UnbornTao

Why do you think "enlightenment" is separate from ordinary life? How you live is up to you.

Is that a true statement? How do you know it's everyone? Granted, politics is based on manipulation, but this is not the same as lying. Someone like Bernie Sanders, for example, seems to come from a place of sincere service and integrity, regardless of potential factual errors he might make, biases he holds, mistakes he makes, etc. Do you expect politicians to be Plato or Aristotle— idealized "honest" individuals? "Less of a liar" can also be seen as less deceived than the opponent, which is a move in the right direction, especially when the difference in degree is so staggering between them. The "truth" isn't a fantastical place or fixed destination, which you seem to think; it's just what is, at any level.

@Inliytened1 Trump is the epitome of pathological liar.

– Franklin Merrell-Wolff.

–– Issai Chozanshi

If an expression sounds familiar to you in the context of consciousness work, watch out! Consider that there might be something deeper to understand about the experience or consciousness than what your intellect makes of it - especially if it comes from an authentic source.

You're goddamn right!

Yep

You were supposed to say Heisenberg. Anyway

Robert Greene and Vernon Howard.

Good work!

Say my name

Killing the Buddha by the river.

@Davino I didn't mean thinking about suicide. Why would it be an attempt to survive? It's an interesting perspective.

Suicide seems to be an attempt at being acknowledged and at feeling on top of life rather than at the effect of it. It is either meant to demonstrate how much you've been hurt or to avoid what is considered to be unbearable emotional pain. Often it is actually an attempt to survive, just a dysfunctional and foolish one.

Describing a dynamic is different from what you did above, I'd say. Why bring up this formless-nothingness subject? Is that what you guys presume eliminating a belief entails? It's more like having your cup emptied––being open. The cup (your experience) doesn't go away.

We should work on this concept vs actuality business, and on principles. Seeking out what's true is a different approach to what you guys are bringing up.

What are genuine experience and conjecture? The difference between these is often overlooked. You are extrapolating with the formless thing. "No-belief" as a state is not a negative and a lack of something; it empowers rather than diminishes. You'd still be able to operate and interact free from belief's domination. Whenever a belief is let go of, your presence is freed and somehow becomes more authentic.

Your approach to happiness is backwards. You treat it as a byproduct of external factors - as a function of achieving desired outcomes or being affected by agreeable circumstances. In this model, happiness is always contingent on events turning out a certain way. But consider: whenever you've felt happy, where did that happiness actually come from? What, in your personal experience, truly makes you happy? Two angles to approach this contemplation A pragmatic angle, dealing with what is conventionally considered happiness. An existential angle, seeking to uncover the source of happiness itself. The trap of pursuing happiness Pursuing happiness implies being unhappy. The very search presupposes its absence - and that, somehow, one day it will "arrive." That’s an ideal. Stop chasing it. Instead, learn to be happy regardless of your experience. This takes our notion of happiness beyond its common meaning, doesn't it? Fully embracing the experience you're having - not just intellectually but actually - can sound like a fantasy, or at least threatening. You might ask: Does that mean I will stop pursuing my goals and become complacent? No. It simply means you're happy, and you continue experiencing this or that. If happiness isn't an effect or a result of successful self-survival, then what is it? A sobering realization When you achieve the things you thought would make you happy, and yet true happiness doesn't seem forthcoming, it can be a sobering realization. It reveals a mistaken assumption: that happiness was to be found in, or produced by, external factors. But upon closer inspection, you may find that true happiness has never been circumstantial. It has always been a matter of embracing your experience exactly as it is.

Whether it is true or false is beside the point here. Recognize whether it is believed or experienced. A personal experience is, in this context, encountering the reality or fact of some condition, event, or dynamic, as in becoming aware of something. This recognition is grounded on the presence of something, not just your thoughts about it. Another distinction to make is whether the information source is valid–science, etc. The exercise helps us acknowledge our "epistemic" ignorance about whole domains and subjects, without necessarily having to disbelieve the given assessment, which would be doing the same activity.

Experience what's actual and have insights. Create a thought you've never had before for yourself, this new experience is what real thinking entails.

Are you operating in accordance to what you currently estimate to be as "rock-bottom" true as possible in your own experience, or do you, by contrast, purposely ignore, withhold, embellish, that awareness? Then, the direction to go is deepening that recognition of whatever is the case at any level in whatever domain we are dealing with.

It is about the principle rather than any individual. New age is another worldview but all in all, fair enough. A good thing about principles is that they exist and work independent from your mind.

@Carl-Richard I cleaned up my post a bit.

Why are we framing this in such an oddly specific way? We could take "activity," distinction or process as the starting point.