Additional notes - accessing enlightenment

We are walking through this universe almost utterly blindfolded, but we have strapped ourselves with instruments.

Expand the frontiers of experience, as opposed to the frontiers of knowledge.

We must move the idea of what we are from our intellects to deep within our hearts.

You have to 'break through' in everyday life. Meditate while looking at it.

  • The ideal is being able to switch it on and off at will.
  • This would take daily practice.

It’s the synthesis of all that you know, and applying it to the world that you see through your eyes. Like all of it at once. And you marvel at it. Normally you just focus on one thing at once.

  • In our present state of brain we will never get to the level of appreciation.
  • But we are so, so close. See if you can create it through meditation and music, imagery, spoken word, and then share it with others.
  • Surely all species that reach that point have to go through a similar stage.
  • Enlightenment is when you put away your desire to achieve things, and yours listen to your senses.
  • Train yourself.
  • Perhaps the enlightenment is nothing more than being able to acknowledge the full range of inputs that your senses are receiving from the universe.
  • Usually, we are distracted by internal golf seeking monologue – which simply extracts from this mass of inputs that which is relevant to immediate goals, and ignores the rest.
  • By stilling this internal monologue, we allow ourselves the opportunity to experience universe more fully.
  • Sound and body awareness are underrated, while sight is overrated.
  • Telling the story in terms and language like this is the key to expressing it for future generations. Science and logic based.

This is the flip side. There is the alert, problem solving state of consciousness, and then there is the unconscious. The unconscious focuses on the sacred, magical, enchanted, interconnected, infinitely precious nature of life on earth. There is the tree of knowledge, and then there is the tree of life.

Walking

  • Walking is good for loosening thoughts.
  • Not so good for meditating.

Be prepared for it

  • The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.
  • Robert M. Pirsig
  • Freedom isn't in the Himalayas or the Amazon. The only place it is found is in your own heart, exactly where you are.
  • Jack Kornfield

Holotropic breathwork

Smell

smell is the best way to recall. Not sound.

  • So many animals perceive the world extensively through sent.
  • Tristram Wyatt, The smelly mystery of the human pheromone
    • Smell was the hardest of the senses to crack, and the Nobel Prize awarded to Richard Axel and Linda Buck was only awarded in 2004 for their discovery of how smell works. It's really hard, but in essence, nerves from the brain go up into the nose and on these nerves exposed in the nose to the outside air are receptors, and odor molecules coming in on a sniff interact with these receptors, and if they bond, they send the nerve a signal which goes back into the brain.
    • Smelly underarms comes not from secretions, but from bacteria growing on armpit hairs. If you want to reduce BO, you can trim your armpit hairs.
  • Tags: #[[accessing enlightenment]]
  • Different categorizations of primary odors have been proposed, among others this, which relies on seven primary odors: (with examples)[11][12]
  • Musky- perfumes/aftershave
  • Putrid- rotten eggs
  • Pungent- vinegar
  • Camphoraceous- mothballs
  • Ethereal- dry cleaning fluid
  • Floral- roses
  • Pepperminty- mint gum
  • Although recently progress has been made, the idea of primary perceptions is disputed, and more so probably the concept of primary odors.

The wonder

  • The wonder.
  • Put on some easy, distraction free music to dull the acuteness of awareness and let your mind wander.
  • Just look at one object, and ask 'what is this?' Follow the train of thought. You need the hooks of your mind to catch onto the sails of the objective reality above your perception.
  • When you start to feel it, you may start to feel emotional without realising why.
  • The practical part of your brain tells you no. It's not possible.
  • A plant, a single plant, is overwhelming. You will look at an elephant ear fern, and you will say 'it's not possible'.
  • Now look around at your landscape, broiling with a network of millions of likeminded forms. Now hold in your mind the entirety of the Earth beyond it. This is the scale of the wonder.
  • It is possible to enter this state without drugs.
  • It is not the same as the state of 'pure consciousness' that Sam Harris talks about. This is the experience of consciousness that is denuted of all physical or mental signals.

Through the senses

  • Open up your senses. All of them. And learn to focus.
  • The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.
  • Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more — more unseen forms become manifest to him.
  • Rumi
  • You knock at the door of Reality. You shake your thought wings, loosen your shoulders, and open.
  • Rumi
  • I am God's Lion, not the lion of passion....
  • I have no longing
  • except for the One.
  • When a wind of personal reaction comes,
  • I do not go along with it.
  • There are many winds full of anger,
  • and lust and greed. They move the rubbish around,
  • but the solid mountain of our true nature stays where it's always been.
  • Rumi
  • If we knew that tonight we were going to go blind, we would take a longing, *last* real look at every blade of grass, every cloud formation, every speck of dust, every rainbow, raindrop - everything.
  • Pema Chodron
  • The brain's simplified knowledge of what's beyond the immediate senses is what links you, latches you on to the unfolding of the ultimate.
  • Meditation is just stopping, closing off distracting sight for a while and listening and feeling.
  • Listen to the heartbeat, then feel the inside of your body. Easier to do if youre shivering. Feel your mouth. D may be attained by just thinking intensely about each tiny bit of stimuli you can feel from any of the senses.
  • Attachment and appreciation is easier if attachment to the universe comes directly through the senses, informed by the intellect.
  • Learn to feel all of your senses and notice your animal roots
  • The wetness of your mouth
  • The ache of your jaw
  • Your fingernails
  • The D may be attained also by just thinking intensely about each tiny bit of stimuli you can feel from any of the senses.

Through the environment

Gurus flee into nature to be more in touch with the universe, and thus be more in touch with nature, and themselves as an extension of nature.. The whole 'Shiva mountain man' thing is all about the return to nature. It's all about trying to get our of the civilization thing that we've built, and wants to see what the universe is supposed to discover. The truth is that we are descended from things that lived in the trees.

Under titanic flows, highly delicate emergent phenomena have emerged. In some places they have blanketed their environment.

Start by sitting properly, then close your eyes.

• You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. —Franz Kafka

  • Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing, those which average eyes would see as fixed and still.
  • Rumi
  • Observe the wonders as they occur around you.
  • Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through, and be silent.
  • Rumi
  • Focus intensely on everything that you look at. Where it came from etc. then they all link up in your mind.

The sounds of the environment

You have so much left to learn. You have to learn everything about all of the different sounds when oyu sit outside.

  • Another thing to access it is to listen to each sound in the environment, and then let your brain explore the question Why.
  • So, just listen to the ecosystem. You'll recognise how diverse it is. This is the route to the D. Dancing makes you feel it closer. Dance-yogaing is good too.
  • We are so bloody deaf in our worlds. We Never listen to the ecosystem anymore.
  • Summer is the best, because you can sleep outside. You get so in touch with nature that way.
  • To feel it you have to be outside and listen to the insects call. Man made noises count too though. They all follow predictable repetitive patterns.
  • They're all experiencing the same thing, as they are also part of the universe.
  • You have to meditate by simply listening to these sounds. As life has done for ages. You lock into the sounds, and its like plugging into the rest of the world.
  • This is how you become him.
  • See the Perception room in Architecture too.
  • For now though you should just put in warm clothes and come out here. This is if you want a healthy relationship with the ultimate thing. The universe. Primitive religions were likely better, as they lay outside just listening the most. This decreases as civilization increased.
  • Learn to recognise all the sounds in the area. Then you'll begin to realise how awesome the ecosystem is.
  • Listen to every tiny minuta of sound when outside.

