Showing posts with label Ken Wilber. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ken Wilber. Show all posts

 A nice description of I AMness by Ken Wilber

https://www.scribd.com/document/319107402/The-Simple-Feeling-of-Being-Ken-Wilber

 Pointers to I AM and one mind/nondual.
Always Already: The Brilliant Clarity of Ever-Present Awareness
Ken Wilber

December 10, 2016

In this excerpt from The Eye of Spirit, Ken Wilber offers one of the most powerful (and beautiful) pieces of spiritual writing he has ever produced.  This is the very first time these words have been reproduced on the web, and we invite you to share this chapter however you like.

“What follows are various ‘pointing out’ instructions, direct pointers to mind’s essential nature or intrinsic Spirit. Traditionally this involves a great deal of intentional repetition. If you read this material in the normal manner, you might find the repetitions tedious and perhaps irritating. If you would like the rest of this particular section to work for you, please read it in a slow and leisurely manner, letting the words and the repetitions sink in. You can also use these sections as material for meditation, using no more than one or two paragraphs—or even one or two sentences—for each session.” –Ken Wilber

    Where are we to locate Spirit? What are we actually allowed to acknowledge as Sacred? Where exactly is the Ground of Being? Where is this ultimate Divine?

The Great Search

The Realization of the Nondual traditions is uncompromising: there is only Spirit, there is only God, there is only Emptiness in all its radiant wonder. All the good and all the evil, the very best and the very worst, the upright and the degenerate-each and all are radically perfect manifestations of Spirit precisely as they are. There is nothing but God, nothing but the Goddess, nothing but Spirit in all directions, and not a grain of sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less Spirit than any other.

This realization undoes the Great Search that is the heart of the separate-self sense. The separate-self is, at bottom, simply a sensation of seeking. When you feel yourself right now, you will basically feel a tiny interior tension or contraction—a sensation of grasping, desiring, wishing, wanting, avoiding, resisting-it is a sensation of effort, a sensation of seeking.

In its highest form, this sensation of seeking takes on the form of the Great Search for Spirit. We wish to get from our unenlightened state (of sin or delusion or duality) to an enlightened or more spiritual state. We wish to get from where Spirit is not, to where Spirit is.

But there is no place where Spirit is not. Every single location in the entire Kosmos is equally and fully Spirit. Seeking of any sort, movement of any sort, attainment of any sort: all profoundly useless. The Great Search simply reinforces the mistaken assumption that there is some’ place that Spirit is not, and that I need to get from a space that is lacking to a space that is full. But there is no space lacking, and there is no space more full. There is only Spirit.

The Great Search for Spirit is simply that impulse, the final impulse, which prevents the present realization of Spirit, and it does so for a simple reason: the Great Search presumes the loss of God. The Great Search reinforces the mistaken belief that God is not present, and thus totally obscures the ‘reality of God’s ever-present Presence. The Great Search, which pretends to love God, is in fact the very mechanism of pushing God away; the mechanism of promising to find tomorrow that which exists only in the timeless now; the mechanism of watching the future so fervently that the present always passes it by—very quickly and God’s smiling face with it.

The Great Search is the loveless contraction hidden in the heart of the separate-self sense, a contraction that drives the intense yearning for a tomorrow in which salvation will finally arrive, but during which time, thank God, I can continue to be myself. The greater the Great Search, the more I can deny God. The greater the Great Search, the more I can feel my own sensation of seeking, which defines the contours of my self. The Great Search is the great enemy of what is.

Should we then simply cease the Great Search? Definitely, if we could. But the effort to stop the Great Search is itself more of the Great Search. The very first step presumes and reinforces the seeking sensation. There is actually nothing the self-contraction can do to stop the Great Search, because the self-contraction and the Great Search are two names for the same thing.

If Spirit cannot be found as a future product of the Great Search, then there is only one alternative: Spirit must be fully, totally, completely present right now—AND you must be fully, totally, completely aware of it right now. It will not do to say that Spirit is present but I don’t realize it. That would require the Great Search; that would demand that I seek a tomorrow in which I could realize that Spirit is fully present, but such seeking misses the present in the very first step. To keep seeking would be to keep missing. No, the realization itself, the awareness itself: this, too, must somehow be fully and completely present right now. If it is not, then all we have left is the Great Search, doomed to presume that which it wishes to overcome.

There must be something about our present awareness that contains the entire truth. Somehow, no matter what your state, you are immersed fully in everything you need for perfect enlightenment. You are somehow looking right at the answer. One hundred percent of Spirit is in your perception right now. Not 20 percent, not 50 percent, not 99 percent, but literally 100 percent of Spirit is in your awareness right now—and the trick, as it were, is to recognize this ever-present state of affairs, and not to engineer a future state in which Spirit will announce itself.

And this simple recognition of an already present Spirit is the task, as it were, of the great Nondual traditions.
To Meet the Kosmos

Many people have stern objections to “mysticism” or “transcendentalism” of any sort, because they think it somehow denies this world, or hates this earth, or despises the body and the senses and its vital life, and so on. While that may be true of certain dissociated (or merely Ascending) approaches, it is certainly not the core understanding of the great Nondual mystics, from Plotinus and Eckhart in the West to Nagarjuna and Lady Tsogyal in the East.

Rather, these sages universally maintain that absolute reality and the relative world are “not-two” (which is the meaning of “nondual”), much as a mirror and its reflections are not separate, or an ocean is one with its many waves. So the “other world” of Spirit and “this world” of separate phenomena are deeply and profoundly “not-two,” and this nonduality is a direct and imme

diate realization which occurs in certain meditative states—in other words, seen with the eye of contemplation—although it then becomes a very simple, very ordinary perception, whether you are meditating or not. Every single thing you perceive is the radiance of Spirit itself, so much so that Spirit is not seen apart from that thing: the robin sings, and just that is it, nothing else. This becomes your constant realization, through all changes of state, very naturally, just so. And this releases you from the basic insanity of hiding from the Real.

But why is it, then, that we ordinarily don’t have that perception?

All the great Nondual wisdom traditions have given a fairly similar answer to that question. We don’t see that Spirit is fully and completely present right here, right now, because our awareness is clouded with some form of avoidance. We do not want to be choicelessly aware of the present; rather, we want to run away from it, or run after it, or we want to change it, alter it; hate it, love it, loathe it, or in some way agitate to get ourselves into, or out of, it. We will do anything except come to rest in the pure Presence of the present. We will not rest with pure Presence; we want to be elsewhere, quickly. The Great Search is the game, in its endless forms.

In nondual meditation or contemplation, the agitation of the separate-self sense profoundly relaxes, and the self uncoils in the vast expanse of all space. At that point, it becomes obvious that you are not “in here” looking at the world “out there,” because that duality has simply collapsed into pure Presence and spontaneous luminosity.

This realization may take many forms. A simple one is something like this: You might be looking at a mountain, and you have relaxed into the effortlessness of your own present awareness, and then suddenly the mountain is all, you are nothing. Your separate-self sense is suddenly and totally gone, and there is simply everything that is arising moment to moment. You are perfectly aware, perfectly conscious, everything seems completely normal, except you are nowhere to be found. You are not on this side of your face looking at the mountain out there; you simply are the mountain, you are the sky, you are the clouds, you are everything that is arising moment to moment, very simply, very clearly, just so.

We know all the fancy names for this state, from unity consciousness to sahaj samadhi. But it really is the simplest and most obvious state you will ever realize. Moreover, once you glimpse that state—what the Buddhists call One Taste (because you and the entire universe are one taste or one experience)—it becomes obvious that you are not entering this state, but rather, it is a state that, in some profound and mysterious way, has been your primordial condition from time immemorial. You have, in fact, never left this state for a second.

This is why Zen calls it the Gateless Gate: on this side of that realization, it looks like you have to do something to enter that state—it looks like you need to pass through a gate. But when you do so, and you turn around and look back, there is no gate whatsoever, and never has been. You have never left this state in the first place, so obviously you can’t enter it. The gateless gate! “Every form is Emptiness just as it is,” means that all things, including you and me, are always already on the other side of the gateless gate.

But if that is so, then why even do spiritual practice? Isn’t that just another form of the Great Search? Yes, actually, spiritual practice is a form of the Great Search, and as such, it is destined to fail. But that is exactly the point. You and I are already convinced that there are things that we need to do in order to realize Spirit. We feel that there are places that Spirit is not (namely, in me), and we are going to correct this state of affairs. Thus, we are already committed to the Great Search, and so nondual meditation makes use of that fact and engages us in the Great Search in a particular and somewhat sneaky fashion (which Zen calls “selling water by the river”).

William Blake said that “a fool who persists in his folly will become wise.” So nondual meditation simply speeds up the folly. If you really think you lack Spirit, then try this folly: try to become Spirit, try to discover Spirit, try to contact Spirit, try to reach Spirit: meditate and meditate and meditate in order to get Spirit!

But of course, you see, you cannot really do this. You cannot reach Spirit any more than you can reach your feet. You always already are Spirit, you are not going to reach it in any sort of temporal thrashing around. But if this is not obvious, then try it. Nondual meditation is a serious effort to do the impossible, until you become utterly exhausted of the Great Search, sit down completely worn out, and notice your feet.

It’s not that these nondual traditions deny higher states; they don’t. They have many, many practices that help individuals reach specific states of postformal consciousness. These include states of transcendental bliss, love, and compassion; of heightened cognition and extrasensory perception; of Deity consciousness and contemplative prayer. But they maintain that those altered states—which have a beginning and an end in time—ultimately have nothing to do with the timeless. The real aim is the stateless, not a perpetual fascination with changes of state. And that stateless condition is the true nature of this and every conceivable state of consciousness, so any state you have will do just fine. Change of state is not the ultimate point; recognizing the Changeless is the point, recognizing primordial Emptiness is the point, recognizing unqualifiable Godhead is the point, recognizing pure Spirit is the point, and if you are breathing and vaguely awake, that state of consciousness will do just fine.

