The problem with radical open-mindedness

[Someone here]

7 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

Can you guarantee me the reward I want

Fear is a threat to the the finite from that you think you are.. If you are formless.. What can threat you? 

[Gesundheit]

29 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Fear is a threat to the the finite from that you think you are.. If you are formless.. What can threat you? 

There is fear for the body and fear for the ego-mind. If I remove the ego-mind, I will become formless, even if fear for the body occurs. I don't need to kill the body to be formless because the body is in fact formless, since form = formlessness. It's only the limitations of the ego-mind that creates unnecessary fear. The ego-mind is always trying to maintain itself in a rigid form, and that's the problem. If there was no ego-mind, I wouldn't be here. But I am here because I think I am.

[Someone here]

18 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

I don't need to kill the body to be formless because the body is in fact formless, since form = formlessness.

Is this your experience? 

[Origins]

@Someone here another perspective is the left/right brain dichotomy, so for me on a personal level its complete open mindedness (no effort), and complete integration (that's where the effort is).

The integration creates the groundedness, and playing with ideas from the systematic to various creative forms connects things with the corpus callosum. 

For me I'm always in the now so I don't get why people feel ungrounded, like I seriously on a subjective level find that difficult to relate to but interpersonally I can relate to it by imagining what that's like, and my imagination is informing me that this person loves to have things settled in their mind and its difficult for them to move consistently through life without resolving any dissonance they may have about a construct in reality they're being open to. If I had to give advice to that person it would be, don't even try to "handle the dissonance" or "cope with not knowing", rather to twist that need for certainty into a need for discovery. By changing underlying beliefs towards discovery more rather than certainty, one will instead question intellectual boundaries rather than feel they need to have them.

It's probably on a stereotypical level, a left brain thing, because a left brain thing also feels like it needs to have all its beliefs, values, etc sorted as well. It's tied to perfectionism around identity, thus its connected to the need to establish a coherent narrative for ones identity to believe in too. So letting go around needs relating to identity may help too.

[Nahm]

On 10/29/2020 at 8:09 AM, Someone here said:

and notice that you can't actually disprove any of them with 100% certainty.

Sure you can. It’s just that you can, vs someone else can for you. Tons of nuance to truly recognizing the extent of projection at play. Surface hasn’t even been seen yet. 

[Member]

All this talk about suffering... how can moderate suffering be so bad? I'm not talking about extreme pain but... the average modern human is complaining waaaay too much, lmao. If enlightenment or this spiritual path is only for this, then life is so fucking uninteresting. Cmon people, just a little more imagination

[Origins]

And I see a lot of comments here about "enlightenment work" to me its just awareness work and honestly I think the whole "path" has a whole lot of nonsense connected to it that if it just focused on the crux there, awareness, people would be sweet , enlightenment suggests that there's some "state", a place to arrive at, which is total nonsense, its an absence of stuff not an adding on.

[Member]

I don't have potato chips today... I'm so 'suffering' that I shall become nothing, lmao

[VeganAwake]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

The body? 

Yes the body seems to get effected.

What is the source of the suffering?

[Member]

Just now, VeganAwake said:

What is the source of the suffering?

When you don't have chips and beer?

[Someone here]

52 minutes ago, Origins said:

For me I'm always in the now so I don't get why people feel ungrounded, like I seriously on a subjective level find that difficult to relate to but interpersonally I can relate to it by imagining what that's like, and my imagination is informing me that this person loves to have things settled in their mind and its difficult for them to move consistently through life without resolving any dissonance they may have about a construct in reality they're being open to. If I had to give advice to that person it would be, don't even try to "handle the dissonance" or "cope with not knowing", rather to twist that need for certainty into a need for discovery. By changing underlying beliefs towards discovery more rather than certainty, one will instead question intellectual boundaries rather than feel they need to have them.

An interesting insight. Thanks for sharing. 

[VeganAwake]

27 minutes ago, Member said:

When you don't have chips and beer?

Yes, a thought arises no chips and beer = bad. Identification with this thought creates an apparent lacking or bad experience for 'me'(suffering)

No chips and beer is neutral.... it's neither right nor wrong.... the fact is there's just no chips and beer.

So the conditioned thought identified with as 'my' thought created the apparent suffering. 

 

[Gesundheit]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

Is this your experience? 

Well, I can't locate form. So basically, yes.

[Someone here]

49 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

 

What is the source of the suffering?

Idk dude just plain sensations of pain in the body. You seem to suggest that the sensations themselves are not suffering but rather labeling them as such is.  But I don't think it's up to you. 

[tsuki]

Problems with open-mindedness arise only if aren't grounded in your direct experience.

Edited October 30, 2020 by tsuki

[Someone here]

9 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

Well, I can't locate form. So basically, yes.

What can you locate? ?

[Gesundheit]

1 minute ago, Someone here said:

What can you locate? ?

Location is a relative notion. For me to determine the location of something, I need to create a frame of reference to contrast it to. For me to locate something, I need to isolate it from everything else, which simply cannot happen. There is only one thing that I can't separate from itself.

[Shin]

10 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

@Shin You're trying to be clever and shortcut your way there, but it doesn't work like that. I've tried that many times and it didn't work. I let go of everything I could, but then something "bad" happens and fear kicks in once again. I don't want to experience fear. Enlightenment should eradicate all fear. Once you're there, I will listen to you. Right now you're bullshitting yourself and others.

@mandyjw It could mean talking like a dolphin. That's not my concern. All I know is that I am full of fears and you're full of fears, and that all of this nice ways of talking about enlightenment are BS that would break at the first challenge.

In my experience the only way to not fear something is to go through the fear and do exactly what you fear.

If you have any other way to hack that, good, but imo you're fooling yourself.

You're just stalling the inevitable with clever excuses ?

 

 

[Someone here]

24 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

Location is a relative notion. For me to determine the location of something, I need to create a frame of reference to contrast it to. For me to locate something, I need to isolate it from everything else, which simply cannot happen. There is only one thing that I can't separate from itself.

Good. What about fear? 

[Nahm]

2 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

If there was no ego-mind, I wouldn't be here. But I am here because I think I am.

This is from over exposure to solipsism. No offense, in either & any case, obviously. 

Go see. Too much thinking makes for paranoia and psychosis.