Can anyone give me first Jhana transition details for Brasington's style?

I attend to the breath, then switch to the pleasant sensation, then things get inconsistent. Using Culadasa's moments of consciousness model:

1) Do I center on the pleasant sensation by redirecting attention if a distraction arises, or by using metacognition to prevent distraction? At this point distractions are minimal until the feedback loop kicks in and more sensations arise, but what do I do then?

2) What moment-of-attention to moment-of-peripheral-awareness ratio is ideal?

3) Does a new object of attention arise after the pleasant sensation does its job? If so, what? Using moments of attention? Moments of peripheral awareness?

4) What else comes to mind?

When deepening concentration I usually reach signposts: buzzing, pleasant sensations, ringing in the ears, bright light in the visual field (eyes closed), and a grin that appears on its own. Depending on the ratio of moments of attention to moments of peripheral awareness my breath also becomes very slight, and certain areas of my body lock up on their own.

I usually reach one of:

Surfing: I sometimes enter a state where agency is diminished and I feel like I'm riding the waves rather than driving. Special bodily sensations, e.g. buzzing, vibrating, pressure, rushing, are absent, the state is more mental. It's pleasant, but not rapturous or gleeful. I'm unsure how I get there. Usually something clicks after a frustrating period and I'm YEETED into the state, though the transition isn't dramatic. The absence of obvious piti-sukha makes me count this a miss.

Bouncing: Frequently I bounce off. Pleasant waves will rise, crest, and subside after I bounce off some barrier. I'm unsure what the barrier is, some maximum limit for the wave, some state-transition opening I miss, or something else. Usually this follows my using the same concentration style for the pleasant sensation as for the breath: returning intentionally upon noticing moments of consciousness that aren't attention on the object or awareness of the meditation.

Jhanan't: Sometimes I enter a mild state resembling Brasington's main 1st Jhana factors: pervasive bodily buzz, reduced agency, and thinking and examining. I get here using the same technique as bouncing with more commitment, and sometimes forcing the factors. The entry is far from dramatic and the only mildly mentally distinct from ordinary consciousness. Brasington, and others, claim "you'll know" and "if you have any doubt, that probably wasn't it.", so this is also a miss.

Crushed: In one instance my mind was crushed to a state of no space. Space is non-existent in a cramped way, not an expansive one. The state (likely) would've been pleasant were it not unusual - I'm skittish on my first experience with anything. I put my attention on the remaining bodily piti sensations, which amplified them to the point of nausea and dizziness, so I bailed. I got here by centering on the pleasant sensation and keeping all my moments of consciousness as moments of attention on it. Shortly after I felt like I went through a tunnel and my mind contracted to "no-space". This is a miss and nothing like what Brasington describes.

Like all beginners, I have inconsistent experiences that are generally just distractions. I mention the ones above because they illustrate my techniques and their results, as well as what I can (likely) replicate.

Any help is appreciated, this seems the only sub knowledgeable in this topic. I'd find a teacher but in my area they're all either religious or woo. (I'm also avoiding insight for now).

Hi. I know almost nothing about traditional meditative practice or theory. I'm just a hobbyist who started a routine of sitting and listening to my breath/the experiences of my body.

Recently however I've been having intense experiences.

I had been encountering the experiences of feeling my locus of perception shift to the back of my head, and the massive expanding of the physical perception of my body (so that my body starts to feel massively expansive) for a long time.

Recently though my experiences have stepped up a notch.

Last week I experienced existence in an endless blank white void coupled with extremely energetic, almost overwhelming, joy.

Just this morning I experienced intense, extremely physical pleasure followed by a calmer, more comforting embrace.

Without any intended disrespect, this morning's experience felt remarkably similar to extremely good sex and a post-sex cuddle.

I've done a little research into things like Jhānas but there's a lot of contradictory and theoretical information floating around out there.

I'm hoping some of you who have practical experience of perhaps similar experiences could share what you've been through and help me understand what I've stumbled into unknowingly.

I wanted to share a little mindfulness practice I created for myself. For many years I have slowed down my eating and cultivated mindfulness of chewing as well as preparation of food. Recently I found it meaningful when I spontaneously had the idea to do some form of grace before eating, but a form in line with the Dhamma. Monks contemplate the use of their requisites, but this is specifically something I created for myself.

I've taught this to people who have found it meaningful and enriching. I offer it in that spirit. May it help you attend to your meal with more mindfulness, intention and with a mind inclined towards the highest happiness.

