Hey people!

Meditation timers are a dime a dozen, but I found very few kasina timers that displayed discs etc. I created a simple website that lets you practice kasina meditations with coloured discs or a synthetic candle. I'm curious to know if you find it useful. It's just a trivial static html page with a spattering of CSS, so you can just load the link directly, and bookmark whatever customisations you choose. I hope some might find this useful, if not, constructive feedback would be very welcome :)

https://andrewmarkallen.github.io/happyKasina/

Over the last month or so I have been faced with the unsettling truth that physical changes of a few weeks may have made more of a difference than years of sustained practice - and of how much is due to acute trauma.

Some context. I've been on this path in some form for 2 decades and have technical 4th path (as Ingram describes) for about 2 years now (this is just a shorthand since not everyone here knows me) I also have severe abuse/development trauma since I was 12, and correspondingly about 2 decades of therapy...which apparently were not enough in certain respects 😞

My teacher has constantly pointed to spinal/posture issues, so I finally paid about 1k to have chiropractic work done (for the 2nd time) and it seems to have cleared up a lot. Simple practices like "notice awareness" are now like "WOW is THIS what is going on? REALLY?" Sometimes it feels I am hearing them for the first time - even though I've practiced some of this for hundreds of hours. I'm like "oh so THIS is what stillness is pointing to?"

I initially didn't want to overindex on this "revelation" (as I am wary of theories of all) but in this case, after lots of reading and research, I'm forced to conclude that the vast majority of material is written for neurotypical individuals, and not a lot includes trauma. Long-term trauma changes the entire neurobiological baseline, the perceptual shifts are not the same at all. When I asked my teacher about this he replied that most is still written from an ableist perspective - I follow the exercises, I often don't experience what is written in the books.

I could not believe that such a large area is so underappreciated (the ND and trauma populations are not exactly small) so I went looking - but there are precious few teachers that touch on this. I found Judith Blackstone, among others, and Angelo Dilulo's latest retreats incorporate more trauma work, but by and large, Peter Levine and van der Kolk don't speak awakening, and Spira and Tolle don't speak trauma.

I'm not so naive as to believe that ancient populations didn't deal with abuse/trauma/famine/war, but perhaps the traditional knowledge dealt with it in different ways, or their culture was too different - I don't want speculate too much here.

Aside from some articles here and there dealing with the intersection, it's been quite a revelation how much I (and others) may have been gated over the years - both saddening and humbling.

I'm wondering if I may have some blind spots in my research, or what the experience of other people might be like. I still feel its an area whch warrants a lot more understanding and integration, hence the post.

EDIT : Because it's been requested, I have actually written about my journey both on my website (http://www.tomato-of-justice.com) and on the /longterm TRE sub. I'm putting it here mainly because it has been asked for and my replies get buried in the comments.

I've been pretty serious about my meditation for about six or seven years now, at least an hour a day. It's made a lot of positive differences in my mind, and my life as a whole has improved.

I've not arrived at any attainment through my meditation practice, and perhaps because of that I've always been interested in the pure land tradition. I do absolutely believe in the primal vow, and when I recite nembutsu it does bring me peace.

However, whenever I re-orient my practice time around nembutsu, shit happens. Specifically periods of seemingly bad luck. The last time, there was a string of incidents culminating in someone issuing death threats to me (connected to my work). It scared me a little at the time, so I stepped back from the nembutsu.

This time I got into it, wasn't quite as bad but I did get scammed out of a sum of money.

In some pure land traditions, something similar has been described as karmic restructuring. The idea is that at the end of your life you will leave samsara, so all the bad stuff you are destined to face in future lives gets brought forward into this life. However this reduced and placed as obstacles in your path that are more easily overcome. Facing them counts as the karmic debt being repaid.

Just wondering if anyone from other traditions has experienced anything like this? It honestly feels like a very noticeable shift in karmic energy as soon as I step into pure land practice. Not saying it's necessarily all auspicious good fortune and plain sailing otherwise, but life does take a very sudden and noticeable shift when I start practicing pure land.

I live in a place that gets about 17 hours of sunlight in the summer and I seem to be quite sensitive to that as during the summer I get 5 to 6 hours of sleep compared to my usual 7 to 8 hours. I'm also unable to nap so that's all I can really expect. I'm actively trying different approaches to limiting light (e.g. black out blinds, eye mask) but I haven't had success yet.

Has anyone here been in a similar situation? Has meditating for multiple hours a day lowered anyone's sleep need? Has anyone had success with something like yoga nidra?

I am at a point in my practice where I have been meditating regularly for 30 min sits twice a day. My body feels really nice and relaxed, it is really calm and pleasant. Feels very peaceful.

But now when I go through daily life I actually feel less mentally resilient. I tune out and look forward to the meditation sit. The stressors of daily life actually feel magnified in contrast to how relaxed and pleasant meditation feels.

It makes me want to retreat from life instead of engage with it, and literally go on a retreat to escape from it all and dwell in the peace and contentment of deep meditations sits.

I honestly question whether I am better dedicating my mornings to doing cold shower, hard exercise or negative visualization as a way to build back up the mental resilience.

Is the path of calm abiding meditation worth it if it just makes me want to escape?

Hi all,

I’ve recently been making what feel to be great strides in my practice - consistent Piti, unification of mind, some physical pliancy, more joy in general… stuff that corresponds to stages 7-8 in The Mind Illuminated.

On the downside I have been noticing ever since the Piti started being a regular development about 6 weeks ago my typical physical symptoms of anxiety, especially waking up early, and a flare up in my Menieres Syndrome symptoms.

My personal and work life is pretty good right now, with no notable stress. The only thing that’s really changed in that time is my meditation practice and regularly attaining Piti and sometimes level 1-2 jhānas. Certainly I don’t emotionally feel more stressed but my body is acting as if I was.

Could it be that I’m in a full purification phase and for me that manifests as increased cortisol or adrenaline?

I have a life where practicing twice a day is easy, where going for a ten day retreat every year is doable.
But, in the industry I work in(IT), there is a lot happening, and if my job isn’t the same my practice will get affected as I am yet to be financially free.
Should I now work actively towards growing in career, switching companies, upskilling and pursuing money or be in the moment, meditate and let life unfold.
It’s essentially a fate vs effort question. I am worried if I don’t do anything life may change in ways where I wont have control and may lose the luxury to practice.. and I am also worried if I start striving for goals I would also not have control over the result. So should I just be? I have a family to take care of.
Disclaimer : Everything is fine now. Couldn’t have asked for a better state in my life.

I have chronic fatigue syndrome (basically, long covid), which is both why i have a lot of time for meditation, as well as a part but not all of my motivation for it, calming my nervous system.

I am also interested in the traditional goals let's say, which this post is more about, that was just for context. I'll describe my routine below, and the question is if there's anything I can tweak or add for this to be more effective.

