kieranperez

I'll give my usual prerequisites... Diagnosed with ADHD at 6 (2001) with a ton of cognitive testing and was on ADHD medication for 17 years (I've been on every single one) up until the age of 22 when I got off. This really is the crux of the issue. We don't really know what ADD/ADHD is. There is something to be said for diet for some people. I've met people with ADHD who that really is there issue. I'm in property management/real estate and gave a guy a showing who has ADHD that's literally allergic to what seems like everything. That said, one of the things that's really starting to be understood is how much of it is also trauma related. The work of those that have pioneered things like attachment theory and so forth are really finding that ADHD is also a developmental trauma and even prenatal trauma. I'm certainly in this camp. ADHD though is certainly a legitimate phenomena. It's not some made up Orwellian Big Brother conspiracy theory just to drug children (though it is certainly over-diagnosed). I really am of the stance that we have to take a look at the family structure within our Western cultures as children who grow up in child centered family structures for example have a lot less cases of things like ADHD. Famously The Dalai Lama was once giving an interview where he was asked about self loathing and he stopped the press conference because he couldn't understand Americans and self loathing because it doesn't exist in Tibet due to the nature of their upbringing. Westerners are growing up with a lot more attachment disturbances and neuroses than a lot of other 3rd world traditional cultures because of this change in upbringing and lifestyle and the burden parents have to endure. Especially the lack of legitimate spiritual infrastructure in our culture. Oh please. Give me a break. From what I've studied

Only thing is that's all hearsay. We have enough historical evidence to back up people like Gautama Buddha or Muhammad and so forth. There's plenty of historical sites we know they went to and so forth.

There is no evidence to suggest there was ever a historical Jesus. Keep that in mind. Not even the gnostics regard him as a historical person but rather as an archetype.

How many of you that are on this forum have actually done a retreat? Please list how many you have done, how many you have coming up that you are genuinely planning on attending, how long each retreat was, and also what kind of retreat/intensive it was. Total Retreats for me: 2 Retreat #1 April 2021: Virtual online 3 day meditation retreat (good way to dip my toe in the water. Retreat #2 April 2021: Peter Ralston's last Insight & Enlightenment Intensive. 7 days total. Upcoming Retreat #1, August 2021 (signed up): 7 day Rinzai Zen sesshin Upcoming Retreat #2, September 2021 (signed up): 7 day Rinzai Zen sesshin

@Consilience apologies for never getting back to this. I'm concerned about the getting caught up in a collective agenda that is besides awakening. I'm very careful to notice what agendas certain organizations have and how they conflate that with realization. Whenever I see teachers that conflate realization with their political agendas as being one thing, that to me is a problem. I've looked into monasteries that are very heavy on BLM and what not though I've heard they may have very awake teachers when it comes to the depth of their insight, that still for me is a no go and a big red flag. Doshin has been incredibly helpful to me with this. I also am concerned about getting paradigm locked within a particular framework such as Buddhism or yoga or whatever. I don't want to pretend that Buddhism or some tradition has it all down or pretend anyone or anything does. Personally I'm a bit allergic to surrendering to any dogma. That said, I can totally work within a particular framework and form of practice without dogmatizing it. I just don't want to be pressured to dogmatize it. This is the same thing with Peter as far as I've heard. He stop transmitting back in the 90s because his students just got hooked on him. Which, to be fair, it's hard not to when you're really around a guy who is very powerful energetically. Yeah I definitely hear you there.

I'm calling bullshit.

It's probably going to happen and as far as I can there's nothing going that's going to stop it. As it must be. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen. As a great Zen master I heard once say when asked about change, "We change when we have to." China isn't some separate isolated cause to any upcoming world war. This has been building for several decades now and, like I already said, as far as I'm concerned, nothing is going to stop it from happening. The mistakes that were made in history usually repeats on higher level when the generation that made them and learned from them has died off. There is no lever to be found as far as controlling things. There is no center of control.

UP VOTE! https://www.reddit.com/r/lexfridman/comments/mv87jo/comment/h1ym5e7?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3&fbclid=IwAR08slyfnBPRAfaBL2Z_7wbAHZc20cXnHp9A8KrfnHmnZf_biF-GZGbP10o

@Flowerfaeiry this is a similar case to how the human mind can't really compute numbers like 100,000 or a 1,000,000 or 1,000,000,000. Social media and the internet, though is helpful in many areas of life, is a very poor tool when it comes to quality sense making. It also gives a very false impression for how one genuinely comes to know something. For instance, have you ever gone to a foreign 3rd world country you heard had all this crime and what not and then actually go there to find that your experience there was nowhere close to what you imagined it would be given all the reports you read and came across? This isn't to demonize or poo poo news media outlets. We can say perhaps that mind is left to do what has to do, namely resort to abstraction. News media outlets have a very difficult job to create a system that distributes quality sense-making and has good epistomeicalical and ethical checks and balances. Which, doesn't take into account that there are bills to be paid and dollars to be made and corners to be cut to make sure they get enough viewers and what not. Even then though, assuming there was such a quality system that distributed good sense-making (whatever that would even mean), that still doesn't take into consideration the fact that that would still resort to the problem of indirect knowledge, belief, faith, hearsay, etc. Quality sense-making is matter of how one genuinely comes to know something and that is only found in experience. Nothing short of that will suffice if the goal is direct experiential knowledge.