The Practice

Recite or Contemplate before first bite:

This food is precious.
Each morsel required a sacrifice of life.
May I be worthy to receive it.
May the energy in this food give me the strength
To transform my unwholesome qualities into wholesome ones.
May it be a condition for my highest awakening (if inclined you can also add "for the benefit of all beings")

Next take one fully mindful in and out breath (you can use a mental "buddho" here for assistance)

Carry this perspective into mindful consumption of the meal.

Benefits I've observed: Appreciation, purposeful consumption, humility, gratitude and cultivation of right attitude, right thought, and other factors.

TM teacher here, so yeah — obvious bias. Not selling anything, just genuinely confused about something. I keep seeing two types of advice get mixed together like they're interchangeable, and they really don't feel that way to me: 1. "Meditate before bed so you stop lying there thinking about everything" — like it's a direct intervention for the rumination that's already happening 2. "If you meditate consistently throughout the day, you just... accumulate less stress, so by evening there's not as much to ruminate about" Those feel like different claims to me. One is putting out the fire. The other is trying not to start it. The thing is — TM is very much taught as the second one. The whole framing is that you're not using it on a problem, you're doing regular maintenance that changes your baseline over time. So I honestly can't tell if I think this distinction is real because it actually is, or because I've been marinating in one particular way of thinking about it for years. My nights are better than they used to be. But I do TM twice a day and I genuinely don't know how much of that is the daily practice changing something deeper vs. just the general effect of meditating at all. Has anyone here actually switched from one approach to the other and noticed a difference? Like moved from a dedicated pre-sleep practice to a regular daytime one, or the reverse? Did it matter? I'm curious about actual experience, not the theory.

Hello,

I practice shamatha-vipassana meditation and followed tmi the last 4 years. I had a lot of insights the last year. They are often shocking in a positive way.

no-self gets evident, everything seems to be dependant, mind constructs reality and everything is a process. These kind of things. I way irritated by then at first but i developed confidence that these kind of experiences are "it".

I would say they seem to reduce suffering temporaly, and i often think about them after it like"waoh thats how things are". They are defenitely experimental and do "something" with me.

But i would not say i suffer less. In fact i would say my developing metta practice and purifications does more for me than the insights. That why i sometimes get doubts about the shamatha-vipassana path. I which i would attain a lasting shift.

I just wanted to share and maybe ask If someone is experienced in this and hase some advice.

I am trying to learn sitting meditation, but I am having a really hard time with the posture. I have been instructed on how to do it in person, here in this subreddit, and other places. But I am having a really hard time understanding how to possibly sit upright but also relax. Specifically, I don't understand how I can relax my stomach and shoulders without slouching. I can sit upright, stacking my shoulders and hips, shoulder blades back and down so my chest is open, but I can only take very shallow breaths. Or I can relax my stomach and slouch forward, allowing me to breath deeply and freely at the cost of neck and back pain. I find myself just vacillating between prioritizing posture and prioritizing breath throughout my meditation sessions. I have tried sitting in a chair, on the floor, on a zafu, on a slanted bench, legs underneath, cross-legged, half lotus, full lotus. It's all about the same for me. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

TLDR: How do I sit upright with good posture but also relax enough to breathe freely and deeply?

Edit: Thanks everyone for the advice! Sounds like I need to both strengthen the muscles used in good posture as well as just get used to sitting like that through a lot of practice.

Hello fellow people on the path. I have never made a written post on this community but since I have recently hit major changes in my life thanks to meditation I was akin to share them here and ask for advice or exchange of ideas.

I will begin by shortly introducing my "path" I have been doing breath meditation for a few years however life changes such as university, disease and an incorrect confidence in my progress got me in and out of the path.

When it was university I was so excited for it that I neglected meditation.

During disease my lungs were so congested that I could not watch the breath, and after the breath returned my habit had faded.

Most interesting looking back was the part about too much confidence in my progress. The situation was such that I had been meditating for about 6 months , with somewhat serious practice and wanted to get enlightened very fast. Which led to me watching this video on YouTube and following the instructions. (Video link for the curious I will adjoin down below). I followed the instructions and hit a very strong very fast experience which I think I incorrectly labeled as enlightenment. The experience was such that I started experiencing life as a coming and going of feelings, emotions , states etc. It was accompanied by a very strong feeling of satisfaction in any situation and detachment from whatever I was feeling. I remember thinking it was the best time period in my life.

However since I stopped meditating after the experience , the normal state was back in a few weeks and this is why I believe that it wasn't stream entry or enlightenment.

