The0Self

There are no "negative emotions," which is why I put it in quotes. The core of every so-called "negative emotion" is fear of non-being -- particularly this is the case with shame, which is only possible when the illusion of separation is active. The shame-defense prevents us from looking back and seeing that there is no subject / no true self. But what we label "anger" and even "jealousy" can be observed in non-human animals that don't have the illusion of separation / self-consciousness, which is the only reason I called them "natural emotions."

No. https://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB+Boundless+Consciousness,+The+Sixth+Jhana

By increasing bile flow. You can do this by taking taurine, glycine, milk thistle (silymarin), and phosphatidylcholine, together, preferably on an empty stomach, several times a day (preferably 4). This will also deplete copper levels, which is usually not a bad thing, and can easily be replenished with some nuts. Probably takes a couple weeks.

You're welcome. The 6th jhana is a more intense mystical state than The Witness, which has other names -- boundless consciousness; watcher state; Witnessing; the vastness of awareness (Rob Burbea); the spacious mind (Akilesh) -- and is the culmination of self inquiry. The 6th jhana pretty much requires retreats and lots of careful samadhi and insight practice. The Witness results from self inquiry: How do I know that I am? The thing you're looking for (which is already here but objects seemingly distract from it), which will take you to boundless consciousness (The Witness), is pure knowing without any knowing of anything -- any thing; anything other than itself... Self-knowing without any need for an object to confirm it. Though it can spontaneously appear in noting practice, as well as from steadily seeing everything through a kind of not-self lens. You could say that self inquiry works by blasting the seeking energy with pure authenticity. How's that? Well, in self inquiry, you're looking for what is aware; the subject... so nothing that you see objectively is what you're looking for -- "If I'm aware of it, it's not what I'm looking for." Well, isn't that exactly what seeking itself is?.. If I'm aware of it, it's not what I'm looking for? By definition, that's how seeking works -- after all, if what you're aware of is what you're looking for, you wouldn't be seeking, right? The nature of seeking is often untruthful because it often hides the fact that its modus operandi is always "If I'm aware of it, it's not what I'm looking for" and so by exposing it by actually playing out its true nature vividly, it short circuits it, in a sense. Until awakening (or temporarily with The Witness), it is impossible to be without effort -- self inquiry (or surrender) just moves that effort away from where it's applied toward hiding itself, and toward a place where it doesn't affect anything, so to speak.

I always use an old not-in-service iPhone -- Timer; When Timer Ends: "Signal"

Not necessarily. Dogs get angry too. It's a natural emotion. Of course though, when there's inauthenticity while one is angry, there is suffering. Even jealousy in some situations could be considered a natural emotion. "Unnatural emotions," so to speak, such as shame, existential fear, and conscious-aversion, are classified as such because they're based on delusion. When suffering is dispelled, anxiety can (though it might not) still appear, but having anxiety won't. Same for depression. Anxiety and depression without the separation filter are resolved into body sensations and are not really even anxiety and depression anymore. Suffering and authenticity are inversely related. Enlightenment is complete authenticity. If you think about it, the self inquiry process is actually a sort of authenticity-blast so total that it causes a short circuit: For someone doing self inquiry, they just rest back into "how do I know that I am, without any object to confirm it?" If it's something you're aware of, it's not what you're looking for -- Which as you can see is actually just so authentically honest to the nature of the seeking energy, that it short circuits it... Because the modus operandi of the seeking setup at its core also is "if I'm aware of it, it's not what I'm looking for," so you're really just making the seeking energy a truth teller rather than an obscurer. Doing this allows you to take that energy and retract it from the world and into its source, so that the habit/mind-system is temporarily (eventually it must be continuous) no longer fueled/lived by a veiled seeking energy... then you stay in the pure self knowing; the ability to know, without the requirement to know -> boundless consciousness / spaciousness / vastness -> falling away of mental habits -> awakening -> path to the end of all suffering.

@RMQualtrough Waking up is like what’s happening is all there is for everyone, except there is no everyone, there’s just what’s happening, and nothing is even happening without mind, and there is no mind. There are no objects. And there’s even no need to be aware of objects for this to be exactly as it is.

