ardacigin

The first game was fantastic as well. But it only explored one main theme throughout and its fruits arrived at the end of the journey. It was more linear but concentrated story which was effective for what it tried to convey. But the second game has much bolder structure, character progression and explored multiples themes into revenge, trauma, hatred, empathy and regret. The game shocks you not only at the end but has its moments in the beginning, middle and end, unlike the first game. It also has more refined combat. Both are fantastic in my opinion. I respect your opinion though

I enjoyed Journey but I've played it many years ago in a time I couldn't perceive games as an art form. It was a forgettable experience at the time since I couldn't immerse myself in it. I'd feel very differently if I played it now though.

All these themes have inspired me to work on myself on a deeper level. I've started an enquiry into no-self in each moment since this problem of selfishness and lack of empathy is a big problem to solve. I'm experiencing constant self-enquiry with this samatha technique I've started in daily life. LoU 2 suggested to me that this was an issue I can't postpone any longer. Once I get deeper into it, I'll explain how to do the technique in another post. All in all, I'm glad to have introspected and played this masterpiece :))

I definitely agree here. Combat was significantly improved with pistol silencer mechanic imo. I played it on hard. The ammo was scarce enough for me to focus on headshots but spare enough so that I could get into combat in each encounter. I loved grabbing someone, shooting the last person with a headshot and then executing him. As to story telling, I always say that originality is never quite the issue. It is how the narrative is structured and characters are developed throughout the experience. I think LoU 2 aces that most important part. Even the most cliche of stories can be turned into masterpieces with the right execution. But of course the best mix would be originality + execution What sort of stories do you create?

Great to hear! Make sure to brush up on LoU 1 details. In fact, I recommend replaying it again prior to LoU 2. It will seriously enhance the experience.

@Nos7algiKI haven't played a high budget game yet that explored regret, pain, suffering, trauma psychology, love, empathy, revenge as deeply as LoU 2. I also love Detroit Become Human a lot but this is a very unique experience one gets with LoU 2. The risk that Neil took was well worth it. I'm planning a 2nd playthrough few years down the line prior to LoU Part 3 comes out. The game is full of subtle details one can explore and glean insights from. There are only handful of games where this sort of post-analysis is necessary to extract its essence. I also loved Ghost of Tsushima which I've completed just before LoU 2. Definitely one of my favourite open world games of all time. It was jaw droppingly amazing. Sony is basically firing on all cylinders. Can't wait for this generation. I agree that very high levels of emotional intelligence is needed along with post analysis to understand what Neil Druckmann was trying to say. Streamers like Pewdiepie etc have given this game a bad rep. I understand the challenge of fully connecting with certain story beats, structural decisions and ambiguity of open ended interpretation. But those are what makes this game into a masterpiece in my eyes.

Unfortunately no. This is an experience you need to have as a player. That interactivity is the point. You'll probably get bored just watching a lets play or no commentary walkthrough. It is a very different story-focused game than normal. My recommendation would be as follows since you are a beginner to gaming: 1- Try to look for cheap PS4 consoles you can buy. Ask the seller if it is in good condition etc. You can also buy a PS5 but that can be more expensive and harder to find these days. 2- Buy Last of Us 1. Set the difficulty to easy and experience it without taking long breaks to save its immersion. It took me 18 hours to finish. So finish it in a week or two. 3- Take a break for a few months, play other awesome games on PS4 so that the experience doesn't get stale. Or jump right into Last of Us 2. Depends on you. Again set the difficulty to easiest depending on how much challenge was frustrating in Last of us 1. 4- Enjoy!! Don't look at videos about this game. It is full of spoilers. Just follow these instructions whenever you have the cash and the time to experience this franchise.

