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He was worth 50 millions when he died, doesn't seem to like he attempted multiple suicides because he was out of money. Maybe he had not enough money to do heroin until his 60s without making more, but he had enough to continue for much longer. Why would he have chosen suicide over heroin use if heroin use was really all that fun?

If opium can really make you happy, why did Kurt Cobain blow his brain up with a shotgun instead of just taking more heroin?

In the absolute, I can say there's what is focused on vs what is not focused on. But this doesn't say much about focus than it being a concept. There is more that can be understood about the concept of "arm" than it existing or being separate from "not arm". You can learn to use your arms. Likewise, I'm wondering whether focus maps to anything "real" in the body. In the context of using your eyes in the material world, focus is just placing your eyes in some position to align the two images received by each image and produce and interpretable input. That's all fine. But I'm mostly curious about it in the context of "focusing on thoughts vs focusing on consciousness/reality". Is focus something that can be trained? Worked on? Improved? On a similar note, why do meditation even works? Supposedly, by focusing on feeling/consciouness/present moment you stop focusing on identification thoughts. Why? Because focus is limited? Why can't you focus on both? You can only focus on one thing at once? This understanding doesn't sit well with me because it implies some sort of limit we have and it implies meditation is exploiting this limit to achieve de-identification. I'm quite confident there exist a better understanding but it isn't immediately obvious to me. Any thoughts?

That thoughts are affected by neurochemistry... is a thought. That you have thoughts you cannot let go because of neurochemistry is a thought. You can let go of that one. That the present moment doesn't feel right because of neuro chemistry is another thought (feeling not right is a judgement). You may believe that if you think thoughts are electrical impulses in the brain. Those aren't thoughts though, those are physical "symptoms" or "effects" of thought. Thought is duality. Electrical impulses in the brain may be affected by drugs, brain damage or neurochemistry (you may forget things or suddenly find it easier to experience different thought) but it cannot create a duality or prevent you from letting go of one. The equivalent of neurochemistry controlling behavior for computers would be "After banging my computer with a baseball bat League Of Legends opened by itself and now I can't close it (X button doesn't work) but the game works fine. Guess my computer can only play League Of Legends now ...". Thought is to software what neurochemistry is to hardware. The only "input" thought gets is consciousness and any impairing of the hardware can only impair the software, not force it to function.

Brain chemistry is a result of thought, not the other way around. If you have sad thoughts, those will be observable in your brain chemistry, but that brain chemistry doesn't mean you can only be sad. Changing your thoughts would change your brain chemistry. This misunderstanding is a symptom of traditional medicine specialized in real illnesses being applied at conceptual or mental illnesses. Science is all about observations, not assumptions. But mental illnesses are never observed, only assumed.

@Blackhawk Can you give us more context about the trip that went poorly? Did your prepare for this trip? What intentions did you have prior to tripping (did you do it to help yourself or was it for some other reason?) Can you think of any reason why it went poorly? What was the dose?

That there is "a hidden programming", a "subconscious" or "levels of consciousness" is all a paradigm you are thinking right now. If you took enough shrooms, or meditated for long enough, all of this thinking would be seen for what it is. Whether you want to see that on psychedelics, or develop your ability to see that right now while sober (which has much practical utility) is entirely up to you. In no way I'm advocating for taking more psychedelics instead of integration. That "tripping too quickly" had negative effects is also another thought story. Anything that didn't happen because you didn't take the time to can literally happen now if that's what you want. Any integration that "didn't get done" can be done now. As I meditate, I still make sense of things that happened in my trips from 2 years ago. But if what you want is integration, why not just integrate instead of making a problem out of psychedelics? This whole idea that "you have guilt because you tripped too much" and that now you are forced to re-evaluate how you take psychedelics is just a big story your ego is making to avoid actually integrating right now. Unless you are forced to trip on a specific schedule, I don't see how you can "lack time to integrate". What do you feel you want to do right now? Integrate, meditate? Do that. Later you feel like tripping? Do that. No need for guilt, no need to take any hard decisions on what you allow yourself to do and not do, just do what you want to do.

