Gopackgo

@Eastbranch Sometimes my words come off as confrontational. Really, I'm under no delusion that I am talking to anyone but myself. What I mean is that the things you are saying are thoughts that I also had. I have come to a point really were thoughts just can't be trusted. It is almost like there are 2 realities, 1 reality is what actually physically seems to happen. This is the fundamental reality that appears as life and thats what I always refer to as "whats happening". The second reality is an abstract and conceptual reality. This is where most people in the world live. Conceptual reality is entirely dependent on whats happening, and this reality is the domain of self. It is just an interaction of models between seeming individuals that has created society. There is nothing wrong with this. It obviously has social utility and even seems to have led to this thing called enlightenment (or whatever this awakening is), however, this reality is the domain of suffering. It is the reality where meaning is attached to everything, even though in reality, things just happen as they do. The problem for me was that I thought everything was happening to me because I was living in this conceptual reality. So for me, as an extremely scientific and rational person, realizing that the meanings assigned to everything that was happening were totally and completely arbitrary was a life changing realization. People will say that they know science is only theories, but they don't really believe that. When it is really felt, it is absolutely unbelievable. This thing that is seemingly around us everyday is completely and totally unknowable. All we can do is throw models at it to try and manipulate it and understand it. The shocking thing for me was that there is a 2nd kind of knowing, wherein the mind isn't feverishly trying to understand. Its not conceptual, it is directly experiencing. Out of direct experience comes wisdom. The reason I bring this up is because you are absolutely right in that there is a strong feeling of free will. The thing that is amazing for me is that the more and more that thoughts slow down, I realize that the feeling of that control seems to fade and the I falls away, but things keep happening exactly as they would if I was present in the form of a self. Before if I was asked a question, I would carefully think out the answer and respond. Now, there is only response coming from nothing. It seems to extend to movement as well. Say that I am sitting on a couch and I think I need to go study. No matter how many times I think that, at some point there will be getting up and studying. So what seems to be happening is that the blah blah thoughts are being replaced with silence, and then there is action whenever it happens. The illusion before is that thought was needed to proceed what was always going to happen. The question that always gets me is that when you move your finger, as in your example, the mind wants to say that it did that, but in my view, that is surface level. The real question is what made you respond to a question of free will in that way, (i.e. why does your brain create that response to answer a question) Is there really any control over how the mind tends to respond to a stimulus, or does it just happen? It's a really interesting question. I'm only 28. My awakening happened abruptly, before I had any kind of knowledge that It was even possible. It was beyond conceptual knowledge, and it undermined everything I thought I knew in my arbitrary conceptual model. I have decided to let the need to understand conceptually subside a bit because I realize that the best model of reality is reality itself, and any conceptualization results in a loss in what is. All this to say that we are likely talking about the exact same experience, and just using different words to explain it. In the grand scheme of things, the free will debate is really useless because we actually don't have any control over whether we have free will or not, and whatever happens will just happen. It is fun to talk about though. @DoctorDx I would say that all of that stuff is happening, but no one is doing it. It only seems to be so. That the amazing thing. It's a simple answer, because in my experience, the right question to ask is whether or not a self is needed to do all of the things that are perceived. For instance, could there even be a self without the space in which perception takes place, or is that the only thing separating the seeming observer from the perception itself? The idea of an I in between the seemingly separate phenomena of perceived and perceiver is less accurate than just saying that there is perception itself. Another way to think about it can be had if you look at the scientific model. This model is confusing because it seems to separate one from reality because it is so mechanical. However, when you really look at it, all of the sensory organs send electronic signals to the brain from an apparent outside world to the subconscious, where the information is rendered into the world that you are apparently walking around in. Every sensation is like this (even movement). It goes to the unconscious brain, and is rendered into a world, and then is shot into the conscious mind. Just take a second to think about that... You are literally walking around (seemingly) in a mind generated dream world even under the scientific model. That is outrageously amazing, and of course it means that everything that you see is a part of you, as you are the one rendering it. It is a field of pure subjectivity that thinks it is objective. In truth, science doesn't have a clue about consciousness for the same reason that seekers often have problems: You cannot study what we all are because you cannot get outside of it. For this reason, the best way to understand "awareness" is to see that you are not, and in doing so, to see more clearly what you are. Anything you are experiencing as an object or sensation therefore cannot be the field creating it (This is just a conceptual distinction to make my point). So if you look at your direct experience, and you have a sensation of self, or observer, then you can know that it is a construct of the mind, and is therefore not you. I don't know if that helps at all. Sometimes I feel like I am all over the place, but this is what seems to come out, and when I start trying to think about it, I get confused. Look really closely at what you perceive as the perceiver. That might actually be a construct. In my experience that is the basic assumption on which all others sit. It goes hand in hand with the idea of having control over what is. It seems to me that this was seen through, and since then, things have been falling into place at a pace completely outside of my control. The central executive in the mind is a total construct.