I'd actually regard what I've explained here as a beginner-level practice, nowhere near as deep as what is possible. I really liked your post. Loving whatever arises requires deep equanimity and insight. Keep it up and continue to share your insights with us. Much love, Arda

Hey everyone! We are going to make it practical in this post. Recently, I've been researching this very debilitating disease called 'CRPS - Complex Regional Pain Syndrome' - an immune system disorder where the autonomic nervous system constantly sends pain signals in muscles and organs without any physical origin even after whatever injury had occured is fully healed. Imagine your body is constantly generating 'you've been hit with a car' pain signals 24/7 everyday, long after your surgery is over. And it slowly goes whole body even if the pain starts small in a certain location like your legs. Since this is a disease of a mental origin (primarily), I've realized that what I've been experiencing in my practice can in very broad strokes as 'Complex Regional Pleasure Syndrome'. Obviously, this is made up but its exact mechanisms are occurring in my body with pleasure, joy, tranquility and equanimity rather than pain. This is basically the same mechanism that occurs in any form of satisfaction or jhana practices. The good news is that I've figured out how to systematically practice this and understood why it will eventually be successful if you stick with it. Well, to be honest, Shinzen already taught this in a video. I'd just regurgitate the same instruction. However, I feel it is inadequate in some ways. So I'll add my commentary for successful execution right below it. Watch the 2nd part as well. Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abRaPYjb6mA Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u41_dSjKGtA 1st insight: This 'Focus on Positive' technique works because you train 2 different circuits in consciousness. Both are important. - Consciously generating sensations of pleasure, pain, neutrality with forming intentions. (This is under-developed in 'Just observe what happens' sort of techniques.) - Consciously utilizing observation with monstrous levels of equanimity and eliminating the observer leading to non-duality. 2nd insight: Whatever feeling tones - neutral, pleasure, pain - you focus on intentionally, makes it easier and deeper for the next exact moment to experience the same feeling tone. That is why, as Shinzen eludes to, attend with your consciousness the subtlest forms of pleasurable sensations in your body and train your mind to stay with it. Regardless of how small and subtle that pleasure might be, intending to stay with it will condition the mind into this vicious positive feedback loop where it will slowly grow and grow until it is felt in each cm of your body. This consciousness feature called 'positive feedback loop on feeling tones' is how any form of satisfaction meditation or jhanas are effective in the first place. In other words, do not attend to (ignore and reduce) the painful sensations and voluntarily attempt to stay with & amplify the subtlest of pleasure and relaxation. If agitation and painful sensations arise, relax fully. In fact, drop your posture and lay down to minimize pain from postural reasons. Your entire focus should be satisfaction and pleasant sensations on this particular way of working until you develop enough equanimity. Not only this will build stable attention and concentration, it will eventually build equanimity, tranquility, full body pleasure and joy. This will enable you to work with pain. In fact, this brings us to the 3rd insight. 3rd insight: In one of Culadasa's interview, I've heard that he got so skilled at this that he was naturally down-regulating any pain sense percepts and consciously amplify pleasurable sense percepts as a result of his practice. So much so that even when he had a painful and serious back condition at some point, he naturally down-regulated the pain so much that he realized he couldnt stand up after a sit without getting physical support. He wasn't consciously experiencing the suffering from the painful sensations at all. I'm sure his doctor would be pretty shocked Anyways, this is the process it occurs with this positive feel technique Shinzen teaches as well. Eventually, your ability to down-regulate pain and amplify pleasure will increase due to monstrous levels of equanimity you'll generate as time goes on. I've just down-regulated the pain of cross-legged posture so much that it spun into pleasure-ish sensations and turned on 10x equanimity as a result. 4rth insight: You'll practice self-enquiry and ask 'Who am I?' in this heightened state of joy, tranquility, satisfaction and equanimity. And boom! Then you'll see how dry insight is so frustrating. The investigation of reality at this state of consciousness is multiple times deep and effective compared to normal non-meditative sober consciousness. --- That's it for now. Hope this helps. I plan to do a long 3 hour SDS sit soon to put these skills into test once I integrate these insights a little more. I'll let you guys know how it goes. Let me know youe thoughts. Much love, Arda