Is the problem really too much psychedelics or not enough integration? What makes you think you would do more integration if you tripped less? Perhaps this feeling is telling you to integrate now rather than doubting this or that. To me, it feels like you are trying to use psychedelics as a scapegoat for your lack of integration or practices.

Supposedly, feeling guides you and let you know whether a thought is good or bad, aligns or not, is honest or not. But this way of interpreting feeling is quite the duality. When you experience a thought and a feeling is associated to it, how do you know whether the feeling aligns with the thought or does not? I can sense the tentation to answer "by feeling" but how did you know what the feeling means? If feeling is like any other perception, how could it say anything at all? Shouldn't it be entirely non dualistic? What I see with my eyes is absolutely nothing before I'm interpreting it into meaning something. But that interpretation is mine, I'm the one who sees the yellow thing and thinks it is a banana. Is it the same for feeling, am I the one judging feeling to be good or bad? If so, how can it even work? If it is the same thought that is being "evaluated" by feeling but also "evaluating" feeling (both judging and being judged) how could it provide any feedback at all about whether the thought is good or bad? If you think a thought to be true then wouldn't you also associate the feeling that comes with it to be good? The idea that a thought is good or bad is actually a thought so it feels weird that feeling actually communicates thoughts. The fact it "feels weird" probably indicate this isn't the way to look at it. But then if I challenge the weirdness in feeling, I get into a place where feeling stop meaning anything. I can see thoughts saying "that's not it" but how do I even know that's true?

So believing misconceptions is a non-issue?

Ah yes, so just this one simple substitution and everything will be fixed. Right? Right?!? Can't believe I was one pop away from being out of there...

Snap, I really wish this hypothetical scenario where I wouldn't believe things be the case. Why would I ever do that? And what are the things I believe? I can, from logic, conclude that your answer is not needed to do particular tasks and surviving is one of them. But In my current experience, no part of that experience in particular seem a good fit for labelling it the "not needing" part of my experience. I can experience apples, bananas and many things but the experience of not needing seems highly abstract.

There is no such thing as a feeling of fear that arises. "Fear" is an idea/interpretation that is believed because of the situation. Feeling is consciousness/the present moment. It never "arose" and was always there, independent of ideas (fear). It just doesn't "follow" the thought that arose. Thought do not control feeling, feeling just is. Whether you want to say "thought controls the body" or "body controls itself" is fine, but what they control is physiological reactions (sweating, heart pumping, etc.) which is used in some sort of confirmation-bias to validate the idea of fear.

Curious how "I'd" do that. Does that mean I'm not doing that right now?

Do you think through "inspection & seeing" and "letting go" I will immediately see what you mean? How long will it take? For instance, If I decide to use my dreamboard, how much dreamboard usage time will it require before I get there? As much as I recognize time is a concept, the expectation of immediate results seems unrealistic to me. Perhaps you want to throw out of the window the whole idea of "progress" toward enlightenment, which is fair. But then what about you? Are you still at the point where you meditated enough you don't need to do meditation anymore? If there's absolutely no such thing as progress, then why would I do meditation and not you? Why would I practice anything if this practice doesn't matter?

You are right, I shouldn't blame anyone else for my misconceptions. His quote had nothing to do with feeling at all, feelings are not reaction to thought. If you define feeling like that, it's a thought, not feeling. In his quote he is actually describing the physiological component of emotion, but backward. He implies that the body reacts to what the mind thinks but in actuality the mind controls the body in accordance to what it thinks. He also labels that imaginary reaction as "emotion" when in reality emotion is interpretation of the state a self is in. "I am angry" is not factual, it's merely an idea. When believing the idea of this state, you may react physically to it (tense up your body) but in no way those tensions are "what the emotion is", which is what Tolle says in his quote. In any case, this is nitpicking.

