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Pointing out the Great Way, Daniel Brown. Brown was a unique person. Both a meditation master of 5 decades and a Harvard Psychologist PH.d.. Towards the end of his life he perceived permission by Menri Trizin to translate the secret und alltime favourites of TIbetan Buddhism (including books on Dzogchen, Tummo/Inner Fire both alone/couple, Tögal, Dark Retreat and so on). It is not Yoga in the classic sense the word is normally used (westernized Indian Yoga). Mahamudra has 4 main stages (Yogas), highly detailed meditation instructions. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Pointing out the Great Way&author=Water by the River

I also believe using both is best and most efficient. At the final stages of meditation, one can dissolve these last and very subtle lenses. When taking for example the Mahamudra-system, which I consider as the most sophisticated system on the planet (together with Dzogchen), the Yoga of One Taste (advanced practice, 3rd stage in Mahamudra system) makes the visual field boundless, infinite and mere appearance/lucid. Basically the effect that many psychedelics have. And no, that is not yet Enlightenment. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=yoga of one taste&author=Water by the River The final lenses of deception/illusion are not yet dissolved at stage 3. But here we are already on very trippy terrain, visual field nondual, boundless and infinite and mere appearance. And now comes the kicker: stage 4, Nonmeditation Yoga automizes the techniques done at stage 3 in such a way that even the meditator can be dissolved. There is no longer a separate-anything doing anything, the meditation does itself. Awakening, or Awakened Awareness (nondual, boundless, infinite, groundless, and impersonal, or not only personal), does the meditation. As long as someone does the meditation, the illusion with the dream-character is still well and alive, even if its nondual and what not. A nondual dream. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Nonmeditation Yoga&author=Water by the River What happens at stage 4 Nonmeditation Yoga can no longer be fully described. But it can be understood what happens or happened once it happens. And it takes a loooong time at stage 4 Nonmeditation Yoga, at least for most, until crossing over to Enlightenment happens. No other. No you. Just Infinite Consciousness/Reality, an Infinite Ocean of Awareness, its essence forever unchanged. Eternal. Always having been the case. The former separate-self just an illusion. And until one gets the hundreds or thousands of hours (if one is not a prodigy) in these states to make it to the big bang, if one tries to do that with psychedelics, one has ones brain fried long before. And a God-complex on top if one doesn't start on the humble side from the beginning (which few do), since the ego projects itself already busily on the nondual infinite field, see stage 3. And if one has bad luck, ET comes along and gives a seductive smile... But that is another topic. And the limitations/problems of meditation practice: Getting to Nonduality, stage 3. Takes a looong time, and many things can be implemented incorrectly. Then, meditation practice NEVER leads to Nonduality,boundlessness-infnite and mere appearance. That happens to 98%+ of meditators, because the meditation techniques used are so inefficient that multiple thousand of hours of hardcore head-against-the-wall meditation would be needed... Few are made for that. Mahamudra on the other side can be used efficiently in daily life if done correctly. Without Mahamudra Pointing out the Great Way style I would have gotten nowhere, and even with that I read the book 15 times over 10 years to get it. To get a nondual state take enough shrooms et voila. To experience Infinity take some 5-MeO et voila. It prooves that its real. Most meditators without psychedelics give up before that. One knows if one does something correct with meditation if these psychedelic-induced awakenings happen from meditation. Hope I have answered all your questions. Selling Water by the River

Mahamudra & Dzogchen, especially Pointing out the Great Way (Daniel Brown) style and the other books of Daniel Brown on Dzogchen. https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Pointing out the Great Way&author=Water by the River and

Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahamudra "literally means "great seal" or "great imprint" and refers to the fact that "all phenomena inevitably are stamped by the fact of wisdom and emptiness inseparable". Aka mere empty "imagined" appearances, not existing "out there" but within the Infinite vastness of True Being/Universal Consciousness as mere appearance in this nondual field, not as external objects "out there", aka duality. There is a lot of cultural lingo in Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism, that I didn't understand in the beginning, like why they called it Great Seal. Or Emptiness. Or dependend origination. Or Middle Way. Or No Self. Proto-Mahamudra was imported from India around the 10 century, so the term comes probably from India and is used there also. Daniel Brown once said Mahamudra (for example in his book Pointing out the Great Way) is best for Awakening, and then adding Dzogchen-Methods (the books he translated later, kind of a collection of best of Tibetan Buddhism selected by 33rd Menri Trizin. Mahamudra as explained in Pointing out the Great Way = a nearly mathematical step by step method towards Awakening (Nondual Infinite Field at least temporarily seen by impersonal Awareness itself, but some very subtle processes/filters/lenses still clouding full realization). Before that comes Nonduality (or One Taste), or a separate-self (or ET) merging in Unity with the Infinite Field (of earthly or alien form). Dzogchen = Great Perfection, or the path that completes path to Enlightenment. Or fully ripened Awakened Awareness/Awakening, no clusters of separate-self arisings not transcended/seen through/still clouding Impersonal Infinite Being/Awareness. In my perspective the by far most sophisticated and fastest meditation methods (Mahamudra+Dzogchen) on the planet. Nearly all other methods/systems/techniques/traditions are found within these methods one way or the other, but not the other way round. Selling the Great Seal by the River

Very good. That is why speed of Awareness [of recknognizing each and any arising in the mindstream before it starts hypotizing oneself] is so important. When the speed (and strength, aka not getting hypnotized by core-separte-self-issues... It will throw anything at "oneself" that it has to keep the illusion going] is so important: The past is generated "on the fly", by the "modulating" Infinite Field/Mind/Being right now. There is no past besides it "self-existing"´outside if the now [the Infinite Field]. And the question if the field was ever modulated/expressed "itself" as it is imagined/modulated as "past" right now is itself filled with duality up to the brim, and less fundamental than the Infinite Field itself. Which is another mindf*** of the highest degree. The past as Schrödingers cat. Seeing this process in real-time is what reveals the properties of the Infinite Mind as "always here", or eternal, or unborn, or timeless. One True Being is literally always here. It gives a first and quite impressive taste of the immortality of True Being. That is by the way the essence of Mahamudra stage 2, Yoga of Unelaboration. Nice description for that is in Pointing out the Great Way, Brown. There are specific instructions to open up that realization, very detailed. One can have that realization (for the aficionados, a "facet") by chance, or by direct induction (which is of course more efficient). And the realization of this facet is of course, inclusive, as all really important facets are "all inclusive" with realizing ones True Being. Can wake up only once, the rest is more dream-content, no matter how fancy & extraterrestrial. Selling Water by the River

Nagarjuna arrived at the Ultimate Consclusion for the game of "making the last meters" to describing the Absolute "correctly" already some millenia ago: " Its [Absolute/Reality/True Being] character is neither existent, nor nonexistent, / Nor both existent and nonexistent, nor neither". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhyamaka IT is neither Awareness (nor anything else for that matter), nor is it not Awareness, nor both, nor neither. IT has the potential for Awareness, and that is already said too much. The ultimate "via negative": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology Nothing definitive can be said about it. Only pointers pointing as close as possible. And finally, at the last mile approaching IT, they all fail... POINTERS! Ones True Being IS it. When there is no illusion or ignorance or separation of any kind left. The answer for the Koans is a state of enlightened being and understanding. IT can understand itself. Reality can understand itself without any doubt left. One who still needs something from anything (and be it confirmation, approval, teaching, being thought, being confirmed, or anything at all, whatever its nature) beyond a mere personal preference or "hangover" from the now [mostly transcended] former separate-self personality, has some mental material floating in ones Being to look at/transcend... And not that I don't have my "hangovers", yet nowadays I mostly smile at the little bugs floating in my Being... (ah, nice try, my little lovely hangover-bug, and Trekchö/cut). At the end of the day, Reality shows exactly where the rubber hits the road: Is there still resistance to what is, aka suffering? Or dukkha (unsatisfatoryness or suffering. Resisting. That is not direct primary emotions or bodily pain, these still occur. Even feeling sad or having lost something/separation can be a "direct pain", with added psychological resistance/suffering put on top (suffering/resisting), or not. Ken Wilber: Hurts more (because added clarity), bothers you less, Reality shows where the resistance of separation/illusion (separate-self) still occurs. Brown, Pointing out the Great Way: Third, put in order all phenomena as one taste using the metaphor of water and waves. Just as water's waves have arisen from the water itself, likewise all phenomena come from the mind-itself. Understand this so as to practice in such a way that emptiness has arisen in every [seemingly manifest] aspect. Saraha says, "So long as [manifest perceptual] aspects become elaborated [aka conceptual stories/thoughts are arising and believed and not cut or seen through off in high-speed, aka keep hypnotizing oneself] from the mind[-itself], the natural mind is your teacher." Herein it is explained that every single phenomenon [appearance "outer" world, thought, feeling, anything at all arising internally in the mindstream and in the "external" vision of the world(s)] becomes the entire dharmadhatu, or that one taste manifests as many. For the practitioner who realizes this, emptiness comes forth encompassing all [phenomena of all realms and times - ET included], which is the end-state knowledge. (PK, f. 13a). [Brackets] by Selling Water at the River