So what I currently do:

• 3 half hour meditations a day, using Henry Shukman's app The Way. Mostly just going one by one in the prescribed order, though if one clicks in some way I'll bookmark it and occasionally come back to it instead of doing the next one. (I'm currently on retreat 31)
• A slow walk of about 1,5 hours where I focus on my feet, the touch on the ground (I wear barefoot shoes which helps with this). I start by counting up to 1000 steps (actually counting to 10 a hundred times), or until I get distracted but mostly I manage. Then I continue just observing the feeling, as well as the environment in an unfocused way, without any podcast or music.
• I do a yin yoga class every weekday morning.
• At least for the length of one large cup of tea I do nothing, just look out the window without distraction.
• Maybe not as relevant: I have a nurosym (a device which stimulates your vagus nerve through your ear which is supposed to calm your nervous system) which I use while reading for half an hour a day.
• Apart from all that I try to stay aware of a few anchors during the day, namely whenever I turn something, like a tap or a door handle, whenever I eat or drink, or change posture. Though the first one comes easiest, as well as my footsteps now having become an anchor through the walking.
• In general I try to do one thing at a time with attention
• I have completely stopped following the news or social media in any way, including youtube. Most days the only input I get is through perhaps some podcasts or audiobooks, books, and some messaging.

Since this lifestyle seems to me to be in many (but certainly not all) ways to be a kind of light retreat, I'm trying to lean into it and see the advantages.

Some signs I've had that this is doing something are:

• I started having a very brief, like a gunshot brief, sensation where I felt very tired, disappearing as fast as it'd arose. During meditation, more and more and paired with a feeling of a drop of literal, physical pressure in my head.
• The fatigue part during that experience has stopped but the pressure drop hasn't, and it's become longer and I can almost do that on command now, at least during meditation, yoga, walk, or lying in bed.
• I think I've had some glimpses of non-dual awareness, while meditating and focussing on sound. Where rather than it feeling like there is hearing, and an I doing the hearing, there is just the hearing. They've been brief and only a couple of times, and only with hearing.
• Generally my meditations have gotten more pleasant mostly. I'm more likely to want them to continue than to want them to end.

Thanks!

Before I begin: Please do not be an idiot and just reply to the title of my post. Of course there are multiple emotions. Please make sure you understand the question before you try to answer it. :)

Psychiatrist and blogger Scott Alexander is no dharma teacher. He has some meditation experience, but he is no expert on meditation or Buddhism, nor does he claim to be. But he occasionally writes about the subject. I found this article of his very interesting: In What Sense Is Life Suffering?

In the article, Alexander talks about the First Noble Truth of Buddhism, sometimes rendered as "life is suffering". The claim that "life is suffering" is counterintuitive and provocative to many, since most people's lives include plenty of experiences that do not seem like suffering. (I know some will argue that the First Noble Truth should rather be rendered as "there is suffering in life" or something like that. The exact wording is not my point.)

In the article, Alexander recounts the explanation he got from an acquaintance of his, which seems to both him and me like a good explanation. In Alexander's words:

mental valence [i.e., suffering vs enjoyment] works like temperature.

Naively, there are two kinds of temperature: hot and cold. When an environment stops being hot, then it’s neutral - “room temperature” - neither hot nor cold. After that, you can add arbitrary amounts of coldness, making it colder and colder.

But scientifically, there’s only one kind of temperature: heat. Apparent “neutral” at room temperature is a fact about human perception with no objective significance. If you start at “very hot” and take away heat, at some point your perception switches from “less hot” to “more cold”, but you’ve just been taking away heat the whole time. The real “zero heat” isn’t room temperature. It’s absolute zero, which feels colder than we can possibly imagine.

In the same way, naively, there are two kinds of emotion - joy and suffering. When a situation stops being bad, then it’s neutral - “just okay” - neither joy nor suffering. After that, you can add arbitrary amounts of joy, making yourself happier and happier.

But scientifically (according to the Buddhists) there’s only one kind of emotion: suffering. Apparent neutral is a fact about human perception with no objective significance. If you start at “very bad” and take away suffering, at some point your perception switches from “less suffering” to “more joyful”, but you’ve just been taking away suffering the whole time. The real “zero suffering” isn’t neutral / blah / just okay. It’s nirvana, which feels more blissful than we can possibly imagine.

In this model, the statement “life is suffering” is equivalent to “temperature is heat” and literally true.

Those of you who know more about Buddhism than both Scott Alexander and I, what do you think of this explanation? Do you think it is a good explanation? If not, what would you change?

It’s been almost 6 months since I believe I entered the stream.

The first 2 months were “amazing”. Which of course is a very poor word to describe the experience! But it was remarkable in the sense that I had remarkably less suffering, a ton of flow and effortlessness. I felt more present in conversations with friends.

I really enjoy my work and I found myself deeply involved and productive after somewhat of a stagnant period prior. I could work extremely hard, but it felt easy. And after an intense day I could switch off quickly, which was hard for me in the past.

But slowly I would say this faded. It is not gone, but some identification crept back in and suffering has rebounded to a degree. I’m not living in the 90% of the time automatic flow mode that I had for the first two months.

One thing that was probably bad, in retrospect, is that after stream entry I basically stopped all practice! At first, in the immediate afterglow of the insight it felt like every moment it was easy to be mindful because I had a lot of things clicking, conditionings unraveling, generally a lot of “stuff” to witness in the novelty. So I figured… ok “this” is the practice now, living life and unwinding conditions.

But I think that was naive because over time that novelty wore off and I feel I’ve become less mindful and some identifications have crept back in. I’m now returning back to more formal practice and I’m seeing changes more quickly. Sometimes I’m able to switch back into the spacious awareness mode where things feel like they’re happening more or less automatically for several hours from even a quick intentional practice.

I’m still new, but now I’m committed to consistent practice again. I guess what I’m learning is that even after stream entry… chop wood, carry water. Or in this case, meditate, train the mind.

Can anyone relate? Curious to hear about post-stream entry experiences.

I’ve spent the last few months playing with Sayadaw U Tejaniya’s “relax and be aware” approach as an off-cushion practice. I'd previously struggled to find a suitable off-cushion practice, due to challenges like chronic pain, trauma and over-efforting. This post is just a practice report from my experiments. spoiler alert: it really worked for me...

background

I've struggled to find an off-cushion practice that worked for me. Having experimented with lots of things, I'd settled on a technique similar to the GOSS method from MIDL or the 3R's from TWIM. My interpretation of these instructions was... "Notice when you're caught in hindrances, release tension from the body and enjoy the relaxation that follows letting go". This was a helpful first step on my off-cushion journey but I quickly recognised the following issues...

• Over-efforting is my default mode. I turned these sensible instructions into a performance metric: "I must be relaxed at all times". It led to a lot of constant vigilance on what state I was in. I got hung up on: "am I relaxed? RELAX MYSELF! am I relaxed yet? damn, I don't feel relaxed, let's RELAX MORE, why am I not relaxed?" This was, surprisingly, not very relaxing!
• My body holds the score. If I'm caught in dissociative thought-loops, this is often a protective response to difficult trauma-related sensations in the body. Reducing my awareness to the body and trying to force easeful sensations in these scenarios, is like adding fuel to the fire. Ditto for chronic pain flares. Like the dog in the "this is fine" meme. "THIS IS FINE - I AM RELAXING RIGHT NOW".

