Daniel

The problem is below: Permanent. Experiential. Translation: "Come. I'll teach you. Do what I do and your brain will be permanently changed...

Technically yes, but, it's false choice.

Your lack of a point of view... Of course there is. You just made an assertion. "Non-duality is actually ..." <--- that's a point of view. Object = Non-duality Subject = Lack of point of view And. Object = ownership of a view Subject = subject-or-object ^^ inflexible rubbish ^^ If one buries their head in the sand. "Hey! It's non-dual down here!" ~hands you a mirror~ You assert you have no choice. Non-dual is the excuse you used. ~shakes-my-head~ @snowymountains, have fun friend.

This is what I have settled on as my own understanding of the English term non-dual: All of reality is a collection of: objects events ideas symbols Each of these is defined by everything else which it is not. The contrast is a relationship which unites each and everything with the nearly infinite collection of all that it is not. Because of this, reality is non-dual. All of reality is a triad, not a duality. A singular, non-dual, triad: subject nearly infinite collection of contra-distinctions relationship Or more simply: this that contrast These 3 attributes cannot be split, else the entire construct collapses into oblivion, thus, it is non-dual. All of reality is defined in this way. Non-dual does not *actually* entail a complete negligence and disregard for differences and distinctions in spite of how popular that is among western wanna-be sages. That is the opposite of reality. The implications of non-duality are that every"thing" is connected and reliant on all the others. When an individual mis-appropriates non-dual in a way which produces oblivion, "everything's the same", it's clear they are neglecting one of the 3, this, that, or the contrast, which causes a collapse into delusion.

Ah. Thank you. I am not concerned with any physical sensations. They cannot be trusted, remember? They're not accurate? That was your assertion early in our conversation? Please correct me if not? Based on your own words: any and all tests which rely on physical sensations to validate progress are meaningless. You have someone in your friend-group who claims to have approached omniscience? You've said that you're friends with Freeform? Are you able to contact him and request a visit to the website to discuss the matter? It doesn't bother me. I've already wished you well on your journey. I've already acknowledged that your practice has merit. My advice for you, take it or leave it is: 1) Your experiences do not invalidate the experiences of others. When you attempt to do this, you sound Christian, but, you've stated in the other thread you would like to avoid that. I'm trying to help you achieve your goal, by, letting you know: "Bro, you sound Christian, but you've said that you're not practicing Christianity." 2) Your practice is risky, but, you seem to be neglecting that. 3) The tests you're using to evaluate progress seem to be faulty and error prone.

Great questions!

No, it's true. I love it when we agree. And we did. You probably hate it when we agree, because, for you, propagating the conflict is more important and rewarding than supporting our friends and contributing to the forum.

Did Freeform declare you his public representative? Lacking that, the man's writing is the clearest most accurate representation. You are not Freeform's minister, preacher, or personal emissary. There's no need to ride on his coat-tails if what you're saying is true.

I don't believe you. I think you're exaggerating and taking advantage of his absence. I think your judgement is compromised, and you ignore / deny what doesn't suit you.

If the phenomena operates at a quantum scale, the observer effect will very likely interfere. Thank you so much for sharing. I have this saved for review as time permits.

Bro. I showed you Freeform's words. You denied them. That's on you.

^^ Mercavah ^^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkabah_mysticism

I love it when we agree.

