RE: Health falling apart on a Vegetarian diet... Moral dilemna RE: Health falling apart on a Vegetarian diet... Moral dilemna Mon, 22 Jul 2019 20:59:32 GMT 2019-07-22T20:59:32Z RE: Having no thoughts or emotions in daily life (help) Well the good news is that it seems like a considerable amount of thought went into this finely articulated message.<br /><br />With meditation what we are trying to do is drop habits consciously and repeatedly and replacing it with a much finer one which is watching the breath. This does end up physically changing the brain (as does any activity over time)<br /><br />It&#039;s unlikely that you will have caused any damage, and it is simply that your mind doesnt feel the need to call up a constant narrative anymore which is something that we will experience nearly all our lives unless effort is made to do otherwise. <br /><br />You are in a great place, and I recall a similar experience before I  stopped meditation properly just over a year ago while I have tried to work on healthy samaric connections, (though I wasn&#039;t ready as I thought I was, which will I have to make a post on false attainments when I am ready..) This awareness state is temporary, and is simply the stilling of a pond.<br /><br />Pay attention to the thoughts that arise that question where you are. Do they cause any dissatisfaction, where do they come from etc.  You are in a good place to disembed from what does arise here. Remember the ego doesn&#039;t want to die, but who are you really? Thu, 02 May 2019 07:47:50 GMT Dom Stone 2019-05-02T07:47:50Z RE: Newbie Singaporean Monk Introduction from Thailand Hi Yilung, I&#039;m not sure if you still visit these boards but I would be interested in visiting your monastery for 1 month starting December. The noise of my world is too high for me to overcome certain barriers right now, and it would be amazing! Wed, 18 Jul 2018 17:50:18 GMT Dom Stone 2018-07-18T17:50:18Z RE: Felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body I&#039;ve had a history of parasomnia since early childhood, having experienced most, if not all manifestations of this disorder, which has led to various theories on the matter.<br /><br />I have noticed a link between meditation and sleep disturbances (primarily night terrors and sleep walking), sleep paralysis is typically after drug abuse or extreme exhaustion, though I believe it is due to a higher threshold being met in terms of being in a specific cycle of sleep too early.<br /><br />There has been a link between losing mental inertia and experiencing these disorder. In fact it seems to be more related with the minds propensity to slow down than the activity in the first place. There are 2 situations where this instance is strongest.<br /><br />1. During times of rest where the mind is in a process of slowing down. Typically, the next day will have a calmer baseline than the last.<br /><br />2. If the stress of the mind is such, that it has no choice to slow down significantly, in a similar manner to an engine running in high revs brakes if the foot is left off the gas.<br /><br />I&#039;m pretty sure there is a neurological reason for this, though am unsure if it is a natural mechanism for optimal healing, or if it is simply a result of an unhealthy state of mind. I believe that a purpose of dreams is toto all incomplete processes to resolve themselves, in a sense to reduce the imbalance, but if things aren&#039;t ready yet, then the boundaries between awake and sleep become very confusing!<br /><br />A more recent symptom for me which has been very intriguing is like a form of remote viewing. It is during moderate to heavy hypnogogia, where I am looking at the wall, before realising that my eyes are closed. I open them, and sometimes it is the same place, but occasionally it is a different angle or a different room.<br /><br />It can be very easy to misinterpret these events as something more significant than they are, though even if there is genuine demonic issues or remote viewing etc going on, unless there is clearly real danger (perceived while awake and lucid), the best course of action would probably be to see this as an interesting opportunity to see how we add this to our timeline of experience and how it can be perceived in many different ways. Maybe explore this from a very different angle, changing it from demons to aliens, to a dream within a dream etc. Notice how the experience can be similar, but the mind is able to spin many different stories about the same sensations. Sat, 09 Jun 2018 22:54:24 GMT Dom Stone 2018-06-09T22:54:24Z RE: Getting closer? Progress tends to form in a way that is subtle. We think that it&#039;s lack of validation is representative of a lack of progress.<br /><br />Each moment you come back to the breath reinforces your ability to come back to it in future. Each moment you stay on the breath after this reinforces keeping on the breath in the future.<br /><br />A person&#039;s concentration is not necessarily linear over a long period of time, and depending on how you let go of things, can be unpredictable.<br /><br />Concentration is different to insight, which for the most part, stays (as long as we are well behaved)<br /><br />Do not worry if it takes a long time or it appears progress is not being made, it may take time though it surely takes resolve. Mon, 04 Jun 2018 09:04:25 GMT Dom Stone 2018-06-04T09:04:25Z RE: Energy healing tips Karma may be a good conventional deterrant for certain actions, though viewing it as similar to a bank account or good karma Vs bad karma is an inaccurate representation popular in less than pragmatic spiritual communities. The new age movement thrives on material like this because good and evil, debt and credit easily validates cultural bias which sets the cornerstone of how we as individuals are expected to behave.<br /><br /><br />The danger of viewing karma like this is that it oversimplifies a complex scenario that cannot be predicted. Rather it would be more accurate to view it as a path that is created by none other than people walking on it. Karma is an abstract concept which merely outlines a pattern that is observed in nature, and there can be quite obvious reprocussions to an action, along with some rather subtle ones, emerging whenever it is time.<br /><br />The Buddha himself taught that karma was a seed, which when watered in a field, grew based upon the conditions being met, which has a different mechanism than the often flouted simplified versions that those spreading nothing but &#039;love and light&#039; appear to adopt. This can create aversions to anything that isn&#039;t considered &#039;good&#039;, creating a shadow side of denial and bypassing, which tends to create an army of neurotic spiritual people that have no idea that Samsara has an even deeper clutch over them.<br /><br />Assuming that intention alone has the ability to remove a boil, which for at least most people, is an assumption, what is it that connects it to a boil on another person. While I imagine there can be many sympathies with the mind/body system which appear extramundane to those brought up in a Newtonion belief system, I believe that it is not enough to validate unverified claims suggesting the entanglement of 2 discrete objects that have no inherent existence.<br /><br />I hope this makes sense, and I do not want to belittle any ideas, however I believe that it is important to bring into question assumptions that are there because of a fluid belief system in case sensations of reality become misinterpreted as us humans love to do. Wed, 30 May 2018 12:37:23 GMT Dom Stone 2018-05-30T12:37:23Z RE: Cosmic Joke Ha. Ha.<br /><br /><br />It&#039;s funny, but it has a certain.... je ne sais quoi...<br /><br />Black comedy. Sun, 25 Mar 2018 00:12:10 GMT Dom Stone 2018-03-25T00:12:10Z RE: Lack of Mindfulness and higher paths This is encouraging thank you. I&#039;m not sure that it debunks my doubts, but it does give me material to do the work myself.<br /><br />I have noticed some sort of subtle change with regards to things, and can consequently see that much of this stuff I&#039;m struggling with are things that have been previously ignored and buried, but which are no longer possible to do so. I&#039;m still confused, but see that this is not a bad thing, and much refinement can be made out of acceptance of confusion.<br /><br />Yea you totally get the girlfriend thing lol. What makes it harder than anything for me is the assumption (based upon patterns similar to which I am familiar) that it may take her quite a few years where she will be in a place where she can comfortably and happily look after herself. Sat, 24 Mar 2018 12:05:07 GMT Dom Stone 2018-03-24T12:05:07Z RE: Lack of Mindfulness and higher paths Previously, I had believed I had a good enough conceptual understanding of paths but lately the last couple of weeks such criteria has lost much of its meaning. It is as if attempts to solidify any frame of reference is too uncomfortable to hold which confuses things.<br /><strong></strong><br />I view 1st path as dropping the automatic additional sensations relating to the senses, such as ownership. My eyes move of their own accord etc.<br /><br />2nd path turned down the volume control of my mind. Additional sensations that created the illusion of me actually being the voice in question have stopped being created, though the idea that I am the one that has the thoughts still remains. This has made things much quieter.<br /><br />There was a lot that has happened since, such as feeling the body as one object (in actuality, I sense this as a lack of auto classification of sense information. When a physical sensation is experienced, there is like a package deal of sensations such as location, whether it feels pleasant or not, pain, all seperate impressions that are bundled together for convenience. So a sensation in my hand is not much different to a sensation in my leg in terms of just &#039;being aware&#039;, and that pain and unpleasant sensations could not be the same thing.<br /><br />I believed that knowledge around 3rd path should debunk the ownership of the senses altogether, though not all the time. Like the dream lifts at times, but not for long before old patterns of behaviour start causing problems again. <br /><br />Currently, things have been hard. I&#039;m unsure whether it is due to just life stuff, or practice, it has become almost impossible to tell the difference. There is a huge lack of continuity in life as if it is a collection of stories that only have meaning because I want it to (though the meaning seems to have lost its real). Currently out of a regular practice due to the stress it currently has against the other things going on right now, though no longer have many irrational beliefs that I need to do &#039;anything&#039;, it&#039;s mainly just a need to look after myself and others, and the occasional desires that are often seen as just that, desire, and not any self.<br /><br />I know that I am deluding myself with attainment, heck, I feel that belief of attainment itself is misguided and full of sticky self crap. As such, there isn&#039;t anything I can hold onto that I can comfortably say, &#034;I am this&#034;... In short, mapping is past its use by date and may not help anymore.<br /><br />3rd was significant(if it was 3rd), in that it took the ground away, it no longer being a valid pointer for other arguments. There is an underlying serve that nothing could harm me &#034;except death&#034;, however that doesn&#039;t mean to say that there aren&#039;t a gut load of sensations that suggest otherwise. It&#039;s these sensations that cause me confusion, though having not meditated properly in a couple of weeks, this is understandable.<br /><br />Finally, my sense of free will has changed. There is an intuitive sense that I don&#039;t cause anything to change, but it feels immature, such as that I feel like I&#039;m not in control of when something happens. Agency happens afterwards but it doesn&#039;t need to anymore, just when certain causes mean it is inevitable.<br /><br />Stream surfer:<br />It is a crazy situation! I think the hardest part is not having a define sense of &#034;right and wrong&#034; which causes me to lack conviction. Truth is, I am weak/scared and I love her so I have been playing a &#034;wait and see&#034; approach. It is definitely making me unhappy and less skillful with my life, though I no longer feel that I need to be HAPPY for life to have its proper meaning, though there is certainly a longing for this to be over! Fri, 23 Mar 2018 11:19:07 GMT Dom Stone 2018-03-23T11:19:07Z RE: Lack of Mindfulness and higher paths Bloody hell this post is ridiculous lol, what needy self is causing twisted problems that never truely existed to fix a different problem that never existed. I&#039;m complaining about what??? Needless ego games, think I&#039;m just going to meditate more and keep things cool. (Though will keep this up for the next time my ego needs a massage and my doubt paradigmatic circuit is activated). Joking aside, legitimate cause of suffering here :p Fri, 16 Mar 2018 14:23:18 GMT Dom Stone 2018-03-16T14:23:18Z Lack of Mindfulness and higher paths Hi all, there&#039;s an issue that has been confusing me and causing doubt. I have seeked online for answers but nothing seems to answer it.<br /><br />I&#039;m fully aware of the delusory nature of my query, how it is dependant on causes unrelated to a self, but it is pernicious and difficult to uproot completely.<br /><br />I believe I hit third path recently a few weeks back which consisted of a ridiculously up and down  blissful review, however things have now just been solid for the last week or 2, and due to lack of practice, things arise that I thought should have been &#039;wiped out&#039;.<br /><br />Out of compassion, I am temporarily still living with my girlfriend though she is set to move out. We argue lots and she lives an unskillful life and this hits my concentration bigtime and prevents any accumulation, meditation feels like a maintenance dose rather than a vehicle with which to explore reality, which is much finer and clearer since path.<br /><br />My issue is that centerlessness is not the case during times of narrow focus that arise from clinging, and as soon as some of these programs go on, they cause suffering. Such as &#034;X is going to happen&#034; or &#034;I desire to do Y&#034;. As I haven&#039;t been fostering mindfulness as much as I would like, these thoughts and feelings have already happened before I &#034;have the choice&#034; to do anything about them, and there can be much rumination directly after as a result. I know this is because the 3 characteristics aren&#039;t automatically seen during these times.<br /><br />When things are calm and I am by myself long enough for my mind to calm with it, there is no problem just experiencing things as they are, comfortably aware that there is more to be done in terms of letting these perceptions sink in, which is noted just fine.<br /><br />In short, I thought that third path eliminated the unconscious succuming to mental formations and desires but it either doesn&#039;t seem that simple and I have been deluding myself about 3rd (or even 2nd, 1st etc says the unsentient thoughts...).  Fri, 16 Mar 2018 14:17:34 GMT Dom Stone 2018-03-16T14:17:34Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd <strong></strong>Practice feels like a long dark night, and there seems to be more solidity. I think review has been ending for the last few days, and I&#039;m settling into a reality that needs skillful tweaking to fully open up to any potential that I could be repressing in however many creative ways. It is like there is perception of many strands of reality at once, and that there are different levels of consciousness that we react upon at a given length of time. I am no longer grossly distracted by the different ways represented by chakras. Everything is starting to feel energy based in terms of not taking fabrications of solidity or conceptualisation seriously, which opens up a need to view life in a much broader manner, otherwise I would be resisting a lot of insight material.<br /><br />This invites a lot of new deep archetypal possibilities that I could work with, but this is not my field of study and I may find these difficult integrating. There is this constant feeling of doubt in terms of my perceptions, and this doubt is sinking into areas of my psyche that were not obvious before. I used to mention to my girlfriend that my &#034;sense of self was taking a beating&#034; during my first and second progress of insight, but this is on a fundamentally new level that is deeper than thoughts of sense of agency, and more challenging into the illegitimate and out of control slideshow of my direct perception.<br /><br />It would be nice if somebody has the time run through some things with me as I&#039;m not really too sure where this next part is going to leave me but it feels a little bit like Alice down a rabbit hole.<br /><br />This does mark the end of my updates as I have agreed with myself to finish something for a change, but I may make a new thread to reflect ideas but I&#039;m not sure yet. Peace.<br /><br />P.S. Should a time come that I learn that I have deluded myself into any progress &#039;attainments&#039;, I will immediately update this to reflect that and show how easy it is to go off track.<br /><em></em> Thu, 01 Mar 2018 13:10:45 GMT Dom Stone 2018-03-01T13:10:45Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd <span style="font-family: Arial"><span style="font-size: 16px">My reasons for meditating are under question, my reasons for self are under question. My psyche is under question, and I have no choice but to accept myself as part of this uncertainty. There are many things pushing me forward, things that &#039;appear&#039; larger than any narrative my thoughts could come up with. They just lack that sentience that give care to reality as it is. It doesn&#039;t matter what is going on, whether I&#039;m high or sober, manic or relaxed, depressed. There are different levels of mind that is a luminous understanding of the universe in it&#039;s own way, relating well to the chakras. Awareness gives rise to this, though consciousness (I) see it, and do not NEED to project myself onto, though habitual patterns of different levels of consciousness, are the fetters that bind me to Samsaric planes, including higher &#039;Realms of existance&#039; which is starting to become apparent in normal life. Such as the ability to find subtle patterns in mind when viewed OUTSIDE thesee patterns that give rise to becoming. At my point in my development, I have complex karmic bonds with certain &#039;inefficient&#039; trends towards awakening. Lower consciousness sees less patterns and is therefore limited in having any creative potential. I feel the lesson for me here is to see the background (Although it isn&#039;t a background, but some type of space/emptiness) upon which these many different potentials arise, and keep bringing myself to the fluxing dance of my own energy, and in a sense, be my own friend, lover, everything.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial"><span style="font-size: 16px"></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial"><span style="font-size: 16px"></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial"><span style="font-size: 16px">I am willingly exploring periods of lower consciousness due to bonds with relationships, but also my own karmic bonds to different variables in my reality. This is a great opportunity to see the equinimity in here, and I believe &#039;fucking up&#039; any quasi monastic tendancies for a period of time longer than (I, Me, My) is comfortable with, can really help me appreciate the lack of speciality in any mindspace, jhana (Vipassana or otherwise), and let them ALL go, again, and again, and again. This is going to be a long and unfathomably twisted road.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial"><span style="font-size: 16px"></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial"><span style="font-size: 16px"></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial"><span style="font-size: 16px">It feels like there is more solidity in objects like I&#039;m coming up to &#034;Mind and Body&#034; towards 4th path, but it is knowing the difference between lower consciousness mindfulness, or catching the subtle things behind the supposed solidity of it all, and really fully wiping that centerpoint clear that full understanding can skillfully navigate in higher realms without getting caught by harsh mindstuff on the way.</span></span> Tue, 27 Feb 2018 22:51:22 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-27T22:51:22Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd I ended up smoking again. It was deliberate, and I blamed nobody, not even myself. The sense of continuity of life is being challenged, who &#034;I&#034; am is constantly dissolving and arising again to create a new scenario. There is a sense of continuity between these different stories, but that is all this is, a sensation that is arising. It doesn&#039;t matter the reasons I was planning in my head during the time, what happened was all that could have happened. I grab, then let go. Grab then let go. Trying to gain understanding upon a process that is independent of the manifestations that rise because of it. <br /><br />As Shargrol mentioned with regards to collisions of experience, it is one muddy pool of collisions, with currents and overtones, all disguised as one big pool.<br /><br />I don&#039;t specifically meditate with weed, however accept contemplative states that give rise to it. Feeling the currents of energy, letting go, feeling more intense and direct sensations, letting them pass. Suddenly, as I was lying on the floor, I entered a strong 4th Vipassana Vhana as my periphery was as sharp, clear, lucid as the center. All sensations were clearly added after, so allowed to pass. This was an incredibly unitive experience as a perceived backdrop interspersed by sensations not yet allowed to rest in the light of conscious experience. The sensations started tearing away at me, every shred of existence I had become a product of, ripped away from the supposed center that was no longer a center outside of the sensations that made it. Every fear and possible sense of distortion being a resistance to the truth that the one that was dying, was never alive to begin with. Even that idea was allowed to die. &#034;I&#034; had died and was a formless void that had temporarily and completely abandoned the fetters that experience should illuminate itself, and being a localised force in this cosmic dance, my projections will surely emerge and keep me searching for enlightenment. Some things don&#039;t get forgotten however, despite being under the influence, and I believe this experience has somewhat become integrated.<br /><br />Afterwards, I was sitting, and had the feeling that simply looking at the wall was absolutely everything I needed to be doing at that time, which was very settling.<br /><br /><br />On a personal front, it is confusing when arguments are a form of doing that is so fixed upon 3rd and below chakra energies, that there is a desire to control my experience and raise myself back to &#034;higher consciousness&#034;. There is a desire to keep things as they are, even though it is against the apparent cosmic order of causality. Then there is this underpinning deeper knowledge that I am already doing what I can, and couldn&#039;t do any more or less. It is very tempting for my mind to create a quick resolution that doesn&#039;t cause weeks or months of unnecessary suffering, but being completely at odds to the position of circumstance, it accepts polar opposites with great impartiality, but at different times, which I believe may cause more suffering than needed. Mon, 26 Feb 2018 14:31:06 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-26T14:31:06Z RE: Clueless, pretty much Sometimes, as if by chance, maybe never at all, the rules no longer check out. The line between what is assumed and what is becomes fuzzy. The mind intuitively knowns deep down that this is the case, but it also likes to create a ruleset with which to cope in a universe that demands survival. One must know how to interact in society, feed oneself, and educate oneself otherwise the organism may die or live an uncomfortable existence. There most certainly isn&#039;t anything wrong with an uncomfortable experience, but it goes against our programming to be so. We have been taught that this ruleset is life, but life exists independently of this ruleset. We forget that our ruleset is just stories. We forget that everybody has their own vast pool of beliefs that twist and change to support itself. These beliefs are true in the sense it creates a certain reality, but in every other sense of the word, true or false just doesn&#039;t cut it, it just is.<br /><br />Sometimes, something can affect a belief, so drastic, that it creates a schism within your own collection of beliefs, and no amount of mental mathematics or gymnastics will balance out the instability. Something has got to give, and if the ego mind fails to adapt it&#039;s beliefs accordingly, then there is no preventing it&#039;s death through transcendent function. For however long, could be milliseconds, could be a lifetime (dependant on the individuals situation and temperament), there is an experience akin to enlightenment. Things are allowed to arise as they are, fully, lovingly, as if it were the day you were born. Words fail to explain as they are made out of thought stuff, and thoughts, not being aware, couldn&#039;t possibly understand what is going on, they can merely react in their own way. Almost inevitably, we come back down to our old habits, slightly different, we take some truth and freedom with us.<br /><br />People on this forum train their minds to be more likely to allow this type of experience, but more importantly, we train our minds not to grab back onto our old ways. In fact, the so perceived pursuit of enlightenment is not supposed to be about this feeling, but it is removing the aspects of ourselves that make this perfectly simple state of mind something other than it is, until there is nothing but this very pure childlike creativity, which fulfulls itself by experiencing the joys and woes of this ultimately magical and ineffable thing we call life. Sat, 24 Feb 2018 15:15:46 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-24T15:15:46Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd The last couple of days I&#039;ve done less practice as I&#039;ve been intent on getting a lot of things cleared up in time for my girlfriend to come back from her 2 weeks away. She came back yesterday, and as it is common for me, I shared some spliffs with her, with the intention not to do it for a while, and the curiosity to see how that sticks. Most notably, I have been able to prevent it from lowering my consciousness too much (Mindfulness goes right down, but there is less propensity to engage in heedless behaviour which tends to create a bias towards selfish, and and egocentric level of identification with things. That&#039;s not to say that there is no egocentric behaviour, because that would be false, and there is also a sense of trying to control it somewhat, though I think the only thing that &#034;I&#034; should really be controlling, is how much to invest in this current dream.<br /><br />There is this fluxing suchness which is often not always seen this way due to the fetters and remaining ignorance, however I feel like I am able to go lucid in all these dreams on command which lessens or stops the flow of unconscious behaviour, at least in reference to a view of reality at that particular point in time. This has allowed me to remain impartial to the inevitable psychological stuff that has arisen. It really is a dream. However, dreams are real to the person experiencing the dream, so to become lucid offers a much less linear cause/effect style relationship to reality. Rather than using this as a means to block out emotion as I&#039;m freely allowing my girlfirends stuff to merge, I have used it to prevent automatic reactions like anger or disassociation creating artificial barriers between us, and feel at one with this sense of dying and helplessness. I cried hard, but it did not matter because I knew that the want/not want paradigm is what makes us unwilling to wake up. I stopped crying soon after, and it had passed through me as naturally as it came in it&#039;s own time. Unfortunately there is a lot of psychological stuff for us to work through, and I&#039;m not sure if she is willing to change, however, to the best of my ability, I will trust in love and allow the process to unfold as it will with no resistance as a goal. Of course, out of compassion to myself, I will not tolerate somebody else&#039;s looping dream to overwhelm me for any long period as it will change me and make things harder to work through, so good judgement must be used whether to stay and feel this pain and work it through together, or to say enough is enough, and letting my mind relax and balance. I have no desire in breaking up at this time as on the surface, she does want to change, which with enough intention and support, will hopefully work it&#039;s way to deeper levels, but with her inability to accept much of this at face value, it is an uncertain and difficult process. For now however, I feel fulfilled in my own dealings with life, but will maintain mindfulness on this space.