ardacigin

That is why I'm writing these posts in the first place. I'm glad some people are actually listening and starting the practices. I also find that stable attention is very important in working with techniques like self enquiry as it helps to build instrospective, peripheral and extrospective awareness to a high degree. Concentration matters in this path. Don't listen to folks who say 'just sit and try to be aware. Don't effort so much.' The Soto zen mindset. That mindset will be true in the future. There is a time to put effort and there is also a time to ease up on effort. The beginning stages of meditation musn't be about easing up effort. It must be about developing stable attention with awareness through effort. This Soto zen mindset will become MUCH more effective once you get to a stage of attentional development called 'effortless attention'. This is a neurological marker of advanced samadhi practice described in stage 7 in Culadasa's meditation manual. All practice after this stage is called insight practices. Things like self enquiry falls into this category. But the way to come to this is put in the effort and build the stable concentration. Culadasa says that once you master this skill, you'll become a better meditator than most meditators with decades of experience who hadn't developed stable attention and consequently struggled having any tangible mystical insights. The samadhi practice thins out sensory experience so that you can penetrate to its non-dual nature with insight practices like noting or self enquiry.

You are welcome. Let me know your thoughts about Culadasa after watching the video.

He is one of the more materialistic spiritual teachers out there due to his scientific training. He doesn't consider awakening as an absolute truth (as his teacher Sasaki Roshi does). Shinzen thinks that the investigation of truth must be done in the domain of science with scientific methods, not through direct experience in consciousness. He also makes a distinction between objectivity and subjectivity. These are dualistic notions coming from his scientific training. He feels the need to make the distinction that all of his insights pertain to the sensory experience, not reality. I guess that Leo would say that this attitude towards the sensory experience is a result of insufficient insight towards the nature of perception. Leo thinks that some of Shinzen's insights are not fully matured and materialistic in essence. Culadasa views reality and truth more in tune from Leo's perspective. There is a truth to be gleaned about the nature of reality. That truth can be gleaned with consciousness work. That truth is not materialistic but non-dualist in essence.

Leo, I understand this argument. It makes total sense. But when it comes to spiritual attunement and awakening, we are not talking about different species. What you extrapolate from the calculus example makes sense in the context of a donkey and a human's ability to learn math. Obviously, there are different. You can't find even one donkey who can do calculus. But within human beings, there is a vast degree of success in awakening. And when it comes to human beings, there are a lot of people who can both train and get awakening. (This is not less than 1% of seekers. In fact, the majority). And people who train less (or none) and still get there due to spiritual talent. (This seems to be more in minority). Saying that spiritual talent is the secret sauce and its lack severely limits your capacity, rate and ability for awakening and then saying that training and environment is only a thin veneer is a mistaken statement in my opinion. Don't only look at spiritual attainment from the perspective of deep psychedelic insights. Those? Maybe, talent matters a lot. But take it a step back. How much talent is required for concentrating on an object continuously for 60 seconds straight? Very little. This is a skill you develop. The silent mind? A result of more practice. Self enquiry success? For majority of the people, the result of practice, some amount of momentary attunement and luck. By saying this sort of a thing, you also discourage people from trying. This is perfectly doable by almost ANYONE who practices diligently and patiently. This is what I meant by Shinzen Young's case study. Even if he is not the most enlightened guy in the world, his beginning point is really inspirational. And don't underestimate his achievements from that shaky foundation. His insight into perception and sensory experience is problematic, sure! But he can do 4 hours of SDS sits weeks in a row. And that was decades ago. He had stream entry only 4 years into the training. The permanent deal. Someone can easily say this is because he was spiritually talented but I don't think brushing off training is the correct mindset here. This guy was was only a little different from your average Joe prior to zen training. Consider how awake he would be if he flipped burgers at McDonald's vs living in a monastery meditating 10+ hours a day. How can you downplay training and environment so much? Human beings have similar brains. Not perfectly similar but mostly similar. It is not like a donkey's and human's brain. If humans who train their minds get awakening and progress, so can 'most' people. Not everyone, maybe. But most people will make it work as long as they stick to it. Otherwise, this absurdly turns into a victim mentality.

How is your relationship to pain and suffering? Really interested in your insights. How do you intuitively react when you do a long meditation sit where pain is really getting noticeable in your legs? Also, would you describe stream-entry as 'self-boundaries' disappearing forever? No longer identifying your sense of self as where your skin ends and the 'outer' world starts?

