Jordan94

Okay thanks a lot i'll try it Is it also about writing with the idea to try to understand and manage our own psychology/emotions/feeling ? Or the practice is just about neutraly describing what is happening ?

Well, it's both, actually. If you are really true and accurate to your feelings, because your particular set of feelings is so unique to you and your perspective, your attempt to capture them will inevitably come out creative. Okay, makes a bit of sense, but I mean it's ok if it's not in a way that looks 'artistic' or 'good' or 'makes sense' (although all of that is subjective i guess) like a drawing or a novel/poem, it's still fine right ? Just a blend description "this happened i felt a sensation in my chest then this thought arise and this burning-icy-mountain-spiked-whatever () sensation arose and i had a thought 'blablablal', makes me think about that", something like that would be good ?

Thank you Ok I understand more, I thought before that it was about expressing our creativity throught some form of art kind of, but it's more like puting on paper our feelings/emotions, right ?

@winterknight You talk a lot about expressing our own feelings/emotions throught writing/drawing/etc I'm not good at drawing and never been too interested in that so it doesnt seem to appealing to me, and for writing, what do you mean by that ? writing scenarios ? or like journaling ? or something else ? What would be other options than that ?

I would disagree with the second part, although it just depends on people I guess, but for me eating lots of food definitly reduced the quality of my meditation, and same with sleeping during breaks, it made me want to sleep and harder to get back up compared to if I would stay awake all day I would agree with no mixing any technique, if it's your first time you want to give a full try to the technique as they say and you can see at the end what's your benefits only from that technique Journaling presonally I would not do it, it might distract you from the actual meditation

I'm gonna do a 10 day vipassana retreat next week, it will be my 5th one I'm thinking about doing as well some self-inquiry, during some sittings I would do vipassana and some sittings self-inquiry, what do you guys think about that ?

@winterknight So I've started self-inquiry as described in this thread, just to be sure that i'm practicing fine : Here's what I'm doing, I try to locate my consciousness, where does it come from/where is it located, and as you said if I can be aware/feel where I thought it come from, then I realise that it's not it and try to look out what is aware of it / where is this 'thing' that is aware of it Or another way I'm practicing, if I feel a sensation, I'm asking myself and try to find who is aware of this sensation (same thing for viewing something 'who is seeing this?' / 'who is perceiving this?') Is it correct ?

Yes goenka retreat Yea either this or pre-planning some sittings where i would do vipassana and some other self inquiry

Thanks for the answers I kinda see it the same way now, I go there more to have a retreat setup/environement Could you devellop ? I already tried out viapssana since i did a few vipassana retreats already and been practicing outsite of retreats as well Yea that's what I thoughts as well, not really possible to do a lot of kriya neither except for juste pranayama since there would be movements involved for maha mudra etc

@winterknight about psychoanalysis therapy, would it be a problem to change the therapist often ? Basically I move to another city/country every 1 to 3 months usually

@winterknight Do you think it's a good idea to take nootropics to improve the meditaton practice ?

What about doing a featured video/part with @Leo Gura In case both of you are down and interested in doing it obviously

Thanks for the answers Hapiness optimising is the underlying desire beneath but in a more practical way regarding to meditaiton i would say geting more and/or deeper equanimous state / care-free state / silent mind is what i'm looking for Would your answer about what advice/practice you recommend be different in order to improve on those 3 ?

Alright, I was already feeling that I will probably at some point naturally be drawn into the seeking truth path I'll stick to my desire for that moment being and maybe/probably let go of it later i guess Would you say that self-inquiry will already be a good practice for my optimising hapiness interests already ? I mean in short/mid-term results point of view (6month ish) I will probably try it anyways I never tried it yet I've been trying different practices so far, mostly vipassana, Kriya, and mindfull presence, trying to figure out which one is best suited for me now

@winterknight I am at a point right now where i'm really interested in the "Meditation" (in a large sens) Path, but not from a desire to seek the truth but rather mainly for a improving/optimising hapiness perspective, for example being more in a equanimous state, care-free state, present state, just 'being' more, I guess I had glimses of that after some of my vipassana retreats and I really like it basically What would you advice in order to progress on that path ?

@BuddhaTree Thanks for the answer, yea there's a lot of prep in Ennio's book, i'm still trying around see which ones seems the most effective to me, although the nadi sodhana + tadan is pretty fast so I find them quite good compared to the investment Does the placing attention means just feeling the sensations that appear there ? or not necessarly ? or not at all ?

Thanks for the share ! The website and animation about the localisation of the chakras is really nice actually I'm doing quite the same, except i do the preparations from Ennio Nimmis's book (some japa in kutastha then nadi sodhana then tadan kriya) before 108 pranayama then one yoni mudra plus a few minutes still being in kutastha The part I'm not really sure about is doing the OMs while "being in Kutastha", does it mean to feel the physical sensation at this area ? to mentally visualise that our "eyes" would be there and look from there ? to look towards it from our inner eyes (that would be in Medulla i guess) ? a mix of all of it ?

Why did you held off on that ? it seemed to me that the ability to do Kechari was such a keypoint and great booster to progress

When I do baby kechari my mounth and throat gets quite dry after 1/2minutes already, am I the only one who has this or is it common ?

