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@How to be wise As i'm sure you understand, true not knowing is rare and not easy to become conscious of. It simply just takes a lot of deep, very honest contemplation and inquiry. Not much else to it.

No there's always some mind wandering. But i'd say i'm concentrated around 85% of the time in a 30 minute sitting. Not really sure what I could be doing wrong. I guess i'll just keep working on it. Appreciate the advice.

Nice one! Usually 2 hours a day in four 30 minute blocks. Concentrating on the sensations of the breath at the nose. For the most part I count the breaths until concentration breaks. I would class access concentration as being fully absorbed with the breath and that next to no effort is required to hold concentration. Thoughts arise but don't have any effect on the concentration. I've had this state twice, but not recently. Any advice?

@onacloudynight @How to be wise Yes concentration meditation is the best way to access the Samatha jhanas. However i've been practising concentration exclusively for a few months now and have yet to reach access concentration. Maybe some people are naturally gifted at concentrating but I would certainly say it takes longer than a few weeks, unless you're on jhana retreat of course.

@Psyche_92 I'm the same age as you and also experienced quite a lot of bullying when I was in school. I don't feel like it has affected me as much as it seems to have done for you, but I may just be suppressing it somehow. Who knows what real affect it had. Anyway, I don't have a lot of advice but if I were to say anything it would be just to let the thoughts be. Don't try to get rid of them, don't try to force them out of your mind, don't resist at all as this will most likely just make it worse. Instead, try to be as mindful as possible, and just observe the thoughts objectively. See them as thoughts and not the content. Have a friendly attitude towards them and just be ok with the fact that they will arise without your conscious effort. Eventually, just by being ok with the 'negative' thoughts, they will subside and gradually disappear. The mind needs time to purge. It may feel chaotic, but in time they will go. But you must not resist, just let them come and go.

@AdamDiC DO IT!

@How to be wise As Leo said, just sit down and think for a moment about the fact that it is very likely that you don't know what you are. Think about the implications of that and just soak into it. Through deep questioning you develop a sense of doubt about your identification with the body and thoughts. It's likely that the deeper this doubt goes, the more curious you become about what you really are.

@How to be wise Try doing Leo's self-observation. Whilst i'm sure it is an effective technique, Neti-neti can be a little too rigid at times. Also try cutting your session down to 20 minutes. 20 minutes is easily doable. The key is to get the habit in place. So you've gotta do it for long enough that sitting down just becomes part of your normal daily routine. Also very doable.

@Costa7 I briefly researched it a while back. Potentially legitimate technique, although i'd say the risk of damaging your eyes is not worth the benefits (if any). I can't say for certain though. It could really be very beneficial, who knows. If you want real changes to the body and 'person', there any many other much more powerful techniques you could be doing that don't come with any potential risk.

@Shiva I'm pretty sure that's not how you're meant to go about it. Those are all just concepts and beliefs. Maybe a better approach would be... “...when you look at an object, you immediately know what it is. But beyond this information, what is it? What is it really, as itself, for itself, without having any use or meaning for you?”

@Dantas What kind of meditation practise have you been doing?

@Ilya Just read it. It's possibly the best book on Leo's list. And do all of the exercises!

@Telepresent Although if you got stabbed or you got stung by a wasp, then you'd say "you stabbed me!", and "it stung me!". What you're saying is definitely correct, although as many have pointed out, and i'm sure you know, there is no controller or user of the body. But you're right in the sense that we do believe we are the controllers of our bodies. However, we also think we are our bodies, it just depends on the circumstance. The ego moulds itself to the situation, which we've become so accustomed to that it seems normal. Sometimes we are our bodies, and sometimes we think we are controlling the body.

Avoid asking other people for answers to your inquiry, unless the question is about the process itself. You've got to figure these things out for yourself. That's the whole point.

@Fuse You gotta take is slow and start implementing one or two new good habits. Don't try to do loads of personal development at once, because you won't succeed. Try to start doing some regular exercise. 20, 15, or even just 10 minutes of running each morning. Make it into a habit. Exercise is great at giving you that extra focus and motivation. That's what I found anyway. Try to clean up your diet as well. You don't have to go too extreme with this. Just cutting out all junk food will make a big difference. Clearly you've got to start cutting down on the porn. It's definitely not doing you any good. Download a website blocker and give yourself a limited amount of time on the internet each day. Gradually reduce the amount of time you spend on these sites. You don't have to completely cut it out, but just put in the effort to cut down. Sometimes you've just got to discipline yourself. No one else is gonna do it for you. Try replacing atleast some of the time spent watching porn with other activities like reading, listening to audiobooks, meditating, walking, journaling, watching useful and interesting videos or documentaries.

