The absurd Truth, hiding in plain sight...

[thelerner]

On 5/2/2018 at 11:19 AM, dwai said:

So do you belong to the "consciousness rises out of matter via a strange and happy accident of the universe" category of people?

The logical part of me that interacts in the Tic Toc world does,  yet there's another part that's searching for more.. abandoning books & philosophy and hoping for answers in deep silence. 

[dwai]

3 minutes ago, thelerner said:

The logical part of me that interacts in the Tic Toc world does,  yet there's another part that's searching for more.. abandoning books & philosophy and hoping for answers in deep silence. 

I found that we can't sustainably live in both worlds. Maybe you will find differently. For me, going from a position of extreme skepticism, like Horatio, I too learnt, that there truly are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt up by the modern logical perspective

 

 

[Bud Jetsun]

On 02/05/2018 at 10:20 AM, wandelaar said:

How could a blow to the head cause one to lose consciousness when consciousness is the basic stuff of the universe and matter (including human bodies) are just illusory appearances?

 

(Don't try this at home!)

 

 

As a guy who's KO'd himself enough in decades of amateur motorcycle racing, awareness doesn't cease when KO'd, just conscious mind pauses for a bit and with good fortune resets. 

 

In heavy trauma (broken neck/spine KO's which I don't need to manifest occurring again with good fortune), sometimes memories of awareness during the crash event doesn't happen for a few days, but awareness diligently remained through it all.

 

When sleeping, awareness remains perfect, conscious mind rests while awareness and subconscious mind plays or meditates in the internal dream state.  I would never ask or expect anyone to believe anything Ive stated on the nature of awareness in natural sleep and/or KO'd states, as if I had not experienced it myself I would not believe it was possible either.  I've only experienced perfect awareness during sleep for a 4 day period following a breakthrough plant teacher assisted 15hr meditation session on a long international flight.  After the 4th day of being aware of everything through the whole night of sleep, I chose to let awareness in sleep return to being appreciated by subconscious mind alone, as it's optimized for perceiving sleep state awareness. 

 

Unlimited Love, 

-Bud

[wandelaar]

@ Bud Jetsun

 

Even if you are speaking the truth it is still no answer to my question.

[Bud Jetsun]

Just now, wandelaar said:

@ Bud Jetsun

 

Even if you are speaking the truth it is still no answer to my question.

 

Consciousness is not awareness. Consciousness comes as goes willy-nilly, awareness remains uneffected. My apologies for not being a poet to help make a better pattern of letters to answer.  Countless vastly superior poets offer better explanation, but perhaps it still requires experiential relating to grasp. 

 

Unlimited Love, 

-Bud

[Marblehead]

Aren't "consciousness" and "awareness" two separate, but linked, concepts?

 

 

[Bud Jetsun]

2 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

Aren't "consciousness" and "awareness" two separate, but linked, concepts?

 

 

 

 

Consciousness is the aspect of your being choosing to entertain constructs/delusion/thought. This is the little mind that thinks itself into meaningless loops capable of filling unlimited pages of philosophy texts with expressions of personal confusion. 

 

Awareness is the equanimous observer, which is optional to ever experience or appreciate. If one chooses to silence the thinking mind, an unfathomably beautiful awareness remains. 

 

These are just some patterns of symbols for the conscious mind to stumble around, awareness requires no comprehension, labels or definitions of awareness. 

 

Defining it at any level is choosing to replace perception of awareness with unnecessary human constructed aspects of confusion.  

 

Unlimited Love, 

-Bud

[Marblehead]

I like your response.  I have no reply as the words are running around in my mind like a bunch of drunk monkeys.

 

 

[dwai]

5 hours ago, Marblehead said:

Aren't "consciousness" and "awareness" two separate, but linked, concepts?

