Awake: Chapter 2 Notes
be meditated!
I like this phrasing, don't meditate, rather be meditated.
Or not, further reflection makes it feel a bit woo. Or not, I can't decide.
Late add: This reminds me of this morning when the universe was drying it's face.
fallacy of false alternatives
The fallacy of false alternatives is binary thinking and non-dualism is the antidote.
embody your deepest truth
I hate talk like this. There's no such thing because someone would have to decide what's true. You can do that _for you_, but that's just _your_ truth. If you act like that makes it special, or “deep”, then you're putting yourself on a pedestal and that's just your ego talking.
You have every right to answer its call.
More woo talk. You don't have any rights and there's nothing to call you. This phrase might be an artifact of language but could, and should, be avoided.
your yearning for truth
Your yearning for truth is ego bullshit.
The universe is huge and terrifying and it doesn't know or care that we exist. That leaves us in a constant state of anxiety because WE'RE NOT IMPORTANT and we desperately want to be, we want someone to care. That's perfectly natural and there's nothing wrong with it. Our yearning for “truth” is just us looking for something stable to hold onto so that we can be a little less afraid. It's our ego pretending we're special, that we know the “truth” when really there's no truth to know. There's only the way things are and our little ape brains couldn't hold it all even if we could somehow sense it. We are limited, and we'll be a lot happier when we learn to be okay with that.
I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens. I’ve been knocking from the inside! — Rumi
This. There is no truth. There's just what is. The Tao. The Dharma. The way things are. But we'll never know more than a tiny fragment of that because we're apes stuck on a rock circling a single star. And that's okay. It's just fine and even with our limited vantage point and capabilities there are infinite miracles to behold. We just need to stop making up stories and look around.
When I’m finally enlightened, it will be like this and that, you can remind yourself of this simple truth: “It’s already here. Even if it isn’t a moment-to-moment reality for me right now, I trust that it is here, not there, or something that will come later in my life.”
Truth. This story about “when I'm enlightened” is duhkha. It's wishing things were different instead of living in reality.
What we are looking for is what is looking. — St. Francis of Assisi
Thou art god.
Thou art god, I am god. All that groks is god. ― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
What this really comes down to is recognizing and reversing the ways in which we habitually reject life at various levels through perceptual distortion. By experiencing reality through layers of perceptual filters, we subtly, and at times not so subtly, reject our momentary experience. We do this through habituation, and we don’t realize the cost. This rejection is human nature, or at least it is from the collective human delusion of separation.
We tell stories. Those are source and means of our distortion.
The Universe is on your side
🤢🤮 The universe doesn't have a side, it just is.
This is more anthropomorphizing bullshit, pretending that universe has attention, that it's watching and that it cares about you. Your ego needs this to feel important, to be less scared and lonely, to pretend it's safe. Your ego needs it, you don't.
It is more common to use spirituality as an excuse to run away from our responsibilities or to avoid acknowledging truths that we find to be inconvenient or uncomfortable. Everyone has this tendency to some degree, but for some people this is a prominent distortion in their life.
Highlighted without note. I think I liked the idea that our stories create “distortion”. That's a good phrase.