BipolarGrowth

Maybe the real joke is the idea of enlightenment itself, seeing as how arbitrary and nebulous that concept is.

@mrPixel yes, almost all the information I had to work with was the symptoms, and these all line up about as well as one could expect from a forum post of that length. Insight gained from the insight stages of the dark night is not the same as being in a dark night. Paññā comes gradually through going through the stages over and over in most cases, if we’re speaking specifically in the context of this model alone, and often only when the person is applying sati with a moderate or advanced level of skill/experience will they be able to come into significant contact with paññā. You aren’t required to have well-developed insights about the various insight stages to enter them for the first times. Initially, people are more likely to have hardly any depth of understanding of what is to be gleaned from the stages or really what is going on at all oftentimes apart from their symptoms. The truths you list are also mostly truths people can access through typical life experience with zero intentional spiritual practice but just a minor amount of consideration. What source did you hear this list from?

You neither exist nor do not exist. Stand up for yourself if they are actually being toxic rather than just playfully poking fun. You’re doing a disservice to yourself, them, and everyone else they interact with if you just allow them to do fucked up shit to you. But first, make sure you’re not doing any fucked up shit to them…

There is absolutely nothing “unawake” about praying to the Absolute. Prayer is an effective spiritual practice, but hardly no one prays enough to learn just how useful it can become.

Is impermanence impermanent?

“I” would be willing to bet that “we” are communicating through “God” many miles apart from each other right now.

Congrats. It sounds like you hit your first Arising & Passing Away insight stage which in the normal progression is followed by the Dark Night of the Soul insight stages. Nothing mentally ill about it unless you’re having other symptoms you haven’t mentioned. You can read more about these stages here: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/ My best advice is to keep meditating the same amount as you have been if you can manage it during these shifts as this will eventually lead to much more stability in the long term.

I’ve brought many shifts from psychedelics into permanent baseline shifts in consciousness. The key for affecting baseline states for me, in many cases, is to do practices such as Vipassana or other techniques while on psychedelics (namely various types of THC personally). I think if you want to keep things in your baseline state, using lower doses of psychedelics or “weaker” psychedelics and training your mind’s ability to affect consciousness under its own control while on those lower strength experiences is quite important. A lot of people get the idea that the highest doses of the strongest psychedelics is somehow going to affect baseline consciousness significantly. From my experience and what I’ve heard many people here and in other contexts describe, any baseline shifts which occur in line with using large doses of very potent psychedelics only gives transient shifts. I think the difference on baseline states is mostly made by building the muscle of your mind’s own abilities rather than letting psychedelics do all the leg work to get you to epic states. My sober state can at times be stronger than experiences on heroic doses of serotonergic psychedelics used to be for me about 3-4 years ago. Low doses of THC + Vipassana and a few other more personalized techniques is in many cases far stronger than those old heroic dose trips used to be, and these experiences have “locked in” a number of things permanently for me. Hallucinations on psychedelics are just as “real”, or rather actual, as sober experiences. This does not mean that they occur in some objectively verifiable sense however. What is experienced = what is actual.

This most certainly sounds like a dark night. Daniel Ingram, the writer of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, recommends doing your best to continue practicing meditation (if that’s the type of practice you do) to continue the progress of insight cycle which will move you out of the dark night. I personally recommend seriously considering talking to a psychiatrist about an antidepressant. If SSRIs don’t work for you, ask them about an NDRI.

Guruin’ don’t come free!

I’d say to just keep things going and see if it’s something you can actually see yourself doing for some time. Sounds like a good opportunity for a spiritually-minded person.

Breathing from the stomach is as simple as taking a deep breath and paying attention to how that brings up bodily sensations near the stomach. Stop worrying about if thoughts are there or not. That will likely only make things worse. Just return to the breath. Let the thoughts do their thing. Your job is to be with the breath.

Focus or attention is what sort of highlights parts of awareness. You can actually have attention on a number of things at once, but this is a skill which has to be developed. Most people struggle to keep attention on one object such as in most forms of meditation. Focus is very limited typically when most people start spiritual practice, but it can be increased quite a bit. For starters, you can keep attention on your breath during your daily life to see how your attention will dart around to various things. You’ll inevitably see how you can have attention on multiple things as you get more used to doing this.

It might help slightly, but this is highly unlikely to be enough on its own.

I guess I was maybe too focused on the part where you mentioned a part of your body was paralyzed and you were in bed.

There’s nothing wrong with manipulating the breath. Intentionally taking long, easy breaths has been quite beneficial for me.

The ridiculous amount of experiences which can be “had”.

This follows exactly what I said as well. In one quote, no problems while the other certainly sounds like assessing weirdness as an issue.

What is the chance this is just sleep paralysis in your opinion?

The difference is illness gives you problems and awakening is the dissolution of problems.

I’m happy because nothing important needs to be done. When something important comes up, relax and realize its overall unimportance.

Probably a bad idea. There are so many chemicals more effective and less harmful which can be used for this purpose.

Of course?? The point is you decide the meaning.

There is no meaning to life other than the one you decide fits.

Consciousness cannot exist during an experience of the lack of consciousness. In other words, there cannot be an experience of no experience.