I'm reminded of the story where Nisargadatta would ask a follower "what is your experience of Truth" and no matter what answer they gave his reply was always the same "No that's not it".
That number is quite normal. Pickup has a steep learning curve.
Results should be judged not by lays but responsive phone numbers, dates, good interactions, etc. Especially in the beginning.
Although I’ve contacted Peter many times and have had interactions with him during the time he was doing satsangs, this was my first time at his intensive (lead mostly by Brendan Lea), and my first retreat in general. The created format for their questions going from who am I, what am I, etc. I thought was a little annoying and rather confusing given that I started with who (which I hear is a common frustration with people in the beginning that do work with Cheng hsin) but I understand why they make the distinction between who and what. It’s basically to distinguish any confusions in the mind about WHO is to get enlightened, as they would put it and then questioning the nature of what your nature is. The thing to keep in mind is that it is an invented framework for working with things and Brendan and Peter are honest and upfront with that. Ultimately it doesn’t matter but I imagine it could avoid confusions down the road even after an enlightenment.
I really appreciated this sort of pure cold masculine orientation to things as that’s how these guys are and how they run things, particularly Peter.
Brendan primarily is the one that runs things and I think he’s good at his job.
When it comes to the format, as someone whose worked a good bit now with Zen and certain zen masters, particularly Rinzai (though a more toned down version of it), this really does feel like a lot like that. Understandably so since (Rinzai) Zen is a very masculine, militant, and disciplinarian way of doing things. Personally I found it very refreshing and direct and I still feel like they held back the intensity and wish they amped it up more. That’s just my personal take on that though. For me it was very empowering and I highly recommend it if you’re used to this airy fairy egalitarian orientation to things. I found it to be a real breath of fresh air.
I must confess it took me a day to get over my projection of Peter when I first encountered and talked to him in person. This was expected on my end prior and I know that’s usually how this goes. I definitely had a hard time shutting up when it came to asking him questions. He certainly “puts on a character” when it comes to how he is in the dojo and what you see on video. There was a lot I learned about him indirectly from other students and I’ll just say, he’s still a person (as we all are - enlightened or not). That said, the guy is a genius and really a one of those rare kind of humans. His genius as far as I’m concerned really isn’t even necessarily anything to do with enlightenment, although it is impressive in terms of the freedom of a lot of stuff that is not going on for him. I certainly had a lot of fun and look forward to more work. What I found interesting though on the first day was that I felt no transmission or anything from him on the first day, unlike other teachers who I’ve befriended and sat with such that I’m experiencing intensity more strong than any LSD trip I’ve taken. Funny enough, I heard tell from several people he actually hides it to not hook students as it is just a distraction, which I appreciated. Though I can’t help but wonder if that would’ve helped process all the mental garbage in the first days of the intensive and release shit. I also can understand why people think he has some kind of asbergers or something. He certainly seems to lack some kind of basic human empathy thing that most humans are wired with or something. His militant intensity and this austere obsessive personality though was felt from day 1 though and it really stood out, transmission or no transmission, and it was impressive. That guy speaks from that and it really is one of those things you encounter in one of those rare kinds of human like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, or whatever.
All in all I highly recommend you go. Or just get enlightened and get on with your life.
Cobsider the following Ralstonion thought, “life’s a bitch and then you die.” ?
For those who've watched the latest episode and might like to hear another voice on it.
'Integrity comes from and makes real the experience of being whole and complete.' Ralston in Ancient Wisdom, New Spirit.
The best way is to do work and actually build something that offers massive value to people.
Talk and criticism is cheap and ineffective. The biggest trap is criticizing others. This solves nothing.
You are right that Full Enlightenment can't be transmitted by words. Nor fully described. But it can be very well pointed to.
The stages/states up until that can be described quite well, since duality has not broken down yet fully, and language can work with duality quite fine. Of course, if the referents of certain meditation experiences are not there yet, they have to be created/trained first. But they can be described in such a way that they can be recognized then.
