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@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!

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.