It doesn't need to be logical. There was no gravitation toward the idea that there is no control. It was actually a huge fear for me. When a person is raised to believe they have free will, of course they think that they have an experience of free will. Free will doesn't even make sense. It is essentially the same thing as saying that you could have chosen differently. That statement is not our reality. There is a decision that happens in an appearance in the conscious mind, and once it is made, it is never revisited. It is gone forever. I don't know about whether there are infinite possibilities, because what seems to happen is 1 continuous experience. There is no way to zoom out and see different "timelines" other than this one. In fact, in my experience at least, time seems to be composed of thoughts about the future and past, both of which are abstract projections, and neither of which is actual concrete reality. In that way, the idea of infinite possibilities goes full circle and becomes absolutely useless because it is not direct experience, although it is a nice thought. Maybe the way people think about free will and determinism is heavily based on their interpretation of the concepts. I know that my interpretation at first was that if there was no free will, then everything that happens must be predetermined. The issue with that is that it presupposes time as a tangible thing. When I look at my experience, there is always right now. Things are flowing through it, but when they pass, they are gone. Anything that seems to come again isn't the same as the first time that it was experienced. Maybe reality doesn't care about the concepts we use to explain it. Ironically, the second you conceptualize being, it is and it isn't being. It is being because thoughts are part of being, and it isn't because the concepts or content in the thought are not actual reality, even though a person thinks that they are in fact reality. Really what it turns into is a big argument over which meaning supplied to a concept is actually correct. In my experience, seeming choices appear in thought, and then a decision appears from nothing. I cannot choose the final decision that actually happens. The more thought slows down, the more apparent this becomes. The decisions just seem to happen as they do. Even movement just seems to happen. I understand the idea that we are both free will and determinism, however the understanding is only had by the self, which is also just something that is appearing in being. In many ways what the self is is just a concept composed of other concepts. Thoughts arising are being, but there is no reason why the content has to be connected to what it is trying to describe. On the level of being, things just happen. I am suggesting that choice happens outside of the conceptual self, and therefore outside of understanding. The need to understand conceptually can break down, and then being is as it is. It is frustrating for me not to be able to put it into words effectively, but being is content with frustration of the self.

You can watch videos and read about it. Lord knows I did, but I only sought the conceptual understanding after I saw it myself. Check it out in direct experience, and don't shy away because it scares you.It is super obvious. Not even your movements are willed by a self. It just happens. When you see it for real, it starts to fall away. In a lot of ways, control is what the whole illusion is about, and it is a big reason why there is never abiding happiness while there is a belief of control. It's nothing to be scared of, because its always been this way. You will notice that most "teachers" say exactly this. In fact I think I've never seen one that has said the opposite. It's all stories, but at least if someone wants to rely on beliefs of others to save their illusion, they should ask why they accept all the other dogmas of their practice, except this one.