But Leo, I don't understand why you make such a statement. So many people get seriously enlightened using techniques and training methods. Even @Natasha who seems to have spiritual talent had done it using self enquiry. Without any practice, spiritual talent may or may not pan out. And relying on it and throwing in the towel is not a smart move. How can training be 'thin vineer'? That is too much of an extreme statement when clearly there is a difference between meditators and non-meditators. Very rarely can someone get seriously enlightened (beyond stream entry) without any practice. Some amount of training is essential even in spiritually talented individuals. And again, just refer back to Shinzen's childhood. I don't see an inkling of potential talent there. And look where practice got him now. How can you view training as not essential?

The permanent deal, right? In that case, that may be an indication. You were still using a technique. Especially self enquiry which is a fairly successful insight practice. But the fact that you did it quickly can definitely be the result of spiritual talent. How was your level of concentration prior to awakening? How did it change afterwards?

Some people definitely have these sort of spiritual experiences. And it can be an indication. But this talent business has to do more with your ability to attain samadhi and spiritual insights with relative ease. Is your mind more attuned to concentrated states? How much practice do you have to do to get to a no-mind state? Have you had insight experiences in meditation? These are better questions to ask to figure out how spiritually talented you are. Unless there is a radical difference compared to an average meditator with these metrics, you don't have a significant talent advantage. Just keep doing the practices like everyone else and you'll get there

Without ANY training? Stream entry is possible and happens people occasionally without any training. But superhuman levels of consciousness without any training doesn't sound plausible to me. I wonder who these people are. What are their names?

In this training method, surrender and faith (effortlessness) come after making a lot of effort. Like Stage 7 in Culadasa's book. That is the paradox. Otherwise, surrender techniques have the potential to initiate a lot of monkey mind and distractions.

In what context, do you ask the question? Do you mean it as a scientific term or a spiritual one? Homeostasis is inherently an egoic survival metric in spiritual terms. It is the ego's ability to protect its scope of shell. The more aware, awake and open you get, the less homeostasis you have.

I don't have that much experience in psychedelics compared to Leo. But I can understand how certain techniques like TMI and noting practices can appear too restricting and mechanical. From one perspective, they are. The psychedelic path might give that impression for some people. But it is mostly because the technique is not applied with expected results ( where you actually start to tap into psychedelic naturally). Then the technique that reliably got you into that state will appear very different. Not mechanical as someone else can perceive. Similar to Leo's relativity insight, one's perception of mechanical and dynamic is relative. Relative to what? Relative to results one gets from using that technique. That is why Leo really recommends the psychedelic path because it gets results. And Leo also uses psychedelics responsibly. That is very important. He integrates meditation with psychedelics. His insight wisdom comes from psychedelics mainly and he works on developing samadhi with insights in non-psychedelic meditation. At least, that is the impression he gives me. I think that is a solid path if you can balance the two properly. When it comes to techniques, people should do what works. I have my own preferences but I wouldn't force anyone to go through that path if they are not willing to do it. I might recommend and guide if asked but I wouldn't force people or declare a spiritual technique as VASTLY superior to others They all have advantages and disadvantages. They all can lead to dead ends if not careful.

Spiritual talent is one's degree of ability to attain both samadhi and spiritual insights (no-self, emptiness etc.) with relative ease. Some people's personalities, brain types and intentions are more in tune with spiritual attainments and high states of concentration. These people start at a higher baseline than other meditators. Again, don't get me wrong here. I don't posit that spiritual talent doesn't exist. It is just not a show stopper considering the vast importance of diligence and effort.

