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Post by wei sa on Aug 30, 2016 3:05:54 GMT -5
People are popping like kernels are they? Is that what they're telling you? They? Who they?  Anyway, I figured I'm going to be taxonomised into some club sooner or later! But yeah, admittedly we don't really have any reliable data on the rate of popping that's happening now or earlier. What is pretty obvious is that the success rate of all of the teachings has always been extremely low, and continues to be so today - that's why I said "comparatively speaking". I suspect it's better today, and several contemporary teachers seem to think so, but who knows. It's not really important anyway, just another distraction. I said everything that seemed relevant to me, and don't like wasting my time talking what I think is nonsense or vacuous mental pinball. Make it alright? Make what alright exactly? I didn't even realise there was a problem. Except maybe oneupmanship. |
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Post by wei sa on Aug 30, 2016 3:19:20 GMT -5
I'm surprised you didn't understand Enigma's pointer, especially since "presence" is such a common term in contemporary nonduality. Did you read the whole post, not just the last paragraph? If so and it still seems empty, maybe you should spend a couple more years in a nonduality university earning a higher scholarly rank and a membership to a cooler vip-club.  But seriously, presence refers to ATA-MT or ATA+T (or mindfulness) - for me in practice it's ATA-T as I don't tend to remain present while mental chatter is happening. It's a very practical thing and completely testable, but if you're like me, unfortunately you have to stop thinking.  There's more to the pointer than presence, and laughter explained some of it quite well. But I must say I find it pretty funny that you're asking me to explain to you why the words are not empty, as in the post you quoted I said they appear empty to the rational mind. So I don't think I'm able to help. If the pointer doesn't resonate with you, it's probably a waste of time playing more mental pinball with it. If anything seems empty to me - or spiritual cocaine - it's Anja's and your's pointer-licking. But yeah, peeps here are so uncool! I know it gives such a buzz to be learned and in the know, not to mention belonging to a cooler club. Surely that is the straightest path to waking up? But I do wonder why in the past days the traditional methods had such low success rates whereas these days people seem to be popping like kernels (comparatively speaking)? I wonder if there could be some kind of trap in pursuing more and more knowledge and always having more and more things in the spiritual to-do list or identifying strongly with a particular school... Did someone mention a merry-go-round? BTW, didn't you tell someone to get off their high horse? It's that d@mned evil frog I tell you he's like mental glue! Someone should round up a posse and do something about him!  Maybe that's part of it, who knows. I'd prefer to not waste my energy on getting involved with who has a beef with who, but without having that context, some of these posts seem pretty nonsensical. Satchitananda was rolling his eyes at the "merry go round" of the lame peeps here who are not enough into spiritual bodybuilding or into tradition or into searching for spirituality externally in authority figures of bygone days. And in the next post calling out the "high horse" of your post - which, even when re-reading that post of yours, I'm having a lot of difficulty locating. And now "they" are telling me things and Enigma's post needs to be "made alright". WTF is going on here? |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2016 3:55:07 GMT -5
People are popping like kernels are they? Is that what they're telling you? They? Who they? Anyway, I figured I'm going to be taxonomised into some club sooner or later! But yeah, admittedly we don't really have any reliable data on the rate of popping that's happening now or earlier. What is pretty obvious is that the success rate of all of the teachings has always been extremely low, and continues to be so today - that's why I said "comparatively speaking". I suspect it's better today, and several contemporary teachers seem to think so, but who knows. It's not really important anyway, just another distraction. I said everything that seemed relevant to me, and don't like wasting my time talking what I think is nonsense or vacuous mental pinball. Make it alright? Make what alright exactly? I didn't even realise there was a problem. Except maybe oneupmanship. Are we talking about one-upmanship or clarity? I know what I'm talking about. One has to be careful about saying people were slow to wake up in the old days. There was a golden age in India many many years ago when the Vedic knowledge was a part of the culture. And what about Buddha. He had many followers many of whom it is said achieved enlightenment. What we have today is an instantaneous global communications network and if your life is focussed on internet chat forums about non duality and you watch a lot of YouTube satsang videos you may form the impression that there's a lot of waking up going on. But is that true? But you seem to be aware of mindfulness practices and such like. Just stick with those and be careful what you believe. |
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Post by billfromtexas on Aug 30, 2016 5:20:28 GMT -5
They're not empty because they state, in contemporary speech, a pointer to a clear and empty state of mind when one is in surrender and has let go of the attempt to control. That state will indeed come and go for many until if and when they've seen through the illusion of the separate volitional self. For some peeps these temporary states of apparent peace that come and go can get quite frustrating, to the point where they react to words like this with contempt. Nonsense. Your interpretation bears no relation to what E said. You're making it up. And get off your moral high horse. And you get off your elitist high horse. I would like to remind you that you have been a factor in Anja getting banned, by jumping in and saying something along the lines...."yeah, she..... on Enigmas heart-felt expression..." Thanks for that, Satch. Real buddys don't betray each other. And regarding Laughter, at least I know what kind of dude he is and if he points fingers at me, I'm not surprised. |