Look at experience really closely. Forget the extraneous concepts and loaded meanings of words like awareness, which have about 6 or 7 different meanings, most of which suggest that something is aware of something else. This creates a ton of space for the self to pick and choose which one suits is, but the word or meaning that one seems to attach to the meaning is missing what is being pointed to. It creates discussions that feel important, but generally devolve into people asserting whose meaning of awareness is correct. The reason the word is used is just to express what is absolutely indescribable. Is it your experience that you control your thoughts? When you look at it, Do you honestly know what your next thought will be? If you look honestly, past the surface level. you will see that thoughts just pop up from absolute nothing. They appear. It may seem that they are willed, but generally they just appear when something needs to be explained or understood. They are mental interpretations that just happen to explain what is whether that is a problem, an emotion, or another thought. There is 0 control over what happens, and there is zero control over the mental interpretation that tries to make a conceptual model to explain what is happening. In my experience, when the feeling of control fell away when thoughts were watched, it was seen that if thoughts appear from nothing, then there cant be any free will, because the genesis of any intention or decision is an idea or thought, or at least I thought that. Really things just happen, but either way, its the same thing. What does a decision look like for you? When does the decision happen, and when does the thinking happen. In my experience, Observation showed that although I originally thought that thinking preceded a thought, actually a more honest answer is that there would be a decision, and then thinking would happen in the form of rationalization. This means the mind would start creating stories to explain what was decided. First there would be a story that made sense to the self, then there would be stories created for other individuals. It is like the self making a story based on the model it has of other peoples models. It wants the perfect story to explain the decision so that it can deliver the right story to each person so that it might make sense of whats happening. Then I thought, well, what about the times where it seems that I am thinking and then coming to a decision? But again, thoughts just appear. They do not belong to the self. So either way, there is a decision and thoughts which both arise from nothing. The order doesn't even matter. If mental activity just appears in the conscious mind, there is no meaningful choice. It's a complete and utter illusion The best saying that I have heard is: "A man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills." I don't know how anyone can argue with that, because no one can control the thoughts that appear in consciousness. People will argue with it, because it's not a very happy thing for the self, or maybe it doesn't fit in with other concepts that are held, but the thing is that reality or what happens doesn't give a fuck about conceptual understanding or a self's attempt to project its thought onto what is. How could it? The thoughts are actually a part of reality, they occur inside of it, and they are abstract. Therefore thoughts themselves are not reality (no matter how much the self wishes that to be true). It is completely impersonal and totally intimate. This is why it is important to remember that a contradiction between what meaning is assigned to concept in ones mind vs. what is being pointed to does not mean that something is wrong. Reality is totally unknowable. It exists outside of concepts. It is only a thought (the self) that is trying to lock it down into the known that causes contradiction. This is pretty simplistic as an explanation, and I'm not saying that conceptual understanding is bad, but just advising some caution. This is especially so when the subject is something as fundamental as free agency. Just look really closely and honestly at your experience. Reality and being is where some of the answers can be supplied.

You actually will never know what it is, but it wont stop the mind from trying. The cool thing is that you don't need to understand it, because you are it. Trying to understand it is only part of it, but it can cause a lot of pain. If you think about it, everything that has happened in life has been some form of trying to understand what's happening so you might be able to control it. It can't be known, because the attempt to know it happens from inside of it. The self is literally the "known" rising from what is unknown (everything that is). Known constituted by unknown. Also, if it could be known, it could be boxed in, and there's nothing outside of it. Just remember when your mind is trying to conceptualize it, that that's just whats happening. Its awesome.

I also meant to say that the mind lives in hypotheticals. You can watch it and see how it fitting things into the conceptual model. It's genius. It takes things that it doesn't like and basically finds situations where there are conflicts to discredit and discard. You will notice how things that seemingly are liked don't have to pass such strict scrutiny. The problem is that the model is inherently flawed because concepts only exist in thought. This is a simplistic explanation, and ironically it is a model, so obviously it's only meant to point.

