cetus

.@LRyan Yes that is ego sneaking in. It will play all kinds of games. Just return to the breath and go on. There is nothing here that can hurt you. And fear only has the power that you lend to it. In a way it's good that this happens because it's exposing the ego for what it is. So next time if that happens just acknowledge it for what it is and let it go. This too is part of the practice. Every time you hit that wall of fear, break through it. Only by doing so will you prove to yourself that ego/fear is just a paper tiger with no teeth.

@mp22 That sounds like a good meditation to me. You where observing an empty mind. All that remained was consciousness in it's purest form. Beyond thought/identification. Sweet!

@mp22 What do you mean by "it"?

@LRyan "Today is the first day of the rest of your life". That's a great saying! And so true. And like a ship on the ocean, a small correction in course today can greatly change your point of destination. Always check your heading!

@LRyan Sure there can be too much conceptual knowledge. Especially with the internet and so many different sources. Direct experience is key. When I started this journey there where just a handful of books out to read. Other than that you were on your own to discover what is true. The only other choice was go to India and hopefully find yourself a guru.

@electroBeam I've tried doing that once or twice before and yea it can be a little freaky starring into your own pupils. That's hard core stuff if you ask me and I don't really hear much about doing that practice. So I don't have much experience with that. I'd rather experience no-self in nature instead of in a mirror. But that's just me.

@electroBeam I'm sure it goes much farther, I can't even imagine from my perspective. IF you could stay at that level of consciousness 24/7 you would have to be a fu#@ing saint though. It requires absolute stillness of mind which is hard to maintain every moment. At least for me anyway. By the time I get back home it's all me again with the outside world on the outside. But it's nice to visit and insights can be gained from it. I guess it could be likened to a mini 5meo experience from what Leo explains in his endeavors about becoming one with the dirt on the bathroom floor and seeing God in it. Of course not that intense though.

@electroBeam I like to find a more secluded spot in the woods and just sit and listen to the wind. And usually a few birds will pass by. But yea, if you lose yourself out there it can be very transforming. If your mind is very still, it can feel as if God the creator is looking through your eyes. Contemplate on that. (hint-hint) As another practice I'll sometimes focus on the sound of one bird chirping in a nearby tree. Than bring that sound from the external world into the internal. It's wild b-c the bird's chirp honestly sounds like it's happening inside my head. Than I contemplate the location of the bird. See how the lines between self and other are becoming blurred now? So that's my losing the self in nature practice. I like to get away from familiar surroundings that keep me stuck in myself. Out there I can easily lose my sense of self and other. All the divisions fall away and everything becomes one field of existence. A none dual state, I guess that's called. For me that none dual state is realized with the least resistance in nature so it's easier to get a lasting direct experience to contemplate on. Or just sit with it.

@electroBeam I gotta suggestion for your practice. Get out into nature and try doing the same no-self practice you do but instead of looking into the mirror look into nature and lose yourself. On another note. You got me thinking now what is a face ? On a surface level nothing more than genetic make up that was influenced over millennia by it's environment into a certain configuration. A face has a long vertical protrusion in the center with two small openings at the bottom that allow the atmosphere (oxygen) to be inhaled. And conveniently located on the bottom so that rain doesn't fill them. Haha Than there's a larger opening below that is specifically designed for the consumption and breakdown of raw nutrients. Yea, that's a pretty sight. Than the eyes and ears. And what's up with that long stringy stuff growing out of the top of the head? (with the exception of Leo of course). People talk about seeing aliens in their sleep or whatever. Maybe they're just recollecting their earliest memories of seeing a human face for the first time. No wonder newborns cry! Woa!

@electroBeam As long as there is self there will be fear. Let me share something with you that happened just last night. I woke in the middle of the night with that strange feeling that I didn't exist. Probably the same fear you get when looking in the mirror. So I faced it and let go into that sense of no self and it became perfectly clear that the self and fear is nothing more than a paper tiger. Something amazing had happened that swept away all that fear in an instant. The existential self was completely gone and all that remained was spirit inhabiting this body. No self. No birth. No death. No fear. Just spirit. I understand to you these words may be absolutely meaningless. So the only way this can become your truth too is for you to face the fears of the existential self (the paper tiger) and find what lies beyond. I think that is what is missing here that is causing your fear. You haven't gone quite far enough yet to fully break through to the other side. Your only going far enough to scare yourself. When you do finally go all the way, everything will than fall into place.

Do you see how it all collapses in on itself? The searching that is. Than what remains?

Yes it is from the viewpoint of the seeker. You see there is nothing that really needs to be done. Allen Watts stated it best when he said "any effort to become enlightened is totally futile. Like trying to assist an air liner off the ground by pulling on your seat belt". And another great saying of his It's like painting a red rose-red

@Driven Woman I agree with what @LRyan has said. If they are mostly ego/surface driven people than anything you present to them on a deeper level will be greeted only on that surface level and most likely rejected. Or worse they could be offended too. Usually what happens is they turn it around as if your somehow trying to be better than them. As the old saying "let sleeping dogs lie" fits here (not to be offensive in any way). They will awaken of their own doing when they are ready and not a moment before.

@LRyan Does he understand the "spirituality" your talking about means total acceptance of all aspects of the self? WTF's wrong with that? I mean take self enquiry for instance. It is a form of self auto analysis. And meditation is the gateway to the subconscious mind by allowing a silent space in which negative thoughts can freely rise to the surface that may have otherwise stayed buried. Wouldn't you love to meet and talk to his other two "spiritual" clients? And who knows what they believe in. Maybe they are deeply into religious dogma and he's heaping you all in one pile. Or maybe they are Actualizers too and saying the same you are. Wouldn't that be too funny! This is good stuff though, please keep us updated. We'll dissect the mofo's partitioned/ one way street/ pigeon hole-ing mind for him. That's probably the problem for him. Your throwing a monkey wrench into his structured map of treatment by not fitting concisely with the norm and he doesn't know what to do with that. Also there seems to be some personal attachment to this so his ego is offended.

