Jordan94

@winterknight might be able to talk about that I don't know if you already read some of his thread, but he seems fairly advanced and an adept meditator and enlightened, and he has experience with psychedelics as well From what I understood in his most recent posts in his thread, it seems like he was more on the side of being careful of not over-estimating psychedelics as well and that it will be dangerous (or even cannot work) as an only path

I think I remember you saying in a video (correct me if i'm wrong) something along the lines of that, only direct experience is real for insight/awakening/whatever, if you had a glimpse/whatever but don't have direct acces to it anymore, then it's not direct experience, it's just a memory (really bad wording I don't remember exactly what you said exactly, but I hope you get the point) Don't you think that applies here for your realisations ? If you have them on your psychedelics trips but don't have acces to them directly in this particular moment when you're typing, then it's just a memory/thoughts isn't it ?

What about truth/knowledge would that be a valid example that SHOULD be transferable in the 'outside of trip reality' ? If you can acces direct Truth with a capital T you should be able to acces minor truth/knowledge like some historical fact that you didn't know or something like that ? That might be a decent test then I say this because I'm skeptical that psychedelics could be self-delusion to some degree, or not, and then if something like that could be clearly tested that would help me a lot to be more confident about them and go fully into that path (and same for many people like me I think)

Funny fact i'm French actually so I could just speak french with the therapist But I mean I see your explanation on why it's working well (more direct path), but that's not even my question, my question basically is, why it can't teach you to play violin then ? Or I guess why the teaching could not transfere to the 'outside the trips reality' And then if it can not, then that would be the same for spiritual teachings no ?

I find the violon teaching argument good though If you could download knowledge and have the best teacher teach you directly that means you should be able to play the violon after geting it taught on psychedelics no ? And then if no, why would it be different for spiritual teaching ? why would that be "transfered" to the "sober reality" and violon teaching would not be possible ? (which you said is kindergarten stuff) Either both should be possible or none (not spiritual advancement neither) no ? @Leo Gura @Serotoninluv

So i'm usually strugling to eat enough to gain weight (and muscle), I need let's say 3k calories daily Recently I discovered that there's a bunch of calories in olive oil and butter, and it's easy to take (and less bad on energy levels than pasta) My question is, if i add 500 calories daily of olive oil is it gonna be the same for gaining weight (and muscle) than if I would have added 500 calories of oats ? (while my daily intake of protein is already enough) Thanks

I have to say I discovered the book The Mind Illuminated a few months ago thanks to one of @ardacigin posts, and it really skyrocketed my progress and benefits in meditation, I got more progress and fruits in the past few months than in 2-3 years of doing 1 to 2 hours daily of Goenka style vipassana meditation technique I don't know why more people don't talk about it on this forum at least, it's just a pure gem for the people who are actually about doing the practices rather than just intelectualising the path

You can also focus a bit on making it more relaxing and find the joy in it, it's definitly more easy and effective to progress when it's enjoyable, so both are important In the begining it's kind of like a balance, gentle intention helps also because it can increase both at the same time (enjoyable and intention/effort), but at the begining and for a good period before one gets really skilled in meditation, I would say that it's better for progress that the balance leans more in efforts rather than relax, for concentration practices

I agree with @Gili Trawangan Althought there still is a question of balance and kinda both are useful and needed, especially in the begining, and for concentration practice, there has to be a lot of intention and then in some way effort, although it's way better (more enjoyable AND more efficient) to keep the efforts light and gentle, nice to oneself, same as a lot of light gentle touch repeated a lot during each sit

About the effect on my energy/focus I have no doubt about the impacts, but my question is more on the weight/muscle gain part, which I can't really monitor/observe through direct experience I've done a bit more research and it seems to me know that it would be roughly the same thing in terms of weight gain/loss at least, but it would obviously have an effect on my macros, which I don't know how important or how much change that would make So I guess the question is now do macro really matter that much for gaining muscle ?

Olive oil rather than oats ?

@ardacigin Thanks Yea for the check-in technique I already thought it won't be good anymore so i'm mostly dropping it now For noting gone technique, I've discovered Shinzen Young's gone technique just a few days ago and did it just a little bit, I can feel how my extrospective awareness gets way better quite fast when i'm doing it But yea mostly I think you're totally right about still not giving that much importance on awareness at this stage and still really focusing more on stable and more clear and precise attention, I thought at stage 4 it was time were we actually had to master a bit more awareness, but seems like it's still going to be mostly on the later stages So yea i'll actually just keep focusing way more on attention for now and only a little bit on awareness, thanks

@ardacigin I'm finally getting in stage 4 of TMI's model, i'm wondering how to make progress on awareness now Before i would do so by using attention to check-in, which would increase a bit the awareness by telling the mind that the thing i just put my attention is important/valuable for me, so by repetition it'll increase the awareness on that thing But now that's not what we want to do anymore on stage 4 and above if I understood corectly, and it's quite a difficult/vague area (increasing awareness), even with the book's instructions So do you have any tips or explanation in addition of what's in the book in that regard of increasing awareness ? Thanks, as usual really inspiring and useful posts of yours

it's a mix of 48 different veggies, i'll link the picture

Hey, just found out about that, didn't know it's a thing, I found on my nearby supermarket some 100% legume juice drink not expensive, that's really convenient I'm feeling like that can be a good hack to good energy level / healthy diet (obviously not eating full mcdonald on the side) I am right ?

