Playing with Perspectives

[UnbornTao]

[UnbornTao]

Limitation...

• makes possibility real.
• actualizes possibility.
• allows for the realization of possibility.

Edited May 29 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Quote

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

– Dōgen

Why would he say that (in the context of contemplation, direct experience, and enlightenment)?

Edited June 10 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Your approach to happiness is backwards. You treat it as a byproduct of external factors, as a function of achieving desired outcomes and of being affected by such circumstances. In this model, happiness is contingent on agreeable events. But consider: When you’ve felt happy, where did that happiness actually come from? What, in your personal 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.

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Pursuing happiness implies unhappiness. The very search presupposes its absence--and that, somehow, one day it will "arrive." That’s an ideal - stop chasing it. Instead, learn to be happy regardless of your experience. This takes our notion of happiness away from the common meaning, doesn't it? 

Fully embracing the experience you’re having, not just intellectually but actually, sounds like a pipe dream, or at least threatening. Does that mean that I will stop pursuing my goals and become complacent? No! It just means you're happy, and you experience this or that.

If it isn't an effect or result that comes from a successful self-survival, what is it?

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If the apparent causes of your unhappiness are resolved, and yet unhappiness remains, that can be a sobering realization. It also reveals a mistaken 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 embracing your experience exactly as it is.

Quote

If you want to be happy, be.

— Leo Tolstoy

 

Edited June 1 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

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

Edited June 10 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.

–– Issai Chozanshi

Edited June 23 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 May 29 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

 

[UnbornTao]

Something

Edited May 27 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 (for men)
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 June 1 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Quote

Awareness of your frantic state gives you power over it. You see, you cannot control a state that you are identified with, that is, a state you do not observe in yourself. But there is a calm self within you that can actually stand aside and observe another self, the frantic one. This is self-awareness. This is what gives you command.

Do you see the tremendous power here? Listen carefully: When you become aware of a frantic state you can then see the difference between a frantic state and a calm one. You see that there is an alternative to pressure.

That alternative is calmness. When you are unaware of your pressure-state, you mistakenly think that it is the only state that exists. But now you are aware of the other way — calmness.

-- Vernon Howard

 

Edited May 28 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

One thing is what you "say" (think, believe, intellectualize, speak about), and another is what you actually experience, live as, and do. Notice the discrepancies between the two.

Edited May 29 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Insight must be generated by you and requires that you let go of your current knowledge. Insight isn't merely a conviction, concept, or belief; it is a personal encounter with the reality of something, like grasping what an emotion or principle is.

Edited June 3 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Thinking that your experience should be some other way generates resistance and suffering - even if subtly. By definition, a desired, imagined experience not currently occurring is contrasted with your present one, which is then found lacking.

Conversely, embracing your experience fosters a deep sense of presence and aliveness, since the moment is allowed to be as it is. Being fully engaged in an activity increases your vitality and sharpens your focus. Your relationship with the present becomes one of joy and lightness because your "self" is put on the background, at least temporarily.

Edited June 1 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

 

 

ADHD brain mode at night.

Edited June 1 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Impressionist paintings by GPT:

 

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Edited May 30 by UnbornTao

[Rishabh R]

@UnbornTao I could suggest that you could read the book Tao Te Ching which I have on Amazon Kindle as your name contains Tao . Great dude.

[UnbornTao]

6 hours ago, Rishabh R said:

@UnbornTao I could suggest that you could read the book Tao Te Ching which I have on Amazon Kindle as your name contains Tao . Great dude.

I've read it and it definitely is one of those books that need to be reread and contemplated multiple times.

Edited September 19, 2024 by UnbornTao