Nonetheless, traditionally, in order to demonstrate your sincerity, you must complete a good number of preliminary practices, including a mastery of various states of meditative consciousness, summating in a stable post-postconventional adaptation, all of which is well and good. But none of those states of consciousness are held to be final or ultimate or privileged. And changing states is not the goal at all. Rather, it is precisely by entering and leaving these various meditative states that you begin to understand that none of them constitute enlightenment. All of them have a beginning in time, and thus none of them are the timeless. The point is to realize that change of state is not the point, and that realization can occur in any state of consciousness whatsoever.
Ever-Present Awareness

This primordial recognition of One Taste—not the creation but the recognition of the fact that you and the Kosmos are One Spirit, One Taste, One Gesture—is the great gift of the Nondual traditions. And in simplified form, this recognition goes like this:

(What follows are various “pointing out” instructions, direct pointers to mind’s essential nature or intrinsic Spirit. Traditionally this involves a great deal of intentional repetition. If you read this material in the normal manner, you might find the repetitions tedious and perhaps irritating. If you would like the rest of this particular section to work for you, please read it in a slow and leisurely manner, letting the words and the repetitions sink in. You can also use these sections as material for meditation, using no more than one or two paragraphs—or even one or two sentences—for each session.)

We begin with the realization that the pure Self or transpersonal Witness is an ever-present consciousness, even when we doubt its existence. You are right now aware of, say, this book, the room, a window, the sky, the clouds…. You can sit back and simply notice that you are aware of all those objects floating by. Clouds float through the sky, thoughts float through the mind, and when you notice them, you are effortlessly aware of them. There is a simple, effortless, spontaneous witnessing of whatever happens to be present.

In that simple witnessing awareness, you might notice: I am aware of my body, and therefore I am not just my body. I am aware of my mind, and therefore I am not just my mind. I am aware of my self, and therefore I am not just that self. Rather, I seem somehow to be the Witness of my body, my mind, my self.

This is truly fascinating. I can see my thoughts, so I am not those thoughts. I am aware of bodily sensations, so I am not those sensations. I am aware of my emotions, so I am not merely those emotions. I am somehow the Witness of all of that!

But what is this Witness itself? Who or What is it that witnesses all of these objects, that watches the clouds float by, and thoughts float by, and objects float by? Who or What is this true Seer, this pure Witness, which is at the very core of what I am?

That simple witnessing awareness, the traditions maintain, is Spirit itself, is the enlightened mind itself, is Buddha-nature itself, is God itself, in its entirety.

Thus, according to the traditions, getting in touch with Spirit or God or the enlightened mind is not something difficult to achieve. It is your own simple witnessing awareness in exactly this moment. If you see this page, you already have that awareness–all of it—right now.

A very famous text from Dzogchen or Maha-Ati Buddhism (one of the very greatest of the Nondual traditions) puts it like this: “At times it happens that some meditators say that it is difficult to recognize the nature of the mind”—in Dzogchen, “the nature of the mind” means primordial Purity or radical Emptiness—it means nondual Spirit by whatever name. The point is that this “nature of the mind” is ever-present witnessing awareness, and some meditators, the text says, find this hard to believe. They imagine it is difficult or even impossible to recognize this ever-present awareness, and that they have to work very hard and meditate very long in order to attain this enlightened mind—whereas it is simply their own ever-present witnessing awareness, fully functioning right now.

The text continues: “Some male or female practitioners believe it to be impossible to recognize the nature of mind. They become depressed with tears streaming down their cheeks. There is no reason at all to become sad. It is not at all impossible to recognize. Rest directly in that which thinks that it is impossible to recognize the nature of the mind, and that is exactly it.”

As for this ever-present witnessing awareness being hard to contact: “There are some meditators who don’t let their mind rest in itself [simple present awareness], as they should. Instead they let it watch outwardly or search inwardly. You will neither see nor find [Spirit] by watching outwardly or searching inwardly. There is no reason whatsoever to watch outwardly or search inwardly. Let go directly into this mind that is watching outwardly or searching inwardly, and that is exactly it.”

We are aware of this room; just that is it, just that awareness is ever-present Spirit. We are aware of the clouds floating by in the sky; just that is it, just that awareness is ever-present Spirit. We are aware of thoughts floating by in the mind; just that is it, just that awareness is ever-present Spirit. We are aware of pain, turmoil, terror, fear; just that is it.

In other words, the ultimate reality is not something seen, but rather the ever-present Seer. Things that are seen come and go, are happy or sad, pleasant or painful—but the Seer is none of those things, and it does not come and go. The Witness does not waver, does not wobble, does not enter that stream of time. The Witness is not an object, not a thing seen, but the ever-present Seer of all things, the simple Witness that is the I of Spirit, the center of the cyclone, the opening that is God, the clearing that is pure Emptiness.

There is never a time that you do not have access to this Witnessing awareness. At every single moment, there is a spontaneous awareness of whatever happens to be present—and that simple, spontaneous, effortless awareness is ever-present Spirit itself. Even if you think you don’t see it, that very awareness is it. And thus, the ultimate state of consciousness—intrinsic Spirit itself—is not hard to reach but impossible to avoid.

And just that is the great and guarded secret of the Nondual schools. It does not matter what objects or contents are present; whatever arises is fine. People sometimes have a hard time understanding Spirit because they try to see it as an object of awareness or an object of comprehension. But the ultimate reality is not anything seen, it is the Seer. Spirit is not an object; it is radical, ever-present Subject, and thus it is not something that is going to jump out in front of you like a rock, an image, an idea, a light, a feeling, an insight, a luminous cloud, an intense vision, or a sensation of great bliss. Those are all nice, but they are all objects, which is what Spirit is not.

Thus, as you rest in the Witness, you won’t see anything in particular. The true Seer is nothing that can be seen, so you simply begin by disidentifying with any and all objects:

I am aware of sensations in my body; those are objects, I am not those. I am aware of thoughts in my mind; those are objects, I am not those. I am aware of my self in this moment, but that is just another object, and I am not that.

Sights float by in nature, thoughts float by in the mind, feelings float by in the body, and I am none of those. I am not an object. I am the pure Witness of all those objects. I am Consciousness as such.

And so, as you rest in the pure Witness, you won’t see anything particular—whatever you see is fine. Rather, as you rest in the radical subject or Witness, as you stop identifying with objects, you will simply begin to notice a sense of vast Freedom. This Freedom is not something you will see; it is something you are. When you are the Witness of thoughts, you are not bound by thoughts. When you are the Witness of feelings, you are not bound by feelings. In place of your contracted self there is simply a vast sense of  Openness and Release. As an object, you are bound; as the Witness, you are Free.

We will not see this Freedom, we will rest in it. A vast ocean of infinite ease.

And so we rest in this state of the pure and simple Witness, the true Seer, which is vast Emptiness and pure Freedom, and we allow whatever is seen to arise as it wishes. Spirit is in the Free and Empty Seer, not in the limited, bound, mortal, and finite objects that parade by in the world of time. And so we rest in this vast Emptiness and Freedom, in which all things arise.

We do not reach or contact this pure Witnessing awareness. It is not possible to contact that which we have never lost. Rather, we rest in this easy, clear, ever-present awareness by simply noticing what is already happening. We already see the sky. We already hear the birds singing. We already feel the cool breeze. The simple Witness is already present, already functioning, already the case. That is why we do not contact or bring this Witness into being, but simply notice that it is always already present, as the simple and spontaneous awareness of whatever is happening in this moment.

We also notice that this simple, ever-present Witness is completely effortless. It takes no effort whatsoever to hear sounds, to see sights, to feel the cool breeze: it is already happening, and we easily rest in that effortless witnessing. We do not follow those objects, nor avoid them. Precisely because Spirit is the ever-present Seer, and not any limited thing that is seen, we can allow all seen things to come and go exactly as they please. “The perfect person employs the mind as a mirror,” says Chuang Tzu. “It neither grasps nor rejects; it receives, but does not keep.” The mirror effortlessly receives its reflections, just as you effortlessly see the sky right now, and just as the Witness effortlessly allows all objects whatsoever to arise. All things come and go in the effortless mirror-mind that is the simple Witness.

When I rest as the pure and simple Witness, I notice that I am not caught in the world of time. The Witness exists only in the timeless present. Yet again, this is not a state that is difficult to achieve but impossible to avoid. The Witness sees only the timeless present because only the timeless present is actually real. When I think of the past, those past thoughts exist right now, in this present. When I think of the future, those future thoughts exist right now, in this present. Past and future thoughts both arise right now, in simple ever-present awareness.

And when the past actually occurred, it occurred right now. When the future actually occurs, it will occur right now. There is only right now, there is only this ever-present present: that is all I ever directly know. Thus, the timeless present is not hard to contact but impossible to avoid, and this becomes obvious when I rest as the pure and simple Witness, and watch the past and future float by in simple ever-present awareness.

That is why when we rest as the ever-present Witness, we are not in time. Resting in simple witnessing awareness, I notice that time floats by in front of me, or through me, like clouds float through the sky. And that is exactly why I can be aware of time; in my simple Presentness, in my I AMness as pure and simple Witness of the Kosmos, I am timeless.

Thus, as I right now rest in this simple, ever-present Witness, I am face to face with Spirit. I am with God today, and always, in this simple, ever-present, witnessing state. Eckhart said that “God is closer to me than I am to myself,” because both God and I are one in the ever-present Witness, which is the nature of intrinsic Spirit itself, which is exactly what I am in the state of my I AMness. I am not this, I am not that; I rest as pure open Spirit. When I am not an object, I am God. (And every I in the entire Kosmos can say that truthfully.)

I am not entering this state of the ever-present Witness, which is Spirit itself. I cannot enter this state, precisely because it is ever-present. I cannot start Witnessing; I can only notice that this simple Witnessing is already occurring. This state never has a beginning in time precisely because it is indeed ever-present. You can neither run from it nor toward it; you are it, always. This is exactly why Buddhas have never entered this state, and sentient beings have never left it.

When I rest in the simple, clear, ever-present Witness, I am resting in the great Unborn, I am resting in intrinsic Spirit, I am resting in primordial Emptiness, I am resting in infinite Freedom. I cannot be seen, I have no qualities at all. I am not this, I am not that. I am not an object. I am neither light nor dark; neither large nor small; neither here nor there; I have no color, no location, no space and no time; I am an utter Emptiness, another word for infinite Freedom, unbounded to infinity. I am that opening or clearing in which the entire manifest world arises right now, but I do not arise in it—it arises in me, in this vast Emptiness and Freedom that I am.

Things that are seen are pleasant or painful, happy or sad, joyous or fearful, healthy or sick—but the Seer of those things is neither happy nor sad, neither joyous nor fearful, neither healthy nor sick, but simply Free. As pure and simple Witness I am free of all objects, free of all subjects, free of all time and free of all space; free of birth and free of death, and free of all things in between. I am simply Free.

