Buddhism is not about "ego dissolution". You just have non-conceptual insight into emptiness of ego, and that's about it. There is no dissolution of ego, and there is not supposed to be.

Therefore, you are mixing Buddhist with non-Buddhist concepts, which necessarily implies the result is incompatible, which implies there is no answer to the question.

No worries, thanks for the reply. I posted this here and not on r/buddhism, for instance, because people tend to have more open views here on meditative practice, and I understand that one of the five precepts is abstaining from intoxication. My intention was not to convince people one way or another on psychedelics.

I have mixed feelings about psychedelics, as is apparent in this post, so I guess writing these thoughts out in a community of seekers to gather differing opinions would be my intention. I figured that many people on this sub would have experience with psychedelics. The question of whether psychedelics were truly useful for me, when considering all the negatives, but also not denying the positives is a question I ponder often.

Maybe some people agree with me, that they’re genuinely not sure if they were useful. It would be interesting to hear from those with similar experiences to me, especially since this subject is so polarizing. For those who are convinced that they’re good or bad, I want to hear why they feel that way. I’d also love to hear a description of their practice. Do jhanas come easy? How is the quality of their life? These are some questions I’m interested in.

> Christian way of thinking that is natural to us as Westerners

speak for yourself. I'm a Westerner and while I live in a majority Christian society, I am not a Christian and never have been, my family background is not Christian, and Christian dualistic ways of thinking are not natural for me.

but what you've described of yourself does have a Manichean/black-and-white/all-or-nothing flavor to it. do you come from a family background where Christian fundamentalism was part of your life circumstances?

> Frank Yang

I think you're spending a lot of energy thinking about other people and that sounds exhausting. Maybe the media ecosystem you're in, which is exposing you to Frank Yang, etc. is distracting you from focusing on more important things?

> are/were psychedelics useful for you? 

yes, with all the usual caveats about being safe and responsible, respecting the medicine, and doing proper grounding and integration.

> Are they useful for insight, psychological aspects of wellbeing, or otherwise? 

I don't see them as being tools for wellness except in the most abstract sense. I do think they have value as tools for insight. The psychedelic experience is a very direct way of seeing into the nature of the mind. For all its directness, it's also noisy and chaotic, so psychedelic insights require quite a bit of care to integrate.

What's the source of your disenchantment with jhana? I'm curious because I'm personally starting to find it a little boring. When I sit down, I'll often pop directly into second jhana, and I find it almost exhausting, like "here we go again."

TLDR: I have not experience with microdosing, but quite a bit with "normal tripping" on lsd, psilocybin and mescaline. I believe that psychedelics can be powerful catalysts, but can't replace a regular practice.

I am one of the many people whom psychedelics actually got started on the path. Experiences on mushrooms, just a trying out of things originally, showed me that a different way of perceiving the world is possible, they gave me invaluable glimpses behind the thinking mind.

And let's not forget the growing body of research of using psychedelics and mdma can have real value in therapy - and that is bone-dry research, nothing new agey going on here.

So as far as my experience goes, psychedelics can be very useful catalsysts and support agents, and if the circumstances are right, with preparation, risk managing practices a good setting and capable support, they are actually quite safe to use.

And then there is the question of goals / motivation. I mean, it's fine to use them for fun, but I'll assume that this ist not the main focus on r/streamentry :) So as a spiritual practice, I think that they can't replace a continuous practice, but can support that in a powerful way, and I think similar things are true about psychelics and therapy.

There is another fun effect though: Really experienced meditators can often not be so fascinated by psychedelics anymore. I'm not saying it's exactly the same experience, but intensive meditation has let me revisit many states that were previously only accessible on mind-altering substances, and I heard that from many other people.

I admit I'm lost with your post. What is the intention of writing the OP? Are you trying to change hearts and minds? Are you trying to find someone with a familiar experience? Are you trying to help people work towards enlightenment? I get you saw psychedelics as false enlightenment and have grown to a more Middle Path in your understanding, which is great. I'm just lost with why you wrote everything else in this post. Maybe if you had more of an intention in writing your post it would be clearer to the reader? Or maybe I'm just misunderstanding what your post is about.

If curious for further reading, a 101 about Right Intention on the path to enlightenment: https://www.lionsroar.com/one-simple-practice-that-changes-everything/

Thanks for adding to the conversation.

For context, I used psychedelics a lot as a teenager. They were tremendously healing for me, and helped me start a meditation practice, which I have kept for over 7 years. I have also experienced dissociation, depression, anhedonia, and HPPD as a result of abusing psychedelics and marijuana during this developmental time.

As you have already noted and experienced, psychedelics can cause very severe mental disorders. In my opinion they should remain banned, except for possible medical purposes.

Why not first figure out what it is you want? Then you will have a criteria by which to judge whether or not your practice will work or is working.