All we have access to in life, are various mental and physical states our unconscious mind projects to as the conscious experience. Sights, sounds, feelings, thoughts and taste are binded in each moment by deeper aspects of your mind to give the illlusory perception of a world, self and suffering. This is your life in a nutshell. In any style of spiritual practice, the method is always to, 1- Experience a specific 'state change' which will enable you to more easily experience something directly without pre-conscious processing through your unconscious mind. One uses methods like Psychedelics, Samatha annd dry contemplation to facilitate tranquility, joy, contentment and/or move directly to step 2. Even when you do dry insight, you tend to experience a profound state change for a second before the insights arise in the mind. 2- This is the crux of the work. You use the mind faculties you've developed like equanimity, concentration and introspective awareness in this higher state of consciousness which becomes an easier access point for a profound insight into the nature of reality and so forth. State changes are important in so far as they enable you to practice consistently and help your mind to investigate reality. Feeling deeply fulfilled and happy is also an incredible perk to state changes as well. You are also doing deep emotional work too. This means that you are never wasting your time. (After a certain level of meditation mastery, of course) Yes, you are churning away at this 'Who am I?' or 'What is love?' insight problem but also develop dopaminergic circuits in your brain. Actual physical pathways that will produce contentment, equanimity, reduce self-clinging and increase joy in the future. However, as time goes on, you'll start to see that one can glean insights from 'any state' IF you are skilled enough to do it. This is a rather bitter pill to swallow. The key is actually having these skills. To develop them first through state changes which will make your job easier. Pleasant states will make your job significantly easier than painful states. That is why people tend to practice Samatha-vipassana and jhanas before they do insight practices. But see, this is a bitter pill to swallow which only becomes apparent after insights mature. You don't need to experience a certain state to glean insights. These insights are so profound that they exist in each moment regardless of your state and if you have enough introspective investigation skills, you can momentarily taste them. States are still important but are now recontextualized into a more equanimous worldview. The reason is that even for a monstrously enlightened person, dealing with physical torture continuously everyday will drain their energy after awhile. Yes, they will momentarily see through the emptiness of each sensation devoid of self-clinging, suffering and permanence. But that is a lot of work. It makes your job harder to investigate deeper parts of reality. Pleasant states will give you a breathing room. Help you lay down your options and see what avenues can be explored. It will make your life sweet and provide you ample opportunities to go deeper. Keep this 2 step model to spirituality I've simplified in the beginning. It will help you to see your practice more clearly. You can never escape states but can go beyond them. They will remain important. But in a contextualized paradigm. Hope this was useful. Let me know your comments below. Much love, Arda

Let alone entrepreneur-minded people but all people will be utterly crushed by the insights into impermanence, no-self and the nature of reality. Their survival agendas will take a hit just as much as anyone.

