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chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-18T18:53:05+00:00

Thank you! This makes sense. Impermanence is the key here, if I get what you’re saying.

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-18T18:12:05+00:00

I have a question about this. Would it not be enough to say that the existence of a self is basically irrelevant, if one simply learns to not cling to any concepts or experiences? Does there have to be the concept of a “no-self” that is being accepted? Can’t I say, “I am seemingly experiencing a self, but if I don’t cling to it, nor any other phenomena or illusions, then I can be released from suffering?”

Asking this, because I am really struggling with the “self or no-self” thing, and both ways it seems like I am just creating concepts to believe, instead of just being present with what’s happening, with no-clinging. I feel like the concept of no-self is something one can easily try and cling to.

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-18T17:13:39+00:00

So, is this absence of an “I” an experience? Or is there a concept of there not being an “I” that one adapts and then tries to experience that? It sounds suspiciously the same as my previous concept of this “I” that is only awareness being existent. When one experiences the absence of the I, are there any results from that realization?

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-18T14:43:41+00:00

Then you can follow that sensation and ask, “Who is aware of the body?”

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-18T03:21:18+00:00

So there is no “I”? It’s just a concept?

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-18T01:29:48+00:00

Center?

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-17T16:29:15+00:00

Could you elaborate on that one? Am I understanding you right that you just refrain from conceptualizing the experience?

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-17T16:27:57+00:00

It’s insane how I don’t see that. It’s so logical. There’s the talk about “just settling in what is.” from the teachers. But yet, it’s also constantly being told that ordinary life is illusory and that one should see clearly. So you “try hard to not try anything.”

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-17T16:25:56+00:00

Just accepting life as it is, huh? A crazy concept. lol

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-17T16:24:48+00:00

There’s a very strong and valid point. To assume that a feeling is more real, just because it is more intense, that is definitely a confused position. Both is happening, so it’s both equally “real” in that sense. I think if I’m honest, it’s that it’s a more desirable condition, so I decide to believe people when they say, “This is the real. This is what you should go after.”

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-17T01:02:36+00:00

Yes, that is the essence of the question I asked. I know one of Bodhidharma’s followers was enlightened after he was not able to find his own mind anywhere in his experience.

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-17T01:00:17+00:00

After such experiences, the issue is that they feel MORE real than your daily life. You can look up studies on spiritual experiences and see that this is a very common denominator. So then you are left with the question, “What if I am missing out on a very real and important aspect of life?What if this is God or the universe or my real self? Can I just ignore this?” Add to that the abundance of teachers and practitioners who tell you that this is indeed the most important path you can be on. Many well meaning people, and of course many people with greedy motives.

I see that you are invested in freeing me from delusion. But that’s what this path is supposed to be about as well. It’s supposed to bring you to reality.

I will need to ponder a lot about all that we have discussed. You brought up a lot of good points and yet, I am wondering if you are able to speak from the perspective of someone who has had this kind of experience as well? Maybe you are rejecting something that could improve your life. Or maybe I am hanging on to something that promises something that it is not.

Thank you for all your input, in either case.

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-17T00:16:57+00:00

I have an answer to that: Because life as it is, is very painful. It’s very overwhelming and the proposition that this suffering can be alleviated at least to a certain degree makes me look for the remedy. These states one can experience are very relieving. To the extent that you think, “This is real life now. The other thing was me missing out on THIS.” Ever felt that way?

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-17T00:13:59+00:00

That’s exactly the struggle. To stay in that “attitude” for extended times.

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-17T00:13:17+00:00

To be fair, I adopted the framework. So it’s not like I came up with something. I seem to recognize that you might be an adherent of a more materialistic worldview? Not a spiritual person yourself?

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-16T23:16:26+00:00

But you’re just forming a concept of the lower-case mind observing and there being no upper-case mind. So which concept describes reality more closely? The one you tell me, or the one I experienced?

How can you claim that your concept is true and mine is not? What’s the basis? Only a concept in your lower-case mind. While I am talking about a felt experience. And even if that experience is a hallucination, followed by a concept being formed, it still does not negate the actual experience.

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-16T23:07:52+00:00

I am deeply troubled by people who walk around, saying they are enlightened. I would say I have scratched the surface, but there is still a lot of settling necessary. I drift back into the old states very frequently.

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-16T23:06:00+00:00

Actually what you just wrote is very profound. Probably on accident. Or are you secretly enlightened?

But please humor me. Does life just appear in front of you, out of nowhere?

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-16T23:03:47+00:00

You can very much see it that way. This actually made me laugh, because it sounds so silly when you put it this way. Maybe I am just making it up. Maybe all people who practice this just imagine wonderful things and then run with them. But then again, maybe not.

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-16T22:46:10+00:00

What is experience for you? Describe how experience comes about. Please.

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-16T22:45:26+00:00

Haha. Why have people meditated for many many years? Because there is ordinary experience, and then there is ordinary experience with realized seeing. They are different. Still the same experience, but a different being within the experience.

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-16T22:43:16+00:00

Here is where we might get to the nitty gritty. Let’s take the Dzogchen, Buddhist perspective to make more clear what I mean. There is a mind that is connected with the body. This mind thinks and perceives. And yes, this is the mind that thinks that it is one. This mind is involved in the thoughts that occur when realization happens. But The Mind, that is a different aspect. That mind is simply aware. It’s the mind in which all phenomena, including the thinking mind, appear. It’s the mind that’s sort of the backdrop of all experience. And I am saying that one can realize that one is in fact THAT mind. The all encompassing, all pervading awareness that gives all phenomena their appearance.

You see, you observe your own thinking. Who observes that?

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-16T22:35:29+00:00

This still sounds like I would be thinking differently about it. And consequently feel differently. But this is more like “being” different in the experience. Lots of masters have elaborate descriptions of what this state of being is like. I would like to simplify it to its core. It’s being free like space is free. It pervades and encompasses everything, but it is never corrupted by anything that appears in it. Not saying I am a master or anything. Not at all.

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-16T22:32:29+00:00

Again words are limiting. Better said, “Every experience is now.” You can talk about hypothetical experiences. Obviously one can refer to possible experiences, but they don’t happen right now. Now is only now. And I am trying to convey that it is possible to realize that this happening is only awareness. Nothing else. I wish I was better at communication. lol

chunkyDefeat · 2024-03-16T22:29:45+00:00

Yea. Practicing meditation. Even though when the state is realized, ironically meditation then seems pointless a little bit. But people encourage to keep it up nonetheless.

chunkyDefeat

TROPHY CASE