Nobody knows anything

[Breakingthewall]

8 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

One is a construction within experience and the other is the absence of construction. The first is limited because it is made of distinctions while the second is not unlimited in size or scope but it is unbounded and unconstructed because no distinctions are being made at all.

Both are constructions of the energetic system that you are. There is no qualitative difference. The spirituality consider one a mistake and the other true, but this is because the spirituality don't understand nothing . It's a total scam, but the scammers are also scammed 😅

Edited yesterday at 05:33 PM by Breakingthewall

[gettoefl]

18 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Both are constructions of the energetic system that you are. There is no qualitative difference. The spirituality consider one a mistake and the other true, but this is because the spirituality don't understand nothing . It's a total scam, but the scammers are also scammed 😅

I’m not suggesting that one construction is “true” and the other “false.” What I am saying is that one construction brings with it apparent vulnerability and ongoing suffering, and the other reveals invulnerability together with the absence of suffering. Collapsing that difference by calling both “just constructions” indeed explains everything yet at the same time clarifies nothing.

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, gettoefl said:

I’m not suggesting that one construction is “true” and the other “false.” What I am saying is that one construction brings with it apparent vulnerability and ongoing suffering, and the other reveals invulnerability together with the absence of suffering. Collapsing that difference by calling both “just constructions” indeed explains everything yet at the same time clarifies nothing.

As humans, the mind is a reality. Spirituality treats the mind as an error and glorifies what it calls direct perception, tastes, sounds, and so on.

They yearn for an animalistic state, but as humans, that state is not the case. It's a misguided approach; the mind cannot be switched off because it is a reality. The mind is a deep sea; it must be understood and aligned so that it can express its full power.

[gettoefl]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

As humans, the mind is a reality. Spirituality treats the mind as an error and glorifies what it calls direct perception, tastes, sounds, and so on.

They yearn for an animalistic state, but as humans, that state is not the case. It's a misguided approach; the mind cannot be switched off because it is a reality. The mind is a deep sea; it must be understood and aligned so that it can express its full power.

Let me flesh this out a little. I do not believe the issue is whether the mind is real or can be “switched off.” And I agree with you that the mind is certainly part of lived reality, and pretending otherwise is unhelpful. But that’s not the distinction I’m pointing to here.

The distinction I am making concerns the very structure of the mind.

One configuration of mind posits that it is organized around:

• a center that must be preserved
• interpretation as being personal and consequential
• meaning tied to vulnerability

In that configuration, suffering is not an avoidable mistake bur rather it is structurally inevitable.

The second configuration of mind is one that is organized without:

• a defended center
• ownership of meaning
• the assumption of vulnerability

In this configuration, the mind is just as active - perception, sensation, thought all continue - but suffering no longer arises, because there is nothing that can be harmed.

So this isn’t about rejecting the mind in favor of an “animalistic” or sensory state, nor is it about glorifying raw sensation and It’s also not about turning the mind off. It’s about whether the mind is self-referential and defensive, or non-appropriative and open.

Where spirituality critiques the mind, at its best it’s not calling the mind an error. Rather it’s pointing out a particular way the mind relates to itself that generates unnecessary pain. To say “both are just constructions” misses that point. Two constructions can be experientially night-and-day different, even if both arise within the same reality.

So I’m not arguing for less mind or weaker mind. If anything, what I am proposing is a mind that no longer has to spend all its energy defending a vulnerable self which in particular means a mind that’s free to function fully because it isn’t busy protecting an identity.

In summary:

The issue isn’t mind versus no-mind.

It’s vulnerability-based mind versus invulnerable mind.

That difference is not intended to explain everything, but ignoring it simplistically explains suffering away rather than understanding it.

Edited 18 hours ago by gettoefl

[Terell Kirby]

Lots of knowing going on in here.

You all know Nothing! 

Edited 18 hours ago by Terell Kirby

[Breakingthewall]

27 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

It’s vulnerability-based mind versus invulnerable mind.

