Consilience

Ghosts sent me straight into the Divine in a way Im still processing almost a year later. Not sure if it’s strain specific or just that particular batch, however I will always deeply respect that strain. One thing to keep in mind about mushrooms is that each person interacts with each strain differently. And what’s more important that strain is a willingness to sit at the feet of the spirit. You’re interacting with an intelligence far beyond the capabilities of the human mind. If you approach this teacher with humility, respect, and reverence, you really can’t go wrong.

So much wisdom here. Yes, choose wisely. Understand deeply, however, there are no wrong choices.

Don’t forget about the 9th ox herding picture ❤️ Yes, it can be experienced how all flavors of perception share the same “taste.” For me this usually occurs when I contact the underlying effervescence of perceptions, everything takes on a quality of spaciousness, lightness, and fluidity. It’s seen that all perception arise and pass from the same source, and in their simultaneous birth/death, they are like mist. Furthermore, even if distinctions are being made, it’s all one unified field with 0 room for separation.

@nistake Ive never formally done it, but Ive had many moments on retreats, psychedelics, or just day to day practice where I’ve encountered unconscious content of mind deeply shaping my “surface” level experience. My guess would be this would be called the shadow. Ive also observed how much of my judgments and problems with others are really problems with myself. So having never formally practiced shadow work but having observed and worked through large amounts of shadow material, yeah I see the power in directly focusing on it. For me, meditation naturally aluminates these hidden dynamics of mind. But I also practice meditation not only in the context of enlightenment, but also as a practice to purify the mind and harmonize the mind with ethics, virtue, integrity, metta, goodness, etc. The shadow cannot maintain itself in the light of these wholesome qualities. However as history has shown, even advanced meditators fail to uproot everything. Self deception, the shadow, the devil, should never, ever, be underestimated. In a sense, I view real meditation as an indispensable pillar for bringing light to the shadows in the mind. But only doing mindfulness will most likely leave blind spots.

@Arthogaan Thank you but I haven’t mastered meditation, still very much a beginner. The deepest access to this formless consciousness, the self, has occurred during formal meditation practice. Infinity, or God are also appropriate words. Yet even those words and this writing do an enormous disservice to what is being pointed to. It’s not an experience, state, or perception and cannot be captured. Because it is completely independent of all qualia/experience, it persists even during dreamless sleep. The strange paradox is that this pure nothingness can start to reveal itself at deeper and deeper levels as we practice, despite being completely independent of all qualities. I don’t have access to this pure nothingness during deep sleep. But when there’s a lot of concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity, yeah. Doing self inquiry or dzogchen like practices are when it’s most available, but Ive been experimenting with trying to practice vipassana while absorbed in the nothing. It tends to suck the mind in and totally obliterate conceptual sense making. Attention becomes too present, too now, for any coherent thoughts to exist, as all thoughts and concepts rest on the creation of time. Ive had what I consider to be “mini” cessation events when attempting to bring attention to this. Im not sure whether it’s 8th jhana or cessation but all perception starts to very briefly blink out of existence and all that “remains” is that pure, changeless consciousness that persists between waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep. Don’t misunderstand though, I still have tons and tons and tons of bullshit to work through. Neurotic thinking and self clinging, suffering, and stress are what make up the majority of my day. Being able to access such deep states and touching truth has shown just how much work there is left to do to really live in alignment with what is true. It’s been beyond humbling.

The self remains in dreamless sleep. So yes it is the same. This pure nothingness is also called awareness in some traditions and can become aware of itself while in the waking state.

After aggressively exploring both psychedelics and meditation, there comes a point on the path where meditation becomes “more effective” than psychedelics. For beginners, yeah meditation is such a slow process psychedelics would be more effective for having insights.

@Reciprocality Can you even claim a caused b if there’s no way to know something similar will happen again? On what precise basis are we assigning casual dependency from a to b?

That being said, understanding the causal nature of relative reality can be indispensable for awakening. For example, deeply observing the links of dependent origination and experientially extrapolating the ineffable, infinite interdependency with all beings across time and space can be used to completely break free from self clinging and the activities of mind creating the illusion of relative reality. Be careful about throwing the baby out with the bath water and adopting what this post points to as a belief system before you’ve actually trained your attention to see clearly the actuality of your moment by moment experience and the dynamics at play.

