Key Elements

@cetus56 This is an interesting thread. I would say, the Truth (nothingness / everythingness / God / Infinity / etc. / whatever you call it) is something we all have in common. If we all "experience the no-self," it would be very similar or the same -- because Truth is Truth; nothing goes beyond it. Why not? Truth cannot be debatable. It's like finding a life purpose. If one person finds his, and the other person finds hers, that cannot be debated. It goes without saying that everyone will have a different life purpose; it's meaningful; it will last a lifetime; etc. etc. The same goes for Truth -- except it's much harder because most are not even bothered by it and lots of disagreements, instead of just saying, 'ok maybe there's something else, and I need to search deeper.'

I noticed something. I just want to break this down to 2 basic things to make it easier for us to understand. It's just a pratical guide/map. It's something to browse over as we go along on our journey. You may add to this if you wish. So... #1. There is the actual "experience of the no-self." #2. One does not need to have an actual "experience of the no-self" to understand the following basic list to help in the journey to become "fully enlightened"(Eg. Like the Cloth Bag Monk). However, it does help to have an "experience of the no-self (Riding the Ox Backwards)" to refer to because it makes it much easier to understand. 25 Basic Ways to Get Rid of the Toxic / Fictional Ego 1. Adopt the beginner’s mindset. It is impossible to learn that which one thinks one already knows. When we let ego tell us that we have arrived and figured it all out, it prevents us from learning. Remind yourself how much you don’t know. 2. Focus on the effort—not the outcome. With any creative endeavour at some point what we made leaves our hands. We can’t let what happens after that point have any sway over us. Doing your best is what matters. Focus on that. External rewards are just extra. 3. Choose purpose over passion. Passion runs hot and burns out, while people with purpose—think of it as passion combined with reason—are more dedicated and have control over their direction. Christopher McCandless was passionate when he went “into the wild” but it didn’t work well, right? The inventor of the Segway was passionate. Better to have clear-headed purpose. 4. Shun the comfort of talking and face the work. We talk endlessly on social media getting validation and attention with fake internet points avoiding the uncertainty of doing the difficult and frightening work required of any creative endeavour. As creatives we need to shut up and get to work. To face the void—despite the pain of doing so. 5. Kill your pride before you lose your head. You cannot let early pride lead you astray. You must remind yourself everyday how much work is left to be done, not how much you have done. You must remember that humility is the antidote to pride. 6. Stop telling yourself a story—there is no grand narrative. When you achieve any sort of success you might think that success in the future is just the natural and expected next part of the story. This is a straightforward path to failure—by getting too cocky and overconfident. 7. Learn to manage (yourself and others) John DeLorean was a brilliant engineer but a poor manager (of people and himself). One executive described his management style as “chasing colored balloons”—he was constantly distracted and abandoning one project for another. It’s just not enough to be smart or right or a genius. It’s gratifying to be the micromanaging egotistical boss at the center of everything—but that’s not how organizations grow and succeed. That’s not how you can grow as a person either. 8. Know what matters to you and ruthlessly say no to everything else. Pursue what the philosopher Seneca refers to as euthymia—the tranquility of knowing what you are after and not being distracted by others. We accomplish this by having an honest conversation with ourselves and understanding our priorities. And rejecting all the rest. Learning how to say no. First, by saying no to ego which wants it all. 9. Forget credit and recognition. When we are starting out in our pursuits we need to make an effort to trade short-term gratification for a long-term payoff. Look at the people who are already successful and learn and absorb everything you can from them. Forget credit. 10. Connect with nature and the universe at large. Going into nature is a powerful feeling and we need to tap into it as often as possible. Nothing draws us away from it more than material success. Go out there and reconnect with the world. Realize how small you are in relation to everything else. It’s what the French philosopher Pierre Hadot has referred to as the “oceanic feeling.” There is no ego standing beneath the giant redwoods or on the edge of a cliff or next to the crashing waves of the ocean. 