@Sashaj Typical self inquiry meditation includes just asking who am I, but that's just how it starts.You must combine it with spiritual autolysis. You must ask yourself, where do I feel mostly strongly? What am I attached to the most? Why do I think this is real? What are the things, that, without them I can't exist? What are the experiences in "my past" that are something I consider valuable or noxious? Who am I before I was born? How do I make myself or my life story real? How do I know what I know about the world is real, or any metaphysical question?. Anyway those are some of the questions I asked myself 
I suggest you read a bit of good spiritual books ( my fav - jed McKenna, Peter Ralston and ug Krishnamurti) and some philosophy and psychology along with the practices

@Shakazulu You want to satisfy women?
Work on becoming totally vulnerable. Be so vulnerable that you allow others to become vulnerable. 
A sex god is someone who inspires other people to let out their inner sex god. See? 
I've literally had girls cry of joy  after fucking me because they didn't know it was possible to feel so sexually open and unleashed. 
The greatest sex organ is an integrated, in-tune, in-the-present, open mind. You can make girls come without touching their genitals just because you are so at peace with yourself and them and the situation you find yourselves in. 
Non neediness + the ability to express sexual desire = the hottest thing in the planet. 
So your training should first and foremost be about becoming totally vulnerable with yourself here and now forever.
Get to a point where there is no "effort" involved whatsoever when it comes to opening up to women.
If you make an effort to please her, stop the effort immediately. If you  make an effort to pretend to ignore her, stop the effort immediately.  If you make an effort to keep up conversation, stop the effort immediately.
You will find this practice takes an incredible amount of effort. Weak people cannot do this practice.
Emotionally unintelligent (read: weak) people try to mask their weakness by faking strength. After some time, Emotionally unintelligent people unconsciously make themselves look weaker than ever. And the only people who don't see this pathetic show are Emotionally unintelligent themselves. So Emotionally unintelligent people end up with Emotionally unintelligent people. 
Only the strongest, most emotionally intelligent people consciously allow themselves the possibility of showing weakness. They are so strong that any weakness is no big deal.
And only the strongest people will recognize this nuance. So emotionally strong people end up with emotionally strong people. 
At the beginning, the only real concern should be whether you two are compatible. 
Not "how can I make myself fit her" 
Not "what can I say to make her like me"
Not "how should I present myself? What should I text her? When should I text her? etc." 
Compatibility should have no effort. 
The only questions should be:
"Are we compatible? Are we both self-aware? Are both able to help each other grow?" 
Learn to be so comfortable being you that people can't help but take notice. 
This begins before the bedroom. This begins before the approach. This begins before the training room. 
This begins every moment you take every action NOW.
The training is itself becoming totally fucking okay with everything NOW. Surrender NOW. Be vulnerable NOW. There is no other time!
@Leo Gura is right: you will one day realize that girls cannot satisfy you - the only question is when. That said, there are two ways this could go. One is that this is itself what's going to make it so that every single girl goes out of her way to satisfy you, ultimately satisfying you when you find the right one - the only question is when. 
It seems like a paradox, but you will get it when you go through it.
And you can't fake this realization. If you fake this realization, you will only delay the realization. 

There is far more than the thought of the death of a thought. (That’s just a thought) The physical death referred to can’t be imagined or believed or understood. To point though, imagine  being in front of yourself and watching your body and brain carrying on like normal. Then imagine being the space the universe is taking place in and watching an illusion much like you watch what’s going on in front of you right now. Then expanding to infinite nothingness which everything and nothing is taking place in, ‘within’ you. . The ‘physical’ “you” was left back in a dream, like an ant you passed by years ago without a second thought. It’s “dead” because it was never alive or dead to begin with. 

Can anyone suggest some kind of tourist place in Europe witch has something to do more with nature and spirituality. Places that are energized maybe ? 

Any suggestions are welcome

One exercise that has for me resulted in some a-ha moments / glimpses / shifts in consciousness / awakening experiences is to "ignore everything". 
Ultimately, everything is concept. Even enlightenment, even that "everything is the same", and all conceptualizations and "explainings" of reality. 
The goal is to go beyond concepts into a state of no-mind, or no concepts. So to elaborate, a great exercise is to:
sit in meditation. Forget everything you know. Forget enlightenment, forget that you're trying to achieve something, or "figure anything out". 
Now gently but thoroughly "ignore everything". Any sensation/feeling/perception that you become aware of, "look the other way" with your attention. Just like if there were an annoying noise you might ignore, ignore EVERYTHING. 
Thought arises in awareness, ignore it. The sight of the back of your eyes, ignore it. Sounds, feelings, ignore them. Become completely and utterly disinterested in your experience, nothing in it is what you're looking for. The next thought you have isn't going to be the one that figures everything out for you. Let your attention rest and don't place it on anything in particular. 
What might happen is that thoughts and sensations are sorta flowing around you but you're just there ignoring all of it, til all that's left is the sensation of you ignoring things.... ignore that. 
What's left to place your attention on when you've ignored everything?

Fascinating and thought provoking video. So many logic loops in the video. So having knowledge about the workings of the mind is self-deception. Is Leo exempt from self-deception? Isn't he sharing his knowledge? Knowing the truth is a form of knowledge, and we already confirmed we cannot trust knowledge.
I conclude the only knowledge we can trust, is that we have no knowledge. There is no self. There is only being.
Overthinking your actions also makes for an overactive mind far from awareness.
 
I am a "self deceptor whenever the notion appears that I am a "a self deceptor whenever the notion appears that I am a "a self deceptor whenever the notion appears that I am a "a self deceptor whenever the notion appears that I am a "a self deceptor whenever the notion appears that I am a "a self deceptor whenever the notion appears that I am a "something something"""""
Isn't that a loop, are you sure this knowledge is true and complete?
 
@Charlotte
it's just a mind game. 
who is listening, who is deceived? isn't the mind deceiving the mind? Isn't Leo just a mind talking to another mind (You), using pixels on a screen (not even Leo). So the video is just your mind is talking to your mind, and your feeling bad is just because you told yourself a story of deception in Leo's name.
if you are aware of this as a mind you can perhaps make different choices, which are also deceptions. But it's ultimately impossible as mind to be free of mind. The self cannot be what is not the self. Every value you have, every belief is a deception. It's not possible to fix this. In fact, this is just how the mind works. When or where exactly is choice made, and how?

The video indirectly says deception is unavoidable, so why feel bad, only two options remain:
You think, i have self deception, its a problem, i have to fix it You think, i have gone far, self-deception is not a problem for me you just deceived yourself, go back to 1. There is no you, so there is no mind. This is not an option for you. You are still doing 1 and 2.
There can be freedom of self. But self cannot be free of self. This is powerful knowledge. But sometimes also meaningless. Often you are powerless to change it.
This all is fine. Feeling bad about this, is beside the point, and the biggest self-deception of all. Letting go, dropping your burden, is the correct result.
Relaxing, releasing, letting go, accepting and loving the self will create space for full awareness to arise. Self loathing, self hate, wanting to change the self, feeling bad, these creates inner conflict, and this conflict creates ripples in the mind that blind us from the truth. We cannot be free if we are busy with our-self, this all places the self in the center of our consciousness. When you want to be free of someone, you don't go constantly talk about him, think about him, and call him every hour of the day.
 
Why you feel bad is simple. The video is directed to you personally due to the language used. It talks as if the viewer is broken and the viewer has this huge problem. Perhaps this is so. Perhaps you are deceiving yourself, and feeling bad because your ego took a hit.
Generally it is normal to feel bad after watching someone talking about what is "wrong" with you.
In this sense, the feeling bad is a deception in itself. You are feeling bad for being a regular human being... Instead, forgive yourself for all your mistakes, enjoy life, love, and be aware. You can grow, this moment exists as it is, you cannot change the past.

This is about one of the band members that died. You might like this type if music, you might dislike it, but I think this is pretty special.
 

