I give birth to thoughts I'm attached to, for I hope to find joy and happiness in them. So convinced to know who I am, I live in a prison of my tendencies.

So, life is my teacher, and living it is my spiritual practice. I'm not afraid to face all of its facts with total honesty. I'm not going to ignore anything or put aside what is painful.

When falling, would you try to grab a rope that is not attached to anything?

Most ideas, thoughts, practices, and religions are that rope. It gives you a false sense of validity, happiness, and hope.

Nothing in this life can save you, for they are burning in the fire of time too. But all can teach you about their nature which is the same as yours. So face them with total honesty.

If you face these facts and get depressed, you are still attached to your thoughts about your version of "reality." Depression is a form of resistance. It is the opposite of excitement. Both show that you are taking sides and not being totally honest.

You are the thoughts, emotions, and body. But you are also way more!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33988758

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That is true “fighting”. But most try to destroy the symptoms so they can continue their path and usually continue the root cause.

Of course finding the root cause is not easy and it takes one to study oneself

I highly recommend the following book to everyone (including the “healthy”)

The 12 Stages of Healing: A Network Approach to Wholeness Book by Donald M. Epstein and Nathaniel Altman

Fear rules life. Not even just humans but all animals and living creatures. You are not alone. It rules my life too. Now what is this fear? Why should I have it? Can I have no fear?

Trying to eliminate one fear is not enough, soon you'll be filled with another. In fact, fear fears itself.

I think fear is what conditions me into being who I am. The I, is built using different fears -- borders that should not be crossed. The fear of society, bad grade, loosing good status... oh, everything!

Now I ask myself, what is the point of maintaining this "I" if death is going to eliminate it. Because after all, it is too much work, constantly thinking/working to maintain a life that is marked as "APPROVED" by society, enforced by fear. Then once you get that "APPROVED" mark you fear loosing it... right?

Think about it. It is crazy. I'm full of fear of crossing rules at this very moment of writing... what if people don't like my answer, what if that is grammatically incorrect. What is the point of this constant fear?

It is simple, we have all these fears in the hope of preventing the experience of pain. It is ultimately the fear of experiencing pain, discomfort and ultimately death.

Now I have some suggesting... things that I do myself and have seen great improvement in my life having a lot less fear.

A) Study all your actions and see the trace of fear in all of them -- this opens up a world of understanding... soon you get it, it is all out of fear. Even love is mostly based on fear (but it does not have to be)

B) Eliminate the fear by thinking of death. Yes the most feared of all fears. We reject death and try to avoid it like any other fear, but with death it is even worse because it is the most feared, we go as far as subconsciously deny it. But if death does not work for you, face the experience that the fear is trying to prevent, face it, like a warrior (don't fight) but face it, and look at its eyes, is this the actual monster that you think it is? or is fear, the real monster?

C) Soon, a life that is driven by less fear, teaches you great important lessons, beautiful experiences that we miss because of these stupid fears. These experiences are already happening but we cannot see because of fear.

Now let me talk about the experiences... eating is 100x more enjoyable, loosing weight is 100x easier, heck even waiting in traffic light is enjoyable (when there is no fear you enjoy your own being). Also one's reaction to difficult situations is going to be 100x better when fear does not rule it all.

Enjoy a life with no fear, like a warrior, go to work, own the moment. If you get fired, just or unjust, face it, do the next thing. Speak up and listen with no fear. Also realize that others, your boss and co-workers are also driven by fear. Soon you feel not only your own action but other people actions, when I say feel, I mean you can actually feel their action with empathy and love -- after all they are suffering from the same monster: fear.

Also, most people that I talk to about this, think that once you eliminate all these fears and tendencies, you become a man of no action. That is not true, fear is defining the reaction, not actions. Once you are free of reacting to situations then you free to act instead of react -- this is very important to understand.

Also some people at first, once they look, they become afraid of having all these fears (again, another fear). Don't be afraid of having fears, own it, face this person full of fears, face the "I", then ask, who is the one looking at this, with no fear? and then remain in that state, all the time.

Wish you the best!

OOP is enough of complexity to kill most projects—and yet we discuss the dangers of ORM.

“Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code.” -PG

Then you must ask why those who have accomplished their dreams (doing what they want) still feel lost. I know many.

The real question is: what can complete the emptiness that I feel?

The answer is simple: Nothing! There is no emptiness -- stop imagining one.

Do what your heart desires, experience life, create stuff, change the world as you wish, but remember, oh my friend, you are not just this!

> However, silence was a big part of traditional music, in the past.

A glass is useful because of its empty space. You need the emptiness to fill it up with something. For inventions/ideas/startups, you need some empty space in your mind.

Think of a bored computer (one that is not used to its maximum capacity). It's like a computer that uses swap memory v.s. one that has a few GBs of free RAM. Which one would you rather use?

I say, it is good to be bored and stay bored -- don't rush to fill up the empty space.

Now this is my opinion. I start a startup to be my own boss and change the world on my OWN terms. Why the hell, should I go to YC to hire a boss?

