Playing with Perspectives

[UnbornTao]

 

[UnbornTao]

Made flan!

 

Edited January 26 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Made this today. The sweetness of the onion was fantastic. Not the best look (understatement) for my first Spanish omelette, but it was quite tasty.

Edited 21 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

What is prior to interpretation?

[UnbornTao]

Notice your state when listening to the video below. 

 

Edited 21 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

[UnbornTao]

[UnbornTao]

What do you assume about the world?

[UnbornTao]

Limitation makes possibility real.

Limitation actualizes possibility.

Limitation allows for the realization of possibility.

[UnbornTao]

Quote

Nothing can be gained by extensive study and wide reading. Give them up immediately.

– Dōgen

Why would he say that?

Edited 15 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Denigrating "enlightenment" into an experience, state, or perception, however new, healing, or dramatic, is a trap.

Edited August 28, 2024 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Your approach to happiness is backwards. You treat it as a byproduct of external conditions--of achieving desired outcomes and being affected by circumstances. In this model, happiness is contingent on what happens.

But consider:

• When you’ve felt happy, where did that happiness actually come from?
• What, in your direct experience, makes you happy?

Two angles from which to approach this contemplation:

1. A pragmatic one, dealing with what is conventionally considered happiness.
2. An existential one, seeking to uncover the source of happiness itself.

Pursuing happiness implies unhappiness. The very search presupposes its absence--and that, somehow, one day it will arrive. That’s an ideal.

Stop chasing happiness. Instead, learn to be happy regardless of circumstances. Genuinely embrace the experience you’re having--not just intellectually, but fully. Look into the nature of happiness itself, not as the result of a successful self-survival strategy, but as something deeper.

If the apparent causes of your unhappiness are resolved, and yet unhappiness remains, that can be a sobering realization. It reveals a hidden assumption: that happiness was to be found in, or produced by, external factors.

But upon closer inspection, you may see that true happiness has never been circumstantial. It has always been a matter of being fundamentally okay with your experience, exactly as it is.

Edited 20 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

If a communication sounds familiar to you in the context of consciousness work, watch out! Consider that there might be something deeper to understand about the experience and consciousness than what your intellect makes of it, especially if it comes from an authentic source.

Edited September 7, 2024 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Quote

Nowadays, people are shallow and their resolution is not in earnest. They dislike the strenuous and love the easy from the time they are young. When they see something vaguely clever, they want to learn it right away; but if taught in the manner of the old ways, they think it not worth learning

Quote

The demon said, 'The Way cannot be seen or heard. What can be seen or heard are just the traces of the Way. But you will be enlightened about what has no traces by the traces themselves'

–– Issai Chozanshi

Edited 15 hours ago by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Quote

"The ultimate reality is not an object of perception but the very consciousness that perceives."

Quote

"True freedom is the liberation from the bondage of thought and the realization of the infinite nature of consciousness."

––Franklin Merrell-Wolff

Edited September 3, 2024 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

 

[UnbornTao]

Something

Edited 20 hours ago by UnbornTao

[Leo Gura]

@UnbornTao Lots of wisdom here. Good work!

[UnbornTao]

@Leo Gura Thanks Leo, appreciate it.

[UnbornTao]

Stop Avoiding Pain

A few consequences of avoiding pain:

1. Numbness; decreased sensitivity and awareness
2. Lack of depth and profundity
3. Childishness
4. A growing shadow
5. Weakness and fragility
6. Loss of presence and vitality
7. Addiction
8. A reduced capacity for wisdom

Therefore, contemplate, and embrace, pain. 

• What exactly is the "ouch!" in your experience?
• What function is it serving?
• Can you notice how you might be conceptually superimposing mental "stuff" onto the raw sensation?
• What is the relationship between what you do with your mind and the degree of pain you experience?
• Does a willingness to look directly into your suffering (a form of pain) reduce its impact somehow?

Here are a few suggested practices to begin exploring your experience of discomfort—and therefore, of pain:

1. Cold showers
2. Semen retention
3. Fasting
4. Intense meditation
5. Physical exercise
6. Deep stretching
7. Doing nothing—sitting alone in a room for several hours
8. Eliminating an addiction

Edited 16 hours ago by UnbornTao