Hi everyone! Recently, a new and deeper form of understanding and practice has occured in my life. I just want to share what is happening with all of you in the hope that it can motivate you for what is possible. As someone who has some grasp of how the mind can construct pleasure or pain intentionally through deep equanimity and insight recognition, I didn't expect one could literally suffuse the ENTIRE body (toes- legs-back-arms-head) with actual morphine levels of pleasure and pain killer effect one would get in hospitals for a panic attack. And to able to this on demand, with intentional control. In a few seconds. This is beyond curing depression. After some latest neuroscience readings on dopaminergic circuits in the brain and how it changes with practice and time, it matches perfectly with my direct experience. So here is what happened. I'll also tell you how it might come to be at this phase in my life: 1- The joy and pleasure I was experiencing in the sides of my head for years now has jumped and spread towards both of my legs one day as I was half meditation/ half sleeping. I'll tell you soon my theory on why it arise all of a sudden. 2- Now, I can experience drug levels of pleasure in 2 aspects of my being almost instantly at the same time: Head and entirety of my legs. The quality of pleasure I experience on my legs is much more sophisticated and has a higher ceiling of hedonism compared to what I was experiencing with my head area. I assume some different brain circuitry has kicked in to produce this pleasure. 3- Unfortunately, this requires a deeper form of mindfulness and stronger detection skills both to produce the pleasure and to maintain it. I can currently do it comfortable laying down but it is unstable. It is overall very challenging to do in daily life. But I feel like I can do it. The effect it provides can literally erase depression out of this entire planet. I still am shocked how the brain can produce so much pleasure in a few seconds going from 'neutral-no pleasure- dissatisfaction' to 'No-pain, SIGNIFICANT pleasure suffused in every inch of your being- satisfaction' 4- Some days passed. I've practice every day. And all of a sudden, the pleasure has spread to my chest, back and arms as well. Now the morphine levels of pleasure is suffused in the entire body top to bottom. This facilitates much more tranquility and equanimity. 5- Unfortunately, this requires even deeper form of mindfulness and stronger detection skills both to produce the pleasure and to maintain it. I thought: 'This is silly now. There is no way I can maintain this in daily life while walking, talking to people, playing combat heavy action games, watching movies etc. Because if so, this will change my life and I'll have this natural opioid production I can develop at will for the rest of my life'. 6- A day later, I've practice an hour laying down to stabilize this. I had to do some leg stretches while laying down to spread enough awareness and stabilize the pleasure. When it was done, I took a walk and I can maintain it. I can do it. Talked with people, it is there. As long as my mindfulness stays strong, I can maintain it until I waver in introspective awareness. It is a trainable skill. It requires more care and awareness to maintain but it is significantly more rewarding and healing as well. So it is a no brainer trade off. 7- Now, I've realized that even this whole body drug can be established as a baseline. Now, this is one of the aspects I'll be working on daily going forward with insight practices. ---- How & Why This Mıght Have Occured: Recently, I've been investigating how pain arises on the nervous system. How it is a mental construct as we experience normally with a lot of suffering. I've been watching 'House MD' and in there, House has this leg pain condition he suffers from due to faulty diagnosis (muscle death) and tries to reduce the pain with popping countless 'Vicodin' pills every day. I've been fairly focused on my legs these past few weeks and months due to his battle with this pain. I was wondering how his pain is arising and why the brain can't construct pleasurable sensations if he was perfectly healthy and didn't experience this muscle death. What is playing a role in how to interpret and produce sensations in the body? What is our filter? Are we really as powerless as we assume we are? I was focusing on these questions and investigating my conscious experience for a long time now. And all of a sudden, a lot of pleasure spreads to my legs. ...That can't be a coincidence. Unconscious parts of my mind must have been churning this issue without me realizing and have arrived at a conclusion independent of me. I assume this was their rationale: 'Yes! We are constructing both pain and pleasure for the survival purposes. In order for the 'self' to take an action. We can actually pump you with morphine and pleasure on the legs as well. But pain and dissatisfacion is there to help you take action so we don't do that on default. Hmm. Providing negative stimulus puts us in a bad mood. And depression spirals one further into passivity, pessimism. That would also reduce one's survival chances. I guess it is too crude of a way to force someone to action. It appears it is back firing on us. Hmm. So one can act and experience life even more effectively and accurately if craving is reduced, satisfaction is increased and pleasure aids our perceptions and introspective awareness. It is a tool you can use, huh? It makes sense. When you intend for some pleasure tomorrow morning, we'll pump your legs with drug levels of pleasure. Use it to go forward with it. Adios!' Thanks, my mind. I knew you always had the potential for greatness. I'll practice and go forward with this realization If you guys have any commentary or want to share your experiences, let me know below.

Hi Ethan. I haven't heard him say that and it is very intriguing. Can you send the link to me if you can find it :)) Your progress is going really well. Great and deep insights are maturing. I live in Turkey. There are no retreats here and I can't go abroad for retreats right now and haven't had the oppoırtunity due to work, family etc. So I've been doing all this practice at home with maybe 1-2 day retreats at most. I'm curious about online retreats. If it was effective for you, can you send me Shinzen's link I also recently watched Shinzen's interview here on dopamine circuits. You might find it interesting: I'm not doing 2-hour sessions for awhile now. I'm focusing on quality in each moment but soon go further with endurance training. I'm doing somewhere around 45-60 mins but put the emphasis on daily practice. Especially when this whole body pleasure becomes second nature, I'll attempt 3-4 hour SDS sits. But I'm not quite there just yet. It is definitely on my to-do list when I feel ready :))

@anxious_turtle When equanimity is mastered, all satisfaction and juice out of life would be sucked out of in each moment's pleasure and pain. A great ideal to work towards.