Nonduality is the philosophical, spiritual, and scientific understanding of non-separation and fundamental intrinsic oneness.
For thousands of years, through deep inner inquiry, philosophers and sages have come to the realization that there is only one substance and we are therefore all part of it. This substance can be called Awareness, Consciousness, Spirit, Advaita, Brahman, Tao, Nirvana or even God. It is constant, ever present, unchangeable and is the essence of all existence.
In the last century Western scientists are arriving at the same conclusion: The universe does indeed comprise of a single substance, presumably created during the Big Bang, and all sense of being – consciousness – subsequently arises from it. This realization has ontological implications for humanity: fundamentally we are individual expressions of a single entity, inextricably connected to one another, we are all drops of the same ocean.
Science and Nonduality is a journey, an exploration of the nature of awareness, the essence of life from which all arises and subsides.
What is nonduality, anyway?
There are many shades of meaning to the word nonduality. As an introduction, we might say that nonduality is the philosophical, spiritual, and scientific understanding of non-separation and fundamental oneness.
Our starting point is the statement “we are all one,” and this is meant not in some abstract sense, but at the deepest level of existence. Duality, or separation between the observer and the observed, is an illusion that the Eastern mystics have long recognized, and Western science has more recently come to understand through quantum mechanics.
Dualities are usually seen in terms of opposites: Mind/Matter, Self/Other, Conscious/Unconscious, Illusion/Reality, Quantum/Classical, Wave/Particle, Spiritual/Material, Beginning/End, Male/Female, Living/Dead and Good/Evil. Nonduality is the understanding that identification with common dualisms avoids recognition of a deeper reality.
So how can we better understand nonduality?
There are two aspects to this question, and at first glance they appear to be mutually exclusive, although they may be considered two representations of a single underlying reality.
The first aspect is our understanding of external reality, and for this we turn to science. The word science comes from the Latin scientia, which means knowledge. The beauty and usefulness of science is that it seeks to measure and describe reality without personal, religious, or cultural bias. For something to be considered scientifically proven, it has to pass exhaustive scrutiny, and even then is always subject to future revision. Inevitably human biases creep in, but the pursuit of science itself is intrinsically an evolving quest for truth. But then quantum mechanics turned much of this lauded objectivity on its head, as the role of the observer became inseparable from the observed quantum effect. It is as if consciousness itself plays a role in creating reality.  Indeed, the two may be the same thing. As quantum pioneer Niels Bohr once put it: “A physicist is just an atom’s way of looking at itself!”
The second aspect is our inner, personal experience of consciousness, our “awareness of awareness.” We have our senses to perceive the world, but “behind” all perception, memory, identification and thought is simply pure awareness itself.  Eastern mystics have described this undifferentiated consciousness for thousands of years as being the ultimate state of bliss, or nirvana. Seekers have attempted to experience it for themselves through countless rituals and practices, although the state itself can be quite simply described. As Indian advaita teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj said: “The trinity: mind, self and spirit, when looked into, becomes unity.”
The central challenge to understanding nonduality may be that it exists beyond language, because once it has been named, by definition — and paradoxically — a duality has been created. Even the statement “all things are one” creates a distinction between “one” and “not-one”! Hardly any wonder that nonduality has been misunderstood, particularly in the West.
Excerpt above from: https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/about/nonduality/
Other resources, explanations, & pointers to nonduality:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-O_KhOnJ62o
http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/what-is-nonduality/  ,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism
https://endless-satsang.com/advaita-nonduality-oneness.htm
 
 
Meditation Preparations & Considerations of The Temple (The Body)
Make changes in accordance with listening to the body via feeling. Let go of assumptions about what you know, what you can & can’t do, and who you are & are not. Be mindful of the distinction between what you directly experience, and your thought about something. Be mindful the term direct experience does not refer to a past, a now, a present, a future, or a self (these are thoughts). 
Be conscious of breathing, and breathe from the stomach. Notice the increase in awareness of feeling in the body when you do so. 
Maintain toxin free care & hygiene, such as with: preservatives, fluoride, aluminum, mercury, & neurotoxin free products and water. 
Get a routine physical & full comprehensive blood report, and review it with your doctor (preferably a Holistic Dr).
Eat clean. Food is mood, mood is clarity. Listen to your body & educate yourself about food; calories, nutrients, vitamins, supplements, etc. Your second best friend in this whole world, should be your stomach. Try several approaches to eating. Realize you only know about food from direct experience and let assumptions go. Listen to the body, put habit & preference of taste secondary to energy and clarity. Put direct experience, of how you feel, first. 
Exercise to the extent you are able, as early in the day as you are able. Don’t eat after 8pm, drink water instead. Be mindful of honesty, humility, & compassion. Pause to allow the presence of love when creating responses, vs mindlessly reacting.  
Get 8 hrs of sleep.              
Meditate early in the morning, before eating, and before any thought engaging activities like;
    - All screens, reading anything, listening to any thing or anyone, talking to anyone, etc. Instead, step outside and express gratitude. 
    - Thinking. Develop letting thinking go from waking up until after meditation. Every thought that arises, let it go by being aware of breathing & feeling. Use ”not till after meditation” as needed.
Love yourself enough to do this, your quality of life will be greatly enhanced by your commitment and followthrough with daily meditation. This is putting your inner well being first -  and then going about your day. It is a total game changer. Get up as early as needed to make this possible for yourself.  You’ll only fall asleep earlier as a result, and get a better night’s sleep. 
Maintain a dream journal. Every morning when you wake up, write any recollections of dreams in the journal. If there were none, write “no dreams last night” in the journal. Doing this daily develops connection and communication. After writing a dream down, let it go completely. Revisit it after meditation. Consider that in between the pure peace of sleep and awakening, the dream is the reconciliation of those two states. After meditation, contemplate the dream message. Consider it from the perspective that you are dreaming right now, and the message is that everything is fine, even this (whatever the dream was about). You will notice perspectives you’re believing, as to how ‘everything is not fine’. Those, can be let go in meditation. 
Maintain a journal for writing about how you feel. If meditation is overwhelming, don’t persist against the grain, write about how you’re feeling in your journal. Expressing in key. It is a ‘getting it out’, or emptying, by which being fills in. This is the same as saying misunderstanding is let go, and understanding arises.
Add creative expression in your days with what feels right for you, such as; creative writing, drawing, learning an instrument, singing, sculpting, building, carving, dancing - any act of creating and expressing, which feels good to you. Sign up for a drawing or painting class, etc. 
Clarity, emotional intelligence, understanding, focus, patience, and more feeling / connection, are natural outcomes of this. 
Regarding meditation, loving yourself, journaling, expressing, and making changes:
Do not ask others to accommodate you so that you can do this. Accommodate them, if needed, so that you can do this. Do not create conditions or contingencies which “allow” that you can do this. Refrain from entangling any other person in ‘enabling’ you. Simply get up earlier, and be patient when tired, you’ll be falling asleep earlier soon enough. 
Past trauma may be deeply entwined in the body, with regard to perspectives, and unknowingly suppressed, held out of the light of understanding. It is important to be humble, and be smart. Take advantage of all resources available to you. In addition to the things mentioned above, experience assistance bringing things to the surface, into the light, out into the open. That is relief. ’Getting it out’ is the key. Schedule time with practitioners of well being; massage, reiki, therapy, yoga, liberated experienced meditators, etc. Making the choice to directly experience is 99% of ‘the work’. Choose to experience the combination that feels best to you, but do not rule anything you have not experienced out. You will be glad. 
 
Proper Foundation
The quality of tomorrow’s meditation is impacted by all of the above. Recognize those as the basics, your foundation. This is - first “cleaning the house”, “emptying the cup”.  If you are not yet finding peace in meditation, the things above are likely insightful and actionable. Use them as a checklist, add to it what you learn works and doesn’t work for you. Understand why. Be mindful of the direct experience always, not the goal or outcome. Never do practices for the sake of getting them done. Never do practices with the intention or expectation of attaining, achieving, or becoming. Let go of these in your practices. Never force pracitices, and never guilt or shame yourself regarding practices. Let go of these in your practices. Likewise, never pride yourself on or claim the benefits of your practices. A phone which knows the truth of wifi, yet claims it as it’s own, is no longer listening to the wifi. It is always about letting go, and feeling the inner being, the source, within. 
 
Posture, Balance & Relaxation
Sit with spine straight, entire body equally balanced, head tilted slightly forward. 
Scan for any muscles in tension - from balancing the body, and reposition in better balance. Repeat until seated in balance; drop all muscle tension, and see if you lean; if so, adjust again / reposition for balance.
Relax every muscle, from crown of head, through body, to the toes - in waves of letting go, over and over. If you struggle to ‘find the particular muscle’ to be able to ‘let it go’, simply tense that muscle with the appropriate thought, ex: “tense the right shoulder” - this is to locate it specifically - only to relax it / let it go, specifically (only needed initially, if at all).
Stay with each muscle until you feel it release: Feel the crown of the head muscles release, feel the temples release, feel the eye sockets release, feel the cheek muscles release, feel the neck muscles release, the shoulders, the upper back, the lower back, the arms, the hands, the fingers, the chest, the stomach, the hips, the thighs, the knees, the calves, the ankles, the feet, the toes - all tension pouring out through the toes. 
*Stay with each muscle until you feel it release, then move to the next. Be mindful, vigilant of any habit forming. Feel every step. Feel each specific muscle release. 
* Repeat this, from crown to toes, over and over, feeling each “pass” more deeply relaxing each targeted muscle than the pass before.  Notice the entire body unifying in relaxation. 
 
Meditation
Do not move the body, allow it to relax into deep sleep and disappear from sensation & awareness. 
Mind fully alert & present; awaken every cell, enthusiastic presence,  a tiger at-the-ready to pounce.
Notice all senses are one sense, being.
Being is breathing, being is breathed in, being is breathed out. 
Notice the ineffable spaciousness, the silent emptiness.  It is whole, perfect, calm, peaceful. It continues on in all directions. 
Revel in the perfect peace, in innocence, as you recognize the purity that you have always known.
 
