Buddha was not smart enough.

That’s the real problem.

The mistake in logic is this: if you see thoughts as passing and you don’t identify with anything, it’s true that there is no point you can point to that is 'you.'

You are not your thoughts, your pain, your trauma.

But this is a mistake; you can better flip it: everything combined is one you. You need to identify with thoughts to understand what your relationship with thoughts is.

The fact that everything is ever-changing is completely irrelevant. We understand that. But you can still change things. There is no point in breathing your thoughts away.

It’s easiest explained when polarized into the extreme. Let's say you come to a point where you really do not identify with any thought. You would fall off a cliff within a few days because you wouldn't have limitations. You would also be lost the whole time, since you wouldn't know where your house is.

The irony of guys like Buddha is that this is actually how the ego looks. You don’t understand the basics of the basics of thinking, and besides that, you don’t really do anything from under that tree.

Shapes

In psychiatry, people see patterns between things that have nothing to do with each other.
If you translate this into shapes, there isn’t just a square or a circle—there are billions of other shapes that explain why something does what it does.
When you lay those shapes on top of each other, patterns appear.

Those patterns are overvalued. It’s not that they don’t exist, but they have a more playful character. They are not definitive truths.

It’s more like: ‘Funny, these things look like each other.’

“Maybe it’s something you can only point out when it actually happens.
It’s not something you can think up in advance — like, ‘give me an example of circular reasoning.’ I have no idea. But when it happens, I hear it. And that’s only afterward.
That’s how reality works.”

“See it for what it is.”

The hardest thing in life is not to lose contact with your own body.
You feel with your body. With that body part.
You don’t feel with your head.

Have you ever wondered how remarkable it is that our bodies can communicate with us?
It doesn’t really make sense, since a feeling happens simultaneously with registering that feeling.
And yet, we experience things one by one.
We call this process consciousness.

For me, consciousness works like a radio show—the kind with only sound effects.
One side of my body does something, and I become this side.
Or the other way around.

I think what many people find difficult is learning how to feel as bad as possible.
We live in a society where you are trained to pretend that you feel fine,
but the hardest part is learning to feel as bad as you possibly can —
that’s where you learn the most.

What you want to be is healthy and strong. A lot of healthy people have white teeth.

Now, you get tricked into flying to Turkey to get veneers.

What you don’t realize is that the amount of people who are actually strong and healthy who would fly to Turkey is zero.

You got tricked.

Now you feel empty. Now you fly to Turkey again and do other things, too.

This is a never-ending cycle. If you would fix the core—being strong and healthy—you would realize a lot of strong people have yellow teeth, too, and you would never fly to Turkey, too.

What you want to be is healthy and strong. A lot of healthy people have white teeth. Now, you get tricked into flying to Turkey to get veneers.

What you don’t realize is that the amount of people who are actually strong and healthy who would fly to Turkey is zero. You got tricked.

Now you feel empty. Now you fly to Turkey again and do other things, too. This is a never-ending cycle. If you would fix the core—being strong and healthy—you would realize a lot of strong people have yellow teeth, too.

An easy way to frame reality is through energy:

• Creative energy

• Sexual energy

• Physical energy

• Emotional energy

• Intellectual energy

If you balance these well, you know in which dimension you’re too high at a given moment.

Unless, of course, you have a hobby where you can pour everything into.

It can also be that you’re overcompensating in one dimension.