Is Meditation BS?

[Tudo]

So many doubts about this 200 hour meditation retreat stuff. Do you stop to eat and go to the bathroom? How does this work on deconstructing the mind and ego?

[Davino]

  On 3/26/2025 at 11:42 AM, r0ckyreed said:

Thanks. I will try it. My biggest excuse is that it would be a complete waste of time and won’t lead me any closer to truth than existential contemplation or psychedelics. I’ve seen the power of psychedelic mushrooms, and I’ve seen how meditation seems so inferior compared to it. It kinda discourages me from meditation. But I gotta reframe it differently to see meditation as worthwhile.

You gotta find your meditation technique. It really boils downs to that at the end of the day. I promise you there's a meditation technique that is enjoyable for you.

Meditation was rough for me till I found vipassana and I've been having great results with it.

Same happened with yoga for me. Till I found kundalini yoga from a nice teacher and it's super enjoyable.

You gotta find that nice fit for you. It's still gonna be hard but the nice type of hard.

[OBEler]

  On 3/26/2025 at 11:22 AM, Leo Gura said:

I will after I finish my next retreat.

Wow thank you I was waiting for this!

You are one of the very few who then can tell what's the real difference between psychedelic insights and meditation retreat insights and the aftereffects. I don't know anyone on earth who is serious on both sides.

[r0ckyreed]

  On 3/26/2025 at 11:49 AM, Davino said:

You gotta find your meditation technique. It really boils downs to that at the end of the day. I promise you there's a meditation technique that is enjoyable for you.

Meditation was rough for me till I found vipassana and I've been having great results with it.

Same happened with yoga for me. Till I found kundalini yoga from a nice teacher and it's super enjoyable.

You gotta find that nice fit for you. It's still gonna be hard but the nice type of hard.

My meditation techniques that I like is Analytical Meditation, self-inquiry, and memento mori, or what I refer to as contemplation. I like meditations that are contemplative and analytical. The less intellectual meditations I do is anapanasati - breath awareness meditation.

Edited March 26 by r0ckyreed

[emil1234]

  On 3/26/2025 at 0:39 PM, OBEler said:

Wow thank you I was waiting for this!

You are one of the very few who then can tell what's the real difference between psychedelic insights and meditation retreat insights and the aftereffects. I don't know anyone on earth who is serious on both sides.

ive been thinking this excactly. deep meditation insights is the last missing piece in leos game

[Butters]

I disagree with Leo. Leo is very spiritually advanced, but to the average person who worries, 20 minutes daily makes a HUGE difference. 

Likewise, there's a massive difference again when you go from 30 min to 2 hours. Not miniscule differences like Leo says. 

[r0ckyreed]

  On 3/26/2025 at 6:02 PM, Butters said:

I disagree with Leo. Leo is very spiritually advanced, but to the average person who worries, 20 minutes daily makes a HUGE difference. 

Likewise, there's a massive difference again when you go from 30 min to 2 hours. Not miniscule differences like Leo says. 

I think Leo’s point is that 20 minutes daily won’t change your state enough to have the deepest meditative insights. Sure, 20 minutes daily won’t hurt you and may improve your mood and reduce anxiety. But 20 minutes is not enough time to access the deepest insights. Even the Buddha had to meditate for crazy long periods before he attained awakening. You ain’t gonna be truth-realized with just 20 minutes. 

I personally like Jed McKenna’s take on meditation. He basically says that becoming a Buddhist monk is part of the dream and is not truth-realization. He says that your practice needs to strip away all falsehoods and identity — including the identity of being a monk. Maya’s palace of delusion has many meditators in it who all seek to cope with the dream rather than awakening from it. From Jed’s perspective, meditation is a way to cope with being on the Titanic rather than as a way to get off of it altogether. Meditation is another room in Maya’s palace.