Thought awareness meditation has been working out quite well in the last 2 days, thanks for the suggestion! It also carries "outside" the meditation practice and into the rest of my day as well. I don't need to sit down to be aware of thoughts, I can do at any point during my day. I have no doubt thoughts causes tension through behavior and perhaps those tensions can be use to reinforce the beliefs of an emotion. But I really take issue with the word "storage". To me that word have a specific definition and I don't see how it applies here. But I was half-joking, I know your usage of this word "storage" was probably not meant literally. The source of my misconception in this thread was taking things too literally though, so I felt it was fitting I've read only A New Earth from him and I don't remember Tolle talking about meditation that much in the book. I've heard the Power Of Now is better but I'm lacking interest lately in spiritual books compared to non spiritual books.

Not giving any slack to Eckart Tolle on this one, I feel wronged He's really literal in implying emotions are physical reactions to thoughts (see the quote in my earlier post). I totally agree with respecting every teacher but I wouldn't be afraid to call bullshit when there's bullshit either.

I'd hope it get me to a point where I can do meditation for any duration while actually enjoying it rather than being sick of it after 30 minutes. Such a moment has been achieved multiple times on psychedelics but not while sober. My sentence indeed assumes that I haven't reached this point, there wasn't a moment where I enjoyed doing meditation sober for a prolonged period of time. I can see it has a positive effect on my life and not doing meditation is basically a recipe for disaster, but I never came to actually enjoy it sober. I'm not saying it's not possible, but just that this particular moment, event or milestone hasn't happened yet. Reaching this milestone is "where" I want to go.

What you suggest looks ressembles more my contemplation practice than meditation. I can try to incorporate it more into my meditation but to me meditation is really where I develop my ability to focus and concentrate as well. While I had little success with maintaining concentration for prolonged period of times, concentration is still something I want to develop. Good pointer, thanks! I came here because I wanted to clarify the definition of "feeling" I had been given by various teachers, what I got instead is a whole trial and evaluation of my spiritual practices by the jury But sure, I do get lost in thought especially in other contexts, and your pointers are useful. Just that my incorrect assumption was a misunderstanding of what "feeling" is and not an unwillingness to feel. You lost me at storing emotions. What do you mean by "storing emotions and tensions" and "the grand design of actual physical muscle tension"? I can relate to moments in my experience where muscle got tensed without me really noticing and then releasing them but I haven't noticed such a phenomena as "storing tension". What does that refer too? I struggle with such vague and poetic statements about the absolute. It's like misconception hazards. "feeling guides" is less accurate that "feeling is independent of thought" but "feeling guides" is a better seller. So you take newbies and you tell them feeling guides and then they start imagining their body has a special organ for judging thoughts. Then they come to you about it and you're like "stop using your mind just feel", which to them seems like you are validating the nonsense they think about feeling. "feeling guides" without understanding that feeling is independent of thought is just pure dogma. It might help getting people on board with meditation at first, but detrimental in the long-run imo. So what the hell do you actually mean by the body "storing" emotions?

On the same note, He = Him, She = Her and They = Them I don't find separation between I and me in the sentences I wrote. I don't even see how someone might assume "I am different from me". That being said your previous message about the dreamboard was useful, thanks. My original idea of the dreamboard was that it was something you write your dreams on and then don't touch but you made it clear it's something you can use daily and not necessarily for long-time desires.

Absolutely! This is it. Thank you! Feeling is just the present moment. Whatever you think of the present moment, it keeps being itself. It does not "respond" it just "does or doesn't match" the description or interpretation I have of it. The confusion really came from the idea that feeling is some sort of mechanism that guides. The word mechanism, to me, really implied the definition that Eckart Tolle gave which is not true. There's no "feeling response", there's only feeling/reality/present moment being itself independent of thought. Still, the mind prepares the body for whatever situation it thinks it will face by changing the body's physiology. But that's not a response either, that's more like the mind controlling the body and it is not done "to guide the mind". That being said, I can still see how "feeling guides" but in the same way I can see how "seeing guides". But not because "seeing" does something or is part of some mechanism, but just because it stays itself regardless of the opinion we may have of what is seen. I apologize @mandyjw for not getting it with what you said. I realize you were saying the same thing, especially when you said "it's neither conceptual nor biological".