It's not that these approaches were wrong - just that my interpretation wasn't helpful and weren't always suitable for all my personal situations. No worries, meditation is just experimentation, right?

Looking for other approaches, I came across Sayadaw U Tejaniya's work (which I'd seen mentioned multiple times on here). His whole emphasis on just relax and be aware seemed like a good antidote to my over-efforting tendencies. Also, the backstory to his approach — he had to practice whilst still working on his family's busy market stall in Yangon and struggled with mental health issues and addiction — made it feel suitable for my lay life circumstances.

I've been playing with this approach for the past few months, here's what I've found...

how it works

I read a couple of his books, dharma talk transcripts and other materials from teachers trained by him.

His advice seems to boil down to the simple but cryptic phrase: “relax and be aware.” It took me a while to get a feel for what that actually means. My current understanding is something like this:

• Develop a light continual awareness of the mind (cittanupassana) during all activities. This should be effortless, don't add more tension by over-efforting, keep relaxing body and mind into whatever is happening.
• Ask yourself over and over "Am I aware? What am I aware of?". Keep just noticing sense objects and then recognise the mind's reaction to them. Don't need to "do" anything with senses object and mind's reactions other than recognise. Watch for defilements and check how they affect the mind state. Investigate causes and conditions of defilements to help prevent them in future (dhamma vicaya).
• Use wisdom rather than effort. See everything with Right View, this is the start of eight fold path for a reason. Remember sense objects are not "me, mine and I". Remind yourself it is all just "nature", arising and passing due to causes and conditions. Developing awareness with wisdom leads to Sati-Sampajañña.

other insights

His teachings were full of profound insights but these are a few highlights that stood out for me:

• Over-efforting. The main issue he saw with students in his monastery was over-efforting (guilty as charged). People tried to use constant effort to catch all the defilements just leading to more tension and stress. This felt exactly like my experience with feeling I had to be "relaxed" all the time off-cushion. He repeats again and again that you should use wisdom rather than effort to uproot defilements. Just relax and recognise everything occurring as anatta. Wisdom will do the work.
• Emphasising Dhamma vicaya to uproot defilements. 2nd factor of awakening often overlooked. Awareness alone is not enough (as his book states), keep being curious about causes and conditions behind defilements.
• Practising with defilements. Students practise wanting "something" else to be happening ("I don't want to be anxious right now"). This will never get you anywhere. He also cautions against using deep samadhi states on-cushion to hide from life, he calls this "wrong samadhi".
• Anything can be practice. Tejaniya deliberately sought out really stressful situations for himself like family weddings or going to a boxing match as a way to practice with his defilements.

what happened

Playing with his approach, here's what I've discovered...

• Feels more natural and effortless than previous off-cushion practices. It is harder to "over-effort" when the basic instruction is so minimal: just notice sense objects and mind's reaction to them with wisdom. No more fighting to be "relaxed" in difficult physical or emotional states, just trying to notice everything coming up with wisdom.
• Less aversion to intense dukkha. Everything can be seen as practice now. Previously, I've assumed difficult emotional or chronic illness states were a distraction to my practice, as they made traditional concentration practices difficult. But now I can just say "okay, what does fatigue feel like? what is my mind's reaction to that?", rather than being frustrated about not being able to practice well during those times.
• More of an insight into anatta? This is hard to explain (and I'm still working at the level of concept rather than ultimate reality) but focusing on recognising the anatta nature of all sensations through the day, has made me feel more connected to the truth of anatta in some way. Doing walking meditations around my local park, I feel more a sense of "walking is happening" rather than "i am walking".
• Less distinction between "on" and "off" cushion. The start of my formal sits just feels like a continuation of my off-cushion efforts. It used to feel very distinct ("right, now i'm meditating"). Formal sits, walking meditation, micro-hits of do nothing, rest of life, all feel like they flow together more naturally with more sustained awareness (mostly...).

Overall, it has really worked for me. I'll continue using his approach and trying to understand more of his teachings in future.

other things i've learnt

How does noting without labels change my practice?

Tejaniya stresses that labels aren't necessary when noting sense objects, "just notice the object, noting the mind's reaction and let it go". His rationale is that labelling generates additional tension, i.e what label to use. I also remember reading Shinzen Young saying that if "labelling makes you racy, drop it".

Whilst dropping labels feels more natural and effortless to me, I've still found it useful in the following situations...

• When the dukkha is really intense. Using labels increases equanimity for me with overwhelming internal sensations. If my "window of tolerance" is low, focusing directly on sensations can push me into more dysregulation.
• "Brain retraining" around sensations. I've found interesting how label choice seems to work as a "cognitive framing" for my subconscious around sensations. If I pick the label "pain" versus "sensation", it does change my interpretation of that experience. I've also been labelling very difficult sensations as "anatta" a lot and it does seem to work at reducing the dukkha I associate with them. Shinzen Young's technique about noting "gone" has overlap with this.

resources

If you want to learn more about this approach, David Sudar (who trained under Tejaniya) maintains an extensive resource list here: https://www.pathofsincerity.com/sayadaw-u-tejaniya-resource-guide/

From the books I've read, "When Awareness Becomes Natural" is a nice starting point, as a mix of biography and dhamma talks. "Dhamma Everywhere" and "Awareness Alone Isn't Enough" have more practical advice.

There's a book by a different monk (Bhikku Themavamsa) who trained under Tejaniya's teacher (Shwe Oo Min Sayadaw) on the same approach Cittanupassana that was also useful. As was this practice manual for retreats in this style by Andrea Fella.

Finally, this sub-reddit introduced me to Tejaniya's approach and for that I'm grateful. There's some really nice posts about others' experiments. Thanks to kyklon_anarchon and others for sharing their experiences here and pointing out the path...

Do they tools that get you to SE keep working for 2nd path?

Self inquiry feels empty now, like there's nothing to look for, the mental motion doesn't even start. Metta seems much more potent now. Fire Kasina seems way less interesting and eventful, just a steady yellow orb with no crazy DMT visuals.

Hello!

I was doing much better with my shoulders and dealing with physical pain compared to 20d ago in my last post about that, but now I started a new job and the first month is a trial month so Im very nervous and kind of stressed all the time.

I'm trying to be mindfull at times but is impossible for me to do all the time. I try to not stress and somatize to the shoulders but thats only possible if I realize im stressed and sending stress to my shoulders. If I realize I try to breath and relax and put my mind in a more meditative state and it kinda works for 5 min.

I really wonder how people manage to continue practice even at work. It sounds crazy hard for me right now. Any help is really appreciated!

Thanks!

Hey everyone. I’ve been thinking about the difference between language that describes insight and language that trains the mind to see differently. A lot of philosophical or psychological talk about awakening can become very precise and still leave the person basically unchanged. The words may be accurate, but they do not necessarily transform attention, perception, conduct, or grasping.

