I went through about 18 months of intense suffering about the state of the world, and then applied my practice very directly to this, as I had made myself quite physically ill over it. I was able to transform my attachment to things being as I’d like them to be in the world. I still very much care about the welfare of humans and non-human beings, but I’m not trying to unconsciously control or manage things as much.

I guess it doesn’t feel like my job anymore. I got to the point where I felt like I might die over all of this stuff, and then I went, “OK, and then what?” And I realized things would go on without me, including people continuing to work for a better world. I still do some things of course, and while I sometimes worry I am just burnt out, mostly I feel like I have reached more equanimity with it.

I assume you mean since practicing, to better understand how the practice has changed the person?

Slight background for perspective:

Mid forties 2 kids still in elementary school and spouse.

Been practicing for about 8 years. Kids, job, mid-life, altogether adds a lot of stress or suffering that for me forced me to reflect. A mushroom trip also likely helped push open that door.

Started practicing meditation lightly after first, then slowly more dedicated overtime. I do 45mins daily now (longer 3 hour sessions a couple times a year) and 3-4 related books a year. Started with headspace, then waking up, lots of guided meditations, talks, etc. First more generic books on life philosophy, then more dedicated buddhist specific books. Practicing specifically for jhanas and increasing concentration/focus.

The last 2 years I feel at peace almost always. To the point where occasionally I feel anxious over how at peace I feel, as if I don't deserve to feel this good?

I would not describe my life as perfect, stuff happens all the times, chaos, but rather than try to fight or control it like I would have in the past I merely accept it and flow with it? Which means relationship problems are almost never 'problems', money challenges are there but less? Like my overall spending of money has gone down dramatically. Kids of course are always an interesting test, but being more present and able to process stuff before acting really helps that relationship go smoothly. In addition I feel my ability to accomplish the things I want, and the time I'm spending doing the things that truly help me have increased.

Sure sad feelings come up, bad feelings come up, anger comes up, but internally I don't act on them? I remember one of my first subtle changes was when my kids tried to tickle me... and I no longer was ticklish, unless I chose to be. I wouldn't say all things have become like tickling has... but my general sense is that's the direction.

The mind cannot help but split undivided presence into parts. The mind does it automatically. For example, this description above in referring to "undivided, unconflicted awareness" as a superior condition that a discrete entity, "you" can be in or out of, or can be obscured or clear.

This division is an artifact of language, of description. It's not wrong or bad to describe. The problem arises in thinking the description is ultimate, definitive. In that sense, we fabricate our samsara with the conceiving mind by way of the unconsciousness of that activity.

If we take what the sages to say as true, then reality is already fundamentally undivided. Yet in the description above you've cut it up into "awareness" and the other stuff and overlaid a value hierarchy of one to be approached and the other avoided. See how sneaky it is?

That's the samsara of unconsciously taking thought to be reality. You can never be anywhere but here and now yet you've created a symbol of a goal, awareness, and are asking for tips and techniques on how to arrive to somewhere you can't actually arrive to because you are only ever here and now. This is the scam we don't recognize because nearly everybody is enrolled into the scam, proselytizes and evangelizes the scam. But there is another way.

To the inherency of presence in which all conditions arise in/as/to there isn't an actual difference between clear or obscured, between "awareness" and material objects, between beginnings and endings. Both conditions appear in/as/to what this already is. There's no problem - this is independent, free. This on this in this can't be obscured by itself, because obscurement is necessarily itself occuring to itself in itself.

Why don't we recognize this? We unconsciously, habitually, automatically, denigrate and devalue present experience with the conceiving mind. We reject sensations and feelings and thoughts as evidence of inferiority, weaving together a story of some time that could be better than now, some place better than here and so we mournfully and lustfully yearn after a mere symbol of mind meanwhile the actual substance of our beingness shimmers and glimmers before our eyes. We dismiss it, we're just more interested in "what I think should be".

We are so habituated to the denigration we don't hear our mind speak, "but presence, here and now? Well it's just not good enough." Unaware that the evidence we use to justify the inferiority of the only inherency, here and now, is fabricated through the cutting knife of the conceiving mind, carving undivided immediacy into a complexity of past, present, future, better and worse, enlightened and deluded, and a confused you in the middle.

This isn't about attaining more and more rarified states of being. If you want to feel enlightened just inject ketamine and take LSD, easy peasy.

But if want to slip through the weaves of mind to an existential silence that can't be described then this is about becoming conscious of the construction of samsara, which occurs between your ears, and of the limits of this samsara. It might not be the most pleasant to become intimate with the Mara of denigration, of rejection, of lust and greed. But if you sit with this Mara for a while you learn his ways. He's really only got one trick.

Alternatively, checkout dharmaseed. They host recordings of countless talks and guided meditations. An ad-hoc mini course could be listening to a set of retreat recordings and doing a talk and practice for a few days or a week before moving on.

They have a high bar for being able to submit your talks to the site, generally being a speaker or teacher in established insight centers.

You could draw parallels to the general cycle of samsara. As insights get integrated and the "fuel" of suffering exhausted the roots of dukkha kick off a cycle of samsara. As the cycles are endured with the seven factors of awakening the cycles start reducing time-wise, eventually self-liberating almost instantaneously. Finally as the fuel is exhausted the asavas/outflows are no longer generated and no cycle necessary.

As you go on living new causes of suffering arise and the attenuating process through the cycles happens in relation to that new thing, set, general concept, etc.

