Otis

No. I'm sure that's how he would have liked to have gone, but he died in a fire, back at home on his farm.

What? No option for "dancing"?

This is great, Barb!

Of course, you could also be talking about terrorists, members of the Nazi Party, etc. I guess thinking one is superior to everyone else gives one bravery. I'm much more impressed by someone whose bravery is fueled by love and/or the desire for peace, than by someone who is fueled by hate and bigotry. For example, this link is to a video about my aunt and my late uncle, both peace activists. Uncle Art stepped in front of an Israeli tank, which was trying to destroy a Palestinian fruit market. Aunt Peggy has spent about half of the last several years in Iraq (including during the initial bombing), helped uncover Abu Ghraib, and was actually kidnapped for a couple days. She was released precisely because of the photo she had of Uncle Art, in front of the tank, which helped her kidnappers realize that although she was Christian, she was also a friend to Muslims. The video is all about that story. Art, who was, of course, accused of being anti-semitic, actually went to synagogue every Saturday, as well as mosque every Friday and church, every Sunday. They were not against people, at all, just against the violence that institutions and beliefs bring about. These are people I admire.

It is not a virtue to always think you're right. There's nothing admirable about that. Hopefully, this group (and other fundamentalists) are a warning to the rest of us, not to be so entrenched in our beliefs, not to take ourselves so seriously, not to assume that people who think differently are necessarily wrong. Certainty is the vice of fascism and extremism.

Thanks! I have to give props to the performers: Batman Nick (who is also the Ninja in many of my videos) and Francisco as the Joker. Both are extremely free spirits, that inspire me a great deal! (I was behind the camera on that one). Enjoy your time away. Thanks for the in-depth and comprehensive conversation. I like the way you question everything, Everything!

I don't think these different viewpoints have to be in contradiction. I think they help complement each other, like wave and particle, in quantum physics. Which one is true? Well, neither, as literal truths. But both, as useful models of truth. Together they can create a more three-dimensional view of ourselves and the world.

Dang, Barb, what an intense field of expertise! I see why you say that job was traumatizing!

Thank you, too, for the conversation, as well as your kind words. The funny thing is, I don't talk that much here about my experiences from practice, which include, as you say, things that seem "extra sensory" or "extra ordinary". The main reason why, is that I am very cognizant that the conclusions I derive from my experiences are shaped largely by my wishes and my fears. So I try not to make too much of them, nor hold them up as any kind of truth. They are, instead, flavors and colors that help shade my understanding, but don't decide anything. Just a few years ago, my practice was suggesting loudly to me that the physical world was an illusion, and that the energy world was the true one. But I'm glad that I've had my father, the neuropsychologist, as a moderating influence in my life, because his viewpoint is steeped in empirical data, and he helped reveal that "energy" is every bit as much a metaphor as "physical" is. Now, my mantra is "I don't know". It's important for me not to lock myself into belief, when I see that truth is something that can be approached from many different angles, but probably decided from none of them. I see "emptiness" as the call to shed beliefs, to shed certainty. And I see "ego" as being made up of habits, which are, in a way, little quanta of certainty. That said, it's still fun to write ridiculously long essays on why I believe what I believe, precisely because I see believing as a sacred and important act, one I should not take lightly.