Allow Meditation “Practice” To Become A Meditative Lifestyle
As you go about your day, notice this peace is still present, this silence, this being - is always present, always the soundbed underlying and allowing all sounds, the spaciousness underlying and allowing all objects and activities, the emptiness allowing all thoughts to arise.
Carry this into each day, mindful of the effortless nature of awareness. Conscious of any tension in any muscle, relax it, mindful of the one sense; without identification, without reaction, peaceful non-engagement. 
Notice the arising perspectives of unification & connection. Surrender perspectives of separation by allowing them to pass, and return to the everpresent peace and silence which allows all things. 
When you notice reaction, wether muscular or mental, relax, detach by being again aware, non-reactionary. 
Even as reactions occur, wether physical, mental, or verbal, be aware of, not involved in. Relax crown to toes, effortless awareness is always available & ample.
Notice the sound of a voice, is not the sound of your voice. Be that unattached, and that aware, ‘that’ voice is no longer your voice, it never was. You are all sounds, all voices, all things. Be aware all transpires in the ‘one sense’, precisely where it is seen, exactly where it is heard. One Sense, one awareness. 
Notice thoughts are not your thoughts,  be aware thoughts are things, like trees are trees; there is no mechanism found for justification of  “yours”, that is just another thought; awareness is unconditional and omnipresent, and never appears in pieces, and has never not appeared, it will never let you down. Notice there is one sense, one awareness, notice the body and mind are a body and mind which transpires in this peaceful awareness, notice a body and mind is not your body and mind, notice there is one sense, one awareness, all is transpiring and arising in. 
 
After some practice a couple new things arise...
When you have ‘returned’ home, in the peace of non-reaction, the ‘finite ceo’ / “decision maker”/ over thinker/over thinking - naturally recedes, and well being of infinite intelligence will manipulate the body (it actually is “the body”) , aligning things, stretching things, cracking things, etc, just allow this. It’s difficult not to mentally react to this at first because it’s new, but just relax, it is curative, trust it - notice a person is not doing this, infinite intelligence is. Mindfully revel & appreciate this miracle. 
 
A word of caution regarding thought stories & dualistic narratives
Meditation at it’s most basic level is focusing on breathing in the stomach & relaxing the body, thus indirectly detaching attention from thoughts. Thought ceases in activity, simply from not receiving attention. The body is infinite intelligence, but the thinking dualistic mind believes it’s running the show. This is brought to an end in meditation, in ‘returning to’, or realization of, who you really are. 
When the body relaxes deeply, it releases contractions; tension from emotions created in misunderstanding via one’s forgetting who one is and  “making sense” of self & reality in an apparent physical universe & separate body. These ‘held’ tensions are the root cause of overthinking. The mind keeps churning in an attempt to resolve with thinking, what is only resolved in feeling. 
When the body (infinite intelligence / nothing to know) begins releasing the suppressed falsities (all knowledge & specifically the idea of “me”), the mind creates narratives of the experience to perpetuate “it’s control”. In perpetuating the misunderstandings, rather than relaxing & releasing the suppressed emotions by maintaining focus on stomach breathing, the mind (thinking) weaves & latches onto varies models of duality to control the narrative. (Kundalini, demons, assertion, death, nervous disorders, past “bad” trips, guilt, shame, unworthiness, fear, anxiety & past stories, depression & future stories, projections, deflections, identity, loss, sacrifice, etc)
But meditation is focusing on breathing from the stomach & relaxing the body, and thus indirectly detaching from thoughts. To believe any narrative which arises in meditation, is to sustain and perpetuate the “idea of you”, so as not to ‘directly experience’, you. 
So if you don’t want to awaken, but enjoy the fundamental benefits of meditation, just meditate for twenty minutes a day. Ideally in the morning. 
If you do want to awaken, realize you got caught up in a thought story, and meditation was focusing on breathing from the stomach, and thus indirectly letting thinking go. The truth is the mind is making it all up, and the “fear” is the mind’s label to justify denying the truth “of itself”, the profound love that is, that you actually are.
Write about how you feel and why, in a journal, to understand yourself & develop emotional intelligence. 
Talk to someone who listens, so you can express yourself and your emotions.
Write what you want in this experience of life on your dreamboard, and allow the surfacing of desire & authenticity to help you realize & release resistance thoughts. Live the life you actually want to live, the way you actually want to live it.
 
https://sites.google.com/site/psychospiritualtools/Home/meditation-practices
Posture Meditation
This body-based meditation is a very effective way to get grounded and centered. It encourages an embodied, calm, and open awareness, and discourages disassociation. If you have a tendency to "leave your body," feel ungrounded, or disassociated, this is a good practice. 
Sit with your spine straight and aligned, and the rest of your body relaxed. Keep bringing yourself back to this condition. 

1. Take a reposed, seated posture. 

2. For this meditation, it is very important that your spine is straight. Your neck and back should be in perfect alignment. Your chin should be down very slightly. 

3. If you are sitting in a chair, do not rest your spine against the chair. Sit forward so that your spine is supporting its own weight. Let the muscles of the spine be engaged. 

4. All the other muscles of your body can be completely relaxed. Allow your face muscles to let go, and your jaw to drop slightly, so that your teeth are not touching. 

5. Let your shoulders hang freely, and let your belly be soft and open. 

6. This is the posture you are aiming for, with your spine erect and your body completely relaxed. 

7. As you sit, keep bringing your awareness back to the fine details of your posture. Notice any time your spine slumps even slightly, your head leans to either side, or any other deviation. Correct these gently and repeatedly. 

8. Also notice if any other areas of your body tense up even slightly. If anything is tensing, relax it in a gently and soft manner. 

9. Keep checking in with the body, using your body (somatic) awareness; the feeling in your body. Mental images of your body will probably arise, which is fine, but these are not what you are concentrating upon. Instead, concentrate your awareness in the sense of your body. The sensitivity in your muscles, tissues, viscera, skin, and so forth. 

10. The more detailed and minute you get with this awareness, the better. Each tiny area of the body has its own sensitivity to contribute. 

11. Every once in a while you can zoom out to cover the entire somatosensory field -- the awareness of your entire body -- to bring the overall body back into alignment. 

12. Keep relaxing every muscle everywhere. Use just enough tension to keep your spine erect, but no more. 

13. Continue this meditation for at least 10 minutes, continuously contacting your body awareness. 
 
CAUTIONS:
If you have any spinal injuries or severe back pain, it is fine to allow your spine to rest in a pain-free position.                    If you find yourself distracted by a lot of mental chatter, you can use verbal labeling as an aid to concentration. 
For example, when checking on the spine, you can say to yourself, "spine in alignment." 
When checking on the body, say, "body relaxed." 
 
 
Awareness of Thoughts Meditation
By learning to watch your thoughts come and go during this practice, you can gain deeper insight into thinking altogether (such as its transience) and into specific relationships among your thoughts and your emotions, sensations, and desires. This practice can also help you take your thoughts less personally, and not automatically believe them.  Additionally, this meditation can offer insight into any habitual patterns of thinking and related reactions.  
Observe your thoughts as they arise and pass away.  
·       By “thoughts,” we mean self-talk and other verbal content, as well as images, memories, fantasies, and plans. Just thoughts may appear in awareness, or thoughts plus sensations, emotions, or desires. 
·       Sit or lie down on your back in a comfortable position.
·       Become aware of the sensations of breathing.
·       After a few minutes of following your breath, shift your attention to the various thoughts that are arising, persisting, and then passing away in your mind. 
·       Try to observe your thoughts instead of getting involved with their content or resisting them. 
·       Notice the content of your thoughts, any emotions accompanying them, and the strength or pull of the thought.
·       Try to get curious about your thoughts.  Investigate whether you think in mainly images or words, whether your thoughts are in color or black and white, and how your thoughts feel in your body.
·       See if you notice any gaps or pauses between thoughts.
·       Every time you become aware that you are lost in the content of your thoughts, simply note this and return to observing your thoughts and emotions. 
·       Remember that one of the brain’s major purposes is to think, and there is nothing wrong with thinking.  You are simply practicing not automatically believing and grasping on to your thoughts.  
·       When you are ready, return your attention to your breath for a few minutes and slowly open your eyes.  
Optional:
·       There are various metaphors and images you can use to help observe your thoughts.  These include:
o   Imagining you are as vast and open as the sky, and thoughts are simply clouds, birds, or planes passing through the open space.  
o   Imagining you are sitting on the side of a river watching your thoughts float by like leaves or ripples in the stream.  
o   Imagine your thoughts are like cars, buses, or trains passing by.  Every time you realize you are thinking, you can “get off the bus/train” and return to observing.

Awareness of thoughts and emotions is one of the areas of focus developed when cultivating mindfulness.  In Buddhism, mindfulness is one of the seven factors of enlightenment and the seventh instruction in the Noble Eightfold Path.  
The Seven Factors of Enlightenment:  https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/piyadassi/wheel001.html
The Four Noble Truths:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths
The Noble Eightfold Path: https://tricycle.org/magazine/noble-eightfold-path/
 
CAUTIONS:
Please be gentle with yourself if you notice that you are constantly caught up in your thoughts instead of observing them.  This is both common and normal.  When you realize that you are thinking, gently and compassionately return to observing your thoughts.  
If the content of your thoughts is too disturbing or distressing, gently shift your attention to your breathing, sounds, or discontinue the practice. 
·       Remember that you are not trying to stop thoughts or only allow certain ones to arise.  Try to treat all thoughts equally and let them pass away without engaging in their content. 
·       This practice can initially be more challenging than other meditations.  As you are learning, practice this meditation for only a few minutes at a time if that is easier. 
·       It can be helpful to treat thoughts the same way that you treat sounds or body sensations, and view them as impersonal events that arise and pass away.  
·       Some people like to assign numbers or nicknames to reoccurring thoughts in order to reduce their pull and effect.
 