Maybe you find that perspective of Dr. Daniel Brown interesting. Quote from Pointing out the Great Way:
"PUTTING MEDITATIVE EXPERIENCE INTO WORDS
A good deal of Western scholarship on religion assumes that mystical experience is ineffable. Mystical states are said to be so profound that they are indescribable. This view is wrong. Rechungpa, a contemporary of the great Tibetan saint Milarepa, wrote an extremely detailed work on all the changes that occur in the body and mind at the moment of enlightenment. The most striking feature of his Clear Wisdom Mandmudra is the extreme technical precision used to describe internal states. As a tradition, Tibetan Buddhism is perhaps unique in the level of technical precision used to describe meditation experience; there is nothing comparable in Western mystical literature. Western mysticism largely has been restricted to individual practitioners, small groups, or time-limited movements, wherein the mystics either didn't express their spiritual attainments in much detail, or expressed these attainments in idiosyncratic ways according to their unique realizations and cultural context.
Tibetan Buddhism, in contrast, is a highly organized lineage tradition that has been around since the seventh century, with Indian roots that go back much further. The early oral tradition spawned a loose but extensive network of itinerate practitioners who shared or traded teachings and specific spiritual exercises. The monastic tradition beginning in the eleventh century was characterized by tightly organized, stable communities of large groups of meditators who engaged in continuous dialogues about meditative attainments. They developed an elaborate inner science of spiritual development. During this period the technical language for spiritual development became more consensual, technically sophisticated, and refined as standards for discussing attainments developed. This body of technical knowledge was transmitted from generation to generation until the present day.
The central problem then for the Western reader in understanding spiritual development in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is not its alleged ineffability but the opposite: namely, understanding the vast and sophisticated technical language of internal meditative experience. This book is designed to give the reader a precise map of internal meditative states."
In his dissertation, he translated single-handedly the main texts of Theravada-Buddhism, the Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali, and Mahamudra from their original languages, and looked for the deep structures "behind" all these systems.
Excerpts from the summary of his dissertation in "Transformations of consciousness, chapter 8"
"In this chapter, Daniel Brown addresses the second question by presenting an in-depth cartography of meditative stages drawn from three different traditions—the Tibetan Mahamudra, the Hindu Yogasutras, and the Theravada Vipassana (this cartogra-phy was subsequently cross-checked with other contemplative texts, Christian, Chinese, etc.).
The results strongly suggest that the stages of meditation are in fact of cross-cultural and universal applicability at a deep, not surface, analysis)."
100%
Depending on the brand, you will get a completely different taste and nutritional profile (sugar and potassium will vary a lot)
Best brands IMO are Thirsty Buddha, Thirsty Buddha Organic (probably the healthiest, high potassium low sugar), Blue Monkey, Taste Nirvana (tastes the best)
You just wanna find one that is not from concentrate and has nothing added to it, can't really go wrong with those
It is my personal experience. I can do the Eckhart Tolle thing and sit for hours on a park bench, with bliss flowing through my being by cutting off the self-contraction and resting in what is. Which I often do.
I was doubting that when it started (it started before all insights into the nature of being were fully in place), doubting it just like you. And then it didn't stop, didn't get broken, even by really heavy blows. It has established its own momentum and force and continued ripening. Then later what I really am got confirmed by certain states/realizations beyond any possible doubt.
If my character tries to do its old thing of grasping certain experiences (or avoiding others) and suffering while doing so, there is literally the choice to believe it or rest in Awakened Awareness (which brings its own bliss, and more that the sought for experience), and it is spotted very fast.
Can my "character-thing" be improved? For sure it can. It has a long hang-over of self-contraction. But its ability to really reestablish the self-contraction (which blocks the flow of bliss/openness of Awakened Awareness states) with real belief in it and on an ongoing basis is structurally gone.
Well, I am not going to convince you just by writing. But not writing it is also not an option. Ken Wilber once wrote that the obligation one has if one sees is to tell, or else the soul gets very sick. I would have no problem leaving the forum behind. Although I enjoy writing, I got many nice things to besides, and wouldn't miss it. But it would be the wrong thing to do.
So, I kindly ask you to be at least agnostic to what I write. Be also honest why you wrote "be honest". I have the feeling there is something mildly annoying you in my writing.
I can only invite you to try the path I walked, and described in many posts (Mahamudra/Dzogchen, mainly Pointing out the Great Way), or any other path, and see for yourself. There is a risk of establishing self-limiting beliefs when there is too much doubt in the reachability of the fruits of the path. Literally every tradition confirms this as the potential of every sentient being.
I will continue posting mainly these old texts (because they show the universality of these realizations over the centuries). Sometimes telling about "ones own" experience is ok, but if one does it all the time, it can easily become self-importance boosting, or can come across as such.