<br /><br />It will be interesting to see how difficult it will be to say no to weed now I have the intention not to, with the knowledge of it&#039;s illusory dreamness.  Sat, 24 Feb 2018 13:29:09 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-24T13:29:09Z RE: Looking at the 3 characteristics in daily life Are you referring to qualities of emptiness and the stuff from which conditioned reality depends upon? Perhaps I should have said delusions of conditioned reality (permanence, self and satisfaction), as I think that discussing properties of emptiness can confuse when the mind is not even yet trained to constantly question what it sees.<br /><br />While I agree with you, that didn&#039;t stop me from over complicating things back then. It wasn&#039;t until halfway through first path when I suddenly realised, properly &#034;Ahhh, so all this meditation stuff is just to get me to stop making things up&#034;, when before I thought it was like some magic practice that just somehow got people enlightened. Before this was the time I forgot to note &#034;thinking, thinking&#034;, when I was delighting in what a &#034;good meditator&#034; I was becoming.<br /><br /><strong></strong>I think that the 3 characteristics is a natural intuitive thing to try notice, however without right view, we could do the most stupid things and still think we are meditating which is why some people need a teacher. Thu, 22 Feb 2018 09:24:12 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-22T09:24:12Z RE: Looking at the 3 characteristics in daily life The 3 characteristics can seem like a bit of an abstract concept at first and this always confused me as to whether I was doing it&#034;right&#034; or not. I would add that noting is especially useful because it gets you used to seeing things without glossing it over with a tapestry of fabrications. Noting practice is essentially stripping down the sense fields to small bits that is then comprehended in real time. That way, the delusions that give rise to our stories and karma (permanence, self and satisfaction) are dissolved. It is then a case of remaining with experience and losing our addiction to ourselves and our stories.<br /><br />This may not be the right way of explaining, but I thought I&#039;d try and foster an intuitive approach as it&#039;s easy to get lost in the details and not realise it. It takes going against the flow of everything you used to do to be happy, in order to be happy. Wed, 21 Feb 2018 21:09:25 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-21T21:09:25Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd I think I am gaining insight into the nature of Luminosity. This particular state or perception has happened before, however constant distraction has made all but the most fleeting experiences possible. Upon making my mind quiet, with Mahamudra, noting has too narrow a focus and fails to capture the essence here. With the absence of thought frees the space to flip the visual sense field into a single field of eye-consciousness. I am observing it, however there is no separation from what is being observed, it simply happens. Rather than it being a pure sense of knowing, it is the relationship to which it is known. If this is the case, then I had become mislead with the phrase &#034;objects containing their own awareness&#034; as this suggests to me that this awareness is something separate to the supposed awareness (me) looking at the awareness. However, as there is no dualistic split, the sense is just that awareness is awareness, which objects can be part of/made of/not separate to etc awareness itself. I&#039;m going to keep flipping this and hopefully it&#039;ll stick, though it seems to be easier the more it is done already. Objects tend to have this quality that mind grabs onto and pulls away from this state as it tries to control the experience. This gets in the way however I&#039;m sure that familiarity and tranquility will progressively reduce the amount of time I am &#039;kicked out&#039; of this mode of perception.<br /><br />I&#039;m not sure if this is related, but previously, during a well focused sit, I can see my not owned body in front of me, and the ground and trees, all just as separate, but without the assumption I am looking from behind my eyes, it is as if I can&#039;t (or can&#039;t be bothered) judge where I am looking from, like it doesn&#039;t matter. It is an intangible feeling.<br /><br />Things have quietened down now and I feel like I am moving out of this phase of review, which is a welcome moving on as it was too stimulating to get any sensible practice done. Sitting for short periods and often, but lacking the motivation to attempt going deeper in absorption.<br /><br />At this point in my log I should mention that since starting my practice 2 or so years ago, I&#039;ve reduced at least 90% of my suffering, my bipolar no longer ruins my life and my neurotic behaviour is limited now to almost nothing. (Except relating to practice and when things go significantly wrong there&#039;s the small amount of thinking). Things are just so.<em></em> Wed, 21 Feb 2018 20:34:39 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-21T20:34:39Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd <span style="font-size: 16px"><span style="color: #454545">After losing my last post, I’ve had to try motivate myself to write this out again. Given my level of tiredness, this is rather tedious!</span></span>As the days go by, I am becoming more sure on reaching third path. The whole concept is clearly abstract, and no longer has the solidity it once did, but mapping has defined my progress this far, now it’s clear for all intents and purposes that dropping the mapping is the way forward, at least until I’m able to get by without grasping it.<br /><span style="color: #454545">I will try describe the moment to the best of my ability, though please understand that this is written from a subjective point of view, so may not accurately represent what actually goes on from a strictly phenonomological point of view.<br /></span><span style="color: #454545"><br />On Friday 16th, I sat down in my usual place, this time there was lots of noise from some diggers, so I used this as an opportunity to see my aversions to the noises whilst as concentrated as possible. I was getting a lot of clarity with sensations with the mind and body, and there was a growing equinamity to the external noise. Then, out of nowhere, the mind was not interested in holding onto this phenomena, and let it go. Instead of ‘Self’, there was a void, illuminated by impermanence elsewhere. There was no discernible cessation, however there was an experience where my mind grabbed onto nothing, letting all conditioned phenomena pass by. It was the culmination of a practice that has recently involved a Mahamudra “Do nothing” style, noticing progressively deeper sensations and letting them be without doing anything. There was always resistance, until this moment. Strangely, I have had similar experiences, but the letting go made this feel more profound than any previous experience. After this I went back to A&amp;P.<br /></span><span style="color: #454545"><br />Walking back, I was unaware much has changed. This is due to the fact that after some meditation sessions, I experience a lot of clarity, and some degree of centerlessness, however, it wasn’t until 2 days later when I realised that the centerlessness had become more of a default state, rather than a byproduct of meditation. Secondly, I was expecting third to be something quite different to what it was. I was expecting something a little less mundane. Finally, I had pretty much given up the idea of trying for paths as it clearly wasn’t getting the results I desired, rather it was limiting me into favouring some experiences over others. In the end I had resorted to Mahamudra and absorptions with as little session ambition as I could muster.<br /></span><span style="color: #454545"><br />The next day, I visited my girlfriend who has been away for 2 weeks so we can sort out our ‘stuff’. Dropped her off at work, then took her back again. Instead of going straight back, we went out in the car, went to the beach, and had some quality time. We smoked weed. The first clue that I may have got third was as we smoked the first spliff. I have a love/hate relationship with the stuff (Mainly hate, but find it hard to say no). Before I had it, I had noticed I was increasingly accepting of things, and interactions with people, however it wasn’t until the predictable strong dark night that I always get when high when something changed. The vibrations came up, fear, anxiety etc, and I had become well versed in accepting what arises, however on a deeper level there is some resistance leading to suffering. By willing it, there was some transcendent moment where it all passed but no longer hurt me. I smoked enough to give me a stoneover the next day, I was also sleep deprived.<br /></span><span style="color: #454545"><br />Somehow, despite this, by midday, my mind power seemed to be increasing. In fact for the next 3 days, it felt like it was gaining more and more strength. It was as if lots of energy had been wasted on sticky things, and the glue had become unstuck. There was this joy in being alive, and I had a smile on my face for about 3 days, interspersed with some rapid cycling and feelings of fear and anxiety in day to day life, however there was an acute ability to pinpoint where this was happening. The happiness started to become irritating, like it was colouring things a bit too much and took my mind to places it just didn’t need to go, I couldn’t sit for long, but it didn’t seem to matter. Just sitting to meditate with eyes open, with the intent to rest led me spontaneously into Jhana, and after 30 minutes, I was in 4th Jhana with many fresh insights that didn’t have a chance to embed. It was like an ADHD kid in a candy store, lots of insights to choose from, but can’t settle for anything. There were fears and expectations as to what 3rd path is “supposed” to entail, and anxiety when I believed it wasn’t going right, but these feelings didn’t stick. It was as if centerlessness of experience not only worked spatially, but from a temporal perspective too. The solidity of self is based upon a stream of assumptions that are dependently arisen, but the continuity is broken.</span>At times there is a self arise based upon a deeply engrained habit, but the mind has no interest in fabricating these when it knows they are untrue. As such, there is now a ‘spider sense’ for delusion. Whereas before, my mind could be stuck in delusional thought until such a time when it is seen from another perspective, now there is a sense of a nebulous cloud of unconsciousness. The mind feels uneasy and disoriented in here and cannot abide here for too long without feeling unnecessarily stressed out. Not that it cannot handle the stress, but the mind goes for what is practical and serves it. <span style="color: #454545">Fantasies, even the strong ones have lost their stick, and so have bad moments. </span><span style="color: #454545">It is very hard to know where to go next, but as this is a review phase, I will continue just being aware and see what happens while waiting for my mind to calm. It has calmed somewhat.<br /></span><span style="color: #454545"><br />Physical pain has also profoundly changed it’s flavour, in the same way that fantasies and other aversions have. These phenomena are not self and never have been, and I’m starting to realise this now. Suffering has taken a serious hit.<br /></span><span style="color: #454545"><br />My mind likes to stay quiet now, it still rambles about some useless things (Like path moments lol), but typically anything that isn’t covered by the immediate situation grabs little interest. </span><span style="color: #454545">There is a deeper understanding on how our mind shapes the reality as we see it now there is a greater acceptance of the raw data.<br /></span><span style="color: #454545"><br /></span><span style="color: #454545">While there is a strong sense of clarity, luminosity evades me. I get flashes after enquiry which I believe may be it, but they could also be tricks of the mind!<br /></span><br /><span style="color: #454545">I will update this log as I go through review, and also amend earlier posts where I have wrote things in error from a lack of understanding (I will keep the original legible however to give a sense on how I have hyped things up and got it wrong).</span> Wed, 21 Feb 2018 00:51:03 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-21T00:51:03Z RE: Possibility of hitting third but not realising Yes actually, thank you. I guess with goal oriented practice, such models provide motivation at the start, followed by reassurance during the middle paths when there is still a lot of resistance to emptiness. It can be easy to overlook the 3 characteristics of something that is viewed as a source of comfort, especially when it defines a sense of progress. This means they eventually need to be shed similar to how the significance of the ñanas need to be shed in order to separate from the mental sensations that arise with them. <br /><br /><br /><strong></strong>This doesn&#039;t explain how such a dramatic change in the relationship with &#039;self&#039; can be radically altered in a moment, though I assume a lot of time is spent priming the mind until a change of lineage moment can occur. In reflection, I can identify with all 3 characteristics during this &#039;more profound&#039; moment that has closely resembled previous experiences, but with total acceptance of them rather than clinging on to fabrications outside the scope of my awareness. At this point of total impermanence, mind can come to the unmistakable conclusion that there is no ground here to root itself in anymore, so such distortions can be deleted.<br /><br />I wonder if it&#039;s possible to have a change of lineage moment not followed by a cessation moment. Mon, 19 Feb 2018 19:25:04 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-19T19:25:04Z RE: Possibility of hitting third but not realising Oh right! Oops. I get it intellectually, and have been fascinated by your descriptions in the past, despite it being very far from the knowledge I have been used to. I can see how, being brought up with western science, I could still widely misunderstand these factors and guess it pays to never take any belief for granted in case I am limited by them.<br /><br /><strong></strong>It will be nice when this mind has integrated all the recent insight material to save any wasted energy and to continue the good path. Will practice just absorptions tomorrow. Thank you very much for your advice =) Sun, 18 Feb 2018 22:32:16 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-18T22:32:16Z RE: Possibility of hitting third but not realising Wow Pawel that is very lucid thank you and drew my awareness to possibilities unthought of. The immediacy of Jhana of cool and totally comprehendible. My mind is quite blown right now and it all needs time to sink in! ItsI like there&#039;s so many possibilities and up until now, I&#039;ve spent my life putting them into boxes so they can be conceptualised and called upon, and it is like God had just come along and rooted up all the boxes and the contents are everywhere, right where I can see them. I don&#039;t need to find words for all this thank goodness because if I did, I would be generating so much suffering! Your first paragraph really resonates. It renders the fetters impersonal. I guess that&#039;s why there&#039;s no longer a &#039;need&#039; to get pleasure this way. And the lack of piti is almost strange, but cool. My head is hollow now! Hehe.<br /><br />Experimenting with bliss on different parts of my body.. it&#039;s interesting how the bliss is clearly not in the body, but just a feature of awareness that happens to manifest as the body at the time. Sun, 18 Feb 2018 19:49:02 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-18T19:49:02Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd I hadn&#039;t got around to uploading this previously, this was around a week and a half to 2 weeks ago. Second (recent) post coming shortly.<br /><br />Everything is emptiness, and so is the perception of mind trying to make sense of it. All it can grab is dukkha, or some fluxing point of balance that upon inspection didn&#039;t hold my weight anyway.<br /><br />My life seems to swing between ardent practice (gathering insight, jhanas, moral development etc), and then resting in hinderances etc, smoking cannabis sometimes. While on the surface this kills lots of positive routine, there is a somewhat complex relationship with it, and so it still forms a valuable part of development. There is often new material that gets brought up including some sarcastically powerful dark nights that work well as exposure therapy lol. These aren&#039;t enabling thoughts, rather an acceptance of cycles with which I have no control. This bypasses guilt and opens space for me to be compassionate to all beings (This includes myself without the self attached). Without this metta, there is little for my thinking mind to hold onto when it comes to the reason to do or not do something.<br /><br />Having some deep dark night where I haven&#039;t got a reliable sense of self to hold onto, and this idea is empty too. During one moment after some cannabis, there were 2 simultaneous realities happening at the same time. (Shifting very fast), which really broke things up a bit. <br /><br />I&#039;ve stopped smoking again, though life is feeling very pointless at the moment, even without various home stuff going on.<br /><br />I will work up to 4th jhana the next few days and explore anything that&#039;s coming up.<br /><br />This perception of emptiness isn&#039;t constant, it&#039;s usually just random chaotic vibrations, but nothing is consistent or reliable. It is like looking in the mirror and instead of seeing myself, if there is thought, it is a jumble of different paradigms sticking to no particular point of view. Sun, 18 Feb 2018 18:41:55 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-18T18:41:55Z RE: Dreams as Purification My wording can be poor, my apologies! When I say they are necessary, I do not mean that they are necessary for anything else, but they happen as necessary as one moving ball knocks another ball which moves. It is necessary that the other ball moves or natural laws of cause and effect aren&#039;t in effect. Maybe it was my loose use of the word necessary...<br /><br /><strong></strong>I think what you mention with metabolizing non metabolized content resonates with me in a similar way, and is more or less what I am getting at. <br /><br />I agree with you about ñanas being more powerful in dreams. It is like when we are dreaming we sometimes &#039;forget&#039; to break up experience with discursive thoughts. Had a very strong A&amp;P experience a few nights ago, it was like a feedback loop of experience, which is something that would be interrupted in waking life.<br /><br />Working on dreams sounds like a good idea, I try make sure I don&#039;t forget them through the day, however I believe that simply the act of having the dream has a useful effect of balancing potential, which is why we can remember things that we might not have remembered well before, like a brain defrag.<br /><br />Potentially a result of assimilating shocking insight, though I get the feeling it&#039;s like when the wind calms down over the ocean. The ocean takes longer to settle, which happens during sleep. <br /><br />I&#039;ve slept well the last couple of nights thank you <img alt="emoticon" src="" > Sun, 18 Feb 2018 09:53:36 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-18T09:53:36Z RE: Possibility of hitting third but not realising Interesting. Well path models are increasingly being seen as a crutch, a rather pervasive duality that itself needs to be shed, though I&#039;m guessing that eventually as this all becomes integrated properly, the sensation of something being &#039;shed&#039; refers to yet more duality. Once my mind gets sick of this perpetual game of whackamole, there is obviously stress in this, it will simply begin to stop caring whether emptiness is seen or not which I&#039;m assuming is the road to 4th.<br /><br /><strong></strong>I read a thread made years ago, and it mentions how some people haven&#039;t had a cessation and how it was more of a &#039;aha that&#039;s how it is, and I can relate to this. It was a matter I have been approaching off and on for a while now, it just so happened that something clicked that time.<br /><br />The biggest part for me is the concentration boost and mindfulness being much easier to maintain. It is like the resolution that has been turned up through practice now stays with me. My stories still exist but they have little hold over me unless I am in a stimulating position, but I now have the opportunity to see it as a welcome blockage to be overcome (though in reality, there is still a considerable amount of resistance).<br /><br />Good question. &#034;What is 3rd path&#034; feels like a koan to me. I could provide you my interpretation on what I believe it is, and it will be recognised as based upon MTCB with the intentional exclusion of the fetters for simplification, though I get the feeling this means nothing and your question means more as a koan!<br /><br />Right now I am just grateful I have such a wonderful opportunity to lessen my suffering in such a way and hope to be more incremental in helping others lessen theirs when or how I am able. Sun, 18 Feb 2018 09:25:18 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-18T09:25:18Z RE: Possibility of hitting third but not realising <strong></strong>Thank you for replying. I tend to be cautious with pointers whilst high as they are a poor reflection on my mind&#039;s typical properties, however, peak level of insight and how insight material is approached make it useful at times in negotiating future territory. The act of taking my body of homeostasis, and being selective to reality is definitely not helpful though lol. Being selective didn&#039;t quite happen this time. <br /><br />I&#039;m also hesitent to take my claims seriously due to the amount I&#039;ve read on the matter, however, there does seem to be a deepening to the moment. I&#039;m assuming it can take the mind a while to settle into this. In fact it&#039;s quite a wild feeling at times when it sinks into new conceptual parts of mind. Wierd and slightly rapturous off the cushion experience. I&#039;ve experienced this before, but fleeting, this is more of a direct baseline equivalent.<br /><br />In answer to your question, I find the mind seeking (which is still vaguely seen as self in the fact I happen to be experiencing it, but it is arising of its own nature). In response there are sensations that imply a dualistic split the same as before, but they are seen as sensations arising where they are, then disappearing naturally by themselves. Normally there are more fabrications that continue by themselves including discursive thoughts.<br /><br />I&#039;m in some joyous awe right now, quite confused, it just makes no sense, but I&#039;m aware that&#039;s the point, and maybe that is one reason why it can be so hard to accept.<br /><br />What I don&#039;t understand is why I didn&#039;t notice any blip.<br /><br />There are thoughts like &#034;now what&#034;, which normally happens in review for me, which I believe are the result of hyped up delusions on what path might be. But I clearly see how any idea on how things could or should be are delusion, and this confusion, lack of tangible self is &#039;&#039;love&#034; and it could probably be the most permanent thing that has suffused my experience, this time I don&#039;t want to run. (Minus the 31 years momentum and karma that has accumulated thus far.<br /><br />EDIT: definitely the feeling of coming back to normal. Like it doesn&#039;t matter where I am, practice is simply a karmic desire to calm down the delusions a bit. Like an inevitable &#034;enough is enough&#034; on the mind front. And there is no need to be scared of things like&#034;not doing the right things in life&#034; etc<br /><br />EDIT 2: Been cycling today. Whilst on my bicycle ironically ;) it smells of doubt and uncertainty, a cloud of many thoughts dependent on one another undermining any attempt to concretise what is happening. It has probably arisen due to this too.<br /><br /><br />This may get put in the practice log after a bit as it&#039;s the most I&#039;ve wrote on my practice the last 2 weeks.  Sat, 17 Feb 2018 19:36:51 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-17T19:36:51Z Possibility of hitting third but not realising I have been hesitant to write this due to wondering about reaching third path previously and it not being the case, and do not want to make any claims that lower the quality of attainment diagnosis, so discussion is encouraged, if just to maintain the high standard of dharma currently on this site.<br /><br /><em><strong></strong></em>I feel like there&#039;s not much to say here, experience tends to show for itself, however my map hungry intellectual mind bears onward.<br /><br />I don&#039;t remember any fruition. In fact I merely remember a direct realization of clinging to experience, or lack of. Things were allowed to happen as they are. Not sure how this felt especially profound. It just was, however there wasn&#039;t any wierd states except a simple no self. Still happening.<br /><br />My centerpoint is gone by default. I didn&#039;t realise it until putting my mind on it, but there is little natural boundary defining inside and out, there is a sense of me, but it is exactly the same sense that one would attribute to experience itself. Out of curiosity and maybe habit, there is intellectual inquiry on this matter,  (path or no path) which when done seems to artificially invoke an inherently stressful sensation that COULD appear to encapsulate this idea, but doesn&#039;t. It just happens.<br /><br />It&#039;s not that there is this weird transcendent vibe of no self, with myself or others, it&#039;s just that it doesn&#039;t need to happen. I&#039;m having conversations with people, but there is just the experience of conversion, no need to create more information than needed, though it does happen sometimes out of habit, and the stress is seen almost immediately.<br /><br />Last night I had a trip to the beach  with my girlfriend, we had some weed (naughty, just bought some CBD oil for her though), and as the customary dark night experience happened, there was an initial struggle, but somehow, for once it didn&#039;t matter. A transcendent level of equinamity instead of what would be just&#034;bearing&#034; strong chaotic vibrations. Shortly after, during driving, I hit 4th jhana with formless aspect spontaneously Arising (weird and very unnerving when driving due to lack of control!). Letting go of certain aspects of experience have just become more natural. There&#039;s an intuition that all my constructs of reality are just that, constructs. everything is a lot less personal, impersonal except for the personal aspect that it is being experienced.<br /><br />It feels like a review phase in the sense that there is some sense of completeness to ou. While I&#039;m not sure what,. There is a sense of more work to be done, not including the fetters.<br /><br />Descriptions of luminosity continue to elude me, however there is little more to the current experiences of the senses other than that they are known, with an observer ghosting in when logic calls for it. This observer is both me and not me. The sense is intangible, and effort to grasp.<br /><br />There are still emotional feelings, and also anxiety when trying to conceptualise phenomenologically, along with clothes of&#034;self&#034; that don&#039;t fit properly, but it feels like a Dependant Origination to nowhere.