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Post by billfromtexas on Aug 30, 2016 5:33:28 GMT -5
No problem, Peter. On my side. I just discovered this thread, browsed a little. I suggest bft accept the ban...or this might not end nicely. Yeah...that's how you pay attention to what is going on? "...just discovered this thread, browsed a little."? And thanks for your suggestion to accept the permanent ban of Anja, which happend without a warning from Peter. I count on the freedom of speech rule, that even applies here, hopefully also for me/Anja/Bill, if I stay here in this thread and don't comment on other threads. Thanks. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2016 5:41:31 GMT -5
Nonsense. Your interpretation bears no relation to what E said. You're making it up. And get off your moral high horse. And you get off your elitist high horse. I would like to remind you that you have been a factor in Anja getting banned, by jumping in and saying something along the lines...."yeah, she..... on Enigmas heart-felt expression..." Thanks for that, Satch. Real buddys don't betray each other. And regarding Laughter, at least I know what kind of dude he is and if he points fingers at me, I'm not surprised. I'm not your buddy. If you talk crap I'll say so. Verstehst du? |
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Post by jay17 on Aug 30, 2016 6:47:36 GMT -5
They're not empty because they state, in contemporary speech, a pointer to a clear and empty state of mind when one is in surrender and has let go of the attempt to control. That state will indeed come and go for many until if and when they've seen through the illusion of the separate volitional self. For some peeps these temporary states of apparent peace that come and go can get quite frustrating, to the point where they react to words like this with contempt. Nonsense. Your interpretation bears no relation to what E said. You're making it up. And get off your moral high horse. But satchitnananda, have you considered your own thoughts. - Cannot every person have their own unique interpretation of events, that may be different from yours. - Can't laughter conclude his own interpretation be deeply related to what enigma said. - Perhaps he's not making it up, perhaps that's what he actually concludes. - Why do you judge his thoughts on the matter as nonsense just because they are different to yours. - Why do you require laughter to get off his high horse. - Can't you let others be as they are, why do they need to change for you, are you adversely affected by laughters thoughts on the matter. - If you judge laughter's thoughts as nonsense, does this signify you are the one on a high horse. |
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Post by jay17 on Aug 30, 2016 6:53:37 GMT -5
No problem, Peter. On my side. I just discovered this thread, browsed a little. I suggest bft accept the ban...or this might not end nicely. I think it's a noble suggestion, but i think that behavior would not fit within the parameters of the online persona that is currently known as bft. It has been my experience that the dedicated will maintain the kayfabe as long as they are receiving enough pleasure from it, and will only modify if it doesn't interfere with the flow rate. |
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Post by jay17 on Aug 30, 2016 7:01:56 GMT -5
I'm surprised you didn't understand Enigma's pointer, especially since "presence" is such a common term in contemporary nonduality. Did you read the whole post, not just the last paragraph? If so and it still seems empty, maybe you should spend a couple more years in a nonduality university earning a higher scholarly rank and a membership to a cooler vip-club. But seriously, presence refers to ATA-MT or ATA+T (or mindfulness) - for me in practice it's ATA-T as I don't tend to remain present while mental chatter is happening. It's a very practical thing and completely testable, but if you're like me, unfortunately you have to stop thinking. There's more to the pointer than presence, and laughter explained some of it quite well. But I must say I find it pretty funny that you're asking me to explain to you why the words are not empty, as in the post you quoted I said they appear empty to the rational mind. So I don't think I'm able to help. If the pointer doesn't resonate with you, it's probably a waste of time playing more mental pinball with it. If anything seems empty to me - or spiritual cocaine - it's Anja's and your's pointer-licking. But yeah, peeps here are so uncool! I know it gives such a buzz to be learned and in the know, not to mention belonging to a cooler club. Surely that is the straightest path to waking up? But I do wonder why in the past days the traditional methods had such low success rates whereas these days people seem to be popping like kernels (comparatively speaking)? I wonder if there could be some kind of trap in pursuing more and more knowledge and always having more and more things in the spiritual to-do list or identifying strongly with a particular school... Did someone mention a merry-go-round? BTW, didn't you tell someone to get off their high horse? It's that d@mned evil frog I tell you he's like mental glue! Someone should round up a posse and do something about him! I don't see enigma as mental glue. More akin to the 'moth to the flame' analogy. Some people don't know how to change themselves, and thus continue to be drawn into his worldview and think he's the one controlling their action of interacting with him. I personally don't need or desire anything be done about enigma as he has no power over me. He's a human being, as equally as everyone else, and i afford him the right and freedom to express himself as he chooses. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2016 7:06:22 GMT -5
