BipolarGrowth

This is actually a pretty helpful detail. I’m glad you mentioned it.

I’ve been told by one of my best and most intelligent friends that I tend to be overly optimistic at times. Due to this, I’ve decided to contact the esteemed members of this forum to help shoot holes in my current plan and receive constructive suggestions and criticisms. I currently work full-time as a shift manager for McAlister’s Deli and am a landlord in my home town which is not necessarily my happily-ever-after-riding-off-into-the-sunset scenario. I’ll quickly list the things I don’t like about my current situation and what I do like about it. Prose: I get to see my parents on a weekly basis (my mom is currently fighting breast cancer, and apparently winning fortunately) I’m able to be relatively financially stable on my own I have several good friends here, although only a few of them are simultaneously my own age and available to hang out when I have free time It’s pretty easy to live here My job security is quite high Kāns: I feel like I’m stuck in life somewhat frequently I don’t get to spend much time focusing on things that I enjoy most I am not making much more progress at becoming financially free The dating and gaming options I find in a town of 40,000 people (with an older population) in Indiana is quite abysmal for my taste My current job is quite stressful for the compensation I receive My job does not utilize many of my talents and skills My spirit feels dormant The Plan I want to go back to college at the university I first attended (Indiana University Bloomington) I am going to continue at the same job and run my small business until I move. My real estate business can be run remotely most likely. I currently pay myself $426.50 per month (10% of rents) from that. I could potentially take out more on a monthly basis if I wanted, but my business partner and I have been reinvesting ever since the start which has worked well. I’ll potentially do contracting work at my old property management job as well to save up as much money as feasible before I move to Bloomington I want to buy a more reliable vehicle (ideally with cash) before I make the move. I currently drive a 1989 Ford F-150 which I got from my stepdad after I totaled a couple of my own vehicles in manic episodes (gotta love that serotonergic psychedelic & professional psychiatric care combination, thank God I got off of that nonsense) I am going to likely get my tuition paid in full or large part from government grants thanks to riding that good ole’ poverty line I want to go for a religious studies bachelor’s degree with a concentration in Buddhism, but this could change depending on what studying that is like in actuality. The purpose of this is not to make more money. It is to spend more of my time doing what I like. I quite enjoy the academic environment, and I really enjoy tasting the many flavors of Buddhist theory. IU is supposedly one of the best schools in the U.S. for studying Buddhism according to some light Googling. There is also a Buddhist Temple in Bloomington nestled in the forested hills. I’ve heard the Dalai Lama’s brother or cousin was the one who used to run it which might hint at a bit more legitimacy compared to other American Buddhist Temples. This sounds like a rather fortuitous situation for meditating and meeting spiritual people (maybe even a nice blonde? Probably not, but a man can dream…) Another benefit of this degree is I’d like to eventually turn spirituality into something that pays the bills or that I can do full time if I find other ways to cover my living expenses. The degree won’t really do shit for that directly, but it will give me some more confidence and knowledge in going in that direction and a slight boost to credibility. I think the main benefit is I’ll be focused on something closer to spirituality with my time than making sandwiches and inappropriate kitchen jokes for a living. I want to start improving my game and social skills. Bloomington will be a much better place for this than where I currently live even though there are better choices if that were a primary goal. Some analysis and further explanation I initially came up with this plan because I was experiencing a lot of stress and anger in my current situation at moments. This is quite uncomfortable as I usually don’t feel much anger. Being in a management position of underpaid workers isn’t that pleasant. I realized that I have been wasting my life doing what I’m doing now in a sense. What I mostly want to come out of this plan is more fulfillment and satisfaction. Academics is a strength of mine, and I think switching from working to studying for a few years will be a nice change of pace. It will allow me to spend more time with people who are more intelligent, knowledgeable, and you might even say “spirally developed.” I can work for the same company even if I’d like to. There is a location in Bloomington. I’d ideally only work part time and in a reduced capacity while going to school. There are surely plenty of other options for some light employment there.