When I rest as the timeless Witness, the Great Search is undone. The Great Search is the enemy of the ever-present Spirit, a brutal lie in the face of a gentle infinity. The Great Search is the search for an ultimate experience, a fabulous vision, a paradise of pleasure, an unendingly good time, a powerful insight—a search for God, a search for Goddess, a search for Spirit—but Spirit is not an object. Spirit cannot be grasped or reached or sought or seen: it is the ever-present Seer. To search for the Seer is to miss the point. To search forever is to miss the point forever. How could you possibly search for that which is right now aware of this page? YOU ARE THAT! You cannot go out looking for that which is the Looker.

When I am not an object, I am God. When I seek an object, I cease to be God, and that catastrophe can never be corrected by more searching for more objects.

Rather, I can only rest as the Witness, which is already free of objects, free of time, free of suffering, and free of searching. When I am not an object, I am Spirit. When I rest as the free and formless Witness, I am with God right now, in this timeless and endless moment. I taste infinity and am drenched with fullness, precisely because I no longer seek, but simply rest as what I am.

Before Abraham was, I am. Before the Big Bang was, I am. After the universe dissolves, I am. In all things great and small, I am. And yet I can never be heard, felt, known, or seen; I AM is the ever-present Seer.

Precisely because the ultimate reality is not anything seen but rather the Seer, it doesn’t matter in the least what is seen in any moment. Whether you see peace or turmoil, whether you see equanimity or agitation, whether you see bliss or terror, whether you see happiness or sadness, matters not at all: it is not those states but the Seer of those states that is already Free.

Changing states is thus beside the point; acknowledging the ever-present Seer is the point. Even in the midst of the Great Search and even in the worst of my self-contracting ways, I have immediate and direct access to the ever-present Witness. I do not have to try to bring this simple awareness into existence. I do not have to enter this state. It involves no effort at all. I simply notice that there is already an awareness of the sky. I simply notice that there is already an awareness of the clouds. I simply notice that the ever-present Witness is already fully functioning: it is not hard to reach but impossible to avoid. I am always already in the lap of this ever-present awareness, the radical Emptiness in which all manifestation is presently arising.

When I rest in the pure and simple Witness, I notice that this awareness is not an experience. It is aware of experiences, it is not itself an experience. Experiences come and go. They have a beginning in time, they stay a bit, and they pass. But they all arise in the simple opening or clearing that is the vast expanse of what I am. The clouds float by in this vast expanse, and thoughts float by in this vast expanse, and experiences float by in this vast expanse. They all come, and they all go. But the vast expanse itself, this Free and Empty Seer, this spacious opening or clearing in which all things arise, does not itself come and go, or even move at all.

Thus, when I rest in the pure and simple Witness, I am no longer caught up in the search for experiences, whether of the flesh or of the mind or of the spirit. Experiences—whether high or low, sacred or profane, joyous or nightmarish—simply come and go like endless waves on the ocean of what I am. As I rest in the pure and simple Witness, I am no longer moved to follow the bliss and the torture of experiential displays. Experiences float across my Original Face like clouds floating across the clear autumn sky, and there is room in me for all.

When I rest in the pure and simple Witness, I will even begin to notice that the Witness itself is not a separate thing or entity, set apart from what it witnesses. All things arise within the Witness, so much so that the Witness itself disappears into all things.

And thus, resting in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I notice that there is no inside and no outside. There is no subject and no object. Things and events are still fully present and clearly arising—the clouds float by, the birds still sing, the cool breeze still blows—but there is no separate self recoiling from them. Events simply arise as they are, without the constant and agitated reference to a contracted self or subject. Events arise as they are, and they arise in the great freedom of not being defined by a little I looking at them. They arise with Spirit, as Spirit, in the opening or clearing that I am; they do not arise to be seen and perceptually tortured by an ego.

In my contracted mode, I am “in here,” on this side of my face, looking at the world “out there,” on the “objective” side. I exist on this side of my face, and my entire life is an attempt to save face, to save this self-contraction, to save this sensation of grasping and seeking, a sensation that sets me apart from the world out there, a world I will then desire or loathe, move toward or recoil from, grasp or avoid, love or hate. The inside and the outside are in perpetual struggle, all varieties of hope or fear: the drama of saving face.

We say, “To lose face is to die of embarrassment,” and that is deeply true: we do not want to lose face! We do not want to die! We do not want, to cease the sensation of the separate-self! But that primal fear of losing face is actually the root of our deepest agony, because saving face—saving an identity with the bodymind—is the very mechanism of suffering, the very mechanism of tearing the Kosmos into an inside versus an outside, a brutal fracture that I experience as pain.

But when I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I lose face. Inside and outside completely disappear. It happens just like this:

As I drop all objects–I am not this, not that–and I rest in the pure and simple Witness, all objects arise easily in my visual field, all objects arise in the space of the Witness. I am simply an opening or clearing in which all things arise. I notice that all things arise in me, arise in this opening or clearing that I am. The clouds are floating by in this vast opening that I am. The sun is shining in this vast opening that I am. The sky exists in this vast opening that I am; the sky is in me. I can taste the sky, it’s closer to me than my own skin. The clouds are on the inside of me; I am seeing them from within. When all things arise in me, I am simply all things. The universe is One Taste, and I am That.

And so, when I rest as the Witness, all things arise in me, so much so that I am all things. There is no subject and object because I do not see the clouds, I am the clouds. There is no subject and object because I do not feel the cool breeze, I am the cool breeze. There is no subject and object because I do not hear the thunder clapping, I am the thunder clapping.

I am no longer on this side of my face looking at the world out there; I simply am the world. I am not in here. I have lost face—and discovered my Original Face, the Kosmos itself. The bird sings, and I am that. The sun rises, and I am that. The moon shines, and I am that, in simple, ever-present awareness.

When I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, every object is its own subject. Every event “sees itself,” as it were, because I am now that event seeing itself. I am not looking at the rainbow; I am the rainbow, which sees itself. I am not staring at the tree; I am the tree, which sees itself. The entire manifest world continues to arise, just as it is, except that all subjects and all objects have disappeared. The mountain is still the mountain, but it is not an object being looked at, and I am not a separate subject staring at it. Both I and the mountain arise in simple, ever-present awareness, and we are both set free in that clearing, we are both liberated in that nondual space, we are both enlightened in the opening that is ever-present awareness. That opening is free of the set-apart violence called subject and object, in here versus out there, self against other, me against the world. I have utterly lost face, and discovered God, in simple ever-present awareness.

When you are the Witness of all objects, and all objects arise in you, then you stand in utter Freedom, in the vast expanse of all space. In this simple One Taste, the wind does not blow on you, it blows within you. The sun does not shine on you, it radiates from deep within your very being. When it rains, you are weeping. You can drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, and swallow the universe whole. Supernovas are born and die all within your heart, and galaxies swirl endlessly where you thought your head was, and it is all as simple as the sound of a robin singing on a crystal clear dawn.

Every time I recognize or acknowledge the ever-present Witness, I have broken the Great Search and undone the separate self. And that is the ultimate, secret, nondual practice, the practice of no-practice, the practice of simple acknowledgment, the practice of remembrance and recognition, founded timelessly and eternally on the fact that there is only Spirit, a Spirit that is not hard to find but impossible to avoid.

Spirit is the only thing that has never been absent. It is the only constant in your changing experience. You have known this for a billion years, literally. And you might as well acknowledge it. “If you understand this, then rest in that which understands, and just that is Spirit. If you do not understand this, then rest in that which does not understand, and just that is Spirit.” For eternally and eternally and always eternally, there is only Spirit, the Witness of this and every moment, even unto the ends of the world.
The Eye of Spirit

When I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I am resting in intrinsic Spirit; I am in fact nothing other than witnessing Spirit itself. I do not become Spirit; I simply recognize the Spirit that I always already am. When I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I am the Witness of the World. I am the eye of Spirit. I see the world as God sees it. I see the world as the Goddess sees it. I see the world as Spirit sees it: every object an object of Beauty, every thing and event a gesture of the Great Perfection, every process a ripple in the pond of my own eternal Being, so much so that I do not stand apart as a separate witness, but find the witness is one taste with all that arises within it. The entire Kosmos arises in the eye of Spirit, in the I of Spirit, in my own intrinsic awareness, this simple ever-present state, and I am simply that.

From the ground of simple, ever-present awareness, one’s entire bodymind will resurrect. When you rest in primordial awareness, that awareness begins to saturate your being, and from the stream of consciousness a new destiny is resurrected. When the Great Search is undone, and the separate-self sense has been crucified; when the continuity of witnessing has stabilized in your own case; when ever-present awareness is your constant ground—then your entire bodymind will regenerate, resurrect, and reorganize itself around intrinsic Spirit, and you will arise, as from the dead, to a new destiny and a new duty in consciousness.

You will cease to exist as separate self (with all the damage that does to the bodymind), and you will exist instead as vehicle of Spirit (with the bodymind now free to function in its highest potential, undistorted and untortured by the brutalities of the self-contraction). From the ground of ever-present awareness, you will arise embodying any of the enlightened qualities of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas—”one whose being (sattva) is ever-present awareness (bodhi).”

The Buddhist names are not important; the enlightened qualities they represent are. The point is simply that, once you have stably recognized simple, ever-present awareness-once the Great Search and the self-contraction have been robbed of separative life and returned to God, returned to their ground in ever-present awareness-then you will arise, from the ground of ever-present awareness, and you will embody any of the highest possibilities of that ground. You will be vehicle of the Spirit that you are. That ever-present ground will live through you, as you, in a variety of superordinary forms.

Perhaps you will arise as Samantabhadra, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a vast equality consciousness: you will realize that the ever-present awareness that is fully present in you is the same awareness that is fully present in all sentient beings without exception, one and the same, single and only—one heart, one mind, one soul that breathes and beats and pulses through all sentient beings as such—and your very countenance will remind all beings of that simple fact, remind them that there is only Spirit, remind them that nothing is closer to God than anything else, for there is only God, there is only Goddess.

