Consilience

Beautiful ?

I was talking about your picture. ?

@The0Self Good lawd

Psychedelics would help a lot. Rigorously questioning the mainstream’s metaphysical positions would help too. Scientific materialism is based on a whole host of unconscious beliefs about how we ‘should’ interpret scientific date, as well as how one ‘knows.’ Questioning your own epistemological process is critical as well. Apply the skepticism in on itself, apply it on the sense that you’re even in a position to objectively critique anything about mysticism. How do you actually know anything? Are there things outside of the rational mind’s ability to know? For example, you do not need to explain the taste of an apple through rational argumentation, you fucking bite that shit and taste it. Expecting someone to prove to you what the the taste of an apple ‘is’ through logic would be absurd. So even with this utterly basic example, we can logically see there are certain facets to existence that can be proven without the use of the logical mind. It may be the case that awakening is another such direct knowing, so direct that it’s prior to interpretation, logic, and reason, not entirely un-similar to the taste of an apple. As an aside, Awakening experiences are directly proportional to mind inactivity. Beliefs actually get in the way of experiencing reality directly, but this is only seen after one starts to reliably have access to Awakening experiences and has the meditative training to understand when the mind is less or more active. On the topic of meditation, 20 minutes per day is nothing for deconstructing and getting to the bottom of reality and what’s existentially True. You’d need 1+ hour per day for multiple years, learning from many masters and traditions, going on at least 1 silent retreat per year before meditation starts to yield significant results. If you want an Awakening from meditation, silent retreats and a rigorous daily practice are the fastest way.

Do you see how death is this very moment?

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I would recommend reading the book "The Mind Illuminated" which provides a long term road map of meditation progress across 10 progressively deeper stages of practice. As you progress across the stages, your experiences while meditating will become progressively more mystical and intrinsically rewarding. Once you're established at around stage 7 - 8, you can also start learning how to access jhana states, which are even more mystical. However it's worth mentioning this as well - as you start to reliably gain access to these mystical states with practice, their value starts to diminish. While on the one hand, it's utterly profound that the deepest states of emotional happiness and pleasure exist entirely from within, we do start to realize that this mundane, boring, fatigued, sober state as it is in this moment is just as mystical as the most profound mystical states you can achieve through meditation or even psychedelics. A mark of maturity on the path is recognizing an equilibrium across all states. This recognition of the 'divinity' of all states, all perceptions, all forms of suffering, bliss, dissatisfaction, and satisfaction, as they are, exactly as they appear, as an expression of the Absolute is where meditation practice leads in the long run. From this context, meditation is not about getting something or doing anything at all, it is merely about being exactly where you are. There is nothing to do and no where to go. Letting these profound mystical states carry you home, carry you nowhere at all is the path. I may also recommend practicing "do nothing" meditation in tandem with the techniques outlined in T.M.I., is it will help balance out some of the inevitable over-efforting goal based practice produces. When it comes to daily practice, I would establish a daily minimum, something so stupid easy you can't not do it. For me, it's 10 minutes per day. I know even when I feel my worst, I can sit down and do 10 minutes. When I first began practice, I would have made it something like 1 minute per day as my daily minimum. Daily consistency is the most important variable of practice when you're first starting out. Ideally, you want to work up to an hour per day. As far as motivation, this is why I recommend "The Mind Illuminated" as it gives you something extremely tangible to work towards while also facilitating absurdly deep states of consciousness. The skills you develop using that system will serve invaluable in pretty much all domains of life and every step along your own spiritual path. But more than that, meditation is an entry way into God, into what you really are. The amount of empowerment, fulfillment, wisdom, compassion you start to experience when being able to sit in your own being is ineffable. The skills you develop from meditation are THE keys to living a good life... Yes it's a fucking grind for the first few years. Hell maybe the first 10. But if you're serious about the work, it becomes magic, all of life becomes magic as the distinction between practice and every day life fall away. In my opinion, trust that feeling in your gut that's pulling you to turn within. The fact that we live in an age of such distraction and over-stimulation yet you feel a calling to turn your attention inward is beyond significant. It's only until you advance a long will you realize just how significant it really is. Hope this helps.