There are 2 fundamentally different ways of knowing one's sensory experience. 1- Attention 2- Awareness All meditation instructions implicitly or explicitly tell you to harmonize your sensory experience to either inside and/or outside using attention and awareness in various degrees. This includes vipassana, do nothing, self inquiry, yoga, mantra and koan practices. Stable attention is a very important sub-set of attentional skillset. It is the ability to direct and sustain the focus of attention, and control the scope of attention. Without this skill firmly established as a foundation, one's journey towards discovering what is true about themselves and reality will be frustrating and tiring. Our ordinary consciousness favors moving attention rather than stable attention. This is the fundamental reason why meditation is intrinsically challenging to every beginner meditator. Our default operating model of sensory experience relies on our ability to scan the environment for survival purposes. Monkey mind and distractions exist because of this very reason. Without developing stable attention, one's ability to transcend these distractions will be significantly decreased. You want to get to a place where intentionally directed and sustained attention results in cessation of moving attention. Eventually, you want this to happen automatically and effortlessly. We develop stable attention to have really strong peripheral awareness. Peripheral awareness is the mode of knowing once stable attention is firmly established. Its mode of operation can be introspective and/or extrospective. Introspective awareness is one's awareness of inner thoughts, mind states, bodily sensations, emotions, memories and self-referential symbols. Self-inquiry is more effective once you develop this aspect of peripheral awareness. Extrospective awareness is one's awareness of external visuals, sounds, and physical sensations. Mindfulness in daily life can be more easily sustained once you develop this aspect of peripheral awareness. As a skilled meditator, your major objective is to get to a place where you can infuse introspective and extrospective awareness with stable attention effortlessly. While doing so, you must keep in mind to develop three related skills as a part of your training: 1- Equanimity: The skill of non-reactivity to pain and pleasure. Apply this attitude to your practice. 2- Sensory Clarity: The is the penetrating quality of awareness. The sharper and deeper the peripheral awareness gets, the more you are likely to have an awakening experience. 3- Compassion: This is your emotional ability to shatter dualistic notions and perceive the 'other' as 'yourself'. As you get more intimate with pain in long meditation sessions, the more you'll develop compassion for human beings as a whole. You can supplement your practice with 'loving kindness' techniques. This is it. The fundamentals of meditation might appear simple but it takes years of dedicated and diligent work to get results. By practicing with these principles in mind, one's spiritual practice will stop being luck-based but merely time-based. The more you practice deliberately, the deeper your understanding and comprehension of truth will become. Much love, Arda Cigin

I remember this. It's been years since I've done that 'checking in' method .I don't like that technique and it is a temporary stage method. Kind of like 'labeling' is a transition technique towards 'silent noting'. Its main purpose is to strengthen our introspective awareness for dullness and distractions. The main problem is that attention alternates to check in with the mind which means you lose the breath in that period of time. And once you come back, there is a 'waiting' period where the concentration tries to go back to its former glory. It is better to do this 'check-in' with awareness and while maintaining breath attention. In fact, you'll eventually get to a point where distractions and dullness can't arise because there is constant introspective awareness checking in for any threats towards potential distractions. I remember labeling and noting practices in Stage 3. They are not only solid techniques for advanced practice but they SERIOUSLY develop awareness and sensory clarity. But again, stable attention must be TOP tier to really get traction with these techniques. I'd peg these at post stage 7. But hey! Since Culadasa instructs noting practices to people at around Stage 3-4, so give it a go. Do you remember my post on Shinzen Young's 'Gone' technique? That is how I've really developed some awareness in stage 4, 5 and 6. So maybe try working with Shinzen and Daniel Ingram a little bit. Culadasa's instructions on noting is not the clearest and easiest to apply. But make sure to ALWAYS anchor the attention with the breath as Culadasa instructs. Then you'll see how effective noting can get. Also, dullness and distractions are very important. Make sure to meditate closed eyes for now and really try to develop that introspective awareness while maintaining clear, bright and continuous attention to the breath. At this point, I remember not caring about stable attention to develop awareness and I had some mixed results. It is better to start awareness development AFTER the breath is stable and is relatively effortless (not fully). So stage 5-6 is better. For stage 3-4, focus more on stable attention until dullness kicks in. That is the indication to expand the awareness. The good news is that you'll more easily sway away distractions due to emphasis on slightly more exclusive attention to the breath. Try to find a balance like this. First get to stable attention, increase the conscious power of mindfulness and then slowly expand the awareness.

If you've never had insight-like dramatic experiences with self inquiry yet, then I'd recommend developing stable attention first. Use that 1 hour to do this practice and add extra 5-10 mins for self enquiry. You don't have to do it a lot but use that samadhi state to your advantage. Concentration is detailed oriented and it contracts so it is more egoic. That is correct. Awareness is the expansive side of consciousness. It is more wholesome, context-sensitive and big picture-oriented.