Bon voyage
Water by the River
The only solution is to socialize more to increase your odds. It's a numbers game. The more people you meet the more likely you are to meet exceptional matches. There's not any magic to it, you just gotta invest energy in socializing way more. Consistency is the key. Half the battle is won just by showing up every day when you could be doing something else.
I think some people are more inclined to like CNS stimulants because of brain chemistry probably, caffeine totally works for me, makes me anxious as hell though, which is its downside.
Terence McKenna says that the closest thing to a psychedelic experience is traveling. Not sure if you have experienced them but 8 years ago I started traveling and was obsessed with it. Until I tried psychedelics and discovered that there is a whole universe within myself to explore.
With that being said, Im originally from Brazil, live in US and have travelled around a bit. Experiencing different cultures will help you a lot with changing your belief system and consequently your life, once you experience many cultures you start getting rid of old stuff from your culture and opening up space for new things to come into your life, it's a deconstruction of your web of beliefs.
Moving to a new place also circulates energy, sometimes when we don't circulate energy life forces us into change, while when you are proactive and circulate energy ourselves life flows more smoothly.
Another point is, wherever you go, there you are. Contemplate the main reason why you want to do the big move. Hope my brainstorming helped
@Leo Gura thank you so much for the satisfaction meditation and the root solution for loneliness videos, they really have had a big effect on my life. Sometimes I just feel soo good and I can't believe it, I just can't believe it. I've only been doing it for 20 mins 6 days a week as well, I'll be changing that to an hour at some point in the near future as well and I can't even imagine the results I could have with that, especially as a way of starting my day.
It's hard to say because my desire for that waa already pretty low. Psychedelics have made me less motivated to do business and to work long hours.
Psychedelics tend to undermine meaning, so things that you used to find meaningful are not as meaningful any more.
Hi Ayham, I remember that very well. Facing everything the separate-self can throw at you head on.... And it can throw a lot... Maya is not letting one off the hook easily...
The Game-Changer for me was the book "Pointing Out the Great Way, Daniel Brown". At least for me personally, 95% of the meditation system out there would have never worked for me.
They would have been too unpleasant, or needing more much willpower.
Or I would have get stuck in the several traps there are, where ones practice can "bottom out", and lead nowhere....
So I can not highly enough express my gratitude for the heroic pioneering effort of Daniel Brown translating all these books, and getting the (in my opinion) most sophisticated meditation system of the planet to the West. It has been practiced and refined for hundreds of years, developed further, elaborated in hundreds of Tibetan Books, producing a steady stream if deeply enlightened beings.
It achieves a precision of technical vocabulary in the stage decriptions of evolving meditation, meditation experiences, resulting understandings and insights about ones mindstream and Reality emerging at different stages like nothing I have ever seen, and I studied more or less all major meditation systems, reading a few hundreds of books.
The book is several hundreds of pages. It lead to me awe and deep respect of the Mahamudra-System when realizing at certain stages that I just had experienced the exact same flow of meditation experiences and understandings/insights than Tibetan meditators hundreds of years ago.
Of course I can't summarize a few hundred pages of the book with the musings below. But I try to give a first taste of the system, with some personal experiences with it, and how it all developed for me, just to show off how great and oh so wonderful I am . No, just kidding... Because I would have loved to have had something like a"user experience" with certain meditation systems like that 15 years ago, to get a feeling for a certain path, and the experiences others are having with it.
Concentrative Meditation:
I would recommend starting with concentrative meditation, the Elephant Path (all Tibetan schools use it). There are several stages of concentrative meditation that must be mastered, and tools learned doing it. They are very well described in Pointing out the Great Way, and "The Elephant Path: Attention Development and Training in Children and Adolescents", in the chapter of Daniel Brown. Here is explicitely stated what one learnes while learning concentrative meditation. By the way, that system is in my humble oinion more sophisticated than Zen or Vipassana, because it includes techniques like easing up and intensifying. That is essential for making it efficient, and these techniques are just not there in Vipassana and Zen. These aspects (easing up and intensifying) one learns there by conincidence, or not at all.
In the beginning, you don't stay long on the meditation object (breath, stone, candle, not so important), but just catch yourself when you have wandered off, your monkey mind taking you on a ride and elaborating something else. Now: Don't put negative reaction/feedback on that, but move attention/focus back. You can only control focus/attention, you can't force what thoughts emerge.