A very good and important topic to contemplate about. I also spent a long time with the topic of what causes actually Awakening, and its relationship to suffering. I tried to include as many past & present cases into my perspective on it as possible. On suffering in the context of Awakening, Enlightenment, the meditation path and my personal experiences (and my personal pet-theory of it all): -warning, the usual conceptual overkill of yours truly ahead- The following is my perspective based on what I have seen/read about other cases, and my own experiences. Without some form of suffering (or more precicly in Buddhist terma Dukha which means not suffering, but more unsatisfactoryness) nobody would ever start the path to Enlightenment/Awakening/Liberation/True Being, because one would be happy & satisfied doing the myriad of projects to become happy and free of suffering/unsatisfactoriness in our culture/time. Maslows pyramid up and down. What is not so well known: Even Maslow put towards the end of his life stage 6 on top of Maslows pyramid of need: (Self-)-Transcendence. So for the start of the "Enlightenment-project" (which is a contradiction in itself, but that is another story...) one needs either a) a mainstream-culture that pushes spiritual liberation/Awakening (and for our lifetimes, Maya goes "not today darling" on that topic, or b) some form of suffering or dukha (unsatisfactoriness) to start the journey. Then during the path to Awakening/Enlightenment/liberation, the old cycles of suffering/unsatisfactoriness don't stop at once. Here is how it developed for me, in a nutshell. The nature of the separate-self/ego to cycle between being happy for some time, then suffering/being unsatisfied/resisting what is/unhappy, then start a new project to make it happy, and round it goes. If God would write a manual to make a Samsara/Illusion game with (separate) self and others, it would go something like this: Give them some unsatisfaction and a carrot (expectation of happiness induced by a certain experience in the future), let them chase, then give them temporary happiness(=not resisting what is) and them make 'em suffer again. And given them lots of levels of carrots/games to chase and try out for permanent happiness. That is all that is needed to have a game with separate-self. The chasing goes from Maslows pyramid base stage 1 apparently up to chasing ETs n+1. Then, on an efficient path (my case Mahamudra/Dzogchen), the bliss of ones True Being (Awakenings to Nondual Awakened Awarenes) by cutting off the thought/feeling stream of the separate self in real time (also called meditation, if done correctly) starts flowing. At some point of my path (mainly Mahamudra&Dzogchen), I literally could start producing my bliss for example while meditating, walking, in meetings (at least some of them when I just could watch the show ) and so on... That normally starts after some years of meditation (on and off the pillow) when the vast spaciousness of boundless awareness starts showing up and the contractions in the head get literally relaxed. That impressed me pretty much. That bliss didn't hold with "hard" problems/really bad events in the beginning, but it started the become stronger and stronger, inducing more and more awakend nondual states of blissful silence. A positive feedback loop. More and more facets of True Being started to show up, see my last post on the remnants of separate self that need to be seen through. Creating more and more Awakening and bliss. At some point the shift can happen towards realizing what one really is/True Infinite Being, or Enlightenment. Since that normally implies a gradual transcendence path/process over several years that one has been fed each and any core-separte-self identity/suffering during the meditation by Maya in the years before, pretty much all of that stuff is transcended. Because Maya will "throw" anything at you that she has to keep the illusion going, and she has a lot. But it can jump to Enlightenment any time (Karma, aka genetics but I prefer Karma, more encompassing), induced by various events, often suffering, before that path/during it/at the end of it. For most it takes the whole path. The more gradual and longer the path, the more stable is the realization later. Yet, once having realized True Being, it is no longer in doubt. So, that was my experience, now comes my theory: Beings are karmically wired more or less fortunately/differently. Some wake up because their visual field conforms for some reasons (base state, Kundalini-Awakening, whatever) very well to the True Nature of things (mere appearance and not solid objects out there, Infinite field of awareness, boundless, timeless, always here, basically my last long post about a mindstream conforming to the enlightened mindstream. Or at least they have the potential for that shift to happen quickly. and their core-separate-self-identity-arisings are for some reason (Karma,...) easily seen through when contemplating&self-inquiring. For these beings (1) and (2) in place, some trigger can cause Enlightenment. Suffering-example: Tolle. Kundalini/Energetic: Ramana. Anamanda Ma, countless examples in history. Branch of that is shaktipat hitting a "fertile field". Then there are the normies, like yours truly, who need an either need a) an efficient practice (like Mahamudra/Dzogchen) first to induce awakened states, then get rid of all illusion/separate-self remnants, and then some good pointing out instruction of the real state of things (the properties of True Infinite Being, basically my last long post). quite some time/years needed to start inducing awakened awareness/mere nondual appearance of the visual field via meditation/trekchö/cutting off each and any thought-arising in more and more highspeed by looking into its (empty/consciousness) nature out of which thoughts/feelings are made. Until then of course also suffering in cycles. But getting "over the hump" towards bliss-inducing state happens here in the fastest and most efficient manner, as least in the opinion of yours truly. The beginning steps of that path are also concentration meditation, like in b) below. But quite refined ones, and not for too long before one shifts practice. Learning to produce ones own bliss with being in these awakened states. This way, gradually getting rid of large parts of suffering by slowly transcending the "sufferer", and replacing misery of the separate-self with the bliss of awakened states. and then, towards the end of the road (or if one is gifted/fortunate/lucky also in the middle of the path) the shift to realizing True Being and its immortality (or infinite-always here nature), and with that removing the final fear of "death" or disappearance. b) a practice that is less detailed and focuses more on brute-force willpower/push-through concentration meditation: Jhana, Zen, "sit and die before the wall" approaches that need to push with willpower through lots and lots of suffering. Here, we are again at lots and lots of suffering (at least at the beginning stages, but also all along the path from what I have seen), because Maya will throw everything she has at you to get you off the pillow/meditation, not that one wakes up and leaves the game prematurely... And now the second part of the post, why are the paths with less/minimized suffering not practiced more widely? As @Arthogaan has noticed correctly in the post below, and I had the exact same thoughts many times... Short answer to the question above: they are more complex and need more maintenance/coaching/understanding. So they are more difficult to teach & multiply & roll out, and normally need personal coaching. they have mostly been kept secret until recently because of the various dangers, like for example ego-inflation, nihilistic misuse-potential, or just plain and simple misunderstanding potential of complex practices, which leads to stagnation in the practice. Why do we have mainly enlightened ones who got lucky/were lucky with karma/genetics (see above), or from the paths 2b) Concentration meditation/Theravada/Zen? Because until recently the highly(!) sophisticated methods of Tibetan Buddhism like Mahamudra/Dzogchen/... (who have developed much more and way more sophisticated than for example Zen/Theravada which are very similiar to what was done in India 1000 to 2000 years ago (although I love these traditions very much) were not accessible at all. The Tibetans "concentrated" more on spirituality as a society, 1000 years of R&D of enlightened lineages and sometimes a large part of the adult population in the monastaries (~15%+). Head of state = Dalai Lama for a long time. Basically, main focus of that culture&society including government was Enlightenment. Of course there was also a lot of stupid things going on, like war between monasteries. But the overall development of buddhist meditation in that setting was unparalleled. Compared to that (sorry) Theravada and Zen sometimes feels a bit like "living fossils" (said in a joking way), although I like them very much and they do work quite robustly and produce fully enlightened ones. The Tibetan Teachings are very sophisticated and either need lots of focus on them (like reading the books of Brown 10-20 times and experimenting a lot), or a good and enlightened teacher explaining them and checking for understanding (which pretty much didn't exist until recently, all secret teachings are out, see books of Daniel Brown. "best of" collection of Menri Trizin, selected by Menri Trizin (probably those with which he achieved his own realization) to be translated by Brown). Another problem is they got a deeply cultural "lingo" and quite some hyperbole (the Tantric teachings of generation/completition stages and especially the lower Tantras). Quite hard to approach. So the only thing not published by Brown of these systems are some of the secret pointing out instructions for Enlightenment, although quite some are published, for example his Akrid book (Pith Instructions for A Khrid rDzogs Chen. Yet, reading that in parallel to Pointing out the Great Way is probably better than starting with that book alone). That system plus a bit Jac O'Keffee, Roger Thisdell, Massaro, Wolinsky for the final steps towards Realization (I wrote quite a lot about these), and some psychedelics for state-peak-previews... These elements I assume will be found in the Global Dharma of the future. Then some more aspects: Concentration Meditation Systems like Zen or Jhana/Theravada are quite robust: Don't need so much teaching/feedback during the process, are more brute-force and less complex. More robust, less efficient (in the meaning that one needs to push through suffering with meditation, and that they can be slower/less pleasant, and many meditators end in the many cul-de-sacs of the path where one can just stagnate if certain nuances are not understood. But done long &hard enough they work. Metaphor: The axe to cut down a tree. Doesnt need fuel & maintenance & sophisticated handling like a forst harvester.... which brings us to: The Forsest harvester to cut down the forst of Illusion: Mahamudra&Dzogchen&other Tibetan Buddhism techniques, see for example Daniel Browns books & videos: can work if done correctly/understood correctly/coached correctly in the fastest way possible by swiftly creating Awakened Nondual States most pleasant way possible (minimum amount of pushing through suffering on/off meditation pillow, taking the meditation off the pillow into daily life at the earliest possible point. avoiding pretty much all cul-de-sacs of the path where meditation practice can stagnate/level out if something is not done correctly, which means and end to the growth of Awakened Nondual States. Mostly they don't even appear then in first place, and one remains in the mericless claws of the separate-self-contraction/suffering. but are way more complex than the standard concentration meditation practice like Zen/Jhana. Pointing out the Great Way, Brown has hundreds of pages of descriptions of the various stages/steps and how the path develops through them. So many many things to potentially do wrong if something is understood incorrectly. Zen-Koan-meditation would just push through these errors if done long enough, but an incorrectly done Nonmeditation (done too early) or One Taste meditation goes nowhere and stagnates... Selling Water by the River

The ability to hold the boundless infinite nondual Awareness will grow. In Pointing out the Great Way it is called Postsamadhi Meditation. This boundless infinite timeless Awakened Awareness (as Daniel Brown calls it) is impersonal, or Awareness in at by itself. It is not necessarily individual consciousness, but awakened nondual boundless impersonal consciousness. Non-separated, non-personal. Awake. With Nonmeditation Yoga, you can let Awakened Awareness hold the view and do the meditation. "You" just get out of the way. Same holds for daily activity. Awakened Awareness is more intelligent than normal ego-consciousness, since filters & lenses are removed. Daniel Brown once said: "I let Awakened Awareness do it (I think in the context of that statement writing a book), and I just get out of the way." That is how it feels. Reading and analytical thinking is about the most difficult activitiy while keeping mindfullness/Awakened Awareness, but it can be done. "The reappearance of the mind's spontaneous relative activity at this extraordinary level of practice [Nonmeditation Yoga] brings continuous supreme bliss (bde steng). Because mindfulness/recognition now has its own force (shugs), it goes on by itself without any effort whatsoever." "At this final stage awakened wisdom [Awakened Awareness] spreads rapidly so that all possible emanations of the mind become the embodiment of awakened wisdom. The term emanation ofnothingcaptures both the relative and the ultimate dimensions of truth, respectively. All the mind's relative activity becomes the play (rol du) of the always-here mind. Where ordinary thoughts and perceptions once were, "only the great fire of understanding burns" (TN, p. 536)." "Blended practice occurs when you are forever mindful of the real nature/clear-light mind throughout the four behavioral conditions. (TN, p. 547)" Pointing out the Great Way, Brown Daniel Brown, Video below, starting 57min 40 sec: Map 2: On stabilizing Awakening [or Awakened (Nondual) Awareness] Map 3 would be to Liberation / Enlightenment. Map 1 is to Awakening/Awakened Awareness. In my opinion, and that of Daniel Brown, the most sophisticated meditation/training system on the planet. Daniel Brown has received the clearance from Menri Trizin to translate all the previous secret teachings, including Tummo/Energetic Inner Fire Yoga with or without consort, Treckö and Togal (Visionary practices to get rid of the solidity of the visual field), dark retreat, dream yoga, and so on and on. And lots of other really unique techniques that neither Zen nor Theravada, nor any other tradition, have. and the result: The timeline to Enlightenment. Done correctly with energetic practices added a few years...

