BipolarGrowth

Put simply, there is no experience at all. If people are describing something as being experiential, it’s not cessation. Fruition and nirodha samapatti are the two types of cessation typically discussed. They are only different in how one reaches the “state” of cessation. Fruition is usually spontaneous, and nirodha samapatti is when cessation is accessed through progressing through the first formed jhanas and four formless jhanas in order which can result in cessation. Nirodha samapatti is typically only seen as being done by people who have experienced at a minimum of three cessations but, in most cases, many more than that. From Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel Ingram: “Fruition (phala in Pali) is the fruit of all the meditator’s hard work, the first attainment of ultimate reality, emptiness, nirvana, nibbana, ultimate potential, or whatever extrapolative and relatively inaccurate name you wish to call something utterly non-sensate. In this non-state, there is absolutely no time, no space, no reference point, no experience, no mind, no consciousness, no awareness, no background, no foreground, no nothingness, no somethingness, no body, no this, no that, no unity, no duality, and no anything else. “Reality” stops cold and then reappears. Thus, this is impossible to comprehend, as it goes completely and utterly beyond the rational mind and the universe. In “external time” (if we were observing the meditator) this stage typically lasts only an instant (though the question of “duration” will be addressed below). It is like an utter discontinuity of the space-time continuum with nothing in the unfindable gap, exactly like what happens when someone edits out a frame or sequence of frames of a movie. It is not that you see a blank screen for a while where they edited the frames out, instead that part of the movie is just not there. The initial aftershocks following the first time this happens at stream entry (or the first time it happens at the beginning of a higher level of awakening), however, can go on for days, and may be mild or spectacular, fun or unsettling, or some mixture of these. There are times when it is fun to show off, and this is one of those times. (Particularly mature? No. Honest? Yes.) Aftershocks I have noticed after paths include but are not limited to: • the brief visceral feeling that sensory reality is so intense that the nerves in the forehead and upper neck may not be able to handle the strain; • the feeling that new brain pathways are now being infused with vibrant life they lacked before, as if new nerve channels are tingling into life; • the feeling that we have become diffused into the atmosphere without a center, purpose, function, sense of direction, or even will; • a feeling of joy and gratitude bursting through our being beyond our usual sense of appreciation; • the sense of having at long last discovered what we most needed; • the profound sense of coming home, a quiet awe like the stillness after a great storm; • rapturous transcendent highs that make anything that happened after the A&P seem like dry toast; • the profound feeling that something pressed a reset button on reality, causing it to reboot as new, clean, clear, bright, pristine, and fresh. All that said, there are those who won’t recognize it, particularly those who chance upon it outside of a meditative tradition that can recognize it. There will also be those for whom it happens within the context of their practice tradition, who can recognize it, but who fail to identify it as being what it is. Sometimes the afterglow is not so spectacular, though for most the series of insights, connections, syntheses, and the like that burgeon forth is impressive. Others will just go on practicing, not realizing what has just happened. Just after the attainment of a path, particularly the first path, is a time when formal resolutions have an outrageous amount of power. The Buddha said that the greatest of all powers is to understand and then teach the dharma, meaning to attain full realization, however you define it, and then to help others do the same. I had been advised to use this unique period in my practice well, and I resolved to attain this awakening for the benefit of all beings as quickly as was reasonably possible. Despite all the complex consequences of having done so, I do not regret my decision in the least and highly recommend that you do the same. On subsequent passes through Fruition of that path, the mind tends to be refreshed, bright, quiet, and clear for a while, and milder forms of the above-listed phenomena may occur. The afterglow can seem to clear out all the junk for a little while. There is a nice bliss wave that tends to follow and may take a few seconds to develop. You can take that bliss wave as a shamatha object if you wish and intensify it, as a possible option. If you have not learned the concentration states yet, doing so in the afterglow of a Fruition can make them much easier to attain and master. The breath may change on the reappearance of “reality”, being a bit deeper, slower, easier, and more fluid. The total synchrony of the sense sphere that leads to a Fruition shows a fun physiological fact: Fruitions always occur at the end of the out-breath, and reality always reappears at the beginning of the in-breath, which is one of the cool reasons that finding the end of the out-breath can be powerful practice. For those who really want to get to know something interesting, notice exactly how reality reappears or re-manifests, and how the mental processes resume at an extremely fine level. This is best done by intending to notice it some time before the Fruition happens. Most people who have a Fruition are so relieved by it that the relief is most of what they notice, but those who can pay attention to more detail than that and do this well are afforded a rare treat—getting to see the processes that make up the functioning of our brains as they come online and orient to the surroundings, as well as to see the restarting of the sense of the illusion of duality, and exactly what makes that up in that powerfully clear attentional mode. It is fascinating stuff, and