So meditation is always moving attention back from wandering off, and the more you do that, the more pliant the mind becomes: Less wandering off, and if wandered off much faster to move it back.
And when that goes quite well with a little bit less wandering off or loosing attention. Then, when its more automatic, you "ease up", which means you use less energy and focus, and see if you can stay on the object. If yes, good: Ease Up. Easing Up brings more clarity to what else goes on in the mindstream. Which lets you notice more of the subtler arisings of the mindstream emerging. When you drift off more than, then intensify: Inhale strongly, increase focus, energize. And see then if you stay more on the object. If you do, ease up. Find the optimum energy balance you need to stay on the object. One balances easing up and intensifying then....
Then your clarity will increase, your energy will become nice, joy can start to arise.
And then you do that for a few months, a year....
Meditation Experiences of Clarity, Lucidity, Bliss and Non-conceptuality (silent mind) can occur, but also go again. They are just experiences passing in you.
This way, you train your focus and make your mind pliant.
When you can stay on the objects for a few minutes without totally getting lost in elaborated thoughts, and keep some focus on the object while wandering off in thought a bit, you have partial staying.... at some point you have pretty good staying on the object for a few minutes.
Meditation without an object:
Then comes a big change, that you can start doing then: Change to the Mindstream of thoughts itself as meditation object. And try to stay mindful of the mind watching that mindstream.
If you can keep doing that (which takes a long time), you can start taking the meditation into daily life.
Investigating the Nature of thoughts:
See Pointing Out the Great Way for that.
Thoughts are no different than consciousness, which is empty/nothing, yet has clarity/awareness, so its not a nothing at all.
If you look into a thought, you don't find it, it disappears. Is cut off. One can never see or find a thought. Looking into a thought, an experience of un-findability arises. Empty, nothing specific. But with clear alert awareness of consciousness. Empty and aware. Nothingness, yet something that is not nothing. Nothingness. Emptiness. Consciousness. And more important: When really looking into the nature of a thought, it evaporates. Is cut off. Disappears. Reveals its nature of emptiness.
With exactly that phenomenon is worked in the "Skill of Recognition", see below. Doesn't that effect appear as very useful to get thoughts and the mindstream under control? Of course! That effect of the thought evaporating, revealing its nature as Nothingness/Consciousness when looking into it, and generalizing that oberservation and understanding on the whole mindstream and all events it contains and can contain. That is understanding the continuum of the mindstream. The nature of thoughts.
You don't control the thoughts which arise, that is why you/the person is also empty, a concept. Because what are you, if you don't even control your thoughts, and what thoughts arise?
After having mastered Concentrative meditation, and having understood (contemplation) the nature of thoughts as consciousness/awareness/emptiness/suchness/Nothingness, you can put that into practice:
Skill of Recognition: (1. Yoga of Mahamudra system)
Now it gets interesting. That was the decisivepoint for me once I understood that, and implemented it. Afterwards, it started to get nondual pretty soon...
If you look HOW the thoughts emerge,
(1) out of what they emerge,
(2) what they are,
(3) in what they move
(4) into what they disappear
ALL of that (1)(2)(3)(4) must be present. Thoughts DO appear. From "something". Stay in "something". Consisting of "something"
All of that is Emptiness, or Consciousness, or Nothingness. Thoughts are made of "that","move in that", "dissolve into that".
and you will never SEE that, or can say what it is. Nothing. But not a blank nothing. An aware Nothing. Actually the essence of all world-appearances, but that comes later, when it gets nondual, at the Yoga of One Taste.
What happens if you investigate into emerging thoughts this way, is that they get FASTER. VERY FAST. Like 20-30 emergent thoughts/feeling arisings per second, most of them rudimentary. The mind does this to keep the illusion going. To make it too fast for you. But at some point, you learned to get that fast also...
Basically, looking into a thought, one sees its Emptiness/Nothingness (one doesn't find the thought, it evaporates). It is cut off. Dzogchen calls this cutting off "Trekchö".
Daniel Brown called this stage a "High Speed Search Task into the unfindability of the nature of thoughts". A High Speed Search task into their emptiness, into their nature as consciousness, as Nothingness.
So the emerging gets fast, very fast. Daniel Ingram also mentions that. But at some point, with enough practice and familiarity, YOU get faster. You spot and cut off every very fast, subtle, fragmentary thought arising. None of them "grips" you anymore, since you have seen them all, and their structure. Just thoughts arising very fast.
