20250905

[2025/09/05, 7:01:26] James: Broken sleep last night

[2025/09/05, 7:01:32] James: Kid woke me up twice

[2025/09/05, 7:01:38] James: Brain woke me up twice

[2025/09/05, 7:01:46] James: Crows woke me up twice

[2025/09/05, 7:01:55] James: My dreams were all about dreaming

[2025/09/05, 7:02:07] James: Or rather: holding a meditative state in dreaming

[2025/09/05, 7:02:17] James: Like I was planning how to hold a jhana in a dream

[2025/09/05, 7:02:22] James: And the way to do it was walking

[2025/09/05, 7:02:33] James: Anyway I’ll need a nap today!

[2025/09/05, 13:26:13] James: .

[2025/09/05, 13:26:15] James: Haha

[2025/09/05, 13:26:22] James: Was gonna do a full hour of meditation

[2025/09/05, 13:26:26] James: Got into the zone

[2025/09/05, 13:26:31] James: The jhana I guess

[2025/09/05, 13:26:44] James: And then an image of ice cream came to mind and I got the hunger

[2025/09/05, 13:26:51] James: Hahaha

[2025/09/05, 13:26:59] James: I guess I’m not immune to sense pleasures

[2025/09/05, 13:27:06] James: But ice cream can stay…

[2025/09/05, 13:27:10] James: … for now

[2025/09/05, 13:31:34] James: .

[2025/09/05, 13:31:38] James: So I’m walking along

[2025/09/05, 13:31:48] James: In a sim that was trained by violence in the uk

[2025/09/05, 13:31:55] James: Trained way back when I was a kid

[2025/09/05, 13:32:16] James: And everyone here in japan is walking along in a sim that was not trained in violence

[2025/09/05, 13:32:40] James: They have their different social tiers defined by things like intelligence and appearance and whatnot

[2025/09/05, 13:32:55] James: So they scope me out based on their own parameters

[2025/09/05, 13:33:03] James: But I interpret it based on mine

[2025/09/05, 13:33:21] James: The underlying thing of ‘above or below’ still comes into play

[2025/09/05, 13:33:31] James: But everyone’s criteria for judgi by it is different

[2025/09/05, 13:33:37] James: And violence here would place you below

[2025/09/05, 13:34:14] James: (And probably in most circles in the UK. Just I ended up fighting the other cranked dvar clowns in school and left shortly afterward)

[2025/09/05, 13:34:18] James: Anyway everyone

[2025/09/05, 13:34:28] James: Their families give them different parameters

[2025/09/05, 13:34:37] James: And they live their entire life within those walls

[2025/09/05, 13:34:49] James: They never even realise they are there, they have been there so long

[2025/09/05, 13:35:02] James: Like the first time you live overseas immersed in a culture for 6 months

[2025/09/05, 13:35:14] James: And you grow another eye. You develop the ability to see your own country for what it was

[2025/09/05, 13:35:26] James: Before that you hear ‘yeah yeah other countries have different ways’

[2025/09/05, 13:35:33] James: But you never intuitively know it

[2025/09/05, 13:35:45] James: Then on a deeper level you have these parameters from childhood

[2025/09/05, 13:36:11] James: Some are programmed to dominate and others to be subservient but these are both *the same thing*

[2025/09/05, 13:36:19] James: They are both the drive to survive

[2025/09/05, 13:36:33] James: Some survived by accepting their beatings and others survived by fighting back

[2025/09/05, 13:36:42] James: And many probably survived by being nice

[2025/09/05, 13:36:53] James: At least on the outside

[2025/09/05, 13:36:59] James: But it’s the inside that counts

[2025/09/05, 13:37:02] James: That’s what hurts you

[2025/09/05, 13:37:14] James: Like my mate who was bullied and became a super nice sycophant

[2025/09/05, 13:37:20] James: And those around Trump and the like

[2025/09/05, 13:37:30] James: They survived by being ‘nice’

[2025/09/05, 13:37:37] James: But inside they are full of hate

[2025/09/05, 13:37:50] James: And they take it out on the people below them

[2025/09/05, 13:38:06] James: Those foreigners or internet strangers or their lovers and children

[2025/09/05, 13:38:14] James: Because they are still afraid

[2025/09/05, 13:38:29] James: Not everyone mind

[2025/09/05, 13:38:50] James: Some people are genuinely nice

[2025/09/05, 13:38:53] James: But it’s mind before all

[2025/09/05, 13:39:07] James: Even if you keep it inside like I did for so many years

[2025/09/05, 13:39:13] James: It still needs a target

[2025/09/05, 13:39:19] James: And that target becomes you

[2025/09/05, 13:39:52] James: Because the fear and the drive for survival coded that shit deep, when your brain was still forming

[2025/09/05, 13:40:11] James: And the only way to break the coding is to get some serious dopamine in there

[2025/09/05, 13:40:18] James: To try to plane out the grooves

[2025/09/05, 13:40:31] James: And even then it takes time. A planer won’t get the job done in one pass.

