How to Build a Stronger Ego - Steve Pavlina

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The "bong" is more about a mindset though. All about fogginess of thought. No matter the intelligence or ultimate truth of this or that insight: the problem of fog remains, which really means: lack of coherence. Lack of reality. Pillow talk.

[Dennis Mahar]

According to Nagarjuna.

seeker is doing the via negativa, the act of negation.
emptiness.
what is obvious, and constitutes part of Alex's complaint, is that by doing that, what is proved is the existence of the negator.
Effectively, all you've got is a negator negating or a nihilist.

Nagarjuna calls that sickness.
In the three modes possible for drama it is trying to rescue by way of persecuting.
Persecuting everyone's narrative by and with emptiness.

The via positiva is dependent arising.

Finally, dependent arising
solves ontology. Things are empirically real, for they were arisen. However,
they are not ultimately real, for there is no substance on which
they are founded . Since things are not
ultimately real, the affliction of suffering can be vanquished; if suffering
were ultimately real, then it could never be abolished.

emptiness=dependent arising
dependent arising=emptiness

Reasoning is getting at the 'patterns' causing suffering.
To abandon reasoning is 'nuts'.

The 'enlightened' way is to recognise drama as dependently arising and 'void it' by recognising it's empty nature.
2 truths.
it's empty and meaningless that it's empty and meaningless.

[Bobo]

Bob, it's interesting this phenomenon with men, how they go about with their ideals, ranging from ideals for the future, the route to take, about women and even ideals about animals. And they can get very protective of those vivid images.

The "bong" is more about a mindset though. All about fogginess of thought. No matter the intelligence or ultimate truth of this or that insight: the problem of fog remains, which really means: lack of coherence. Lack of reality. Pillow talk.

Should I assume that you are not being protective?

But it's essentially a form of projecting innocence and purity (not of this world) onto something else.

What if man is exactly that, searching outside "himself". Then the goal would be to find something to search for or cease being man altogether.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

I agree being high makes you foggy and hinders memory, so does drinking. Don't see why anyone would have a problem with either, unless of course you did either a lot and it became some kind of addiction or life destroying situation.

"Reasoning is getting at the 'patterns' causing suffering.
To abandon reasoning is 'nuts'."

Reasoning is the only thing getting in the way of understanding. Understanding requires absolutely zero reasoning, reasoning is the very thing which creates illusions.

Then I would say it is ok to use reasoning, once you know, beforehand, almost all reasoning ends in delusion.

[Dan Rowden]

And you reasoned all that or just plucked it out of thin air (if so then it's worthless)? Can you not see you contradict yourself constantly on this issue?

[SeekerOfWisdom]

If I reasoned it, then it would have probably been worthless. Understanding isn't based on reasoning, there is an understanding that can occur without any thought, it is there in all direct experience.

All thought appears out of thin air anyway. If I had reasoned I probably would have been saying the opposite, and who cares about contradictions in language, should I stop using the word "I" because I'm contradicting myself when I say there is nothing to be called a self here?

[Dennis Mahar]

Reasoning is the only thing getting in the way of understanding. Understanding requires absolutely zero reasoning, reasoning is the very thing which creates illusions.

Then I would say it is ok to use reasoning, once you know, beforehand, almost all reasoning ends in delusion.

Reasoning accesses the point where it is realised there are ultimately no reasons.

It is completely understood that it is logical there are no reasons.
how could no reasons be illogical.

logic just doesn't go out of the picture

[SeekerOfWisdom]

It may not go out of the picture but how useful is it? Is a baby logical or rational?

[Dan Rowden]

If I reasoned it, then it would have probably been worthless. Understanding isn't based on reasoning, there is an understanding that can occur without any thought, it is there in all direct experience.

Don't be ridiculous. There is no necessary understanding at all in direct experience. None. Stupid people directly experience everything, as do cows. What understanding is there? What is understood?

All thought appears out of thin air anyway. If I had reasoned I probably would have been saying the opposite, and who cares about contradictions in language, should I stop using the word "I" because I'm contradicting myself when I say there is nothing to be called a self here?

No, because it's wrong to say there is no self if you say it in an absolute, "per se" fashion. There is a self because we name it; it just doesn't exist inherently as we deludedly presume.

[Dan Rowden]

It may not go out of the picture but how useful is it? Is a baby logical or rational?

How is that relevant to anything?

[SeekerOfWisdom]

All understanding is derived from direct experience but "there is no understanding in direct experience"..?

The way you understood your own consciousness was through directly observing, all you had to do was look and watch.

It is very relevant, I'll use another example, a bird, did it learn to fly using rationality? Should we praise the bird for being such a genius it developed wings and figured out flight?

No, that was it's nature, it just could, the bird itself didn't have to do shite, it was "given" what it does in a sense.

When you think, when you act, that is like the bird, acting/reacting based on circumstance, nature doing it's thing, you yourself didn't do anything or choose anything, there isn't really a you, just the circumstance and what plays out in the mind.