@Kksd74628 It sounds like you've mad pretty substantial breakthroughs. That's amazing to hear. It's difficult for me to understand where you're at on your path, but I can say that for the overwhelming majority of people who think they've really broken through to reality, have not. Truly breaking through means liberation from suffering. The truth is so good, so transcendent, so radical, that things such as a slow, painful death, or torture, are seen through. The mind and consciousness have become so integrated and awakened that even if these tragedies were to befall on the being in question, they wouldn't suffer at all. That's true enlightenment, that's the implications of how things really are. If you disagree with that claim, you and I are talking about two totally distinct kinds of awakening. How many of these neo advaita types could withstand cancer ravaging the body without fear or suffering, for example? Not many. The power in holding ourselves to such extreme conditions is that it forces a humility and an understanding of just how deep this path really goes. An easy way to stress test one's level of awakening is to go on meditation retreats and seriously face what you really are without the distractions, titillations, and addictions of life. Just as beautifully as seeing the perfection of this present moment is watching the wonder, beauty, and subtle grandiosity of the unfolding spiritual path. Seeing through the illusion of a separate self is truly just the beginning. Keep going would be my default feedback to anyone claiming to be awake.

For the longest time I viewed my caffeine habit as a subtle addiction that needed to be let go off. Every morning, Id wake and feel a clear urge to go make coffee. Not only did it provide a release from the brain fog (which I saw as an aversion which also needed to be let go of), but it felt ritualistic as a nice calming way to start my day. I never really drank a lot, normally 1 cup per day. (8oz) Somehow Id got it in my mind that this habit needed to be eliminated permanently. Well... after a rollercoaster of ego backlashes and relapses, I finally I quit for 2 months. In this time frame, it feels as though I learned quite a bit about myself but see, it also has me questioning my initial urge to quit. Not drinking coffee was nice in the sense that I was now starting my days off without an external substances playing a role in that process. Moreover, there was a confidence built from finally tackling one of my strongest addictions. However, the longer I went without coffee, the more I expected to gain boosts in natural energy. I never drank enough or late enough in the day for it to disrupt sleep, but I thought maybe my consistent use interfered with my natural ability to wake up and have energy. This, however, has not been observed. Rather than my body adjusting from no more coffee to waking up faster in the mornings, instead my mornings have just been subjected to more brain fog and lethargy. I haven’t actually had any daily energetic boosts from no longer consuming. In effect, no longer drinking coffee has actually created a more negative morning process than positive, which is the opposite of what I expected. A number of things have become clear to me though: 1) My personality type is one that feels guilt from these strong subtle addictions 2) My body tends to rest in an extremely calm state most times, resulting in my mornings having persistently been difficult to get energy. Even when trying things like drinking loads of water, exercise, and yoga, nothing has matched the power of standard cup of coffee for energy boost. 3) As a result of the decreased caffeine use in the morning, my meditation has actually suffered because of an increase in mind wandering and dullness. Interestingly enough, the more tired my mind is, the more monkey mind and day dreaming occurs. 4) The only positive that has resulted in this is that Im no longer indulging in a daily habit I initially viewed as negative. But this in and of itself is neither positive or negative? And the line between a positive habit and destructive subtle addiction can be thin. After this experiment, Im no longer confident in my decision. It feels as though I sacrificed a powerful tool that was helpful, as long as I used it in moderation despite it being a strong rooted subtle addiction. And in fact, I other than the guilt I never actually felt negative consequences for my daily use. For example, brushing my teeth is an extremely strong “addiction” we might say, but it is not one Im looking to overcome for its obvious benefits. Id be very interested in anyone’s feedback or experiences when it comes to this topic. Particularly because I know how damn tricky the ego is, and how deceptive the mind can be with justification.

It's kind of hilarious, utterly tragic, and also interesting observing this new niche and ego survival mechanism emerge. Even though real spirituality takes an enormous amount of effort, persistence and dedication, most will never realize the extent of this, even those who have had some kind of glimpse. I think many who get swept away in the sales pitch of "THIS IS IT, THERE'S NOTHING TO DO" will eventually come to their senses. If years have passed and large amounts of suffering are still present, I'd like to think the heart/mind naturally moves towards higher teachings, teachers, and ultimately, a higher path. This may be an empty hope though.

