ardacigin

Yes. I agree with you. But there are more effective ways like psychedelics if the purpose is to get 'interested' in spirituality. Taking a psychologically and physically demanding 10 day retreat is not the best method to get 'interested'. The opposite is more likely to happen. People tend to break down and experience challenging traumatic experiences, dark night of the souls more often than experiencing this impermanent 'bliss' sporadically in a 10 day retreat which motivates them to meditate every hour from then on. Skill is required to deal with the challenge of retreats and beginners are not well equipped to deal with them. Again, we should think of a 10-day retreat as a serious mental marathon. Just as you wouldn't recommend a fat person to do a marathon, nor should you recommend a beginner meditator to do 10+ sits a day. They won't get the essence of spirituality that way. Ease down on the intensity. Focus on daily practice, consistency, fundamentals, and strategy. These should be the core values for a beginner.

Good question. For the first 1-2 years of practice, focusing on daily mindfulness integration with stability of attention are one of the most fruitful things a beginner can do. The question must not be: 'How can I run away from my hectic daily life, save up money and go to a monestary to develop fundamental skills?' but rather: 'How can I practice smart, integrate the ethos of practice to daily life and develop the foundations RIGHT NOW, ALL THE TIME before I take on the challenge of a retreat?' Admittedly this requires more effort and strategic thinking. But that is why this mindset would be WAY more effective for a newbie than the mainstream value system. In the former mindset, the beginner meditator will be like: 'Well, this meditation is really hard and I can't really focus. Maybe this retreat I'll take a few months from now will help me get skilled and after that my daily practice and life integration will be silky smooth.' Well, it doesn't really work that way, does it? The peak samadhi states one experiences in retreat don't drip down into daily life 'silky smooth'. It takes diligent, intense and strategic practice to get there. That is why asking questions like: 'How can I turn my current life into a monastery feedback loop RIGHT NOW?' 'What is the reason why I can't easily meditate for long periods of time?' 'How many minutes do I spend in a 20 mins sit in monkey mind vs concentration?' 'Do I feel sleepy in meditation? How can I increase alertness once the dullness sets in?' 'What meditation technique suits me best? Am I a samadhi or insight-oriented individual? What are my weaknesses?' are better questions to ask for the first 1-2 years of practice. That is what I'd call deliberate practice. I've now updated the original post with these conclusions. Thanks for asking.

Yes. Give it a go and let me know your experiences. It is not easy but this is a very important training method for life integration.

