UnbornTao

But we must get clear on what methods are helpful for: focusing and opening up one's mind producing altered states increasing awareness developing sensitivity, etc. These don't hurt. Such leaps, in any case, are sudden, unexpected; they don't follow a logical progression nor a process -- these are functions of time. The mind is the one concerned with logic, progression, and trying to latch onto the consciousness; it is not up to the task, though. You are focused on achieving a state of relaxation, that's fine. What can result from a method and practice is something other than this absolute business. Predictive of what? If what you're talking about is phenomena, sure. Long periods of meditation help produce all kinds of altered states that can be blissful, terrifying and everything in between. Prediction relies on time and process, just as actions, events, and results, which are relative. Your mind makes up the associations after the fact. It tries to interpret what it considered happened in order to understand it and find a way to reproduce it, which can't happen. Seems like you're referring to perceptive phenomena, so it's difficult to say whether it was a satori or something else. What are you? What are you conscious of now that you weren't of before? I suspect that if it were a profound satori, the self-referential notion to share the experience, to avoid crying, etc. wouldn't have come up for you as there'd have been no one there to share it. If it can be predicted, then I'd say it is something else, a shift in state likely precipitated by belief and circumstances. I experienced a "no-self" insight while walking my dog. I didn't consider it to be an enlightenment, even though it was an unusual and joyful experience preceded by a state of radical openness. I realized that who I am is not my self. In other words, I was able to experientially make the distinction between my nature and my self -- who I confused my nature to be throughout all of my life. My nature remains an unknown for now. Notice, however, that this is an interpretation of mine, a story crafted after the fact, the consciousness itself is in a completely different domain. We want to make sure that what we're talking about is a direct, personal consciousness into one's nature and whether we've "experienced" that. If not, we should acknowledge that we don't actually know what we are talking about, no matter the ideas and concepts that we hold about this matter. Let's leave as much crap as we can aside, and start from authentic experience. When you talk of meditation as an activity "aimed at Being", you're still holding Being as an activity and as a process, not as what is. An activity is an action and so relates to what isn't. It's up to you to "invoke" it, it's not external to you. The practice can't and won't do it for you. The Absolute is grasping it. Don't conflate circumstances with the awareness itself. Unfortunately, there's no pill that can produce this realization, as it is independent of the method. We'd like to come up with a way to access such consciousness but are stuck in a world of relativity (the "dream"). No matter what we come up with, they are relative inventions. Oh, and it isn't an experience. Experience is indirect. This is key. I say experience for lack of a better word. What's considered to be experienced seems to be conceptually-based, or at least dominated by concept, added upon "reality", whatever that is. As long as the "method" is taken to be contemplation, yes. What I hold to be essential is setting out to experience what's true, being open that such a leap is possible for you. This needn't take any form nor formal practice, just the intention to get it now. This is contemplation. In my view, contemplation did occur for you. I doubt that without things such as wonder, openness, presence, and the possibility of personally grasping it, that it would have happened. It is very simple and direct; seems like the only thing to "do" apart from grasping it. Components: You intending to get who you are now. That's it.

If it isn't an experience of who you are, be clear that what you're doing isn't that. It's an enjoyable shift in state.

Well, enjoy the high but don't turn it into something that isn't.

What is taking place in your experience without reference to hearsay?

Hostility without enthusiasm. And arrogance. Thinking that the world is the way you think it is. Open up 'cause things are what they not what you think they are. See the distinction? We don't even know what a pencil is, for real. Don't stand on assumptions and belief systems and you'll find that you, as everyone else, is deeply ignorant. Then you can wonder about stuff. Go get bored for a week or two and stay there contemplating who you are. This is the least popular spiritual practice!

I cook legumes (bought pre-cooked) very similarly, without the eggs. Fried eggs on another pan.

Also agreements that facilitate co-existence in our culture. There are effective and empowering things to do both as individuals and as a group. Facts of experience, such as basic principles that are real. Gravity might be relative and not a universal phenomena, but you better not jump from a rooftop and pretend to fly (you can delude yourself you're flying just before hitting the floor). Lying has consequences, telling the truth, keeping one's word too, etc. Also there're more intelligent strategies for our collective survival and thriving. Slap a post-modernist in the face -- or anyone lost in intellect -- and ask him whether the slap was relative or not. This is for the sake of the argument, don't go around slapping people.

A sense that comes about as a result of our deep-seated self-doubt is that of trusting the veracity of other's communications, as opposed to ours which seem to have a hollow ring to it.

Adyashanti looks legit.

I don't know whether combining caffeine and modafinil is a good idea, if that's what you meant. In any case, best to try one at a time.