One of my favorite Leo quotes of all time was: if you ask a rapist what they think about rape, the will say: rape is great... Let's go rape some people. It makes me laugh so hard everytime. Also, one of the most amazing things is realizing that your moral code has no effect on what you actually do. It is a useless mental construct, but it does seem to reinforce the story of "me". Another one is when you tell someone they don't have free will, and they say we'll if we don't have free will, why does anyone do anything? The answer might be that finding out that there is no control actually doesnt all the sudden give you the choice to do nothing. If that is what happens, you also didn't choose that. When you really look at intention or choice, and you see past the surface level, you realize that you may seemingly be doing what you're thinking, but what if you don't control your thoughts, then are you really in control of what you are doing. The simple truth is that decisions and thoughts just appear, and then the mind immediately begins making up stories or rationalizations to fit it to your story. After it makes a sufficient story for the "thinker" then it starts working on stories to communicate to family and friends, which in the end are just other walking and talking stories. That's called manipulation. You can watch this stuff happen if you direct your attention inward, and allow your attention to rise above the thought stories that are probably rejecting and discrediting this post as you read it. A man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.

Law is nothing more than a human projection of what reality should be. It may feel like it has more value to society, but that's the point. Reality is what it is in total disregard for what humans project onto it. It is total arrogance to think that a mental construct like laws or morals has any effect on what actually will happen. I know it seems shocking, but reality also doesn't care about what you think is shocking. For evidence of this, consider the fact that no matter how much you try to project yourself onto reality, "bad" things still happen. The arrogance enters when you assume that reality isn't exactly as it should be. Do you see that? You are actually judging what is actually happening based on your subjective judgements. You can go your whole life thinking that reality is wrong, but it's a losing battle. It is one of the main causes of suffering. The mind hates this because when there is unconditional acceptance, you can no longer seperate yourself from others or distinguish yourself as some higher order being based on morals. You can't judge people to feel superior. When you really look at it, you have no control over what happens. Things arise, and one of those things is a thought that tries to project its selfish aims onto the world. It's called the self. The problem for the self is that acceptance happens prior to its own arising. Therefore it is in an eternal and hopeless battle with what is. Sometimes what will happen is that the self will turn back in on itself, and then it will realize that there is no control whatsoever (as just one of many insights), and then it will die. This is enlightenment. Maybe one day you will realize that every problem you perceive with reality is actually not a problem at all, and that reality is fundamental despite what thought wants to impose on it. Then your God complex thought will die and all that will be left is what is: nothing happening. Looking back on my own ongoing experience now, it is absolutely shocking the amount of arrogance that existed in this body. All it did was create a model of reality that had a huge discrepancy with actual reality, and created more suffering than I could ever explain. Thank God that the camera turned back on itself and recognized the illusion present. Life is amazing.

Subconscious is the concept we are taught to explain the phenomena of thought and emotion appearing from nothing. Through the lens of that model, everything you experience originates in the subconscious and is piped into the conscious mind. An analogy I like is that the conscious mind is the monitor, but the subconscious mind is the computer. The ego is the thought that thinks it is in control of what happens. It also arises from nothing, but can be seen through. It also arises out of nothing. It is the thought that says that I am this and I control this. It isn't bad, and it is part of consciousness as a whole, as it does provide some social function, but it is not everything as it appears to be. Another term for it is the self.

Transformations in consciousness, By Franklin Merrell-Wolff Living Non-duality, by Robert Wolfe Both available free on google, and both straight forward looks at thought processes from a big picture perspective. The first one is really a good one for challenging your most basic assumptions. For me one of the thoughts that initiated awakening was a simple thought: "what if you are wrong?" After that, no assumption was safe.