Logical or rational isn't useful because logical and rational aren't logical and rational, they are made up of uncontrolled thoughts appearing and disappearing. What makes someone rational, is he randomly imagining more correctly or something?

No imagination is more rational or more logical than any other, there is nothing to know.

When people reason they are usually trying to find why's and how's, these don't exist, reasoning leads to delusions such as fear of death.

For there to be rationality, reasoning, and logic, there would have to be some kind of correct way, some correct rationalization, otherwise there would be no irrational and no illogical.

We are talking about uncontrolled manifestations of nature here, where does rationality come in?

A baby doesn't use rationality or logic, it lives still, a bird doesn't use rationality or logic, it lives still.

I know I am like a child of the "mother", I was 'given' whatever I experience, I do not count my thoughts as my own works, just experiences that were uncontrolled by "me". (there is no me).

[Dennis Mahar]

Rational means 'in ratio' or perspective or view.

WTF do you think you are attempting.

Correct view is up for grabs.

[Dan Rowden]

All understanding is derived from direct experience but "there is no understanding in direct experience"..?

Understanding is itself a direct experience. Simple experience does not confer understanding of any kind. It's just experience.

The way you understood your own consciousness was through directly observing, all you had to do was look and watch.

Rubbish. Looking and watching simply produces more direct experience. There is no process of comprehension of anything in the raw fact of it. That raw fact of experience may well be what is ultimately true, but there is no comprehension of this merely as a result of it. A cow doesn't understand its consciousness and neither do humans unless they reason about it.

It is very relevant, I'll use another example, a bird, did it learn to fly using rationality? Should we praise the bird for being such a genius it developed wings and figured out flight?

A bird doesn't possess introspective intelligence so the analogy is utterly useless. The most unconscious people on the planet suffer on a daily basis. Why is that when direct experiences supposedly confers so much understanding?

When you think, when you act, that is like the bird, acting/reacting based on circumstance, nature doing it's thing, you yourself didn't do anything or choose anything, there isn't really a you, just the circumstance and what plays out in the mind.

The mind does not create Reality. It plays a part in the creation of the differentiated tapestry of things that make up experience, but that is not Reality.

Logical or rational isn't useful because logical and rational aren't logical and rational,

Well, that certainly wasn't.

they are made up of uncontrolled thoughts appearing and disappearing.

Speak for yourself. My reason apprehends all sorts of truths that cannot disappear. And this is another example of the way you just contradict yourself every time you speak on this issue. You say reason and logic are made up of uncontrolled thoughts. How the hell do you know that? Since you didn't figure it out in any way it's just a nonsense statement that you cannot trust. If you did figure it out, well, you see where this is going...

What makes someone rational, is he randomly imagining more correctly or something?

What makes someone rational is that they employ logic that cannot be refuted or contradicted or reduced. When you start from this basis (a=a) your reasoning will always be sound. Your personal experience may well be that you cannot trust your own reason, and I can see why that might be, but you cannot speak for others on this point.

No imagination is more rational or more logical than any other, there is nothing to know.

Except that, apparently.

When people reason they are usually trying to find why's and how's, these don't exist, reasoning leads to delusions such as fear of death.

Poor and incomplete reasoning leads to delusions, yes, but this is the fault of the reasoner, not of reason or logic. In almost all such circumstances reason is sullied by the sort of malarkey you're talking about. It gets circumvented by emotions and feelings and "intuitions" and other forms of data entry that cannot be validated.

For there to be rationality, reasoning, and logic, there would have to be some kind of correct way, some correct rationalization, otherwise there would be no irrational and no illogical.

That's true. There is such a way. You apparently haven't yet made an acquaintance with basic logical formulations.

We are talking about uncontrolled manifestations of nature here, where does rationality come in?

A=A

A baby doesn't use rationality or logic, it lives still, a bird doesn't use rationality or logic, it lives still.

So? A baby will develop an ego in time and then delusion and suffering will enter the picture. It's how human psychology works.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

That's like saying you can't talk about reliability/unreliability of knowledge because then you are using knowledge.

Through direct experience you know you don't know, through direct experience of thought you see how reliable it is.

Did I say everyone is wakeful and observant of their own consciousness, do cows meditate, do most people?

We don't have any kind of special intelligence that you think we have, we act and react exactly like the bird, everything we do and say and think was "given" in the same way the birds flight was given. You have no control, it just happens as a result of this.

"My reason apprehends all sorts of truths that cannot disappear."

The second you stop thinking about those truths they have already disappeared, something is only true if it is always true and applies to any experience not just someone's particular experience.

"Except that, apparently."

Yes exactly, one of the few truths which are always true, things you can be sure of, knowledge of your own ignorance/delusion.

So far you have a=a and there can't be any married bachelors.... how many always true things can you say about ultimate reality and consciousness? Not very many.

The thing you call "reality", aka (universe, experiences, consciousness, matter, etc, everything)...