Media induced trigger practice is a way to develop your meditation skills in challenging sensory experiences. Our inner subjective experience can be described as various interactions of these three modalities: 1- Mental Thought 2- Mental Image 3- Emotional Body Sensations All hell and bliss in a human being's life will occur in these 3 sensory modalities. Regardless of the intensity of the experience, if you get a handle on dealing with these modalities, you'll have the master key to life. Now for formal sessions, strong determination sits are great. And for most people, these sits involve rest in these 3 modalities for a significant portion of the session. Generally, as time goes on, challenging material tends to arise. But the problem is, we are already rather expecting them. In formal meditation, we are also ready to work with them. We are also neurologically in a state of equanimity prior to the extreme sensations. This helps us develop skills but not necessarily help us apply them in daily life. We don't always have time to focus on our breaths for 20 mins and then have that challenging talk with our partner. Sometimes we need to work with the arising sensory experience with very little concentration, awareness and equanimity. You develop these skills in trigger practice. This practice tends to evoke intermediate-advanced levels of extremities in sensory experience. Mostly painful emotional sensations. Here is how to do the technique: 1- Pick an emotionally difficult media content of your choice. You can pick ANY kind of media that tends to induce fear, terror, anger, sadness, frustration, boredom, loneliness or anxiety. I'm personally HIGHLY triggered in sadness inducing TV Shows. Show me any drama, where I connect with the characters, start crying, having traffic accidents, going through break ups and experiencing misfortune. I immediately start to feel challenging emotional sensations. It tends to affect my emotional circuits. So for this practice, pick a media you are triggered by. Most people tend to choose the news as well. 2- Wait until the challenging content arises in these 3 modalities in subjective experience. This probably won't be a long wait. If it is, then you haven't chosen media that triggers challenging sensations in you. In that case, pick a different media content. 3- Develop sensory clarity and equanimity with your existing levels of concentration/awareness. This is not a practice to develop concentration and awareness per se. You want to master a different skill set. You want to do 2 main things here: - Sensory clarity: Clarify what is going on these 3 inner sensory modalities as you watch the media content. Don't miss anything and be as precise as you can. - Equanimity: Regardless of the type or kind of experiences, apply equanimity as much as possible. Equanimity is non-reactivity to pleasure and pain. 4- After it is over, do few minutes of formal session before wrapping up. This is important. Now you want to force the vulnerable nervous system which is already challenged to do one final push. Do a high quality formal meditation sit for about 5 mins. Do this closed eyes. Make sure to emphasize concentration and awareness with body relaxation. Really apply yourself and see how you can deal with the drip down effect of trigger practice. You are done! Great work. ------ After doing this practice, you can gauge your meditation level expertise. I'd say that even advanced practitioners will feel VERY challenging sensations with this technique. Not the usual bliss, jhana and absorption states Samatha meditators tend to talk about in formal sessions. But if you are truly a master, then you'll definitely work with these sensations much more effectively. You'll actually experience these 'challenging' circumstances in a state of bliss. That is when you know if you are a committed practitioner or a dabbler. So if you want to work smart and have faster progress, this should be your go-to technique for daily life practice. Let me know your comments down below.

Jordan, I really understand your current predicament. It is tricky where to really focus on to get the benefits. Here is what worked for me at the start. Even though awareness is REALLY important, if you have bad concentration on the breath, just do some practices to focus on the breath as consistently as you can. You gotta develop that stable attention ASAP. Seriously make an effort to not lose the breath. Keep it clear and bright. Don't worry about awareness just yet because in the beginning, our conscious power of awareness is not enough to maintain both exclusive attention to the breath and extrospective awareness of the external world. The only cue must be dullness at the beginning. When you feel sleepy, ease your attention on the breath and focus on sounds, bodily sensations, straighten the spine and open the eyes. Re-energize the mind. And as soon as the breath gets clearer, gently but firmly return to the breath. Eventually, you'll get there by fusing attention and awareness. At that moment, the practice will become awareness and sensory clarity oriented and you'll stop emphasizing the breath concentration so much. But until then, you gotta make an effort with pig headed determination. Hope it works out for you, friend Just keep it up and you'll get there.

Insight is experiential. Belief is conceptual. Insight also comes as an 'epiphany'. You realize and clarify a misunderstood/unconscious aspect of reality. It is direct experience.

Right, and there is a stage of insight called 'equanimity' where this gets VERY pronounced. Not the average equanimity you have in meditation but as an experiential and profound equanimity towards both pleasure and pain. Most meditators mistake the subtle dullness in Culadasa's stages to the development of equanimity. Equanimity as a watershed experiential moment is WAAY deeper than that. People go through days and weeks of dark night type of experiences before reaching tranquility and equanimity. It is stage 9-10 in Culadasa's model. It is tend to be the insight stage right before stream entry. I'm only recently tapping into equanimity after having 2 of these insights. I've used to down-play equanimity now I see how important it is. The equanimity Shinzen experienced in that retreat is qualitatively different than what a 2-3 year long meditator experiences in 60- 90 mins SDS. (Like I am ) Just because we use the same word 'equanimity' to describe 'reductions in suffering' doesn't mean that equanimity as an insight don't have radically different degrees and depths. Kind of like how enlightenment is multi-layered. He probably had mindblowing levels of purification out of that experience.