Just to give you my own personal experiences (for further motivation): I remember the first time I've delved in deep into stable attention on the tip of the nose for a few hours straight with Culadasa's instructions. This wasn't in a formal session. Just casual but consistent stability of attention in daily life. There were constant problems with dullness and distractions but overall it was fairly stable with sufficient awareness. I've almost spent the entire day with stable and bright attention to the breath as I'm going through simple life activities. I felt like: 'Holy fuck! Everything feels different. It took a lot of effort but it seems like the breath attention stays there. It's been hours and it is still fairly stable. And it is bright. Not dull and shaky. Let me just be vigilant with potential dullness and distractions.' And of course, I got cocky and lost the momentum a few hours later. Then it got challenging again to go back to stable attention. I've struggled with it a few days afterward as well. But this was my first DEEP dive into stable attention. Looking back on it, my awareness was very weak and I was actually in subtle dullness thinking that mindfulness of the breath was bright. Also, there were subtle distractions even in this peak state. But the fact that I was able to maintain stable attention for hours was actually impressive considering that I was only meditating seriously for about 2 years with Culadasa's methods. To do that now, either I need to lock into effortlessness or REALLY apply myself to maintain mindfulness in daily life. I can do it now with more powerful mindfulness but back then, that was a really challenging thing to do. After I've tasted the potential, I have gone deeper and deeper. Now I'm really happy I did that. It was challenging and took a lot of effort but now my baseline concentration is elevated and even when my concentration wavers, I can quickly get it back to a high level and maintain it effortlessly. And the good news is that awareness-based insight practices (described after stage 7 in Culadasa's book) are easier and VERY enjoyable to do. These techniques are similar to self-inquiry and noting practices. Just keep in mind, pre-stage 10, the concentration will not always be MAXED out all the time That is not a requirement for awakening but it is crucial for deep mindfulness integration in daily life. So it is a long term smart investment. That is basically stage 10 mastery in Culadasa's book. It is fairly challenging and that sort of mastery might require 5-10 years depending on how skilled you are at maintaining effortlessly stable attention in HIGLY demanding tasks like working in a business or speaking to people. That is a significant challenge for me as a solid stage 7 practitioner. I've done it a few times sparingly but as the task requires more thinking, the more challenging it gets to maintain stable attention with clear awareness. Anyways, hope this is inspirational

Here is a really good video about how to meditate explained by Culadasa himself. I also added Shinzen Young's teachings a little with my style in this post but essentially he talks about the same things in this video.

First of all, consider yourself lucky. Your job puts you in a great position to practice mindfulness. I have a business myself so it makes everything slightly more complicated. It takes a lot of strategy and skill to maintain mindfulness in creative endeavors. Life's purpose has its price. Leo doesn't seem to emphasize this. Look on the bright side of everything. Now as to the stability of attention, this is no joke. I want you to consider that people who meditate for over 10+ years struggle with this simply because they don't put enough emphasis on sustained attention. These people casually do self enquiry, noting and do nothing sort of practices but if they are REALLY honest with themselves, their attention constantly moves around in meditation and peripheral awareness takes a significant hit because of it. And without clear awareness, awakening is a pipe dream for many people. That is why someone who meditates and does kriya yoga for 20+ years can still struggle to watch their breath for more than 30 mins without distractions. The skill you need to accomplish such a feat is stable attention. You pick 1 meditation object. Rest your attention there until it becomes effortless. Meanwhile, you expand the awareness and develop the 3 related skills I've discussed in this post. Culadasa teaches the breath as a meditation object. And it is VERY effective for MANY people. There is a reason why breath practice is not only taught in Kriya yoga but also taught as a common entry point to meditation worldwide. Even before koan work, zen tradition tends to give simplified breath practices for beginners to create some momentum of concentration. Take stability of attention very seriously. You can DEEPLY master this skill in 3-5 years if you follow Culadasa's book. Considering that people still struggle with stable attention after 10-20 years, this is a HUGE time saver. This is what I'd call deliberate practice. Actually, you'd also develop the other important skills by doing the techniques right and go all the way up to Stage 7-10 described in his book. Just remember that stable attention is only a part of this puzzle. Only concentration practices will lead to a dead end. You need to add other practices after you get skilled in stable attention. Dry insight practitioners like Peter Ralston may not emphasize concentration but these people actually have VERY high levels of stable attention. All enlightened individuals can concentrate very well. Read Culadasa's book in its entirety. You can apply his techniques in your job. I can personally do it in similar circumstances where my CPU is not required for the task at hand. This is a fundamental skill you need to meditate properly. Start developing stable attention and then you'll see the difference yourself. It is like a whole new world opens up.