-

  • Listen to nature fully and it's so incredibly rich. Literally every nanosecond in any environment is filled with sounds.
  • As we listen more and more around different parts of the planet, whether it's frozen arctic ocean, or the deepest jungles of central Africa, the whole world is singing. Clicking and grinding and whistling and thumping. But we've stopped listening.
  • Dr Christopher W Clark, Johnson Senior Scientist, Cornell Bioacoustics Research Program.
  • Everywhere there's life, there is song. The planet is singing everywhere. But what's happening is, we're killing the voices.
  • Dr Christopher W Clark, Johnson Senior Scientist, Cornell Bioacoustics Research Program.
  • See the 'Bioacoustics clip.mp4' snippet that I'll try and include.
  • Science knows it now.
  • Feel everything within yourself.
  • You're a mammal. An actually, simple feeling monkey. Listen to all your monkey quirks.
  • This is a branch. Of the massive universe. Where the spec tabular lines of every converged, in a field of numbers that represent ... The outer bubble of the.. Blob that we all grew out of it.
  • Welcome to the party. The lots of beings that have awakened. It's an honour for humanity. It's like one of those deep sea vent like things in the ocean, except its applied to this every field. That happened to form the exact atoms that comprise you.
  • This is the greatest realization that humanity has had.
  • And you had the ability to record something!
  • You, monkey, have realised it. It's amazment at the size of infinity, such that the exact experessrions that form you actually happened.
  • Come outside and ponder the question: what am I? How do I relate to this environment?
  • And you will realise it.
  • You are awake.
  • The ones that went hermit into nature realise it.
  • Look how far you've come.
  • Look at all of the things that you people have created. Look how far wthey that will have come.
  • Feel your mammal ness.
  • That is all you are.

Just sit and open your ears

  • Listen. To the traffic, to the birds. To anything that is real.
  • Eyes are very distracting; they overwhelm other senses.

Sit and open your third eye

Missing an image here.

Bird sounds

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/great_gray_owl/sounds

Meditation

Meditation slowly turns your everyday life into a psychedelic experience.

  • Meditation like Yoga Nidra helps people to regain their body connection.
  • Perhaps it can also be used to help people with other things: Universe, Life, Humanity, Future.
  • And then Buddha Nature/Enlightenment.
  • Meditation is necessary to pull our mind state out of the deafening, competitive practicalities of life, and into that of a proper perspective.
  • The type of proper perspective that we see depends on us as individuals.
  • But this is the road to the infinite.

Breathing meditation:

  • Meditation can increase willpower.
  • 1. Sit still and stay put.
  • Sit in a chair with your feet fiat on the ground, or sit cross-legged on a cushion. Sit up straight and rest your hands in your lap. It's important not to fidget when you meditate—that's the physical foundation of self control. If you notice the instinct to scratch an itch, adjust your arms, or cross and uncross your legs, see if you can feel the urge but not follow it. This simple act of staying still is part of what makes meditation willpower training effective. You're learning not to automatically follow every single impulse that your brain and body produce.
  • 2. Turn your attention to the breath.
  • Close your eyes or, if you are worried about falling asleep, focus your gaze at a single spot (like a blank wall, not the Home Shopping Network). Begin to notice your breathing. Silently say in your mind "inhale" as you breathe in and "exhale" as you breathe out. When you notice your mind wandering (and it will), just bring it back to the breath. This prac-tice of coming back to the breath, again and again, kicks the prefrontal cortex into high gear and quiets the stress and craving centers of your brain.
  • 3. Notice how it feels to breathe, and notice how the mind wanders.
  • After a few minutes, drop the labels "inhale/exhale." Try focusing on just the feeling of breathing. You might notice the sensations of the breath flowing in and out of your nose and mouth. You might sense the belly or chest expanding as you breathe in, and deflating as you breathe out. Your mind might wander a bit more without the labeling. just as before, when you notice yourself thinking about something else, bring your attention back to the breath. If you need help refocusing, bring yourself back to the breath by saying "inhale" and "exhale" for a few rounds. This part of the practice trains self-awareness along with self-control. Start with five minutes a day. When this becomes a habit, try ten to fifteen minutes a day. If that starts to feel like a burden, bring it back down to five. A short practice that you do every day is better than a long practice you keep putting off to tomorrow. It may help you to pick a specific time that you will meditate each day, like right before your morning shower. If this is impossible, staying flexible will help you fit it in when you can.
  • You may find that what you are doing in meditation was exactly what you need to do in real life: catch yourself moving away from a goal and then point yourself back towards it.

Other types:

  • Randomized clinical trial finds 6-week mindfulness meditation intervention more effective than 6 weeks of sleep hygiene education (e.g. how to identify & change bad sleeping habits) in reducing insomnia symptoms, fatigue, and depression symptoms in older adults with sleep disturbances.
  • thisisboring 224 points 7 hours ago
  • Can somebody please explain what mindfulness meditation is?
  • [[–]]()Chaps1 28 points 4 hours ago*
  • I'm currently in graduate school and have access to a humongous database of peer-reviewed journals. I found a pretty good article, and the authors defined meditation as such (warning, wall of text):
  • Despite the apparent similarities in meditative techniques across cultures, there are considerable differences between meditative techniques that have been developed, often even within one culture. Further defining and operationalizing meditation for the purpose of empirical study has been the topic of much work, yet there remain differing views on how this should be done. Manocha has suggested that the term “meditation” should be narrowed and refined to include only techniques that have certain “authentic” traditional qualities. By reviewing the traditions behind a number of techniques, he has isolated the following qualities as being key to an authentic technique; achieving a well-defined state called “thoughtless awareness,” focusing attention to the present moment and directing attention away from dwelling on “the unchangeable past or undetermined future,” reducing unnecessary and unproductive “background mental noise.” Thoughtless awareness is described by Manocha as “a state in which the excessive and stress producing activity of the mind is neutralized without reducing alertness and effectiveness.”20 According to Manocha, background mental noise “impinges on our otherwise natural tendency toward psychological and spiritual health.” He refers to forms that do not meet these criteria as "quasimeditation.” Other writers have attempted to clarify constructs such as meditation and “mindfulness” and distill core elements. For example, Bishop et al. suggest that mindfulness, which is often a goal of meditation, involves two components: the first being the “self regulation of attention, which involves sustained attention, attention switching, and the inhibition of elaborative processing” and the second being “a quality of relating to one’s experience within an orientation of curiosity, experiential openness, and acceptance.” More research is needed to explore and validate the “authentic” construct and whether the distinction is significant. Manocha’s definition is concise, useful, and accurate in its description of the mental activities or mental procedure involved in authentic meditation techniques, but lacks reference to the physical nature of many meditation forms.
  • http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2110998
  • From <https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/2w576e/randomized_clinical_trial_finds_6week_mindfulness/>

Feel it though your body

  • Clear your mind.
  • It's like really appreciating music. You feel it throughout your body.