It happened because it happened, and you happened to be meditating. No matter the circumstances, individuals have gotten who they are. Get that. In any case, I'd make sure to clarify what that was, it doesn't sound like an enlightenment but perhaps a shift in state, a dramatic and unusual one. The effects are the effects, don't make stuff up. Meditation is aimed at healing by controlling the mind and such, its purpose is not absolute banana. Contemplation is intending to grasp what's true now. It shouldn't be confused with a method, though. It's like wanting to catch the bus: you want to be at the bus stop when the bus passes by. It is preparing yourself to get it, so to speak; being there when the show starts. That's an analogy for contemplation.

The what?

Sure, still we shouldn't consider that activity as anything more than jerking off, ultimately. More than giving a description of it to ballpark one's mind is silly. What's there to say? Unless for entertainment purposes, no use in that. Throw away what you've got of it, it gets in the way. Nothing is the best place from which to come at this matter; unfortunately we've got less than nothing -- convictions, conclusions. preferences, opinions, ideals, knowledge and assumptions. These are more ignorance.

I said certain things seem to help in the relative domain, not that there are necessarily factors involved. "Indicative" is an interpretation and a distinction made in the relative domain. Everything except direct is stuck in a world of relativity. It's analogous to waking up from a dream; whatever is done within it is done within it, and isn't the waking up. I'm being pedantic, the realization itself is what I'm referring to. The mind wants to replicate direct consciousness, inventing a way to capture it. Unfortunately this goes beyond the mind's job. Next time, you attempt to reproduce what your mind think happened before it -- the interpreted factors and conditions -- and it doesn't work. This basically means that you can't find yourself. Wherever you look is the domain of experience, it all occurs in experience. And somehow awakening, a sudden leap in consciousness, can happen. What the mind does with the realization isn't the consciousness itself. This is a tricky thing to recognize, I'm coming from intellect here. Yes; on the other hand, just a guy who got his nature. It shows the nature of the realization, and that it is possible. "If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?" - Dogen.

Lots of people would agree that PC gaming is better in many ways than consoles.

Isn't Edge a bloated mess? Not to mention privacy stuff. Firefox, Brave and Thorium are decent options imo. Not yet. An Arch-based distro would likely be a better option for gaming, not sure. The issue is how much tinkering is needed on Linux for some use cases. Gaming on Windows is easy to set up and use.

If you want to, yeah. Whatever works best for you.

@Thought Art Ok, thanks for sharing, keep it up.

Allow yourself to be the authority of your experience. You already are.

Focus on mastering what you're interested in, whatever skill you feel drawn to. Start now and keep moving towards that.

What's your approach to life? Notice whether you play the game of life either in order to create what you want or in order to avoid loss. The latter is common. Avoiding loss is done in various ways: Don't play any game; don't take anything up. Be complacent. The reasoning here is that, since I don't play, I can't lose. Avoid completing anything. You can't lose if it is left unfinished. Do it half-heartedly. "But I didn't really try" is another disposition to avoid loss. Keep others from winning; you look like you've lost when others win. So you set out to sabotage their efforts so that you get to keep your position of relative safety -- since no one wins, you haven't lost, or so you think. Play the nice guy/girl role; pretend to like everyone and be nice to everyone so that we can all reach an agreement that you haven't lost; it'd be rude for them to tell you that you've lost. Turn yourself into a game: become a problem so you become the game. Become sick, throw tantrums, destroy the game so that players have to stop playing in order to take care of you. Adopt the judge's role: Play "the righteous judge." Since you aren't actively participating in life, producing the results that you want, you set out to destroy others' vitality and enthusiasm. Criticize, denigrate, disparage, blame, undermine, troll, judge, sabotage, act righteous, "debunk" so that your relative position is that of being good and "right" without having actively produced any result for yourself in your own life. Does any of that sound familiar to you? Reflect on these points as they're profound and likely applicable to your own life.

On one of my virtual machines, Edge and Onedrive are uninstalled, and lots of services are put to Manual so that they aren't running in the background except when needed, thanks to a debloat tool. Understandably, Windows and macOS has some basic telemetry services built-in. How bad is it for Windows? Especially if Windows 12 starts getting serious with web tech and Copilot... Do you game on Mint? If so, how's that going?

You use excuses as a way to justify your behavior and make yourself "good" and right so that you can keep doing what you want. They're a way to offload your own responsibility as they get you off the hook. Excuses are bullshit. Stop excusing yourself. Acknowledge what you do and what you don't do. This isn't to say that in a social context you should avoid apologizing, but acknowledge your flaws.

Moved to Entertainment section.

Do you? A bit tired, perhaps, not worse. Or rather relieved, like after a good sneeze.