Viking

Ive been having struggles with do nothing meditation because i dont know whether i should be aware of the moment while doing the technique. if i do nothing i get sucked into thoughts obviously and then its very hard to keep awareness on those thoughts. from time to time during the meditation i realize ive been unconscious and thats it. i dont feel an urge to do something after that, it doesnt happen much that i get those urges. also isnt keeping awareness a something?

what's your opinion on it? is it a safe place to start? never even smoked weed lol

I realized during my self inquiry practice that naive realism is a huge obstacle for me right now. ive seen leos rant on naive realism but i didnt understand how do i get rid of it mechanically. do i do it during the self inquiry as a part of it? or do i undermind it first and only then start to practice self inquiry because it seems to me that because of it im stuck.

@Leo Gura What would you recommend then for a beginner beside those 2? is there some list I can check out?

I feel like there is too much information from the enlightenment guide and the step by step video and I think I didnt catch the core principle which self inquiry is built upon. im a bit retarded when it comes to a lot of text, lol, so can you explain to me please what that is?

since its hard to judge the results from meditation/self inquiry, how am i supposed to know if im doing something wrong with my practices? I notice for example during self inquiry that my monkey mind becomes a monkey on coke and I dont know if theres any use from that.

tell me please if im on the right track: I started meditating with the do nothing technique for 20 min every day and self inquire for 30 each day. in 20 days i will change the meditation technique. my self inquiry have been kinda messy because i just started and i also check my notes while i do it. I just finished my semester in the university and i have a month and a half of free time so i wanted to do a retreat for myself. am i ready for a retreat if i just started? the retreat will be done solo. i thought of doing strong determination sitting for 4 hours with do nothing with breaks every hour and then self inquiry for an hour. what are your prefferences? how should i do it? what worked for you? should i do it at all? also i dont 100% understand the goal of retreats. are they essential for enlightenment?

@Arkandeus What I tried to say is that the neti neti method is failing me. I found a thing that I could be and I cant disprove to myself like all the other stuff like senses that its not me. Im getting stuck thinking im this part of my brain, how do i get unstuck?

So i've been on the leo train for quite a bit of time now, for about a year, but just watched videos a little here a little there but the last month i've watched a lot of videos and started to meditate about two weeks ago. The problem is that I tried to do self inquiry and whenever I ask myself any question I dont get that automatic response from my brain. It's like im unfocused. like a teacher explains stuff and youre just nodding your head. Also my mind doesnt really shift into other stuff like what to eat for lunch, it's just those empty questions. I am doing the 30x3 days meditations that leo talked about in how to meditate deeper video, should I start enlightenment work just after that?

What distinguishes between a daily meditator and an enlightened person? There are A LOT of people who are meditating daily (tony robbins for example) and are not nearly enlightened. Am I missing something? is it the consistency that most people lack? something else?

@Prabhaker I handled a one hour SDS pretty well, constantly accepting the present moment, but if ill start to feel the "insanity" I will stop. thank you all for your help, I think I wont to self inquiry with SDS for now, ill wait until i have enough awareness.

Im wondering if to do self inquiry with strong determination sitting

@Prabhaker I didnt understand what you were pointing to

Ill try, thank you !

Do you mean going outward from sense of you-ness to asking questions instead of going inward from questions to me? or just focus on the sense of myself and when I have that feeling strong enough start asking questions? Also I really dislike concentration practice and I prefer to do meditation, maybe in the future, too much practices atm :).

so who is right??? i was sure i understood that in the do nothing technique i should be aware and now people are saying different stuff

I think the main reason most people dont achieve their goals is lack of self conviction. What I mean is not doubts, it's that when a person has to do a mentally challenging task, he seeks a reason to invest energy. A lot of times when he remembers the reason, he understands that the reason is justified and maybe he remembers that he was in the past very passionate and motivated by the reason, but in the moment the person just doesnt feel the drive, doesnt feel the motivation and doesnt resonate with the reason to do the task. He understands it intellectually and maybe he remembers how in the past he was motivated to do the task, but in the moment he is just disconnected from it and the logic just doesnt "do it for him" and the task is just left untouched. This is what people sometimes call "laziness" I think. My question is first, what do you think is the reason for that disconnectedness from the reason and the lack of motivation? second, since this problem arises from "mind stuff", I presume awareness is the key to solving the problem. However, personally, a lot of times I am aware that this is "mind stuff" but still I find it extremely difficult to do the task, and even if i start to do it, sometimes it becomes ok and sometimes I find myself resisting the whole way through, even though I am still knowing that this is mind stuff. Will it get better the more I meditate and the more im on the path of enlightenment? will awareness help me connect with the emotions that drive me to do the task? if not, what will?

I understand I think the concept of zen devil and I realized (kinda) living "normal" life is the thing to do while doing enlightenment work. One thing I dont understand is romantic relationships, because their whole purpose is to have egoic stuff like pleasure, family etc. If truly there is no need to an enlightened person of mundane feelings, why would he waste tons of hours for that? hours that could go toward his life purpose, changing the world and further developing himself? p.s- sorry if its a common topic edit- im not sure if its a bad question please note so if it is and why it is so and i will try not to post similar questions

I think insights are properly understood when you derive them or when they come over and over again, till they become natural. I dont think it makes sense to stand up and write it when you have an insight, it's like only taking photos on a vacation and missing out on the whole vacation, so what is left to do about it? just get them over and over I think.

Shinzen young answered the question of what is the point of enlightenment in one of his videos. He said it was "love". I think on the lower levels it seems like you shouldnt care, but most extremely advanced masters have unimaginable love and care for everything, so I dont think that "not caring" is truly the ultimate thing that can be, but just a stage under the ultimate care.

While meditating using the do nothing technique today, I realized that when im aware, I dont have any thoughts unless i want to create them. Thoughts only arise spontaneously when the awareness is lowered. when the awareness rises again it sees the spontaneous thoughts and they just dissipate. So basically the do nothing technique is a battle for awareness and not really to do nothing. In addition to that, I think awareness works like a pyramid with levels. the lowest level (from the perspective of meditation level awareness, excluding sleeping and everyday normal life) is simply having that "no thoughts" awareness, and on that you build higher levels of awareness. (i presume, since i never experienced them) is that more or less correct? edit- yeah i think the part about the pyramid was a bit of mental masturbation, because its just theorizing

What does energy mean? to me its a woofy poofy thing that is made up by spiritual people

like sadhguru explains in the video there's alertness and awareness. I think what I activate to be aware of my thoughts is alertness, attention, while awareness is needed, which is obtained with time. Should I drop the alertness and just do nothing? How am i supposed to keep track of what goes on in my head without alertness?