Hi Vajrahridaya, It's true that science may not be able to, as you say, "produce any hard evidence concerning the non-physical". Which is fine, because, choosing to remain agnostic about the nature of actual reality, means I accept not having a definitive answer. The question I have for myself is: does it make sense to believe in something, for which I have no hard evidence? Metaphors and working models are useful, sure, for getting me close to a working relationship with reality, but do I really need to believe? It seems to me that most beliefs exist to please the ego, by creating a sense of certainty in an uncertain world. If I can say "this, at least, I know to be true", then it may help me sleep better at night. But if I don't need to be reassured, and if I am actively seeking to discard what is unnecessary, then a belief seems a lot less useful. After all, beliefs don't make possibility larger, but make it smaller, by excluding other theories from being true. So, I don't mind that other people have beliefs that I don't agree with. But when it comes to the clarity and flexibility of my own head, I want to have as few beliefs as possible, and make sure that my beliefs make as much sense as possible. And when it comes to unbiased and careful opinion-generation now in the world, I don't see anything that comes close to what science currently offers. And the future of science seems very bright. Of course I have respect for the words of the Buddha, Lao Tzu, and the countless other wise men and women who followed in their paths. I try to read as much material by and about them, as I can. I think that they have illuminated paths of "waking up" that science has not even begun to consider. But when it comes to the question of belief, I don't see the advantage in attaching myself (via certainty) to ideas and concepts that really cannot be proven. Instead, I seek suggestions, possibilities, new ways of looking at things, ways of stretching myself. Certainty, however, is nothing but attachment, the opposite of emptiness.

Goldisheavy, I am not an absolutist when it comes to materialism, not at all. I've never claimed that materialism is the only possible way of explaining the world. I am agnostic about the workings of the actual world, because I don't see how I could possibly "know" any absolutes. This is a point I make constantly on these boards. That said, of course, we all need to have beliefs, in order to interact with the world, and so it behooves me to make sure that my beliefs are as well vetted as possible, in order to avoid superstition. There are a billion theories out there, as to what consciousness is, and how it comes about. But there is only one source: science, which is actively testing theories in a continual controlled process of refinement and exploration. There is only one source with built-in safeguards, extensive review, and obligatory skepticism about its own conclusions, and that is science. Of course science doesn't have all the answers, and they probably never will. But if we look around at the world today, we can see that there is one driving force which is powerful enough to bend history, to shift how we exist in really dramatic ways, and that is science, (often via technology). Philosophy cannot light a light bulb; spirituality cannot make a computer chip. That's why I choose to look at science first; not because I am dogmatic that science gives us the only answers, but because it consistently shows the greatest explanatory powers of any of our forms of opinion-generation. Also, of course, all other forms of opinion-generation are vastly subject to corruption by wishful thinking, provincialism, and stale paradigms. In general, when science offers a well-tested and perfectly reasonable explanation for something, I don't see any reason to resist that. I am happy to keep an open mind, but I will not deny what science brings in, just because it doesn't match with what I already believe. I am well aware of the "hard problem" of consciousness, and I respect David Chalmers' view, as well as Peter Russell, and other philosophers of consciousness, who see consciousness as the primary material, from which solid matter appears to arise. This is an appealing theory, but unlike materialism, it has (so far) zero explanatory value, and zero evidence backing it up. So, although this theory is appealing to me on an emotional level, I am not ready to embrace it as truth, especially when there is so much evidence supporting the materialist view. I recently posted some links to radio documentaries from the BBC and NPR, because they discuss many of the latest findings in neuroscience, and offer compelling insight into how our experience of consciousness arises from brain material. I am fortunate enough, also to have been a