 

 

Awareness is like the ocean and consciousness (of objects) like its waves  

[wandelaar]

And all the while there is not a shred of evidence that the physical world is just an illusory dream rising out of consciousness, awareness or whatever one want to call it. It's just one of those feel good philosophies that have no recognizable connection to reality as actually lived. But there are even more possibilities. Pick and choose:

1. Our current life is just a (bad?) dream, and soon we will wake up as a pretty prince or princess and all will be well.

2. We are part of a cyberworld and everything will turn out fine because the programmer is a nice guy.

3. There is a heaven and nobody will go to hell.

And as there is hardly any limit to the human imagination there will doubtlessly be a lot more. All of them logical possibilities and impossible to disprove. When all you want is a philosophy that makes you feel good, I guess you can start and end right here. No need to test the predictions of your philosophy against reality, as the philosophy nicely avoids making any predictions that can be tested. Pseudoscience at its best! But then again, when all you want is a nice irrefutable feel good philosophy it's perfect.

[Marblehead]

I don't like your three choices.  Please add more.

 

[wandelaar]

A bad one this time:

 

4. The devil is fooling us all: the physical world doesn't really exist.

 

And if you want a happy ending:

 

5. Eventually the devil will be locked up in hell, paradise will be restored and we will all receive compensation for the nuisance.

[Marblehead]

I gotta' give you credit for trying.

 

Option 4, second word - doesn't exist - maybe replace first two words with "Our own mind"

 

Then 5, instead of:  Eventually the devil will be locked up in hell, ...

with:  Eventually we all shall become aware, ...

 

 

[silent thunder]

@Bud Jetsun

 

Thanks for sharing as you do.  Gems and pearls you offer with such boundless joy and love!

 

Your words (and all words) though incapable of carrying the ineffible, uncarriable, yet resonate with the intention to reach out, connect and share the truth of the experiential.  Truly gems!

 

This indescribable then dances with the described through the sympathetic vibration of experiential understanding.  Perhaps not today, but as with all emanations, the resonance carries on, back and forward from this now, through all and with love.

 

 

 

To one who has not swam in the river, are there words possible to lend skin the experience of being wet?

 

to all who demand words I would offer these: 

 

the river flows... here, now... jump in and be

 

 

[wandelaar]

The problem with just picking a irrefutable feel good philosophy resides in the fact that there are innumerably many of them. That was the reason behind my examples. And as the world presents us with a mixture of pleasure and pain, choosing the feel good philosophy that you like best will probably give you a philosophy that is false (although not provable so until it's too late). That's why I don't like philosophies without empirical support.

[silent thunder]

like and don't like?

 

which is true, which hides truth and which reveals?

[thelerner]

On 5/4/2018 at 8:52 AM, wandelaar said:

Pick and choose:

1. Our current life is just a (bad?) dream, and soon we will wake up as a pretty prince or princess and all will be well.

2. We are part of a cyberworld and everything will turn out fine because the programmer is a nice guy.

3. There is a heaven and nobody will go to hell.

 

Agree with Marblehead the choices are incomplete, thus leading. 

Still I'd disagree with #1, as I like my life.  And 2, imo its bad to get ones theology from pop movies.  3.. Hard to weigh in on heaven and hell with such little data, still, it seems like hell is a waste of energy on someone's part, ie going out of one's way to make strangers continually feel lousy seems immature and pointless.  

With such limited data I'd be going toward nothing happens- dead is dead or basking in Oneness with a limited sense of ones old life but who knows.   

 

Ultimately with the lack of data it probably is better to pick a feel good philosophy, particularly if it improves the quality of your daily life.  Versus choosing a nihilistic one that might leave you bitter or depressed.  On the other hand, if it doesn't then go for it. We all slug through this world partially blind. 

Edited May 5, 2018 by thelerner

[wandelaar]

@ thelerner

 

I have no need for feel good philosophies when I know them to be probably false. I don't like deliberately fooling myself. The idea of my naming a few possibilities was to show how they can be invented on the spot. But there are countless possibilities, all different.  All you need to invent one is some imagination. You wrote:

 

Quote

We all slug through this world partially blind. 

