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Post by Portto on May 6, 2011 15:18:03 GMT -5
Wahoooooooo! Hehe Yeah, exploring, experimenting, poking stuff beats the heck out of sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves because we don't exist. Hehe. Marie and i were talking about Buddha yesterday and I was saying, you know he tried everything. He mental masturbated and philosophized and grasped beliefs, starved himself almost to death. He poked, prodded, experimented, got mad, got depressed, he kept on keepin on till there was nothing left to do, and then he did that. There wasn't anything special about Buddha except that he refused to give up. He was an explorer with a determination and courage that put's the wimpy sailing cruises of Chris Columbus to shame. THAT'S why he woke up. Yes, that's the spirit! ;D I'd say the main thing is that Buddha did all those things "to perfection." Extreme philosophy, extreme starvation. I could say he got to the end of the legendary stick and had to jump onto another stick until he got tired of jumping and rested/relaxed in the middle.
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Post by therealfake on May 6, 2011 17:08:58 GMT -5
Naw, didn't say that. What I said is that what you are can only seek itself through consciousness, and in this, Awareness may turn conscious attention on itself. That would be Self realization happening through consciousness. That sounds about right and even though it sounds right, being that the mind is the source of that observation, I don't believe it for a minute.. lol The main thing is, that it's stopped my mind and anything that stops the mind from reaching for something, allows the expression to just be itself... Now if I could just stay like this...ooops...there it goes.
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Post by therealfake on May 7, 2011 0:16:56 GMT -5
Im not understanding the fear of emptiness. It is obvious to me that there isn’t a me so why still the fear? Is it that the capacity to know emptiness has no bounds? I wonder if Ive turned emptiness into a concept so have stopped looking at the live data? No looking at live data so gets to sit comfortably behind the buffer of beliefs? Many years ago, I used to have lucid dreams almost every night. Most of them were great fun, but being consciously aware of dreaming doesn't necessarily mean the dream is under your control. You can play with it, but the dream itself unfolds spontaneously from deeper levels of consciousness. A fear that has acquired some psychic energy can manifest in the dream. I was fine with falling off cliffs. Sometimes I would flap my arms and fly, sometimes I would bounce when i hit the ground. But I had an aversion to certain ugly stuff, and there was the sense 'I know it's a dream and I'm fine, but seriously, I don't wanna be here for this.' Consequently, I developed a way of pinching my arm, and waking myself up. When I woke up, I would actually be pinching my arm. The point is just that, knowing there isn't a 'me' isn't a guarantee there won't be fear. The experience is still happening. I had the same thing happen to me, but it was in my teenage years... Being chased home each night by something horrible, that I was too afraid of facing, barely making into the door of the house before I woke up. Like you, I knew I couldn't die in a dream, after being in a nuclear explosion and dissolving in the blast and still waking up unscathed. I decided to do something about that terrible fear I felt, being chased home. In my waking hours, I repeated over and over again that when I find myself in that dream, that I would turn around and fight whatever it was that was chasing me. I didn't have anything to lose, I can't die in dreams... So, sure enough, I found myself in a lucid dream, running for my life to get home. Suddenly, I remembered to turn around and fight whatever was chasing me. A sudden power came over me and I turned to face my greatest fear, knowing that I may die, but it would only be a dream death. To my astonishment, there wasn't anything there, I looked around at nothing and then it hit me... Fear, when confronted, dissolves into nothingness... So, I guess if there is a lesson here, it's to use your dreamworld to solve all your fears, as there seems to be a psychic link, between the waking and dreaming states. You've got nothing to lose and everything to gain...
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Post by unveilable on May 8, 2011 19:31:42 GMT -5
Excellent TRF and E. Thank you both. Many years ago, I used to have lucid dreams almost every night. Most of them were great fun, but being consciously aware of dreaming doesn't necessarily mean the dream is under your control. You can play with it, but the dream itself unfolds spontaneously from deeper levels of consciousness. A fear that has acquired some psychic energy can manifest in the dream. I was fine with falling off cliffs. Sometimes I would flap my arms and fly, sometimes I would bounce when i hit the ground. But I had an aversion to certain ugly stuff, and there was the sense 'I know it's a dream and I'm fine, but seriously, I don't wanna be here for this.' Consequently, I developed a way of pinching my arm, and waking myself up. When I woke up, I would actually be pinching my arm. The point is just that, knowing there isn't a 'me' isn't a guarantee there won't be fear. The experience is still happening. I had the same thing happen to me, but it was in my teenage years... Being chased home each night by something horrible, that I was too afraid of facing, barely making into the door of the house before I woke up. Like you, I knew I couldn't die in a dream, after being in a nuclear explosion and dissolving in the blast and still waking up unscathed. I decided to do something about that terrible fear I felt, being chased home. In my waking hours, I repeated over and over again that when I find myself in that dream, that I would turn around and fight whatever it was that was chasing me. I didn't have anything to lose, I can't die in dreams... So, sure enough, I found myself in a lucid dream, running for my life to get home. Suddenly, I remembered to turn around and fight whatever was chasing me. A sudden power came over me and I turned to face my greatest fear, knowing that I may die, but it would only be a dream death. To my astonishment, there wasn't anything there, I looked around at nothing and then it hit me... Fear, when confronted, dissolves into nothingness... So, I guess if there is a lesson here, it's to use your dreamworld to solve all your fears, as there seems to be a psychic link, between the waking and dreaming states. You've got nothing to lose and everything to gain...