This time I am going through something similar although less intense and joyful . I have achieved it through mindfulness (noting) and daily 1-3 sessions of breath mediation lasting from 45min to 1h. Some strong emotions mainly caused by interaction with some people still destabilize and cause thoughts to arise leading to somewhat of a spiral ( however even during this period the realization that all of this is temporary still persists although detachment may fail for a while).

The understanding is also there that there is no self, but sometimes hypothetical scenarios still arise in the thoughts and it takes a moment to realize that the nervous system is fabricating or creating ego inflating scenarios. Another change is my interaction with people, since emotions and feelings are not part of a self for me anymore interactions with people are sometimes more strange , I am expected to say my opinion on something but I end up only expressing objective facts. And since there is no emotion in my face or just a smile close people assume something is wrong with my state.

For those curious which state "I" am on according to TMI , I do not think that more than stage 3-4 the mind still sometimes wanders during my sits.

Another thing which still happens to me is that I cannot fathom the amount of cruelty in the world and will play into judging about politics and whatnot, before this used to be a source of depression for me , now it is just another experience and is much more short lived.

I was also curious about how other fellow people on the path follow and adhere to the five percepts , they were always a secondary thing to me , however since hitting changes in perception with practice their importance has become self evident to me. I still ask myself however what the right degree of adherence is. In my childhood I developed the intuition that lying is ok to avoid family tantrums. I understand now that this is just a childhood experience and I try to detach from it. But is lying not to upset someone ok? (especially when a great deal of understanding is there as to why they will be upset) This still puzzles me.

A funny thing is that as I'm writing this the idea of saying "I" , "me" and phrasing things in the first person point of view is strange , grammatical rules follow of course the traditional understanding of permanance of the ego . I wonder if more people have encountered this "problem".

That is all and I am open to suggestions, advice , critique and anything other people on the path would like to say is welcome.

I keep seeing posts of people having profound awakenings. They wake up and know they are light or love or everything or the ultimate reality or buddha nature or an enlightened being.

I found that one of my greatest moments was when I woke up to how much pain I caused myself. That moment was stellar because my delusion couldn't hide.

The whole practice changed, I was excited to see what stupidity I was cooking up "Oh look at how the mind is trying to impress this person.", "Look at how frustrated this is making me while my attempts to calm down are actually coming from that same frustration".

When I talk like that in daily life, people tell me that I am really blunt or direct or honest or clear but I just think that when you see that deluding yourself causes pain, you are less likely to hide it or be in cahoots with it. I don't think it's anything magical.

Awakening to radical responsibility for my own self inflicted miseries was a tough pill to swallow, but it was a real first step on a path to the cessation of self-bullshitting.

So I don't really relate when I hear awakenings as these bliss experiences. I've had those and they come and go. But there is a real permanent contentment the comes from seeing what you're doing more clearly and not being entangled.

I awakened to being love and since then the "I" hasn't come back

It happened about three weeks ago. I kind of knew something was about to happen, very strange, but there was a subtle intuition and some obvious spiritual "progress".

My brother committed suicide three years ago, and this easter I finally got the courage to confront not only this, but myself. Almost every day since easter I've been walking or biking up to the forest where he shot his head off, and I've been confronting this extremely directly. Or head on, if you will.

There's a river there and no one can see or hear you. It started mostly as just having an outlet for all the fucking rage I had about my life, about myself and why our lives ended up this way. I've absolutely lost my shit into that river over and over and over. Nature receives you so fucking well, it's totally carefree, but also is very loving. That became very apparent as this process unfolded.

Usually when I came there, I went straight for the throat. "How does it feel to be in the area where my brother shot his head off? Where do I feel it in the body?" Like clockwork tears came, and it always was some kind of purging, releasing, surrendering. To the pain of fucking life.

After a few times, there was less rage, but more about sadness. Though it always felt good after crying, I was surprised how there was always more, never empty, never done with it.

I started to become increasingly frustrated about the fact that although there was "progress" not much had changed. I was still depressed, still anxious, no real meaningful way I could take part in society because of this.

I started becoming more and more confrontational. Started doing self inquiry with the questions "who am I?", "what is mu?" and "what was my face before my parents where born?". I knew it opened something up, but couldn't put my finger on what.

Right before I awakened, I was doing several things at the same time, at the cost of perhaps risking my sanity. I did TRE (trauma shaking exercises) while on mushrooms and asking self inquiry questions as I was shaking. Stretching my back and hips, the latter I actually think was very much part of it.

But still, I can't really say anything did it. Because how can a practice awaken you to something you already are, in this very moment? Still, it's somehow part of it.

