UnbornTao

Your assumptions show up as your current "reality." Such notions are held in a way that they aren't recognized as merely thoughts being believed at a deep level. Like your eyes, the function of an assumption is to observe from it, not to look at it.

Since we do not know what anything is for itself, we tend to adopt spurious notions such as a philosophy, religion, or any other set of assumptions in order to cover up this raw and open state. Doing this may temporarily make us feel better by distracting ourselves from our basic condition, yet the nagging sense that all this effort might be artificial still persists in the background of our experience. Despite our efforts to the contrary, in the end we remain unaware of some of the most fundamental aspects of existence - including the nature of ourselves - no matter how fervently we accumulate knowledge, take on hearsay, or cling to belief systems.

A thought about what you hold to be true.

@kieranperez @Leo Gura great dialogue

It's a toy.

If what you want is enlightenment -- becoming conscious of what you absolutely are --, I'd say contemplation is the most direct practice. Intent to know the truth of your nature now. Ask: Who am I? until you become directly conscious of it. Keep contemplating while you integrate these enlightenments into your life. Study many perspectives but don't take them too seriously. In the end, validation has to be done through personal encounter with the reality of something. I recommend checking out Ramana Maharshi. He seems genuine in a way that virtually no other teacher feels like, to me.

How could someone so smart and "truth- advocate" vote for a pathological liar like Trump?

Thanks? @Leo Gura

Blissful state? At that point he had already awakened.

Enlightenment occurs now, regardless of which activities precede it. We sometimes assume that it will happen "some day". Set the intention to get it now. Talent and genetics are relative things but I really don't know whether they have anything to do with enlightenment.

"Normally this awareness is only generated after a long and arduous period of spiritual practice but in this case it happened spontaneously, without prior effort or desire. Venkataraman, the sixteen-year-old schoolboy, was alone in an upstairs room of his uncle’s house in Madurai (near the southern tip of India) when he was suddenly gripped by an intense fear of death. In the following few minutes he went through a simulated death experience during which he became consciously aware for the first time that his real nature was imperishable and that it was unrelated to the body, the mind or the personality. Many people have reported similar unexpected experiences but they are almost invariably temporary. In Venkataraman’s case the experience was permanent and irreversible. From that time on his consciousness of being an individual person ceased to exist and it never functioned in him again. Venkataraman told no one about his experience and for six weeks he kept up the appearance of being an ordinary schoolboy. However, he found it an increasingly difficult posture to maintain and at the end of this six week period he abandoned his family and went directly to the holy mountain of Arunachala." -- Be as you are, David Godman. @Leo Gura

Ramana Maharshi is an example. Without prior knowledge or practice, he had a profound and lasting enlightenment. It happens spontaneously (now). I shared my interpretation of what that teacher meant. Also, I'm mostly speculating. Some teachers aren't, though.

@Gesundheit2 @zurew Hallucinated awakening is better called hallucination, in my view. To be clear, Peter's point is that regardless of state (angry, happy, bored, anxious, high), awakening can occur because what happens within your experiential field is irrelevant. Enlightenment isn't perceived. He's not invalidating the possibility of awakening while high but saying that it is absolute. Whatever you do within a dream is something relative that won't wake you up. The way I see it, a state of openness is required -- that's what practices like contemplation and psychedelics help generate. However, states come and go, they don't cause direct experience because consciousness is you. All that is required, in the end, is grasping your nature.l Consciousness becomes conscious of itself. Direct sh*t.

Isn't that a bit like thinking that drinking coffee within a dream will wake you up?

Compassion helps to whomever is in pain. If you are not going to be a bit sensitive, then at least don't add wood to the fire.

That's my point. Except awakening (direct consciousness).

How many people have really awakened from psychedelics? How many of them will credit their enlightenment to anything other than themselves? According to Jed McKenna, psychedelics are part of the dream. Ralston seems to be implying the same thing, albeit in his notoriously grounded way. I hear tell that Timothy Leary, for example, tried really hard to achieve enlightenment through their use but he ultimately couldn't. According to Peter, he may have had many insights, so Peter's making a distinction here between awakening and insight (perhaps insight as a function of the mind). Anyway, enough speculation for me.

Pedri kicks ass

Suffering can be radically reduced, pain will still be there.

Ok, I'm open either way, then. Until I personally settle the matter for myself with massive experience, I'll try to remain grounded. That's not what I meant. Poor choice of words on my part. I was just trying to point out that methods are relative. And that a process isn't direct.

From my limited experience with them, they can open the door, but you're the one who enters. In other words, they may create the possibility of becoming conscious by opening your mind up, but the one who becomes conscious is you; it isn't done through an external factor. I asked Martin Ball about this. He basically agreed that ultimately, it is up to you to become conscious, not to the drugs or any other process. It's possible that Peter is coming from "the absolute" whereas Leo is coming from a relativistic stance, thinking that "things" external to You will accomplish the work.

Peter holds insight as distinct from direct experience, I think. He does admit that psychedelics help produce insights but not direct consciousness, because it is you who does that -- an intermediary can't do it for you. Besides, he does acknowledge that they can influence the brain and mind. I fear we're misunderstanding Peter because the way he holds certain distinctions is different from ours, sometimes. For example, it's easy to hear "direct experience" and readily assume we know what he means. But we may be conflating that concept with experience, mind or perception. Probably not you, Leo. Didn't he dropped a ridiculous amount of acid once? He's done his fair share of psychedelics.

Recommended to any Windows user. Remove bloatware and telemetry, optimize your system, etc. @Leo Gura What OS will you be upgrading to? Have you considered switching to Linux or, dare I say, macOS?

Speculation: There's no way you can be wrong when it comes to direct experience. By direct experience, direct consciousness is meant, not the conventional use of perceptive faculties. It is not an activity of the mind. It is direct. It is self-validating. There's no room for doubt because you are there, so to speak. Granted, after the enlightenment, the mind can make up stuff about it and still be confused. Depends on the depth of the consciousness.