To grow faster? To learn how to grow?

BULLSHITT! I can do both of those without their help -- call me arrogant, I don't care.

Just read books and google if you don’t know what to read

And choose a field that does not require a degree to work

This way you save your time and money and probably will end up being more successful

I too switched away after being a lifetime Google Advocate: Android, Chromebook, GCP, Linux + Chrome and many, many of their products. Honestly, I don't care about privacy that much I'm just sick and tired of how good Google became at distracting me! Never mind the ads and how I had to use incognito search for anything because if I searched something (e.g. buying a monitor) google keeps suggesting similar stuff to get my attention or suggesting articles on the homepage of Chrome (mostly android).

What was once a simple beautiful tool to find answers, fast. became part of every aspect of my life, trying to get more and more of my attention/time.

Time is gold. Google lost respect for my time and I lost respect for Google.

You are right. Then it is detachment but with feelings if it makes any sense to you. It's like you go beyond those feelings -- without excluding them.

> So whenever you begin to feel one or more of the following feelings[1] is it "natural, effortless" to experience your peace?

Yes because the peace you are talking about is what gives birth to all those feelings.

In other words, I no longer care about who goes to the toilet first.

And, it takes time for one to grow up. In that moment at the age of 4 no one could convince her that the pain/sadness she feels is self-made. One can argue that, those experiences are necessary to grow. But I'm sure we agree that it is a good thing to keep growing even after that.

Detachment in the sence of not being dependent/defined by them, NOT in the sense of not feeling.

> These fabricated mental states are not reliable.

I think this is also the exact opposite. You are basically describing happiness made by mind of children and most adults which is artificial and dependent on what is not in their control. I like to describe that kind of hapiness as surfing the waves of emotions, going up and down, happy always bring sadness, and for them sadness always bring pain. But the solution is to grow up and understand that you are the ocean, this does not mean to feel nothing... quite opposite... it is the start of feeling more.

Happiness comes from the events outside. In case of a child you can take his toy away and he becomes sad.

I once saw a child cry because her friend went to the bathroom first. Children have a lot to teach those who are detached from being alive, but their understanding of world/self is not wise.

On the other hand the joy of being alive is always there and is not dependent on anything else. Once I realize the beauty and the significance of my own being, nothing brings me down from pure joy (which is more than happiness).

This is natural, effortless and is part of growing up as a human.

I learned a lot, thinking about your comments. Thanks! +1

When I separate me with what is driven by me... I start to realize that I'm not JUST my feelings/ego. Saying I'm not my feelings/ego is as big of a lie as saying I am the ego.

But realizing that I am not JUST the ego puts me in a beautiful state of the mind -- so different than other states that I call it "no state". For me it is better to first think that I'm not the ego then embrace it -- it always works for me when I want to go into a deeper level of peace/joy/consciousness.

In other words, detachment from feelings is a tool used by me to get to the state where I feel everything.

Also, I like to think of all these as a complex mind/being trying to optimize/control itself -- it is not supernatural, religious or anything.

Do what you want, but don't define yourself by what you do. Be free of whatever defines you. Can I write this comment without letting it define who I am... not yet. but I'm working on it.

Things/goals are not bad, they have no energy, I give things energy. Imagine a heavy refrigerator in my kitchen, as long as I leave it alone it does not bother me, if I try to move it, It starts to resist... I feel no weight until I give energy to it, heck I can even break my back trying to move it :)

You may ask, what is wrong with being defined by them?

For the one who does not know himself (like me) it would be an ugly lie. A lie that brings pain.

> How is it possible?

By first distinguishing you from what is driven by you.

I don't believe in traditional meditation that requires one to sit. I believe we are all so close to our own being and peace that we only need to stop and enjoy it! It could be anywhere, anytime in any form!

Believe that you already have it! Believe that you are complete and nothing needs to be chased/changed/added/removed from whatever remains of you when are not defined by anything. In that moment of pure being and joy, you start to realize that your are! You ARE everything and nothing -- including the ego, definitions and more. In that moment, things have no meaning but you become the meaning in everything.

And I use WorkFlowy to archive what I probably need to refer to in the future.

No. You already have peace! Being in peace is the natural form -- the only way of being. Everything else is like a dream, created by our mind... imagined.

> If I have goals, then I will chase something

True, I think.

Now I'm thinking... if pain is imagined... can I chase without imagining pain? I think so. I/You can do anything.

Absolutely nothing. In fact chasing what I truly want to chase will eventually bring me closer to myself.

> Buddha didn't check out after enlightenment

Buddha is not enlightened until we all are. I used to think he was a different person and I still do, only sometimes :)

But words are words, my joy could be your happiness.

Happiness is not a good thing. It is the other side of the same coin that brings me sadness and pain. What I'm looking for is peace.

Being in peace is the ultimate form of being -- the only form of being.

If I'm not in peace it means I'm chasing something else. When I stop looking for anything (including peace itself) then I am... I am.