BipolarGrowth

There is a key difference between 0 distinctions on the level of thought, language, or other symbolic overlay vs. 0 distinctions in perception. I am referring to 0 distinctions in perception. All experience relies on distinctions in perception. When there are no distinctions at all you reach cessation. There is no “what is.” You can have no thought, no person, no word response and all of what you’re pointing to so far and there still be perceptual distinctions. Perceptual distinctions can still occur at the level in which no functioning of the mind, human organism (which doesn’t even exist in this state), etc. is even possible. If you think you’re having 0 distinctions while you can drink a cup of coffee, this is infinitely more distinction than what I’m talking about which was still experiential. Just for clarification, this paragraph is not referring to cessation.

I’ve noticed people use this word in very conflicting ways. For example, this video describes samadhi very differently than I see most people using it:

I don’t think it’s at all the same as enlightenment, but they are positively correlated of course. I’m glad you tied it to Samatha. I just realized I completely read over that connection. I always thought Samatha = concentration, which it does, but it also means training in samadhi. I guess it’s all essentially the same just with varying depths.

But do you see the oftentimes tear-jerking perfection in each one of them the whole time? It’s hard to get there and harder to stay there, but it’s a great goal to have. Glad to see you’re treating them with love. Love disarms without any need for conflict.

Sensory experience is built upon difference/duality. Lack of food > Hunger > Seek food > Eat food > Lack of hunger If “reality” is not also dualistic, how is language dualistic? Is language not “reality”? Creating language, thought, anything a human ever does is just as much a response to sensory experience as burning your hand and pulling it back from the fire. Seems as if you’re creating a duality between your reported accurate experience of reality and other things which are ultimately just that very same reality. Nonduality and duality are ultimately the same. You don’t get one appearance without the other. 0=1. People seem to be falling in love with the = and forgetting the entire role of 0 and 1 which allowed them to ever reach =. I’m just telling you guys from personal experience: insight into the whole equation takes you far deeper than getting caught up on one part of the equation.

One observer is essentially what I was pointing to. Just different ways of saying the same thing. I say singular perspective because it includes experiences beyond the observer/observed duality. There are not multiple perspectives at a single moment in time.

Dhammarato has a much different approach than what I’ve learned from watching people associated with western Buddhism. It is called the Supra-mundane dhamma, and it was developed by his main teacher/master who he learned from. He roughly claims or suggests that enlightenment is not a permanent shift as many people describe it to be. He has very different criteria to evaluate progress than what is taught in the book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha which I have used as a manual for expanding my practice following my first encounters with cessation at the beginning of this summer. Before this, I hadn’t made any attempts to dive too deeply into Buddhist practice specifically as I was focused on other methods. His method is more focused on moment-to-moment replacement of unwholesome thoughts with wholesome thoughts and putting the mind in a joyful state intentionally. This has made meditation a lot easier for me. It’s roughly just as effective as other types of meditation from what I’ve noticed, but there isn’t as much resistance. If you’re struggling to meditate or meditate as long/often as you want to, I think you could gain some things from watching this talk, especially the last 2/3 or half of the video as this is when he gets more into his technique and direct advice. His technique is a far simpler approach than many I’ve found which has a lot of advantages to it. If you wish to start having coaching with Dhammarato, you can contact him on Skype at the username Dhammaratog. Call him between 10 am and 4 pm Thai time.

My favorite is when you enter the marketplace and get your nails done and a pedicure. #feelsgoodman

Consciousness is always a singular perspective.

There is no experiencer separate from content. That separation is mentally constructed and somewhat arbitrary. Getting to separate the two is still a regular point on the path and a useful place to get to. Just knows there’s more.

Yeah it’s empty. Fine enough perception can get you to the point of being in one collapsed instant where perception is occurring before things even arise from my experience. Really trippy. The content is always moving, and the present moment is just more content. It’s not a solid ground or container separate from content.

It is always referring to something new, but for most people it’s the body/mind. Spiritual practice eventually shows you more and more variance in this pattern until it can never really be caught again other than being seen as experience itself. Cessation shows, for some who interpret it in this way, that even experience/consciousness is not consistent and can be removed. So it’s nothing, but probably not what you think I mean at all when I say nothing.

I is ________. Amorphous, ever changing.

You might be helped by trying some other types of meditation that are not done on the cushion. You can build up your progress on different aspects of meditation doing this. You’ll probably not run into the same thing. Noting, walking meditation, vipassana mainly focused on impermanence are all things which could fit in well possibly. Worth a shot IMO.