Dance to it

  • Public music synchronizes the subtle biorhythms of all the people in its space.
  • Naval Ravikant
  • You can dance to the sounds if the night. This is another way to feel the music - by dancing.
  • Dancing is a true way of experiencing music.
  • Dance to the sounds of the environment. And through that, really listen to the music.
  • Conduct the music of the night. Literally stand there and wave your arms to it. It is often very slow tempo.

It’s easiest in nature

  • It's easier to comprehend what you are (monkey from rocks!) in nature because it is less complex. Civilization complicates and distorts. It’s a whole new level of complexity.
  • The most amazing thing about life is not the narrative fallacy. It's the fact that you're alive in the first place. How amazing is the fact that you're conscious?
  • In the night our own streetlights seem brighter than the light of stars. That's our problem.

Enjoy the sun’s movement

Track slow movement of the sun in the sky. Watch it and compare to things on the ground like if it clears the top of that tree. This tells you about the earths position in space.

Spend the night in nature

There's few circumstances more accessible and potent at seeing the Snap as spending the night in nature.

Through the body

  • The body is animalistic. It contains all of the traits that carried your ancestors to survival and mating for countless generations in countless environments.
  • You are man.
  • Look at your hand. look at the effort thats gone into it
  • The realization is not just realizing that you are a monkey on a rock, but in feeling it through the legs that attach you to this ground.
  • Feeling the animalistic nature of your own body is what connects you to the natural environment.

Listen to the body

  • Feel yourself as an organism. Close your eyes.
  • Remember you can access it any time by feeling your own body. Start with the mouth.
  • Be a master of your body. Be attentive to what every part is telling you, all the time. This is the a key to your attachment to everything else.
  • Then offer up your ears and all your senses, combine it with the imagination and you can see yourself as a monkey on a rock.
  • You can tell what smoking does to your throat. Look at it now, it's all swollen up from the smoking you did the other night.
  • You would be increasingly classed as blind by the primitives. That part of your eye is just so weak.
  • Feel everything within yourself.
  • You're a mammal. An actually, simple feeling monkey. Listen to all your monkey quirks.

do this and you'll realise how important [Missing]

Yoga

Yoga is like a cheat. It's a goodness button on your body. How lucky that you have a body then.

Recovering body connection

  • We are almost completely disconnected from our own bodies. Sex is one of the few times we pay attention to it.
  • Physio, yoga, and exercise is the answer.

Always sway and move

Missing

Physical position

Try and see your surroundings from the satellites perspective. The higher you are the easier.

Lie on your side

  • See the sun, stars, and atmosphere from a perspective that you can intellectually understand - lie on your side, and perceive the reality that you are on the edge of this orb.
  • It's amazing to see the sunset in this way.
  • Also, to see the clouds rolling across your horizon and into the next one. That is how interconnected the gasses of the world are - in other words, how the atmosphere knows no boundaries.
  • It’s even more awesome if you watch a sunrise or sunset.

Music

  • Where words fail, music speaks.
  • Hans Christian Anderson
  • When you listen to music, actually bloody listen. To all of it. Shut your eyes.

Enlightenment - it comes with feeling. Music can help induce the feeling. With meditation.

Chants

  • Chants of meaningless sounds (mantras) help one to realize the essentially musical and dancing spirit of the universe.
  • Alan Watts

Thoughts (ironically)

The Earth is covered in life

By all rights, the Earth should be a barren rock. Look at the below pic to get some perspective of the spectacular phenomena of life that we see as 'normal'.

Appreciate things on their own scale

  • When this twentieth century of ours became obsessed with a passion for mere size, what was lost sight of was the ancient wisdom that the emotions have their own standards of judgment and their own sense of scale. In the emotional world a small thing can touch the heart and the imagination every bit as much as something impressively gigantic; a fine phrase is as good as an epic, and a small brook in the quiet of a wood can have its say with a voice more profound than the thunder of any cataract. Who would live happily in the country must be wisely prepared to take great pleasure in little things.
  • Country living is a pageant of Nature and the year; it can no more stay fixed than a movement in music, and as the seasons pass, they enrich life far more with little things than with great, with remembered moments rather than the slower hours. A gold and scarlet leaf floating solitary on the clear, black water of the morning rain barrel can catch the emotion of a whole season, and chimney smoke blowing across the winter moon can be a symbol of all that is mysterious in human life.
  • https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/07/26/henry-beston-northern-farm-smallness/

You’re a creature of the universe

Think of yourself as a creature of the universe, rather than a member of the human mob.

Think about where things came from

  • First, to which threshold does the object belong?
  • Modernity, okay. How did it get here?
  • Large department store. What are its components?
  • Plastic and metals. Okay. Where were they refined and where did they originally come from?
  • Metals from a mine in the interior of Australia. Okay. Consider a handful of objects and just like that you have a significant commentary on the modern system. How did they get in the ground or whatever?
  • They were part of the interstellar cloud that formed Earth, and that's where it settled after bombardment and then plate movement.

Break down all assumptions

  • Think deeper each day about the things you're working on. Always probe everything you're doing by asking "why" and that will challenge the assumptions that each floor stands on and sections will become seamless, as reality is. That moment of fission is a small glimpse of what lies in the center of it all. The ultimate understanding is when a great being realises everything is utterly seamless, in one great oneness. Call it Om.
  • Your little bridge building revelations is like removing another barrier between sections. What lies in the end is the realisation that everything is connected, and flows in to each other seamlessly. That we are all one universe.
  • There are no boundaries. Everything flows into each other seamlessly like a great ocean.
  • Be able to give more specific examples of this.
  • When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe.
  • John Muir
  • In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • Just look at each item one by one and consider it.
  • This state is that level of inquiry that you were talking about, but instantly for all things. Thus you see the true place of things. . You can totally teach yourself that
  • Train yourself to see from all of the stimuli at the same time

But get past ‘what can I use this for’ and other ‘practical’ thoughts

  • This is life that's happening while you're making other plans.
  • I guess that I must not let it distract me from life itself. Or perhaps it is life itself.

Incorporate the senses into science education

  • There is an over emphasis on the intellectual in the sciences in education, and not enough on what we feel within our bodies, what we actually see locally in nature, etc.
  • What yoga practitioners feel in their bodies, what foodies taste, what botanists look for in the small details of plants, etc, should be incorporated in the curriculum.

Give yourself an immersive task to do

https://i.imgur.com/B4b9ZXw.gifv

If you don’t do this, you’ll lose touch

  • You are very close to completely losing touch.
  • Your vision literally represents it.
  • Stars at night is compulsory.

