Best Work of Frank Yang

[Mannyb]

[Princess Arabia]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Don't talk to yourself for a few minutes and see how it feels.

Result: First few sec i kept laughing, then I thought to time the 5mins, then I got serious and sat here staring out the window, then I closed my eyes, then I started thinking, "am I thinking or is that the voice in my head". Then I tried again and kept wondering if the 5mins was up yet, then I tried again to just sit there and started laughing again, then I said ok, I'll just pretend i'm meditating, then I remembered trying to just observe thoughts during meditation, then I thought, shit this is worse than trying to meditate and I gave up. 

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

shit this is worse than trying to meditate and I gave up. 

It is identical to meditation.

[RightHand]

I have a question for @Leo Gura.

I would say that the highest levels of consciousness I have experienced were during lucid dreaming. I would literally tear up watching the beautiful landscape I was creating. I could talk to the people in my dream with absolutely no worries because I knew that I was creating them and my brain was 99.9999% turned off.

When I wake up, I feel so frustrated because I know that in my natural state, I will never feel 1/100th of that love, beauty, bliss, that I experience in my dreams (I have never done psychedelics).

My question is, did you have similar lucid dream experiences, and how do they compare to your deepest awakenings? Is the depth of feeling during trips 100 times greater than the best lucid dream you had?

Edited March 19 by RightHand

[Princess Arabia]

25 minutes ago, Mannyb said:

Is that why this comment is in meme form ? Then again, it's still words in form. So, just be a mute. I guess the dumb are liberated.

Edited March 19 by Princess Arabia

[Leo Gura]

35 minutes ago, RightHand said:

I have a question for @Leo Gura.

I would say that the highest levels of consciousness I have experienced were during lucid dreaming. I would literally tear up watching the beautiful landscape I was creating. I could talk to the people in my dream with absolutely no worries because I knew that I was creating them and my brain was 99.9999% turned off.

When I wake up, I feel so frustrated because I know that in my natural state, I will never feel 1/100th of that love, beauty, bliss, that I experience in my dreams (I have never done psychedelics).

My question is, did you have similar lucid dream experiences, and how do they compare to your deepest awakenings? Is the depth of feeling during trips 100 times greater than the best lucid dream you had?

I don't experience lucid dreaming.

But I understand what you mean. Yes, your normal life is less conscious and feels very limited. Because it is.

Tripping is like lucid dreaming. And you feel even worse afterwards because you know your normal life is so limited.

[Zigzag Idiot]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

No internal voice.

Think of a cat. You don't think it talks to itself in its own mind.

Do cats have linguistic awareness? I wouldn’t think so.

Do cats have non-conceptual awareness? This sounds more likely. 
I just don't know, really. Just imaginative conjecture on my part.

[Yousif]

1 hour ago, Princess Arabia said:

Is that why this comment is in meme form ? Then again, it's still words in form. So, just be a mute. I guess the dumb are liberated.

Look at what the finger is pointing to, not the finger itself.

[Davino]

7 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

What does this mean. They don't have a monkey mind? They don't have a mind? They don't talk inwardly to themselves? They don't think? Explain please. Never heard of this.

 

7 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

Ok give me a sec, let me try. 5mins.

You should get some meditation skills, like basic presence no mind

 

 

[CosmicExplorer]

17 hours ago, Davino said:

What is the difference between pain and suffering for you?

For me it's pretty clear. Pain is the raw sensation. Suffering is a construction, disonance and resistance with the what is.

Suffering is any uneasiness, uncomfortableness or aversion to sensation. Colloquially speaking and from a practical point of view pain is intertwined with suffering but for the sake of discussing a technical Buddhist term - pain is a raw sensation. What you're describing, pain sensations arise but the mind doesn't have any reaction to them is a cessation event:

Quote

During that period, at
the level of consciousness there is a complete cessation of mental fabrications of
any kind—of the illusory, mind-generated world that otherwise dominates every
conscious moment. This, of course, also entails a complete cessation of craving,
intention, and suffering

Quote

what happens
in the last few moments of consciousness leading up to the cessation [...] First, an
object arises in consciousness that would normally produce craving. It can be
almost anything. However, what happens next is quite unusual: the mind doesn’t
respond with the habitual craving and clinging. Rather, it fully understands the
object from the perspective of Insight: as a mental construct, completely
“empty” of any real substance, impermanent, and a cause of suffering. This
profound realization leads to the next and final moment of complete equanimity,
in which the shared intention of all the unified sub-minds is to not respond.5
Because nothing is projected into consciousness, the cessation event arises.

This is however an insanely high bar to be able to have it at will, not to mention that your ability to function in the world during perfect equanimity is precisely 0, you can't even pick up a cup of tea.

18 hours ago, Davino said:

You can get tortured and experience great pain. That is clear. But afterwards, one can be happy or suffer from that the rest of their life. In that difference is my inquiry. 

Why afterward? After all, if you're free from suffering you don't suffer during torture either.

10 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

What does this mean. They don't have a monkey mind? They don't have a mind? They don't talk inwardly to themselves? They don't think? Explain please. Never heard of this.

