ardacigin

Because sleep is essential for health. You shouldnt skip sleep for meditation and my post makes no such claim. But what you are unaware of is how much build up of tension and mind activity persists in even deep sleep. Thats why you need coffee to feel alert or reduce your morning fatigue.

You might have a misconception like: 'I feel very relaxed and chill when I wake up. Why should I meditate formally? I can skip it and just try to meditate throughout the day here and there. Also, formal meditation bores me and actually makes me sleepy.' Your mind is in a complex state of construction of dreams, worries, cravings, and suffering while you are sleeping. Not only you wake up in a state of drowsiness (most of the time) but in a severe lack of equanimity. Your mind doesn't rest while sleeping. It is quite active and its effects are usually seen as slight fatigue, bodily tension and lack of alertness when you wake up. A key reason why people depend on caffeine to start their day and even then, it takes 1-2 hours to re-energize the mind. (which is not dependable as your negative habits drain your energy again). Strong meditation skills will allow you to clear up the egoic tension that arise in deep sleep, re-energize the mind properly and allow extremely high levels of equanimity, tranquility and pleasure to pervade your consciousness body and mind. The after-effects will last all day. Don't wing spirituality. You'll never attain these stages of Samatha development like that. Daily practice with deep introspection of how the mind works (vipassana) will allow such a life to be your default. Even when bad things 'objectively' happen to you in life. You'll have an unsurpassable mind equipped to handle almost anything when insight also deepens in this process. Much love,

The truth is even more radical than that. 1- We dont 'dream' the same thing at all. Emptiness makes you see that you generate not only the all qualia you experience in consciousness but also the way you experience AND react to it. 2- Your experience of 'salty food' can be my experience of seeing 'blue' and we may never know it because we point to the same thing and give it the same name. You live in your own reality but our human minds are similar enough that we tend to see chairs as chairs and feel pain when someone blows a torch in your face. (unless you have rare brain disorders) When I ask what you feel and think about Jane from work? Everyone will have different perceptions of who Jane is and how they relate to her. (which will be due to each person's different mental conditioning and values that their reality prioritize)

He dated women after separating from his wife. But it wasnt an official divorce due to who gets what etc. The board community and misunderstood/made the situation as if he cheated her and lied to her while in a relationship etc. He didnt sleep with any of his students.

Culadasa has been portrayed in a different way than what actually happened. It was partly Culadasa's fault for not being too direct and cutting the 'BS' as soon as the misinformation came out. There is no actual affair. Or 'scandal'. He was separated from his wife at the time and just moved on with his life like everyone else. You can also read his letter explaining the situation properly on his website. Also, Culadasa died recently. I dont know if you are aware.

Yes. What people mistakenly believe (lot of people in this forum) is meditation is merely superb 'concentration' and if only you could single-pointedly focus on a meditation object, all your spiritual obstacles would be overcome and progress would happen at an accelerated rate. That is one the most dangerous misconceptions in traditional spirituality. You stabilize attention mostly to develop awareness of mind, emotions, intentions and reality. Not for the 'sake' of concentration. You get attention 'out of the way' so that awareness can take over. Once it takes over, now you need to develop introspective awareness. You can only increase the available conscious bandwidth of the mind by increasing awareness and the way to do that is to stabilize attention. Once that is clear, more care is given to awareness rather than 'single pointed' attention. A moment where progress happens at an accelerated rate. That is an insight all meditators need to 'get' to progress further. It is also a key reason why very few people progress further than stages 5-6 in The Mind Illuminated.

Well, those are paradoxical statements that doesnt really mesh well unless you explain exactly what you mean by 'deep' and 'shallow'. In this post, they refer to how much of the mind system the insight penetrates.

Thats cool. I'm not against psychedelics for treatment. It is just not the full picture, only the beginning. How is your depression now? Much love,

