Eph75

Not knowing the depth of the toxicity in this, but from what I've read in the different threads you have started about your past relationship, it sounds like a volatile situation. Whatever happens, make sure you stay safe.

His ego has been chipped, he tries to recover/rebuild the ego by attempting to control you in your absence. It's the same but a light weight version of the "If-I-can't-have-her-no-one-can" that in extreme cases lead to violent acts and worse. Controlling/possessiveness shouldn't be mixed up with real love. You seem affected by it, even though the relationship is over. Does he still have an emotional effect on you?

There is no value in erasing history unless we judge that history from newly gained perspectives. That's kind if missing the entire point. Embracing all that is mean we also have to embrace all that has been, it can not be with it. This is where there is time to just pause and turn to introspection. No thing in this thread is "out there". What you are looking for is, like everything, within you. Therefore, this is a distraction.

@Lento I think we already agree. A destination implies a desire to get somewhere - or - need to prove something which results in distractions. This thread is such a distraction

The definition of "awakening" matters hugely, awakening implies awakening from a sleep. To me, that happens once and only once and that is when we've awaken from the "sleepwalking" state that most of us spend our entire lives in. There is no mistaking when this awakening has happened. If you're in doubt, guessing or feel you have a stong enough concept, no - that's not it. This you just know, and feel. Awakening makes us "see" in a completely new way, a kind of third or a fourth person perspective. We see and make sense of things in a drastically different way. We're more of a spectator of the going-ons that we are the participator. With all the consequences that follows. Insights we can have infinitely many of. None of which can be "total". An insight is just a new way of making sense of "some thing" previously known or "some thing" that we've been made aware of that we we've not been aware of previously. Still, this is just one more distraction that pulls us away from that which matters - which is embracing "nothing".

@Lento No, that just sums up to nothing at all.

It does not matter. It's just a label that is attributed to an experience in that moment. A moment that appears as "relatively total" . Of course it's not, the thought of having an insight of everything that is, it is absurd. So yes, he was mistaking, and yes, he is human (who'd have thought). This whole thing arises from *someone* putting Leo (or anyone) on a pedestal and *someone else* reacting againt it. There's always more. Push on further. For him but also for everyone else that gets hung up on what he does, "rigth or wrong". It does not matter, it's just one more distraction.

It sounds as if you are worried about what others will think about your music, so the closer you come to being finished the more doubt you add into what you do / more restistence arises in a sort of self-sabotage. That self-sabotage could be an unconscious defence mechanism in order to avoid risking having your ego and self-esteem getting "targeted" in case people would reject your work.

https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety/anxiety-chest-pain

How do you experience this "pain" and do you usually experience anxiety? First thought that pops into my mind is that anxiety can make itself reminded as such "pain" that more like a pressure point than a sharp pain, in the opposite side of the heart region. Gets accentuated when exhaling slowly and deeply.

Stumbled across this one a while back, bookmarked it, never got around to reading it, have no idea what it says but it might be of interest. A four part thing where one part is detox. https://scottjeffrey.com/decalcify-your-pineal-gland/

I'd say.. Pay attention to what you are telling yourself. Hell is created by that internal voice when it gets to do its thing unchecked. A) Become aware of the voice in your head B) of what it is saying C) that it's bullshitting you 99% of the time D) treat what it tells you with maximum sceptisism If you manage to understand this, experience it while it's full at work and challenge it, that will turn you away from the destructive paths it lays out before you. You will be going to better places.

@Adodd Thanks for the kind words I'm here to help as much as I can.

Ethos - ethics Pathos - Emotions Logos - Logics Essentially the way in which one reasons. By leaning on logos you lean towards reasoning and judging through logics and facts or even "common sense" to get others to agree with you.

Which brings up a related - and should be equally interesting - topic. Do women suffer a self-esteem hit as they get older and their vaginas become - not sure what the most accurate term is - not as firm as it used to be?