If it's not actually there, why would it be a useful pointer? If there's absolutely nothing between "feeling" and "my belly", why would you tell me to focus on my belly as an attempt to make me feel? I recognize that being angry is some sort of mindset one takes on and that it affects the way one interprets. I fully agree with your example. It's great to state it clearly so we can stop conflating emotions (labelling of feeling), physiological body reactions to emotions and feeling. I absolutely recognize that "my hand" is a label, a part of my experience or I could say "consciousness" I decided to call my hand. Focusing on my hand for a while though feels a bit like doing the plank. The more time I spend concentrating on something, the more effort it seems to require. I don't have a formal definition of effort or anything like this, just that this is the impression I'm left with and I generally try to concentrate everyday in my meditation. With all due respect I never called ideas, emotions nor feelings mundane. Perhaps you think understanding how those phenomena correspond with the theory of human biology and materialism will make them lose their magic? But that's entirely your opinion, I share no part in any of those judgements. If the word feeling is a label that points to the same exact thing as Awareness/Consciousness/God/Me/You/One/Many/Everything/Nothing/Absolute etc. well sure I mean I have no personal vendetta against the label "feeling". But in my mind, (and I apologize for having had the wrong definition of feeling), feeling differed from absolutely nothing in two ways: it had some relation to the body (usually we feel things in the body) and "feeling guides". But perhaps that feeling has anything to do with the body was just me conflating actual feeling with physiological sensations and actually feeling has absolutely nothing to do with the body. No, I'm simply bringing the concept of physiological sensations to de-conflate them from feeling. Isn't removing the tensions in the muscles of your body the #1 thing you do in meditation? I'm not saying feeling has something to do with muscle tension per-say but isn't there a possibility that "why" feeling feels at particular places in the body could be that we tend to contract muscles unnesserarily/unconsciously when we resist feeling/experience emotions? Does feeling have anything relation to body location or is this entirely physiological responses that have nothing to do with feeling? In no way am I claiming anything about wanting to use mind or having experienced mind or no mind. What I really want there is clear and accurate definitions. When you say feeling, what do you even mean? When other people say feeling, what do they mean? Here's something Eckart Tolle says in his book "A new Earth" I've read this a couple of years ago and always assumed that was feeling. But perhaps that wasn't feeling and just physiological reactions? Tolle is clearly talking about experiencing a mechanism of the body, which would be less direct than feeling. "You're so insistent on using your mind" Is there any reason to think this would be problematic? I also spend a fair bit of time everyday practicing meditation, concentration and "not using my mind" (despite mind not really being a "thing" I can "use"). I don't see why wanting to work with clear definitions and clear understandings be in conflict with feeling or listening to body-sensations or consciousness. In fact I think seeing a problem with this is a deep misconception. Yes identifying as "the one who insist on using their mind" is a thought which would feel bad and projecting that thought onto someone else would feel bad as well, but I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with what is labelled "using your mind". The concept you are bringing here is synaptic fatigue. But in no way does that discredit language and the value of clear definitions. Yes language is a creation, but within that construct you can have accurately defined things and poorly defined things. A circle for instance (set of all points within some distance) is a very well defined construct, there's no debate on what is a circle! Race however, is a much more blurry concept. What defines which are the races? Is there a finite number of races? What about children of inter-racial couples? Are different tribes of Africa the same race just because they share the same skin color, despite their incredible genetic diversity? I actually did it. I wasn't much different to the normal 30-minute daily meditation I did for the last couple of months only missing a single day (and proud of it). It usually goes like "OK let's focus entirely on breath" and then Poof! I find myself having been distracted after a couple of minutes and then I refocus again. Do that a couple of times and then it's over. In no way I am trying to discredit meditation and I do truly hope it will eventually get me somewhere through sheer practice. But I find contemplation to be much more useful to me to find what I'm assuming. I generally just use a journal and I write down whatever issue I'm facing then I contemplate it and let my mind do whatever it wants until it finds an answer and write it down. Usually this form of contemplation gets me out of any "problem" I'm into and shows me what was the assumption I was having.