Act as if things have already ended, and you get to go back in time and experience it fully

  • [This one is untried for me.]
  • "You see this goblet?" Chaa asked, holding up a glass.
  • "For me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on a shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, 'Of course.'
  • When I understand that this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.
  • I_HaveAHat 39 points 14 hours ago (49|8)
  • Sorta like living each day like your last except you live every day like its the last day of every one/thing around you. Cool.
  • http://www.reddit.com/r/QuotesPorn/comments/25ktpc/the_glass_is_already_broken_achaan_chaa_1298x796/

Drugs

  • "If you get the message, hang up the phone."
  • Alan Watts on psychedelic drug use
  • thinksandsings [score hidden] 9 hours ago
  • A person under the influence of something like LSD usually is not just "hallucinating" in the way that popular culture would have you believe. The experience has much more to do with a temporary shift in perspective in which mental associations are loosened and the ability to connect things that may have otherwise seemed unrelated is heightened.
  • Watching a meaningful movie, hearing an inspiring lecture, having a profound dream, or engaging in a stimulating conversation can leave you with a lot to think about and integrate into your daily life. Psychedelic experiences can have a similar quality, and it can come in a lot of forms.
  • Perhaps while taking LSD or DMT you suddenly understand - not on just an intellectual level but by *experiencing* it - that the lifelong narrative you've told yourself is just that: a narrative, and the possibilities for who and what you are suddenly expand into realms you'd barely imagined. And again, you're not reading about this in a book, you're feeling it and experiencing it.
  • Then you come down off the drug and don't feel it anymore (at least not as strongly), but you have a hell of a lot to chew on and integrate into your life. You can't just carry on as if you never experienced it. That's how I think about it.
  • I don't think there's anything fundamental that a person can learn while using a psychedelic drug that they couldn't learn elsewhere, but it can certainly help. I know they have definitely helped me clear out some cobwebs and shift my perspective in a really positive way. I barely touch them these days, but it's hard to imagine my mind feeling the way it does today without having had some of the experiences I have, and I think it's a shift toward understanding and awareness.
  • permalink
  • [embed]()
  • [save]()
  • [report]()
  • give gold
  • [reply]()
  • [[–]]()hittes[S] [score hidden] 9 hours ago
  • Can you give me some examples of the way a drug trip helped shift your perspective? Not doubting you, just genuinely curious.
  • permalink
  • [embed]()
  • [save]()
  • parent
  • [report]()
  • give gold
  • [reply]()
  • [[–]]()thinksandsings [score hidden] 8 hours ago
  • Certainly.
  • Like I said in my post, they have helped me see that the background narrative of my life ("I am a human, I am this body, I am my past, I am smart, I am clumsy, I am kind", etc) that I rarely actively think about are self-made identities that are not fundamentally true and can be radically shifted. I remember laying on the ground and totally losing track of my body and mind. I did not know myself as a person. I was not accessing any memories of my human life. I was just feeling connected to everything, and the experience felt intuitively true and valid. It's quite a challenge to come down from that and wonder if it was just something drug induced and, if so, why did it feel more real than daily life..
  • I have had moments in which I realized that I'd lost touch with a sense of beauty, play, and appreciation for small moments in life. These have helped me loosen up, get in touch with my inner child, and enjoy the ride of life a little more.
  • There was a time when I was going through a rough break up and I took some LSD. It really helped me broaden my perspective. When I get upset, my world can become very narrow and can feel very oppressive. In the instance of feeling abandoned and betrayed, that sense of oppression can start to define my every moment. While tripping, those feelings felt like something quite small and ultimately inconsequential in the larger context of my life, and the even larger context of all of existence.
  • In a more general sense, just having my reality altered quite strongly (especially by something like DMT) many times has helped me be more understanding of how varied everybody's experiences really are. It makes the world feel bigger, knowing that the mental state of everyday existence is just one of many possibilities of experience.
  • Unlike some other drugs, psychedelics are not particularly dulling. They can make the world feel more vivid and alive. Ultimately, even if they are just a "drug induced state" it hardly matters to me, since I am truly happier and a better person partially because of them.
  • With all that said, I rarely recommend them to anyone. I think they are a highly personal experience and can mess people up, and certainly help induce psychosis. Not good. But used consciously I think they absolutely can provide insightful experiences.
  • Nobody is going to become enlightened by taking these drugs though. An enlightening experience is just a road map or a preview. Without a lot of sober mindfulness, the experience provided by psychedelic drugs loses its impact and lasting value.
  • Just my $0.02 and opinion. I hope that helps.
  • From <https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/83flhx/cmv_psychedelic_drugs_dont_enlighten_the_user_and/>