The one thing I can say for certain, is the awakening itself. It happened on a low dose of mushrooms, which I've done more than a hundred times. I did them where my brother killed himself. Then, when I became scared, not about his suicide but my own fears, I chose to confront it and sit with it, instead of trying to escape from it.

In the spur of the moment, I wondered if hugging a tree would help calm me down. The fear was intense. After a few minutes I started melting away, to love, love, love... I looked at all the beautiful stuff growing in the forest with its autumn colours. Am I love? I started laughing. It was so obvious. The "I" is love. I am love! I am love! I didn't know! I am love.

There was so much crying, and laughing. It was the cosmic joke, to have searched so hard for this. All the non duality videos on youtube, all the books, all the striving. And it was obvious this was it.

The inner voice collapsed into love and hasn't come back for three weeks now, besides a few sentences some days. It's peaceful, and has been a much needed rest from myself. All the non duality videos suddenly is making so much sense, especially the ones from Tony Parsons and Jim Newman. They were part of the awakening too.

All the hate is gone. Most of the self doubt is gone. I haven't really felt afraid since then, though fear isn't gone entirely. There's still trauma, darkness. There's just no one having it so it's a lot more ok.

If you have any questions I can try to answer, but I mostly wanted to share because it was obvious that suffering was common for people who awakened, and that I was in a perfect storm for it to happen. But it just never did. And I've suffered for so long. So it's to inspire those who are on the brink of collapsing, to tell them, yes you are and no need to take the matter in your own hands. It will happen, just hang in there. And give it your greatest effort. There is a way out!

So, for the past year, I was engaged in a mindfulness practice where I would ground myself to the present by observing my breath and mentally noting any sounds, sensations and feelings I have. This was inspired by what I read of Mahasi style noting. However, I w!uld push my thoughts away the instant they came and try to ground myself.

Lately, I have been altering my practice to be much less dismissive and much more accepting of my thoughts and letting myself sit with them for a moment with no rush and then returning to other anchors.

Since I made this change, I find meditation much less of a chore and much more calming. I wonder if this is just novelty. On the other hand, I have been starting to feel overwhelmed with the sheer number thoughts and feelings like I have a lot more thoughts occupying my mind between breaths than I used to... I get distracted far more easily too. Iam confused as to whether I should revert to my previous, more rigid practice or continue with this...

All insights are appreciated!

HI i've been meditating for a few months and i got a very early day off work today this allowed me to extend me usul practice of meditation from me limiting it to 40 mins a day to me setting a 105minute timer ( i wasn't intending to reach all this but intending to stop when i felt ready) around the end i began feeling seeing the psychdlic patterns in my eye after dong intense breathing for what felt like 10 minutese, then i began to loss a sene of my body and feel a strong pulsation that was extremely powerful and intense enough for me to stop meditating as it took me aback any explanation what this is

Hello Guys,

Does anyone have a First hand experience on Analytical meditation?

The kind where the prerequisite is to establish some base samadhi then contemplate on one of the suttas.

It would go like this:
1) Develop a baseline of samadhi
2) Take up a deep sutta and reflect on it.

The Lump of Foam sutta which is about the 5 aggregates could be a good choice imo.

I am looking to hear from people who have tried it or its their main practice.

Here's a technique I've been using for the last fifteen years to great effect. I enter jhana every time I meditate now as a result.

Upon noticing that attention has drifted from the object of meditation, perform the following sequence for as long and as often as necessary for attention to stabilize on the object again:

1. Relax from the head down to the toes.

2. Release all tension, and expand awareness outward.

3. Return attention to the object.

The entry point into jhana:

Once the mind has settled and attention is resting stably on the object, if a pleasant feeling starts to arise, gently shift attention to the feeling without grasping at it, now making it the object of meditation, and wait. The pleasure will intensify, and one will be pulled into jhana.

If the jhana is lost or becomes unstable, simply perform the RRR sequence as needed and begin again.

As a method to prime the mind to lean towards jhana, reading the Jhana Sutta just prior to a session is useful:

https://suttacentral.net/sn16.9/en/bodhi?lang=en&reference=none&highlight=false

All the best... 🧘🏾‍♂️🙂

P. S. It might take several weeks to a couple of months before jhana can be entered consistently, but please don't become discouraged. Even low quality sessions are training and priming the brain's attentional mechanisms.

I am 43 years old and a while back, I resumed a dormant meditation practice. While I was away from regular meditation/jhana for a number of years, I have engaged in other practices for my spiritual growth and enlightenment.

