Consilience

Can confirm. Self inquiry after learning how to access jhanas became exponentially more powerful.

Ive mentioned this in multiple other threads, but Ill mention it here too because of how powerful this series of talks is, but anyone interested in learning how to access all 8 jhanas should look into Rob Burbea’s Jhana retreat on Dharmaseed.

I know it’s probably a bad idea to start the whole spiritual dick measuring contest, but very curious - where would you place someone like Peter Ralston compared to these guys or Leo?

@Blackhawk You’re grasping man. You either see the wisdom in what Im proposing or you don’t. Given that you’re evening asking these questions, it’s obvious there’s some part of you that resonates with what this work presents as a possibility. Trust that curiosity, in this life or another. Namaste ?

How is paying attention to your moment by moment experience going to brain wash you? This is not about adding beliefs, ideologies, positions, or contexts. This is about removing those and looking at reality with a ‘naked’ lens. See this is a classic trap of the ego. So sure if you think this work is about adding more to the mind, like religion, then yes the possibility for brain washing is there. But this work Im proposing is literally about paying attention at deeper and deeper levels, paying attention so deeply you see through your existential assumptions such as time or space. Not to get too into the weeds but Ill point something out - a sense of self requires time to exist. You are only you relative to how you were a moment ago, and who you will be in another moment, and between these two conceptualizations of mind, a mirage of “me” appears. Yet when you’re paying so closely to your actual direct experience, ir can be observed that there is no such thing as past or future. When this illusion of past and future is EXPERIENCED not believed, part of the conceptual scaffolding holding a sense of self collapses. This is one of many mechanisms creating you though. More generally, imagine a smudged camera lens taking a picture vs. a lens that‘s just been cleaned. Which one will have a clearer view? Through spiritual practices such as meditation or contemplation, we are creating a mind capable of seeing more clearly. If you think you can trust the programming your parents, culture, and society handed to you growing up, there’s not much I can do for you. Perhaps noticing how miserable and dysfunctional everyone is could be an eye opener into the possibility no one really understands what’s going on. Perhaps not.

Experience interpreted through unconscious beliefs and fabrications gives rise to the appearance of this illusion. Look more carefully. Look for hours and hours and hours. Thousands of hours and this belief, along with many others, will fade. Good luck dude.

Because when one follows the philosophical inquiry deeply enough, the logical holes in option A can be recognized. Further, when one studies the actuality of direct experience, the truth of option B reveals itself. And finally, when one observes the embodiment of wisdom, compassion, and presence of apparently enlightened individuals compared to the average person, the possibility that these people know something we don’t sets in. These are a few reasons.

If people get triggered or weirded out by your meditation, that’s on them not you. There’s nothing non-polite about practicing in a park, that’s like the perfect place to practice meditation. @RMQualtrough if people approach you, just be friendly and understand that may be their first exposure to a real practitioner. You may be planting seeds for them to practice one day, or turn them off completely. But your emptiness, tranquility, and presence while practicing can be a powerful teaching tool for others.

The fact that you’re breaking through at all is huge though, seriously. It may take a bit of time to fully stabilize and even deepen, but even if it took 1-3 years (worst case), what’s 1-3 years in a lifetime? Id HIGHLY recommend a meditation retreat of some kind. Not only would you likely breakthrough into this level of insight, you’d probably break through even more deeply.

Ive had trouble getting over his cigar schtick ? But sounds like I should give him a fair shot.

Shoutout to Rob Burbea’s Jhana retreat on Dharmaseed! Those lectures changed the entire trajectory of my meditation practice.

Very nice ? The next step is stabilizing this view in meditation as well as everyday life.

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I don‘t think you understood my question. How long can you sit in meditation without moving? It‘s more than 5 seconds. Im asking because Im curious at what point would the pain become overwhelming and you move? Being an arahant, you’d theoretically have the capacity to sit for many hours at a time without any issues, despite enormous amounts of pain.