can lead to some serious clues about essential parts of the puzzle that help later. I recommend doing this again and again, as it generally takes going through it a good number of times to see what is really happening clearly and notice the assumptions we make about those processes and how they relate to things like “me”, “time”, “space”, and the like. Please note that there are at least two uses for the term nibbana, one of which is Fruition. The reference for this comes from the Abhidhamma or higher (abhi) dhamma (“teachings”, in this context), accessible in English as A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, by Narada Maha Thera, available free online and in print form. This is the standard Theravada literature on Buddhist mind-moment (Pali javana) theory and many other technical points, and it details that there will be three or four pulses of phenomena (typically called javanas, or “mind-moments”, “impulsions”, or dhammas) which, when they occur the first time, are Conformity, Path, and Change of Lineage, and then the mind will turn to nibbana and then the stream of ordinary sensate awareness will resume. [See A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, III §8 (12), p. 124, for more.] For those who actually do check out the Abhidhamma, which is a very good idea if you want to give more context, background, and support to your practice, you will notice that some of the biology seems pretty archaic, so don’t get derailed by that. The meditation theory remains quite helpful. Those who sometimes mention online and in person to me that they think that Mahasi Sayadaw or I made up this stuff about the ñanas, jhanas, stages, or other Buddhist theory, should read the Abhidhamma, or get your practice to the point where you yourself can perceive directly what these early followers of the Buddha perceived, and you will be satisfied by direct knowledge. At that point, the texts those followers wrote might make a lot more sense to you, and you may gain even more benefits by appreciating them based on your own practice instead of dismissing them based on ignorance.” Also from MCTB: “Then there is an attainment called “the cessation of perception and feeling” (Pali: nirodha samapatti, henceforth NS, or simply nirodha in my general way of speaking) that is hard to classify. The word “nirodha” (meaning “cessation”) is also sometimes used without the qualifier “samapatti” to refer to Fruition, so be careful to keep your terms straight when reading the old texts or speaking with others about these subjects. I always mean the cessation of perception and feeling when I use the word “nirodha”, but others often do not and may mean Fruition. This is the highest of the temporary attainments. It is discussed in multiple places, including sutta 44, “The Shorter Series of Questions and Answers”, from The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, in a talk given by a female arahant named Dhammadinna, and Path to Deliverance by Nyanatiloka, which draws from that fine text. You can also find it in commentaries, such as the Visuddhimagga, XXIII, 16, as well as in the last few pages of the Vimuttimagga. By the commentarial criteria at least, it can be attained only by anagamis and arahants who also have mastery of the formless jhanas. This attainment cannot be said to be either a state or not a state, nor can it be said to be strictly a concentration or an insight attainment, as it is attained by a fusion of both shamatha and vipassana and since it lacks a sensate basis for analysis, meaning there is no experience at all that can be analyzed, as perception and feeling have stopped. We attain NS by fusing insight and concentration practices in a gentle way that is much less precise than if we wanted to attain Fruition, as well as much less concentration-heavy than we would use if we were doing pure jhana practice. I find it slightly easier to attain NS when reclining, but the first time I attained it I was sitting. We rise through the shamatha jhanas in a low-key way with some light awareness of their true nature (the three characteristics), and then enter the eighth jhana (Neither Perception Nor Non-Perception), and then emerge from that state to that magical post-eighth junction point from which we might also attain the pure abodes. Technically, in the old texts we find that there are a few other points of set-up that we might do before this, including to make sure that we are not going to die before the state ends, resolving to wake up if summoned by the sangha, and some other minor details, but I have not found them necessary. Sometime shortly thereafter, and without warning or a very recent premeditation, we may suddenly enter the cessation of perception and feeling, or we might not, depending on whether we have met the entrance criteria and are not inclining to anything else. Please note that previous interest in attaining this during the preceding days or weeks tends to increase the chances of this attainment occurring, as do resolutions just before starting the ascent from the first through the eighth jhanas. As we get better at attaining this, we can slip in the inclination (resolution, intention) to attain it after emerging from the eighth jhana and then forget about it before dropping in. There is really nothing that can be said about this attainment, except for things that relate to entering, exiting, and the consequences of the attainment, all of which are unique to nirodha. The texts rightly say that, upon entering nirodha, verbal formations cease first, then physical sensations, then the whole of mental functioning ceases when the attainment is fully entered. This is traditionally explained as correlating to the first jhana, the fourth jhana, and then the entrance into nirodha, respectively. However, you may notice that in the three moments before cessation of perception sets in (during the complete power failure–like entrance) verbal formations, bodily formations, and mental formations cease in that order also in three consecutive and distinct moments, with the whole entrance taking about one-third of a second, like someone threw the master dimmer/power switch on sensate reality all the way down and the whole thing just shut off. The texts may have a double meaning, or may have been misinterpreted by scholars who had never themselves attained nirodha samapatti. I say this because it is still typical for bodily and verbal formations to arise between the eighth jhana and the entrance to NS, and thus the traditional interpretation does not hold up in experience. The texts also say that this attainment may last seven days or even longer (some say up to ten days), but I don’t personally know of anyone who has admitted to this occurring in their experience. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but it would probably require a long and sustained retreat beforehand to generate the necessary stability and stillness of mind. The duration of such attainments will be related directly to our concentration abilities, and these are very dependent upon practice conditions and how much concentration abilities have recently been exercised. Please also note that, like Fruition, there is no experience at all during NS. There is no time, no space, no something, no nothing, not anything at all. Just as a desktop computer shuts down totally when you press the power button, so too with anything to do with experience in NS. I have friends who have talked about something they got into where they could still feel time passing, and that is definitely not it. NS is like the ultimate rest for the mind, something far beyond even deep sleep, as even a few seconds in it leaves one with a massive feeling of having gone extremely deep in a way nothing else can match. Unlike Fruition, we exit this attainment in the reverse way we came in, with mental formations arising first, quickly followed by physical and then verbal formations in the characteristic analogue way of the entrance and with the same timing, like throwing on a big dimmer switch in about one-third of a second. After leaving this attainment, the mind tends to be a remarkable mixture of deeply peaceful while very clear, and our body tends to be very relaxed. The longer the attainment lasted, the stronger and longer-lingering this effect will be. I have found it to be by far the most impressive, long-lasting, and heavy of the afterglows of the various attainments, and have noted feeling the effects of it for up to about twenty-four hours afterwards. From my point of view, the whole point of attaining to NS (other than learning the level of control needed to attain to it, which has it own rewards for other avenues of spiritual development—and for just showing off and proving you can do it—is the amazing afterglow. Thus, I would not recommend attaining this immediately before entering into situations that require quick decisions or actions, such as driving in complex traffic. The texts say that we incline to solitude or quiet after attaining this state, and in general I agree. Loud noises and jarring situations can be particularly so after NS. Its afterglow is very conducive to deep relaxation, deep practice, deep insight, and deep magickal workings—that is if you can get up the emotional energy to care at all about those workings in the face of that stunningly chill afterglow. I talk about the powers later so, if the topic of magick bothers you, just pretend I didn’t write that. Say, “La, la, la, la, la …” in your head to clear the memory of it, or whatever. While I am nervous about the current trend to use meditation to create more productive, compliant, and docile worker-bees, I must admit that studying for my emergency medicine board exam one day in the afterglow of NS was like a dream come true. I could steadily plow through hundreds of pages for hours and hours with vastly less mental fatigue than I would have had in any other state I am familiar with. Aside from nirodha samapatti’s importance due to being included in some system’s criteria for various stages of awakening, it is worth mentioning this attainment because it is found today by real, living practitioners but has often been relegated to the realm of myth and legend or has been ignored or even forgotten entirely. It is not that nirodha samapatti is necessary, but it is a good and useful thing to be able to attain. In fact, I have not yet spoken with anyone who had attained it who didn’t consider it the absolute King Daddy of meditation attainments other than arahantship, as the depth of its afterglow never fails to impress and amaze. Hopefully, mentioning it will raise the standard to which people feel they can reasonably aspire, which is basically the whole goal of this book. One more little morsel for you brave adventurers … I have noticed that the easiest time to attain NS is usually a few weeks after attaining a path, when the vipassana jhana aspect of the progress of insight is becoming clear and a nice degree of mastery has been attained in that Review phase. However, it has this nice/nasty habit of helping to precipitate a new progress cycle, as the level of clarity gained in its wake is impressive, and clarity furthers insight. Thus, we may go from the best highs of a Review phase and NS’s glorious afterglow to the third ñana, A&P, and the Dark Night quickly. In fact, this seems to be a very natural part of many cycles of anagamis who also know the eight jhanas and how to ride the line between concentration and insight practices. One word of warning: NS’s afterglow is so extreme that it is easy to imagine that one has attained some new level of awakening, as the mind feels very, very different after NS has occurred, and residual hindrances and negative mind states may be very far away. Wait at least a few days after any dive into NS to see how those changes hold up in the face of the world before starting to draw any conclusions. I must say, there is something truly fairy-tale wonderful about NS. That you can pick up a book from about 2,000 years ago that gives complex instructions like some weird recipe for something you can do with your brain that you would have otherwise been extremely unlikely to know as even being possible, and that you can follow those instructions and they can actually work, blew my doors off the first time I did it. This stuff is just amazing! Yay, dharma!“

