ivory

Sleep was the first step I took on my journey to health. I used to get 5-6 hours of sleep. Then one day I had enough. I decided that I would force myself to lie in bed for 8 hours a night. It was a bit uncomfortable at first because I would often lie there for 2 hours at a time awake. After some time, though, I taught myself to get 8 hours of sleep each night. Now I sleep at least 9 hours each night and I can't imagine sleeping any less. The lesson is that you have to teach yourself how to have good sleep hygiene.

Reclining chairs are really good if you're going to listen to music mindfully. You can get extremely relaxed. But, as others have stated, not good for a baseline meditation practice. The point of meditation is to be aware. Lying postures are induce sleep like states that don't promote awareness. Like @kieranperez I'm not super flexible so sitting cross-legged is extremely uncomfortable. I sit upright in a desk chair for my daily morning meditation and it works great.

Preach sister! Just curious, were you ever diagnosed with ADHD? I always thought I had it but never got diagnosed. I still find it difficult to stay tuned in on conversations.

What a great response from Rupert. Glad you got to see him. I went to see him many years ago. I had a chance to chat with him one on one and surprisingly he was quite shy and awkward. I still think he is great though. One of my favorites.

Sorry to hear man I went through some tough breakups over the last 5 years. You seem pretty self-aware and focused on your healing so your heart is in the right place. However, you're going about it with a brute force mentality. The way to work through these things is with radical gentleness. Healing takes time. Let it run its course. There are two things you want to watch out for: avoidance and control. You don't want to run away from any fear or pain, as you know, but you don't want to rush or try to force an outcome either. Take care of yourself and good luck.

As someone who has spent 8 years doing various styles of martial arts, I can tell you that in most cases an aikido guy would get the shit kicked out of him by a beginner to intermediate level boxer, kick-boxer, wrestler, or jiu-jitsu guy. Before there was MMA there was no holds barred fighting which was a proving ground for the various styles of martial arts. It was those 4 styles that proved their effectiveness. Mixed martial arts was born from that. Ralston may be a master of non-duality but he picked a really shitty martial art to focus on. He drank the McDojo Kool-Aide.

I'm pretty sure I went through dark night as well. I spent a lot of time on Daniel's forums over the years. Ultimately what helped me was dropping the notion that I was in dark night and getting really clear on what was causing my suffering. What makes you think you're in dark night? How do you know you aren't just depressed or anxious?

That's really good. Nice work. Is it difficult for you to follow through with this on a daily basis? I tend to want to be lazy in the morning.

I struggled with that a great deal as well. I wouldn't say that I fully accept myself but I'm pretty happy with where I'm at. Yes, exactly this. It was a huge problem of mine. I ended up working with a therapist to get a handle on this. If you can do that, I would highly recommend it.

Without people in your life you can become depressed. I think they are absolutely necessary to be healthy.

LOL, you must be reading Ingram's material. He really overcomplicates this stuff. Basically if you deconstruct the idea that you live in an objective reality you will come to see all things as vibrations (or arisings, or whatever you want to call them). Investigate the senses. Reality isn't as solid as it appears. Leo has a good exercise to discover exactly this. Check out exercise #6.

My first spiritual teacher told me that he sat down and did some of the headless way exercises with his 10 year old son and the kid woke up to his true nature just like that. My teacher said he didn't expect anything to happen but it was just like, BAM!, and he got it. One day I was sitting at a coffee shop talking to some random guy about spirituality and philosophy. He said that when he was in second grade, all of a sudden, he became aware of being aware. He realized his true nature. We talked about consciousness and no-self and other interesting things. I wasn't sure if this guy was the real deal or not but based on the things we talked about I have no reason to doubt him. Maybe when you're ready you're just ready.

@winterknight I'm not sure if anyone asked you this already but do you feel that it is important to develop concentration alongside self-inquiry? In other words, should I be able to stay with the breath before I can do self-inquiry effectively?

Same here. I have a purple belt in BJJ and boxed for a couple years. Not much wrestling but I really wished I had done so in high school.

I went through a lot of stuff like that too. A lot of this stuff persists, but it's lessened and I know longer experience depression or anxiety. It took a long time to get where I'm at, but all the work I did was worth it. I worked with a psychotherapist for a couple years and I don't know what I would have done without him. I would recommend one to everyone. If you seek out a therapist make sure to find one who has a lot of experience. There are some shitty, inexperienced ones out there. So watch out for them. Lastly, be patient. This kind of work takes time. Keep your head up.

I've been there. At some point you're going to have to get really serious about meditation and present moment awareness. You need to get out of your head.

I used to struggle with that as well. Once I became aware of the stronghold it had on my life I stop feeding it. It didn't happen overnight, but after some time the desire for it mostly fell away.

I don't have any tips for you but keep us posted. I'm curious to hear how your intensive goes.

@Buba I went through dark night of the soul. It last about 5 years. I have a few questions for you. What does your life look like? Friends, job, hobbies, health habits? How is your self-esteem? What do you fear when you experience meditation induced horror? Dark night is accompanied by extreme dissatisfaction and negativity. What is it about yourself and life that you don't like?

As a martial artist, I can tell you that one's motives change as you develop through time. I started out because I wanted to learn how to defend myself, then I went through a period of thinking I was tough, then I developed a passion for it. There's no ego now, I love the training, the pyhsical fitness aspect, the artistic expression, and the sense of community it provides. I see the same patterns in people who seek enlightenment as well as in artists, philosophers, etc. Most people embark on any type of journey for egoic purposes but those motives transform as the person matures.

I did the same thing. I obsessed over enlightenment and let my life turn to shit. After a while I realized I had some work to do. Now I'm much more balanced and responsible.

It takes about three months to get used to a meditation practice. Try it one way for three months, then if you still want to explore the alternative, then try that for three months. Meditation is something you're going to be doing the rest of your life so take some time to explore and find out what works for you. No rush.

What makes you think that we should go beyond this? Sounds like someone told you a bunch of lies and you believed them. As someone who has experienced a great deal of social isolation, I can tell you that we absolutely need to have relationships for a basic level of mental health. We're meant to be together.

Supposedly forum Jed is not the real Jed: https://enlightenmentmyth.com/impersonating-jed-mckenna/

It doesn't happen anymore, but when I first started meditating I would twitch all the time, especially when I was going to sleep. I think it's a common side effect of meditation. As for the other stuff, I really can't comment.