Perhaps you will arise as Avalokiteshvara, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of gentle compassion. In the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, all sentient beings arise as equal forms of intrinsic Spirit or pure Emptiness, and thus all beings are treated as the sons and daughters of the Spirit that they are. You will have no choice but to live this compassion with a delicate dedication, so that your very smile will warm the hearts of those who suffer, and they will look to you for promise that they, too, can be liberated into the vast expanse of their own primordial awareness, and you will never turn away.

Perhaps you will arise as Prajnaparamita, the mother of the Buddha whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a vast spaciousness, the womb of the great Unborn, in which the entire Kosmos exists. For deepest truth, it is exactly from the ground of your own simple, clear, ever-present awareness that all beings are born; and it is to the ground of your simple, clear, ever-present awareness that all beings will return. Resting in the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, you watch the worlds arise, and all the Buddhas arise, and all sentient beings as such arise. And to you they will all return. And you will smile, and receive, in this vast expanse of everlasting wisdom, and it will all begin again, and yet again, and always yet again, in the womb of your ever-present state.

Perhaps you will arise as Manjushri, whose ever-present awareness, takes the form of luminous intelligence. Although all beings are equally intrinsic Spirit, some beings do not easily acknowledge this ever-present Suchness, and thus discriminating wisdom will brilliantly arise from the ground of equality consciousness. You will instinctively see what is true and what is false, and thus you will bring clarity to everything you touch. And if the self-contraction does not listen to your gentler voice, your ever-present awareness will manifest in its wrathful form, which is said to be none other than the dreaded Yamantaka, Subduer of the Lord of Death.

And so perhaps you will arise as Yamantaka, fierce protector of ever-present awareness and samurai warrior of intrinsic Spirit. Precisely those items that pretend to block ever-present awareness must be quickly cut through, which is why ever-present awareness arises in its many wrathful forms. You will simply be moved, from the ground of equality consciousness, to expose the false and the shallow and the less-than-ever-present. It is time for the sword, not the smile, but always the sword of discriminating wisdom, which ruthlessly cuts all obstacles in the ground of the all-encompassing.

Perhaps you will arise as Bhaishajyaguru, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a healing radiance. From the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, you will be moved to remind the sick and the sad and those in pain that although the pain is real, it is not what they are. With a simple touch or smile, contracted souls will relax into the infinite vast expanse of intrinsic awareness, and disease will lose all meaning in the radiance of that release. And you will never tire, for ever-present awareness is effortless in its functioning, and so you will constantly remind all beings of who and what they really are, on the other side of fear, in the radical love and unflinching acceptance that is the mirror-mind of ever-present awareness.

Perhaps you will arise as Maitreya, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a promise that, even into the endless future, ever-present awareness will still be simply present. From the brilliant clarity of primordial awareness, you will vow to be with all beings, even unto an eternity of futures, because even those futures will arise in simple present awareness, the same present awareness that now sees just exactly this.

Those are simply a few of the potentials of ever-present awareness. The Buddhist names don’t matter; any will do. They are simply a few of the forms of your own resurrection. They are a few of the possibilities that might animate you after the death of the Great Search. They are a few of the ways the world looks to the ever-present eye of Spirit, the ever-present I of Spirit. They are what you see, right now, when you see the world as God sees it, from the groundless ground of simple ever-present awareness.
And It Is All Undone

Perhaps you will arise as any or all of those forms of ever-present awareness. But then, it doesn’t really matter. When you rest in the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, you are not Buddha or Bodhisattva, you are not this or that, you are not here or there. When you rest in simple, ever-present awareness, you are the great Unborn, free, of all qualities whatsoever. Aware of color, you are colorless. Aware of time, you are timeless. Aware of form, you are formless. In the vast expanse of primordial Emptiness, you are forever invisible to this world.

It is simply that, as embodied being, you also arise in the world of form that is your own manifestation. And the intrinsic potentials of the enlightened mind (the intrinsic potentials of your ever-present awareness)—such as equanimity, discriminating wisdom, mirrorlike wisdom, ground consciousness, and all-accomplishing awareness—various of these potentials combine with the native dispositions and particular talents of your own individual bodymind. And thus, when the separate self dies into the vast expanse of its own ever-present awareness, you will arise animated by any or all of those various enlightened potentials. You are then motivated, not by the Great Search, but by the Great Compassion of these potentials, some of which are gentle, some of which are truly wrathful, but all of which are simply the possibilities of your own ever-present state.

And thus, resting in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, you will arise with the qualities and’ virtues of your own highest potentials—perhaps compassion, perhaps discriminating wisdom, perhaps cognitive insight, perhaps healing presence, perhaps wrathful reminder, perhaps artistic accomplishment, perhaps athletic skill, perhaps great educator, or perhaps something utterly simple, maybe being the best flower gardener on the block. (In other words, any of the developmental lines released into their own primordial state.) When the bodymind is released from the brutalities inflicted by the self-contraction, it naturally gravitates to its own highest estate, manifested in the great potentials of the enlightened mind, the great potentials of simple, ever-present awareness.

Thus, as you rest in simple, ever-present awareness, you are the great Unborn; but as you are born—as you arise from ever-present awareness—you will manifest certain qualities, qualities inherent in intrinsic Spirit, and qualities colored by the dispositions of your own bodymind and its particular talents.

And whatever the form of your own resurrection, you will arise driven not by the Great Search, but by your own Great Duty, your limitless Dharma, the manifestation of your own highest potentials, and the world will begin to change, because of you. And you will never flinch, and you will never fail in that great Duty, and you will never turn away, because simple, ever-present awareness will be with you now and forever, even unto the ends of the worlds, because now and forever and endlessly forever, there is only Spirit, only intrinsic awareness, only the simple awareness of just this, and nothing more.

But that entire journey to what is begins at the beginningless beginning: we begin by simply recognizing that which is always already the case. (“If you understand this, then rest in that which understands, and just that is exactly Spirit. If you do not understand this, then rest in that which does not understand, and just that is exactly Spirit.”) We allow this recognition of ever-present awareness to arise—gently, randomly, spontaneously, through the day and into the night. This simple, ever-present awareness is not hard to attain but impossible to avoid, and we simply notice that.

We do this gently, randomly, and spontaneously, through the day and into the night. Soon enough, through all three states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping, this recognition will grow of its own accord and by its own intrinsic power, outshining the obstacles that pretend to hide its nature, until this simple, ever-present awareness announces itself in an unbroken continuity through all changes of state, through all changes of space and time, whereupon space and time lose all meaning whatsoever, exposed for what they are, the shining veils of the radiant Emptiness that you alone now are—and you will swoon into that Beauty, and die into that Truth, and dissolve into that Goodness, and there will be no one left to testify to terror, no one left to take tears seriously, no one left to engineer unease, no one left to deny the Divine, which only alone is, and only alone ever was, and only alone will ever be.

And somewhere on a cold crystal night the moon will shine on a silently waiting Earth, just to remind those left behind that it is all a game. The lunar light will set dreams afire in their sleeping hearts, and a yearning to awaken will stir in the depths of that restless night, and you will be pulled, yet again, to respond to those most plaintive prayers, and you will find yourself right here, right now, wondering what it all really means—until that flash of recognition runs across your face and it is all undone. You then will arise as the moon itself, and sing those dreams in your very own heart; and you will arise as the Earth itself, and glorify all of its blessed inhabitants; and you will arise as the Sun itself, radiant to infinity and much too obvious to see; and in that One Taste of primordial purity, with no beginning and no end, with no entrance and no exit, with no birth and no death, it all comes radically to be; and the sound of a singing waterfall, somewhere in the distance, is all that is left to tell this tale, late on that crystal cold night, bathed so beautifully in that lunar light, just so, and again, just so.

When the great Zen master Fa-ch’ang was dying, a squirrel screeched out on the roof. “It’s just this,” he said, “and nothing more.”
"Not sure if you have seen this but Elias Capriles contrasts different traditions and states of realization in this interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDWDF35A-1U

Elias Caprilles interviewed by Vladimir Maykov on Ken Wilber's distortion of Buddhism and Dzogchen

He starts to mention at 17:00, then again around 19:00 and also 25:00
He seems to reference Mahā total exertion at the end" - Kyle Dixon

"Interesting...Elias Capriles talk about total exertion and non-action.  He also give an example of some one drawing a circle...which I think is very good.  My son intro-ed an artist that is like that into total non-action...every point he draws is simply perfect...when they later map and calculate the ratio and distance... Kim Jung Gi" - John Tan

"Very good.  The view is clear." - John Tan


Also here is a nice article that is related: http://www.integralworld.net/capriles1.html

THE TRANSRELIGIOUS FALLACY
IN WILBER’S WRITINGS

And Its Relation With Wilber's
“Philosophical Tradition" And Views

"Beyond Mind", Part III, Appendix 1

ELÍAS CAPRILES



This is not a post about awakening, non-duality or emptiness, but the planet, global warming, and the levels of consciousness in spiral dynamics. But why do I post this here? Because pure land is not another dimension or universe away. This very world, this very planet is our pure land. Everywhere, perfect purity, beauty and goodness can be found, all a perfect display of our radiance and Presence, if only we see and hear with pure vision. Instead, earthlings perceive the world in terms of dualism, self and other, subject and object, possessor and possessed, exploiter and exploited, hopes and fears, friends and enemies.
Like an apple tree that apples, this planet is the land that peoples, and manifest Buddhas. To grow apples, we have to protect and nurture the apple tree. To grow Buddhas, we have to protect and nurture our pure land. Please appreciate our seamless dependencies and wholeness and act accordingly. Our benefits should never be sought at the expense or detriment of the rest of the planet, otherwise we become like viruses destroying the host, killing ourselves in the process. Realise that a wave is never separate from the entire ocean like an apple is never separate from the rest of the apple tree, the welfare of all is the welfare of ourselves and vice versa. Our actions are the activity of the universe and vibrates as and throughout the universe.
Statements that used to be called "alarmist" now looks increasingly likely to be our destiny. The science is becoming increasingly clear this year: we have falsely assumed a purely linear increase in global temperatures when in truth the situation is far worse than that -- we might be on a somewhat exponential curve, and the world is on the verge of triggering a cascade of natural 'feedback loops' that will increase temperatures drastically. In other words, we are on course for runaway climate change as a result of natural feedback loops including methane release from the arctic permafrost triggering further releases, bringing catastrophic collapse of the ecosystem. This is the sixth mass extinction that could very well see the extinction of humanity in decades to come, if very strong actions and interventions are not taken on time. Sacrifices need to be made (perhaps, to our standard of living). Governments should mobilize resources to support green causes and we should support governments that have our long term welfare in their agenda. A mass planetary awakening is necessary for our survival. The three institutional poisons of collective greed, ill will and delusion needs to be addressed.  
Without a collective awakening, there is a real possibility that humanity will cease to exist 100 years from now.


