UnbornTao

Thanks, that's good to know. This time I was the one joking. 😃

Shhhh, it's a test to see if it's a fake account.

For sure. Feel free to post anything, as long as it meets the forum guidelines.

What's a paradox? An absolute is always paradoxical - it must contain all possibilities. It is nothing, everything, and infinite at the same time. And understanding that, I'd say, isn't a function of rationality or intellect, not even of mind or perception. How could it be? It is, in fact, both incomprehensible and inconceivable - and yet also graspable. The story goes that it requires a so-called "direct consciousness." That's regarding the absolute truth - whatever it is. I'm not sure about the more conventional meaning.

Priorities.

But consider that emotions might not be what you think they are. The expression or manifestation of emotion is different from the act of feeling the emotion itself. So, investigate them anyway - if you want to get clear on that. Positive and negative are the same dynamic. It's likely that in both cases we aren't conscious of what the mind is, so that's another thing to look into. Realizing what it is isn't necessary when the goal is simply dropping suffering. Just remember Rumi's quote above.

I complain, and yet I keep bringing language into the conversation, as a model for investigating context. For example: without language, internal dialogue (talking with yourself) and a big part of what we call thinking - maybe even the entirety of it - couldn't exist. Communication, relationships, culture, others, metaphor, influence - if some of these could exist without language, they'd be radically different from our view of them now. Consider how much of your experience is influenced by those things! I've been trying to look for a graspable "item" that is there, but there doesn't seem to be anything that is the substance of context. I'm facing a wall. Turns out context isn't an object or a thing per se. Space and possibility - perhaps condition and freedom - are some terms that come to mind. Haven't had a direct consciousness into what space is yet. Lots to question.

Contemplate what emotions are. Reality is your mind. Just a thought.

Hey, I think a thread could be opened for each of those topics.

I was playing around with that reply, but I'd say I agree with your take for the most part - except for your last paragraph. Substances may alter your physiology, state, and cognition, potentially precipitating relative insights, facilitating greater awareness, and generating varied ways of "perceiving" and thinking. But ultimately, the one who increases their consciousness is you - not the drugs or the environment. We can see that even though similar terms might be used, the experience or distinction being referred to often varies between individuals. We could start by distinguishing between "independent" and "original." To tell you the truth, I'm not interested in engaging in such arguments. To me, those worlds are purely based on fantasy, and my inquiry is much more grounded currently. As a whole, we can't even tell our asses from a hole in the ground. For example: what is thinking, in the first place? Do we really know what that activity is or entails? Not what we think thinking is, but what it takes to generate it, and how it differs from other activities that are easily conflated with it, like judging and opining.

Hi, nice stuff. Where do you live?

Noo, it was just a silly joke.

Changed "determines" for "shapes" above. Hmm, let me look into it a bit and then I'll give it a stab.

@Carl-Richard We're waiting here https://youtu.be/8m7Ybp3Ehrs?feature=shared

An unoriginal thought is an original thought with extra steps.

Watched The Big Lebowski and didn't understand a thing. It was a fun movie, though.

'The background that shapes the foreground' is a good starting metaphor for defining context.

Nevar.

Hey, you can laugh - just allow yourself to feel emotions, or anything else for that matter. Possibly "deluded" in that you take your view of the struggle as an unquestionable fact or condition. A good story doesn't feel made up, nor does it look like a story but as "the way things are." Why would emptiness and nothingness be negative, or resisted? They're likely misunderstood as well. Even if you mean them differently, we already live as if we were empty at our core. It's a consequence of confusing Being with self (we take the latter to be our nature.) The overly-simplified version is this: the self is already empty by its nature. Recognized for what it is, this is neither negative nor positive - just the case. It is seen as a natural and universally-shared condition. You need to become increasingly clear on what's what in your experience. How the mind is used determines and influences your experience - state, focus, level of satisfaction, the ability to feel anything and how it is felt, the likelihood of getting depressed and enthusiastic, and so on. For example, with enough work, I could make myself suffer a similar way by concocting, in my mind, a similar "condition" as yours - and by taking it seriously (assuming there isn't a physiological issue going on.) Nothing objective would have changed. My body would be just fine - the difference being what I do with my mind. We can see, then, that this is far from being a simplistic and superficial matter. The moment you assess some experience as negative, the possibility of a "positive" experience arises with it. It's not that you experience both negative and positive things at the same time - necessarily. The distinction "negative" exists thanks to "positive," and vice versa. It's an existential point. It might seem like you are describing your experience, but how can we get even clearer on what's experienced and what's conceptualized? Heck, even the sense of self may be conceptual, even though we regard it as a 'sense,' and yet, it seems solid and real, does it not? If even the sense of self was conceptual from the beginning, suffering its dissolution, partial or otherwise, was also based on figments of mind! You, and your experience, have always been complete in themselves. The task is learning to use the mind in a functional and healthy way - which usually includes shutting it off and being grounded in one's body. So, enough minding for you.

It would probably be funnier if you knew German.

@Carl-Richard https://tonymayo.com/never-say-its-just-semantics/