Azrael

I'd say this is not the worst habit to have, don't you think? However, I would just let it be, look at it, be astonished by what nature puts out into my world and then turn my back on it. But it seems to me that you have found your way with this one. Cheers to you, dude!

The answer to your question is very simple: No. Sleep as much as you need - for me it's 8-9 hours and I seem to need a lot of it if I'm pushing it with my spiritual pursuits. Cut the bullshit, not the essential things to a great life. Sleep enough and well, meditate enough and daily, eat good and have a healthy schedule. There is always enough other bullshit to cut. I meditate every morning for 60 minutes, so I have to get up sooner as I had to when I wasn't meditating. So I'm choosing to go to sleep a little earlier and cut a little bit being on youtube, watching tv, reading books or whatever I do at night. This is worth it in the long run.

First of all, if you wanting to "accept everything" in terms of try to liking it, stop that. This won't work very well - as you probably experienced yourself - and is phony. Why should you like something you ... actually dislike? That's bullshit. What you can do though is to stop giving a shit. Meaning, you say to yourself that "it is okay that ... happens". It is okay that I'm stuck in traffic, it is okay that I don't like myself. It is okay that I can't see that I'm awake, it is okay that my job bores the crap outta me. If you implement this phrase "it is okay that ... happens" you start you accept the occurrence of any event just because by nature of its happening it should be that way. Everything is okay - just because it happens. Just because this is nature and nature seems to want this event to happen. If you do that you start to distance your involvement in all these "external" events, so this gives you some peace. Some silence. Some knowing that this is just the way it is. From then on - and only then - you can start to take real action to change things. Because you are not bound to them anymore. You erased your personal conflict with it. Then you can just decide to say goodbye to the events that no longer should be around you. And if this doesn't work, if you can't take another job - if it's crappy - or if you can't attract that one girl or you don't make the amount of money you want ... you just go back to square one and say "it is okay that ... happens". Matt Khan told me this way of going about it in this video and I love that approach.

Basically, you have do decide for yourself what to do in which state of the journey. If Leo is talking about changing the process, you always have to see that he is at some point in his journey and you might be at another one. Maybe Looking doesn't do much good at all for you? Maybe, it's the technique that lets you have a sudden awaking? If you still have such a strong sense of yourself as a fundamental - not part of this world - thing, then yes go dig deep enough 'till the shit purges and the self starts to break into pieces. Now, I'm for example are not awake yet but my sense of self is kind of shattered, laying on the ground. I had a lot of realizations that did that and so I'm at a stage at which I actually stop seeking that much, but more accepting that everything as it is is the way it has to be and is perfect. That's my current challenge, to actually see that. So, the journey has a lot of routes and a lot of let's say burdens to overcome. Investigate deeply what this is currently for you and then take the technique that fits it the best to work on it.

There can actually be nothing in something else. This is all just your mind separating things, creating more and more tiny little objects and interplays of these objects to get a picture of the world. Me, as an computer scientist, we always try to define everything very correctly and narrowed down to the point. This is all good and nice to get shit working well in a conceptual nature like machines but this is not how the actually world is - I guess. The actual world could be probably more viewed as a big intermingle of one big object - if we want to use this label. So this object is me, you, everything in between, space every form of space and even nothingness. All one big thing. That's why there is no actual "watcher" in your head. It's more like that you have such an great inter-mingle in your head that it is even able to create new inter-mingles - called thoughts. But of course we get all mixed up by this because 99.9% of the people trap themselves in their own realities. It's kinda funny actually, if you look at it this way. We are such an "advanced" peace of the big inter-mingle, we can't even believe that we are part of it. So, point here is: Don't get caught up in concepts. The content of thoughts won't help you do get deeper to the roots. Kinda look more of what the essence of - what you are looking at - is. Get it as an intuitive perception, not as a narrowed down defined peace of the cake. Cuz It's just all cake. Thanks for this interesting conversation any ways, @Emerald Wilkins

In meditation one seems to get quit often in these little pains. Your shoulders are feeling strange, your back starts to heart. Your legs feel weird, your face has some kind of tension in it. Who is actually experiencing this suffering that seems to arise through these phenomenons? Is it the actual pain itself that triggers it, is it your mental talk that produces it, your mental images, your feelings? What is going on anyway? Why do you seem to get nervous or scared if pain arises? Why is it that this one perception triggers that? I had my deepest insights last year investigating these kind of questions while sitting through immense pain with strong determination sittings. This brought me to a whole new place of realization and also helped in not feeling any pain anymore sitting for 60-90 minutes motionless.