Nonsense. Your interpretation bears no relation to what E said. You're making it up. And get off your moral high horse. But satchitnananda, have you considered your own thoughts. - Cannot every person have their own unique interpretation of events, that may be different from yours. - Can't laughter conclude his own interpretation be deeply related to what enigma said. - Perhaps he's not making it up, perhaps that's what he actually concludes. - Why do you judge his thoughts on the matter as nonsense just because they are different to yours. - Why do you require laughter to get off his high horse. - Can't you let others be as they are, why do they need to change for you, are you adversely affected by laughters thoughts on the matter. - If you judge laughter's thoughts as nonsense, does this signify you are the one on a high horse. Anyone can say what they want. It is not obligatory to accept what I say. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Aug 30, 2016 7:34:41 GMT -5
I just discovered this thread, browsed a little. I suggest bft accept the ban...or this might not end nicely. Yeah...that's how you pay attention to what is going on? "...just discovered this thread, browsed a little."? And thanks for your suggestion to accept the permanent ban of Anja, which happend without a warning from Peter. I count on the freedom of speech rule, that even applies here, hopefully also for me/Anja/Bill, if I stay here in this thread and don't comment on other threads. Thanks. Browsed a little means even after finding wasn't too interested. It's difficult to get banned here, if you got banned you got banned for a reason, I don't really care why ("you can't fight city hall"). I think nobody does themselves any good posting after banned ("you can't fight city hall"). [PS, if one gets ZD stirred up, I'd say that takes a lot]. |
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Post by wei sa on Aug 30, 2016 8:20:42 GMT -5
Are we talking about one-upmanship or clarity? I know what I'm talking about. Yes, clarity is important. But I would think that the kind of clarity that is valuable in this area is not conceptual and cannot be reached by logic. I'd think that if anything, the more one can see beyond concepts and abstractions into direct experience, the greater the clarity. I think "meaningfulness" of pointers is largely in the eye of the beholder, and trying to explain whether a pointer is "empty" or "not-empty" by massaging concepts is IMO a fools errand. It's like trying to prove by argument why a piece of art is "good" (and funnily enough in the academia some people do do that). I'd be surprised if you can really completely honestly - without any connection to some point you want to make - say that the bit from Enigma that Anja "analysed" appears to you completely empty, entirely devoid of meaning, 0%. People write big books of some pretty hardcore analysis of a single movie. Anything can be analysed infinitely from infinite angles. I could write a long essay why that bit from Enigma is "empty", or another long essay why it's "not empty", but again, a fool's errand. People who are deeply attached to some conspiracy theory try to find every possible piece of evidence to support it, while ignoring anything that substantially challenges it. And oh boy can they ever find evidence - this and this thing happened on the same day, this guy has the same surname as this other guy, etc ad infinitum. Anja's "analyses" reek so strongly of an agenda, that for me they look like the project of that conspiracy theorist - trying to massage things every which way to support her argument while being completely closed off to anything that would really substantially challenge it - and this makes them worthless in my eyes. And so I continue to be surprised that you found clarity or insight in that analysis by him/her. The way I see it is that this path is a path of subtraction, not addition, and so concepts and conceptual thinking are primarily valuable to the extent they can dissolve other conceptual structures (a kind of Nicorette). Yeah, who knows. I don't know how long it took for much of mainstream Buddhism to degenerate into primarily external stuff like burning incense and bowing to statues. (In Jesus' case, it seems that even most of his direct disciples were pretty clueless, so unsurprisingly it got derailed pretty soon.) I still suspect that people wake up much more these days than ever before, if only because due to tv, internet etc, much more people hear about these things. Also, people see movies like The Matrix, Truman Show etc that immerse mass-audiences into ideas like reality might not be what it seems. Hui Neng supposedly woke up after hearing a single sentence from (I think) Diamond Sutra. He was lucky to hear it! The Hui Neng's of our days are much more likely to hear what they need to hear. It's true though that some people seem to get attached to the idea that there's some kind of mass enlightenment happening now or soon, as it makes them feel special. So yeah, can be another distraction. Yup, this is a good advice. A lot of things can become distractions or attachments. |
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Post by Reefs on Aug 30, 2016 8:39:13 GMT -5
And get off your moral high horse. What moral high horse...? I've got no saddle sores bro'.  |
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Post by billfromtexas on Aug 30, 2016 9:30:38 GMT -5
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Post by billfromtexas on Aug 30, 2016 9:57:07 GMT -5
"Conservative engagement in the stock-market would prefer to invest in long-term stocks of companys that benefit the society in which they do their busines in, under the premise of not harming the environment, not harming the society (or any other society) they do buisness in and not harming the employees they employ."
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But seriously, presence refers to ATA-MT or ATA+T (or mindfulness) - for me in practice it's ATA-T as I don't tend to remain present while mental chatter is happening. It's a very practical thing and completely testable, but if you're like me, unfortunately you have to stop thinking. 
