Spider Jerusalem

@Leo Gura Agree that deliberately non-seeking is a trap and non-seeking by itself won't help. I guess what I mean is that there appear to be transitions from non-seeking (ignorant) —› seeking (desire) —› non-seeking (enlightened). The two types of non-seeking seem radically different somehow.

The very act of seeking implies some kind of object that is being sought. I think it's safe to say that whatever is being sought is not an object - so active seeking can never succeed except in the sense that it can lead to a state of not-seeking. Seems simple enough - so just have to wait for the seeking to exhaust itself. The seeking appears to be some kind of circuitous route (sometimes decades) to non-seeking, but perhaps that's the way it's meant to work.

In one of Leo's videos ("Grasping The Illusory Nature Of Thought", I think), he talks about "flattening the illusion." In general, I get it. There are no "objects" out there other than the reality we give them by "dimensionalizing", i.e. an external object has as many dimensions as the mind attributes to it. In other words, "external" objects do not possess dimensions of their own; they are a property of the mind. The question then is how is this relevant to physical/mental/emotional life? It seems to me that it can still be "business as usual" - dimensionalize as is necessary for survival, and flatten when the 3D-ness of life (i.e. confusing map and territory) becomes more of an encumbrance than a tool. The trick is just being constantly aware of the "seems" (abstraction) vs. "is"

@ZenDog Sure, if by technique, you mean no-technique technique

@ZenDog You've just definitively proved that "thinking about being happy" can't possibly work. You can't really become happy "deliberately". I can only describe the best way of approaching this as "don't seek" AND "don't not seek." which is what is generally meant by "do nothing". "Do nothing" doesn't mean nothing is happening, as the functioning of everything always goes on in its merry way and doesn't give a hoot about happiness or any other mental categories. Just be awake to whatever is happening (I know..sounds clichéd, but the cliché is valid) Another cliché: "Let all the questions fall away". None of this means that you can't analyze how phenomena work in general (I mean it's good to cure diseases based on some kind of theory, right?). But when it comes to the so-called spiritual process, "seeking" doesn't work at all in the long run, although it may be helpful to start with. Above all, don't use Mind to seek Mind, as this is completely pointless and works more like a spiritual game than anything really helpful. However, that said, it's not that simple to "do nothing", as it initially appears to be counterproductive to the so-called quest. Seeking happens...and then the seeking ends. Since there are so many paradoxes in this space, let me add one more to add to the mess: "Enlightenment is both easier and harder than you might think."

Agreed. Objectively, there is no off position or even degrees of "on-ness" or "off-ness". It's always in the "fully" on position. Even in deep sleep, it's always fully on. It has to be that way, otherwise nothing would work. The "enlightenment" or "functioning" never takes a break, apparently, and always works perfectly and at full potential. Only the "imagined" subject can narrow his or her focus, but shit is always fully on without exception

I read a book called "Fingers Pointing Towards The Moon" in 2013. At some point, I was inspired to collect some choice quotes from this book and put them on a dedicated twitter account. These nuggets of wisdom may be helpful for pilgrims on the path. Fingers Pointing Towards The Moon: A collection of quotes from Wei Wu Wei on Eastern and Western philosophy and metaphysics: https://twitter.com/weiwuwei_quotes

I found this article helpful. Can Buddhism Save the World? by Michael Welton http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/15/can-buddhism-save-the-world/

As far as I can tell, even if there is no reason for existence, this doesn't contradict the process of finding out how the mechanism works. Personally, even if I think that existence itself has no reason, I'm actually still quite interested in the causes of, say, hunger and poverty in the third world (your example). As far as I can tell, there is a strong cause and effect in play here. Centuries of pillage and looting by imperialist countries is certainly one way to explain the mechanism of how inequality works. Similarly, I'm also interested in how "free trade" works in destroying local agriculture as a result of western counries flooding poor countries with cheap goods via the subsidy mechanism. Moreover, if the environment is rapidly deteriorating, I think it's easy enough to find a cause there as well. Certainly, a big priority is to alleviate suffering by honestly assessing the causes of social phenomena. As to why anything exists in the first place, who knows? No reason seems to make sense. Anyway, it doesn't seem necessarily relevant to solving problems in the real world. Seems like a nice to have. And if there is no reason for why anything exists, even better! Less to figure out

@TruthSeeker Just to add to this, maybe this quote from Open Secret will help: So unless you can find an entity "X," you can't invalidate the above argument. Of course, if you imagine there is an entity "X," then you can also imagine that entity "X" has free will. But imagining "X" and then assigning "it" free will seems pointless and futile.

Note sure if you've seen the documentary called "Man on Wire." It's about Philippe Petit, the wire-walker who walked between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. The whole caper is both absurd and exquisite. When reporters questioned Petit about why he did it, Petit replied, "The beauty of it is, there is no ‘why.’" Perhaps, this quote could point you in the right direction?

"Do nothing" works well for me. Do nothing doesn't mean nothing is happening, since there is always the "functioning". Do nothing means hold your attention (relaxed attention) and keep it that way. Do nothing also means non-interference, i.e., when thoughts arise (and they will), just don't grasp. Once you grasp, you're definitely doing something unhelpful. Also, don't get lost in thoughts because that means you've lost attention (fallen "asleep") and are getting engrossed in thoughts. Overall, the main thing is hold continuous relaxed attention (until it becomes effortless, i.e. you're doing nothing at that point). Easier said than done though!

It's a lot simpler to just assume that there is no reason for nothingness to "create" existence -- without falling into the trap of nihilism (i.e. avoid the "OMG, everything is meaningless. I feel empty and depressed." at any cost) Looking for meaning is a series of big hairballs, best to just cough them all out . At this point, I'm perfectly happy with words such as "isness" or suchness" , "thisness." There doesn't have to be a reason for existence - it's a bad assumption to think there must be a reason. It's also a bad assumption to think that there was a beginning to all this.

So you posted this on Friday. On Saturday morning, I was listening to the song 1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins at home. A few hours later, I'm at the grocery store, and as I'm waiting in the checkout line, 1979 starts playing. I don't attribute any meaning to this, but it's just fun to experience these synchronicities. I must add that 1979 is not a new song that is likely to be played anywhere. Oddly enough, I'm going to a Smashing Pumpkins concert next month, which is why I was listening to the song in the first place. As to why someone at the grocery store played it at that exact moment, I don't know...but makes sense without resort to any divine intervention, in my opinion.

Agree, and to add to this: There is a difference between being dogmatic and just making a working assumption based on your own intuition. The working assumption helps us move forward in some sense, but leaves the possibility of the assumption being invalidated in due course. However, the process of working through the assumption may lead to some other realization that was not expected.