<br /><br />Finally, this morning, I woke up feeling worse for wear from last night&#039;s late night weed antics, guilt was briefly present, but not owned, but there was a much greater ability to get on with the day, and not be so self absorbed as I would be normally.<br /><br />I&#039;ve read through all the third path threads countless times, but yea, they don&#039;t quite answer my own experience. What do people think? It followed a period of meditational hopelessness, where I felt no amount of practice or bearing with this was going to get anywhere.<br /><br />I was unsure whether to put this in claim to attainments or not. Sorry if it&#039;s in the wrong pleas, thanks! Sat, 17 Feb 2018 18:13:25 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-17T18:13:25Z Dreams as Purification I don&#039;t think this approach on dreams has been tackled yet so would be interesting to hear other people&#039;s reasons.<br /><br />My girlfriend has gone away for a couple of weeks so we can both individually look at our &#039;stuff&#039;. For me this involves reorganizing the boat and clearing clutter, and doing the same with my mind, with the overall ambition of more peace and harmony.<br /><br />I&#039;ve noticed now that if viewed as a purification model rather than as part of the Progress of Insight, there appears to be a direct correlation between dreams and meditation practice, however I&#039;ve not gathered enough evidence to conclude this.<br /><br />My interest in this is because I occasionally suffer from parasomnia (a group of peculiar sleep disturbances such as sleepwalking, vivid or lucid dreams, false awakenings and night terrors), and it has been triggered off after a higher bar has been set with my meditation. (My practice hasn&#039;t gone so &#039;well&#039; lately, so my mind has been noisier than it could be.)<br /><br />In the past I&#039;ve viewed dreams as an activity that naturally and automatically happens when synapses haven&#039;t been activated but is the path of least resistance, kind of like an itch or a twitch, and that seems to hold up. Like there are subconscious matter that hasn&#039;t been resolved and you&#039;re itching it during rem sleep.<br /><br />Annoyingly (as I need deep sleep to recover my muscles for work), after a period of meditation that has calmed things down somewhat, my sleep patterns change in that I am abiding in what I believe to be primarily REM, stage 1 and 2, but rarely 3, despite the fact I often get up and worry about the boat for some unknown reason, look out the window etc. (Twice I&#039;ve knocked the front door down in the past which is worrying, still yet to fix it the second time lol). I woke up around every 2 hours, and the rest felt like dreaming wierd shit most of the time. Definitely material in there reflecting unresolved psychological stuff.<br /><br />I&#039;m just interested to hear other people&#039;s opinions on this aspect of dreams as a necessary automatic process of purification. I feel intuitively that something is resolved, just hope it stops one day because is inconvenient and slightly worrying!<strong></strong><strong></strong><strong></strong> Fri, 16 Feb 2018 09:15:44 GMT Dom Stone 2018-02-16T09:15:44Z RE: Enlightenment in real time Looks to me like his delight in phenonema prevented him from seeing some slippery subtle ego games, manifesting in certain ways. There&#039;s lots of hidden cravings I notice which he is only partially aware but they are either suppressed with teachings or concentration. While the experience must have been profound, his fear of reattachment will uproot those sankharas. I<br /><br /><strong></strong>A realtime glimpse on emptiness, yes. enlightenment...? The window was always clean under that dirt, but at times it is clear to see through as well. I think he may need a few more experiences and time without any things to do to take anything significant from this.  Sun, 28 Jan 2018 03:25:16 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-28T03:25:16Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Having quite a few difficulties with meditation the last couple of days. Concentration is mainly no there, but with the occasional burst. Failing to see the 3C&#039;s in experience for significant chunks, with the odd perception of emptiness spaced thinly between unconsciousness. Certain habitual tendencies are leading a good proportion of the day. <br /><br />Find it hard to sit longer than 20 mins. In my last sit, I became overwhelmed with unwanted sexual thoughts and feelings and couldn&#039;t handle it and stopped the meditation. There was also feelings of guilt passing quicker than the ability to note them. I don&#039;t think this has happened before, so I hope there is something come out of all of this, not more samsaric phenomena. Mon, 22 Jan 2018 22:12:39 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-22T22:12:39Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Thanks, yea that is helpful. I&#039;m interested in paying attention to the perceived seamlessness of experience, however as this is new to me, I&#039;m not too sure what to look out for, and can only inferentially know what you mean by this. I&#039;m not sure what a collision would actually manifest as either. Fortunately, I&#039;m still aware of areas that get in the way so perhaps it will become more clear in time!<br /><br /><em></em>Also, not that it makes a difference at all lol, but I mean she dug at me argumentatively but I&#039;m just splitting hairs here :p Sun, 21 Jan 2018 16:42:42 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-21T16:42:42Z RE: Insights or mental illness? Regardless of the cause of these feelings, if they are becoming a serious problem, it would be advisable to seek advice from a doctor. The lines between peak (and low) spiritual experience can be blurry at times, and the important thing is that you healthily recognise these as objects and continue with the practice if it is not causing you problems you feel are out of control.<br /><br />What you describe sounds like both bipolar and A&amp;P/dark night, however with bipolar there is a tendancy to attach to these experiences as &#039;me&#039;. For me, and for what I have seen of others, the problems with bipolar are very selfish, so perhaps (key word perhaps), due to your no self experiences, it is just material coming to the surface that your mind has been too intent on smearing over with ideas of control and normality. This can explain the insane amount of energy you feel.<br /><br />Providing you don&#039;t have some deep program embedded in you with the urge to kill people, then it&#039;s likely that these are just thoughts that have arisen from these new conditions. Note them and move on. Remember that thoughts are just automatic and impersonal by nature. Be aware how there is not any entity in control of these thoughts or their content however bizarre and how they just pass away again from whence they came.<br /><br />Are they just thoughts or do you actually have intentions to do so, as that would be quite a different situation. Actions are deeply conditioned and requires a conditioned view of reality to attempt to go ahead with things. If this is the case, then seek help.<br /><br />I sometimes sleepwalk, especially when I was younger and I used to get scared I might do something horrific, even stab my girlfriend or something totally irrelevant. It never happened because anything I actually did always remained in line with the actions I would make while awake. It can take a lot to deviate off course, a lot more than just thoughts, the amount of resistance to this is usually far greater. Sun, 21 Jan 2018 10:19:29 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-21T10:19:29Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Concentration has increased dramatically the last few days and practice has worked in averaging around 3 hours a day. It has been a lot more efficient too.The first <a href="tel&#x3a;2040">20-40</a> minutes are spent watching the breath for concentration and tranquility. Rise up to 4th Jhana, and from here, some distortions are easier to see through. If I have had an active day with busy thoughts, then there is more nimitta, but they have never got to the point where they are fully visible, just flickers and movements. I flirt with the spacious element of 4th, but am still quite rooted in form, so success is limited. I can imagine that 5th would make seeing through sensations like body bubble awareness much easier. One trick I have learned for this without developing this fully is to experience internal, body boundary and external sensations on the same backdrop of awareness. It is hard to catch all of these sensations as they arise without it being twisted in some way but there is at least some recognition.Referring to Dream Walkers &#034;A Framework of Awakening&#034;, I believe the thought space has almost been permanently seen from the larger state of awareness, but not quite. It is now easy to flick back, and most thoughts when not thinking about it, don&#039;t carry the same weight anymore. It is such a useful shift and makes it easy to disembed from most triggers, at least in a personal way.The ñanas at the moment are so slight as to be barely recognisable, and they have lost their importance to me now. As long as my mind is tranquil, there is an even acceptance of recognisable phenomena.Sleep has been a bit disturbed, but the plus side is I need about an hour or 2 less a night. A couple of times I have woken up with the peculiar feeling that I was already dead, lamenting the loss, realising all my actions were futile. Maybe this was a direct understanding of impermanence of self (fear/misery) ñana, but conceptualised in a way my mind can understand.My mind tends to go in waves of progress, which may be typical for everyone. I am wondering however if it&#039;s at all linked to bipolar. Even with all this improvement, it is not possible yet for me to hold a course indefinitely. Something does destabilise me. Usually it&#039;s the presence of cannabis, however I have never been so strong in resisting it and it has much less weight over me. As such, it&#039;s been a few weeks now, despite the possible triggers. However this time, after a (for me) ridiculously peaceful sit, I came home and as my girlfriend dug down at me, something from the surface had obviously come up some that I had no idea of, which led to the origination of some very regressive and repressed behaviour. This has destabilised me a little though I may be getting it back now after 2 days.Over all, things are changing, and I keep feeling like 3rd is around the corner. I know what needs to be aimed for now, just struggle occasionally with finding enough adequate material to reach a cessation. Sat, 20 Jan 2018 10:59:02 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-20T10:59:02Z RE: Are sankharas a thing? The emotional body is based in the physicsl body. The chakra system is a conceptual representation of this, though it is taken vastly out of context by dogma. On a physical level 95% of serotonin receptors are in the gut which I&#039;m sure influenced certain moods.<br /><br /><strong></strong>Daniel - San<br />I agree with you, sankharas don&#039;t fall off due to them not having any characteristics that allow them to do so. I was trying to clarify something for Yilun Omg but may have misunderstood what he said in the process! Tue, 16 Jan 2018 11:25:37 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-16T11:25:37Z RE: Are sankharas a thing? I would say that it is not the sankharas that fall off, just the attachment to them. The mind is trained by habit, literally rewiring the brain. This neuroplasticity is the problem behind addiction, but also the secret behind learning a new skill via repetition. We are technically unlearning the programming so natural to the thinking mind that takes the story where we think it should go. Our thoughts have their own ideas on how life should be which is reinforced by feelings in the body. It is prohibitively unlikely to craft a life based upon our ideals based upon delusion without something going wrong somewhere down the line. <br /><br />This conceptual world is weaved together by our sankharas, and as our perception of reality is subjective (from within this framework), there is no reliable way to gain a greater understanding, except to unlearn this habitual behaviour.<br /><br />When people march around with music perpetually playing on headphones, smoking their vape , they are trapped in trying to sustain this residual sense of comfort, that is nothing more than a refusal to abide purely in the present moment without needing to add anything. It saddens me on one side of my family. In the home there are ALWAYS TV&#039;s on, people constantly need to be doing something, and it is clear that to take all this away would cause them great discomfort. This discomfort would be a form of purification. The ego has to learn things are ok without all this but it doesn&#039;t let go without a fight. It will pull up all sorts of games to get what it wants, and these will likely be many of the sensations you need to be aware of so you don&#039;t make the mistake of letting them define you. Over time, the mind let&#039;s go of deeper and deeper stuff, and stillness is left in its place. When one inquires to the nature of existence at this time, they can know things as they are.<br /><br />This explains why so much pain is supposed to disappear by being aware.<br /><br />Actual pain in meditation is rarely serious, though it can feel that way. That makes pain a very useful meditation object to those who can remain truly equinaminous to it. The more one awakens to this, the greater handling of pain we have and the less suffering it creates. Of course, it is not wise or compassionate to dehabilitate ourselves, and common sense should be used. Tue, 16 Jan 2018 06:00:46 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-16T06:00:46Z RE: Karmic effects of manipulating energy in healing Argh! I wrote a long reply from my phone then deleted it by accident! I hope somebody replies who has experience from energy practices or magick. You may find that any response you get will be different, relating to their model of reality as there isn&#039;t a clear cut answer to this.<br /><br /><strong></strong>It may help to have a deep understanding on karma and what it actually is. My view is that karma is a law of cause an effect with relation to the self. It is the byproduct of Voilition (the apparent decision making process involved in every present moment). Karma is based upon the conditions that exist to that point, which means a decision made by one person will have a different effect to another person. The seeds may not rise straight away, though there is typically many seeds created in a short patch of time (eg seconds). Some you notice immediately such as the act of walking resulting in your body being located in a different point in space, whereas others take time to manifest.<br />Karma may be abstract or conceptual by origin, so one may try learn something, and eventually it is learned. It may also be magickal by origin. I define magick as an act of intention that relies on processes not relying on matter of materialism. Walking to the shop could be considered a spell in my opinion as it is intention guiding your universe, but to separate magickal ideas from mundane activities, I believe satisfies this. <br /><br />With all this in mind, common sense prevails, as karma is  what we are all used to. I don&#039;t believe there is any reason you should avoid energy healing unless the following factors apply:<br /><br />1. You are an old school Catholic priest.<br />2. You are prone to superstition and making connections that don&#039;t exist purely because it provides a sense of comfort.<br />3. Another obvious reason.<br /><br />There is no reason why we shouldn&#039;t experiment with various ideas as long as they:<br />a) don&#039;t put us or others Iin danger (eg avoiding a doctor)<br />b) Break social conduct fracturing the web in which we are part of (like sleeping with your sibling or cannibalism)<br /><br />There is no universal good or bad that states we can or cannot do anything, but typically, we learn what makes life easier for us and what doesn&#039;t. These laws should be respected for our happiness and those around us.<br /><br />I believe energy healing in that respect is the same as physical therapy in the same way that apples are the same as oranges (they&#039;re both fruit) Mon, 15 Jan 2018 11:19:40 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-15T11:19:40Z RE: Dukkah in others effecting my Sankaras Wow I have just woken up so this is a lot to take in! I shall try be concise about this using my own terms, so that there is no risk of conflating ideas that aren&#039;t compatible.<br /><br />My sits lately have been mainly of the Mahamudra technique with the occasional dose of Vipassana to see through resistant objects that get in the way of clear seeing. There is the occasional dukkha ñanas when new material comes up or sometimes penetrating existing material, but historically I&#039;ve usually gone through this with little resistance. Sitting yesterday has involved deep tranquility which at the time feels more solid than possible objects, and everything is simple, lucid and still. Last night for instance I took this a step further and the split between observer/observed broke down, including the  witness,, revealing all sensations as equal, awareness sometimes happening within the objects (especially sounds) etc. There was almost no discernible cravings, which would be seen as they are almost immediately rather than creating a sense of agency around them. At times it felt like there was going to be some sort of kundalini symptoms, but they may have fizzled out due to  automatic tightening. To me, this whole thing is EQ. Coming home, I was actually able to speak to my girlfriend and show her so much love, and it was possible to be impartial and offer skillful kind words that were not reactive to how she feels.<br /><br />There was a similar depth of sitting earlier that day, except there wasn&#039;t (what I believe to be) luminous awareness of things. Coming home, everything looked strange and I tried to maintain some concentration so I could use it for next sit. Me and my girlfriend have a number of automatic programs that are created out of delusion, and they are like scratches in a photo. Serve literally no purpose, but they are very difficult to bypass. Also, she feels that she is not able to meditate and likes to smoke weed (which had caused problems for me especially due my my past drug history), so she is quite prone to idle chatter and heedlessness. She can be very lonely too and doesn&#039;t have friends that she sees, so I am a significant part of her life, and if I don&#039;t speak much to her, she has next to no face to face interaction and combined with her many anxieties, self hate and worries for the future, she can get very caught up in things. She says she wants to meditate, but she believes she can&#039;t due to these factors. I love her so naturally, I want to help her make her life better, and sometimes have less patience than I should, but, being 10 years older, make suggestion and sometimes push but not force her to a method she simply isn&#039;t ready to do yet. She won&#039;t see a doctor, I look after her financially and she calls me controlling. To make it clear, this is no complaining here. I am simply making what I believe the conditions are for my particular situation as to clarify matters. I don&#039;t expect any personal advice from a dhamma forum!<br /><br />So as I come home from a well rested sit, I offer to make her a tea in a mug as I was going to make one for when I go to work. Somewhere down the line, she gets things confused and believes I&#039;m being controlling by not putting it in a flask so she needs to drink it now rather than put it in a flask. I notice that I&#039;m starting to get worked up about this.<br /><br />At one point only about 15 seconds later, I feel a rush of energy, in many parts of my body, with synesthetic dots of light of different colours where this energy is. The anger energy feels separate to me twisting in on itself in a strange manner. Thoughts arise, things are said that eventually very horrible, and I am watching my body and mind do its thing from the Witness state, observing clarity of the moment without being the one who suffers. Eventually I leave, normally I leave before anything happens.<br /><br />This stuff that comes out, I wish would happen in meditation, that way other people don&#039;t need to suffer. I am claiming responsibility for what I said, however believe that these programs just don&#039;t need to be here for either of us, but if I could manage this in a safe place, then perhaps it would help diffuse her stuff in the process.<br />There are FAR too many mirror neurons between us which show connection when we aren&#039;t in the same room, which makes hiding personal stuff or stages of insight very difficult.<br /><br />I don&#039;t really have purification episode like which you speak of BigBird. Despite the fact my past has been very colourful and bipolar, it feels like all that stuff has already happened when it happened, and now, sitting is mainly clearing out resistances and becoming ever deeper moments of present nature. Mon, 15 Jan 2018 10:59:51 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-15T10:59:51Z RE: Dukkah in others effecting my Sankaras Seth&#039;s advice resonates with me and something I will reflect upon the next few days. Thank you Seth, that is objectively rational <img alt="emoticon" src="" ><br /><br />Anna thank you for your words, I&#039;ve done well with my self care the last few days though it tends to fluctuate. I&#039;m not sure if it&#039;s specifically dark night as I have spent a lot of time in EQ during sessions, however, there have been occasional patches when new material is being digested which is where any troubles could start. Whatever happens, happens though! Anyway, sorry for hijacking the thread. Hopefully your replies can also help OP. <img alt="emoticon" src="" > Mon, 15 Jan 2018 00:32:51 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-15T00:32:51Z RE: Dukkah in others effecting my Sankaras Well I think I just finished a damaged relationship with a loved one due to this. Making a skillful decision is impossible when you can&#039;t tell which is purification and which is simply sensitivity to other persons dukkah. I&#039;ve noticed it especially after a longer deeper sit, where I assume it&#039;s just synchronization with another person&#039;s more constant level of mind noise, meaning the problem lies with them and fail to take into account my own sankharas.<br /><br /><strong></strong>The way I see it is that typically, we all have a fair deal of white noise in our mind due to the minds inability to cope with it&#039;s default sensitivity. On top of that are other types of &#039;noise&#039; that are recorded onto it at various times, though it will tend to be louder if built upon a constant background of noise. When we meditate, we seek to drop this meaningless white noise and we are left with a high dynamic range of stuff as well as increased sensitivity to this stuff due to its comparative quietness.<br /><br />It completely derails my 2 hours worth of concentration savings in 5 minutes, and it has the same feeling as if somebody was to go smash all the windows in my home. (Though less urgent lol). It even tends my mind towards dullness.<br /><br />Maybe it is just purification, but when others are closely linked to this, how can it be approached without unnecessarily hurting those you are supposed to love. I get that being mindful every second with discipline would help, but even the most pro of tightrope walkers need a break! I can be SUCH a dick sometimes! <img alt="emoticon" src="" > Sun, 14 Jan 2018 18:12:36 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-14T18:12:36Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd I increased my sitting time to 2:20 hours today and did it 2 hours after waking to take advantage of increased morning clarity. It is all about letting go of acceptance. Acceptance still indicates some sort of personal intention to achieve something, but that something is not it. My current method now is to identify resistance as a distortion within the larger sense field, make an intention to drop resistance, and &#039;forget&#039; to  do anything about it. Combining this with a gentle but persistent mindfulness of breathing (at the diaphragm) leads to some interesting effects. These layers of self could be thought of as peeling like an onion, but that would be delusional as that suggests that self is a lasting entity, rather than a momentary process that is an impersonal reaction to whatever came beforehand.<br /><br /><strong></strong>Whether it is Samatha or Vipassana Jhana, I don&#039;t know, and it doesn&#039;t really matter, but consistent diligent effort shut deeper and deeper layers of mind down. Upon opening my eyes, the view was beautiful (like yesterday but more persistent). Looking at the floor, it was impossible to tell which way up everything was (my body felt upside down at one point), and everything looked alive and vibrant with a buzzing hum you would expect from a healthy dose of psychedelics (without the inaccuracies). Sense of self did keep attempting to steal the show, but these were seen as impermanent vibrations upon their arising, which prevented any causality between that one and the next. Such positive experiences lead me to want to replicate this in future, so I occasionally have to remind myself that the past isn&#039;t now. Today was about EQ and accepting vibrations where they stand, whereas previously A&amp;P was prominent with its more catchy and less impartial vibe. Walking back was wierd, and if somebody saw me, they would probably have thought I&#039;d taken drugs, but the colours were beautiful, the ripples on the water were too. Sun, 14 Jan 2018 01:59:25 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-14T01:59:25Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Sat for about an hour tonight at the tree in the woods. (Where I do it most of the time). Things started pretty slow, so over half of the time was spent being aware of any expectations. I watched the breath for 20 mins to boost concentration. After this, I noticed a layer of vibrations that I have been aware of before, but lacked the ability to see into. They were clearer now than they have been before. There was an element of control, as if the mind was autobalancing each time there was a letting go of sensation. I began to see how that there was nothing I could do to avoid this feeling and, not wanting to be ignorant to them, included them in my attention, but not in a way that felt like I was in control of it. It started to feel like I was lowering into water with the ability to breathe, but not having done it before. As I settled into this, there was a bright light upon my eyelids and experienced a strong A&amp;P moment that continued as I went for a wee and sat down. There was a strong distortion of bodily awareness and reality felt very broken, which despite feeling very lost at sea, was blissful anyway.<br /><br /><strong></strong>I get the feeling that these subtle feelings need to be investigated further. Are they Vedana percepts? Fri, 12 Jan 2018 23:25:56 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-12T23:25:56Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Maintaining consistent practice has been difficult yet again, and after weeks of little to no formal sits, I&#039;m getting back in a routine where my concentration is getting to a point where sensations can be seen as they are.<br /><br />Interestingly, even though it feels like nothing is being done, there has been a boredom to all the games and expectations that yield no results except complications and distortions. <br /><br />My previous writing about &#034;seeing the luminosity in things&#034; actually refers to clarity, (which I&#039;m aware some refer to as &#039;luminous knowing&#039;). I noticed earlier today that I never have felt anything, or had any experience that is as tangible as what we commonly believe our experience tells us. This gave me a massive creepout, as a direct realisation of emptiness, after which point, my mind seemed able to rest in itself to a deeper level. I then woke up suddenly to a dog barking quarter of a mile away. Wierdly, there was no indication that I was about to fall asleep, it just happened completely without my knowing. I believe that perceiving both clarity and emptiness has made the whole thing more clear due to them being 2 sides of the same coin.