The energetic structure that constitutes a human being carries a built-in self. This isn't a silly mistake or a misunderstanding, as the neo-Advaita would say; it's a hyper-complex system maintained in real time by different brain structures, refined from the earliest complex organisms to humans over a period of time beyond our comprehension. This self perceives itself as the receptive center of experience and has an absolute need for self-preservation and acceptance within the human group. All that talk of being invulnerable is fine until the torturer arrives with his briefcase.

According to Zen philosophy, when you see the executioner approaching, you simply feel the pleasure of the sea breeze on your face, because that's what exists now. No, my Zen friend, what exists now is the human system, which is an extremely complex and precise mechanism anticipating events, seeking solutions, and releasing chemicals that prepare you for combat. If instead of a human you were an earthworm, none of this would happen, but it so happens that you aren't. Zen monks strive enormously to be earthworms. It's commendable and worthy of respect. Then they burn themselves alive. It's very practical, but perhaps, let's say, well, not natural. Bit forced. 

Well forgive all that nonsense, what I'm saying is that the mind must break its chains, not just pretend to have broken them. The mind isn't going to disappear; the mind simply is. It can be a mind trapped in its primitive conditioning, or a mind that has stared its primal demons in the face, and instead of erasing them, which is impossible, has danced with them. It has integrated them into its visible vibration and erased the barrier between conscious and unconscious. This undivided mind, sovereign over itself, with all its energies aligned, isn't "invulnerable" because it knows it's consciousness or God or whatever; it's simply not limited, it doesn't clash with itself but flows without friction. Then it recognizes itself as an expression of what it is, and as what it ultimately is. But if the guy with the briefcase comes, suffering occurs, that's inevitable, but can be relativized to some extent, maybe to great extent 

Edited 18 hours ago by Breakingthewall

[gettoefl]

8 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

The energetic structure that constitutes a human being carries a built-in self. This isn't a silly mistake or a misunderstanding, as the neo-Advaita would say; it's a hyper-complex system maintained in real time by different brain structures, refined from the earliest complex organisms to humans over a period of time beyond our comprehension. This self perceives itself as the receptive center of experience and has an absolute need for self-preservation and acceptance within the human group. All that talk of being invulnerable is fine until the torturer arrives with his briefcase.

According to Zen philosophy, when you see the executioner approaching, you simply feel the pleasure of the sea breeze on your face, because that's what exists now. No, my Zen friend, what exists now is the human system, which is an extremely complex and precise mechanism anticipating events, seeking solutions, and releasing chemicals that prepare you for combat. If instead of a human you were an earthworm, none of this would happen, but it so happens that you aren't. Zen monks strive enormously to be earthworms. It's commendable and worthy of respect. Then they burn themselves alive. It's very practical, but perhaps, let's say, well, not natural. Bit forced. 

Well forgive all that nonsense, what I'm saying is that the mind must break its chains, not just pretend to have broken them. The mind isn't going to disappear; the mind simply is. It can be a mind trapped in its primitive conditioning, or a mind that has stared its primal demons in the face, and instead of erasing them, which is impossible, has danced with them. It has integrated them into its visible vibration and erased the barrier between conscious and unconscious. This undivided mind, sovereign over itself, with all its energies aligned, isn't "invulnerable" because it knows it's consciousness or God or whatever; it's simply not limited, it doesn't clash with itself but flows without friction. Then it recognizes itself as an expression of what it is, and as what it ultimately is. But if the guy with the briefcase comes, suffering occurs, that's inevitable, but can be relativized to some extent, maybe to great extent 

I think we’re actually much closer than it might seem, but we’re talking past each other at one crucial junction.

I in no way deny the biological reality of the human organism or the anticipatory intelligence of the nervous system. Of course the organism prepares, strategizes, and floods itself with chemistry when threat appears. That’s not the debate. Nor is the fact that pain, fear responses, and even extreme suffering can and do arise when the body–mind is harmed. Any spirituality that skips that is either dishonest or dissociated.

