it's all meaningful, it's all meaningless—it's all beautiful

healing trove

life is one giant recommender algorithm and you get more of what you pay attention to

Christ does not command loyalty to family first; instead he calls for total allegiance to God. Hence he says “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”

It cannot be said that there must be an answer. Neither can we say that there is no answer. All we can say is that we want to know, because being in and of the world is a sticky question. Sometimes the stickiness of the world is very sweet; it is like honey on the razor’s edge. You lick the blade and “Oh! how very sweet it is!” Then there is the sharpness, and the blood.

meditation can change the mechanism of how you feel connected to people

I regret to inform you that all your goals are just shitty proxies for love and tribal belonging

David Lynch on attaining “enlightenment, fulfillment, total liberation, the whole enchilada.”

"When you say, “I’m in love with you,” what you’re really saying is that you are the key stimulus that is opening me to the place in myself where I am love, which I can’t get to except through you"

Three ways you unconsciously sabotage yourself: 

1 Being afraid of conflict creates conflict in yourself
2 Being afraid of failure makes you play it safe (and then feel like a failure) 
3 Being afraid of being alone makes you stay in relationships where you feel alone

if you’re smart/talented and hardworking you can force almost everything except creativity. I feel like creativity only appears when there’s genuine love and obsession

americans treat optionality like a virtue when it’s actually a pathology. ppl optimize for keeping doors open indefinitely, never committing, never locking in, because they conflate flexibility with freedom. but optionality is not freedom, it’s just deferred responsibility.…

But the point is: you have to loosen some constraints to give yourself a chance at solving the key problems: they are hard enough in themselves. If you impose as many constraints on yourself as the average person does, the likelihood that you will pull off what is most central to you approaches zero. So, seek clarity on which constraints are real and shape your life to fall within them.

Visualisations of the Jhanas

The Jhanas are a series of (8) highly concentrated altered states, most notably induced through advanced meditation practice and are a source of profound delight and insight.

The Jhanas are commonly listed as:
1. Rapture - characterised by pīti…

Being in and of the world can be bewildering, but is there a way in which we can allow that to open out into a more spacious dimension in which bewilderment might become wonderment?  Profoundly inspired human beings have peered into the question of existence since the inception of recorded history. Human genius has propounded philosophies and mystical geometries—but the question, as far as most people are concerned, remains unanswered. It cannot be said that there must be an answer. Neither can we say that there is no answer. All we can say is that we want to know, because being in and of the world is a sticky question. Sometimes the stickiness of the world is very sweet; it is like honey on the razor’s edge. You lick the blade and “Oh! how very sweet it is!” Then there is the sharpness, and the blood.  Some people would say, “Honey is a wicked and treacherous thing. It is best avoided if you want to avoid being cut.” This way of thinking sees the razor’s edge of life as undesirable. Some people would say, “Why not find a way of tasting the honey without getting cut?” This is another way of thinking that also sees the razor’s edge of life as undesirable. Some people would say, “The razor’s edge is all there is—nothing but pain; therefore extinction is release.” This way of thinking denies the sweetness of the honey. Some people would say, “The honey is all that really matters; if you’re cut by the razor’s edge then at least you will have tasted the sweetness!” This way of thinking accepts both the honey and the razor’s edge but divides the experience. But the honey and the razor’s edge are a single experience. If you manifest a human form, you taste the honey on the razor’s edge. If you live for the honey and see the razor’s edge as an occupational hazard, either your experience of the honey becomes too sickly sweet and makes you vomit or you lacerate yourself on the blade.  What is it to taste the honey on the razor’s edge? Is it to reject the experience of either or both in favor of seeking an answer in nonexistence? Or is it to accept the unified experience as being what is, and thus to be liberated from duality?

the problem when you're being "not-yourself" is not that you're "fake", it's that you're not present. you're not there. you're somewhere else, in your head, worrying about something that hasn't happened yet, you're anxiously ahead or behind the beat, rather than grooving with it

I want to create something that lures the divine.

This one tickles me to no end: 

Feeling afraid to make the wrong choice is a sign that you're already making the wrong choice.

You want to make progress on the path? All you have to do is feel that awful sensation you keep avoiding. The one you don't even want to acknowledge, the one you can barely even think about. Yeah, that one. The upside is that once it's fully felt, it will disappear on its own.

“It goes both ways. I care for you but you have to allow me. It is actually a very similar thing with love. You have to love me. And I, well, I have to let you love me.”

Most people never experience what it is like to be with someone that allows them to speak without 

1. Judging you
2. Trying to fix you
3. Trying to help you
4. Trying to defend themselves

It can be a beautiful, psychoactive experience.