Every single one of those things ever thought of, acted out, or seen, have all existed only of the mind.

Unless you are someone who likes to assign credibility to their false imaginations of some kind of external reality independent of consciousness.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Should I assume that you are not being protective?

Cut it out Bobo. Make you case in coherent language and show some effort you've tried to understand what your'e reading. So far you show only weak indignation with your foggy incoherent comments.

[Bobo]

You were talking about the problems of protecting emotional ideals. While you may have reasons to do so, you are one step away of doing the same thing. What it means here is that emotions are not a cut between irrationality and rationality.

[Pye]

Seeker writes: there is an understanding that can occur without any thought, it is there in all direct experience.

With this I actually agree. But must this be mutually exclusive from the understanding that takes place in reasoning? What is understanding; what is direct experience; what is all thinking but making sense? All of it is making sense. Or better being this sense-making itself.

Seeker: We are talking about uncontrolled manifestations of nature here

Then there can never be the "thin air" you mention out of which to pull things. Your buddha of cause-and-effect knows it's all an all, rather than a mutually excluding duality.

[Dennis Mahar]

Seeing or direct experience is distinguished as 'what's so'.

This!

prior to interpretation, prior to preference, prior to belief.

Already Reason has made it's mark.

the tacit understanding is everpresent that 'This!' is being 'coloured'.

So what?

The 'colours' generate experiential consequences.

Again Reason has made it's mark.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

You were talking about the problems of protecting emotional ideals. While you may have reasons to do so, you are one step away of doing the same thing. What it means here is that emotions are not a cut between irrationality and rationality.

All you're doing here is repeating your rather vague accusation that I might be protecting an emotion loaded ideal myself. You still have to make a case of some kind. Not just repeating some lingering supposedly deep penetrating insight which seems nothing but some passive-aggressive posturing on your side. For example emotions are not directly linked to irrationality (brain damage does not equal an emotional state) but its' more that emotion blurs distinction and instead of discussing topics which can be presented logically one descends for example into saving the victim, insinuations, playing the crowd, feeling good about being or beating a genius and so on. This is the stuff we're talking about. But I've no idea what you are trying to say and even if there was truth in it how to argue with it or who to proceed with the analysis. It sounds more like inferring something about someone's character but not being able to become specific or direct.

[Dennis Mahar]

It's like seeker's cognitive blackout.
His failure of Reason.

He is 'sporting colours' clearly with all his attachments and herdly ambitions.

Yet he interjects threads with a formula:

youse are talkin about nuthin'

a declaration concerning us that incriminates us in some kind of crime that apparently he is free of.

seekers via negativa is something that he applies to others and not to himself.
downright stoopid.

He has probably got a postit note bluetacked to his fridge door:

youse are talkin about nuthin.


it'll probably serve as his tombstone inscription.

[Dennis Mahar]

seeker,
that admonition,

'youse are talkin about nuthin'

until you 'get it' as a grok in clear cognitive space.

as a persecutory thang designed to victimise,

you 'got' nothing.

there's no enlightenment in it.

it's a piece of inauthentic bolshevik
an hypocrisy.

[Cahoot]

A baby doesn't use rationality or logic, it lives still, a bird doesn't use rationality or logic, it lives still.

A baby, a bird, and a man each have access to the same rationality. Each accesses in accordance with the capacity of its particular incarnation. A bird's capacity to access the all of rationality is limited by its lack of intelligence, a baby by its lack of development, and a man's access is limited by afflictions of ego that distort both perception and comprehension of rationality. A bird cannot be unbound from the limitations of incarnation and so even in full realization of its bird nature, and even though apparently unbound by afflictions of ego, drinks little, if anything, from the well of rationality.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

youse are talkin about nuthin.

All you guys do is pointlessly resent each other, "What are you trying to feed?" "What are YOU trying to feed?"

You know how I know youse are talkin about nuthin?

Pick your self and the greatest minds ever, both of them are little children, at the end, every morning, all of them wake up to the exact same mystery that I do, little birdies chirping.

The problem with rationalizing things out is that, all of it is nothing. All these false descriptions aren't silly because they are coloring this! mystery, all these false descriptions are silly because they lead people to thinking they know, but they exist how?

As thoughts and imaginations... only when truthfully observing conscious experience do you see the truth of it.

Would a doctor admit it to his patient? Can you admit it? Look at your self, no one with pride or who thinks highly of themselves could know.

Hence, "the meek shall inherit". You only think that this reasoning of yours is useful because it leads to good or better, but when you become a child again, you will understand some wise words, I drink from the great mothers breasts.

[Pye]

Seeker writes: You only think that this reasoning of yours is useful because it leads to good or better, but when you become a child again, you will understand some wise words, I drink from the great mothers breasts.

Perhaps it's long-past time you were weened, greedy suckling :)

[SeekerOfWisdom]

It's too good to stop, and it means similar to the Jesus "Do not worry" speech.