The obstacle for real meditation

[Grateful Dead]

On 2.5.2026 at 10:42 PM, Breakingthewall said:

When you say self maybe you mean the reality, without center, and really without self.

Yes, that's one way to put it, that's what I mean.

On 2.5.2026 at 10:42 PM, Breakingthewall said:

Yes more or less. The point for me is to achieve the dissolution of the barrier that separates the individual. When this barrier is active, which is the default state of a human being, you perceive yourself as an entity that can die. You can use mental tricks like reincarnation or transcendence, but it's always transcendence as an individual.

When the barrier falls, the individual reveals themselves as non-essential, as a facet of what is. Death is perceived as dissolution into what is, the dissolution of your form into your essence. The permanence of consciousness as "you" is irrelevant, even the permanece of consciousness. Unconsciousness is the same than consciousness in the sense that both are what is; there is nowhere to go. It is always this, what is.

At a certain point, being in a closed state is perceived as suffering, and the only viable state is the state without barriers. It must be your natural state; anything else is suffering.

I'm wondering, what exactly is your technique for breaking down these barriers?

As I see it your natural state must be there when you stop trying to do something or change it, so I understand as long as you're trying to achieve something, you're essentially preventing yourself. I do believe that one has to make an effort for a while to prepare the mind to wake up and recognize where the barriers are.

My view is that the closed state is something we actively maintain, and if you simply relax completely or stop doing anything, then you don't have to dissolve anything because you're not maintaining anything. Like the more I try to dissolve something, the more I'm actually strenghtening the one who wants it to fall. For me, simply relaxing into the 'closed' state or the fear is what eventually reveals it to be transparent. It’s not a mental trick, but a total surrender to whatever 'what is' looks like in this moment even if it looks like contraction.

Another way I like to describe it, is that I open my mind and surrender all my thoughts to God.

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, Grateful Dead said:

My view is that the closed state is something we actively maintain, and if you simply relax completely or stop doing anything, then you don't have to dissolve anything because you're not maintaining anything

I'd say It's deeper than something that disappear if you relax. Maintaining control has many layers, the most obvious being comparative human identity, what is usually called the ego, manifested in thoughts.

But once that means nothing to you, and you can be fully present in the moment in total silence, without questioning anything or defining yourself, you are still maintaining control, closing yourself off with the need to be you, not as an ego but as an individual.

This is innate; you might say that if that's the case, let it be, but we are playing the game of total dissolution, and that door isn't going to open by itself. You have to open it, paradoxical as it may sound.

The way to do it is by first seeing it. In total silence, perceive the contraction, the fear of dissolution. Then you have to do something. It's not enough to let things be as they are; you have to fully feel that fear and surrender, open yourself to dissolution, want to be absorbed by reality, stop being you, renounce the individual truly. That's not easy, you have to feel exactly the resistance, the fear, and let the control go. The control is the center, the self, that encloses you in a shell.  

2 hours ago, Grateful Dead said:

It’s not a mental trick, but a total surrender to whatever 'what is' looks like in this moment even if it looks like contraction.

Yes but for me the problem is that you can't surrender to fears and barriers that you don't perceive. The point of meditation is the real perception of your deep movement. Fear is powerful and always makes you move the attention to another plane, then you have to do the action of deciding stop avoidance, look directly.  

2 hours ago, Grateful Dead said:

Another way I like to describe it, is that I open my mind and surrender all my thoughts to God.

But what is God? How do you know that there is something instead a mechanic process that happens in the absolute emptiness because they are possible , without any God, absolute, divinity or anything? You have to surrender also to the absolute nihilism. That's not easy. You could had a lot of moments of openess when you was totally aware that you are one with the totality, blah blah, but if now, exactly now, you are not open to it, you would think that maybe all was just an illusion and the reality is dead emptiness without bottom. You have to surrender to that shit again and again 

The point is that when you are closed, you are closed. Our minds could elaborate a lot but the landscape is dry, in black and white, dead, closed. In that landscape openess seems a remember that maybe was just a naive illusion. You can't remember the openess because you are closed (I'm talking about me not about you, probably anyone have different experience), you have to open the door, release the barrier that's closing. It's not easy, in fact usually it's impossible, you have to do a long work of alignment 

 

Edited 21 minutes ago by Breakingthewall

[Breakingthewall]

On 3/5/2026 at 4:55 PM, gettoefl said:

From one angle, reality is awareness knowing; from another, reality is appearances arising. And they are not separate.

You could say that awareness knowing is included in reality arising, but not the opposite, then if you say that reality is awareness you are making a closure. Just my opinion, because all the authors talk about consciousness and that. I see it as a very obvious mistake, but who knows 

On 3/5/2026 at 4:55 PM, gettoefl said:

By identification I mean taking what arises, that is thoughts, feelings, even the sense of self, to be what I am.

If there is fear you could identifícate With it or not that there is still fear. 

On 3/5/2026 at 4:55 PM, gettoefl said:

So for me it’s not about holding onto the separate observer, but gently seeing that whatever I can notice isn’t ultimately what I am.

If you are in silence, that of be what you are or not has no meaning. There is fear, period. If you think that this fear is not you, you are introducing an enormous structure of thoughts that implies that the fear could be you or not, then the notion of "you". If there is no mental activity, you or not you means nothing, but fear means everything. The idea that if the thoughts stops the mind is free is not real.