You don't control which thoughts arise. Depended origination, they are just emerging by themselves.
You can focus on just their arising (of thoughts), just their staying, just their going away.
At some point, they just emerge, looking into their nature is automatic, and they immediately dissolve. No duration. Just emergence, and poof gone. And when you are fast enough, you get a continuance of staying mindful. When that happens its pretty clear what happened. Your attention got so fast that you can stay mindful even through the high-speed thought emergence.
At the end, they come very fast, they don't get "elaborated out". Thinking, or elaborating the thoughts out, is slower than their emergence. They emerge already fully complete with their content, and then slowly get "talked/elaborated" in your mind.
Natural reaction: So WHO the f*** am I (pardon my french) when I
don't control what thoughts emerge and
if they appear fully with their content in a fraction of a second, and get elaborated later in a hypnotic show over several second?
good question... to be answered later.
Outcome is:
You know the nature of every possible thought (Consciousness-Emptiness-Nothingness), of the whole mental-continuum of thoughts, all that there can be. Their nature.
you can cut off or transcend/just watch your normal mindstream in most daily situations without getting caught up/hypnotized by it, which already here leads to a lot of bliss. Not sufficient bliss to get ones separate self completely handled, but already quite wonderful. That is the start of real freedom.
You know how your mindstream hypnotizes you, and gets faster when you actually look into each thought arising and its nature.
At some point you get fast enough to cut off every arising, or let it elaborate in a controlled aka mindful way.
Yoga of Unelaboration (2. Yoga of Mahamudra-System)
Here, you finish off with time. You open up the eternal always here mind. Past and future become deeply understood as imagined/manifested right here and now, not really existing. Only the eternal now exists. Not as idea, as concept, as understanding, but as felt and lived reality. Deeply realized. Always Here. Eternal. How ones True Being can be immortal/eternal/always here becomes a very real possibility here. Later on, the emerging possibility "of how that could work" become validated beyond any possible doubt.
Pointing Out the Great Way:
"From where does the first mind-moment [the thought-arising] arise? Then, where does it stay? Finally, where does it go when it stops?
The "mind" in which all this is happening is Always Here. Always Here Mind.
Time is not "out there", self-existing. You only notice time because of change, of emerging thoughts and appearances.
time is a mere construct/concept. No change of appearances/thoughts, no time.
"One" doesn't control the content of the emergent thoughts
"Through dependent origination certain propensities [thought capsules with their full content already "inside" emerge] at the very subtle level ripen into subtle movements within the temporal mental continuum, which in turn become constructed into and elaborated as coarse-level thoughts [get elaborated into long thoughts that get told in awareness over several seconds] and appearances"
dependend origination: "one" doesn't control which thoughts emerge.
"The skilled meditator can view events transforming from very subtle propensities to specific subtle mind-moments and constructed coarse thoughts and appearances seeming to arise and pass in the temporal mental continuum through a process of dependent origination"
Seeing and understanding the emergence of the thoughts (fully formed out with all their content, but not yet elaborated in the mindstream, emerging in the Always Here Mind), and seeing this in real-time because ones attention got fast enough, is a game-changer.
That stage is very hard to fully understand in Pointing Out the Great Way. At least for me, it took me a long time. . I would have been faster with coaching....
Yoga of One Taste (3. Yoga of Mahamudra System)
So here it gets nondual and mere appearance, floating in Nothingness. No more a solid and external/duality reality "out there" anymore. But an infinite limitless field of Infinite Consciousness, manifesting an appearing world of mere appearances arising in it. A loving blissful boundless timeless field of bright lucid Awakened Awareness. This is where probably (my pet-theory) the Endohuasca-System starts working. https://dmtquest.org/endohuasca-magic/
The practice is basically taking the insights of stage 2 and putting them into practice, specifically also in daily everyday life.
With that, one gets enough time and momentum in meditation to really make the difference, to get it nondual. To make all that with sitting meditation on the pillow, at least for me it would have been a full-time job. And I did a demanding career and some other stuff in the meantime also...
The view taken
all thoughts/mental events emerge in the Always Here Mind, or Simultaneous Mind (which means nondual).
same with all world appearances.