Thanks, yea kinda tricky this balance between attention and awareness and find the optimal spot or somewhere close, I think too that for me a bit more on the side of too much attention on the breath is better than too much focus on awareness rather than attention, although I feel too that if I completly neglect awareness I forget the breath more easily too But I've been making really good progress with some changes recently, thanks to hanging out and reading more on the TMI subreddit, i found some other really helpful informations and spotted some mistakes that i was doing Basically I think I was doing a big mistake about my way of puting "intention" on following the breath for example I was mostly puting one or a few big/intense intention, that also easily increased expectations/pressure/jugement, and what I think now is a way more efficient way to do is to is to have A LOT of small intentions, so way more frequent/more number of moments of intention, but lighter intention, now basically every breath cycle i have a small intention on observing the begining of the next in breath for example Seems to work way better on that way, and in the past few days I've had way better focus (and awareness) doing like that, so quite happy and excited about that change, and we'll see in the next few weeks how it'll go like that

I tried armodafinil, was pretty nice, felt definitly more presence and more focus, a bit more creativity/connecting dots, was definitly way easier to concentrate and to meditate, that's the biggest effect for me Side effect I had trouble falling asleep sometimes, especially if i didn't take it on the first hours of waking up There was a thread with several pages on modafinil a while ago you can check that too

Thanks that was really helpful and really what I needed actually I think I was definitly going on the trap of over focusing on the attention and not puting enough emphasis on awareness Now on the past few sessions I've put way more emphasis on awareness By having some short moment of extrospective attention to the sounds and physical sensations, and by having some short moments of introspective attention checkin in and labelling It feels like I have less amount of time of continuous attention on my breath though, because my attention is going around introspective and extrospective awareness (and distractions obviously) as well, but I guess it's normal ? and it feels like I have more control of my attention, and less risks of falling into mind wandering/forgetting

Yea I was quite unprecise with what I meant What i mean is not replace or change the main practice, but do a warmup of like 2-20 minutes of pranayama (or controling/slowing the breath or whatever) to slow the mind and get a little boost to the concentration, and then start the normal practice following culadasa's book Especially for earlier stages for people like me who struggle with maintaining attention to the breath

That's really interesting too I've already been thinking about doing some breath work prior to meditation to ease and improve concentration but never went deep to it What's your thoughts on that @ardacigin and others ?

Thanks again for the great posts man, same as before really inspiring and interesting Which advices would you give to improve and move up the early stages of Culadasa's model ? I'm still kind of stuck between stages 2 and 4 depending on the sessions and periods, I wonder also how long it took you to move up the stages initially ? I'm gonna put more enphasis on your meditate in slightly cold environement's advice, that seems pretty good, I kinda already knew it but still didn't use it that much, so now i'm just gonna put the aircon so it's cold when I sit But yea if you have any other advices to move up the stages from stage 2/3 ?

@InfinitePotential Thanks man that sounds good i'll check it out, do you just it just peanut butter or you put it on some toast or something else btw ? Same for just raw nuts I guess ? that would be decent and better than funnel lots of calories with pasta bread overall ? @Commodent Thanks good advices too, I kinda know it and i'm doing extremly bad on that regards so far, I'm eating close to exactly the same diet/meals everyday (if I don't eat out which is most of the time) I'll try to diversify a bit and get a few different meals in rotation, but also a challenge is that I want some foods that are good in some criterias (easy to get the calories I need with, easy to cook, if it's cheap that's cool too, if it's good for energy levels better), and also trying to manage it and respect the diet and my calories with just one diet plan is already sometimes a struggle so adding differents rotations will make it harder (and I have to find new foods/meals that correspond to the above criterias) I guess it's also both, be diverse but also the food and meals itself will obviously play a role, so I'm still checking to improve on that part and to replace more pasta/bread with something else, at least diminish it bellow the 1k/1k5 calories daily that I have of it now

Hey, basically I have an issue/dilema that I'm carrying for a few years now I usually want to gain weight/muscle, and that would mean eating a bit less or around 3000 calories daily (i'm pretty skinny now and usually strugling to gain weight), but the problem is that I think it affects my sleep quality and energy levels, and that's something I really don't want How do you guys deal with it ? some particular foods/diet that would be better for energy levels that the milk/pasta/eggs/nuts (+ some fruits and veggies too) that I'm taking now ?

@laptophaver I feel like it in my personal experience + read that a lot that big meal before sleep is not good, lots of carbs makes you tired, I also feel clearly my energy and focus level go down after some big meal or carbs in general @Commodent I agree, that's why I'm looking for more healthy aliments to eat than pasta (i guess that's the worst) that i'm eating 1 000 calories everyday (+ bread, i heard it's not good too) Do you have some suggestions on that How about oats is it okay in that regard ?

makes more sense yea