......
 
Interesting
https://www.newshub.co.nz/…/scientists-secretly-believe-we-…
https://www.straight.com/…/could-abrupt-climate-change-lead…
<— I initially dismissed this guy as an alarmist nut job for predicting the extinction of humanity by 2026 until I read the following articles which seems to confirm some of Guy’s statements, so maybe there is a basis for such a thing to happen but I’m not sure about the timeline:
https://truthout.org/…/release-of-arctic-methane-may-be-ap…/
https://www.theguardian.com/…/7-facts-need-to-know-arctic-m…
https://siberiantimes.com/…/n0760-arctic-methane-gas-emiss…/

(update: I think Guy McPherson is an alarmist for setting a dateline to our 'extinction', but his conclusions about our trajectory and outcomes are actually based on sound science and research, except the date is speculation and may be off)
Shared by Malcolm Smith


nymag.com


· Reply · 9w
Sim Pern Chong


Sim Pern Chong Thanks for the sharing.

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· Reply · 9w
Benjamin Smythe


Benjamin Smythe 2023 is the current projection for human extinction by a leading UN climate change scientist. maybe do what you want to today. :)

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· 9w
Soh Wei Yu


Soh Wei Yu Enjoying myself at tomorrowland now 🤣

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· 9w
Michael Hernandez


Michael Hernandez All is not lost. Cockroaches and rats will survive!
They eat everything and are highly resilient to toxic waste

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· Reply · 8w
Soh Wei Yu


Soh Wei Yu Not if our planet ends up like Venus (it used to have a habitable climate, atmosphere and water until runaway climate change led to complete loss of any habitable atmosphere along with water)
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· Reply · 8w · Edited
Soh Wei Yu


Soh Wei Yu As an Uber driver in Europe told us, mother nature is giving us a lot of signs and our only bet now is on Elon Musk building a rocket to bring us to Mars. If he manages to do it on time, that is

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· Reply · 8w · Edited
Michael Hernandez


Michael Hernandez An AI is humankind's best bet for the preservation of its "legacy".

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· Reply · 8w · Edited
Kathy Gilligan


Kathy Gilligan So no people at all in 2023. Bowie’s “Five Years.”
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· Reply · 7w
Soh Wei Yu


Soh Wei Yu I’m not convinced the timelines are set in stone but if climate change is “non linear” and “runaway” or even “exponential” involving many natural feedback loops then the situation is truly dire...

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· Reply · 7w
Soh Wei Yu


Soh Wei Yu If this chart has any basis then we ain’t seen nothing yet
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· Reply · 7w
Andrew Kinsella


Andrew Kinsella Great, just what I needed to read. If that projection is correct then the only outcome can be a really major mass extinction.

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· Reply · 7w
Soh Wei Yu


Soh Wei Yu Not all climate Scientists agree to the projection though. But might be too late for people to realise if the worst case scenario is true. For myself, I don’t know, im no climate expert. Open to various possibilities. Maybe make some mental preparations.

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· Reply · 7w · Edited
Soh Wei Yu shared a link.


bbc.com
Researchers warn that even limited climate warming could trigger conditions…
Comments
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu Suddenly the mainstream media and scientists are catching on this doomsday scenario and starting to worry.

They sound like they are feeling hopeless and in despair

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· Reply · 7w · Edited
Benjamin Smythe

Benjamin Smythe it's over soon. enjoy these days. :)

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· 7w
https://www.facebook.com/YearsOfLiving/videos/230976200951887/?hc_ref=ARRgxSrsPv-WeEmEUjAEC7JhE8hGj8bCFzJVr5nkQyP-4c4dy4sMFi_PEtBRiKBsdz4&__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARBb_Oeag6h40dH3dHzNY3mjqCay8s2e0N7hi92nYCT-3r0q9wXppSyddnLfXe8a_E0XuvLtm4dN_S4XqROwVM5T2JzX35xZn3J038jpR8LRwbaPhr-Oco2wKBnDVoXUFhuXwlMD3lAg-iU-LK8p9R39rfvjSjVcabkf52sunv7FrFPP55GhtYA&__tn__=FC-R
Much sooner than expected. “Experts said dangerous climate change was almost “inevitable” and the planet was on the brink of a “tipping point” as thawing permafrost releases large volumes of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, causing temperatures to rise and more permafrost to melt.”
Comments
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu Humanity is sleepwalking into an abyss.

Here’s how a redditor describes our catastrophic future soon to become reality:See More

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· Reply · 1w · Edited
Junnies Jun Yang

Junnies Jun Yang from what i understand, the climate system is far too difficult to model, and our climate models (which the man-made global warming hypothesis entirely hinges upon because models are scientists' guess at how the climate system works, and its validity extends to evidence-gathering, hypothesis-testing, predictions, etc) are entirely incapable of properly modeling the climate.

you can see the ineptitude of the climate models by the fact that all of them are wrong, have wildly different projections, have no track record for accuracy, are constantly updated (new, unknown variables are constantly discovered and inputed), and the chaotic, complex nature of the climate means that slight errors in input can lead to wildly different outcomes
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· Reply · 1w
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu Yes it is very hard to model climate change. However, a general consensus is coming out this year taking into account the latest and newest research in climate science that paints a better picture of where we are heading, and it's not looking pretty. It paints a very dire picture -- a rather catastrophic one where our very existence as a species may be under threat not in centuries or generations to come, but in our very lifetime, perhaps 30, 20 or 10 years.

And even the U.N. has this to say just last week, http://time.com/5392283/united-nations-climate-change/

'(UNITED NATIONS) — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that the world is facing “a direct existential threat” and must rapidly shift from dependence on fossil fuels by 2020 to prevent “runaway climate change.”

“If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change, with disastrous consequences for people and all the natural systems that sustain us,” Guterres warned.'

Can humanity avoid catastrophe and extinction? I don't know, but looking at the general apathy and unwillingness of governments to address this issue, our future looks grim.
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Junnies Jun Yang

Junnies Jun Yang the thing is, the current man-made global warming hypothesis hinges upon the fact that climate scientists have a sufficient understanding to pinpoint that it is man-made greenhouse emissions that is the cause.

as we know, man-made greenhouse emission contribution is a fraction of total greenhouse gas emission. the validity of their claim thereby hinges upon this idea of a 'feedback' mechanism whereby a small input leads to a drastic outcome. but of course, given how sensitive climate models are to small errors in data input, it seems like the climate-change hypothesis is just a wild guess backed by no real evidence.

one also has to take into account the myriad of factors involved in climate change - solar cycles, planetary orbits, etc. it is so difficult to understand how the climate works once one understands how complex it is, that i personally am very skeptical of any claims that claim to be 'evidence-based', or scientifically proven
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· Reply · 1w
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu When the house is burning down, it's not time to be arguing but doing something drastic to turn things around. I'm afraid we will not take the necessary steps to avert disaster in time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsA3PK8bQd8
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Junnies Jun Yang

Junnies Jun Yang if there were minimal costs associated toward cutting back on greenhouse emissions, there will be little opportunity cost to do so even if the entirely hypothesis is wrong. but to implement the action plans suggested by climate scientists will actually entail massive costs.

for instance, is it a worthwhile trade off to delay the lifting of hundreds of millions of people living in poverty, in order to introduce the measures required to cut down on greenhouse emissions, when the greenhouse-emission hypothesis is probably wrong and not even properly understood? the house might not even be burning, or the house is burning due to many other reasons, and the action-plan recommended by climate scientists is to order a truckload of sand to be transported and thrown over the fire (may work, probably will not, and will cost a large amount of time, money, resources that could have been spent elsewhere)]
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· Reply · 1w
Soh Wei Yu


...........

Soh Wei Yu
“The Trump administration did not offer this dire forecast as an argument to combat climate change.
The analysis assumes the planet’s fate is already sealed.”
Comments
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu It may be true that it’s too late to save humanity and life at large from extinction. We do not know for sure. But I think passivity and inaction is not right

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· Reply · 1d · Edited
Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo Wow , sometimes I think I’m in the twilight zone 🙈
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· Reply · 1d
Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo The basic argument is: “Well we’re screwed anyways, let’s burn this MFer to the ground!!”
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· Reply · 1d
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu Pretty much.
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· Reply · 1d
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu 7 degree farenheit, as catastrophic as it is, is still a conservative estimate that does not take the exponential feedback loops into account that Scientists have been warning recently. In any case when this plays out as it is without enormous intervention, we are certainly screwed, it’s hard to see how humans can survive this. And we won’t have until 2100

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· Reply · 1d · Edited
Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo From what I’ve been seeing /reading unless there’s unprecedented governmental and corporate cooperation on a global scale to both radically reduce greenhouse gas production AND implement widespread sequestration modalities, the consequences will be caSee More
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· Reply · 1d
Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo But none of that means we shouldn’t do what we can. We have the technology to reverse a lot of it.

https://350.org/about/
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Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu Sequestration technologies exist or can be developed but only on a very small scale. The notion that future carbon sequestration technologies can be used to make a difference on the CO2 levels on a planetary scale is sort of a myth, and we're better off planting more trees and reducing deforestation instead (which is far from enough).

I highly suspect that some dangerous and desperate attempts at environmental geoengineering such as global dimming via aerosols will be inevitable at some point.
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· Reply · 6h · Edited
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45084144

"But this paper argues that beyond 2 degrees, there is a significant risk of turning natural systems - that presently help keep temperatures down - into massive sources of carbon that would put us on an "irreversible pathway" to a world that is 4-5 degrees warmer than before the industrial revolution."

http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm

"Although warming on this scale lies within the IPCC’s officially endorsed range of 21st-century possibilities, climate models have little to say about what Lynas, echoing Dante, describes as “the Sixth Circle of Hell”. To see the most recent climatic lookalike, we have to turn the geological clock back between 144m and 65m years, to the Cretaceous, which ended with the extinction of the dinosaurs. There was an even closer fit at the end of the Permian, 251m years ago, when global temperatures rose by – yes – six degrees, and 95% of species were wiped out. "
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Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu "Unless you are a teenager, you probably read in your high-school textbooks that these extinctions were the result of asteroids. In fact, all but the one that killed the dinosaurs were caused by climate change produced by greenhouse gas. The most notorious was 252 million years ago; it began when carbon warmed the planet by five degrees, accelerated when that warming triggered the release of methane in the Arctic, and ended with 97 percent of all life on Earth dead.