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Post by ivory on May 9, 2011 1:37:28 GMT -5
Dreams are strange. I find it interesting how you can be awake at one moment, then immersed in a dream in the next without any recollection what happened the moment before. No questions asked, just the belief in a new reality just like that. Pretty wild when you apply that to everyday "reality". What's really going on....
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Post by enigma on May 9, 2011 3:35:02 GMT -5
Yeah, it's pretty wacky. The dreams also change instantly without skipping a beat (at least mine do) and it's like I don't even notice or care in the dream, and anything can happen and it's never questioned. Maybe the part of the mind that makes those logical connections isn't active.
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Post by Portto on May 9, 2011 10:10:42 GMT -5
Yes, it's quite obvious that only some parts of the brain are active while dreaming - and this makes memories and and logic only partly available.
Dreams show very nicely how everything we are sure about is just a thought away.
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Post by therealfake on May 9, 2011 10:58:03 GMT -5
I notice that when I practice awareness in the waking world, I am more apt to have awareness pop up in a lucid dream.
After all, it's the only thing, that isn't a thing, that never changes and is always here with us.
It's kind of like exercising it.
Only trouble is, what awareness sees in the dream world is a lot scarier than in the waking world... lol
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Post by onehandclapping on May 9, 2011 11:06:12 GMT -5
Dreams show it and bad reactions to medicines do too. I once took some ADHD medicine a few years ago. You are supposed to slowly stop taking this stuff because it effects your mind so much. Well I didn't know that when I decided I didn't need to focus anymore than I was focusing before the drugs and stopped taking them cold turkey. I lost the sense of time, lost feeling of hot and cold, lost depth perception, and walked around for a month in a dream like state. The dr. that gave me those pills gave me other pills to get my system to balance out but it just made it worse because I had a bad reaction to them. During that time I was caught in this place where I couldn't tell if I was awake or sleeping. I would "wake up" and walk around only to find out I could levitate things or do other crazy things. After a bit I would say in the dream that I was dreaming and wake up again only to repeat the process. Pretty crazy experience. Showed me first hand that our minds set our reality.
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Post by Portto on May 9, 2011 11:37:29 GMT -5
Dreams show it and bad reactions to medicines do too. I once took some ADHD medicine a few years ago. You are supposed to slowly stop taking this stuff because it effects your mind so much. Well I didn't know that when I decided I didn't need to focus anymore than I was focusing before the drugs and stopped taking them cold turkey. I lost the sense of time, lost feeling of hot and cold, lost depth perception, and walked around for a month in a dream like state. The dr. that gave me those pills gave me other pills to get my system to balance out but it just made it worse because I had a bad reaction to them. During that time I was caught in this place where I couldn't tell if I was awake or sleeping. I would "wake up" and walk around only to find out I could levitate things or do other crazy things. After a bit I would say in the dream that I was dreaming and wake up again only to repeat the process. Pretty crazy experience. Showed me first hand that our minds set our reality. That sounds pretty cool - especially now that you're out of it. I wouldn't say that our minds set our reality. Our minds are a glittering stickers placed on reality, and we get hypnotized by them - like they are the only thing in the world.
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Post by teetown on May 9, 2011 12:33:22 GMT -5
Dreams show it and bad reactions to medicines do too. I once took some ADHD medicine a few years ago. You are supposed to slowly stop taking this stuff because it effects your mind so much. Well I didn't know that when I decided I didn't need to focus anymore than I was focusing before the drugs and stopped taking them cold turkey. I lost the sense of time, lost feeling of hot and cold, lost depth perception, and walked around for a month in a dream like state. The dr. that gave me those pills gave me other pills to get my system to balance out but it just made it worse because I had a bad reaction to them. During that time I was caught in this place where I couldn't tell if I was awake or sleeping. I would "wake up" and walk around only to find out I could levitate things or do other crazy things. After a bit I would say in the dream that I was dreaming and wake up again only to repeat the process. Pretty crazy experience. Showed me first hand that our minds set our reality. What medication were you taking? I currently take medication for add and I have wondered how it affects this "stuff" we talk about on the forum.
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Post by enigma on May 9, 2011 13:41:48 GMT -5
Individuated perspective is the formation of experience, and there isn't an objective reality apart from that. Without a perspective there is no experience at all. The mind is part of that perspective rather than the cause of it. All perspectives originate in the same intelligence, which makes it possible to interact, communicate and share experience between perspectives. The perspective self perpetuates, creating and sculpting itself, forming and reforming itself on the basis of collected experiences (conditioning) and moving according to the interest that arises from within that experience.
Hencely, the experience is entirely subjective, but devoid of an actual subject. The thoughts and feelings ABOUT what happens, that arise from that perspective, constitute the entirety of the experience itself, and so it has become completely personalized in spite of the fact that there is no person at the core of it. The experience is determined entirely by the experiential content of that perspective, and yet that content has it's origin in the movement of the totality and so creation does not occur from within the perspective.
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Post by onehandclapping on May 9, 2011 18:12:59 GMT -5
What medication were you taking? I currently take medication for add and I have wondered how it affects this "stuff" we talk about on the forum. I don't remember. It might have been called Stratera?? Can't remember. Regardless, I would advise not coming off it quickly. Take your time and wean your way off of it.
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Post by onehandclapping on May 9, 2011 18:17:49 GMT -5
Enigma, that is what a friend of mine calls "mind acrobatics". Can you dumb it down for us non-English majors??
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Post by enigma on May 9, 2011 23:48:55 GMT -5
Umm.......It's all impersonal? How's that?
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