UnbornTao

Take it lightly as a physiological need. It's an example. You don't suppress your hunger. I suspect OP is coming from an ideal.

Embrace them. You wouldn't ask the same thing about hunger.

It might be. But notice this assessment doesn’t specify what it is, other than making a generic claim that might not reflect actual experience. Our current experience of sentience doesn’t seem illusory, except perhaps as a conceptual overlay that hinders investigation. I'm inviting contemplation without presuming to know what it is. It's a complex, advanced topic. How does sentience arise, and what is it composed of?

Good speaker.

Hey, no need for an answer, just contemplate it.

Good and tricky subject to contemplate for oneself. What's sentience?

Are you asking something?

Listen, guys. Wisdom. Another thing: people will eat up anything that sounds good and validates their preconceptions.

I'd say this is a function of mind and relates to mind control, which might be facilitated after enlightenment. Don't forget Jesus:

Nice, thank you.

There is a fair share of fantasy in the way he's speaking about it. To start with, he may be referring to a state of some sort. Enlightenment isn't about achieving something like a different experience, no matter how unusual or powerful. If this business is not about the relative domain and is already inherently true, would it affect the brain? What would be measured, and how would we go about measuring it? A causal relationship would have to be established between what we call "enlightenment" and its effects on the body, which may be non-existent in the first place. Then again, the brain might be rewired as a byproduct of the increased consciousness, even though this would still be a secondary process and may not be guaranteed. It might also be the case that such realization empowers you in ways that facilitate health, learning, and other things, but this has to be accomplished by you. Besides, different results occur for different people. For example, after a direct consciousness, certain characteristic behaviors and attachments might not come up for you anymore which would yield positive results, yet this would be a function of freedom and of what your self "does" with the realization, so to speak. In any case, we'd be talking about side-effects. Regarding happiness, wanting it precludes yourself from being happy, since this search produces a split between happiness and you. Pursuing it implicitly concedes that you're unhappy now and need to achieve things and manage specific circumstances in order to get "it". However: Is the "it" in this case happiness or something else entirely? There, something.

@Ramu I'd be careful not to presume that one is "awake" so readily.

What way is that?

I’m not sure whether it is possible to stop it altogether. It can likely be reduced a great deal, such as when you’re relaxed and highly focused, but this is always temporary. This seems to be a non-random dynamic. Try to stop thinking for a minute. Then again, thinking mostly shows up for us as the internal dialogue. Meditation would yield positive results, depending on how often and intensely it is done.

Sounds good. I'd do it and see what happens. If you'd like, set a clear intent to experience who you are. Perhaps start with 3 days to get a sense of what the practice is like. Maybe add some variety like stretching exercises and walking and cooking meditation in order to break the long periods of stillness with some movement. Good luck.

In any case, learning a new language helps you create a contrast to help you see that how your culture thinks isn't set in stone. It can bring new ways of thinking and provide new words that describe experiences that may be inaccessible on your native language. So learning a new one is generally positive.

Pizza God.

That one. I was referring to how we consider the distinction of "social" as a reality that is occurring, but is not. A body as an object exists, but there is no such thing as "marriage." A social setting is a good way for the individual to hide behind that act and offload responsibility on that presumed reality. We could begin to think that that means something or is special when referring to enlightenment, and that it is a "collective" effort. Not literally. Is stretching your body a different action before becoming a Yogi than after? What changes? You can do anything free from the wishful thinking attached to any set of belief. Why do you need a system to validate it or give it meaning or a narrative? It just wouldn't lend itself to fantasizing. If you can do something without added pretension, then no need for it. The problem is getting stuck into these fictions and not recognizing them as such. You can see how many Buddhists relate to activities from within a "Buddhist" worldview, with particular expectations that filter their interpretations. And most just believe in it. And this is the trap I'm pointing out. You already subscribe to a few good-sounding cosmologies. Others could be made that are as convincing. I don't often talk in those abstract terms. I used it as an umbrella term to make a point. As I alluded to throughout the interchange, spiritual can mean almost anything, like reciting ancient scriptures, performing rituals, attending a concert. It depends on your goals. My focus is on real experiential confrontation and becoming conscious. This demands honest observation. As any cult member would attempt to justify. When looked closely, besides having a good time, releasing tension, moving their bodies, etc., they're operating from within a certain kind of BS, thinking that something else is occurring that isn't. Again, nothing against dancing and having fun. Thinking that dancing itself will increase your consciousness is wanting something to be true that isn't. This pretension is what "spiritual" pursuits usually end up degrading into. The work itself is already challenging enough without having to fabricate more nonsense. Contemplate why the need to fantasize.

Post-truth?

It was more about others reading the interchange. It's an analogy. You can point to a tree but not a forest. Similarly to how you can point to a body but not to "marriage" or "fight." Anyway, this was beside the point. Washing the dishes could also be called a spiritual practice. It wouldn't be socially validated as much as fun activities would. Without attaching a spiritual narrative around it, the action, event or activity would be what it is. The action can be disdained, enjoyed or used as a way to contemplate, without placing more conceptual baggage on top or concocting a story about what the act means. But people don't seem to consider that a serious possibility. How come there's no spiritual doctrine based around the transcendence of washing the dishes? I'd say because, among other things, this would be silly to do and easy to recognize as wishful thinking. Besides, it's a mundane activity. It's better to use a "spirituality" pretext in order to justify activities that we already want to engage in so that we can give them a special meaning. "Feelings of devotion towards the sacred" is not a phrase I'd ever use. You can meditate, focus, question, go through all kinds of experiences and states, face a wall, study, write, dialogue, facilitate, take psychedelics, and do anything you want. It'd be useful to first clarify what we're doing and why, check on our expectations, and call it by its name. What are pretension and sincerity? What is an ideal?

My pleasure. Nothing like destroying your fantasies.

This is a bit like saying: Why learn to ride a bike if I'm going to fall? Falling is just a minor aspect of riding a bike, especially once you learn to ride it. Just so with life. Acknowledge positive aspects of life such as growth, creativity, intimacy, learning.