Ok, I try. But be aware this is extremely difficult to do it in a monological form via text, and hardly complete. Good news is: At that stage the path shows itself to itself if one just continues with the right meditation/awareness techniques. The illusion-mechanisms pop up one by one. If applying a good understanding of what will show up, the process can be fastened. It is like adding a blow-torch to the burning down of the illusion-building. So, here we go: Any thought implying I/me. "I-feeling" any understanding you have ("I" understand) any doubt ("I" doubt) all of it very subtle and fast forms of feeling separate. Or thinking that. Very fast & very subtle. Way faster than a thought elaborated over several second. Tenths/fractions of a second... Speed of awareness is crucial, that is being trained here And strength of awareness, to be able to also cut off core separate-self identities and suffering/resistance. Reckognizing that, not getting hypnotized by that, cutting it off by looking into its nature (empty consciousness). and since its very hard to tell the difference if a thought-arising is laced with individuality/separation/identity: Cutting off all of them, just for training. Yet, one can at other times also maintain ones awareness during practical daily life/thoughts. And memory of the past: It is being imagined right now, appears as complete "chunk" out of Infinite Consciousness/Being, and then gets elaborated in thought (which is very slow compared to how it emerges "fully" formed. That is truly a mindf*** when your awareness gets fast enough to spot for the first time how the complete past emerges immediately as "whole block" and then is slowly elaborated, fooling one to believe one is that "I" having this memory and thoughts. You see then how each any anything is just emerging to fool oneself. That is an aspect that Leo emphasizes with his concept of God-Realization. The past is radically imagined right now, there is no past. There is only an Infinite Formless eternal "Field" modulating itself to give the appearance of a past. Same for the "future". You don't have a past, You are an Infinite Vastness that is able to make up the past on the fly, and then have thoughts/feelings-arisings that "believe" that. Yet, that Infinite Vastness/Being CAN UNDERSTAND, and so it can understand that the past is imagined on the fly here and now. That is a major understanding/building block of Enlightenment, or seeing that separation from it all (separate self) is just an imagined arising within oneself. One is not a human, but the Infinite Vastness/Being (which is luckily also always here, aka immortal/eternal, can't go anywhere infinite Nothingness with nothing outside of it) imagining a human and all its elements moving/appearing within itself. So it is Duality gone (visual field nondual) -> Nondual boundless infinite (boundary of the field is gone) -> Infinite solidity of "external" visual field is gone, replacing solidity with mere groundless lucid appearance -> imagined illusion/lucidity/non-material, mere imagined empty hologram like appearance. time is gone (as described above, past imagined right now) -> always here, never not here Infinite Mind/Being. Eternal, immortal, absolutely fundamental, all is appearing and arising in it, always. space is gone (imagined IN the infinte vastness of True Being) -> space doesnt exist outside, space is imagined in oneself, the vastness of Infinity (which is not 3d space), and there is no 3D-space (or any space at all, non-euclidian, 4D, whatever) possibly existing outside of your Infinite Being. No outside. Infinite. All there is. Space is not self-existing outside of ones own nondual infinite being. It is imagined by it. What is behind your face? "beyond" the visual field. Not (3d-)space, but the Infinite (Being). -> spaceless, dimensionless, infinite. Containing all possible dimensions and realms, high and low. all of that is imagined/constructed/manifested right here right now in ones nondual True eternal Being, Infinite Consciousness/Being. -> A mirage/illusion appearing in ones Infinite Being, giving rise to the illusion of a human life within it. Another way to say that is: In Pointing out the Great Way, Brown is one statement: If everything (1) all appearance of the world/visual field is seen as mere appearance (empty) hovering lucid and hologram like in Infinite Vastness (that can still be stage 3&4 Thisdell with separate-self well and alive, and that is why that is accesible via psychedelics) AND (2) each and any thought/feeling arising/"internal" mindstream event (including everything one believed oneself to be, I-feeling, I-thoughts, the whole history, the whole asking what is Reality/True Being, ALL of it) is seen as empty arising in Infinite Being/Nothingness/Consciousness. which means that ones mindstream is then conforming to the enlighened mindstream, or close to how Infinite Reality really is. Then Enlightenment can happen. But it can't be forced, since that would be thoughts with a thinker identified with them, with I-feelings, wanting something. Infinite Being/Consciousness has to understand itself, with no artifical activity/separate self trying to force it. At that point, the properties of the mindstream above can be automized, and this automatic meditation/mindfulness can be protected ("mindfulness without [artificial activity]"), element (1) of Nonmeditation Yoga, see Pointing out the Great Way, Brown). One doesnt't focus on anything (which Daniel Brown calls particularizing). This picking out something specific with attention (particularizing, the fastest process of the mind, way faster than thinking) is what creates Duality, or better disrupts the original nonduality. Instead, one watches how particularization happens, and transcends that in a way that the boundless nondual unity with/of the visual field is not interrupted. Element (2) of Nonmeditation Yoga, "do not take to mind". and then maintains and waits in that state. Meditation and Mindfulness in these awakened nondual states does itself. Enlightenment can't be forced, because who would do the forcing? Instead, the Infinite Vastness/Being can understand/realize itself (or its True Nature) when conditions are exactly right. That is then Enlightenment. Bye bye illusion-human, hello Infinite Being/Reality "having" a human,. Making the mindstream conform to the enlightened mindstream so that Enlightenment can happen is very important, because that part can be done by intelligent and informed practice. And that is why an efficient system is way faster, more efficient for most than and way more pleasent than a brute force approach like sitting an staring at the wall (brute force method), concentration or Koan-style. more likely to work than betting on just by having the right Karma and enough of the mere-appearance-infinite-character of the visual field and thought/feeling space in place already (Ramana, Anamanda Ma), and then some contemplation based on the already very much conforming mindstream Only those who needed to walked the steps can tell about the steps. Those are on top can mainly tell about how the properties of the roof are/what Truth is, but its more difficult to talk about steps that didn't have to be taken/climbed because they were already in place. The low success rate of the Enlightenment-endeavours in my perspective is due to mostly using brute-force-methods (which need lots and lots of willpower and pushing through negative emotions on the pillow) with no clear map of the steps of the path and the lots of cul-de-sacs of the path, or prodigy-approaches of telling about nature of True Being, but not offering a method path for average-gifted persons (Ramana for example). So, conforming to the enlightened mindstream mainly is: (1) Visual Field nondual, mere appearance, "hovering" in Infinite Vasteness/Infinity, being manifested/imagined right now (2) every thought arising/feeling arising is seen as emerging out of True Being/consciousness, made out of it, moving in it. Especially all thoughts/feelings relating to I/me. Feels impersonal, no separate indiduality found in any of that. And based on that the separate self (what one thought oneself to be) can be realized as mere flow of colours/appearances/feelings/thoughts (which have a very coherent and well made structure/Gestalt, and therefor are extremly hypnotizing and seem believeable) appearing in Oneself (Infinite Being), including the whole past, and that one IS the always here Infinite Eternal Field of Being/Consciousness. And the former separate-self is like the tree-picture in this wikipedia-article (below): A representation for something that appears (the tree), but has no independend existence apart from True Being (which is the nondual infinite eternal vastness of Being right here and now, with the body and mindstream having no different priority or separation from all that is). A well made illusion. The picture of the tree concept doesn't point to a real tree outside of consciousness (an object), but to shapes/colours of an imagined trees within Infinite Consciousness, not to real trees that exist outside of Infinite Being, self-existing/indepdently existing outside of consciousness. There are no trees, just the concept of them, and some imagined colours/forms/sensations giving the Gestalt of an appearance of atree. Same way, there is no human/separate-self beyond the appearance-Gestalt, and the concept pointing to such an imagined self-existing entity. There is only Infinite Being, not the human (which only appears in Infinite Being). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept There always ever was, is and can be the Totality of (true) Being, self-aware, perceptions perceiving themselves. Either with reflective-self-consciousness arising (like normal human mind stream), or just mere awareness of the Totality without the self-consciousness part, perceptions perceiving themselves. Aware, but not separate. The non reflective-pure awareness of this vast field/being is more fundamental than the temporary appearing self-consciousness (with I-feelings I-thoughts). The Awareness is the Sun, the reflective (self-) consciousness (I-feeling, I-thoughts) is the reflected light of the Sun on the planets. Basically, its replacing ones old mistaken identity (imagined false illusion separate-self) with the correct identity, Infinite timeless/eternal (always here) Being. The flow of the human mindstream with its practical thoughts and so on happen within Ones True Being. One has a human, but is not only the human. Thoughts or feelings of separation are known to be illusion. When that shift happen, this realization is always available by just reaching out, or immediately always present. The visual field IS mere appearance and lucid/hologram/groundless, it IS infinite, eternal always here. Thoughts and feelings ARE just floating in it, made out of it, and "it" is onself, nondual. And that can be felt all the time or by just checking/moving attention there. It can never really be unseen. Reality/True Being understands itself. It is beyond doubt, unshakable, deathless/immortal always here. And that is the kicker: One/True Being is literally immortal and infinite. Not the ego, but True Being with its nature of Awareness. One can never die, and nothing outside one self can truly threaten one, because there is no outside of oneself. Seriousness and danger is replaced with laughter and security. Resting in True Being generates bliss, even when approaching it in Thisdells stage 4. Its a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop: Cutting off thoughts, field nondual, bliss flows. Literally. And that reinforces the stability of Nondual mere appearance visual field even more. Awakening enchances awakening. Suffering/resistance to what is no longer grips in any form since a long time. If it moves within ones being, is seen and let go. Would the inherent bliss of True Being ever be exchanged with grasping for being an ET seeing more of manifested reality, but suffers because its not enlightened? (more on that later). That is a "hard" shift, it is not just thinking differently. It is for sure not "I am God and imagine all reality", which is just cosplay. It is Reality understanding itself, Infinite Being waking up to itself. What can do the understanding of that? Reality/Being/Infinite Consciousness. Waking up to its True Nature. That last shift is knowing what one really is, and that understanding/realization runs over a short period of time. Waking up. Happens only once. And is final. Is beyond doubt (since these would only be more thoughts/arisings moving within Reality and subsiding into it). The shifts/Awakenings leading towards it go over a longer time, many years. And then of course there are infinite forms of manifestation, ET n+1, with vastly more understanding of the relative manifestations, basking in their understanding of the imagination process, different dimensions, higher realms, non-euclidian space, completely other alien manifestation realms. Humans look like ants compared to that for sure. These beings have been reported since millenia, in all cultures, all times. Reality-creating and maintaining Gods (Brahman, Shiva, Vishnu and endless other names for them). But it is the same True YOU, the only Being or Awareness in existence. The same being. There is nothing outside of it. No other (being, God, alien). And one can have an unenlightened ET, not having realized what Reality really is. Beings of higher realms are not necessarily enlightened. That tale is as old as the spiritual traditions. Although many of these beings of higher planes are enlightened. An unenlightened ET (which by definition has separate-self-elements not transcended/seen through in real time, which are by definition nothing other than the elements resisting the now, or suffering in other words) is a rather sad and suffering figure compared to a being who has realized its True Infinite Being. Calling the lower higher, and the higher lower. Whose modus operandi is that again? But lets not end too serious: It is all an illusion-game, "nobody" really gets lost forever, and Maya smiles lovingly on all not-really-(self)-existing-but-just-appearing children of Reality, humans and ETs alike. Although it can appear & feel very real & serious. Selling Water by the River