Monks perspective

  • Two Zen monks, two Christian monks, and a rabbi comment on spiritual uses of MDMA
  • Most spiritual teachers are strongly against the use of any drug. Some warn that drugs will undo years of hard-earned progress towards enlightenment, while others say that the drug-induced state may appear the same but is on a lower level, and that this can mislead people. A few believe that a true mystical state can be induced by drugs, but that its value is lessened.
  • However, there are a number of teachers who do believe in the value of MDMA, both for their own personal enlightenment and for teaching others. I interviewed four: a Benedictine monk, a rabbi, a Rinzai Zen monk and a Soto Zen monk. I also obtained comments from another Benedictine monk. These are active religious leaders who write spiritual books, teach spiritual practices and give public lectures on spiritual matters, but, except for the last, have never publicly admitted their views about the spiritual value of MDMA. The Soto Zen monk, Pari, agrees that "Drugs do not go with meditation." However, he says, "Meditation goes wonderfully with drugs." There is no contradiction: Drugs disturb acquired patterns of meditation, but while taking MDMA it is easy to meditate. "Being still when taking MDMA helps you to know how to sit, it provides you with experiential knowledge." But is it a good way to learn? "It is like a medicine. If we look at the state of our own mind and the planet, we should be grateful for any means that can help. However, like any good medicine, it can also be misused." All of them believe that they have benefited from the use of MDMA, that it can help produce a valid mystical experience, that it does no harm to the psyche and is a useful tool in teaching students. The reason they do not promote its use is that they have to follow the policies of their religious orders, and these naturally uphold the law. I found it fascinating to hear how similar their experiences were to one another, yet how different to most other people's. When I asked them what they thought of MDMA use by ravers, their opinions differed. The Benedictine felt it was profane for people to take the drug unless they were spiritually oriented, while the rabbi thought the feeling of oneness and seeing life from a new aspect was an equally valuable experience for ravers.
  • I took Bertrand, the Rinzai Zen monk, to a rave party where he took some MDMA - previously he had only taken it while meditating. When it took effect, he glowed and announced "This is meditation!" Far from being alien to his experience, he saw that everyone was totally absorbed in their dance without self consciousness or internal dialogue, and that this was the very essence of meditation.
  • The rabbi was not only aware that dancing on MDMA could be a spiritual experience, but that mysticism was now more readily available on the dance floor than in churches, mosques or synagogues. He suggested that if priests tried the drug themselves, they would not only appreciate its spiritual value, but would be able to understand young people better. Pari made this analogy: "It is like a climber walking in the mountains who is lost in the fog and unable to see the peak he has set out to climb. All of a sudden the fog clears and he experiences the reality of the peak, and gains a sense of direction. Even though the fog moves in again, and it's still a long, hard climb, this glimpse is usually an enormous help and encouragement."
  • Interview with a Benedictine monk*
  • Brother Bartholemew is a monk who has used MDMA about 25 times over the past 10 years as an aid to religious experience. Normally, he has taken it alone, but has also taken it among a small group of like-minded people. He describes the effect as opening a direct link with God. While using MDMA, he has experienced a very deep comprehension of divine compassion. He has never lost the clarity of this insight, and it remains as a reservoir upon which he can call. Another benefit of his use of MDMA has been that the experience of the divine presence comes to him effortlessly. The effect manifests in its elemental form in the breath, the breath of divine God. After the awakening, he began to discover the validity of all other major religious experiences.
  • He believes the 'tool' of MDMA can be used on different levels " as a research tool or as a spiritual tool. When used appropriately, it is almost sacramental. It has the capacity to put one on the right path to divine union with the emphasis on love, vertical love in the sense of ascending. However, this gain only happens when one is looking in the right direction. It should not be used unless one is really searching for God, and is not suitable for hedonists such as teenage ravers. The place where it is taken should be quiet and serene. There should be a close emotional bond among those sharing the experience. The experience has to be pursued under a certain amount of supervision, because the influence of MDMA produces a tendency for attention to drift off. There is also a danger of squandering the experience by being trapped in euphoric feelings, rather than reaching into a spiritual realm. However, although it can be invaluable, its use should not be necessary, as the need for a drug negates freedom.
  • [I sent Br. Bartholemew a copy of the above notes for approval, and he added the following:]
  • "One element you might want to add is that of intimacy of voice in conversation. MDMA always propels me into an intimate space in conversation. There is a special quality to this conversation. One feels a heaviness, a sense of the weight of the moment, of something profound, of the seriousness of life itself. It is a space that is inner, without masks, without pretense, utterly open and honest. It is not an erotic intimacy, but a philosophical and mystical intimacy. Does this make any sense? One has the consciousness that this is an inner communication rarely achieved in ordinary discourse. There really are no adequate words to express this state of awareness, only to say, that it is essential in my experience."
  • Interview with a rabbi at the West London Synagogue*
  • After a talk which touched on the need to prepare for death, I asked the rabbi a question about the value of MDMA in terminal patients (referring to Dr. Charles Grob's study in Los Angeles.) He replied that MDMA was valuable for the dying as much as at raves, in that it allowed the feeling of oneness and seeing life from a new aspect. Prohibition is not the best way to deal with substances that can be used in ways that are as sacramental as communion wine. These substances may arouse feelings of awkwardness which may be uncomfortable but are essential for deeper understanding of our selves. However, there are other methods of achieving these feelings, such as are described in a book called Mind Aerobics.
  • At the end, the rabbi beckoned me to come up onto the stage. He took me into a fire exit staircase, out of earshot of his entourage, and told me that he could not afford to undermine his project by publicly supporting the use of illegal drugs, but that he had my book (which he praised.) He believed that MDMA and other psychedelics could be used to immense benefit, not only for personal awareness, but also for the sake of Gaia or the cosmic wellbeing of the planet. He implied that the MDMA experience was of the same quality and potential value as other mystical experiences, and suggested that priests should take the drug themselves, both in order to understand young people, and to see the validity of spiritual experiences produced by drugs. He referred to Abraham Maslow's conclusion concerning 'peak experiences': that taking drugs is like reaching the top of a mountain by cable car instead of the toil of climbing - it can be seen as cheating, but it gets you to the same place. He ended by giving me a big hug and encouraging me in my work.
  • Visit from a Rinzai Zen monk and teacher*
  • Bertrand is a Zen Buddhist monk and teacher of meditation in his early seventies. Following a conventional career, he had an awakening experience on mescaline when he was 47 which made him re-evaluate life and seek a spiritual path. This led to his taking up Rinzai Zen with a strict Japanese master. Though he found the training extremely hard, he eventually became the abbot of a Zen monastery.
  • Bertrand has taken MDMA about 25 times over 10 years. He has generally used it on the second day of a seven day meditation, and finds that the drug allows him to give his wholehearted attention without distraction. As a student, he also once used the drug when undertaking a Zen exercise called Koans. During Koans, the master names the task which the student must contemplate, such as the classic: "to understand the sound of one hand clapping." The student has to demonstrate comprehension, normally after a considerable time, and very often after being told to try again.
  • On MDMA, Bertrand zipped through the Koans with impressive ease. He has also felt enlightened on two occasions, although he is wary of accepting this as the highest level. He also knows a Swiss Zen Buddhist who uses MDMA, but never told his own master. He feels that the experience would be of great value to some of his devout but stiff fellow Zen monks, although he knows only one other Zen monk who uses MDMA.
