Lucidity: State of mind in which Mind as subjective awareness recognize Itself as transcendent (I’m not my experience) and immanent (I’m the creator and player of my experience) in relation to its dream. In this state the “world” is not a reality outhere but a creation of my imagination, which exist only in my subjective awareness and is patterned by my will in accord to my commitments.
I like this definition of lucidity.
Craving : Obsession with the desire to experience a specific scenario that is not easily accessible, in detriment of the possibility of employ/enjoy skillfully what is easily available in the present.
Stretch goals are not problems. If I didn’t have far out desires and just wanted to “rest in the now” I wouldn’t be a subjective idealist. I’d be a materialist instead and go on shopping sprees which are “Available now, while supplies last, hurry the fuck up and buy buy buy.”
Anger/aversion: Obsession with the removal of a particular pattern, when non-confrontational solutions are easily available, the very presence of anger in relation to the pattern makes it persist.
I don’t agree with this either. Some ways of manifesting/handling anger are constructive, and some aren’t. Anger is not inherently bad, but it’s in what you do with it. Are you skillful with it or not? If skillful, anger is OK. Also, wanting to remove a pattern can be a stretch goal and isn’t a bad thing all by itself.
Vanity : Obsession with the idea of “how I’m appearing” instead of give priority to “how good I’m dreaming”.
I like this one a lot too. Vanity, if it’s defined in this way, takes you outside your own perspective and forces you to imagine other perspectives that are then judging you. It’s worth noting that by convention considering other perspectives instead of training and deepening your own is often held to be a good thing. That’s basically empathy. However, if one wants to tanscend and make fairly big changes, one should realize that these “other” and “judging” imaginary perspectives that one often imagines to be judging oneself are able to “typecast” (if you don’t already know what “typecast” means, it’s worth a lookup) oneself and stop one from making any big changes to one’s goals or personality or abilities or anything else.
Of the 4 definitions you gave 2 are positive (lucidity and vanity) and 2 are self-critical in a way that, if you try to address the criticisms, will incline you toward convention as I see it.
Lucidity immediately takes you out of convention. Being mindful of your definition of “vanity” will keep you independent as well. However, you bring yourself right back with the other two because to address those criticisms you have to stop wanting to play with your so-called “givens.”
Or said another way, playing with the givens makes you into a bad guy according to your definitions of craving and aversion. And playing includes not just immediate modifications but having unconventional plans, the kinds of plans you’re not “supposed” to have, such as say “I want to reduce the influence of gravity in the future.” Gravity is a good example of what would normally be considered an untouchable given and thinking often about how to reduce it, I guess you’d classify that as an “obsession” even if you’re having a good and easy time and think skillfully the entire way.
I think there is some overlap between Buddhism and subjective idealism, however, Buddhism is focused on the reduction of suffering, whereas subjective idealism is a much more general manifestation framework.
It’s worth noting that Buddhism has its own multi-lifetime goals and encourages people to hold indefinite and longer-than-one-lifetime vows as well. This is where the Buddhism of the primary sources (suttas, sutras, and tantras, from our own perspective, because the primary source(s) is otherwise inaccessible) and the presently popular and decidedly non-magickal distillation of Buddhism come into conflict.
The relationship between reducing suffering and the ability to manifest is at least this: you have to be able to change something about your situation to reduce suffering. Even if you’re just changing how you interpret things and nothing more, that’s still a change that requires “permission.” (maybe one of your old and suffering-maximizing definitions was conventionally “right” for example and conventionally you may feel like you don’t have a permission to change it)
Subjective idealism gives maximum possible permission to make all kinds of changes, some of which may be skillful, and some may not be. It’s more comparable to say a theory of combustion in that way. Buddhism is more like “how to keep yourself comfortably warm.” SI is more like “here’s how combustion works.” But Buddhism has its own wild side which is often overlooked in our society. Buddhism, for example, teaches people manifestation skills like this:
Thank you Mindseal, I’m glad that you took time for answering.
Stretch goals are not problems.
If I didn’t have far out desires and just wanted to “rest in the now” I wouldn’t be a subjective idealist. I’d be a materialist instead and go on shopping sprees which are "Available now, while supplies last, hurry the fuck up and buy buy buy.
You are right, the way it is worded, it gave the impression of advocating a compromise in long-term goals in favor of enjoying the status-quo, in a way similar to the discourse of “mainstream” meditation culture: “Everything is already perfect, just be mindful and rest in the now.”. I don’t hold this view at all, I’m not against the pursuit of long-terms goals that seem fantastic from a conventional POV.
Therefore I will redefine craving as: Attraction to a scenario that you are consciously evaluating as not worth to pursuit. A recurrent irrational attraction, interfering with your concentration, diminishing your capacity to dedicate yourself to goals evaluated as more wholesome.
Ps: I will keep addressing the others points of your answer as the time goes by.
Originally commented by u/Alshimur on 2018-08-08 23:50:17 (e3toh0e)
Therefore I will redefine craving as: Attraction to a scenario that you are consciously evaluating as not worth to pursuit.
Ahh, this is interesting. With this definition I see craving as something worth investigating. From your own perspective, maybe your conscious evaluation is what needs changed, or maybe it’s just right and one should then consider attenuating the draw so that one’s attractions fall in line with one’s conscious evaluation(s). I see craving, with this definition, as at least potentially problematic and in practical terms I think I can say craving thus defined is probably a problem, and one should consider attenuation strategies to lower the level of attraction.
This is a tricky issue, because one’s ability to make holistic conscious evaluation is also something one has to train, imo.
