Azrael

@Leo Gura Sticking ones head out of the gateless gate and smelling the roses of nature's existence, ha? Nice pic, dude.

Hey dude, if your are sitting for 8-14 minutes every day - this is the indicator that you are doing it right. You don't need to sit longer as stated above and I would recommend to you to at least sit another month for that time span and maybe then increase to 20 minutes. That's because you really want to get the habit in your psyche first before pushing yourself too much. If you have no clear mind, that's fine. If you have compulsive thinking going on in the sit, that's fine. Everything that occurs while you sit in that time is fine and can not even be categorized as progress or not progress. Here is why: If you meditate a little longer you'll get a good feel of the following. Your unconscious will purge from time to time shit out of your system. This often manifests as thoughts in your day-to-day meditation. That can lead to very, very intense sits in which you have no peace - no nothing. Than there are other phases in which you are completely at peace, in the no-mind zone and super calm. And then you have standard sits in which you have a little of both. The one thing meditation will free you from is the prison of having to be sure about anything - neurotically clinging to shit you can't control. So, you're just doing fine. While keeping your practice look for the following things in your life to occur: being less neurotic (e.g. double-checking alarms, locked doors, eating your finger nails) being more relaxed being more focused feeling free being detached from your feelings + external stimulation Now, don't get me wrong. I meditate for a year now for about 60 minutes every day and I have all of these stated points above in my life. However, even for me I have weeks in which they are lower or non-existent. But generally these points will increase. This is however not the goal of meditation. Meditation has no goal and these points are side effects of sitting with yourself unhooking from all the dump neurotic shit our society does all day. So relax, and just go on. PS: If you don't see the points stated above manifest in your life, wait a little longer or increase your sitting time at some point. But chill, the worst thing to do with meditation is to worry that you are doing it wrong. You can not do it wrong, take this statement and off you go.

Shinzen Young points out in this video that if the pains go away in 5-10 minutes after the sit, you are okay. Also most people can sit w/o problems for 4 hours, he says. Of course there are exceptions - but you have to decide on your own. I wouldn't recommend eating too much chili though. I once had a friend who did that for fun a little too much and now isn't capable of differentiating several tastes anymore. So just go with the sit if you want. This method is probably one of the most practiced and oldest in Asian traditions. Just look at Zen. And these monks sit sometimes much longer and a lot of them reach a very old age. Just saying ...

Yeah, I've come across this problem as well. I'd generally just recommend to increase the time - so you can reach with some training 2-3 or 4-5 hours. That will literally be life-changing. But, what you can do w/o upping the time is sitting in a more advanced posture. For example I can sit 90 minutes easily in the "Burmese Posture" - but I'll definitely come across some problems if I try it with a "Quarter Lotus". So this way you can kinda harden the task. However, as I said I'd definitely go for long hours. You'll also find that every 30 minutes you add to the clock is a completely new experience. For example when I tried to sit for 120 minutes back in November last year I would do the first 60 minutes very calm w/o pain. Then from 60-90 minutes I felt like I would sit lopsided because I sat so long. This induced some strange feelings and worries I had to overcome. Then from 90-120 minutes the real leg pains would come over. After sitting for 90 minutes your ass hurts constantly and your legs will just like a play in a theater build up and release pain very rhythmically. You are always looking if it is coming back and so on. This fucks you up deeply, man. So, go for the real torture here. It's worth it.

Very wise of you not to do too much at a time. I'd establish not more than 2-3 habits a year. For some people that's not much but if you give every habit 3 months to dive in your unconscious mind it will be much easier to spend your attention for another one. So they'll last. I'd basically write down all the aspects you want improved. Then I'd weigh them so that you have values attached. Then write them down again in the weighted order and shoot for the first one and if that is maybe too hard then go for the second or third. Just as you have the time and power to pursue them. As you let your meditation habit manifest itself in your psyche you can use the time to work out problems and sub-problems to the next habits you want do manifest. Then research and find solutions so that when you start you are all set. Cheers to, you

In my normal daily meditation: No. But that's because I mainly have the goal to deepen my awareness and get to new insights - go on with my spiritual journey. So I tend to just use "Do Nothing" + "Strong Determination Sitting" - sometimes varied with "Self-Inquiry" or contemplating death. I have my routines with that. In some evenings I meditate and listen to Alan Watts lectures because they're so deeply inspiring for me. I had several very eye-opening experiences doing that. However, I don't listen and comprehend intellectually - but more merge with the sounds and get a good feeling of the act of listening. If you meditate for some while you can actually observe the sense of one voice in your head constructing meaning out of the raw sound. I did listen to some meditation music some time ago - and there is amazing music. So if you want to do that, go ahead. For me it seems that if you just want to get into the zone and out of your mind fitting music or sounds might be the way to go with a mantra meditation. So I'd e. g. say something like "I" on the in-breath and "am" on the out-breath while listening to certain frequencies to get into the zone. With something like that you can reach a no-mind state without too much training in 15-20 minutes in my experience. However, this probably won't bring you too much on your spiritual journey and so I stick with the other techniques laid out above.

