Consilience

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Posts posted by Consilience

  2. Posted · Edited by Consilience

    29 minutes ago, knakoo said:

    Let's say you have 2 random, average guys (in terms of trauma, baseline consciousness...), who just discovered spirituality and want to make some "progress" in that direction. One chooses to do regular trips with intention and reverence, but to never do formal meditation (he prefers, yoga, walks, Wim hof method...). The other one does formal meditation but never uses psychedelics. Let's say they spend a similar amount of time doing "spiritual practices" (including trips). Most likely, after a few years, the first one will be much better off.

    Well this could be true. It would all depend on how hard the second guy hits meditation. If the second guy was going on 2-3 meditation retreats per year with a good teacher, practicing 1-2 hours per day as his own, making a focus out of "life practice" (being mindful while walking in nature, cooking, cleaning, while talking with people, etc.) then I would argue the second guy would be much better off. If, though, the second guy is only doing < 1 hour per day of practice, never going on retreats, not bothering to learn about different techniques and finding what works for him, then yes I agree. It literally all depends on how hard you go. 

    This is where I think people get hung up on meditation. Results can very ENORMOUSLY. Why? Because to see results with meditation usually takes an enormous front end investment, learning of different techniques and systems, and finding what resonates. Most don't have the vision or discipline to do all of this. What most people don't understand about meditation is how quickly results start to take off once they start to take off. It's really a shame. 

    But yeah I mean if you aren't willing to invest the time and energy into serious meditation practice, a couple years of serious psychedelic useage plus other practices will serve you better. But in terms of permanently elevating one's consciousness, ie experiencing God while bopping around through life, meditation all the way. 

    29 minutes ago, knakoo said:

    Add shaktipat transmissions / energy work and you are golden ;) (ice baths are also very powerful!)

    Very true. B|

  3. Posted

    13 minutes ago, knakoo said:

    I think it depends a lot on if the person in question has serious trauma or not. If he has serious trauma, then starting a serious meditation practice would be very challenging, whereas psychedelics done properly would be incredibly beneficial. Once you have released most of your trauma, your baseline state become much more pleasant and meditative. I am talking here about trips spent "vomiting trauma" for hours. Trust me your baseline state of consciousness change quite a bit after a few of those.

    That's true. I've had similar experiences healing traumas with psychedelics. They seem much more powerful at facilitating healing than meditation. 

     

    14 minutes ago, knakoo said:

    Like if you go on a walk in nature, simply being aware of your surroundings and enjoying the moment, is that meditation ?

    I consider this a form of meditation yes. You're applying mindfulness so in that sense... It is reinforcing those pathways in the mind. There is something particularly potent about a formal, seated practice. The stillness, silence, and being with whatever arises with equanimity, but certainly other activities are opportunities to "meditate" in the sense that you're mindfully engaging with life and therefore developing "mindfulness muscles." 

     

    15 minutes ago, knakoo said:

    So IMO, for most people, if they have to choose between never doing psychedelics or never doing "official" sitting meditation, he/she is better off skipping the second.

    Not sure how you're making that conclusion here. In this dichotomy, it's psychedelics or meditation right? Perhaps for you you'd prefer psychedelics. Okay that's fine. But I can only speak from experience, from talking to many experienced meditators (many of whom who have used psychedelics), and working with multiple enlightened masters, I'd choose meditation over psychedelics any day if I was forced to choose. However, I thankfully do not have to choose. And I currently practice both with reverence, as you said. And I agree, using psychedelics with reverence plus intentionality is an absurdly powerful tool.

    Doing both practices is a rare opportunity on this planet, to have the neurological genetics to be open to these practices, plus the life circumstances to lead both tools into your life is truly a precious opportunity. 

  4. Posted

    18 hours ago, kieranperez said:

    It was a very casual first toe in the water with Integral Zen and Doshin Roshi who is someone that knows me pretty damn well by now. I went to Peter & Brendan's IEW the next week which was great and many little insights. Though it was more focused I don't find the word "intense" really suits it well for me since I wanted to go there so bad I never thought of it as being so brutally tough or whatever. I imagine the 2 upcoming Zen sesshins will be more much more tough. Doshin is actually going to help me stay a little bit after at one of the monasteries (Yokoji in Southern California outside of LA) to get more of a hands on taste of monastic life which I'm still kinda considering despite the fear of getting pigeonholed. 

    Yes I imagine the sesshins will provide a whole depth of insight, appreciate, and understanding of the role of meditation on the "spiritual path." There is something profoundly powerful about the silence, stillness, boredom, and rigor of a meditation retreat setting. It molds the mind at such a deceptively deep way, especially if followed up with serious daily practice. 