- http://nymag.com/.../climate-change-earth-too-hot-for...
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Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo Yeah it’s hard to pick through all of the science to see what’s what in a very charged issue like this. My problem with inflammatory pieces like that is that the authors typically already have a clear point of view (doom and gloom) and want to sell it so they take creative liberties with science.

To say the five big mass extinction events were all caused by global warming and CO2 levels (BTW CO2 is not the only cause of warming and there was a period in global past where the CO2 levels were 10X higher than they are now and the planet was cooler, so these are are theoretical associations backed by data, but there is nothing we know absolutely about the past or future) is to simply, well, make up science.

Obviously we don’t know for certain what caused them. What we do have is scientific data (core samples etc), models and the work of scientists who have made it their careers to study these things. According to them, from what I’ve read (I’m no expert but I’ve read quite a bit out of curiosity), there is no clear consensus on exactly what caused the mass extinctions.

There are prominent theories such as impact events (specifically the most recent one 50M years ago). In that case increase in CO 2 levels was certainly part of the problem but not the cause , the cause being the sky being darkened by particulate matter and photosynthesis being halted. It’s pretty obvious how that would have a devastating impact on the biosphere.

There are leading theories that the most distant (O-S event 450M years ago) was actually caused by global cooling. Also the second most distant was actually caused by the emergence of the plantae kingdom and the resulting effects and fluctuations in oxygen levels.

I’ll post links below. Wiki has very good article on extinction events and under “causes” tab it summarizes nicely. There are many theories and contributory factor, warming is one for sure as is cooling.

As I said previously I believe global warming as very serious and we will likely see devastating effects in the next 100 years unless we take dramatic and costly steps and see global cooperation on a scale not seen previously to work on solutions.

I say all of this not to be argumentative but simply in the spirit of truth (relative truth).

I think a lot of articles on global warming are unnecessarily inflammatory. It is interesting from the standpoint of human behavior and thought processes to look at why people like to write inflammatory doom and gloom, make it sound as scary as possible pieces.

I think it’s wired into the way we process that if something is very serious we can convince the skeptics with fear tactics. It makes total sense but does it work? I mean they don’t need to convince you or me, we already believe global warming is a very serious problem that can have potentially devastating consequences. But what about skeptics? Does it actually work on skeptics? I would argue it actually has the opposite effect in a couple of ways. First of all I think a lot of skeptics are simply afraid to believe in what they suspect is true (that it is a very real problem). So through magical thinking they can conveniently rearrange reality in their mind so things don’t look fearful.

So then what do fear tactics do to someone like this? They make them dig their heels in deeper actually. The opposite effect you might have had in mind.

Moreover any type of polarized issue or political stance simply becomes more polarized and divided by someone taking the unnecessarily extreme view.

Instead the answer may well be actually going in the other direction and trying to understand the point of view of the opposing position. This goes against our us/them instinct but it works IMO.

The example I will use has actually been researched quite extensively and proves what I’m saying above.

So cigarette smoking causes untold morbidity and mortality that is on a scale that no modifiable behavior can hold a candle to. Add up all of the deaths associated with all illegal drugs combined, then add all alcohol related deaths then add all motor vehicle deaths (driving is dangerous right) in the US in one year and it doesn’t even come close to how many people die every year of lung cancer alone. Almost all lung cancer is caused by smoking. That’s not even taking into account COPD, and the smoking related cardiovascular disease deaths which even dwarf lung cancer in number.

So it is a very very destructive habit. I’ve taken care of more patients than I could count who were dying of lung cancer. Any physician can attest to this.

So when you meet a patient in clinic and you are their doctor, their health care champion, what do you think your every instinct is? Well it to inform them of how incredibly bad it is for them. That’s human nature. But does it work?

Well doctors have been using that approach for years (many still do) and now that it has been researched it is found that it doesn’t work. It seems absurd because YOU know it’s bad for them and you don’t smoke because you know how bad it is so why wouldn’t letting them in on that “truth” get them to see the light? Well for similar reasons to what I stated above. They already know it’s bad. And they are already scared and in denial so you scaring the crap out of them only puts them farther in denial.

So what works then? Well actually strategies around the way you interview them work. You try to get to their point of view, understand their process around their behavior. This has a magical effect although it’s totally counterintuitive . Just by showing that you actually care and understand their barriers they often start making behavior change automatically.

An old saying that I find is very accurate, “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Sorry for the long post but I’ve seen this work not just with my patients but in many areas of life actually and I’m very interested in human behavior and how it affects the ways in which we relate and world views etc.

To summarize I’ll paraphrase Adyashanti (I don’t have the exact quote but he won’t mind):

It took me a very long time to see this but when I finally did it fundamentally changed the way interacted with people. I realized that taking either side you ALWAYS reenforce the other side.

I was overjoyed to hear him say this because this has been my instinct for some time but I had never looked at it this overtly.

Anyways I’m just blabbing now 🤣

Have a great day in Singapore 🇸🇬

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeonto.../big-five-extinctions
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Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu "What accounts for CO2 levels having been over 10 times higher in the past but with the same global temperatures?"

"You're writing about a time in the range of 500 million years ago. The sun's output has been increasing by about 1% every 100 million years for billions of years. In the Mid-Ordovician period the sun's output was about 95% what it is today. The fact that the temperature was similar to what it is today for large parts of the Earth is strong support that CO2 is effective as a greenhouse gas. Of course we also know this from direct and indirect measurements and from the theory of radiation physics.

Without the higher concentrations of CO2 hundreds of millions of years ago, the Earth would have been a very cold place.

CO2 atmospheric concentrations started decreasing somewhere around 50 million years ago due to a combination of decreasing volcanic activity and higher rates of rock weathering of CO2 from rocks exposed during the buildup of the Himalayas: Understanding the long-term carbon-cycle: weathering of rocks - a vitally important carbon-sink

It's odd that you chose something that supports the current understanding of one of the factors underlying climate change in an attempt to refute it."

- https://www.quora.com/What-accounts-for-CO2-levels-having...
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Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu Considering that sun's output was so different back then.. and the fact that temperatures have risen sharply with only 400ppm and we are heading towards 1000ppm (and triggering other feedback loops like the arctic methane release) only shows how bad things are going to get.

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· Reply · 1h
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu "I think a lot of articles on global warming are unnecessarily inflammatory."

On the other hand, I actually think most articles still grossly understate the predicament we are in.

Take for example https://www.vox.com/2015/5/15/8612113/truth-climate-change

Does that mean nothing really can be done? No, but at the rate we are moving (CO2 emissions are not even halting but actually increasing in speed), we are certainly on course for 4/5/6 degrees celcius or more..
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Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo Yes exactly. Just making the point that we are talking about very complex systems and things aren’t 100% predictable. I don’t doubt the greenhouse effect caused by CO2.

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· Reply · 1h
Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo Soh Wei Yu we may well be. I just mean when facts are skewed then it opens the author to criticism and can be used as fodder from those who want to deny what there is overwhelming evidence to support, that climate change is very real and very concerning.
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· Reply · 1h
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu " And they are already scared and in denial so you scaring the crap out of them only puts them farther in denial."

Actually, scaring the crap out of them by presenting them with facts (we're not trying to deceive anyone but simply showing the true picture) - such as pictures on cigarette boxes of blackened lungs, diseased organs and so on, actually do (scientifically proven) reduce smoking. Which is why smoking rates have decreased by so much (from maybe half the population to less than 1/5) over the years..
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· Reply · 1h · Edited
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu It takes time but scientific facts will start to sink in the public's psyche... I think. Especially combined with the real life global warming effects people are starting to see taking effect in their environment in real time



· Reply · 1h · Edited
Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo You make a good point. Yes education has worked (in the past many people genuinely didn’t know smoking was bad fir you it was hidden by industry) I’m talking about on a personal level with trying to convince people who already know and are in fear. This is what I think drives denyers if global climate change as well as of course greed motivation etc .
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· Reply · 1h
Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo Yes it has started to sink in and more and more people and organizations including some oil companies are getting on board.
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· Reply · 1h
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu Actually I do agree that understanding others' perspective is very important. This is where the Spiral Dynamics makes a lot of sense. Trump is coming from a Red (egocentric), Blue (ethnocentric/mythic-literal) and Orange (rational-scientific) perspective. The whole Republican Party's level of consciousness lies in the spectrum between Blue and Orange. The Democractic party's spectrum lies between Orange and Green (worldcentric/egalitarian-minded/post-modern). None of them has a higher integral level like Yellow, which is why they are unable to accommodate a wider range of views and see how they can fit together in a coherent whole.

In order to process and accept scientific facts, you have to be at Orange. If you are strongly at Blue or lower, you will have a hard time accepting scientific facts. You might be more interested in conspiracies. You will prefer fairytales like the world was created 6000 years ago (a literal interpretation of stories in scriptural texts as truth rather than metaphors). A deep fear or resistance towards facts, science, usually comes from a level lower than Orange. "Ethnocentric" also imply you might have attachment to racism, nationalism, or other group-identities, including religious fanaticism.

But even if you are strongly Orange, it does not translate into environmental concern.. why? Orange is primarily achievement oriented. This is why Trump, a billionaire businessman, places importance on the immediate and individualistic profits and benefits of businesses over long term welfare of humanity or the world. Which is why his administration is starting to accept global warming science (Trump used to be a denialist) which is an improvement but at the same time, they are still fixated on short term achievements and profits. It's only when you rise to the level of green that you start to take a longer term perspective and your area of concern expands to include things like the environment, welfare of masses, human rights (or even animal rights), etc. Trump is deeply anti-green, reversing or demolishing many of the green laws and policies. Pro-business is good but I think having an unhealthy anti-green obsession is no good, IMO. (That said, Green also has its own problems and pathologies)

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· Reply · 31m · Edited
Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo Anyways, regardless of all that we’re discussion, to make any reasonable headway what really has to happen is at a National/international policy level. Specifically the US in China. The political climate here in the US right now is more divided than I’ve ever seen it. The mass spread of misinformation on every issue is very concerning. There are still many people I know personally who staunchly disbelieve in global warming. I’m genuinely not sure what could make such a shift that the US would meaningfully move in that direction.