So Being is somehow not thought? Now that’s quite a confused thought to have, at least I think. I think it doesn’t make a difference either way ?

?? @SQAAD You and Leo are both the same “thing”, and it’s most certainly not you or Leo or any other fleeting appearance that is that thing.

Why don’t you tell us what/who you are, and then we can talk about if that exists or not. Hint: as soon as you express your current condition you’d call a self that exists, it ain’t no more.

Just make a lot of content, and do it for yourself even if the videos are also meant to help people. If you don’t enjoy the process, there’s no point. If you enjoy the process, the results will be better. You will stick with it for the long haul. Doing it for attention, subscribers, and money will likely result in less consistency long term than if you did it for the enrichment of your own life in less trivial ways.

@Jakuchu Self = No Self

@Jakuchu I know that the two are different. The point of there not being a you applies in both cases however.

@Jakuchu I see. The point is essentially the exact same thing whether you say a Buddha or Buddha/the Buddha. There’s no one to be a Buddha, the Buddha, or simply Buddha.

@Jakuchu ???

The Buddha said you are not a true disciple if you say I am enlightened or I am a Buddha as there is no I to be either of those things and both of those things are arbitrary appearances which in truth mean very little. Summarized from the Diamond Sutta.

People have shown, including myself at times, that these teachings can have rather disastrous consequences. If he chose to take it down, maybe it was truly the best course of action.

I got to hear a good portion of the video. I really took no issue with it at all. It was stuff I had known for two or three years already, much of that to be credited to Leo’s teachings. Experience can only experience direct experience. Pretty basic when you see it for what it is. I really don’t understand how there can be backlash to this unless it’s just a bunch of people who have not been doing the work, which is probably the case. I respect Leo’s creative freedom. I think it’s a bit atrocious that people are trying to take this liberty from him through continued persuasion tactics. I do hope that Leo gets the opportunity to teach some people, maybe on a one-on-one basis, about more of his deepest insights and realizations. I think this could be very rewarding for him at the right time with the right person/people.

@Forza21 well “touching your true nature” is definitely better than years of making money, but I wouldn’t settle for one moment. What we really want is for this to be readily accessible on a regular basis. As good as one moment of great clarity can be, it’s still just one moment.

It makes it far easier for me to fall asleep at times. I have some insomnia issues, and if I really need to get to bed, it’s one of the things I’ll do to increase the chance that it can happen.

It’s probably a good idea to spend some time thinking of ways to make money that will align more with your values and interests. I personally took about a year off from work. The most I did was at most 25 hours per week, but most of the time I was off work entirely for that year. I had a similar situation. I had created my own business, but it was in real estate investing rather than an online thing. The one good thing about that was that it did give me passive income that usually only took an hour or two of work per month to maintain. How I’m approaching this is to just continue scaling my real estate business but at a much slower pace than when I was more “stage orange”. I’ve realized that you really don’t need that much money to be happy and have your needs met if your spiritual practice has a moderate level of success. The main thing I really would like more money for would be to have a bit more to travel to different meditation retreats and do other spiritual questing type stuff you might call it. Even this is not really a big enough carrot to motivate me much. Taking that year off from work was hands down one of the best things I’ve ever done. It lead to some breakthroughs which completely changed my depression issues. Really the only problem that I have that comes from it is that now I find myself, maybe a couple times per week, having a feeling that I’m not doing enough similar to what you described. I think this is just inevitable societal programming playing itself out. It’s quite surprising to find yourself at states of satisfaction that are literally paralyzing if I’m to think from the perspective of myself even two years ago. I’m interested to see what other people suggest here as I am in a similar boat obviously. I have started working part time at some very basic jobs just as something to keep me a bit active and supplement my other income. I find that working more than 30 hours at a typical job is just unnecessary and unfulfilling. I’d rather just enjoy my life now and do spiritual practice at times where it feels most natural rather than trying to cram it in somewhere in a busy schedule.