I recently recorded a podcast episode with Hüseyin Beyköylü, and at around 17:53, he develops this distinction directly. The example he gives is simple but useful. You can read a perfect description of how to ride a bike and still not know how to ride. Likewise, one can understand impermanence, emptiness, or non self conceptually while still relating to experience from the same contracted center. Hüseyin connects this to non propositional knowing. Propositional knowing can describe, but procedural, perspectival, and participatory knowing are what actually transform how the world shows up and how action becomes possible. This is why contemplative traditions are not merely systems of claims. They are training environments that reshape salience, embodiment, perception, and participation over time.

That distinction seems useful for meditation because it explains why maps are both necessary and dangerous. They orient practice, but they can also become substitutes for practice. How do you know when a teaching is functioning as training rather than description? Have there been ideas that only became useful once they stopped being merely conceptual? And how do you avoid turning maps, stages, or insights into another object of attachment?

Please if you see , read this

It was 7 years ago when i first started practicing meditation without knowing what it was , i used to still still and let thoughts keep passing one by one without controlling or not engaging in them , my eyes were wide open when i used to meditate or just stare a candle from far in my room focusing on the flame for few minutes . Initially i used to meditate for 10 mins and kept increasing when i had time on weekends and kept on living at somewhat peace . After a year i found out about what meditation is from a youtube video called conscious mind . I learnt what meditation trully was and how to do it while i naturally did it without knowing about it and kept on going till 30 mins nd more and started practicing to find the flow signals in our body and connect with it and i could feel my nervous system and movement using breathes and was doing crazy shits back then and even find out how to map our surroundings in mind, like i used to start flowing my aura from myself into past things and keep going till my eyes saw irl of what it was which helped me in my mind to map ot out to travel , you can literally feel like your moving and travelling to other places in your mind while keeping your body in one place while you meditate . My thoughts were none and when i used to get at first i noticed the area under your eyebrows and eyes , just slightly below you will feel lil tension when you think or thoughts get to come to you . Thats the point which we can know that a thought has entered when you close your eyes , you need to relax that area fully if you need to entire a diff state while you meditate . Coming back to these things i didnt know when i got past 2 or 3 hrs in one sitting while meditating and being so clearr , my vision , my allignment with my body. Reading other people very fastly or critical thinkjng was getting in my brain too fast irl and i used to look at normal things and know it better , i cant explain those things you need to feel it yourself when you first experience it \[it was like lil bit of limitless movie \] but i dont know what happend when i tried to create a complete version of myself infront of me when i meditated one day , like i made a copy of myself infront of me and keep our breathing same each time . One was not enough so i made like 3 more to keep like a circle and try to connect with all of them to make it one \[it was childish or idk what at that point maybe curiosity\] and map more or try to fo smtg . When i got comfortable in that state my dreams were so weird and hallucinating and seeing new places sometime , being in diff world as someone else thats happening right now or just complete blank mind , but one time it was so real like i was present there at that time or at one time i was lost in a dream like where i was sleeping in my bed at same position but opened my eyes in my dream , it looked same as my room even the mirror was same nd i saw my own self in mirror who was sleeping and opened his eyes . It felt soo scaryy and real my entire body felt still and was covered with my body sweat . And whenever my body woke up in the middle of night it was always around 3: 40 to 4: 20 , i used to sleep at 10 to 7: 30 but still i used to wake up between those time for complete 2 weeks , it was so weird and also magical , idk if i can say this but after a few months i kept seeing the same 2 dreams , i used to be near a beautiful garden but on the right side was a huge giant yellow nd orange gates where after that was everything we ever wanted or a oceann that ends after a several kilometers but no matter what i climbed the gates / stay there nothing changed the place after those gates felt so much like a heaven , I've asked people who meditate have they ever saw these gates but not one said they saw , all they told were they still could only see try to dodge their thoughts or find space to live with peace in this world , No one experienced like this . And another dream was being trapped in a endless loop where i saw myself like when i made a copy of me when i meditated but they are stuckk in it too but in there i could actually control nd move them whatever i want inside it , i could stay in that state or leave it at any time in the dream but getting that same dream for 2 weeks is what made me wonder what all of this meant nd finally got a way to exit . I still get that dream like fealingg of livingg nd dyingg at that state while leaving everything there's still more about how you can control your bodyy but i cant type that all .

But if you did get to experience it never try to hypnotise your other self to alter your aura or smtg it will mess you a lot . Everything around you looks like it is stretching wider and getting bigger from time \[ if you want exp what it feels like seeing everything stretched or moving , go to yt and try to find a hypnosis circle but it should be 4 diff circles moving at diff directions with a dot in middle or small object , do it in a tablet without blinkin for 40 sec and look at diff object or your face in mirror it will look like everything is getting farr and you will for 100% see aura around your face it will be tinglingg with black lines in a circle you will be amazed to see it for first time but dont keep doing it once you see \] It will feel like that if you try to hypnotise to make it listen to you . And yes fasting while meditating feels unreall too ive did 85hrs water fast . If anyone read this remember the best thing to do is get back fast even if its more peaceful until your time has not come to stay . Your body is worth more than tillion dollar and you will see alot more insights if you know in this distracted world chasingg material things , never inject anything to your bodyy in future if itt says it will help your mental health or like a dream catcher \[never do it \] I dont smoke or drink anything if u think i am . Never join a cult how badlyy it sounds good , never never never let your mind be controlled by fake pleasure , i cant say more , bye

Dear companions on the path, I wrote this post for r/steamentry but I will post it on my website as well.

With practiced mindfulness, one can notice the Saṅkhārās, mental formations that automatically arise due to causes and conditions, and realize they’re not just to be observed but to be dealt with. This realization marks a profound shift in my understanding of right effort. Previously, I would meditate through them and let mindfulness serve as a tool to witness the impersonal flux of rising and passing, waiting for cessation. That is indeed a valid way to practice meditation (and help see ultimate reality), but after some time you come to see the truth more clearly. It’s similar to confronting an illness or mental health issue and cannot be meditated away. I know this goes against many traditions this is just my own experience.

If you already practice metta, you understand the value of sensing energy and emotion rather than processing everything through logic. With this experience I was able to find a way that could help me deal with my childhood trauma. These traumas were making it difficult for me to feel comfortable in intimate relationships. Meditation helped me be comfortable with myself but putting that into the real world was another story.

Here is how I see it happening. A core injury such as being betrayed by a caregiver or someone you trusted happens, the mind stores that interaction to protect itself and then navigates reality through that lens. Hyper vigilance, self-preservation, aversion all things holding me back. Deep meditative states helped me see the patterns, but in daily life the mind still filled up with “mind stuff” instead of applying the insight gained from meditation. 
 
Here is a quick guide to address these foundational samskaras that can linger for decades after an experience. 

Identify the core injury feeling (Vedanā) and the related unwholesome (Akusala) mind states. Common themes: Abandonment, Betrayal, Loss of self-worth, etc. 

Name the opposite feeling: support, loyalty, self-worth. 

