Joseph Maynor

@John Iverson Woah I didn't realize you asked the same question as me basically. That's a trip, we both had the same question today. That's pretty random.

This is where you keep your focus on awareness itself. I really like this type of meditation that Leo taught us in one of his meditation videos. I think "How to Meditate Deeper" is it. It kinda feels like a concentration practice though since you are focusing on one thing.

@2000 Yeah. What's tripping me out right now is seeing that the thoughts I perceive are not my own. They are simply part of what is. Like a boulder on the side of a mountain. I guess this extends to emotions too. They are not my own. They are like passing ships in the night. Of course my self-image is not me, and that's been the wackiest one to purge. I did a bunch of work before unsettling self-image, but I'm taking that one up a notch too now which is very unsettling but freeing at the same time. I still don't understand why my feeling that I act has to be illusory. Or, let's express it non-dualistically the feeling that action is being made. I don't have to identify as the actor in order to perceive an act taken. This might be sounding bizarre. It's getting late where I live.

Control and anger are definitely in there somewhere.

Check out Nathaniel Branden's books on self esteem. There half-a-dozen on Audible.com which are all good. I have them all. This will work on re-building your self esteem.

Start building some routines. This is what started me on the path.

Maybe a good idea for a video Leo. Out of the head and into the body. I'll have to start to practice this stuff too per your recommendation to me. I didn't even know about this stuff before.

Hard to say. If you got exposed to the right theory and teachers, perhaps. Assuming you don't flounder around so long like the rest of us did. Sure. Move towards it. Watch all of Leo's videos. Keep partipating on here and don't be scared to ask questions or to look stupid. That's what I did. I'm a shameless man lol. I've always been pretty shameless. With enlightenment work being shameless can help you because if you don't bounce ideas off of people who can help you, that's where you get stuck. And often times when you are stuck you don't even realize you are. These are called blind-spots. Enlightenment work is full of blind-spots. So, yeah it's possible, the question is whether you will rise to the occasion. But then again, I'm not as enlightened as most people are on here. I'm like still at the intermediate stage of enlightenment, not the advanced stage. But you gotta take your own bull by the horns and speak up and engage the people on here to help you. This place is a goldmine if you use it. But people aren't gonna come to you, you gotta come to them. Be eager to learn and grow.

What's wrong with Solipsism? I was beginning to like Solipsism until you came along and burst my bubble! Now what do I do! I found Solipsism to be very rational and comforting to tell you the truth! No lie. I wanna be everything and nothing at once. I was happy that other people do not get to exist! I'll watch the video. I'm gonna watch this video now.

From Leo. I hated the concept at first.

He just wants us all to behave. That's it. No stupid shenanigans!

Doesn't this thesis or concept put us a tad into the matrix too? A tad into theoretical idealism? Reality just is. The ego is concept, an idea. I can cling to or release the concept of ego. I do not need to define or view myself or reality through that prism. In fact, it seems erroneous on the surface to do so, does it not? It's like an apple believing it's a Red Delicious in some fundamental way.

@Nahm Thanks. Honesty is the best policy. At the end of the day. Unless you're a dick, honesty is the best policy. And maybe even for the dick too, I guess it depends on the context.

@Nichols Harvey I am beyond the stage of correcting others now. I have a deeper grasp of what reality is too. And also what ego is. I feel more peace and love now than ever. And I'm pretty sure I am at stage yellow too. I guess yellow never gives up green. Green learns to love and the importance of love. So, I have made some enlightenment progress. Maybe not as much as you have, but I'm definitely on the path further-up than where I was when I came on here. So, kudos to you folks for tolerating me. Nobody's perfect in the beginning. Let's remember that. There's a learning-curve to this stuff and then after that there's a practice-curve. I'm not interested in attacking anybody anymore. Unless you want me to. Hey, if you want me to, I'll do it with relish haha out of a sense of amusement and contribution (with emphasis on the latter of course). If you ask for it and it helps you, why not? But you gotta ask me first. I don't care otherwise. I am tender-hearted and want to help other people, but I don't want to play the role of healer either. That can turn into a distraction from my own growth. It's a tough balance as you know yourself to negotiate this dilemma. I gotta worry about my own personal development first and remember that always. And I still have a lot of work to do. It's like the old saying when you point a finger at someone you are pointing three right back at yourself. That saying is very wise. Here's a video from Leo that I find really good for my growth right now. Maybe you can find time to watch it. Thanks friends.