Here is Culadasa's quote on concentration only practices: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/comments/9iosse/culadasa_i_strongly_discourage_concentrationonly/ Definitely give it a go if you are interested. But the moment you get dullness in the mind (due to concentration), expand the awareness and re-energize the mind.

First of all, breath work is the meditation. And pranayama sort of yogic practices (as explained by Arnold666) is definitely powerful. But these instructions would not allow the meditator to develop metacognitive, introspective and extrospective awareness. And those are how you experience deep and transformative insights. Exclusive attention to the breath is a dead end as Culadasa talks about. The insight potential is limited and your awareness training takes a hit. Concentration-only practices can be dangerous. In fact, Culadasa warns people against these sort of practices. Also, concentration only practices get mechanical after a while. In the beginning, strict instructions like these help develop skills, but once it restricts the meditator too much, it gets in the way of deeper jhanas and practices. Overall, it is good advice for people who wants to develop exclusive attention to the breath. But it is too mechanical and devoid of awareness practices to become a comprehensive guide for awakening.

Wow. These are great insights. From what you've written, it definitely seems like you've experienced serious insights similar to mine. Great work! Now continue deepening them with samadhi development. And I think Culadasa will be a great mentor for you. And you are right. I'll definitely be planning some serious retreat time in the near future. Also I know how Shinzen accessed full-on permanent stream entry in his 4th year of practice. Considering that most of us (including myself) are householders, we might limit ourselves and say: ' Well, if it took Shinzen 4 years, then who am I to make it in less than that time frame? I'm nowhere near meditating as much as or as intensely as monastics.' This path is unpredictable and we should be open to anything. There are examples from non-meditators like Eckhart Tolle all of a sudden going from depression to enlightenment. And on the other hand, meditators who have their stream entry in their 30th year of meditation. Any period of time is a potential for deep transformation. I'm very much open for anything and I think every meditator should shift their mindset to 'Enlightenment is doable and It can happen at any moment as long as I do the practices. I just need to systematically train my nervous system and be open to whatever occurs.' I think after the development of stable and sustained concentration, every meditator must SERIOUSLY set their intentions on awakening

I too agree that do nothing sort of practices are more effective after having good concentration skills. SDS is similar. If you don't have a good technique to supplement SDS with, then it won't be that effective. The main reason I've been so successful is thanks to Culadasa's system. I also see the same problem in noting and labeling practices. Post stage 7, noting is FANTASTIC. The breath is already effortlessly attended and now one can develop extraordinary levels of sensory clarity while noting with introspective awareness. But for a beginner, maybe Mahasi Sayadaw style of full body awareness noting may not be the best way to develop sensory clarity. As to Shinzen's experience, I definitely experienced intense pain all of a sudden no longer being a problem. I did experience it more than a few times. However, it wasn't a watershed insight moment for me. But it is definitely possible since I suspect that my nervous system changes its mode of understanding towards physical pain in those periods of time. It tends to happen after 75 mins of SDS for me. (If I'm experiencing a lot of pain).

Okay, so my perspective on Stage 7 beyond practice has deepened. Now I understand why Culadasa said that and why stages 8-9-10 are full of practices to facilitate insight. This is the point of developing all these skills. The insight experiences which only happened once pre-stage 7 (for me), are becoming more frequent AND deeper post-stage 7. In fact, that is a good way to know whether you've above stage 6: If you are having profound insight penetrations, then you are going in the right direction. And you are probably somewhere above stage 7. I don't drink alcohol normally. But I did drink a little bit around 10 months ago and experienced a cool state of deep samadhi with it. The only commonality I observed between drinking and samatha practice is this sense of outer boundaries disappearing with both states. Otherwise, I don't recommend alcohol usage for insight practice. Time slowing down occurs definitely post-stage7. You'll probably have these effects much more frequently post-stage 7. I haven't experienced extreme states of 4x slower perception of time. But it is definitely possible since time is relative, mentally constructed and illusory I don't have any consciousness in deep sleep. I don't quite understand how that works yet. But I do have some level of awareness in what is called the 'hypnagogic state'. In fact, some might argue that I've taken advantage of these states to experience these insights. Maybe that 'profound relaxation' prior to insight occurred just in that transitional stage from wakefulness to sleep.