You maybe wanna look into the nature of space. Your starting point could be something like "Space is the potential room that gives forms the ability to be born, exist and then die." That is really general and abstract. You can go very deep on several components of this statement. I personally find space extremely interesting and I often try to get a sense of it in meditation. What is space really? And then, if space exists there must be the other side of space. The opposite, because everything seems to come two-sided. So, what is non-space? What is non-existence and how could you possible wrap your head around something that by nature is not something. Is space a form itself or is it the place that allows forms to be? Is space 3-dimensional or does it even go higher in dimensions? Have you ever thought about that? I think that space itself, the relationship between existence and nothingness, is the starting point of all spirituality. How I see it, this is the point that allows spirituality to even be a possibility. Very interesting stuff. Is our world - how we can sense it - just a little tiny bit of an never ending fractal of possible realities all existing simultaneously and at the same "place"?

I got several pages for you, buddy

I cried or fell into immense laughter several times. It's normal. The more and the deeper you purge the shit out of your system, the more will set free and needs a mean to express itself. I know that this can be confusing in the beginning. But it's just the process. Every time this happens just think about you making real progress here, you just released some sneaky social condition, fear or what ever was deeply programmed into your psyche for way too long.

I'd agree that you really have to go deeper in your meditation sittings to get to new realizations and stages of the journey. Yes, I can verify that with my own experience. However, I'd like to also stress that it is not as linear as you put it. It's not that every time you go deeper in a meditation that you instantly get new realizations and go further to your enlightenment. You can't go towards your enlightenment any ways. It seems to me that I have phases in which I set the bar of deepness in my meditations a little higher and then in other phases I get rewarded for that work. For me it's more like a pendulum with that and it is even not that predictable. I had strong determination sittings that deepened my meditation but didn't bring my much further on my journey. I had other sits that are kind of mainly "responsible" for where I'm at know. If I go back to your illustration I'd say that the most "linear" progress in terms of deepness of meditation and going further on your journey is probably done by strong determination sittings. That's my experience. But as I said, it's very a broad generalization. Thanks for you view on this, though!

Ahh, I thought about this issue myself a couple of times. When I started out I just did self-inquiry and then when Leo told me about "Do Nothing" and "Strong Determination Sittings" I did that for a while. Then after some time I did a different meditation every day. Mindfulness (labeling sensations) meditation, self-inquiry, Do Nothing, contemplating death etc. Every day another one. After playing around with this for some time I just figured out what brings me the best results - meaning what meditation and enlightenment lifestyle seems to constantly bring me new realizations and new phases of the journey. That is of course highly variable for every person but I found out for myself that I can resonate a lot with Zen and its way of approaching it. I read a lot about it, studied and study everything that Alan Watts put out and designed my own strategy. (Though strategy is really the wrong word here.) And it consists of "Do Nothing" + "Strong Determination Sittings" for 5 days in a week for 60 minutes per day and on the weekend I will do one clean self-inquiry (as Leo told us) and one self-inquiry with contemplating death + strong determination sitting on both days as well. I'm kinda addicted to that shit as you probably know by now. I do this because "Do Nothing" is one old Zen way to go about it + I use the self-inquiry to get "new things to the top" and then just let them there for a week and observe them. In the last few days I listened to a lot of Matt Khan talks. In the first one I really judged that guy for being wu-hu and shit because the way his videos look like. Then I watched just one video and was blown away by what he has to say. So I use that in my day to get to new realizations. Basically, try out what works for you and then stick to that. You maybe want to add here and there a few new routines or get rid of a few if they don't work, but actually there is no one way. There is no way at all. You can sense over time what leads you in more trouble and then stick to that, because trouble is what you are looking for (your ego won't die w/o struggles - at least mine does not want to). If I had to only use one technique it would be strong determination sittings. Three sits back in November 2015 changed me lastingly what still is incredible to me. So this really seems to work as Shinzen Young pointed out. Good question!