Exactly. That is correct but the subjective experience from a meditator's perspective will be as if there is inner and outer awareness. Until that distinction goes away in your experience, you must continue to meditate with these instructions. Otherwise, it will only be a partially true insight in the form of a subtle memory. You'll know when the sense of self goes away. But even then there will still be some remnant of inside and outside. Stream entry is still the first stage of awakening. Transcending inner and outer FULLY and PERMANENTLY will take many decades. Knowing the theory is good but don't put the cart before the horse. In that mindset, all distinction, meditation instruction, techniques are unnecessary and pointless on the path of spirituality. That mindset is like 'just sit and bask in silence' sort of technique where there doesn't appear to be explicit instructions but the zen master still expects you to figure out the technique yourself and have certain experiences. There is always a technique even in 'bask in silence' or 'do nothing'. You still manipulate introspective and extrospective awareness according to the desired outcome regardless of whether that is awakening or samadhi. You manipulate introspective and extrospective awareness until they fuse into one and become indistinguishable. That is where you want to go. So you are right. But remember that effortlessness tends to come smoothly after we make a lot of effort. That is the paradox of insight-oriented samadhi practice. There is a time for making distinctions and eliminating distinctions. There is also a time for putting a lot of effort and easing up on effort. Knowing what to do when is the true mark of wisdom. For this, you can check out Leo's insightful video on 'Sameness and Difference'.

I've recently read a fantastic article on the reasons for not doing a vipassana retreat if you are not a skilled meditator. This article really condensed my opinions on the matter. https://medium.com/@maxmarmer/what-is-the-point-of-meditation-and-why-you-should-not-do-a-vipassana-retreat-920edb8aaf22 In my vocabulary, a skilled meditation practitioner is someone who can access Stage 7 levels of concentration and awareness in Culadasa's model with relative ease. You don't have to be perfect at it but you need to consistently access such levels of mindfulness when you apply yourself. Also, physical and mental pliancy of the nervous system has to be developed to a high level so that you can go through grueling 60 mins long sessions back to back with little to no break. These are things a 1-2 year long meditator can't do. Even 3-5 year long meditators may really struggle with this schedule. But 3-5 year long meditators can generally take on the challenge of a retreat if they have practiced skillfully and diligently. These skills require time to develop as the article eludes to. I want you to think of these hardcore retreats as serious marathon challenges. This includes solo retreats Leo does with 10+ hours of daily sittings. In fact, what Leo does is harder than a mainstream vipassana retreat. If a runner doesn't assess their skills to be sufficient to survive a long marathon, they take more time to develop their skills. They don't go balls to the wall and say: 'Let's see what happens'. You should be careful before taking on such challenges. Leo can do it, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can. (yet) Doing 10+ hours of sits back to back in a day is going to result in frustration and waste of precious time/energy as a beginner practitioner. You might say: Can I learn from such an experience even if I'm a beginner? Yes. Of course, you can. But imagine how much growth you'd have if you could actually follow the meditation instructions as they were designed by master meditators. A beginner tends to experience monkey mind for about 70-80% of the time in a 60 mins sit. These people also experience distracted moving attention, non-clear sensory sensitivity, little to no equanimity and weak awareness. Imagine doing 10 more of these in a day. Your meditation quality, patience, concentration and awareness will all take a SIGNIFICANT hit after 2-3 sessions back to back. Considering you didn't have much of these in the first place (as a baseline) really makes the problem worse. A skilled practitioner tends to experience deepening of concentration, sensory clarity, awareness and equanimity %80 of the time in a 60 mins sit. The exact opposite of a beginner meditator. After back to back sessions, even skilled meditators will get fatigued. But at this level, the nervous system is prepared to work with these sensations skillfully. You are expected to reliably do this in a vipassana retreat. At the end of the day, this person has a way higher chance of penetrating reality compared to the unskilled meditator. So these are my condensed thoughts on why it is a bad idea to go to a vipassana retreat as a beginner. Read that article as well and let me know your thoughts down below. Just to clarify, I take into account the time and energy one wastes as an opportunity cost while saying this. If you really have time to take 4-5 retreats like this in a year, then by all means, go for it. But the majority of the people tend to go to these retreats by making sacrifices. Expecting growth from it. Leaving their careers, friends and families. Maybe only taking a hardcore retreat once a year or two due to financial reasons. And as you continue to have bad experiences with these retreats, the less likely it gets to attend one the next year. I don't want beginners to develop an aversion to 10-day retreats. Here is a better alternative than retreats: For the first 1-2 years of practice, focusing on daily mindfulness integration with the stability of attention are one of the most fruitful things a beginner can do. The question must not be: 'How can I run away from my hectic daily life, save up money and go to a monastery to develop fundamental skills?' but rather: 'How can I practice smart, integrate the ethos of practice to daily life and develop the foundations RIGHT NOW, ALL THE TIME before I take on the challenge of a retreat?' Admittedly this requires more effort and strategic thinking. But that is why this mindset would be WAY more effective for a newbie than the mainstream value system. In the former mindset, the beginner meditator will be like: 'Well, this meditation is really hard and I can't really focus. Maybe this retreat I'll take a few months from now will help me get skilled and after that my daily practice and life integration will be silky smooth.' Well, it doesn't really work that way, does it? The peak samadhi states one experiences in retreat don't drip down into daily life 'silky smooth'. It takes diligent, intense and strategic practice to get there. That is why asking questions like: 'How can I turn my current life into a monastery feedback loop RIGHT NOW?' 'What is the reason why I can't easily meditate for long periods of time?' 'How many minutes do I spend in a 20 mins sit in monkey mind vs concentration?' 'Do I feel sleepy in meditation? How can I increase alertness once the dullness sets in?' 'What meditation technique suits me best? Am I a samadhi or insight-oriented individual? What are my weaknesses?' are better questions to ask for the first 1-2 years of practice. That is what I'd call deliberate practice. This is the primary reason I wanted to write this post. Hope it helps a little

