BIggleswerth

When I'm studying something difficult like statistics, I tend to get burnt out /stressed instead of pushing through. Then I reach for something easy like a tv show. I have noticed that my focus is better generally when I'm meditating regularly, but meditating regularly is also difficult. I know there is probably no easy solution, but is there a more specific meditation or technique I can try to improve focus?

I think I might have not realized the nature of recognition or being aware of awareness. I think there is this subtly to it. I did not believe I had this duality, but then seeing how "sensations/forms" are the same as "recognizing them" is a completely different experience than just being able to say that "yes, I know they are the same logically and it's all just awareness". And this was the experience I had that's difficult to return to. I was kind of lead to it by wondering about the evolution of human perspective (like how we see things versus how our ancestors perceived things, which I imagined was different and more instinctive).

@ElvisN What's stopping you from being this way all the time besides tolerance to LSD?

@ElvisN Who are you?

Nice post, I like it. +1. Not to build up your ego though. Please run for president or something okay, WE NEED YOU!!!!!!!!!

I say go for it. I don't think being conscious automatically means being successful at science though. For example, Scientists love models over reality (and they are essential to science) but they are just models. Someone who is really good at modelling could be a better scientist than you but also less conscious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QCCz4mtd0E I'm not sure if the artist was going for this, I read briefly the song was written about someone with addiction. But doesn't it sound like he's talking nonduality?

When I'm sitting idly, I have no awareness of my hand. I can make my focus shift to my hand. Now suddenly, I feel my hand. An awareness of the sensation arises. The same thing happens with thoughts. I can see how thoughts feel, if there are any. This usually leads to letting go of the thought fairly quickly. This leads me to the conclusion that thoughts are sensations. Allow me to explain further the similarity between thoughts and sensations. My hand doesn't move unless I make it move. When I make it move, I have this volitional awareness of the movement. The awareness of the movement is literally what creates the reality of the movement. Similarly, thoughts are created by intending to create the certain thought. It's an awareness of intention. For me a lot of the time, it's curiosity. Actually, curiosity is an emotion. Emotions give rise to thoughts. Emotions are the volitional part of thoughts. People can have involuntary movement just as they can have involuntary thoughts. I would imagine the involuntary thoughts happen more often for most people, but the equality still holds. Just as moving the hand and becoming aware of the sensation of the hand are two different forms of awareness, so too are creating thoughts, the thoughts themselves, and "feeling" the thoughts. Put another way, there are 3 forms of awareness I'm talking about here: emotion awareness (that which is the emotion), thought awareness (that which is the thought), and an awareness of the thought awareness (that which is aware of the thought). I have created a 3 prong duality and now I must collapse it to be truthful. The relationship between emotions and thoughts are blurry. When does an emotion end and a thought begin? There exists something in between an emotion and a thought. Indeed, these are just labels on a gradient of awareness. Leo did a video on this. Similarly, where is the line between being the thought and being aware of the thought? Put another way, where is the line between thinking and being aware of what you are thinking? Surely if you're thinking you must have at least a little awareness of what you're thinking. If you're fully on the "awareness of the thought" side of the spectrum, you're just feeling the thought as a sensation and not considering the content of the thought. It's not a binary switch here either. Engaging with the thoughts and what we call the activity of the Ego is then just thought awareness, followed by a sprinkle of some awareness of the thought, followed by some emotional and possibly judgmental reaction to the thought. Which leads to the creation of another thought, and the cycle repeats. And most people are stuck in this loop until they die. And yet the loop wasn't there when we were born, the loop was created to navigate the world. Now it's not enough to see these words and have an abstract understanding. As this is only thoughts about thoughts. The meaning I'm attempting to convey must be relatable in your direct experience to truly understand. Now, I don't think I'm enlightened. This understanding seems to fade with time and I will go back asleep into the ego loop often. I'm interested to hear what people think of connection to this and enlightenment.

One day I got high and visually imagined a mouth talking. Except what it was saying was exactly my inner voice. So I had this shift in perspective with my thoughts, as if I was listening as an outsider. Just as might happen if you're listening to a friend. I was like wuhhhh duuuddeee my thoughts aren't mine. They are from this monkey's mind. I also, at some point, think I realized on the surface level, that the difference between my normal perspective and seeing the thoughts as not my own, is the fact that I cling to thoughts. So anyway that got me thinking. Maybe enlightenment can be this simple for me: 1. Train non-clinging non-judgmental mindfulness/observational skills with meditation for a while. Not sure how long. 2. Use this skill as a tool to look at my thoughts without clinging to them, to gain insight. 3. Then I'm GUESSING that I'll understand more DEEPLY that the self is an illusion in the monkey's mind, and the thoughts come and go as easily as the breath. And hopefully the shift in perspective will be permanent because shifts don't seem to be permanent for me. What do you guys think? Am I on the path?

You seem very wise, can you please interpret what I write here, I hope it's on the right path. I feel like I am the presence that wills thoughts into existence. For a while, I could meditate, look at my thoughts, and feel detached from them. Like they were not me or coming from me. But somehow they knew what I intended or wanted to think about. Like my inner voice was reading my mind. But now I think I see, I choose to give power to certain very subtle forms I think we might call emotions? And from these the thoughts arise like branches sprout from a tree. So I am not the thoughts, I did not exactly choose the thoughts, but I chose a certain direction for the emotion and thought. And with this identity less knowledge I feel like I have to change the reasons for why I live. One of the most immediate concerns is preserving this knowledge.

That's sooo true. It's like observational skills. But how to be enlightened so you can stay detached from thoughts?

I am curious how Buddhism fits here. How is Buddhism different than the forum topic here. How is it the same? And if the teachings here on enlightenment are not from Buddhism, where are they from?