Your feelings are literally arising out of and passing back into emptiness, moment by moment. Emptiness = God. It seems you have a lot of conceptual ideas of what God is, but this wont do. I would recommend a hardcore meditation practice and deeply studying many mystical/contemplative traditions and what they have to say about the ultimate nature of reality.

Why not? Wouldn’t learning how to be completely, perfectly, and intrinsically fulfilled from your own being, from nothing other than the fact of your own existence, be the ultimate root solution to loneliness?

You’re missing the point of @taotemu’s post. You ARE feeling it. You ARE seeing it, RIGHT NOW. This moment, this breath, this experience, IS God. As you continue to meditate, contemplate, take psychedelics, and any other practice aimed at “raising consciousness” always understand the truth that wherever you are, however reality is appearing in this moment, the literal actuality of your direct experience in whatever low consciousness way it’s expressing itself, is God, is The Self, is Brahman, is Emptiness. You have nowhere to go and nothing to do to find what you’re seeking. Now seek from that space and you will find God.

Id ask how long can you sit in an SDS?

Learn how to bask in your own being. 30 day challenge? Meditate 1 hour every day for 30 days.

Right now is as good as 5meo when you know what you are.

The real tease is the tease we play on ourselves, always looking for the next substance, the next trip, the next breakthrough, the next awakening. All of it peanuts when we realize that the mundane, natural, sober state is just as far out as the deepest psychedelic experience. Most won't have the discipline or vision to ever directly experience this... Oh well! There's always another lifetime.

I think the conversation naturally lends itself to soft jhanas as well though. When talking about full absorption, naturally the degrees of absorption is going to come up. Anyways, in my experience the Jhana of Infinite Consciousness is not the same as God Consciousness. Contrary to some spiritual circles, our true nature is not awareness. A full blown jhana of infinite consciousness is a “merging” with the awareness of perception and make no mistake, it is actually infinite. It is a beautiful state and one worth exploring, but it is not God, directly. God consciousness is moving into an even subtler frequency of perception, so subtle that it’s not even perception anymore yet is inextricably linked with all of our perception and therefore, inextricably interconnected with all of reality. A glimpse of this starts to occur in the 7th Jhana. Long story short, 6th jhana is not God consciousness.

I think out of all the uses of psychedelics, deep healing has probably been the most potent of effects. Yes seeing deeply into the nature of reality is great while tripping, but the views and understanding tend to leave after the trip and get cognized as an intellectual understanding. The energetic and emotional releases, however, actually stay cleared and Im left feeling lighter. So while the insights don‘t necessarily stick around after the trip ends, the healing that took place does. I really do view them more as medicine at this point.

That’s good to hear, but in terms of the perception of things moving, this is actually a completely “normal” phenomena that can happen with advanced meditators. When one applies a high level of mindfulness to the outer visual space, the solidified objectified perception of the world can break apart into a more fluid, spacious perception like what one experiences on psychedelics. The perception of a solidified world is actually a distorted view of what’s going on; a distortion the mind creates to provide a sense of groundedness and safety. Yet when one pays attention, deeply, no such grounding or solidity is to be found. Again, this is all something we can verify via sober mindfulness meditation. Id recommend breath work, mindful breathing, and hatha yoga to your friend. These practices all very much emphasize embodiment which can not only help integrate the experiences, but help her reorient and ground herself into “normal” reality. Sounds like it was a pretty challenging experience overall.

Ever tried an all night yaza sit? Tis WILD. Yes for sure. Part of the practice is learning how to hold space for reality, not a subset of reality, ALL of reality. The nature of reality is non-dual, meaning it, by definition is entirely self accepting. When you learn how to hold space for all of reality, your mind is essentially increasing its resonance with the fundamental nature of existence. Most people completely miss the profundity of this when talking about how boring or ineffective meditation is. They are unconsciously locking themselves into duality. But hey nothing wrong with practicing while you feel good too. ?