 
Breath Awareness Meditation
Stress is an extremely unhealthy condition. It causes the body to release the chemical cortisol, which has been shown to reduce brain and organ function, among many other dangerous effects. Modern society inadvertently encourages a state of almost continuous stress in people. This is a meditation that encourages physical and mental relaxation, which can greatly reduce the effects of stress on the body and mind. 
Sit still and pay close attention to your breathing process.
Take a reposed, seated posture. Your back should be straight and your body as relaxed as possible.

Close your eyes, and bring your attention to your breathing process. Simply notice you are breathing. Do not attempt to change your breath in any way. Breath simply and normally. 

Try to notice both the in breath and the out breath; the inhale and the exhale. "Notice" means to actually feel the breathing in your body with your body. It is not necessary to visualize your breathing or to think about it in any way except to notice it with your somatic awareness. 

Each time your attention wanders from the act of breathing, return it to noticing the breath. Do this gently and without judgment. 

Remember to really feel into the act of breathing.

If you want to go more deeply into this, concentrate on each area of breathing in turn. Here is an example sequence:

    1. Notice how the air feels moving through your nostrils on both the in breath and the out breath. 

    2. Notice how the air feels moving through your mouth and throat. You may feel a sort of slightly raspy or ragged          feeling as the air moves through your throat. This is normal and also something to feel into.

    3. Notice how the air feels as it fills and empties your chest cavity. Feel how your rib cage rises slowly with each in breath, and gently deflates with each out breath.

    4. Notice how your back expands and contracts with each breath. Actually feel it shifting and changing as you breath. 

    5. Notice how the belly expands outward with each in breath and pulls inward with each in breath. Allow your attention to fully enter the body sensation of the belly moving with each breath.

    6. Now allow your attention to cover your entire body at once as you breath in and out. Closely notice all the sensations of the body as it breathes. 

Repeat this sequence over and over, giving each step your full attention as you do it. 
Suggested time is at least 10 minutes. Thirty minutes is better, if you are capable of it. 
If you find yourself distracted by a lot of mental chatter, you can use verbal labeling as an aid to concentration. For example, on the in breath, mentally say to yourself, "Breathing in." On the out breath, say, "Breathing out." Another possibility is to mentally count each breath. 
 
 
Self Inquiry
This is a meditation technique to get enlightened, i.e. "self realization."  By realizing who you are, the bonds of suffering are broken. Besides this goal, self-inquiry delivers many of the same benefits as other meditation techniques, such as relaxation, enhanced experience of life, greater openness to change, greater creativity, a sense of joy and fulfillment, and so forth. 
Focus your attention on the feeling of being "me," to the exclusion of all other thoughts. 
1. Sit in any comfortable meditation posture. 
2. Allow your mind and body to settle. 
3. Now, let go of any thinking whatsoever. 
4. Place your attention on the inner feeling of being "me."
5. If a thought does arise (and it is probable that thoughts will arise on their own), ask yourself to whom this thought is occurring. This returns your attention to the feeling of being "me."
Continue this for as long as you like. 

This technique can also be done when going about any other activity. 
 
CAUTIONS:
Many people misunderstand the self-inquiry technique to mean that the person should sit and ask themselves the question, "Who am I?" over and over. This is an incorrect understanding of the technique. The questions "Who am I" or "To whom is this thought occurring?" are only used when a thought arises, in order to direct attention back to the feeling of being "me." At other times the mind is held in silence. 
 
This practice of Self-attention or awareness of the ‘I’-thought is a gentle technique, which bypasses the usual repressive methods of controlling the mind. It is not an exercise in concentration, nor does it aim at suppressing thoughts; it merely invokes awareness of the source from which the mind springs. The method and goal of self-enquiry is to abide in the source of the mind and to be aware of what one really is by withdrawing attention and interest from what one is not. In the early stages effort in the form of transferring attention from the thoughts to the thinker is essential, but once awareness of the ‘I’-feeling has been firmly established, further effort is counter-productive. From then on it is more a process of being than doing, of effortless being rather than an effort to be.
 
 
Do Nothing Meditation
Many respected spiritual traditions, including Buddhism and Hindu Advaita just to name two, claim that the highest state of spiritual communion is actually present in our minds at all times. And yet many meditation techniques focus on  creating some special state that wasn't there before the meditation, and which goes away at some point after the meditation. If the highest state is actually present all the time, shouldn't it be possible to simply notice it without inducing some change, or special state? 

That is exactly the purpose of the Do Nothing Meditation. This technique (which is really an un-technique) will allow you to contact the highest spiritual state without actually doing anything. Each time you notice an intention to control or direct your attention, give it up. 
1. There is no need to get into any particular posture, unless you feel like it.
2. Do not position your attention in any particular way.
3. Let whatever happens happen.
4. Any time you notice yourself doing anything intentionally, stop. 
Doing anything intentionally means something you can voluntarily control, and therefore can stop. 
If you cannot stop doing something, then it's not intentional, and therefore you don't need to try to stop doing it. 
So. Anything you can stop doing, stop doing. 

Some examples of things you can stop doing are:
* Intentionally thinking
* Trying to focus on something specific
* Trying to have equanimity
* Trying to keep track of what's going on
* Trying to meditate
Let go of doing anything like this.
5. Keep doing nothing for at least 10 minutes, or as long as you like.
 
CAUTIONS:
It may be difficult for some people to notice any difference between the Do Nothing meditation and gross "monkey mind," that is, the ceaseless, driven and fixated thoughts of the everyday neurotic mind. If this seems to be the case for you, it may be helpful to do a more structured technique. 
 
 
Concentration (One-Pointedness) Meditation
One of the hallmarks of modern life is the proliferation of distractions. As media become more pervasive, and media connections more ubiquitous, time away from distractions becomes ever harder to find. Previously, people were content to sit in restaurants, or stand in line, without a television screen to stare at. Now these have become standard. The result of all this, and many other causes, is that people find it increasingly difficult to focus their minds. 

Concentration is a necessary human skill. It makes proper thinking possible, increases intelligence, and allows a person to calm down and achieve their goals more effectively. A concentrated mind is like a laser beam, able to use all its powers in a single direction to great effect. 

Concentration is critical to many human endeavors. Being able to listen to another person, for example, in a compassionate and connected manner requires being able to shut out distractions. The experience of making love can be greatly enhanced when one is not, for example, thinking about other things. 

Concentration allows a person to stop being a "reaction machine" or "robot," simply responding to stimulii, and instead to become more thoughtful, self-directed, and confident. 
Concentration is an interesting thing. It is a very general ability. That means developing concentration in one area will help you concentrate in ALL areas. So, for example, if you learn to concentrate on a particular idea, it not only helps you think about that idea (which would be very limited), but actually helps you to concentrate on anything, which is very generally useful for everything! It's like lifting weights. It doesn't just make you strong for lifting weights, but strong for anything else you want to do!

Think about one thing. Every time you get distracted, return to that one thing. 
1. Find an object on which to concentrate. This can be a physical object, like a pebble or a feather. Or it can be a mental object like a particular idea. It could even be, say, your homework.

2. Cut off any sources of distraction. These include, but are not limited to, telephones, emails, computers, music, television, and so forth. Turn all of these off during your concentration practice. 

3. Begin your period of by mentally reminding yourself what you are concentrating on. 

4. Now begin to concentrate. If your concentration object is an external object, this may mean looking at it. If it is a mental object, then think about it. If it is your homework, then do it now.

5. Each time your mind (or eyes) wander from your concentration object, bring it back to the object. It is important to do this very gently and without judgment. 
6. Repeat this process of coming back to the concentration object for as long as you wish, or until your homework is done. 
Cultures worldwide have developed concentration practices for both spiritual and practical reasons. 

Concentration is called dharana in Hinduism, and samadhi or shamatha in Buddhism. It is considered to be a key skill for meditation.
 
CAUTIONS:
Concentration can at first seem to trigger a lot of anxiety. This is, however, not the fault of the concentration practice. Rather, it happens because many people use distraction to avoid feeling emotions. Then when the distractions are removed, a tremendous amount of ambient, unprocessed emotions (i.e. emotions you are feeling but were unaware of feeling) are present. So it is not the practice of concentration that is causing anxiety, but instead it is the habit of distracting ourselves from our emotions. This may be the root cause of much inability to focus and concentrate. If that is the case, try meditating on emotions (below). 
Concentration and meditation are not the same thing, although they are related. Meditation (usually) requires concentration, but also requires relaxation or equanimity.
 
 
Emotional Awareness Meditation 
This meditation brings about a great deal of equanimity with emotions. They will not seem to affect us as deeply or adversely. 
Many people have trouble contacting their emotions directly. Even if we feel that we know what emotion we are having, that does not necessarily mean that we are contacting it directly. 

To contact an emotion directly means to feel it in the body. This is the opposite of most people's experience, which is to related ideas about the emotion.

