Emerald

Thanks. It's not super hard to find the energy exactly because contemplation and other deconstructive mental activities similar to that have always been a big part of my life, even when I was a child. It's practically a compulsion of mine, at this point. But the uninterrupted quiet time is practically non-existent. So, my meditation practice or anything that's more mentally quiet suffers for it. But I'm trying to find something that I can stay more consistent with. I think a lot of moms could benefit from meditation. If you've ever hung around the moms of small children, there are some pretty negative social dynamics... sort of like competitive parenting. There's a tendency toward negation of all interests that aren't child related that's sort of echoed by older social norms that have survived into modern day. It's easy to get pressured into and caught up with if someone's not careful. So, meditation or any consciousness raising activity could be used to get more awareness of how this dynamic effects emotions and actions.

My obstacle is primarily having small children (1 and 4 years old) to attend to constantly. My husband works and I've been a stay at home mom for a little over a year now. So, we're currently pretty old-school in our family structure: very 1950s. When I was working; child-rearing, work, and housework were a bit more evenly divided up between us. When I do my meditation practice, it's sort of at the generosity of my husband to take some of his time off work to attend to the kids. So, I feel a little guilty if I take longer than 30 minutes. He also lets me do my filming for my Youtube channel kid-free for a couple hours a week too, which is more time from his time off. Sometimes if I tell him early enough, he'll let me do an hour of meditation but I normally don't ask because of guilt. This whole dynamic is very discouraging to me and I currently have a very inconsistent meditation practice in general. I'm trying to remedy this by waking up at 6 am before everyone else gets up but it happens often that son wakes up while I'm meditating. That's why I tell everyone who's serious about enlightenment work who isn't tied down with a family, to take time off of life to do a bunch of retreats or a long term residency where they can dedicate the lion-share of their time to meditation. It's exactly what I'd be doing. But I'd imagine that once both of the kids are in school, I'll be much better able to keep my practice consistent and catch fire with some longer sits.

Thanks! Well, the number one reason that we lie in the first place is because we believe ourselves. So we don't actually know that we're lying. We just don't see it because we're used to believing our thought stories. When we're mindful enough to see the process of lying and identifying with falseness, it becomes almost comical that we could have believed our self-lies in the first place. So, the lying drops away naturally as we observe it because it doesn't have the effect that it used to. We don't believe in it anymore. Just like, when you were five years old you might have been excited when your parents told you that Santa was coming. If your parents told you that Santa was coming now, you'd look at them like they were crazy. It's because you're aware of the falseness and untruth behind Santa Claus. It's effortless to see through the falseness and you waste no more thought on it. So, mindfulness is key. So part one from your post above is what is necessary, and parts two and three are methods for achieving part one. Here is an example of a self-lie that I used to tell myself. I used to tell myself "I'm an honest person." Notice how I'm making a generalization about an "I", when there is no "I". It could have been true that I tried to only speak the truth, but there is no me to actually be labeled as honest. Plus, this generalization only existed to fortify the ego. Or another lie, "I'm open-minded"... but was I open-minded to close-mindedness or was I just using it to paint this "I" as a good guy by contrasting it with people I had labeled as closed minded, and thus the bad guys? The reality is that the statement "I am open-minded" was only there to assert my ego's dominance over closed-minded people. It was there to serve a self-concept. Certainly, there were things that I didn't feel right about: murder, rape, incest, etc. If I were to believe the concept, "I am open-minded" in a dogmatic way, I could care so much about painting the "I" in this way, that I lose sight of my feelings regarding the harmful actions of others. This would cause a retraction of consciousness to my own personal experience just to keep the "I" superior. So, the first place to look for self-lies, are in your generalization that you make about yourself.

I've only ever done 30 minute and one hour sits. The one hour sits are plenty intense for me. I haven't tried any longer sits yet.

Thank you! Shinzen definitely practices Zen. I think Ralston did too, if memory serves. He is a martial arts expert, and I recall him writing that he spent some time at a Zen Buddhist Monastery which helped him improve his awareness of what his opponent might do next. I'm pretty sure it was Zen Buddhism, but it could have been another school.

That's awesome! Very inspiring!

Wow! How long was your longest SDS before that? I'm very impressed by your resolve.

