Afonso

@Leo Gura I hope you get enlightened while still keeping your Youtube Channel active. Hah, that would be pretty sweet.

@Leo Gura So, I want to keep sharing my progress so far. Your video on Concentration vs. Meditation really helped me a lot to steady my mind and now I can keep it very, very, very still during Meditation and Self-Inquiry. It gives me a huge emotional stability and equanimity. This helps to face emotional resistance and turmoil in every-day life and also when I'm doing this kind of consciousness work. So I'm doing Meditation, Self-Inquiry and Concentration daily. I feel very motivated doing Self-Inquiry now. I'm reading lots of books, including your book-list. I am experiencing interesting phenomena. 1) I feel huge pressures in my head. Headaches/pressure, whatever the name for the pain is. The pressure increases when meditating/concentrating/self-inquiring. It hurts. 2) I dropped all the intellectual stuff because I'm at a point where I no longer identify with thoughts, so it's pointless. Also, I don't feel the need to ask the question "Who am I?", although I occasionally do it, because I can easily "tune in" to the intention. Please let me know if this is wrong or if you don't understand. 3) I notice a lot of memories bubbling up and A LOT of energy coursing through my body, specially with Self-Inquiry. 4) My mind has become very very still, or at least a lot more calm in contrast to my experience previous to the concentration habit. I also like to ask myself "Who am I?" outside the cushion. It's hard for me to do this kind of work "as just a hobby/side project", so I tend to constantly think about it throughout the day. What advice do you have for me? Are the things I'm experiencing common or relatable? The pain in my head has been bothering me a lot. It was present when I did Meditation, but now with Concentration and Self-Inquiry it's much heavier. It permeates the eyes, jaw, teeth, the sides, front and back of the head and also from within the head. Thanks

Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi is a former Zen Master who has founded an organization which shares/sells content that deals with the Big Mind Process, a path for waking up and seeing one's True Nature. Ken Wilber supports his organization and the actual process. Can anyone say anything about this? It seems very unreal that one could awaken from a one-hour practice of the Big Mind Process. I believe it's a pile of horse shit, but there's so much popularity around it. @Azrael said he got an enlightenment experience from that, which makes me wonder Why is it soooo popular and famous and whatever, yet no one talks about it here?! Is it really a scam?

Don't worry about not feeling the effects that I describe. As I can recall, I started out with single 5 minute sessions and didn't feel much of a change in my experience. It was only when I boosted to 10 minute sessions after a couple of days that I started feeling a lot more peaceful and my mind got very still. Everyone's position is different. Work your way through longer periods of time. If you still get distracted, keep practicing. Eventually, you'll reach higher levels of concentration, it all boils down to how much you practice daily. That said, I still think my results were influenced by my meditation habit of over 6 months.

Wow... Just wow! Installing a concentration practice, a daily habit, has been very powerful lately! I just reserved a few days just for concentration practice! Today I did ~3 hours of it including 5 or 6 chunks of 10 minutes and 1 chunk of 1 hour. I notice a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge boost in my meditation practice AND the emotional stability and tranquility of mind that can last for days is just amazing! It can feel a lot like you're in the center of an hurricane, as Leo puts it in his video Concentration vs Meditation. I used the same method as Leo of the repeating sound, but contrary to what he says, I really enjoy concentrating on the sound of the metronome, it's like a hit of pleasure every time I hear the sound. HOWEVER, I'm still not sure if I'm hitting access concentration. I mean, it keeps being easier and easier to focus and I don't need to put a lot of effort in it, but I can't identify any "access concentration" state. As for peace of mind, I don't know what makes a bigger difference - Meditation or Concentration - or if this tranquility was magnified by concentration but build upon meditation. I feel like emotionally invincible with the concentration practice.

try increasing the time, that's too little

Is it the same as seeing it just as arbitrary phenomena without any truth?