The minute a person thinks that life is happening to them, a victim is born. Reality is impersonal, it just happens as it does regardless of what is believed about it. The great news is that you are the untouchable canvass that provides the space for it to happen. Nothing has ever happened to you, that is the misunderstanding that I struggled with. The self thought thinks that reality is happening to it, but that thought is just another thing happening. Self loves to be a victim because it hides the truth. All of these thoughts, and every other sensation is constantly changing and morphing, but there is one things that is always constant. Just do your best to abide in what is always present, and has never been touched by anything arising. For me, it was all about dis-identifying with thoughts by watching them and recognizing that I had no control over them, and they couldn't be what I am. For me, the moment I truly saw that thoughts are not in my control, and that the feeling that I am controlling them was a farce, It all began to fade. There was a short time of depression, but then I realized that if this was the case, it had always been this way, and so there was nothing to be upset about. Really watch and be attentive to thoughts and decisions. Every answer you need is contained in those experiences. A lot of enlightenment stuff is said to be mystical and amazing, but the thing is that this can be a huge distraction. The base of it from this perspective is simply watching and being attentive to thought processes, and then it falls into place. Just keep working at it, and don't let thoughts scare you off. Some may not agree, but I can only speak from my experience, and the labyrinth of mind is often contradictory. Stick with it.

This is so true. It is actually what makes this so hard to explain to loved ones at times. I can see my brothers mind just trying to assign meaning to things I say about my experience, or taking whatever meaning is assigned and running to the most extreme possible meaning in order to disqualify what was said. I have essentially stopped trying to explain it to people, which has made that need fall away in large part. Definitely look at the definition your mind is using to define "meaningless". Be very wary of that action and just watch it closely. The rational thinking mind is always inserting connotation and meaning into what is. Reality is what it is regardless of what meaning the mind inserts. This is a normal part of meditation. What you are feeling will rise and fall. Just be interested in why the mind is reacting in the way it is.

Maybe try putting your attention on other sensations. If you are inside, turn a fan on, and concentrate on that, as well as your concentration object. I have found that holding concentration with attention on increasing sensations in the moment is very helpful. It can have the effect of clearing the mind and allowing focus on sensation in the body. Although it is good to focus on thoughts in mindfulness meditation, It can also be a good practice to throw your attention outside your head to implant yourself in the moment. Try different things. Getting locked in to one type of meditation can be counter productive. One last thing, when I have experienced frustration, what sometimes can work is to put attention on the frustration itself and inquire into the underlying cause of it. The same technique works well with recurring thoughts. A lot of times, these can be arbitrary metal interpretations of a bodily sensation. Surprisingly, they are often seen to be random thoughts assigned to give meaning to an emotion that may just be arising for no particular reason. Basically, don't try to stop the frustration, let it flow freely and fill you up. I don't know if this is helpful, but I can only draw on my own experience.

The problem really is with language. There have been so many times that there is just no way to put into words what I am trying to say. On top of that, a lot of the things seem contradictory. To someone who is first starting to meditate, that can be difficult. For me personally, meditation came natural. I had been doing hypnosis, so I knew what "trance" felt like, and it was easily adopted into meditation. I actually read nothing and knew nothing about meditation, so the approach was organically to understand myself. I awakened before knowing what awakening was, so I obviously started researching, and when the insights started coming, it was pretty obvious what was going on. The concepts i acquired in research slowed me down in many ways, but also collectively provided a basis. Maybe it would have been faster if I hadn't looked it up, but that is irrelevant because that's not what happened, and in the end, it taught me a lesson. Nothing that anyone says will affect how someone proceeds in regards to their "strategy". It is good for there to be practical applications for people that would otherwise maybe read info that would side track them with grandiose concepts, but frankly, the self wants to find those concepts anyways generally. See... Fuck language, so much of that is contradictory because I really don't have a position on it, because there is so little control over it. You basically just have to do what you do, and in the end realize that you have done none of it. I love all y'all.