@r0ckyreed I agree with everything you wrote in the highest sense dude. All Im advocating for is that externally imposed retreat settings can serve a utility for the un-liberated mind, learning from external influences can serve a utility for the un-liberated mind. You’re going to seriously claim you were born enlightened, did zero studying or learning from other masters Ramana Maharshi style? Why devolve this into a non-dual word game? Making the (accurate) claim that we are our own best authority and therefore all forms of external retreat are less powerful than doing the work solely from ourselves is fine, but unhelpful for those beginning the work. And again I will point out, you criticizing externally restricting retreats is bullshit, again all is one. Those retreats you’re shitting on are you literally shitting on yourself. Picking and choosing when non-dual logic applies and doesn’t is just mental masturbation.

Psilocybin mushrooms are a very powerful medicine. Finding the right meditation technique and meditating enough is also helpful. Very likely 5-30 mins per day isn’t enough for serious healing. For meditation to facilitate serious healing, it’s best to practice in a retreat setting. Id recommend techniques based on shamatha/jhana.

Foolishness 101, self deception 101. Other masters are you teaching yourself. Edit: moreover, if you don’t have the humility or accompanying understanding of how other masters further along the path would have helpful insight you’re lost. If you don‘t see how entering into an environment that externally imposes challenges on to you could be helpful, you’re completely deluded. School, sports, any sort of physical domain of mastery requiring training…. No reason meditation is any different. If you grew up with free education, you’re benefiting from these very systems.

Wanted to share this gem I found a while back. If you're seriously interested in pursuing truth and understand the wisdom of serious meditation practice, this is one of the most powerful resources you'll ever encounter. For the past couple of months I've been listening to tons of videos from this channel and it's radically deepened my meditation practice, as well as my level of understanding of Truth. The channel was started by a Buddhist nun who has a formal education in comparative religion. She reads spiritual texts from many different masters from many different forms and lineages of spirituality. Advaita Vedanta, Theravada Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Christian Mysticism, Jainism, Tibetan Buddhism, Dzogchen... There's even one Neo Advaita series thrown in Moreover, the way she reads these texts is in a meditative tone often times using music in the background to create a synthesis between heart and mind. Extremely powerful material from true masters. I believe her ability to create these types of offerings is only possible because Samaneri herself is an advanced practitioner on the path. I've found the best way to consume this content is as a form of meditation practice. Here is one of my favorites she posted recently: I'd originally found her channel looking for videos on the 10 ox herding pictures which she did a series on which I'd also highly recommend.

@r0ckyreed How many hours have you practiced on at home retreats? How many years have you practiced meditation?

There's no such thing as strong will or 'self' discipline, there's no one to have discipline. The distinction you're creating around retreat and discipline is imaginary; a retreat imposing discipline is just as much you imposing discipline on yourself as you imposing discipline on yourself during an at home retreat, or with no retreat at all. You are literally the entirety of the experience of going on retreat, there is 0 separation. Moreover, there's an advantage to going on a retreat, immersing one's self under the guidance of a master and feeling the collective intention with the fellow retreat goers. You're also much more likely to push harder while being swept in the momentum of the collective psychology of a retreat. Wisdom.

Wow this is such a beautiful articulation. ?

Nope. Has it worked? Yes. So much so that I sometimes can’t believe it. Went from walking around lividly angry at the world, to finding moments of true transcendent peace and happiness independent of my current emotional state, whether angry, sad, happy, or blissed out on pleasure. We might call it a higher order equanimity, an equanimity that is the context of all states. One only needs to recognize it as a quality of the true self. If we do the work of uncovering our true nature, heaven is discovered to be this moment.

Finding a soto zen sangha will be your best bet.

