BipolarGrowth

After cessation, I’m pretty confused and a bit worried. Is this really my last go? I don’t see how they could have any solid epistemic ground to stand on regarding this. I thought becoming free from suffering sounded like a good thing. Now I’m kind of seeing how fun the whole suffering game has been...

I got secure. Probably used to be more anxious in regards to romantic relationships until the past year or so.

The self/other or internal/external duality is unfortunately much more than just thought. This is precisely why you can say you already felt to have this intellectual understanding yet had not had the deeper realization of it. Someone can feed themselves thoughts or have them arise spontaneously from having consumed certain spiritual content about the self/other or internal/external divide being illusory, but the thoughts alone actually do very little. What is more fundamental is how perception is occurring in relation to the sensations which are present. Thoughts are in many ways sensations which are more tapped into the mind’s ability to affect meta-shifts in the sensory field though, so they are still very helpful for making useful changes to perception. Almost in all cases, there will be a basis of related intellectual understanding before directly experienced perceptual shifts one might call insight occur. What is most important though is to actually feel the shift in perception which aligns with the intellectual understanding. This is why psychedelics, meditation, and other techniques are so effective at producing insight as they are altering perception and in turn changing the very nature of the sensations which are accessible in one’s experience. When it comes to being sure of one’s own insights, it’s helpful to always remain open to new perspectives and focus on high quality sources of information to temper one’s personal insights. If you know something for 100% certain, this is usually more of a flaw than a sign of a solid understanding IMO as even some of the most time-tested and plausible perspectives around nonduality do not at all deserve 100% certainty. There’s no need to drive yourself crazy over needing to constantly reassess things. Why not fall in love with the exploration process rather than clinging to certainty? Certainty is almost always a clear sign of a bit too much or at times way too much bias.

Makes perfect sense to me.

I think it took me becoming a master of being ungrounded to finally calm down and value groundedness unfortunately. It’s a rather difficult thing to do with bipolar disorder but worth it.

If there is only “now”, how can there ever be an “again”?

Is empty space not filled with sensations? That’s what I consider more.

Yay! I love playing the Oppression Olympics! But seriously, if people are looking down at others who do not practice the same form of spirituality, this is a clear flaw. I would say that being able to explore Truth is a huge privilege. We should all feel lucky that we have our basic needs met enough to have developed a care for such a thing in the first place.

Exactly. This is actually called wise moral shame in Buddhism. Wise moral dread is the outward component of this where one considers how an immoral action would be viewed by someone you respect like a highly developed spiritual teacher for example. A lot of new age spirituality is so focused on self-love that it often ends up encouraging people to be loose with morality, whether this is intentional by those teaching self-love or not. I fell into this trap before. Having no shame at all is actually rather destructive in many instances for both the individual in question and those around them, from my experience with this at least. This is not a reason to turn wise moral shame and dread into neurotic self-hatred though as that is obviously too far. It is a balancing act in a sense which for most people likely takes quite a bit of practice to do well.

I would be very concerned with what the priest says so that you can get to Heaven in that specific religion and go to Hell in about 10,000 others. You don’t win that game. There will always be tons of belief systems that say you’re going to an unverifiable place of suffering from not following their specific teachings. BUT WAIT! Buy my starter course for $5,000. It’s your only chance to make a good living! All other ways of livelihood are GUARANTEED to leave you broke, so follow my plan that is the only proven way (yet I of course have no proof to back up what I say, so have FAITH!) to make it rich. Do you see how ridiculous this sounds when extrapolated to a real world example?

Do you have the free will to not philosophize constantly? It seems to be evidence of an automatic process to me.

