Jordan

Wow I almost started crying with joy/love reading the part about loving myself for no reason. I am at work though so I guess I should wait until I am in private to meditate on that.

Why do you think that awakening is the end of desire? I understand awakening as being extremely aware of the direct experience while accepting everything as it is. Even if desire or resistance is being experienced, it is completely accepted as pure goodness, love and truth. The concept of a separate self is seen as an illusion so the nature of desire will change but there will not be an end of all desire.

I find it more compelling if you are actually disagreeing with something concrete that people have actually said and show the context. Who is saying that raping babies is fine? I think people would say there is no good or bad and saying that something like that is bad is not being truthful. Saying that it is fine is also not being truthful either. Trying to be kind and helpful to manipulate people into liking you is kind of not the most loving or skillful way to live either. There has to be more context otherwise you can prove anyone wrong.

You understand or believe things with concepts but you only know things through directly being conscious of them right now. Some people use the word "know" when they mean understand or believe.

I lost my virginity at age 23 and thought I knew exactly what sex would be like but it really was much different than I thought. It is a bit hard to describe but the physical sensations are much different and you won't be able to just watch porn and imagine the sensations in the same way. I can get stronger orgasms from porn but I have a much better overall experience having sex. The emotions from being intimate and connecting with someone else that come up are different than you will experience from porn. Ohh I think you asked if what you see in porn is how people actually have sex. I am not sure how people have sex but for the sex I have, it is much different. It looks really stupid to me how people have sex in porn but it shows an angle that makes the girl look good. The sex I have is much better than the sex pornstars are having and I don't do anything crazy. It is about the connection you have with your partner.

Something I have been doing for many years is when I notice I am getting stressed, I take one slow deep breath inhaling faster than exhaling. Then I notice the difference between how i was feeling before and after the breath. It puts me in a much better mood \throughout the day. when meditating I like to take slow deep breaths and sit there after exhaling holding my breath so I can focus better with less noise, movement and pressure.

I like the method of going all out doing one thing while dropping everything else then dialing it back to start a habit. Emotionally it just seems so lame doing 5 min per day or something like that. It makes me not want to even start. I think the main problem for me is the time I spend on video games / porn. I need to cut down super non productive time and I think it will help a lot. I didn't end up meditating for more than around an hour at most per day these last few days. I have been working overtime and on my phone game too much. I will make my attempt again tomorrow but I do have some errands to run tomorrow morning so I'll see if I have the energy to meditate before that.

@Yimpa Yes, I think non formally meditating on just being aware of what you are aware of in the present moment as you go through your day is something I would like to do too.

@Yimpa When I meditate doing mantra meditation on Bama Nam Kevalam, I get vivid dreams almost every night. I seem to need to sleep less. I found sex 10x better doing mindfulness meditation 1 hour a day for 100 days several years ago. the effects fade after stopping. I keep falling off track. I will see if I can stick with it. I have been pretty good about meditating every day for the last week or 2.

Hello, I watched the video. I was just thinking of starting meditating 3 hours a day because I am annoyed at myself for spending too much time playing videogames. It is sort of like a punishment for myself haha. I have not sat more than 1.5 hours before. I did not decide if I will take a short break every hour or just try sitting without a break like you did. I will start tomorrow morning and see how it goes. Did you get any changes in your sleep quality or memory or other unexpected changes? I might have missed where you mentioned these things. Did it help in the ways you were hoping with your working memory?

I thought it was obvious that all boundaries are made up and don't actually exist. It is not like a boundary has a mass. Who is going around thinking boundaries are real here? They are useful for conceptualization though. I guess they are lies in the way we talk and think without realizing we are lying but we need to simplify things somehow.

Before when I was doing mindfulness with labeling 1 hour per day for 100 days I had something like that intermittedly. It is the same method Leo describes in his mindfulness meditation video. I started intermittedly getting extremely vivid imaginations just like dreaming but still being awake. It would sometimes happen when I was not meditating. I have not been meditating much recently so I lost the ability but it seemed to be mostly from mindfulness meditation with labeling technique and not other meditations I have experimented with. The part that seems to help is just labeling see hear or feel then spending the next 2 breaths giving all your effort into seeing, feeling or hearing what you are focusing on with as much clarity as possible. Just talking about it makes me want to get into doing that technique again regularly.

You could go to a community center and workout at the gym then go swimming and sit in the sauna for a long time. That is pretty cheap and can help you get rid of extra anger and energy that is keeping you from thinking straight. I prefer self massage with a lacrosse ball if you want to get rid of muscle tension.

This hasn't been my experience. I have no interest in having female friends unless I don't have a girlfriend. If a girl likes you a lot as a friend then she will help you get a girlfriend. It is very useful to have at least one female friend if you don't have a girlfriend. I had a very close female friend when I was around 20 and a virgin and had no girlfriend. I really enjoyed the time I spent with her. I didn't really want to have sex with her but was still open to it and she made it clear she just wanted to be friends. She would hang out with me and invite her girl friends along. Her friends often seemed to think I was cute. I am pretty sure she talked me up to them when I wasn't around. She moved back to Colombia and I haven't seen her in over 10 years but if we got back together I think we would go back to being close friends as long as it doesn't make our partners jealous. I think it worked with me because I find it a super turn off if a girl does not find me really sexy. I really have no interest in woman that I think don't like me in that way. The female friend I had, I would prefer to not have sex with her but I would probably do it if I was single and she really needed it because her heart was broken or something but make it clear we will go back to being just friends after she gets better. I am pretty sure that still counts as just being friends. Now I have a girlfriend that I have been with for 10 years. I find her sexier than anyone else. I have sex 1-3x a week with her still after 10 years and have no interest in being friends with or having fun with other girls. If something happened and I became single again and ready to date again, I probably would try to increase my social circle making several good female friends that we make it clear we don't want to have sex with until I found a girlfriend with their help.

