electroBeam

Hi guys, I think the one big problem or obstacle we face when we try to meditate is our mind saying stuff like "this is boring!" "wow I have 30 minutes left??? This is hell, I can't do this!", "this is so painful i cant explain how painful it is" etc etc. These sort of thoughts are able to make meditation unproductive, or even make us quit our meditation session. Is there any way to alleviate these thoughts, so that we can sit and meditate for longer periods of time? What I have done is picture me relaxing on a nice warm beach whenever I experience thoughts that could potentially make me stop meditating. Though are these techniques appropriate during meditation?

There's heaps of research that shows you how to improve your memory. Here are some tips: - use the Cornell method for writing. Draw as many pictures as you can, but if you are using technology, then use the outline method. Do this on google docs, or my favourite, onenote or evernote. - Look at your notes, and then look away from your notes and try to remember it, keep repeating that. - interweave your notes for reviewing. What I mean is, if you have several topics, try and do the above step, but scatter the content you look at. For e,g. try and remember topic 1, then try and remember something from topic 5, etc. - interleave your notes, so within a topic, dont just try and remeber the exact same phrase, try and scatter different parts of your topic. - reflect on your remembering skills, reflect on what you learnt, how well you went, etc. - make a memory palace for information that isn't that intuitive, but is physical - make memory cues where possible. Ultimately what you are trying to do is use System 2, instead of System 1. Because System 2 is used for consolidating your memory.

You seem to be cherry picking the parts you like, there are plenty of parts of the Quran that doesn't refer to reality. Can you sense a pointing to the truth in any of these quotes: "For those who deny (the coming of) the Hour We have prepared a flame. When it seeth them from afar, they hear the crackling and the roar thereof. And when they are flung into a narrow place thereof, chained together, they pray for destruction there." 25:11-13 -> Why does someone have to prepare the flame, when they are already in it?? Qur’an 9:29—"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." -> Jizyah is a metaphor? Really? And judgment day has nothing to do with reality.

@Davie the point about meditation is about letting go of beliefs, in the contex of Leos advice. Its about distancing yourself from perceptions you've had about reality. The point here though is not about sitting a specific way, or having a specific posture, they are just beliefs, the thing you are trying to avoid during your meditation experience. Do whatever you want during meditation, as long as it doesnt reinforce your dogmatism.

Hi guys, So I'm originally a hyper rational, new athiest patriot who knows all of the religious counter arguments off by heart. As a new initiative to become opened minded(to the point where I am willing to adopt Christianity) I decided to go to HillSong Church, and have been for the last 6 weeks. At the beginning, the preacher seemed to(from my perspective) conjecture lofty motivation porn, supported by cherry picked, illogical, and non sensical quotes from the Bible, and I would uncomfortably watch everyone get real deeply connected to the words. Richard Dawkin's counter arguments, ripping apart every religious sentence spoke, and my fear of giving into guillibility, made sure I felt out of place within church. Until recently. I had an experience of the ox's tale(which I'll leave 'caught a glimpse' to explain), and concerningly, for the last 2 sunday nights, I've found myself acting like my seemingly sucked in, brainwashed Christian colleagues who really get deep into the words of the songs and the preacher. I now agree with the preachers! Like today, they quoted "Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies." and I connected so deeply to that quote today because it reminded me of how deep reality accepted and loved itself in my meditation experience. Even this quote, "We are being renewed day by day.So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” -> which I once would state is stupid and illogical, now after 6 weeks of Christianity makes perfect sense to me. what is unseen(higher self) IS eternal! that's why you have to go into deep meditation to find it! And what is seen is temporary, our world around us is TEMPORARY! And how god is our freedom(when the ego revealed its true nature; it reveal that IT was the cause of oppresion within my awareness And how they talk about how we need to surrender to god... after that meditation experience, seeing the ego reveal its true illusory nature, and the feeling of just observing an all knowing, all powerful reality consume it, just made me want to surrender to reality so much. Reality knows what 'I' want, way more than 'I' do. There's so much wisdom in the Bible, that while arguing with Christians, I have overlooked! I don't know what's happening to me, how can someone who was apart of the athiest movement fall into the hands of HillSong Church so easily? Are HillSong just that good at persuading people to believe in god? Or is my meditation just having some weird side effects that will pass in time? I'm so scared that I'm being brainwashed, I'm well aware of the abilities of the church to brainwash people, I don't want to end up that gullible, but at the same time I'm feeling a deep connection with Christianity.... even writing that just gives me shivers, after being influenced by so many church warning athiests around me... Has the church officially fucked my brain??