  • Asked whether the MDMA experience was of equal value to Ògetting there the hard way,Ó he replied that MDMA simply allows one to focus wholeheartedly at the task in hand, and that the result is in every way as real because it is the same. In fact, MDMA allowed him to go further than he was able to without it. I pressed him to find negative aspects, and he told me that he once made the mistake of taking MDMA just before leading a meditation. This opened his eyes to how strained and needy his students were. He expressed what he felt too freely: that they looked like corpses, all lined up in their black shawls! This was inappropriate, and he did not use MDMA while teaching again. He felt his mistake lay in not respecting that his students were in a different space.
  • However, Bertrand believes that MDMA would be an extremely useful tool for teaching if the students were on it too. In fact, he wondered if he would live long enough to be able to use it legally. Pressed for possible problems, he said that there were always people who came wanting to be given enlightenment on a plate, and that news of a new technique using a drug would attract those who expected it "to be done for them." The rave party was the first time Bertrand had taken MDMA except while meditating, and he was surprised by how different the experience was. Beforehand, he said he could hardly stand the noise and volume. After the MDMA took effect, he could see the value of the volume in drowning out distractions. The monotonous beat was akin to some American Indian ceremonies which also provide the feeling of tribal bonding by the use of a drug - although he felt the rave missed the Indians' cultural framework and focus. (Bertrand had been a guest in an American Indian ritual, though without taking any drug.) He could see the value of his new experience to Buddhism as expansive - meditation was contractive, but both were essential.
  • His first reaction, after the MDMA began to take effect, was sadness in his position as part of the establishment of a restrictive religion, and a realisation that the Zen training was not suitable for Westerners in its present form. Later, he got into the dancing. As his face changed from severe to happy he exclaimed: "This is meditation - to be truly in the moment and not in your head." The next day, he said that he felt the experience had made an impression on his life, and he was not sure where it would take him. It had emphasised what he already knew: that his students were too contracted, and that the expansive experience of the rave was what they needed, and it was a pity that he could not advocate it in his position.
  • The next day, he said this may be an important turning point in his life. He had to take time to digest what he had learned, but his immediate response was that he could not continue to be part of the establishment of his school in its present form. He could see that the contractive aspect of the training had been overemphasized in his school, in the belief that Westerners were too expansive anyway. In fact, those who sought Zen masters in the West really needed the ability to be expansive - and the rave provided it. A month later, Bertrand rang me to say that he had just given a week's retreat, and that it was lighter and more positive with almost a sense of gaiety. He attributed this to the rave experience affecting him, which in turn affected the participants. Also, he still feels much younger and more flexible. In fact, a back problem that had caused him pain for several years appeared to be completely cured, which made him suspect that back problems in particular are caused by the mind. I had sent Bertrand the draft interviews with the Benedictine monk and the rabbi. He commented that his experience agrees with that of the rabbi about being in an open state of mind. It conflicts with the Benedictine, in that he finds MDMA enables him to focus totally without distraction, and with prolonged attention. He feels that the underlying state of mind is emphasized. I asked how he would suggest making use of MDMA. He would recommend meditation after opening up as a way to channel released energy. Bertrand described MDMA as "a nourishing experience."
  • Visit to a Soto Zen monk and teacher*
  • Pari took LSD at university. In fact, he moved into a commune that took LSD at regular weekly rituals, but later this quest for knowledge lead him away from drugs and to Yoga, which he practiced intensely for several years. He then travelled and got involved with Zen, living in a Soto Zen community for 10 years until he was ordained as a monk. He has since been made an Abbot by his master; i.e. given the power to ordain new Zen monks. He now lives in a beautiful quiet Victorian house in the city with his wife and son, where he has a small zendo. He also has a mountain retreat centre. He divides his time between Buddhism and social/ecological activism. Over the past five years, Pari has taken MDMA about 15 times, usually alone or with his wife or intimate friends. It provides him with great clarity and calmness, very much like after a week-long sitting (seshin), when everything becomes more clear, more awake.
  • Traditionally, eastern teachings are strongly anti-drug. But his particular tradition was an exception to the rule, and his teacher in Japan had used peyote, LSD and MDMA. Once Pari angered the famous Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh by pointing out that the majority of his western students had come to seek him through drug experiences, so it was not quite right for him to take such a strong stand against the use of drugs, especially since he had not tried them himself.
  • He has used MDMA for teaching with a few students, including one who has since been ordained a monk. This was a man who was extremely keen, and put tremendous effort into trying his best to succeed in meditation. MDMA helped him to see that trying itself was his main obstacle. Another student was a very successful and hard-driving businessman. MDMA simply stopped him - he made a dramatic change into a warm, contented person who just wanted to sit quietly in the zendo.
  • When I asked if success through the use of MDMA was as valid as without, he replied: "It is the experience that matters, not how you get there. Look back at the history of the major religions. Many of their founders and saints had their mystical unions during wound-fever, during which, as we know today, the body produces psychedelic substances. A good example would be Ignatius de Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order."
  • I asked if Pari thought there may be types of people who would not benefit from, or who would be misled by MDMA. "It could be a problem for those who are not sufficiently well grounded, those who have a tendency to float into other worlds rather easily anyway. However, most of us are too earth-bound, too stuck in this particular reality, and a little help from a friend can be of great value." Unlike LSD and other drugs, MDMA works in terms of relationships - with oneself, God, nature. It even opens up a common ground with other people whome one does not yet know.
  • I asked whether there was any point in using MDMA once enlightenment had been achieved. "Achieving enlightenment for most of us is transitory and seldom. After a while, the direct experience becomes replaced by a memory of it, and direct experience from time to time helps and refreshes." But, I asked, is the drug-induced experience really the same? After some hesitation Pari replied, "Yes, the state of mind is identical, yet there is a subtle difference, perhaps due to the drug's physical effects on the body. Without the drug, there is one less factor. This is simpler, and perhaps this implies it is better. The value of the state is the same: to be able to look back and to see one's 'normal' state of mind with a clear but different perspective."
  • What is the ideal situation? "For a beginner, a trusted, more experienced friend is highly recommended. You must create an environment that you find conducive. Do whatever spiritual practice you have. For some this may be singing, praying, painting, meditating or sitting in a cathedral; for others walking alone in the mountains." However, he warned that not every attempt is positive. He felt sick and shaky during his last MDMA experience, though after an hour he vomited and then felt better.
  • Comments by Brother Steindl-Rast*
  • Brother Steindl-Rast is the Benedictine monk quoted praising the use of MDMA in Ecstasy: The MDMA Story. He rarely replies to letters or gives interviews, but a mutual friend put some questions to him for me. He has tried MDMA about 4 times, but does not use it any more.
  • He thinks people tend to expect too much of MDMA, although he knows of many people who were helped considerably in overcoming their interpersonal barriers. He is in favour of legalizing its use with terminally ill patients and other conscientious use by physicians.
  • from the Newsletter of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies**
  • MAPS - Volume 6 Number 1 Autumn 1995**
  • From <http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n1/06133spi.html>