I find your observation quite interesting. My first big paradigm shift about sensations were a few months ago when I was doing a lot of strong determination sittings. Now, I see that perceptions for most people - me included - are for most parts still thoughts. There is something involved in a perception that as you say exists for itself - but as we normally experience it is always combined with a preconceived thought. We basically have no idea what a perception really is. I had this realization after I sat for 90 minutes straight the first time. I went through that phase of immense suffering but I got through that to the phase in which you simple see pain. Now, real pain is just another sensation. It is not bad at all. Suffering makes pain bad. But you can't see that for the most time because you have never experienced pain. You just know suffering, which could be described as non-acceptance of the pain. And where does this non-acceptance come from? Probably from a lot of very basic understandings of how this world works and what do to and what not to + a lot of sense experiences. Now, non-acceptance is just made up. It's just another thought. So the actual perception of pure pain doesn't reveal itself to you if don't use techniques like strong determination sittings to provoke that. As you do that and break the foundations of your common reality apart, not only a lot of things in your deep psyche seem to rearrange but you also feel like you were fooled the whole time. I had times in which I gained intense please and ecstasy from the feeling of pain because I got rid of the suffering. So, to sum it up. In my experience are perceptions a great way to see what is real and what is not. Go deep on that one. Question everything there is 'till there is nothing left then pure it. Think about it, as you read the lines there is a voice in your head reading and understanding it w/o much effort. Are you really perceiving this? Or are there a series of automatic thoughts involved and everything you sense is a very abstract product of the actual sensed perception. @Emerald Wilkins Thank's for your great realization, it's an interesting topic @Pinocchio Man, you are so nuts. If I read your lines it's like pure gold is dippin' in my face. Thanks for your wisdom, you made my evening!

I had something similar going on while meditating the other day late at night listening to an Alan Watts lecture. He really took the concept of our consciousness, all the sense perceptions and thoughts apart. While I was merging with what he said - I didn't really listen but took it unconsciously in and became his words - I suddenly experienced first-person that everything I see and sense in general is me. As you delve in the enlightenment ideas this is something fundamentally and makes of course a lot of sense if you think deeply about it. About nothingness and all that. However, it always is just an intellectual thought and nothing more. So, in this moment it felt like I had "ownership" of what I see and as if my focus stopped being narrowed in something before me but being "narrowed" on everything that I can see - which is kind of a paradox but made sense in that moment. It wasn't a hallucination - I encounter them a lot in deep meditative states - it was a sudden realization. As soon as this happened I wanted to grab it and it went away. That was really strange. It's always the same with me. As soon as some of these states manifest I have the automatic reaction to grab it and then it leaves. However, this is progress, dude. You start to get glimpses of something bigger than yourself. Cheers to you

I think there is absolutely no problem to play with any forms that can occur, to take any role that I can think of and play it out or to fulfill any deep desire programmed into myself - when that day comes where I can see that all of this has no value at all and it is at its root just play. In beforehand, I'll always have to be conscious about the fact that I tend to give these games value. And when I give them value I give birth to the possibility that I feel shitty when I can't have them no more. And that's why the monk listening into the mountains and just sitting is wiser than me - because he is actually able to realize what I just said.

Great question, dude. Love your post already. And the answer to your question is: Fuck yeah! I play the drums myself since I'm 6 years old and go swimming every week to work out, so I can somehow relate to your examples. What you start to see after meditating a while or being on a spiritual journey is that the idea of meditating - completely being with the flow of reality - can be applied in most - if not all - disciplines of life. And especially in sports and music is it very natural - as you pointed out - to apply the phenomenon of meditation. What happens if you play the drums - and I love that - is that you completely merge with the rhythm and every sound that appears in the present moment. You need to be completely there to handle your hand-foot interplay. As you get better playing an instrument you'll see that at some point this starts to happen for itself. That actually seems to happen with the most things that you master over time (driving the car, going, talking etc. ...). What happens here is that your "self" is taken out of the equation of handling that task with conscious thought. Now - and you can apply the same line of argumentation I just gave to swimming or to most sports in general - does this help you with your enlightenment work or is it possible to use that as meditation? Yes and no. It can if you want to. Start to let your intuition do it's thing and just observe what is happening. Where are these sounds - when you play the drums - coming form? Where is that rhythm you feel coming from? Where is it going to? What state seems to manifest in that situation. Where does it come from? Same with swimming. If you start you feel into that you can make a lot of very normal things a meditation and use it for your spiritual progress or to see reality at its work. Cheers to you for that great topic

