Playing With Perspectives

[UnbornTao]

When the perceived causes of your unhappiness are resolved and yet your unhappiness remains, that's a rough revelation. 

You always assumed unconsciously that happiness was to be found on external factors.

When looking into it, however, you realize that happiness was never circumstantially-derived. 

Good news!

Edited July 15, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Awareness is a function of mind, mind is a form of consciousness, consciousness is you.

[UnbornTao]

"The difference between the student and the master is that the master has made more mistakes than the student can count."

Failures are stepping stones to success. Seek them out. Fail faster and intelligently. Use them as feedback.

Adopt the student's mindset.

Change your relationship towards failure. See them as essential towards mastery.

Correcting as you go is the priciple being communicated here.

Edited July 15, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

We can choose between making ourselves miserable or making ourselves happy. The amount of effort that it takes is the same.

It is easier to be happy than to suffer.

Edited July 15, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Attachment is motivated by the fear of groundlessness.

[UnbornTao]

Open-mindedness is an antidote to dogma and ideology.

Closed-mindedness is threatened by openness. So does the ego.

Closedmindedness often manifests for many as arrogance and false certainty in the legitimacy of one's knowledge.

Edited November 10, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

A fool can't appreciate, cognize nor perceive greatness.

To fully appreciate the nuances of skill, intelligence, or consciousness requires being skillful yourself, to level up your game and observational and thinking skills.

In which ways are you taking for granted skill and mastery in others?

Edited November 10, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

How are you empowering other people's lives? Especially the ones you live with.

Also: In which ways are you contributing to their mediocrity and ignorance? Stop those.

Put your efforts into helping others achieve their potential while you do the same.

[UnbornTao]

Observe and choose deliberately what you put your attention, time and energy on.

How do you spend your day? What do you focus on throughout the week? Does that serve your goals?

Haven't you noticed how the bodies of those who sit 8 hours a day and who don't exercise accommodate to that lifestyle? 

What do you want your body and mind to accommodate to?

As Tibetan masters say: "You become what you meditate on."

So meditate on the truth.

Edited July 15, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

"The great majority of readers and hearers are the same all over the world. I have no doubt that the people of your country... are like those I have met in China and India, and these latter were just like Tibetans. If you speak to them of profound Truths they yawn, and, if they dare, they leave you, but if you tell them absurd fables they are all eyes and ears. They wish the doctrines preached to them, whether religious, philosophic, or social, to be agreeable, to be consistent with their conceptions, to satisfy their inclinations, in fact that they find themselves in them, and that they feel themselves approved by them."

– Long-dead Tibetan Lama.

Edited November 11, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

In order to empower your life, ground it on a principle.

Principles are real, profound and effective and they have to be experienced! Just thinking about them has very little use, which is what most people do.

You need to see them live, happening in front of you.

Seriously contemplate a principle in order to grasp it experientially. That's the only way it will make a difference in your life.

Examples of transforming life principles are integrity, intelligence, well-being, mastery, honesty, responsibility, honor, authenticity, loyalty.

Edited November 6, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

The one in the driver's seat in your life is and has always been you, whether that responsibility is acknowledged and taken on or not.

What's the proportion in which you listen to others vs yourself when it comes to vital matters?

Take charge of your disposition, reactions, emotional state, personal growth and learning.

Edited November 6, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Costs of putting off deciding what to commit your life to: being pretty dizzy when death comes.

Edited November 7, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Do you assume that masculinity is not compatible with being vulnerable and sensitive?

Some men who act macho might be afraid of showing themselves vulnerable.

In intimate relationships, a man is willing to acknowledge and clearly communicate what he's thinking, feeling and experiencing. Sensitivity is about awareness; it implies courage, not weakness. Appearances are deceiving.

Edited November 7, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Zooming in and out is a dynamic to be balanced.

Do both, daily.

Falling into one or the other is a trap.

• Zooming in: Immersing yourself in something.
• Zooming out: Removing distinctions so that the big picture emerges.

[UnbornTao]

Do you assume that you're already open?

This might actually be a sign of closed-mindedness.

In order to open oneself up, what's useful are psychedelics. They facilitate you in seeing how open you can possibly get.

Remember, though, that openness must be balanced with groundedness. Otherwise, you'll lose your grip on objective reality.

Edited November 6, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

• Subtle and gross
• Abstract and concrete
• Broad and specific
• Shallow and profound

Useful distinctions.

[UnbornTao]

Hope and disappointment seem to be based on your expectations.

What expectations do you hold?  Which ones were you holding that preceded one of these emotional responses?

Disappointment is based on our expectations. To avoid it, drop them. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

When it comes to simple communications, do you dismiss them or take them for granted as obvious or common sense?

There might be something deeper behind them. Especially if they're coming from someone skilled, listen carefully: Where are they coming from? Which experience are they referring to? What's the reality behind the communications? How are they perceiving reality in such a way that allows them to be skillful?

Edited November 11, 2022 by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

Multi-perspectivalism: being willing and able to change perspectives frees you from them.

Being unable to do that indicates unconscious attachment to a particular perspective.

Edited July 15, 2022 by UnbornTao