Carl-Richard

Meaning, autonomy and being. Then comes "physical health" (optimized diet, exercise, sleep, etc.). Then comes social health. If meaning, autonomy and being collapses, that's death. An organism that acts in accordance with its impetus, follows its drives, is in tune with its capabilities, lives. Nourishment comes secondary to that. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

The process was I noticed a tension when focusing on the speaker/powerpoint in the lecture. Like I was trying to force my attention to project in this piecemeal and inelegant way. So when I noticed this tension, I let it dissolve. Even this subtle act of perception did have a physical manifestation, as a slight tightness in the visual apparatus. And when this dissolved, things notably became calmer, and then time stopped and the rest of the story unfolded. Some mentalist might say "you simply let go of your attachment to focus on the lecture", but even attachment has physical correlates, albeit subtle ones (what we call "behavioral" patterns), where tension in the body is one example.

This song is so feelgood, like butterflies in my entire body. It's so short:

My first awakening (which happened very quickly during my 3rd meditation) probably only happened that quickly because it was preceded by a week of intense active mindfulness practice (up in the Norwegian mountains 😎, true mystic), which included not as much body scanning as overall awareness of movement (although the distinction kind of evaporates at some point). But the meditation where the awakening happened included body scanning (and then vipassana, which also has a body awareness aspect).

I'm saying it's both. Mind-body dualism is an outdated view. It's always intertwined. After my first awakening, I stopped having problems with suspension headaches and tight back/neck/shoulder muscles (extremely rare that I have those now). A lot of tension and aches and pain arise from unconscious and inelegant bodily movements. It's like you're moving your body in such a reckless way that you hurt yourself. And when you don't have the ability to relax and heal, you keep hurting yourself and it becomes a chronic pain problem (this is likely the cause of many "Subjective Health Complaints" (SHC), i.e. problems that have physical symptoms but not clear physiological causes. The causes are "physio-mechanical", behavioral).

At around 150-200 ms. (Figure represents event-related potentials in EEG recordings). https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-08651-9_12 Semantics is processed at around 400 ms.

Can you eat a grudge without utensils?

I'm just conforming to the format of the thread. For purely the act of getting nutrients into your body, utensils have zero to exceedingly minimal use. Better examples of tools are kitchen knives, butcher's knives, pots, spatulas. Show me one food you can only eat with utensils.

You literally bite and chew. Do you eat apple with a fork and knife? Have you not seen people eat steak with their hands?

Except with french fries, cookies, candy, chocolate, fruit, spear ribs, chicken wings, burgers, sandwiches, wraps, potato chips, pizza. Hygiene is conformity.

It is more a physical process than what people think. The way you breathe, your posture, your level of bodily relaxation, are all tightly intertwined with your level of awareness.

So this is purely a Western/modern issue?

Awareness through sleep is very "advanced" as they say. But then to frame it the other way, like with enlightenment, it actually happens all the time for all people, you just don't notice it because you're too identified (with perception and forms).

Eating sushi with chopsticks when you are Japanese is conformity. Eating with a knife and fork is the epitome of conformity.

Why does this read like being patronizing for no good reason? What is being communicated here?