DMT beings

  • But the guy who runs that qualiacomputing website that gets posted here sometimes proposed an experiment to see if DMT entities are actually separate from the brain (for the record I'm sure they aren't). He proposed delivering a gigantic number to the entities while under the influence of the drug and then asking them to factorize it into its prime components, then bringing the components back out of the trip with you. This would be concrete proof that something strange is going on, since even supercomputers can't factorize large numbers quickly. As far as I know no one has tried it
  • From <https://www.reddit.com/r/RationalPsychonaut/comments/b113he/have_there_been_accounts_of_trips_where_people/>

Story

  • So I was 17, and was splitting strips (10 hits) with my buddy Lonnie every Friday night. He'd eat 2 or 3, and I'd eat the rest. I seem to have a natural resistance to it or something. I could always eat a lot more than most other people, usually taking 3x the dose to reach roughly the same level as them. I am *not* a party tripper. Not a social tripper. I like a quiet mostly dark room and little or no disturbance for 10 hours. I don't do the 'woohoo let's trip and act stupid' routine. Nope. I just like to melt into my chair/floor/whatever and let my mind run wild. I won't move or say a word for hours. Most of the time I can be on a lot of acid and you won't even know it. I can sit there and chit-chat for a bit and seem perfectly normal. The shit just doesn't hit me like it does most people.
  • So I got the Bright Idea to hammer myself. Dive deep. Dose hard.
  • So, I buy a quarter sheet. I give Lonnie a couple hits to drive me to the motel. I check in and pre-pay for Fri/Sat/Sun with instructions for no maids, no calls, no bothering me. About 10pm I drop the remaining ~23 blotter doses all at once.
  • Let me put it this way. From a little before 11pm until sometime the next afternoon, I have zero recollection. All I know is I didn't leave the motel room. I came to my senses sitting in the floor watching rainbow trout swim in spiraling columns up the curtains while Pink Floyd's Fearless played on repeat. The trout were swirling and climbing to the music, that doot-doooot-dooooot-doooooooot-do-do business. I normally don't get visuals beyond wood grain squirming and flat plain surfaces wub-wubbing and little detail distortions. So I realize I'm looking at these trout and I'm just all what the fuck. It was amazing. First and only time in my life I've legitimately hallucinated, saw shit that wasn't there, not just a vague impression of 'oh hey that kinda might almost sorta look a little like X' ... it was awesome but also made clear to me just how hard I'd dosed myself.
  • So. I slowly gain awareness of my surroundings and find my green dollar store notebook near at hand. In it I find something I wrote, but I don't remember writing it, and yet it's burned into my memory word for word to this day, nearly 20 years later. It was beautiful. It wasn't the sort of thing you think is deep or important when you're tripping and realize it was gibberish later. No. I let others read it years later. A girl teared up over it. It was astonishingly beautiful and soul-aching and I've tried for many years to find a dose that gets me back to that same place. It will never happen. I touched satori, and glimpsed samadhi.
  • I spent Saturday evening sitting on the Slurpee counter at my friend's 7-11 down the street. Chatting with some customers, trying to avoid the notice of others. I'm clearly not right in my head. Very. Off. But very happy and content. I went back to the motel room, tried to sleep a few hours and may or may not have succeeded, and wandered out on Sunday morning.
  • I stopped at a donut shop. I ate a tuna and lettuce sandwich and had a cup of coffee. I watched the patrons for a few hours. I was fascinated. Their movements, expressions, interactions. It was so bizarre, even alien, to me. I shouldn't have been tripping, the stuff is simply metabolized too fast. And yet there I am. Completely off my fucking gourd. Not human. Something different, better, but weird.
  • Sunday evening I trudged back to the motel to pass out for some real sleep. Such dreams.
  • Monday I see some kids on my way to the park. One has a twisted nail cross on a leather thong around his neck. I'm atheist but it felt meaningful. I gave him $5 for it and wore it under my shirt for years. I meet up at the park with a 14yo girl, my neighbor Nichole, Sarah Michelle Geller's twin, who had a huge crush on me. I spent an hour admiring the beautiful chopsticks and leather butterflies holding up her hair, while I gently tell her it's just not going to happen, even though her mother approved, and even though she looks and sounds even older than I. That was awkward. She's one of my best friends to this day. Her husband is a great guy and I'm lucky to know them both. I think had I not been on my soul-journey that weekend, I would have handled the whole thing differently. I think I wouldn't have some of the best people in my life, now.
  • Then I show up at mom's. I'm having pizza with my stepbro. I notice I'm not really feeling the pepperoni. I pick it off. Couple more bites. Not digging the cheese either. Off with it. One more bite. No thanks. Big salad time. From that point onward, I was utterly vegan for most of a year. Got rid of my leather shoes and pager case. Lived on fruits, nuts, vegetables, water. All fresh, unprocessed, un-messed-with. Wouldn't even eat BBQ chips because most contain fish oil. I quit smoking cigs. Started shaving my head to the scalp. Sitting in truck stops and Dennys and wherever else. Being that weird quiet guy who watches people. Studied them. Learned nothing.
  • For that year I was not myself. I was better. I was at peace. I had a river of serenity within me. I would take long walks in the summer rain, and longer ones in the chilly rains that came later. I was being washed, cleansed, mothered, by nature. I found an inner identity I'd never known. I listened to and appreciated music for the first time in my life (I never really did before, and don't now) and I loved art and architecture and sleeping in my jeans on the cool damp grass of the back corners of parks and cemeteries.
  • After 10 months or so, I started to wind down and change again. More normal. Less odd. Less 'creepy' according to one person, though I was never a threat to anyone. Just quiet me, doing quiet things, finding quiet corners in loud bright busy places, and delighting in the tiniest details of life on this good earth.
  • Today I am a result of that dose. Among many other things. That trip remolded my psyche and personality. It opened me up. I don't know who I would be if I hadn't chewed up all that tasteless Mickey Mouse paper 18 years ago. But I know who I am now. And I'm happy.
  • Can you share what was written in the notebook?
  • A man, alone, stands near the top of the hill. He looks up to the sky, out to space, in search of eternity. He is awed, eyes glazed over, by the complexity of what he sees. But his heart is stilled by the overwhelming simplicity of it all, out there in that vast dark sparkling sheet. He struggles to comprehend, to rectify this contradiction. And he knows the answer is within himself. His thoughts turn inward. He is sinking, receding, slipping through ages of human development, swimming in a sea of preconceptions. He is lost, foundering. There is a moment of fear and sadness as he understands he cannot reach his goal. He lets go of his desires and in that moment, he feels the light, feathery brushes of another form of consciousness.
  • And I'll leave the rest to some other time.
  • http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/3esp74/i_wanted_to_see_how_much_39g_of_sugar_actually/ctibxso

Visions

  • Mescaline, and LSD seem to have this kind of effect on some people.
  • Austin Osman Spare. I once wrote ***an article** about what I called "trance artists", like Rosaleen Norton and him. I don't think it was a great article. One of the reasons is I didn't mention drugs. He was in Crowley's Argentum Astrum. They were using mescaline, weren't they, to trigger - ?
  • Alan Moore- Yeah. Was it *ana luini* mescaline or peyote, that was what they always called that *ana lu -* I could never remember the medical name for it that they were always using but yeah, they were using drugs. Magic, as far as I can understand, since the dawn of time has been largely been predicated upon drug use.
  • Yeah, that is how to trigger the visions and so on. **
  • Alan Moore - Well, the shamans were using -
  • - You could starve yourself, that's another way of doing it. **
  • Alan Moore - Anything that is going to - I mean, I presume that certain acts of violence, certain sexual acts, starving yourself, scourging yourself, there are a lot of ways that you can get into a funny state. Drums, dancing, but drugs, drugs are probably pretty reliable if they don't actually kill you and they've certainly been around for an awful long time. The earliest form of magic would probably have been shamanism and would probably have been based around some kind of psychedelic mushroom. And you can see a connection between magic and drugs running throughout history from that point and certainly with Spare and Crowley. Crowley, at least, was famous for his drug use.
  • From <http://blather.net/articles/amoore/visions.html>

LSD is an amplifier of mental processes

  • LSD is a catalyst or amplifier of mental processes. If properly used it could become something like the microscope or telescope of psychiatry.
  • Stanislav Grof, LSD psychotherapy
    • “What the telescope was for astronomy, and the microscope was for biology, psychedelics will be for the understanding of the human mind”
  • From <https://podcastnotes.org/2018/05/07/pollan/>

Warning

  • There was a twinge, just then. Theres something bad about weed and this state of mind. It can get hysteric. It thinks about things too much and it is terrified. When all the worst things line up and you see your worse possible future, that's the void. The void of hysteria.
  • Its not nice, but it's been on the rise a couple of the last times ive smoked. When it strikes, Its something to ignore like the zen master. That’s how to master it. You keep going about your fucking business.

The difference between knowledge and understanding

  • 1.The difference between Knowledge and Understanding.
  • 2. Knowledge belongs to the Mind; Understanding belongs to the Heart. "Heart" denotes that which is absolutely personal to each individual.
  • 3. Knowledge appears more substantial on the surface because it subsists on words; Understanding is often silent and eschews language.
  • 4. Understanding implies a relationship; an "Understanding" between oneself and one's very own existence. It is, in other words, inside-out.
  • 5. Knowledge is often only an object of the intellect, lacking the means to be a true relationship, to penetrate deeper. It is inside-in.
  • 6. The mind is the aggregator; the heart, the creator. The relationship that produces meaning is the understanding between reality & heart.
  • 7. Knowledge is cheap—it requires nothing of ourselves except our minds, which are designed for it, always ready and eager to absorb it.
  • 8. Understanding has a price; it requires something of ourselves in return. Namely, that we should reveal ourselves to ourselves to gain it.
  • 9. Therefore Understanding is always the more difficult than Knowledge, but always the more substantial.
  • 10. Understanding belongs to oneself and is therefore internally validated. The lure of Knowledge is that it is externally validated.
  • 11. In the Information Age it's never been easier to seek and acquire knowledge and attempt to create an identity and a narrative around it.
  • 12. Despite its advantage as a signalling good, Knowledge remains limited; it represents our relationship to the external, not the internal.
  • 13. Knowledge is only a method of relating to our surroundings. It can facilitate, but it is not meant to be our relationship to ourselves.
  • 14. If our only relationship with the world is Knowledge we become intellectuals—the mind dominates existence, at the expense of the heart.
  • 15. The intellectual is never at ease! Their minds crave more "food" while their hearts remains undernourished; it's all topsy-turvy.
  • 16. The mind can't be satisfied no matter how much Knowledge it acquires—by nature it builds castles in the sand, here today, gone tomorrow.
  • 17. The archetypal neurotic intellectual is neurotic precisely because he can't hold on to the castle of Knowledge without fearing the tide.
  • 18. Knowledge, coming from the outside in—being conditional—must always be uncertain; the tide may come tomorrow and wash it all away.
  • 19. Understanding, coming from the inside-out, will always be certain; the tide may indeed come but the structure of the castle will remain.
  • 20. In Understanding, one does not fear the tide of change; in fact one welcomes it, as nourishment, as a necessity to their own substance.
  • 21. The substantial, that which creates meaning, is Understanding. To gain it you must pay the price; expose yourself to the elements.
  • 22. Try to subsist on Knowledge alone and you will be rootless, and afraid of it. You will climb more rungs on a ladder facing the abyss.
  • 23. As the old Zen proverb goes "Knowing others is Wisdom; knowing oneself is Enlightenment".
  • @MrMircea