That's a difficult answer, I'm not 100% sure. I've found and worked with 3 teachers I'm confident are unafraid of death - Peter Ralston, Shinzen Young, and Soryu Forall. Part of me wants to say if you're serious about this path, the teachers appear when you're ready. It may be easier to find online teachers, but you could also find a teacher you see every so often on retreats and whatnot. Good teachers still teach even without being in their physical presence. For example, I was sitting in an Enlightenment Intensive and Ralston was doing a Q&A. One of his answers to my question has stuck with me literally months after the fact and is something that's been unraveling since, and will most likely continue to unravel. There's an embodied energy and power these kinds of teachers have that somewhat transcends time and space - we don't have to be in their physical presence for their presence, teachings, or pointers to still palpably work through our system. I wouldn't say the spiritual path is the opposite. What about a solo sport like powerlifting? Yeah someone could totally own it, do all their own programing, do their own technique analysis and dieting, etc. But having a coach radically streamlines the whole process and if you find a good enough coach, they will actually teach you and help point out blindspots. Even though powerlifting is ultimately a solo journey, (you're the one who's going to have to get under a heavy squat, push a heavy bench press, lift a heavy deadlift, meal prep, etc.), the serious powerlifter benefits greatly from having a coach. Same thing with meditation and spirituality. There are simply too many ways for the mind to deceive itself for an argument to be made against working with a teacher. Long term, yeah all teachers, teachings, and even practices will be abandoned - all of these are just skillful means. However, to throw the baby out with the bath water prematurely could mean the difference between legitimately awakening and bullshitting yourself.

Large amounts of daily meditation, think 2+ hours per day, annual 7+ day meditation retreats or more. Work with a teacher. Find someone unafraid to die, tends to be a good metric.