Just “die” more often if you want to get over the fear. Obviously you know that it’s not a danger but something extremely positive. This is like being afraid of a non-poisonous spider with no fangs. It’s just mental resistance. In this case there happens to be a potentially large upside to facing that fear over and over until you are secure enough to fully surrender whereas with the spider there’s not much upside.

Substances can work very differently on people, especially things like THC or classical psychedelics. THC is quite different than psychedelics, so it’s no guarantee that just because THC was rough for you that psychedelics would also be rough. I’d say to stay away from THC if it’s not working well for you. Personally, I’ve had stronger trips from THC than 10 tabs of LSD, just shy of 6 grams of shrooms, ayahuasca in ceremony, and 160x salvia. Everyone’s brain is different. I’ve almost never had difficult experiences with THC in any form, but serotonergic psychedelics occasionally would give me some quite challenging experiences at certain points in trips although I’ve never had a trip that wasn’t positive all things considered on any substance. It sounds like you do have a high level of sensitivity to THC. Also keep in mind that the more psychedelics you use, the higher probability that the effects will change for you in the future even for the same substance at the same dose as before. Most of the time, this shows up as things becoming more intense rather than less intense unless you’ve built up a tolerance.

Sometimes I wonder if people forget that search engines exist. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9788528/

@Leo Gura the Buddhist path is not really that focused on God. I just don’t see why we’re making this a competition when different paths are different tools to achieve different things. You can do both without much issue as long as the one in question doesn’t get into this unhelpful attitude of competition. Your teachings can work in combination with Buddhist techniques, and Buddhist techniques can work in combination with your teachings. No need for an us vs. them mentality. A higher degree of mastery over suffering is in no way going to harm anyone’s aim to become God-Realized. If people become too attached to one system over another, this will certainly reduce the chance that any useful synergy will occur.

I don’t think we should take someone who failed at the Buddhist path as an expert on the effectiveness of the Buddhist path. It’s like going to someone who hates the taste of Asian cuisine to learn about the best dishes of that type of cuisine. Not an intelligent move.

Many, possibly most, Buddhist monks today likely do very little actual spiritual practice. Here’s a Bhikkhu (Buddhist monk) expressing his frustrations and disappointment with these pretenders. He essentially says it is more honorable and better for the world to be a plumber or electrician than it is to be a monk who does not have the express goal of realizing Nibbana in this lifetime. There are many westerners who will have a better chance of realizing Nibbana even as laypeople than this large portion of the Buddhist monks who are merely pretenders will and even, in some cases, have a better chance than those who are practicing monks. The rigid life of a monk may be less fruitful for many people as the restrictions can possibly backfire to create a life filled with resistance. Even to be a Bhikkhu who practices diligently can cause problems as Buddhism operates very similar to cliques in high school. You do not want to find yourself in an environment that constantly discounts other potentially valuable perspectives if you really want Truth. There are cultural and ideological wars going on within Buddhism to a high degree today, and the chance that most Buddhists will be open to other forms of spirituality outside of Buddhism is rather low also. I say all of this while being a strong advocate of Buddhist meditation techniques.

It has been scientifically proven that happiness can only occur within a nuclear family of overcompensatedly strong stage green values which oppose nuclear power as a solution to global warming thus making the probability of global warming increase while containing so much irony that the situation ironically become unironic and instead y.

All I can say is the the change of the profile pic makes sense to support the fact that life changing insight has occurred.

I don’t think that’s how these hotlines work. I called them at a low point a couple times, and the guy I talked to in the instance I have some memory of was quite helpful. As far as some advice goes, I’d like to remind you that you’ve already spent many years suffering through this world to learn how it works. Imagine killing yourself to only find yourself in a similar or even worse situation without those years of familiarity with the system of how things work. You can totally turn your life around. I say this as someone with three clinical diagnoses who has fixed his own serious depression issues.

Humanity suffers because it perceives what is as an issue. If there is no problem or issue, there is no suffering.