Of course. But it is a learnable and trainable skill. At least knowing the terrain and working hard is much more empowering and accurate (since it is mind generated) than to accept defeat and throw in the towel to spiral further into depression. I did this coming from a depressed state of mind 2-3 years ago. Actual unhappy and depressed brain. There is something called ' a discontinuous jump' in consciousness where some of the old habits and paradigms dissolve unconsciously in a second after a long process of maturation. That is what happened to me one day in meditation. So, it is possible and no depressed person should be hopeless. Do the work. Try to enjoy it. Train the mind and be diligent.

Since I've watched Jordan Peterson's lesson on Actualized, I've started to see more JP content on youtube. I've learned that he recently got diagnosed with a condition called Akathisia. Akathisia is defined as a profound inner restlessness and agony that is usually observed in decreasing, increasing and changing certain doses and medications. It is a movement disorder that makes it impossibly hard and agonizing to just sit still. Once I read the symptoms, It was the exact opposite to the valuable skills we are developing on the spiritual path. Most especially, tranquility and equanimity. Akathisia is this profound inner agony, craving and restlessness. Tranquility and equanimity is this profound inner contentment, joy, relaxation, calmness, openness and non-reactivity to pleasure and pain. It goes to show the steep side effects of mis-using certain medications and more importantly neglecting spiritual development. It is important to move the needle. Unless you are seeing these changes in consciousness and perception, try new things. Don't feel like you are stuck in a box with your one or two spiritual techniques. Try a technique and give it enough maturation time. Then slightly modify it. Gain some insights, develop equanimity and whenever you get stuck, move forward by changing certain negative entrenched habits and make even a bigger positive feedback loop with conscious training. Make the most of each moment as it gives you a profound opportunity with what emotions, thoughts and intentions to attend to. Only when you dance with this dynamic, can you really 'meditate' in daily life. Take this very seriously. This 'meditate 1 hour a day' paradigm won't fly anymore. Each individual's baseline potential is way beyond that. Shockingly beyond that. See, we all have our own natural 'Akathisia'. An agony in manageable doses. Unless you chip away at it with a powerful spiritual practice, any sort of breakthrough will fall flat on its weight. Much love, Arda

I mean the simultaneous cultivation of the following skills moment by moment: Stable attention, introspective whole body awareness, conscious relaxation, dropping of self-efforting, equanimity, tranquility, meditative joy, energetic investigation and diligence. By flooding the tension area with the qualities of mindfulness – concentration, awareness, joy, tranquility, sensory clarity and equanimity - you are helping the unconscious - animal levels of the mind to untie their own "knots". The tension pattern will start to break up on its own. With time and disciplined practice. Hope this helps.