Yes, this is typical if you get deeper into the zone. Fractals, pictures, even tones (heard), hypnagogic imagery. Zen calls this Makyo. Though this is very exciting in the beginning - and I looked into this myself I'd say for a good 3-4 months - it can distract you from your meditation. So if you want to explore this go ahead but don't get lost. I'd say it's your unconscious mind you merge with and through the higher concentration + relaxation hallucinations come in. I do some extra meditations sometime very late into the evening / night. In these sittings the body "wants" to sleep - so if you meditate you can get very easy in these dream worlds. I had times in which I saw complete movies of my whole life in front of me. This can be very inspiring and beautiful. So - if you want to explore go ahead and mediate in the evening. Shinzen Young talks in this video about this. Also, it's very nice to dive in and out this dream state and kinda be at the verge of being conscious and starting to dream. Very inspiring. As you meditate for more time these hallucinations will probably increase - they did for me. If you had your time exploring them you just accept them - I find it kinda beautiful to have them while being completely detached. I meditate with eyes open most times and my floor starts to move in front of my eyes, I get a kinda of thermal view and sometimes my view is completely distorted. With eyes closed I tend to go into the world of colors etc. I understand your fascination though, when I started out I just thought: "How great is this?" - As you go on you'll focus more on the actual state you are in than the hallucinations.

Couldn't have worded it nicer. When I teach someone meditation or give tips I tend to just say: "Just sit down on a chair or in a lotus-like position on a cushion on the floor for 30 minutes." Do that for three months and the rest will fit itself. You'll find out on the way if you like to do just "Do Nothing", repeat a mantra, do self-inquiry etc. After doing meditation daily for a year now I come to the conclusion that most people don't do it wrong but tend to get so mixed up in the details that they quit. Meditation is really simple. Just sit down and breathe. The rest comes by itself.

It takes some practice but it seems to help to really concentrate into the feeling, get a good sense of it. Do not resist it and merge with it. Though this seems counter-intuitive because you give all your attention to it and stop negating it - but by that you accept it so much that it will choose to go or at least lessen. It's like you say to your feeling: "How can I serve you best, darling?", "How can I give you the most authentic experience to exist?" By doing that you will just release every negative association connected to it. Of course if also helps to deepen your breath while you do that and to really feel in. If you interact with others you can just merge with what they say and get a little bit out of your head. Instead of talking to yourself all the time while listening, try to listen to the other's breath and to the sound of their talk. Merge with the whole conversation, deepen your breath and create this rhythmic kind of sense that lets you play with the conversation. I love that. Good question!

A Zen student asked his master, "Is it OK to use email?" "Yes," replied the master, "But no attachments."

I'd guess that this is a phase you went through. Can't really say that I experienced constant loss of willpower but I can say that I had phases in which this technique brought me in deep depressive phases full of fear, loss of will power etc. But as I say this were merely phases and eventually went away. As the ego transcends there is a lot of shit that seems to happen. For me it was this way and now after that I see how this was needed for me to go on with my journey. However, I'd also point out that you should use the technique that fits you the best. So, for me "Do Nothing" is the best technique to deepen my meditation practice and to go about the enlightenment journey. I just really love the technique combined with strong determination sittings. If you can resonate more with mindfulness meditation, I'd say do that. If I do "noting" it drives me crazy after 3 minutes. So I don't do it as often and have other techniques that bring me further. But yeah, I'd say it's a phase that this technique brings you through. Some are harder than others and one needs to observe this pendulum from good to bad phases for a while to finally step a little out of it and detach. Then it's okay. And that's real nice. Cheers to you,

@light18 It's like you have a banana and next to it 5 texts describing the banana. Now, which text is actually the banana, huh?