    Doshin seems woke as fuck based on YouTube videos I've watched... His emphasis on shadow works seems particularly powerful as well. That's really awesome as well about getting the opportunity for monastic life. What do you mean about the fear of being pigeonholed? Like you somehow wouldn't be able to leave once you've committed? 

     

    18 hours ago, kieranperez said:

    I'm curious, since you've sat with Shinzen (given that you can still really experience transference of states over video chat - thank you quantum mechanics!), does he have a pretty potent state he transmits that you can feel when you sit with him? I remember my first & only sit with Doshin I was literally seeing fractals on the ground and was like 'holy fuck! I didn't even take anything!' 

    Honestly he seems to hide it. There are times where it's very obvious shits being transmitted... Or it kind of slips through without him intentionally doing anything. But I think he's extremely conscientious about NOT transmitting anything because he doesn't want his community to fall into needing him. For the second two retreats, the morning meditations began 3:30am PST time and I'm not sure I could have made it through them without him leading the sits... Having his presence there really helped, but again, he does seem to hold back for the most part. 


    However, based on some private exchanges I've had with him in one on one interviews, all I can say is his baseline state of consciousness is wildly higher than what he "gives off." But again I believe this holding back is intentional. Regardless, it does start to slip through, especially as the retreats progressed and momentum with the practice starts to build and especially during his evening talks. The mind starts to become more porous and sensitive to subtler "frequencies" of energy. Sorry I don't have more grounded language to use to describe that. 

  5. Posted

    1 hour ago, impulse9 said:

    I've done both reality shattering psychedelics (namely Salvia Divinorum - the others I've done don't even remotely compare in terms of scale, grandiosity and the experience of cosmic wisdom) and I've been meditating since early age and I've had more profound experiences with meditation. And the insights last longer and stick much firmer with meditation. With psychedelics it's fleeting, with meditation it's not.

    Don't get me wrong, I think psychedelics are marvelous tools for inner exploration, and my own trips have showed me beyond a shadow of doubt how very little we actually know about who and what we are, which is basically nothing. They are important tools, but the fundamental issue with them is that it's borrowed power. And this is why you don't take anything back from your trip, only the increasingly vague memories of something impossible that happened to you. It's a true mindfuck.

    But consider for a moment that you could access such power on your own. Imagine for a moment the implications of someone who is able to access this universal wisdom at any given moment, on his own power. This is supposed to be the endgame with meditation. What's the endgame with psychedelics? A life of scratching your head and coming up with ever more ludicrous theories (yes - I love McKenna but come on)? These are very important considerations that one should make in their life before proceeding on the spiritual path in either direction.

    ? 

  6. Posted

    29 minutes ago, Adam101 said:

    Though I do meditate every now and again, I do find it hard to motivate myself to keep a consist routine where I'm meditating for say 15-30mins per day when all I can think is well, in the end, I could just pop a psychedelic and achieve perhaps a year or two's worth of intensive meditation practise in one trip.

    Psychedelics and intensive meditation practice are unfortunately not equivalent. 15-30 minutes per day is nowhere near enough practice to understand what intensive meditation provides. What's interesting is that as you bump up your practice time, there tends to be a non-linear increase with the results you receive. 

    32 minutes ago, Adam101 said:

    I feel content and relaxed generally in myself so I'm not meditating for the purposes of that but rather to expand my consciousness, but of course, that kind of intention could take ages to achieve with meditation alone - and even then it might not happen.

     What are you basing this conclusion on? I have not met a single person who practices meditation seriously who has found it to be anything less than profound and life changing. 

    1 hour ago, Adam101 said:

    I'm sure even Leo said in his episode on psychedelics that you're pretty much wasting your time if you're just meditating. The real gains are with psychedelics.

    @Leo Gura You've really got to clean up your messaging man. This is wildly inaccurate and goes against not only what the average, serious meditator's experience is, but it goes against what every major sage from every major contemplative tradition has to say about meditation, or equivalent contemplative practice. This type of rhetoric completely misguides noobies into a false sense of understanding how to expand one's consciousness, wisdom and understanding in life. 

    @Adam101 psychedelics alone will do very little for profoundly altering your baseline state of consciousness. Meditation will. It's that simple. The idea that meditation can't give you psychedelic like states is false, it most certainly can and it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of how serious about the practice you are. Sure 15-30 minutes, missing a few days here and there isn't going to be very effective. But 2+ hours per day, going on yearly retreats or more, doing background practice in daily life, that's a whole different story. 

