Gesundheit

Healthy egos have no questions.

https://theconversation.com/what-makes-a-woman-a-nymphomaniac-20306

@Someone here ?

Economy is collapsing. Nearly 4000 local currency per 1 USD. On the other hand, I may be able to get a job that pays in USD in the next few days. I don't care either way, cuz I'm in total indifference. When you die, nothing matters anymore. I could work all day, or not work at all, or anything in between. It makes no difference. It's only one life, and only one death. And I've already achieved both.

???

The second image shows precisely why I always keep my beard shaved ??

They may be transpersonal states of consciousness, but they're definitely not unconditional. It seems you are pointing to the absolute, but I wouldn't try to conceptualize it as conditional or unconditional. It just is.

LMAO! Just notice how y'all are projecting your ideas onto reality. I don't know the exact techniques that the monk used, but it's not like he'd done magic. Any dedicated buddhist could do the same. To a buddhist, that's just science, not very different from taking a certain type of drug or anaesthetic. Look up the reasons behind this burning monk, it was part of a political protest in Vietnam. It had nothing to do with "grace" per se.

@Fran11 The "arab spring" revolution in Algeria started with a burning man too. Only he did not have grace. He seemed to have had been burning in hell.

I would have said that that's only your perception, and that not all people share it, but that's probably obvious to you. So I will say something different: Wait until Tom Cruise dies, and see how the next generations will perceive him differently. It will only take a few generations before people start confusing the act for reality (and many people already do).

@The Buddha Whatever dude. I've already given you the ultimate answer to your question. The rest is on you. "Why Leo has no grace?" He has, but it's your beliefs that are blocking you from seeing it. Period.

Not that I disagree with what you said, but that's kinda missing the point. The point is that famous people are worshipped & idolized, and they have extremely polished images that get even more polished by the minute, when in fact they're just ordinary people, like the rest of us. All the heroic stories are nothing but an exaggeration, but a lot of people naively believe and buy into them to fill in certain psychological needs, I would say mostly of safety. Stories of human perfection are for children, and perhaps for recreation. They simply don't match reality. People need to learn how to distinguish between reality and metaphor.

@The Buddha I'm absolutely perplexed by how far some humans are willing to go to preserve their beliefs. Ramana died of cancer, for God's sake. Doesn't sound so perfect now, does he? I have no interest in stage Blue debates. Believe whatever you want. But know that beliefs color perception. So, whatever you're experiencing, it's because of your beliefs. If you change your beliefs, your perception will change with them.

That all effort is irrelevant.

Give me good health and throw me in the jungle, and I will still be happy.

I am absolutely perplexed by the presence of such beliefs here on this forum. Maybe quit hanging out with stage Blue/Conformist buddhists, and then try questioning these dogmas/stories/beliefs.

Five months ago, in the city named Tortoise, I've made a pact with myself, right in the middle of a solo retreat; I vowed: "I shall not love another human ever again". And ever since, my eyes never shed a tear, except for my own misery. Out of my heart and into the heart of land, I witnessed the burial of love. I was alone, and I needed someone or something to witness my vows and complete the spell; Blue Moon. I left love there, and came back home. I never felt that which I left ever since. I know I will have to break the spell eventually. When the time is right, I will go back there, and dig it out. "In the crossfire, there's a story.. And how it ends, I do not know.. Don't let it go.." But I will let it go, I need to. "There's one road to the morning.. There's one road to the truth.. There's one road back to civilization.. But there's no road back to you.." And now, it's still & serene. And now, I am free.

@AdamR95 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan

Increased complexity is a hallmark of higher ego development.

Not in the same way you're imagining grace.

Not really. I am saying that there are two contexts that are equally valid and that both of them answer the question fully, and you are rather taking only one context of them while ignoring the other context entirely and saying that you aren't. It seems you aren't seeing the value in answering questions from the other context possibly because you're identified with the original context, which you call "relative" as opposed to the other context (the absolute). So you want answers only from the same context, but not from the other. In other words, you're asking for stage Orange/Achiever answers, and rejecting stage Green/Pluralist answers. And I am giving you a stage Yellow/Context-Aware estimation for what I perceive to be the case in this thread. It may be pointless to try to point that out though, because I'm imagining these distinctions and it doesn't seem that you are. Or maybe you're imagining them as well but there's attachment in your relationship with certain contexts.

Not quite, actually. Distictions are not only imaginary, they're also projections onto the absolute. This "distinction" here is "very important" because it shows how all distinctions are a subjective interpretation of the absolute, which makes all distinctions arbitrary. It's one thing to say that distinctions are imaginary but still maintain an absolutist relationship with them, and it's another thing entirely to say that distinctions are imaginary projections and have a fluid relationship with them. When you say "they exist in form of imagination and you can still use them and pretend as they are real.", it sounds like you actually believe that they are real without pretending (which is completely fine btw, I believe that some distinctions are fine, and others believe other distinctions are fine except mine). But the realness of distinctions is subjective. You can't make me see a distinction that you're imagining unless I want to see it. If I don't see it, it literally doesn't exist for me, and you really can't do anything about it. You can't make a donkey to sing, because singing is a distinction imagined by you, and the donkey simply doesn't share your imagination. When you get answers like: "There is no you, meditation doesnt exist, everything is you etc..", they're actually completely valid regardless of context. The thing with your thread here is that you are asking people to follow the context of the question, but those people are actually telling you that the context is irrelevant in the first place and that you should rise above it. In my view, that is a valid perspective, and it has value, yet still limited because it does not work well for the context you're using. Then again, what if the context itself is unnecessary? What if you don't actually need to work within that context? What if you will benefit more from letting go and rising above the context? What if it's possible to take both contexts (the no-context context, and the context context) as valid?