The bumpy road to No-Self...
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- Enlightenment (experiencing the self-illusion) has often been described as a "all at once experience." In this video I describe it as a process of "ups" and "downs." Rather the "turning off the mind with a switch" it can be more like rocking a vending machine back and forth till it falls over.
#mind #enlightenment #noself
One thing that I always found illuminating was the realization that in sleep (assuming you're not in and out of rest / consciousness due to illness, etc.), there are no troubles. Not only that but there is no self, nor is there even any world to which this "self" belongs. The mind is active and there is unrest. The mind goes into abeyance, and both the self and the world vanish along with all the imaginary problems. All is revealed to be a construction of conditioning that gave rise to the "person".
Why do we have have no early childhood memories (pre age 4 or 5)? (or if there are some flashes of imagery, there is no relatable context) There is nothing but pure experience with no point of reference. We learn who we are via circumstance. (or the mind is conditioned in this manner, so to speak) We are given a a label (a name), a set of conditions (poverty/wealth, sick/well, cultural and familial traditions and on and on and on and ON) The repetition of these circumstances give rise to mental patterns (conditioning) that are accepted as the truth of "who I am", but these elements are layered upon and ultimately separate from the real SELF, and they obscure that pure innocence and joy that has never left, but has become drowned out by the noise of the mind. Everyone can taste this state. If when you first wake up you don't rush about, if you simply rest in that moment of pre-alert consciousness, the flavor of what you really are is there to be experienced.
Well, lucky you don't have nightmares. They are scarier than any scary event in reality.
Not sure what experience you've had with children, but you don't sound like you have been around many. I have known kids who have received all the love and care anybody can wish for and are still miserable, and I mean at any point from infancy to toddlers to later on. So in my experience, there's no such thing as "pure innocence and joy that has never left". Some people must just be genetically related to The Grinch. Period.
I do agree that the environment plays a crucial role in our perception, and that's only normal because we are social animals and are wired as such for survival purposes. The problem is that this social conditioning ought to be just one phase in the development of human maturity but most people are unable to break away from the habit of group thinking, and will never have an independent original thought, or realize their own individuality.
@@mprado4177 Nightmares are a period of mind activity - not abeyance. Thoughts / dreams / nightmares are the product of an active mind. Perhaps I should have added the qualifier of non-REM/dreaming sleep.
And for sure, children have moods and issues, but they also absorb their environment rapidly since their minds are a blank slate with no formed identity. I would suggest that a child in a reasonably peaceful/"normal" setting which is not suffering from physiological distress rests in a state of bliss and wonder. The environment surely impacts anyone, even small children. When the body suffers, access to the peace that is always within can be obscured, but it is only hard to perceive because of mental activity - the reaching for something else or attempting to escape from present moment experience resulting from identification with body / form. Behind all the apparent chaos lies immovable stillness / peace.
The mind does what the mind does. It is constantly analyzing, dissecting, creating different scenarios, creating a world of opposites, good, bad, happy, sad, etc. the more you get entangled in those thoughts the more powerful those thoughts become and you start to mistake them for who you really are. If you step back and realize oh, that’s just my mind doing its thing, I don’t want to get entangled in that hornets nest, the weaker it’s pull has on you. If you can just watch your thoughts and realize that it’s just the mind doing its thing then you will starve it’s energy and they will pass by like clouds in the sky or thoughts in your awareness. The more you practice the easier it gets. Just like anything else in life it’s a bumpy road but with practice it gets easier
We are the children of the Idea. We create ourselves in our minds or are the image of somebody else's words. We are what we believe ourselves to be.