    You will grow tired of having to constantly use a foreign substance to be in these higher consciousness states. Psychedelics absolutely are a profound, powerful, meaningful tool on the path, but if you could only use 1, meditation or psychedelics, meditation would be better every time. It's impossible to understand why or how until you've done serious practice. Of course Leo has a different opinion, but I would encourage you to commit to rigorously practicing meditation, we're talking 1, 2, maybe even 3 hours per day for multiple years, before coming to any definite conclusion. Leo has not done this type of intensive meditation so really isn't a real authority on the matter. Serious monks and yogis are doing 4+ hours a day with regular retreats multiple times per year. What we do in the west is not "intensive" practice. 

    2 hours ago, Adam101 said:

    I'm new to the forum so it's not a meaty question as such but more about introducing myself as well and letting you guys know where I'm at after listening to much of Leo's work  

    Welcome man. I would actually say it's a pretty meaty question :D

  7. Posted

    6 hours ago, kieranperez said:

    What monastery are you checking out? That'd be great if you can find a monastery that gives that kind of flexibility as well as have a job that'd be flexible enough to get in serious practice. 

    It's called Monastic Academy Center for Mindful Learning.

     

    6 hours ago, kieranperez said:

    I might volunteer to help out with logistics there. Don't think I'll attend cause of cost. Would love to help though.

    That would be great. As I understand it, you'd also get to participate free of charge. If you have the time why not? 

     

    6 hours ago, kieranperez said:

    This isn't his home practice stuff is it? I've heard good stuff about it. What is your experience with working with him?

    Nah just normal retreat schedule but all on zoom. It was honestly awesome getting to go so hard at practice while being in my personal space. It felt like it helped with the integration compared to when I went to Texas, for example. The home practice program does seem great though. I really appreciate how engaged he is with his community. 

    My experience learning from Shinzen has been phenomenal. He is a serious, grounded, embodied meditation master and it shows with the way he gives talks, answers questions, and just his presence. Before going on the first retreat, I was honestly very confused about how to integrate many of the ideas presented in The Mind Illuminated, The Book of Not Knowing... Shamatha, jhanas, self inquiry, do nothing, vipassana, and then all of the Neo Advaita messages about stop seeking. Like wtf man so many competing messages :D But after coming out of that first retreat everything just clicked and in no small part because of Shinzen. His noting/labeling technique is extremely intelligent and effective. For me at least.
     

    6 hours ago, kieranperez said:

    Yep. The life circumstance thing is a big one. I've been pretty lucky in that I can probably do a few a year.e

    My goal is a couple per year too, but at minimum 1. 

    What about you man? How was the 3 day and intensive? 
     

  9. Posted · Edited by Consilience

    Total for me: 4 

    Retreat #1 Sept/Oct 2018: 14 days consciousness workshops facilitated by Brendan Lea

    Retreat #2 Sept/Oct 2020: 9 day online vipassana retreat lead by Shinzen Young

    Retreat #3 Dec/Jan 2020/2021: 11 day online vipassana retreat lead by Shinzen Young

    Retreat #4 April 2021: 8 day online vipassana retreat lead by Shinzen Young.

    Upcoming Retreat #5 Oct: 2021: 14 day Contemplation Intensive facilitated by Brendan Lea.

    Also trying to join a residential monastery program from Nov 2021 - April 2022 where I can still work my remote job while living in a more relaxed but still strict monastery setting. It would have retreats thrown in. Still attempting to work those details out.

    After all of these retreats Ive realized trying to do manual practice without ever attending retreats is severely lacking. The back to back meditation retreats were absurdly powerful. 

    I remember Leo saying in one of his old blog videos (one on YouTube not actualized.org) that we should be doing these type of retreats quarterly and if that our life circumstances wouldn’t allow for that, to figure it out so we could. Still “figuring it out” haha but damn he was spot on. 2020 was one of the most healing, “consciousness expanding” years of my life because of those retreats. 

  11. Posted

    11 minutes ago, diamondpenguin said:

    @Consilience what is the existential thing everyone dreads specifically? That's really interesting, but what is it?

    Hard to say because psychedelic states are weird in general, but it just seemed like the climate crisis was some kind of massive issue we know is an issue, but are refusing to address. Idk how to describe it other than it was like the sum total of human consciousness knows in the depths how bad things can get but is actively ignoring it. So there’s this collective dread/fear shaping in the background of our species-mind, if such a mind could be said to exist. 

    One of the qualities of the mind Ive learned from meditation and psychedelics is that A LOT is going on underneath the surface level of our awareness. It felt like the mushrooms dropped this veil and let more of the “background” into the surface view and what I saw was this dread. There’s still time but we are quickly running out and somewhere, our deeper intelligence knows this. Well, it felt that way. It’s important not to take these types of states too literally. 