I kind of agree and disagree with you on this one. I think you are greatly benefited if you start your enlightenment journey after you have managed to get your basic needs in place. Meaning, a job, maybe a girlfriend / wife if you want, a solid self-confidence. All this probably helps to start the journey and not to fall of it (because you have no money anymore to feed yourself or shit like that.) However, one also has to see that there is no special point to reach in self-actualization. it always goes on and is very depended on your current situation and what pops up in your life and how you (want to) handle it. You could also start an enlightenment journey if you are a complete loser, dead sick or any situation you can think of. Might be harder though. I firmly disagree with you about your point that it's pathetic to take enlightenment out of mastering your normal life. Because it's pathetic to take your life serious at all. That's the whole point of enlightenment, to see that. Everything you do in your normal life is a game in which you play a role. You are actually so identified with your roles that you come here and argue for the game because it seems so real to you. Don't get me wrong on this one, there are games that are not serious but maybe sincere. And because of this I like to "actualize my day to day life" and have fun with this, while being on the journey and while seeing that this is all play (or trying to see that - it's not easy). So everybody who goes on such a journey and becomes a monk will probably be more right in saying that what I do - having a "normal" life and trying to seek pleasure out of it - is more pathetic than sitting all day long and meditating to get to the same goal. Keep that in mind, and see for which side you really argue here. It's not that easy to see that and somebody who speaks for his self-identification will probably have problems understanding my point. Any ways, thanks for the conversation

Actually, it's not that black and white. I had a temporary spiritual experience last year and one of the most interesting things that appeared were that it actually seemed that I am more arrogant than usual. I had a buddy around and laughed him out and told him that I can actually not detect any difference between him and the wall next to him. Now, how can this be? Were I fooled? No, what seems to be the case is that you become very grounded when you dis-identify from your ego. You get completely grounded in what is and probably don't become the product of the other people's talk. You just do your thing, without being frantic and neurotic about it. It's the most beautiful place I can think of and there is nothing in this world I know that could be compared to this. Btw, you = ego. You can't have to much ego. My ego is just talking to you. An enlightened person still has an ego, but just chooses not be identified with it if he wants to.

TM - as I understand it and I have done just a little youtube / wikipedia / google research back in the days - is mostly a mantra meditation with a simple sound that doesn't mean anything in particular. Yes, there are these expensive courses and stuff and this is probably just a way to make good money off it BUT: The technique - for stilling your mind - is in my personal experience next to the standard Zen - count your breath from 1 to 10 - technique one of the most effective ones in stilling your mind. Every time I tried it I got very fast into a state of samadhi - most of the time in 10-15 minutes and could stay in that state for a while. However, I kind of doubt whether it will suit spiritual pursuits. In my experience there are better techniques for that endeavor. But for stilling the monkey in your head, a mantra may still be the best idea because you really kill the possibility of your mind talking random bullshit.

After my first 120 minutes strong determination sitting I woke up for three weeks and felt completely peace the whole day. No terrifying thoughts, no bullshit, just pure concentration + relaxation. I was so effortlessly concentrated I merged most of the day either with what I saw in front of me or with every situation I was in with somebody else. I thought: "This is so nuts, fuck enlightenment. This is enough. I completely feel free. I am it." I even cried sometimes because it was so nice or laughed, didn't make a difference. After that 'till now I am always mixed up by my feelings, feeling shitty, feeling concentrated. Sometimes I'm going back in cycles to that state I described. But here is the thing. This is all just progress. These are all phases of the journey and you'll go through a lot of them. I tend to develop a kind of "I don't give a fuck" attitude how my mind currently does its thing - whether all is nice or everything is shitty. If you are conscious enough you can begin to see through that. But your ego won't go without battles . Btw, you = ego. Doesn't make a difference. "My ego" is just talking to you. So, lay back and have fun watching it. There will probably come a lot of phases you haven't encountered yet. Cheers to you,