11. Choose alive time over dead time. According to author Robert Greene, there are two types of time in our lives: dead time, when people are passive and waiting, and alive time, when people are learning and acting and utilizing every second. During failure, ego picks dead time. It fights back: I don’t want this. I want ______. I want it my way. It indulges in being angry, aggrieved, heartbroken. Don’t let it—choose alive time instead. 12. Get out of your own head. Writer Anne Lamott knows the dangers of the soundtrack we can play in our heads: “The endless stream of self-aggrandizement, the recitation of one’s specialness, of how much more open and gifted and brilliant and knowing and misunderstood and humble one is.” That’s what you could be hearing right now. Cut through that haze with courage and live with the tangible and real, no matter how uncomfortable. 13. Let go of control. The poisonous need to control everything and micromanage is usually revealed with success. Ego starts saying: it all must be done my way—even little things, even inconsequential things. The solution is straightforward. A smart man or woman must regularly remind themselves of the limits of their power and reach. It’s simple, but not easy. 14. Place the mission and purpose above you. The act of selflessness we need to remind ourselves of. 15. When you find yourself in a hole—stop digging. Our ego screams and rattles when it is wounded. We will then do anything to get out of trouble. Stop. Don’t make things worse. Don’t dig yourself further. Make a plan. 16. Don’t be deceived by recognition, money and success—stay sober. Success, money and power can intoxicate. Leave self-absorption and obsessing over one’s image for the egotists. 17. Leave your entitlement at the door. Right before he destroyed his own billion-dollar company, Ty Warner, creator of Beanie Babies, overrode the objections of one of his employees and bragged, “I could put the Ty heart on manure and they’d buy it!” You can see how this manifestation of ego can lead you to success—and how it can lead to downright failure. 18. Choose love. Hate. Don’t let it eat at you—choose love. Yes, love (without the ego). 19. Pursue mastery in your chosen craft. 20. Keep an inner scorecard. Just because you won doesn’t mean you deserved to. We need to forget other people’s validation and external markers of success. Warren Buffett has advised keeping an inner scorecard versus the external one. Your potential, the absolute best you’re capable of—that’s the metric to measure yourself against. 21. Paranoia creates things to be paranoid about. “He who indulges empty fears earns himself real fears,” wrote Seneca, who as a political adviser witnessed destructive paranoia at the highest levels. If you let ego think that everyone is out to get you you will seem weak…and then people will really try to take advantage of you. Be strong, confident and forgiving. 22. Always stay a student. Put yourself in rooms where you’re the least knowledgeable person. Observe and learn. That uncomfortable feeling, that defensiveness that you feel when your most deeply held assumptions are challenged? Do it deliberately. Let it humble you. Remember how the physicist John Wheeler put it, “As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.” 23. No one can degrade you—they degrade themselves. Ego is sensitive about slights, insults and not getting their due. This is a waste of time. 24. Stop playing the image game—focus on a higher purpose. To be or to do? Which way will you go? That is, will you choose to fall in love with the image of how success looks like or you focus on a higher purpose? Will you pick obsessing over your title, number of fans, size of paycheck or on real, tangible accomplishment? You know which way ego wants to go. 25. Focus on the effort—not the results. This is so important it is appearing twice. If you can accept that you control only the effort that goes in and not the results which come out, you will be mastering your ego. All work leaves our hands at some point. Ego wants to control everything—but it cannot control other people or their reactions. Focus on your end of the equation, leave them to theirs. (Source)

The people who are very assuming of you will never understand you, unless they change, learned their lessons, and become more open-minded. You don't need to explain yourself to them. You don't need to explain yourself to friends because friends know and understand who you are.

Someone drops her hat, and she got it back in an interesting way:

Yes, Leo, I completely agree with what you said here. But, if only PUA or pickup apply Spiral Dynamics to their techniques and embody it. It may be better. It may reduce the chance of having horrible consequences. I'm saying this because I just want people to be happy. Btw, I could see how Spiral Dynamics could be applied to arranged marriages nowadays. I still say go research and go travelling across the world. You're not born knowing all this. Whoever you're with, will he/she be with you till the end? The end of life isn't easy. Research on that. It's your choice.