Just 1 hour of sitting? But that is not the issue. Most meditators do 1-hour sessions as a daily practice. The challenge is doing 1 hour sessions 10-12 times back to back with little to no breaks in 24 hours. Just doing 1 hour do nothing doesn't prepare you for this marathon challenge. If you want to have serious awakening experiences by utilizing the intensity in retreats, you need to be comfortable with doing long sits back to back. If you train yourself like this, THEN you will REALLY be ready for retreat practice. This must be one's challenge: 'If I can do 60 mins sits back to back (with breaks like a retreat) 10 times in cross legged posture, AND go through the most of the sits with little to no suffering, high concentration, awareness and equanimity, THEN I'm ready for a retreat. If I can do this 1 day, then I can do 10 days back to back and have A LOT of growth in this retreat.' That must be your metric for skilled retreat practice. You are still talking about the beginner training metric.

Contrast to your first retreat, how were your latest ones? Have you experienced the difference of skilled perspective and beginner perspective one gets as I've described in the post? A retreat is fundamentally VERY different for various skill levels. Understanding that difference and working towards more growth per retreat must be a meditator's overarching strategy. That is what I've wanted to say in this article.

This following video is for people who try to understand the difference between 'experiential insights', theories and beliefs. Prior to understanding this, one needs to understand how we know what we know to be true. Here is a VERY short but high-quality video about what epistemology is all about. As described in the video, all human beings have implicit assumptions about what is considered as valid knowledge. What knowledge 'is' is already biased by our implicit assumptions about how we perceive language-based knowledge. Do you see language-based truth as relativistic social constructs? That is an epistemological claim. This mindset will make you curious about how non-language perception can be possible. This directly leads to investigation within spiritual methods like psychedelics and meditation. Do you see language-based truth and/or knowledge as something that is waiting to be discovered in the world out there? As an absolute? That is an epistemological claim. And this will turn into disdain of any method which doesn't involve scientific measurements. Because of this implicit assumption, many scientific people make fun of spiritual methods denying they can be valid ways of investigating reality. Hope this was a good intro to epistemology from a spiritual understanding. Let me know your thoughts down below.