Intro One quick clarification - Many of these days of practice have involved not only the 90 minute SDS sit, but a 60 minute SDS sit as well. I'm currently practicing both in the morning and evening which have provided multiple opportunities for this practice. The results mentioned in this post are most likely a result of doing this kind of intensity of practice twice a day rather than once. My morning SDS sits are 60 minutes, while the evenings have been the 90 minutes. Moreover, it's difficult to determine how much of these results come directly from the SDS sitting and how much stem from the overarching intensity of training (currently living at in a monastic training environment). Leading into this training approach was a 7 day meditation retreat where I practiced 8+ hours of this kind of sitting; not all at once, across multiple sits. Ultimately, all of the training feeds on and cannot be separated from itself, yet the consistency and challenge of the 90 minutes seems to be at the root of these results. It's also worth pointing out, while practicing I'll let my spine naturally straighten and adjust on its own, trusting the body's natural intelligence. All other body movements are off limits. The function of SDS is not to not move; the function is to purify the mind. The spine adjusting does very, very, very little to the pain one's experiencing and can even at times make the pain worse. However, sitting in good posture, strengthening the supporting back muscles and ingraining proper body positioning is more important to me than any minor benefits I may or may not get by not letting the spine move. - As I've mentioned in this post, I've been taking a step back from my engagement with the community. The recent fixation on psychedelics as a viable means for awakening has felt out of alignment with my integrity in so far as listening to my inner wisdom about what steps need to be taken in order to align with my highest value - Truth. My gut tells me Leo's path and mine are very different and that trying to brute force my way into awakening through psychedelics is a path of spiritual foolishness. This isn't to say it won't work for Leo, or that it couldn't work in general, but from what I've observed within myself, within this forum having taken a step back, and from what I've observed living with serious practitioners for the past two months (check out this post for why I become a semi-monk), my skepticism about psychedelic's leading to legitimate awakening is at an all time high. This isn't even to mention all of the strange Neo-Advaita energy on the forum. As such, my resonance with the Actualized community feels more distant than it's ever been since discovering Leo's work. Yet despite this skepticism, and dis-resonance with the community, I'd still like to offer perspectives that may help many. Because despite the fact that we may have differing opinions or beliefs about awakening, one of the most beautiful qualities of Actualized.org is our commitment to discovering the truth about reality. Additionally, I truly believe Leo's work has been a gift to humanity and I would not be here writing a post in contradiction with Leo's position if it weren't for all of the earlier Actualized.org material. This post is an offering about the effects of hardcore daily meditation practice and what happens when one relentlessly commits to purifying the mind. Themes: Purification My daily practice schedule Why am I doing this? Pain Tolerance Emotional Rewiring Integrity Pain, Compassion, Interdependency, Solipsism Psychedelics vs. Practice Conclusion Purification Purification in this post means the process of the cessation of craving and aversion; in other words, the process by which we stop the mind's pushing and pulling on perception. One of the key axioms of Buddhism and many spiritual traditions that emphasize contemplative practice is that the quality of one's mind is a key variable with one's ability to directly perceive reality. For example, the "direct consciousness" of an awakening experience, the experience of God, or Nirvana will be unavailable to the degree one's mind is constantly at odds with experience. By purification, I don't mean to suggest that the mind's activity is somehow impure, or wrong. In fact, once one begins to truly purify the mind, one sees that even the defilements of the mind (qualities such as hatred, greed, and ignorance) are themselves pure and of "one taste." This is where the Non-duality would come into play; every experience is of God. Unfortunately, because the mind has brilliant, deeply sophisticated self-deception mechanisms that keep the self-activity endlessly churning, this insight often gets co-opted by the ego. This is what is happening in many of the Neo Advaita community. I will concede, however, that as one actually purifies the mind, these defilements are seen as self-liberating; hatred, when experienced completely without resistance (hatred in its most "purified" or direct form) is no longer hatred. One cannot hate when hatred is experienced is its actuality. As such, this process of purification is not necessarily about permanently elevating one's state into wholesome mental qualities like metta, happiness, joy, tranquility, but is instead about a deep rewiring of one's mind and this mind's relationship with all phenomena regardless of quality, quantity, or activity. Purification at the highest level is the radical recontextualization of one's relationship to experience. That being said, learning to cultivate wholesome mental qualities is a very powerful method of purification because it forces us to confront our twisted addictions to various forms of craving and aversion. For example, one cannot be deeply absorbed in a jhana without first having dropped the activities of craving and aversion; in this way, we could say the 8 jhanas are states of mind in increasingly more direct relationship with reality. This is one framing of jhanas and not the only one, nor 100% true. My Daily Practice Schedule Below is a standard day of training at the Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth, MAPLE (where I'm currently living). The SDSs are not mandatory; rather they are something I do for myself. Most in the community don't do regular SDS sitting. Because I am living there as a guest, I am actually not practicing as much as the apprentices and residents. I am living within the community and working remotely. 4:30 - 5:00am Silent practice 5:00 - 5:30am Chanting 5:30 - 6:30am Silent practice (SDS) 6:30 - 7:30am Exercise + Cold shower 7:30 - 8:15am Silent mindful eating practice, breakfast 12:30 - 1:15pm Silent mindful eating practice, lunch 7:00 - 8:30pm Silent practice (SDS) 8:30 - 8:45pm Chanting 8:45 - 9:15pm Self practice/Bed Why am I doing this? Before coming to MAPLE, there was something inside the depths of my mind that knew my aversion needed to be addressed if awakening was my goal. My meditation practice had developed sufficiently enough to where despite being able to consistently reach radically profound states, these states were fragile, completely dependent on conditions being favorable enough to see clearly. Despite being able to experience formless jhanas, emptiness, and God without chemical augmentation, this clear seeing was only available when I wasn't suffering. As pain, whether bodily or emotional, increased enough, the availability of this clear seeing disappeared. The first week of being at MAPLE was a 7 day meditation retreat. The first day I was sitting and ruminating about how I wanted this retreat to go. I told myself that this first retreat would be a great warmup, but that on the second retreat later in April, I would focus on SDS and my relationship with pain. I starting getting pumped about how great this experience was going to be and how my mind would be after April. And then some sort of higher power, or higher self phenomena smacked me in the face and forced me to acknowledge nothing was holding me back from pursuing this SDS goal now, in the January retreat. Over the course of those 7 days I sat in so much pain, unbelievably intense pain and emotional distress coupled with waves of perfect equanimity and peace. Hours and hours of physical stillness giving rise to waves of pain, struggle, and breaking free massive amounts of grief and love in my heart. By the end of those 7 days my mind was more clear than it'd ever been. Something in my being wanted to keep the momentum going though, seeing that the fear and aversion towards pain had not been fully uprooted. Pain Tolerance When one examines the actuality of pain, there are broadly speaking two flavors of phenomena going on. #1 The sensations of pain. #2 The mind's resistance to pain. The key to purifying pain is by bring awareness (mindfulness) to these two interpenetrating sensations and untangling them. Most people experience these as one movement which is what creates the suffering. #2 can only resist #1 when both are tangled up together. The mind can only suffer when #2 is allowed to merge with #1. The reality of #1 and #2 cannot be seen when both are tangled up precisely because of the illusory nature of their entanglement. They are not actually tangled, existing as one movement; they are already distinct phenomena and therefore the suffering one experiences from pain is an illusion. Yet to uproot this ignorance, one must see the constituents of the illusion clearly. When one begins to directly experience #1, the pain takes on a flavor of fluidity and spaciousness. Pain starts to be experienced almost like liquid, as though there are little microcosmic waves making up each millimeter of the body's perceptual shape. As #2 is experienced directly, it begins to literally evaporate. The mind's resistance, #2, is spatially located right within the pain itself. When one penetrates this supra-subtle experience of #2 and it is seen directly as itself, it no longer has the infrastructure to ground itself. Hence the evaporation