@Nichols Harvey Gotcha. Interesting. I gotta make sure I am not being too much of an idealist regarding reality. I'll consider this in the next couple of days and see if I see any shifts. It's interesting that there are parallels in epistemology in Western Philosophy to this -- The shift from Hume to Moore. It's the person that doesn't think they're being idealistic who often is. Common-sense ain't to be underestimated.

You think reality is illusory?

Is this based on this premise and argument: The idea that our theory of consciousness as existing in the head is erroneous. Therefore we need an expanded theory of consciousness and awareness that perhaps extends beyond what we think of as the psyche. Thus a notion of body-mind seems to at a minimum cause us to redress our myopia regarding how we ordinarily conceive of consciousness and become open to expanding our conception of consciousness.

The reputation feature rewards participation though. In that sense the reputation feature is cool. It's fun. Nothing wrong with a bit of fun. I think it's kind of tongue in cheek myself. I'm an expert. Sometimes I sound like an expert too ironically. But sometimes I probably sound like a caricature of one. Like the Nutty Professor. So it cuts both ways. Everybody starts off as a Greenhorn too no matter how smart they are. I like that.

I'm a Sagittarius and I fit my sign very well.

I'm sorry, but what are you implying here Dodo lol.

I find it disconcerting that we can't define these terms more consistently. Everybody does seem to have and use their own definitions.

Get it. I read several books in it that were excellent. Kinda took me from the newbie to intermediate level in personal development a couple of years ago. I listened to many of the books as audiobooks. Surprisingly a lot of them are on Audible. I prefer audiobooks to paper books.

I can see how non-dualists think all is one if you strip concept out of reality and just take what is in the skandhas in the moment as what is real. Am I off target here folks? Take the case of my mom. One might contend that my mom is part of me when I sense her, and only those elements in my skandhas are really real. Therefore, my mom is mostly concept. Am I making sense? Thinking of my mom as real is like taking a little nugget of idealism and adding it to reality. What is in my skandhas that I call my mom is not the same as the concept of my mom that I might choose to cling to or to release in a moment. But reality is not bothered at all by whether I cling to or release that concept. Therefore, whatever reality is is independent of that concept of my mom that I am clinging to. My mom is really just a collection of items in my shandhas that change every moment. Visuals, audibles, touches, etc. That's my mom really. And there is no cause to separate-out these items from my skandhas and label them as a separate thing. That too would be clinging to concept. Reality just is. Furthermore, there is no cause to bifurcate reality because that would be clinging to concept, like taking a little nugget of idealism and adding it to reality, looking at reality as though you were looking through a warped lens. Have I gotten it finally folks! I think this is the big insight here. At least one of the biggies. And this is changing me, this realization. I can already feel myself transforming. So, this is not just intellectual masturbation here. This is an epiphany basically. The second one I had on here.

No, I'm talking about accepting or releasing a concept. I advance no theory. I can observe reality without accepting a concept of reality or a concept of me. I could release those concepts with no change to empirical reality. That's what I'm saying. It's expressed conceptually, but I'm referring to awareness, accepting, and releasing only. I also don't like the word empirical reality but I'm using the term to mean a snapshot of awareness in a moment. It's hard not to use that term.

It's happening to me now. It's unsettling. What a paradigm shift. I still have a few matters to clear up though. Like do others people's emptinesses exist, and is that experientially confirmable or am I just clinging to concept with that assumption.