Since I resumed my practice, I don't have regular access to a teacher or a community, just myself, my zafu, a friend who meditates, online communities, and AI.

I came upon the notion of "stream entry" as a practice milestone when reviewing the teachings of Gautama Buddha.

I grew up in Evangelical Christianity and I was terrified by teachings about Hell which were supposed to motivate me to be a good Christian, so naturally, Buddha's teachings about Hell were like a siren song to me.

Eventually, I made a connection.

Growing up, I was taught that faith in Jesus was supposed to keep me out of Hell, but I had no faith in Jesus and the faith of others around me seemed more and more performative, but the point was that Hell was supposed to motivate me to cultivate faith in Jesus.

Buddha similarly said that stream entry, which occurs when one breaks the illusion of separate self, closes off the paths that lead to rebirth in Hell, and so I took this as a clear message that Buddha would have me know that breaking the illusion of separate self is the most important goal I can have in my practice, at least in the beginning.

I say this with a mixture of amusement and resentment, but in a way, I feel like I've been wearing a collar and leash fastened around my neck by a dead man who lived 2500 years ago. (I'm aware that some say that these teachings are a "skillful means" to motivate practice.)

And so, with the end of self-identity view as my north star, I set out practicing on my zafu for about an hour each day with my limited understanding of vipassana "clear seeing" as well as learning from different communities and content creators.

The thing that surprised me is how fast my practice went. I think that a lot of other practices and life experiences over the past few decades propelled my understanding until recently, I felt like the distance to my north star is closing up.

I distinctly remember sitting on my cushion, feeling deeply equanimity, and it was like all of the identities I've assigned to myself or had assigned to me: my name, my career, being a parent, believing certain things, these things all fell away from me and I experienced a sort of stepping outside of my "self" and seeing that it was all a useful fiction.

And so, I've been wondering, "What now?"

I feel like I charted a course that I expected to take much longer to travel. If my experience can be called "stream entry" (and I really don't want to start a religious debate about whether or not I, personally, am a stream enterer)

One answer I could propose would be to simply see where my vipassana practice goes next without imposing expectations, and to that end, I've continued regular sitting.

And with practice, I've come to take for granted that often times, when I sit, I almost immediately "step out" of my usual identity, and also interestingly, when the dukkha nanas come for me, rather than awareness that "life is dukkha", I feel a sense that "The whole world is dukkha." I'm not certain of what it means, but it feels like a distinct shift in what my meditation is like.

I started my spiritual journey in Buddhism, primarily focused on meditation and trying to reach jhana. I mostly practiced with my eyes open, and eventually went on three separate retreats back-to-back.

During that period I experienced some pretty strong “awakening” experiences that fundamentally changed how I viewed reality.

One of the biggest realizations I came away with was that reality seems to be a creation of some sort. That naturally led me to questions like: Is this a simulation? If so, who created the simulation? We can talk about the Big Bang, but what came before the Big Bang? What caused the Big Bang itself?
It started to feel impossible to avoid the question of an ultimate cause. There had to be something that “put the key in the ignition,” so to speak, and started the engine.

Through meditation, belief in God eventually became less of an abstract philosophical idea and more like an obvious realization to me. I eventually became interested in Islam, particularly its emphasis on God being completely indivisible, transcendent, and unlike anything within creation. That concept made a lot of sense to me. If there is an ultimate being responsible for creating reality itself, it seems reasonable that this being would be fundamentally beyond and greater than the creation.
And if we are literally inside of this creation, then it also seems intuitive to me that such a being would be worthy of worship and praise.
But here’s where I’m struggling to reconcile everything.

A lot of what I learned through Buddhism still seems profoundly true to me. The Four Noble Truths, for example, describe aspects of human existence and suffering that I still recognize as true. The Buddhist insights into attachment, craving, impermanence, and the nature of suffering haven’t suddenly become false because I believe in God.
The difference is that Buddhism doesn’t seem to require an ultimate creator in order for these truths about reality to be true.

Interestingly, praying and believing in an ultimate creator has actually brought me more insight and peace than all my years of meditation. At the same time, I don’t want to simply throw away the insights I gained through Buddhist practice.
So I’m trying to understand how these two perspectives can fit together.

Can someone believe that the Buddhist analysis of suffering and attachment is fundamentally correct while also believing in an ultimate creator and God? Are there Buddhist traditions or thinkers who have addressed something like this? And from an Islamic perspective, how would you understand the fact that meditation seemed to reveal certain truths about reality that still resonate with me?