Here is an example. A person asks you how you are feeling. You respond by saying, "I am angry, because..." You then go on to tell the person all the reasons you are angry.

In this example, only the first three words, "I am angry" have anything to do with contacting emotion. All the rest of the explanation is about concepts.

A fuller example of contacting emotions directly, that is somatically, would be to say, "I am angry. I can feel a sort of gripping tension in my belly that is uncomfortable. The tense area feels kind of twisted and sharp. Parts of it are throbbing. It also feels like it is radiating heat outwards." 

Notice that the cause of the anger is irrelevant. The practice here is to feel the physical expression of the anger as completely as possible. 

Extended practice of this meditation will bring about "skill at feeling," that is, a tremendous amount of clarity in the emotional world. Emotional intelligence. 

It will also help emotions to process and release much more quickly and completely, because we are not holding on to ideas about the emotions. The body processes emotion quickly, naturally, and fully. 
Feel the physical expression of an emotion as completely as possible. 
1. Settle into a comfortable meditation posture. 

2. Breathing normally, bring your attention to your emotions. Notice if you are feeling any emotions, no matter how faintly. It is not necessary to know precisely which emotion you are having, or why you are having it. Just knowing that you are feeling something emotional is enough. Guessing is OK.

3. Once you detect an emotion, see if you can find its expression in your body. Maybe there is a feeling of tension, gripping, tightening, burning, twisting, throbbing, pressure, lightness, openness, etc. 

4. If you like, you can mentally make the label "feel" when you detect a body sensation of emotion. Other labels are possible ("emotion" for example). 

5. Each time you detect an emotional body sensation, try to actually feel the sensation in your body, as completely as possible. Feel it through and through.

6. Completely let go of any ideas you have about the emotion, or self talk you might have about why the emotion is arising. Return to the body sensation of the emotion.

7. Continue contacting these emotional body sensations for as long as you wish.
 
Meditating on emotions is a traditional part of Vipassana practice in Buddhism. It is, for example, one of the four main techniques covered in the Vissudhimagga (The Path to Purity), an important Buddhist text.
(The version presented here is a summary of a practice given by American Buddhist teacher Shinzen Young.)
At first, practicing this meditation may make it seem as if the emotions are getting bigger. If they are negative emotions, this may seem overwhelming for a while. This is natural. It is occuring not because the emotions are actually getting bigger, but for two interesting reasons. The first is because we are no longer suppressing them. We are allowing them to actually express themselves fully. The second is because we are observing them (actually feeling them) very closely. Just as a microscope makes small things look bigger, the "microscope" of attention makes the emotional body sensations seem larger than they really are. 

The good news here is that as the emotions express themselves freely in the body, they are being processed. Usually this means that they will pass much more quickly. 

If we are feeling a positive emotion in this way, it may pass quickly, but we will also derive much more satisfaction from it, because our experience of it is so rich and complete.

If we are feeling a negative emotion in this way, we will experience much less suffering from it, because we are not resisting and suppressing it. 
 
 
Equanimity Meditation
The cause of much of our upset and emotional instability is clinging and neediness around people we like, and aversion and negativity towards people we don't like. We also have an unhealthy indifference to strangers, who may need our help, or at least our good will. 

This equanimity meditation helps us to examine our feelings towards people, and correct them where they are mistaken. This leads to a more balanced, wholesome, and helpful viewpoint. It also cuts off a lot of emotional turmoil at its root. 
Meditate on three people (a loved one, an enemy, and a neutral person), examining and correcting your feelings toward them. 
1. Sit in a comfortable meditation posture. Follow your breath until you feel centered and grounded.

2. Bring to mind the images of three people: someone you like, someone you dislike, and someone towards whom you feel indifferent. Keep these three people in mind throughout the meditation.

3. Focus on the friend, and look into all the reasons you like this person. Try to see if any of the reasons are about things this person does for you, or ways they uplift your ego. Ask yourself if these are really the correct reasons to like someone. Then do the same thing with the person you dislike, instead asking about the reasons you dislike them. Finally, do this for the person you are indifferent towards, asking about the reasons for your indifference. In all cases, notice where your ego is involved in the judgment of the other person's worth. 

4. Next, ask yourself whether you consider each of these relationships as permanent. Would you still like your friend if they did something terrible to you? What if the person you dislike really did something nice for you? What if the stranger became close to you? Think about all the relationships in the past in which your feelings about the person have dramatically changed. 

5. Now, visualize the person you like doing something you dislike or that is unacceptable to you. Would you still be their friend? Remember that many people have changed from friends to enemies in the past. There are people who you used to like, toward whom you now feel emnity. Think about how there is no special reason to feel good about a person who is only temporarily your friend. 

6. Next, visualize your enemy doing something very kind for you. They might visit you in the hospital, or help you to fix your home. When you imagine this, can you feel positive emotions toward this person? Can you remember times in the past when an enemy became a friend? Is it necessary to feel that your strong dislike for this person will last forever? Isn't it possible that they could someday become your friend? 

7. Now visualize the stranger. How would you feel about them if they did something very kind for you? Isn't it the case that all your current friends were at one point total strangers? Isn't it possible that a stranger could become your best friend? It has happened before. 

8. Think carefully about how everyone deserves equal regard as human beings. You must discriminate and make decisions based on your knowledge of a person's character, but you do not have to hold strong feelings or judgments towards them. It is very likely that your emotions around a person will change many times, so why hold onto these emotions so rigidly? 

In Buddhism, equanimity means a very deep, even profound, state of mental balance and stability. It is considered one of the seven factors of enlightenment, and a hallmark of the third and fourth jhanas, which are deep states of meditative absorption. 
This is a traditional meditation from Mahayana Buddhism. Its goal is to arouse "bodhicitta' or the mind of enlightenment. There are other equanimity meditations from other Buddhist lineages (e.g., Theravadan), as well as from other contemplative traditions.

(The version presented here is adapted from the book How to Meditate: A Practical Guide.) 
 

CAUTIONS:
It can be upsetting to bring an "enemy" to mind. When working with the mental image of an enemy, be careful not to get lost in negative thoughts and feelings. If you find that you can't handle working with a specific person without getting very worked up, switch to someone less upsetting.
 
 
Body Scan Meditation
The Body Scan is designed to help you feel and bring awareness to the myriad of sensations that occur throughout your body.  By practicing this meditation regularly, you can improve your body awareness and also better work with pain and difficult emotions in the body.  Additionally, people report feelings of relaxation and renewal after this practice.  
Sit or lie on your back and systematically bring your attention to each region of your body, beginning with your feet and moving upwards.  
 
As you begin:
·       Sit or lie down on your back in a comfortable position with your eyes open or gently closed.
·       Take a moment to check-in with yourself, observing how you are feeling in your body and mind.
·       Begin to focus on your breath wherever the sensations are most vivid for you.
 
During the body scan:
·       Try to bring an attitude of curiosity to the practice, as if you are investigating your body for the first time.  
·       Notice and feel any and all sensations that are present, such as tingling, tightness, heat, cold, pressure, dullness,  etc.  
·       If you do not feel any sensations in a particular region, simply note that and move on.  
·       See if you can be aware of any thoughts or emotions that arise as you move through the regions of your body.  Note these thoughts and emotions, and then return to the bare physical sensations that you are experiencing.  
·       Whenever you come across an area that is tense, see if you can allow it to soften.  If the area does not soften, simply notice how it feels and allow it to be as it is.
·       Feel as deeply and precisely as you can into each region of the body, noting if the sensations change in any way.  Also notice where they are located.
·       If you notice any pain or discomfort in a region of the body, see if you can practice allowing and exploring it for even a few seconds, feeling the various aspects of the sensation(s).  
 
Suggested sequence of body parts:
·       Begin with your left foot and toes, then move awareness up the left leg until you reach the left hip.
·       Right foot and toes up the right leg until you reach the right hip.  
·       Pelvic region and buttocks, stomach, low back to upper back, chest and breasts, heart and lungs
·       Hands (both at the same time) then move up the arms until you finish with the shoulders.
·       Neck, throat, jaw, mouth (teeth, tongue, lips), nose, eyes, forehead, ears, skull and scalp.  
·       Finally, become aware of the whole body and rest for a few minutes in this expansive awareness.  

The Body Scan is a variation of a Burmese Vipassana meditation practice that involves scanning the body for physical sensations.  This meditation is also done in various yoga practices.  The Body Scan is used in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), created by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.  

CAUTIONS:
If you have experienced physical abuse or trauma in the past, it is not recommended to do this practice without a trained professional.  Additionally, if you notice intense fear or other strong emotions related to a particular part of the body, please discontinue this practice.  
It is generally advised to take at least 30 to 40 minutes to complete the body scan.  However, if you wish to do a shorter body scan, spend less time on each region of the body, and/or focus on both feet, legs, and arms together as you move through these regions.  
If you wish, you can practice the body scan in the opposite direction, moving from your head to your toes. 
 
 
Walking Meditation
Walking meditation is a great way to begin integrating the power of meditation into your daily life. It is the first stage of meditation in action, that is, learning to be meditative while "out and about" in the world. 

It is great to do while, for example, taking a walk in the park, at the beach, or in another natural setting. 

Walking meditation is often recommended for people who are doing a lot of sitting meditation. If you are getting to sleepy, or your awareness is getting to "muddy," walking meditation can perk you up. Alternately, if you are getting to concentrated and mentally "stiff," walking meditation is a perfect way to loosen up a bit. 
Walking meditation is a common practice in Vipassana and Zen Buddhism. 


Pay close attention to the physical activity of walking slowly
1. Before walking, stand still in an open, balanced posture. Bring your awareness to the feeling of your feet touching the ground. 

2. Now begin walking. Keep your gaze fixed on the ground about six feet in front of you. This will help you to avoid distraction. 

3. Note and mentally label three parts of each step you take. The labels are "lifting," "pushing," and "dropping." 
 
     Lifting - when you are picking your foot up

     Pushing - as you are moving it forward

     Dropping - as you are lowering it to the ground

 As you make each label, pay very close attention to the actual physical sensations associated with each of these actions. 

4. After these three components become clear, you can add three more, so that the entire sequence is: "raising," "lifting," "pushing," "dropping," "touching," and "pressing."

5. Your mind will probably also engage in thinking extraneous thoughts, but just allow these to go on in the background. Your foreground attention should stay on the physical sensations of walking.

6. If you find that you have been completely lost in thought, stop walking for a moment and label the thinking as "thinking, thinking, thinking." 

7. Then re-establish your awareness on the feeling in your feet, and begin the walking meditation again. 

8. A typical session of walking meditation lasts a half an hour. 


CAUTIONS:
Make sure to watch where you are going, especially if you are around traffic, other people, etc. 
 
https://sites.google.com/site/psychospiritualtools/Home/meditation-practices
 
 
 
The Yoda Meditation
https://www.thedailymeditation.com/learning-to-meditate-with-jedi-master-yoda-online-meditation-course/amp
The Neo / Matrix Meditation
https://www.dc-acupuncture.com/lifestyle-personal-transformation/how-meditation-makes-you-more-like-neo-from-the-matrix
F That - A guided Meditation
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=92i5m3tV5XY

I am currently studying darkness retreats. I have a 14 day darkness retreat coming up in january. 
I was first made aware of this by the story of a woman's darkness retreat in the book "The Psychedelics Explorers Guide". It is really nice to read, but probably not worth buying the whole book, if it is only for that reason.
I can recommend the book "Dawning of Clear Light" by Martin Lowenthal. Really a beautiful book. It is not very long, but many sentences go very deep. If you contemplate and try to get to the meaning behind some of it you can gain a lot of insight from it. 
And then you can find good information on this page:
https://darknessretreats.wordpress.com/2016/04/13/david-m-kleinberg-levin-dzogchen-dark-retreat/
I have so far tried to meditate for 40h in the darkness. I already noticed shifts in my awareness. I speak about it here:
 
The brain supposedly releases DMT and even 5-Meo-DMT after about a week in the darkness. So you start to see visions and are basically "tripping". From the reports I have read, it is very different though. You are still in full control obviously. And if you manage to meditate and stay calm it is a great opportunity to face ones fears. 
This is considered to be a difficult practice for advanced students according to buddhist teachings. I would not consider myself to be advanced in my  practice. It will be a major challenge for me.
I am going to post my "trip report" here at the end of january. I will have a speech-recorder with me in the darkness. It has no display and only one button for recording, so I can use it. So maybe I will be able to catch some first-hand insights that I have during the retreat.
 
https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&m=772878
Notice the profound similarities between these four experiences, despite being triggered by very different things.

"I became Consciousness facing the Absolute. It had the brightness of myriad suns, yet it was not on the same continuum with any light I knew from everyday life. It seemed to be pure consciousness, intelligence and creative energy transcending all polarities. It was infinite and finite, divine and demonic, terrifying and ecstatic, creative and destructive..." – 5-MeO-DMT account (Stan Grof)

"As I neared the warm glowing radiance ahead of me, I felt pure ecstasy. I was in the beginning of the light. I was part of the light…It was as if I had come home. I had come home to the beginning of not just me but the beginning of all eternity." – NDE account(via Kenneth Ring)

"I was absorbed into this light, and this light became the entirety of space around me until I was only this giant, radiant light-filled void. I was real and home again and bigger than a trillion of our suns." – Darkness retreat account (Lindsey Vona)
"At one point in my meditation, my head opened and flooded with light. I watched and felt this quiet bliss and gladness take over and noticed that my body became pure vibration."

"I was a gigantic bigger-than-all-concept-of-universe radiant unending shimmering ball of light emanating perfect compassion forever without cause."

"Even my experiences of perceiving the maya, of perceiving emptiness and suchness throughout my whole “life as Lindsey” as a spiritual seeker could not come close to this total absorption into self-remembering perfection of total...er...uh...beyond words and description annihilation into truth-light." ...etc.
 
 

As regards Leo's latest video about "Jacques Derrida, Deconstruction, Post-Modernism & Nonduality", I'd say yes that is what deep, rich and mature "nonduality" looks like. But that's actually still a misunderstanding of "true" nonduality, which is not a way of life or state of being, and not what you're looking for if you're just looking for all the goodies.
Leo's version of nonduality is arguably the best and most sensible life-affirming version of it that you'll find anywhere, and in Jed McKenna's terms it corresponds to a well-developed state of integration, i.e. high-level Human Adulthood. It corresponds to waking up WITHIN this reality and becoming completely lucid. That's what non-symbolic consciousness is, and it's still a dreamstate phenomenon. In this context dreamstate basically just means reality.
But there is something beyond that, i.e. "further", which is waking up FROM reality. That's enlightenment and that's extremely rare, perhaps because this possibility is so far out there and so beyond what can even be imagined, that it's almost impossible to even stumble upon the very notion of it, let alone to grasp the difference between it and human adulthood, or even to contemplate it as an actual option.
Note that early in his very first book, Jed McKenna calls enlightenment "independent of consciousness", as opposed to mysticism which is "within consciousness". And later on he talks about "Plato's Cinema" (his version of Plato's Cave) in an attempt to further clarify the difference. Also consider this: How valid is the distinction between symbolic and non-symbolic consciousness, if all distinctions are fictitious.
What that phrase really means is non-symbolic perception, and what Jed McKenna really means is that enlightenment is independent of perception. Symbolic or non-symbolic, perception is perception, and all perception is fundamentally dualistic. Not just symbolic perception, or concepts or language. Everything your raw senses report can only appear as a courtesy of contrasts that exist on a finite spectrum. That's still duality.
That is to say, non-symbolic perception does not equate to true nonduality. What commonly passes for nondual awareness does typically accompany enlightenment, but does not equate to enlightenment, and is not exclusive to enlightenment. This is what Leo and others don't seem to get.
In Leo's version of enlightenment, there is actually still an identity in it, albeit a very expanded and mature and flexible one that is not limited to the human body or mind. Popular talk about "the separate self" actually refers to the segregated state and popular talk about enlightenment actually refers to the integrated state (if you're lucky). But an integrated self is still an identity, unless you also happen to be enlightened (in which case the whole question of identity is as meaningless and insignificant as everything else in consciousness).
And there is still a very concrete difference in Leo's mind between the enlightened and the unenlightened. It doesn't actually go full circle as he likes to think and say. That's why he can't agree with anyone who says that you're already enlightened and why he still thinks all the world's mystical traditions are talking about enlightenment. And that's why he doesn't know that, in fact, enlightenment does not exist. That's what going full circle means.
He is still granting reality to the distinction between different states of being in this dream of perception, one of which he calls enlightenment or "true nonduality". His "enlightenment" is part of the dream. There is nothing infinite or timeless or true about it.
And that's why he ends up with some bottom-line paradoxes that he can't move past, like the deconstruction of deconstruction, the position of no position, the emptiness of emptiness, the groundless and strange-loopy nature of reality, etc. Leo has essentially reached the view of the emptiness philosophy, and that's a tough one to get out of. It's pretty much as far as you can go within this reality without waking up from it.
All of it reduces to the same stuff that goes around everywhere else, which is this notion of interconnectedness. That's what people think about when they say oneness, or no-self, or no-thingness. But no, there are no degrees of bullshit. Interconnectedness does not exist independently of perception. Only the capacity to perceive exists independently of perception.
If you concede that perception is all there is to reality, then you must concede that there is no such thing as interconnectedness in deep sleep, for example. Or any other hypothetical situation where all of perception is absent. The only thing there can be, and must be, even when all of perception is absent, is the timeless, changeless, and boundless capacity to perceive. Once you really get that, you no longer need anything else.
Interconnectedness is descriptive of this apparent reality that perception presents you with. When you analyze it and think it all the way through, that's where you end up. It seems like it's the end of the line, and like it's the answer to every possible question or contradiction. That's why it's such a highly effective trap, even if you do manage to reach non-symbolic perception as a consequence. I know this because I was trapped in it for several years and I was just as smug and confident about it as Leo is now. And it so happens that it was Jed McKenna's books that eventually pulled me out (only after about 18 more months of contemplating his stuff, and that was just to undo some of those misdirections that I had mistaken for enlightenment, and get warmed up to start contemplating what true enlightenment is really about).
Also Leo's version doesn't get to the bottom of what's really going on with this reality here (which is arguably the more valuable insight for the purposes of waking up from it). This is why he still thinks that humanity can be improved upon. He doesn't see that he is really just being led to jump through a bunch of hoops by maya, and inescapably for maya's own purposes (just like everyone else including all those highly revered mystical traditions).
Whether it's enjoyable or not, or a mixed bag, makes no difference to the fact that you are being used, and not for the reasons you'd likely hope. The reasons you make up for doing whatever you do are planted there by maya to make you do it, and the results will be according to her wishes rather than yours.
And yes, using the word maya or god in that way is a poetic license, but it's far closer to what's actually happening than the poetic license afforded by the decentralized, self-organizing sort of view that Indra's Net represents. No-self and no-thing aren't meant to indicate perception stripped of all distinctions, i.e. non-symbolic awareness. It's meant to indicate that which underlies all perception, symbolic and non-symbolic, and is independent of both. There IS an absolute ground to all of relativity, and that is it.
Enlightenment is completely off the map. I guarantee you that David Loy does not know about this, intelligent and accomplished as he is. Or he has dismissed it just like everyone else seems to do, because it's not at all up to you what gets in and what does not. From the enlightened perspective, the reason for acquiescing to the childish state of human development, the reason why "engaged buddhism" is just another practical joke, is not out of fatalism or lack of vision. It's out of an even bigger-picture perspective than Leo even suspects or aims for. It's out of a thorough understanding and insight into why humanity is in this state and why it will always be in this state, despite the fact that it is hypothetically possible to outgrow it.
The reason that the truly enlightened don't go out into the world to "educate" or "save" people isn't because they're zen devils or underdeveloped or because they have resigned themselves to a nihilistic world view or any such thing. It's because they know such efforts will never take root because maya will never allow it. And they also know that anyone who is supposed to wake up will get exactly what they need and when they need it, because that's how everything works for everyone all the time. That's how reality, maya, the dreamstate, has always worked.
Contrary to how it might seem, Adyashanti would be perfectly capable of teaching what Leo teaches, albeit probably a lot less thorough and less backed by external sources. None of it is really all that obscure if you have the clarity it takes to become enlightened, it pretty much speaks for itself. But he doesn't teach what Leo teaches, because he knows that what Leo thinks is practical, is actually not practical for what Adyashanti is used for, by maya.
It's not an accident that humanity is a savage child race, it's by design. And those people are the lion's share of who Adyashanti is asked to cater to, by maya, the dream itself, in the way that only she/it can do. He damn well knows it and he knows better than to argue with it, and it will be true for almost every teacher out there. Whether they know it or not, and whether they're enlightened or not. No teacher is here to enlighten the masses and no enlightened person would ever even try. What are you gonna do after enlightenment? You're gonna do as you're told, that's what.
Humanity has always had every opportunity to outgrow itself and always will. There have been plenty of people throughout history who have done so, even in ancient times. On top of that, there have been plenty of people who have provided valuable insights every which way to aid in such growth, such as Derrida and Nagarjuna and many others that Leo references. Also throughout history and in ancient times. There has never been a lack of opportunity or education in this sense, but there has always been a lack of traction and there always will be. And this lack of traction is also by design.
It's called fear and it's what keeps this reality interesting to behold. Jed actually goes into this a great deal in his more recent books, most notably "Dreamstate: A Conspiracy Theory", but he mentions it many times in almost every single one of his books. There really shouldn't be any surprises here to anyone who is paying attention. To all the rest, Leo's brand of bullshit is highly recommended.

