lmfao

@moon777light oooh

@Shin@Shin@Shin@Shin Im gonna mainly talk about note taking in relation to academia. Whenever I want to learn about something, I want to maintain a balance between note taking and paying more attention to the source of information. This may not apply to information which is not cognitively intense, but I say that there exists such a balance because there is a trade off in your attention between taking notes and paying attention. People can think far, far faster than they can write information. Therefore the downside to taking notes is that you waste time that you could have spent assimilating information and synthesising links in your mind. I've seen so many people who've had amazing notes on topics and yet they fail at exams. However, it is still generally the case that you need some form of notes. I've seen notes be useful as a way to present information in the idiosyncratic way that you understand and connect with, and notes can act as a tiny spark to a large amount of information stored in your mind.

@StardewValley "The reason you aren't better is precisely the reason you want to be (better)" - Alan Watts. Don't misinterpret the quote though. There's this lecture which addresses the human predicament of self improvement.

The following was posted in comments section of Leo's last video by this user https://www.youtube.com/user/uzamaki32 " SUMMARY OF THE VIDEO: Caveat, this is not complete, but it should allow for guiding towards further research. (1) Modafinil - Actual pharmaceutical - Creativity - Focus - Energy - Connecting the dots - subtle effects - Better memory - A synergy of brain functioning (1.a) Armodafinil (analog of modafinil) - Basically same as modafinil, but: - more potent - Fewer side effects - Do research to understand the difference and why it works better than modafinil even though it uses fewer chemicals, which is one reason it has fewer side effects. (2) Lions Mane Mushrooms - Neurogenesis - Energy - Focus - Clears brain fog - Reduces depression & anxiety (3) L-Theanine - Relaxant - Increases alpha and theta brain waves similar to meditation - Neuro growth factor - Mood booster - Gabba/ serotonin/ Dopamine (4) Huperzine A - Increased short-term memory - Long-term brain health - Vivid dreams; helps with lucid dreaming (5) Alpha GPC - Choline > Memory > building block/fuel for the brain - Mood - Mental energy - Neuro growth factor (6) Pterostilbene - Neurogenesis - Neuroplasticity - memory - Dopamine - Memory - Mood - Dopamine - Improves cognition - Reduces anxiety - Neuroprotectant (7) 5-HTP - Reduces anxiety, stress, and depression - Don't take it with other anti-depressants! (8) Sulbutiamine - Attention spawn - Focus - Increased vocabulary - Sociability - Quick tolerance (9) Vinpocetine - Blood flow to the brain - Focus - Memory - Helps with brain fog - Neuroplasticity - Anti-inflammatory - Helps regenerate stroke damage or other types of brain damage (10) n-acetylcysteine / NALT - Improves cognition - Memory - Helps with ADHD/ADD - Since it has tyrosine I suppose it gives the brain building blocks for neurotransmitters like dopamine (11) Phosphatidylserine - Helps with learning new skills - Stronger myelin sheet (important for learning skills, since myelin sheets help with chunking actions) - Helps with changing habits - Brain health - Reduce ADHD/ADD - Brainwave reduction (12) Bacopa(Indian herb) translates to Brahmi similar to Brahman. - Improve memory - Natural Adderall (analogy) - Focus - Helps with ADHD/ADD - Reduces anxiety in the short-term - Increases memory for long-term e.g. after stopping memory benefits can last up to months. (13) NAC - Dopamine - Helps with colds - Neuroprotectant (14) PQQ - Antioxidant - The growth of new mitochondria - Energy - Increases nerve growth factor - Improves memory - Improves cognition - Neuroprotectant - Can take up to a month to work (15) QoQ10 - Effective for older folks - Protects brain cells - Reduces fatigue - Anti-aging effects on the cardiac system - Energy (16) Uridine - Boost release of dopamine - Improves mood with fish oil - Neuroprotectant (16) Gingko Biloba - Increases blood circulation in the brain - Attention - Focus - Cognition and learning - Helps repair brain cells - Requires several weeks before it works ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (A.1) Fish oil - Important vitamine, not necessarily a nootropic. (A.2) Vitamin D3 - A very important vitamin that a lot of people lack due to that they work inside. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good stack: - SAL Butherine - Alpha GPC - Uridine - Fish Oil - Vitamin D3 "