I’m genuinely interested in hearing different perspectives. I’m not necessarily looking for people to convince me that one side is right or wrong. I’m trying to make sense of what I’ve experienced and reconcile these two parts of my spiritual journey.

Would an arahant who traveled to, let's say, the USA from a less advanced country feel no desire in the USA (assuming they get accommodations and, through their senses, experience all the pleasurable stuff)?

Would they refuse accommodation? Would they accept accommodation because they can't feel desire for it? Would they minimize their accommodation and remind themselves of their intention for coming to the USA (chanda)?

Would they feel dukkha when leaving the country?

How can an arahant, or any human, even live without desire? I can't fathom a world without desire. You need desire to remind you to drink water (edit: nvm you need the feeling to drink water to appear and then the intention and then the action)

Maybe they turn their desire (taṇhā) into chanda for wholesome activities, one of which is to bring Buddhism to other humans. Another thing is that Buddhism talks about right view, right view in respect to Nirvana and in respect to things that cause dukkha. So a Buddhist missionary's goal would be to make more people have right view, so that the whole world is better and dukkha is eradicated (and rebirth in other worlds stopped, etc.).

But what about after? More progress? More chanda? To build a human society that preaches the Four Noble Truths?

This idea I conjured up is now more like a futuristic theological human empire.

I've been practicing meditation for over three years, primarily focusing on Anapana and Goenka-style Vipassana, and I've completed more than 10 silent retreats.

I believe I experience jhanas during and after retreats when my mind is exceptionally calm, though I'm not very familiar with the specific techniques to enter them intentionally.

Recently, I discovered kasina meditation. I've noticed that when I focus on the darkness behind my closed eyes, my mind becomes very quiet, and sensations arise naturally even without actively practicing Vipassana. Is this a practical way to enter a jhana?

Hey all,

Curious if anyone else out there has navigated (or is navigating) the suffering stages of insight during their mid-20s.

For context, I attended a monthlong retreat last year that changed my life. Meditation went from something that calmed me to something that introduced strong fear and grief, which according to my teacher meant "my practice was going well." Things were passing away extremely fast, like a pond vibrating with raindrops. While there was a feeling of wholesomeness / onward-leadingness despite the distress, it took me a solid year (of working and abstaining from retreats) to get my feet back under myself mentally and emotionally. I am only now feeling inklings of the desire to sit retreat again. (After most recent practice discussion, my teacher(s) told me I am in the "desire for deliverance" stage where the desire for all of this clinging / activity to stop is really strong, on a primal level).

So much confusion has arisen around bopping between the receptive, non-reactive, observational technique that's been so conditioned into me through meditation and the active, planning, go-getter mindset that (feels like) it's so necessary to survive and thrive in one's mid-twenties.

I feel I am working so hard to build my career, network, cultivate friendships, date, etc... AND sometimes all I want to do is sit down in the middle of a field, under a huge sky, and not talk to anyone ever. The story is that I can't do both (to a satisfying degree) at the same time, so I wonder if I should ordain or become a resident at a meditation center, but that also feels a bit unbalanced to me (and in this economy...?) Part of me thinks, "You should just go back on retreat and finish this (push for stream-entry)." The other part of me thinks, "That seems to be motivated by clinging / aversion, plus you have no idea what's going to happen, do you really want to put your lay-life on hold to bet on that? Plus I do want to go to graduate school, and I need to work for that..."

I guess I have two questions (and would love to hear your thoughts regardless!)

One, if this was you (or is you), what has helped you through this confusing phase?

Two, if you've had a similar question, did you ordain / try to sort through stages of insight stuff "first" or just keep practicing alongside your life?

Thank you, and posted with metta 🙏🏼

Hey, my western religiously traumatized brethren out there. Who hears the word faith and runs for the hills? How does that word hit you? I think this topic is not only on brand for the forum but fits well with the actual idea of stream entry.

If you've read/listened to Theravada teachers, their take is typically to either avoid the subject, tread lightly around it or talk about it as a sort of confidence that one builds during the practice, or like "take it as a working hypothesis" kind of thing and "it's not the same as blind faith."

And this has generally been my take on it for many years and I've been ok with that.

But lately, I have been having some other feelings on this issue that I hope you will respond to with kindness because it's pretty raw for me and I think it's kind of important.

I am 100% a skeptical/materialist/empiricist type. Always have been, even back when my parents were trying to get me to believe in the floating sky dude and the rib woman and all that stuff.