Sounds very interesting. I’ll have to try this out soon. I'm currently doing only metta as instructed by Bhikkhu Candana for at least 10 days. It is quite an interesting technique in the specific format he instructs. I have noticed its positive impact on sīla to be the main benefit thus far. It was quite unsettling at first to go from using 5+ meditation techniques per day to only this metta technique which is rather hard to maintain outside of sits compared to Ānāpānasati. Here’s my practice vlog that discusses my initial impression after the first sit doing the technique: Spiritual Practice Vlog #3 — Metta (30 mins) And the full instruction on the method from Bhikkhu Candana:

Good luck man!

Not two.

This has likely nothing to do with the probability of your human self structure being murdered. It’s sort of like saying because two cells are part of me one can’t give the other cancer.

Dhamma greetings my fellow Self-Actualization-focused spiritual seekers, Come join us in developing jhana. It’s nice to have perfectly untraceable and legal psychedelic-like states accessible anywhere, anytime which generally produce less mental instability and suffering than the good ole’ “chemical jhanas.” You can be in first jhana even while at work or talking with friends, verified by my direct experience as well as a Buddhist meditation master who has been practicing for a number on decades consistently. Actually, sometimes it’s easier to get into it then compared to during sitting practice. Here’s the other thread where Dhammarato teaches me about the first jhana: His teachings worked like a charm for me in less than a week to start getting into real, complete jhana. Also, if interested in jhana, s(h)amatha, or vipassana, do yourself a favor and listen to Arda whenever you notice him post something. There are hardly any threads that reach this forum that are more filled with effective and practical advice than his, if any. This is a great thread of Arda’s: Good luck! And happy dukkha nirodha hunting! -Brandon ❤️

A good way to think of subtle senses could include the six psychic senses of claircognizance, clairsentience, clairaudience, clairvoyance, etc.

1) How long are you into spiritual path? 8 years 2) How many trips on psychedelics have you experienced? Hundreds. And what psychedelics? Probably 15-20 trips on serotonergic psychedelics (specifically LSD, mushrooms, and ayahuasca) with maybe 60% of them being in the “heroic dose” range. Two trips on salvia at a high concentration (80x and higher). The rest were on various forms of THC like delta-8 THC, delta-9 THC, delta-10 THC, THC-O, and to a lesser degree actual flower/bud. I’d say at least 50 of the THC experiences were at least as intense as the heroic dose serotonergic psychedelic trips with some of them being much stronger. I only clarify this because people who haven’t tried THC at high baseline consciousness are going to come in here saying THC isn’t a psychedelic potentially. 3) How often do you meditate? Daily with a few to several hours of Ānāpānasati/breath meditation throughout the day and roughly 45 mins - 1 hr of sitting meditation which is usually fire kasina. 4) Has your life gotten better or worse? How? Both. I experienced a lot of fallout with my mental health up until now which caused me to lose some money and old friends, but my life has substantially less suffering than it used to. I also have a lot more mental stability and happiness than before. 5) What are your main insides, want advice could you give to others? Each sensation neither exists nor does not exist. The entire field of sensations (awareness, consciousness, etc.) neither exists nor does not exist. If you prefer psychedelics, meditate more. If you prefer meditation, do more psychedelics. Explore many different types of spiritual practices beyond just meditation and psychedelics (ex. Bhakti yoga, light language, transmissions, etc.)

It’s 100% free. It’s rather easy to get in touch. You just call him on Skype. He hasn’t used the term access concentration in any of the conversations I’ve had with him or seen with others. I’m sure he’d be able to discuss that curiosity of yours with you if you’d like though.

