Erlend K

I would assume it's good for cultivating equanimity, but not concentration or sensory clarity.

Care to expand on that? Why do you think that you as a 30-something year old guy, with no monastic background and a very limited study of the Dharma, understand "Buddhism at its purest"? In your first post you talked said "EVERYTHING must be relinquished -- including rationalism -- to get to the Godhead." I think you might have got Brahmanism and Buddhism mixed up. There is no goal in Buddhism about "getting to the Godhead". The goal is simply complete acceptance of- and equanimity with- the three characteristics of impermanence, dissatisfactoriness and non-self. I disagree with calling the practices you advocate (Maharshi style self-inquiry and psychedelics) "Buddhism at its purest". A purer practice for a beginner would be practicing Samatha until you master the concentration Jhanas, combined with the moral practices like kindness, compassion and generosity. Then switching to vipassana to go through the insight stages/vipassana Jhanas to reach stream entry. That is the practice the Buddha actually taught. In my original post, I made two claims about Buddhism: 1. The form of enlightenment the Buddha taught is achieved through a predictable, fairly linear, progression through well defined stages and not one sudden shift: The Buddha himself taught enlightenment as 4 stages (paths). Newer Buddhist schools have expanded this to f.i. the 5 paths of Mahayana (of which stream entry is the second path) and the 10 Bodhisattva Bhumis (of which I think stream entry is the first bhumi). For a in-depth analysis of the stages of insight check out the writings of Mahasi (perhaps the greatest Buddhist teacher of the last century). 2. Buddhism is a very rational practice that dosn't require faith in any metaphysical speculation: The Buddha was very clear about this. Don't believe anything to be true just because this or that teacher says so. Don't assume something to be true even if the Buddha himself said so. Don't take anything on blind faith, but think for yourself, and see if it matches your own experience. Unlike the Brahmanist sages, Buddha would often refuse to give his opinion on metaphysical questions because he saw these as unnecessary distractions.

I dont see why he should be a warning. He is a highly successful, financialy independent and quite self-realised person living a seemingly meaningful life, driven by his deepest values, and has even managed to combine that with a successful social life and a relatively successfull spiritual quest. (Has already achieved stream entry, and might very well get even further later in life). If anything he should be an inspiration. Whether or not he is enlightent depends on how you conceptualizise "enlightenment". Sam Harris' spiritual practice is Buddhism, while yours seems to be a Maharshi inspired practice with a heavy focus on psychadelics and direct self-inquiry. I'm not really sure wich conceptualization of enlightenment you aspire to, but from the little I have seen it look like something simular to moksha or some new age concept. Rationalism might be a hindrance in the specific path to enlightenment you are following, but it is not so in the classic buddhist path. Buddhism is a very rational practice that dosn't require faith in any metaphysical speculation, and its spiritual path consists of a predictable, fairly linear progression through well defined stages. In buddhism enlightenment is not an either/or, that happens in one sudden shift. It is something that happens in stages. Stream entry is the first stage of classical buddhist enlightenment. The claim that Sam, who have spent 2+ years in vipassana retreat, being a stream entrer sounds very plausible. That means one could say he has acchieved a minimum level of enlightenment, as defined by the Buddha.

In theory it would be possible, but no one can answer if such an entity exist. Asuming telepathy is impossible, a hypothetical awareness without a body would not be unable to communicate with us, and we would have no means to detect it. An awareness that isnt connected to any sense organs or though-producing brain would be aware of nothing, except maybe itself.

Many of the tibetan yogis are known for drinking a lot.

Personly I have been deeply ineressted in politics since early adolecens. I love discussing and arguing for my views, but also love discovering new ideas that contradics my own and helps make my views more nuanced and precise. Luckely I have friends who are the same, and we have a lot of fun discussing. These are typicaly the most intelectualy stimulating conversations we have. If you don't enjoy, or get intelectual stimulation from discussing politics, then it's a waste of time and energy to do so. The way to stay open minded, while valuing your own research is to avoid getting your ego entangled in needing your exising views to be right. Accept that politics is emensebly complicated and the information you have is just a tiny piece of the whole. Whatever conclusion you make based on your limited information might not make sense when seen in light of information you are missing. It's by gaining this extra information and adapting your views to it that your political perspectiv evolves and matures.

Even within Buddhism there are muliple different conceptualizations of enlightenment. To reach traditional Buddhist enlightenment (arahatship/fourth path) you should first practice samatha untill you gain access to the jhanas, and preferably samadhi. This can be done in 1-3 years of about 1 hour practice a day pluss some short retreats. You can skip this and do dry vipassana, but this can lead to prolonged, painfull duka nanas, and is not what the Buddha taught. After this you swich to vipassana to reach stream entry. The best way to reach stream entry for a housholder is in retreat. Many westeners reach stream entry during a three month mahashi retreat where they meditate 16 houres a day. Reaching second and third path is more tricky. Some say you should keep doing mahashi right away when the insight cycles start again shortly after stream entry. Others claim that mahasi is ineffective for reaching second path. Getting to fourth path is supposedly very different from the first three, but I dont know much about it. Most arahats achieved forth path in a monastic setting. If you ever get this far, doing a lenghty retreat under the guidance of someone who have completed forth path themselves is probably your best bet. If you want to go this path finding good teachers are key.