For me that was the most tricky stage. One has to install an automized mindfullness-process that cuts of anything separate/I-feeling/I-thought automatically and fast enough, but can't use willful artificial activity for it (because that is separate-self/ego/thought process) again, and that is way too slow and cuts off Nonduality/Awakening). Best description for that stage I found is Brown, Pointing out the Great Way, chapter Nonmeditation. I had to read it dozens of times over the years to get the nuances... Jhanas also work, but in my opinion Mahamudra/Nonmeditation is more sophisticated and efficient. Historically, it was developed in Tibet over a long time with many many practitioners, while Theravada/Jhana looks for me more like way earlier Buddhism. Although it of course also works, see Frank Yang, Daniel Ingram and Roger Thisdell. But all(!) say that at the last stages they needed to add something like Dzogchen/Mahamudra/Do-Nothing meditation and not only willful concentration (artificial activity).

Intensifying -and easing up - techniques in the Mahamdura system, see for example "Pointing out the Great Way", Brown. You can find a description of my experiences with Mahamudra the Pointing out the Great Way-style in my archive.

The books from Daniel Brown. Good starting point is pointing out the Great Way, then Heart Drops of Kun tu bZang po. Wilber, One Taste.

You are right that Full Enlightenment can't be transmitted by words. Nor fully described. But it can be very well pointed to. The stages/states up until that can be described quite well, since duality has not broken down yet fully, and language can work with duality quite fine. Of course, if the referents of certain meditation experiences are not there yet, they have to be created/trained first. But they can be described in such a way that they can be recognized then. Maybe you find that perspective of Dr. Daniel Brown interesting. Quote from Pointing out the Great Way: "PUTTING MEDITATIVE EXPERIENCE INTO WORDS A good deal of Western scholarship on religion assumes that mystical experience is ineffable. Mystical states are said to be so profound that they are indescribable. This view is wrong. Rechungpa, a contemporary of the great Tibetan saint Milarepa, wrote an extremely detailed work on all the changes that occur in the body and mind at the moment of enlightenment. The most striking feature of his Clear Wisdom Mandmudra is the extreme technical precision used to describe internal states. As a tradition, Tibetan Buddhism is perhaps unique in the level of technical precision used to describe meditation experience; there is nothing comparable in Western mystical literature. Western mysticism largely has been restricted to individual practitioners, small groups, or time-limited movements, wherein the mystics either didn't express their spiritual attainments in much detail, or expressed these attainments in idiosyncratic ways according to their unique realizations and cultural context. Tibetan Buddhism, in contrast, is a highly organized lineage tradition that has been around since the seventh century, with Indian roots that go back much further. The early oral tradition spawned a loose but extensive network of itinerate practitioners who shared or traded teachings and specific spiritual exercises. The monastic tradition beginning in the eleventh century was characterized by tightly organized, stable communities of large groups of meditators who engaged in continuous dialogues about meditative attainments. They developed an elaborate inner science of spiritual development. During this period the technical language for spiritual development became more consensual, technically sophisticated, and refined as standards for discussing attainments developed. This body of technical knowledge was transmitted from generation to generation until the present day. The central problem then for the Western reader in understanding spiritual development in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is not its alleged ineffability but the opposite: namely, understanding the vast and sophisticated technical language of internal meditative experience. This book is designed to give the reader a precise map of internal meditative states." https://www.drdanielpbrown.com/buddhist-meditation-teacher In his dissertation, he translated single-handedly the main texts of Theravada-Buddhism, the Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali, and Mahamudra from their original languages, and looked for the deep structures "behind" all these systems. Excerpts from the summary of his dissertation in "Transformations of consciousness, chapter 8" "In this chapter, Daniel Brown addresses the second question by presenting an in-depth cartography of meditative stages drawn from three different traditions—the Tibetan Mahamudra, the Hindu Yogasutras, and the Theravada Vipassana (this cartogra-phy was subsequently cross-checked with other contemplative texts, Christian, Chinese, etc.). The results strongly suggest that the stages of meditation are in fact of cross-cultural and universal applicability at a deep, not surface, analysis)." Selling Water by the River

Fine. I guess we can agree that the outcome of any contemplation should be: practice, practice, practice. Or: Finding out for oneself, so that one doesn't need any external authority. "I can only invite you to try the path I walked, and described in many posts (Mahamudra/Dzogchen, mainly Pointing out the Great Way), or any other path, and see for yourself. " Enlightenment is an accident. Practice makes accident-prone. 90% of the enlightened ones I am aware of (both contemporary and historically) had a rather long time of transcendence practice. Sure, around 10% I would estimate wake up without much practice (in this life). But do we know their Karma (part of which is "genetics"), past existences, and so on? Selling Water by the River

Well, it is, like often, not either/or. How to integrate all these diferent perspectives? Even Full Enlightenment develops. The Awakenings before that also. Or as Ken Wilber said: From experience, to plateau, to permanent. Yet, Enlightenment is a decisive shift, or realizing/being/understanding for the first time fully the nature of ones True Being and of Reality. Daniel Brown, Pointing out the Great Way: PATH WALKING: ENHANCING THE REALIZATION [after Full Enlightenment] Just as certain conditions serve as obstacles to maintaining enlightenment, other conditions, properly understood, serve to enhance it. Theterm path walking (lam 'khyer) pertains to the type of lifestyle, behavior, and specific practices engaged in after enlightenment that serve to enhance and consolidate the realization as an enduring condition of mind.The term lam hhyer means "to walk along a path." A traveler who crosses over a mountain needs a plan for discovering the new territory. Likewise, the practitioner whose mind crosses over from seeming individual consciousness to the enlightened mind is more likely to stabilize and consolidate the realization with a plan for everyday behavior and activity. The path-walking instructions provide that plan." So again from peak to plateau to permanent. "Tashi Namgyel lists a variety of everyday situations that best serve to enhance the realization. These include when there is attachment to ordinary experience, when the practitioner is caught up in passion and hatred, when the practitioner is meditating and is finding it very difficult to settle the mind, and when the mind is so much at rest and happy in everyday life that he or she is less likely to recognize the real nature of idle thoughts (TN, pp. 619-20). The best time to practice is when there are passions (hhu phrig), and especially when these passions are intense (drag po; TN, p. 619). In short, any difficulties (dka ngal) encountered in everyday life become good vehicles for consolidating the realization, and the more intense the better. Awakening already brings a lot of bliss, but not yet all tools necessary to move towards freedom from suffering/psychological resistance. Basis-/Full-/Great Enlightenment (different names for different traditions, basically understanding/realizing what one really is and what Reality is) brings for the first time the possibility for sustaining bliss by dissolving progressively the hangover/remains of the separate self during/over(!) the following years/life-time. Awakening does not bring that potential yet fully, because there is still somebody who "awakens". And of course most remaining "hang-overs" of the separate-self will let themself know by what they do best: Causing suffering. But now, after Enlightenment, there is a tool available to work with what has not already been dissolved: Looking into their essence, AND into the being doing the looking. Even Ken Wilber said in the Interview-Audio series Kosmic Karma on the question of Tami Simons: Anybody 24/7 permanently in realization, including deep sleep, with zero lapse? Answer by Ken Wilber: A clear no. But that is not a bad thing. Enlightenment gives the chance the reorient the remaining character/body-mind fully (or as much as possible) during the rest of ones lifetime. And when the remaining character is not aligned or has a lapse and goes into separation again: clearly noticed by suffering. Suffering and fear reduce dramatically, and a door/method is opened up to progress towards dissolving what remains of bliss/fear/suffering, or the remaining character which is not yet fully aligned. Ken Wilber gave a description on the possible (longterm) enlightened outcomes, depening on the character. Ken Wilber, The Eye of Spirit, Chapter: The Eye of Spirit: Ken Wilber also wrote in "One Taste" that one can remain an enlightened jerk. Or that realized Dzogchen adepts are sometimes depicted as looking incredibly bored (seen IT, done with it). Nisargadatta smoked a lot until it finally killed him. Adi Da ran quite some cult. The list of less-than-integral Enlightenment-expressions is long.... But also the enlightened archetypes of the link above are possible. So it depends a lot on the personality that was there before Enlightenment. There seems to be a huge variability. And the soul ripens also after Enlightenment, over many lifetimes (Christopher Bache, LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven, Dustin DiPerna: Earth is Eden, and Jürgen Ziewe). Enlightenment is not the end of the soul, just the end of the "separate-soul". There seems to be a long path also afterwards, and not just the crude Nirvana-extinction-gameover of early Buddhism. Buddhism developed a lot towards that view in the following centuries/millenia (see Rainbow Body for example). Selling Water by the River