of #2 as one brings mindfulness to it. As strange as this may sound, #2 can only exist while #2 is actively resisting #1; it's a microcosmic strange loop and in Buddhism is called Dependent Origination. #2 Resists #1 which reinforces/gives rise to #2. Of course, this is a process dependent upon time which when we perceive reality with perfect mindfulness, time and space are seen as illusions as well thus the whole thing falls apart. Unfortunately, I don't have complete clarity on the exact dynamics of what is going on beyond what I mentioned above. I am still studying suffering and my relationship clearing seeing the causes and conditions of suffering, and therefore the causes and conditions obstructing my awareness of God. However, as a result of this practice and the aforementioned experiential observations, I can sit in much larger amounts of pain and for longer periods of time than I have ever been able to in my life. Pain and my fear of it just feels vapid, to some degree. I feel a confidence and determination in my practice to continue uprooting this wrong view. Death, decay, and the pain of impermanence feel remarkably more peaceful. Emotional Rewiring (Infinity) Because #2 is an emotional/conceptual experience, bringing mindfulness to this emotional activity has a natural, automatic rewiring effect. Mindfulness rewires the mind; it is truly an activity of grace and a miraculous miracle. Not only does one begin to build an enormous amount of mental resiliency sitting with this type of challenge, but there is a confidence, faith, and uprooting of doubt about the power of meditation, the path, and what one's natural mind is capable of. Because this practice forces one to examine and bring equanimity to challenging emotions, this practice has immediate and direct carry over to living in a the state of this world. The world is painful, harrowing, horrifying, and terrible in so many ways. How does one see God in all of it without becoming numb to it all? By coming into right relationship with God. As long as there is a lack of equanimity with the actuality of God, one will not be in right relationship with God. As long as one is resisting the various forms of pain in this world, one will be unable to grieve for its horror. As long as one cannot grieve at this existential scale, one will be unable to love God. And if one cannot love God, one cannot love themselves. If one cannot love themselves, one will be unable to know what they actually are in its totality. By deeply rewiring one's emotional system to experience large magnitudes of pain, we begin opening up the heart to experience the collective magnitude of suffering, that this suffering is of God's nature. As bold of a claim as this is, we won't be able to truly love and therefore know truth until this collective suffering is held in the deepest, unfathomable depths God's mind and heart. The aversion we have towards pain is also an aversion we have towards accepting what we actually are not just individually, but in the infinity of our true nature. Integrity A primary operating principle of mind is to provide answers. A primary operating principle of the body is to be comfortable. Integrity is developed when one can sit in not knowing and when one the body can sit with discomfort. SDS prevents the mind from providing answers. With this much pain, there are no answers. SDS prevents the body from finding comfort. With this much pain, no comfort can be found. As we cultivate this equanimity and let the pain naturally work through our system, we purify the mind. As the mind is purified, integrity is developed. It's pretty simple. We won't be able to trust ourselves or our word as long as our minds are out of alignment with actuality. At the root of this lack of alignment is one's relationship to pain. Pain, Compassion, Interdependency, Solipsism As a matter of direct experience, there are no others. There is only the aggregation of sight, taste, touch, sound, smell, and mind. As a matter of becoming directly conscious of what one is, it is experienced that the consciousness "inside of me" must be the same consciousness "inside of another." Why? Because this consciousness is completely pure, complete without quality or form. When looking into another being's eyes and questioning what they are, we can come to directly realize this consciousness looking out of each other's eyes shares the exact same nature and therefore by necessity, must be the same consciousness. It is paradoxical and a mindfuck. When one directly experiences Absolute Unity, all is seen to be one. It's not that other's don't exist. And it's not that you exist. And it's not that I exist. It's not that you are me, or I am you, nor is it that you are God and I am God. It's that there is a movement of infinite unity, and interdependency. The activity in one's mind is at the end of an infinite, interconnected chain of causes and conditions giving rise to outcomes and effects. All movements of relative reality interpenetrate and connect with all other movements of relative reality, at all levels. The personality cannot be separated from this totality. So when it's seen that there is no such thing as 'the' "personality" or the self, that the self is just a purely spontaneous movement, when we TRULY experience our real nature, what we are on all levels of relativity and absolutely cannot be separate from anything or anyone else. This is Solipsism. But that word and its philosophical implications are a poor conceptual framework for the unity I speak of. When the ego mind intellectualizes this, all kinds of resistances, fears, and twisted interpretations arise. When consciousness awakens to its own nature, a reservoir of endless compassion begins to open. Why? Because the suffering of another is, to some degree, experienced as one's own suffering. The suffering we find within ourselves is the suffering underneath the mind activity of other. There is no separation. There is no duality. When we see the necessity of alleviating our own suffering in order to come into union with truth, we see the necessity in alleviating the suffering of others, and perhaps all beings. For it is impossible to truly end our own suffering and therefore truly awaken to our true nature as long as a single being remains lost in Samsara. At least, this seems to be where my experience is going. The pain I've experienced from SDS has shown me glimpses into such horrific atrocities throughout the history of humanity and by extension, the endless eternity of infinity's activity. Samsara is like an infinite set within the infinite set of infinities. It has an end in its endlessness. Yet this end is impossible unless we merge, come into marriage with, and move towards our own pain, our own suffering. Awakening without this unification is incomplete, half-baked, and ultimately a pitiful substitute for what our hearts actually yearn for. The compassion born from embracing hell with love and the direct realization of unity is the source of energy needed to awaken to a depth and degree too grandiose for words, and too heart wrenching for tears. Psychedelics vs. Practice Psychedelics have played such a crucial role in my own process. They've played such a critical role with opening my mind up to the infinitude of consciousness and what the mind is capable of encountering. They've shown me the divine to a depth and degree I cherish. The grace and blessing of having experienced what I've experienced on psychedelics almost hurts to acknowledge, as though I am unworthy for the amount of wisdom they've provided. But for my own path, the real work has just begun. The boredom, fatigue, craving, aversion, resistance, numbness, addictions, and defilements of the human mind must be dealt with head on. As is becoming increasingly obvious from Leo and those who have consistently used psychedelics, psychedelics do no uproot these defilements of mind and in some cases, they can reinforce certain defilements. As long as these defilements exist in the mind with a lack of mindful clarity, ignorance and suffering remains. I hope that by reading this report, the great psychonauts of Actualized.org can realize the importance of manual practice and perhaps start to see more clearly what needs to be done manually, and the ultimate limits of psychedelics. Conclusion The fastest way to make tangible, powerful, and exponential results with this work is through rigorous meditation and the relentless pursuit of purifying one's mind. I cannot stress this enough. You don't need a $1000 course, you don't need 5-MeO DMT, and you don't need endless amounts of over conceptualization and arm chair forum philosophy. What you need is to take the emotional hit of doing the work. 2+ hours of meditation per day and going on annual week+ long meditation retreats is a start, but as you can tell from my daily schedule and the fact that I'm living in a monastic training environment, I do a lot more than that. However, the results have been utterly undeniable. And you will make profound results without needing to go join a monastery. Further, I would make a bet that the community of actualized.org responds extremely well to rigorous meditation practice, contrary to Leo's beliefs and what he encourages. Because we have such powerful philosophical frameworks and because many of us have such ample experience with altered states using psychedelics, I believe this potentiates the effects of meditation. I could be wrong, but this is based on examining how practice has evolved within the context of my aggressive use and history with psychedelics. Depending on how this is received, I may make an additional practice report going into more generally how it's been living and training in community at MAPLE. There is so much that could be said, but I'll go on ahead and end it here. I hope this report helps inspire you to take meditation more seriously, and provides a glimpse into what is possible with rigorous meditation practice.