psych major in college, and to have a dad, who is a professor of the neuroscience of consciousness, so I have been kept abreast of many findings, as they come up. As I understand the science, the brain is already incredibly intricately mapped in regards with the physical matter's relationship to phenomena of experience. When a small portion of the brain is damaged, or temporarily disabled, the corresponding function ceases to work. The granularity in the correlation is very precise, so that one small lesion may remove only the recognition of people's faces, without seeming to do any harm to the rest of the experience of vision. Taken as a whole, this body of evidence provides a very compelling argument that consciousness is a phenomenon that arises from the brain. If it were a non-physical phenomenon, and the brain was just a medium (some sort of "antenna") for its connection to the body, then it is unlikely that we would see this level of granularity, because non-physical consciousness itself would not be damaged, only slightly estranged. The reception would get fuzzy, if the antenna were damaged, rather than having precise functions taken off-line. The DVD analogy in your first video is highly flawed, first for the obvious reasons that the brain is not just some playback mechanism, but a live organ, with intricate connections and algorithms. Secondly, because a DVD that is scratched becomes unplayable; it freezes and fuzzes. But the brain which is "scratched" continues to work as a consciousness; only the precise function that corresponds with that neuron cluster is affected. Even gross brain damage, like a lobotomy, does not remove the experience of consciousness from the patient; but there is an enormous change in who that person is, which suggests that consciousness is not singular at all, but only an emergence from the entire range of functioning neurons. If we are to insist that consciousness is something other than what arises from the brain, why shouldn't we insist on the same being true of other organs? Could the liver possibly give rise to its functions, or does it need something "extra-physical" to explain it? Shouldn't we insist that DNA is motivated by some kind of intelligence, to divide and reproduce? But these are just "God of the gaps" explanations, saying "we can't precisely say how it all came about from non-living material, so it must be something beyond matter." That's an enormous leap of logic, very similar to the fallacies of Intelligent Design, which insists "I don't get it, so it must not be true". The hard problem of consciousness, as I see it, dissolves before two opposite arguments. One is what David Chalmers and Peter Russel say: consciousness is the actual material of the universe, and matter arises from that. That's a very elegant and emotionally appealing argument, but as I said earlier, one without any evidence to back it up, thus far. That may change in the future, so I am not one to say "it cannot be". The second answer to the hard problem of consciousness is every bit as elegant and persuasive, but it is extremely unappealing to our emotions, because it makes us very unspecial; it makes us "meat". And that is: consciousness is an illusion. What we have are many functions of the brain, communicating with each other, including some functions which provide an inward, self-reflective view. That inward view is fooled by the processes of the brain into an illusion of "mind", in a similar way to the illusion that happens when the outward view is fooled into thinking that it is looking at the actual world, rather than at its own simulacrum of the world, assembled by heuristics and stimulus from the sense organs. And now to bring Buddhism into the argument. Chalmers says (and I paraphrase): consciousness is something that cannot be denied, because as Descartes pointed out, it is the one thing that I know for sure. But that's a problem, according to Buddhism. Descartes states his one undeniable truth as "I think, therefore I must exist". However, Buddha points out that the "I" is only an illusion. Well, this "I" that both Descartes and Buddha were talking about is exactly and precisely the same thing as the mind. What is it we mean when we say "mind"? It is the experience of me thinking, me contemplating, me imagining, etc. If you take away the "me", all you have is: thinking, contemplating, imagining, etc. In other words, all you have are functions; no self, no mind. In other words, Buddhism and materialism are in complete agreement. Buddha was warning against exactly what you are insisting upon: acting as if "I" was anything more important than the functions of living. In closing, I'd like to share this quote from the Dalai Lama: ""If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview."