For that, please check the book. Really, it would be worth it. Noting and labeling is waaay to slow, among other things. If you hit a baseball, and would have to note/label what you are doing, that would take way too long, multiple tenths-of-a-second up to seconds. The ball would be long gone. To get good, one has to hit the ball without any thinking. And to learn to do that really well, one gets coached for every miniature-movement of pitching, and how that grows and develops. Zen and noting/labeling is like: Just hit the ball. And even if you hit the ball, how to hit it really far? Or how to hit all balls (even subtle separate-self thoughts/feelings). Like, how to induce really Awakened/Nondual States? Because that happens only with a high speed cutoff of all (even the subtle separate-self-arisings/thoughts/feelings) That needs a good coaching system. Noting and labeling is still thinking, and thinking is way too slow. Like, really way to slow. A very important aspect in my description-post was: High-Speed Search into the nature and emergence of concepts (or rather, into the unfindability of anything solid in their nature, or finding consciousness/empty Awareness/Reality/Suchness in each and every thought arising, and into the temporal phenomenology of their appearnce). To first realize what that nature of thoughts/concepts is, the book needs quite some time. And only realizing that nature correctly, fast enough and how it emerges temporally, is what actually dissolves the thought fast enough, without causing any other fast/subtle thoughts/feelings in its wake. The mindstream is really tricky here, really fast and subtle hard to spot separate-self thoughts, feelings and sensations. So how is this High Speed Search/Cut Off task done, for example at a certain stage: see the quote below. The time-aspect of emergence, staying, disappearing of thoughts is examined. NOT the content, but the temporal structure. That is totally different than noting & labeling. Noting & Labeling is thought-based, content-based, not structure based how it all emerges in the mindstream from a temporal perspective. And that temporal thought-emerging process then changes with practice dramatically. Also, I just scratched the surface of the stages and methods. What most meditation-methods do is like: Here is New York, there is LA, drive west. What Mahamudra does is give you a map for each interstate-crossing. Literally. And just driving west normally ends in a cul-de-sac, meditation gets impossible boring or needs endless will, because one sees zero progress and no changes. I had to read that book (the important passages 10-20 times) to get it, and had to align it with my ongoing practice-experience. It needs some meditation-experiences to understand what the different stages are talking about. Meditation experience generates new meditation-experience-referents, with which gets worked then in the next stages. I can not cut down a 600 page book into short posts, just give some little previews and differences of what is innovative in this system and not found somewhere else in other systems. Selling Water by the River "PS: To give you just a small taste of the level of technical precission of the stage description of what happens. And what the meditators of most other systems only learn coincidentally and as unconsciousness competence (they wouldn't be able to tell WHAT precicly they do, or changed doing). And that is just one change of many on the path of that system: The Mind-Moments mentioned in the quote below can be for example thougt-arising-events. Brown, Pointing out the Great Way, chapter Skill of Reckognition: "At this stage of meditation the practitioner is likely to experience a series of shifts in the way events seem to arise and pass away in the mental continuum, as if the temporal organization of events itself were changing. Four such rearrangements occur in stages: (1) Awareness of the initial phase of arising only. Mind-moments arise so rapidly that one appears to arise just as the previous one ceases. The practitioner is aware of only the moment events arise and is not aware of their duration or cessation. This awareness of the immediate arising is expressed in Pema Karpds phrase "at the moment it is born," as well as in Tashi Namgyel's phrase "happens to arise." (2) The tripartite unit of arising, staying, and ceasing (byung, gnas, song). During the next stage the practitioner notices not only the initial moment of arising (byung) but also some discernible duration (gnas; literally, "staying") of the event, followed by its cessation (song). The entire unit—arising, staying, ceasing—constitutes a single discrete mental event, irrespective of the category of mental content. (3 )At the next stage, the practitioner experiences another shift in temporal experience, characterized by awareness of only moment-by-moment arising and passing away (skye 'gag). Mind-moments are experienced to be very short-lived without much discernible duration. They arise and pass very quickly. Tashi Namgyel calls this stage "momentary arising" (thol ba). [Comment from me: and here at (3) the magic can start: Thought arising get faster and faster when one looks at the temporal structure of their emergence and into their essence/nature, but they are cut off immediately (without much descernible duration). It takes a long time to get there. When at that stage, thoughts that normally elaborate over several seconds show up at once, one "knows" their full content before they even elaborate in the mindstream over several seconds, and can cut them off immedeately. That gives a complete new understanding how the mind works at that high-speed-level, and is the beginning of Awakening if cut-off in sufficient speed so that the NO thoughts elaborate but just emerge as capsules. Then, they start to stop emerging for some time. And if they emerge, they are different. It also starts to show Infinite Consciousness as timeless always here reality, Existence itself. Not as idea, but as experience]. And that skill then gets developed over several more stages.] (4) During the final stage the practitioner comes to realize that the idea that discrete events arise and pass over time is itself a mere construct of the ordinary mind. All distinctions concerning the seeming temporal unfolding of mental events are found to be empty, and the practitioner develops a new realization of the mind's real nature as always here (skye med). The first three experienced rearrangements in the temporal unfolding of the mental events pertain to the skill exercises, while the fourth pertains to the subsequent yoga of unelaboration. [Outcome is that each and any thought-arising can be cut, or alternatively watched in a lucid manner] Although the three parts of the skill meditation are said to be experienced in stages (rim pa), this distinction is not always explicit since the actual root-text instructions are typically given in a combined form." And the insight described here is the High-Speed-Cut-Off Searchtask into the Unfindability of the essence of thoughts, which then evaporate. And also looking closely HOW thought emerge, stay, cease, and what is always right here. That boosts Awakened/nondual States if done correctly. And also gives the first intuition of the always here, or eternal/immortal nature of consciousness/reality, not as idea, but as direct understanding.