@LRyan Life itself is opposition. Yin and Yang. Opposite forces constantly playing tug of war and in doing so keeping everything in perfect balance. There is nothing difficult about it when you remain at the balance point. So what I'm asking is, could you remain at that point of balance without being pulled too far right or left? Could you stay centered and just observe everything without judgment or resistance and remain open to everything? I'm not saying to buy into everything. I'm just saying stay open to everything and use what serves you best.

@pluto I'm listening to it again now with headphones and meditating. This afternoon I used the loud speakers for ambient sound which it works great for too. Did you see how the sacred geometry takes on another dimension? I've read about that before but never actually experienced it.

@pluto Great sound track. That's a keeper. While listening I was also watching the flower of life turn into a rotating 3 dimensional sphere. Very cool!

@Magic I just Googled adverse reactions to meditation and found this. Thanks!

@Raquel This too shall pass. In the meantime plant a garden.

I got the munchies after listening to that.

@100rockets Enlightenment is the last trick your mind will ever play on you.

As Electrobeam has said awareness is self aware. A good example of that is yesterday after I meditated I went outside to work in the vegetable garden. I turned the soil over and planted an early spring crop of mixed lettuce and sugar snaps. It was very Zen like. I completely forgot myself while doing the task. But yet something remained other than Me. If only my whole life was like that. No doer, just what is.

Lifestyle magazines brim with mindfulness features and the global advertising giant JWT listed mindful living as one of its 10 trends to shape the world in 2014 as consumers develop "a quasi-Zen desire to experience everything in a more present, conscious way". But psychiatrists have now sounded a warning that as well as bringing benefits, mindfulness meditation can have troubling side-effects. Evidence is also emerging of underqualified teachers presenting themselves as mindfulness experts, including through the NHS. The concern comes not from critics of mindfulness but from supporters, such as Dr Florian Ruths, consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley hospital in south London. He has launched an investigation into adverse reactions to MBCT, which have included rare cases of "depersonalisation", where people feel like they are watching themselves in a film. "There is a lot of enthusiasm for mindfulness-based therapies and they are very powerful interventions," Ruths said. "But they can also have side-effects. Mindfulness is delivered to potentially vulnerable people with mental illness, including depression and anxiety, so it needs to be taught by people who know the basics about those illnesses, and when to refer people for specialist help." His inquiry follows the "dark night" project at Brown University in the US, which has catalogued how some Buddhist meditators have been assailed by traumatic memories. Problems recorded by Professor Willoughby Britton, the lead psychiatrist, include "cognitive, perceptual and sensory aberrations", changes in their sense of self and impairment in social relationships. One Buddhist monk, Shinzen Young, has described the "dark night" phenomenon as an "irreversible insight into emptiness" and "enlightenment's evil twin". Mindfulness experts say such extreme adverse reactions are rare and are most likely to follow prolonged periods of meditation, such as weeks on a silent retreat. But the studies represent a new strain of critical thinking about mindfulness meditation amid an avalanche of hype. MBCT is commonly taught in groups in an eight-week programme and courses sell out fast. Ed Halliwell, who teaches in London and West Sussex, said some of his courses fill up within 48 hours of their being announced. "You can sometimes get the impression from the enthusiasm that is being shown about it helping with depression and anxiety that mindfulness is a magic pill you can apply without effort," he said. "You start watching your breath and all your problems are solved. It is not like that at all. You are working with the heart of your experiences, learning to turn towards them, and that is difficult and can be uncomfortable." Mindfulness is spreading fast into village halls, schools and hospitals and even the offices of banks and internet giants such as Google. "It is worrying," said Rebecca Crane, director of the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice in Bangor, which has trained 2,500 teachers in the past five years. "People come along to our week-long teacher training retreat and then are put under pressure to get teaching very quickly. Exeter University has launched an inquiry into how 43 NHS trusts across the UK are meeting the ballooning demand for MBCT. Marie Johansson, clinical lead at Oxford University's mindfulness centre, stressed the need for proper training of at least a year until health professionals can teach meditation, partly because on rare occasions it can throw up "extremely distressing experiences". "Taking the course is quite challenging," she said. "You need to be reasonably stable and well. Noticing what is going on in your mind and body may be completely new and you may discover that there are patterns of thinking and acting and behaving that no longer serve you well. There might be patterns that interfere with living a healthy life and seeing those patterns can bring up lots of reactions and it can be too much to deal with. Unless it is handled well, the person could close down, go away with an increase in self-criticism and feeling they have failed." Finding the right teacher is often difficult for people approaching mindfulness for the first time. Leading mindfulness teaching organisations, including the universities of Oxford, Bangor and Exeter, are now considering establishing a register of course leaders who meet good practice guidelines. They expect mindfulness teachers to train for at least a year and to remain under supervision. Some Buddhists have opposed the idea, arguing it is unreasonable to regulate a practice rooted in a religion. Lokhadi, a mindfulness meditation teacher in London for the past nine years, has regular experience of some of the difficulties mindfulness meditation can throw up. "While mindfulness meditation doesn't change people's experience, things can feel worse before they feel better," she said. "As awareness increases, your sensitivity to experiences increases. If someone is feeling vulnerable or is not well supported, it can be quite daunting. It can bring up grief and all kinds of emotions, which need to be capably held by an experienced and suitably trained teacher. "When choosing a course you need to have a sense of the training of the teacher, whether they are supervised and whether they themselves practise meditation. Most reputable teacher training courses require a minimum of two years' meditation practice and ensure that teachers meet other important criteria."