[2025/09/05, 13:40:35] James: But there will be a day

[2025/09/05, 13:40:38] James: A session

[2025/09/05, 13:40:47] James: A simple walk or meditation or bike ride

[2025/09/05, 13:41:00] James: When that planer removes the final layer

[2025/09/05, 13:41:16] James: And it might come out of the blue while you’re looking at a flower or texting yourself like this

[2025/09/05, 13:41:25] James: And then you will be free

[2025/09/05, 13:41:29] James: You’ll just know it

[2025/09/05, 13:41:46] James: As the Buddha said ‘and then the mind knew it was liberated. What had to be done had been done’

[2025/09/05, 13:41:50] James: You’ll just know

[2025/09/05, 13:42:15] James: But until then it’s a case of repeatedly flooding the brain with dopamine and *not* filling it with new code

[2025/09/05, 13:42:34] James: Apart from maybe wishes for wellbeing for yourself and others

[2025/09/05, 13:42:47] James: But no computer games and movies or anything really

[2025/09/05, 13:42:56] James: Cos the chisel will come out then

[2025/09/05, 13:43:07] James: And you’ll just add more intricacies to the mess

[2025/09/05, 13:43:20] James: The planer only comes out when the chisel is away

[2025/09/05, 13:43:29] James: So just chill

[2025/09/05, 13:43:37] James: It happens with time

[2025/09/05, 13:43:40] James: Reps at the gym

[2025/09/05, 13:43:42] James: That’s all

[2025/09/05, 17:35:30] James: .

[2025/09/05, 17:35:44] James: Fairly tired now and moderate dvar

[2025/09/05, 17:35:59] James: Been a good day

[2025/09/05, 17:36:08] James: But I do get into something and not stop

[2025/09/05, 17:36:16] James: What was that story

[2025/09/05, 17:36:20] James: Zen master painting a tiger

[2025/09/05, 17:36:28] James: Leaves his hut and comes back, thinks it’s real

[2025/09/05, 17:36:36] James: Forgot he painted it

[2025/09/05, 17:36:46] James: That’s kind of how I feel about a lot of what I write or make

[2025/09/05, 17:36:58] James: I wonder how it plays into dopamine

[2025/09/05, 17:37:03] James: Memory encoding

[2025/09/05, 17:37:10] James: Is it harder to remember a flow state?

[2025/09/05, 17:37:22] James: I guess it might be

[2025/09/05, 17:37:27] James: You just remember the feeling

[2025/09/05, 17:37:31] James: Not really the action

[2025/09/05, 17:37:36] James: The eternal now, I guess

[2025/09/05, 21:45:47] James: .

[2025/09/05, 21:45:56] James: 30 minute sit after 20 minute vocalisation

[2025/09/05, 21:46:39] James: I think I came in with medium tonic and low phasic

[2025/09/05, 21:46:45] James: Before that in the bath I was low tonic

[2025/09/05, 21:46:51] James: I was thinking about the river analogy

[2025/09/05, 21:46:58] James: And how the deep shit will be… deeper

[2025/09/05, 21:47:16] James: So the low tonic parts - dissolution and dark night as they are called in Buddhism

[2025/09/05, 21:47:31] James: These would be the best time for dislodging nasty deep shit

[2025/09/05, 21:47:54] James: Like the 88hells was major dvar and low tonic I thin

[2025/09/05, 21:48:01] James: Anyway this made it easy to settle

[2025/09/05, 21:48:07] James: And the meditation was nice

[2025/09/05, 21:48:14] James: And I got into the second or third jhana.

[2025/09/05, 21:48:22] James: Lovely sensations in the hand

[2025/09/05, 21:48:35] James: Like there were balls of fire above each palm

[2025/09/05, 21:48:41] James: Like a magician or something

[2025/09/05, 21:48:47] James: Lovely energy and warmth

[2025/09/05, 21:48:54] James: Then the dead guys face drifted up

[2025/09/05, 21:49:11] James: I had a little runny nose and it reminded me of the drool and snot hanging from his face

[2025/09/05, 21:49:17] James: A real close up

[2025/09/05, 21:49:30] James: Took up all of my vision, clear as the day I saw him

[2025/09/05, 21:49:33] James: But I just watched it

[2025/09/05, 21:49:41] James: And stayed with the feelings

[2025/09/05, 21:49:55] James: And stayed equanimous, knowing the water level was rising and picking this up

[2025/09/05, 21:50:01] James: And he stayed there for about a minute

[2025/09/05, 21:50:07] James: Long time for a image

[2025/09/05, 21:50:15] James: But I just watched and didn’t shy away

[2025/09/05, 21:50:29] James: And then shortly after he left, I had a flash of a moment where I nearly died

[2025/09/05, 21:50:47] James: Nearly jumped too far onto a rock and fell 30m down the other side

[2025/09/05, 21:50:51] James: Nobody else had a clue

[2025/09/05, 21:51:02] James: But it has stayed with me as the closest I’ve come to date

[2025/09/05, 21:51:18] James: And then that left and I sat there for a while longer with the lovely sensations

[2025/09/05, 21:51:26] James: And various others. I didn’t want to get up

[2025/09/05, 21:51:40] James: But I think these low dopamine sessions are the most productive

[2025/09/05, 21:51:50] James: Because you grab something up from the dredges

[2025/09/05, 21:51:56] James: And you lift it to the surface

[2025/09/05, 21:52:05] James: And if you can stay with it, you can release it

[2025/09/05, 21:52:07] James: I think

[2025/09/05, 21:52:21] James: Anyway it felt good

[2025/09/05, 21:52:35] James: And I think I’m staying to figure out how this model might work

[2025/09/05, 21:52:39] James: So let’s keep at it

[2025/09/05, 21:52:41] James: No rush

[2025/09/05, 21:52:48] James: See how this pans out