SOUL

Pain and suffering aren't quite the same thing but though we can suffer pain all pain isn't suffering and all suffering isn't pain. As an example, there are people who put themselves through painful experiences and it's not suffering to them or perceived negatively. Conversely, there are people who can go through experiences that pleasurable and still suffer in them or perceive them negatively. We can have an experience of continuing physical suffering due to ongoing circumstances but the suffering that the Buddha spoke of and what most seek to be 'free' from is self induced suffering. As well intention as Buddha or other people are in trying to alleviate self induced suffering by saying that life is suffering that isn't expressing the whole as it is. In life there is happiness, sadness, apathy, pain, pleasure, insensitivity, love, fear, dispassion, joy, misery, stoicity and on and on. Life is filled with many things, one of them is suffering and no offense to the wise Buddha but life isn't just suffering. We can be liberated from suffering without the "death" of our body, our ego, our self...we can be at peace in life and it's simply a state of being which may be difficult to realize when we are distracted by everything life encompasses but it is really that simple.... just be it.

Honesty and being authentic aren't quite the same thing. We can be authentic but not necessarily tell everyone everything in our thoughts or our feelings. Thoughts and feelings are perceptions that are filtered through the self conscious so even though we may perceive we are telling someone the 'truth' when we are being radically honest with them it doesn't mean we are accurately expressing what it is. We are expressing it as we perceive it as, which may or may not be accurate to what it is. So understanding this when we are talking about "radical honesty" may allow us to recognize there are perceptions apropos for silence and this doesn't alter how authentic we are being.

Someone can call anything "truth" they want which isn't the same thing as being "true" to their beliefs so this inconsistency between their "truth" and what actually is can produce quite a significant degree of mental yoga in an attempt to validate beliefs/thoughts/ideas/personal experience. Which is why I encourage people to accept this physical manifest for what it is, it may be illusory but it is persistent and insistent in it's behavior regardless of what we believe/think of it or what we perceive it as. People who have a personal experience of subjectively perceived 'truth' which contradicts the objective natural physical manifest often perform extreme mental contortions and rationalizations to resolve their perceptions. An example that often is present in people who profess non-duality is when someone thinks/believes that there is an 'absolute truth' because 'truth' is a dualism/dichotomy so if someone is really non-dual they wouldn't perceive 'truth'. No matter how much one thinks/believes it's "absolute truth" a bookcase isn't a unicorn. To them it may be so are completely convinced it is but they can't make me perceive it as a unicorn and it doesn't magically become one in the physical manifest, it just is what it is.

Our personal experience of inner life.

@Faceless Although, order of thought is subjectively perceived. What I think you mean is logically consistent. Such as if someone thinks that violence is unhealthy and say that they live a healthy life but they also spank their children, this is logically inconsistent or lacking this order you speak of, it's "trueness" Their idea of violence is unhealthy isn't really a "truth" for them because they don't live 'true' to it Their belief that they live a healthy life is a subjective delusion in this scenario because their genuine actions contradict their belief regardless of the rationalization.

Explain this statement if you will. Edit: Ah, I see now that you explained this in another reply. The natural world behaves the way it does objectively, we don't have to believe in gravity for us to be effected by it's forces. Yes, our experience of gravity is subjectively perceived but it doesn't make the natural world behave subjectively, we don't fly away because we subjectively perceive we can fly. Our spiritual or mystical experience is our own, it's our subjective perception and what one calls "truth" another calls 'false'. If someone believes that you go to hell if your don't submit to their belief system it isn't any more truth than them being subject to a belief of the infinite absolute or a tribal shaman's belief in animism. Sure, quite often people believe their own subjective experience faithfully in such a way they believe it to be the "absolute truth". That's what makes it so "absolute" for them in their own experience but no matter how much one believes in their truth of hell or reincarnate or nothingness, they can't make it truth for anyone else. Yet, well all fall down even if we don't believe it.

Although to call what exists as it is a theoretical is a personal belief and not accepting what is as it is. This is what happens within the dogmatic belief paradigm that often permeates 'enlightenment' ideology when the physical manifest reality is denied to exist to then invest in beliefs derived only from their personal experience proclaiming it to be Absolute Truth for everyone. Anyone can create any number or variety of ideas and concepts but regardless of how many people share them they are beliefs, not necessarily what is. Ouch... that hurt.

So be it.

Belief is a tool used in the scientific method, without belief there is no trusting any part of it as valid.

Sure, even me using the words like joy, fulfillment, peace and well being are just labels attempting to communicate a message about an indescribable nature. Life and self are momentary, they are ever changing states in a temporal pooling of flowing consciousness but their changing temporary state doesn't invalidate their presence of being.

Yup

People often view things in duality unconsciously as opposites like sadness and happiness or fear and love but emotion is an individual impulse feeling that each has it's own characteristics that can often rise in combination within us. Being aware of those characteristics allows us to recognize their presence even if they are mixed together or hiding behind rationalizations so not be influenced by them. Although it reveals how our state of being can get swayed by waves of impulse sensations and exposes that happiness is a wavering.placating of the emotional body but not something that is lasting like the joy, fulfillment and peace that comes from a sense of well being.

This can be a powerful way to transform our conditioning and that's what it is, layers of biological and social conditioning. So much conditioning is wrapped in moralizing which often leads to self resentment, guilt and abuse but stripping away the unconscious conditioning and letting things be as they are can free us up to form our perceptions to be loving. Being motivated by love instead of fear can transform that judgment into acceptance and behaviors will change along with it. We could try to use judgment to measure specific behaviors for change which appears like we are 'self examining' but it is still a fear based way to do it using unconscious conditioning. Building around love motivation changes behaviors into naturally being from well intention. All the methods, techniques and rationalizations are empty of the power to transform our behaviors to be selfless if they still come from fear, that ultimately manifests as selfish but motivated from love it empowers them to be genuinely compassionate.

Science is used to learn about the natural world, spirituality is used to learn about our own nature, they aren't contradictory, they can be complementary. It isn't quite as clear cut as science is objective and spirituality is subjective since we are creatures with both objective and subjective experience, our experience is holistic. Truth is relative to what is being measured compared to the standard used, some people believe the subjective as the absolute truth and dismiss the objective while others see it inverted to that. Recognizing how our life experience encompasses the whole can allow us to grow past being locked in a limited belief paradigm.

I have a sense of well being that is a lasting joy, fulfillment and peace. What really brought this into my experience is not finding what makes me 'happy', it is recognizing what is preventing me from 'being' it. So my study is of the self to become aware of what is causing the inner turmoil and resolving that which allowed the sense of well being to be felt more in life than just the specific circumstances of what may make me 'happy'. So in the joke analogy, instead of finding what's funny in the joke to laugh at, why I laugh now has nothing to do with the joke at all, everything is 'funny', life 'just IS funny'. Does that make any sense?

If someone believes that believing in a physical world blocks enlightenment, it does for them, it's a self fulfilling belief.

The body gives signals involuntarily when it needs nourishment, the ego is not required to get hunger pangs, it just wants to choose the meal...well, that and take pictures of it to post to social media.

I encourage you to be aware of nuance with what I said. As someone who sells a book list you have incentive to defend reading lots of books so it doesn't surprise me you noticed my comment even though you misunderstood it.

Reading lots of books filled with ideas and allowing them to occupy the mind conceptualizing into paradigms that the ego identifies with is mental masturbation.

@Nahm Maya is a beautifull creature even if it's a little temperamental.

@Nahm

Haha... just haha.

@Dodo sock monkey guru

.....absolutely.