eskwire

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Posts posted by eskwire


  1. Very nice. How long are you fasting? 

    I am currently doing OMAD, one meal a day, 23 hour fast every day. 

    The longest extended fast I've done was 6 days. 

    Fasting is helpful in a number of areas. To me, it's easier than fussing with food. 

    Many people use food to tamp down uncomfortable feelings. It's a distraction from discomfort. 

    Of course, it is key not to generate aversion to discomfort. To face it with awareness and equanimity. 

    For those who use food dysfunctionally, it's like removing another abused substance from your life. 

    You are sober in a sense and can grow from that place. 

     


  2. 1 minute ago, playdoh said:

    With quite a bit of green or nah?

    Nah. The orange is strong. The green people are orange with nascent green, so the kind of green where they like hippie stuff because it's cool/hip/fashionable.

    I went to high school there and have lived there twice. I would absolutely never live there again. 

    If you aren't rich, you might end up sharing a house with 5 strangers and lots of roommate drama. 

    The CA hippies are in the north.


  3. Returned from a 10 Day Vipassana Course.

    I've sat 3 courses and served one (cooking and cleaning for the meditators).

    This time, I fought boredom instead of pain. 

    That is a much subtler and deadlier beast - it can make you quit meditating or going to retreats altogether.

    Because you get delusional and think you already know everything about it - there's nothing more to do or get. 

    Total delusion and indicates lack of beginner's mind.

    Strong, ambitious people know they can get through pain. 

    They do it all the time. 

    Strong, ambitious people do not like being bored, though!

    This course was grindy. 

    All about the work, remembering to come back to the work, and do it very correctly without added delusional bullshit. 

    It was hard. 

    And I didn't feel all happy and high at the end. 

    I did feel wiser and humbled, though. 

    Learned some hard lessons on this one. 

    And was inspired to make this meme.

    If you have questions, hit me up.

     

    suffering drake.jpg


  4. @Mulky That is a good way to put it.

    Highly recommend moving away from Blue and Orange areas.

    You can organize a Green event, meet a few friends, but friendships are tenuous at best.

    Very shallow, easy to break. 

    Friendships are for joy, not need. 

    Blue and Orange places have festivals anyway, but the people are still the same. 

    They are just partying. 


  5. 1 minute ago, whoareyou said:

    I would agree with this, as I noticed some of this. It seems like the ego likes to hi-jack experiences and then likes to talk about how deep, etc it went and how it's the special one(like nobody ever experienced this before, etc). Happens especially with people who take psychedelics.

    You see, for the EGO, it's very radical and crazy, but for GOD - it is the norm. When you integrate the things and become more GODlike - it will be something that is normal and you won't have any need to talk about how "crazy" it was, etc. 

    Martin Ball talks about it in his book as well. At some point I think LEO will come to realize this

    Yes, exactly! Thank you for understanding and contributing. ?


  6. 5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    1) You haven't seen the full depth of it. Not even close.

    2) People need to understand how radical this work is. Otherwise they are deceived. It's important to properly communicate how it FEELS from the subjective POV of the ordinary human. To play it off cool is just dishonest. It is incredibly radical. And it is dramatic. It is not a walk in the park to realize God. So let's not pretend it is.

    "You don't know what I know, you haven't seen what I've seen. Justification for making a circus of what many more humble people have come to feel and rejecting the teachings of others."

    It's ok to experience what other people already experienced and wrote down in books and Wikipedia. That's not playing it cool. It's part of the human experience. Attaching to being the MOST and the FIRST and the DEEPEST SO DEEP - this is delusion and intoxication. 

    But whatever, do you. Guess you have to. You're all there is.


  7. 25 minutes ago, Shadowraix said:

    It veers very far off from the average human condition. There's a lot of implications to this that can be too much for a lot of people. Its why we can't just realize it all at once. 

    Asking @Leo Gura. Many of us on the forum have had enlightenment experiences - experiences of oneness, being alone, being one with god, even solipsism - so why the sudden drama about this? 

     

    If this is truly a big breakthrough for him, I would be interested to see if this elevates his compassion level any or makes it worse. 


  8. 1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

    What's true is that you are God, God is all alone, and God is imagining everything.

    Oneness cannot help being solipsistic. It is ONE! Not two.

    But of course one includes two and all the rest. So in this sense it's not the standard Wikipedia version of solipsism. It's actually way more radical and insane.

    Absolute Truth feels very solipsistic. Because it is you! And there exists nothing but you.

    Why is oneness way more radical and insane? What's with the drama? 


  9. I wrote a post about breaking my ankle and the resulting changes in my outlook on people. Some forum folks responded in a judgey, critical, unfeeling way without having read the post completely.

    This triggered me intensely.

    Sure, it was partially PMS, partially my actualized.org troll commenting and fanning the flames, partially that someone whom I admired hurt my feelings.

    But what part of myself was I reacting so intensely to?

    The part of myself that berates me no matter how hard I try or how well I do. The part of myself that doesn't listen to how I feel. My inner asshole who judges others and thinks everyone is lazy.

    In short, I was reacting to my toxic masculinity.

     

    I am a woman.

    There's a lot one could say about toxic masculinity imbedded deep in the psyche of an American female, but I've never done gender studies and you - the reader - prolly don't care.