<br /><br />Applied meditation is mostly centerless for me now, with all the sense fields clearly distinct from eachother to the point that I cannot &#039;possess&#039; such separate things, though they do still define the view I have upon myself.<br /><br />Dukkha is apparent in almost every aspect of experience, except in the perceived emptiness (though can emptiness itself be experienced, or is it just inferentially witnessed&#039;<br /><br />My practice is becoming more mundane but magical, with discovered expectations dropped like a hot coal, they are too jagged and narrow.<br />I feel that I need to intercept every thought with mindfulness so I no longer believe the stories.<br /><br />As for fruitions, I am lacking the concentration to get any of this, though when the weather warms up, I will do a solo retreat with the intention of achieving some deep concentration states and opening up some new insight material and cycles. Fri, 12 Jan 2018 00:46:51 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-12T00:46:51Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd 9th December 2017<br /><br /><strong></strong><strong></strong><strong></strong>After a couple of weeks of seemingly no progress, it seems that I was gradually becoming acquainted with subtle aversions, which became clarified yesterday. Woke up in the morning in quite a good mood, but in a couple of hours, I was in a very clear Disgust ñana. This is one of the ñanas I find most difficult as it triggers off edgy aversions to pretty much all phenomena (Especially noises like dishes which sound like some dissonant quality clanging that is very bare). Things also weren&#039;t going right in day to day life, so it was easier to get worked up, but I remained mindful and tried to keep suffering to a minimum. I ended up going to work early so I could meditate for an hour first as previously, I had been repressing any opportunities for this material to surface, and I didn&#039;t want it to go to waste or bleed through into my home life.<br /><br />The vibrations were constant and edgy at around 15hz on my walk there with its clarity coming in waves. Just being in the woods made this easier and I sat down, with all the chaotic vibes, very 3rs Jhana like with synesthetic TV static of a indigo and lighter colours. This image wasn&#039;t actually seen as if it truly existed, or was even visible, but more like a knowing of sensations that are easier to recall to memory than any conceptual ideas my mind used to make sense of reality. Using my breath as an anchor, I placed bare awareness to all objects that contribute to the feelings of suffering. This process welcomed an immediate enquiry which allowed &#039;me&#039; to &#039;become&#039; the insight material as efficiently and deeply as possible. There was a constant noise of anxiety, that failed to take up form in any objects around me. This is due to the minds aversion to all phenomena, however there was equinamity to all 3 characteristics when seen as they are due to the lack of self identifying to them.<br /><br />This was about issues with craving anything impermanent, and how grasping onto these things provided a temporary relief, but exaggerating the very shadow side that fears the actual reality of the moment.<br /><br />Re-Observation was the most painful deep down and not easy to understand, but it was simply letting me know that I cannot avoid them, and that desiring anything other than the moment right now is creating time: The plane where all this is supposed to happen...<br /><br />Past. Present. Future. Past and future is where the story exists, not the bare present. Nothing is wrong with stories, they turn very existence into pure magic, but magic cannot be grabbed, just played around gently with intention. The more mindful I am to the present moment, the less likely I am to grab to something, and call it something else. If I live right now, I can create any realistic story about the situation that is right for the moment. But if I believe in &#039;Me&#039; doing this, time and space make shape to this story before I even realise it. When does a dream become lucid....<br /><br />Wow. Just writing that and suddenly my mind did summersaults and ridiculously powerful Re-Observation waves that sliced reality up into a potent trip! Mind clearly not holding onto anything. Tried to remain equinaminous, which made it more intense, Felt like a fruition one point via the suffering door, head spinning up, all objects disappearing, then back.<br /><br /><br />Anyway, Yesterday, eventually, equinamity ñana started competing with Re-Observation. And there was finally an acceptance to which point these vibrations have probably been well observed.<br /><br />Today, I had a lot more Metta and ease in accepting situations where I might have been difficult in accepting at the time. Fri, 12 Jan 2018 00:23:53 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-12T00:23:53Z RE: Insight vs. intellectual understanding Due to our default tendancy to automatically label mind as &#034;I&#034; instead of &#034;thinking&#034;, it can be difficult to tell the difference. This ignorance is what leads to self deception, and giving thoughts an elevated status because of the pleasure that can follow scratching an intellectual itch. This is why a calm concentrated mind is needed for Vipassana, which means &#034;clear seeing&#034;. It is to learn this knowledge that we call insight. There are no words attached to this, and it will permanently change how you relate to future phenomena.<br /><br />The confusion arises because we relate to mind, the source of intellectual inquiry. Mind is subject to change, regardless of the insights we have gained, meaning we can still be subject to delusions that ravage us before gaining insight knowledge. It is not until we fully uproot the delusion of mind as self when we can stop resting undivided attention upon it.<br /><br />I think that it is all too easy to disregard any knowledge that isn&#039;t &#034;real&#034; insight knowledge however, and that the intellectual knowledge gained is akin to the raft we build to get us across the river, but leave on the other side. Self does not like to give up easily. It needs to be worked patiently and skilfully.<br /><br />&#034;True&#034; insight knowledge is called empirical insight, as it relates to a direct and pure understanding. Such knowledge will immediately be followed by inferential insight. Inferential insight is based upon the mind&#039;s interpretation on the previous insight knowledge. It is intellectual by nature, and it is what is discussed amongst peers. Like the finger that points to the moon. Tue, 09 Jan 2018 01:38:50 GMT Dom Stone 2018-01-09T01:38:50Z RE: Language Processing and the Mind When in the car today, I meditated for 2 hours. During this time, there was lots of noise. Notably, there was an advert playing where I was able to clearly discern the words, but no meaning was gleaned from them. I tried to listen with more bare awareness but this wasn&#039;t possible at the current level of concentration. This was interesting though as it makes clear Culadasas teachings with regards to binding moments. There was familiarity as if I was listening normally and under the right conditions, I could potentially recall such information, but it was as meaningful as a foreign language.<br /><br /><strong></strong>On another instance in the past, during ñana of fear, I have had an instance where people talking sounded unintelligible and garbled. It was a frightening experience for some reason, but it is interesting due to the fact it makes clear that it does indeed happen on many different levels. It probably depends how much of a buffer the mental echo takes up. (How &#034;in the moment&#034; we are).  Sun, 31 Dec 2017 00:58:05 GMT Dom Stone 2017-12-31T00:58:05Z RE: Jungian Active Imagination? As a way of accessing problem parts of the psyche, I can imagine this could be a useful trick, and if done skillfully with people that don&#039;t have any immediate issues with their mental health, fairly safe maybe with the odd difficult patch.<br /><br /><br />The issue comes, when the mind, even to a subtle level, is expecting something other than what actually arises, which is likely to happen if you don&#039;t immediately disembed from the material. (Not going to happen if cords of attachment are unbroken) As is not as phenomenologically simple as &#039;you looking inside yourself&#039;, the idea that &#034;you&#034; are in control of what is happening is bound to break down at some point. If we have any attachment to the idea that &#034; &#039;I&#039; am safe doing this&#034; then we create a pocket of reality, where anything that challenges this will cause an unnecessary amount of suffering, and also create more hurdles to jump over. There will be resistance, and this will make the whole process of gaining any useful insights sticky and possibly neurotic.<br /><br />I view this as a process of Dependant Origination, and the less expectations we have on what should happen right now, the more likely you will be discerning the 3 characteristics of experience.<br /><br />I&#039;m not suggesting that this is the case, and would agree that it&#039;s totally sensible to ensure the safety of your practice, and hope instead to offer a different perspective on things that may help you more directly penetrate the 3 C&#039;with such useful insight material.<br /><br /><br />It would be interesting to hear your results if you do this. Good luck. <img alt="emoticon" src="" > Sat, 09 Dec 2017 00:09:12 GMT Dom Stone 2017-12-09T00:09:12Z RE: What happens after stream-entry? Glad to have helped. Yep, Sakadgami.<br /><br />When your mind is resting on nothing, could it be that it is instead resting on the particular state of mind, or perhaps on bare sensory information (without the thoughts that add concept to experience). I would definitely play around with this nothingness as an object. 2nd is more about the mind where 1st is mainly about the body. <br /><br />Resting on any particular object will calm the mind down which is essential to maintain sustained attention. if you are focusing on building concentration then this will not be wasted time, however once you are abiding in a certain level of calm, it is a good idea to focus on the feeling of calm or pleasentness itself. To try and sustain attention on a particular object trains the mind to do this better. This can quite easily lead to Jhana with some patience. You can Vipassana on this further by noting the mind that desires any particular state, or is experiencing happiness etc. It all depends where you want to go really.  Fri, 08 Dec 2017 16:34:28 GMT Dom Stone 2017-12-08T16:34:28Z RE: What happens after stream-entry? With regards to your mind appearing to rest on nothing, that is common with stream entry. If this is the case, and you are past the review stage, it&#039;s probably more likely to be a very &#039;soft&#039; 1st Vipassana Jhana. An A&amp;P stage will have objects presenting themselves to be observed effortlessly, and it&#039;s not till the early stages of dissolution when gaps between notes phenomena start appearing. 2nd path bears similarity to 2nd Jhana and so on. This is due to the objects that are dropped.<br /><br />If you are hoping to have enough concentration to finish 2nd, this natural lack of interest in coarser objects should give you most of the boost you need to get there, it is on the way to 3rd when high concentration is a must (And probably my greatest obstacle right now).<br /><br />Setting yourself an hour a day should be enough, however any more time obviously always helps. Concentration is fragile and it is FAR easier to lose it than work it back, so make sure to stay mindful during the day and be aware of when thoughts start getting off track. It&#039;s this automatic mind stuff which really gives it a hit. <br /><br />What Yilun Ong said with the feedback loop. It can take patience to start it so just keep going back to the breath and try keep the 5 hinderances at bay. Fri, 08 Dec 2017 15:44:43 GMT Dom Stone 2017-12-08T15:44:43Z RE: Siddhis outside retreat Siddhis are unlikely to be carried forward into daily life any more than they would if you haven&#039;t gone on a retreat. Also, the difficulty in assessing the reliability of powers (How can you tell things are as you see them to be) makes them a pretty slippery subject to work with, with the potential to invite unrequited cravings and possibly psychosis into your life. You would get more positive feedback from developing good morality and the Brahma Viharas for maintaining good concentration off the cushion. This will increase the chance of experiencing Siddhis if combined with a solid regular samatha practice. As I haven&#039;t had a stellar history of high concentration, I&#039;m not speaking with first hand knowledge, just from my knowledge and experience of the Dhamma.<br /><br />Be cautious, and take a break if you experience any negative effects especially if you don&#039;t have a teacher to guide you. Fri, 08 Dec 2017 15:25:22 GMT Dom Stone 2017-12-08T15:25:22Z RE: What happens after stream-entry? Typically, after the review phase, the mind goes back to the first ñana of Mind and Body. During review phase however, it goes back to A&amp;P until the mind has integrated as much as it can before it realises that there is more work to do.<br /><br />1. While these experiences are a hallmark of the A&amp;P, it is possible that it is actually your mind defaulting to more subtle objects. After stream entry, some of the coarser objects are clearly seen as dukkha, and the mind is no longer interested. This gives it more space to rest in the finer sensations that may have been very prominent during ñanas like A&amp;P or Equinamity.<br /><br />2. I think my previous answer addresses this. However in later stages of a path, it&#039;s common to experience A&amp;P during many sits and during day to day life. You&#039;ll notice that these states have a different intensity based upon your concentration and applied attention.<br /><br />3. A good way to develop concentration with A&amp;P is choiceless awareness, mixing with noting random objects that could potentially distract (like discursive thoughts). Due to the flow of this stage, it should be easy for you to sit for relatively long periods of time. Inevitably, your concentration will take a bit on dissolution however and if you are too set on having a good level of concentration, you may end up either disappointed with the murkyness, or get seduced by the tranquility! Mindfulness is key in all this, with which you can balance your concentration and energy. Thu, 07 Dec 2017 22:29:50 GMT Dom Stone 2017-12-07T22:29:50Z RE: Nana 6, 7 & 8: One Stage I&#039;ll go with you on the naturally occuring physio-energetic take. I&#039;d like to add and suggest that perhaps it&#039;s the only possible means of discovery due to a combination of the manner in which distortions are created with dependent origination, and the organisms need for survival.<strong></strong> Thu, 07 Dec 2017 13:36:21 GMT Dom Stone 2017-12-07T13:36:21Z RE: Nana 6, 7 & 8: One Stage Fear, misery and disgust are all different reactions to the same &#039;stuff&#039;. The difference between these ñanas is purely down to how the meditator is acquainted with the passing away of phenomena.<br /><br />As fear is the initial natural response to realising nothing, even the self is permanent, misery is the immature realization that one cannot avoid such phenomena, and disgust is the process of disidentifying with the same be phenomena.<br /><br />I guess desire for deliverance is too different by nature and is considered a different ñana.<br /><br />With regards to fear misery and disgust, it can be likened to a person being around other people he considers threatening. His first reaction will be to turn his back in fear due to the lack of understanding of his company. As he realises he can&#039;t get away, this turns into a sense of misery (also known as danger) where he can face the others, but still doesn&#039;t want to be there. Disgust is realising that these people haven&#039;t hurt him, but he still doesn&#039;t want to become them. I guess desire for deliverance is the dissolution of the nature of separation to this experience and Re-Observation is the dissolution of the aversion that the sense of separation relies upon. Thu, 07 Dec 2017 12:23:24 GMT Dom Stone 2017-12-07T12:23:24Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Thanks for the clarification, I&#039;m going to add an edit to my previous posts to account for this misunderstanding of terms!<br /><br />It would be great to see what you have to add to your thread, especially with your increased clarity on things. Got to love checking old posts, much paridoxical humour to be had at it&#039;s own expense <img alt="emoticon" src="" ><br /><br />Your perception shift pointers are really useful with 4 and 5 permanently open. Referring to your framework, my minor centerpoint got deleted at 2nd path, leading to the &#034;Broken&#034; feeling I mentioned at the beginning of my log. I wasn&#039;t aware that this wasn&#039;t something directly related to this path moment, though I guess it&#039;s not important to know exactly when! It was the lack of apparent spatiousness of thoughts that surprised me more than anything.<br /><br />Body boundary opened up later on. Possibly encouraged with elemental meditation which drew more focused attention upon the similarities of matter outside the boundary and within. This shift has allowed a more direct manner where these sensations are divided into smaller bits of information. eg. If I move my arm, first there is intention (This is percieved more in moments of increased mindfulness, eg, during meditation, not so much with daily activities), followed by sensations of pressure in the arm mixed up with sensations of location, but by themselves, have no solidity. It is as if the sensations of pressure are there first, perhaps because location is an additional fabrication that is followed by a coarser binding moment that incorporates the both of them.<br /><br />With regards to a personal bubble, there have been a couple of times where this has happened, most notably it&#039;s transcendental appearance. (I&#039;m thinking of mystical statements that refer to one experiencing &#034;Oneness with the world&#034;. On me describing my &#034;Visual field&#034; being the most obvious permanent shift, this could be attributed due to the high level of brain matter assigned to the visual sense as a whole, so there appears to be more bandwidth in recalling or creating concepts in this paradigm (Sometimes I read what I&#039;ve wrote, and think to myself &#034;What on earth have you written you pretentious git!&#034;). Anyway, in terms of how such shifts affect my interactions, or perceptions on a more deep level, this is one that I&#039;ve associated with more tranquil and clear states, due to the amount of preconscious noise that has subsided. This has almost exclusively been associated with higher levels of equinamity post 2nd path. Perhaps this is because problem areas in my psyche have temporarily been bypassed due to tranquility and right view. This is somewhat frustrating because it feels like I haven&#039;t come any closer to solving this, but as that would be assumping a solid point within an idea of my mind, enquiry in this path would prevent proper apprehension of the 3 Characteristic and not lead to right view. It would be good to set intentions to experience objects that break the solidity of this so called bubble! I&#039;m sure I&#039;ve been going through quite a lengthy dark night (months) right now with fractal cycles occasionally offering a respite not superior to fostering equinamity to these particular formations. My lack of dedication to a disciplined samatha practice is blocking the level of concentration required to Vipassana this dark night and disembed from unskillful views.<br /><br />The main aspects to my visual field that I can think of right now is:<br /><br />1) Higher range of view, rather than awareness being located directly at an object of narrow concentration, it tends to arise as part of a larger field of awareness.<br /><br />2) Slightly improved eyesight. This may have been due to a change in diet and lifestyle, however as the eyes are used in a softer, less strain of attention manner, this means the actual eye has more headroom to work with. Maybe not correct but I would rather believe that than attribute it to any supernatural attributes that ego&#039;s so love to obtain!<br /><br />3) Effects of concentration upon visual field far more pronounced than normal. For instance, I have a rough but reliable estimation of my levels of concentration purely by the amount of conscious percepts tied with water ripples as a visual object. (I live on the river and cross over the river by dinghy from the road). There is always a sense of A&amp;P beauty associated with high clarity, percieving a line of appearing and disappearing water drops from the oar. This also accounts for lighting like the sunset etc. Before, these may have been percieved, but the fact it is more directly intergrated with my sense field suggests the minds lack of interest in anything that doesn&#039;t discern the 3 Characteristics.<br /><br /><br />I think I understand what you mean with Luminosity, and feel like I can percieve why the other fields need to be opened first.  I mentioned hearing music earlier, but feel that this is one example of it, perhaps... I was listening to it, after reading your reply (So understand that this may be a sinister ego grab), and for about half a second, experienced the music just happening (Which bears relations to the personal bubble as these sensations are no longer percieved &#039;outside&#039; or &#039;other&#039;.) However what made this different, was that I became the music, and because I was the music, I was not me, and consequently couldn&#039;t possibly be me as music either. This was accompanied by some mental synesthesia which made perceving any other consciousness (Like sight beyond perception of colour), not happen. <br /><br />Seriously, am I just talking crap?? Haha, I believe all this, but it&#039;s diffuclt to gauge my more subtle aspects of experiences with others, especially at later paths and my unrefined levels of concentration.<br /><br />I must apologise for how long this post has been, I&#039;ve just driven 250 miles for a friend, and am not top form. However, all the sustained attention on the road has led to some interesting concentration effects that I will use in my meditation now hehe. Hope I don&#039;t fall asleep!<br /><br />Thank you for the offer, I&#039;m actually quite shy, but may take you up on that at some point <img alt="emoticon" src="" > Tue, 05 Dec 2017 22:27:37 GMT Dom Stone 2017-12-05T22:27:37Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Hi DW. Thank you for your questions, I appreciate being able to run things by people so I can be sure myself on these things. I will try to the best of my ability answer them.<br /><br />Do you mean my definitions don&#039;t occur in MCTB, or the ones from your Framework of Awakening? Admittedly, I read MCTB maybe a year ago, and have read new things since, including from this forum, so it may be that I&#039;m using definitions that aren&#039;t in there.<br />I&#039;ve read your Framework of Awakening probably about 10 times now, being one of my most read threads, so this thread may smell somewhat of your inferred conceptual background.<br /><br />For me, 2.5 is a state between 2nd and 3rd, where aspects of 3rd may possibly, but not necessarily show in 2nd Path. For this to happen, certain perceptual shifts must be present such as the spatial aspects of phenonema and how they don&#039;t actually rely any self to be experienced. Repeated observation means it gradually becomes more clear, and the mind is more willing to accept such a reality can exist without having to change it. These perceptual shifts were just not possible before 2nd path as they were automatically being redefined as the self that was changing. Without a perspective that doesn&#039;t change with the very phenonema that it is observing, it is not possible to have an adequately objective, or even realistic viewpoint to assimilate events that threaten the mental processes that arise because of them. Does that even make sense?? <br /><br />I believe that, once enough of these more subtle aspects of reality have been opened up, the absurdity of the story becomes too obvious for the mind at a deep enough level that there is just no need to identify with the factors that solidify the limitations in the perceptual field. This means that the mind can let go of all such limitations simultaneously. It is like a jigsaw puzzle, once enough pieces are present, the mind can assume knowledge of the picture. Or being able to guess a written word, despite missing some of the letters in the middle. In my belief, this release is 3rd path.<br /><br />Luminosity MAY be a concept I haven&#039;t properly grasped, and maybe I should have made my questions known as I mentioned it the first time, so hopefully if I am mistaken, we can iron out some antiknowledge!<br /><br />Does luminosity refer to a somewhat mystical object, where it feels like there is a separate awareness observing? As this implies a separation which must involve identifying with a self, I don&#039;t believe this is the case, but I have considered it, hence me asking.<br /><br />I BELIEVE, that once phenonema that occur are allowed to arise without there being a centerpoint, or a divide between subject or object, there is a sense that things are just happening without occupying any specific place in space or time or reason. If I&#039;ve got this wrong, then that&#039;s pretty crap, but would be nice to be more open to genuine experiences of luminosity to make up for it!<br /><br />The visual field is one of the most obvious permanent shifts which opened up sometimes shortly after 2nd path and solidifying a few months later by itself. I didn&#039;t have to encourage that one, it just happened.<br /><br />The spatial field (Sense of where objects, even thoughts appear in awareness). Not only does it feel like everything is much more intimate and higher clarity, but it also includes what space &#039;I&#039; take up. This is one that may undergo further shifts, but no longer takes up room in my body, even my head. I just now listened to a song and took up the space of the music within an indeterminate frame of reference. Is that luminosity?? Lol.<br /><br />There is also one temporary perceptual shift that is the most obvious overall, which can be activated any time I put my mind to it, but it requires effort to sustain. That is to percieve all sense objects directly which makes things very bland (No vedana).<br /><br />I hope this helps. Do you find reason to question that my definition of 2.5 path hasn&#039;t been attained?<br /><br />Thanks <img alt="emoticon" src="" > Mon, 04 Dec 2017 21:31:04 GMT Dom Stone 2017-12-04T21:31:04Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd EDIT::::<br />Upon speaking with Dreamwalker with regards to the true meaning of Luminosity, it is apparent that my definition of luminosity is not consistent with the correct term, however it may reflect a perceptual shift that is needed to perceive in that way in future. I believe that there are moments when it has been perceived as so, but currently lack the insight to put context into experience.<br /><br />Practice has lately centered around seeing *luminosity* in things, though it is more subtle than expected and started without me realising it. It is like a default centerless awareness on phenonema that is occasionally interrupted by a particular perspective which arises upon the notion of a self. The aversive thoughts mentioned before were perhaps evidence of a progressive mind, hindered by challenges it hadn&#039;t been aware of before. On relaxing into these thoughts and trying to remain equanimous to them, various insights achieved by slightly higher concentration states have been migrated into day to day reality. They are not spectacular in the slightest, but it is reassuring. This has made things in life much easier to deal with too, as things are seen from a less observer &gt; observed point of view.<br /><br />Sitting down to meditate has been inconsistent lately, and not for any good reason. Trying to make my home life match up with maintaining any decent concentration is very difficult and demotivation, however I am going to set the intention to get some more hours in.