@The Don I'm someone who suffers from mild dyslexia so I understand your struggle. When a piece of text is written on particular topic, the author paints a picture of the topic in their own idiosyncratic way. Their word choices and connotations of those words, the logical steps they highlight as well as the logical steps they ignore, the intuitive picture they try to communicate and etc (ofc this is not the case for hard-core fact sheets which just have facts written down with no explanation or back up). Human minds are complex and so it is that the same topic can be intuited/thought of in an infinite number of ways. Struggles can arise when reading a book because your brain is not the same brain of the person writing the book. When you read about and are studying a particular topic, do not try to memorise the chains of reasoning or memorise the sequence of things which were focused on. What you should do instead is take the information from the book and try to synthesise your own "unique" understanding and viewpoint of a topic. Come up with your own starting points, your own points of focus on a topic, your own chronological order of things to focus on. For example, if I'm studying maths I do not study things in the order that my school recommends. I start with foundations and build upwards, rather than spread myself thin and jump from topic to topic too quickly and not understand anything I've learnt as a result of my incorrect method of studying. The method people use for learning maths is to become a memory drone, rather than actually understand the maths. I'm trying to form my own pathway in understanding a topic. It requires that I constantly look at different sources and synthesis my own, personal understanding.

@Recursoinominado cuz you're a pussy

You pay $35 purely for the list, you aren't given the books. Leo gives the books a rating and gives a small audio clip for each book where he just talks about his general thoughts, feelings about the book and uses of book. My personal view, even though its annoying to pay $35 dollars for a list, the list is really good.

@The Don You can drink decafinated green tea

@Shin 90% of my diet is fish, eggs, milk and vegetables. Giving up meat and animal products is too hard for me ? ? because its all so delicious

My meditation habit for the past month has been bad as well.

Bitch you just jealous of my aubergine swag

@Mohamad Tahmas I believe that the use of Spiral Dynamics in accurately modelling human development collapses around turquoise because it is around turquoise that you enter the realm of deep spirituality which is concerned with ultimate truth and the nature of being, so I therefore think it's possible Leo does not wish to explore SD beyond turquoise because he thinks SD is an unhelpful model.

@Roman Edouard this may sound generic but I think that acceptance of death is about acceptance of the emptiness of your being. Everyone, at least during some point, feels their existence to be empty. I currently think that once you are dead you return to the existence you had before you were born. This may sound tangiantial but bear with me. Have you ever meditated and reached a state of heightened awareness? There is this completely spontaneous present moment. The present moment is uncreated. You did nothing to create this present moment. There is no cause for anything. Just observe the origin of anything internal or external in your consciousness and pay attention to what is. To truly see through the illusion of past and future requires you cease clinging. If you reach this state you start to see the emptiness of your existence. I have found this very scary. But upon reaching this consciousness you are forced to confront the fact that emptiness is undeniably a core element of your being at all times, which is contrary to how we humans normally operate. We normally sweep emptiness under the rug. But if you let go you'll have a funny, surreal feeling inside.

@The Don X is relative to Y if X can only be defined through reference to Y.

@SageModeAustin The quotation "drastic times call for drastic measures" may be applicable in your case. Your question is hard for me to answer because you've basically stated that your entire psychology is fucked but no other details about your life are mentioned. How long have you been exposed to non-duality practices/theory? You say you've struggled with what sounds to depression for about 10 years, I'm just curious for how long you've been into spirituality. Have you had enlightenment experiences? If so, then you should know there is "hope". Do you have any hardcore addictions sucking the life out of you? I remember reading a post in which you copy and pasted a section of a book on negative emotion, I thought it was good. Try and apply that. Another thing I'm curious about, how much theory have you been exposed to? Because if you've spent a lot of time reading and listening to videos on non-duality then I doubt that there is much that can be said to help you. Although it its perhaps the case that you always need a reminder. If I'm looking for some spiritual inspiration I like to listen to Alan Watts.

