jjer94

That's the trap with reading Eckhart Tolle right off the bat. He tells you to "Be Present", but you only know how to do that in your current egoic paradigm, which is totally bogus! I fell into that trap too, where I thought that I had to stop my thinking completely and meditate for hours on end. I even got the 'pain in the brain' that you described. The key assumption you have to examine here is whether you can even try to be present. To try is to attempt to exert control over a situation. If there's no ego, who can control anything? If you're gung-ho about enlightenment work, you need to realize that you have no control over anything. Don't believe that statement; you have to see it for yourself in your direct experience. Leo's video on free will has some good exercises for acquiring a direct experience of this. It's not a matter of trying to be present, or be aware. It's a matter of un-trying to un-be present, and for that, you simply need to see through your own illusions. Seeing through the illusion of control is your first step.

I think you may be referring to the Clare Graves Spiral Dynamics thing, which you can look up in Leo's video library. If not, then I think you may be referring to the natural progression we take towards enlightenment. Yes, there can be certain stages, certain milestones, you hit on the pathless path, but I wouldn't take them too seriously if I were you. If you're interested in learning more about that, check out the book No Boundary by Ken Wilber. He goes into depth about all of the arbitrary stages.

As Jed said in his books, once you use the sword of intellect to cut through everything that needs cutting, you don't feel the need to do SA anymore; you're just Done. Done, as in, all of your assumptions about what reality is are destroyed, and what's left is something you can discover in something like sitting contemplation. Yes, the process of seeing through your own worldview can be emotionally disturbing at times, but it's not like that worldview ever had any existence to begin with. And of course it's okay to still have that worldview when operating in everyday life. It's just that you see it as illusory. What I've found is that, yes, you can be absolutely Done with figuring out Truth, but you're hardly ever Done with seeing through the character you play. I've found that SA in the form of uncovering my own psychological hang-ups has been very useful alongside contemplation. That form of SA operates more like journal entries. Just examine any emotions that cause you suffering during the day, and try to get to the bottom-line assumption(s) that fuels it. You can do that before and after becoming conscious of your True nature. I've actually found it to be more useful after the fact.

"Is meditating an hour a day enough to make as much gains as Buddhist munks get?" Just by the way you worded your question by using 'should,' stacked on top with this quote, I get the impression that you expect to get somewhere with meditation. That's a trap you may need to see through. Meditation is not about should's, it's about releasing control. Meditation is not about making gains, it's about making losses, returning to ground zero to what you really are. That's my take on it, at least. Your question becomes invalid when you really examine the assumptions you have about meditation. Meditate for however long you want. Meditation becomes very pleasurable when you put the least amount of effort in trying to focus and let yourself naturally focus. There's no need to do math as to how long you should meditate; there's no rules to it. Eventually, life itself will become your meditation when you relinquish your illusions of control, should's, and gains.

Yes, SA helped me boatloads with destroying several hidden beliefs I normally didn't find during sitting contemplation work. Because nothing you write is true, you expose all of your bull---- by writing what you think is true. Then, you can dissect why you think it is true, and you'll end up with a baseline assumption. The answers you're looking for are not the answers to any questions you have about reality; they are what's left after you destroy the question. A spin-off of SA that helped me was playing my own invented game called 'Spot the Assumption!' Here's how it works: -Write down any question you have about reality, or any statement you think is true. -Look within the question/statement for the assumption. There is always at least one. -Examine that assumption, and see if it sits on top of any other assumptions. -Eventually, you'll hit a baseline assumption. Examine it enough, and it will disappear as if it never was. Here's a classic example: Question: What is the meaning of life? Assumption: Life has meaning. What is meaning? It's an interpretation we place onto what's actually there. What is an interpretation? It's a concept. What's a concept? A mental construct. Where is the reality of the mental construct? In the mind. What is the mind? Thought sensations. What's actually there are thought sensations. The gravitational pull of certain thought sensations over others is meaning. But thoughts are just thoughts; they're just there. The meaning itself is non-existent. Meaning is an illusion. Like the content of a movie, when there's only just light on a screen. You can go on and on with these inquiries. Just ask any deep question you have about life and figure out why the question has no validity, or write a statement you think is true, and figure out why it's not. Hope that helps!