Perception and understanding

  • There is perception and there is understanding. Both are important. Perception is the easy part, everyone's born with it, you just need to remember how to do it. And doing it is be the most natural thing in the world. Understanding takes a brain, and work.
  • The D somehow goes a step beyond this though.. How? It's like I'm experiencing it rather than watching it.

Hobbies

Anything where you engage with the larger world and must interact with its depth.

Fishing, surfing, sailing, scuba diving

Fishing is one way of getting back in touch with nature. It is Zen. So is surfing.

walking, running, swimming

  • "For me, running has always been a meditative act."
  • People love to do these things when they also see great sights, like sunrises.

hiking, canoeing, biking

sdf

Camping

Camping tips:

  • Rufiodies [score hidden] 6 hours ago
  • baby wipes.
  • I cannot stress this enough
  • baby wipes.
  • [[–]]()LewsTherinAlThor [score hidden] 4 hours ago
  • One of the best things I learned in the Army is to always bring baby wipes.
  • May not be as good as a shower, but they are far better than nothing for keeping yourself clean.
  • Pasted from <https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/4uyln6/lpt_request_obscure_items_that_you_take_camping/>
  • unlimitedJUICE [score hidden] 4 hours ago
  • A couple things that I added in time for a big camp this year:
  • A pencil sharpener - you can use it to make kindling out of any little sticks! SUPER handy.
  • A headlamp - great for getting around at night or just in the tent.
  • For tarp securing, I have a whole butt load of various length bungee cords, rope, and big spikes, but this year what really advanced my tarping were the huge corkscrew things designed to secure dogs (you screw them 30cm into the ground and they have an attachment point for a leash or cable). They work better than any tent or tarp peg and Dollarama sells them for $3 each! Excellent investment, no hammer needed.
  • Pasted from <https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/4uyln6/lpt_request_obscure_items_that_you_take_camping/>
  • swanky_swain [score hidden] 6 hours ago
  • I always bring a hammock with me. It's a good idea to tie a piece of rope above the hammock (between the trees its tied to) and you can hang a tarp over that (if you're worried about rain). When I'm car camping, I leave firewood under the car to prevent morning dew and rain dampening it. In dry conditions this isn't required.
  • If you're cooking with a gas stove and it's going to be windy, either buy some aluminium wind shields or use some flat pieces of wood (obviously keep them a few inches away from the flame). Protecting the flames from wind will help cook faster.
  • Pasted from <https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/4uyln6/lpt_request_obscure_items_that_you_take_camping/>
  • spreadthemedicine [score hidden] 5 hours ago
  • If your bringing dogs, make sure you have multiple leashes/leash alternatives. I cant tell you how many times I've run out the door with out the leash and panicked only to realize I at least had a bungie chord in the car. Also, bring self adhering bandages, gauze, peroxide and epsom salt. You'd be surprised how frequently a dog slices open a foot pad in the wilderness on an seemingly unthreatening rock.
  • Pasted from <https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/4uyln6/lpt_request_obscure_items_that_you_take_camping/>
  • name-is-taken 173 points 4 hours ago
  • Quick dry pants vs waterproof pants: quick drying is much preferred as they don't trap water inside your pants, and will dry in a light breeze or ~30 from body heat in a dry sleeping bag.
  • Pasted from <https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/4v0cwh/hiking/>
  • Nomics 93 points 5 hours ago
  • This is marketing bunk. Technically speaking polyester does not trap absorb moisture, but moisture does get caught within the strands, and blisters definitely still happen.... just a lot less then cotton.
  • Merino is the way forward.
  • [[–]]()_joof_ 18 points 3 hours ago
  • I prefer synthetic / merino blend
  • Pasted from <https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/4v0cwh/hiking/>

Gardening

dsf

stargazing and cloud watching

  • The most startling thing about the desert night sky or the ocean night sky is that the grounds are flat and thus shows the whole horizon. It hints at how we are utterly surrounded by the void.
image

Yoga and meditation

image

Alexander technique

  • Lessons in the Alexander technique, named after Frederick Matthias Alexander, teach people how to stop using unnecessary levels of muscular and mental tension during their everyday activities. It is an educational process rather than a relaxation technique or form of exercise. Most other methods take it for granted that 'one's awareness of oneself' is accurate, whereas Alexander realized that a person who had been using himself wrongly for a long time could not trust his feelings (sensory appreciation) in carrying out any activity (Bloch, 221)[*full citation needed*]. Practitioners say that such problems are often caused by repeated misuse of the body over a long period of time, for example, by standing or sitting with one's weight unevenly distributed, holding one's head incorrectly, or walking or running inefficiently. The purpose of the Alexander technique is to help people unlearn maladaptive physical habits and return to a balanced state of rest and poise in which the body is well-aligned.1
  • Alexander developed the technique's principles in the 1890s2 as a personal tool to alleviate breathing problems and hoarseness during public speaking. He credited the technique with allowing him to pursue his passion for Shakespearean acting.3
  • From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_technique>

Polynesian navigating...

  • Polynesian navigation** is a system of navigation used by Polynesians to make long voyages across thousands of miles of open ocean. Navigators travel to small inhabited islands using only their own senses and knowledge passed by oral tradition from navigator to apprentice, often in the form of song. In order to locate directions at various times of day and year, Polynesian navigators memorize important facts: the motion of specific stars, so where they would rise and set on the horizon of the ocean; weather and the seasons of travel; wildlife species (which gather at particular positions); the direction, size, and speed of ocean waves; colors of the sea and sky, especially how clouds would cluster at the locations of some islands; and angles for approaching harbours.
  • From <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation>

Other tools

Space Engine

  • Space engine is I think one of the most important programs ever.
  • Buy space engine and get it on a console.
  • Or recommend pairing it with bluetooth controller.
  • Trust me it’s a better experience if you can pitch and yaw.
  • Try it with the playystation controller.
  • It will get much better when the render gets to the level where the martian surface is as good as the martian photos.
  • You need to put some sort of game on it. You have to find tokens like space odyssey's rectangles.
  • Make some of them found often, others medium, and others are super rare.