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· Reply · 1h
Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo Soh Wei Yu that’s really interesting I want to read up on it. Yes a few people I know who are staunchly conservative I used to argue with and it would get heated quickly so I’d back off. Once I started just fully accepting them and their points of view I noticed some very surprising shifts actually.

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· Reply · 1h
Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo I’m putting everything on mass awakening. I’m not kidding actually.

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· Reply · 1h
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu Angelo Gerangelo Maybe read Ken Wilber's books. Also Actualized.org has very good videos on Spiral Dynamics -- I watched all of them
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Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu Ken Wilber's book like A Brief History of Everything is a good read

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· Reply · 48m
Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo wow super cool, I’ll check it out
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· Reply · 44m
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu https://m.france24.com/.../20180930-un-report-confronts... "I don't think 2C is safe, and I would never want to argue it," said Frumhoff. "By many measures, 1.5C is not enough."

"But while we might call 2C an upper bound, let's not pretend that we're on a 2C path -- we are way above that," he told AFP.

Even taking into account voluntary national pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions, submitted in annex to the Paris treaty, the Earth is on track to heat up by an unliveable 3.5C or more by century's end.

"If we want to save ourselves from the disasters that are looming, we only have unrealistic options left," said Kaisa Kosonen, Greenpeace IPPC campaign lead.

"We have to try to make the impossible possible."
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Angelo Gerangelo

Angelo Gerangelo Yes it’s quite disturbing.
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· Reply · 2h



Soh Wei Yu: What do you think about the?

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Kathy Gilligan

Kathy Gilligan Thanks, Soh Wei Yu. A lot to dig into. Like a diagnosis in which you’re told you have 10 months to live, except that it is not just you, but everyone you know and everyone you don’t know. Every sentient being. What a time to be alive.

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· Reply · 22h
Kathy Gilligan

Kathy Gilligan Everything is a distraction.
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· Reply · 22h
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu Except nobody really knows how it will all play out or the exact timeframe. But day by day, the likelihood that the entire planet is going into a catastrophic mode within 10-15 years becomes clearer (due to the blue ocean event). Life will be much more difficult, lots of people will die, especially for the poorer countries (but all will be affected). But that in itself is insufficient to cause the extinction of our species unless it triggers the tipping points which could raise our temperatures from 2c warming up to 6c. So, will we go extinct in 10 years? Not likely, but I expect that within 20 years, scientists will try desperate and risky methods like releasing aerosols to artificially induce global dimming -- a geoengineering attempt to alter the climate of the world. If this works out, we can possibly delay our extinction for a while, but it doesn't really solve the issue. They all know that our planet will trigger many tipping points beyond 2c warming (or possibly even before that) resulting in a 'hothouse earth', which translates to the extinction of most or almost all species, including ourselves. That's why geoengineering will become inevitable as the planet warms towards 2c.

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· Reply · 1h · Edited
Kathy Gilligan

Kathy Gilligan It’s not solvable, so yes, desperate attempt
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· Reply · 6m
Soh Wei Yu

Soh Wei Yu Solving it will require 100% transition to clean energies (we are so far from that) and the development of large scale sequestration technologies (currently a sci-fi fantasy). Is it possible? Maybe. It is likely to happen? I don't think so. Should we still try our best? Of course.
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· Reply · 3m


===================


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=411&v=uzCxFPzdO0Y

Shed A Light: Rupert Read – This civilisation is finished: so what is to be done?


 level 1
Citizen Scientist / Philosopher10 points · 6 hours ago
Summary of points?
level 2
21 points · 5 hours ago · edited 4 hours ago
Talk at Cambridge University, November 2018
Civilization has 3 possible paths to take in the near future:
  1. Courageous radical transformation in extremely brief span of time, a transformation the like of which humanity has never before undergone. If this succeeds, this civilization will be finished, because the changes will be so radical. This would involve local food production, etc. Extremely unlikely, but we should try. Speaker urges people to rebel to prevent extinction.
  2. Collapse followed by possible human survival, e.g. 1000 people in Antarctica. This life raft scenario is fraught with difficult ethical problems (how do we choose who survives), but we need to start talking about enabling this outcome since this is likely our best option if scenario 1 eludes us, which it in all likelihood will.
  3. Collapse followed by human extinction and possible the extinction of much of complex life. This scenario is likely if we don't take a hard look at reality and try to aim for scenarios 1 or 2. This is the "Guy McPherson" outcome. Speaker mentions threat of raging nuclear fires devastating the biosphere, the potential for the atmosphere and oceans being so severely damaged that there is no biosphere remaining.
Some topics addressed: the fact that many in the audience feel that collapse is likely and not too far off, yet no one talks about it publicly. Many of us are harboring this awareness privately but it is not a topic of public conversation. This needs to change. Speaker mentions how we can begin to broach the topic in our own social sphere. There is talk that everyone should be voting green because we are in such an emergency that there is no time to dither around with other political parties, approaches. Potential for fast political revolution, especially if climate catastrophes mount. Discussion that logically we should be rebelling and acknowledgement of how difficult it is to do. Mention of a movement in the U.K. to foment climate rebellion.

Another topic broached is that we need to control the population of the developed world. Immigration should be discouraged since it is incompatible with reducing the ecologic impact of developed economies. England should aim for food self-sufficiency. How will England be able to justify the import of food if large portions of the world population are starving?

Mention that collapse is already happening in poorer communities in England and the United States. Outlook for Africa and the Middle East is bleak and collapse can already be seen in there as well.

Basically the speaker is encouraging us to take an unflinching look at the catastrophic problems we are facing and to be begin speaking amongst ourselves about that reality and to consider our options realistically.


=========


    “​They say since 2005, the number of floods across the world has increased by 15 times, extreme temperature events by 20 times, and wildfires seven-fold.”
    And we are only at the beginning. It’s hard to imagine the apocalyptic state of the world in a few decades.
    “The IPPR warns that the window of opportunity to avoid catastrophic outcomes is rapidly closing.”
    Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten collapse of nature'
    theguardian.com
    Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten collapse of nature'
    Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten collapse of nature'
  • Soh Wei Yu Lucky I am not emotionally affected by these articles as I have little emotions lol
    1
  • Tan Jui Horng I'm sure cockroaches will still be left though :P
    1
  • Soh Wei Yu Humans don’t understand dependent arising. They just blindly follow habitual impulses like craving. In this sense we (homosapien sapiens) are no different from other animal species but with our added prowess of intelligence contributing to our self destruction and destruction of biosphere. Rather that treating the environment as the conditions inseparable from us, that nourish and sustains us and are to be protected for the well being of all, they are merely seen as a resource separate from ourselves, to be exploited, developed and consumed. If more people awaken to no self and dependent arising then there will be more hope but I think it’s too late

    Just saw stian post this recently. It is quite apt and relevant.

    ...

    I just had a weird one. It has faded a bit, but I’ll tell as best I can.

    At home we use an organic bin for food scraps and such. As you may know this bin sometimes starts to give growth to various organisms.

    In the past I’ve reflected on my responsibility for these small living things. Sometimes I’ve felt slight endearment by adding things to the bin that I realize will feed and sustain these small creatures—things I don’t need but which they will cherish. Sometimes I’ve felt slight guilt at cutting off their livelihood, either by adding things to the bin that I know will have a detrimental effect for them, or by emptying out the bin.

    Sometimes when I’m about to put something into the bin, I realize that right now there likely isn’t much life in there, but that what I’m about to put in the bin will be a catalyst for life.

    To be frank, I’ve almost felt fatherly. Never of course attached to these creatures, but yet responsible for important factors in their brief existence.

    And something hit me just now, as I approached the bin.

    I don’t actually make these creatures at all. Conventionally speaking, they arise spontaneously. They arise from the conditions I create in the bin, but I really do not birth these creatures or own them.

    Or rather... that is to say... that I birth these creatures just like my parents birthed me. That is to say... not at all.

    My parents had no involvement in my birth, just like I don’t make or create these small creatures, instead they arise out of the right conditions. Neither do I own or father or preside over these creatures, any more than my parents are the lords or creators of my existence.

    When my parents got pregnant, they could not and did not choose for those conditions to lead to my birth, nor could they choose for those conditions to not lead to my birth.

    Just like the arising of the creatures in my bin is out of my hands, so too is my birth out of my parents or anyone else’s hands.

    Who birthed me? Where do I come from?

    No one birthed me—not in this way, anyway. Spontaneously arisen from conditions. Like maggots in the dirt.
    2
  • Soh Wei Yu We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated "egos" inside bags of skin.
    Alan W. Watts, The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

    We don’t respect our environment, we destroy it… but, you know, exploiting and destroying your environment, polluting the water and the air and everything is just like destroying your own body. The environment is your body.

    - Alan Watts

    Just as no thing or organism exists on its own, it does not act on its own. Furthermore, every organism is a process: thus the organism is not other than its actions. To put it clumsily: it is what it does. More precisely, the organism, including its behavior, is a process which is to be understood only in relation to the larger and longer process of its environment. For what we mean by "understanding" or "comprehension" is seeing how parts fit into a whole, and then realizing that they don't compose the whole, as one assembles a jigsaw puzzle, but that the whole is a pattern, a complex wiggliness, which has no separate parts. Parts are fictions of language, of the calculus of looking at the world through a net which seems to chop it up into bits. Parts exist only for purposes of figuring and describing, and as we figure the world out we become confused if we do not remember this all the time.
    p. 73

    - Alan Watts
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  • 2d
  • Edited

....

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-temperatures/evidence-for-man-made-global-warming-hits-gold-standard-scientists-idUSKCN1QE1ZU?fbclid=IwAR2ouLXy3mPTmFUZZg6YzbsSowlEzr2DcCO8_ApKcTSiAUbSYwsd6wSXhwA


Evidence for man-made global warming hits 'gold standard': scientists


"Five-sigma level statistical confidence means the human cause of climate change is a virtual certainty."
....
  • Soh Wei Yu Wouldn't shake the dogmatic half of the republicans though.
  • Soh Wei Yu “Popper, Schumpeter, and Piaget show that we stunt our growth when we ignore disconfirming evidence or distort evidence in order to make it assimilate with our existing knowledge. Focusing on learning what we already we believe is like building a really skinny wall that will topple over as it gets larger.