There are two ways of learning relaxation, because there are two distinct levels at which a person can relax.Think of it as surface relaxation versus deep relaxation. "Surface" refers to the surface conscious mind, "deep" refers to the deep unconscious mind.Surface relaxation is what most people think of when they think of relaxation. It's voluntary relaxation, like a progressive relaxation where you make a conscious effort to relax.When a person sits to meditate I think it is the smartest to do whatever possible to relax the overall body. This is what I recommend everyone to do as a baseline standard before doing anything else. It is the conduit to powerful spiritual practice.I usually try to get an overall sense of the body relaxing. I call it a "settled-in" sense. For example, I notice that during sitting sometimes my shoulders will come up and tense up, so I'll relax them as an act of conscious intention. Same thing happens to my jaw as well. This form of relaxation, although it's valid and useful, is also limited, because there are certain things that you can't relax intentionally, like the kind of intense sensations that come up when you stub your toe. You can't go through a progressive relaxation, and just relax the sensations going on in your stubbed toe.And what about the sensations that go with a stubbed ego? For that type of phenomenon, it is desirable to learn about a second kind of relaxation which I call deep relaxation.Deep relaxation deals with the source of tension which is deep within the unconscious mind and way out of the range of conscious control. I know. This is the million-dollar question: How can you relax tensions that are not within conscious control? By observing them with heightened awareness, accepting the tension as is in a state of radically reduced craving and self-clinging. Deep relaxation happens when this directed relaxation occurs without ‘you’ trying to relax. Automatically.With practice, the neuro-programming of your brain and body changes so radically that the body rests in a state of pysical relaxation as a default position. Not only this relaxation makes it easier to concentrate on the breath. It allows for deep meditation to flow into our chaotic daily lives as well. How do you think master-level meditators continue to meditate deeply while doing demanding tasks like working, talking, walking, watching videos, listening and reading? These people master body relaxation as a way of life.Their minds have changed their operating system from tension to relaxation. How does this occur? With practice. PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE! Continue doing this body relaxation technique until you make this radical shift from surface relaxation to deep relaxation.With more directed conscious relaxation, the faster you’ll progress towards automatic deep relaxation. But if you stop putting in the effort somewhere along the learning process, you will not make the leap.As you gain a little more skill in relaxation, I suggest that you do this technique on your own in stressful situations. Now lastly, let’s talk about why tension occurs in the first place.The tension pattern that we observe in our bodies is a conduit into the unconscious mind. It tells us that the mind, at its core, is not at peace. It is conflicted. The ego congeals and manifests itself as tension. By flooding the tension area with the qualities of mindfulness – concentration, awareness, joy, tranquility, sensory clarity and equanimity - you are helping the unconscious - animal levels of the mind to untie their own "knots". The tension pattern will start to break up on its own. With time and disciplined practice.Paradoxically, the quickest way to have it break up is to stop wanting it to break up. In a specific manner. The attitude of wanting it to break up adds subtle new knots.For the really deep relaxation, a person has to be willing to watch tension with mindfulness, without desiring relaxation. And remember! How do you do that? By practicing relaxation on a daily basis with observation, discipline and resolve. Much love, Arda

Exactly! This is how I formulate it as well. That gentle and joyful direction of attention back to the meditation object is the key to progress in the beginning. Almost everyone I know develops tension and craving (aversion and desire) to this process and makes it a form of torture. This is something the mind ascribes to this activity. The more you positively reinforce, the easier meditation will get for you. That is why I see a lot of value in conscious physical relaxation in sits and daily life. It informs the consciousness of new and more effective ways of interacting with the world and people.

Why Concentration is Not Enough? - Attention & Awareness Dynamic Explained We all have the experience of focusing on a task singularly and very intensely. From common meditation wisdom, you might think developing an exclusive state of intense concentration is what meditation is ultimately all about. However, this is only a part of the picture. For all beginner meditators, mindfulness and awareness collapses instantly if you narrow down attention strongly and forcefully. This is one of the fundamental reasons why you still experience distractions and sleepiness while trying to be more mindful. Even after years of meditation. Let me explain: Paying attention to an object without greater peripheral awareness is how we normally live our lives. Even without mindfulness, we’re always paying attention to something. But with mindfulness, we pay attention to the right things, and in a more skillful way.This is because being mindful actually means that you’re more fully conscious and alert than usual. As a result, our peripheral awareness is much stronger, and our attention is used with unprecedented precision and objectivity. Mindfulness is the skillful interaction of attention and awareness. Attention analyzes our experience, and awareness provides the overall context and background. When one or the other doesn’t do its job, or when there isn’t enough interaction between the two, then we respond to situations less effectively. We may overreact, make poor decisions, or misinterpret what’s really going on. Awareness provides the context and the background of events and experiences. It is open, inclusive, and holistic. It’s concerned with the relationships of objects to each other, and to the whole. Why aren’t we naturally more mindful? Why does mindfulness have to be cultivated? There are two main reasons. 1- Most of us have never really learned to use awareness effectively. 2- We don’t have enough conscious power to sustain mindfulness, especially at the times when we need it most., The result of this is something I like to call Awareness Deficit Disorder: chronic use of attention until awareness fully collapses. For instance, do you experience the moving sensations on your left foot’s toe while watching Inception? An advanced meditator can experience the body fully while also wholeheartedly engaging in the movie.Body awareness is only the first step. They can watch the movie intensely and also simultaneously examine their minds, habits and mental reactions. As a beginner meditator, you are singularly focused on watching Inception, - which is a fantastic movie - trying to follow the sequences of events.But awareness is fully collapsed. You are not aware of the body sensations as much. Final Advice: The most deceptive beginner mistake while trying to balance attention and awareness is to quickly re-direct attention back and forth between the breath sensations and the body (or distractions of all forms). This technique is called intentional attentional movement.It can be used effectively in adept stages of meditation. However, at its currently applied form, it is not helping you to develop greater levels of awareness and mindfulness. The Solution: You need to maintain the stability of attention first and while the attention rests on the breath, now you start to experience the entire body and mind with awareness. This is how you develop mindfulness. You need to keep these two modalities of experience in metacognitive awareness. Keep meditating with this in mind and you'll get to know your mind at deeper and deeper levels with diligent practice. Much love, Arda