Well, it all depends upon what you're calling mind, doesn't it? Personally, I don't see any contradiction between (what I think of as) Buddhism's central messages, and modern science. They seem in sync to me. Even the Dalai Lama thinks so (and he has said so, specifically about neuroscience). Buddha spoke beautifully of what consciousness looks like from the inside. Only modern science has been able to connect the workings of consciousness to specific areas in the brain. This statement is exactly analogous to a creationist saying that Evolution is nothing but a theory. Both evolution and materialism in neuroscience have an enormous amount of evidence supporting them. Neuroscience even more, because they can measure the activity of a single neuron, and can stimulate specific memories, smells, experiences of God, etc. Are you choosing to exclude the weight of decades of excellent science, because it messes with your idea of "mind"? The brain happens in the head. We know about the brain, from cutting up heads. You called it a container, not me. The brain is an organ, and experience is just a phenomena that arises from the functioning of that organ (in connection with the rest of the body). You might want to ask yourself, whose mind is this I'm talking about? Could it possibly be my mind? Or is the sense of "mind" the exact same delusion as that of self? It seems most likely to me, that "I" am just a small part of the brain, which is just a small part of the body. I am a cluster of neurons, functions of the animal. Of course not. What is "real" about meanings?

Ah, I think this connects back to our other conversation, about how deeply and mysteriously entrenched habits can be.

Hi Everything, Thanks for the good word about the videos. They've been a fun and important practice for me (without feeling like practice). I do think that all of us are using the word ego a bit differently. I don't think of the ego as specifically meaning "identity", but rather see identity as a subset of ego. I don't necessarily have to be self-reflective to act from ego; in fact, some of the most ego-bound people I've witnessed are very un-self-reflective. To me, ego is all the programming. It's the "if X, then Y" computational stuff, which makes us more like robots, able to have our buttons pushed. It may be more useful to talk about habits, rather than ego, because that's a somewhat less controversial term. And I don't mean just "bad habits", because even the concept of bad is habitual. The newborn baby, science says, is not quite tabla rasa (a blank slate). It has certain preferences and dispositions, already in it. Identical twins, separated at birth, share many characteristics, etc. None of that, of course, is habit; that's biology. At birth (or even earlier), the brain of the baby is trying to figure out how to make sense of raw data. There is no conceptual difference between the different senses, for example. Later in life, we make vision king, but before birth, vision barely exists at all, nor sight, and barely sound. All the fetus has, is mostly touch. Once the baby is born, however, it is taken from an organic environment (the womb) and placed into a conceptual environment, in which the baby is swaddled and kept indoors, so its touch sense is largely obscured by artificiality. From that moment forward, the sense of touch is the red-headed stepchild of senses, constantly kept from the environment by shoes, clothes, houses and cars. This one shift, from touch being the king of senses to being the bottom of the totem pole, is enormous, in the effect it has in shaping the fledgling habits. Parents do still hold and caress their child, but vision and hearing are the dominant ways of interacting with the world, from there on out. Because the parents place emotional importance on keeping the baby swaddled, on not having it naked around others, on not letting it be chilly, or touch the environment, or put things in its mouth, then the child learns not only that hearing and vision are important, but that touch exploration is actually kind of wrong, out-of-bounds. Once the parents get really self-conscious about the child's nakedness, then they're actually reinforcing shame and ugliness, in the child's attitude with the body. If the parent fights with the child about going to the bathroom, or touching him/her self, then even more corruption creeps in, about body shame, and lack of trust in the child's instincts. And then comes the endless stream of "no, no, no", as the child tries to explore its environment, so that trust in play and discovery becomes sullied. And then, parents freak out when the child exhibits signs of pain, suggesting to the child that pain is an adversary, something to fear, rather than just part of the senses. And all this, is before the age of 5. So this is just one example of how habits are instilled in the child. The largest sense organ in the body (the skin) is made off-limits, and deep-tissue touch is barely explored, except in the case of accidents. The older we get, the more rigid the certainty becomes, that we are this way, for a good reason. But we're actually that way, mostly because our parents were worried. What I'm suggesting is not that we throw away all the information that has served us, up until now. I am, however, suggesting that we doubt it all. There is almost no habit, no matter how of course it seems now, that I can say for sure is the right thing for me. Especially those habits that clearly were designed to bring me into society, or to make obedient. The model of growth that interests me, is that of a plant. A plant is never taught, shamed, or told "no". It doesn't need a parent, teacher, or guru. It has all of the instructions for its growth, built into it. Of course, we're more complex than the plant, but I do think we still have the entire blueprint to maturity, built into us. And it's not enough to follow the parents' recipe for maturity, because 1. they're often not that mature yet themselves, and 2. because it's just more artificiality, on top of the older artificiality. We can be shaped, but toward a conceptual ideal. To emerge in the way that organism's inner blueprint wants us to emerge, we have to be authentic, a real animal that grows and explores in ways that makes sense to it. So, the big question is: how do we find the blueprint? How do we find the body's authentic path toward waking up into full maturity? That is what I am talking about, when I say: "surrender ego". Let go of what I think I know, so that I can listen to the blueprint, which is inside of me, always communicating its desire to wake me up. Because my senses and intuition are so contorted by habit, I can no longer pay attention to what's inside of me, can no longer trust my own instincts. But those senses are exactly what I need to trust, listen to, and learn from, if I want to emerge from my artificial personality, and awaken into my potential. The blueprint itself is what I call "my path". And I know it only as a sensation. It's what Casteneda calls "the assemblage point", and I think it's what a lot of people call "God", "suchness" or "Tao". It's basically something that calls my awareness to it. When I heed the call, then I find that my ego self seems to vanish, just fold up, and something else starts to live through my body, through my life. It's the equivalent of "giving myself to God" or "being filled with the holy spirit". I am simultaneously humbled, and exalted. It is at that point that I realize that "I" am not the full Self; "I" am just the artificial personality, the ego. Only when I surrender myself, can I experience the blueprint calling me, and have it lead me toward growth, toward potential.