Where I think the disagreement lies is here: such responses do not, by themselves, constitute suffering in the sense that I point to. They are necessary functions of an organism. Suffering is what arises when those functions are owned by, interpreted through, and organized around a defended center that takes itself to be fundamentally vulnerable.

In other words, the issue isn’t that the human system reacts. The issue here is whether there is an inner structure that says “this is happening to me, and therefore something essential is at stake.” That structure is not the same as biology. It’s a configuration of meaning, identification, and self-reference layered on top of it.

When I use the word “invulnerable,” I don’t mean immune to pain, torture, or death. I mean invulnerable in a more specific sense: nothing that happens is taken to confirm or threaten an identity that must be preserved. The organism can still recoil, resist, and cry out but there is no inner fracture arising where experience gets converted to existential damage.

This is how your briefcase example above, while rhetorically powerful, doesn’t quite land. Yes, pain is at hand. Yes, fear is felt. But those alone don’t prove the necessity of suffering as such. They only prove the necessity of sensation and response. Suffering requires an additional move, and that is known as appropriation.

And this is also where I with respect push back on your Zen caricature. Zen's goal isn’t to turn humans into earthworms or even deny anticipatory intelligence. At its zenith, pardon the pun, it’s pointing to a mind that functions without clinging to the products of its own activity. Perception, anticipation, even resistance can and do still occur, yet without being folded into the story of “me versus what is.”

So when spirituality critiques the mind, it’s not saying the mind needs to vanish, nor that one's conditioning can be erased. It’s pointing to whether the mind is self-defending and self-confirming, or can be transparent to its own activity. The former inevitably converts threat into suffering. The latter does not, even though pain may still arise.

In this sense, I agree with you: the mind has to break its chains rather than pretend they are not there. But those chains aren’t biology, anticipation, or even fear. They’re the root assumption that there is a central entity that must be protected for life to be acceptable.

I repeat that I’m not seeking less mind, weaker mind, or a return to raw sensation. I’m arguing for a mind that no longer has to protect itself from its own experience. That is by no means unnatural, forced, or dissociative. It is simply a different internal organization of the same human system.

Pain may still happen. Even extreme pain. Yet suffering is not structurally inevitable. That's the work.

[Breakingthewall]

6 hours ago, gettoefl said:

In this sense, I agree with you: the mind has to break its chains rather than pretend they are not there. But those chains aren’t biology, anticipation, or even fear. They’re the root assumption that there is a central entity that must be protected for life to be acceptable.

I repeat that I’m not seeking less mind, weaker mind, or a return to raw sensation. I’m arguing for a mind that no longer has to protect itself from its own experience. That is by no means unnatural, forced, or dissociative. It is simply a different internal organization of the same human system.

What you're talking about here is the transcendence of the social matrix, the inherited tribal conditioning that comes by default in the human structure. It's what's called liberation. This conditioning makes the self identify with what it is for the group. It's an essential line of software for making the human group act as a unit. Without it, we would be weak prey; with it, we are galactic conquerors (well, according to Elon Musk, but maybe is some point could be). The difference is absolute, and this conditioning is not an "illusion" or a mistake, its written in our genes with red iron. 

It is more powerful than the instinct for survival. The individual will give their life for the tribe without hesitation, if they are fully integrated. The problem (or the good fortune, depending on how you see it) is that we no longer live in tribes, and this primal impulse to identify with the group finds no coherent foothold, thus leading to what we might call emotional illness. A profound underlying imbalance, inherited over thousands of generations, crudely corrected with monolithic pillars of religion, nation, and social class, until recently. And today with the more volatile and hedonistic pillars of success, well-being, sensory enjoyment, ideal couple and the essential pillar of addiction. It is a structure that works, that propels the collective toward greater expansion, which is always the driving force of life, but it plunges the individual into a very complicated state. False, superficial out of vital necessity, broken inside, fragmented in their psyche, full of red lines impossible to cross. If people would look their reality in the face... well, luckily they lack the capacity to do so, or they would collapse.

