PenguinPablo

Regarding dissociation specifically I walk a very thin line. Experientially, proper awareness feels more integrating, while dissociation masquerading as awareness has a subtle aversive quality to it that feels unnatural, forced.

@Dino D if people were living their purpose, perhaps their would not be as much need for many of those positions like medical professionals, nurses, etc... unhappiness -> illness -> more unhappy -> more illness

curious, how did you get there? dying for six months...?

@ardacigin lmao beautiful post. very helpful.

@ardacigin It has been life-debilitating for me personally. Making things much more difficult. Presumably, due to mixing in with my own psychological issues it brews the perfect storm. Additionally, yes iirc you go through a macro-cycle to reach the next path. The first path you get into after awakening is Sotāpanna aka stream-entry, where you drop the first three fetters: identity-view, ritualistic clinging, and doubt regarding the path. How to measure where we are is another story as everyone interprets differently and their own subjective experience would be impossible to know. However, ime I do feel that to jump to have a significant shift along the path, it has included this pattern of mini cycles and eventually a macro cycle. Probably could get there with more or less of either one of the two but yeah it makes sense to me.

Not something to get obsessed over for sure. I mean, it's a thing... Not too significant. For me, I can feel more energy in my third eye area just from meditating very easily since early on. Recently, a lot more in the heart area as well. Also, if I start watching porn a lot then I can feel the lower chakras become a lot more active and I feel less clarity like I would otherwise. For me, it's just about meditating to develop more awareness of how your emotions and energy is being processed and performing actions that are more conducive to me feeling good, peaceful, and clear.

I’m not sure. I think I’ve cycled through at least once entirely at a retreat. @Jordan94 all I know is I started contemplating on the impermanence of things. Noticing in everyday mundane things, my sense of self, borrowing from modern psychology concepts regarding memory as well and sort of questioning it like that. Emotions and all that too, as well as all other sensations. This brought a strong surge of anxiety that persisted for several days until I lost sensitivity from reverting back to my gluttonous tendencies being the miserable ape that I am I’ve reviewed PoI map before and even have Mahasi’s book as well as Daniel Ingrams but still don’t know how it fits whatever the heck I’ve gone through

@ardacigin thank you. I know what's ahead of me now https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/34-the-vipassana-jhanas/ just re-aquainted myself with this

Yo, I have a tendency to fall into dark nights extremely often. Anytime, I push my meditation hard enter dark night territory. It actually becomes hard to enter jhana since it feels like I'm in some sort of fear jhana lol. My inclination this time around (happened a couple days ago again) was to regain concentration as I was feeling extremely anxious. However,I gave myself a break, went for walks and watched a bit of anime. I feel good again now. Im not sure if I made it through the purification or if exited out instead and will have to face this again in the future,

I'm not here to claim any sort of attainments and even then I hardly understand the nuance involved to properly characterize enlightenment stages. However, trying to desperately achieve these higher states through a magic bullet like psychedelics is bound to backfire since this lack of patience to try to expedite this process seems antithetical to attaining proper wisdom to me. You may get some knowledge for sure but it will be tainted since you don't understand the ins and outs fully. I forgot who said it, but its more important to know how to get to the top of the mountain, in addition to the massive perspective difference you'll have from walking all the miles to the peaks you reach. If you're placed at the top, you will get a lot of things but it will not be as useful as you think without the wisdom and perspective gained along the way. You can get fast cars, money, etc... but what was sacrificed? With psychs we're obviously dealing with a much more subtle level of this, but progression on the path and consequently acquisition of wisdom is gained by being patient, by being a human being, and not deluding yourself out of desperation to get "there" or get more "enlightened".

I've spent the last few days investigating the literature on these substances, and while I am a bit skeptical I will admit this area of research does pique my interest just a bit. Anyway, what particular substances do you guys recommend? Any benefits to microdosing over full-blown trips? I feel like reality itself is already quite a trip and too intense for me most of the time so I do fear what a full-blown trip could do to me (PTSD).

i would look into tantra or karezza. A whole new world. Sounds like you guys really love each other

@dvdas “it faded away after a few weeks” the guy said... why does it fade? Because he doesn’t understand the nature of reality, he has merely seen it.

@Serotoninluv Fair enough. I am open enough to try psychedelics and in fact find them quite fascinating but I mostly just try to go by what intuitively feels most true to me and my heart. That's how I guide myself and for the most part that is how I decide to take my next step. I will probably do more again at some point in the future. I have nothing against them but am afraid for people and their internal state, what they expect to get from them. @Chumbimba That's bullshit. If you think realizing nonduality is enough I got some news for you. It is a milestone for sure, but often people mistake it as the final destination when it's not even damn close, at the least through buddhist maps. Typically people who claim this, including teachers are using is as a massive defense mechanism to reject the rest of life. Life is more nuanced than this and much more integrated. Again, I'm not perfect by any means and have massive issues to work out on the psychological end of my humanness. Still, wanted to point out what I've noticed.

@Leo Gura Information viewed in meditative states, or psychedelics, are not the fruits in themselves but rather how we relate to such phenomena which takes time no matter what. Even if Michael Jordan trained you intensely for a year in a private gym, you still would not be as good as Kobe after a couple of years versus his decades of mastery and nuanced understanding of basketball across decades on the court. The learning happens on the court too.

I for one absolutely welcome this PUA Leo guy. Morally I’m a bit divisive about the whole thing but I enjoy seeing him encourage young men to step up and rise above their fears and social conditioning.

Hi guys! Another year has gone by and in some ways I am even more withdrawn and even more afraid of people. I am more angry and resentful at times. Generally, speaking I have not been well. However, I will be working with a very good counselor soon to help me with this as well as trying to get some help from you guys. Also, it's winter break so I have a lot of time to tackle this part of my life, as well as come up with both short and long-terms plans to alleviate this life long issue. I need ideas like comfort zone challenges, particularly around women, or just generally what you guys did. What can I go do tomorrow basically, that I could reasonably do without developing PTSD. Some ideas I've had is just being in public places a lot more around people. Such as parks, music, venues, etc..., even clubs ( though I find them vapid). Even if I don't talk to people but just kinda being there chilling, and developing a sense of connection quietly with my environment in spite of not doing much direct interaction.

@Leo Gura what if he’s enlightened now and doesn’t like sex anymore

I wrote a long message for this but lost signal since I’m up in the Rockies. TL;DR is delete it. Basically all of our personal issues become magnified and consequently magnified due to social media. Personally, if you feel its a detriment get rid of it and be happy with your bf

A rock is only heavy if you try to lift it

Just casually gonna come in and say that I love the turn this thread has made. I'm learning a lot from all these perspectives.

@Leo Gura that doesn't count Leo! The woman is ovulating.

@Dumuzzi gotcha I do that already to a certain extent without blowing loads into my brain. Am being a bit cheeky but no disrespect intended. Actually pretty curious still

@Dumuzzi wait wut... so after a while the desire for sex vanishes?

@Hardkill stop doing all that nonsense. You need to strip away the layers also, not just add.