Emptiness and the 7th Jhana type nothingness are typically pointing to different things in Buddhism. Emptiness is that that things lack inherent existence. This ties in quite strongly with dependent origination as well. Nothingness is closer to tuning into more fine and subtle sensations or rather tuning all sensations to reveal more subtle aspects of experience than what is found in boundless space and boundless consciousness (5th & 6th jhana). Meditating on the breath and jhana are part of the same meditation process that the Buddha taught. I’ve even heard from a monk of some decades that this is the only meditation the Buddha is recorded to have taught in its fullness. It begins with the breath, then moves to gladdening the mind and other steps which align with jhana, then moves into investigation of characteristics found on the insight axis of mediation such as impermanence. Although not explicitly stated in the 16 steps, knowledge of the emptiness of phenomena will naturally come from Ānāpānasati (fancy old Pāli word for mindfulness of breathing) done thoroughly enough. One of the beautiful things about the Buddhist system of meditation and interpreting awakening is that the whole system and its parts are nicely interwoven with essentially all of the other parts. There is not one right technique or best technique. The technique which you use, find great results from, and enjoy is the “proper” technique. Some do suggest that sticking with one technique is important while others support the method of hitting this process from tons of different angles. Different strokes for different folks I suppose. All the way from the 16 steps of Ānāpānasati, to the 5 strengths, the precepts, the noble eightfold path, the four noble truths, etc. support each other in an elegant way. And more recent forms of Buddhism illuminate plenty of other relevant aspects of the path connecting back to the original teachings in their own ways. Buddhism has the express goal of finding for oneself the path to end suffering. Jhana and increasing sukha (happiness/satisfaction) are incredibly integral parts of this. The author and great teacher Rob Burbea suggested that one should have at least as much jhana/samadhi meditation as insight meditation if not a ratio even further geared toward jhana. True 1st jhana is absolutely nothing to scoff at. It is heavenly and psychedelic-tier bliss done with your own mind. Having that skill is immensely valuable. Anyway, I kind of got on a rant there lol. Hope this helps.

I think your suggestion still has some merit to it that makes it worth exploring. I think traveling to experience what some of these options would be like could help. One of the reasons I’ve devised this Bloomington plan is that I pretty much know what I’m getting since I lived and studied there before. If I stay where I’m at now, I’m probably going to get roped into a 50+ hrs/week salary position that might not be the best overall but could help in ways. Real estate and restaurants are things I can do well and have experience in, but I know that they are not the most inspired path I could walk.

My initial thoughts are that it would be more fulfilling, but I’m also not that tied to that specific major. I could always simply look for a different line of work and try to improve my finances instead of going back to school. The issue with that is I imagine my situation wouldn’t change that much overall. My intention if school does feel like a good fit is to go for deeper study into Buddhism or philosophy of some sort. This is essentially meant to be an attainable and moderate or low risk way of exploring a different life path and mode of living than the typical work grind. Whatever gets me to that is what would be best. I’m not too keen on trying something like starting an online business as I tend to do best when I have a strong sense of obligation to complete something. I’ve tried that sort of thing multiple times, and it has always correlated with more manic episodes and in turn more hospital bills that cost tens of thousands of dollars. College actually is not as good as working in respect to how much obligation is felt, but it still has more of a structure and built-in sense of obligation than doing a business entirely on my own. One reason my real estate business has gone well is because I have an obligation to my partner. I never really have that when it’s a project I’m working on alone. It’s too easy for me to change course to some new project or burn myself out before things actually start working for me. This is certainly something for me to work on, but I’m looking for a somewhat reliable way to try a different life path right now that won’t necessarily be what I end up doing forever or is some dream situation. This is ultimately a sort of interim step I want to try out. I would like to point out to anyone giving suggestions that I am susceptible to rather severe manic episodes when I try to accomplish too much at once. This has been a recurring theme for me. This current plan allows me to stay a bit closer to a support network of family in case anything goes south and not put myself in a situation where I might have to work too much for my current mental stability. The fact that it is in-state tuition and a reasonable cost of living are key factors in my decision making process for this plan because of my added risk of instability. Ideally, any alternative paths would not have a larger hours/week time requirement than what I’ve initially thought up here.

I could go to a bigger city, but the cost of living is going to be substantially higher. Working on a dating life isn’t my main focus. It’s a side goal. I’ve lived in Bloomington and do not see dating there as being very difficult compared to where I live now. I’m looking for a more enjoyable phase of life. I think I’d have to work far more in New York or California which is the opposite of what I’m looking for. Do you think there is a straightforward and reliable way to maintain the same standard of living in one of those locations or a similar one without having it take more hours per week? I’m happy to hear any ideas on that. One reason why I’m thinking about Bloomington is because it would be in-state tuition. It’s also in driving distance of my hometown if I need to tend to business matters occasionally or want to visit family.

