UnbornTao

Skywind is a mod re-creating Morrowind, though it hasn't been released yet. Hopefully soon.

That's fair. I'll give them both a try. Not even Skyrim?

I will at some point. Got into Skyrim for the first time about six months ago and ended up liking it. What do you mean? Story-wise? That's from 2002, Jesus. What makes it better than Oblivion in your view? I haven't played either, but hey, this is a remaster, with better graphics, etc.

Gaming awakening.

I've been informed there will be no more videos this year, as Leo is going to finally get into Oblivion.

What, in your encounter with an object such as "a tree", is experience -- and what is not?

Nice, let's keep looking into it. What is the act of experiencing? What is "experiencing" something, as opposed to thinking about it, feeling it, or having opinions about it? What's the difference, say, between experiencing the act of thinking vs having a thought as usual?

It seems as though thought and feeling are both forms of concept. What we usually take a “concept” to be is just an inconsequential thought that arises in our internal dialogue, an add-on that is independent to what objectively exists. For example, we may look at a tree and think of it as tall and beautiful. We might take those latter qualities to be conceptual, but not “the tree” itself. At the same time, we might object to this claim, since thought often appears “dry,” whereas feeling is more “charged.” Good questions, you tell me.

Could be. Also, it is like: "Oh, I'm actually doing this. It is not some circumstance being thrust upon me." And as a result, being able not to do it. You likely weren't thinking of a dolphin prior to reading this sentence; and now you likely do. It is something like that, just on a deeper domain of feeling, perhaps.

No, can't. If it's still experienced, or to the degree that it is, then that's a sign the activity is not being grasped as it is happening. We could say we do "understand" it intellectually although that doesn't make a difference in our lived experience.

Can you recognize in your experience "where" you're doing the stress, and so become responsible for its creation? Cause I can't. Doing that would allow you not to do it in the first place, or help reduce it to a great extent. In your specific case, focusing on a single subject for a time is necessary; otherwise you just get distracted and overwhelmed, jumping from one thing to another, without any real depth.

Ché, buen papa.

That it gives rise to both feeling and thinking; that concept is the "place" where they originate.

Not sure, probably. I wouldn't eat raw broccoli or similar. But for example raw carrots and red bell peppers are quite good in my opinion -- as a snack or in a salad. Definitely better than cookies health-wise.

What if feeling itself is sourced by concept, as is thinking? Try to stop thinking for a couple minutes, then do the same with feeling. I think we tend to think of survival as something bad or negative; let's just call it "life."

What is being asked by such questions? I just meant they could be made more specific.

"Creativity meditation."

Playing devil's advocate: You don't have an epistemology or metaphysics -- you "live them" as your taken-for-granted reality. In this contemplation work, we may think that "figuring out" reality -- by making it into something knowable -- is necessary, or even beneficial. A thought, or thoughts, can't capture the nature of things. In this context, being abstract can be used to avoid confronting one's experience as it is. But I'm being dense here. The question still stands, though: What is really being asked by such questions?

How would you guys approach such questions, to start with?

To tell you the truth, I haven't read the whole thread. But it sounds like what you are saying relates to beliefs regarding how a person should show up or behave -- or, in other words, "what clothes they should wear." The assertion here is that we don't know who we are as an entity, and everything else is secondary, up to the individual, and often flexible in various ways.

What do you mean by who you are, unique qualities and role, and God's plan?

That sounds like painting with broad strokes. Identifying the plant as a "chrysanthemum" isn't a feeling; it may be a thought, or something else. Perceiving an object isn't feeling the object. Maybe we should drop the analogy and focus not on what feeling something in particular is but on what the activity of feeling is.