So some event happended this week that got me quite shaked mentally Begining of this week, I meet a girl on the street, she seems to like me a lot and she was quite my type too, a few days later we meet on the afternoon, not gonna go too much in details, but it's going okay, she still seems to really like me and i feel more and more that she's really my type and i like her quite much as well, we go to my place, i go for the kiss, and then she freaks out and literally runaway (welcome to japan lol) I'm not looking for game/pickup related analysis posting here obviously, but from a perspective of meditation/mind/emotions management after that happened So I know what i'm supposed to do here on a vipassana perspective (i've been to a few retreats and vipassana is my main practice i'm respecting the 2 hours daily for 1 year now) : focus only on the sensations and observe them equanimously First off after that happens, i feel obviously unpleasant sensations and a big non acceptance of reality, so i'm like, okay fuck that's too much i can't take it it's too overwelming i need to distract/numb the situation that's too much for me at my stage, so i jerk off and then go into a reactive distraction mode by watching videos on youtube Obviously it's not perfect but i'm quite fine with that since the situation was really violent in a way But after that i'm quite surprised and dissapointed on how i did not really manage the situation well, I know pretty well how to respond to that and manage it (with vipassana), and I was even aware of that and aware of what was happening (at least partly), but yet, even after hours (and the next day and today to a lesser extent), I was still unable to get out of the story and just observe the present and the reality Sometimes I would observe my sensations a little bit, and it was actually not that bad, but i would just get pulled into thinking about the story and create much more misery for myself, while also being aware of it, which is why i'm quite surprised that i couldn't get out of this trap, it's like i nearly consciously surrender and chose to stay fucked and create more misery for me, while I knew (not only intelectually since i've been practing vipassana and been able to stay equanimous to unpleasant events before) how to get out of it but still couldn't get out of the pull of falling into the story I think one thing that trapped me is how i was not able to accept the reality, as it felt (or I guess to say that i thought that will be more correct) so wrong and that really it should not be like that One belief that i engage on is that everything is exactly how it is supposed to be and that the universe make it happen for a reason, but sometimes i turn this belief into a mindfuck when i try to project it into the future, by for example trying to understand what will be the point of that, or to think of what i am supposed to do in the future, to stay in this line of "what is supposed to be" And obviously it turns into a great mindfuck when i turn it like that that "things are supposed to be a certain way", and for this case i even thought that maybe it was not supposed to be like that and that i went out of this line of "it was supposed to be x" and fucked up what was supposed to be So yea I think in regard to that the key is to keep the "things are exactly how they are supposed to be" only for present and past, but never try to project it into the future or try to understand/speculate/anticipate on the why and the future Still i'm quite surprised and dissapointed that i failled to get out of the story and just been engaging into nearly chosing to stay in this sad/wanting to fix the story mode, it's been 2 days since that happened and i've basically just wasted the last 2 days doing nothing distacting myself mostly Especially since i know exactly the way out of it with vipassana, and been focused on meditation a lot on the last weeks, also the story by itself is not even that dreadful, i will leave japan in 2 weeks anyways and even though i really liked that girl, i didn't know about her existance one week ago and spend total 2 hours with her, i still meet girls that i like at the same level at least one every few months, so it's not like i just lost a girlfriend that i loved and been with for 2 years or what I also knew that it will pass in not too long, either a few days or a week or 2/3 weeks max i most likely don't care at all about that anymore I also know that trying to fix the story is not the point but the point is to let go of the story so yea quite surprised that i managed it quite badly like that basically going full on into the trap of entering completly in the story-mode (also aware that i'm adding a little bit of guilt of not managing it well ot it and that doesn't help neither), I think the main issue was that I was not able to accept the reality, as it really felt (but i guess it's just a thought really) like it was wrong and not how things were supposed to be So yea sharing this experience, the point is not really to solve this particular case because anyways in a few days or few weeks max i will not care anyways and it will be solved by itself, but more in general, i feel like i could have done better managing it and not get sucked into entering the story, so any comment or advice is appreciated

Thanks for all the answers some great advices there So I'll just keep experimenting Tonight I tried going with the nose, it was obviously way more comfortable, I still did feel similar effects after I stopped after 10 minutes : lots of quite intense thingling sensations especially in the front part of the 3rd chakra, breath that can go wayyyy slower kinda as if I didn't need much air anymore, good level of presence, although i felt that the stillness of the mind was maybe a bit weaker than the last times, although it might just be a coincidence too, so yea i'll keep experimenting some, i'm already quite happy with the effects on the focus with only 10 minutes of nasal breathing also

I've been trying the shamaning breathing technique that leo describes in that video I'm really interested in using it before my vipassana meditation session to improve the quality of my focus and meditation basically (right now if I meditate 1 hour I will be actually focused on the sensations barelly 20-25% of the time on average, which i find quite low) It has worked well, but my throat gets really dry and it get really unconfortable and really really hard for me to continue and not to swallow saliva to moist (i've tried drinking a lot of water prior as well), to the point where doing it even only 10-15 minute was already really hard and unconfortable So my question is, is there an alternative to this technique (or maybe just breathing the same way with no interuption but throught the nose) that will produce the same concentration benefits ? Wim Hoff's breathing technique ?

Thanks for the advice I took 2 spoon of olive oil tonight before my practice Felt quite disconfortable in my throat so i took some water after And then for the breathing, i didn't really feel much difference from normal, still quickly i really need to swallow saliva

@Esoteric You can check Ennio Nimis's book (Kriya Yoga - Synthesis of a personal experience) as a complement, it's available for free online he gives his insight and recommendation about the technique

When you count the number of KP with fingers, how do you position your hands (since you can't hold them completly together) ? If that's important