Edited March 26 by r0ckyreed

[r0ckyreed]

Most people actually meditate to feel good, not for Truth. This is why I’m such a critic of meditation. Truth-Realization is not about feeling good, meditating and counting your breaths. It’s about sharpening your blade and killing all of your false beliefs and egoic attachments until you ultimately kill the ego itself. I don’t see how you can do that work with just focusing on your breath. You need to sharpen your thoughts to cut through delusion since your delusion is created out of thought itself. When you strip away all delusion, you are left with Absolute Truth. Meditation becomes another egoic attachment/identity. Another illusion. Another identity. All the spiritual books you read become the ego going deeper into the dream. Awakening requires deconstructing everything, even the idea of meditation itself. So to be nuanced here, “proper meditation” is about stripping away falsehoods and deriving the truth of a thing. Anything else is just another dream in the Dream. Watching hours of spiritual videos becomes a dream within the Dream.

I hope this makes sense. It just seems to me that meditation can become its own dream. I feel like contemplation fills in the gaps that meditation cannot fill. You can meditate for 2000 hours and still not know how to use your mind. There are many ways to meditate, but not all meditations lead up to the same mountain. Counting your breaths and loving-kindness will only get you so far in comparison to deep contemplation and psychedelics.

What am I missing here??

I will probably do another long meditation session just to experiment and see where I could be wrong.

Edited Wednesday at 07:14 PM by r0ckyreed

[Yimpa]

  On 3/26/2025 at 6:43 PM, r0ckyreed said:

What am I missing here??

What you're missing is God.

I PIG you 

[ExploringReality]

@Leo Gura 

Kriya yoga sessions and shamanic breathing sessions are super powerful. Zazen meditation is great, but when you bring your whole body in, it really supercharges a classic sitting meditation.

[Raze]

  On 3/25/2025 at 11:52 AM, Leo Gura said:

 

I do the Shinzen labeling kind.

Have you done the finders course? 

Edited Wednesday at 09:00 PM by Raze

[BlessedLion]

  On 3/26/2025 at 10:45 AM, r0ckyreed said:

My point is that for me, I can get deep into meditation in the first 5-10 minutes. I see less of a need to meditate past 30 minutes.  By meditate I mean sitting down and shutting off the mind.

It’s not about the time you spend meditating, it’s about the quality and how deep you go into this moment. I am aware of God right now and can see the infinite intelligence and beauty of consciousness. Time is an illusion, so I don’t see the need to chase a certain time when I’m meditating — That defeats the whole purpose. Watching the clock isn’t God/Truth-Realization. God/Truth are the present moment.

I assess what my consciousness needs to connect me deeper to life. For me, my “meditation” is deeply curious, contemplation. Instead of returning back to the breath, I let my mind wander and wonder on a specific question. My curiosity becomes my point of focus, my anchor to the present moment.

The traditional ways of meditation that I have tried are not suited for my curious mind. If your meditation isn’t connecting you to deep curiosity, then what is the point? I’m after Truth and not to just feel good. The point of meditation for many people is to feel good — To eliminate suffering.

Meditation alone will not get you to Truth. You can meditate for 200 hours and still be the deluded ape that you are. Truth requires using your mind for deep questioning, which is something meditation (as traditionally taught) discourages you to do. Many nondual philosophies, like Buddhism, think thoughts are the enemy, which is only a half-truth.

Yes this is a solid take. You remind me of Peter Ralston his mind is like this as well. 
 

I also enjoy simply sitting and allowing my mind to connect to God naturally. With no forcing but maybe nudging it in certain directions. 
 

I think focusing on the breath just calms your mind mostly but doesn’t provide much insight 

[BlessedLion]

  On 3/26/2025 at 11:21 AM, Leo Gura said:

Dude, it doesn't just "happen". It has to be forced. The mind has to be whipped into submission. It will not go willingly.

Torture your mind for 200hrs and it will start to rewire and change.

Irrelevant. Meditation presents its own kinds of truths. Do it to enhance your perception of truth.

Insight is good but there's more to this than insight.

What Leo is talking about is the purification of the subconscious. When you sit and focus on a single point in meditation (who am I? Stillness, the gaps in between breaths) - all things I learned in Kashmir Shaivism, you begin to purify the subconscious. You might not even be noticing it happening, but it brings your day to day consciousness deeper into that stillness. Something psychedelics, dance, and sex can’t fully do 

[Ulax]

@r0ckyreed doing meditation to regulate your nervous system can be reason enough imo

[BlessedLion]

  On 3/25/2025 at 3:34 PM, theleelajoker said:

@AION

1) Careful about assumptions. There are free retreat that are donation based (Goenka, vipassana e.g.)