Just the other day I watched this video from Matt Khan, in which he discusses the breath as a pointer to your real nature. Along my spiritual journey I find myself working a lot with pointers to dig very deep in my own existential nature. They seem to be like constant holes that are completely ignored by most people because of their seeming simplicity. However, I found that they can be your greatest teachers if you spend some effort checking them out. So, I want you to shift the way of seeing yourself with this post. For real. When watching Matt's video he just did that for me and it brought me within two days to some new realizations + a lot of silence and peace, so I have to let you in on this. Decide for yourself. Basically, as we ask "Who am I?", "What am I?" we are looking for a constant notion of ourself. For something that was and is there all the time. So we start with thoughts, feelings, emotions, the body etc. and seem to not come too far with that. Even if we have some realizations we are still stuck inside our head. So what is actually constant about ourselves? Maybe listening, the essence or nature of perceptions, probably a few other things but something that defines our life from birth to death is simply Breath. We start with breathing as our first move in life and we will end it with the last one - poetically saying. Have you noticed the way you breathe is directly correlated with how you feel, how and how much you think, whether you are in flow or not, whether you are in a deep stage of samadhi or hyperventilating in the name of fear and anxiety? Stop for a second and check yourself out. Isn't that strange? So Matt illustrates in his video kinda artfully that we are our breath. Not existentially of course, but as I pointer to who we really are. Kind of like a door to nothingness - an entry point to your real nature. He also makes the point that you - as your breath - are perfectly awake, enlightened - complete by nature. You go in and out whatever happens. From the day all of this starts to the day you die. And so he gives the picture that every thought, all perceptions, all feelings, every kind of form that we sense is nothing but a whim of the breath. As if you are the breath and everything that comes up is just another incarnation, another form, another anything that lives from breathing in until breathing out. And so the world you see, live in and perceive is just "the game of the breath", "the colorful illustration of the breath". Now - and I invite you to invest one hour to get this realization from Matt personally in his video - I was struck by this so much that I had this sudden change of mind that if I'm actually just the breath everything is just fine. Because I'm complete and all the thoughts and perceptions are just the breath' whim of entertaining itself and the world. Yesterday and today I tended to consciously breath a lot and so deepened and slowed the pace of my breath and I felt such a great harmony and peace inside of me. Because I always had in mind that everything I think is just another whim of my breath. And my breath just lets it live for another 2-3 seconds. Well, don't get me wrong here. You are existentially a lot more then your breath of course. But the breath seems to be a direct door to what you really are because it was there even before you became conscious and it will be there until you die. So, maybe it is not such a bad idea to stick yourself to your breath and get real close with it, because it seems that this is the regulator, the point that from breath to breath brings everything - you currently think you are - up to existence and lets it die a few seconds later. Maybe there is some wisdom to find at that door, don't you think? I hope I could inspire you guys. Let me know what you think about it and do yourself a favor and watch Matt's video about this, it brought me to a new place I couldn't see before. Also, think about how your life would change if you'd be every breath consciously. You can still think, do everything as you want but you are every breath. What would change? How would you feel? What would be the pace of your breath? How much tension would be left inside your body? How complete would you feel? Let me know. And don't forget. Everything I just pointed out is just an idea. Nothing more. But as you tend to identify yourself with more and more ideas, maybe you want to chose one that sits a little nearer to the door of Truth then being fed up in never ending thoughts. Cheers to you,

I agree to @Ayla on this one. That's why I actually wrote this post - because I had a realization when I thought about my first year doing this journey: We are all fed up in our heads. It's like every question I answer on this forum is the same. The individual person comes up with with some exception of some situation and wants an answer to that. Because that is what our head does all the time. It does shit and searches for the holes in it. For the troubles. For the exceptions. And then uses it all or nothing technique to doubt itself so much that people start asking questions here. To everyone who reads this - keep asking your questions. It's just part of the great game. But maybe you can see what I'm saying here and save yourself some time. I needed a solid year to get this down. So what you need to do is, detach from everything your mind does. Doesn't mean not to think. Does mean to allow everything that arises and just love it because it exists. Because by this - existence - it is and that's the whole argumentation why it is okay. Even if you don't like it. Just let happen. And see why your mind is trying to negate something that does exist and ask yourself: "Why is that?" Now, the other thing to do is "Do Nothing". You have to literally sit down for the next few years at least and just accept whatever arises. And then the day will come where you start doing this in your day-to-day life as well and then some big shifts happen. So, don't give up my friend. And get out of your mind. Read my post about the breath, this seems to be a better place to look for goodies then your thoughts.