@Leo Gura Why do you need to study the material? What advantages are there to hearing about dogma? I can understand learning techniques, but learning about enlightenment itself seems to me to have no place

@SaynotoKlaus not quite Buddhism but Leoism. I tried going to buddhist meetings, but they were disappointingly BS too. I dont really want to read the bible though, because church has gotten me into the rythmn of starting to interpret things from it, and my work in meditation has gotten me into the rythmn of denying rationalism. Do you think i should keep going to church? Or stop before my mind gets indoctrinated? @BHL_20 ok thanks for the suggestion @Saarah Oh wow theres videos on this, i will

@Baulare you saying that we should NOT read any enlightenment related videos, apart from techniques? Because if you are, I totally agree!! that material is only useful to people who are already enlightened

How do you know that your interpretation is correct? Its all subjective isn't it?

Hey guys, im a very indecisive person. I have in the past, literally spent weeks deciding on small decisions, like if i should go to a party or not, completely wasting a lot of time. I do this because I tend to be, as Leo says, a maximiser instead being satisfied. I feel as though if I make the wrong decision I'm going to miss out on a fantastic opportunity that will change my life, and it can be fustrating because I don't know what the best decision is of course. Anyone can give me some guidance on what steps I should take to delve in and solve this problem.

@Christian Why not focus less on the ego then you do? replace your affirmations with "millions of dollars are present" "my mind is intelligent" "a songwriter is present within me"

@FirstglimpseOMG So happy for you, whoever you are I went through a flash much quicker and less intense that yours about an hour ago, I really hear you when you say that you saw the ego for what it really is, so true! Reading your post gave me so much joy considering I completely got every part of what you were saying. If I was Christian, I would say that I connected with god. I have no idea why it feels so majestic, deep and awesome, but it does!

@JustinS To be totally honest, your confusion is correct, not having free will doesn't make sense, its completely absurd!!! How can 'you' not have free will???? You're making decisions aren't you?? You, whatever you are, awareness, an ego, you must be doing some action?? But here's the thing, you're making the mistake of thinking that you are something. You aren't. identification itself is an illusion. You are undefined, 'you are <fill in something>' doesn't work beyond thought. And this may seem voo doo to you right now, but that's just because you are looking at this from an unrealistic perspective. You are trying to do: cat + dog when you try to think about how you are not existing. It doesn't make sense. When awareness reveals that ego is an illusion, the mindset will change from English to Mathematics, 5 + 6 will be in awareness instead, making perfect sense. Being in a state of connection to the ego, and being in a state of detachment, are literally as different as parallel universes, which you can experience. You not having free will doesn't make sense in a paradigm that believes that the ego is a real thing, or that someone is percieving awareness. But having free will doesn't make sense in a paradigm that doesn't identify with the ego, a paradigm that looks at awareness directly in the face, without any thoughts attached. I dont think you can describe these experiences or understandings, but nothing stops you from trying

Yeah this is exactly what it seems to 'me' too. When you talk about free will, you automatically make a division between 'you' and the world you are gaining free will from. For free will to exist, something has to have free will in the first place. Now can you spot that thing anywhere in awareness? I can't....