Let me try to answer your questions as brief as possible. That is challenging, because the Mahamudra system is technically very complex with many stages. I like to compare Zen/Theravada to cutting a tree with an axe, while Mahamudra is something like a forest harvester: The axe was available already in stone-age and worked, robust and slow. The forest harvester needs precise handling and thorough understanding & training, but is waaay faster. Anyway, lets try the impossible at least roughly. Here is my main thread of the explanation on Mahamudra in the Pointing out the Great Way style (Daniel Brown, 600 page book, around 200-300 pages on the juicy main-practice-stages of Mahamudra). To give you an idea/feeling (not really possible to do in brief, but I try): The description of two main steps: Stage 1 of 4, Skill of Recognition Stage 3 of 4, Yoga of One Taste (One Taste = Nondual) Lets start with Stage 1 of 4, Skill of Recognition It is a "High-Speed-Search-Task into Nature of thoughts, into the "Unfindability/Emptiness" of thoughts. They evaporate when looking into their nature. The nature of every emerging thought/concept, emerging out of Infinite Consciousness/Absolute Reality): And the nature of thoughts is its unfindability: Thoughts have no location, they are "made"/essence out of Infinite Consciousness. Thoughts dissolve when looking into their nature (Aware Empty Infinite Consciousness). One can never "find" a thought. They dissolve when looking into their essence. They move within onself, and dissolve when looking into them And that process/phenomenon is used. and with that cutting off (=Trekchö), since its nature is empty Infinite Consciousness/Suchness. Consciousness literally stops the thought then. At one point when one is fast enough, one sees the order of emergence IN the Infinite Mind is Understanding or just some other cause Thought emergence (fully formed, fully emerging in mili-seconds, but not yet "elaborated-out" over several seconds) being elaborated out over a part of a second to several seconds) And step 3 doesn't happen then. It is cut off. THAT is was brings Awakened States (nondual, boundless, basically if done fast enough. The thought "capsules" start emerging faster and faster then, 10-20 thoughts capsules per second+, and at some point Awareness stays "on top" of even that. That is where the magic starts (Nonduality begins developing, and the mindstream can get silent, bliss starts flowing. A very discrete and "hard" psychological process). And that happens in the beginning phases still on the pillow, but can also happen very much in daily life when intensive thought activity is not necessary. Later, it becomes also possible with sophisticated intellectual/creative thinking, when Awareness has become strong enough to stay lucid THROUGH the thought-elaboration. No longer hypnotized, the creative/intellectual happening within oneself on auto-pilot. Awakened Awareness and its Infinite Intelligence tends to take over, the separate-self/ego gets out of the way. That makes it also much more effective, since the ego/separte-self tended to act as a filter. From this Awakenened Awareness all intelligence and creativity comes from anyway, that is why creativity is so highly valued and pleasurable. This Awakened Awareness is the source of bliss anyway.... So, then the next step described in this post (Stage 2, see link above, jumped due to the specific question of Leo for "daily" practice: Stage 3 of 4, Yoga of One Taste. One Taste = Nondual boundless consciousness. Getting that into daily life. When enough proficiency of creating lucid states with this High-Speed-Cutoff is generated, the Awareness/Lucidity doesn't get lost when thinking. It stays. And with it the Awakened States. And then daily life starts getting nondual, especially if no academic thinking is necessary (still large parts of the day). With academic style thinking/creative thinking, it takes more Lucidity/Training, but is doable. 2nd TOPIC OF THIS POST: God-Realization in your words, or "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality." And this (Yoga of One Taste) brings us then to the "base camp of Full Enlightenment", the "jumping platform" where Full Enlightenment can happen (some of which main aspects you refer to with God Realization): Stage 4, Yoga of Nonmeditation. I have written elsewhere about it, see link above. The Nondual Stages of Yoga of One Taste would get confirmed in other traditions (Zen for example) as Enlightenment/Satori/Kensho. But not Great/Full Enlightenment, or God-Realization in your wording. That is an "accident", for which Stage 3&4 make accident-prone. I agree with you that Emptiness/Void is neither God Realization nor Full Enlightenment, where also that "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality" is realized. I am starting more to understand why you emphasize that in your language/system of experience, and I agree on the importance of it. In Zen, there is a differentiation between just shallower Enlightenments (Kenshos, Satoris) into the empty nature of all appearance, or into emptiness. The separte-self can still be very alive then. The Full Enlightenment on the other side, the total dissolution of the separate-self, leaves one with exactly that realization: "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality." Although there is no more you, nor God, but Reality itself becoming consciousness OF itself IMAGINING itself as all there ever could be. This Enlightenment is probably between 10-50 less common than the real thing of Full Enlightenment. Probably that is why you are so annoyed with the large majority of Buddhist Enlightenments (either contemporarily claimed or described in literature). Let me give you four examples of that differentiation (I could give many more, but that would blast the post. Ok, I admit, its already blasted and way too long... forgive me). 1) Huang Po https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangbo_Xiyun "One Mind Huángbò's teaching centered on the concept of “mind” (Chinese: hsin), a central issue for Buddhism in China for the previous two centuries or more. He taught that mind cannot be sought by the mind. One of his most important sayings was “mind is the Buddha”. He said: All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists [red by me]. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient beings.[8] He also said: To awaken suddenly to the fact that your own Mind is the Buddha [Nothing exists beside IT=God=Reality=True You], that there is nothing to be attained or a single action to be performed – this is the Supreme Way.[9]" 2) Yogachara school https://integrallife.com/toward-fourth-turning-buddhism/ "The very notion of the “not-twoness” of Emptiness and Form opened the door, as we briefly mentioned, to other even “stronger” versions of nonduality or (metaphoric!) Wholeness, one of the most prominent being the Yogachara, introduced by the half‑brothers Asanga (more of a brilliant innovator) and Vasubandhu (more of an acute synthesizer). Another name for their school—Vijnaptimatra—is usually translated as “Mind-only” or “Representation-only.” The point here is that the “not-twoness” of Emptiness and Form allowed some philosopher-sages to come up with other terms for the “Form” that was seamlessly conjoined with ultimate Emptiness or Shunyata, one of them being “Mind” itself. The idea was that “Mind” itself was the same as Emptiness—the Yogachara philosophers were adamant that they were talking about the same “unqualifiable” Emptiness that Nagarjuna was, but by also referring to it as “Mind” they were giving (some would say metaphorically, some would say absolutely) a type of compass that would help relate ultimate Emptiness to an everyday reality everybody was aware of (such as, namely, the Mind). The Zen saying, “The everyday mind, just that is the Tao (ultimate Truth)” is a good example of this type of Yogachara thinking. And it showed clearly how one could “bring everything to the path,” starting with your own, simple, everyday awareness. This opened so many other doors—especially Tantra and Vajrayana—that it is referred to as “The Third Turning of the Wheel of Dharma.” Buddhism has philosophically run a long way. Hinayana didn't even have the full Nondual Realization of Absolute Reality, Nagarjuna made Madyamaka (nothing can be said about Ultimate Reality). And where did it end? The philosophy all which pretty all sophisticated Tantric Buddhism system rely on? MIND-ONLY, Yogachara. We need to at least differentiate the 2500 year system of Buddhism into these development steps. If not, we are fighting with a "fossil-philosophy"... 3) The Supreme Source, one of the main texts of Dzogchen (quite close to the Mahamudra above, Brown uses Dzogchen and Mahamudra elements together): on which breathtaking beautiful absolute perpective you agreed: There is gold in Buddhism, Full Enlightenment, God Realization. And tools to make it stable in daily life. The later systems of Tantric Buddhism, but also Mahayana, have at their philosophic core Yogachara or Madhyamaka (I have written on that elsewhere). These two qualifications of Ultimate Reality are in line with what you call God Realization. 4) In Zen 3 pillars of Zen, Kapleau: Some quotes from that book: "ROSHI: With a first enlightenment the realization of oneness is usually shallow. Yet if one has genuinely perceived, even though dimly, and continues to practice devotedly for five or ten more years, this inner vision will expand in depth and magnitude as one’s character acquires flexibility and purity." The story of Bassui: "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality." "This way is no other than the realization of your own Mind. Now what is this Mind? It is the true nature of all sentient beings, that which existed before our parents were born and hence before our own birth, and which presently exists, unchangeable and eternal. So it is called one’s Face before one’s parents were born. This Mind is intrinsically pure. When we are born it is not newly created, and when we die it does not perish. It has no distinction of male or female, nor has it any coloration of good or bad. It cannot be compared with anything, so it is called Buddha-nature. Yet countless thoughts issue from this Selfnature as waves arise in the ocean or as images are reflected in a mirror. To realize your own Mind you must first of all look into the source from which thoughts flow And: Realization Emptiness, or Void, IS NOT YET FULL ENLIGHTENMENT: "In this propitious state deepen and deepen the yearning, tirelessly, to the extreme. When the profound questioning penetrates to the very bottom, and that bottom is broken open, not the slightest doubt will remain that your own Mind is itself Buddha, the Void-universe. There will then be no anxiety about life or death, no truth to search for. In a dream you may stray and lose your way home. You ask someone to show you how to return or you pray to God or Buddhas to help you, but still you can’t get home. Once you rouse yourself from your dream-state, however, you find that you are in your own bed and realize that the only way you could have gotten home was to awaken yourself. This [kind of spiritual awakening] is called “return to the origin” or “rebirth in paradise.” It is the kind of inner realization that can be achieved with some training. Virtually all who like zazen and make an effort in practice, be they laypeople or monks, can experience to this degree. But even such [partial] awakening cannot be attained except through the practice of zazen. You would be making a serious error, however, were you to assume that this was true enlightenment in which there is no doubt about the nature of reality. You would be like one who having found copper gives up the desire for gold." Or: Not yet Full Enlightenment-Realization. "But even now repeatedly cast off what has been realized, turning back to the subject that realizes, that is, to the root bottom, and resolutely go on. Your Self-nature will then grow brighter and more transparent as your delusive feelings perish, like a gem gaining luster under repeated polishing, until at last it positively illumines the entire universe [infinite nondual mere appearance boundlessness of ones nondual limitless being then]." "You must understand that anything appearing in your consciousness or seen by your eyes is an illusion [imagined], of no enduring reality. Hence you should neither fear nor be fascinated by such phenomena. If you keep your mind as empty as space, unstained by extraneous matters, no evil spirits can disturb you even on your deathbed. While engaged in zazen, however, keep none of this counsel in mind. You must only become the question “What is this Mind?” or “What is it that hears these sounds?” When you realize this Mind you will know that it is the very source of all Buddhas and sentient beings. And that ends in Full Enlightenment: "keep asking with all your strength, “What is it that hears?” Only when you have completely exhausted the questioning will the question burst; now you will feel like someone who has come back from the dead. This is true realization. You will see the Buddhas of all the universes face-to-face and the Dharma Ancestors past and present [they all have been expressions of this Infinite Mind of yours, of the only Reality there is or could be, dreaming up all these worlds]." There is nothing else than: "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality." And that becomes stable in daily life when there is no longer a separate-self, but only Reality. God. True Nature. Whatever one wants to call "It" then... And that Ultimate Reality is Impersonal Infinite Consciousness. "It" is both nothing/impersonal, but also everything there could be imagined. It is Reality itself. The True Core of each being. As long as something of a remaining separate-self projected on it, its not stable in daily life. The remains of that separate-self will also "colour" all higher insights/realizations. Bliss doesn't flow yet full time, so the suffering will make the being continue and refine anything that is not conforming to this Ultimate Reality, ones True being. Or according to Huang Po, The One [Infinite] Mind that dreams or imagines it all up all Reality. Water by the River PS: Ok, yours truly confesses: short is it not, the post.... But please don't hit me too hard, took some time to write, and I got plenty of other things to do also.

And that is ok. I didn't do too much sitting meditation (still 100s of hours/maybe in the lower 1000s, but not excessive Zen/Theravada-style 10.000s of hours monk fulltime stuff), but walked the path of Mahamudra/Dzogchen (with 1000s of hours of meditation, but in daily life over 15 years+), with taking the meditation early into daily life (and not just mindfulness, but high-speed thought-cut-off Trekchö), and that got pleasant quite early on. Here is a summary of that step: And many other "Pointing out the Great Way" Propaganda-posts in my post-achieve, just check for "Pointing out the Great Way". Here is a summary of the path, and my experience with that path: The path of Mahamudra/Dzogchen (Tibetan Buddhism) described for example in Brown, Pointing out the Great Way (and the other books of Brown) is in my experience unique in efficiency. With Zen or Theravada meditation-system, I would have needed the 1000s-10.000s of hours and years of sitting meditation, with an unassured outcome. Of that I am sure. Please feel invited to take a look at that system. Maybe it is the system you are looking for. I feel very similiar like you describe in your post when looking at most other meditation-systems I am aware of (and I read about pretty much all of the major ones, on some more, on some less), but not this one. I have a quite successful entrepreneurial and business career, and a happy marriage. And a hobby besides all this transcendence stuff. It is possible. Well, lets see what life brings... Yes. Yet, all beings automatically karmically go from life to life, growing and wising up in the long run, orienting themselves to less suffering. With the classic methods of compassion and becoming more aware of the mindstream, normally not too much damage can be done, and suffering tends to get less. And then maybe some psychedelics from time to time to contact the eternal... And yes, one should to good to oneself, and not multiply suffering with anything. Eternity will not run away... Water by the River

It is my personal experience. I can do the Eckhart Tolle thing and sit for hours on a park bench, with bliss flowing through my being by cutting off the self-contraction and resting in what is. Which I often do. I was doubting that when it started (it started before all insights into the nature of being were fully in place), doubting it just like you. And then it didn't stop, didn't get broken, even by really heavy blows. It has established its own momentum and force and continued ripening. Then later what I really am got confirmed by certain states/realizations beyond any possible doubt. If my character tries to do its old thing of grasping certain experiences (or avoiding others) and suffering while doing so, there is literally the choice to believe it or rest in Awakened Awareness (which brings its own bliss, and more that the sought for experience), and it is spotted very fast. Can my "character-thing" be improved? For sure it can. It has a long hang-over of self-contraction. But its ability to really reestablish the self-contraction (which blocks the flow of bliss/openness of Awakened Awareness states) with real belief in it and on an ongoing basis is structurally gone. Well, I am not going to convince you just by writing. But not writing it is also not an option. Ken Wilber once wrote that the obligation one has if one sees is to tell, or else the soul gets very sick. I would have no problem leaving the forum behind. Although I enjoy writing, I got many nice things to besides, and wouldn't miss it. But it would be the wrong thing to do. So, I kindly ask you to be at least agnostic to what I write. Be also honest why you wrote "be honest". I have the feeling there is something mildly annoying you in my writing. I can only invite you to try the path I walked, and described in many posts (Mahamudra/Dzogchen, mainly Pointing out the Great Way), or any other path, and see for yourself. There is a risk of establishing self-limiting beliefs when there is too much doubt in the reachability of the fruits of the path. Literally every tradition confirms this as the potential of every sentient being. I will continue posting mainly these old texts (because they show the universality of these realizations over the centuries). Sometimes telling about "ones own" experience is ok, but if one does it all the time, it can easily become self-importance boosting, or can come across as such. Bon voyage Water by the River