    On the other hand, we go through a growth spurt when we actively search for disconfirming evidence and allow accomodation to happen.“

    -
    https://medium.com/.../most-people-think-this-is-a-smart...
  • Most People Think This Is A Smart Habit, But It’s Actually Brain-Damaging
    medium.com
    Most People Think This Is A Smart Habit, But It’s Actually Brain-Damaging
    Most People Think This Is A Smart Habit, But It’s Actually Brain-Damaging
  • Soh Wei Yu Humans tend to overlook evidence that challenge their own beliefs and creates discomfort.

    But I’m not like that. We should not be. We should learn to love challenging assumptions and look at the evidence.
  • Soh Wei Yu The hard truth - "This civilization is over...":

    https://www.facebook.com/SoilLifeQuadra/posts/10156656875720199


    Marc Doll
    January 25 ·

    I realize there is something I have known for some time but have never said, and, since I have just spent another 4 hours of my life in climate change academia I have to get this out of my system.

    Please understand that many you reading this won't live to an old age... and likely will start scrolling after one or 2 more paragraphs... (edit...Ok I was wrong on this point. This is now my 2nd most shared post of all time..(edit)...make that my most shared)

    The IPCC report and Paris accord are incredibly overly optimistic and that commits the world to a target that means the death of hundreds of millions if not more.

    But it is worse than that.

    Even the commitments made by countries in the Paris accord don't get us to a 2 degree world.

    But it is worse than that.

    The 2 degree target is now unattainable (unless of course the entirety of civilization does a 180 today...) and is based on geo-engineering the climate of the earth as well as the sequestering of every molecule of carbon we have produced since 1987, as well as every molecule we are producing today,as well as every molecule we produce tomorrow.... with magical technologies that don't exist, wont exist and, even if they did would likely cause as many if not more problems than they fix.

    But it is worse than that.

    The 2 degree target of the IPCC does not factor in the feedback loops such as the increase absorption of heat due to a drastic reduction in the albedo (reflectivity) effect caused by the 70% loss of arctic ice,..- the release of methane from a thawing arctic. (there is more energy stored in the arctic methane than there is in coal in the world). This is called the methane dragon. If the process of the release of the methane, currently frozen in the soil and ocean beds of the arctic, which may have already begun, but if it spins out of control we are looking a an 8 degree rise in temperature.

    But it is worse than that.

    The report which gives us 12 years to get our head's out of our arses underestimated the amount of heat stored in the world's oceans, as we descovered in mid-January by 40%... so no , we don't have 12 more years.

    But it is worse than that.

    The IPCC report ignores the effects of humans messing up the Nitrogen cycle through agricultural fertilizers and more... Don't go down this rabbit hole if you want to sleep at night.

    But it is worse than that.

    Sea level rise will not be gradual. Even assuming that the billions of tons of water that is currently being dumped down to the ground level of Greenland isn't creating a lubricant which eventually will allow the ice to free-flow into the northern oceans; it is only the friction to the islands surface that is currently holding the ice back. Then consider the same process is happening in Antarctica but is also coupled with the disappearance of the ice shelves which act as buttresses holding the glaciers from free flowing into the southern ocean. then factor in thermal expansions; the simple fact that warmer water takes up more space and It becomes clear that we are not looking at maintaining the current 3.4mm/yr increase in sea level rise (which incidentally is terrifying when you multiply it out over decades and centuries.) We will be looking at major calving events that will result in much bigger yearly increases coupled with an exponential increase in glacial melting. We know that every increase of 100ppm of C02 increases sea level by about 100 feet. We have already baked in 130 feet of sea level rise. It is just a question of how long it is going to take to get there... and then keep on rising..

    But it is worse than that.

    Insects are disappearing at 6 times the speed of larger animals and at a rate of about 2.5% of their biomass every year. These are our pollinators. These are links in our food chain. These represent the basic functioning of every terrestrial ecosystem.

    But it is worse than that.

    58% of the biomass of life on earth has been lost since 1970. That includes the insects above but also every other living thing on the planet.

    But it is worse than that.

    Drought in nearly every food producing place in the world is expected to intensify by mid-century and make them basically unusable by the end of the century... Then factor in the end of Phosphorus (China and Russia have already stopped exporting it knowing this) and the depletion of aquifers and you come to the conclusion that feeding the planet becomes impossible.

    But it is worse than that.

    We can no longer save the society that we live in and many of us are going to be dead long before our life expectancy would suggest.

    If your idea of hope is having some slightly modified Standard of living going forward and live to ripe old age... there is no hope. This civilization is over...
  • Marc Doll
    I realize there is something I have known for some time but have never said, and, since I have just spent another 4 hours of my life in climate change academia ...
    See More
  • Soh Wei Yu ..but there is hope..

    There is a way for some to come through this and have an enjoyable life on the other side. Every day we delay can be measured in human lives. There will come a day of inaction when that number includes someone you love, yourself
    or myself.

    So we have 2 options.

    Wake the fuck up. If we do we will only have to experience the end of our society as we know it aka...the inevitable economic collapse which is now unavoidable, but be able to save and rebuild something new on the other side. This would require a deep adaptation. Words like sustainability would need to be seen as toxic and our focus needs be on regeneration. Regeneration of soil, forests, grasslands, oceans etc.... This is all possible.

    Option 2 is the path we are on thinking that we can slowly adapt to change. This not only ensures we experience collapse but also condemns humanity to not just economic and social collapse but in a 4-6 or even an 8 degree world... extinction.

    I am sick of pipeline discussions. I am sick of any argument that is predicated on the defeatist assumption that we will continue to burn oil at an ever increasing rate simply because it is what we have always done. Fact is if we do we are not just fucked, we are dead. I am sick of people who don't understand how their food is produced, and its effect on the climate.(both carnivores who eat feed-lot meat and vegans who eat industrially-produced-mono-cropped-veggies as they are equally guilty here. The consumption of either is devastating). I am sick of the tons of shinny new clothes people are wearing without realizing 1 Kg of cotton takes over 10 thousand Liters of water and incredible amounts of energy to produce. I am sickened by the amount of that same clothing hits the landfill in near new condition. I am sick of the argument that our oil is less poisonous than someone else's. Firstly, no it isn't and secondly, It doesn't fucking matter. I am sick of people that can't even handle the ridiculously-small, only-the-tip-of- the-iceberg-of-changes we need to accept; a carbon tax. I am sick of the fact that the political will seems only capable of focusing on the individual consumer through small measures like a carbon tax but no elected Party seems to have the fortitude to enact policies that take it to the small handful of companies that are responsible for 70% of our current C02 production. I am sick of my own hypocrisy that allows me to still use fossil fuels for transportation. I am sick of those who use hypocrisy as an argument against action. I am sick of the Leadership of my country that argues we can have economic growth and survivable environment... we can't. I am sickened by the normalizing of the leadership of our Southern neighbour who as the most polluting nation in the world officially ignores even the tragedy that is the Paris accord. I am sick of the politicians I worked to get elected being impotent on this subject. Naheed and Greg I'm looking at you. (BTW...Druh, you are an exception) I am sick that the next image I put up of my kids, cheese, pets or bread is going to gain immeasurably more attention than a post such as this which actually has meaning... I am sick about the fact that all the information I referenced here is easily discoverable in scientific journals through a simple google search but will be characterized by many as hyperbolic.

    I am especially sick that my future and the future of my children is dependent on the dozens of people that saw this post, said there goes Marc off the deep end again and chose to remain ignorant of the basic facts about our near future.

    There is a path forward.

    But every day we delay the path forward includes fewer of us. Build community, build resilience, work for food security, think regeneration, plant food producing trees, think perennial food production, turn your waste products into resources, eat food that does not mine the soil and is locally produced, eat meat that is grass fed in a holistic or intensively rotated (ideally holistically grazed in a silvopasture ) that is used to provide nutrients to vegetation, get to know a farmer or become one yourself, park your car, do not vote for anyone who either ignores climate change or says we can have our cake and eat it too, quit your job if it is fossil fuel related (it is better than losing it... which you will), stop buying shit, stop buying expensive cars and overly large houses and then complain that local planet saving food costs more than Costco. Stop buying things that are designed to break and be disposed-of, let go of this society slowly and by your own volition (its better than being forced to do it quickly), Rip up your lawn and plant a garden with perennial veggies, fruit bushes, fruit trees and nut trees. Learn to compost your own poop (it is easy and doesn't stink). Buy an apple with a blemish, Get a smaller house on a bigger lot and regenerate that land, Plant a guerrilla garden on a city road allowance. Return to the multi-generational house, Realize that growth has only been a thing in human civilization for 250 years and it is about to end and make preparations for this change. Teach this to your children. Buy only the necessities, don't buy new clothes-go to the thrift store. Don't use single use plastic or if you do re-purpose it, Unplug your garberator and compost everything, Relearn old forgotten skills. Don't let yourself get away with the argument that the plane is going there anyway when you book a holiday. Understand that there is no such thing as the new normal because next year will be worse, Understand before you make the argument that we need to reduce human population ... meaning the population elsewhere... that it is not overpopulation in China or India that is causing the current problem... It is us and our "western" lifestyle, Understand that those that are currently arguing against refugees and climate change are both increasing the effects of climate change and causing millions on climate refugees... which will be arriving on Canada's doorstep because Canada, due to our size and Northern Latitude, will on the whole have some of the best climate refuges. Understand that the densification of cities is condemning those in that density to a food-less future. Stop tolerating the middle ground on climate change. there is no middle ground on gravity, the earth is round, and we are on the verge of collapse.

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    At last check over 15000 shares. Thank you for reading.

    Thanks to Dr. Eric Rignot, Rupert Read , Dr. Jim Anderson, everyone at Berkely Earth those that put keep C02.earth upto date and so many other climate scientists who's work have inspired this piece. Thanks as well to the 16 yr old Gretta Thunburg who gave me the courage to take what was in my head and put it to paper,. I encourage you to dig deep. Listen to talks where scientist are talking to scientists. They are less likely then to use the conservative filters they impose on themselves and you will get to the cutting edge.

    *on a personal note, since I post about my children, I don't accept friend requests from people I haven't met. That said as of today, I have figured out how to enable the "follow" button on my account. I have been blown away by all the fantastic and heartfelt messages and commitments to change I have received due to this post and look forward to reading them.
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