All enlightenment experiences turn into memories. Which is why it's important to let them go and work towards abiding nondual awareness in the present moment.
Enlightenment cannot be held on to. You must be actively conscious RIGHT NOW, because RIGHT NOW is all there is. Psychedelics open the gateway, but that's just when the real work begins.
A memory of high consciousness held while in low consciousness, is still low consciousness.
It's like you've exited the Matrix, then fallen back into the Matrix, and now have a faint memory of what it's like outside the Matrix, but fundamentally you're still locked in the Matrix. The only solution is to work towards a permanent escape.

The only difference between Fake Jed and someone like Adyashanti for example, is that nobody ever bothered to expose Adyashanti. They may be enlightened but that doesn't mean they're not taking you for a strange loop.
But the fraud that this one guy in Cambodia perpetrates is less than nothing compared to the fraud of society at large. And the ones who cry outrage the most, are the least conscious of their own part in it.
This is also a central topic in many of Leo's videos including his latest "The Deep Problem of Marketing". And in fact Leo himself is no better. Nobody is. There's no such thing as "concious marketing", although that phrase is a wonderful Orwellian testament to itself. When the end justifies the means, the means are always fraudulent and the end is always a phantom.
That is what makes the world go round, and nothing else can. So, whoever is reading this, if you like life you should be grateful for fraud, because they are one and the same. Nor does enlightenment change that in any way, it just makes you intimately aware of the hypocrisy, and of the fact that this is simply how it works. Always has and always will, there is no alternative, no better world on the horizon.
Make no mistake, Leo is brainwashing you with bullshit just as much as anyone out there, and he is just as fraudulent in how he presents himself as anyone out there. In some ways that he is probably aware of, and in many more ways that he is definitely not aware of.
And he is no closer to enlightenment, or to knowing what it really is, than those he vouches for, despite all their clever talk or even genuine insight. Sadhguru is a party trick, Kahn is a pink soapbox sophist, Mooji is a cosmic carebear, Tolle is Oprah's butt slave, Spira is everyone's mom, Swartz is everyone's pop, Shinzen is goody two-shoes, and even the remarkable Ralston is just a guy in a cape.
People say that being constructive is hard whereas dumping on others is just too easy, and that's very true. But it's easy for good reason. Truth is easy, illusion is hard. Truth is not constructive and is not a construction, illusion is, that's why it's hard. Whenever you can conceivably imagine someone snickering at you behind your back about something, it's likewise for good reason. And deep down you know it, that's why you're afraid of it. You just don't want to believe it or admit it even to yourself.
If you put a chimp or a robot in your shoes and clothes, maybe add some lipstick or a bow tie for good measure, and then have them do exactly what you do, or what anyone else in the world does, you wouldn't just snicker at them behind their back, you would laugh your ass off at them, right to their face. And rightly so. It wouldn't even occur to you to consider their feelings about it, you just couldn't take it seriously no matter how hard you tried. It's the stuff of satire skits.
It's also not too flattering to the chimp or robot. But guess what, that's you, and everyone else. No difference whatsoever. Everyone is inescapably part of the same ridiculous facade and there's nothing outside of that. That's how god/maya "loves" his "children" (his masks) and that's how the truly enlightened "love" you (at arms length): You are tonight's entertainment and you are friggin' hilarious, precisely because you're the butt of a grand joke that you're not in on. You are the unwitting mask, the sock puppet on god/maya's hand.
If man must strike, strike through the mask. That means stop taking the packaging at face value but look at what's really behind it. Which is, literally and figuratively, nothing. And by the way that's something that Tano/EnMyth is clearly not aware of, but Fake Jed is, and I can't blame him for doing what he does if he sees humanity for the fraud that it is. Tano did not strike through all the masks or she wouldn't act like such a sock puppet.
If I were in a position to get paid for saying shit like "truth is love", and if I could stomach it, and you would happily pay it, then I would happily say it. There's one born every minute, and all of them grow up to be part of the very same mob that would pay me for being dishonest and keelhaul me for not being dishonest. So it's a pretty easy choice to make. Have it your way, right? Why not. Let's just say if an enlightened person is supposed to love you then he wouldn't argue with you, he'd simply give you what you want. And what you want most of all is to be deceived.
So I would say shit like "you can't possibly hurt others if you see them as yourself, because you would never hurt yourself". As long as you want to believe that, at least it will keep you from burning me at the stake for a while. Even though right now you're already better at hurting yourself than you are at anything else. And even though god/maya (you!) can't be hurt, and doesn't give a shit about who gets hurt as long as they do their jobs. And is in fact hurting everyone all the time just to watch them dance to his guns and frantically deny their predicament to eachother.
Once you're into all the spiritual bullshit thinking it's a step up from mainstream bullshit, it's close to impossible to come out of it again, unless you are determined to put it all through the wringer to determine if it actually holds up for real. Only then do you discover that it does not. At all. Spirituality does not hold up at all. It's more ridiculous than anything else out there, and a way more effective prison. If you think breaking free of the programming of society's is hard, try breaking free of spirituality.
Spirituality is not the path to truth, it's a giant impenetrable bastion of defense against truth. It's the heavy artillery that god/maya deploys when someone starts asking questions, in order to pacify them and keep them occupied. It's a grotesque exhibition of exactly what ego is all about.
That's the only upside of spirituality, it shows you exactly what you're up against if you have the eyes to see it. You could learn a lot from it if you really wanted to, just not in the way you think. It's more like a rookie trial or initiation or screening mechanism. If you ever make it out of spirituality (fat chance), then the real work can finally begin. Otherwise, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Enlightenment is not a good thing. It's the ultimate bet against fraudulence, and everything about life including life itself is a fraud. And spirituality is certainly no exception. So it's a losing bet right from the start. You don't get there by defeating god/maya, you get there by being defeated, because you are as much of a fraud as any of it.
If you were truly enlightened, you would be lieing your ass off all the time even if only to prevent an insane world from hunting you down. It doesn't take a strategic motherfucker to know that if you don't act like a weasel in the world of weasels, then you will suffer the consequences.
In fact that's exactly what you've always been doing, you habitually weasel and lie just to survive and belong, but you can't get yourself to admit it. That's why you're in this predicament and that's why you are amusing to watch. It's pretty sad, and also funny as hell if it's not you.
Like sports bloopers, where players kick eachother in the nuts and tear ligaments tripping over the ball. Yeah no, it's not the least bit funny when it's you. But when you're god/maya and you don't know danger or pain or indignation or guilt or shame or any other problem whatsoever, other than eternal nothingness, then a gag reel and a big bowl of cheetos will be looking pretty good.
If you play a video game, you don't give a shit about your avatar, let alone other avatars or NPCs, except to whatever extent that you can express yourself through it and the game keeps you amused. You give it no thought for any other reason than that. And why should you, it's just a bullshit game and none of it is real. Well, that's EXACTLY what life is, and what you are, to god/maya and the truly enlightened (same thing pretty much). And the ONLY reason you don't see this is because you much rather believe ANYTHING but that. Right?
But that doesn't mean it's not true. It just means that god/maya holds all the cards and has you by the balls. Yes Leo's balls too.
But Leo is one of god/maya's more admirable lab rats, and he is very passionate about exploring and progressing through the maze and doing as he's told. And that's what he advocates. If that's you, if you like the setup and want to be engaged in a journey for hopes of growth and reward, then best you forget about enlightenment. And if Leo ever stops teaching (that is if god/maya lets him), then it's probably because he finally found out the unmarketable truth/disillusionment that he claims to want, and that it's nothing at all like what any of his books or masters or induced experiences made it out to be.