Oh, I have / had a big problem with that myself. I'm not at the point where I completely accept everything and just be the flow itself but I made some good improvements. I started out with being totally frantic and neurotic (as I see it right now) and at this point in my life I'm pretty chill most of the time and a little neurotic and frantic when "important" stuff happens. So, here is basically what I do to get better at this: Every time I feel as if I cannot accept either the present moment / myself or whatever is happening to me I concentrate very deeply into that feeling. I locate it in my body (for example fear often sits in my stomach) and I just observe it. If I can I lay down on my bed and feel really into it, doing some self-hypnosis to getting to the root of it, I do that. I don't try to get rid of it, but I just feel it and so kind of accept that the "non-acceptance" is just there. This typically helps me to get out of my head and relax myself a little and overtime this is my key for holding my shit together. I agree to everyone saying that you don't need any technique and just let it be. That's all right. And I agree that we are all awakened but don't see it and so on. But in reality @Emerald Wilkins I know for myself that there are situations in which you need a technique to get on with your life. So, that's what I do. In the long-term I cannot agree more to @Jan Odvarko. Strong determination sittings are responsible for my fastest and deepest gains in that field.

Is enlightenment the highest wisdom? Very interesting question. For me it feels like there only can be wisdom for the unknowing, the dumb one. The one who is not in the know. As soon as you start to get in the know there probably is no wisdom to find but reality itself. So, in some sense I'd say yes it is the greatest wisdom to find - for someone like me who is blind. But as soon as this barrier breaks that @Emerald Wilkins used in her very beautiful analogy I think wisdom becomes reality - at least the most of it. Let's see for ourself, will ya?

Ever since Leo did his "Do Nothing" and "Strong Determination Sitting" videos I practiced these techniques very rigorously and I attribute fast spiritual gains especially to strong determination sittings. In the beginning I was kind of shocked of how direct this method is in releasing illusion. I just recently found an great analogy that explains especially why such a technique can bring you so much clarity so fast. In an Alan Watts Lecture he mentioned that he has looked into the "act of torture" and makes the point that the worst part of torture is the beginning. Because in the beginning the victim is full of all his illusions and dramas. As the torture proceeds the victim over time seems to get in this drunken masochistic state in which he actually starts to get pleasure out of the pain. I find this analogy kind of useful to explain what happens in strong determination sittings. You start off basically with all of your beliefs and are just taken through the rudest kinds of pains 'till there is nothing left then plain it. I personally found that there is a state in these sittings in which you completely surrender to the pain, you just give up and take it all in. You completely accept that you don't know when it'll stop, you accept the roughness of the sensation of pain and see it just as it is. After doing this dozens of times your view on pain seems to dramatically shift. You have seen through a lot of pure illusion by just surrendering and bringing yourself to the end and what it will leave you with is this great sense of groundedness. I attribute most of my gains that I have made so far in very long and very intense strong determination sittings. I hope i could inspire you guys, let me know what you think of it? Something to try, or maybe a little to harsh for you? A little to direct? For me personally I found a lot of beauty in this very simple task. I found the Alan Watts analogy in this video. Highly inspirational for me.

You find the lecture here. Always a pleasure to share what this man had to say.

@Emerald Wilkins @Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj I challenge both of you to ever get aroused enough to have an orgasm while seriously contemplating "Who am I?" or "What am I?". Just kidding here. You can get enlightened while sitting on the toilet reading the newspaper. Just look at the Zen practice and how they enlighten people. Yesterday night I meditated while listening to an Alan Watts lecture about Zen stories and they really do crazy stuff to shock you so spontaneously and directly that you have to awaken. So who knows, right?

I kind of sense in your posts that you are a little pissed about this enlightenment work. If that is the case that's completely fine and can be one of your first realizations. Investigate why you are so critical about it. Why do you feel angry about it? (if that's the case) But look dude, actually it's not hidden at all. Actually everything is it and everything you see, sense, ... perceive is it and so on. So it just lies right in front of you. Now, what we as humans do is that we like to play. We like to play so decisively that we forget that we play. See it this way: if you act in a game for a long enough time and everybody around you does the same thing and everybody you ask about it will always defend the game, don't you think your perspective will completely merge with the game? How could it be not? So, remember a world in which everybody is enlightened. What would be different? The ego would still develop as we grow up (that's just normal) but because everybody is in the know and it's common sense the last step from the egoic phase to the trans-egoic phase would probably a natural process supported by everyone because it would be the thing to do. But that's not yet the case (look up the Graves model, we are not at green or further). So, if I look at it - it is perfectly fine and just the way it is supposed to be. Investigate you criticism, it's not bad. (Had to use that cool smiley once .. hehe) It can be the source of great realization!