Here I will be referring to Nibbana (or Nirvana in Sanskrit) mainly in two different capacities. The first will be satisfaction or happiness and the second will be referring to the cessation of perception, feeling, and experience sometimes called phala, fruition, cessation, or within the certain context of progressively reducing fabrication by going through the four formed and four formless jhanas in order to reach cessation which is called nirodha samapatti. The Easy & Predictable Nibbana The easy and predictable Nibbana is that of satisfaction. Satisfaction is a word which is commonly used as a translation of the Pali word sukha. Other translations of sukha come up with things like happiness or things which otherwise contribute to a feeling of general well-being and comfort. In many respects, the core of the Buddha’s teachings come down to dukkha and dukkha nirodha (the cessation of dissatisfaction/suffering) or in other words dukkha and sukha. Nibbana in this sense is as simple as becoming a master at bringing yourself to a state of satisfaction quickly and easily regardless of external circumstances. This type of Nibbana does not require gigantic blissful experiences and complex spiritual understanding, although these things don’t necessarily hurt. Being able to develop the skill of maintaining sati, or mindfulness, of the in and out breath which is called Ānāpānasati and described in the Ānāpānasati Sutta is the most straightforward path to developing this type of Nibbana. The whole of the Dhamma (or Dharma in Sanskrit) can be found in Ānāpānasati when it is practiced consistently enough and as insight into the nature of phenomena and reality is uncovered through this, but there are better meditation techniques for raw insight itself. Ānāpānasati is special because it uses an object of attention, or focus object, for the meditation which is a wholesome object that is accessible in almost all states. When attention goes to wholesome objects such as the breath or thoughts of comfort, safety, and other positive aspects of experience, satisfaction naturally rises. Eventually, this satisfaction and other factors of jhana become the objects of investigation and can be directly raised in a rather controllable way, but the main part of the practice is to develop one’s ability to give themselves a completely satisfying present moment experience. Building this ability is much like building a muscle. Consistent practice leads to increased ease when handling what used to be dissatisfactory in a way that can now be satisfactory. Intentionally slowing the breath to become long and easy in and out breaths slows heart rate and naturally reduces cortisol and adrenaline which contribute to anxious feelings and feelings of unease. Once you become better and better at creating satisfaction and breathing naturally rather than automatically, resistance to reality and the external world is heavily reduced. Previously challenging circumstances become easier and easier to quickly turn into a satisfying present moment experience. With this type of Nibbana, there is no moment of transformation in which you are “permanently enlightened.” Every moment is a new moment to either wake up to satisfaction or stay asleep in dissatisfaction. This practice is as simple as remembering to keep attention on the breath and satisfying and wholesome aspects of experience. An “end point” with this practice would look like having your brain rewired through consistent enough practice that satisfaction is almost always the case on its own and it can be immediately created, or rather found or remembered, in any cases where it might slip up for a moment. The Hard & Unpredictable Nibbana This is the type of spiritual awakening that most modern and western spirituality is often focused around when it comes to Buddhism. An important thing to mention is that many people chase this type of awakening for the purpose of transcending suffering which is something the easy and predictable path to the type of Nibbana mentioned above is quite good at. This second type of awakening and Nibbana is thought by some, such as Daniel Ingram, the author of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, to occur at the first attainment of cessation or fruition and in subsequent cessations which often happen spontaneously during spiritual practice/daily life or intentionally through going through jhanas 1-8 resulting in a cessation which is called nirodha samapatti. This link to part of MCTB describes cessation and fruition: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/15-fruition/ This link to part of MCTB describes nirodha samapatti: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-v-awakening/37-models-of-the-stages-of-awakening/the-cessation-of-perception-and-feeling-nirodha-samapatti/ It’s important to note that cessation is the exact same from an epistemic perspective in both fruition and nirodha samapatti. It’s all simply a complete “gap” in experience, and nirodha samapatti does not on its own unveil any new insights which a close examination of a fruition can’t unveil. It is simply a hard attainment to reach and exciting for that fact alone and also a predictable way of reaching this second type of Nibbana. Reaching this second type of Nibbana, no matter how you get there or if it is fruition or nirodha samapatti, usually takes people years of spiritual practice. It does have quite profound effects and can contribute to a lot of insight which allows one to relate