  12. Posted · Edited by Consilience

    PNW, Oregon USA here. Ended up eating mushrooms and basking in the heat today on my back porch (shaded).

    Felt like I tapped into an existential dread hiding in the collective unconscious. Kinda like when a student is procrastinating studying for finals by playing video games. Even as they’re gaming, the background dread of the final lingers, and the longer they dont start studying, the worse the dread gets and the more they ignore it. A negative feedback loop...

    It felt like that was what our collective consciousness was going through. The majority of us are in utter denial about the severity of the situation, the potential for calamity looming right around the corner. 

  13. Posted

    19 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

    But it's also an egoic projection to see these events as only love.

    If the definition of love is how most people define love, the lovey-dovey kind, then yes I agree. 
     

    Or "you" could just be narrow-minded and thinking everything is just about love.

    I don't think everything is just about love. There is also the radical emptiness, the selflessness, the unity, the intelligence, to name a few. Look at the blind men describing an elephant analogy. 

    "Notice how the universe has zero problems with these events taking place. The universe is in a state of complete harmony and equanimity with these events merely by the fact of their existence. The equanimity of the universe, of wholeness, is a tautology of wholeness. Wholeness is exactly what it is because of it being what it is; this is infinitely direct. Once we realize we are not a "thing" within this wholeness,"

    Exactly, there isn't anything controlling this Runaway Train.

    Right, so notice this runaway train is totally self accepting. It has no choice but to accept what it is because it is what it is. That is existential love. It's how a being so selfless it would be nothing at all, literally, would love. Of course your self will interpret this as a story which contridicts the stories you tell yourself and the ways it clashes with your preferred way of framing truth. 

    It's whole because there isn't a real separate "you" involved.

    Right. Thus you must be that wholeness. There is nothing else but the wholeness, wholeness manifesting itself through itself; again, it is at complete and utterly direct acceptance with itself. Complete peace and harmony. These are the only conditions which provide the fertile ground for the possibility of the existential love I'm referring to. Yet even saying this much is an error. This love is beyond all stories, all delusion, all interpretations. It's radically direct. It is you. It is nothing at all.  

    That so-called integration happens within the dream story of being a separate individual which believes love and compassion is the ultimate truth. It's just conditioning, nothing else.

    That's right. The response, compassion, is a by-product of the human mind which has fully recognized its own empty nature yet understands the magnitude of suffering 99.9% of people go through. This response is not truth in and of itself. It is the organic response to awakening to the truth of love, just like a heart beat responding to the electricity of the nervous system.

    Your response is the response to an awakening into the emptiness of the story of me, and reifying that story into a fixated story of there never was a separate self. Which make no mistake, is a completely valid statement. This is truth. But the fixation of this view is itself another story that is reinforcing itself. Notice THIS is no issues with the fixation of "there never was the story of me." It is completely unconditionally accepting; this is love. THIS has no need for your stories about the emptiness of the story of me. 
     

    Reality is an illusory concept based within the story of a separate individual moving and progressing in time.

    Calling reality an illusory concept based within the story of a separate individual moving and progressing in time is an illusory concept based within the story of no separate individual going nowhere. 

    There is no separate individual moving and progressing in time; that is reality. You're playing word games based on what fits your biased self-fixated view of reality. The word reality, the concept reality, is an illusion. What it points to is not. Your stories lack relativistic understanding. 

     

     

     

  16. Posted

    50 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

    @Eternity You mean to tell me you believe you are a loving god?

    Natural disasters: Kill on average 60,000 people per year, globally.

    Homicide: The overall number of people killed in homicides increased from 362,000 in 1990 to 464,000 in 2017.

    Sexual assault: On average, there are 463,634 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year in the United States.

    Or are you one of those that just steer away from the negative stuff sitting in the comfort of your own loving beliefs.

    It is an egoic projection to see these events as anything other than love. 

    To truly have insight into how these events are love requires a heart wrenchingly powerful awakening into the nature of reality. 

    Notice how the universe has zero problems with these events taking place. The universe is in a state of complete harmony and equanimity with these events merely by the fact of their existence. The equanimity of the universe, of wholeness, is a tautology of wholeness. Wholeness is exactly what it is because of it being what it is; this is infinitely direct. Once we realize we are not a "thing" within this wholeness, but are in fact this very wholeness, we see that there was never anything other than a radical, unconditional self-acceptance of the world's atrocities. And when the mindfuck integrates with the heart, all that's left is love and compassion for all beings. 

    Reality is love; love is a brutal thing. Reality being love is hearsay until it's not.

  17. Posted

    Happy you're happy brother.