Okay so the profound relaxation I've experienced was almost DEFINITELY the catalyst for this experience I had 4 days ago lying down. I've validated it for myself yesterday. I thought to myself yesterday: 'Let me do the same insight practice again'. As Culadasa says whenever one finds an entry point to insight, repeat the process prior to insight exactly as as it occured and try to replicate the same openness, awareness and equanimity. So yesterday, I sat down. Meditated for about 30 mins again. Felt some discomfort. Not as much as 4 days ago but I was quite tired overall due to taxing SDS sits I do in the mornings. So I laid down again. Listening to some meditation related interview. Closed my eyes. Slowly I'm feeling sleepy just like 4 days ago. When I was just about to sleep, I've felt the exact quality of 'profound relaxation' and then it happened. The same thing happened with slightly less intensity but more permanency. In fact, I've experienced a few hours of 'significant reduction in self'. (not a full-blown no-self) The no-self insight wasn't dramatic like 4 days ago but it still happened. It had the same EXACT quality to it. My external boundaries disappeared. This time I didn't fall asleep and spent the rest of the day in an elevated state of samadhi where my boundaries was VERY shaky and in touch with outside. I felt weird sensations at the top of my head (where I don't normally feel anything in meditation). It is similar to how Leo says psychedelics are purifying his neurological circuits. He said how 5 meo Dmt creates moving and morphing sensations in his brain. I've experienced moving sensation at the top of my head for a few hours in daily life. (where crown chakra is said to be). I felt like this was a VERY strong and deep purification. In fact, I was going to write another article today explaining this partial insight penetration but I wanted to wait until some more dramatical insight occurs. It took hours for it to die down slightly. And today, I still feel its 'no-boundary' open awareness effects. But the concentration quality of this experience is mostly over. And I'm pretty sure this is not stream entry. I'll know when this realization gets permanent and radical. But so far so good, hopefully, I'll have another cool insight in a few days. I'm shocked to experience such dramatic openings happening almost on a daily basis. Stage 7 and beyond practice is insane. It is like I'm seriously tripping. Not some access concentration. Culadasa said that when you are in Stage 7-8-9, it is VERY unlikely to go through these stages without any profound insight experiences. He basically says that a meditator will at least have one partial but dramatic insight penetration on these stages. I didn't think that I was going to have these insights. I didn't think that my concentration and awareness was enough. I was also a little worried. I thought: 'Well, maybe I'll experience them once. Or maybe not. But it doesn't feel like I will. Some people just get stream entry right away. Maybe I'll be one of them. Or maybe I'll never get enlightened.' And to my surprise, I've experienced 2 insights in the last 5 days. (With relatively replicable processes). My mind is blown. Everything is going too smoothly. I'm pretty sure I'll hit a frustrating dead end really soon. Or maybe stream entry is coming. My practice is getting really interesting at this point. I've mostly stopped spending time doing hobbies and whatnot. Just full on meditation as much as I can.

Yes. I have a few friends like you who can't get into TMI. Interesting how you've experienced no development of concentration. Also, sleepiness is normal since you've probably conditioned for it before going to sleep every night. It is great if 'do nothing' approach works for you These 'call of the search' type of practices are definitely powerful and I use it a lot more nowadays post Stage 7 practice. Thanks for sharing your practice.