to previously dissatisfactory sensations in a less adversarial light. I call this the unpredictable Nibbana because it is completely unknown when you’ll first reach fruition. The first fruition appears to just pop up at completely different amounts of practice and types of practice for different people. Vipassana meditation techniques are quite effective at getting people to this stage, but many spiritual practices and meditation techniques done enough will lead to fruition or cessation. This type of Nibbana is rather complete, in a sense, because cessation is freedom from absolutely everything experiential. There are no samskaras, hindrances, selves, others, somethingness, or nothingness. There is no consciousness or awareness at all in cessation for any of those things in the previous sentence to appear in. There is no vantage point from which to even discuss nothingness or emptiness. There is no existence “in” this non-state. There’s quite literally nothing to it. This is precisely why this attainment is so transformative. It is the eradication of any possible sense of self while one is “in” cessation. It also shows impermanence by showing one what it truly would be like if existence disappeared and reappeared right before your eyes (your eyes are also part of what disappears and reappears, of course) giving the potential for a great deal of insight into what might have been before the conscious experience of being a human being and what might come afterward. There still feels to be some permanence to the human self structure and experience the way it is now before you see it all get eradicated by cessation. This also gives some insight into the nature of dukkha by showing just how much less suffering no existence or experience at all is compared to even the most rapturous and amazing existence or experience. Reaching cessation a number of times eventually unfolds a process which reveals new ways of perceiving the world. Eventually, the field of perception through all six sense doors gets fused into one sense door, emptiness can be directly grasped in all circumstances, the luminosity of all phenomena is unveiled, the impressions of concepts of things such as a physical body or gravity lose their power over perception, and the sense of self dissolves from an individual human being into the entire field of sensations which may be present at any given moment among many other things. All of these fancy things are helpful to the easy and predictable path to the first type of Nibbana in so much as they just provide more easily noticeable pleasant facets of reality to pay attention to and reduce the patterns of sensations which give experience the feeling of being only a human being with the rest of the world as an external entity which is in some way or another a dissatisfactory enemy to that imaginary self/soul. What should I do with any of this? This is ultimately up to you, of course, but I will say that both of these “types” of Nibbana contribute to the ability to live without the five hindrances and the ten fetters. Although I’m not by any means at the end of the road in regard to hindrances and fetters, it is very clearly noticeable how these two types of Nibbana contribute to one getting closer to that goal which one might call a third type of Nibbana which would be the moment-to-moment experience of an Arahant or in other words the moment-to-moment experience of one who lives without hindrances and fetters. The second type takes a lot of spiritual development to reach, but the first type only requires a consistent training of the mind to focus attention on wholesome objects and notice them with better efficiency. Both of these are very helpful to living a life with less dissatisfaction and more satisfaction. Most people chase the second type because they really just want the ability to feel more satisfied with life more of the time, and they think attaining cessation is the only way to do that. Even worse, people think attaining some experiential “heightened” state of consciousness is the only way to do that. Dissatisfaction can be turned into satisfaction in a much simpler way which is touched upon some in the first half of this post. Become mindful of the breath and the satisfactory parts of your experience by sustaining attention on them right here, right now, and your dissatisfaction will be lessened. Do that a lot in increasingly skillful ways, and you can make lemonade out of any lemons life has provided you.

I had strong visuals on 3 tabs and no visuals on 10 tabs (I don’t recommend taking that much whatsoever). Sometimes psychedelics work in different ways even with the same chemical depending on your state and where you’re at in life

?????❤️??

Felt a minor shift just reading this. Good stuff. Pretty much exactly how I’ve been doing self-inquiry in the past couple months. Way better than repeating “who am I?” Lol

I wish I could find some way of uniting all of my past, present, and future lovers under one roof and love and fuck them for eternity while I just did psychedelics and meditation during my refractory periods. Guess I’m the devil ❤️?? This would also involve being a bit of a new-age polygamous man as I have deeply loved many men, women, and one trans man. Why can’t we just be more freaky? Of course this would never work with all of them and probably not even some of them. And this would probably evolve into a cult at some point naturally, so that’s “not good” either

I like his stuff on metta too