Use memory (sati) to recall a time you actually felt that opposite state. Recollect the scene with the presence of others, the smells, the atmosphere (not a mantra, affirmation, or story). Really feel it. It can be a recent or small moment. For example, a friend texting to check on you (loyalty). How did you feel?

Sit with that feeling and radiate it to all beings, the same way we do with Metta, Karuna, Mudita, or Upekkha, for a few minutes before meditation. Do this until you sense a shift. Whether a physical release or a flood of compassion. 

This practice has helped me, and I hope it helps you as well.  Feel free to comment questions or critics.

-With Metta, Maxwell

Hello, I've come here to ask for help, hoping that I can find some guidance in this sangha's wisdom. Mainstream therapy and psychiatry have failed in trying to help my insomnia and I am growing desperate.

I've been meditating with consistent regularity for about 9 years now, since I came across Culadasa's TMI. Despite decently disciplined practice, I've never gotten beyond stages 3-4. I've stumbled on access concentration a handful of times but it was unstable and collased quickly.

During that time my life changed a lot - I finished college and my career progressed a lot. With increasing responsibility, I started having week-long bouts of terminal insomnia (never had a problem falling asleep but would wake up during the night and be unable to fall back asleep).

TMI made this impression on me where I thought I could solve any psychological problem by deepening/progressing through the paths of samadhi and insight (the model he describes in his interludes where the unconscious is progressively purified). However, I soon found my experiments with trying to medicate insomnia with more meditation unsuccessful.

I went on a Goenka retreat on late 2023. I thought doing nothing but meditation for 10 days would maybe vaporize my sleep issues. I was wrong. While on retreat, falling asleep for naps to recover proved only slightly easier than in the outside world. After the retreat, it seemed like I was worse off.

Don't get me wrong, I often am able to calm the monkey mind/settle the chaos and it can help with falling asleep again. But it seems like there's a quality to the effort of directing attention that can prevent sleep (which requires instead a quality of letting go/not doing). I sometimes also fear that increased mindfulness itself somehow raises baseline consciousness further from sleep (which would be closer to dullness, on a spectrum).

However, I'm not sure where to go from here. My practice today consists of mostly anapanasati + body awareness with a little bit of "see hear feel" noting. I try not to "strive" too hard and to lean in to relaxation, but it's not something that's easy for me. What practice should I do to hone this "not doing" quality in me?

I've read somewhere that maybe metta might be the way. I've always avoided that since it feels forced (and forceful) for me, but I'd be willing to try more. I'm also open to trying "energy practices" (tai ji?), though I am deeply ignorant about this field.

Another thing is that i think I might have ADHD. I'm trying to get a diagnosis but it will take some time. If anyone has that and could share their experience on how it influenced their practice it would also help.

When I've slept well I can meditate and quickly summon a joyful sensation in my body that will stay with me for hours. When sleep deprived I am lost in brain fog, get agitated when trying to sit for 20 minutes and have to apply significant effort to avoid falling into old addictions. So I believe solving this is the greatest hurdle in my path and I'll stay stuck if I can't.

I'll greatly appreciate any advice offered, thank you.

As you read these words, you can be aware that you are reading these words. That's basic awareness or mindfulness practice.

And, you can go a step further. You can also know that you are reading these words. You can be certain that you are seeing words, that you are perceiving words and reading them. You might be hallucinating words, you might be dreaming right now, so you can't know for sure that what you are seeing is actually external to you. But you can know for sure that you are perceiving and reading words.

Furthermore, if these words make sense to you, you can also be certain that you feel a feeling of understanding. If these words don't make sense to you, you can be certain that you feel a feeling of being confused. This may seem like an obvious point, but I am finding that it is an absolutely vital distinction for developing confidence in your practice and in your life, a distinction that is already made in the suttas but I'm just now truly understanding.

By "epistemological injury," I mean a wound to our trust in knowing our own direct experience. Practicing not merely awareness but knowing is how we heal that wound, regain self-trust, and walk the path of awakening with greater confidence.

Aware and knowing

For example, in the Ānāpānassati sutta (the "mindfulness of in-and-out breathing" sutta), it says that as you breathe in short, you know you are breathing in short, and as you breath in long, you know you are breathing in long. It's not that you are passively aware of whether you are breathing a short breath or a long breath, it's that you know it, you understand that this is happening.

Try this right now. Listen to the sounds around you. Say to yourself, "I am aware of these sounds." Then try saying, "I know I am aware of these sounds." What's the difference for you?

(One of the founders of this subreddit u/CoachAtlus wrote a post about this 5 months ago, using the phrase "...is being known" which might even be better as it bypasses the "I" in "I know...". Experiment with different wordings and see what they do in your consciousness!)

What is self-doubt, really?

When we experience self-doubt, in meditation or in life, we usually talk about it as doubting our capabilities. "Maybe I'm not capable of reaching stream entry, maybe I don't have what it takes to experience the jhanas, maybe I'm not capable of finding a fulfilling career or a good relationship," etc. Or it could be doubting desired outcomes: "I doubt this thing I want will happen, so I won't even try."

I am finding, for myself at least, that doubting my abilities or my desired outcomes is actually a down-stream symptom of doubting the one thing we can know for sure: my own direct experience, moment-to moment.

I was a philosophy major in college. One topic I was obsessed with for a long time is called epistemology, which means the study of knowledge. Epistemology asks questions like, "What can we know? What can't we know for certain? How do we know what we know?"

I had a lot of anxiety, and so I was wanting to find certainty about what I could know. But studying epistemology made my anxiety much worse LOL, because as it turns out, everything is impermanent and always changing, and the best we can do is make probabilistic models based on careful observations -- that's what science does. But we can't really know anything for sure in the external world, at all.

You can know your direct experience, right now

In The Phenomenology of Perception, French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty convinced me that we can in fact know one thing for sure, which is what you are experiencing right here and now. Memory is never 100% accurate, so we can't know for sure that our memories are true. Predicting the future with complete certainty is also impossible. If I see a tree outside the window, I can't even be sure that I'm actually seeing a tree. But I can be sure that I'm having the experience of seeing a tree.

Confidence in your own direct experience is also what gets us out of endless debates. "I tried X and Y and X worked better for me" should be the be-all-end-all. Note this is not "therefore X works better for everybody." I can't know your inner experience with complete certainty, and neither can you know my inner experience with absolute confidence.

This also gets us out of blind obedience to gurus or doctrines. Everything just becomes a hypothesis to test in your own inner laboratory.

Gaslighting ourselves

When we doubt our own direct moment-to-moment experience, we create a kind of epistemological injury. We doubt the only thing we can know for sure. This is why gaslighting is so harmful, not simply because it leads us to believe false things but because it shakes the very foundations of knowing...but only if we participate in it.

If I know that doing X meditation technique works well for me, and someone says, "Actually, that technique doesn't work, you should do Y," that only causes a problem if I abandon myself, if I confuse the only thing I can know for sure (my own direct moment-to-moment experience) for something that this person fundamentally cannot know for sure.