@Poetryandpolygraphs good question. If I had to (describe)/(guess the nature of) enlightenment I'd say that it probably involves the transcending of paradigms in the sense the your awareness is completely fixated in the present moment and sees through all the "thought stories" you create. Like everyone has paradigms they use, and the way I conceptualise the existence of paradigms is to say that the contents of a paradigm are the result of the metaphysics and axioms held about reality. For example, a form of the "scientific paradigm" holds as a premise that there are natural causes to things going in the world. This paradigm can include the assumption that logic, maths and reason will help you understand reality, the assumption that determinism is true, the assumption that everything is physical and etc. The way I see it, enlightened people still operate on paradigms it's just that they know that their paradigms are not to be confused with reality.

@Edogowa Conan Yeah I've seen the masked arab before lmao. Points out contradictions in fundamentalist islam.

When it comes to hearing sounds, it is possible for there to be silence. This silence is the absence of sound and so when there is silence you'd be at "zero" on a some imaginary map which models sound. Seeing on the other hand seems different. Whenever we are conscious (and are not dead or in deep asleep) there is never a "zero" experience of seeing. With scientific terms you can say "black is the absence of colour", however that statement is true because the terms in that sentence have not been defined in a way which addresses how vision is in our first person experience (the statement in quotation marks is based upon considering how visible light is absorbed by objects). My point is, black is not a "zero" experience. Black is a distinct colour which you can see, whilst silence on the other hand is like a zero. I was thinking about this the other day after meditating. All of our senses are so different from each other in essence and the essence of everything in our present moment experience is irreducible. I was wondering what having a new, 6th sense would be like (the same way hearing, smelling and seeing are different senses). A blind person from birth is literally seeing black but is unaware of it because he has never been exposed to more than one expression of his sight. A deaf person from birth on the other hand is literally at a zero point for hearing. And so supposing that there do exist possible extra senses which we do not recognise/have, I wonder whether it is that we are experiencing zero (like a deaf person) or whether it is that we are constantly experiencing just one expression of this sense and are hence unable to recognize this sense (like a blind person).

@MM1988 But let me ask you, from where does the intention/want to think of something specific come from? Lets suppose I've decided that I'm going to keep on thinking about the names of different cities. How did that decision arise? Consider how much control ''you'' really have in your mind choosing to (focus on)/(think about) a particular thing. Be mindful of your present moment experience, you should start to notice how spontaneous and groundless reality is. In your present moment, there is no past or causality. There is this present moment experience and you've done nothing to create it. For as long as you can maintain high levels of awareness you will be in a state of " Wu Wei " to a degree, where all action you take is effortless due to you having little resistance. A thought related to Wu Wei, If someone is to truly live and breathe non-duality they should find no amount of exertion of their physical body to be mentally fatiguing because the distinction between self and other is gone. That's why exercise and discomfort is good for enlightenment work imo as well if you are mindfull of pain and push yourself.

A useless concept.

@Telepresent The thing is I do not know the cause for there to a lack of a zero position for vision, or any other conceivable sense in animals, when we are conscious. It seems complicated scientifically to answer hence even if sharks are constantly experiencing something non-zero in regards to electromagnetic senses I cannot then conclude that we experience something non-zero and are unable to recognise it. A shark canexperience garp but idk if we are experiencing garp. And supposing we are experiencing garp, I'd say that garp is just something we cannot recognise even though it is there. It would be like a constant of our experience. @Leo Gura good reminder.

I feel this is a game if semantics to discuss whether blind people are seeing anything. If my online research is correct, there is black but they do not recognise it. If you want a scientific explanation, we see black when rods and cones in the back of our eyes are not stimulated. Blindness as far as I know is 99.99% of the time a disorder of the eye and optic nerve rather than a disorder of the brain, and so having our rods and cones completely unstimulated gives our brain the same data as the data a completely blind person receives in their brain.

@Saumaya itachi > sasuke.

@SageModeAustin Why is water wet?

@Joseph Maynor Yeah I agree. If I was in Leo's position I could see motivation not fuelled by offence/annoyance to what he does. Leo was wrong to say he'd ban people purely for saying "You are not God", but I'd understand if he wants to ban people who are very argumentative and arrogant in their discussions because thats toxic.