<br /><br />Also, sometimes I&#039;ve been seeing people (And other animals) in a similar way, that they are arranged objects of matter, associated with some type of enlightened awareness, that for reasons of world, cause, effect, samsara, history etc, simplify and rationalise their experience to a self centered point of view. What a tiring place to be! I see people that appear to have fun while I am cycling around delivering food, and despite their raptuous excitement, or humour and friendship, they seem to be in a lower plane of existance with different energetics that can&#039;t be seen (And don&#039;t really exist), but can be percieved nonetheless. Mon, 04 Dec 2017 12:39:15 GMT Dom Stone 2017-12-04T12:39:15Z RE: 'Advanced' spiritual website with map, comments? Cool thanks. I was hoping that they would relate to different, but not final levels of awakening as it could have been a map of the later paths or something. Not sure why I would still try and prospect new maps to compulsivity and wrongfully project to in the future lol. Seemed like a good idea at the time :p Tue, 28 Nov 2017 04:29:30 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-28T04:29:30Z RE: Noah's_Conceptual_Sandbox Thanks Chris. I was obviously too vague in that paragraph, and looking back, what I said was rather silly!<br /><br />To correct myself:<br />I believe that mania is dependent on conditioned behaviour that is most likely settled from an early age, rather than the popular opinion that it simply triggers off spontaneously as if somebody slipped some drugs in their drink. There are popular medical opinions that I believe stem from a misunderstanding (or at least non-understanding) of its mechanism of action. All we know is from studies of behaviour and neuroimaging which can only tell us fairly basic things with regards to patterns and predicability, which tend to be more prominent in limited settings (Such as your average medicated manic depressive who sees the shrink once every 2 months, and who may never get the chance to practice the dhamma like we do).<br />It&#039;s common belief that bipolar is incurable and drugs with therapy is the only treatment. Unfortunately, if used in a long term setting, the drugs create dependence, and lessens a person&#039;s potential for independence provided they had the correct tools to work things out in a more holistic manner. further reinforcing the belief that it is incurable. This is damaging to the outer environment due to social stigma and people&#039;s lack of faith outside of a drugs program. I find this damaging for the patients psyche and motivation to seek out new neural pathways and more importantly, combat the addiction of kindling.(When manic thoughts lead to more manic thoughts as it generates what is perceived as pleasure, but is actually suffering in disguise. To see it as the suffering it is seriously reduces the likelihood of continuing to the point of total fatigue where the only option is a comedown. As the ego doesn&#039;t like not being able to do whatever it once could, it fixates on   an inverse mania kindling of misery. Due to neuroplasticity, as this behaviour is familiar, it becomes a more standard mental platform to experience the world. The neuroimaging fixates on this issue, putting an overemphasis on the materialism, which is one aspect only. Mindfulness training is good for creating awareness outside of these pathways and creates a lower signal to noise ratio in the brain, creating less stress and less tendancy to have an episode in future. Heredity is a common factor which is taken to be a direct cause for bipolar, though I believe it just creates predispositions for certain types of neuroprogramming.<br /><br />Sorry for hijacking your thread Noah, but just felt like sharing and thought you might be interested! <img alt="emoticon" src="" > Mon, 27 Nov 2017 00:16:52 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-27T00:16:52Z RE: Noah's_Conceptual_Sandbox It&#039;s interesting that I can really identify with the &#039;problem stuff&#039; and the nuances of the type of neuroticism that arise. Perhaps it&#039;s a bipolar thing? I&#039;m still unsure where I will ever be able to cure it or not, though I&#039;m thinking it&#039;ll be mainly cured with a HUGE drop in suffering (as opposed to 80% which is close to what it seems now). I believe that mania is dependent upon conditions, and that depression is mostly dependent on the fatigue onset by the overactive brain. (Not mind, the mind is the one with the problem with it) Sun, 26 Nov 2017 17:30:41 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-26T17:30:41Z 'Advanced' spiritual website with map, comments? I don&#039;t really post websites up as if I made a habit of it, I&#039;d be posting them all the time and that&#039;s far too much commitment! However I did chance upon this website that has a mapping I&#039;m not very familiar. I was wondering if any 3rd 4th pathers on here had any knowledge on this. It all sounds very impressive and I wish I could understand most of it.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Edit::<br /><br />On reading this page, it mentions &#034;why&#034; life was created. Maybe I&#039;m taking that literally and it&#039;s designed to ease people into less palletable philosophies but it speaks at one level, then another. Otherwise, an advaita view of God and Self.<br /><br /><br /><br />Experiences transfer between ideas and concepts though and I still believe that this site refers to real insights. Sun, 26 Nov 2017 00:48:33 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-26T00:48:33Z RE: Ego adaptation Hi there. I&#039;m sorry to hear that you are having a hard time right now, with practice, these things shall pass, but only after clearing the resistance that you still have. Could you tell us a little more about your cessation event? The type of suffering you appear to be facing suggests that you may have certain blockages where the mind is refusing to let go of so it sounds to me like you are in the dark night still, I will explain why in a moment. Please note that as I am only going by what you have wrote, it can be difficult to get the full jist of things. Also I apologize if you have already read or know things I&#039;m typing.<br /><br /><strong></strong>The process of awakening has been described on here somewhere as &#034;Basically getting out of your own way&#034;. What we count as ourselves in this instance exists in ever more subtle ways, and the dukkha you feel right now is where you have had a strong enough experience where your mind (which still believes it&#039;s you) hasn&#039;t quite stabilised and accepted things as they are. <br /><br />I believe that if you have had a cessation moment, there is a more restful natural state the mind can abide in when it is not all stirred up. For instance, 1st path has a natural resting state with similarities to 1st Jhana, 2nd path has a sensory &#039;vibe&#039; of 2nd Jhana and so on. Do you feel that there has been a noticeable permanent shift since this moment? It may be important to figure this out because in the chance you&#039;re actually in Re-Observation, and your cessation moment was actually Dissolution, it may be difficult to accuracy assess what to do next. I am not positive this is the case, but it is worth thinking about.<br /><br />You mention how your concentration meditation is getting in the way of Metta etc. The nature of concentration is simply to prevent the mind activity in the first place. You are right that if your mind is too concentrated, certain elements are lessened in Vipassana, however this doesn&#039;t mean you cannot do Vipassana while heavily concentrated. Sure, you&#039;re not going to notice lots of different things like before such as thoughts, however it does offer a different sort of territory to work with. Remember that the observation of ANY sensations can develop insight, but only if the 3 characteristics of it are noticed. On a 12 Goenka Vipassana retreat, the first few days are purely spent developing concentration to insane levels so very subtle objects can be observed.<br />As one of the Brahma Viharas, Metta can actually be practiced with high concentration as it is in essence a type of concentration practice in itself. Getting the mind to do as it&#039;s told...<br /><br />It is ill advised to take the psychic symptoms you are experiencing seriously, for the simple reason that it is very very difficult to verify, they may be right one day, wrong the next, but any attachment or aversion inevitably lead to delusion, which with psychic phenomena can make reality hard to work with. Such states are to be noted as simply as possible. You always have time to think about them when things are less in turmoil.<br /><br /> It&#039;s possible that concentration meditation could help you right now to take the edge off of life&#039;s harsh bits. It may not be as quick a route to stream entry as hardcore noteage, but neither is getting stuck in wrong view.<br /><br />Some thoughts for enquiry:<br /><br />What is it about your friends emotions that feel bad. Is it a physical feeling, or a mental feeling? If you didnt think it was uncomfortable, would it still be so? Who is it that thinks it is uncomfortable? All these answers lead to all more questions. Stillness and acceptance is the way forwards. To accept that there could be a chance you could feel like this for the rest of your life (you won&#039;t), and things won&#039;t be worse than they ever have. The mind ruminating is just thoughts and concepts, but stillness and clarity is nature&#039;s infinite perfect expression, upon which these concepts are made from, and where they go back to.<br /><br />I hope all that makes sense, it&#039;s quite late and I&#039;m very tired. Hope you work things out! Sun, 26 Nov 2017 00:37:19 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-26T00:37:19Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Sitting has been hit and miss lately, and my Bipolar seems to be more prominent lately. I&#039;ve not had full blown mania or severe depression, but there have been moods that have heavily impacted meditation. There are feelings of responsibility to this, but they are a byproduct of an edgy mind, rather than a deep rooted belief that it&#039;s &#034;My fault&#034;. I have noticed that the cycling of the Bipolar don&#039;t need to be in sync with the stages of insight, however, being cognizant of them is very difficult when hypomanic due to the needless amount of awareness being taken up by irrelevant thoughts and concepts. It&#039;s also hard to encourage myself to meditate when high or low. The A&amp;P stage can mimic (hypo)mania, and due to this, can be perfectly legitimate thought fodder to kindle into bona fide (hypo)mania. The Dark Night stage of Misery and Reobservation are the closest that I can experientially relate to Bipolar, however, it is only when unaware of the stages there is potential to actually be depressed by this.<br />Interestingly, I&#039;ve noticed that there is a significant reduction (About 80%) of suffering with bipolar depression, but due to an elevated state of mindfulness and less mental numbing, there is more perceived suffering with mania. Perhaps this is due to the fact I can now see through the stories unlike before, and the stress that was previously believed to be pleasure is seen for what it is. Both of these effects are helpful to my path as they level my moods as well as any antipsychotic, but without the nasty side effects.<br /><br /><br /><br />I wrote this topic to outline issues I have had with being aloof, even aversive to things in my life that needn&#039;t have such a reaction, and have come to the conclusion that I need to almost stop Vipassana (Except the odd cheeky &#039;note&#039; when I&#039;m trying to fool myself), take up Mahamudra in it&#039;s place, and practice in the Brama Viharas, including Metta.<br /><br />Today I meditated for an hour or 2 which calmed down my mind from overly active to Access Concentration. It was a relief.<br /><br />Tonight, I went to the meditation spot for some Mahamudra. As I have used the same spot almost ritualistically for about a year, my mind automatically calms down when I&#039;m there and assumes &#039;meditation pose&#039;. Closing my eyes, I alternated from watching my breath from body, and listening to the wind roaring in the trees. After 20 minutes, due to being slightly tired, dullness started to settle in, and there was mild hypnogogia. Out of curiosity, instead of sitting more upright and opening my eyes to wake up, I decided to allow the hypnogogic haze to continue but wrap it in a container of mindfulness. Surprisingly, this actually worked, and there remained a level of mental clarity, despite there being another percieved part of the mind falling asleep! Eventually, I opened my eyes as it took a lot of effort to maintain and it wasn&#039;t particularly beneficial.... Resting in wind... Peace... Minimal thoughts that ended where they begin. Then, out of nowhere, there was an uneasy sound that caught my attention, and a light that was obscured by the trees triggered a sudden wave of fear through my body. I put my attention on the feeling of fear, and anything else that may have been freaky. I discerned that this was just a manifestation of fear nana, and apart from being mildly exciting, was of no particular interest, and I tried to maintain bare awareness of all of this, accepting of the selfing process that attached itself to some of the phenonema, and to the selfing process attaching itself to that. Watching the breath, for about 30 minutes, things became very calm and 4th Jhana like. Resting in this state, there were thoughts occasionally piercing the web, so I turned my attention upon itself, noticing that the sensations were of the same nature, despite looking at &#034;Me&#034;. My primary object was the &#034;I am&#034; feeling, trying to use this as a jhana object. At this point the occasional smokey blue and jazzy ochre waves of light started to swirl and become more complex and detailed, taking on a 3 dimensional effect with a sense of spaciousness poking through at undiscernable parts of my mind&#039;s eye space. (halfway between 4th and 5th jhana).<br />Is this known as Rising up the Jhanic Arc as the Witness as metioned in Yogi Toolbox? I&#039;m not sure there was any 6th going on.<br /><br />The whole experience has been blissful, but there was non attachment to this. Even the raptuous fear spot was quite interesting, but not exactly blissful.<br /><br />I did some physical yoga, with the very few poses I know, with my nose conscious briefly taking on the pungent leafy soil as an object! <img alt="emoticon" src="" > Moving my body mindfully led to some very naughty blissful bodily sensations in my entire body. This gave me a sense of wellness that kept me interesting in meditation for another 45 mins or so.<br /><br />More mindfulness of breathing for a while, listening to trees etc. I told myself I didn&#039;t need to do ANYTHING, and my vision that was slightly mottled with colour started to get a lot lighter and whiter. This was a point of release my mind hadn&#039;t dealt with before, so it came right back with the ownership rubbish. I spent 10 minutes trying to condition release. When I opened my eyes each time, everything looked really bright for about a 5th of a second before going back to normal. This phenonema ended as the level of stillness dropped.<br /><br />Then after 2 and a half hours of meditation, I decided to go back in case my other half missed me, but I could have stayed there another 2 and a half hours. The walk back was so quiet, and I didn&#039;t subconsciously punish myself for any selfing process that may have happened on the way back. Thu, 23 Nov 2017 00:18:46 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-23T00:18:46Z RE: Self introduction, looking for a teacher / Dharma buddy I think that if the spouse has strong intentions and a humble trusting mindset, then it can really helps with guidance. Ie. Avoiding pitfalls, teaching conventional knowledge, offering inspiration. Any actual progress in insight is still dependant on the same conditions as anybody else however.<br /><br />I believe that the issue lies at what level such intentions are held. People may think they are dedicated, when behind the scenes there is little intention to progress, mixed with the desire to stay on a &#039;level&#039; with his or her spouse, giving the appearance of a broad interest.<br /><br />It could be quite easy to put an over emphasis on the importance of collaboration, and without the more formal system of Teacher and Student, this can easily become overlooked leading to complications later on. Wed, 22 Nov 2017 20:24:39 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-22T20:24:39Z RE: Enlightenment, detachment and Loved Ones Thank you, that&#039;s reassuring. *Notes subtle aversion to relief* &#034;Dammit!&#034; <img alt="emoticon" src="" ><br /><br />I&#039;m going to take a break from Vipassana and just do Samantha followed by pure awareness, or Brahma Viharas as it feels like the most fertile ground for progress now, along with some enjoyment of healthy pleasures such as yoga. I am &#034;allowed&#034; to live a worldly life when I am not practicing as it is needed for a well rounded lifestyle, though in reality, life and practice are not separate and never have been. I am NOT allowed cannabis because I don&#039;t even like it anymore haha.<br />Focus on maintaining a calm, positive mind to help override the edginess, rather than surrender to it. This should keep it clear and keep the Bipolar in check. <br /><br />I will acknowledge that regardless of whether &#034;I&#034; is empty or not, things do not always happen the way I would like them to, but that is fine, as it always has been and will be. <img alt="emoticon" src="" > Wed, 22 Nov 2017 19:50:08 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-22T19:50:08Z RE: Enlightenment, detachment and Loved Ones <div class="quote-title">Derek2:</div><div class="quote"><div class="quote-content"><div class="quote-title">Dom Stone:</div><div class="quote"><div class="quote-content">Last year I did lots of Vipassana and it has promoted a very dry outlook on the world and people.</div></div><br /><br />A while back, someone made a list of the known <a href="https&#x3a;&#x2f;&#x2f;forum&#x2e;culteducation&#x2e;com&#x2f;read&#x2e;php&#x3f;12&#x2c;102896&#x2c;page&#x3d;1">dangers of meditation</a>.<br /><br />Could Number 6, &#034;Long-term emotional flatness,&#034; be what you&#039;re experiencing.</div></div>Yea, could well be actually. It&#039;s mainly due to lack of triggers (Samsaric attachments?) I believe as there is still potential to feel strong emotions, though mostly, my emotions are split automatically into separate mental and physical sensations.<br /><br />Richard Zen:<br /><br />That book sounds interesting and just the sort of thing I was hoping to learn about regarding the chakras, so I shall read that. <br />I have always had a problem with boundaries, but historically it has been the opposite problem. I agree there may be some sort of spiritual bypassing going on, though it is more subtle than before and no longer resembling a renunciation trip. (There&#039;s a subtle feeling of aversion right now as I&#039;m typing this, the &#034;I shouldn&#039;t be talking about myself as if I&#039;m forgetting on an ultimate level there is no me etc&#034;. This is clearly a hinderance that I should relax on.<br /><br /> I meditate when I cycle when I&#039;m working. While it&#039;s not the most relaxing scenario, it definitely serves to ground me.<br />With my Bipolar, I have a tendancy to be depressed for anything from half an hour to a month (It varies hugely), and while there&#039;s actually very little direct suffering these days, it puts a heavy drain on the resources.<br /><br />The more I&#039;m thinking about it and talking about this, the less I feel I am actually touching on the stuff that really counts.<br /><br />Seth:<br />Thank you for reminding me on &#039;real life metta&#039;. It is something that I avoided perhaps because theres some belief program embedded that suggests the story may be believed too much.<br /><br />Alesh:<br />She may be kinder than you but I can&#039;t imagine she&#039;s better (Or worse!). The way I like to see things is that everybody wants to be happy, we&#039;ve all somehow got where we are because of things that have happened before, that are totally out of our control (But not out of control of the mindbody that we manifest as an expression of our true nature). Some of us have taken wierd and wonderful routes, and others less so, but we are all perfect when the conceptual veneer is seen through.<br /><br />Andrew:<br />That&#039;s reassuring to know, I will certainly put more effort in the brahma viharas as there have been times they have made life one of joy and energy. (Remind&#039;s self this IS healthy and doesn&#039;t necessarily lead to clinging, craving leads to clinging)<br />That&#039;s a cute poem <img alt="emoticon" src="" ><br /><br />Curious:<br />Thank you for sharing. Your 2 points are something worth thinking about. The issues faced aren&#039;t something that is making me particularly unhappy, but it feels wrong and there are common thoughts of dissatisfaction on the idea that more could be done. As I was also curious about other people&#039;s views that is the other reason that inspired me to write this.<br /><br />Incandescent Flower:<br />Part of me believes I need to hear this, and the other believes I talk just fine. I think there&#039;s some subconscious sabotage on this one, because I don&#039;t feel I can fully justify saying &#034;I still try and have conversations etc&#034;<br /><br />Svmonk:<br />I have suggested this, but I don&#039;t think any sort of therapy is something she feels comfortable doing.<br /><br />Mahamudra is something I&#039;ve recently been exploring. It started by accident when I just sat to meditate and stopped trying from the very start and it took on a joyous luminous quality without feeling the need to control. I will be doing this more.<br /><br />Mettafore:<br />I will look at those links. Interesting about apathy and eqanimity. It is like the feeling of eqanimity transforms to apathy when my mind is heavy and there&#039;s too much going on. I will definitly pay close attention to them from now on. Wed, 22 Nov 2017 01:50:06 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-22T01:50:06Z RE: Enlightenment, detachment and Loved Ones Wow thanks for the diverse comments everyone. Highly valued.<br /><br />Sorry this post doesn&#039;t iterate all the thoughts I have with regards to what is said. I have been having difficulty posting a reply, and have just lost all my last post.<br /><br />I felt the need to make a reply however to acknowledge that I have found the content thought provoking and I will edit this post tommorow when I have had some rest as mental fatigue has heavily set in! Mon, 20 Nov 2017 21:41:47 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-20T21:41:47Z Enlightenment, detachment and Loved Ones A recent problem I have been experiencing is my ability to engage and connect with other people in an appropriate way. Last year I did lots of Vipassana and it has promoted a very dry outlook on the world and people.<br /><br />It&#039;s easy to deal with the fact there is no desire to be around or be influenced by unhealthy people divested in unskillful habits.<br /><br />Less easy to deal with is the lack of desire to meet new people or engage in new productive ventures that require effort and motivation that has no obvious advantage.<br /><br />More difficult to deal with is the distance I have with my girlfriend who I have been with for 3 years, but have become distant with due to personality changes in the both of us.<br /><br />Now I am neutral to all of these, but there are thoughts that being compassionate to others (myself included) is a kinder, less lonely and probably more productive overall.<br /><br />Me and my girlfriend have been arguing lately and on a number of occasions, I have wanted to break up with her, but at the same time experiencing the realisation that there is no me to want this, and know it is a temporary state and it passes with little personal pain on my end, however my actions and some occasional thoughts that precede them can be angry and I end up saying things I don&#039;t mean etc. Who would have thought that insight doesn&#039;t make you a nice person! The irony is, I believe if she saw things the way I do... And so plays the mind again with its delusions...<br /><br />I understand that it is not about me, or about her, and that this experience cause and effect stuff has been going on since before we walked out the ocean millions of years ago. <br /><br />Is the answer as simple as Metta?<br /><br />Has anybody else had issues relating to social settings with the knowledge that no words could ever truely express. It&#039;s like some epic Dark Night that has gripped my whole experience with pretty much any person I ever meet now and it&#039;s probably the loneliest place I have ever been. It makes animals seem so honest and with it more than anyone, until you see desire ravage their warm and fragile hearts... Sat, 18 Nov 2017 00:51:21 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-18T00:51:21Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Hey, thanks for your kind words.  I practiced almost solely Vipassana for the first year of formal mediation, so for me, a considerable amount of effort was placed on labelling, and due to conditioning, compulsively mapped progress until a few months ago. I believe that effort doesn&#039;t need to involve this sense of I, but &#039;I&#039; certainly likes to think he&#039;s in control of any action being made. *Notes grasping of control lol*.<br /><br />For me, more specifically, my aversion was mainly directed towards discursive thinking and being unable to realise on more than an intellectual level that these thoughts are separate sensations that disappear on their own without me needing to be there to make sure they are gone! Ironically, this aversion serves only to keep hooked on the story. I would definitely recommend being neutral and note this aversion, eventually these sensations lessen and lose their stickiness.<br /><br /><br />Good luck in your practice <img alt="emoticon" src="" > Fri, 17 Nov 2017 23:21:32 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-17T23:21:32Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Practice has started to lose it&#039;s goal oriented nature, and have been recently simply sitting. Just sitting down and settling on the breath quickly leads to a blissful equinamity. I seem to lack creativity with what to do, and hard jhanas feel like a lot of effort, though it feels like my mind has been naturally abiding in a 4th jhana style headspace. The sense of &#034;I&#034; has been absent for most of the time throughout the day, mainly showing itself to see if it&#039;s still there. Upon noting thoughts, there has occasionally been a self arise, but being watched from elsewhere. This can&#039;t be explained as 1st, 2nd or 3rd party. Things are progressing but it&#039;s starting to become more obvious that I&#039;m not doing any of this. Wed, 15 Nov 2017 01:53:56 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-15T01:53:56Z RE: What is the incentive to live if experience is unsatisfactory? Experience is empty of inherent existence, as well as all objects that make up this experience.<br /><br />By itself, there is nothing unsatisfactory about it, as your true nature cannot be affected by anything. You are pure knowing, empty of form.<br /><br />The problem lies with the habitual nature of the mind. From birth, we have shrouded our true nature with ideas of permanence and continuity. This is evolutionarily necessary to keep you alive in a world that, ultimately has no colour or pain. It is this constant grasping to shifting concepts that make samsara what it is, a painful karmic process leading on and on. By mediating, we teach the mind to be still, and the unsatisfactoriness lessens. It&#039;s impossible to tell whether anybody alive today has truly overcome all dissatisfaction as such knowledge can only be known empirically, however this is the aim, and it is an awesome journey!