The essence of all thoughts is emptiness/consciousness, and the essence of all visual field appearances is also emptiness/appearance/consciousness. That is called the "One Taste" of every arising (thought or world-appearance). Nondual in other words.
and being aware of the emerging high-speed stream of thoughts emerging already with full content, but getting elaborated in the seconds following, and
cutting off most of the emergent thoughts by looking into their nature, which has been automized by this point
enough clarity and mindfulness is generated that at some point
The Visual Field/"world": Becomes mere appearance and infinite/limitless
becomes mere appearance appearances
1) the world no longer feels "out-there". Everything arising just arises in oneself.
2) appearances loose their solidity. One can not tell if they are solid "objects" out there, or just appearances happening in the timeless Always-Here-Mind
3) At some point later, with a lot of meditation-mindfulness-momentum, the "inside" feeling as pure empty awareness, a very transparent witness, but not even that because the awareness is no longer separate: the visual field becomes really mere appearance.
One looks at something, and its just appearance hovering in Nothingness.
You feel into it, and its essence is the same as the indescripbable Nothingness behind ones head.
luminous mere appearances, very similiar to trip-descriptions.
the limit of the visual field, and the wondering of "what is behind it", become limitless or infinite
there is "nothing" behind it. One just imagines a border/boundary of the visual field
one imagines that something must be behind it (like 3D-Space continues".
No, 3D-space is imagined in dimensionless Nothingness/Infinite Consciousness.
3D-Space is not self-existing, dangling out there. That was a biggie for me, took a long time to get, and could have been much faster with coaching. Guess I am quite a visual person
Time is gone. Timeless
Everything can only happen here, and now
Past is imagined here and now , future also here and now
the "subject"/"me", the separate self Gestalt/arisings, feeling and being separate from the whole Reality,
slowly gets transcended and dissolves, more and more aspects of the person/separate self are seen as arisings moving within oneself.
finally, after a long path of transcending every identity/I-thought/I-feeling of the Ego/Body-Mind/character, it becomes a transparent witness, nothing but still something witnessing the visual field.
At some point, One can't tell AT ALL what one is, nothing positive is left. I am not the body/person, anything. Only aware Emptiness. But somehow some murky Witness or something like that still there. One literally doesn't know what one is, besides the nondual field...
One becomes the visual field of mere appearance, one is that in a nondual way.
any sense of location or center slowly dissolves. One becomes the whole boundless timeless field of mere empty, groundless appearance. Sometimes lucid and shimmering, like mere appearance.
Some traditions call that already Enlightenment, or Kensho/Satori/Awakening. And it is in some way. But Nonduality is not already Full or Great Enlightenment, where there is absolutely no doubt about ones nature, and the nature of reality. That can become clear like ice-cold water thrown in ones face.
Nonduality can be very well experienced by a separate self, just try some psychedelics.... To reach Nonduality sobre without psychdelics, one already has to be quite empty or transcended the separate self, but not necessarily (and normally) fully.
With psychedelics, you don't need to empty (or have transcended the separate self) at all. 5 MeO will do that for, even if you don't want. Not fully empty, not the last step (no traces of Individuality/transparent witness left, see above), but very very much.
that brings us to the last stage, Stage 4 of the Mahamudra System, the Yoga of Nonmeditation. And here is where meditation, and the long time it enables in these very empty states of dissolving every last speck of individuality/last very subtle separate self arisings/last very subtle illusions, becomes paramount. Only this 4. stage enables the final crossing over to fully, without a doubt, knowing what Ones True Self, and Reality, really is. Without that, suffering, grasping for ever more Awakenings, and still being a bit "gaslighting-ability" of the finality of ones realization/awakening, continues.
Yoga of Nonmeditation (4. Yoga of Mahamudra System)
What is already the case, from stage 3 Yoga of One Taste:
The visual field/world already arises in the Always Here Mind
as mere groundless luminous appearance, with Nothingness as its essence
in an infinite limitless field of Awareness Space
in the timeless Always Here Mind
so many ingredients of the True State of Things, ones True Identity as Boundless Changeless Timeless Reality are already in place.
That is already very lovely, filled mostly with bliss. Like really really nice. But not fully the Unshakeable Unchanging Reality that one intuits to really be, with its Infinite Love, Peace and Bliss.