Yeah that's definitely how some unity experiences can appear, but let me be more clear about what I'm talking about: It's as if the births of every character (who has ever lived or will ever live) collectively resolve into the Big Bang, and the deaths of every character resolve into the Big Crunch. More importantly, the same goes for the births and deaths (arising's and passing's) of every sensation. It's the experience of a more expanded ego or God-mind. Ketamine has a tendency to reveal it actually. But in the end, nothing arises or passes, and there's no real timeline, so it's not God-realization or enlightenment. But it's a very profound experience.

@RMQualtrough In this context, the knowing that requires no object, that I referred to, is just a practice tool that can take you to boundless consciousness, which is where awakening happens, clarity dawns, and doubts and delusion are dispelled momentarily. Then the path to liberation starts. The conceptual knowledge of the way reality is will always be understood relatively and misleadingly. The mind cannot get it, because there isn't a mind. Ignoring everything except for (really "including even" if it's anything discernible) the effortless, already-the-case knowing of being (or "knowing that knowing is possible"), and calling out anything discernible as merely thought (and therefore an outcropping of this pure knowing overlaying experience with a thought filter)... when done very steadily, will take you to boundless consciousness. Right before boundless consciousness opens up, generally what happens is a little maneuver where you just "wait for the next thought, without waiting," since waiting is another thought to be called out and ignored and seen as only the subject and therefore not seen objectively at all. The knowledge that you are is always present, but in order to see that it's not what you thought it was, it has to be abided in by no longer being distracted by anything else, so that it takes you to boundless consciousness, which sets the stage for awakening, which begins the path to liberation.

@RMQualtrough Reality as it appears to you is nothing other than nor separate from pure knowing. But reality as it naturally is does not appear to anyone, and it's this, and it's in no specific way. What's really being pointed to can only be seen directly, and this isn't going to happen without letting go of one's life as one knows it. It's not at all conceptual. The direct shift into unfiltered reality is the only way to see. How do you go about getting there? By seeing what's actually happening, and what's not actually happening -- with authenticity, vulnerability, surrender, and a relaxing of mental habits. Here's how: You have to spend time in boundless consciousness, and then it's out of your hands. But here's how you get to boundless consciousness... You catch hold of... let's call it I AM, and let it take you inward to boundlessness. Finding this can sometimes be tricky, but only because it's so simple... though it's difficult to hold it steadily without both meditative concentration/stillness/openness/skill and insight. How do I know that I am? If the objects change, it's clearly not any object that's responsible for the confirmation of existence. It doesn't even require that pointing it's so close. Many would say to just ask yourself who am I or simply use every object as a springboard to look back and find the subject, until no object remains, and there's just boundless consciousness... That's not a bad instruction, but it occurs to me the following is what I needed to hear when I wasn't getting it: The thing you're looking for (which is already here but objects seemingly distract from it), which will take you to boundless consciousness, is pure knowing without any knowing of anything -- any thing; anything other than itself... Self-knowing without any need for an object to confirm it. Meditation skill will help you steadily abide in that, and probably help you find it as well. That's the thing that takes you to what I'd call boundless consciousness... But what you call it isn't as important as knowing that it's the place where, after some time, awakening happens. And then the path to liberation starts. If you think you just aren't going to be skilled in meditation, this is a very fatalistic attitude. I would at least hold off on counting it all as lost until after you read The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa (the audiobook is fine but I highly recommend the physical book because the diagrams on how cessation/nirvana and the mind system works are crucial for someone who is not yet awake to even have a prayer of understanding the mind) and give it an authentic effort. I remember you saying something like you never experience love in your "awakenings" -- because of this I would recommend Metta, first and foremost. The illusory inner world you have actually overlays all of experience without your knowledge. Desire for freedom from delusion and authenticity is how you hack your way out of this illusion. All that's left is here without a center. Questions of why "their" "sights" are not available to "me" are seen to make absolutely no sense. If you still have an aversion to sitting meditation later on down the road, I would suggest that if you can't get over this hang-up, then how the fuck are you going to awaken to ultimate reality? But if by some "miracle," meditation truly just doesn't work for you, then maybe just stick one-pointedly with one koan such as Mu or "Who (is carrying this corpse around)?" and eventually merge with it, or just do self inquiry.

Plenty of good and bad and neutral, but I don't remember most of them. One I remember had the character of a past life experience. I was shot in the head outside some house that seemed to be far away from the rest of society (seemed to maybe be on or near mountains). As soon as I was hit, I immediately lost all motor control (in the dream) and went still and fell, and then started hearing a loud ringing and my vision became reddish-black and faded out. And then I woke up in bed sweating. It wasn't even that bad, though I'd imagine some would find it pretty scary, but nonetheless it's one that I remember.