I agree whole heartedly with this approach, and have experienced the idea that chasing enlightenment as a concept is no different than chasing money. That was a recent realization for me. Any type of teaching on this subject matter requires one to walk a thin line between seeing the deeper meaning, and thinking the words are exact. At the end of the day, a big part of it is seeing how the mental state uses concepts to take short cuts to construct a working model of reality. This is something that implodes from within, and adding new concepts without the understanding behind them is not helpful. So much of this is about seeing what you are not as opposed to trying to become more. There is an example I see all the time here. People will say: "Enlightened people wouldn't be on a forum." What this is, is a projection of the self onto a situation. It seems to indicate that the person knows what enlightenment is, so they have a mental story reconciling something they think they understand, but really is only a conceptual understanding of what they think enlightenment is. In my experience, it is quite the contrary. This is an ongoing change in the mind for me. Talking things out on a forum helps to show me my own projections and stories. It is in fact this action that made me ask the question: "what exactly is this enlightenment that I am grasping at to be happy." This brought the recognition that I had no clue what it was, all I knew was that I needed it to feel complete. There is no difference between that thought process and money or drug chasing. The premise of both is that there is something outside of me that I need in order to be complete. That is one of the biggest misconceptions and enemies of truth. The difference is that I have recognized that when I talk to others, I am talking to myself. In addition, this is a hard topic to discuss with the majority of people. This community provides an audience of people with some key understandings that allow for people to bounce ideas off of each other. That can be extremely valuable. I really like how Leo focuses on thought processes. It is pretty unique and has been vital for me (or so my mind tells me). It has helped me to recognize the ways that the mental state weaves beliefs to create a reality that is not as it is, but how I think it should be. In my experience, a lot of this comes down to what is making decisions in life. The self thinks that it is, but really, a decision is made outside of the conscious mind and then the self makes up a story so that it can justify the decision to others. It is a self confirming post-hoc rationalization. These stories accumulate over time and become belief systems. This in turn is the mask that we show to the world (it has social utility). They are stories we use to explain why we are the way we are, and they are all based on the idea that there is control over decisions. This is why the self can never truly accept this. It is composed of the fake control. It is a story made up of stories, that project itself onto reality and distort reality so that whatever is happening can be readily assimilated into the existing schema. As the illusion of control is peeled back, so goes the the thoughts as they become less interesting, and being becomes the forefront. This ties into what@No-Thing is saying, because conceptualizing something that you cant truly ever understand can become a part of this process. It can feed the beast just like anything else. Really, it is an illusion to think you have any control over when or how you will awaken. It either happens or not, and it happens outside of you as a self. That is maybe why paradoxically, many people are liberated the second that they give up the search. This just happened to be the final disappointment to show them that they already are complete. The thing is that this post in itself is a story projecting a model of what my mind thinks things are like. Meaning is inherently lost in the words because they are first projected by me, then assimilated by you. Herein lies the crux of the issue. You have to be wary of that. Teachers are trying to transfer wisdom that is beyond thought, and the self will distort and twist it in anyway it can if thoughts are listened to as a subject.

Yea the term selfless carries a moral connotation. From what I can tell it is about negating an illusion, not adding a bunch of godly qualities. Changes come, but the self dropping out is entirely different than becoming saintly.

I thought I had ADD before too. ADD is a belief. It was discovered before they knew that you can change your brain structure. The brain is not as rigid as people think, but they like to say it is because it gives the excuse for not being able change. @Mahmoud Bishr Kebbeh isn't wrong, it really is about being. The best way to meditate is to just be happy and not be too serious about it's structure. Still, for me, learning to relax my body, breathe, and concentrate was a prerequisite to that in some ways. It never felt like a chore though. I love it.

Have yall seen that Paul Hedderman bit where he tells the story of his girlfriend telling him to do the dishes, to which he responds: "there is no Paul", and she told him Fuck you do the dishes. Makes me laugh every time.

He is probably referring to moments of conscious traction where something clicks for you. Sometimes a persons mind will stop temporarily. I wouldn't focus on them too much. They aren't a thing that can be controlled. They happen when they happen, and originate outside of the conscious mind (just like every other mental sensation.) They can vary in intensity, but chasing them can cause intense frustration and can be counterproductive if they are a target. The reason for this is because it is the idea that there is something outside of you that you need to be a "success" at enlightenment. Everything you need is already available to you. The best thing you can do is to keep your attention on your direct experience and follow productive trains of thought objectively. In the beginning stages of meditation for me, It was all about finding where my thoughts came from, and what was motivating recurring thoughts to occur. Just watch yourself and learn how you work and you will probably experience a ton of interesting temporary states.