 

That's right. The way of Lao tse and Chuang tse is to acknowledge the fact, and life with it. That's why I like it, and that's what I am trying to do.

Edited May 5, 2018 by wandelaar

[thelerner]

21 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

That's right. The way of Lao tse and Chuang tse is to acknowledge the fact, and life with it. That's why I like it, and that's what I am trying to do.

 

So.. what do  you pick?  What is your paradigm?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

<I assume, one way or another we're all deliberately fooling ourselves>

Edited May 5, 2018 by thelerner

[wandelaar]

20 minutes ago, thelerner said:

So.. what do  you pick?  What is your paradigm?

 

The feel good philosophies of the irrefutable type (and that's what I am talking about) all deal with subjects or situations that are impossible to verify. And that's also the reason why you can ignore them all, without thereby invalidating the know how to live your daily life. So I don't choose any one of them, because they are all highly unlikely to be true. And even if one of them was true, there is still no way of knowing which one it is. So I am kind of a Skeptic as far as those unknowable things are concerned.

Edited May 5, 2018 by wandelaar

[Michael Sternbach]

The thing is, however, that you will look at your experiences through whatever filters your philosophy provides you with.

 

Therefore, to a significant degree, you will always find your philosophy 'confirmed' by your experiences, that is, by how you evaluate them. - You know, half a glass being either half full or half empty, just depending on your outlook.

 

However, beyond determining your subjective evaluation of a situation - which by itself has a lot to do with how happy you are - your personal philosophy will even play a major role in what you 'objectively' attract.

 

As a simple example, if you assume that, reasonably speaking, you have little chance to actually get that job you would desire, you may not seriously try to get it in the first place. Whereas you may have actually gotten it, would you have believed in the possibility - and in yourself! - more.

 

So the optimist and the pessimist will both tend to find their attitude confirmed - only, the optimist will be happier, overall. Don't underestimate the power of belief.

 

Belief is key!

[wandelaar]

@ Michael Sternbach

 

That's right: some optimism may be helpful to actually achieve more in your life that you would have achieved without it. But I have no problem with a modicum of optimism as regards daily life, that is not what I protested against. This topic concerns the unverifiable claim that the ultimate nature of reality is awareness and that the physical world is just a dreamlike illusion. Well - maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. So let those who want to believe believe, but don't accuse those who don't want to believe of dogmatism (as was done in the article). That is the point I wanted to make.

 

Further: unverifiable beliefs aren't always helpful, and in some cases can actually have quite serious undesirable consequences. I am thinking of religious wars and terrorism.

[thelerner]

20 hours ago, wandelaar said:

 

..So I don't choose any one of them, because they are all highly unlikely to be true. And even if one of them was true, there is still no way of knowing which one it is. So I am kind of a Skeptic as far as those unknowable things are concerned.

and that is why in the face of not knowing I choose to lean on the side of of the more optimistic paradigm. 

I really like this quote from Secondhand Lions:

 

"Hub: Sometimes, the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good. That honor, courage, and virtue mean everything. That power and money, money and power, mean nothing. That good always triumphs over evil, and I want you to remember this, that love . . . true love, never dies. You remember that, boy. Remember that. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, you see. A man should believe in those things because . . . those are the things worth believing in."

 

[wandelaar]

14 hours ago, thelerner said:

and that is why in the face of not knowing I choose to lean on the side of of the more optimistic paradigm. 

I really like this quote from Secondhand Lions:

 

"Hub: Sometimes, the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good. That honor, courage, and virtue mean everything. That power and money, money and power, mean nothing. That good always triumphs over evil, and I want you to remember this, that love . . . true love, never dies. You remember that, boy. Remember that. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, you see. A man should believe in those things because . . . those are the things worth believing in."

 

 

I think Lao tse would also take the optimistic approach whenever possible, but he wouldn't make a dogma or unconditional belief out of it. When necessary Lao tse considers the use of force acceptable, but it has to be used with the utmost caution. So there is a balanced approach even here.