@Leo Gura Since I've started doing this, it seems like my mind and body function without my intentional control. It scares the fuck out of me. I mean, here I am, now, doing stuff and it takes "effort" to create the illusion that I am doing "effort" in doing stuff. But stuff just happens, mind just does it thing and body just does it thing. I can't explain it... but it's both amazing and frightening. For example, I don't really know what it's going to happen next. I can sense that the control I think I have over my body/mind is nothing but illusory. Still, sometimes I do feel in control but that is also dissipating. Is this how the process unfolds? I feel like I'm watching my life unfold

For me, the biggest transition was with the help of 1) Meditation 2) Exposure to a completely social environment for 1 week, every day 24 hours a day - always with people The meditation part helps you focus on the present moment. Since I've detached myself from thoughts and the inner dialogue in my head, I can really focus on interactions and therefore I'm much more spontaneous. Spontaneity is key. Second, I think that a completely social environment for a medium period of time helps as well, to remove those layers and filters that keep you from being spontaneous and genuine. It also helps if you have a relatively high level of awareness, so that way you can "watch" yourself interacting with people and be aware of all the tensions, thought patterns and emotional buttons that you have. That helped me a lot as well. So I have never been really social or could easily connect with people, BUT, since last week was over (1-week vacation in Barcelona with ~3000 people my age) my social skills have boosted so much, I can't even describe to you. I can now so easily connect with people and it is just an automatic thing. I say this as a previous introverted. For me, the key was massive social reference with lots of awareness. Now, I'm super social, weird huh? Anyways, I really like it because I can take out the joy of friendships and interactions. EDIT: Because, really, friendship, in my point of view, is just a synonym for a deep emotional intimacy that you build upon multiple social interactions.

@Leo Gura I've been meditating for 6.5 months now. I just started Self-Inquiring recently, but for the past 3 to 4 days I have broken identification with "the voice". I no longer identify with it and see it just as thoughts. Now, it takes me a lot of conscious effort to speak the words in my head when typing/writing/reading, which means that I can write and read a lot faster because I don't go through the mental process of speaking the words. Also, it's now very rare to find myself in "Speaking-To-MySelf-Day-Dream", if you know what I mean. Is this an important step in my spiritual journey? I want your validation. Give it to me

I do that to show dominance and to show that I'm attracted

THANK YOU LEO

hot babes everywhere

Since the past month, I've noticed times where I feel like no one is in control... the body and mind are just working automatically. Sometimes something goes out of my mouth, or think something or feel something and I'm just left like "Who the hell is doing all this stuff?". The distinction between thought and awareness is increasing. Awareness of my emotions is rising... I am so much more in touch with my emotions. Thoughts are much more tangible. Since the past week I can successfully turn my attention completely away from negative thoughts and it makes me smile because it's just random phenomena, I'm not responsible for "generating" the thoughts. I wanted to share my experience with you. What are your thoughts on this? It's amazing............... And it has only been 6 months. thank you so muchhhhhhhhhh this has been the most important habit that I've installed in my life I'm so grateful

Since I've been meditating, this phenomena keeps occurring: I'm sleeping and then, all of the sudden, I realize I'm sleeping and open my eyes. I can't move, yet I get visual input. I usually see strange things. For example, once I saw the outline of a human body who I felt was my mother. Today, I saw myself in the reflection of the TV monitor, moving and waving my hands furiously (yet I was still in the first person view). I can get out of this state in 20~30 seconds if I try, which is what I usually do because it's so scary. I've heard that this phenomena relates to sleep paralysis but it seems so much stranger than just that. Any thoughts on this? Thank you!

I've been meditating everyday, sometimes twice a day, for 5 months straight. However, I still feel resistant when it's time to meditate. It's subtle, but the resistance is still there. Does it ever go away? Or will I always feel this resistance to meditate?

For how long have you been doing this?

That looks like a good way to see things.

Shit, way to go! I wish you the best!

I'd love to hear other perspectives on this topic

Currently my meditation consists of focusing my attention on the present experience. I don't try to control anything, nor think anything in particular. I just focus on being aware and not distracted and sucked in by thought. Is Meditation on a Passage equally beneficial and useful for all the long term gains and also to dissolve the ego and experience all the amazing stuff from standard meditation? If so, wouldn't it be more useful to meditate on a passage because it would affect more deeply the core parts of our personality? Is this even true?

Yeah, this used to happen to me the first times I experimented with meditating late at night. For me, I'd be very alert and aware. Not thinking about anything in particular, but just being.

I've read the book also, but this is not contemplation. Contemplation has a goal, to discover something or to gain some insight. This here is different, I think. It's really about Meditation... on a Passage. Comes from a book called Conquest Of Mind.

Hey, it's Afonso, not Alfonso. I wonder what @Leo Gura has to say about the subject. The quote is from a book that he recommends.

5-MeO