Enjoy it, and don't cling to it. There may be some backlash, or maybe not. Just remember that nothing can take this from you no matter what you feel like day to day. This is a state, and what is happening is that your body is in awe that the natural state of beings is not total suffering all the time. I remember thinking, holy shit, I was so unhappy before that I didn't even know what happiness truly was. I know you are going to hate to hear this, but from this point on, the process takes care of itself, and there is really no for sure time frame. What I did, was started researching a bunch of enlightenment stuff. What that did was it made my conceptualize something that I thought enlightenment was, and that made me start to grasp at it. Then I realized how silly it was to chase something that when I thought about it, I had no fucking clue what I even thought it was. I just knew I wanted it. This couldn't have happened any other way, and taught me a valuable lesson, but the obsessive information gathering was unnecessary. There is a deeper wisdom at work inside of you than you as a thought have any power to control. It is an awesome experience. Let it unfold and remember that the best way to understand awareness is to continue to see the things you are not, and most of all, just be it. Being what you are is all that's needed. I am very happy for you. I am not all the way through awakening. It's not really a process, but I have stopped trying to box it in by knowing it. That can't be done, and I don't even know why I ever would have wanted that to be a possibility in the first place. You are it. There's nothing to be done except going with the flow and being it.

Leo does have a really good video. To do concentration practice you will hold soft gaze on an object. The way I did it, was to close my eyes, and put my focus on my breath. When I was focused on my breath (the only way I can describe this is by saying when the gentle shift of meditation occured) I would open my eyes and focus on the object. I would continue to hold concentration on my breath, and incorporate the the object. The challenge is keeping yourself from day dreaming or getting sucked into thoughts. When you catch yourself drifting from the object or breath, you gently bring your attention back to the external object and think "aha! I'm happy I caught that." What I would do is continue to do this, and when I started to feel like my mind was drifting a lot, I would close my eyes and bring my attention back to only breath. You will start to build up your tolerance, and when you feel ready, you can try broadening your attention of concentration. You can start to add in body scans. To do this, I would hold focus on breath and the object, and then relax my body one muscle at a time (you probably already do this when you begin do nothing meditation anyways). I would specifically look for areas that would tighten up from sitting or just from habit. I would notice tense areas and "become the muscle" and feel it relax on an out breath. I would repeat this 2-3 times and move to the surrounding muscles. A problem spot for my was my lower back. I would start at the butt, and move up the back vertebrae by vertebrae, then shoulder etc. The tricky part is to be mindful of the muscles you just did before tightening back up. What this does, is makes you super mindful of what is going on in your body, while staying focused on breath and the object. As you can imagine, once you get good at this, it is directly applicable to life, and you will start to notice in your daily life, that you can start mindfully relaxing your body by noticing your breath in any situation. It's really fucking awesome. Dont freak out when you start to notice all the trippy visual effects (jhanas) that occur when you are super focused and you begin to relax your body and go deeper. Just ask yourself: "if this is what I am seeing when I am really focused and lucid, what is going on when I am not focused." and "Why would people refer to meditation as altered consciousness if I am much more clear in this state." When you have that down, you can start integrating other sensations, like temperature on skin, wind blowing, and especially sounds you are hearing. The reason I like this progression is because 1) it trains you to spread attention around on all the things you never think about. This is awareness as an attribute. 2) It shows you the staggering breadth of your attention. This is awareness as in what you are as an unlimited being, 3) It plants you so deep in the moment that maybe one day you will realize that you have never existed outside of the moment, and ARE in fact THE moment, and 4) by spreading your attention around, it saps attention from thought. You may not be able to control your thoughts, but as you start integrating your sweet new skills into your life, they will start to decrease and you will have techniques to redirect the massive amount of attention that most people spend in their mental dreamland. The benefits of this are the gift that keeps on giving. You will start to notice that you are able to concentrate on things and your mind will literally lock on, and feel like a muscle getting stronger. God I love meditation. Concentration practice, in my humble opinion, is the practice of awareness learning what it really is, and what it is capable of. I'm a big fan of it, especially when combined with do nothing methods. Really, either way, you are doing the same motion mentally in either. You are learning not to get sucked into your thoughts so you can get some separation from them. You will find that they synergize well. Here are Actualized Industries Inc. Org., we are all about synergizing. Finally, I know it sounds like a lot, but you will be surprised to see that your attention is almost like a bubble. As it becomes more confident, it can easily incorporate more and more, until it is almost effortless to be a mindfull mf. When that happens, you will question what you have been doing with your life, and why we don't teach meditation to our children in school. Feel free to do this in any order, as is best for you, I do recommend incorporating sound earlier. This method is different than some others, but I believe in it. Just remember that there's no rush, and no reason to get discouraged. Make it your own. Let me know if you have any questions. Also, sorry, a secret of the pros: instead of focusing on the act of breathing, focus instead on the cool sensation of breath going in and out your nose, and then trace that sensation all the way to your lungs. It takes your mind off of the mechanical movement, and breathing will just take care of itself.