    I grew up in a household whose ambiance was very, "Work harder, don't bother me with shit, stop having fun, and nobody cares about your feelings." My father was an alcoholic and my mother didn't want to be a mother. She was a career person. Maybe this is why I was so drawn to Leo's masculine, no-nonsense style.

    Between my family, the karate school in the South where I lived/worked recently, and listening to hundreds of hours of Leo's hyper masculine style...I have been steeped in masculinity and I think it's currently doing me more harm than good.

    As an experiment, I am leaving the forum and not listening to Leo's vids for six months or more. I'm not on here much anyway but I've heard 95% of Leo's vids and done the LP course. His voice has been ringing in my ears for 2.5 years. It's been helpful for some things but now I want to try opening myself up to nurturing, surrendering to all of my experiences and feelings. 

    I will follow females like Emerald and work with female coaches, listen to Sade, relax and file my nails. Whatever! I am swinging my pendulum over to the side of femininity until I am recalibrated and balanced.

    We'll see if it helps. ❤

    29ff9bffe08a7faa25897dd739da8ea2.jpg


  10. What works for me is "not breaking the chain."

    So, for example, I have a meditation habit of 20 minutes before work. If I am running late one day, I still do a meditation even if it's just 2 minutes because that stops me from "breaking the chain." This keeps momentum but gives room for life to happen. 


  11. @PsiloPutty @luckieluuke Great. It's certainly worth it. Let me know how it goes!

    Another note -

    One thing that helped me through the 5th and 6th days when I kept wanting that segment to end so we could move on to the next activity (which was usually just more meditation, right?), I thought, "You have to just do this until you die. You have to pay attention until you die so just get over it - there's nothing else." 

    I understood the gravity of learning meditation - coming out of delusion - and surrender.


  12. Hey, forum! I am so tired right now. Been up since 4, going hard. I'm waiting on some food in the oven to use for my weekly meal prep. I got home from the course around 2 this afternoon.

    My second ten day Vipassana course came just at the right time - when I was drained of compassion, tolerance, and patience for others - due to some personal hardships and slacking on my meditation. This was reviving.

    Some Notes:

    • It's a completely different experience than the first one. The program is the same - you are not the same. 
    • Some people seemed to have an aversion to the elements of the program that smacked of Stage Blue for them - keeping sila (morality), taking orders, having rules about bedtimes etc. 
      • Vipassana is not a Stage Blue practice IMO, but there is some language that would really turn people off who are beyond that stage. My take on it is that our infinite universe is so infinite, it includes some rules and regulations that are universally(?) helpful.
    • My first course was super dramatic. Lots of crying, ups and downs, shock and awe at my "powers" lalalala. This one was more mature. I was grounded and focused on making sure I did the technique correctly - without delusion. This was deeply gratifying and fulfilling, though not exciting like the first.
    • The sense of community I get from Vipassana is stronger than what I've gotten anywhere else. I still talk to people I met at the first one at least a couple times a week - and I made a new promising friend at this one.
    • I noticed myself gaining a real curiosity about the theory of Vipassana on this course and purchased many books, which I did not bother investing in before. This interest in theory seems to come in waves, perhaps when you are ready.
    • Leo's work was very helpful in understanding the "point" of all of it. Some people struggled with doing something so strenuous and the "end goal" not making any sense to them - especially if they have no experience of "no mind." This makes some people leave, give up their home practice, or just never come back.

    It was great. I am so grateful and happy to have gone again - and I have a lot of work to do.


  13. 11 minutes ago, Prabhaker said:

    How can we know that somebody is good looking on this forum ? Thread 'Let us see your face' was started on February 27, 2018, this year.

    How will you know that they are listening if they don't give opinion and advice ?

    You can ignore them. I wouldn't mind if you ignore my post.

    1.) Profile pics and some people have posted pictures of themselves in threads.

    2.) You don't have to give opinions and advice to let someone know you are listening. There are other types of sentences in the world.

    3.) That's dismissing my point (that this place isn't necessarily much better than other places where you could talk to people - there are still dirtbags on here). But thanks for not listening and giving me unsolicited advice.


  14. I thought I would find community here. My white whale - and something that increasingly seems to be illusory and unnecessary. 

    I most likely won't come back anymore, except to see if @Leo Gura will come to Seattle (pleeeeease?) - if IRL tour dates happen.

    This forum is more or less like every other place where humans congregate.

    • Good looking and vapid females get a lot of attention, followers, and supportive words.
    • Most people don't listen - they just hop in with opinions and advice, that are often unsolicited. Not every post is a "please give advice" post, guys.
    • Some dudes are skeevy.
    • A lot of time is wasted.
    • People say they will do xyz and then don't do shit.

    Maybe I'll just join a hiking club. At least fewer of those people will be suicidal.


  15. 5 hours ago, Growf said:

    I think my life might be to empty and unfulfilling, and that's why those nights matter for me that much? Or maybe I am in the first stages of alcoholism haha.

    On a scale from zero to ten - zero is incapable and ten is quite capable -How capable are you of embracing life without friends and booze, even if it seems empty at first by comparison?


  16. @Emne More formal meditation to build the skills and dump the baggage that's in the way.

    And then make a point of it. Make consistent mindfulness a goal. You can use the alarm method to be intentional about it. You can also practice only mindful eating to start translating the formal practice into consistent application. Here is a way to track the progression, which is helpful: