InDaZone

what do you do if your in this position? It can be really tough to make critical life decisions when you feel like this. Over the last few years, I've been developing myself by meditation, getting rid of bad habits, changing my lifestyle etc. But I still feel this way mostly, even though I've got a much better understanding of my own mind and I've come a long way. Ive begun to see the ego and its ways in daily life. I've begun to see it as a primitive early warning system that can alert me to things I then try and use a higher level of thinking to analyse what it has produced. Which is mostly bullshit delusions to be honest. I don't really know what the purpose of this post is! lol. Just putting it out there to see if others can empathise / advise. Thanks for reading.

@Saba I think I see what your saying. Why are our minds like this when it's clearly not in our best interest to be that way? What i take from your previous comment, is our minds are that way because they are trying to give us immediate pleasure / instant gratification to make us feel better about whatever situation we are in. If our minds are so deceptive (which I have no doubt that they are) how do we weed out the useful things from the bullshit?

@eskwire I'm the same friend, things have got a lot better and I'm a lot more conscious of these types of thoughts patterns now than I used to be, which can't be a bad thing. I just think it's ridiculous how the often the mind seemingly gets it wrong.

So true, sometimes I look at the mind and I just be like "what the fuck are you spouting that nonsense for?" it makes absolutely no sense sometimes.

@Paul Newcomb I would recommend the book liminal thinking by Dave Gray. It's a really good book about beliefs and an easy read.

@Venus that's a good question - I don't have the personal experience to back up my answer yet, but I'm inclined to say that the way to do it, would be to accept and love it to death. In a way its like training a child, you need to show it over and over again that there is nothing to fear.

Hi Guys, I'm new here, although I have been following Leos videos for quite a while now. I have been meditating for about 1.5 years now. Mostly, I employ my own type of meditation method for the majority of my practice. The gist of which involves sitting in the present moment and becoming aware of my thoughts, emotions and sensations whilst trying to not attach to any of them i.e. when I notice they have pulled my attention away, I acknowledge this and bring my awareness back to observing the present moment unfolding in my experience. This I see as being a form of insight meditation. Recently, I find that I need to start giving some focus (pun intended) to concentration meditation i.e. focusing on the breath as I tend to have trouble concentrating at times. I also would like to develop a regular self-inquiry practice possibly using Leos method that he eludes to in this forum. My issue is, how do I go about scheduling these 3 methods into my daily life without neglecting either one? Has anybody on here done this successfully and could offer their advice? Thanks in advance

Ah yes, I have seen that video but didn't connect it with your acronym. I haven't actually tried it yet, but will absolutely consider giving it a go in the near future. Sounds like the perfect thing to do early on a Saturday morning once in a while What the longest amount of time you managed to do SDS for?

Your post has hit home with me as I have recently just embarked on a journey of finding and questioning my beliefs so I feel that I can chip in to help you with your predicament. Like Hulz says, figuring out what triggers you emotionally is what will help you figure out your underlying beliefs. When this happens in day to day life, note that what the situation was, and then when you get time to yourself, sit down formally and brainstorm ideas as to what the underlying belief might signify within you. After I had a possible set of beliefs written down for a given situation, I tried making a counterpoint for each. The thing about beliefs is that they are just a perspective and there is always another way of looking at them that could be a more positive representation of reality. Another thing that I tried to do, was to apply the Lefkoe method to the belief. I did this on myself and didn't actually pay for a trained specialist to do this for me. This helps me gain further perspective on the belief and see it as something "I created unconsciously" and not something that is an absolute truth, so to speak. I think what really helps, is to really analyze and scrutinize the belief and figure out whether it really makes sense. Often you will find that they can be quite irrational. When doing your brainstorm for possible beliefs, you will probably end up coming up with a lot of surface beliefs. This is good, and these should be scrutinized too, but don't forget to drill down into them to find the "root cause" of the belief. These are often represented by a deep fear like the fear of being lonely, rejected, embarrassed etc. and will probably offer the most "bang for your buck" in terms of removing them from your subconscious. It's still early days for me in this process, but these are the things I have come up so far and I hope they help you out.

@Danielle Thanks for the comment, I heard that Self-Inquiry is actually meant to be kind of an informal practice to be done as and when you see fit. So I will probably have to try and start being a bit more disciplined throughout the day with this sort of practice I can see the value in doing it as a sitting practice as well though and although I have never actually sat for a full session and tried it out, I could imagine it being quite intense (in a really good useful way). What is the SDS practice you mentioned in your post if you don't mind me asking?

@Delinkaaaa thanks Delinkaa, I appreciate the advice. Nice to meet a fellow Greenhorn around here btw . I see what you are saying and that's actually what I have been pretty much doing up to this point, and it has served me well. I will continue to do what feels best, many thanks.

@John thanks for the comment. I'm a fan of Shinzen Young but I haven't studied much of his material. This seems reasonable, what about Self-Inquiry however? I mean you could draw a parallel between the concentration aspects, but self-inquiry seems to be a whole other ball game. I was thinking about taking a more structured approach and trying to switch up self-inquiry with my normal practice day by day, and then do some concentration meditation at night time.

I absolutely see where you are going with this and concur that it is very easy to see it as a demonic enemy within yourself. I suppose though, at the same time, it isn't healthy to think this way as it means that we will end up resisting / pushing away the ego, which will in turn just make it stronger like others have pointed out. No doubt though, that it is important to watch out for certain "ego delusions" within your mind so that you don't fall victim to them.