What you propose, and what spirituality in general proposes, is the breaking of that conditioning, the individual's escape from the matrix, which implies being without attachments. The problem with this is that the programming is real, not illusory as those book sellers with beatific smiles claim.

So, if you let go of the attachment to success, a partner, sex, whatever it may be, your system automatically grabs onto another attachment: "pure consciousness," "absolute love," "God imagining," "fun reincarnations with 70 virgins," or whatever. Because cheap spirituality sells you the idea that transcendence is easy, that it's just a change of perspective. This is because cheap sells, but nobody buys expensive things, and in this case, the product is extremely expensive. You have to let go of everything and be left with nothing. Not your money and other things, but your mental attachments, which are genetic programming from when humans were monkeys that couldn't speak. Obviously, this isn't easy; it's not a product that sells. Nobody is going to listen to it, much less understand it. 

It's important to understand that attachment isn't a mental construct. It's imprinted in your cells, in every breath and every micro-movement. It's part of who you are. If some guru tells you, "You are not that, you are the divine," blah blah, they're already leading you down a false path of roses. They're a con artist seeking influence. Yes,  it is what you are, but what happens is that what is, manifested reality, is dynamic, constantly changing. Nothing is fixed; everything moves, and change can occur and be absolute. It simply needs to be initiated in a non-evasive way. But spirituality sells escapism; it's just another addiction, like Netflix and cocaine.

There is no method for liberation.
Methods are precisely how the system perpetuates itself.
What changes is not a belief, but the exhaustion of avoidance.

Edited 3 hours ago by Breakingthewall

[gettoefl]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

What you're talking about here is the transcendence of the social matrix, the inherited tribal conditioning that comes by default in the human structure. It's what's called liberation. This conditioning makes the self identify with what it is for the group. It's an essential line of software for making the human group act as a unit. Without it, we would be weak prey; with it, we are galactic conquerors (well, according to Elon Musk, but maybe is some point could be). The difference is absolute, and this conditioning is not an "illusion" or a mistake, its written in our genes with red iron. 

It is more powerful than the instinct for survival. The individual will give their life for the tribe without hesitation, if they are fully integrated. The problem (or the good fortune, depending on how you see it) is that we no longer live in tribes, and this primal impulse to identify with the group finds no coherent foothold, thus leading to what we might call emotional illness. A profound underlying imbalance, inherited over thousands of generations, crudely corrected with monolithic pillars of religion, nation, and social class, until recently. And today with the more volatile and hedonistic pillars of success, well-being, sensory enjoyment, ideal couple and the essential pillar of addiction. It is a structure that works, that propels the collective toward greater expansion, which is always the driving force of life, but it plunges the individual into a very complicated state. False, superficial out of vital necessity, broken inside, fragmented in their psyche, full of red lines impossible to cross. If people would look their reality in the face... well, luckily they lack the capacity to do so, or they would collapse.

What you propose, and what spirituality in general proposes, is the breaking of that conditioning, the individual's escape from the matrix, which implies being without attachments. The problem with this is that the programming is real, not illusory as those book sellers with beatific smiles claim.

So, if you let go of the attachment to success, a partner, sex, whatever it may be, your system automatically grabs onto another attachment: "pure consciousness," "absolute love," "God imagining," "fun reincarnations with 70 virgins," or whatever. Because cheap spirituality sells you the idea that transcendence is easy, that it's just a change of perspective. This is because cheap sells, but nobody buys expensive things, and in this case, the product is extremely expensive. You have to let go of everything and be left with nothing. Not your money and other things, but your mental attachments, which are genetic programming from when humans were monkeys that couldn't speak. Obviously, this isn't easy; it's not a product that sells. Nobody is going to listen to it, much less understand it. 