Dude, relax. Everything is fine. Your "ego" is not dying. And it never will (as long as you live). Even if you awake your ego won't die. It'll just integrate and you stop being constantly bound to that. So it's more like - you know where your ego comes from because you are now able to see whatever this source is. And then you start to identify more with the source because it is the real you. The ego is just a shield that was brought up in your past to protect yourself from this world and to prevail your will. So, the process you are undertaking is not dying. I thought a few times on my journey that I'm seriously dying because I was so mixed up by this. That's just normal. Just the process. Your head has to deal with a lot of shit right now and it'll need some time to wrap its head around what is going on. When I had my biggest gains so far I had weeks of depression afterwards. Deep inner fears, etc. I didn't know what was going on because it just suddenly shifted. Seems to be the case that your "ego" will try to hold on to itself and doesn't want to easily integrate. But in the end you can just see through that and now - whether I'm in a good mood or not - I'm not really attached to it and it's just fine. I love myself - and my head is just doing its thang.

Consciousness probably can't wish to evolve, for that there actually has to be different consciousness' competing, having a free will which seems not to be the case. It's more of one big inter-mingle of a lot of arising and dying forms - that we then cut into pieces and call objects and behaviors. The big problem with scientific proofs or explanations is this. Me as an computer scientist I proof every day that algorithms do what they should do, math theorems are correct and can be used etc. etc. But for this to happen there has to be a definition of what you want to proof, explain in beforehand. In math, logic, computer science we create such definitions and even in biology and other disciplines they're doing that. From that definitions they imply new concepts and views and then try to proof or explain them. Look at it for a second this way: Actually, there are no horses in this world. Horses are just another part of the big inter-mingle, just as me, you everybody else in this forum and everything that exists. It just seems to be the case that what we call horses is a form that is so constant - even though it's not at all if you look with another perspective at it - that it seems to make sense to give it a name and behaviors connected to it. So this way we can study, compare and explain it. Every other field in science just does it the same exact way. So, this is great for science because with that model you can make some good predictions and get people on the moon. But as this is just a model, not what is actually is in front of your eyes, science can never be able to make assumptions about what is real. Philosophy neither. It can always just give you an idea. To really get to know what is real you have to let go of all your ideas and then see what's left. Cheers to you, my friend

As you say to yourself "Who am I?", "What am I?", "Who is perceiving this" and then looking for the real you this kind of triggers your unconscious mind to come up with knew shit it gives you. First you go and argue a lot with your thoughts and then maybe the first realization comes. And then the second. So in kind of the same way as with affirmations you trigger yourself and ask it over and over again until you finally know. Classic affirmations are however generally more concerned with getting a key phrase into you - so that this triggers certain new thoughts and behavior patterns. Can you see the connection?

That's an interesting question. Affirmations are basically great to infuse some thoughts into you so that your unconscious begins on its own to make you think thoughts around your affirmation. So I use this e. g. to get me thinking about my life purpose. My head just on its own pops up more thoughts about this, how I could do my projects and so on. For that - affirmation and contemplation is real good. It probably isn't the best tool to awaken. Because to awaken most people need to grind through a lot of their fake beliefs, through that they see how their reality changes in front of their eyes and then you go even deeper and deeper on that. So it takes some real work, some looking into things and letting things go. Also to accept the journey. So I wouldn't use affirmations in the classic sense for enlightenment work. More for creative stuff. But if you look at the Self-Inquiry process, that uses affirmation and contemplation in an advanced way. But it helps to really get a sense of what is happening and not just lulling more words into your mind to make it think about that. But I might be wrong. I think however there are better ways.

Hey, great post. Now, was this insight or not? It tends to be the case that you shouldn't take your thoughts in a strong determination too seriously - else wise you begin running around killing children and stuff in a few weeks. Just kidding here. But I had and have such thoughts as well. Sexual experience is something to get some experience in or you mind will hold that shield up from time to time and wants to create even more insecurity. It's kinda like a basic need. So I'd suggest get some experience in that area and then you will see for yourself where that leads you. If you have big problems with that look up some pickup stuff - I can really recommend David DeAngelo's stuff. I know how Leo sees this right now and I agree to a lot of points the mentioned in his video about this - but if you just want to know how it's done. Look it up. It is not a shame and will help you - if you don't spend the rest of your life doing that as a complete psychopathic maniac. But yeah, basically it is very normal that stuff like that occurs in strong determination sits. Your mind purges more and more shit and you will maybe come in contact with some hidden traumas or whatsoever that you never knew about and suddenly a "tick", some neurosis or insecure behavior is just gone. From one sit to the other. This happened several times for me - still does. Expect that - and you'll develop after time the right attitude to approach it. It's probably one of the fastest ways to awake, that brings some cost with it. But it's worth it in my opinion and the worst part is the beginning. The rest comes by itself.