Thank you very much for posting that video. I can confirm from long time experience (10 years+) of walking this path (Mahamudra, especially the system outlined in Pointing out the Great Way, but also Dzogchen) is very effective. It is orders of magnitude more effective in taking meditation and Awakening off the pillow into daily life than any other meditation system I am aware of, and I read about & tried quite some. I am convinced that with any other system it would have taken me at least 2-3 times longer at least, probably more. Getting meditation off the pillow and into daily life, not as mindfulness but more as Trekchö, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekchö#:~:text=In Dzogchen%2C trekchö (khregs chod,with its admonition against practice. , is in my experience essential to get the momentum of Awakened States going that is necessary for further insights - at least if one is not (geneticall or karmically) prodigy-like-gifted. Here Daniel Brown talks about the beginnings of Awakened-States, starting to get nondual: One thing to keep in mind: He already had Parkinson at that time of the shooting of that video, it was 3-4 years before his passing away last year. But besides that impacting him already, one can clearly feel his awakened state and presence. Water by the River PS: A brief summary of my experiences with the Mahamudra-System:

Well, that's the whole bitch of it - you can't. Because "you catching those narratives to prevent them from mesmerizing you" is, of course, just another narrative. If you have an expectation of "Awakening" being an event during which "the real you (or your consciousness)" "awakens" "from illusion" "into reality" (pardon my quote marks) - then I suggest you consider the idea that the REAL "Matrix" is infinitely recursive; and all Neo's "awakenings" are not into "the real world", but into another simulation. Any and all states - even the most extreme, non-dual, infinite and "alien" ones - are, nevertheless, just that - more states of consciousness; and the idea of "awakening" alludes, rather, to "going infinitely meta" on all of them by unraveling the mystery of "the one who (supposedly) awakens". The choice of the word "unraveling" here is very intentional. Now, with that spiritual bullshit disclaimer out of the way, I do actually have something productive to say on the topic. To recap. I propose the following model of "Self-Deception": 1) There exists absolute, unlimited, non-dual reality, which is "your" ultimate true nature. 2) This Absolute, due to being unlimited, can be said to "have blissful nature or ananda" - in the sense that it's profoundly, effortlessly and forever OKAY, there is nothing that can "touch" it, not a care in the world; as Morpheus would put it - "IT doesn't even require air to breathe". 3) "Since it has nothing better to do" - or, better yet, "out of its sheer infinite creative overabundance" - this Absolute manifests itself in all sorts of forms; the emphasis being on "manifests ITSELF" - i.e. "takes shape of": think of, maybe, the Absolute Sand manifesting as various sand castles, moving sand sculptures etc. - what I previously called "narratives". But, of course, made not out of sand but of the nameless, formless, magic substance that THIS is; it would be fair to say that "the narratives are made precisely of themselves". This, while impossible to truly understand or visualize, is, nevertheless, an important distinction to make: the Absolute IS those forms - the forms are not something separate from IT, which IT then "perceives". So, when there is a narrative being manifested, say, about "you running from a tiger, scared shitless" - it means that literally everything which is directly present or even indirectly implied in this narrative - is SHAPES of IT: the you, the running, the tiger, the sense of being scared, the transparency of the air, the time this scene is supposedly moving through, the very capacity to make sense of the concepts of "you", "running", "tiger" and "scared" - ALL OF IT. AAAAAAAALLLLLLL OF IT. And the importance of this distinction is that it undermines the false notion of "the Absolute being forced or somehow forcing itself to suffer through this experience of being scared shitless by being exposed to the illusion of being chased by the tiger" (well, that's a lot of "being"...). Absolute doesn't do "suffering", or "perception", or "knowing", or "understanding", or "loving" - but it MANIFESTS as all of those things, to any arbitrary degree of "depth", because unlimitedness. And it does all that, while still remaining totally OKAY. See the difference? @Holykael doesn't, for example. Anyway, 4) The narratives about "you not being awake", and then "you looking for a way to transcend your self-deception" - are the same "scenes of moving sand sculptures" as everything else. The Absolute (the "real you") never was deluded and isn't now - the concept of "delusion" is a sand castle within a scene. Here, finally, comes the "practical" part: 5) The mechanism which makes the illusion "feel so real" is the suspension of disbelief, and at its core is selective inattention to detail and willful neglect of inconsistencies. To paraphrase Nisargadatta Maharaj once again: "What you think you are is, in fact, the lack of paying attention". There is another good one from him that goes: "The thing which goes to sleep at night is inattentiveness". So yeah, key number one: paying attention. 6) The fuel which keeps the abovementioned mechanism going is the interest, the fact of being interested in how will this narrative unfold. Scheherazade's tales for 1001 Nights. You want to see what's next; you'll pay attention later... someday... maybe. So, key number two: interest. So that's the model. And the keys. Now, what can you practically do? Here are some ideas, tried them all, worked to a different degree, but each psyche is different, so no guarantees, you need to experiment. 1) The habit of "waking up" during daily activities and observing what is it that is spinning in your mind right now. You know, those moments when "you were thinking about nothing" or "zoned out" while driving or commuting?.. What you will find is that's where the 95% of "you" is hiding, at the edge of sub-consciousness. Regularity and consistency wins this game; set mnemonic reminders or whatever; cultivate the intention of "waking up frequently". No need to "stay lucid" - just check, regularly, and ever more frequently. This habit constantly disrupts the "tag cloud" that is "your personal self"; one day you will amass enough force of habit and lucidity that the thing will go into subconsciousness and will work automatically, even during sleep. When this happens, you're as good as dead, not long to wait anymore. @Water by the River often recommends the book "Pointing Out the Great Way" by Daniel Brown; I've only just begun reading it, but, from what I gather so far, it seems that those Dzogchen guys took this exact idea and perfected the living Jesus out of it. So, if you're interested... 2) External brain. Some system like GTD which allows you to unload all your new ideas unto a material substrate. But it has to be total: if you use it - use it to capture everything. What this does is lets you see that there aren't really that many thoughts out there - you maybe have a couple of thousands. Once all of them have been captured, you don't have to think them over and over to keep your mind busy - once a thought arises, you register it, you know you've already captured it before and will deal with it later, deliberately, in a time when it's convenient for you. So they gradually stop arising. More space and clarity in the mind. And, most importantly, you are no longer nearly as interested. 3) Meditation practice. Self-explanatory. You need one, doesn't really matter which. 4) Consume media (texts, videos, talks) which undermine your concept of "self", all your positive ideas about who or what you believe you are. This has to be done A LOT. On a commute, in the background while you are cooking or doing chores, before you go to sleep... You have been programming your subconscious mind with a false positive conception of yourself for decades; it will now take years of de-programming. Fortunately, this passive listening works. But actively contemplating and making sure you understand is important as well. Once again: the idea is not to replace your current concept of yourself with some spiritual, vedic, buddhist, advaitan or any other concept - it's to examine all the concepts and see with your own eyes that they have nothing to do with you. Like Daniel Ingram said, "I literally checked under every rock simultaneously and saw in my own direct experience that there is nobody home". If you look for "uncompromising non-duality" on YouTube, you will find guys like Jim Newman, Tony Parsons, Nargis Alegria, Steven Norquist, Richard Sylvester, Clare Cherikoff etc etc... Of the classic non-dualists I, of course, recommend, Nisargadatta Maharaj, as well as Stephen Wolinsky; Padmasambhava and Longchenpa are the best and purest of all, of course - but too archaic for most people. Play "The Stanley Parable" if you haven't. Studying Major Arcana of Tarot and some Kabbalah really helped me back in the day; but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it exactly for deconstructive purposes; but they are the closest you will ever get to "understanding and conceptualizing" the Absolute, that's for certain. So yeah. That and some psychedelics - and you'll catch those narratives in no time!

Oh, I had my share of suffering, as every other being. But also some kind of compass and intuition that seemed to have pointed in a not too wrong direction. Concerning psychedelics, as I wrote before somewhere else: This is a public forum, and the stuff is illegal here. So please excuse that I don't give a comment. Daniel Brown (Author of Pointing Out the Great Way, the book I mainly used for the meditation techniques I describe) once answered when asked if he had experience with Psychedelics,in a tongue in cheeck-style: "I would never do something like that", and smiled .He did studies while studying Psychology at Harvard giving LSD to terminal Cancer Patients, with great results. Until it was forbidden. Luckily, Johns Hopkins University and others continue with similiar studies with Psilocybin.

