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Post by ivory on Feb 24, 2011 16:14:13 GMT -5
So being aware of the mind is not the same as being lost in the mind. What's really starting to bug me is that it's always said that someone is lost in the mind. Who is this someone who is lost? It's just an expression, but it's a good question nonetheless. What is really happening when we are "lost in the mind?"
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Post by zendancer on Feb 24, 2011 16:17:02 GMT -5
Very close to reality! Personally, I cried today in remembrance of a fruit vendor, a simple man who burned himself to death in Tunisia over a set of scales, a stupid set of scales that some bureaucrat stole from him in want of a payoff. The vendor went to the office of the government to get his scales back. He just wanted his scales so that he could sell his fruit, and he didn't want to pay the payoff. They ignored him, of course, so he went home and got a can of gasoline. He went back to the office of the government, sat down in the middle of the street in front of the office, poured the gasoline over himself, and set himself on fire. He died a few days later, and his fiery death set the world on fire. A million people, heart broken, came into the streets after hearing about the man's desperate act. Tunisia, Egypt, and now Libya. One simple fruit vendor was the spark that started it all. That's a serious distortion of the story. There are plenty of souces around where the reason for the self-immolation is reported adequately. Question: You may be right, but the version I responded to and described was the version I saw on TV yesterday. I was busy when the Tunisia revolt began and did not watch TV or listen to any news for several days. The report I saw yesterday, with video interviews of the guy's friends, video of the dictator visiting the bandaged guy while he was still alive in the hospital, video of his mother, his gravesite, etc. was the first I had seen or heard about the event. As with everything else these days, I'm sure that there are many alternative accounts and/or explanations. I wonder how we could ever know which version is the correct version? LOL The account I saw had the same effect on me that Princess Diana's death did. Both deaths struck me as particularly tragic. I don't know why. Of course, I often find that the body/mind responds in strange ways to various events. I watched the old classic movie last night "You Can't Take It With You." It's a comedy, but it filled me with tears of truth-recognition. Go figure.
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Post by m on Feb 24, 2011 16:46:04 GMT -5
Don't be so cheeky, you little brat! m LOL So being aware of the mind is not the same as being lost in the mind. What's really starting to bug me is that it's always said that someone is lost in the mind. Who is this someone who is lost?
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Post by zendancer on Feb 24, 2011 16:56:55 GMT -5
What's really starting to bug me is that it's always said that someone is lost in the mind. Who is this someone who is lost? It's just an expression, but it's a good question nonetheless. What is really happening when we are "lost in the mind?" Yeah, that's a funny one. It's like those times when someone is driving on the interstate and for twenty or thirty minutes the road isn't consciously seen. The person is often startled to realize that "they" weren't there driving the car for a long period of time. In this case, attention was so constantly focused upon one's internal mental conversation, that the absence of attention upon the highway became noticeable and seemed unusual. Ironically, most people are lost in the mind all the time in the same way as on the highway, but they don't realize it. That's why we call there usual state of mind "a consensus trance." The average person rarely attends the actual. 99% of the time the body runs on autopilot while the mind wanders around in its imaginary world. LOL. One of the few times most people attend the actual is during and shortly after a car wreck.
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Post by ivory on Feb 24, 2011 17:11:27 GMT -5
So wrecking cars is the most direct path to enlightenment?
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Post by mansuit on Feb 24, 2011 17:17:02 GMT -5
The average person rarely attends the actual. 99% of the time the body runs on autopilot while the mind wanders around in its imaginary world. LOL. O Seems to me that in that imaginary world is the constant conceptual reinforcement of the remembered past and the perceived future of the "self". An endless reiteration of the story, always about me. So, if there is an effortless (a "doing" but with no motivation for result) shift of focus away from that imagined world, then the imaginary world starts to crumble- it's seen as imaginary..and the "self" is seen as imaginary...and there is a "dis-identification" with the story since it is obviously impermanent and has no substance, other than the power of the imagined, then there is an opportunity for the "re-identification" with what is permanent and has substance.
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Post by question on Feb 24, 2011 17:20:10 GMT -5
Bob, you haven't even read the question. You've just filed it into your favourite context and simply repeated what you've said a million times before.
1) Who/what is it exactly that is lost when they're driving the car while being lost in the mind? 2) Why is it a problem when the attention is focused on mind and not on the road or "clickety clickety click"? I suppose it's a problem because thoughts aren't actual? Please explain how anyone or anything can ever be able to focus on or even get lost in something that is not actual?