Only one thing is still missing for conforming fully to the enlightened mindstream, and fully crossing over to it with the sudden recognition of ones True Identity, Reality itself, Absolute Impersonal Infinite Consciousness, Nothingness.
and that is the last remants of the Empty/Transparent Witness, or what Brown calls artifical activity. The last remnants of individuality, of I-feeling, I-thoughts arising in oneself. The last aspects of being a bit separate from Reality itself, from being not fully empty/transcended. A very subtle transparent witness, already being nondual, identifying with an infinite nondual field.
Bassui (Zen, in Three Pillars of Zen) calls this Awareness of Emptiness, or Awareness of Beingness. A very subtle feeling of still being aware of SOMETHING, even if that is infinite Nonduality. Not full and complete nonduality and oneness. Still a subtle (very subtle) separate self aware of the Totality. Not the Totality being fully aware of itself, like in perceptions perceiving themselves.
One can do NOTHING here to cross over to Full Enlightenment/Basis Enlightenment. Because that would be an act of a separate self. An effort. A movement of a separate self WANTING something, manipulating the mindstream, grasping for the understanding, doing something....
One can only automize the meditation/mindfullness, staying fully present, letting the Awakened Impersonal Awareness flow by itself, let IT do the meditation itself, get out of the way...
Bringing out the full force of this Utterly Impersonal Awakened Awareness. Ones True Identity.
And that is the last contra-intuitive trap: ONE CAN'T FORCE IT ("artifical activity"). Because forcing it would be a separate self arising doing it. One can try to force it (for example Koan-style), but then the Crossing Over normally happens in a moment of grace, of relaxation, when artificial activity is not present.
And once the last very subtle remnants of the separate self are seen as moving within oneself, just changing and temporary arisings/movements consisting of I-thoughts and I-feelings, the last subtle lenses ("Individuality,separateness") are recognized and dropped/transcended/no longer believed and just cut off/let go/Trekchö-style.
All and any center gone, no separate anything remaining anywhere, forcing its claws of suffering into the natural bliss of Enlightened Infinite Nondual Empty Reality itself, perceptions perceiving themselves, shimmering in Infinite Always here Nothingness, in Infinite Nondual Consciousness. The Universal Mind, Nothingness.
Realizing that nothing is lost if the separate self illusion is realized and seen as that what it really is, and always was: Just appearances happening and moving within the Always Here True Self/Reality. All that is lost is an illusion, what is gained is Reality itself and its inherent bliss.
And indeed welcome home, to a home you never left, on a journey that never really happened....
Bon Voyage!
Selling Water by the River
PS: By the way, that is not a nice theory and beautiful claims, but a path actually walked over many years (although because of lacking coaching and not being too smart sometimes from my side making it take longer than actually needed).
But I am still very very thankful that I picked that path, and not 10-15 years face against the wall Zen-monastery Koan-style. That would have also maybe worked (but I don't know, that system has many pitfalls the Tibetans have identified and made maps for to avoid these), but would have been much less pleasant, at least for me. Would have felt like digging a hole with a shovel instead with a climatized excavator, doing most of the meditation in daily life instead of some hardcore-monastery-fulltime-environment.
So I can understand all those that don't like meditation, because it is maybe the hardest thing one can actually do, depending on the system. Give this system a try!
PSPS: Before one maybe starts thinking that nothing matters, and Karma is just an Illusion, since Individuality and everything else is an illusion anyways, and nothing matters, like ethics, common sense, Karma, compassion and so on:
Be sure that reality will give you a crosscheck if that is really the case, or just a funny idea/concept.
And then let's see if suffering hurts and grips, or is still just considered an Illusion.
Compassion and Boddhichitta for all beings (which are nothing but the same One Reality without a second) actually is a pretty hard entrance criteria to any of these states decribed above. With honest and practiced compassion/ethics/Boddhichitta, one has the support from all of Infinite Reality on ones path. And how much intuition and intelligence emerges in ones mindstream is guided only by this One Infinitely Intelligent Reality without a second.
@Breakingthewall The purpose is the journey itself. Beyond the journey, there is no need for purpose, only effortless effulgent being. The absolute is the well of light without dimensions. Eventually each of our apparent forms dissolves as we awaken to the limitless love and glory which we actually are. We spend so much of our lives in fear; seeing your true nature is so joyful that it banishes fear and sets you free, even while still within the dream.