People often do awful things to each other as a natural consequence. They are lacking mutual understanding ( empathy ) for each other. It's not intentional. The opposite of understanding is not ignorance, it's confusion. Confusion is fertile ground for delusions, harmful actions, and hateful words. But the intention is not to do harm to the other individual or individuals. It's a result of the confusion. If the confusion is triggered repeatedly, and cannot be ignored, the mind disassociates to a degree. In most cases, this disassociation is minimal. The individual is confused about their situation, their mind is reeling, their thoughts ricochet like too many pinballs colliding, the mind disassociates to a realm where their words and deeds have no consequences, and they lash out at the trigger for their confusion. This is the underlying mechanism which produces mocking and dismissive behavior. The confused individual begins with empathy. This empathy ( caring and relating ) is a medium for psychological transference. The disassociation interrupts the medium of transference and the confused individual stops feeling pressure to understand something which is beyond their capability. Their mind can relax, and is released to be redirected to other matters. If this phenomena is occurring between parent and child, the psychological transference is interrupted only in one direction. The psychological transference from child to parent is interrupted by the parent's disassociation. The child, however, still cares very-very deeply for their parent. It is nearly impossible for them to shut that down. The child is going to feel the disassociation and interpret it as "You don't love me anymore." This causes it's own very troubling, profound confusion with the child. The same "pinball" effect. And this too can produce its own disassociations, into their realm lacking all consequences. This is called a "temper tantrum." In adults it's called "rage" or "temporary insanity". Because the mind is reacting extremely rapidly, both in the parent and the child, neither will realize at the time precisely what is happening in their hearts-and-minds. They will very likely not identify the thoughts colliding, nor the collisions and the jarring effect it is having without spending a great deal of time examining the machinations of their own psyche. The point is: the parent's abuse large and small is often a consequence not if ill will. It's the opposite. The parent cares deeply about the child and relates strongly to the well being of the child. This caring and empathy are the "water" which is "carrying the waves" of influence coming from the child's behavior into the psyche of the parent. If the parent ad ill will, then, there would be no transference, and they parent would be ambivalent to the child's deeds, words, thoughts, and feelings. Instead, the parent cares so much, and so deeply, that they are deeply affected by their own lack of understanding such that they must do something, anything, to end their confusion. Some parents deal with this through dismissive behaviors. Some parents become depressed. Many many parents lash out at their children. It's normal and natural, not that it's good, but, it happens. I've done things to my children I'm ashamed of. My daughter, my first, took the brunt of it. She's fine, thank God. And I was not an awful parent except for rare occasions. I learned, I got better, I've apologized, she's forgiven me. My son had it much easier and much better than she did. None of this happens in a vacuum. My own parents were awful to me. Truly. So, I can lean on that to help lessen the sting that comes from recollections of who I was, at that time, with a young wild child who has all of my own passion, stubbornness, etc.. But none of it came from ill will. It came from my extreme care for her which never ends ad is woven deeply within my own consciousness and genetic memory. This is what happens in the majority of cases. It's not much different in the extreme cases. There's still a sense of confusion. Perhaps it's not directly coming from the child-victim. Perhaps it's coming from other stresses, other factors, other influences. Certainly mental illness is playing a major role. But the underlying foundation is the same. The mind can only tolerate the confusing ricochet so much and for so long. The world is a very confusing place for people who are mentally ill. But the mental illness is not necessarily the root cause of the violence. It's the mind disassociating, naturally, departing to another realm, a realm lacking all consequences, where terrible deeds can be perpetrated lacking any remorse. What happens after the tragic event is equally, if not more, significant when compared to the precipitating event. After the parent abuses the victim, when they recall the event ( assuming they can remember it ) they will be confronted with an ever more pronounced "pinball" effect in the mind. Because the mind-and-heart was recently rewarded with relief via disassociating to this other realm, it very easily flips back into this mode. This is what the mind does. Each successfully rewarding neural-path is encouraged and facilitated. The result could be jaded, apathetic, denial, or, it could take the form as further hostility demeaning the child victim. Most likely it's both. And this is when it is very difficult to tell the difference between ill-will / lack-of-love for the victim and extreme love, devotion, obsession with the victim. The same phenomena, is happening with the child-victim. For them, they have their own confusion, their own pinballs which are ricocheting in the mind. For them, it is much easier to dissociate as well. It takes a slightly different form, but, there is significant overlapping. The mind of the child usually finds solace in demonizing the parents, and divorcing themself from the family, for lack of better terms. The good news is: children are remarkably flexible and resilient. They are able to flip-flop between realms rather easily, usually, ( the exceptions are autistic, more often than not ). This is most easily observed in children's play when they flip flop back and forth between a realm of their imagination and shared-reality. These sort of conflicts and disassociations encourage the child to leave the home and look for a mate which is outside the family unit and beyond their in-group close-knit-community. This disassociation has a natural evolutionary advantage. So, it's good. The inevitable conflict is beneficial in spite of being painful. Perfect behavior by all parties, in this case, is the enemy of a good, healthy, and resilient species. My point, which is buried among all of this, is that learning promotes a sort of mutual understanding which helps to makes sense of conflict and reduces confusion if it is approached from a valence of non-judgmental curiosity: "wondering", which is contrasted with very-judgmental curiosity: "worrying". It's still learning. Same form, same function, same magnitude. The difference between wonder and worry is not a difference of magnitude. Less learning doesn't produce wonder, whereas, more learning produces worry. That's not how it works. How it works is, imo, the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of the DDJ among many-many others. In my own culture the story of Rabbi Akivah in orchards is what comes to mind. If it can be deduced, logically, that DDJ48 cannot, in any way be discouraging all types of learning, then a curiosity is naturally produced in the mind. This curiosity is itself a void, a blank spot, a vessel, a crucible, where ideas are created, almost magically, ex-nihilo, something from nothing. What is this? That which is simultaneously reducing and increasing? What is that? It's 妙之門. How does one approach it? Or even perhaps attain it? It cannot be with a mind closed to learning. Does this look closed to you? 門

