AJBrew

@Santiago Ram I agree. I find that open eyed meditation has less distractions than close eyed mediation due to imagination. Especially if someone is very visual.

I've had tremendous benefit from meditation. It's important to recognize "how" you are meditating as the mind is insanely tricky and clever with the bullshit and self entertaining it pulls off at many levels; you might think your meditating for an hour or so but your mind is actually pulling you away and you don't even realize it. The benefits I've noticed from meditation include being more comfortably and deeply relaxed/present in daily sensations, especially uncomfortable ones. Also the thought or process of doing emotional laborious or mundane things is smoother to transition into. I've also noticed that my heart has opened up more after years of being constricted and I'm not as carried away by the appearances of society and self expectations. I've also had far less neurotic thinking and negative emotions, which could be to the increased awareness of experience. This may be the case for more sensitive people since I've always been so aware and sensitive to the phenomenon in my body/mind even with subtle things. This may not translate over the same to people who are more neurotypical or even those with personality or mood disorders.

@samijiben You make some very good points here. Yes I notice a lot of the yearning is inherently selfish and equally the letting go is just as painful. I am very sorry for your losses. @Ishanga I'm very sorry for your losses and what you went through. You make a very good point and I will try to implement this into my daily activities when certain thoughts arise.

I’d like to open up a space for discussion on how we make sense of losing someone we love. For those who have experienced loss, how did you begin to process it? Were there particular practices, perspectives, or insights that helped you find some understanding? Or did you face moments of uncertainty and confusion that you had to navigate through, or perhaps still struggle with? In my own experience, I lost my father to head and neck cancer after he had fought it for over twenty years, despite never having smoked. Even now, I find it hard to fully make sense of his passing. The closest thing I can relate to in finding meaning is the occasional dream or sense of his presence.

@Lila9 Thank you for your condolences and I am sorry for your loss as well. I relate with your interest in searching to learn more about life death and will definitely look into Raymond Moody's work.

@Someone here It's interesting you mention the close to death cases. I looked into that a little bit and read some testimonies online with people mentioning that and mentioning darkness but its warm and serene. You make a good point that nobody "truly" knows and to find some way to be peaceful with the mystery.

@Someone here Thank you for your kind words and offering your perspectives. I see that life and death are interconnected and I notice especially for humans because of how conscious and self aware we are that it makes it all that much more intense. I’m curious to hear about your philosophical, epistemological, and spiritual views on death. Do you believe in reincarnation in some form, or do you think that our unique expression of the universe continues in some way, or is it simply an illusion that fades with death?

@chisel you did a beautiful job with the reflections in the water

If anyone here has any knowledge or experience within the Healthcare IT or HIM field I would love to hear you opinion of the field and if its worth pursuing. I am a recent graduated with a bachelors in HIM with a CCA and going for my RHIA. I already have some experience in a hospital working with medical records and am looking to get into the more software/IT side of health, more so with the vendors. If there's any input or advice you have I would greatly appreciate it.

It's all good I appreciate your response. Yes, I snapped out of the experience because I had a slight panic but I suppose its not risking my mental health to just allow it; going beyond it though is interesting, I've never heard of that approach before unless its like a neti-neti I suppose.

I appreciate these perspectives and tools to use with my meditation. I realize I try to invite or attract those states of love in my experience and that I should start letting go of that.

I want to enhance and deepen my experience of the present moment and increase my capacity for love and compassion.

@cistanche_enjoyer This is awesome thank you. I've been trying to look for more Christian mysticism and this is perfect.

@Grateful Dead I need some advice with an experience I've had with my meditation practice. Past two practices I get around the 40min mark and feel myself dissolve into my surroundings and snapped out of this when it happened. Should I have an anchor point like focusing on my breath when this happens or completely let go into it?

I generally run into this issue where I'm texting a girl and she reply's with something that stops me in my tracks and I feel like i need another person's insight to help provide me with different perspectives when looking at a situation. Does anyone know of websites or apps where people can help you with your text game?

@supremeyingyang Solid perspectives. @ivankiss perfect emotional spike lmao

Keep it interesting and let her experience you in different ways. Good idea

God sometimes I wish I liked men. It would be so much simpler. No website you guys use to calibrate your text game though?

Yeah this is someone who's 20. They dont pick up the phone lol

I'm curious to know what methods some fellas are doing to get an orgasm without ejaculation or blocking themselves up. Has anyone had an experience where your having sex for a while and then you stop having keagles and during this time you feel your sexual energy start to move up your body and you develop better self control? I'm not sure if this is part of a practice but happens to be something I randomly stumbled upon.

@flowboy Yes reliability and accountability makes sense. How are you preventing ejaculation during sex; are you shifting your focus every so often?

@flowboy You guys are crazy, i don't know how you do it. I couldn't help but edge a little before the eight day and caved in so hard from the sheer idea of nudity; I felt like I did a big line of coke.

@mmKay Great insight, thankyou. Would you recommend just solely working on building character first and leave consciousness/spirituality work for later? Also any books you would recommend for building ones character and grounding oneself?

I've had a very odd experience of a fluctuating self-image that I've become more conscious of over the past couple years. Essentially I've become aware that my self-image fluctuates on a weekly bases and is influenced by the people I'm around, how much meditation i do, and what information and habits I've been forming. I also notice when i become tired the experience of my fluctuating self-image becomes more uncontrollable; if I've been having long conversations with people I feel like I absorb and take on their identity if that makes sense. I am curious if anyone else experiences this phenomenon or if I'm just being hypersensitive to this and that its normal; i don't believe this is to the level of personality disorder stuff but I don't know for sure. Basically I want to know if anyone has any pointers on this and any meditation practices they can think of that reinforce a consistent/stable self-image.

@BipolarGrowth That's extremely helpful information, thankyou. @mmKay I feel as though if I don't practice being centered frequently my state of well being becomes weaker and more influenced by the people and environments around me. For example if I am in this weakened state of self-image I feel more easily influenced and tolerant of things that I should probably have more boundaries with i.e. uncalibrated people, bad habits ect.