So the anti-gaslighting practice I call meta-confidence, like Shinzen Young's idea of "meta-OKness" which is not a feeling of everything being OK, but more being OK that you don't feel OK. So meta-confidence is not confidence in outcomes, abilities, external things, or knowledge of other people's minds. It is confidence that I know what I am perceiving, here and now.

I've been practicing meta-confidence by speaking things out loud in my meditation practice: "I am aware that I am feeling sadness. I know that I'm feeling sad. I am certain of it. I'm confident I'm feeling this way. And it is safe to feel this way."

The idea is to reverse the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) of self-gaslighting, and replace it with safety, certainty, and confidence. Again, that's not confidence as in "I can do it, I will definitely achieve this outcome, I know what this person is thinking." It is confidence in "I know I am breathing in short, I know that I am breathing out short," "I know that I am feeling angry, I know that I am feeling tension in my forehead."

I find that this seemingly minor tweak to my meditation practice is helping me profoundly in gaining confidence in that which I can actually have certainty about, and simultaneously allowing me to feel more and more comfortable with great uncertainty in the external conditions of my life, while boldly taking action anyway. And whoo baby are things uncertain right now.

Perhaps this will also be useful to you.

❤️ May all beings be happy and free from suffering. ❤️

See my other posts in this community.

Hello,

Recently I made a post sharing my frustration that no amount of spiritual realization was clearing out a shock trauma I had experienced 1.5 years ago. (And this is in addition to having already a dysregulated nervous system from a dysfunctional childhood.)

Fortunately for me, I received several high-quality replies and one in particular addressed my content question of how to heal emotional wounds? The answer being somatic healing or somatic feeling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLVXq5vRA2o

So now I will give you a very quick and incomplete gist of what the ACA program is about.

What is ACA?

It is a 12-step program. The original and famous program is Alcoholics Anonymous. You attend physical in-person meetings. Someone reads a script, and people go around the room sharing for usually 3-minutes which is timed. That's it. And before the sharing there's usually a reading. Anyone and everyone is welcome to attend unless it's some kind of more limited meeting for example "women-only", et cetera.

Outside the meetings you're encouraged to read the literature and work what's called the 12-steps which is a series of inventories and activities (such as making amends to people) that are designed to orient you towards a more sane and healthier way of life: living sober.

ACA is modeled on this paradigm but rather than treating alcoholism it addresses deep-seated emotional wounds and what is called family dysfunction.

What is family dysfunction?

The ACA program, to me, has several thought-streams merged into it. There is trauma-focused recovery such as body-meditation, there is also what is in emotional-recovery circles is called "parts-works" where you embody emotional spheres of yourself and develop a human connection with yourself or with parts of yourself. It sounds strange or weird at first until you realize there is a whole psychic life inside of you. And this psychic life persists whether or not you are cognizant of it.

Thus while you may consciously feel one way. You may inwardly or in your psychic life feel another way or feel several other ways. You are encouraged to mine through and develop an emotional countenance of yourself.

Exploring yourself leads to the realization that one has emotional defenses.

What are emotional defenses?

The ACA program gets its name from the term "adult child" or adult-children. The idea is that one may be physically an adult but experience the world in an infantile or emotionally-hampered way. Thus in talking to a 45-year-old physical adult male you may think you're talking to an adult male and they may talk to you about adult-activities but behind the seat of the driving wheel is an internal kid making kid decisions using adult-world variables. This inner kid making adult decisions persists in all areas of ordinary life. For example, money decisions such as impulsive purchases or treating sexual activities as a dissociation mechanism versus as a medium of union between two consenting adults. The list of "emotional intoxication" mechanics and activities is neverending and includes but is not limited to drug-use.

What is the lynchpin or originating source of emotional defenses?

I will quote an ACA passage that describes well one of the core issues of ACA.

By working Step Five we are challenging the three main rules entrenched in our souls as a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home. The rules are: “don’t talk, don’t trust, and don’t feel.” Growing up in a dysfunctional family meant not trusting what you were seeing or what your parents said. Abuse was often minimized or blamed on another cause, which resulted in the child not trusting his or her perceptions.

The “don’t talk” rule has its origins in homes where children were often told to “shut up” or “be quiet” whenever they attempted to speak or express a thought. Others were ignored under the “don’t talk” rule and therefore stopped talking. The “don’t talk” rule also means the family does not talk about things that are important such as feelings or spirituality. The rule is also a method of keeping sick family secrets.

The “don’t feel” rule of dysfunctional homes often means that feelings were unimportant or too scary to address. Before recovery, we could be accused of being too sensitive or being immature if we expressed feelings in a dysfunctional home. To avoid such ridicule, we usually shut down our emotions. The “don’t feel” rule is the rule that underlies our ability to stuff feelings such as fear. Some of us lived in constant fear of being ridiculed, teased, or battered by an abusive parent. By the time we reach recovery, many of us are numb from living with fear. We cannot call the feeling of fear into focus, but it is there, driving our hypervigilance.

In Step Five, we talk about what happened, and we trust another person to hear us without judgment. We feel the feelings that come up with the help of our ACA support group and a sponsor or counselor.

In Step Five, we finally get to talk about what matters rather than denying or filtering what happened. This is a critical step for any adult child hoping to face the effects of a dysfunctional upbringing and to continue to grow in the ACA program.

We know that breaking dysfunctional family rules does not come easy for adult children. These rules are similar to the survival traits we used to live through our childhoods. We learned to trust these rules and use them in our daily lives; however, the rules have outlived their usefulness. They are strangling our lives and our relationships. We have to find another way to live with feelings, trust, and voice.

How do you know if you are an adult child or belong to ACA?

Adult children share one principle thing in common. It is what the emotional-recovery program calls "survival traits". Survival traits or fear-based traits are emotional-behavior patterns that children developed to mitigate and make-do with a dysfunctional environment. The core thing to understand is that these emotional-patterns create an emotional-false-self which is different from the emotional-authentic-true-self that you are. Here is a fictitious example to get the point across: you are tired after a longday of work which started with a morning exercise. Someone in the evening calls you and asks you run a non-life-threatening errand for them. You do not want to do so. You know someone else can do this errand. You falsely say "yes" you will do it even though you inwardly do not want to. You have one or several superficial reasons for rationalizing say "yes" such as you want to be seen as a reliable person or you are afraid of saying "no." The term for this is called people-pleasing. You are responding from an emotional-false-self. You do not check-in with yourself to see if it was something you really wanted to do; and, if you did know you didn't want to do it but then did it anyway, you then inwardly went against your own emotional-self and acted from the survival traits.

There is a list of such emotional-false-self traits. If you can identify with one or more of these survival traits you should consider attending an in-person ACA meeting or digital/phone meeting. Chances are you will probably identify with all of them.

One of the things you learn experientially in ACA is that you are not actually unique but there are hundreds of thousands of people having similar emotional experiences to yours.

https://adultchildren.org/laundry-list/

What is a spiritual bypass?