In an esoteric sense, deep down at the core of your own perspective, I claim that you’re already secretly omniscient, so this training is kind of half-real and half-illusionary, more like a return back to your original omniscience than true training in a conventional sense, so it’s more like re-training then maybe.
This is where one needs to value and develop wisdom at all times, because what is skillful and what isn’t depends on one’s perspective. I am not saying anything goes here. But what works and what doesn’t is something each perspective has to deeply know intimately on their own terms. This is why while it’s great to talk like this, and I hope we can keep talking, there is no replacement for contemplation in solitude.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2018-08-10 09:21:01 (e3x218m)
I like this definition of lucidity.
Stretch goals are not problems. If I didn’t have far out desires and just wanted to “rest in the now” I wouldn’t be a subjective idealist. I’d be a materialist instead and go on shopping sprees which are “Available now, while supplies last, hurry the fuck up and buy buy buy.”
I don’t agree with this either. Some ways of manifesting/handling anger are constructive, and some aren’t. Anger is not inherently bad, but it’s in what you do with it. Are you skillful with it or not? If skillful, anger is OK. Also, wanting to remove a pattern can be a stretch goal and isn’t a bad thing all by itself.
I like this one a lot too. Vanity, if it’s defined in this way, takes you outside your own perspective and forces you to imagine other perspectives that are then judging you. It’s worth noting that by convention considering other perspectives instead of training and deepening your own is often held to be a good thing. That’s basically empathy. However, if one wants to tanscend and make fairly big changes, one should realize that these “other” and “judging” imaginary perspectives that one often imagines to be judging oneself are able to “typecast” (if you don’t already know what “typecast” means, it’s worth a lookup) oneself and stop one from making any big changes to one’s goals or personality or abilities or anything else.
Of the 4 definitions you gave 2 are positive (lucidity and vanity) and 2 are self-critical in a way that, if you try to address the criticisms, will incline you toward convention as I see it.
Lucidity immediately takes you out of convention. Being mindful of your definition of “vanity” will keep you independent as well. However, you bring yourself right back with the other two because to address those criticisms you have to stop wanting to play with your so-called “givens.”
Or said another way, playing with the givens makes you into a bad guy according to your definitions of craving and aversion. And playing includes not just immediate modifications but having unconventional plans, the kinds of plans you’re not “supposed” to have, such as say “I want to reduce the influence of gravity in the future.” Gravity is a good example of what would normally be considered an untouchable given and thinking often about how to reduce it, I guess you’d classify that as an “obsession” even if you’re having a good and easy time and think skillfully the entire way.
I think there is some overlap between Buddhism and subjective idealism, however, Buddhism is focused on the reduction of suffering, whereas subjective idealism is a much more general manifestation framework.
It’s worth noting that Buddhism has its own multi-lifetime goals and encourages people to hold indefinite and longer-than-one-lifetime vows as well. This is where the Buddhism of the primary sources (suttas, sutras, and tantras, from our own perspective, because the primary source(s) is otherwise inaccessible) and the presently popular and decidedly non-magickal distillation of Buddhism come into conflict.
The relationship between reducing suffering and the ability to manifest is at least this: you have to be able to change something about your situation to reduce suffering. Even if you’re just changing how you interpret things and nothing more, that’s still a change that requires “permission.” (maybe one of your old and suffering-maximizing definitions was conventionally “right” for example and conventionally you may feel like you don’t have a permission to change it)
Subjective idealism gives maximum possible permission to make all kinds of changes, some of which may be skillful, and some may not be. It’s more comparable to say a theory of combustion in that way. Buddhism is more like “how to keep yourself comfortably warm.” SI is more like “here’s how combustion works.” But Buddhism has its own wild side which is often overlooked in our society. Buddhism, for example, teaches people manifestation skills like this:
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an06/an06.041.than.html
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2018-08-06 08:57:58 (e3o5xpu)
Thank you Mindseal, I’m glad that you took time for answering.
You are right, the way it is worded, it gave the impression of advocating a compromise in long-term goals in favor of enjoying the status-quo, in a way similar to the discourse of “mainstream” meditation culture: “Everything is already perfect, just be mindful and rest in the now.”. I don’t hold this view at all, I’m not against the pursuit of long-terms goals that seem fantastic from a conventional POV.
Therefore I will redefine craving as: Attraction to a scenario that you are consciously evaluating as not worth to pursuit. A recurrent irrational attraction, interfering with your concentration, diminishing your capacity to dedicate yourself to goals evaluated as more wholesome.
Ps: I will keep addressing the others points of your answer as the time goes by.
Originally commented by u/Alshimur on 2018-08-08 23:50:17 (e3toh0e)
Ahh, this is interesting. With this definition I see craving as something worth investigating. From your own perspective, maybe your conscious evaluation is what needs changed, or maybe it’s just right and one should then consider attenuating the draw so that one’s attractions fall in line with one’s conscious evaluation(s). I see craving, with this definition, as at least potentially problematic and in practical terms I think I can say craving thus defined is probably a problem, and one should consider attenuation strategies to lower the level of attraction.
This is a tricky issue, because one’s ability to make holistic conscious evaluation is also something one has to train, imo.
In an esoteric sense, deep down at the core of your own perspective, I claim that you’re already secretly omniscient, so this training is kind of half-real and half-illusionary, more like a return back to your original omniscience than true training in a conventional sense, so it’s more like re-training then maybe.
This is where one needs to value and develop wisdom at all times, because what is skillful and what isn’t depends on one’s perspective. I am not saying anything goes here. But what works and what doesn’t is something each perspective has to deeply know intimately on their own terms. This is why while it’s great to talk like this, and I hope we can keep talking, there is no replacement for contemplation in solitude.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2018-08-10 09:21:01 (e3x218m)