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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!

I'm pretty sure they do work, but like most things, some people will be better suited to them than others. I've read reports of people having big emotional releases while using binaural beats. I'd say that for most people they will have some effect, even if it's just making you a little more relaxed and calm during your meditation.

Be mindful of what this 'thing' ACTUALLY is. Is it a thought of something in your brain? A feeling? An intuitive sense? Is there actually anything there at all? But if you're experiencing it, how can it be you?

I'd say all your focus needs to be on the self-inquiry, rather than trying to deal with the pains and discomforts of maintaining a super-fixed posture. You can still get very concentrated even when you allow yourself to move about a little bit. But like everything, there's a balance.

Yes I find this as well. Just the nature of insight, I assume. Sometimes the insights stay fresh much longer though, days or even weeks.

If you're not being aware then you're just sitting with your eyes closed. The whole point of meditation is to be aware, particularly of your thoughts.

@CuteCornDog A lot of what you think are ingrained traits will actually just be limiting beliefs. Atleast that's what i've found from personal experience. In the case of being bad at conversing with people it's likely that you're really not as bad as you think. Often we'll have a few bad experiences early on in our lives and these will snowball into fully formed beliefs about who we are. The early experiences create the limiting belief, which then makes that particular behaviour more likely to happen, which then that reinforces the belief, etc etc. So be aware of this, and really think about whether this trait of 'I have bad conversation skills' is really true all the time. Do you have bad conversation skills with your parents? Or your best mates? Probably not. I do get where you coming from though. I have had a similar issue to what you're describing in the past, and i'm still working on it to some degree. Firstly as I said before, you've gotta' realise that you're probably not as bad as you think, so just relax! Secondly, people really don't give a shit, and if they do they probably just think you're a little shy. Nothing wrong with that. Here are some practical tips; Ask a lot of questions. Questions are easy to ask, and most people like answering them. Change your mindset to a growth mindset. Realise that you're ability to converse is something that can very easily be improved. I'm telling you, it's not a fixed thing. Just tell yourself that perfectly fine to not be that good at conversing, but with some practise you'll definitely improve. I know that my social skills are bad sometimes, but I also know that it's because i'm simply out of practise. Personally I find it's all about the mindset. As soon as I realised that my social skills changed over time, depending on how much socialising I do, the limiting belief dropped away. I have also found that an increase in mindfulness has helped a lot too. It's so important to be aware and mindful of your thoughts, particularly after a social situation where you think you might have said something wrong or stupid etc, like "Why did I say that?!", or "I should have said this not that!". Anyway, hope this helped!

What are you expecting to happen from doing 30 minutes a day? It's great that your meditating, but don't be expecting some crazy results. Definitely combine it with strong determination sitting, and try to move up to an hour an day. Also, as Leo has said many times, go on retreat and do 70-100 hours straight. Then you'll get a taste of what meditation can do for you.

The main things you need to focus on with the Do Nothing technique are; let go of all control and intention to do anything EXCEPT whilst also maintaining a completely non-judgmental awareness of what is going on. Yes technically this is doing something, but it's very important that you remain aware and don't have a lazy, unfocused attitude. But getting lost in thought is just part of the process, atleast in the beginning. It's always going to happen until you become a much better meditator. There's no stopping it by force, you have to slowly re-wire your brain. Don't get annoyed or frustrated when you realise that you've been unconsciously lost in thought. That realisation is the most important part! As soon as you realise you've been lost in thought, bring your attention back to the present, be hyper aware, and do nothing. Easy!

It's not a big deal that you're controlling the breath. It's perfectly normal in fact. It takes a lot of practise to get to a point where you can just observe it without interfering, so don't expect it to be the case right from the beginning.

@Youssef As bad as it may seem, it's most likely a sign of growth. Try to stay mindful of the experiences. Atleast you know that the techniques are working for you. If things get worse, I would recommend going to the forum on www.dharmaoverground.org. That forum focuses a lot more on insight meditation and the various stages, with a load of very experienced practitioners who will be able to give you some good advice.

Don't just accept what someone else has told you. Chances are you don't have any idea what you are so 'Nothingness' is just another concept. Unless you're directly conscious of what you are, which may or may not be nothingness, you need to throw out all your ideas and beliefs.

@Leo Gura I have a question. Should I be actively trying to grasp the fact that I really don't know what I am, or is a deep not-knowing just a sort of bi-product of the process that comes without intentional effort?

@Shan Amazing post, thanks for sharing!

Wow I didn't expect so much close-mindedness in the comments.

@john5170 Well I don't think he's enlightened, no. But he's is just a normal guy. The crazy talking etc is all done for laughs. There's one or two interviews of him talking about why he does it on Youtube.

Just by focusing on something isn't likely to result in loosening your identification with it. You have to question it and question it and question it, over and over again if necessary. Ask yourself things like, if i'm able to perceive this sensation then how can it be what I am? Or, what is aware of this sensation? Or, is this sensation being aware of itself? It's great that you're clear about what you believe you are, but you've gotta keep going back to it with repeated questioning. If you do this the identification with loosen. But it shouldn't take too long to realise that you can't possibly be a sensation. Try dis-identifying from your whole body!

@John I am guilty of this too. I suppose it is a fear of being judged.

Depends what their definition of enlightenment is. If they regard enlightenment as the level of consciousness that the Buddha had, or maybe some of the really deeply enlightened masters, then sure it's very very difficult. But it isn't impossible. Although in truth I don't know. There's a really good book on Leo's booklist by the author D.I. who mentions this issue of people in the spiritual community not talking about enlightenment.

@nexusoflife Why don't you quit your job? Or atleast try to work part-time?