My coffee habit is more or less broken. If I'm going to drink caffeine, I'll usually do green tea. The place I'm living at has really low quality coffee which makes me just not interested in drinking... haha. Which has helped dramatically cut back on caffeine. Oddly enough, the fatigue associated with caffeine withdrawal, at least in low amounts, seems to be counteracted by all of the meditation I'm doing. With sufficient mindfulness, fatigue and mental dullness turns into energy.

Sure. My main practice is not vipassana, at this point it is the do nothing technique, also called silent illumination, just sitting, shikantaza, dzogchen, or surrender. Just for clarification, vipassana is not body scanning. Body scanning can be a form of vipassana, but really vipassana as a practice is when we're intentionally paying attention to one or some combination of the three marks of existence, the casual nature of phenomena, or emptiness. It's not body scanning, but body scanning can be a focus space when practicing vipassana. So for example, if I'm ever formally practicing vipassana, I 99% of the time will use Shinzen Young's See Hear Feel technique, which has a focus space of all sensory phenomena. I also enjoy practicing breath focus as well if my nervous system feels out of harmony or if I just feel like it. Yes I typically find body scanning to be not as exciting as other practices, however boredom is actually an emotional response indepedent of the sensations of the body. When we've developed enough access concentration, whether momentary or single pointed access concentration, body scanning becomes deeply interesting. The body can start to dissolve into feeling like waves or merging with space. The only reason the body doesn't feel that way right now is that the mind is so dis-harmonized and caught in subliminal craving and aversion, out of this lack of clarity emerges the mirage of solidity and individuality. If you have trouble accessing deep states during meditation, I would recommend looking into the book The Mind Illuminated or looking into Shinzen Young's See Hear Feel technique. Each is extremely rewarding to practice and each has enormous depth.