I see you writing a bunch of assertions, but none of them have even surface validity to me. I don't know how you plan on "proving" that detachment from senses "enhances our abilities". I certainly don't experience that; quite the opposite. When I put my attention solely on my senses, I find my body performs at a much higher level, than it does when my attention is drifting off someplace else, or trying to manage my movements, or if I am not feeling. Again, your assertion is in complete contradiction to my experience. Putting my attention to my body IME speeds up healing, increases balance, dexterity, strength, and capability. My practice of putting my attention into my senses has made dramatic changes in the shape and function of my body, so I am far more capable now, at 42, then I was when I was 18, when I was very neglectful of sensation. Again, a bunch of assertions, with no relevance to my experience. IME, my practice paying attention has utterly opened up my ability to comprehend new concepts, as well as my desire to learn. You may have had experiences which support your assertions, although I can't tell, by your posts. But all I see are assertions, all of which are in direct contradiction to years of my experience from practice of immersing myself in my senses. So, you may have a point here, but I sure don't see it yet.

Jumping in here: I see no logical inconsistency in SIME's position. If "my life" is only true when I am alive, then it's silly to talk about "what my life would be like without me". Likewise, if "mind" is only true when there are thoughts (which is what she experiences), then what's the point of talking about "mind without thoughts"? GIH, when you say that "mind is a context", are you not just describing a non-place with an unnecessary word? "Brain" is the context for thought; we know the brain exists because of anatomy. Why do you also need "mind"? What does this extra concept buy you? Calling it a context is just putting a word there, and saying "now I understand", like saying "God is the context for reality". But it's just a word, an added layer of concept, not a description of something useful. You ask: where does the experience take place, that is separate from thought? Well, that begs the question of "where is mind"? You still don't need mind, because both experiences (thought and non-thought) happen in the brain. I don't follow your argument about liberation. Why is "mind" necessary for liberation? IMO, liberation is all about surrendering habit and panic, which are mostly subconscious forces. What good does the concept "mind" do you? You write: "I think that's a terrible definition of what a mind is. It's not in accord with reality." But what reality are you talking about? I don't see any minds, when I look around at "reality". I see people, who presumably have brains. "Mind" is just a metaphor for how we talk about our inner experiences; that doesn't make it a "real" thing.

