Exercise during the week: 'Contemplate what assumptions you have about life. Discover as many assumptions as you can, you should be able to find a lot. Do not stop on the surface, consider the life you live as an experience, what assumptions generate that experience?' I have a life assumption that to live as a modern human, (i.e. a person) is to suffer other people, as if coming with the package. The agendas of other people, the loss of other people etc. My assumption as a person with language and a life story is like a self-fulfilling conceptual loop, seemingly affecting my body interacting with other people with their own conceptual loops. Seems like we also want our loops to be consistent and predictable, easier to handle...again assumptions. I'm considering life as a person as distinct from human life (separate biological entities) where the body does its job to navigate with sensation, like my body inherently sees, hears, feels, perhaps physical loops (like cells, looping and morphing into other cells etc.) Getting clearer on biological life, there is something very silent and trustworthy about it, nothing to worry about, body heals, breathes, digests, takes care of itself as change occurs, peaceful actually. Looked up the English noun compassion, meaning "to suffer together with". I'm allowing the possibility of living as a person generating compassion for the suffering of other people. Another person is just like me; we are suffering together as people. Seems more effective for life in general, maybe Buddha et al. had a point with compassion and unconditional love etc. Thanks for listening.

In order to become enthusiastic about doing something, I have to create an expectation of some kind of a reward upon completion of a task: emotional, material, etc., Would it make me incomplete? Can one be complete and enthusiastic about doing something at the same time?

I was rereading Pursuing Consciousness yesterday. In the book, Peter talks about the importance of feedback. That made me wonder: Is there some kind of feedback I can rely on to see whether I am on the right track in my contemplation? For example, if I am working with the question “Who am I?”, then thoughts and bodily sensations appear more like distractions than guidance in the search for truth, since they are not really “me,” right? It feels as though the only feedback I receive is simply the realization that I still don't know who I am. Can anyone help? :)

https://youtu.be/z-1PoIq0sKc?si=FT2us_T8GZdkZFEK So Loneliness’s antidote or treatment is completion? Also, which book is this paragraph from, pursuing consciousness?

Just noticing and how much I'm creating narratives onto 'objective reality' which actually isn't. Like I create contraction and suffering by so much unnecessary layers and 'mind projections' rather than remaining present with what is, immediate and already 'knowing' and trusting what do... This week I'm trying to be more balanced in remaining appropriate to the task and purpose (especially at work) rather than engaging in dramas almost everyone seems to indulge in. Interested to hear about your experience of how much meaning is added and the effects this activity has. What happens when you take away meaning, stories and narratives? What occurs when you add back all the meaning, judgements, opinions etc.? I'm looking outside my window right now... When I add meaning and narrative judgement to things, there seems to be a contracting quality, as if mind wandering to what's next...next...next... as if looking for problems (related to me! of course) with a buzzing low-level suffering. When I remove meaning, everything is more open, calm and fascinating. My experience seems freer like I've stopped tensing or 'holding the doorknob' when the door is already opened! Below is the quote from Ralston: 'In our daily experience, probably the most palpable evidence of our drive to self-persist can be found in the “meaning” we perceive in everything. Our survival-needs demand that the world we perceive be divided into positive and negative, and so every object, person, circumstance, or idea will automatically include a charge of some kind. Of course, we make many other distinctions as well, but one of the first assessments we make is whether something is threatening or benign. After that, it’s about determining the specific risk or value the thing has to our particular self, and what we should do about it.'