Hello everyone. I wanted to share with you my practice for effective meditation. I've recently perfected how to reliably hit Stage 7+ samadhi in Culadasa's 'The Mind Illuminated' with self enquiry. Once you are there, you'll add the insight practice of self enquiry and hopefully make significant progress towards the first stage of permanent awakening: stream entry. I'm not a stream enterer yet but the reason I want to share this is that I've experienced temporary and VERY reliable no self insights while doing this exact method. Not just once but almost every time I sit. This is insane. This state I consistently hit prior to self enquiry is like a low dose LSD. How to check if you are ready for self inquiry: My method's check is visual and the room starts to lose its solid property slightly due to advanced breath concentration and clear extrospective awareness. If you experience that, it is the perfect time to start self enquiry. I just want to share the technique with you since I've experienced a lot of intelligent ways of practicing samatha supported self inquiry. My Method: 1- Start the session and quickly move towards Stage 7 in Culadasa's system. Here is how I do it. -- First, stabilize the attention to the breath at the tip of the nose for 20-30 seconds until it stays there with little to no effort. Do this without subtle dullness and energy loss. Follow the breath with bright clarity. (Make sure you are not meditating in very warm temperatures.) If you can't do this reliably, then you must practice more with Culadasa's system and develop sustained attentional skills. Read his book 'The mind illuminated' for details. Forget about self-inquiry before mastering this. Trust me. Samadhi developed Self inquiry is 50 times more effective than dry self-inquiry in my experience. (Although people still get enlightened without any samadhi practice. It is your choice in the end.) I presume you can reliably attain effortless breath attention in less than 10 mins. Once the access concentration is on this level, you need one more skill to do proper adept self enquiry practice. 2- Practice Extrospective Awareness with Shinzen Young's 'Gone' Technique. For this skill, drop the breath practice for now. This is the key part of the puzzle after mastering Culadasa's breath concentration. Once Culadasa gets you to master sustained attention, now it is time to develop adept levels of awareness. Introspective (inner) awareness is a solid choice as well (Body awareness etc.) but extrospective (outer) awareness of external sounds and visuals will be our technique here. If you don't know, google 'Shinzen Young's Gone Technique'. We won't label anything. The mind will ONLY notice the endings of external sounds. I HIGHLY recommend a piano piece where it is slow and the individual notes can be discerned. Endings in particular. If you are not into music, do it listening to Leo. Focus on 'goneness' every time Leo utters a word. You must develop awareness to a point where you can experience this at the end of most words regardless of how fast Leo speaks. You can label 'Gone' until you experience this and intuitively feel that you are 'access-concentration' with the sound. Also, do this technique with open eyes. Because we'll synthesize everything in the 3rd step. 3- Combine Breath Concentration with Extrospective Awareness with Visual Check. (IMPORTANT!!!!) This is the hard work in my opinion. Any meditator can work with these skills separately. But the low dose psychedelic experience reliably comes from simultaneous practice of Culadasa's bright breath concentration and Shinzen Young's clear 'Gone' extrospective awareness. In this stage, once you combine these two skills, you'll have to check if you don't delude yourself. You'll do this with visual fluidity. Once you think you are 'there', open your eyes, look at the center of your visual field with relaxed eyes. If you experience less visual solidity in objects while you are combining these 2 meditation skills, then you are ready for self enquiry. Remember that at this point, your breath attention is effortless and extrospective awareness of 'Gone' is very pronounced. If not, then you are not ready for self inquiry. 4- Samatha supported Self Enquiry You are done with the bulk of the work. At this point, the mind is pliant enough to have a permanent and transient insight experiences regarding no self, impermanence and suffering. Now we facilitate the no self experience with the classic: 'Who is experiencing?' Pick whatever phrasing you like: 'Who am I! 'Who is looking' 'Who is breathing' Just make sure you ask the question and bask more in silence until you feel the effects. Consciously let the self enquiry question effect your samadhi. Because if you feel zero effect in concentration and awareness, then you are not doing self enquiry. You are just using it as a mindless mantra. This is a mistake. Everytime you ask 'Who is experiencing?', You must experience a certain inner tug in your sensory experience. This is a potential insight experience. The more you experience and go deeper like this, the insight into no self will get clearer. ----- That is it. Do this 90-120 mins a day and you'll progress so quickly that you'll be shocked how skilled you get on a daily basis. In fact, do 2 sits a day like this. I'm standing on the shoulders of spiritual geniuses like Shinzen Young and Culadasa. It is thanks to them that I've experienced these training methods. The strategy MATTERS. I'll write again when I discover a more effective method and/or attain permanent stream-entry. Hopefully, this guide helps all of you struggling with meditation Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.