1 spirituality
- All we have is our mind
- Took ecstasy and felt real love and real sanity
- Important psychological truths in the rubble of organized religion
- How to be at ease in the world
- Transcending self
- Buddhism as empirical lab manual
- Extended silent retreat
- Reality of life is always now
- Body feelings mind and objects of mind
- Problem is not the thinking but the state of thinking without realizing u r
- Impermanence of mental states
- Continuum of moral and spiritual development
- There are truths about the mind worth knowing
- Train the mind
2 the mystery of consciousness
- Consciousness due to some arrangement of atoms
- Consciousness vs its content
- Binocular vision studies
- Split brain studies
- Independence of hemispheres, separately conscious
- Half of your brain aware of itself and of ur experience but less dominant and can't speak and bullied along
- Ethics links back to effect of actions on consciousness of some creatures
3 the riddle of the self
- Not just about physical continuity but psychological
- Not identity
- Teleportation as replication and destruction vs passing of time for a person
- No stable self
- My consciousness is mine because of contents of our consciousness
- Perceive small fraction of reality and cannot see smallest details of how things move
- Hard to locate the self in the body
- Feeling if I as product of thought
- Self as illusion; only thought and consciousness
- Recognize thoughts as thoughts and don't be distracted by them
- Every opportunity allows u chance to relax and deal it with calmly or in panic
- Look on the bright side
- Contemplate all the bad things not happening to u
- Being distracted by thoughts and not recognizing them as fleeting and not ij control is what should be worked on
- Thoughts are transient expressions of consciousness
- Seeing urself as the originator of the thoughts is the problem because doesn't acknowledge the idea of the self is also a thought that u don't control; don't personalize the thoughts, just see them for what they are
- Selflessness of consciousness
- Consciousness arises before idea of self
- Mirror test for animals for self recognition
- Theory of mind: ability to take point of view of another and attributing mental states to others
- Mirror neurons
- Sense of unified self is illusion
- Why ppl talk to themselves
4 meditation
- Minds constantly wandering
- Meditation improves health
- Goal is freedom from illusion of self
- Gradual vs direct finding non self
- Optical blind spot
- That which is aware of fear is not fearful
- Zochen practice through teacher
- You are not your thoughts
- Breaking identification with thought
- Look for your head
- Attempt to turn your attention in the direction of your head
- Or imagine u have no head at all and relax as go through world
- Optical blind spot
- How a window can function as a mirror
- Teaching non-dualism
5 gurus, death, drugs, and other puzzles
- Most gurus fake
- Partner eye contact meditation
- Spiritual uses of drugs and psychedelics
- Wake up from dream of self
Conclusion
- Talk about spirituality in rational terms
- Make the best of bad situations through mind