Its all about concentration practice. Concentration practice is the practice of being present despite thoughts. I cant stress how important it is. It is the easiest thing you can do to incorporate meditation into your day. It is literally sitting there and being completely aware. You could argue that being able to do this is the biggest component of enlightenment. It is the easiest way to see how thought stories distract from aware being. Concentration practice, then do nothing technique to rest your eyes, then when thoughts get out of control, back to concentration practice. This was the method I did, and then one day, my mind never came out of it. Concentration feels hard, but it IS awareness. When you are concentrating on an object, start expanding the concentration to incorporate other sensations you are feeling. Aside from being an amazing practice, you will have some experiences of intense equanimity (I think these are called jhanas). Just trust me. It is the best way to implant yourself in the moment so deep that you never come out of it. Do nothing is great to cleanse the mind of all the clutter that you aren't addressing, but it doesn't mean much until you understand why you need to clear your mind of all the clutter. Also, instead of trying to quiet your mind and getting frustrated, ask yourself, what is the underlying content of this thought. If it is just a thought that is reoccurring, acknowledge the thought and then be done with it. If it is an emotion you don't want to feel, let the emotion completely fill you. Be the emotion.

I've learned from personal experience that people really dont like when you tell them they don't exist. It's so weird.

@Prabhaker As a happy medium, Compassion can be generated by meditation. The second that it dawned on me that all people are awareness, and that the only different was beliefs, unconditional compassion arose. Everyone is the same thing: awareness and arisings. When there is no substantive distinction between entities, there is only compassion. That was my experience at least. Or maybe not, maybe if I didn't meditate it still would have come, but there's no way to know. It comes when it comes, or not at all.

Keep in mind that not everyone who does meditation wants enlightenment. The classes can be tailored to those people. Personally, I think you are on the right track, and actually one of the things that seems off about Buddhism is the "right speech" etc. I think it can be read as a moral code to be adopted. Actually, my dad does this and won't listen to me that belief systems are blinding him, which is fine, he will either learn or not, but it illustrates my point. I think you are right on though. There is no good or bad. Things just happen as they do. There's no control over them, so classifying them with conceptual morals is bound to cause issues. Belief is a prison. As far as zen devilry, that will also either happen or not. There's no control over it. The main illusion is that there is, and I know people don't like the idea of not having free will, but that IS the illusion. The self is the idea that thoughts can have an effect of whether reality is right or wrong based on whatever concepts are held by the self. That's belief driven. The idea that a self can control what arises or can exert control over what is, is funny. You are a container, not something arising inside of it. So, follow whatever arises. I know you will, because you don't have a choice. Worrying about becoming a zen devil is based on the belief that it is wrong. It will happen or not, but its not happening right now so it doesn't matter because it is a projection of what is which = what is not.