I can describe my sense of self as 'vanished' from experience for about 5 seconds but I don't have a clear insight into 'nothingness' yet. I don't think that my latest insight was that multi-layered. It was a profund insight experience into no-self. But that was it. Nothingness is a slightly different insight. Another important facet of awakening. I haven't penetrated to it yet. Nothingness or emptiness is basically the insight into how everything in our conscious perceptive reality is a mental construct (which includes the sense of being a self). This is basically what Leo means by 'everything is imagination'. I'm sure Leo also points to other nuanced insights with this but this is what I understand. Now I know the spiritual theory. I also had some solid insights into no-self. I can get a 'sense' of how this might be true intuitively. But this insight into mental construction of reality is very deep. It is deeper than a single no-self insight. It also includes a deep insight into impermanence as well. I've recently started the path of insight so I can't comment a lot on some of the deeper insights due to lack of direct experience Hopefully this was useful.

Culadasa is a spiritual beast. You must read his book as soon as possible Here is a video from him:

Deep Samadhi is a high degree of concentration, sensory clarity, introspective/extrospective awareness and equanimity. You know intuitively that your experience of reality changes. The thoughts significantly subside. The mind is energized. The distinction between the skin where the outside world begins gets blurrier. Pain sensitivity goes down. And you are in a state of flow. This samadhi is NOT permanent. But it is a tangible experience. It is caused by my daily practice and conditioned to deepen as long as I continue the practice. Culadasa himself said that even an adept Stage 10 meditator can go all the way down to Stage 1-2 practice if they completely stop training the mind for a long period of time. I've personally tried a 7 day no meditation challenge and experienced fixated monkey mind, but my skills are still intact. You don't lose all of your hard earned equanimity and concentration. You just lose some muscle memory. So keep that in mind. Here is my 7 day no meditation report: As to permanent realization pertaining to insight experiences, you do insight practices like self-inquiry, a meditation on the mind and various other techniques to penetrate reality. I've only experienced a few temporary insight experiences of no-self. The latest one happened 3-4 days ago. It was just like losing the boundary between skin and the outside world. Literally, this is how I've experienced reality for about 5 seconds before I fell asleep. Prior to this, I've meditated for about 30 mins, experienced A LOT of extreme sensations in the body like boredom, sweating, aversion to practice, dullness etc. Everything just came on with full force. Then I said: 'I can't do this anymore. Let me lie down for a while.I think I'm gonna sleep' Then I got really sleepy, I was very tired and my body got unusually relaxed. I was just about to fall asleep and this no boundary insight experience occurred for 5 seconds. Maybe if I didn't fall asleep afterward, I would've experienced it as a more permanent realization. I also can't remember exactly how I fell asleep after those 5 seconds. I was definitely sleepy but that transition phase is still blurry for me. I've no idea what happened there.

Also, I'm very interested in Daniel Ingram's book and the progress of insight nowadays. He has some great techniques and maps for navigating this path. I'll probably improve my current training method in a few months and add some of his insights to my practice. Definitely check him out

Yeah, I agree that the 10 stages can be accessed in a 3-month retreat if the meditator REALLY knows what they are doing. Also, 3-5 years of daily practice is definitely a good time frame for people who commit. But I don't know if I buy that 'I've accessed stage 10 in 6 weeks' business. Unless he had a semi-permanent insight realization like 'Arising and Passing Away', a beginner meditator can't go that deep, that fast. He is either already skilled in meditation or he is mistaking the concentration in subtle dullness as stage 10 practice. Maybe the single most effective way to validate these sort of claims is to ask: 'Can you meditate for 3-4 hours in SDS consistently with minimal suffering?' For a matured Stage 10 practitioner, that must be more than doable.