My one year old son might have a knack for mediation... who knows. It sounds like a great idea to try one out to see how it suits you. I'm not too familiar with particular schools of Buddhism. I know that Zen Buddhism has a lot of structure and traditions built in to it. So, there might be some degree of belief in dogma woven into the culture surrounding it. But it seems, from my very limited perspective on it, that many Zen Buddhist monks are quite open and non-dogmatic.

That sounds like an amazing idea! If I didn't have a family to attend to, that's exactly the type of thing I'd be doing. I'd be constantly going to retreats, at the very least. I don't know of any actual monasteries, but here is a link to a place that has long-term Vipassana meditation retreats in various areas. It's completely free with room and board, if memory serves. https://www.dhamma.org/en/locations/directory

The present moment is always a projection of the past. So, you only remember thoughts from a projection of the past. You don't actually have first hand experiences of them.

Thanks!

Weight loss always occurs relative to body type. So, if you store more fat around your waist naturally, the only way to actually decrease this in proportion of your waist to the rest of your body is to get liposuction or something of that nature. There is no way to target weight loss to a particular area. This is because (and I can't remember the sources of this, so do your research) you don't lose actual fat cells when you lose weight, they simply shrink or grow. So, you still have the same amount of fat cells in the same areas. So, body proportion remains relatively the same regardless of how much weight you lose or gain. The only way to actually remove fat cells is through liposuction or surgery. Otherwise, fat is lost in a way that is distributed based upon body type.

In a way, this is true. But try focusing on the present moment now. You'll find that no matter how precisely you try to train your awareness to the present moment, you still can't quite get it because a moment involves time and time doesn't exist. So, the present moment comes directly after past awareness and directly before future awareness. Because past and future are only thought stories, the present moment occurs in the infinitely small (and infinitely large) empty space in between those two thought stories. You can't focus your attention on one "frame" of awareness. Once you get the present moment, it will always be the memory of a past moment. So, the present moment doesn't exist only a series of memories of past moments. This is why Maya is an illusion. All you have of reality is the present moment, and that present moment truly doesn't exist. It's all a projection.

There is no solution to this problem. You can try to increase your sensitivity and awareness to the thoughts that come up (and you should) but this can only ever take you so far. Just notice the not noticing as a phenomenon. Don't judge and say "I should be realizing when the thoughts come up" or something of that nature. This takes for granted that noticing the thought as it comes is a possibility. The reason why you can never be aware of thoughts as they arise in the present moment, is because the present moment doesn't actually exist. By the time you've realized something (whether it be a thought, sight, sound, smell, taste, or sensation) it is already in the past. So, the present moment doesn't exist. All the present moment is is a mental projection of the past. So, the present moment is the past. The past is a thought story. Thoughts are the past. So, being aware of a thought can never occur in the present moment because thoughts can only be accessed through memory.

I would make it a practice to pull apart your values and examine them. This will enable you to see their illusory nature, and they will no longer have a hold over your self-esteem because they'll no longer be a realistic metric for your personal sense of value. (You could also deconstruct the idea of value too, as value doesn't actually exist) If you grew up in a conservative area (or even if you grew up in a very liberal area) certain dogmas and beliefs about you and your worth are bound to creep into your worldview even if you disagree with them and don't want them there. Society is like the water that we've all been boiled in. It's hard to tell what's there. So, if you feel bad about yourself, ask yourself why. For example, is it because you're not living up to the standards of masculinity/manhood set by your particular social group? Figure out what those qualities are. Then you can see that other societies have a different view of manhood/masculinity, and that these traits that you hold to be so important don't have much value if you change your location. Or if you see yourself as a poor student, consider that there are a limited amount of subjects offered at school and that any subject could just as easily be taught there. It would be a potential possibility that if different subjects were taught, that you would be amazing at them. So, deconstruct your idea of what makes a person valuable and see it for the illusion that it is. Then you can see how your father's strictness and high standards for you come from a place of fear. He's afraid that you will suffer social scorn and that he will suffer that same social scorn with you as well as the suffering of having your child be unhappy. You could call this abusive language he gives to you a very misguided attempt at showing love and avoiding pain.

Which video on your channel are you most proud of or stands out to you as the most valuable from your current point of view?

Thank you.

@Isle of View and @Dummy What is Rub and Yawn?

