actually feel into this emotional signature in the present, as though examining how it will feel on the future as a nostalgic memory. This imbues present life circumstance with a beautiful, emotional tone. Enormous reservoir of appreciation before having to wait for the future nostalgia to kick in. Beautiful post.

From everything I've learned and experienced, the only thing we take with us at the moment of death, ie the direct encounter with truth, is the quality of our minds. What happens after death will be a function of the mind. If you feel human life is what is needed to step into such an encounter without regret, with full integrity, human life. If you feel renunciation will prepare you for such an encounter, renunciation. Be careful operating under the assumption that this one human life is what matters most and that there isn’t something else afterwards. Our actions have consequences, even in this life there are deep consequences to our actions. Regardless of your decsion, I would recommend holding the law of karma in reverence. Last point, also be careful out of making a false dichotomy out of this. You can renunciate for a period, deeply training and purifying your mind, with the intention of coming back into the world to serve after the period of training.

Im not saying it does. Im saying that for advanced practitioners, the presence from which a teacher teaches becomes more valuable than the words. My claim is the alcoholic Buddhist becomes less snd less effective at teaching the deeper the student goes. Edit: specifically teaching inner peace. Maybe the alcoholic buddhist would be better at teaching the absurd and even viscous nature of reality. Maybe they’d be better at teaching nihilism or solipsism. Who knows.

As one progresses on the path, the content of what is said matters less and less compared to the transmission of what was said. In my experience anyways.

In the same way I wouldn’t listen to a lecture from Hitler on the path to world peace, I wouldn’t listen to a Rinpoche who beat animals, slept with students, and was a raging alcoholic about the path to inner peace. Could the raging alcoholic Buddhist have some insights on peace? Sure. But doesn’t mean they’re really a trustworthy teacher, leader, or guide on the path. And that doesn’t mean there aren’t higher quality teachers out there. The mind grounded in inner peace transmits in an entirely different way than a Zen devil giving the same talk on inner peace.

Im not, because the teacher and teaching are inseparable in some ways. Again, not the rational, verbal teachings. The teachings that come from embodiment and presence are intrinsic to the teacher.

Of course not. A better analogy would have been Adolf Hitler giving a talk on peace. He may have good points, independent of him as a speaker. Keep in mind there are ways of communicating and teaching utterly beyond the intellectual domain, that are energetic, non-verbal, and trans-rational, which originate from a place of being. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche did not teach from a place of compassionate embodiment, perhaps from a place of crazy wisdom, but not compassion. This type of behavior would also be destructive to many students and in that sense, utterly unwise to teach. Therefore, my view is his behavior was hypocritical and that he was not a trustworthy teacher.

This is the same dude who beat animals, banged his students, and gave drunk dharma talks, of course always justified with “no one’s there.”