Ah yes! Soryu! I didn't know that was something they offered. Very cool! It was a very casual first toe in the water with Integral Zen and Doshin Roshi who is someone that knows me pretty damn well by now. I went to Peter & Brendan's IEW the next week which was great and many little insights. Though it was more focused I don't find the word "intense" really suits it well for me since I wanted to go there so bad I never thought of it as being so brutally tough or whatever. I imagine the 2 upcoming Zen sesshins will be more much more tough. Doshin is actually going to help me stay a little bit after at one of the monasteries (Yokoji in Southern California outside of LA) to get more of a hands on taste of monastic life which I'm still kinda considering despite the fear of getting pigeonholed. I'm curious, since you've sat with Shinzen (given that you can still really experience transference of states over video chat - thank you quantum mechanics!), does he have a pretty potent state he transmits that you can feel when you sit with him? I remember my first & only sit with Doshin I was literally seeing fractals on the ground and was like 'holy fuck! I didn't even take anything!' Yeah, I already messaged Brendan. Apparently his prerequisite is having attended two consciousness workshops which wouldn't work for me since I've only been to one. I still threw the offer out there because I'd want to help them out and get some good growth since there would definitely be some solid work to do.

What monastery are you checking out? That'd be great if you can find a monastery that gives that kind of flexibility as well as have a job that'd be flexible enough to get in serious practice. I might volunteer to help out with logistics there. Don't think I'll attend cause of cost. Would love to help though. This isn't his home practice stuff is it? I've heard good stuff about it. What is your experience with working with him? 100% agreed. There's a power and potency in a retreat/monastic container that's just so helpful that it's rather foolish to try and do that on one's own. Yep. The life circumstance thing is a big one. I've been pretty lucky in that I can probably do a few a year.e

Mods @Leo Gura @Natasha and others, could you guys edit the title to this? Or would I need to make a new post?

Bump

I know that what you’re saying. theory that is not grounded in or mates experience is not useful. Especially when it comes to things like psychotherapy, “healing”, etc. Practice based on theoretical/abstract idealism doesn’t heal people. Mondo you, I am not claiming sociopaths and psychopaths can’t live productive lives, have relationships, etc. They can. Part of what I am saying though is to not expect them to have the same psychological capacities or expect them to show up the same as those that don’t have say cluster-b personality disorders. That’s just not a fair, realistic, nor honest expectation to have. We’re not gonna all show up the same. I am not saying that I think that’s what your saying but this is sort of inevitable presumptions when people think or believe that “everybody can be healed” because… what does that even mean? That doesn’t really say anything. It’s not useful to speak or think of people’s psychology and personality as like a generic thing. Working with criminals who have things like sociopathy, psychopathy, or those kinds of cases isn’t at all gonna be the same as most people you find on the street. @Ajay0 thanks for the links and references. I appreciate that kind of post so I want to encourage the spirit of that. Mindfulness based stuff in prisons does seem to be pretty helpful but that said, our prisons need a more complete overhaul of our intention would be to have them truly be able to become productive contributing members of society. Plus, many of the most dangerous prison systems are in the very countries you listed. I imagine the only reason they implemented something like mindfulness practice in their prison systems is precisely because it’s so bad. Regarding the story of the Buddha, I am familiar with that story and I could certainly imagine certain beings could be really transformative for certain prisoner types. I doubt that would work for everybody though. I could be wrong about that though (and I hope I am).

That’s nothing short of foolish. You might as well expect emotional fluency from someone whose autistic or retarded. Your expectations have to do with you and you alone. All of that is about you and this naive view watered down understanding of the complexities of human psychology. Yeah, and that’s exactly how you’d get manipulated and exploited. You’re going to judge people anyways because you already do along with everybody else.

I would really throw that term away and don’t get so hooked on it. Monks still fall back in their practice just like anyone who works on anything. Athletes have times where their motivation drops and their fitness backslides a bit and they can struggle a bit more when their training load increases. Same goes for monks and the spiritual path. New subtler and more fundamental forms of resistance or emotional content can arise in various ways. Having a committed container that is engineered in various sophisticated ways that has been fine tuned over the course of thousands of years help with that. People can hit points of legitimate madness on retreats. It just depends on the person, their karma, and many various factors that often can’t really be predicted ahead of time. When I say extended period of practice I mean over the course of months and years. Tibetan Buddhist monks and yogis go on isolated retreats in the Himalayas that can be more than 10 years long. You’re likely not going to transcend all those heaps of tendencies over a one week meditation retreat or even a month for that matter. Even after realization, the further fine tuning while take the rest of your life.