You are saying such easy / hasty answers. Don't compare Gandhi to this topic. Gandhi had an arranged marriage at age 14, of his same caste, and lived in a different time. Of course he got to bang lots at an early age. Arranged marriage nowadays work differently. It doesn't work like it used to. If you want to find out, research and go there -- to India. Don't judge and jump to conclusions. But, let me tell you this. You probably already know. Sex has consequences. You can't just go and do it. What if you bang the wrong gal? Hmm..what can happen? Be creative on this.

I think what you're missing is not sex. Have the courage to work, find a life purpose, and have the balls to research, find out, and travel to different places -- even Kentucky and India. You can't discover yourself just by having sex.

So, who's stopping you from being a man now and becoming independent from mom and later supporting her?

I have not expressed any of my thoughts on this topic on this forum. Perhaps not everyone will agree. That's ok. We kept on talking about being radically open-minded -- looking at all sides at all different angles. With that said, here is my take on it. You are not "stupid" -- whatever that means. Not being laid is ok. Who is telling you that there is a need to be laid? Peer pressure from friends? The media? Well, they don't know better because life is not just about having sex. There are no rules on not having sex is "bad." This is best when we can think back to our childhood. We were very much aware and not having these strange rules.

@Leo Gura Life is a school. You wrote about life being a school in your blog. "Life is the hardest teacher." This quote is a very common saying because life is meant to be lived, not bypassed, ignored, or lived casually. Shinzen Young did an excellent job in explaining the traps when living this life and pursuing enlightenment. Notice how he mentions "The Enlightenment Trap" and "The Realm of Powers Trap." You cannot spend so much time and energy in these traps. You cannot spend unlimited amount of time and energy finding the right techniques and talking about them endlessly. You have a life to live and master.

Well no, I'm not talking about those cases. Yeah, one has to be careful and not just go with anyone, but unfortunately, sometimes a person is unlucky. If he's a criminal, he's not the one. I'm talking about those (monks/gurus/priests/etc) who try to know you before they try to give advice. You know, if they have to deal with you one-on-one. For example, I knew someone who has a guru as a teacher. (Took place when I was working for a school in India.) I started speaking to her about deeper topics, and she was honest enough to say that she's not ready for those topics. She also told me that her guru knew that she wasn't ready. I met a monk who didn't go into deeper topics right away. He asked me all kinds of questions first. I think I know why they do this. We keep talking about experiencing enlightenment and having samadi experiences. That's fine. But, I don't know if anyone here has had experience of life being a "school." That you got to learn all your lessons first before moving on. Leo talks about it in his blog in one of his articles. To me, it does make sense that life is a school. Just look at Maslow's pyramid. Self-transendence appears at the tippy-top.

They're testing you. Some monks do that in a cunning way to see what level you're on. They have to deal with all kinds of people coming to them. (You know, as Leo like to say it, Zen stick slap. ?)

These are just jokes. Research, self-inquiry, contemplation, meditation is part of the very personal journey to find out. The question cannot just be asked and the answer is not straightforward.

@LaucherJunge Are you kind of getting into paranormal abilities vs going for awareness / no-self? I bet all these topics are interrelated to metaphysics. I heard that paranormal abilities are labelled as "free-will" and going for no-self is not, but don't quote me on this. I also heard that life is a school, and one has to learn all the lessons in one's lifetime, otherwise there will be consequences. Leo wrote about life being a school in one of his article in his blog. Shinzen Young sort of touched on this topic here. This video is a must watch. We are talking about "The Power of Realm Trap" and the "Observer Trap." To me, Shinzen Young describes it beautifully. After some time and some practice, a person understands it deeper. (Anyway, it's a very, very interesting / profound topic for me. I won't go into it here cause it may go off topic.)