Well, this is exactly the misconception I'm talking about. Just concentration and stable attention with strain and intensity will collapse awareness due to lack of conscious training and as a result distraction and sleepiness will arise. After some level of access concentration is attained, back pedal on breath concentration a little bit and spread the body awareness, introspective and extrospective awareness while attention is still in touch mainly with the breath at the tip of the nose. Doing this will develop awareness efficiently and quickly. Introspective awareness is awareness of thoughts, sensations and feelings. Extrospective is sounds, sights and touch. Both can be attended just with awareness while attention is observing the breath sensations.

This is your formal technique. See, attention can move around in daily life. When you are watching Inception, attention should be fully focused on the sequences of events but awareness should be fully open, holistic and deep with body and mind. Yeah! Awareness can take care of them and increase tranquility and equanimity while attention is on an object. Yeah but this dynamic is keeping attention on the object AND THEN spreads the whole body awareness at the same time. It requires more conscious power and mindfulness to do it. You don't switch from pain to whole body etc. Switching implies attentional movement which is not what I'm advocating for beginners. Awareness deficit disorder (the exact way I describe it) is 100x deeper and challenging issue to deal with. This is how every non-meditator spends their life in. Once you develop stronger awareness and attention dynamic in meditation, it will permeate your entire life. Attention deficit disorder is also similar in the sense that stronger introspective awareness cues you into the fact that boredom arises or distractions appear. This makes it easier to form intentions to keep doing the homework etc. It is a deeply integrated feedback loop. That is why both are needed and so essential to understand the dynamic interaction. Analysis is just an aspect of attention. Logic is also tied with attentional movements. But each are different. Your formal practice should facilitate this dynamic deeply. Once you rise out of the cushion, it will persist. Eventually, you start to live there. But this will take a few years even if you are diligent Alertness and calmness is a result of your tranquility and equanimity skills which you also should be developing in meditation. Tranquility is contentment and calmness. Equanimity is non-reactivity to pain and pleasure. Samatha vipassana techniques facilitate the growth of these skills with mindfulness.