Psychopaths can feel love and can feel certain emotions. They specifically lack things such as empathy, guilt, shame, etc. (which is not a healthy, desirable, or good thing). The first 5 videos is a 5 part series of a woman who has psychopathy basically saying what it’s like to be her, her experience, and so on. The last video is a woman who is clinically diagnosed as a narcissistic sociopath. I know somebody whose a functioning psychopath that runs a coffee shop. Tbh I never would have been able to tell but he has a high turnover rate with his employees because of the way he treats them.

It’s also common to have a satori or kensho on the way home (so long as we speak as if satori or kensho is something that happens). By and large though the usual self activity and habits will come back.

You can likely expect to revert back into old patterns. If you want legitimate restructure of how you experience self, mind, and the day to day way in which you live you’re likely going to need extended practice periods for months or years at a time. Monastic residencies or becoming a monk and what not are possible routes but if you haven’t done a meditation retreat or enlightenment intensive or any such workshop or retreat I highly recommend you do that first. These retreats are mostly design to build towards a breakthrough over the days.

You’re assuming some people even have such a capacity. You’re underestimating the complex psychology behind many of these kinds of people. Try approaching a psychopath with empathy and he will just have an easy pass to manipulate you like you wouldn’t believe and you wouldn’t even know it. Try approaching some gang members from the hood with empathy and see how far that gets you.

First off, the basis of the title is misleading because it’s only indicating and specifying particular actions (rape, pedophilia, murder, etc.) and not asking about the numerous different motivations and variables and psychological determinants that may lead many different individuals down such paths of action. Which, quite frankly is the wrong question nor helpful. It would also be helpful to be concrete and specific with what it is we’re actually talking about when we speak of things like healing. Psychological cases and motivations that lead people down those kinda paths can be incredibly varied. The short answer is that some of them can heal and be rehabilitated into healthy functioning individuals and some clearly cannot. The case for the former is quite simple and that is that we’ve all heard of people who have been through horrific upbringings end have caused immense suffering only to then turn their lives around 180 degrees and actually become a force for positive change and so forth. So we know some can. We also know those people out there that you simply can’t change. Hell, you don’t even need to be a murderer or rapist. That’s true for so many people living very ordinary lives. The guys that can’t stop gambling or drinking or really let go of their bad temper and so forth. One of the first things that needs to be in place is the motivation and drive to actually want to change. You can’t heal or change people who don’t want to heal or don’t want to change. Now, let’s go into more complicated territory. Let’s talk about issues like those that are clinically say psychopathic or sociopathic or narcissistic personality disorder. Those kind of people that have legitimate brain deficiencies that don’t register nor have existent capacities for things like empathy, guilt, shame, and so forth. Let’s be clear, there is such a thing as healthy shame and guilt and those with psychopathy or sociopathy don’t have that. At all. If you ever actually meet such a person, you can actually see that aspect of their personality (in comparison to others) for who the lights just aren’t on in that sense. Such people are highly predatory and manipulative by temperament. They also have a very vague and undeveloped sense of self and a very weak ego structure, which is actually incredibly important. If you’re going to work with a narcissist, psychopath, or sociopath (which is a terribly foolish idea unless you’re a trained professional), helping them to feel like things shame and guilt and even depression is actually a good sign. It’s true that successful therapeutic intervention can facilitate progress in the sense that they can create coping strategies and even have tools to develop their sense of self but these kinds of people are going to be radically different than most people. You’re not going to turn a psychopath into some Dalai Lama like person. You’re just not.

So as someone who was a competitive sub elite distance runner and has studied the sport since the age of 12 and now actually starting to come back into the sport after a few years off I think I'll have some stuff that could contribute. First off some questions: How long have you been running up till now? How consistently have you or are you running each week? How long are your runs? What is your background with running? What's your current status in terms of your fitness? Are you or have you ever been an endurance athlete (disregard competence/abilities)? Are you in good shape? Any recurring injuries in the past? Can you explain more this pain in your ankles? Is it an inflammation thing? Can you describe the pain? Is it an ache? is it sharp? What's your intent with your running?

What a beautiful implementation and representation of 2nd tier spirituality and systems thinking. Notice that he's not trying to push awakening down to people's throats like some dogmatic preacher. You don't earn people's trust that you have their best interest when sharing your spirituality by just undermining them like some arrogant asshole . Rather, give them certain practices that will have some great benefits that may seem rather small but it sets the stage in establishing a positive relationship to the practice. If you aren't familiar with Rebel Wisdom I highly recommend checking them out. They have a really great platform and community and it's a delight to see.

TFW you take a wrong turn in the bardo and you gotta do this shit all over again.

No one knows and probably never will.