2) At home you don't have the structure. You still have to care about basic things like preparing or buying food. At the retreat I know you just eat, sleep, meditate. In between some breaks for walking & some lectures in the evening. You are also more likely to be disturbed at home. One time I tried doing it at home. Turned of all communications and then my neighbor knocked on my door first time ever  

It’s much more effective to have a structure  if you think you have the discipline mental and emotional to actually focus on meditating a hardcore retreat at home, especially your first time, you are fucked 

 

  On 3/26/2025 at 10:55 AM, Leo Gura said:

You are kidding yourself.

Even 30hrs of meditation is not serious enough really change consciousness.

Just because you can silence the mind or recognize God does not mean that a 200hr retreat won't take your consciousness to a whole nother level.

You are not some special unicorn that you can accomplish in 10 minutes what can be accomplished with a 200hr retreat

[Ulax]

@Leo Gura You ever experimented with Shinzens gone technique? I think you might like it

[Ulax]

  On 3/26/2025 at 6:43 PM, r0ckyreed said:

Most people actually meditate to feel good, not for Truth. This is why I’m such a critic of meditation. Truth-Realization is not about feeling good, meditating and counting your breaths. It’s about sharpening your blade and killing all of your false beliefs and egoic attachments until you ultimately kill the ego itself. I don’t see how you can do that work with just focusing on your breath. You need to sharpen your thoughts to cut through delusion since your delusion is created out of thought itself. When you strip away all delusion, you are left with Absolute Truth. Meditation becomes another egoic attachment/identity. Another illusion. Another identity. All the spiritual books you read become the ego going deeper into the dream. Awakening requires deconstructing everything, even the idea of meditation itself. So to be nuanced here, “proper meditation” is about stripping away falsehoods and deriving the truth of a thing. Anything else is just another dream in the Dream. Watching hours of spiritual videos becomes a dream within the Dream.

I hope this makes sense. It just seems to me that meditation can become its own dream. I feel like contemplation fills in the gaps that meditation cannot fill. You can meditate for 2000 hours and still not know how to use your mind. There are many ways to meditate, but not all meditations lead up to the same mountain. Counting your breaths and loving-kindness will only get you so far in comparison to deep contemplation and psychedelics.

What am I missing here??

I will probably do another long meditation session just to experiment and see where I could be wrong.

Well concentration meditation aka watching breath isn’t designed to bring spiritual insight. It’s designed to tranquilize and regulate your nervous system.

It is insight/ vipassana style practices which are designed to bring you spiritual insights. These are things like Mahasi method and noting. 

[Ulax]

  On 3/25/2025 at 2:17 PM, AION said:

How one can do nonstop meditation? You have to drink and eat

You do noting meditation whilst you eat and drink 

[BlessedLion]

@Leo Gura Honestly this is a bit ironic. For years you shit on meditation and the path of “walking up the mountain” and now you’re doing retreats. You said meditation was a waste of time and psychs were the ultimate technology. Meditators were basically pre historic primitive chimps. 
 

Luckily I was wise enough not to listen to you in this particular topic because it made no sense, none of the great masters got there through psychedelics and I just had this intuition that it was an ungrounded claim. 
 

But many followed your advice and took tons of 5MEO without a grounding or integrative practice like yoga and meditation and got nowhere, or even worse. 
 

Now watch the whole forum become avid meditators 😂

 

At this point I’ve spent 1,200 hours in silent contemplating retreat mode meditation in the last 2 years. That’s the real deal. 

[Leo Gura]

  On 3/27/2025 at 2:46 AM, BlessedLion said:

Honestly this is a bit ironic.

There is no irony.

Psychedelics are still the king of consciousness. The only issue is that you can't be on them all the time -- which is not news.

Edited Thursday at 02:54 AM by Leo Gura