Joseph Maynor

Just wondering.

@Arkandeus But isn't saying they are already enlightened a judgment too? And that hurts you because you are comparing yourself with them. There are some objective metrics to enlightenment. If you deny this, that is a judgment too, and it is false. We don't have to be relativists. You can withhold judgment, but you are making judgments too, not just withholding judgment. There's a difference between skepticism and relativism. Your position is more relativism than skepticism. And that's a position, a judgment. And it's false. It's concept, not the Truth. The skeptic, by contrast, would not advance their own point of view, their own judgment, their own partition of reality. You do advance a point of view. And you are either asking us to take you seriously or not. There'a s sense in which you are partitioning reality too here. But maybe you're giving with one hand and taking away with another, but that is just the illusion of not making a judgment. The only way to not make a judgment is to not make a judgment. That's the position of the skeptic. Once you open Pandora's Box and make your own judgment, you are doing what you are complaining about. That's a trap.

Curious. Playing music means creating music, including but not limited to playing a musical instrument. I play jazz trumpet, but I stopped a couple of months ago because I became convinced that music was slowing down my growth. I stopped listening to music too at that time.

Having songs playing in my head all the time was feeding my monkey-mind.

I am fortunate I've never been addicted to success. I had my head in the philosophy books too much for that. So I had the opposite problem, kind of an eschewing of success, a pooh-poohing of success. And that caused a lot of suffering in my life and for my business. I think there's a balance. Do your business, but try to keep it as green as possible. Chasing success was something I was never able to do, although there were moments in my life where I really wanted to. Those all backfired on me. Ego ultimately backfires. Business isn't inherently bad though, as long as you keep your priorities straight and your head screwed on tight. Business is a way of sharing your gifts with the world. I have a little business myself which could use a couple heaps of love and care. We forget that our businesses are like organisms, like systems, which need the right kinds of care to survive, let alone flourish.

Just curious. I'm listening to the audiobook myself again now.

Radical acceptance and letting go is a necessary but not sufficient condition for enlightenment. I read a pamphlet that is free online summarizing some of her stuff. Leo's material reflects the same ideas basically. Here it is! Check it out. http://thework.com/sites/thework/downloads/Little Book.pdf

@Anna1 I no longer need to seek. But to get to this point I did seek heavily, as you and everyone on here is aware of. Heavy seeking on here for 1 month. But before I came on here I was having enlightenment experiences without realizing it as such for about 1 year. What happened to your picture?

Just curious. The sound of nothingness is the only sound that remains.

Just curious. I know we tend to focus on the theory, but the theory and the experience are two different things.

Major progress on path to enlightenment. I wouldn't be able to do it without the shaping of people here. You need feedback and inquiry for enlightenment work.

I like your idea that "Wakeful people have set up systems to help them follow their core values automatically." This is key. I appreciate your outlines. Some ideas that I have collated myself about systems that might interest you: 1. Systems are all about balance and harmony. 2. Systems respond to outside forces in complex ways. 3. There are no absolute truths for Stage Yellow. All there is is a bunch of partial perspectives. And every perspective is partial. 4. Almost everything can be thought of as a system. Almost all problems are systemic problems. 5. Belief in your beliefs is dogma and it's what is holding back every stage below Stage Yellow. 6. Stage Yellow is ecological in their thinking. 7. Systems work in counter-intuitive ways. They don't work in overly simplistic ways. 8. When there's a larger system at work that we don't understand, this is a cause of failure and problems. 9. Stage Yellow realizes that life is paradoxical. 10. Stage Yellow sees the world as perspectives and in shades of grey and sees the world as systems to solve the problems that they care about. 11. Systems resist you trying to change them. 12. The dogmatic person, every stage under Stage Yellow, pulls out the pitchfork when somebody offends them or attacks their worldview. This is an adversarial relationship with reality and life. Instead of getting defensive, look over what was said and see if there is something there or a way to expand your model or growth to cover the new facts. Stage Yellow has a robust model of the world. And Stage Yellow always assumes that they could be wrong and is open-minded. 13. The ego is a system. 14. If you feel that your perspective of the world is the Truth, you are not at Stage Yellow. 15. Stage Yellow sees the world from the perspective of interconnected systems. These systems interact with each other in interesting and counter-intuitive ways. The subconscious mind is also a system. To change a system you have to understand it first to avoid traps. 16. Think of systems as organisms and meta-organisms. 17. You are a conflicted system maintaining homeostasis. By raising awareness, the web of beliefs starts to restructure itself naturally. 18. When you get angry, stop and look at the big picture. Your point of view is not the dominant point of view. So what you judge as evil is not what evil is. There are no divisions. Your partition gets encroached upon because it's part of a larger system where encroachment happens. 19. Systems thinking requires that you start to step outside your self-centered view of the world. You have to be conscious enough to step outside of your own value system and genuinely care about other beings besides yourself and your tribe. 20. Systems are non-linear. This means that they are unpredictable and chaotic. 21. Stage Yellow gives up rationalism and absolute truth. 22. You're a distributed system not a centralized system. 23. Set realistic, pragmatic expectations regarding making change in your life. Expect that your subconscious mind and body systems will play tricks on you to resist the change to maintain homeostasis. 24. Think of everything as a system. 25. Problems are systemic and not personal. Poorly designed systems are creating the problems.