Somehow that’s not surprising at all ? Thank you for the link! Definitely checking dude‘s channel out.

Short answer is yes. Longer answer, noting gone is what starts to clue the attention onto this dynamic quality of perception, but there‘s no guarantee noting gone will always break one into emptiness. However, it is a very powerful, quite unknown technique. An absence of mind and thought isn’t this quality of expansion/contraction or arising/passing, but the fact that you can even get into states of thougtlessness is great. When you break into expansion and contraction, thought activity may still be going on, but at this level of mindfulness thoughts are no problem, they’re just more objects to observe expansion and contraction. Id say Shinzen’s teachings on expansion and contraction are part of what propelled my own practice into a whole new level of depth AND helped contextualize other contradictory teachings. For example, awareness doesn’t always carry with it this level of detection. If Ive entered a jhanic like state of awareness but can‘t penetrate the void like nature of experience via expansion and contraction, I know Im not resting as the awareness a teacher like Ramana Maharshi is pointing, for example. If the outside world still feels solid, there’s a shitload of mental fabrication, uncognized mind activity, and self deception going on. This is how noting/vipassana can be a powerful tool even in the context of self inquiry. But on the other hand, when one does start to breakthrough to THE Self in meditation, even expansion and contraction collapse in on themselves into infinite emptiness. There is a single thus-ness which is neither being, nor non-being. For now, Id try to start detecting the moment by moment flavors of how reality is constantly dying and being reborn. Noting gone or noting new are powerful entry points. For that matter, so is the See Hear Feel technique in general.

Can your attention concentrate deeply enough on perceptive experience to feel the moment by moment arising and passing/expansion and contraction of moment by moment perceptive experience? If yes, can you penetrate even more deeply onto the underlying emptiness? If yes, all you really need to do is just hangout there. If no, work towards each of these steps. Any sort of existential contemplation is best completed from this space of awareness, in my opinion. So until attention can stabilize onto this level of emptiness, keep going.

@peanutspathtotruth @Nos7algiK Really glad you both found value as well.

I remember watching an earlier Actualized video before I got serious about consciousness work where Leo made the claim that our radical baseline consciousness could be radically transformed. It was a killer sales pitch and I fell hook line and sinker. This was a couple years before he become so overtly pro-psychedelic. In many ways, it’s because of Leo’s old teachings that I’ve had such success with practice… hearing this dude claim I could make such transformations was really inspiring and for some reason I just had faith he was right. It wasn’t necessarily Leo, but something Leo’s words stirred inside. That instinct to go within has been the driving force that’s continued to push me further and further, to the point where my baseline state is starting to actually become psychedelic. Hundreds of hours of practice later, a lifetime to go, and nothing but gratitude for stumbling into Actualized.org. The irony that I now so vehemently disagree with my first spiritual teacher is… shocking. 1 hour per day of meditation for 2.5 years 2 hours per day of meditation for 1 year 3 meditation retreats of 80-100 hours of practice in the last 9 months Aggressive psychedelic travel, entering into foreign dimensions, past lives, parallel lives, meeting my ligh body/soul, horrific experiences, heavenly bliss, absolute Love and God, stepping into infinity, into the divine. Reading copious amounts of material from a wide variety of spiritual masters. Metric fucktons of passive contemplation while going on walks, hiking, exercising, working If one wants to truly know the truth, ironically all they’d have to do is apply the principles Leo teaches rather than believing the language Leo speaks. Actualized.org is an actual goldmine. “You can only lead people as high as you’ve gone.”

So is making claims about meditation and spiritual masters without decades worth of direct experience. No amount of you shitting on meditation will change the fact that my baseline meditation practice consistently feels like 35-50ug of LSD, not to mention sessions which get abnormally more deep. Im only 3.5 years into serious practice. Where will I be in another 10? Where will you be? Then let’s talk about what’s cheap.

Thank you for the updates sir! Looking forward to future breakdowns of how practice is going

Das it mayne ?❤️