Danielle

It took me way more tha,n 2 months to reach 50 minutes, let alone an hour. Start small, baby step your way to your goal because it will be a LOT easier, so yeah, follow mastery principles. Just meditate when you feel well rested and alert, it depends on what activities you do during weekends. If you take long walks you can turn that into a walking meditation, it feels fantastic. You can meditate whenever you feel like it, especially during the weekend because (I'm guessing) you have more free time to just be.

Intelligence doesn't count in awareness department. I was an atheist and a hardcore rationalist for 3 years and thought I was such more better than those religious folks, never having realized I just went on the other side of the same coin. The notion that religions are evil is a judgement and a belief that, if dropped, can create a serious identity crisis, nobody wants to do that so they just label it as evil. i was like that for a long time, now I can see the beauty in religions, even though I realize it's delusional on a level.

Best analogy for me is, considering my Christian roots, awareness =holy spirit, consciousness=god. If you're familiar with it, it makes perfect sense

In love with this meditation

Yes, i experience it quite often. This helped me, check it out https://www.headspace.com/blog/2014/12/05/why-do-i-overheat-when-i-meditate/

I think the greatest thing that Leo triggered in me is passion. I was always a highly unmotivated person, lazy, didn't care for anything and lately I've been feeling this amazing drive inside of me. I sort of feel like life is living itself through me, if that makes any sense .I just feel very passionate about life, about growing myself as much as I can. Thank you Leo!

You get better and then you get worse, and then you get better again, it's bunch of ups and downs, you do not progress linearly! Thinking is obviously fine, you can not stop your thoughts, just let them flow, don't get attached. Sort of yes, but the point of it is to see the thing as it is, not your thoughts about it. Guided meditations are helpful for a specific thing- forgivness, love etc, there is nothing wrong with it. Point of meditation is to be and accept what is. Just sit there and be! There is nothing else to do. Don't complicate it, like @Evilwave Heddy said, it's the easiest thing in the world

It's the most effective I know of, it does wonders for me, I still suck at it though. I still consider myself a newbie and the longest session I did was 1 hour and 10 minutes, it sounds really unimpressive when you hear how long zen monks sit a day, but let me tell you, when you're doing it, it feels like you're willingly torturing yourself over and over again for eternity. In reality, there is nothing horrific happening and right there you can see how disconnected with reality you truly are. But it's worth it because I get rid off so much shit in a short period of time. I do 40-45minutes of SDS daily nowadays combined with self inquiry I mentioned, my goal is to do 1 hour of Sds within my 1 year of consistent meditation. It'll be a wild ride

Try it out and be playful about it, curious like a child Leo has a video about it, it's called Meditation on steroids i think. SDS stands for strong determination sitting. To summarize, it's sitting for as long as possible without moving, like at all. It can get quite intense, but self inquiry is really boring and repetitive to be honest. The whole point of questioning yourself is to give up the questioning entirely. I find SDS the best for self inquiry because thoughts kinda lose their initial relevence after a while and you gain a lot more focus than in say regular mindfulness meditation. i think everyone should try SDS at least once in their life to see how addicted to stimulation and neurotic they are. It made a hell of a wake up call for me!

Deconstructing beliefs isn't easy, but you have to start somewhere. I've had the advantage of having diaries from my past which I reread and spotted subtle beliefs I had. Start writing a diary or write a list of the biggest beliefs- do shadow work and contemplate where you picked up a specific belief. Be mindful of the way you look at situations and people that trigger you emotionally the most, It'll be messy at first, but the clearity you start getting after a certain point is liberating

Self inquiry doesn't have to be a thing you do formally, you can self inquiry all day if you want. I ask myself all kinds of questions from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep. You can self inquiry when you get in a state of deep concentration. i do SDS in the evening and around 30 minute mark it turns into self inquiry. You can combine all of those methodes in one sitting, if it doesn't work, go for what works. Keep it simple

Socrates, Carl Jung, Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Adya, Lao Tzu, Seneca, Plato & Marcus Aurelius.

I've read the bible when I was younger and parts of the old testament really resonated with me, this one also. Repetitio est mater studiorum! Thanks for sharing

I don't know why I meditate anymore. I just do it. It doesn't feel like I'm meditating, it's more like meditation does me nowadays, if that makes sense.

Try sitting normally, like you would sit regularly,in a chair with you back up straight, you don't need to cross your legs or anything. That way you can sit for hours without your legs falling asleep.

i think it's equally powerful when it's informal. I personally do it both ways and most of the time good contemplation just happens on it's own, it doesn't really matter wheter if it's formal or not

You're very welcome. Yeah, I agree even though I recognize that meaning is a product of the human mind and doesn't actually exist in the real world

This is also valuable if you're looking for a nondual perspective

@Richard Alpert I've watched this at least 4 times and it never seizes to amaze me. I had no idea how much energy is stored in my body, great insights! I just wish there were more videos like this. The only oneI've found besides that one was this one;

As I started deepening my meditation and self enquiry practices I started noticing this odd tendency. For example, I was an atheist for 4 years and I never confonted my father about that issue and just played along and pretended I believed. I was scared of how he'd react because he was abusive in the past. One day he asked me if I could check something about our local church and asked me if I wanted to go. I, without a single thought in my head, said that I will never go to church again because I don't believe in it all. As soon as I said it, i experienced this amazing feeling of freedom and in another instant I felt terrified and started thinking who said that and my mind was coming up with all sorts of awful consequences that will arise from this. Luckily, almost none of them happend. It also happend today, I just blabbled out to my best friend something I was scared to say for years. it came so naturally and I felt the second biggest relief I ever had, other than that with my father. I feel more authentic with everyone because I dropped the act, but I'm still really confused about all of this. i guess I'm scared of my self image being destroyed Any insights or experiences of what this could be would be appreciated. Thank you

“Dying to your own attachments is a beautiful death.- Mooji

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V1BDP2zCok

Try cutting out juices and sodas if you drink those also cut out ,processed foods, caffeine, dairy and fried foods which are not only bad for your general health, but especially your skin.