<br /><br />In short, it is the mind that finds suffering, you yourself are not your mind, therefore theoretically, if you can disembed from the illusion of self, you can be free from it in this lifetime. Wed, 15 Nov 2017 01:42:22 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-15T01:42:22Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Once again dipped into peer pressure... Cannabis is no good for a consistent insight practice! Addiction to nicotine makes things hard to deal with, and things have been quite turbulent with my home life as a result. There are too many ego programs that find excuse to give in. I say this with a spliff my girlfriend has made right next to me, currently noting any unwanted thoughts, so far, so good. However, it all represents a part of my life, I wish I could drop, but my aversion has been just as much as a problem as my desire. Despite the fact there are times this is all seen through clearly, sometimes thoughts slip through and lead to dependant origination becoming/desire feedback loop. Personal problems, only slightly relevant to this log...<br /><br />A day after my last post, I was sitting in what I thought was low then high equanimity, feeling bodily bliss and calm mind, then BAM, a profound colourful dark night fear nana, which led to me seeing &#034;ME&#034; sensations in all of experience for about an hour.<br /><br />A few days without smoking and clarity and calmness is back. Today, meditation is at cutting edge to my surprise. Not much to say with regards to awe struck experiences as the feeling is very mundane, but the illusion of self is consistently seen through, following through into the rest of the day. Thoughts, decisions, vedanas mostly seem to be happening on their own, but more close examination is needed as some sensations still slip through the net. I have had a couple of conversations without remembering any reference to my self, even if I mention something &#034;I&#034; have done.<br /><br />Writing about this stuff is getting very difficult, there is little motivation, perhaps this is because I haven&#039;t wrote in a while. Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:38:22 GMT Dom Stone 2017-11-13T22:38:22Z RE: Do psychedelics speed up the progress in meditation practice? Just an addition:<br /><br /><strong></strong>Had a spliff with my girlfriend. Occasionally I will smoke for diagnostic purposes, which has led to issues in the past as it has significant potential to become habits forming which it has done on many occasions before I stop.<br /><br />This instance was an opportunity to assess current level of insight, and perceive ways my brain works on it. I don&#039;t believe it gave me any extra insight at all, and my relative clarity on this attempt has made me realize, that asides from initial wavy a&amp;p effects that propel some into the dark night, it has no potential for gaining insight. However, there is still potential therapeutic benefit if skillfully applied with strong knowledge on how overall mindfulness is affected. The psychological risks allow for therapeutic psychoactive use only if there is a clear barrier to be overcome. This is with regards to mental health or messing with egoistic limitations.<br /><br />I have found it bad for Insight diagnosis as cannabis makes the mind edgy and this can be uncomfortable for the ego to handle if identified with. <br /><br />After 1st a&amp;p: Spliffs become trippy. They do more than just mong and give munchies, they reactivate a&amp;p, but with no experience in defilements or siddhis, they are too much to handle. Dark night is oppressing as there is huge amount of self directed thought.<br />After 1st path: it takes longer for effects to come into enough moments of consciousness to derail mindfulness and become edgy. If pushed into second a&amp;p for the first time, this can be overwhelming, and dark night more profound but more acceptable than pre path.<br /><br />After 2nd path:<br />Cannabis is no longer &#039;profound&#039;, and enjoyment is difficult to have. Side effects are more obvious than anything else. Lack of clarity of mind causes misery. Jhana absorbtion is far too intense for comfort and mind is sporadically flung out of jhana to accommodate various thoughts.<br /><br />Near 3rd path:<br />Takes even longer for diligent mind to lose clarity and balance. Effects are felt physically but mind isn&#039;t much affected until enough thoughts are felt without mindfulness, after which point subtle ego identification is strong. Primarily focused around pleasure/pain concepts as these seem to be only ones not yet disidentified with. Also craving for wisdom or states. Basically, aspects not yet untangled with Insight meditation cause suffering. Mind still attached to concepts though it is easy to see how. <br /><br />I believe 3rd path will be a clear experience on weed with little unnecessary thought processes.<br /><br /><br />The reason I believe that Insight knowledge is unlikely to be gained is because there is no extra experience. Experience is experience and nothing can be added, it is the state of the mind that matters more than the objects. Restlessness is a hinderance to a good state of mind. Mon, 02 Oct 2017 23:06:02 GMT Dom Stone 2017-10-02T23:06:02Z RE: Stagnating in EQ? You&#039;re going to hate(laugh at) this.<br /><br />EQ stands for equanimity. Mon, 02 Oct 2017 17:04:56 GMT Dom Stone 2017-10-02T17:04:56Z RE: Do psychedelics speed up the progress in meditation practice? The Buddha mentioned that any intoxicants that cause heedlessness are harmful. The main thing to take from this is that (As well as any potential toxicity from the substance itself), it is the decisions made while in a psychological state not compatible with your resting state. The brain will adapt to any stimulus to ensure best possible chance of survival. Altered states of consciousness can supply very different stimulus to the mind so care is needed to minimise damage. If there are subconscious processes you aren&#039;t aware of, then you can&#039;t account for damage to these, hence why it&#039;s important to be mindful in such states.<br /><br />The action of taking anything in the first place is a voilitional impulse, so this can solidify the identification with the ego (eg. I&#039;m in control of when I do this), and while it may not feel like that during the trip, afterwards we go back to the same baseline state, with alterations made purely by mindful inquiry alone, with very little difference being made by whatever is taken. <br /><br />With insight meditation we are teaching our minds to perceive things as they are. A no self experience is just a no self experience, it&#039;s not one based on true insight if it is not properly understood by the other parts of the mind that are normally functional but otherwise overlooked. This requires a manual shut down.<br /><br />As to the substance taken, it definitely makes an effect, but I can&#039;t accurately suggest what may cause more benefit or harm over time, but the general rule is, if something makes you feel better or one way when you&#039;re high, you&#039;re likely to have the opposite effect whilst not.<br /><br />Cannabis has the &#039;benefit&#039; of increased absorption, but single pointedness if it can be maintained is short lived (it&#039;s like driving a car very fast on turbo, it&#039;s hard to keep it on the road and it wears you out). Like any altered state (not jhanas or Nana&#039;s), any insights gained are dependant on mostly different channels of thought that cannot be accessed in standard consciousness. Cannabis has the negative aspects that memory retention is compromised, and it agitates the mind due to the heightened sensitivity. The less Insight you have from daily life, the more chances per pass your mind will be caught up in silly self referencing processes that get you nowhere.<br /><br />I haven&#039;t taken LSD for over a year, when my insight was much lower so have less to say except that it was very good for channelling the mind with the right mental strength. After a 2 day trip, I noticed that senses were very strong and everybody looked really ugly (No skhandas that hid all the imperfections), it was like something from brothers Grimm, especially at 5am. I imagine that this would have been a good time to meditate due to the similarly in information processing, but due to the fact things were very wacky before, everything just felt bland and plain. It was like my consciousness couldn&#039;t be bothered to create anything to be desired, so didn&#039;t.<br /><br />Mushrooms also left me with a sense of clarity afterwards, though I imagine it was at the expense of other processes unrecognised. Things seemed nicer, awareness of surroundings greatly increased but the delusions that psylocibin induces are hard to work around. While it is good for showing things in a new way, the level of intoxication that they bring suggest to me insight isn&#039;t easily carried from such an experience at all. Mon, 02 Oct 2017 11:11:50 GMT Dom Stone 2017-10-02T11:11:50Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Things seem to have taken a leap, though it&#039;s hard to say how. Part of me is wondering whether my fruition was actually a third path moment that is still solidifying in my experience, though all this talk of paths and progress is starting to sound uselessly conceptual, and serve only to take me out of present experience. (Creating another &#039;me&#039; to analyse the other &#039;me&#039;s progress. I feel that I should instead be concerned about seeing clearly things as they are, and maintaining a healthy calm clear mind. It is very difficult to find a sense of self now in the first person. It is viewed more as a proxy self, sort of like 3rd person, but that would admit a lasting entity. Recently, I&#039;ve had some moments where things just happen, and most of this time there has seemed no need to reference a self in the process, and about half of the time a self is referred to, it is seen in the sense of an illusion, and totally needless. This is becoming more apparent each time I sit, and quite possibly when I don&#039;t as well.<br /><br /><strong></strong>Had an interesting meditate yesterday. Whilst on route, I took a big sniff to clear my nose and got loads of air pressure in my eustachian tube. This caused me to get seriously dizzy and was unable to stand, holding onto my bike for support. I thought I was going to pass out and it felt like I was going to die (always got to assume the worst lol). My mind spontaneously entered 3rd Jhana as I desperatrly tried to equalise the pressure. Despite the fearful situation, I had a very profound sense of calm that continued afterwards. My sit before that, I believe I touched upon 7th Jhana, but I kept getting thrown out. My level of absorption was nothing what it should be to get something out of that particular jhana, but otherwise it felt like my mind was a soundproof box. It was ridiculously still, which made for some good Insight practice. Chipped more of the sense of self.<br /><br />I&#039;ve found when I&#039;m delivering food after an hour into my shift, I can abide in 2nd jhana on fast downhill runs and there is a lot of joy felt (not from the cycling though, that just makes a nice view). Before this was something I only had the concentration for on something like cannabis.<br />I can&#039;t do this long as I typically get hypomania by the end of such intensive sessions.  Sun, 01 Oct 2017 22:52:17 GMT Dom Stone 2017-10-01T22:52:17Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Yes that is indeed a more serious form! The potential highs of the Arising and Passing stage could be an issue there! Maybe some samatha practice would be beneficial? I know from experience that it may be the last thing you want to do during mania, but if it is conditioned in that elevated mood = calming practice, it may have more effect than just treatment alone. It&#039;s unlikely any unusual states will be entered, however it can serve somewhat to lessen the erratic mind activity. Perhaps with some exploration yourself you can empirically perceive the effects and have an idea on the best course of action? Fri, 29 Sep 2017 16:15:57 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-29T16:15:57Z RE: Efffect of Wireless Radiation on Consciousness and Awakening Wrote a reply to this then it got wiped, round 2!<br /><br />It has become a situation where 2+2= , it doesn&#039;t matter whether the answer is 5 or 4, this isn&#039;t an arithmetic class. Ok so that was a poor analogy, but perhaps there are more skillful ways than to use culturally charged words in lieu of a carefully considered paragraph wrote for the purpose of liberation. Indeed, telling a psychotic person he&#039;s psychotic isn&#039;t going to work, so in that argument, there&#039;s no point in bringing it up without being particularly careful about it anyway.<br /><br />The truth is (And even this isn&#039;t an absolute truth in itself), that science, as well as being a noble pursuit in the exploration of the universe, is also a way for companies to tell everyone how their product works, is totally safe etc. So while there may be mounting &#039;evidence&#039; to show radio waves are safe, there will be more &#039;evidence&#039; to say that they aren&#039;t. In cases like the MMR/Autism link they can cause issues for a long time, only for them to be discredited much later down the line.<br /><br />Cholestorol was long believed to be a cause of heart disease and strokes, but was decided as safe later on.<br />If I had suggested that big pharma propogated this myth with research studies 10 years ago, I would have been declared paranoid, but now I would just sound a bit untrusting.<br /><br />One may be able to see a bias in another persons belief systems, but to consider a cause from the messages from Dustin so far sounds a bit arrogant to me, but perhaps I&#039;m not getting the whole picture? Regardess, I&#039;m going to assume that Dustin is new to meditation, and even words such as delusion should be used carefully at this time as it could even deter him from practice full stop, not just from this site.<br /><br />It is best to take the views of others on here with a pinch of salt and come to your own conclusions. The words of a few are not the leading views of this forum, and you will find that we all have very different ways of dealing with things!<br /><br />I would definitely recommend Pauls advice on doing an experiment if this is of a concern to you, with as powerful a signal as you can manage as this raises the signal to noise ratio. Also, bearing in mind different parts of the brain perform different functions, ensure that there is total coverage. You want to be sure of results such that anything that isn&#039;t a significant bias can be overlooked.<br /><br />I can understand the logic in terms of changing your brain to block out radiation, however I also believe such logic is based upon improper science. Just because it&#039;s invisible, doesn&#039;t mean it&#039;s any less profound than the effects of a stab wound. However as you progress along the path of meditation, you will increasingly see that these things do not matter the way they once did.<br /><br />I think the main issue we have is that your posts are very conceptual and the purpose of Insight Meditation is to see that all these concepts don&#039;t have any existance outside of the products that make them, are based on transient mindstuff, and as such are not satisfying to hold onto. Your other post on the collective consciousness for instance, I agree with you, but it gets a bit more complicated. There is clear evidence that there is some sort of collective (Lack of empirical knowledge would mean it&#039;s unwise to consider the collective itself is conscious, but it it as least based upon many sub minds that ARE conscious. However we can only ASSUME that other people are conscious due to the fact we know we are, and that life is a common factor between us all). This evidence shows that we all effect each other, and the fact that such insanity such as the current media and music industry are as successful as they are mean that the collective human psyche is changing.<br /><br />HOWEVER, it is important to remember that there is no entity or object called a collective consciousness that exists outside of a thought that presumes that it exists, and this is where the whole delusion thing starts. Is the internet actually a thing, or a collective term used to  describe the interface between things? The purpose of Vipassana is to realise that these are all concepts, that when clung to, let us exist in a state of becoming that relies on certain factors being a certain way for happiness be present. We need to see the 3 Characteristics of all of this so that these are seen as they are, random mindstuffs that appears then disappears... If you were to take a car, and take it apart, bit by bit, starting with the mirrors, the steering wheel, the wheels, etc. at which point does it cease to be a car?<br /><br />This is the sort of enquiry that is encouraged on this forum above all else, and while it is perfectly acceptable to post items on a more conceptual level, in doing so, it must be recognised that there are people who are very different holding very different points of view. Some of us are diplomatic about things, others of us not so much, and if you find that this contact has upset you in some way, perhaps this itself can be used as a form of enquiry. Who is it that is upset about such an opinion. Does it hurt? Where? Etc.<br /><br />This way, even if you don&#039;t get the answer you hoped for, you may not need it at all <img alt="emoticon" src="" ><br /><br />EDIT::<br /><br />Just read posts created after I started this, I apologise if I made any suggestions of arrogance. As stated before it was how it &#034;Sounded&#034;. On retrospect, I wrongly assumed that people were specifically suggesting Dustin was paranoid! Oh the woes of Samsaric existance!  Fri, 29 Sep 2017 12:05:28 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-29T12:05:28Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd Hi Alesh. I do indeed! Initially moved onto one ending a patch of homelessness and have lived on the river ever since as it feels like the right thing to do.<br /><br />I&#039;m sorry to hear that your wife also suffers from bipolar and hope that she has learned to live with it.<br /><br />I believe that the cycling is purely a phenomenological state of mind that is subject to the right conditions. During the early stages (eg pre path and 1st), the causes seemed different, but now I&#039;m not so sure as the cycles are beginning to feel less of a big deal.<br /><br />I believe that meditation will affect people differently and each case needs to be approached seperately. Ihave type 2 bipolar which is mainly periods of depression with bursts of hypomania, and have used meditation to achieve similar effects of antipsychotics (meditate each day and periods of (hypo)mania are much less pronounced or likely to kindle, saving valuable energy and preserving a sensible baseline for reality, however prior to insight practice I have put myself in a stable environment (very nutritious food, adequate sleep, peaceful environment etc). This seems to have prevented many environmental factors from triggering episodes.<br /><br />Cycles triggered by bipolar may well be the same strata of mind, however I believe there are differences between the 2. Depression with bipolar can sometimes feel like being smothered by an uncomfortable cushion and any motivation to think, let alone do anything productive is not there. There is also a tendancy to feel sorry for myself and not want to meditate. In addition it&#039;s possible to have a mixed state episode which I can&#039;t really relate well to meditation.<br /><br />Cycling in meditation doesn&#039;t seem to have those additional processes in action suggesting maybe a more direct mechanism of action, whereas to enter a similar state of mind in bipolar may go through different mental channels.<br /><br />So it can be difficult to point the finger on what may happen and why, especially with the little people actually know about bipolar.<br /><br />What I can say is that my bipolar has given me a LOT of experiences with dealing with such mindstates, so for me, I&#039;ve hardly had any difficulty with cycling and emotions (leading me to believe that bipolar may causes cycling, but skillful meditation doesn&#039;t necessarily cause bipolar). In addition, the permanent mental shifts that I have experienced are making this bipolar a smaller beast to work with. There was a time when it really trashed my life and relationships, and now it manifests as a certain type of restlessness and some existential malaise, but nothing I haven&#039;t been able to handle yet.<br /><br />I haven&#039;t got any reason to see why a light meditation practice is harmful for someone who has their condition under control, but maybe avoid intensive retreats etc as the more time one puts into practice, the more directly we encounter our demons! This could well trigger something off.<br /><br />Noah on this forum also has bipolar (which could be more deeper impacting than my own), and has written about it, so you may be able to find helpful information with him. <img alt="emoticon" src="" > Fri, 29 Sep 2017 10:23:35 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-29T10:23:35Z RE: Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd It has been difficult to find enough time to practice today for various reasons. 50 minutes this morning and about 10 minutes this evening. Neither were particularly spectacular but they did illuminate one thing. That I can&#039;t have reached third. While things feel a lot like 3rd (Waking life feels quite strongly like 3rd Jhana, I was walking around with somebody yesterday who I&#039;ve not seen for a while which could have been quite awkward, and everything was very strange, like I&#039;d taken some wierd research chemical with odd effects), I think it may be that my thought category has opened up and are seen as they are. There are still sensations that have an element of self to them, but they are quite subtle and I can&#039;t find them unless I&#039;m really looking for them. There is this impression that since starting meditating properly last year, it has been about deidentifying with and bringing light to increasingly subtle sensations, and that I&#039;m running out of sensations to &#039;discover&#039;. Placing my attention tonight on what I believe to be the remaining sense of 2.5 pathness quite quickly led to a pressure in the head, so I will investigate this tommorow.<strong></strong> Thu, 28 Sep 2017 21:38:41 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-28T21:38:41Z RE: Dom's stream Yesterday I did approx 2 and a half hours formal meditation, primary focus was accessing jhanas to concentrate mind enough to make clearer the subtle sensations that otherwise mainly slip by without being acknowledged properly. Despite the fact it was easy to settle down, there was some mild aversion to sensations, which has led me to the following conclusion:<br /><br />After a peak experience during where ones awareness is somehow able to bypass various subconcious limitations (A&amp;P), one is then acutely aware of these limitations that come up for inspection. I believe that this is because now that the mind seeks to lock onto a clearer more natural reality, thoughts and sankharas etc that once seemed relevant, are now seen as a problem due to their illusory nature. This can seem especially frustrating as at this point, this particular level of self has to move out of it&#039;s &#039;own way&#039; (Obviously it&#039;s not moving out of it&#039;s own way as that would be a logical fallacy, but it looks that way to the self. To the observer, it is merely a clearer way of seeing<br /><br /><br />Today I spent 2 hours sitting in my usual spot. As I recovered a bit from my cold, the amount of physical and mental energy was much higher, and I believe this translated well. I will write about this to the best of my experience, however, as it is an exploration of more subtle material, remembering it fully now it seems more like a dream. It may be the case, that I touched upon sensations to be uprooted at 4th path, but it may be that third goes much deeper than expected. It feels like the individual sensations noticed weren&#039;t very important yet, especially as they were so subtle I have no idea what they were!<br /><br />I started by watching my breath until thoughts came up that hindered clear seeing. I noted these thoughts and other competing sensations and continued as my mind gradually became calm enough to enter some sort of vipassana jhana. Hard jhana seemed out of the question for some reason and I wasn&#039;t paying close attention to what jhana factors were present. I placed my attention on attention itself, and how it liked to jump about, which created some sort of negative feedback loop and stilled the mind immediately. After about 10 minutes of this focused, I almost lost consciousness of my body completely, and whenever mind was directed to the body, it was like a soft warm subtle awareness. At this point, trying to enter absorption was possible, and it made for a strong 4th jhana with elements of 5th. I again noted sensations (With just awareness), and at one point I believe it was a 5th vipassana jhana with elements of 6, but at this point, things just generally got rather wierd so can&#039;t really suggest what was going on due to my lack of knowledge/experience. What I did feel was physical sensations becoming a single object that felt immovable in space and time, my sense of space twisting in on itself, and very subtle mind objects that made up the less subtle objects such as spaciousness. It&#039;s hard to tell what was what, which doesn&#039;t make for a very pragmatic viewpoint, but it was the deepest I have been so far. Everything became sensations, I noticed sensations that were pinned with a belief that they noticed other sensations, and as I became aware of external sensations, everything was very overwhelming. It was like 30+ sensations a second were bombarding my awareness at such a rate, it was amazing I could in some way, keep up with everything without putting it back together in larger easier to digest pieces. I decided to specifically look for the Characteristic of impermanence in these formations, and I got a strong vibrating in my head for a couple of seconds, then blink, fruition.<br /><br />It had been such a long time since I recognised a fruition (It may have happened before, but due to the fact it didn&#039;t feel so profound, I never labelled it as such if it happened). Then after a nice bliss wave, I was back in the A&amp;P, with the edginess of mind to accompany it. The whole fruition thing seemed more comprehensible, and it may have changed some things, but I won&#039;t know yet. The edginess was irritating as the resolution of material dropped, though I did feel pretty high! I kept practicing for a while, and got back to a strong level of concentration, but not quite to the level of before.<br /><br />Now, reality seems very &#039;close&#039;, and sharp. It&#039;s making it easy to detect sensations that otherwise eluded my grasp. <br /><br />EDIT: for the last few hours I&#039;ve been cycling strong noticing fear, misery, and disgust to some degree, with desire for deliverance showing up as wanting to move away, but not wanting to move anywhere, while being intuitively aware it&#039;s the mindstate, not the content. I&#039;ve also noticed EQ and A&amp;P as well as another dark night. There&#039;s been this constant feeling of pressure in my third eye area and a certain centerlessness to experience. Thinking about myself is also hard to pinpoint the same way as before. Something is definitely different and consistently so. It may well be that earlier, I&#039;d picked up the clarity to notice just what I needed to for the mind to drop some of its reactive patterns and hit 3rd path. Time will tell as it&#039;s been an exhausting evening and not particularly blissful, but finding an entity that&#039;s actually suffering from it isn&#039;t what it used to be. Wed, 27 Sep 2017 15:51:18 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-27T15:51:18Z RE: Dom's stream For some reason, since coming back from holiday, the last couple of days have seem such a massive gain to my concentration that it&#039;s odd to think what my practice was like only a week ago. However there was some pretty strong dark nighting going on.<br /><br />Today, I&#039;ve been taking it easy as I&#039;ve been feeling ill the last few days. In early afternoon, I spent about an hour and a half meditating. 