Enlightenment requires the deepest sincerity, and often the absolute cultivates this sincerity by causing its form to suffer. With each challenge, the roots grow deeper. There are no shortcuts, only patiently following the inward path that must be followed. No reason to worry about getting there faster, the absolute within is fulfilling its design in its own way through each form, and it will not be denied.
The part of you that hopes there is more game will receive what it desires. It's only when you have flown through the dream long enough, and your wings grow weary, that you will be ready to let the game go and return home.
@CARDOZZO Too many to list, but in rough order by milestone each of these has been luminous in its time:
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
Genesis/Psalms/Proverbs (old testament) and the teachings of Jesus (gospels in the new testament)
Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Stages of Faith by James Fowler
The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant
Eckhart Tolle
Tao Te Ching
Bhagavad Gita
The Mind Illuminated
Alan Watts
Mooji
Being Ram Dass
Upanishads
Dhammapada
Dark Night of the Soul
Untethered Soul
Nisargadatta Maraj
Ramana Maharshi
Next on my list: Rig Veda
I don't follow many contemporary teachers, and tend to dive into the original mystic writings. It takes me a long time to work through pondering a book. I savor and integrate every insight. It's more about the unconditional light flooding through as I contemplate, than about any particular realization. It dissolves and sinks me into the absolute.
As I said earlier, each of us has to carve our own path, but I hope this helps in some way.
● I used to have crippling social anxiety, even getting off a bus, going to class, and of course talking to girls. This is 90% gone after two years and this alone has done so much for my life. I use to get very frustrated when people told me you have to live with it. I rejected that flat out.
● A lot of health benefits. Overcoming eating problems, dropping ALL supplements, and eating about 60% of what I used to and still maintain my size. I'm 186cm, 94kg and 14% body fat. Extremely active, bouldering, jiujitsu, powerlifiting and I eat almost half as much without losing ANY weight.
● Sleeping less, and taking less shits lol. It has also enhanced digestion. Maybe 7 hours of sleep which again is crazy for my level of activity.
● Had very bad OCD (diagnosed) and perfectionism. OCD is almost totally gone. I can plan compulsively sometimes but I don't check the door 50 times in the morning so it's been so liberating.
● The desire for porn, coffee, eating meat, watching TV, alot of this stuff just naturally fell away. I didn't try to do anything. Sex drive probably halved.
● More frequent non-dual experiences. For example, walking down the street, I suddenly feely merged with everyone around me. Frequent episodes of bliss and love but it's not awakening.
● A more elusive one, but it's easier to get what I want in life and I am generally much happier. Better emotional states. Feel more balanced and capable.
● I also have a deeper sense now that I don't really need to do anything in life. I just feel fulfilled. I don't feel obliged to help anyone or do anything and I don't think it dictates my worth as a human.
● I have become a catalyst for growth for everyone around. After people spend some time around me they usually want to change. Major impact on family.
I credit a lot of my progress to reading Dr Hawkins book about surrender and for years I took surrender and kriya yoga EXTREMELY seriously. I did it religiously. Sometimes I was doing kriya yoga three times a day. It was addictive.
I have always wanted to make a video about this but I'm afraid people will call me a pseudo scientist full of shit etc... lol
No, that would not be dangerous. Dont' worry about minor stuff like that.
Kinda but not exactly.
If you keep breathing with a normal pace, your CO2 will slowly come up towards your "normal" level and equalize at that point.
If you do a breathhold, the same process will happen faster (since there is no gas exchange at all) and at some point it will tip over into a hypercapnic state (higher CO2 than usual) and a measureable decrease in blood O2. Again, this is not dangerous per se but might actually trigger benificial physiolgoical adaptions like reduced inflammation.
Thats why I suggested doing it with breathholds!
If you practice it in a safe environment (i.e not in your bathtub) and don't suffer from a severe cardiovascular condition (heart-condition or out of whack blood pressure etc.) - then I don't think this will be very dangerous. Listen to your body and do it under your own responsibility. As you mentioned, it Can be very healing.
So it's still just a chatbot? I think a specialized bot actually needs general ChatGPT training as a support beam, or else it will be nothing like teacher. A teacher has general knowledge and special knowledge. The student also has some general knowledge, which determines which questions and concepts the student feeds the bot, and if the bot doesn't have any training in that general knowledge, it won't be able to unpack those questions (if it's even able to be coherent at all). So with a ChatGPT support beam, it will probably have just as many flaws as ChatGPT if not more.
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