People experience self-talk differently. Some have more image-based self talk some have quiet, sub verbal, concepts shifting in their mind kind of thing, and some have loud talk somewhat like they would be talking to themselves in their own voice but in their head

[Manusia]

On 02/03/2024 at 4:52 AM, Davino said:

 

Watched it. This is a cool one.

But newbies in facing negative emotions might be overwhelmed with the spiritual dictionary.

[emil1234]

@Leo Gura whats your thought on meditation/practices leading to different states of consciousness? such as the buddhist No-Self route vs the hindu big Self route?

it seems the buddhist claim to go "further" than the hindus, in the sense that they disidentify from the big Self, or Brahman, and thats sort of the end of the route for the buddhist practicioner. However the hindu way seems way more alligned with your teachings, in the sense that the hindu aim for Brahman, the big Self, and then they deepen their relationship with the big self, which seemingly can go on to infinity.

I think the hindu method might be more alligned with what you refer to as "high consciousness", where as the buddhists are more focused on ending suffering through negation of all identifications. 

the term mahasamahdi i believe is when someone approaches what u describe as near formless total infinity. notice that this a hindu term, and not really spoken of within buddhism

 

 

Edited March 19 by emil1234

[Princess Arabia]

5 hours ago, Davino said:

 

You should get some meditation skills, like basic presence no mind

 

 

I don't have a practice where I put aside time to meditate but I do spontaneous devotion a lot. 

[Davino]

4 hours ago, CosmicExplorer said:

Why afterward? After all, if you're free from suffering you don't suffer during torture either.

You yourself have explained it.

4 hours ago, CosmicExplorer said:

Pain is a raw sensation

Suffering is aversion to sensation

You have the raw sensation

But you don't make any drama out of it

 

Funny enough I fall sick yesterday and I've been feeling pretty shitty honestly ahahhaha

I can make the distinction between the raw sensation and the drama and resistence I make to feeling shitty

I feel shitty = Pain

I don't wanna feel shitty = Suffering

I'm having both right now. You see everything different when you are sick in fact

[Davino]

2 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

I don't have a practice where I put aside time to meditate but I do spontaneous devotion a lot. 

I'm happy that devotion works for you

Having basic meditation skills is also important. You can't say you are in this path without being able to abide in no mind for 5min. Not saying you should become a pro or anything but at least have the 101 meditation experience of presence without thoughts.

[Princess Arabia]

52 minutes ago, Davino said:

I'm happy that devotion works for you

Having basic meditation skills is also important. You can't say you are in this path without being able to abide in no mind for 5min. Not saying you should become a pro or anything but at least have the 101 meditation experience of presence without thoughts.

Well, you of all people should understand that forcing the mind to stop all thought within a time schedule of 5mins on a whim, especially for a beginner is going to bring on more thought. I guess I'm not that much of a beginner to understand that. 

[Spiral Wizard]

18 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

My position is: Your true identity is God.

The only trick is becoming conscious of what that entails.

In practice the way identity works is that you can identify with anything, from the most limited to completely unlimited (Infinity) and anything in between.

Your identity is bascially a function of your state of consciousness. Depending on what state of consciousness you're in you will identify with various things. And the higher your state the more you will identify as everything until eventually you reach pure formless Infinity.

Why do you have to make that extra step of identifying? I’m genuinely curious. 

As I understanding the activity of identifying is what creates suffering and letting go of that is the natural state because you let nature be nature meaning you don’t entangle yourself with it and skew it in the process. Letting go of the need to be something (no matter if that’s a human, God, or formless infinity). This doesn’t meant that you aren’t it or that it doesn’t arise but simply that you let it be and go without needing to claim it as yourself because that creates clinging and aversion leading to suffering which I heard was the only thing Buddha’s teaching was or is all about. Nothing else. It doesn’t attempt to explain the universe, it simply shows the path out of suffering. Which is a nice thing and comes with some nice surprises.

[Jannes]

On 17.3.2024 at 11:07 PM, Leo Gura said:

I am for raising your consciousness however works for you.

But wouldn't you get a higher baseline state yourself if you did the practice? Even if you know fully well that this is far away from the highest states of consciousness. Thats what I dont understand. 

[Princess Arabia]

13 hours ago, Davino said:

 

You should get some meditation skills, like basic presence no mind

 

 

This video was interesting. Made me look at anxiety and depression in a whole new light. Doesn't seem like it happens from thought. She doesn't have thoughts and still have both symptoms. Not sure what to make of that other than there's no person doing anything which is in line with the "no doer" teachings. It's just happening.

Seems like ever so often I come across something in life that isn't the norm and changes my perspectives on things or make me wonder about certain aspects of life. This is one of them. It actually, for me, puts the pieces together more than dismantle them and falls in line perfectly with some things I've questioned in the past and not understood. Then again, that's just another illusion within the illusion, so ill, see it as such.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Argonaut]

This has been one of the most helpful threads on this forum recently!! Would love to hear @Leo Gura's thoughts on @Jannes' question - why disregard baseline consciousness? Is anyone else confused by this?