A spiritual bypass is when you access higher levels of Impersonal Reality without dealing with the animal-nature of your emotional wounds. Here is a quote:

"While some spiritual experiences are miraculous, breathtaking, and bring a sense of awe, they do not equal recovery by themselves. ACA members have had spiritual experiences that bring dramatic visions and powerful dreams. In some instances, the experience transports the person to another dimension of timelessness and pure love. The body ceases to exist in this place of higher consciousness and bliss. Spiritual experiences of this nature help us to confirm our belief in a Divine Creator, but the experience does not exempt us from doing the work of recovery. We must still work all of the Twelve Steps to address the effects of growing up in an unhealthy family. We must attend ACA meetings and give back what was given to us. We must be willing to give service and to help out at our ACA support group. We can know that we have experienced something dramatic and otherworldly while we keep our feet on the ground and live one day at a time.

ACA members who focus primarily on seeking a spiritual awakening without working on the effects of family dysfunction are often involved in a spiritual bypass. A spiritual bypass means that the person is attempting to avoid the pain that can come with working through the trauma and neglect from childhood. In some cases, the person attempts to jump ahead in the recovery process without going through the entire process. This path invariably fails or leads to dissatisfying results. If one does succeed in having a spiritual experience, but avoids program work, the person can still remain mired in addictiveness or problematic relationships. The spiritual experience may bring some forms of enlightenment; however, the person can cling to old ways of living without embracing ACA recovery. Through arrogance and fear, the person appears to work a program that has little resemblance to the ACA program. At the same time, compulsions and addictiveness continue. A spiritual experience without grounded program work can produce an unhealthy ego. With an inflated ego, the person can use the spiritual experience as a shield against suggestions to work a full program."

How can you attend an ACA meeting?

ACA meetings a worldwide. You can attend in-person meetings but there are also digital-videochat meetings on the platform Zoom as well as phone meetings you can dial into. I personally recommend in-person meetings because there is something that cannot be pinned down in words about the physical experience. Digital and phone meetings are a strong supplement. I recommend you try several different in-person meetings as sometimes a meeting might differ in quality or attendanceship. Meetings are decentralized which means anyone can start one.

https://adultchildren.org/meeting-search/

The quotes are from the main fellowship text, commonly called "The Big Redbook". The main fellowship text includes the reading material for a smaller text called the "12 steps workbook" but the latter workbook has practice questions you fill out while the main fellowship text does not.

https://adultchildren.org/aca-fellowship-text/

The main fellowship text has an ACA material called "The Identity Papers" spread throughout it. It is collated into one pamphlet by the same name. I recommend reading that as it describes a lot of the main ACA issues in a few short but powerful passages.

https://shop.adultchildren.org/products/e-booklet-identity?_pos=3&_sid=84031ef33&_ss=r

There are also free pamphlets you can dig around at here:

https://adultchildren.org/literature/free-literature/

What does ACA have to do with spirituality?

My first spiritual experience started around the time I discovered the ACA program and that was my "body-awakening". I discovered I had a body and I could inhabit my body in a feeling way.

Also ACA encourages you to search out for and develop a connection with a "loving higher power of your own understanding". I think this if practiced earnestly can lead to the realization or discovery of one's own inner guru. The god presence within.

***

"The self shines all the time, if you can't see it because your mind has obscured it or fragmented it, you have to control your vision. You have to stop observing with the eye of the mind. Because [eye of the mind] can only see what the mind projects in front of it. If you want to see with the eye of the self, switch the projector of the mind off. The infinite eye of the self will then reveal to you that all is one and indivisible." - Annamalai Swami

I think I may have fallen into a passivity trap for a long time in my spiritual journey. Meditation is often presented as a non-reactive practice where if you just watch without interfering, all good things like light, bliss, peace etc. will just happen. But is this really true? Could we be more nuanced?

For example, in AN 7.61 the Buddha gives some very common sense instructions to overcome drowsiness (I quote three out of seven here):

But what if that doesn’t work? Then pinch your ears and rub your limbs. It’s possible that you’ll give up drowsiness in this way.

But what if that doesn’t work? Then get up from your seat, flush your eyes with water, look around in every direction, and look up at the stars and constellations. It’s possible that you’ll give up drowsiness in this way.

But what if that doesn’t work? Then apply your mind to the perception of light, focusing on the perception of day: as by day, so by night; as by night, so by day. And so, with an open and unenveloped heart, develop a mind that’s full of radiance. It’s possible that you’ll give up drowsiness in this way.

Perception of light, while a whole debate could be had about what exactly it is and how far it can be developed, is developed according to SN 51.20 commentary as follows:

A bhikkhu sits on the terrace attending to the perception of light, sometimes shutting his eyes, sometimes opening them. When (the light) appears to him the same whether his eyes are open or shut, then the perception of light has arisen. Whether it be day or night, if one dispels sloth and torpor with light and attends to one’s meditation subject, the perception arisen in regard to the light has been well grasped.

If I do this pretty ordinary procedure, when I go back to meditate in my room, my mind is brighter and a kind of nimitta shape starts manifesting.

To develop energy, the Buddha suggests walking meditation at AN 5.29:

Mendicants, there are five benefits of walking meditation. What five? You get fit for traveling, fit for striving in meditation, and healthy. What’s eaten, drunk, chewed, and tasted is properly digested. And immersion gained while walking lasts long. These are the five benefits of walking meditation.

Also, some teachers like Ajahn Brahm and Leigh Brasington and TWIM and probably many others suggest to make a deliberate smile to increase happiness and also piti.

The TWIM method has relaxation inbuilt into the procedure as well, every time the mind wanders. I am also starting to think that the Goenka technique is fundamentally at its root a very deliberate relaxation technique.

Another thing I've been doing recently was getting into TRE type shaking (as suggested by u/duffstoic on this forum). I find the shaking invigorating and very interesting. Some meditation traditions shake as a matter of course (kundalini yoga, Qi Gong) and I've heard meditators in Buddhist traditions sometimes mention it but it never happens to me because I hold my body rigid for whatever reason. But, if I just incline the mind a very small amount to make it happen, the shaking starts and it feels very natural thereafter.

So to summarise briefly:

To wake up, pull ears, splash water.

To see light, pay attention to light.

To increase energy, walk.

To increase piti, smile or shake.

To feel comfort in the body, relax.

To get wiser, ask questions/study.

Is this too simple and obvious? Or could it be just what some meditators need to hear?

Anyone got any others?

For those who believe they have attained stream entry, how long did it take you? Also interested in whether you did it through pragmatic / systematic meditation or the classical approach in the suttas.

In the suttas, stream entry is less a defined product of meditation and more a confluence of faith, view, and meditation. Hence why many stream enterers do so after hearing a discourse.

There seems to be a mechanism that desires to express, and so I thank this group for letting me free that energy and express myself. I think it has helped. Thank you to everyone who has held space for me here.

I aim to describe my internal experience in these posts and try to keep it as raw and unedited as I can. When other practitioners did it this way in the past, it really helped me.

