Leo Gura

@Naviy Good! Now that's on the right track: you cannot describe anything. Sit with that and experience the thoughts without attempting this madness called description. All descriptions are illusions.

The problem is that your expectations are all wrong about this. You did it for 3 days for 5 minutes and you expect it to be fun? Try doing it for 2 years at 30 minutes per day. Then it might get a little fun. Still, don't expect too much fun. Don't be comparing meditation with porn, video games, internet, or movies. << These are all addictions that you need to ween yourself off of. For meditation to get really fun will take 5 to 20 years.

@Pinocchio I have a checkbox for that which I usually ignore to check. Didn't think anyone cared.

Well... that is a false conclusion. You CAN experience yourself, just not via the mind. You have to open your mind to a radical new possibility. Something other than thinking and other than seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, or tasting. You have to be humble enough to admit that you could be fundamentally wrong.

Firstly, absolute truth is not an experience. Secondly, it is not an understanding and it happens through no mechanism. Thirdly, it is not an answer to any question. Enlightenment is not a knowing, it is a deep un-knowing. The problem you're having is that you're conceiving enlightenment as some kind of additional belief or emotional state, which it is not. It's something totally alien that you have never thought was possible in a million years. It's not gonna be a "thing" that your ego is going to be able to grasp on to in the way you imagine. You have to really think outside the box on this one.

Classic skepticism

THERE IS NO YOU TO DO ANYTHING! You are a fantasy. You cannot even be enlightened.

Jed is an oddball guy. Don't take his hysterics too seriously. His books are way over-dramatized and limited in perspective. He is appealing to a particular kind of audience. If you ever get even a glimpse of truth, it will be the most beautiful thing you've seen in your life. It's better than sex, food, drugs, money, or any other stupid thing that people devote their lives to. Is enlightenment for everyone? No, because most people are just too damn ignorant to be helped. But if by magic they were able to experience enlightenment, they would never want to go back to their old hellish existence.

Don't take our words for it. Sit down and look for yourself at what is true. Point to the you you think you are. Have you noticed yet that you actually cannot find yourself in direct experience? Anything you can possibly point to is just a perception, not the perceiver. It doesn't take much sitting to realize that you actually have no clue what you are. There is this thing we call a "you", but upon closer inspection the you can never be found. Isn't that interesting! Why do you believe so firmly that there is a you at all? Surely if it was so obvious, you could easily point to what is perceiving reality. And yet you can't! Try it.

How can you expect to sit on a yoga mat and not have those issues? Yoga mats offer almost no padding. Buy yourself some serious cushioning if you intend to do long sits.

There is a entire sub-forum dedicated to this topic: http://www.actualized.org/forum/forum/6-serious-emotional-problems/ I never said you cannot discuss Abnormal Psychology. It's simply not the main focus or purpose of this forum.

You're not yet appreciating the absolutely RADICAL thing that enlightenment is. You're taking it as another, just higher, belief or piece of knowledge that you will acquire. But that is not enlightenment. After enlightenment you will no longer think of yourself as a human or even an object. Death will become a fairytale. It's like discovering that EVERYTHING you thought you knew about life and existence is wrong.

This: http://www.actualized.org/articles/how-to-study

A good homework assignment for you is to go meditate for 30 minutes in a very noisy area.

@tryingforfreedom You're not investigating this existentially enough. You're looking at this from some kind of human-social perspective or a psychological perspective. Instead, look at it like a physics problem. What is a thought existentially in your phenomenal awareness?

It can happen. Enjoy it while it lasts.

@Markus Well, I don't want to name names and spread gossip. Just wanted to illustrate that enlightenment and ethics are independent variables and that enlightened people can be sketchy.

I won the case but still haven't received any money.

Now you guys are on the right track. And what is a thought literally? Do not think about this. Look directly at what one of your thoughts is.

I coached a guy in Uruguay

Glad you guys like it

You gotta learn street-smarts and how to assess people so you don't get shafted. If you go into serious business with a naive attitude, you'll definitely get fleeced. A lot of this is learned through trial and error, but I actually have 2 great books about exactly this topic on my book list in the Dealing With People category. They're real eye-openers! They alone are worth the price of the list, saving you thousands if not millions in the long-run if you plan to do big business throughout your life. I've been screwed in business once or twice and I was pretty savvy to start out with because my Dad was real good a fleecing people and I learned how the mind of a scoundrel businessman works. Make no mistake about it, big business is cut-throat and people will eat your lunch if you let them.

I want to shoot a vid on this topic.

Those are not neuroses. They are cognitive biases which are largely hardwired into your brain. They are how the brain human brain works. Nature has made these optimizations as rules-of-thumb to make our thinking faster and simpler. There are good aspects to these optimizations and bad aspects. The best way to avoid them is to simply do less thinking and mental-masturbation. Which is why meditation and mindfulness practice is so great. They let you bypass all these biases more and more with practice because you stop taking your thinking so seriously.

You didn't actually answer the question. What is meaning literally made out of? Look in your direct experience. Don't theorize.