@Ross bro morality is just a way for people in charge to control other people, don't be a sheep and follow what other people tell you. And there is nothing 'wrong' with cold approach, sometimes its better because you don't have to deal with trying out people you know, or your friends know, if something goes wrong And RSD wasn't banned because of their harsh treatment, it was banned because governments are feminist sucking apologists who can't handle freedom of speech

@Rashad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15014.Crucial_Conversations list goes on and on

@Cuzzo The thing is that Islam means different things to different people. Because the Koran is so vague, you can literally twist it 100 different ways to suit your agenda. Not only can you do that, but you can justify inequality, discrimination, violence, etc by saying that you are doing something under the name of Islam. Because you cannot prove that a certain interpretation is more wrong than the other, a lot of muslims get away with doing harm. You cannot understand more about islam, because no one really knows what islam is, including muslims, as much as they don't want to admit it.

@charlie2dogs Yes you're right, I don't know, hence why I said that choosing enlightenment is choosing to go on a panet you know nothing about. "are you telling me that all these opinions on this forum about what enlightenment is dont mean anything?" Yes I am. You can't explain an experience most people haven't experienced before, so they really don't. But you seem to be saying that pursuing enlightenment is futile. I don't know why people on this forum make that assertion. Plenty of people on this planet don't pursue enlightenment, and all of those people are not enlightened. Buddhist on the other hand do pursue enlightenment, and most of them are much more self actualized then the general public.

@Ayla May I ask why did you decide to find truth? What made you so hungry for truth? Was it a past experience? An insight? Pain/dissatisfaction?

Wow... if I could, I would give this post 2 upvotes. Thanks guys so much for sharing! I urge everyone, not just people who are in immediate pain, to give this technique a try. I've just spent the last hour doing deep instrospection as outlined by Charlie, and its pretty touching for me, when I've just fully realized in the last 5 minutes that everything I've been doing in the last 5 years; getting into pickup, making myself go to heaps of social events, planning to live away from home, has all been trying to solve a problem that was created by me(ego), and I didn't even realize. As a tip, if you want to turbocharge this technique, once you've found the pain body, the core of your problem, absorb it in the same way Leo describes here: Because what you will realize, as I did, is that its you running away that causes suffering, not the pain itself.

Try this one too:

Deciding to become enlightened, is like deciding to live on a new planet that you have no idea about. It could be isolated, baron, extreme conditions, unhabitable or it could be a beautiful utopia with trees, forests, oxygen, food, etc If you decide to go onto the new planet, you may die, or you may be in the most beautiful place in the world. BUT if you decide to not take the chance to go to this new planet, then its guaranteed that you will never be on a heavenly planet. In the past, humanity has had to take risks to get to great places, taking the risk to travel to the US, Australia, etc. And for one person in society, like you, you will have to do the same with enlightenment

Hi Rahul, are you talking about Leo's self acceptance video? Because I've actually have gotten like no/poor results from doing it, after a week, I've seen no payoffs.

@99th_monkey Why would anyone choose to wake up then? If it doesn't give you anything? Why choose to pursue enlightenment instead of cutting your arm with a knife? If both give the same benefits? And how can you just 'wake up'. That's like say just get 1000000 dollars, then become rich.

@jjer94 I've heard this pathless path stuff before -> gateless gate(Buddhists), you can't seek enlightenment, you just have to realize what you already are (Eckart Tolle), there is no way of becoming enlightened(Alan Watts) But if we take your advice, and say that there is no path to enlightenment, then why meditate at all? Sure it may seem more realistic to say that its a pathless path, and that you can't really do anything to get enlightened because free will doesn't exist(once you've become aware of that fact), but to someone who hasn't realized that yet(me and OP) telling someone on the internet that they shouldn't meditate because everyone is different can potentially stop them from 'realizing' their true self. This idea that you shouldn't meditate because there's no path in the first place is just an impractical overview in my opinion. Factually speaking, if you don't meditate you will have a much lower chance of getting oops realizing enlightenment. It takes work to get realize your true self, without doing the work, you will end up like everyone else who doesn't meditate, not enlightened.