Hello friends. I am disappointed with my schools lack of spirituality and self actualization in the student organizations. There is a meditation club registered, it has not met this semester at all. There is a buddhism club registered, it has never met as far as I know. There IS a yoga club, and it's pretty popular and well run, but it's just yoga, it's not really a community for sharing or learning. Of course there's a ton of christian and religious organizations but those don't fit for me and a lot of other people. I would love for a community like the one on this forum to be in the form of a club meeting. I am thinking about starting a club at my school, but I don't know what to name it, or what the format of meetings should be. Could you help me choose? I am enthusiastic about buddhism and meditation, but I am not knowledgeable enough on buddhism yet to teach it. I think group meditations would be nice, but also might alienate some people, and meditating in chairs in a class room is not really the best way to meditate. Perhaps some sessions on educational topics like mindfulness, self affirmations, etc, but I'd also like it to be fun and not just me lecturing a group of people that I get together. What could bring people together? Any thoughts or ideas?

Imagine a pool. Every wave in the pool, is a thought, sensation, or some other form of awareness. Waves appear in the pool spontaneously. The senses are constant ripples at different locations in the pool. Tiny waves, unless you're in pain, then they can be big waves. Thoughts involving language are relatively bigger waves. Following a train of thought is letting a wave hit the sides of the pool and create other waves (reactions to thoughts, reactions to reactions, etc). Anxiety is a chaotic pattern of waves in the pool. Meditating on the breath is when there is only 1 tiny localized ripple in the water. Bliss is when the pool is still. You don't have control over when the waves are produced, or even what pattern of waves are produced. But you have this ability to increase the viscosity of the pool water, this is when you are being mindful, letting go, or relaxing. This causes the waves to dissipate quicker. Think what would happen if you tried to make a wave in maple syrup instead of water. Letting thoughts "flow" or being in a flow state is setting the pool to be just vicious enough so that waves will still come, but go relatively quickly, so that waves that come next do not have interference with the previous wave in the pool. Enlightenment is realizing this pool system with changing viscosity, when all you ever knew was patterns of waves in the pool. What do you think about this analogy?

I'm trying to understand consciousness. I noticed that I tend to get stuck on thoughts that bubble up, and this is hindering progress in my life. One time I imagined all trains of thought as adjacent streams, and by hopping between streams I can choose what to focus on and not get stuck. Another time I imagined myself as a single stream with all thoughts and feelings flowing as debris down river. The debris are obstacles for swimming up the river. Sometimes you get stuck on the debris (thoughts) and you flow down the river deeper into unawareness. The more I acknowledge the thoughts and let them go, the more I swim up the river towards open awareness. I don't think either of these analogies are very accurate but perhaps useful. I'm wondering if there is another more accurate analogy I can use that would be more useful to me. My mind tends to need to rationalize everything, including training my awareness.

What if the goal is to not understand consciousness on the deepest level but to reach equanimity. I feel like so much of the time I forget that it's a choice to focus on what's important to me including the present moment, rather than what bubbles into my mind. @Jack River a form of awareness ?

While meditating I saw that I could let go of bodily sensations the same way that I let go of thoughts, and then I slowly drifted into nothingness. When I saw this I immediately thought of nonduality, because if the outside forms (sight, sound, touch) and inside forms (thought, etc) are the same then it makes sense that I can let go of them in almost in the same way. In nothingness, I looked around for my true self. But there was nothing. I knew better than to create some idea of what the self was. I stayed in nothingness for a little while and at the same time was curious where the ultimate knowledge of my nature was. In hindsight I can do some critical thinking and say, okay the nothingness IS me, or I am what underlies the nothingness. Here is where I am confused: If it's true that I am nothingness, then it must also be true that when I am focused on a thought or object or feeling, then I am the object. However, I know identifying with thoughts is wrong, so this is contradictory. On the other hand, if I say that I am what underlies nothingness, then I also must say that I am what underlies my thoughts and feelings. However, here you notice there is a duality between thoughts and what underlies them (presumably the true self/ consciousness, awareness, whatever). Is this duality acceptable? I still see in this case the nonduality between sight/touch/thoughts/inner voice etc.

If I'm aware of a thought as it emerges and fades away, and thoughts are just awareness taking a form... then am I aware of my awareness?

I think being aware of awareness is the same as: attention on being Am I right?

Hello community, I've been meditating a lot recently. There was a high point where I felt like I became aware of my awareness 2 weeks go. Then immediately after that I got wayyy to high on marijuana (stupid idea, won't do again!) and afterwards I felt really shitty mostly because of the migraines it triggered. For that week I was kind of addicted to thoughts and a stupid web game, feeling shitty kind of made me feel like I didn't have the effort to raise my awareness. Migraines are significantly better this week. I've been meditating everyday with varying success. Yesterday I meditated for 1.5 hours but maybe only 1/3 of that was deep concentration on the breath. I do notice that today and other days I wake up kind of "ego attached". What I mean by "ego attached" is, I will mindlessly follow thoughts in like an endless pattern until I snap out of it. Sometimes this leads to waste a bunch of time browsing reddit, or waste time worrying about some situation out of my control, etc. Specifically when waking up though, is a little different. I feel like maybe it's because i'm dreaming ego attached and I just wake up ego attached as well. Or I feel shitty waking up and that makes me want to retreat my mindfulness. Despite waking up that way, I took a mindful walk and now see that thoughts are not mine and if I don't identify with them, I can choose another focus or let them go and be at peace. I'm just curious if anyone else has had a similar experience especially with the waking up mindless and having to use some practice to switch into a more mindful state during the day, and if so did things get better with time? Thanks.