Even the process of physical death beginning is not enough to awaken people to certain deeper things if they are not ready.

Experience is made up of many qualities beyond the 5 senses. Literally an infinite amount beyond the basic 5 senses. For example, thought does not come from the 5 senses. The sensation of space is not coming from just the 5 senses.

When a teacher stresses something and you learn it, you can connect it to many things in your life. A lot of people have been on this spiritual journey way longer than they’ve known Leo. They were at similar or even more advanced points than him in some areas and at some times. When he teaches something well, which he certainly does, it brings it into our consideration more whether we’ve had that specific type of insight/awakening or not. It’s going to ripple out to change the forum culture a lot, but of course many people are not going to understand most facets as well as him. They still can talk about them, and it’s pretty normal to overestimate ourselves in this area at some point.

I undoubtedly got to permanent levels of awakening (according to rather strict/precise Theravada Buddhist maps — https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/15-fruition/) and shifts in perception/self/suffering/natural and effortless spiritual ability. I don’t call the deepest levels enlightenment. I call it Liberation because that feels more accurate, and this term has less baggage attached to it here as it’s used less. It’s a personal Liberation. I realized no awakening map really means shit compared to how it changes things authentically for you. Other people’s categories become less and less important when things get so individualized that you know no one else has likely ever experienced many aspects of your specific stuff in the combination it occurred in. Actually I discovered something for myself which I consider a completely different branch of this stuff from enlightenment, Liberation, or God-Realization. I call it Absolute Divinity. It sounds a lot closer to those other things than it is. I’ve never heard any source in my 8 year journey describe it in the way I mean. It felt 50-100x more important if we’re just to assign a number to it than any previous experience with those other branches I’ve had. Truly Astonishing.

I just said fuck meditation and did other methods until 80% of my life became meditation no matter what I was doing ? But before that, I did Heartfulness meditation which uses transmission. Transmission produces much faster results usually than pretty much any other types from what I’ve started to see more and more hearing from others who use it. You’ll need to find an actual meditation trainer in that tradition to get the transmission. It’s worldwide. I had a group in my small town of 40,000. There are other types of transmission done on videos or online. Listen to this whole series on the Satipatthana Sutta if you want to become a champ relatively quickly. Also you can watch hundreds of 1-on-1 coaching from the Buddhist master Dhammarato on his YouTube channel. He does free coaching if you call him on Skype at the username Dhammaratog between 10 am and 4 pm Thai time. Here’s my first coaching I did with him.

This is important. There needs to be balance of the two.

I probably can’t move for roughly 2 years or so. I can’t drive to local cities which is what I would’ve done before. Going to the bars here is pretty abysmal. They are mostly comprised of people around 50 years old (I’m 26). Oftentimes you’ll enter the bar, and if there are girls my age who are attractive even to a small degree, they almost always have boyfriends. It feels a bit off to try to approach going to a bar alone. It seems to lower chances of success significantly. I’ve basically lost my entire old social circle of friends my age, so I don’t have an immediate solution to that which I can see. I’m thinking that the best thing to do for now is to get a job where there are mainly people my age working in order to build a new social circle. I think the social circle method is probably better than any sort of cold approach, but having friends to go to the bars with will probably up success a little. The main problem I face is that I’m not really concerned too much with one night stands. I actually would like to create a high-quality relationship, and the women I’ve seen and talked to in this town don’t really meet that standard except for some rare cases. A last solution which might be the best for now is that I could start taking some college classes again to try to build a social circle there. The quality of women there is higher than in the other places I’ve mentioned (bars/workplaces). I tried to connect with both women and guys my age before while I was taking classes, but it went nowhere though. Any thoughts?

“Nothingness is a profound metaphysical notion. The most profound.” Not even close to the 8th or 9th Jhana and their implications. As far as things which occur in perception to those who haven’t accessed those higher jhanas, it’s quite amazing though. You wrote a lot of other good stuff here though.

Your present moment is at least 3-5 seconds. Just investigate that and see if it holds up or not.

It’s probably best to research elsewhere on the internet for specific information on this. Not many of us on here, if any, will be able to tell you anything definitive. Contacting a neurologist to discuss this directly would be a good idea. I’d guess something like psilocybin would be a lower impact thing to try initially if you do find that it is safe from the types of sources I mentioned. Hell, edible THC is probably an even better first try. Many people experience strong psychedelic experiences on edibles which I would think are a much safer first step.

When I meditate with his method, my cat will jump on my lap, and instead of seeing it as a distraction, I turn that unwholesome judgment into something like the wholesome/joyous thought “there’s a kitty” ??