This is exactly the thing I'm curious about though. Even if you say "it does not come after", there is stuff that may "come after" which might be interpreted as part of "feeling". If I see a bear and I get scared, my heart will start racing, blood will shoot fast to my legs so I can run as fast as I can. This increased heartbeat, the bloodflow, the digestion that stops possibly all can be felt and be associated to what's happening. Yet this is all physiological and I realize this is probably not what we mean we we talk about "feeling", just that I think it's important to define feeling properly and possibly separate it from physiological reactions like those, especially when using the word "response" near "feeling". Physiological reactions to emotions in fact are numerous and varied. Each emotion has its physiological response and this response is more of "getting the body ready to what's happening". (Disgust gets the stomach ready to expell what was previously eaten, Pride gets you ready to flex your chest, Anger gets you ready to punch drywall, etc...) I recognize that none of those physiological responses are what feeling is, they are merely the body getting ready to handle a situation. What puzzles me however, is why would "feeling" be "in the body"? If an idea feels bad, why would that idea have an associated "body location" to communicate the "nah dude"? Likewise, you can have a shallow understanding of how rollercoasters work and still get massive thrill out of them. You don't need to understand something to enjoy it. The idea that "you must feel to understand", like that there's some order in which those things must happen for it to "work" and that you can "do it wrong" by wanting understanding instead of feeling is imo, a misconception. As you said we cannot "not feel" so the idea that one "should feel" doesn't say much. What should one "do"? Stop doing what it is currently doing. How? Put all focus on one thing (breath, body, single point, etc.). But then if someone puts all their focus on their body, is this "feeling" or is this observation of physiological phenomena? (Tensions in muscles, heartbeat, etc..) If feeling is a thing you are always doing then the definition of the word "feeling" loses absolutely all meaning. The definition of the word feeling doesn't define anything from anything. This is the same as the word Consciousness, One, God, etc.

You can't pull yourself away from yourself my friend. This idea that there are layers of beliefs that "stack" onto one another and you have to remove them "one by one" and if you "do it wrong" you get "more stacks of ideas" stacking up which make you "more and more delusional" is a total delusion. =) There's just "thinking" there's no such thing as "distance" from yourself or God. You are it and you are free to believe anything you want about yourself. But this idea of distance or "amount of thoughts" is just one more thought about yourself. Feeling will always let you know if you are delusional. There is no such thing as negative regression when it comes to life because everything is part of your path. The only way there could be regression is if you judge something as being "not useful" or "harmful" to your learning, but if that ever happens, a lesson will be learned and the lesson will make the experience useful. e.g. Even if you go into a path that seems like a dead-end, now you know it was a dead-end. Doing things that create pain or "waste time" is part of the learning process. If JP believes right-wing ideologies for a while before getting a more nuanced systems-thinking understanding of our political system then it's part of his path. If he's prioritizing money over truth like OP said then living the experience of doing that and feeling the pain this dishonesty brings him is part of the path. IMO, JP seems to have a relatively deep emotional understanding by looking at his old non-satire videos. I just think this is him getting stuck at the entrance of stage yellow. He totally lack nuance and it seems to me his problem is rooted in the lack of understanding of the data he's presenting. By saying "this is regression" or "that was a waste of time" or "this didn't contribute to my path" you are basically de-legitimizing part of your experience instead of learning from that part of your experience. This creates a notion of "what constitute progress" and what doesn't which might imply constant self-evaluation. Are you right now progressing on your path or regressing? Was it useful reading my message, what if you meditated instead? Are you training your mind to procrastinate and use social medias or are you training it to do the things you want? IMO, none of those self-evaluations will actually help doing the things you want, they are basically just fear of doing something detrimental. But the way we learn is literally by doing unwanted things, so absolutely nothing is detrimental. There's absolutely no fear to have as long as you feel. Sorry for the long post, this was beneficial to me. I also tend to de-legitimize parts of my life and fear regression. Perhaps I am only projecting onto you, but at last, your comment sparked this insight in me and I might as well share it.