I understand. The nature of this forum presupposes a certain protocol regarding posing issues. It's the nature of the communication process to frame certain things certain ways, especially within a short amount of space. It's like trying to find subtlety in a bowl of white rice. You gotta be bold enough to ask questions though to get any answers.

Just curious. Sort of like one might reminisce of childhood, perhaps. I don't think you could go back to being egoic though. Not entirely anyway. Could you really go back to being 10 years old, even if you really wanted to?

@Toby In order to formulate any question there is a model presupposed. Same thing with answers. Your answer is not the Truth either, just a perspective. A judgment. If you don't care, then that is ego. Why not accept my question as reality? Instead you argued with it. You staked a position. You partitioned reality.

@Gavalanche This is a great video idea. My favorite.

There is no answer to this. Being has no partition.

The best meditation is no-manipulation meditation. Watch: If you want to become enlightened, do these too:

@Anna1 There really is no answer possible. Only being reveals the wordless answer. Garbage in, insight out -- paradoxically. What can words teach us about being? It's like trying to build a skyscaper with Jello -- it just creates a huge mess.

We like to say that reality is self-aware. But I'm starting to realize that even this distinction is false, a model. Awareness is a kind of control-seeking, if you think about it. Natural awareness is very different from awareness as we often understand it. You can't really individuate natural awareness that way. Enlightenment is letting go of the mind. This is the only real problem. I figured this out by the school of hard knocks. I guess all the theory is just to get you to release the mind. No mind, no ego, no problems. It's that simple. You could fit this on a postcard. Shorter than the Heart Sutra. Check it out. Am I right? The Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore (the "Heart Sutra") Avalokiteshvara while practicing deeply with the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore, suddenly discovered that all of the five Skandhas are equally empty, and with this realisation he overcame all Ill-being. “Listen Sariputra, this Body itself is Emptiness and Emptiness itself is this Body. This Body is not other than Emptiness and Emptiness is not other than this Body. The same is true of Feelings, Perceptions, Mental Formations, and Consciousness. “Listen Sariputra, all phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness; their true nature is the nature of no Birth no Death, no Being no Non-being, no Defilement no Purity, no Increasing no Decreasing. “That is why in Emptiness, Body, Feelings, Perceptions, Mental Formations and Consciousness are not separate self entities. The Eighteen Realms of Phenomena which are the six Sense Organs, the six Sense Objects, and the six Consciousnesses are also not separate self entities. The Twelve Links of Interdependent Arising and their Extinction are also not separate self entities. Ill-being, the Causes of Ill-being, the End of Ill-being, the Path, insight and attainment, are also not separate self entities. Whoever can see this no longer needs anything to attain. Bodhisattvas who practice the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore see no more obstacles in their mind, and because there are no more obstacles in their mind, they can overcome all fear, destroy all wrong perceptions and realize Perfect Nirvana. “All Buddhas in the past, present and future by practicing the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore are all capable of attaining Authentic and Perfect Enlightenment. “Therefore Sariputra, it should be known that the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore is a Great Mantra, the most illuminating mantra, the highest mantra, a mantra beyond compare, the True Wisdom that has the power to put an end to all kinds of suffering. Therefore let us proclaim a mantra to praise the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore. Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha! Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha! Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!” https://plumvillage.org/news/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation/

Cool. I'm reading the Upanishads right now. Not all schools of Vedanta are non-dual: Some of the better known sub-traditions of Vedanta include Advaita (non-dualism), Vishishtadvaita (qualified non-dualism), and Dvaita (dualism). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedanta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishishtadvaita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvaita_Vedanta

"If one inquires as to where in the body the thought "I" arises first, one would discover that it rises in the heart. That is the place of the mind's origin." "Who Am I" by Ramana Maharshi, Paragraph 9. http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/who_am_I.pdf What do you glean from this?

@Cepzeu you're still thinking too conceptually about the Self.

It seems like at some point you just have to be the Truth and not conceptualize Enlightenment, otherwise the ego never fully dies. How can you be the Truth when you are creating a partition within it by augmenting the Truth with concepts, fantasies, theories? Reality contains no partitions. The ego has to drop thinking about Enlightenment to completely die. So, at some point inquiry has to end to become truly enlightened. After you cross the river, you can dump the raft. But the ego wants to cling to this raft because you spent a lot of time making it. But clinging to the raft after crossing the river only slows you down and prevents you from reaching your desired final destination. Your thoughts? Read this too. I love this little article. So informative. http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/who_am_I.pdf

That's awesome. It's so anti-egoic. The ego want to know. Greed for knowledge is egoic.