I understand your point Leo. But the notion of talent is much more pronounced in insight training rather than samadhi development. In fact, I'd argue that these 10 stages of samatha described in this book are mostly practice and skill based. It doesn't require extraordinary talent and/or fluke luck like dry self enquiry and 'just sit' sort of approaches. My mind is very conceptual. Similar to yours. That is why I'm drawn to slightly more systematic spiritual approaches. I'm also not a naturally gifted meditator when it comes to concentration. I'm maybe slightly more talented in concentration than the average meditator. I definitely do know some meditators who really struggle with Culadasa's breath instructions. I'm not like that. But that is not a talent problem in my opinion. I observe that all these people have spiritual arrogance and limiting beliefs coming from different traditions. They have this lack of willingness to learn new sets of exercise regimens. The biggest reason I've experienced the effortlessness is making A LOT of effort. One's initial talent level doesn't make a significant enough difference in one's ability to access these states in samatha practice. But I think spiritual talent matters more when it comes to consistently having insight experiences and permanent awakening experiences. Some people are MUCH more likely to have these experiences naturally (and even without any meditation background). And I don't know why that happens

I've been meditating for about 3 years now. Daily. And I've spent 2 years really only working with Culadasa's techniques. Also adding Shinzen Young's noting in there as well. If you are stage 2 and 4, the attention is getting stabilized. You are still experiencing a lot of monkey mind and dullness I presume. Cold environment is king for dullness. And persistence to find the breath is king for stability development. Earlier stages occured with a lot of dullness for me. I think this is normal considering that our 'ordinary' state of consciousness is actually a form of subtle dullness (the breath is never clearly perceived in non-meditators). Culadasa talks about this and you really experience the validity of this stage 5 and beyond. It took me about 2 years of intense training to get to stage 7. It took me about 14 months to get to stage 6. I was also moving back and forth between stages. The samadhi was not stable at all. And I've spent close to a year figuring out how to solidify in Stage 7: effortlessness. Samadhi is now stable and effortless. So 2 years in total. I've heard Culadasa doing the 10 stages in 1 year. I might be wrong on that. And some people say these stages can be experienced in a year. Yeah. Maybe you can hit all 10 stages. But embodying the stages and turning them into your baseline can't happen in 1 year in my experience. I don't see how a householder can experience that much growth in 12 months. Maybe spiritual geniuses like Buddha can do it It'll probably take me around 3-4 years to fully master the 10 stages. And I think that is a good time frame for anyone who is committed to the path. Just keep practicing and don't get distracted trying to do this or that technique. Master samadhi and then go for self-enquiry.

I do cross legged on my bed (without cushion) and with only a back pillow. The challenge of this is my hips are on the same height level as my legs. So that creates excruciating leg pain after 90 mins. It actually starts bothering me a little bit after 60 mins. If I elevate my hips with a cushion, I'd experience way less pain. But I don't do it because that is the practice I'm trying to master. I'm trying to figure out how to manage the pain after 90 mins and ride it all the way to 2 and half hours. 2 hours seems to be my limit. Hopefully at some point, I can ride it to 3 hours Don't do it sitting on a chair in my opinion unless you have a medical condition or taking it easy. Do it cross-legged and then learn to work with fainting levels of leg pain after 90 mins. Don't do stretches unless you have a yoga practice or a medical condition. Like I said, resist the temptation to make this 2 hour SDS journey easier on yourself. Pain is a great teacher. I don't understand what Shinzen means by that. How is sitting on a chair harder in long SDS sits compared to lotus or cross legged? I experience the exact opposite of that. Pain is much more intense in lotus type postures. Maybe it is because Shinzen is used to the posture. I don't get masters sometimes. They are too hardcore. LOL

Hi Leo. You've inspired me to start all this work in the first place. I wouldn't have found Culadasa and Shinzen if it weren't for you. So thank you.

Also for further advice, I've learned something very important from one of Culadasa's interview. Apparently, a matured Stage 9 meditator can do 3-4 hours long SDS sits with minimal suffering consistently hitting effortlessness for most of the sit. This also means A HUGE reduction in pain sensitivity. Currently, I can do 2 hours SDS sits. I can maintain effortlessness for about 75-90 mins straight. But physical pain starts to intrude as a subtle distraction so my attention alternates between that for the last 30 mins. I can't imagine 1 more hour of that pain slowly building up. I barely can manage it in the last 30 mins and end it off with 2 hours as my maximum time. I don't see how 4 hours of SDS works just yet. I think that will happen as I work more towards Stage 8 and then 9. So let's keep that in mind. It might be slow to reach stage 6. But I think these neurological changes 'post Stage 7' are no joke as well. I still don't quite understand how one can maintain effortlessness in cross-legged posture for 4 hours in SDS. I can maybe do 4 hours sitting in a chair but not cross-legged. That must require MONSTER levels of equanimity