It's important to understand that attachment isn't a mental construct. It's imprinted in your cells, in every breath and every micro-movement. It's part of who you are. If some guru tells you, "You are not that, you are the divine," blah blah, they're already leading you down a false path of roses. They're a con artist seeking influence. Yes,  it is what you are, but what happens is that what is, manifested reality, is dynamic, constantly changing. Nothing is fixed; everything moves, and change can occur and be absolute. It simply needs to be initiated in a non-evasive way. But spirituality sells escapism; it's just another addiction, like Netflix and cocaine.

There is no method for liberation.
Methods are precisely how the system perpetuates itself.
What changes is not a belief, but the exhaustion of avoidance.

 

I largely resonate with your description of the social matrix, and I think naming it explicitly is one of the few honest moves left. And certainly the human self is not a philosophical error. It is an astoundingly effective evolutionary construction, forged to bind individuals into coherent, self-sacrificing collectives. It is deeply engraved in our nervous systems, reinforced hormonally, both affectively, and symbolically. Calling this an “illusion” is sloppy at best and evasive at worst.

Where you and I still diverge is what liberation actually consists of, and therefore what is meant by “breaking conditioning.”

You describe transcendence as the breaking of attachment structures that are cellular, genetic, and therefore real. I concur with your insistence that this cannot be done by belief, reframing, or spiritual cosplay. However I suggest there is a subtle misidentification happening when attachment itself is treated as the chain that must be broken.

Attachment is not the core issue here. Compulsion is. More precisely: the unconscious identification with attachment.

The organism will by nature attach. It will always orient, prefer, avoid, bond, and protect. That’s not something that disappears and nor should it. Liberation refers not to the erasure of such dynamics but to the collapse of the structure that takes them to define what one truly is.

This is where the “nothing left” framing both points in the right direction and then overshoots.

Sure, liberation is expensive. And yes it involves the exhaustion of avoidance rather than its transcendence. But what is exhausted is not attachment per se; it is the need for attachment to function as one's self-definition. When that need collapses, attachment remains but without the existential pressure that once made it compulsory.

That difference is key.

You wrote: if you drop success, sex, relationship, meaning then the system grabs “God,” “pure consciousness,” or some metaphysical substitute. I agree. That is exactly what the self does since it must have something to aim at. But that substitution will take place provided the self-structure remains intact.

What you find collapses in genuine liberation is not content, but centrality. The organism keeps functioning. Preferences remain. Pain still hurts. Fear still mobilizes. Social instincts still fire. But there is no longer a psychological center that asserts: “This has to go a certain way for me to be on track.”

And this is where I propose your claim “there is no method” is both true and misleading.

There is no method that the self can use to free itself, because any method becomes self-reinforcement. Perfect. This does not mean nothing happens. What happens in this case is a progressive failure of avoidance strategies (emotional, cognitive, spiritual), until the system can no longer maintain the fiction of internal division.

I don't call this a technique. But it is definitely a process.

And it doesn’t look like bliss, detachment, or saintliness. It is more akin to radical psychological transparency, where fear is felt as fear, attachment as attachment, grief as grief, all the while without being recruited into a narrative of identity management.

This is the reason cheap spirituality is so addictive. It offers relief without disintegration. It soothes the system while preserving the core structure intact. Netflix and chill with incense anyone?

But the alternative is not annihilation or being “left with nothing” in the nihilistic sense. What endures is a functioning organism without an internal civil war and without the constant friction of defending an identity against its own experience.

So when I continue to claim that suffering is not structurally inevitable, I’m not denying genetics, evolution, or conditioning. I’m pointing to something more exact: Pain is inevitable. Reaction is inevitable. Attachment is inevitable. But suffering demands identification, namely the conversion of experience into a threat to what one takes oneself to be.

When that conversion stops, nothing magical happens. The world doesn’t become a theme park. The briefcase still lurks. But experience no longer fractures the system internally.

This is not escapism. It’s not transcendence as fantasy. It’s not becoming an earthworm. It’s just a human system that no longer has to protect itself from itself. And, yes indeed,  that only happens when avoidance is utterly exhausted. On that, you and I see eye to eye.

Edited 1 hour ago by gettoefl