30 minutes walking, and an hour sitting. It was very easy to settle in, and there was some vague nimitta from the start. I tend not to get too many lights etc, rather it&#039;s patches of lighter colour. As I settled in to some watching the breath, there were peculiar shapes that had a sort of 3 dimensional edge to them, twisting in on themselves, which happens occasionally, but not to such a resolution. Also, there was the odd bluish spark. I tried to not put too much attention on them and continued with breath watching. Things got calm, and after a brief moment of access concentration, I gradually settled (I think) into a stable 4th Jhana. It was definately an absorption, accessed through Equinamity, that didn&#039;t contain any rapturous feelings associated with the earlier jhanas. As the jhana stabilised, the only parts of my body that were percieved were the parts that had pressure on them, such as my back and my fingertips that were touching eachother. Amusingly, the fingertips touching gave the impression that my arms had disappeared and half of my hands were floating in front of my body. I tried to see if I could enter the immaterial jhanas but wasn&#039;t able to let go of the objects of form well enough, however there could have been some sort of spacious element to it, but it&#039;s difficult to make out. At this point, I decided to vipassanise the sensations for a few minutes, then practice choiceless awareness in the hope of settling into what felt like a very crisp and present state of existence. I reached the cutting edge of my practice here and noticed that I really needed to drop all desires for enlightenment due to the state of becoming that it created. I switched to noting in order to catch out any subtle sensations, but I was unable to pull the rug out from under the self that wanted progress.<br /><br />Feeling optimistic, about 7:30pm I tried again to sit for about an hour and 20 minutes, it was dark this time and there was much less noise, which I find helps greatly for concentration. Due to the fact I was tired, it was more difficult to stabilise the mind and I nearly gave up, however I managed to settle into jhana, which I believe was 4th again. I once again tried to focus on quieting the objects of form to the point of just perceiving the background (I&#039;m not entirely sure this is an appropriate way, but it feels intuitive to me.) It got to the point where my mind reached an unprecedented level of calm, and while there was no solidified sense of spaciousness, it was like there were moments something SEEMED to stretch out intermittantly and my sense of body was almost non existant at moments, but due to my lack of experience with the arupa jhanas, it&#039;s still difficult to understand what is actually going on. I did try locate &#039;the witness&#039; at this point, and something was there (Though I may have misunderstood the whole thing), then it was gone. Realising I wasn&#039;t going to get much deeper in concentration, I once again decided to notice the characteristics with vipassana, back to cutting edge. This time however, there was some sort of release of clutching as deeper sankharas were perceived, then what happened next was something that felt remarkable to me, and obviously was something the self wanted to own! I no longer held a fixed position in space, and everything happened by itself, where it was. I believe the correct definition of what happened on this site is luminousity. It was like a subtle shift, that encompassed all previous knowledges, without the added distortion of being a separate watcher. I was just awareness, and the trees were as much me as anything else I could notice. (That&#039;s except for the occasional thought tree with it&#039;s thought branches that wanted to take hold, but I was able to flip it back quite easily, consistently for the whole time I was sitting.) This has to be the most profound shift to have taken place so far, and I think it&#039;ll take a little while to fully open up. However, interestingly, it felt like a final piece of the puzzle, and while it isn&#039;t something that has permanently opened up so far, I feel like once it is totally uprooted, that may signify third path. This is because it felt like a coarse perception compared to the very subtle sensations that underpinned awareness and luminosity. There was this large gap of freedom in between that I can imagine, once the barrier is lifted, would become a huge relief for whatever sense of self is left. Mon, 25 Sep 2017 20:49:30 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-25T20:49:30Z RE: Dom's stream Been posting a lot today, I hope it&#039;s acceptable! I feel like I&#039;ve had some sort of breakthrough today with many fresh insights that I hope are digested as fully as possible. I wrote this on my phone while waiting at restaurants so it may not as concise as I would like it to be.<br /><br /><br /><br />During my sit, in regards to a moving object, attention seemed to flux between sense of the observer arising and passing, and the familiar &#039;object in motion&#039; paradigm. When awareness placed on its own arising and passing, the object was still accurately located in peripheral awareness, but motion was not perceived in the object at all.<br /><br />High Equanimity with stop frame vibrations about <a href="tel&#x3a;1520">15-20</a>hz (too quick for mind to cognise) with a small craving for path moment which disappeared quicky upon noting. No bliss wave, just a sense of peace not entirely distinct than before, but more pervasive. This seems like a side effect of higher concentration rather than a path moment.<br /><br />Material desires sensed as dangerous but self does not obviously view it as &#034;I like that&#034;, rather it is perceived as an object of desire, which does create feelings of &#039;good&#039; in the self, but my awareness of this feels incomplete. There is still a sense of control as to whether they are &#039;allowed&#039; or not. Perhaps this would be an interesting object of enquiry. Any desires for immaterial states seemed too subtle to discern properly, however there was no knowledge that they really didn&#039;t exist.There is no narrative unless prolonged attention is directed at object (As the object would otherwise appear as part of a larger frame, no interest would otherwise be had)Asides from the knowing, there is no solidity in objects. Seen is seen etc...  On a similar note, while I was waiting for a food order to deliver to a customer, the only thing to suggest that I was a physical being standing on a physical floor, were sensations of pressure located in feet. It took quite a bit of thinking to solidify as the sensation of pressure wasn&#039;t located in any particular point in space without the additional percept of proprioception that it could be bound within. Otherwise &#039;I&#039; had no mass, it was the emptiness behind physicality, similar to the silence that all sounds appear.<br /><br />Thoughts occasionally assumed ownership when they were not in field of attention, but these were seen to pass away immediately upon noticing them. They weren&#039;t given the opportunity to have a sense of self attached to them for a discernable period. This suggests mindfulness of the whole sense fields (formations) leave less blind spots for self to hide.Things and decisions happened on their own without a sense of agency to them. It was as if they already happened before &#039;I&#039; could do anything about it and somewhere down the line, mind forgot to put the &#039;I&#039; into the awareness of things to bind these moments together. However, this &#039;I&#039; still managed to claim a subtle ownership of the stream of consciousness that all of this appeared as. This self owned thoughts in the same way a personality might own the view out of their window. As such, there was still a sense of ownership over the decisions and a sense that I could change the outcome of a situation even though &#039;I&#039; wasn&#039;t making them.<br /><br />It felt like the Arising and Passing stage without loss of clarity from low equinamity that preceeded. It felt like baseline shift with the defilements eradicated, however in hindsight, it may have been a fractal cycle, with A&amp;P happening within equanimity.<br /><br />Lines of enquiry:<br /><br />Vedana with sense objects, why is it still  not fully discerned? Is there a subtle aversion in committing full awareness?<br />Who is it that craved the attainment mentioned earlier.<br />Time and motion as subject arising and passing, not object.What creates sense of physicality, touch etc and how does this connection get made.<br />Sense of self happening AFTER things happen subconsciously. Try note fast when this happens.<br /><br />Unfortunately, while writing this down, I was unaware of the ego once again taking center state, it wasn&#039;t until I was concerned that I might be &#039;losing the state&#039;, that I knew I couldn&#039;t have reached third path. Dependant Origination and the following situation:<br />I feel like I&#039;m ghost hunting, but I&#039;m the ghost inside of myself. I keep disappearing as soon as light is shined on me, because I was never the ghost to begin with. It&#039;s a paradox from the ghosts point of view but not from the view of direct awareness. Sun, 24 Sep 2017 23:02:51 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-24T23:02:51Z RE: Dom's stream I was unsure as to whether to write this as a new post or to edit the existing one. As this is a seperate experience which has raised on significance after posting, I shall write it as a new post.<br /><br /><strong></strong>The last few nights, possibly synonymous with the few days of a lesser sense of identity, I have been waking up with what feels like a subtle dark night episode. The last time this happened was shortly after attaining second path (Likely in review), where I woke up one night in a very concentrated (Or at least destabilised) knowledge of fear. During this time, the symptoms were similar to previous initial dark night symptoms following inquiry based psychedelic usage which involved a sense of desynchronisation with the cosmos, the feeling I could die any second, powerlessness and the sense of all objects slipping out of my grasp. The second path experience was interesting in that there was still the same fear at a slightly more manageable degree, however it was like my mind was familiar enough to ignore the coarser aspects of the experience.<br /><br />Interestingly, the recent experiences which have happened 3-4 nights in a row (Maybe skipping a night) have a similar ring to them, but the mind, due to processes outside my awareness, has ignored even more of them leading to a more subtle, but no less profound experience. There was still a sense of imminent doom, and loss of control, but there was no discernable sense of grasping. (Any sense of grasping could be considered on the same level as the sense of self not easily perceived as mentioned in the last post). It is as if the selfing process that has been dropped, no longer contributed to the suffering experienced in that episode, showing a direct link between suffering and self. I can imagine, that had that selfing process been reactionary like before, then it would have been quite a horrific experience like before.<br /><br />It almost feels like a review phase for 3rd path, but I don&#039;t believe I am there yet, and I would be very hesitant to make any claims to the otherwise, as it would stop me noticing whatever it is that I could be missing. There is a sense that everything is almost as it &#039;should&#039; be, however using the word should implies things need to be a specific way. Asides from the way it is, there is no other way.<br /><br />I must note that I still don&#039;t have any particularly impressive concentration skills, and find it difficult placing labels on my experiences, and my only definite experience of the Jhana of Infinite Space was on LSD, so as such, what I&#039;m writing in general shouldn&#039;t suggest any remarkable state. In fact, any bizarre experiences seem to be few and far between, making things like Jhanas and Cessations very difficult to achieve. I&#039;m also starting to believe that high states of concentration aren&#039;t entirely necessary providing the 5 hinderances are left well alone! However the resolution required to notice increasingly subtle objects require a deeper level of baseline concentration proportional to the aspects of mind that are no longer using up valuble mind-space if that makes sense?? I&#039;m also starting to believe that, rather than always being a place of absolute calm and clarity reached in deep meditation, Knowledge that Leads to Emergence may instead rely simply that conflicting mental processes no longer be the automatic points of reference illuminated by consciousness.<br /><br />At this point, I would appreciate some feedback from people, not just from those that could help me make sense of things, but also to know if this journal is helping anyone. I understand that as unique repositories of information, we all have different experiences, and ways of imparting useful information. Sun, 24 Sep 2017 09:55:05 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-24T09:55:05Z RE: Dom's stream Been a while in replying due to being on holiday to Italy for 8 days. I found time to meditate for 2 of those days next to the beach but it felt more like maintainence than anything else. Despite this, the effects of my holiday have been profound, and my sense of self appears to take up much less of my awareness, and has led to at least one orofound shift in my awareness.<br /><br />It was a family holiday (My mum was having her 25th wedding aniversary vow renewal), and it was an action packed time, with lots of new experiences, including being on top of Mount Baldo, (Which was the quietest most expansive place I have been to), accepting that my desire to be there longer than an hour was causing me suffering, and having what I can only assume to be a PCE among some loud youths at the cablecar station that I found irritating just before going down.<br /><br />My family are quite conventional, despite the fact my mum is very out the box internally but doesn&#039;t show it, and it was frustrating to see how situations were handled, and a trip to Venice (The worlds biggest shopping plaza) really hammered home the futility of the human condition. All of these moments were used as insight material, and took me outside my usual way of thinking, as I had no safezone to retreat to.<br /><br />On arriving back, it was apparent that my perception of everything was different, as if aspects of Italy were smeared onto current reality creating a different experience, and it seemed that it was easy to not let the story of the moment become the defining feature on the actual moment. This meant that binding moments were much less, and the self that is supposed to perceive such moments were also much less. This has become the basis of insight since I got back.<br /><br /><br /><em></em>Currently, my resting state is that of awareness, as in most of the time, any perceivable sense of self is absent, though it doesn&#039;t feel permanently so just yet as there are subtleties that I cannot quite yet perceive, however the concentration boost this has given may make realising this a possible task. <br /><br />Meditating for the first time in a few days earlier tonight after work in a field was pure and simple. It was very present, and had I been less tired and had more time, it would have easily led to jhana. <br /><br />It feels like I have been in equinamity all day, however, that sentance is far too conceptual for my liking, and doesn&#039;t reflect how it actually felt! It will be interesting to see if this is a permanent shift, because it feels that practice is no longer about attaining paths, though I imagine there&#039;s a few latent thoughts waiting to spring out ready to challenge that, but nothing that some noting can&#039;t fix! Sat, 23 Sep 2017 23:06:22 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-23T23:06:22Z RE: Dom's stream The last few days have had quite the dark night twinge to them, regardless of the amount of time I put into meditation, and resultantly, have had a moderate aversion to meditation. Yesterday, I lasted 35 minutes, 30 minutes walking, and 5 minutes sitting, after which I stopped due to the gnat infestation.<br /><br />Waking up today, I could have mistaken my mood for a typical bipolar depression, except it didn&#039;t have so much fatigue or torpor. However, the persisting sense of joylessness and apathy with the occasional self pity does run in line with bipolar depression. It may be that there are causal factors that link the both together somewhat, but I&#039;m not sure it actually really matters. Insight is insight, and temporary situations don&#039;t define insight, though can defintely give hints and clues to the connections that are made by the mind.<br /><br />I did my standard 10ish minutes walk slowly up the path to my spot and back, with approx 1 hours meditation in between. Meditating further is still difficult, and after spending time with a neighbour, and smoking cannabis, I had thought my attention would be worse than it has been, however, I believe that due to sensible inquiry, it didn&#039;t matter too much, but am definately resolving never to do it again. The existential malaise and fairly heavy tripping that accompanies such usage is showing signs that only apply to experience with mind altering substances, even if they are based upon the 3 Characteristics that are particularly clear at the time. <br /><br />At about 10 minutes in, for no apparent reason at the time, I felt like I was going to cry, which on reflection could have been a subconscious desire to release some blockages.<br /><br />30 minutes in, I placed attention onto my heart chakra to see if I could make the situation less cold and separate. Starting with a hollow feeling, it felt like there were small energetics (Kind of like sparks) of warmth that came out from the center, so I used this as an object, during which time there became a steadily increase of warmth and pleasure. It spontaneously changed into Metta practice for a brief while. Once it became conceptual, the mind lost interest in the process and it was back to noting. Interestingly, as this was happening, clarity of the external environment became much clearer and it felt like I had bordered into equinamity territory, which was occasionally a relief, but fortunately, self wasn&#039;t too involved to seek relief.<br /><br />Lately during times of equinamity, dependant origination becomes very clear, and there is very little self outside whatever is experiencing reality. As in, from this position of view, birth, aging, death, becomes especially clear. And it also becomes clear how craving can lead to this, but these states are rarely lasting. Whilst noting mind processes, it was apparent, that not only was there this constant noise that refused to stop, (occasionaly visual, but mainly auditory and conceptual), but that they were mainly web-like dependant on eachother, and for that reason, breaking free from a particular mental sensation, would have little affect on the others. The clear state of equinamity definitly would be a good place to start to break down many of these things, but getting past my &#039;stuff&#039; is going to be a difficult road.  Sun, 10 Sep 2017 15:19:51 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-10T15:19:51Z RE: Dom's stream Progress has been slow the last few days, primarily due to lack of meditation practice, it has also been nearly 2 weeks since I last properly did walking meditation, which worked extremely well for keeping concentration high when doing different tasks. I may do it tommorow, though will start doing it with shoes instead of without now it&#039;s getting wetter and colder outside.<br /><br />1 hour of sitting with nearly 10 minutes of walking before and after. Mind is quite noisy, though there were no gross distractions of any kind, though keeping mind solely on the breath proved difficult for any extended period of time. The only way past this I believe is to ramp up my practice again and focus on my breath in my whole body for a longer period of time.<br /><br />Interestingly, the mind is quite happy resting in the present moment, with a relatively subtle sense of self, however a sense of continuity of phenonema was disrupted, scattering this flow in different &#039;directions&#039; based upon where my attention is placed.<br /><br />As my concentration is not high right now, I&#039;m not able to gain insight into certain aspects that I believe would come readily given the chance. Fri, 08 Sep 2017 16:55:05 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-08T16:55:05Z RE: Dom's stream Today consisted just of an hour and a half of sitting meditation at my usual sitting meditation spot, with some walking beforehand. The first half was not so peaceful due to builders erecting some prefab building nearby, but allowed for some basic insight practice. During this time, I practiced observing the silence underneath all sounds, which ended up making for a restful concentration object, with all the other sounds situated primarily in the periphery of my attention. During this time, I also noticed various processing algorithms that my attention paced around, further deepening the idea of the mind as a bundle of separate programs, with the sense of self occupying no particular area.<br /><br />After 45 minutes or so, the builders went in for a lunch break making for some external quietitude. This allowed me to do some concentration practice, and make more apparent the restlessness that existed. 10 minutes in, there was some grade 1 and 2 piti with some waves, precluding sinking into 1st jhana but discursive thought prevented any full absorbtion.<br /><br />At one point, there was a sense of boredom, which I placed my attention on. Upon reflection, it appeared due to knowledge of dukkha, which ego knew it had no answer for.<br /><br />Finally, it has been apparent there has been some conceptual veneer overlaying experience. When this is seen for what it is, it is yet another thought stream in the mind. This sense of differentiation has allowed for a greater perception of calm throughout what is happening, and on a couple of occasions for a few seconds, mind seems to have transcended conceptual experience, but with a subtle watcher still remaining. This state cannot be held for long, but it seems to be able to switch with intention when the mind is peaceful. Mon, 04 Sep 2017 13:58:19 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-04T13:58:19Z RE: Dom's stream Memory of past experience is inaccurate, so will keep it short.<br /><br /><br />Dark night had been oddly non problematic. I had assumed that I was going to be prone to a good ass kicking considering my previous life experiences, but at most, it was spooky and &#039;vibey&#039;, and more an affirmation that lesser travelled territory is being skillfully navigated. Dissolution phase of dark night was for me one of the most intriguing parts of my first path experience, as it was more obvious an experience for me than any other at the time. A&amp;P felt like hypomania for me, and due to crazy experiences previous to my meditation practice, it failed to &#039;blow my mind&#039;, making me think my first A&amp;P has already been assimilated by my mind pretty deep. This could have been during my Christian days, though it&#039;s possible those experiences weren&#039;t quite enough to put me in the dark night, not deeply anyway. I blame drug useage however!<br /><br /><strong>First Path experience: 13th April 2017</strong><br /><br />Noticing different aspects of experience as my thinking mind would observe it. Higher equinamity here was similar to the dissolution experience in terms of head spaciness, but instead of disappearance, there seemed to be a low level of non specific awareness. As thoughts came, they disappeared again, with all the 3 characteristics showing up in possibly every observed mind moment, but this may not be the case. Experience flowed like a stream, and when I attempted to place my attention on what wasn&#039;t objectfiable experience (I.e. Myself), the concepts fell in on themselves, and my mind seemed to hover between conceptual experience, and what in retrospect feels like non conceptual experience, like a plane trying to land, but bouncing off the runway. Eventually, the balance was right, and something &#039;happened&#039;.<br /><br />This followed about 1 week abiding in equinamity, which for me was the most peaceful experience yet. As this happened, something felt lifted, reinforcing the present &#039;vibe&#039;, however I was too excited to continue for long, after 30 mins, it felt more safe to assume that this was the case.<br /><br />My review phase wasn&#039;t necessarily the &#039;happiest&#039; time of my life, however it was most certainly a VERY positive, relaxed and optimistic time. Things were starting to fit in well in my daily life, I felt like certain things were being lifted with increasingly clear awareness. It felt like I understood why so many things were a hinderance, but they didn&#039;t need to be anymore. (In retrospect, some of these things still happen to be hinderances, but they are no longer the centerpoint and the basis of reactivity. I had 3 fruitions, however my tendencies with concentration meant that these were difficult to mantain except one which may have been more like 5 mind moments!! (I don&#039;t know how long it really lasted, but it was slightly longer). These fruitions were kind of like a little catnap in terms of mental refreshment, and carried some kind of samatha into daily life more than if there was no fruition.<br /><br />The review phase lasted for less than a week, and elements of the next path practice became evident only a couple of days after 1st path. Into next Mind and Body, it felt like I was back to square one, and getting concentration was difficult. My first A&amp;P beyond this point happened under the influence of cannabis, which lead to some, at the time, profound insights, mostly forgotten, with a very peaky dark night! <br /><br />At this point I think it&#039;s important to mention my findings on how cannabis affects my practice, and may write a post about it in detail in the other subforum. This is because there appears to be little material on the subject, and like anything in this universe, unless it&#039;s an absolute truth, is limited in view only by the scope of the limited mind. Drugs do not make practice better, nor am I an existing independant entity that &#039;chooses&#039; to take such substances. Obviously, it would be foolish to refute moral practices as that would represent a coloured understanding of this truth. Intention in this case is very important. I don&#039;t smoke to improve my practice, or &#039;have fun&#039;, so I am not bound into this. I also reflect strongly that I am trading unification of mind for a temporarily boosted concentration. Afterwards, providing I refuse to identify with the compulsive urge to label experience (which would carry more kammas into future, I would end up with less concentration,  quite dull for up to 4 days, but also an imprint of the experience which I can navigate at a later point when the conditions are right.<br /><br />Other than that, the second cycle of insight was similar to the first. It required a fine tuning of morality, but despite various fears I would need to give certain things up before I was ready, this wasn&#039;t the case, and had another path moment just over a month later than the first. (27/05/2017) It was more ambiguous to define than the first, but I was more sure of it oddly. It felt at this point that something broke inside my head, and my thoughts appeared much.... Smaller/quieter/more periphery? This was most odd an experience which remains to this day. I guess at that point, thoughts got relegated to the same depth of experience as the other senses, and it was no longer superimposed on top of the other senses.<br /><br />During the review phase, I had one fruition, and occasionally had perceptual shifts that are associated with 2.5 path, such as feeling like my awareness was outside of my body, or having a wide FOV with sights and sounds.<br /><br />Starting on way to third had been difficult, because I didn&#039;t know what I was looking for. Intellectually I knew that the progress of insight as a map was no longer going to be a suitable place of solitude, but my mind was still clinging to states. I read The Mind Illuminated which was really good and helped me work my concentration up to level 7-8, however, switching to such a model (Which I found useful as it was no longer about completing the goal for me) caused a bit of confusion as to my progress. As my concentration became strong enough to start making progress in this path, I was filled with doubts with regards to my existing progress, wondering if I had ever experienced a path moment at all, and nearly wrote a forum post about being wrong about it all. As it turns out, it&#039;s the different paradigms, such as that which gives meaning or story to existance, which are the point of focus now. No self experiences increasingly take the place of such compartmentalising of reality.