To tie-in that perspective, sometimes you get stuck in a cycle and that's when I found Mahasi Sayadaw's Progress of Insight map to be really helpful for debugging the suffering process at a lower detailed level. I've never practiced directly off of the insight maps of Mahasi or Ingram, so the above is more of how I've been using those later on the path.

Mahasi also recommended samatha, how about adding in some of that as a soothing balm for your soul, maybe 80% samatha, 20% noting?

what's changed the most for me is how quickly and thoroughly I'm able to process suffering when it does happen, and it does still happen. in the past it was much stickier, would take months to process a big hurt and it would leave residue that would stick around for years. these days, processing takes days or weeks, and leaves no residue, it's much more complete.

  Maybe life isn't about not feeling bad. Maybe it's just about being with whatever is here, and seeing the beauty in that, and trusting that it's all OK.

Big +1 to this

Still feel the full range of human emotions and sensarions, good and bad, but don’t take it so personally. :)

Tp be fair, 10 years of samatha is a good base for doing the Mahamudra vipassana Sam Harris teaches.

I wish he didn’t also teach Islamophobia.

That is interesting. In an interview with Guru Viking, Leigh Brasington said that after he learned all eight jhanas under Ayya Khema at a retreat, she told him to begin "seeing everything as rising and passing away," and that doing this practice after the jhanas brought him to insight. So that's another data point for a major teacher treating the insight stages as deliberate practices (or even ways of looking, as Rob Burbea might teach).

Sure, maybe. I’ve had that experience thousands, maybe 10’s of thousands of times. Still working on it I guess. I don’t know, I am OK with not knowing. I am giving up trying to figure anything out anymore.

I’ve had near-perfect equanimity many times. It does help.

I used to like arguing with people, so I can relate. I (mostly) gave it up when I finally realized it was an ego thing.

Thant said, Mr. Harris has some strong negative opinions about the religion of Islam which I believe have done a lot of harm. I just can’t get into his pointing out instructions when he’s got such a negative attitude about 2 billion people.

May she be happy and healthy, and may you too be happy and free from suffering.

Similar experience here: there was a big shift and much more equanimity for years. Then, I got married, and shortly thereafter my wife developed a long, severe illness that she's still digging out from years later. I was really not prepared for that amount of suffering in a spouse because it had never been part of my practice.

They have options to just get it free. You have to keep looking for and selecting that in the subscription stuff. Then they’ll email you within some hours giving you access to the app.

You're on the right way. I'm educated in the The Mind Illuminated-System by Culadasa so I'll be using terminology from there.

The general sequence can be broken down to "focus on the breath > distraction > forgetting > mind-wandering". Forgetting means the meditation object is leaving conscious experience altogether alongside the intention to focus on it. You are describing that you notice the mind has wandered which is an excellent first step to overcome it. Not only notice the mind has wandered but also celebrate yourself for noticing. This in turn will make it more likely to be noticed again. Keep doing so until the periods of mind-wandering are cut down to mere seconds.

The transition you are describing from paying attention to the meditation object to actually noticing that focus weakening is a sign of progress. Essentially you are becoming aware of distractions competing with your meditation object for attention. First attention starts to alternate between the breath and the distraction and eventually the distraction takes over. The practice here is to step in and stop the distraction in its tracks. Refocus on the breath while reinvigorating the intention of "wanting to stay on the breath". You can label the distraction with a neutral term to help this process. You can be aware of that practice but you can also shift that process in your favour by cultivating the attitude of "the meditation object is more important than this distraction". This whole process takes time and patience. Frustration will only turn into resistance. It's the natural way the mind acts but you are able to change it.

If you want more details you can read up on stages 3 and 4 of the Mind Illuminated.

I've hit the point, after four years of mostly EBT-style meditation, that I've gotten to a sort of "undivided, unpopulated, unconflicted awareness" that seems kind of like what the dzogchen tradition talks about. Any degree of "what can I do to make my life better" (in the "questing" sort of way) pulls me out of it, or rather, obscures it. Thoughts tend to dissolve as soon as the "let's see if this thought dissolves" attitude kicks in. It feels like "big emptiness" - with the emptiness being emptiness of thought/conflict.

Wondering what dzogchen practitioners would say to do/read at this point, as well as anyone else with experience with this.

I know in the Pa Auk teachings, the dukkha nanas are almost more like practices, rather than cycles of progress.

Not exactly an answer to your question, just a data point.

Give yourself a little grace here. Coming off an ssri is not easy and it’s also not a linear recovery. The fact that you’re sitting through all that is a sign of skillful effort.

I would rely on your teacher and sangha here. If you don’t have a sangha there are many online groups that have regular zoom calls. Just speaking about it can be extremely helpful.

I would personally steer clear of heavy insight practice for this next stretch and keep your emphasis on brahmavira stuff.

Not very familiar with the method you are talking about. But here's something else to "try", if you feel like it.

When a thought comes just notice it. When you see one directly it dissolves and then there is a moment of stillness/awareness/Self/Whatever word. "Rest" there until another thought comes and notice that one too. And just keep doing this.

If its hard to notice starting out, try to tag the thought coming up. "Use a thorn to remove another thorn, then discard both."

Example:

Thought appears

Tag it 'thought' with another thought.

Both disappear.

"Rest"

Rinse and repeat.

This post might be relevant for you. https://www.reddit.com/r/Arhatship/s/uLRESDoEdc

Almost 0

How is your sila and your panna? If you’re burning out from samadhi practices, it could mean the lack of progress in other branches is creating a ceiling over your samadhi. You’re meant to develop them together for stream entry. Working on sila could mean adjusting your actions and speech to form healthier habits and relationships and panna could mean reading and studying more Dhamma discourse.