No no no! You DO believe you know what you are. If you didn't know what you are, then you would not be asking these questions. An intellectual not knowing is vaastly different from a real genuine experiential not knowing. That's very important to understand. So yes of course you are still identified with something. Most likely your body and your mind, and not the chair your sitting on. A while ago Leo said in other post something like 'put yourself in an imaginary situation where you've got a gun to your head, and the person holding the gun is gonna' pull the trigger unless you honestly tell them what the hell you think you are.' Put yourself in that situation. I mean, it's fairly obvious that you're identified with the body/mind, unless you are actually awake. My guess is that your not though. Just be honest with yourself. It's very important that you try to get very clear about what you believe yourself to be. You also need to get the idea of 'reaching that nothingness' out of your head. There's no going anywhere! It's all right here, right now.

@Ilya Sit down. Put aside all your life concerns and focus all of your attention on the inquiry for the period of time you choose. Commit to putting all your energy into it for this period. Like honestly, really commit to it. Don't be lazy. When you're mind wanders, which it will, don't judge yourself, but bring your attention right back to the inquiry. Set a simple but, more importantly, genuine intention to become conscious of what you are, believe in your intention and believe that it can be done. Really cultivate a desire to know what you are. Then, bring your attention to the present moment. Get real focused and concentrated on the present moment and the process of observation (i.e. self-observation). Take a minute or so to just observe what it is in your direct experience. Realise that there isn't anything but your direct experience. So anything else that you think might exist is just a concept. Then, ask yourself 'What Am I?'. Get a real, honest, genuine, answer. What do you honestly think you are right now. Honestly! Right now! Put aside all ideas and beliefs about what you are that you might have heard from Leo or read about on this forum. I say 'put aside' because your conceptual understanding of what you are is necessary in order to avoid wasting lots of time. But for the purposes of your inquiry, put everything aside, and start from scratch as though you've never heard of Nothingness or Consciousness or whatever. All you need is your direct experience. When you have a genuine and really honest answer about what you think you are, then contemplate it. Can this thing, a body, a thought, a feeling, or whatever, be what I am? Is this thing I am aware of what I truly am? And obviously you don't just question your beliefs once, you question them many many many times.

@Joseph Maynor You should focus on 2 or 3 at a time. Don't be trying to do all of those things at once, it'll never work.

@Juan Cruz Giusto Yes Ralston! Clearly some people don't understand sarcasm ahaha.

Yes unless you actually directly experience the sensations flickering in and out, then reality does appear to be constant. That's what 99.99999% of people believe they are experiencing - a solid, continuous, material reality. Yes, each individual time you perceive something solid such as the body, it's a completely new moment of consciousness. But this is difficult to grasp experientially, unless you've done a bunch of intense insight meditation and trained your perceptive abilities to perceive the individual frames of reality. But you have to go by what you're directly experiencing right now. So you're correct in saying that it does feel constant. Self-honesty is crucial. Move on from thinking about the solidity of the sensations. Instead, ask yourself, what is aware of the constant, solid feeling of the sensations? If you're perceiving the sensations of your body, just like any other perception, then can it be what you are? This takes repeated, repeated questioning, so don't expect to 'get it' straight away.

When it comes to visualisations, i'm sure that sitting down to specifically visualise something can certainly be very beneficial and helpful towards achieving your goals. However, not only is this quite a challenging habit to put in place, but if your serious enough about your life purpose and have a juicy enough vision, visualising it should and will be an automatic process. You'll just be thinking about it all of the time. You shouldn't need to carve out a small portion of your day to be thinking about your vision.

@Anton I've been on this forum for about a year now, and i'd say the most common life purpose that people tend to write posts about is related to spirituality and personal development in some way. Then again, there's certainly a good amount of people whose life purpose is not related to these things. My point being that I do think a large number of people, as you said, fall into the trap of valuing spirituality and self-help purely because they have really connected with Leo's content etc. But that's not to say that this applies to you. You're interest in these areas may really be genuine. If you have some cool ideas about how to share your wisdom of spirituality and self-help, then go for it. Just remember that life purpose is a very very long term thing. It's not like you just decide on a life purpose now and then it all falls into place and goes to plan. Chances are, your life purpose and your values will change and mould over time. The main thing, in my opinion, is to keep the intention set to find your life purpose. As Leo said in the course, make it your life purpose to find your life purpose.

Just to clarify, I wasn't criticising your comment. I'm genuinely interested in what going ALL IN would actually entail. Was wondering what Leo's thoughts are on this. Signing up to a monastery is certainly one option, as it's much more structured and disciplined. There are downsides of this though, such as not being able to do psychedelics. Doing a bunch of solo retreats, combined with intense daily practise and psychedelics might be the better option. But then theres the problem of having to pay bills etc.

What would going ALL IN actually consist of, in practical sense?

@art I'm very jealous! Haven't been to any of Ralston's workshops myself. Will definitely be interested to hear how it all goes!