It takes very steady attention that really just has to be trained in some way. Power of will is not enough -- well, it is, but only if the will is applied to training attention... whether directly and intentionally, or indirectly and serendipitously. Once you can attend to whatever object you want to, indefinitely, without any wavering, you will be able to enter samadhic states at-will quite easily. Culadasa's The Mind Illuminated is an astoundingly complete guide on this. Repeatedly watering the fields of the mind and the seeds of intention, with simple responsivity, until the harvest sprouts and blooms. ^^^ Whatever the process, that's what basically allows samadhi states to arise with any frequency. And of course TMI isn't the only way... Yearning for unfiltered reality, as the fuel for driving the vehicle of self inquiry -- that can do the same thing.

Basically as I said, yes. But if being with the girl, you feel good, that tells you right there that the feeling good comes from you (simply because you feel good). So what you've done is you've held "feeling good" hostage and you don't release it until certain conditions are met. You don't feel like a person who can feel good with nothing, and so you fabricate that identity by continuing to train yourself out of habit to only feel good when certain conditions are met. It's all about identity.

What you want is not the girl, what you want out of the girl is an "I am okay right now" token.

Life. But what's looking through your eyes is the Love I was talking about.

Unless the type of love in question is of the sort that is impossible to deny.

@Michael Jackson I haven’t watched the whole video, but so far it seems like clearly it’s a practical video, and therefore not prompting of your response here; not just dealing with the experience of absolute infinite love. Then it just wasn’t God realization or mystical union or a glimpse of absolute truth, but apart from that, total ego death isn’t an experience anyway. Genuine insight pretty much always feels like love. Ultimately, love is all there is to anything at all. Which of course means I’m not talking about personal love, which is a mere reflection of Agape/Truth. Love is absolute non-resistance. Truth as it is doesn’t resist itself. Suffering is resistance to truth, and is therefore illusory. It might be helpful to move your state and insight along before you do trips again. Perhaps by always ignoring all thought — which does not mean you change the thoughts in any way... this is very powerful. Then a trip might be able to blast you to the other side.

Why don’t you just rest in your present state? The thought you are avoiding is simply reality as it presently is — but reality is constantly changing... so how it presently is, as in that belief, is still not true. That’s absolute freedom. This isn’t even a pointer, it’s just straight talk: Reality isn’t in a certain way — well, as a concession, for a moment it is, but then it’s not... and there is no moment. ? nvm, not much of a concession. Anyway. Absolute reality isn’t in a certain way.

Bombshell: Everyone who thinks they know something, has no idea what they’re talking about. Edit: Taking a bit of a plunge giving the benefit of the doubt to people on a forum like this — assuming they actually do want to wake up and aren’t playing games. As delusional a belief as any other, of course.

She might be drunk. She'll apologize later, I'd guess. I've seen posts of hers indicating this could be the case.

1. All there is. 2. Increasing power (and brightness; wieldiness; steadiness) of mind in such a way that facilitates gratitude and love. 3. Also, one could say yet another is freedom from delusion and perceptual filters.

Yes. But not in a way that will satisfy the mind. There is no universe, only consciousness. Appearance is imaginary/illusory. Your universe is your own dream, but so is everyone else's, there just happens to be no self-existence; no separate existence. There's just what is. The way I see it: There's nothing closer or further or other than exactly what appears -- it's just that what appears has no real perspective, and isn't seen by someone separate from it. The infinite imagines that it's looking at itself. But that can be seen through, such that there's no possibility of other. There's just absolute freedom and distance-less intimacy, and nothing that is, is possible to overlook.

Sorry, I'll answer directly. What you describe simply conflates the term consciousness. "Everything is consciousness" <-- the word consciousness there, is totally different in meaning from the term used here: "increasing consciousness." Two different things, just spelled the same.

One way to put it: increasing conscious power, but in such a way that gratitude and love is more pervasive in every day life. Psychedelics are a sort of cheat code for opening up a sneak peak into what this can look like, in a sense. But desire and curiosity + practice and inquiry is the driving force for getting to higher levels in an abiding way.

If you resonated with Leo's newest video, try this one on for size: Really, really great pointing.