Also posted here

Are you sure a defense mechanism is that crude? That's not really a question. Don't underestimate the subtleness of the ego. Instead recognize and ask what might be going on here that is not readily available for you to percieve. I don't know you so what I say means nothing, of course, but also recognize that you reasoning this way actually means something. That something is much more interesting from a growth perspective. Loving the stage we're in is loving life. Life is to be loved. I don't think tier 2 underestimate tier 1, rather the opposite, appreciates the stages for what the are. They're part of all of us. And they are more apparent from a perspective beyond. Actually, they are not seen as a direct thing from within tier 1.

We're constantly adapting and picking up patterns whether we know it or not. I'm guessing that there was something about these things that they did that resonated with you and that is why you remember that. Being social creatures we are pre-programmed to fit in socially, being accepted in a social setting. So adopting features that we ourselves find compelling, straight off carbon copy or modified, knowingly or unknowingly, is not a strange thing. I've done the same. It's harder to do the same when you are conscious of it, as it comes out as a bit ridicules, and we tweak it to be more our new behavor than mimicing someone elses behavior. Have you ever notised someone else copying someones behavior and thinking "oh she/he is totally copying him/her"? Happens all the time. If you have a poor self-image or low self-esteeme I imagine that you would be more prone to do this as you have greater a need to fit in/be accepted. The line between building a facade and an actual behavior shift can be hair-thin. Adopting behaviors isn't bad, facades usually are. Facades not to be mixed up with roles, we can put on a role at work that essentially is a kind of facade, but that facade is purpose driven to fulfull a function more so than hide something that we've made "ugly".

@EternalForest Do you see that you argue that the stage you are in is the best stage - which coincidentally is a trait of the teir 1 stages. You don't have to transcend-transcend-transcend. It sounds like the words of the achiever, the orange stage, with a need to succeed. Well, you don't need to anything. You don't transcend stages, each stage is building on the previous stage. So you won't end up waking up one morning feeling like "you" have been lost. You're not losing anything, you're gaining something new. Of course you're losing limitations in making sense of things, but you won't miss "not being able to make sense" or "making less sense" any more than you probably don't miss wearing and pooping in diapers. Your reasoning sounds like it is coming out of fear of what's not known and it manifesting as a defence mechanism that is working hard at convincing yourself that the best thing would be just to stay where you are at. The beaut is that you don't have to convince anyone, just do what you feel is right at this very moment. There's no twisting of arms. But you're probably allured by what's on that other side, otherwise you wouldn't be here. The problem is that you can't convince someone for whom doing his business in the toilet makes sense to agree to it making more sense to regress to "pooping in diapers". The example is ridicules, but it is really the same mechanism at work.

Personality is a set of behavioral scripts that is based on the belief systems/paradigms that the ego has attached itself to, so that it can assess, judge, accept, reject ... and operate autonomously without mindfulness. I.e. a figment of your imagination, ignorance, that keeps you away from the discovering that you're not who/what it has limited yourself into thinking you are.

Well, no, we're all the same with the same inherent capabilities but some of us have strayed farther away from the path, building stronger defensive mechanisms and walls - and - it is probably harder for them to let go of their paradigms in order to tear those defenses down, so that they can open their eyes and see. Externalizing problems is a very effective defens mechanism as it removes you out of the equation - but also away from any solution.

