Leo's Practical Guide To Enlightenment

[Guest username]

@Afonso What are you saying? Why do you think you can't just stop identifying with them?

You notice how "I identify with these tensions in my body" is just a thought in your head? Become aware of that.

The tensions are just there. You are not them. What are you?

[Space]

8 hours ago, Afonso said:

@Leo Gura Good point. But how do I stop identifying with these tensions? It's not like I can press a button and "desidentify". The only way I can do that is by focusing on the tension that comes to my awareness when I feel "myself". By focusing on it like a laser point it dissolves OR another tension takes place.

I'm not able to do

bool IdentifyWithAllTensions = false;

What's the solution?

Just by focusing on something isn't likely to result in loosening your identification with it. You have to question it and question it and question it, over and over again if necessary.

Ask yourself things like, if i'm able to perceive this sensation then how can it be what I am? Or, what is aware of this sensation? Or, is this sensation being aware of itself?

It's great that you're clear about what you believe you are, but you've gotta keep going back to it with repeated questioning. If you do this the identification with loosen. But it shouldn't take too long to realise that you can't possibly be a sensation. Try dis-identifying from your whole body! 

[Anton Rogachevski]

4 hours ago, Space said:

Or, is this sensation being aware of itself?

If I ask that question I find a dead end, cause it's possible that it is so.

[Afonso]

Thanks guys.

[Guest username]

@Anton Rogachevski  Don't fall into abstraction. If you rely on abstraction, you would be at a dead end at any point since anything is possible if you account for what you don't know.

Take it as an axiom that your direct experience is reliable and see where it goes as you self-inquire. Notice that in your direct experience, you are not a sensation, a sensation is something that you perceive. Only focus on what you can become directly conscious of-- leave the abstractions out of it.

You will get deeper and deeper levels of consciousness as this goes on. It leaves the question of whether or not deeper consciousness is reliable, but you can only make that determination once you've increased your awareness.

This stuff can't really be understood in a relative framework. Too many logical contradiction and linguistic limitations will arrive. We have to set is aside and use a different route of investigation.

Edited July 6, 2017 by username

[Leo Gura]

@Afonso

1) Thousands of hours of questioning.

2) Thousands of hours of silent meditation.

You awareness is just too low right now to see your way out of this pickle. If your mindfulness skill was higher, you'd be able to clearly see that a tension has nothing to do with you. Tensions are just feelings, which come and go.

It's like you're a level 5 elf trying to win a battle with a level 100 dragon in an RPG. It's not gonna work. He's gonna one-shot you. You gotta go back to the newbie area (mindfulness with labeling) and level up your skills, son

[Afonso]

31 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Afonso

1) Thousands of hours of questioning.

2) Thousands of hours of silent meditation.

You awareness is just too low right now to see your way out of this pickle. If your mindfulness skill was higher, you'd be able to clearly see that a tension has nothing to do with you. Tensions are just feelings, which come and go.

It's like you're a level 5 elf trying to win a battle with a level 100 dragon in an RPG. It's not gonna work. He's gonna one-shot you. You gotta go back to the newbie area (mindfulness with labeling) and level up your skills, son

If Mindfulness with Labeling is so important why don't more spiritual teachings talk about it when addressing Self-Inquiry? It seems like the only things recommended are Silent Meditation and Self-Inquiry.

[Leo Gura]

@Afonso People are generally very closedminded and dogmatic. They stumble into one thing in spirituality and they cling to it just like they do with all their other beliefs and perspectives, and so they are ignorant of all the techniques and teachings available.

Unless one has made a conscious effort to study this field very openmindedly and very carefully, investing years and thousands of hours, one will become dogmatic about techniques and teachings. This has been the case for over 5000 years. Every religion misunderstands every other religion, because they don't care to understand. They care to create an identity out of it.

And mindfulness with labeling is not by any means required. There are a dozen other ways to raise mindfulness. Depending on your culture and personal preferences, you may or may not resonate with it. I recommend it because it's very straight-forward and was effective for me.

[Afonso]

For anyone wanting to stretch their Self-Observation practice, wear a wristband (like the one Leo uses in the subtle addictions video).

Now every time you look at it, you can ask yourself Whose life is this, Who am I, Who is doing this stuff

[Socrates]

Self inquiry feels futile for me. Maybe i need more theory in order to have the conscious traction. After watching Leo's enlightenment experience video I feel like the technique needs improvement or some specificity, it's too vague otherwise. If for example we mix those small exercises with self inquiry we can skyrocket our results. Even breaking down the process for example do the "spaciousness" technique until you are conscious of it. Then do the "imaginary line" technique until you are conscious of it and so on. After you have established concsious traction you do self inquiry.