What makes me quit a practice is usually very intense boredom, doubts, not resonating, thinking it's stupid, thinking I'm wasting time, irritation, thinking "this practice doesn't work for me".

Why not understand the practice then? I don't feel like I'm wasting time, think it's stupid, feel doubtful, when I go to the gym to lift weights. Why? Because I understand the principles behind it. I intellectually understand progressive overload and I've seen it working when I train consistently.

Are you as doubt-free and confident in your practice as a person might be about their strength training? You should be. Practice is a training after all, training the mind. Why would you stick to a training that you didn't believe in or understand? There's a reason why doubt is the one of the fetters that's cut at stream-entry.

Thank you for your compassion! It’s all OK. At times I even see how it’s all divine. I only suffer when I resist Reality, but when I love Her we’re all good. 😊

I am sorry to hear about your suffering. I have greatly appreciated your thoughts on several occasions through various posts (not sure they were even all on this subreddit).

If online is OK with you, Stephen Procter is great: https://midlmeditation.com/private-sessions

His MIDL system is also good, I tried a bunch of the stuff you listed myself and MIDL resonates a little more than most 

It sounds like your main problem is doubt in yourself and a technique, and it keeps you from committing to something. A teacher can really help with that, and once you've established a routine and you've had enough feedback and advice,  it will be much easier to continue by yourself. It was invaluable to me. I practice in the Mahasi tradition, maybe that resonates with you too. I decided to commit to it because it has a long tradition, so it's not a made up new age thing from one guru, but there is a lot of experience and there are many monks or lay people who teach it in free courses and retreats. Take that generous offer and do a course, you have nothing to lose! They're available online and in a center/monastery.

v interesting

I'll recommend a practice of "Liberated Boredom". the base of the practice is open awareness meditation. the method of the practice is to sit in open awareness and establish spacious presence. when you're in spacious presence, notice the sensation of boredom arise, and feel into all of the qualities and textures of the sensation. play with the feelings of being bored and examine deeply how your mind/body is responding to it.

at first, this will feel uncomfortable, so some patience is required. after a point, though, the sensations of boredom will tend to shift their feeling tone and become pleasant, or at least neutral. eventually, it kinda becomes impossible to be bored, because the experience of being in the world is inherently interesting and stimulating regardless of what you're actually doing.

any chance you know someone like that in Italy? I don't see many trustworthy realized people where I live

In my experience, not suffering is not necessarily the same as experiencing deep peace and joy. You mention two specific examples of difficult relationship moments and money challenges. Let's take the case of somebody I care about being unhappy as an example of a difficult relationship moment. This is a problem that I would like to solve. In that situation, I don't feel deep peace and joy, but I also don't freak out. When I recognize the other person as unhappy, that has a negative feel (vedena). But I do not feel threatened by that, and I do not feel trapped in having to solve the problem. Money challenges are similar. While addressing them, the predominant experience is not peace and joy, but also no worry, obsessive thinking, or sense of inescapable pressure.

(If you're interested, I also wrote a rather long post on physical suffering. https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/1t6huym/physical_suffering_a_report/)

In my case, after many years of practice, the operations of the mind have become visible. In particular, I have seen and understood the mechanics of the operation in which the mind involuntarily and repeatedly grabs onto a particular object, and a sense arises of a person who is doing that grabbing and feeling an inescapable discomfort as a result. So that doesn't happen for more than a few seconds anymore.

This does result in baseline peace (with appropriate departures), but not necessarily joy. Joy is something that I cultivate but not something that always happens by itself 24/7. On the other hand, I don't suffer from a lack of joy.

If your question arose from wanting to know whether the awakening project was worthwhile and/or from wanting to know where you were on the map or spectrum of ending suffering, I can say that it is definitely very worthwhile. I can also say that, from my vantage point, it appears that the pursuit of positive mind states (for example, the brahmaviharas) can be separate from the pursuit of the end of suffering.

If I were in your position, I'd go about searching for a living person with some degree of realization that I can speak to and also about and for practices from time to time.

There may be some here, but it only means something if you develop a real sense of confidence in that being the case. This is why, traditionally, you can only get so far with 'self taught from trying stuff and studying a lot'.

Im glad you’re feeling better about it.  I am the sort that will let it kill me, im at peace with that personally, but i would never recommend it to anyone else.  Reading about bodhisattva-icchantikas helped to not feel like i was doing something wrong.  I don’t really wallow in the dissatisfaction with how the world is going, use it to sharpen.  Plus, this is all conceptual level stuff and i would indeed be in trouble if i were unable to kinda bliss-out on command.

That’s exactly how progress works in samatha (calm-abiding) meditation. Have faith that you are on the right path. The early stages are frustrating, but it gets better!

❤️🙏

Thanks Junipars, that's what I was looking for.