See, I've always had chronic fatigue and brain fog for the majority of my life. In this post, I'd like to let everyone know what happened after a recent spiritual development related to profound physical relaxation in daily life. Just because one can experience a lot of joy on demand doesn't necessarily mean all forms of suffering, fatigue, brain fog or tension have disappeared. After listening to Leo's issues on food coma, fatigue and brain fog, I've decided to go deeper on this issue for myself. Before the recent spiritual development, I was experiencing significant levels of sleepiness literally after every meal. I had to sleep 1-2 hours just to feel normal or to crank up joy. Not just that, but I also consistently feel dullness and sleepiness come over me in meditation and daily life. This also meant brain fog and lack of sharpness mentally. I initially thought this was due to the high levels of carbs I've been eating these past few months. Bread, pasta etc. However, I could normally eat any food and feel perfectly normal. Something must be happening internally that produces these reactions to the food I'm eating.ü See, these are learned habitual sensitivities. For many people (excluding medical cases), eating a variety of foods is perfectly healthy and doesn't produce chronic fatigue. Remember your 9 year of self. Was he/she picky about eating some bread fearing the 3-hour brain fog afterward? No. This is an issue developed with time, not an inherent genetical disposition you are cursed with forever. Now, these past few months, it doesn't matter what I eat. Veggies, meat, fruits etc. I experience brain fog and fatigue right afterwards. I needed to sleep. I felt very intrigued by this sudden change. This kept happening for months on end. This was affecting my thoughts, motivations, and energy levels significantly. Even the access to jhana and joy on demand. I was waking up in a state of annoyance and frustration before meditation. So I needed to figure this out. I took supplements - Didn't work. I changed my sleep cycles significantly and started magnesium supplements to improve sleep quality - Didn't work I tried to crank up the joy in my mind to combat lethargy - Occasionally worked as a temporary solution I needed to find a deeper solution to coax out the root. In my recent meditations, I was feeling this profound relaxation. I thought nothing of it. It happens. Then it goes away. Well, apparently some part of my mind took this cue and allowed me to see these mind-blowing levels of tension I was building up and reinforcing in daily life my entire life. Yes, even when I was experiencing a lot of joy and going deep into jhanas, I was not aware of this much unconscious tension. I thought to myself: 'Wow! I can't believe this tension. No wonder I'm feeling fatigued. In fact, I remember having this physical tension as 7 year old kid laying down to watch cartoons. This tension is such an instinctual way I operate AND I was reinforcing this without knowing every day' This tension was there on my shoulders, over my torso and chest, preventing deep relaxation. Reducing the effectiveness of all joy and jhana practices by introducing strain and tightness. This tension was affecting my relationship with others. Every time I saw someone, I was tightening up around the same way (shoulders and torso) in a learned habitual manner. This subconscious tension has finally risen up to a conscious level I can work with. Now back to brain fog and fatigue: This exact same physical tension was using extreme levels of energy in my body and mind AS I'm eating food. I've realized this was the culprit to my entire fatigue and brain fog issues. Because this tension broke up in every aspect of my life. (while walking, talking, thinking laying down etc.) In this case, I tighten up around the act of eating food. As I'm moving the spoon to my mouth. Chewing it. Looking around. As my mind stopped its tendency to contract so many muscles both in the act of eating and in daily life, I was able to eat donuts, bread, chips etc with zero brain fog or sleepiness afterwards. Normally, I was waking up extremely groggy and frustrated regardless of sleeping 12 hours, 8 hours or 6 hours. Regardless of whether applying all sleep protocols. After this profound relaxation, I was waking up refreshed and joyful after 6 or 12 hours. Doesn't matter. My body is resting fairly deeply in daily life as well. My meditations have improved DRAMATICALLY. I feel like now I'm in a spiritual development where I can do 3-4 hour sits without moving. Easily. In fact, I'll let you guys know my experiences right after doing such a practice. Now I'm getting used to this new baseline of mindfulness and profound relaxation. I'm shocked how so many varieties of personal and health issues were resolved and evaporated by this baseline relaxation. I'm extremely motivated and happy for this new chapter in my spiritual development. I can't wait to share my experiences going forward. Feel free to let me know your questions. Much love, Arda

That is great. Really happy relaxation helped with your headaches I don't eat donuts or sugary food normally. I needed to test if sleepiness would come over me again. Thankfully, my entire being has gotten important cues about not wasting energy unnecessarily. I still feel very sharp, relaxed and focused in daily life. No brain fog whatsoever. It is important to eat properly, nonetheless

I just re-watched this lesson. The title and the main subject of the video appear too basic and simple, right? Well, not so fast. Don't be fooled by its simplicity. This lesson has the potential to help you work with many deep personal, spiritual and health issues. I did watch this video at the time it was released. As a meditator, I liked it. But I didn't purposefully practice it. Well, that was a mistake Here are my experiences after embodying profound relaxation and body awareness: Leo does give great insights here. Practice intentional body relaxation in daily life. Take this very seriously. Much love,