Picking my nose.

An apparent world arising.

Chopping wood and carrying water.

The sensations of feeling down.

Well, the actual process of consciousness is surely the same, but the contents of consciousness (values, morals, self-perception, etc) surely change in a certain direction over time, according to biological, mental, cultural and sociological preassure.

This is probably the best take on this question I've seen so far. http://xs128.xs.to/xs128/08260/scan0034157.jpg

Don't ask me, ask Warren Buffet or Goldman Sachs. They'd know!

So much for trancending the ego, Gaia? Wakie, wakie-time.

22/36 responses copied and pasted here:

1: Only myself. 2: Myself. 3: Mostly myself! 4: MYSELF!!! 5: myself, on many occasions... 6: So to answer the question: Me and the truth of how life can really be lived versus the silly beliefs I have picked up along the way. 7: Myself--used to anyway. 8: MYSELF! 9: many times...............myself. 10: Expectations of myself 11: Me. 12: ME! 13: Myself. 14: underestimated myself 15: myself 16: I underestimate myself 17: I ceaselessly underestimate myself 18: At times, I have underestimated myself 19: My self and my relation with meditation. 20: Myself!! 21: myself............ 22: I have underestimated 'myself'.

“Mankind.”

Finally! Thanks, Sherri.

First it depends whether you speak about Absolute truth or relative truth.

Absolute truth - "you" as a person, or ego, can't really decide that something is Absolute truth, because in Absolute reality, there are no person, or ego. Everything just is as it is. Therefore the organism must be in a position where it doesn't have to relate to the relative world, such as on a Zabuton, or in the backseat of a car, and then just be. That is how one can "know" the Absolute truth, even though in Absolute reality ... there is never any knowledge of anything, because there is no knower.

Relative truth - Mature scientific inquiry. From a relative perspective, I believe that Absolute truth exists, because it first of all sounds reasonable to my logic (though logic can never grasp it), secondly because cross cultural experiences of nonduality are described in essentially the same way, and last of all because I have had some glimpses of the experience myself (though that is of course a contradiction). It also, and most importantly, passes the so called "three strands of good knowledge", even though it is an interior experience. These three strands are what I mean by mature scientific inquiry, and mature scientific inquiry acknowledges the existance of subjective experience. Here they are:

1. Injunction - meditation, learn mathematics, look through microscope, etc. The tool you have to use to investigate the thing (subjective or objective) you want to investigate.

2. Data - the repeatable experience you get when doing nr 1.

3. Confirmation - check it with others who have done nr 1 and nr 2.

If you get confirmation from a large number of people who have done nr 1 and nr 2, I believe we can indeed call the thing you wanted to investigate in step 1 as true.

(Ps. beauty and morals are two other domains of inquiry, and can't be valued using this method.)

Curiously enough I am apparently waiting to discover That which cannot be discovered. So it's a futile wait, a search doomed to failure, because there is nothing to discover, or to find.

<sighs>

The great and perennial paradox of the spiritual "path" -- we are the very thing we're searching for.