Which Buddhist practices are designed to still or shut off the mind? Vipassana or focusing on one point? I think the meditation I have done has not decreased my thinking, I am just more aware of when I am repeating thought patterns and realize when it is unnecessary and start focusing on another topic. You think more about what you are thinking about. I have not noticed any memory troubles. I think it improves memory a bit for me. You are able to see you memories more clearly. I usually do mindfulness with labeling after focusing on one point but try out many types like vipassana, strong determination sitting, do nothing, fire Kasina, mantra.

Work is great. You trade 40 hours a week for food, shelter, safety and freedom to do as you wish with in the rest of your time with some money left over. Having police, free school grade K-12, roads, bridges, firefighters, trains, community centers, busses, an army requires taxes in some form. You need to contribute to get these things in return. Do you see an example of a better culture that does not require people to work? If you can't stand working where you work then find another job you find more interesting. I found after meditating a lot, I enjoy my work a lot more. I also appreciate money a lot more after working some overtime and know the value of it for me.

I scored 4. Maybe I should be more outgoing and believe in myself more haha

From my experience with around 15 trips it seems to be a temporary change in your consciousness. I have heard someone claim that after taking it daily for 30 days it has had a permanent effect but other people that tried 30 days in a row had some negative side effects. The consciousness carry over effects from meditation are much more obvious than 5MEO Dmt. You do get many insights on it though.

The forced concentration is needed in the beginning. Eventually if you do it for a while and enter access concentration. You will become absorbed in the object and the effort will go way down.

Are you getting any noticeable benefit from your mind being silent? Does it seem like your consciousness has changed? Increasing your ability to notice things like your thoughts and emotions, increasing sensory clarity, improving your ability to focus are all things that may be pointing to moving in the right direction. I think it might help with your concentration doing what you are describing.

Listen to "mindfulness in plain english" an audiobook on youtube on 2x speed while paying attention to it. Sit down and put your attention to the sensation at the tip of your nostrils. When your attention moves, notice that it has moved as soon as possible, take a few seconds to notice what it has moved to then move it back to your nostrils. Do this for 12-16 hours a day for a week or 2.

I was listening to this in the background and he talks about cannibalism and head hunting to be hard to explain to western people. He said that they will eat the human liver or the heart and in some cases use their skill as a pillow to obsorb their energy. I have a feeling part of his decision to look like that is to prove he is fully committed to the tribe and won't be a likely sacrifice haha.

Hey thanks for sharing this. I watched an interview with Daniel Ingram about fire kasina and didn't know about this book. I listened to the first part of the recording of their first fire kasina retreat found on the same website. I got the red dot and different colors with surrounding colors and tendrils coming off of them with it turning black and rotating sometimes. I could see it rotating in 3d a few times. I practised as they were explaining it on the recording. I used the flashlight on my phone instead of a candle since I have no candles right now. It seems really promising object of focus to practice entering the first Jhana.

What you see in the world can be considered a part of imagination although I prefer to call it reality and not part of imagination. Either way, when have you ever controlled even a single thought? An intention to control a thought comes up in your mind without your input and that may set a chain of events that cause a certain thought to come up but you are not the one choosing what is created in your mind. If what you thought could become reality for you, it would be very dangerous and your life would likely fall apart.

I plugged 35mg of 5MeO DMT 2 hours ago and want to write down what I realised while at the height of it. I have tripped around 15 times before I would estimate and I took this amount just once before I am pretty sure. The last several times I did 28mg but I did not get much out of those trips. This one took me pretty deep and I feel like I have something I could learn from it. I went through several situations in my life in flashes of images and saw that everyone wants to maximise loving and helping others but at the same time is afraid of being hurt. They feel their survival is threatened by loving too much. In my relationship with my girlfriend especially, I could see that many times we leave out important information that can cause someone to make the wrong assumptions and conclusions. It seems I don't ask enough questions to get a better sense of how things are going with people and what they need to feel understood and cared for. I will try to be much more curious about learning about people, being truthful with them and finding ways to make them feel special and loved and like they don't need to be afraid of being hurt. Creating new things that help people just seemed like the best thing you can do. I felt like I was made of a massive amount of potential creative energy. I felt like I just need to create something amazing that will help people be able to increase their love for others and lower their fear. I saw people really have a deep desire to help other people but fear is limiting them from doing as they desire. I am not sure what else to say. I can kinda see what Leo means when he says meditative states don't compare with this stuff. I wish I had spent more time contemplating in that state but i started being mesmerised by my hand and looking around my room which seemed like a waste of time in retrospect. I seem to get much more from the trip with my eyes closed. Have a wonderful night/day whoever is reading this.