@Ryan_047 You have a choice. Have some fun while you're here. Pick subjects / major / career / life purpose according to your interests. Everything don't have to be all mapped out. It could fall into place as you learn to make decisions as you go along. I agree that there is no free-will, but there is a choice. You could choose to do your interests or not. You could choose to incorporate that into a life purpose or not. But, we don't really have free-will on our interests. Some are good in science, some in art, some in music, etc. It's by nature.

Good question. When you are in the present moment, you may become aware of two things -- what to do next (authentic self) or no-self. If you are lucky enough to experience the full-fledged no-self (formlessness/nothingness), that's awesome. No-self is always present. However, when you're fully in the present moment, with very little thinking and analyzing of the past or future, with very little stories in your mind (monkey-mind) because you dropped them, you will be able to clearly do your next step. That is your authentic self. Examples - "It's time to exercise." "It's time to go to my backpack and work on my life purpose." "It's time to cook something healthy." "It's time to clean out that box in the corner." "It's time to meditate." Etc., etc., etc.

@Leo Gura Something interesting... I noticed that it's not easy to ask a question and get the proper answer, esp. when it relates to the most profound - spirituality. For example, if a person with awakenings from a non-psychedelic perspective vs a person from a psychedelic perspective start having discussions and asking questions -- both parties don't think "right" or "wrong" of each other or "good" or "bad." However, when asking a question, they may think that projections are being made. The question may need to be rephrased. Maybe, perhaps, the best thing to do is just arrive at your own conclusions. Or, find the "right" person to talk to one-on-one and share experiences.

Yes, but you got to get creative. Let's say, for example, you make fortune cookies for a living. Inside the fortune cookies, you may put a profound quote or saying like this, "Observe, the present moment: you feel busy & just moved into your new home. You see 10 boxes to unpack in front of you. Thoughts are pouring down on you like rain. Now, let go of all your thoughts. Rid your ego for a moment of unwanted thoughts and emotions. Breath deeply a few times, and unpack one of the boxes. That's all. Relax. One step at a time." Something like this. If you are working on Kindle, think for a moment, how are you going to approach this?

I've been wanting to say this for quite some time now but didn't know how. I would like to comment on the 10 Ox Herding Pics. The 10 Ox Herding Pics is a great guide/map, but as you know, "the map is not the territory." Here is the story told by Shinzen Young: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 *I don't want to forget to include the traps that Shinzen Young mentioned: Traps At the end of the story in part 3, there is this person, and people call him The Cloth Bag Monk. I wonder what could be in the bag? For me, I thought, maybe he carefully planned the gifts, like for example, have fortune cookies wrapped up with something else, like maybe chocolates, to pass out to children and others. In the fortune cookies, there would be some profound quote or saying to teach people something. The Cloth Bag Monk spends his day socializing with children and others - teaching them wisdom in indirect ways. Nowadays, it's not so easy to do this everyday. We have our jobs to go to. Maybe there has to be an alternative way to do this. Like do this in the evenings. To teach wisdom in indirect ways and become a pointer, we think about how to set up our lifestyle so that our time is available for others. If we seriously pursue this, we will probably find out about passive income - making a website, YouTube channel, etc. etc. so that we earn in an alternative way. More info on passive income: Info 1 Info 2 We do look for other alternative lifestyles. Other examples: Info 3 Info 4 However, as we age, or have families, or whatever the reason may be, we still may pursue passive income since we need to watch our health or if going to the hospital is required for emergencies. And also, we live along with nature without destroying it - in great communities with great health care for all. All in all, when we do this, when we align our life purpose + health + startup + nature + spirituality + etc., we have to try not to be obsessed with anything, esp. money and things like that. Then, things will start to fall into place. It will be more automatic, flowing, meditative, and natural as we get better at it. In summary, the Cloth Bag Monk = Leo's recent video: The Topic of Mindfuckery Also, in the end of part 3 of the 10 Ox Herding Pics, the emperor got shocked/surprised (mindfucked), when he was told that The Cloth Bag Monk was the most enlightened person in his kingdom. "Enlightenment is also the realization of knowing how much you don't know." -Ralph Smart