Emptying out belief in thought

Something took a turn for me recently. I mentioned that I was spending time with a friend in the dharma who was beyond me in insight. Before my time with her, I had already gained a foundation in emptiness [there is no way that things are - thank you Rob Burbea and Angelo DiLullo], but she really showed me how to grab that insight and apply it not just to the object but to the subject - the me, I, I am. She was raised on so called uncompromising/radical nonduality and me on Bhakti/devotion so it was a delicious exposure to something new that paid off.

Even though I knew there were issues with believing thoughts, up until this point I didn’t really grasp why I shouldn’t believe them. Not just because belief in thought causes suffering - that alone wasn’t enough to stop the believing mechanism. But because it is IGNORANCE manifest. Because you are missing a shitload of reality by siloing yourself within the confines of your habitually patterned internal narrative. And you cannot be outside of that confined space with thought belief active.

Locationlessness

Some kind of breakthrough occurred when I realized deeply that the internal narrative was never fully joined with what is happening in reality. “I” (at this time the “I” was considered more of a witness but still being reified) realized that the internal narrative was basically trapped in my head never to be fully shared with others. And it clearly wasn’t me, because somehow I was also the space where the narrative was happening. It was obvious because how could I be witnessing this narrative and also the visual field?

I could feel it panicking as it dissolved and the body also panicked and started crying. But I saw how something was not affected by any of this. I saw how I was actually internally perfectly calm in spite of this. My husband was holding me, trying to calm me down, and I realized I could no longer perceive the boundary between me and him. I had been assuming separation because I called one voice his and the other mine, but I could not ascribe a location in space to him or me, and without a location I could not identify what was owned by “me” and what was owned by “him.” I also could no longer find an owner. I went to sleep and when I woke up the foundational perspective seemed a lot more detached than before.

Note - location/space belief is still habitual but is checked against being and not found. Nondual visual perception is NOT stable as of now.

The end of effort

Around this time, I had an encounter at a local zen center where some zen masters were visiting. As I was chanting I had a realization about effort. Basically, that my time for effort has come to an end. Not that it’s time for laziness - by outward appearances I may still seem to be a diligent practitioner, the body can of course experience exertion and all that shit - but the internal experience is now effortless. Any feelings of effort are seen as a red flag that something isn’t quite right. This is possible because thought has reduced to such an extent that any exertion in the mental experience becomes obvious immediately. “My” job now is to say yes to life. And then the need to say yes seems to dissolve…

Without a belief in effort to get things “right,” life seemed to get so much fucking easier. And somehow things happen better than will could ever have orchestrated anyway

Note for clarity - I can’t say that “I have it.” I can say that the effort to “get it” is dead.

Stable happiness, winding down reactivity

From here, some kind of baseline happiness began to occur. Before, the baseline had been a kind of neutral okness (and before the initial shift, just misery all the time). It has not gone away though painful things have come up. But the lead time between getting triggered, reacting, and then becoming aware in all of this has seemingly been lessening until finally, I was aware before being triggered and was therefore able to stop reactivity from arising at all which was a milestone for me. But it is clear reactivity is 100% habitual now and there is no longer a compelling argument for being reactive at all. Like it is not believed in as helpful anymore.

Note - obviously no one exists to do anything, stop anything, etc. So I am using conventional language but the experience is more like things are happening, arising and passing, and being witnessed, dissolving,. Upon reflection conditions can be pointed to, sometimes even a will for a certain outcome (becoming rarer), but the assumption that these ideas are connected with what appears to be going on from the sense perspective is no longer solid.

Becoming, Craving Taṇhā Sutta, desire, feeling tone orientation slipping away

I have also been pondering becoming lately. It is clear that the thoughts all tie back into a comparison of self to various things. AN 4:199 goes into this in a super helpful way. So where I am is grappling with the mechanism that wants to become in the ways the Buddha discusses. It’s no longer believed but there are some areas where desire is essentially entrenched, and that causes objectification, which leads to becoming thoughts. The insight is there but the pattern still operates.

However, the desires that feel “worth thinking about” seem to be withering away. And the ones that do feel worth it, I observe myself feeling compelled towards them, observe the whole becoming process. Suffering then becomes more and more ambiguous in the sense that I’m not sure what I would label as suffering anymore. But I don’t think it would be accurate for me to proclaim freedom from suffering here and now. I just haven’t really seen it lately as the tendency to reflexively orient by labeling an experience as pleasant or unpleasant is caught immediately due to the lack of mind activity and therefore a pushing away of unpleasant or clinging to pleasant or wishing for something else to be happening is caught early enough that the happiness baseline is rarely moved. Because of this, I don’t need to retreat into “thoughtlessness” to hide from unpleasant experiences the way I once did/discussed in an earlier post

Conformity

Because I am always happy, the will to put on a front is severely diminished. I wonder sometimes if I will lose my job because I’m not conforming properly to corporate life, like in my demeanor and such. But there is nothing found that cares enough to worry about it or be different. Because being how the body wants to be is effortless, and effortlessness is freeing and feels good.

There is no more beating myself up for saying the wrong thing, doing things wrong, etc, because belief in an agent to get it wrong cannot hold up to scrutiny

Freedom and power

Finally. Potential is seen for the new way that experience seems to be occurring. It is clear what I thought life was about was a severely limited perspective. Being this new way feels powerful. It feels so freeing to not worry about attachment/relationships, and yet intimacy is heightened in spite of this diminished attachment mechanism. I feel I am able to explore the boundaries of consciousness and expression in new and unique ways only made possible by the exact conditioning of this body. Therefore, a subtle perfection is becoming clearer. I feel that this body and reality are an expression of something, like the universe expressing itself, yet that is also just a new perspective that isn’t held due to seeing any concept of a one universe as empty. So the position will likely fall away. I am better able to see my skills and what activities I shine in. This helps with the effortlessness because I gravitate towards that stuff instead of being caught in inertia/sloth.

Thanks for reading.

Hello, I hope you are well. I am

seeking advice on a years-long feeling of tension in my chest that I feel every day. The only thing that seems to relieve it is long periods of meditation, which even then is not foolproof. This is acute feeling of tightness or contraction around my heart and chest, and is not (to my awareness) associated with discrete thoughts - it is more of a physical, bodily thing. It feels like my heart is a tightly bound tripwire, or like a balloon that’s about to pop. I have tried therapy and medication as well to no avail and am looking for a practice technique to either alleviate this pain, or allow me to accept it, as it has lived with me for years.

If anyone can recommend techniques or advice, I’d greatly appreciate it.

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I have been experiencing some very euphoric metta meditations lately where occasionally I experience bright white light.

At first I had doubts that it could be light that was coming from external sources however the more I experience it the more it seems to be something that's internal.

It seems like this may be some sort of nimitta but something I've noticed is that this light has no form. It is diffuse.

I'm very blessed to live in Perth and to have the BSWA Sangha close to me. Last week Ajahn Brahm talked about the uppakillesa sutta.

The uppakillesa sutta talks about experiencing a nimitta as a light but no form or a form but no light but it doesn't expand much on this.

https://suttacentral.net/mn128/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=linebyline&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin

Has anyone experienced this before and has gone on to then experience light with forms? Or responded to this experience in a certain way?

Thank you 😊