[Afonso]

1 hour ago, Socrates said:

Self inquiry feels futile for me. Maybe i need more theory in order to have the conscious traction. After watching Leo's enlightenment experience video I feel like the technique needs improvement or some specificity, it's too vague otherwise. If for example we mix those small exercises with self inquiry we can skyrocket our results. Even breaking down the process for example do the "spaciousness" technique until you are conscious of it. Then do the "imaginary line" technique until you are conscious of it and so on. After you have established concsious traction you do self inquiry.

Then you're doing it too intellectually. I feel a boost in awareness and I feel that I'm becoming much more spontaneous and care-free. There are times where I just stop and realize that whatever I'm doing is just being done. There's no one doing anything. Those moments are becoming more and more frequent.

[Socrates]

@Afonso You cant do it "too intellectually". Hech, You cant even do it "too -anything-". If it is conceptualized it is not it. Thats why i made the post in the first place and thats why concsious traction is so important. The truth is important but our technique is not evolving along. I doubt you can achieve enlightenment without firstly conceptual understanding it then concsiously getting a grasp of it and then being it. Lets not even call it "improved technique". We need a more detailed technique that's all.

[Space]

@Leo Gura I have a question. Should I be actively trying to grasp the fact that I really don't know what I am, or is a deep not-knowing just a sort of bi-product of the process that comes without intentional effort? 

[Leo Gura]

@Space I would say both.

Getting even 5 seconds of true not-knowing is so hard and rare. It takes real work.

When you actually hit that point, enlightenment is like seconds away. You'll feel it. Terror will arise in your body. You will feel very noticeable progress in your inquiry. Like you discovered how to REALLY inquire for the first time. All prior inquiry will seem like mental masturbation by comparison.

It's like you're trying to jailbreak your phone, and the old OS just keeps blocking your hacks over and over again, until finally you're right on the cusp of hacking the old OS totally out of the way. And in that moment, all defenses go down, and you sense the seriousness of that. It feels like you're about to brick your brain.

[ajasatya]

8 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Like you discovered how to REALLY inquire for the first time. All prior inquiry will seem like mental masturbation by comparison.

when i really got it, it felt like i was practicing self-inquiry with my entire body. the feeling is amazingly terrifying.

[Afonso]

@Leo Gura I think I'm experiencing the dawn of the witness. I now get it, the witness. Everything is unfolding. My thoughts are unfolding. My body is unfolding. My introspection is unfolding. The words in my head are unfolding. The sensations are unfolding. Everything just is. Phenomena is unfolding. t's all a big movie... It's all a big Virtual Reality game. Where am I, who am I. How do I move beyond this point? I got this point through doing Self-Inquiry after a huge dose of weed yesterday. It's just a movie... just a movie...

[Leo Gura]

@Afonso But what are you?

[MiracleMan]

On 12/20/2016 at 2:50 PM, Leo Gura said:

Now you're starting to fathom, just a bit, the magnitude of the illusion.

You cannot know what is meant by consciousness at this point, because if you did, you'd be enlightened. The true nature of consciousness is what you're being pointed to find.

To overcome this obstacle, you have to drop all naive realist paradigms of reality.

Reality is not at all what you've been taught it is. And consciousness is not phenomenal experience.

Do we basically start out enlightened but by early childhood we begin to solidify our ego and societal norms?  We aren't born with egos right?  I feel like we develop them over time.

Edited July 14, 2017 by MiracleMan

[Leo Gura]

@MiracleMan Not enlightened, but of course you start out without a you If you try to think back, sometime around age 2-3 you created the concept of a you vs other. You probably can't remember. Because there was no you before then.

[MiracleMan]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@MiracleMan Not enlightened, but of course you start out without a you If you try to think back, sometime around age 2-3 you created the concept of a you vs other. You probably can't remember. Because there was no you before then.

That is interesting.  A very early memory at 4 or 5 years old, one of the first I can still recall, was how uncanny it was walking into a townhouse i lived in as an infant.  I couldn't understand why I had no memory of this place.  It was the realization I had no prior memory, maybe one of the first times I experienced self inquiry.  It was the first time I faced the fact that I couldn't point at where exactly I entered this realm of consciousness.

 

Edited July 14, 2017 by MiracleMan