Classic my friend, classic question. What you do is that you actually begin to find it okay that this happens. You let go of the need to control even the letting go. If you can, you do. If you don't, you don't. Just say that it is okay whatever happens, even if it is not okay. That's an very deep topic that you can look in long hours. However, I don't really see the connection to strong determination sittings here. To do such a meditation all that is asked of you is not to move for an amount of time. What happens in your head is not defined by the technique. You can couple it with other methods like "Do Nothing", "Self-Inquiry" or whatever you want to do. Seems to be the case that if that technique actually begins to work and creates some pain inside your body, there is not much place for a formal meditation technique. It's more like warfare and you'll develop techniques to go through that. First you'll run away and then you'll just let you shoot inside your head and give up completely. When that happens, real growth occurs and you just got a little closer to the source. So have a look how it looks there. Can be inspiring.

Yeah, just did this on the weekend very consciously. It slows down the pace of your breath, deepens your sense of self and seems to slow down your thoughts. Plus I felt very relaxed and just complete, totally in flow. It's like going around with this constant - little greedy - smile in your face. Because you look at everyone and while you just focus on breathing in ... feeling completely fine and ... breathing out - all other people seem completely neurotically bound to the "colorful illustration of the breath". The content, the drama. But not really the point it's arising out of and into. Plus, what's even more interesting is that if you start to listen to other people's breath a little and not just to what they are saying - as you normally do - you can kind of see how they are complete - just by breathing - and are totally caught up in their head not knowing it. Also note that everything they say and probably think is accompanied by the fitting breath pattern, which kind of like gives it the ground to live - metaphorically saying. You can of course also do that with yourself, it's quite funny actually. I like to see it this way - and that's just another idea but a really nice one to identify with - I'm just that space between my in- and out-breath, I'm not able to see yet that I die every few seconds and get born right after that again and I'm just fine and complete by nature. Everything else is just the most powerful illustration - I know - that's brought up, through the means of my body, and brought down again. Now, this of course is just an idea. But it turns out if you spend some time looking into that, your real nature shines in on you from time to time, so maybe you get a better sense of where you belong as in contrary to being all in your head and you are just not finding a way out. That's the way out. One way. Utilize it to let it show the real you.

Hahaha, I felt the same way at first about Matt. When somebody shared some video of him I just looked at the preview picture and thought: "Yet another new-age wuhu guy with flowers and all of that crap." I actually just became addicted to Leo's stuff in the first place because he is so "down to earth". Well, then I listened a few days ago to his radical acceptance video and was stunned how he made me realize 2-3 new perspectives just by watching that video. Plus he gave me a mindset and words how to go about acceptance that work instantly. I listen to a lot of intellectual stuff and most lacks integrity and practicality. Matt - for me - just punched me in the face with wisdom. That's incredible. Same with the topic I elaborated on in this post just that I find this even deeper and it had and has an even more interesting influence in the way I see things. So I had to bring you in on that. I respect this guy a lot for being more helpful than dozens of talks of the most intellectual whatsoever people I listen to every day. He got it.

Berlin!

Interesting question! But, yes of course. My daily meditation still purges shit out of my system, brings it to the top so that I have to deal with it. This is now of course at a slower pace then if you are just starting out. But I still have the typical meditation cycles in which I feel good at some times and bad at others. It is just that I am through that a few dozen times so that I approach it completely different then let's say 7 months ago. What I do to keep pushing it is that I sit in some evenings and push it to 120 minutes. That will release new "rocks of shit" out of your system that then swim in your waters and you have to hammer them away with your daily meditation / or during the day. Hope, that analogy helps to illustrate the process a little. In the end goal I shoot for sitting 8 hours without moving. I think I will awaken that way. So I planned the next 5-10 years to achieve that. Now, what if I can sit for 8 hours straight and didn't awake on the way? Actually, I don't care to much anymore for that. If you are able to sit for 8 hours without moving your life has completely transformed and this will change every cell of your being. From what I experienced so far with this. So awaking is just some side product of that probably.

Didn't know you are awake, dude. See for yourself, but to make it a habit it probably isn't the best idea.