Thanks. I think Culadasa is one of the most skilled vipassana teachers out there. Stage 8 is a continuation of Stage 7. You develop the existing skills in Stage 7 and give them a boost with deeper concentration and awareness. 'Stage 7 beyond' is by definition effortless. So if you are feeling like 'a meditator efforting to follow the breath' then it is stage 7 below practice. But once the breath stays in awareness effortlessly and you can spend time exploring sight and sound space without the intrusion of thoughts, you can view yourself as Stage 7 for that period of time. This also means that there is less of a sense of a 'self' observing the breath as the meditator merges with the 'outside'. Try to also open your perspective to this to help you facilitate effortlessness for Stage 7. Just like how Culadasa experienced dry and boring periods of time for 'effortlessness' in Stage 7, we also should be very consistent. In fact, I've spent months progressing from Stage 6 to 7 just because I was inconsistent with the stability of attention. I've never been stuck at a stage this long, not understanding how to proceed. The mind has to surmount A LOT of obstacles to reach effortlessness. So focus on effortlessness before getting to insight practice. The quality of self-inquiry changes post-effortlessness. The mind is much more pliant that way. Subjectively, don't worry about 'little effort' or 'no effort'. As long as you drop your intention to follow the breath and the breath is still attended effortlessly, then you are stage 7. If a thought pops up and you still maintain effortless breath awareness without letting the thought become an object of attention, then all the more evidence that you are Stage 7. One of the key ways to understand stage 7 is all this I've talked about and the duration of the mindfulness. If you can maintain this for 40 mins straight in a session (regardless of physical pain and urges), then you are 100% stage 7. Duration matters. Just accessing this state of effortlessness for 2-3 mins won't cut it. Think of that as 'peaking' to stage 7, not really 'solidifying' in it From what you've said,if you can accomplish 30 mins of effortlessness, then that is great. But I don't really understand the subtle dullness part. That shouldn't happen at this point. Also, there should be very little thoughts and distractions. Just keep that in mind. Probably you are getting close to effortlessness. Just make sure to deal with the dullness from the earlier stages. Basically, think of it like this: If you slip into subtle dullness where the breath loses brightness, then you are 'peaking' to Stage 7. Continue the practice with diligence. I was really frustrated at this point as well. So I understand your experience Come to a place where you can CONSISTENTLY achieve Stage 7 effortlessness in less than 10 mins after sitting down in a cushion. If you can do that, I'd view that as a mind ready for advanced insight practice. That means you've solidified in stage 7 and is ready for Stage 8. At this point, feel free to do Stage 8 or go straight to the self-inquiry method I talked about here. Both are insight practices at its core. Where I live in Turkey, 5 meo dmt and DPT are both illegal. So I can't comment on these substances. Leo and many others on this forum are much more experienced than me But the good news is that I've experienced a temporary cessation insight experience naturally just trying these techniques I've described here a few days ago. The insight didn't stick, unfortunately. I suspect it has to do with the lack of sub-mind availability as Culadasa talks about. Some part of me is open to no-self but not a significant portion of consensus is available at the moment of cessation. Also, I can't say with certainty if this is cessation. I remember 4-5 seconds of all of my boundaries disappearing and then falling asleep. I woke up about 3 hours later feeling motivated to meditate. But I haven't experienced a permanent shift in consciousness. I was a little confused after waking up as well. Maybe my mind is trying to understand what the hell happened. Since then, my meditation quality is insane. Everything is going very smooth so far. I also have a lot of energy since then. Feel free to ask me more questions