It's an amazing and beautifully shot show. If you havn't seen it I would recomend checking it out.

If you have a mental issue seeking professional help and then dealing pragmaticaly with those issues should be your #1priority. Don't fall into the trap of spiritual bypassing, telling yourself that some spiritual practice will magically solve all your problems. Remember, there are munks who have spent decades striving to achieve enlightent, meditating for houres a day, without getting further than stream entry or second path. Don't gamble your mental health on being able to reach high levels of enlightenment.

The need to feel loved is one of our most fundamental psychological needs, if you try to fight this need you will either lose and end up frustrated, or end up "winning" by supressing it, which will eventually lead to emotional issues in the long term. It's better to embrace this need as a part of the human condition, and deal with it.

Would it be easier to gradually cut down on your gaming time instead of going cold turkey? You should avoid buying new games. Eventually as you start to get bored of the games you currently play it will be easier to quit. If you keep buying the newest cool game you will make quitting a lot more difficult.

Kindness and generosity has always been a fundamental part of most major spiritual tradition. The practice of these qualities has been strongly advocated by most of the wisest and most enlightent people of every culture on every continent through the ages. The centrality of these practices is one of the few examples we have of truly universal wisdom. For instance, when the Buddha was asked by beginners which practice to focus on, his typical answer was the practice of generosity. However for many modern, western practices this aspect of the spiritual journey seems to be neglected or downplayed in favor of the technical, introspective practices. This leaves many with a mechanical, soulless, self-focused "spiritual" practice. I think many listeners would benefit from an explanation of the indespencable role generosity and kindness plays in any serious spiritual path, and practical advices for how to cultivate these qualities.

This seems like something you should talk to your doctor about. The only thing us forum members can do for you is talk out of our asses and speculate about what the cause might be. Good luck solving this. In the mean time you might want to swich from written books to audiobooks.

I think it depends on how motivated you are to change. If you want to improve for some abstract, theorethical reason like "improving is good" or "This will improve my life many years from now", its hard to keep motivation high enough to implement stuff quicly. I think the key is to make motivation as concrete as possible and set up a motivation-effort-reward feedback loop. At least that was the case for me. Personaly I started an insanely intensive, effective and fun self-development project a year ago, after learning about research showing that the biggest influencer of happiness is the quality and authenticity of our social relationships. At the time I was anxious and unhappy had no direction in life, and felt dissatisfied with my relationships. Right there and then I set improving my relationships as my main goal and priority in life, and after just weeks I stared to feel significant inprovments in my mood and decreased neuroticism. I quickly became extremely passionate, almost obsessed, with this project, and would straight up implement any habits I could think of that would aid it. I got very pragmatic about my goal, would research a lot and implement everything I discovered. The more I built my lifestyle around my project of mastering relationships the happier I felt, making me even more motivated to up the project, wich would further increase my happiness. This positive feedback loop alowed me to quickly and enthusiasticly implement new habbits with little or no use of will power. All day long I would on and off think about smal things I could do to improve this or that relationship in subtle ways. I would work hard trying to think of ways to help this person or make that person feel good. Eventualy lots of my spontanious thought loops would be planning the comming day/week like: "If I spend the next few houres first eating a healthy meal, going for a jog, write in my gratitude journal and then meditate, I will be in a better mood the rest of the day. This will make me more friendly and positive when I meet my friend later. This will be good for our relationship" (Or often more subtle actions I could take. I would just constantly be on the lookout for them) . Then I would just act with no resistance, as I percieved the actions not as isolated "habits", but as integrated parts of a deeply meaningful project that I oriented my whole life around. Within a year I had improved my life in every significant way. I went from feeling anxious, unhappy, having strugling relationships and little hope and enthusiasm about life to the opposite. I love and enjoy my life more than ever before now! I don't know if my experience is replicable tho, or if I was just extremly lucky to get into this highly motivated roll. When I find the time I will try to write more in-depth about the changes I made and how I did it.

@Lord Bwyra great advise! This is what you should do. Don't end up using "spirituality" as a way to escape reality, justify lazyness or supress what your true feelings or desires.

