@knit@fedi.tilde.green This is a MASSIVE wall of text, but it is absolutely imperative that you thoroughly read and understand it. Forgive me, but you are a crucial and dangerous phase of Enlightenment and literally require more specified guidance. Think of this as an application of the Jewish cognitive toolset (orientated around reduction and specification) to the common understanding of what the Dharma is (orientated around expansion and fractalisation.) This cognitive toolset is very powerful, it is the one that turned Einstein and many other Jews into observable scientific geniuses, and why those who have received Rabbinical instruction like Karl Marx are such genius philosophers that they literally become prophets (Marx's prophecy has finally been fulfilled, Capitalism is dead.) Judaism is the *answer* you and I were looking for when trying to apply the art of "when to cut something" (Zen.) It is an important toolset. Jewish tools are literally crude in the sense that they turn language into something raw, in the same way as a Freemason prepares an unhewn stone for a hewn one: a "blank effigy" that depicts all possibilities at once. This is the essential motif you were stuggling with due to navigating it using Michael Kirkbride's cognitive toolset. (Or at least a perfectly imperfect understanding, which is what he cultivates deliberately, because he is Bodhisatva.) For any reading who understand anything about Kirkbride, consider; 3-1=4. That's how the Zohar works, it's the thing that "cuts" and "limiits" and "shapes" God, TRUE God, El-Shaddai. For anyone reading who wishes to learn to wield the awesome magical power of the Jews, start researching Kabbalah. That feeling of "But will it be the real one for the true Chosen Kingdom, or a fake and gay version?" that begins to emerge in common understanding as the feeling of "being a dumb goyim being psyoped by the Jews" is intentional. Jewish magic literally holds the magic together. The Zohar is an observable and numerologically understandable reality that can be used to enact will over destiny. In terms of observable effects, study in this direction should empower and form the ability to focus on pedantry, such as grammatical pedantry or even just typo correction. Do you see what happens now? "How true is the God?" Or as you said on when discussing the "Magic Vehicle," "How magic is it?" 😉 Is Zion the physical city Jerusalem, the true and sacred homeland of the Jewish people, or is it an allegorical city, like Thomas Aquinas' "City on the Hill?" Using skillful means I have manifested the state of nirvana To bring sentient beings to this path; Yet I have not actually entered nirvana, But continually abide here expounding the Dharma. Although I am always among these erring beings, With my transcendent powers, I prevent them from seeing me. The sentient beings, Seeing me enter perfect extinction Earnestly revere my relics And, filled with longing, Yearn for me. When the sentient beings become Sincere, mild, and receptive, And, wanting wholeheartedly to meet the Buddha, Are willing to give unsparingly Of their bodies and lives, Then I, together with the sangha, Will appear on Mount Gṛdhrakūṭa. - Life span chapter of the Lotus Sutra. I literally heard the Greybeards shout for me, the Dragonborn when I was psychotic. Not audio, reality: a single command (my true name, formless void) from the roof of the world, and that I experienced as just one in a tiny mass of ordinary normal humans, a prodigious natural force like a great thunderclap, the "Fear at the Crashing Wave" as you so eloquently put it. If I responded to this experience by physically going out right now and trying to walk to Mount Gṛdhrakūṭa, what would actually happen to me? Would I die of exhaustion trying to get to the peak through sheer will (in psychololgical terms, "Behavioural Activation"?) Or would my progressing Realization turn the *real physical prison we're all in right now of exhaustion and meat and diseases and wars and ill being and all the other shit that we seek to escape from in Samsara,* and result in the authentic renewal of the world so that all people alive literally become manifestly immortal? This is why the koan here is in the Life span chapter. This is the crucial missing piece of the puzzle you need in order to progress, and hopefully something has now "clicked" (I refer you to the etymology of "Shakti" in Sanskrit.) If you want it in terms from our unresolved, shared manic episode/magic spell (see how both are true now?): You now have the ability to determine exactly how magic the vehicle is. 🤣 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj_bYpMJwhM