Meh. I don't think you are a good judge of this. For some reason you think your own experiences invalidate others in the form of "Because I'm right you must be wrong." The world doesn't work that way. It's as if you're swimming in an ocean denying elephants exist because you can't see them from your current position. It doesn't matter to me anymore. You have a narrow little half-dimensional outlook. My hope and desire that you use it in good health, and not cause any unjustified harm.

Likewise

Ahhhhhh. OK. Thank you for clarifying.

^^ Delusional ^^

Yes. That's why I did not deny my bias and continued researching. I didn't spike the football. Within a short amount of time, I found other texts which clearly ( not cryptically ) support, ( not validate ) my theory.

It doesn't make sense for the DDJ to discourage all learning. If that were true, then, the reader would reach this passage, stop reading, and dispose of the DDJ altogether. It would never have been saved and passed on as a sacred text to be learned by others.

Yes, reliance on "knowing" is self-defeating. There is a significant difference between knowing and understanding. They are sharply contrasting cognitive functions.

I am aware of the technique. Whether or not this is what is being described in DDJ48 is debatable. It is certainly easy to super-impose ones own preferred practice on any cryptic passage, then, spike the football and reward oneself with self-validating glory.

Light is defined by the darkness surrounding it like the stars in the sky. Lacking all darkness, light becomes oblivion. It's like staring at the sun. It produces blindness which is identical to being surrounded by only darkness. The effect is the same. Sadly, no. A better method is to turn towards the light, and appreciate the darkness for what it is, and it is not evil. Evil is rare. Darkness is not. Literally. Darkness = "NOT" ( אין )

Hey man! Wassup? I though we were avoiding each other? Has the seal been broken? Listen. What I'm telling you, and what TT is telling you is the same thing. And cannot possible be news to you: Your practice is coming from a broken lineage, right? It's incomplete? This is well known, right? That's why you're prohibited from discussing it directly? Remember the geometry analogy I brought? Line contrasted with circle contrasted with sphere? This notion that you know and nobody else here does, is, no different than the one-directional, "go for the gold", physical senses are the enemy-demon, approach you're promoting for cultivation. What you're doing works, of course! But it's not the only way, and your way is risky. You're not disclosing those risks. If you believe in a God or Karma, it's a bad idea to send people towards harming themself without informing them of the risks. In addition to that, I cannot ignore the Christian attitude. "None get there except through me!" "Follow me if you want eternal life!" Bro, that's the gospel in a nutshell. Listen to yourself, bro. ~shakes-my-head~ You're better than this.