I agree that the ego has its uses, but I think that it can be like training wheels, something that is best discarded, in order to be free as a bike rider. From the perspective of someone riding with training wheels, he could make the same argument you're making: "if I get rid of these things, I'll just crash and go to the hospital, and then I'll never want to ride again." But from the perspective of someone (the sage) who has learned to ride in balance, without relying on the crutch of training wheels: "I thought I couldn't be free of those things, until I finally took them off. The beginning of the ride was scary and I even got a little hurt, but it was worth it, because learning balance has freed me up, to go exploring the world on my bicycle. I wouldn't recommend to anyone that they just try to ditch their ego all at once, and live without. I certainly don't know how to do that, myself. But I very much recommend that we spend our lives actively challenging ourselves, discarding unnecessary dependencies. And that we seek balance, not just to get good at life, but to free ourselves from ourselves. IME, most of the "shell" that I have created does not protect me from real harm, because real harm is rarely what I face. Most of what I face is just ego harm: embarrassment, rejection, being put down, etc. I don't need to avoid these things; they're just like : all alarm and no injury. Physical risk is the realm of fear that I've been facing the most, over the last few years. I've in my late 30s/early 40s, learned to accept impact without taking offense at it, tested my balance and calm in ways that seem risky, etc. My experience in this speaks very loudly to me, that my habits/ego were not only giving me false positives about what was risky, but that the panic that solidifies my habit, actually blinds me and increases risk. So the least risky path, I've found, is not one of safety and security, but one of learning balance, calm and joyful adventure, through progressively expanding my boundaries of what's possible. No, I don't try to fly (although I don't see any harm in trying, as long as I start from the ground floor). But I do continue to step forward, , to learn how to be free of my shell, my guardedness and shyness. (And yes, the videos in the links are me, learning to face my alarms, my panic, by stepping gradually into the unknown).

From the imagined perspective of the end of my life: I've lived my whole life shy around women I'm drawn to, and often (even now) wait until I have strong evidence that the woman is interested, before trying to connect with her. If that continues, if I don't learn to step up and face the risk of rejection, I will really regret it. I have many loner habits, and find it very easy to be by myself, and relatively uncomfortable to spend much time in others' company. If I don't wake up into the joy of fellowship, I think I will feel as if I missed a huge part of what it means to be alive. I think I'll really regret it, if I never whole-heartedly take on the adventures of marriage and child-rearing. I've been cruising in my career for awhile, as my priority has been (rightfully for now, I think) on self-cultivation and adventurous experiences. But I think I'll regret it, if I don't really push forward on fulfilling more of my career dreams. My family has grown apart from each other, and inertia is keeping us from connecting, the way I'd like. I don't need the whole family to be in harmony, but I think I'll really regret it, if I haven't done my best to bridge gaps with everyone, before either they or I pass away.

My shorthand definition of ego is: it's the constellation of my habits, including the habits of consciousness. Not only is it what I believe, but it's how I perceive, and how I'm likely to react. Maybe it's a word choice, but I think that "button pushing" is something you do to an ego. Other than physical threat, which is hard-wired into most species, most of our "buttons" are just habit, conditioned responses. So those buttons are part of the ego. If ego=habit, then the ego is more than conscious processing; it's also all the base-level habits, like distinguishing threats, beauty, importance, etc. in our perception. LOL! He start to reject and say no to his parents at around 3 months of age! The terrible twos, in particular, are all about rejection. That's why that age is so important in ego formation. Do the parents fight the kid, and force him to be obedient? Or do they simply not reward the bad behavior, and focus on encouraging the child with "yes's" rather than "no's"? Do they make reality larger, or smaller? I was with you up until the end part. Yes, I think that falling in love is indeed one of the times in which our biology tends to take over, and our ego tends to soften, at least for a while. I don't think that's the "drained" part, though; I think that's the flush of new love, when it's easy to go beyond one's self, to be a hero for awhile. But after some time of living beyond himself, the lover tends to tire, to return to his old habits. He starts seeing flaws, and he starts displaying his own limitations. This is not a result of egolessness, but that of the gravitational pull of ego, pulling the lover back into his self. I know that this sounds like egolessness, and it is something of a de-individuation, but I think it's something a little different. In relationship, if I can only find myself in the unit, then I am less of who I am. If I surrender ego, I am more of who I am, because I have let go of my boundaries of what's possible for me. Going beyond the "no's" I learned as a child. Surrender of ego does not mean: not being me. It just means: no longer needing to be right or to defend opinions. It means: willingness for other ways of being to be equally valid. It means seeing the world fresh within each moment, taking nothing for granted. Yes! I think that is the way to a successful relationship. But that takes less ego, and more love, to allow the other person to be right, as well, to recognize that another viewpoint can be every bit as valid as my own. Surrendering my ego is not necessarily losing my viewpoint, because I'm still here, and I still have a history. It just means letting go of the importance of my viewpoint, the need for it to be the right one. The problems I hear you defining are not from surrender of ego, but from inability to stay true to one's self, while simultaneously being in balance with the partner. That's a tricky balancing act, another dynamic surfing ride. That is the secret to improv partner dancing, as well. Say yes to the relationship, as much as possible, but also stay true to my own system. IME, it is the meeting point between the two authentic partners, that caring listening connection beyond words, that makes the dance/love connection possible, even effortless.

