Consilience

You’re just redefining what enlightenment means to fit your self-bias. Enlightenment = God.

I think Shinzen Young does a retreat in or near Canada. If you’re looking for a zen/vipassana hybrid, highly recommend.

Glad it was helpful. ? And seriously! He is truly on another level.

Feels ??

I took an SDS course from guru viking awhile back : Dude is a beast. He offered some really great suggestions during the course Ill outline. 1) Work yourself up incrementally. No reason to jump into something super challenging immediately. This is a pretty standard principle of any domain of mastery though. 2) Three strike rule - the first time you’re genuinely wanting to quit, let it go. Second time, let it go. Third time, go on ahead and move. 3) Allow yourself to minimally adjust and reposition your spine/posture. SDS Light that is probably better for the body overall but given how small the movements are, you wont be interrupting the stream of pain. 4) Duration training - rather than making the SDS about not physically moving the body, just sit for a long period of time allowing yourself to adjust as needed. The length of the sit will create emotional tension/dis-ease (and physical pain as well, just not as much as a normal SDS) which we can apply equanimity towards. Don’t underestimate this form of sitting either. 5) Have fun Don’t take the pain or discomfort too seriously.

Psychedelics alone are not a complete path, no. Particularly once we directly experience just how ridiculously we can increase our consciousness through sober practice. Anyone saying meditation can’t take you to god realization is someone who lacks direct experience with meditation. It will take thousands of hours practice to reach psychedelic levels of consciousness while sober, but a couple things: 1) The benefits are enormous, 2) There’s a sovereignty, unity, and power associated with being able to access these states without chemical augmentation, 3) There’s a compound, exponential return on investment with meditation - in other words, 0 - 1000 hours is going to look VERY different than 1001 - 2000 hours, will look VERY different than 9001 - 10000 hours. Meditation “progress” is non-linear, meditation progress is exponential, particularly in the long run. Psychedelics show what is possible, but truly, the highest level of understanding is embodiment. Psychedelics unfortunately cannot do that.

This is completely normal and to be expected once a meditator advances a long the path. ? There is but also deep similarities. All the trippy, fluidity, spaciousness we feel on psychedelics is completely available while sober during meditation if we have enough concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity (ie mindfulness). My first vipassana retreat, I ended up ‘tripping balls’ 5 days straight, enormous amount of visuals and paper thinness around experience. Turns out psychedelics ramp up concentration and sensory clarity to such high magnitudes, that they simulate what high-level meditators are experiencing every time they sit down to practice. The difference with meditation is that there is a uniquely powerful stability to attention that you don’t get with psychedelics. So the tranquility and harmony of the mind is unmatched when compared to psychedelics. However, psychedelics can introduce novel ways and paradoxical ways of thinking that we don’t typically have access to while sober. They can also launch us into ridiculous levels of consciousness that we don’t normally have access to. A healthy approach is to balance both practices with the other, and ultimately using meditation to integrate and embody the ways of thinking and ways of perceiving life that we get with psychedelics while also training the benefits of stability and tranquility we get with meditation.

This. "So you should view this fleeting world -- A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, A flash of lightening in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream." - Diamond Sutra The problem with idealism is it doesn’t deconstruct deeply enough. Depending on the philosopher, they may recognize the immediately actuality and “irreducibility” of direct experience, but they miss an important part - there is still The Absolute, which is not form yet not separate from form. When the Absolute is grasped, all of phenomenal existence is seen to be literally non-existent, no more real than a dream, and even that‘s giving too much authority to its “thing-ness.” At the deepest levels of understanding, there is nothing, infinity, god, love, which is qualitatively, palpably, formless. It‘s an absolute mind fuck.

This is an awesome breakdown man. Couldn’t agree more about spending time hanging out with awareness; not sure if anything matches the silence, stillness, and space of formal meditation. Thank you for sharing your routine. ? Any Qigong youtube channels you’d recommend?

Where does he say this? Pretty sure this is only in the context of God realization. If you want to live “the good life” you’re going to want to meditate for that hour. Leo’s “65 principles of living a good life” he makes this clear. Interesting video.

So true!

Joshu earnestly asked Nansen, “What is the Way?” Nansen answered, “Ordinary mind is the Way.” Hanging out in the jhanas has a profound recontextualization like effect when deeply explored with detachment. The only real viable way to explore states is while understanding with crystal clarity that no state, no matter how profound, is it. Truth is just as actual now as any and all moments. So why practice at all? Interesting question.

Ah got it. For better or worse, that makes sense haha

Curious about this. Buddhism also says there are no “things” at all.

Yes. ?

Not only can multiple thoughts be occurring simultaneously, seamlessly interacting and fueling each other within the mental image, mental talk spaces at the conscious and subliminal spaces of perception, thoughts also manifest in the literal way we experience life. Watch this video very closely: Notice how the distinction Ralston is creating is not in the mental talk, mental image space, but the space of the physical body. ALL of our sense of reality is a function of mind and therefore thoughts. When you understand the extent of this mechanism, the whole house of cards may fall.

Yep ?

There is no one to awaken, and yet consciousness can awaken, and yet a state of unconsciousness is another expression of awakening, and yet this is only recognized once consciousness has awakened, but yet is frequently taken on as a belief. Best to do the damn work until what you are is awake. Or don‘t. ?

Super great report man! Thank you so much for sharing ? Yes SDS is a powerhouse of a technique for advanced meditators. Our relationship to pain is one of the fundamental dualities reifying a sense of self… breaking through this barrier with equanimity is a huge step on the path. I don’t always do SDS sitting but throwing mild sits in first 30 - 45 mins of a sit not moving, or more generally not shying away from discomfort by immediately adjusting posture, has been very powerful for practice.

There are layers of thought existing at supra subtle frequencies that are typically too faint for the untrained mind to notice. Also underlying uncognized thoughts feeding into the thoughts that appear in conscious awareness. It gets wild…

Such an important insight! There are multiple "orders" of equanimity. There's the equanimity we can systematically cultivate through meditation, which is when the mind is neither pushing or pulling at experience. And then there's a second order, existential equanimity that is always present. It is the noticing we can never NOT be with whatever is occurring by virtue of the fact that it is occurring. This second order of equanimity is always available due to it being a fundamental feature of reality. We can always see that reality is never not equanimous with itself because in order for anything to be, it must be. Ha. The cool part is, the more we meditate, the more the mind actually harmonizes with this existential equanimity. The human mind literally starts to mirror the mind of reality. That's mindfulness But on the other hand, stepping into the equanimity of our true nature is always available, even when the mind is pushing or pulling at experience. That's Liberation.

Hair was on point ?‍♂️

Im seeing 5 MEO DALT, not *MALT. Are you sure you’re seeing results for what Leo is talking about?

You’d be amazed what finding the correct set of techniques, teachings, and busting your ass can do. If you’re determined to radical, and I mean RADICALLY, increase your baseline level of consciousness with meditation, you will. But based on what you’re saying, yeah don’t bother. Nope. Ego activity can be occurring while not being identified with it. Ego activity is just another expression of infinite consciousness. Believe it or not you can become conscious of this, while dead ass sober. Anyways, done for now dude. Dont want to derail the thread too much.

As long as you have this limiting belief, it will be so. Spoiler: Infinite Consciousness =\= ego death. If Infinite Consciousness where limited to needing the ego to be dead, it wouldn’t be infinite. Meditation can take you all the way when you realize what it is you're actually after. Nevertheless, psychedelics help us see what was already so as well as exploring dimensions of consciousness not normally available within the sober state of mind. Looking forward to this one… @Leo Gura