Just wanted to say thank you guys for the support. I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to everyone but reading the reports, reflections, and support means a lot. And lastly, regardless of where you're at, thank you for your practice. The impact one's spiritual path has on the world can be so subtle yet so significant.

God is not lonely. This is an egoic interpretation of absolute truth, an anthropomorphism of God. God is so far beyond humanity it's impossible to imagine... And incredible difficult to directly experience given how biased the mind is towards its human activity. When pure, infinite, interconnected unity is felt, loneliness is an impossibility. If we're going to anthropomorphize, it may be more accurate to say God created separation for the sheer joy of creation, yet part of the infinity of God's creation includes loneliness. In the absolute, unmanifest, ultimate reality, ie the way things really are, there is no loneliness. There is only peace, there is only truth.

How many meditation retreats have you gone on?

@Shambhu High quality share as usual... Just throwing a random definition out from my own experience - Liberation can be described as the direct experience of perception no-longer entangled with itself. Perceptual non-interference has been seen so clearly, developed so completely, that all possibility of objects, time, space, self, other, and suffering cease. This clear seeing directing, palpably coming into contact with the space out of which space, time, and all perception arise and pass back into, moment after moment. It is an encounter with infinity, God, absolute now. One practical way to access this clear seeing is to use Shinzen Young's Gone technique. It helps attention begin to stablize on the space from where perception is arising out of and passing back into. This technique helps attention stablize on the the underlying context of all experience, which also happens to be God. Combine this with hardcore self inquiry and you'll accidentally liberate yourself.

Haven't read through the post, but just answering the thread title. YES. Spiritual work has deeply healed my own anger issues. I used to be such an angry person, to the point where I'm pretty sure it was my anger issues that gave me my autoimmune condition. Or at least a large part of it. Getting a chronic disease was part of my wake up call that how I was operating was deeply unsustainable, damaging not only my external relationships, but my physical body at a cellular level. - Daily meditation - Yoga - Psychedelics - Emotional processing/circling/psycotheraputic practices - Meditation retreats These have all played a significant role with healing my anger. The most powerful have been daily meditation, meditation retreats, and psychedelics. Great part is, all three of these practices have many benefits beyond healing anger.

Such an amazing share! Thank you for posting this. ❤️

I would just say the awake dick measuring contest is more mental garbage you need to work through if you’re actually interested in Awakening, which it’s clear you’re not. Of course the Buddha is imaginary, all of life of a dream. Your point? The real fruit is so radical you will not cling to or incessantly seek peak experiences.

The most important rule with this type of sitting and sitting in meditation in general: Do not harm the physical body. If you have injuries, seated practice will look very different for you than others. Sitting for long periods can also be undulated with chairs, standing, or lying down in a position where you won't fall asleep. But yes, as important as these other areas of life are, meditation practice will serve to bring more harmony and happiness to all of it. Following this instinct is the most important move you'll ever make in life, in my view.