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But is feeling confused and experiencing the dark night of the soul a common phase?

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The point where you realize I don't know anything and it pushes you to investigate how things actually are.

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Okay, so to say again, I don't know that you necessarily come to the realization I don't know anything.

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But I think the sentiment there is the realization that you're wrong about very many things and you're wrong about

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the core nature of reality, which is, I think, a very important phase in meditation.

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You might even say it's the beginning phase.

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It's where you begin to cultivate wisdom.

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The very beginning is to attain right view, mundane right view, you might say, where you give up your views that are out of line with reality.

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on a conceptual level at least, or on an intellectual level, it's really the beginning of meditation practice.

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You spend a few days bashing your head against the wall until finally you realize reality is not what you thought.

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Not finally.

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You begin to realize.

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I would say that comes throughout your practice.

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It humbles you.

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This is really

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The great thing about realizing you're wrong is the devastating effect it has on your ego.

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What kills the ego most is realizing that you're wrong.

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Have you ever done that where you were so sure and you were arguing about something so vehemently, you knew that you were right, and you're 100% sure that you're right?

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In your mind, the link has been made between fact and belief.

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you know that your belief is in line with fact and it turns out that it's not it's an amazing experience it's freeing yeah yeah it's horrific really you know if you never are challenged to the point where you realize that you're wrong that's the most that's the scariest thing when you see people who are so sure of their beliefs

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that they're never able to see when they're wrong.

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That's the scary thing.

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That's what's most scary.

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It's liberating to be able to accept that you're wrong, to know when you're wrong, to have that power of mind to actually see that you were wrong.

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It's not easy to do.

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It's like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

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Something that you would think would be impossible.

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Looking in your own eyes kind of thing without a mirror.

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So I don't know about dark night of soul.

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I know that's something that one group, one Buddhist group talks about.

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But the idea that when you realize that you're wrong, how that pushes you

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to investigate how things actually are.

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I think you're actually talking about something different.

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So what I'm going to say is, for me it's more like this, where rather than realizing you don't know anything, through the understanding of things actually as they are, you come to realize that you're wrong.

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It's the other way around.

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When you investigate, you come to realize that you're wrong.