UnbornTao

You can become conscious of what life-death is but it wouldn't be a matter of conviction but of consciousness. Talking from hearsay, you'd grasp that, since your nature isn't born, it can't die. Immortality is about you directly realizing that, not about a self or body living forever. It wouldn't be life persisting but you. Death is no more you (self), so life stops for that self, I'd say. As for what happens after death, the truth is that nobody knows.

The fact that it is made up doesn't invalidate its contribution. That it is created doesn't necessarily mean it's bullshit.

That's the list that makes us not-so-big performers feel better about ourselves. What about what makes such individuals kick ass? Vision and clarity. They know what they want, they're intrinsically motivated Commitment. They're committed to achieving whatever they've set up to do Practice. They put in the hours into their craft and obsessively practice it A positive relationship towards failure. It is held as a learning tool and thus actively confronted and improved upon etc.

Monks are generally pretty deprived individuals. "I'm not going to jail again!"

First, what do you hold as ego? What is it? I'd say that animals don't have an ego, nor do they have emotions even though it may look like it. But hey, no idea.

Confront, understand, and transcend. It exists because it serves a purpose for you. What is it doing? Why suffer? And why suffer needlessly? You can become aware of self-imposed suffering and do away with it once it is grasped in one's experience as an activity you're doing. I'd say that a bunch of it is unnecessary and can be transcended.

Seems to involve intuition, above all. In any case, I'd say listen for honesty and personal experience. Ask yourself: What are their communications serving? Are they inviting you to look into things for yourself, or are they sharing opinions, beliefs and just entertaining people? Are they coming from direct experience? Are they clear, straightforward? Do they facilitate your own investigations, or do they feed you fantasies and stories? This should leave out most teachers.

Why pursue distraction? What function does it serve? What are you looking to avoid by being distracted? What do you gain by being distracted? What if you stop pursuing it? What if you stay silent, still and present, without any distraction, for a long time? How come that, without distraction, a sense of uneasiness and discomfort seem to arise?

@lostingenosmaze got it, thnks.

Which video are you referring to?

What is envy? Why is it there? What is it doing? You've got to contemplate those in your experience. Rationally, you can tell how incredibly unnecessary and wasteful being envious is. So don't engage or focus on that. Throw yourself into what you're up to in your life.

Bodhidharma presumably handed this sutra to a disciple of his and told him: "everything you need to know is in this book." It has two basic themes: Everything is a projection of your mind Direct experience and personal realization are fundamental I'm currently revisiting the first chapters of Red Pine's translation. Fascinating book to study and contemplate.

Keep to the original thread, guys. To the original poster, be honest with yourself. Whatever happened is what happened, avoid making up stories. If you want to play the victim, enjoy it, otherwise don't act like one.

I recently quit coffee and have increased meat consumption quite a bit and as a result feel so much better, calmer, better able to focus. Prior to this change, I ate meat very sparingly, perhaps once a week. Skinny guys like me can probably benefit a lot from occasionally increasing high-quality meat consumption. As Michael says, this might not be a suitable strategy for the long-term, though. Eating meat five times a week for years and decades, likely not the best decision for your health.

Interesting, I may add it to my reading list. What about sleep and nutrition? Anything fascinating on those topics? As an aside, I think Michael Greger is also working on a book on longevity. Not to be released soon, though.

@Carl-Richard Wonders of religion!

Amen!

Let's wait and see.

Significant structural changes may be coming to Windows in 2024, according to some rumors. Microsoft plans major platform upgrades for “Windows 12” that will modernize the OS with AI, faster updates, and better security UI might get a macOS-like Dock and Menu Bar, likely for tablets and 2-in-1 devices A modern, modular base called CorePC will reportedly provide a solid base for the OS, making it more secure, offering faster upgrades, increased efficiency, and sustained performance Embedded AI assistant and similar tech around the OS (potential for good and also for more ads and higher system requirements)

No, I was fucking around on the internet. Still, new age or not, it might as well be true that religion is faith-based, after all. Religion can provide value depending on how you approach it. A lot can be learned from that study. It's fascinating and entertaining, too. But that pursuit embraces beliefs and so is not the same as seeking out what's true. Without belief, religion is... Not religion: rituals, entertainment, wise advice, a set of practices, ideas, a cosmology. There might not be a requisite to consciousness except consciousness itself! What matters is you making a leap. What precedes that -- the process that is thought to accomplish the result -- isn't essential in the end. As in a dream, you wake up by waking up. There's no process even though your mind may make one up with what it thinks it did before the breakthrough. Within a dream you can drink coffee but the "cause" of your waking up is that you did it. Let there be light! That's the meaning of direct. Value is relative. If we postulate that Consciousness is absolute, then value doesn't play in the same domain, so to speak. The definition of spirituality that you gave is based on flawed presumptions. In my view, it's sloppy thinking. Although if it works for people in some way, great. Set aside what you've been told. Consider experientially: What's needed and true in this regard? What is belief and the act of believing? What's intellectual vs experiential investigation? What difference is there between concept and experience? What is religion up to?

Fair. The way I use my commonplace book on Obsidian is basically as a text editor on steroids, similar to OneNote, so it can definitely be bare-bones if you want it to be. It gives you the ability to enable the features you need and to make it as complex as you'd like.

We'd first have to get clear on what growth is.

Nice, good work. Now that I think about it, I've got to look into what context is and how to create it and change it.

@zurew Sounds good. What's enlightenment, though? It isn't about development. It's you deeply realizing the absolute nature of existence or you. Don't know whether what you said is true or not. You seem to be talking from or about an ideal of what it means to increase one's consciousness. You can become conscious at the beach or in the forest since contemplation isn't limited to any set of circumstances in particular. You could even have an enlightenment by falling in the bathtub. Have yet to hear something like that happening, though. A Zen monastery is likely the least BS, most straightforward environment you could be in. And yet that gets corrupted by dogma, too, even though direct consciousness is the spirit of Zen.