It is important to realize not all states are the same in terms of how they affect the mind system. But this is not because of the content difference between states per se. The mind system is a HUGE, systemic, multi layered and complex structure all of us have. And this plays a big role in developing lasting understanding in spirituality. What happens in your conscious experience - seeing the coffee mug (qualia of any kind) - can be attended by 00001% of your unconscious mind or 90% of it. And with what receptivity and availability your sub-minds utilize decides whether you'll integrate the spiritual insight or not. That higher receptivity of the unconscious sub-minds will provide that ESSENTIAL wisdom that you experience in psychedelics (or sober life) into your everyday reality permanently. The issue is that your average person who has no actual skills in meditation, or introspective awareness has only 000001% of his sub-minds be available to the insights that happen in consciousness (whether in psychedelics or sober), so the effects will be short-lived as an after glow and no major part of your psyche will revise their wordviews and perceptions in line with the insight. You'll continue to deal with same life problems, egoic structures, patterns and reactions over and over again. Once, for instance, 80% of your unconscious sub-mind system is receptive to the information presented via qualia, then you can actually examine your mind, see through what is false and true and actually help integrate the majority of the unconscious to revise their understanding of reality with that insight experience. We ALWAYS experience those insights. The question is how receptive your mind is to receive AND revise its core programming when you do experience them. That 'noticing' of insight is also a skill developed in your mind through meditation. That is the key difference of why psychedelic awakenings RARELY, if ever, are permanent. Unless you go through this process of nurturing and understanding how your mind works through traditional spirituality, no insights will DEEPLY become an actual part of your life. Without realizing how much delusion you are suffering through each moment of each day, you might think this is not a big deal. You can only understand how profound the insight become when 80% of the mind system gets it, rather than 0000.1% that gets it now. This is not a paradigm that is understood where you are now. Psychedelics can only take you too far. In terms of depth, they are extremely profound. But living those insights (which has to do with breadth) is a separate matter psychedelics cant often, if ever, address due to this dynamic that I've outlined in this post. Much love,

Well,that argument assumes Alan Watts was 'deeply' awakened which I would personally not suggest. Second of all, understanding the depth of no self goes all the way from stream entry to Salvia levels of understanding and then also beyond that as well. Further stages of awakening also requires emotional and samatha levels of mastery over the mind. I dont remember Alan Watts teaching or practicing jhanas or higher levels of emotional training. I wouldn't dismiss that Alan Watts had a certain depth of awakening. But as a 'depressed alcoholic', I wouldnt assume he has enough wisdom to work through those habitual forces. Also he might have been stuck in a 'dark night' sort of episode for years and not go further with spirituality. We simply dont know enough to make an assesment. Thats why I said emotional problems are deep and requires not only some degree of awakening + samatha vipassana mastery over the mind to permanently eliminate its source. After all, depression is a form psychological suffering produced by the mind. If Alan Watts was as awakened and wise as people make him out to be, he'd have enough introspective awareness and equanimity to not only work on his depression but also his alcohol addiction. Alan Watts is certainly a charismatic and wise teacher but that doesnt mean we should assume exactly what he is conscious of.

The illusory perception of feeling like a self looking at the world as a person rests at the core of your depression and all problems. 0nce the source issue is gone, so is the symptom.

@Theplay Thanks. Glad it was helpful.

I highly suggest continuing and changing your contemplation as soon as possible. Instead of asking 'Why am I me?' which assumes that the sense of being a separate self is true, ask 'How do the sense of me arises in my mind' or 'What is this 'I' sensation I cling to?' or 'Who am I'? until you realize the 'unique center of perception' in any form is an illusory construct of your mind. There is no self in reality. You just feel like that and it is also why you crave so much as a human and are such an attached being. It is all interconnected. The answers will make sense with more practice, meditation and contemplation. Great work. Much love,

Seeing the truth of reality in a psychedelic session when your entire mind is in the effect of said substance for 30mins-12 hours straight (depending on the substance) is a completely different ball game to understanding and integrating the truth deeply permanently, letting all of your core programming of your unconscious mind revise its wordlview and perceptions indefinitely! If what you said was true, everyone would be spiritual masters after taking 1 high breakthrough dose of 5 meo dmt. You saw the truth VERY DEEPLY AND CLEARLY there so it should have an 'infinite' and 'bottomless' understanding that is integrated until the moment of your 'death', right? It is the same childish fantasy this scientific research is trying to prove. A few psychedelics in a clinical setting (even with amazing guidance) wont solve such a deep systemic problem like depression permanently. The possibility of this happening is not even theoretically high let alone practical. Especially after seeing how reality, mind and emotional states really work and arise. It can be helpful as a catalyst for further spiritual practice. But that will the be the main benefit. Unless any further practice is initiated by the person, no actual growth or change will occur. Your mind, personal issues, emotional problems, and their solutions are WAAAAAY more complicated than you give credit for.

This entire idea of 'Using a psychedelic substance a few times and completely overcoming depression for the rest of your life' is a pipe dream. It is an extremely childish notion that defies the nature of how complicated each person is, let alone impermanence and radical interconnectedness of all phenomena. Your baseline emotional states (like depression) which is a multi-layered unconscious feeling directed and generated by incredibly deep illusions which include your sense of being a separate self, is not a small thing. It is all interconnected and just saying 'use this psychedelic a few times and all your problems will go away' is nothing more than humanity's desire to find a superficial shortcut to a more systemic and deep problem.