UnbornTao

@Someone here Ask yourself whether you're actually willing to investigate these things, or whether you just want to hold on to a belief, or have your preconceptions validated. An intellectual understanding doesn't cut it, does it? It isn't enough because it doesn't provide experiential access to what the emotion is - only theories or stories about the experience. We often confuse identifying an emotion with knowing what it is for real. Think about it: you're afraid pretty much all the time, despite your ability to identify and "understand" fear. But in reality you take it for granted. So yes - what is it? This is meant to be contemplated, not only thought about casually.

It occurred to me to share this quote, not sure why:

Not me!

@Someone here What the fuck is fear? Start with that.

We could look at fear itself rather than at its specific manifestations. For example, see if you can actually feel afraid when you are completely present (whatever that means). Without imagining a future, fear cannot exist. Or: Can fear occur if you are fully willing to go through the experience you are imagining? Now, talking about it and understanding it intellectually is one thing; making an experiential shift is another.

Sounds good. Contemplate what real openness is.

For sure.

Let's keep looking into this, as threatening as it might be to our sense of meaning.

Taking a look at it.

You can read the Tao Te Ching to death and still be as ignorant of it as before. That doesn't mean you actually grasp what's being communicated. We could start a thread on listening.

Yep, you keep thinking that.

@Breakingthewall

Hey, not to derail the topic, but consider: https://www.actualized.org/insights/the-concept-of-bullshit Now, who will take that personally? Boy, this is going to make me even more popular.

Jesus Christ.

Does God dream up crappy lives? Better questions: What is life, and what makes it one way or another?

@Someone here

But does "it"?

Okey dokey.

@Breakingthewall A physical gesture was used, rather than a word or symbol, to hopefully keep the focus on meaning and not language - which might derail the initial topic. In this case, it is more grounded as an exercise. If meaning is, in fact, given - and without this activity, it isn't found in anything - then it doesn't exist in the same domain as objective reality, as you seem to imply. Something has to occur (in one's mind) that isn't objectively there. We could say that the hand movement is objective, and therefore different from the meaning that is applied to it. Different meanings can be applied to the same perception or object - or, with some work, something could be perceived prior to the addition of meaning. So what does this tell us about it? Might add to this at some point. But don't take the chatter seriously and look into it yourselves.

Cool. Usually it's INTP, though. But interesting.

https://youtube.com/@SamaneriJayasara Good for spiritual entertainment.

Degenerate + genius? Gnoofus - gnosis + doofus. Gloof - genius + goof