You might say that this is taking things too far. But if there is anything beyond your own version of enlightenment, any possibility of taking things further than you would like or were told or anticipated, if you have to be careful about how far this can be allowed to go, if you have to be selective about which illusions to destroy and which to hold sacred, if anything could be blasphemous, heretical, unorthodox, or otherwise out of bounds in your version of enlightenment, then by definition such a version could never be the ultimate truth.
Enlightenment is not about growing or exploring or becoming a better person or having an impact or saving the world, and your personal sensibilities do not factor into what actually wants to happen. You will simply learn that god/maya runs the whole show and he/she likes it just the way it is. Society didn't do this, people didn't make the world this way, god/maya did. He/she makes it exactly the way he/she wants it, and nothing you do will ever change that because everything you do is the mask of god/maya and always serves the grand facade.
Leo's vision won't change that. Your life purpose won't change that. No matter what it is. If your kids get raped by a priest, it's for god's amusement and serves creation. If your spouse gets killed in a freak deadpool zamboni accident, it's for god's amusement and serves creation. If Trump starts World War Three, it's for god's amusement and serves creation. Even if you become enlightened, it's for god's amusement and serves creation, the grand facade. That is to say, even enlightenment necessarily serves fraudulence in one way or another, and by that time you won't care that it does because you'd know there is nothing else, and that everything is exactly as it's supposed to be.
There's no way around it. Nothing and nobody, no person, no humanity and no world, is ever elevated. It's all part of the same freak show and it only works one way, the way it works now and always has. You're not smarter than god/maya, you can rest assured that Infinite Intelligence already has all the angles covered.
The universe is not slowly becoming more conscious or waking up to itself or any such thing, god/maya has always known perfectly well what he/she's doing. Everything you do, you do it because it amuses god and serves creation. All your hopes and dreams, all your successes and failures, all your pains and pleasures, all your laughter and tears, all your bitching and moaning and struggling, are the masks of god/maya's grand facade, and are there for no other reason than to amuse and serve itself for its own sake.
And the only reason creation is served at all, is to keep it going just a little longer, to keep god amused. If you decide to rebel against it, it's not you doing that, it's god, and it serves creation. Everyone has always been working for the same team without knowing it. You can't stop or defect or otherwise thwart it in any way. And very few ever get to the bottom of this to find out what the real deal is.
P.S... Cantor was a fool too. Infinity is not a set and can't be approached incrementally (for example 1, 2, 3, n... does not amount to infinity). Reality is not a strange loop, the dream is a strange loop. That's how you know it doesn't exist. Bottomless paradox and endless regression aren't ultimate answers, they're ultimate giveaways. The dream isn't reality, eternal nothingness is reality. There is no actual creation. The dream of phenomena is a vaporous mirage and does not factor into the truth at all. Nothingness is not the inclusion of all possible phenomena, the absolute is not the sum total of all relativity, nonduality does not encompass duality. Duality does not and can not exist, relativity does not and can not exist, phenomena do not and can not exist, untruth does not and can not exist, it's an arbitrary, fleeting, ephemeral dream with no substance and no reality to it whatsoever.
But Leo and others can't hear this because they can't hear anything life-negative, so if truth happens to be life-negative they just don't want to know. And they can't grasp that everything REALLY is perfect the way it is already, always has been, and could never be any other way. Even Leo's criticism of those who only pay it lip service, is just more lip service. And they can't admit anything that takes the baseline focus off of the colorful content of this dream and rightfully puts it on the clear nothingness in which it floats. Because that takes the fun out of everything, including Leo's business and lofty aspirations.
That's why nobody talks about it in this way and nobody knows about this unless they take it upon themselves to actually find out. For which, by the way, there is no technique or practice, other than to just use your damn head. Open your eyes, look around and look at yourself and stop being such a gullible idiot. Open-mindedness means ditching the bullshit you already have, it doesn't mean replacing it with all-new and improved bullshit (if you even want to call it an improvement).
And that's why everyone who claims to talk about "truth" must necessarily twist it in such a way that waking up has some sort of relevance to dreaming, the truth to the fraud, to a passionate life, to being a willing and eager lab rat in an endless maze experiment, selling out for all the trinkets and enticements and promises and specialness that it offers to keep you going, and all the ways in which you keep getting tricked into buying into it and doing whatever it is you do.
And they are generally fooling themselves at least as much as their audience, with such blatant doublethink as "the false is the truth", "the dream is real", "the groundless is the ground", "the relative is the absolute", "reality is a strange loop", or anything else that effectively serves no other purpose than to save your dreamstate from total annihilation. The wisest masters are the worst.
The ability to hold apparent paradoxes is not a license for "anything that sounds contradictory must be true, plus I'm afraid to seem stupid and unspiritual with my in-group if I don't uncritically accept it." It just means not to be confused when something look different from different frames of reference. It only appears contradictory when you're unaware of this trick, while it actually isn't.
The price of truth is everything.
Leo recently wrote that he was depressed for one week after reading Jed's books. That's how easily ego can stave off extinction, like an immune system rushing in to squash an invasion in a matter of days. All it shows is that those books were largely wasted on him, as they are on most. Almost every single sentence failed to get through with time.
Sorry, just had the urge to dump on our benevolent dictator and role model a little bit. Especially given the rise of Guraism. Frankly I'm not sure that that's something to be proud of. I guess I could post this anywhere but it seems relevant to the whole Jed thing, so there you go.
Now if you'll excuse me... I have a "omglulz I'm so enlightened now please ask me something" thread to craft, sothat I can consciously market my fraudulent no-self.
Merry Christmas
 

This post
I'm calling " open contemplation " 
It's a chance to make this forum less about telling each other about how things are, and more about some deep collective introspection right now. So anyone is welcome to comment. 
The aim of this is something similar to a consciousness workshop. Where a group of people get together and start questioning there own experience. 
This is for people who have the intelligence to realise that they are deeply ignorant and do not know! And from there we have the space to actually look. 
If there is a specific experience or distinction you want to look into here I am happy to contamplate with you here and see if we can both come to some sort of genuine insight or realisation together.
If you want to get involved but don't have anything in particular that you want to contemplate here, then have a look at the suggestions for topics of contemplation below. 
This post may be your chance to actually contemplate for yourself, in your own experience, without any authority from anyone. Your shooting for direct evidence. Buddha can't help you here, Jesus can't save you now. YOU contemplate, YOU desern YOU find for yourself what's true. 
To help people to be more effective in there contemplations I have outlined some guiding principles. 
Pre contemplation components 
1. Presence: Put your attention on the present moment.
2. Clarity: clarify what you are going to contemplate. 
3. Possibility: hold that it is possible to become conscious of whatever it is you are contemplating.
contemplation components: 
Intention: intend, right now, to become conscious of the truth.
openess: Allow yourself to deeply not know, and be open to whatever may be true. 
Focus: keep all your attention on your subject; when you wander off, immediately bring your attention back. 
Question: Truly wonder; keep a steady questioning that's related to your intent.
 
So let's get started 
suggested topics of contemplation- 
what is a distinction? 
What is self?
what are emotions, why do they exist? For what purpose? 
what is self image?
what is thinking? 
What is separation? 
How does space exist in your self experience?
how are you stuck in time? What does it mean to be timeless?
fear & desire?
what is authority?
what is a person?
what is culture? What assumptions, beliefs and ideas has culture got?
and so on.