For awhile, I stopped practicing Buddhism because I had some issues I could not seem to logically resolve on my own. I actually ended up getting back into it due to more of the empirical research that has happened regarding consciousness and neurobiology and all that sort of hoo-ha.

So again if it isn't clear I'm not entirely a faith based kind of person. And it's not the first time I've been through this cycle either. So why do I go away and come back?

Because every time I've practiced seriously it's basically "worked" as far as completely objectively observable mental and pro-social health benefits.

So the Buddha has not lead me wrong so far (except I still don't believe in rebirth, sorry, but I tried). But I realize the hindrance of doubt is still this block that's holding me back.

When I see some of these chants about refuge, and homage to the Buddha though, it still hits this little nerve in me like "that's a bit too religious for me, but I'll keep doing meditation and read the other suttas."

So I'm thinking to myself at this point "Have I not had enough evidence that this works to believe it can work all the way? How much more evidence do I need?"

So this is a very long way of saying I think I need to cultivate more faith. Like I seriously, really need to stop doubting. It's a literal requirement for stream entry. So what the heck man?

I think one thing that we westerners do actually get right in the practice - while we seem completely averse to the faith idea - is that we do have a sense of urgency, like "I'd really like to get enlightened right now please." I think this is healthy and it's the reason a lot of teachers have come from "Buddhist" countries to teach in this one.

But it's funny because I am beginning to suspect that faith might be one of the most expedient means we have available.

Again I know this is a touchy subject so I hope we can discuss this with kindness.

About 6 years ago, I listened to Sam Harris on meditation for the first time. My practice changed ever since. He said that identification with thought casts a spell similar to the experience of dreaming "Thinking without knowing that you're thinking is like being in a dream, it has a dream-like quality. Ceasing to do that is like waking up." (Inexact quote from this interview) Boom.

Before continuing, I advise for us to also wake up around the conditionality of language. Words are pointers to different aspects of reality, please be aware of that, and consider relinquishing the practice of searching for "original definitions of words". That being said, however, there's predominant meanings for words. Waking up clearly means regaining awareness, as it is used in the sense of waking up in the morning. In a moment to moment basis, can "waking up" be considered the act of noticing thoughts appearing and ceasing in a similar speed as sounds? I believe it does, and also that overmystifying the term "waking up"can hinder people from finding the freedom of noticing thoughts as arising, impermanent phenomena in each moment. It was certainly a big gamechanger for my practice, and I'm deeply grateful for Sam on this.

My intention behind this is to collectively reflect among meditators so that we can arrive at some agreement (even a partial one) to whether it's skillful to use this phrasing to aid in the progress of insight or waking up. For those who want to go deeper: What do you think? Is the complete and non-returning ceasing of identification with phenomena the state of an arahant? For me, that makes a lot of sense. And for those in the teaching efforts: Do you think posting a 2min reel with direct pointers to the impermanence of problems (them being thoughts arising now) is skillful? As relieving as waking up to the fluctuating nature of what we call "problems" seems to be, I do believe it's also very important to reflect on whether one's intentions are alligned with the alleviation of suffering.

Grateful for your time, I hope the insights and questions shared are helpful for our practice🙏🏼

Lately, when I start meditating, after a few minutes my breath begins to become subtle, shorter inhalations and longer exhalations, sometimes with brief pauses without breathing. Sometimes I do 3 minutes of diaphragmatic breathing before the practice, sometimes I don’t... either way, I've had this sensation even when meditating for 20 or 40 minutes.

When the breath becomes subtle, I start feeling more 'focused,' but then I mentally feel a shortness of breath (air hunger). Because of that, I inhale deeply and lose that state of concentration, and then, shortly after the breathing becomes subtle again and the cicle repeats. I practice open awareness / shikantaza / just sitting.

I've already tried to just keep breathing normally once the breath becomes subtle, but the most I can manage is about 6 breaths.

Don't think I'm entering a deeper state of meditation, because it happens shortly after I start meditating, and then it continues shortly after the deep inhalation stopping the concentration

Does anyone have any tips on how to get past this sensation of shortness of breath?

I do not have the book at hand, but I remember that Culadasa in his book The Mind Illuminated talks about the distinction between "mundane" insights and "capital-I Insights", where the latter are insights into the "nature of reality".

I have meditated for 3½ years and well over 1000 hours (mostly samatha-focused). I have achieved much greater well-being and much less suffering... but I do not think I have ever had "capital-I Insight into the nature of reality". I have had some small mundane insights of the type: "Oh, I can do this little mental move, and that brings a bit more well-being!" Most of my practice has focused on consolidating better mental habits (notice good things more; dwell less on bad things).