Not ether/or. I would do both. Walk and chew gum and the same time. Is it a sense of being interrelated? The highly abstract metaphor is chosen by not one but many wise practiced individuals. In practice there is a benefit to learning and understanding the abstract metaphor, else it would not be used consistently The same metaphor is used in geographically distant cultures. I cannot comment on what is or is not needed. What's needed depends on the aspiration. However, I think it is foolish to abandon the teachings of those who have achieved great things. I know you're not advocating this, but, i feel like this should be stated to avoid approaching that slippery slope. From a practical perspective, ignoring that, there is a risk. Not a hazard, an obstacle: The false summit. An individual learns the abstract, it gets them started on their journey. They practice. They learn practical techniques. They achieve. They neglect the original abstract teachings. They plateau. The plateau is misinterpreted. The reason that metaphors are useful, is not that they are broad, to the contrary, they are specific. They are like a baby koan in the manner which the heart and mind react to them. At first it creates a sort of blank spot, where the mind and heart skip a beat, for lack of better words. In this moment, which is a moment very similar in form to the moment immediately preceding laughter, there are nearly infinite possibilities which can fill the void in mind-and-heart. That void. That's an intersecting point between the practical and the abstract teachings of neidan. The initial metaphor is the first step in training the mind to accept the concept in practice. The void is being created. It's happening naturally, and, somewhat gently although as we've seen in this thread some are troubled to the point of calling it gibberish and making funny faces at it. After the immediate little shock to the system, when it is confronted with an abstract association, creating a void ( surprise ), the heart and mind immediately react and try to find the connection, an intersecting point ( or points ) of reference. When that happens, the heart and mind settle and become relaxed. Until that point, if the metaphor is held in mind, the void is self-propagating. In this state most describe it as "confusion" with a negative valence. Some find it amusing, they might be mocking it. Others become frustrated and try to push it out of their mind or distract themselves from it. Many simply quit. "This is stupid". Then they move on to something else. If you take a look back at the thread, notice what was said about Freeform's practice? Horse-stance? Hours a day. That's significant. This same practice, exists in a different form in a military context. During indoctrination the cadets are given a rifle. The rifle is held in the hands and extended in front of the chest, arms straight, 90 degrees from the body. Then they hold it. After about around a minute seconds, everyone is starting to feeling it. The heart and mind are beginning to pound. If any one drops their rifle, they're out. They're off the team. After they start grunting and groaning around 90 seconds, each cadet is asked, one at time by their drill instructor: "Why are you here?" And the instructor is never satisfied with their answer. The cadets want to be there, but it's natural for them to start to question: "Do I really want this?" A void is being created in their heart-and-mind. The physical exertion, the pressure at the temples, the heat rising from the ears, the pound, pound, pound of the heart, the leaders piercing judgmental glare, all of it simultaneously will naturally form the vessel into a crucible. Only if they don't quit. This same lesson is taught repeatedly, over and over. The next level is 100m underwater no breathing. Break the surface? You're out. It's that same pound-pound-pounding in the heart. It's the same squeezing in the temples. It's the same conviction that carries them all the way to the end. Those who success are reminded: "Remember what you learned today. Your mind and your body can do a lot more than you think it can. Never quit." It's that same thing that is happening in hours and hours horse-stance. It's an ordeal, a crucible, alchemy. The contents are heated and under pressure of a heavy lid. Like popcorn popping, it's not too much fun inside the crucible. But the finished product is good. Often very good. In regard to metaphors, with practice, the mind and heart can become accustomed to the confusion / silliness / impracticality of them and appreciate them for what they are: opportunities to open the mind and heart. Each and every metaphor is an opportunity to find the thread ( or threads ) weaving through both the abstract and the practical. While the mind and heart are in this open state, seeking the thread(s) woven in the fabric of reality, a void is produced where cultivation can occur. With practice an individual can adopt this state of mind-and-heart at will, and eventually spend the majority of their time co-existing both in a realm of physical, practical, and material concerns and in a realm of overlapping clouds of interconnected metaphor. When this occurs, if they are able to interpret their own dreams, an individual's cultivation is approaching the maximum achievable limit. For these reasons, I do not abandon the metaphor in favor of practical instruction. I do both. The goal is 24/7 cultivation where the practical benefits the abstract, and the abstract benefits the practical in an on-going sympathetic feedback loop.