I mean more so that we are the creator itself. It's an illusion that we're subject to some external creator figure or that our experiences come to us externally. Enlightenment is a realization that you are both part and whole of the thing referred to as God, which by its nature is creative. God creates. So, we are paradoxically both the creator and the creation in one experience... but without enlightenment we don't realize it. So, because we are the creator we are constantly creating the reality around us which causes expansion of the creator. The creator is infinite, so it is expanding itself by using an illusory finite existence that you call "I" or the ego to continue expanding on into infinity... because infinity is its nature. It is never complete. So, I don't necessarily mean that we're here to create art. I mean that we're here to create the reality that we're living in... art can be part of this but not necessarily. The higher nature creates this reality, and the lower nature (usually unconsciously) lives the finite experience of that created reality. The way to make this co-creation between you (the lower nature) and you (the higher nature) conscious is to merge the higher and lower self a.k.a. enlightenment. The lower self wants to expand and regroup with the higher self as the natural state of being. So, when you no longer resist what is and you accept everything as it is with unconditional acceptance and love, these two aspects come into resonance with one another and "enlightenment" is realized. The only thing that keeps you from this is resistance to what is... should and should not. So, until enlightenment is realized, anything that makes you feel expansive are your emotions telling you what will bring you into greater resonance with the higher self. As I said before, emotions are the guidance system that allows the higher nature to communicate with the lower nature. It is only our thoughts and resistances that muddle this communication by telling us what we should or should not want and what we should or should not feel. So, don't feel like you must prohibit yourself from pursuing what makes you feel expansive. This is resistance and with resistance the higher and lower nature will never come into resonance with one another. This is why mediation is so effective, because it is practicing non-resistance to the present moment. It allows the lower self to naturally buoy upward like an actual buoy that doesn't have anything holding it down under the water. With no resistance it naturally floats to the top of the water. So, without resistance the lower nature naturally buoys upward and can meet the higher nature.

I just picked up an old contemplation that I used to think about as a little kid as young as 6 or 7. I was always trying to grasp what "now" is. So, I would pace around in my room, watching my feet, trying to wrap my mind around the present moment. I was never able to find it. It was always just out of reach. Back then, I also imagined that time would stop for a million years every other split second but that we'd never notice it because time had stopped and consciousness with it. So, my thought was that time went on as a series of still frames, like a movie. But I assumed this assumption was wrong and that time was real on some level that I didn't understand. This assumption was wrong, and this realization helped me make traction on a 20 year old contemplation. Woo hoo! Here are the realizations 1. Time doesn't exist- There is only the present moment. It is only our memory that gives the illusion of a past behind us. It is only our imagination that gives us the illusion of a future in front of us. 2. Movement doesn't exist- The illusion of movement is only created by an ongoing series of present moments in our visual and tactual field. 3. The present moment doesn't exist- The present moment is always a non-point. As you hone in on it you will notice that you can't really experience it. There's always a projection from a past memory or future fantasy. The present moment is infinitely small. It can never be found because you're always infinitely close to experiencing it but also infinitely far away from experiencing it. Just like trying to count to infinity, you can't actually experience the present moment. Conclusion: Existence doesn't exist. It's all a projection.

The exams only matter for getting into college. Beyond that, they do not matter. So, you should do your best on your exam because colleges do take them into consideration and you don't want to close off possible pathways. But it won't effect which jobs you're hired for or anything like that.

No dimensions and infinitely many/few dimensions? It's sort of like a non-point too, but I'm not sure. Size is all relative. It can be infinitely large and infinitely small. So, size, direction, and dimension don't exist. Well said. I see. So, because thought is the creator of our experience, we could think ourselves out of existence if we're not careful... or think ourselves into a crazy existence. It makes sense. But I'll file it into the beliefs category and use it if it's handy.

I follow you right up to the end, with the smaller living creatures part. If you mean atoms, then even this comes from assumption and theorizing. If you mean actual smaller creatures, then this is nothing that I can actually notice in my present reality. If I'm missing something, please let me know.

Time doesn't exist. It's an illusion that comes from other illusory present moments seeming to pass. Or at least this is a possibility.

That's true. This is a possibility. I've heard similar perspectives to this. It definitely fits well in a very intuitive way. But it is a rationalization, so it also is an assumption. But it's an assumption that makes sense none-the-less. Definitely. I'm trying to boil down what my experiences are beyond the labels that I put upon them. So, down the rabbit hole I go.