Sorry, I struggle with the length of my posts. This got even longer than usual. Also more personal than usual In meditation, things don't mean much and it's a bit of a trap to try to put meaning on things. We love trying to make meaning out of things even if there is no meaning to be found. We create meaning. But it is only adding distracting and preventing us from going further. Meditation - well this form of it at least - is about doing nothing so that nothing can do its work on you. With that said, there's your question "when" this happens, and you're perfectly right. It happens when you manage to reduce your mind straying about. The absolute best is to try having "no thought" but that is extremely hard. For me I get the sensation of falling into a blackness when that happens and usually I get pulled right back out due to reacting/thinking about it. When I manage to let myself stay there for a while time is lost, it's like sleeping but not sleepy. Although - and as of yet - I can only manage short bursts of this state. I'd love to be able to stay there for hours. While "no thought" is hard, "less thought" is easier but still the mind wants to stray. By focusing on one single thing, it doesn't matter what that is, it can be a hand, a finger, foot, forehead, "third eye" , pulse in arm, sensation of passning air at the base of your nostrils, and by being strict on not letting mind wander at the same time as minimizing thoughts/analysis, you will reach access concentration. I myself put my thought into the void behind the blackness of the visual field and find that more "no thought" can be found there. But whatever works works. So in short, access concentration is when you've calmed the mind so that it doesn't do thought-hopping. It is just the first stage of increased concentration and you should allow yourself to go further. This is where it gets tricky, as it feels amazingly good beyond this point, and the acknowlegdement of this sensation is thought, and thought takes you out of it. So you need to learn to not let the occassional thought interfere with the process, let it go. With time that occassional thought will interfere less. And with time those occassional thoughts will be fewer. It's difficult to say that you have no thought, that's probably impossible but they can be let passed without attention. When staying in access concentration for a while, the next pleasure challenge will come, the "rising and passing away". They are probably very individual so this is highly subjective, and for me it is usually (99% of the time) one of a limited few differnt forms of the same type of lightning effects. The absolutely most common is that a black/blueish-metallic void appear in the visual spectrum (eyes closed) , rather large and it moves away getting more concentrated. As it gets smaller it grows an outer orange/firey glow around the edges and as it grows the void shrinks down to a glowing electric dot and then down to nothing, at the same time as the organge light grows up to 100% of the visual field. At the same time as it reaches 100% it turns into a new black void that shoots off into the distance. That cycle is repeated over and over, sometimes a very short while, less than a minute, sometimes maybe 15 minutes (time perspective is problematic when you get to this point), but usually somewhere inbetween. Sometimes the orange is circling around the void and end up exiting right, never left. You know when you get here, these phenomena are not subtle, they are absolute. Why does it do that? What does it mean? So what does it mean. Nothing. Just be along for the ride and don't react when it ends. Place no thought or meaning to the intensity nor length of the phenomena, it's distraction. Also don't try getting here, that's also distraction. Do nothing. With time you get to this state quicker and quicker. Currently I'm there somewhere between 3 and 15 minutes into the meditation, wholey depending on how much peace of mind I've had during the day. If I'm having good days I even get here when awaken, when going to bed in the evening, after being to the restroom in the night or during my meditative morning walk. This got very personal, I try not going personal but since the meditation experience is fully subjective I felt it might be helpful to hear what it can be like. Also, these two states are the easy ones, they are more of switch-on states that defines the start of the meditation session, you will get through them and you will learn to get through them quickly. Key is "do nothing, think nothing, just sit". If you want some reading, I'd recommend Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel Ingram. It's free both as audio book and pdf. Audio book only first edition though, I think. https://www.integrateddaniel.info/book Also Ten Happier podcast by Dan Harris Ep. #187 Is Enlightenment Possible for Regular People with said Daniel might also be interesting. Dan Harris has more podcasts on the topic that might be worth looking into.

That's reaching "access concentration". Just don't let it distract you and don't try to make sense or reason with it and you will move on to other states. With time you get there really quickly, within minutes.

My theory is that some people have a more or less inherent ability to awareness and consciousness through introspection but not having awakened those abilities becomes tools that instead of helping transcending ones problems actually work as excavating tools, digging the hole one is in deeper in every possible way. At some point the bubble of ignorance is popped - typically through crisis - and you suddenly gain a lot of clarity as a result of all that contemplation work you've done without realizing it. Other people have little or no ability to introspect and are externally focused around their problems and it makes it very hard as no solution is found "out there". ...it's a theory, that matches my experience.

Yeah sure but if you think about it, competition is usually about achieving excess and not just enough to cover the basic needs so that you can focus on being happy. We're products of a world in which we need to win, earn big, make success, be liked, having others look up to us, be beautiful, have the perfect poster-life and so on. Oh all that distraction...