How to have a sane mind

There’s no way to ascertain that you are nothing without being something, so to speak of being nothing is to assure yourself that it’s true. If you really are nothing, you wouldn’t need to keep asserting it.

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The experiment is to steer clear of all that intellectual stuff that comes up; the conclusions, explanations, analysis, the brain’s conditioned reactions.

Does this mean you can stop that “stuff” from coming up, or that you ignore it when it does?

Are you steering clear of conclusions when you insist that you are nothing?

If you know you are nothing, why declare it? What does Nothing care what others think it is or isn’t?

It feels like trying to give the brain a break. A break from all the hogwash? :pig:

Is there a difference between the hogwash and what calls it “hogwash”? Isn’t hogwash reacting to itself? Can hogwash look at itself without denouncing itself?

The new hogwash is usually better than the old hogwash, so the old is discredited and discarded. It’s an ongoing process - it can’t be escaped. One can be aware of the process and scrutinize its activity, or condemn the process, futilely “steering clear” of it.

Stopping or suppression is just the same old same old. Just steer around it while you can, even if for only a moment.

That’s not the experiment. The experiment is to not get caught up in all that intellectualizing, at least while the experiment is being tried.

As if you and it are separate from each other.

Must one avoid hogwash if one has no use for it and isn’t susceptible to it?

Trying to be nothing is obviously just confusion in action. So hopefully we can drop that.

But just to be clear :rofl: : the conceptual entities/objects that arise in our consciousness are what we call things. We relate to them as actual real objects, and ourselves as the separate, central subjects relating to these objects.

The self (myself) is one of these conceptual entities, that we have the experience of being, and that we understand to be a mental process arising from life.

The self is no more a thing than any other thing, but it definitely exists and functions.

My question is : is the self process the master of all experience? Is what I want all that matters? Or does your suffering matter too?

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Most of the time we are on the outlook for sthg to happen. Sthg that might surpass our daily experiences. These are called expectations. Why do we fill our lives with expecting?

Isn’t it our purpose? Thats what I am for no? Wanting stuff.
Wanting exciting, pleasurable, good stuff for me.
Wanting boring, uncomfortable, bad stuff not to happen to me.

What else does my identification with this center serve?

It seems that way.

Is what I want all that matters?

It may be inevitable when one’s relationship with actuality is determined by one’s reactions, i.e., pain/pleasure, good/bad, true/false, right/wrong, like/dislike, etc.

Is there a way out of this this dualistic process, or is the way out the way in? That is, does awareness of reaction undermine its authority?

We can’t function without reasonable expectations, so expectation isn’t the problem. When we’re disappointed, it’s usually because our expectations aren’t met, and much of the time it’s because our expectations weren’t reasonable.

Depends how strong the reaction and awareness are. Deeply ingrained reactions might resist being tempered by awareness. Vivid awareness-attention might stop a reaction in its tracks.

Continuing the discussion from How to have a sane mind:

An expectation is an awaiting (etymologically).
Mostly an awaiting for sthg better to happen. Where does it come from? Why do we have them? Most of it leads inevitable to sorrow, because it won’t meet witj what actually is going on.

Doesn’t conflict arise from it?

Not being content with current experience is sorrow - so not only might it lead to sorrow, it begins there.

Wanting this experience to be what it is not, is conflict - so we are saying conflict arises from conflict; and sorrow arises from sorrow.

Why are we the movement of sorrow and conflict? because it is a process that has resulted in lots of babies.

Psychological ‘expectation’ arises inevitably along with the belief of psychological ‘time’? If I believe in a psychological ‘future’, how can I not be concerned about what will ‘take place’ there? Thought has erroneously carried its process into the mind and with it, practical time?
It took a wrong turn?

Can we look at the “wrongness”? In what way exactly is it wrong?

What’s the actual problem with projection/imagination (into the future)? Are we clear as to what the botheration (or damage done) is exactly?

When the starting point is “The human brain took a wrong turn” the dialogue will be biased due to the assumption that something is wrong, bad, un-good. What about: “The human brain took a turn, what are the consequences?” Psychological time is seen not as the enemy, rather: what-is.

The physical brain is the result of evolution. It has protected itself through time by means of a skull, because it is in itself very fragile. No conflict on that level.
What about the mind ( here the thinking process).It seems that the mind is an extension of the brain( without the brain , no thinking).
What is then the relation between brain and mind? Are they seperated? And where does this seperation come from? Is this seperation the cause of what went wrong?