<br /><br />Occasional sensory shifts have become apparent, and things that happen within this expanded awareness no longer act as the &#039;centerpoint of experience&#039;.<br /><br />It wasn&#039;t until I committed to 5 hours meditation a day when I was forced to confront certain beliefs, such as the inside/outside duality, sense of space as anything other than an object, and the philosophical framework that I had crafted from an early age.<br /><br />My first true A&amp;P experience during 2.5 was spent cycling around delivering food and meditating. This lasted for a few days and contained some nice insight experiences. The dukkha nanas that followed were the first ones that really posed a challenge, and satisfied the existential masochist in me, until even that side of me decided to give up.<br /><br />Currently, practice seems to be about working up to a high level of concentration (I still have a long way to go in convincing the other me&#039;s that high concentration is the best thing ever!) and then trying to shift into non dual experiences as much as I can in daily life, practicing insight. There are a lot of changes happening that can&#039;t quite be worded, but generally there has become a significant amount of acceptance for the present moment, which is clearly seen as unsatisfactory once self comes into the picture.<br /><br />Here goes my practice log from here on: Sun, 03 Sep 2017 16:34:45 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-03T16:34:45Z RE: Lying about mental health for Vipassana course Thank you for your valid point. I guess with my topsy turvy mental history, less sane has become uncomfortably comforting. However in retrospect, the Goenka retreats appear quite impersonal which may take a bit of Metta out of experience. I&#039;ll save Goenka for now and go for a concentration based retreat instead as Insight seems to flow easily enough when I&#039;m ramped up due to a previous longterm habit of self enquiry. Sat, 02 Sep 2017 20:31:33 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-02T20:31:33Z Dom's stream - From 2.5 towards 3rd This is a bit of an experiment for me as I&#039;ve never been particularly good at sticking to these sorts of endeavours.<br /><br />Presumed MCTB 2nd path. <br /><br />In addition, I have historically been quite the self talker, and during this process of awakening, this hasn&#039;t changed as much as I would like it to have! However the interactions between different thoughts and behaviours with comparison to a self has changed significantly enough to &#039;reassure&#039; such thoughts and behaviours that things are changing. Despite this, I get frustrated with the desire to share my experiences, and am hoping that simply putting a practice log will offload some of this subconscious responsibility to talk about my experiences.<br /><br />Primarily however, my aim is to offer something tangible for people to assimilate as they wish, welcoming comments etc.<br /><br />Before starting, I feel that it would be sensible to give some light background history, to put the present into context in terms of what historical events shape any perceptions I have now. It is intentionally vague as I don&#039;t want to solidify the experiences as a linear story so much, rather I wish to example themes and attitudes.<br /><br />Diagnosed Tourettes, Bipolar and ADHD, I have had a complicated and unsettled childhood, primarily causing me to have a very low opinion of myself, masked by an outwardly grandiose sense of self. My mental health has hit a point of stability now however, and I don&#039;t take medication, and rely on a life crafted on good kammas which seems to be doing a much better job than any health service, however I believe it is a combination of attempted skillful living and the grace of circumstance that has got me to this situation, and while it&#039;s nice to believe I won&#039;t fall into a pit of self misery again, I seek to welcome future circumstances regardless of how profoundly earth shattering they may be...<br /><br />I&#039;m 30 now, and have been practicing Buddhism and Vipassana for over a year formally, however my spiritually inclined nature has been long winded, with the occasional long patch where the ways of the world intrigue me more. I discovered meditation and yoga as a child, but not knowing what they were, and being encouraged to be &#039;normal&#039;, I forgot about these experiences. In addition as a child, I refused to believe reality as it was. It was as if my mind was cycling different possible reality paradigms that could explain the no self experience which contradicted materialism, the primarly external philosophy I could comprehend around me at about 6-10. Noteably I believed I was the only real lifeform, and everything else was a manifestation, or that we were all the same manifestation, among other variations. I also used to get reoccuring dreams of some distant planet, being exiled and seperate etc. These were archetypally strong things for me. I became a Christian at 15 at a local church I joined because I had no friends at boarding school I trusted, possibly had my first A&amp;P experience, but difficult to tell, though I clearly had a mystical way of viewing the world and not trusting the automatic presumptions of reality, during my breakdown especially at 18. Practicing psychic phenonema, but via inefficient methods. Lots of telekinetic movements etc which I am reluctant to put meaning upon.<br /><br />I&#039;ve lived in Norwich for 4 years, never visted before, just got all my stuff and stayed with a friend. The time here has been overwhelming, and has flipped all previous existance upside down. I became considerably addicted to drugs, notably Spice which I sold at the time to other homeless people, but a racy stimulant psychedelic called AMT was the main issue! Nothing in my life has yet topped the amount of intensity and kamma creating bullshit I got myself into, and after 6 months of being a demigod, the responsibility of delusions becomes too much to keep up! My mind was poisoned with storys of life, craving for happiness, being able to think at all was quite difficult really, and it all gave me the time and motivation I needed to get a little deeper and put some more effort into finding these insights that struck me so profoundly when high, and making them a part of everyday reality. A year and a half later, most of the damage has been healed, not quite ;)<br /><br />I sometimes believe in Tarot, Astrology, I Ching etc. At times, such divination can produce really nice results that make little difference in the long run, but it&#039;s nice to think about.<br /><br />My drug use is mostly gone now, and to quite a deep level I am aware how there is little to be gained from such experience, but the chains of cause and effect keep rolling, and my situation doesn&#039;t allow for easy coming off it. I have been in a relationship with my girlfriend who I met at the peak of my druggy days. We have both drastically improved our situation and self image, however I would be happy to quit cannabis once and for all. It&#039;s not the case with her at this time, and I am stuck with certain sankharas. There are still reactions when she smokes as I&#039;m aware in detail now on it&#039;s affects on mind, and the thought immediately comes that we will be more distant as this happens, so sometimes I smoke with her. Nothing in this situation can be explained without going into strong specifics, which would then negate the other aspects of how this experience is important to me, but I believe that with further insight, some of the unspecifics will be clear enough to let go.<br /><br />We live on a boat now, and my current material ambitions are to upgrade bits in life that will last, and return an investment of non materialism, or financial freedom. Such as solar panels, paying off debts etc. I&#039;m currently in a very fortunate financial situation, which may end next month, but could continue for a year or so!<br /><br />This time also allows me to commit a large amount of time to meditation practice which can be anything up to an hour to 4-5 hours a day with mindfulness the rest of the time.<br /><br />Finally, I want to mention that as I write some of this, there are these nebulous no-self concepts of experience that take into account more than the specific information, but which I believe will be blown apart completely at 3rd path. I will be using the MCTB definitions for any experience to prevent confusion.<br /><br />I will update this to include previous meditation history shortly. Sat, 02 Sep 2017 15:30:39 GMT Dom Stone 2017-09-02T15:30:39Z RE: Lying about mental health for Vipassana course Thanks. I think I just wanted a little push in the right direction lol, I&#039;ll try reapplying, and failing that, I&#039;m going to do a personal retreat followed by a non Goenka vipassana retreat next year. Fri, 25 Aug 2017 09:06:54 GMT Dom Stone 2017-08-25T09:06:54Z RE: Lying about mental health for Vipassana course Yea this one in particular is. I&#039;ve not applied for any others, but coming to think of it, I&#039;m aware Goenka retreats have had more issues with people with mental health issues and are therefore more stringent with their criteria. (And perhaps due to not being able to leave early)<br /><br />It&#039;s hard to find anything affordable here in UK, though perhaps waiting until next year might be a good idea. <br /><br />In the meantime I could go on a personal retreat, though it would require me to go camping and commit the whole time. Maybe this can be done with little distractions, convincing myself to do it at a good time is another thing! Thu, 24 Aug 2017 22:47:09 GMT Dom Stone 2017-08-24T22:47:09Z Lying about mental health for Vipassana course I&#039;ve just had a frustrating time trying to apply for a meditation course. In the initial questions it asked about mental health, and I wrote depression in my history from years ago, who would have thought this would have asked the questions they ask, regarding hospitalisation, panic attacks, manic episodes, medication etc etc.<br /><br />I&#039;m frustrated for a number of reasons. In part due to the fact I have experienced my fair share of Dukkha ñanas, and as such, have a vague idea on how I may react to certain states.<br /><br />Secondly, my history of bipolar, ADHD, sporadic medication etc is just that, a history. Occasionally, I will have evelated moods that throw me off my meditation practice for a few days, but have little impact elsewhere these days, and depression is hardly taken seriously. So it becomes very difficult to convince a course this.<br /><br />To make matters worse I have just been cancelled due to a lack of reply, when I&#039;m SURE I sent that last form and I had been waiting for 2 weeks to hear back.<br /><br />My choice is to wait till another life if things swing that way, apply in 10 years and hope there&#039;s not the same issues, or lie on my form to prevent this barrage of questions that are meant for my own good.<br /><br />I am aware the difficulties some people have in this, especially those who are sure of their place in the world, but I am SEEKING to have my ass handed to me by a cosmic sledgehammer. The noble silence sounds like a blessing and I&#039;m finding reaching MCTB 3rd path is requiring a level of concentration that I&#039;m finding hard to foster in my current situation.<br /><br />It sounds ridiculous to break one of the precepts to enter a course where I would take a vow to follow 10 precepts. And it wouldn&#039;t exactly teach me the right message either.<br /><br />I&#039;m not after advice so much as this is a choice I should make, but if people are happy to offer their opinion, I may find this helpful and appreciated. Thank you. Thu, 24 Aug 2017 14:51:16 GMT Dom Stone 2017-08-24T14:51:16Z RE: Stream Entry I would certainly give it time to be sure to see if any effects are permanent.<br /><br />I get the impression however that it was just a very strong A&amp;P moment.<br /><br />The reason I don&#039;t think it was an equinamity moment is due to the clinging of the experience. Powerful and profound as it may have been, experiences are as temporary and fleeting as a moment in time itself and the important thing is how we decide to assimilate these experiences.<br /><br />Through meditation, we dedicate a very significant amount of time suppressing and undercutting desires, and changing the perspective of self that some of us call ego. This is what allows Insight experiences such as this to accidentally grace us with their presence. Without our mind shying away from bare reality like a hot pan, or trying to make sense of it in terms of &#034;It happened to me&#034;, these experiences only go as deep as our mind allows. It takes an act of surrender to experience so that the mind, for the first time, chooses NOT to follow the constant stream of desire and meet Nibbana.<br /><br />The reason why drugs have been able to make us open to such profound states, but rarely supramundane states is because the mind is conditioned to respond to sense contact. Drugs can heighten the speed of awareness, but their changes are generated in a reality that is not typical to the mind. Should the mind revert back, these Insight experiences can become a distant memory.<br /><br />Perhaps you have reached stream entry, but ask yourself, &#034;How did you stream entry?&#034;<br /><br />If, upon seeing reality as it really is, you managed to find it in yourself to just accept it and be, without controlling or, understanding, thinking, feeling it... To silence the mind into experiencing non existence... Then give it some time and spend some time trying to call up fruitions. Sun, 16 Jul 2017 19:34:47 GMT Dom Stone 2017-07-16T19:34:47Z RE: Somewhere between stream entry and anamagi lol Ok, sounds like it could indeed bee stream entry. When you&#039;ve had both A&amp;P and SE, the difference between the two is obvious.<br /><br />After stream entry, any dark night you will have had should be easy to deal with and comparatively superficial. It&#039;s possible you may have gone through the dark night for the next path, but pushing through any A&amp;P takes a lot of momentum, so it would probably have been during your meditation practice rather than just happening by accident.<br /><br />A truely deep insight can be very difficult to ignore, as it can collapse existing structures (think of the dark night). It would change what you define as &#034;you&#034;.<br /><br />Read Dreamwalkers &#034;A Framework of awakening&#034; as it shows his findings on the effects path moments have on the identification of self. I think you&#039;d definitely notice a difference halfway through second path due to the way we perceive the senses.<br /><br />2nd path however is quite similar to 1st in terms of models and the techniques required to achieve.<br /><br />I don&#039;t feel qualified to answer this one, but hopefully somebody else can continue this on!  Fri, 23 Jun 2017 20:55:05 GMT Dom Stone 2017-06-23T20:55:05Z RE: Somewhere between stream entry and anamagi lol Hey there! I&#039;ve got to be brief as I&#039;m working right now, but I do have a few questions that may help us get some idea on where you&#039;re at.<br /><br />Specifically what criteria are you using to suggest the path you could be on? Is it any particular set of experiences or a permanent shift in perception? Can you describe these in detail?<br /><br />How often do you meditate, and what sort of things do you look for?<br /><br />Your original experience certainly sounds like an A&amp;P event, and I&#039;ve no doubt you got a good glimpse of suffering. To what depth of reality does suffering mean to you experientially? Life events, your senses? It&#039;s a hard question to word correctly as your take on things may be different than my own.<br /><br />There&#039;s a chance your brain injury could have shifted your perceptions in ways that can be associated with the process of awakening, so there&#039;s a chance it could also be confusing your progress, but it will be very hard for other people to tell.<br /><br />Generally, moving through the paths requires a progressively full acceptance of the here and now, before mental spin is put into the equation. <br /><br />I don&#039;t believe that you have suggested anything yet that can give clear pointers that stream entry has been attained, though this doesn&#039;t mean it hasn&#039;t of course! Look forward to your reply.<br /><br />Welcome by the way <img alt="emoticon" src="" > Fri, 23 Jun 2017 18:36:08 GMT Dom Stone 2017-06-23T18:36:08Z RE: Brick wall after 2nd path Thanks for all the replies, just what I was hoping for, will try respond accordingly, but I&#039;m not sure how to quote multiple people using my phone.<br /><br />My practice time tends to vary, at good times it&#039;s 2 hours a day with slightly irritatingly obsessive noting through parts of the day. What Adam says about effort and surrender is nice to know. I feel that there&#039;s this compulsion to keep &#034;moving forward&#034; that can really hinder allowing some quietude.<br /><br />I&#039;ve had a couple of shifts so far, notably the upgrades to visual field. Colours are always strong, and everything looks HD, like I&#039;ve gone and upgraded my TV to a high end Samsung lol. There are other shifts but I can&#039;t make them out. The most annoying thing is when I get some shift that makes me go &#034;whoa&#034; like the personal bubble thing. For about 3 hours, when walking back from meditation, my mind suddenly decided it was much too much effort to keep the illusion going, and I was no longer in any particular place in my body, and felt like the awareness around it instead. This also shifted the selfing process in conversations with people too. That gradually went, possibly by social interaction, but it would be nice if I could just drop whatever it is I do that seemed so much more appealing than effortless presence!! <br /><br />Id be very interested in reading your additions to your Framework of awakening!<br /><br />Adam, probably partly due to laziness. I&#039;m finding it hard to properly write the other reasons I have in my mind which makes me question their validity. I would love to go on retreat for the kick up the ass motivation, however have various commitments that I need to finish to improve my life and simplicity. After September, things will be more suitable. Would be good to take the samatha side more seriously as I don&#039;t believe I have gone above second jhana through concentration alone. Perhaps the diagnosis for ADHD / Bipolar are not as superficial as I had hoped, but I think with the correct long-term commitment, I shouldn&#039;t be at any true disadvantage. Think there&#039;s just more for me to get through with that than with the average meditator.<br /><br />Thanks for explaining the uncomfortable mind states T DC. I guess is the fact that the issues become far less &#039;superficial&#039; as they progress, and the relative flow of 2nd gathered a false confidence. I feel that I&#039;m bumping against some gritty walls made out of little buzzy chattery demons that, if seen through, would dramatically changed things.<br /><br />To repeat on the jhana thing, despite the fact samatha jhanas aren&#039;t going too well, the vipassana &#039;jhana&#039; state feels like it spends most it&#039;s time around 4th, with the occasional shuffling around. Things do feel very present and focused, but this isn&#039;t hard jhana, so it&#039;s definitely a topic of confusion for me!<br /><br />Nice to hear about the type of final 3rd path insight. It explains the nature of the cycling to me, and give me patience as well. <br /><br />Thanks for the replies, really helpful stuff! It&#039;s such a shame that pragmatic dharma can&#039;t hit the mainstream! Thu, 22 Jun 2017 20:07:30 GMT Dom Stone 2017-06-22T20:07:30Z RE: Brick wall after 2nd path Thanks for letting me know! I still think I should put more effort in getting the intended point across.<br /><br />Just come back from my meditation spot. I paid specific attention to the existential malaise while focusing on my breath and gathered an insight on the nature of this suffering. As the mind became more concentrated, the mind noise got more pronounced. Normally at this point of 3C&#039;s, my mind normally gets louder too preventing mindfulness. Then it became clear, it was simply the compulsive desire to create mental formations, not just the big ones as an attention object, but vibrations around 10 to 20 times a second as well. All with the purpose of holding up the illusion of duality. Afterwards, there was a much more direct seeing of phenomena, though it felt less impactful.<br /><br />This is motivating indeed. Wed, 21 Jun 2017 14:55:53 GMT Dom Stone 2017-06-21T14:55:53Z RE: Brick wall after 2nd path Sorry! It was a bit of both I think, I&#039;ll try to clarify.<br /><br />I&#039;m honestly finding the right questions hard to gather.<br /><br />Is 1 and a half hours meditation a reasonable target assuming I&#039;m starting toward 3rd path?<br /><br />To what extent is morality a factor? Its certainly highlighted in my life, but feel that it is more than just making sure I uphold the 5 precepts.<br /><br />The main thing that&#039;s an issue is the bewilderment and lost feeling. I think the most information I have gleaned on these paths is from your posts DW, which I have found particularly helpful.<br /><br />In terms of proprioception, I&#039;ve noticed the apparent location of sensations as conceptually relative points in non dimensional space if that even makes sense? Like instead of there being a feeling in a hand or a foot on a different field, they are in the same place but a different phase. It&#039;s hard to explain, and I&#039;m not sure if it&#039;s even the right way to view things!<br /><br />Sorry about the rambling nature of the last post, I&#039;m just finding these things hard to put into words. I think I&#039;m just seeking a bit of clarification to see if things are &#039;going ok&#039;, but maybe I should remember that things are going just the way they should, and the sooner I realise the the better lol... Wed, 21 Jun 2017 08:48:20 GMT Dom Stone 2017-06-21T08:48:20Z Brick wall after 2nd path I wasn&#039;t sure if this needed a new thread, but don&#039;t think it closely enough matches any existing ones.<br /><br />Stream entry came after approx a year of formal practice (and a much longer period of questions and experiences), 2nd path only a month after that. Things were a bit crazy with the cycling for a little while after and now things have settled down somewhat. I&#039;m getting the feeling this is going to be a long uphill slog, and the ñanas aren&#039;t quite having that same diagnostic criteria vibe they used to. It feels like the difficulty level has been ramped up 10 times, and it&#039;s disheartening not knowing what&#039;s going on which leaves part of me doubting my progress, while the other part of me is sure of the emptiness of that other part of me.<br /><br />I&#039;ve never been good at the concentration sides, or spent that much time on samatha meditation, so this may come in useful, but normal life is starting to seem pointless. Love seems to be a very good thing in this world however, becoming clearer with the lack of distortion put on it.<br /><br />I feel that I&#039;m having a lot of subtle aversive behaviour like checking up on the recent politics of the UK, or even having Mr Monkey Mind chilling out with me and my girlfriend. As third path is supposed to remove clinging to sensual desire, to what degree is this supposed to be restrained. I think it&#039;s probably important for me to note and restrict any time I&#039;m being averse to the present moment, eg responding to desire with no skillful outcome, but it&#039;s all such a dense fog of subtle cravings, I feel like maybe I should be meditating for 5 hours a day to bring it down, not the disappointing 1 hour that is happening right now.<br /><br />I think I need pointers, despite the fact part of me has been ignorant enough to believe that skillful intent alone is sufficient. Maybe it is, but that won&#039;t necessarily stop a micropocket of cosmic delusion giving me a big cuddle!<br /><br />Everything is very spacious in my visual field, and despite some unresolved forgotten lustful personal stuff from the past surprising me with its strength, desire is a wounded beast.<br />When I meditate, I see my awareness jumping to different parts constantly, feel like it&#039;s a hinderance when my mind groups objects in my visual field together, like it&#039;s solidifying what isn&#039;t, but maybe it&#039;s ok when it is noted? It feels like my mind is just desperate to cling onto some sort of sense in the visual field that it creates lines that don&#039;t exist out of leaves and mud etc.<br /><br />I assume I&#039;m supposed to investigate the nature of this jumping about?<br /><br />There seems to always be flickering, forest floors breathing sometimes, and by observing these I feel that I am missing something important.<br /><br />I know I&#039;ve been working on this path for a very short time, but I feel like I&#039;m missing something.<br /><br />Also this conceit of &#034;I&#034; feels like a constant existential angst making life an ahedonic mission in search of nothing. It is like there is a weightless weight, buried deeper than my conceptual storytelling, that words cannot touch, and cannot be touched by... Tue, 20 Jun 2017 16:46:06 GMT Dom Stone 2017-06-20T16:46:06Z RE: Health falling apart on a Vegetarian diet... Moral dilemna Sorry to hear you have had such an experience with the whole vegetarianism thing! It sounds like you may be deficient in rats maybe. If you consume dairy, you may well be ok, but if not, good sources are avocados, coconut oil, coacoa and almonds.<br /><br />If a person is deficient in fats, fat soluble vitamins​ also cannot be absorbed.<br /><br />The main issue with things like supplements is bioavailability. Some supplements can only be absorbed properly in some forms or combination with certain foods. It&#039;s definitely better trying to get nutrients from their original sources, so foods like &#039;superfoods&#039; are not to be underrated.<br /><br />I&#039;m tempted to try a vegan diet for a few months with a well planned diet as an experiment to see whether a physically active (I cycle about 100 miles a week) meditator might have any negative symptoms.<br /><br />I think that once you eliminate certain food groups from your diet, it puts pressure on making sure that what you do eat is of the highest quality.<br /><br />My diet has actually made me feel amazing, and while it may possibly not be a functional system for you, it could be something to think about if you really don&#039;t want to get back on the meat wagon! It&#039;s formulated from <br /><br />A typical day for me (Ultra low gluten, meat and dairy free:<br /><br />Breakfast:<br />Handful of oats<br />2 teaspoons Maca powder/buckwheat/millet mix<br />Small handful of sunflower/pumpkin seed mix<br />2 tbsp goji berry/mulberry mix<br />1tbsp cao cao nibs<br />Small handful mixed nuts<br />1tbsp flaxseed<br />All served in a bowl with oat milk<br /><br />Lunch:<br />Something simple and carbohydratey. Soup. last night&#039;s dinner, toast with coconut oil and marmite. Spelt Spaghetti. I don&#039;t take my lunch as seriously anymore as it is just to keep the day flowing smoothly. <br /><br />Dinner:<br />Lost the ability to cook creative meals recently, but all meals tend to consume similar ingredients. Amaranth (complete protein), palm oil (good source of saturated fats), quinoa, lentils, brown rice or spelt spaghetti, engevita (b12), lots of onion and garlic.<br /><br /><br />1 litre of fruit juice (wouldn&#039;t recommend this due to the sugars especially if you can&#039;t regulate your sugar levels properly atm, this is for a very active lifestyle)<br />About 80% of my diet is organic, this means I get a much higher ratio of nutrients in my diet.<br /><br />As a person that has had issues with nutrition in the past, I&#039;ve learned to stock all my nutrients from real foods and ditch the suppliments now I no longer need them. It cannot be complained upon <img alt="emoticon" src="" ><br /><br />I&#039;m aware it might not be of any help at all hearing another person&#039;s diet considering the effort you&#039;ve put into your own, tailored for you, but I have posted this in the hope that there may be information you find useful anyway.<br /><br />Below is an article for fat deficiency symptoms. Have a look if it clicks and if there is enough in your diet <img alt="emoticon" src="" ><br /><br /> Tue, 20 Jun 2017 12:35:38 GMT Dom Stone 2017-06-20T12:35:38Z