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Post by sharon on Feb 24, 2011 17:37:34 GMT -5
"Please explain how anyone or anything can ever be able to focus on or even get lost in something that is not actual?"
By dreaming that there is 'someone' that they are not!
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Post by question on Feb 24, 2011 17:45:25 GMT -5
"Please explain how anyone or anything can ever be able to focus on or even get lost in something that is not actual?" By dreaming that there is 'someone' that they are not! Who is they? Simple logic: The dreaming itself and the belief itself are actual, as actual as a tree and clickety clickety click. What is not-actual is necessarily that to which the belief is referring. What is actual about the belief "I exist" is the belief itself and its content. What is not actual is any sort of "I" that the belief is referring to. Show solid reasons for why this is not so.
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Post by sharon on Feb 24, 2011 17:53:17 GMT -5
I can't because it is not not so.
The dream that there is someone somewhere that is not I ~ from the non-dual perspective is completely false. And zendancer ought to know better ...
Your clarity is immense bro and I admire your questioning of him.
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Post by wolfgang on Feb 24, 2011 18:21:01 GMT -5
So wrecking cars is the most direct path to enlightenment? or being emotional about world news half way around the world?
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Post by wolfgang on Feb 24, 2011 18:38:03 GMT -5
Bob, you haven't even read the question. You've just filed it into your favourite context and simply repeated what you've said a million times before. 1) Who/what is it exactly that is lost when they're driving the car while being lost in the mind? 2) Why is it a problem when the attention is focused on mind and not on the road or "clickety clickety click"? I suppose it's a problem because thoughts aren't actual? Please explain how anyone or anything can ever be able to focus on or even get lost in something that is not actual? What if noise in our heads is real and actual, but not as strongly real and actual as the ground of truth? Being lost in the mind is not being lost, but rather attending to something that is currently believed to be real. And it is. You can attend to it. But how real? Don't thoughts wisp around without much power? Can a thought alone even make your arm move? If there is just the thought "Move my arm" it is a thought of moving the arm, it is not the arm moving at all. So being lost in thought is no problem. It happens. If we try to see it as a problem and try to get out of it - well that may just keep us believing thoughts are completely true - when they are only kind of true. well, that may not hold up.
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Post by zendancer on Feb 24, 2011 20:14:30 GMT -5
So wrecking cars is the most direct path to enlightenment? Yes. Wonderful! That may be a more direct path than anyone has ever thought of!
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Post by zendancer on Feb 24, 2011 20:16:12 GMT -5
The average person rarely attends the actual. 99% of the time the body runs on autopilot while the mind wanders around in its imaginary world. LOL. O Seems to me that in that imaginary world is the constant conceptual reinforcement of the remembered past and the perceived future of the "self". An endless reiteration of the story, always about me. So, if there is an effortless (a "doing" but with no motivation for result) shift of focus away from that imagined world, then the imaginary world starts to crumble- it's seen as imaginary..and the "self" is seen as imaginary...and there is a "dis-identification" with the story since it is obviously impermanent and has no substance, other than the power of the imagined, then there is an opportunity for the "re-identification" with what is permanent and has substance. Yes, yes, yes. Perfectly said IMO.
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Post by zendancer on Feb 24, 2011 20:27:38 GMT -5
Bob, you haven't even read the question. You've just filed it into your favourite context and simply repeated what you've said a million times before. 1) Who/what is it exactly that is lost when they're driving the car while being lost in the mind? 2) Why is it a problem when the attention is focused on mind and not on the road or "clickety clickety click"? I suppose it's a problem because thoughts aren't actual? Please explain how anyone or anything can ever be able to focus on or even get lost in something that is not actual? Question: These are all figures of speech. I know I'm boring, but I have to keep repeating the same boring thing over and over. There is only oneness here. It manifests "just like this." Nothing is ever really lost or found, because there is nobody to lose or find anything and there is no separateness in any sense, but we use words like "being lost in the mind" to point out what is happening. There is nothing other than THIS! Everywhere I look I see only THIS. THIS, in the form of other human beings, often sleepwalks through life imagining all kinds of crazy things. We say that people who are sleepwalking through life and being jerked around by tons of crazy ideas are "lost in the mind."
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