Same in Mahamudra: "Tashi Namgyel's crossing-over [to Enlightenment] instructions are as follows: The likely time is when the practitioner has refined any intense experiences of nonconceptual stillness, clarity, or bliss, and then continuously meditates, having attained certainty letting the mind's [natural] brightness and clarity come forth in awareness," Brown, Pointing out the Great Way Selling Water by the River

Actually, one normally needs to take the meditation off the meditation pillow into daily life, staying fully awake while the mindstream is doing its thing and is still on in daily life. Only this way, off the pillow and in daily life, one gets the momentum of 1000s of hours of meditation of transcending ones separate self (at least for normies and other not so gifted people, like yours truly) to make it to awakened nondual states. And these 1000s of hours when taken off the pillow into daily life are then really nice, no chore. The really MAGIC POINT when you manage to take the mindfulness of staying "on top" of the mindstream, cutting it off if you want to, and off the meditation pillow into living daily life from that. From there on, its downhill, and gets better and better... bliss and love starts flowing. To do that, one needs the right system that can do that (taking meditation off the pillow). Not all (actually quite few, including Mahamudra) have efficient methods for doing that. If they have methods for doing that at all. and a few 100 hours (I would guess in average) on the pillow to get to that point. If somebody says one doesn't need these several 1000 hours (because he/she didn't need that), that person could surely qualifies to coach others that also don't need these 1000s of hours... . And for sure, there are people that don't need these 1000s of hours. Although, probably not that many, considering how much is meditated, and few wake up... But how does one know how much transcendence/hours one needs to get the awakened states, before actually being there? And if a system that worked at less than 1000s hours necessary works on oneself? Right, one doesn't... Often most endearing are the folks that needed very little practice (or anything of practice at all) to wake up, or next to none meditation: Hey, won the lottery, great. But how many win the lottery? Sure one got a lottery-winner canidate as coachee? Hey you, are you one, will ya?? The minor nuiances of life... Also awesome and funny are some Zen/Theravada-systems and the like, that teach "bone-breaking" methods of boring meditation that lead nowhere without really Uber-human-willpower of enduring ones monkey-mind, boredom, and failing meditation and lacking lovely states.... Like in, Die on the pillow! Yes darling, but how about killing me softly with actually an efficient meditation system where I can see my progress, and actually start feeling better quite soon? And where I don't get beaten with the Keisaku if I actually ask a technical question on my meditation method that makes sense? For example here, here is description on these awakened nondual states: And below is a link to a short summary (considering the 600 pages of the book) of the Mahamudra-Path of Tibetan Buddhism using the Pointing Out the Great Way System/Book of Daniel Brown, with focus on Stage 3 "Yoga of One Taste" and Stage 4 "Nonmeditation Yoga", but also Stages 1 and 2 (the stuff done on the pillow to get to the magic point): And these states are your jumping board to get finally rid of the separate self, crossing over to Full Enlightenment, fully coming home, as also described in the link. Nonmeditation Yoga of the Mahamudra System. For example. Bon Voyage! Selling Water by the River PS: Did I ever tell I get royalties on every Pointing Out the Great Way book recommended being bought uhhhh, just kidding . Neither related nor affiliated, just read all the books from the lovely author (sadly departed, Daniel Brown was a real hero. Cardozzo: Enlightened Renaissance Man), and quite a lot other stuff on Mahamudra/Dzogchen, and much of what else lives&crawls out there... PS PS: And no, I am no monk- or monastery Aficionado, although I deeply respect this folk. Cardozza coined the term Enlightened Renaissance Man, which yours truy has shamelessly hijacked in his usual style elaborated on and recoined as politically nearly correct Renaissance-Man (male female diverse alien ... n+1 ) -Nondual-Realizer, and went on rambling about in:

Hi Davecraw, in the humble experience of yours truly, you can not rule out with logic if something else besides experience exists until certain Awakened States are realized that show the infinite and limitless nature of the Visual Field, and any other possible field/dimension (like the dimensionless opening/dimension in which subtle objects like thoughts arise). But: One can (and should) use logic to get to an agnostic level: NOTHING prooves that there is a material, external, self-existing world beyond the bubble of the visual field, beyond experiences. You can neither proove nor disproove that with logic. That is a fine point, because arguing WITH logic that only experience exists is one bridge too far. Can't be done. One would need to twist logic to proove that. Although certain very active gentlemens are giving it very extended tries at the moment. Prooving that only experience exists (and no self-existing external material world) can only be done with Awakened States that show the following properties of an Awakened Field of Awareness (below, the goal/outcome of Yoga of one Taste, stage 3 Mahamudra. One Taste = Nondual Union with the Infinite Field) any felt separation between "you" and the "external world" appearing in the visual field is vividly felt first as arising object of subject-object separation, a felt sensation, that then gradually disappears. Including all localization in the body (tension head, body-feelings that cause localization, and so on). Yoga of Illusory Body for example, there are discrete energetic practices to dissolve these contractions/localizations. Or just wait long enough in empty states.... so, union,"nondual" with the field. any "boundary" to anything limiting that visual field (or any other field) can only be an arising, an appearance. Not the boundless limitless infinite Nothingness. time, past and future is seen as mere concepts/ideas/arisings in the timeless Always Here Mind of Infinite Awakened Awareness/Infinite Consciousness. everything in the visual field is just appearance, "hovering" as pretty lucid display in mere Nothingness. -> mere apperance these states bring a lot of bliss and love It happens approximately in that order progressively with good meditation practice. Or, if you are lucky, all by itself (Karma,state). But then good luck telling anybody of the structure of the path to get there that one didn't even notice the path while one passed it, because they flew over it. Or: Ramana and all the other Wunderkinder/prodigies probably won't be able to tell you much details about the turns, wrong exits and scenic views on the road to Awakening, because they took the 747 to the destination. and the Zen and Theravada path tend also tend to not give a very detailed map (at least in the opinion of yours truly), but just a compass and say: go/meditate west, to the west is California & the Ocean. Mahamudra gives you a quite detailed map: Death Valley is here, you wanna go there, don't take the wrong exit, don't camp here, here are the gentlemen with bows&arrows, and so on... So, to get these states: (good efficient) meditation, or psychedelics. Then, counting together the awakenings above in bold letters, it becomes what is called in Mahamudra "boundless limitless timeless nondual loving Awakened Awareness". And THEN you can talk about "there is only experience, anywhere, everywhere", without needing to fool yourself with logic in the nature of your experience. And btw., that is not theory or wishful thinking, but my actual experience with a meditation system of Mahamudra (Tibetan Buddhism, "companion"-system of Dzogchen) described best in Pointing Out the Great Way, Daniel Brown , developing over quite some years. All of the above is the of and up to Yoga of One Taste (3. Stage Mahamdura). Ken Wilbers Diary Book has the titel "One Taste". The same One Taste of that practice, refering to it. One Taste: Daily Reflections on Integral Spirituality, Wilber. The outcome of Yoga of One Taste (3. Stage Mahamdura) gives one a shot (or many many, since many many are neede) to dissolve the last separate self-arisings remnants (the Yoga of Nonmeditation stage 4 Mahamudra), which then brings Full/Complete Enlightenment, in Leos terms God-Realization (although i find that term a bit bombastic, although technically precise if God is Ultimate EMPTY IMPERSONAL Infinite Reality) . Yoga of Nonmeditation dissolves the last remnants of a separate self moving in oneself/Infinite Reality, like awareness of being, awareness of self, any self-reflective arising of being anything. (hint: of= subject object, not full nondual. Still self-reflective thinking/identity creation). What remains is: Reality. The Totality. And zero separation, real Nonduality. Empty. Impersonal. Pure Infinite Consciousness. Staying as "always eternally here" Infinite Impersonal Nothingness. With Awareness as its essence. Yoga of Nonmeditation does this in that any meditation is so fully automized that there are no more separate self arisings doing the meditation to generate and stabilize the Awakened States of Yoga of One Taste, 3. Stage Mahamudra. Not that actually an illusion separate-self claims "Oh I am doing this nondual meditation so great". Would be a funny contradiction of Nothingness would be really pure impersonal Infinite Consciousness if something like that arises, hm? And that takes also a lot of time. Don't fry your brains too much trying to these maybe 500h-1000h+ with 5 MeO (depending of course on ones Karma/brain and body), because yours truly has never read/heard about a credible case where that has been done. Although they could exist. Volunteers for the fried brains, anybody? Joke: How do you spot a pioneer? Got a few fried brain cells arrows in the back. Just kidding. We do need that tested out. And how Psychedelic Paths combined with meditation systems above... Pure Mahamudra is too slow to have larger impact. Allthough still the best system (in the opinion of yours truly) of all of them, and then, good morning after waking up, game over, welcome home! And be nice to "enlighened persons", What is mostly being done with meditation and especially psychedelics, is dabbling around up to and around stage 3, Nonduality (Yoga of One Taste), with are more or less empty subject, up to a very empty witness already in union with then Nondual Infinite Field. "Having" Awakenings. With any kind of content: This World, Aliens, the management & staff running this Universe, other Dimensions, whatever ones heart delights in. An Infinity (literally) of stuff to explore... What is not so often talked about is the "suicide" of stage 4, Nonmeditation Yoga, Full Enlightenment. Getting fully Impersonal with transcending/killing each and every separate-self arising having all these lovely nondual experiences/awakenings. No Aliens required, but still possibly quite a bit scary for sure. But looks only scary from before the Gateless Gate. Any separate self arising (the enlightened or awake "person" having these awakenings, n+1) raising its ugly head, are seen as just more separate-self-contractions buzzing in Ones True Self. Another annoying little headache-bug to laugh about. Another moskito buzzing around in the Infinite Reality that one then realizes onself to be and ever having been, to squatt/Trekchö. One more contraction to let go and transcend. and one lucky day, one just wakes up. But death is death, transcendence is death, even if its only the death of an Illusion. And Maya needs her tools, like the Wizard of Oz, else everbody would just say bye bye to the game. [Disclaimer: In nearly all cases, real suicide is about the most stupid thing one can do. Back to square 1, more Karma added on top. Or how to continue the dream, dodging out ones Karma of this life, with additional Karma on top from hitting the reset-button. But no soul gets lost, just do 3rd grade again, with a headache-hangover from the last try. Finally, every soul graduates college. But some like school so much that they don't listen to most teachers, and do some classes over and over again]. So, have fun on the trip, don't fry your brains, keep your humor (Wilber, Transcendence restors humor), squatt all separate self bugs, and Bon Voyage! Selling Water by the River Ken Wilber wrote: “TRANSCENDENCE RESTORES HUMOR. Spirit restores humor. Suddenly smiling returns. Too many representatives of too many movements – even many very good movements, such as feminism, environmentalism, meditation, spiritual studies – seem to lack humor altogether. In other words, they lack lightness, they lack a distance from themselves, a distance from the ego and its grim game of forcing others to conform to its contours... They should all trade two pounds of ego for one ounce of laughter”(Ken Wilber. 1999. One Taste: The Journals of Ken Wilber. December 7). PS: And for all other beings/perspectives of Indras Net, see: and if you don't already have an overkill, and better go for nice walk or so... Some more for the Aficionados of conceptual overkill: And now, really better go fishing or something... “frog pond plop”