You are quite lucky @Ayham because I know for a fact that I’m socially retarded! But in a more serious tone, I’ll say that social skills can be improved although it’s often not easy. Reduce the constriction of your ego, fully surrender to the nature of yourself, and you will be tied for the weirdest bastard out there. What’s the good news? Some people will stick around and enjoy that while others will be repelled which is the exact same as before. The beauty is that you get to relax into what you actually are rather than to constantly fret about people not liking you. Except for when what you actually are frets about people not liking you… wait a minute! That’s what’s happening now. I guess it might be high time to relax your expectations on all of this. On the other hand, any resistance you currently feel to this situation and circumstances can reach a point where what you actually are can’t stand it, and in that moment, you’ll naturally take action to rectify this tomfoolery. But again, you can relax with the assurance that once you fix this problem, an even bigger problem will come down the road. Maybe your real problem is you are having a problem with having problems? How foolish! Oh wait, everyone does that… idk, I’m having a problem with my insufficiency at formulating a solution that will truly help you in this. What could be the solution to that problem?

You already know the greatest technique for this and have the answer. Your task is to stop wasting time on a forum asking for advice on a question you already know the answer to.

He said to stop sucking, not to suck harder! ??

This sounds a bit like a more convoluted form of a kid’s game.

I think the trans phenomena can be a bit of a bandwagon situation. Awakening can definitely bring out the exploration of this though. I think what people really want is to experience life as an actual woman rather than chemically and physically mutilating their male body to ultimately come up short. At least that’s how it is for myself.

This is undeniable. In this sort of context, the online-ultimate-awakening-drug-neurodivergent-context, it’s even more complicated. I struggle quite a bit just trying to lead people on how to make food in an incredibly easy restaurant. Making over 40,000 personal interactions in a way that is acceptable to everyone while maintaining a degree of authenticity is impossible. BUT Leo you are a bit too silly of a goose for my liking at times, but I guess the hundreds of hours of content and help in managing my life’s greatest challenges balances those scales out a bit. I think distinguishing the forum from the YouTube quality teachings is important. Here you get to see that Leo is, at least at times, human. I’m sure we all have our fair share of what can appear to be morally reprehensible moments.

Could you define imaginary as “something not having inherent existence and being completely reliant on Consciousness/You to appear”?

Keep this kind of energy going Leo. You’re an example to many. Glad to see it ?

Depending on the load you use, this would be absolutely brutal and practically guaranteed to give some mindfulness increases in the short term. I like powerlifting style training more, and doing sets of 4-6 at 85-90% of your one rep max is also a viable option for increasing mindfulness. An all out set on squats is almost always a spiritual experience for me lol

Yeah I haven’t really played any other systems. I’m into it enough to show up when someone else gets a game going, but I’m not going to go out of my way exploring different systems.

Heavily charged emotional states can lead to hallucinations in my experience. Your experience makes sense to me. The scariest moments of my life were when I was about 8 years old and woke up from an alien abduction dream to feel something cold touch my arm and hear a noise of movement in the room. I doubt that I was actually abducted in any objective sense, but I think the level of fear I was in while exiting the dream altered my perception and interpretation of what was going on when I was awake again in this reality.

When you’re meditating, remember that the thoughts mean almost nothing to the process. You can have a weak session with little to no thoughts and a great session while plenty of thoughts are occurring. What you’re trying to do is stabilize your attention on something enough to gain some penetrative insight. You can still stabilize your attention to a great degree even while “distractions” such as thoughts or other sensations arise. As far as preparing to meditate goes, being in a calm and alert state prior to meditation will make it easy to get the ball rolling. Hatha yoga puts me in a state which is quite conducive to meditation, so you could give that a try before meditating if you haven’t already.

I’m fairly certain that the average IQ at my pathfinder group is higher than almost any other setting I’ve been in.

It took thousands of years for people to realize anattā after the Atman was realized. Maybe give it some time?

The forum seemed to die a bit when the psychedelic sub-forum was separated from this one. Making another separate sub-forum would probably do the same.

Great comment here.

I agree that the best spiritual practices someone should do is going to be quite individualized. No two awakenings are likely to be the same. Awakening is going to be the culmination of a multitude of different factors for each individual. If we look at Awakening as building a house, Frank Yang will say that saws are useful, but they won’t take you all the way. He’ll say that hammers are the tool of choice. Leo will say that saws are the preferred tool, and that hammers are often more trouble than they are worth. Fuck that. I’m building my house with saws, hammers, and anything else that is useful.

Do you think the same might apply to your view of Vipassana or Buddhism? If you can’t go into cessation practically on command, you’re behind even some of the Western experts who are probably still missing 80%+ of Buddhism. It seems like you have less experience in Buddhism than many in that system, and those operating within that framework have far less experience with psychedelics. To me, it’s seeming like the bias is going both ways.

Nothing but Leo’s non-existent (due to Solipsism) direct experience is Awake from what I’ve gathered from his posts. It appears that “Awake” has become an entirely different word when he uses it.