mandyjw

Just a thought, sometimes when we aren't in touch with our desires, (not just sexual desires but all desires), we intensely desire to BE desired by another. Then once that desire is consummated/consumes itself, it's back to square one. It's sort of a self love thing too, but allowing our desires is a huge part of self love.

Gender changes cause some problems for society to sort out, but age changes would be an even bigger problem. So many laws and benefits are based on age. I often felt like an old lady trapped in a girl's body when I was a kid because I had much different interests and values that weren't like other kids my age. However no one was going to give me the right to buy alcohol, vote and smoke at age 13 because I enjoyed staying at home and knitting and reading. Although... that could have made me pretty popular with my peers.

It's a misunderstanding that anyone can do anything to get enlightened. There's no real cause and effect, though there can seem to be within the story. Stories of personal awakenings can be fascinating, but are never actual. You cannot hack this by trying not to do things either. However, what you might call "virtuous conduct", honest, sincere selflessness and love for others is an intensely powerful practice. It's more the actual Love working there, and it's about allowing that force to work through you, aligning you with it, than it is about a someone who makes the right choices and does the right things.

I was drinking tea when you posted that. Keep working at it, one day you might be as creepy as Nahm is.

It turned out to be puppy snuggles. Very touching. No, sorry. We can play Clue though, if you want. I'll be Miss Scarlet.

I don't even know what after 2 minutes from now. The thought that I do is a complete illusion. Anything could happen.

Listening to these both at the same time.

Why are worldly pleasures the distraction? Why not pick on worldly pains instead? @How to be wise Yep, I'm well aware of it in Christianity. Sooo many awkward scenarios. It actually works out quite terribly. Imagine being treated as if your very presence and bodily form is inherently evil and tempting. It's like taking what normal people call sexual tension and making it exponentially worse, all the time with everyone. What you resist persists.

"I don't care who I have to step on on my way down." - Tom Waits

We're all mad here.

If there is pleasure, there is suffering, if there is light, there is dark. Dualities such as these require a reference point or you as the one who experiences them. This self is illusory, therefore the suffering is also illusory. But if you resist suffering, or try to hack your way to avoiding it, then you've cut yourself off and created duality again, and then bam, suffering. The pain is your friend. It tells you you're still alive. Oh, I crack myself up. Into dualities.

They are never separate from you and never were. They are apparently more separate when they are in your presence because your senses and thoughts are perceiving them there, present and separate. You've never been alone and never will be alone.

There aren't any unenlightened people unless I look for them, so I must be creating them that way myself, right? I mean enlightenment isn't an objective fact that can be pointed to, so unenlightenment must be just as unreal.

Is life a distraction from enlightenment or is the search for enlightenment a distraction from life? Of maybe there's no life without enlightenment and no enlightenment without life and therefore, no conflict?

@How to be wise

Awesome! I keep hoping to be able to join in one of these days. I just love his style so much.

OMG OMG OMG. It's so fascinating and tantalizing. And it's completely mundane and boring and not happening. At the same time. Oh I love it. I'm sitting in a movie theater watching this brilliant piece of art, drama and action, completely safe from it. Crazy lady next to me might forget it's a MOVIE AND all of sudden lose her shit and spill her drink on me though, who knows. Or I might do the same to her.

She has the power to completely destroy him, ruin his life and all his delusions about how holy and enlightened he is. Then he'd have to face what he actually is.

@How to be wise So many separations and divisions. Adam was such a tool. "God I'm lonely." he whined. So God makes Eve. Then that bitch gives him an apple from the wrong tree. Suffering from thereon out. All her fault of course. Temptation. So the monk says, "I'll just hack this problematic setup, I'll be alone and I'll be happy about it, goddamn it.

No, it's not, because he has the choice of abandoning it, and that's the choice he made.

I know a celibate Buddhist monk who had a fling and now has a child he won't even meet. I know another guy that is disgusted with spirituality who is raising that child as his own. I wonder which one is more woke?

Brilliance often comes with some major blind spots. It would be a shame to dismiss the brilliance because of the blind spots or to credit the brilliance with a source separate from yourself.

@electroBeam

Last night this show I watched as a kid came to me, "McGee and Me". My parents were really into Focus on the Family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_on_the_Family It was some of my first knowledge of the Bible and morality and whatever. Here's the child actor in the show more recently. Aren't we all stars now...

My darling, if you were really a minimalist you wouldn't think of yourself at all. Grains do not equal gluten. Gluten free oatmeal and rice are good choices. Also inflammation is caused by food sensitivities. Inflammation is connected to cancer. Gluten = cancer is a huge jump. I just got into even better shape by changing my diet so my macro nutrients are balanced, but just intuitively by what I feel like eating. I don't judge fat, carbs or protein. I have potatoes for part of my breakfast this morning, my momma grew them in her garden, I dug them myself and baked them with grassfed butter. Good news, the potato famine has passed.