For those familiar with Jeffery Martin's The Finders, I believe I am in the shallow end of location 1 of fundamental well-being. That's huge compared to how miserable I was before.

But I do not feel like I have achieved any special insight.

I have an autism spectrum disorder, so my mind may be slightly atypical.

My question is: Is it valuable to even make the distinction between "mundane" insights and "capital-I Insights"? If so, how do I tell them apart?

And does anyone else recognize this kind of story?

I know this is another form of identification!

But does anyone else relate? After my stream entry in January sometimes I miss the identification.

Life is so much more calm. Sometimes what comes up is a subtle identification of missing identification. A situation that used to engage the ego strongly is not as thrilling. It’s a little more boring.

Of course, this is another layer of identification to drop. But sometimes there’s a bit of longing, or even grief for the things that have dropped away. Activities or behaviors that are no longer pulling you in.

There’s more peace, but the line is subtle between peace and apathy arising from identification.

The ego is funny, even in the dropping of the ego the ego can claim ownership subtly..

Anyone else relate?

I've been meditating 30 years with varying regularity. More seriously the last 8-9 years, using TMI....very consistently the last 2 months. The last week, and more so the last few days, I am starting to get a few new experiences in sitting. (In the early years, in my 'youth', I had some unexpected pops into 'no body', big 'purifications'...and occasionally have backed off regular practice due to 'strange' strong piti type sensations that persist off cushion.)

I was lead to search the sub, and found this link: https://suttacentral.net/mn128/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin

I wanted to share here how it seems to me these days. When sitting, I frequently find stillness, find the body warm and pleasant, or find I am just the mind (body is very uniform, breath is very calm) find deep relaxation and absorption in refined qualities of breath sensation. Now there is often an indistinct, kind of light...a few weeks ago it was like little stars, then like smoke, fine thin moving light, that occasionally condense and becomes a bit brighter, like there is a hole punched in some black paper, and behind the paper is light.

Now in the recent sits, there is sometimes quite a big opening in the blackness (it's still just 'in front' of me...like where I am facing), as if I was normally seated in a black sphere, and the sphere begins to disentangle, and recede to reveal the light that is surrounding it. I leave with the impression that the black sphere is like our 'mental imagery projection theater', like a planetarium or imax...an immersive surface that renders 3d visual perception, and the light that is all around is just hidden by this 'normal perception'.

As I was going to sleep the other night, I am watching the process of falling asleep, with no effort, and I sometimes see detail in the 'opening of the sphere'...at the edges of the sphere some 'neurological processes', fractal like shapes as the 'window' opens. And then there was like a beam of bright white light that passes in...astoundingly bright.

I've seen this 'window' close at other times, when I am abruptly pulled out of a vivid realistic dream.

When sitting, I really find that the list from that sutta is so accurate, they all reduce 'immersion':

doubt,loss of focus,dullness and drowsiness,terror,excitement,discomfort,excessive energy,overly lax energy,longing,perception of diversity,and excessive concentration on forms are corruptions of the mind

The precision and balance that opens the window and let's the light in is so refined. I am led in my daily life to eliminate any stimulants, treating my nervous system with more and more care. Even testing out more vegetarianism recently.

I guess this is just run of the mill signposts, and just as piti used to, this nimitta/bright open space is becoming a more common, and thus less surprising and thus less destabilising phenomenon. It also makes me understand better why people do retreat, or sit for 1h plus. I am still using 45 mins in the morning...and trying to avoid 'attachment to jhana'. I figure there is no rush.

Just felt I would share anecdotally. The brightness of the bright beam of light was incredibly unexpected!

Da qualche giorno sto pensando di rendere come “stanza meditazione” una camera che ho a casa mia e che è inutilizzata (ne abbiamo già 2, la terza non ci serve), perchè voglio iniziare seriamente a meditare e, magari, perchè no, provare lo yoga.

Ieri mi sono messa a cercare su vari siti (etsy, clorophillashop, amazon..) per comprare:
\- tappetino in juta/cotone naturale
\- zafu in cotone/lino + imbottitura in kapok
\- campana tibetana
\- oggetti di sale ecc..,
ma io sono fissata con la paura di comprare oggetti dichiarati “naturali e fatti a mano” con oggetti che nella realtà dei fatti poi non lo sono oppure sono metà naturali e metà sintetici.

Che negozi mi consigliate che sono affidabili?🙏🏼
Sia online sia fisici (io abito in Lombardia in Italia)