Very few 19 year olds have a clear vision for life, and thats ok. At that age you are barely getting used to having an adult brain and have barely begun, what will be a life-long project, of trying to underdtand your self and the world. Over the next decade a lot of the pieces will gradualy fall in place for you. If you have been meditating, studying psychology/self development and thinking seriously about questions like this since you were 17, you are off to a good start for your adult life, so don't streds about not having the answers or getting the results you want yet. You are in no hurry to read every useful book right away. Like others mentioned, just pick 1-2 prioritized topics at a time, and focus more on real-life implementation than trying to understand all the theory. Be sceptical when it comes to sources. You will find a lot of advice online that is just someones personal opinion, but might be completly contradicted by research. You shouldn't worship science dogmaticaly tho, but if you want to deal with anxiety go for something like cbt, if you want to be happier study and practice research-based positive psychology. These might seem dryer and less exiting than other exotic ideas you can find online, but if you want the best results possible these are generally the go to techniques. Then you can suplement with trying out less scienficialy sound ideas eventually. Waiting a few years before college is no problem, but don't be too perfectionistic about choosing the perfect career path. Weighing your options for too long tends paradoxically to result in more regret and dissatisfaction than just going wholeheartedly for something thats good enough. As long as you choose something you genuinly care about it matters less than you think whether its the absolutely perfect job for you. Once you start working and can really go deep into you chosen topic, you will start to feel mastery and learn how to get into a flow state while working. Then you can develop your other interests at a hobbybasis.

Why not just get on Tinder then? It's a much more effective way to get laid.

Do you generally have poor social skills, or is it just flirting you are bad at?

You can cultivate a sense of awe and wonder about the world. UC Berkley's Greater Good in Action website has some research backed exercises for cultivating awe. You can also find more info about this on their youtube chanel.

Generally the advice is not to do energy practices without the guidance of a teacher, as you can mess up the subtle body systems if you do things wrong. If you want to do them with no guidance, I would at least recomend you to start by reading a handful of books on the topic, to get an overview of what you are doing. "Eastern Body, Western Mind" is a good one to start with.

@Dodo "if we are to believe in existence of brain". Why would anyone not believe in the existence of the brain? @Craigxt22 there are a lot of research demonstrating neuroplastical effects of various meditation/mindfulness practices. Just google mindfulness + neuroplacticity or something like that.

Personly I perform a lot better under timepressure, so I practice strategic procrastination: purposely delaying tasks untill I have the minimum of time left required to complete it on time. This alows me to work with much higher focus and intensity than when I lack time pressure. This both increases the quality of my work and reduces the nessesary time investment. For me, and others like me, this is a great way to maximize productivity.

In my opinion: before moving on to more advanced meditation one should do concentration practices (samatha/anapanasati) for 6-12 months to build up the capacity to stay focused on you meditation object long enough to actually accomplish something from it. Do you want is to strengthen the sense of there being this 'Self' in your mind that stands outside of the mental stream looking into it and making decisions, while meditating? To increase this you can trigger activity in the parts of the brain responsible for what Buddhists call 'Selfing': The minds process of creating the illusion of there being a Self. According to neuroscientist Rick Hanson these brain regions seem to be the upper portions of the thalamus and rear regions of the default network (including the posterior cingulate cortex). There are certain techniques you can do: looking straight forward decreases selfing, while looking downward increase it; full body breathing decreases it, while focusing your attention at the breath at the nostrils increases it. There are a couple others as well, but I don't remember them all. If you are interested, Rick Hanson have a great lecture series on Dharmaseed called something like 'No-Self In The Brain' where he talks about the neurological and phenomenological aspects of the illusion of there being a Self in our mind.

The main thing here is to just embrace this paradox. At one level ideas like "there isn't a good or bad, only perceptions" is true, but you have to be careful not to let it become an excuse not to put in the hard work required to move forward. It's like saying "nothing is objectively morally right or wrong" and then use this as an excuse for cruelty or selfishness, or saying "time is an illusion/the past dosn't exist/it's always just now" and use this as an excuse to be late to appointments, etc. Wisdom is about understanding witch of the often many contradictory truths that are relevant to any particular real-life situation, and then acting based on that truth. If you are truly unhappy, jumping straight to the truth that "there isn't a good or bad, my situation is what it is" is not a wise way to deal with this paradox. The exception is if there is truly nothing you can do about the situation, but that is rarely the case. Otherwise the contradicting truth "I am unhappy, and ought to try to understand why, and identify measures to change this situation" is the one it would wise truth to act on.

A talent is an predisposition to become good at something, based on how your individual body and mind functions. Like many others have mentioned willingness to practice is a better indicator of the degree of mastery you can expect to achieve, but that clearly don't mean that talent don't exist. Talent will determine both how hard you have to work, and how frustrating that work will be, in order to master some skill, and when you can expect to hit your skill sealing. An obvious example: If your muscles mostly consist of type 2 muscle fiber you will have a talent for spurting, but not for long distance running. Training to run a marathon will take much harder work than for someone with mostly type 1 fibers, and you will hit a skill sealing at a much lower level. The same is true for cognitive, emotional and social skills. Many positive psychologists, including Martin Selligman, considers understanding and regularly using our talents as a major components of what makes life fulfilling. The VIA Survey is the most well researched method of mapping out your own strengths. http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths-Survey Other that that it's all about trying a lot of different things and be honest with yourself about what comes easy to you and what dosn't.