    Your own soul is the path home. This entire Universe is interconnected, interpenetrating wholeness where no two parts can be separate. This is not dogma, new age, actualized.org, Christianity, or any other school of mysticism; this is a fact of your direct experience. You may feel Christ is the answer, but that is only a projection of your essence onto an externalized manifestation. Christ is literally within what you are at your existential core, your very nature. 

    May the holy spirit within you bring the clarity and wisdom to see that you and Christ are inextricably and irreducibly one Being; you are Christ, Christ is you. May the holy spirit within you bring about a reintegration back into this wholeness such that you see Christ not only within yourself, but within the Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, Leo, all sentient Beings. May you see the deep unity that is absolute. Amen. 

    With love. 

    - You

  18. Posted · Edited by Consilience

    Ill bite and answer in a relative sense. Please note it’s all ultimately false, as nothing is dying. Reality is already dying and being reborn moment after moment. Look into Shinzen Young’s expansion and contraction model on YouTube. Expansion = birth, contraction = death. This process is happening at infinite scales at infinite resolutions right. Your present moment experience this very moment is a birth death cycle. Literally. But it’s all empty. 

    Anyways.

    Ive had multiple past life regression experiences, archetypical “soul-awakenings” on psychedelics to give the impression that one’s work in one incarnation does carry momentum into subsequent lifetimes. However, best I can tell if this is a valid model of relative reality, is that it’s not a linear process. One life you may be a simple monk getting woke as fuck, the next you may be a CEO pursuing money, next you may be living life in society who finds spirituality at the end of life, and the next you are a yogi even more woke than your monk lifetime due to working through karma in the two incarnations in between. Again, no clue literally at all if this mechanism is “valid;” these are based on very mystical, altered states via psychedelics. I suspect there is some truth to it. 

    I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch for karmic patterns and momentum, including the overarching process of full enlightenment, would build pressure and momentum over incarnations. Life is already absurdly cyclical, rhythmic, and process oriented. Why would life and death not follow some sort of trans-intelligent flow? 

    However, all of this is completely speculative, ultimately. Time is better spent doing the work to awaken now. At least in my relative opinion ha. 

  19. Posted

    Buddha's Zen -

    Buddha said: "I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as a golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated ones as flowers appearing in one's eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.”

    From Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

    This passage will transform in its meaning, and significance as the path is walked. Don’t be so sure you understand.  

  21. Posted

    33 minutes ago, Kalo said:

    I don't understand it either bad boy.

    Cars, houses, shit load of money, children, wife/husband lol. Pointless, meaningless, boring, obviously fake illusion. 

    If they only experienced the splendor of the spiritual world/dimension, they would come back and ask why I'm even still living in this boring material world, not to talk about having stuff in it.

    I'm barely holding out myself, trying to go back to the spiritual world by shooting 1g's and shit lol. But really, it's serious for me. I'm really not taking this ego-material world for much longer, it's too boring and fake. If I don't somehow get back to the spiritual world, I think I might overdose and kill myself. If I don't die, I've certainly had a breakthrough at least.

    Lord why, Lord why, do I wanna die? Ima get a maserati just to get my life inside ? ♡

    Mods? 

  22. Posted

    Must have had pretty horrible meditation instructions to meditate for 25 years straight and not understand what the self, or reality is. This is why conceptual understanding, learning from many traditions and masters is so important, not to mention contemplation as an important tool for enlightenment. Meditation in a vacuum seems to have a horrible "success rate."

    When one can seek without seeking, meditate without meditating, contemplate without contemplating, be a self without being a self, this is when true awakening will awaken to the fact that it was never not awake at all, and so now can truly and finally Awaken. 

  23. Posted

    Mystical experiences aren’t needed to see through materialism. I actually discovered materialism was bullshit before finding actualized.org. The only reason I found actualized.org was because I was trying to find ANY mainstream philosophy on materialism vs. idealism; I was so shocked at how my philosophy of mind professor and science teachers in University were just completely ignoring the hard problem of consciousness. Accidentally found the “brains don’t exist” video... 

    Understanding why materialism is bullshit requires you to realize it’s a belief. Then this requires you to understand that the nature of all beliefs is that they are false. ALWAYS. This requires an extremely high level understanding of epistemology and metaphysics. You have to see that it’s impossible for logic and reason to justify the belief in an external, physical world. 

    Again mystical experiences aren’t needed. Not only are they not needed, they wont do the deconstructing for you. Contemplate either while sober or while in the middle of a mystical experience. Deeply study the philosophy  of this stuff via Leo’s videos while grounded and sober. Recognize materialism is not inherent to experience, but is an existential assumption about the nature of experience.