Thanks for the good words, Barb! Absolutely agreed about the choice of being a victim. I've definitely fallen prey to that temptation, myself. No growth ever came out of it, just a sense of righteousness. And likewise with the question of loving myself. I had some idea that I was supposed to love the rest of the world, but when asked whether I should love myself, that was out of the question. No, somehow, I was supposed to stay angry at myself, which made me more holy somehow. But of course, it just made me stuck.

Excellent share, Ulises, as always! I found that the video got especially good, around 7:45, when he distinguished between himself and an intellectual.

Not sure I follow this: "you get whatever you believe you should get"? I don't see that principle working anywhere in the world, including meditation. Isn't the point of Zazen "just sitting"? Not distracting one's self with purpose? It seems to me that 9 years of just sitting will, by necessity, be a powerful and enlightening experience, not just a sore butt. There's only so long anyone can distract themselves from themselves. Believing that I'm going to get something out of it just sounds like another distraction.

I'm still not following you. You think that the mind is more realistic, when it is detached from senses? It seems to me that the mind becomes more dogmatic, more idealistic, when it is not taking the body and the emotions in, as every bit as important, as reason is. When I look around at the world, I do not see people who are too aware of their senses; I see the opposite. I see people who are numb to their senses, who only get excited through over-stimulation. I see people who live in their heads, and forget the world of the immediate, which is the world of the senses. They crave novel sensation, precisely because they have tuned out from the sensations that are already there. IME, when I allow my "self" to fall into my senses, when I disappear into the stimulus that my body gives me, then I find that my mind goes quiet, and the world is clear and open. In that state, I am not seeking solutions, but they appear anyway, and guide me through the world. My experience suggest to me that "I" am originally supposed to be a conduit for awareness, nothing more. Not a "mind", not a chooser, not something that figures things out. Merely a conduit. When I fall back into that role, and allow my senses to flow through me unimpeded, then I find that something much wiser than me is able to stretch and take control of my life. I realize then that "I" am only a small portion of the whole, and my power is always limited by my concepts and biases. But when I tune in to my senses, to my overall awareness, I find that all the computation about life is done somewhere else than "me", somewhere that doesn't need me to do anything, but pay attention to right now. I realize that I have been addicted to being a mind, to being a self, to being in control, but that addiction has crippled my growth, and not allowed the greater mind to wake up, and take its natural place in my its life.

Great share, Jetsun! Awesome reminder. I often think about deathbed regrets, as a reflection of what is important to me now. It's so easy to get caught up in the busy-ness of everyday life, and then one day, realize that life is over, without having asked the questions: who am I really, and what do I really care about? It's so easy to reward ourselves for living someone else's prescriptive, even if it doesn't fit us, by saying "at least I'm doing the right thing." But the question of "right" is very different, when life is about to vanish, when all opportunities are about to end. That's a great perspective from which to view the whole of life, and it'd be sad for us to wait until we're actually on our deathbed, before taking that perspective on.

Excellent!