Daniel Ingram: Psychedelics, Meditation and enlightenment

[Ponder]

4 hours ago, The0Self said:

Not quite, but for an arahat the piti flows smoothly in a circuit, isn't tumultuous, and doesn't cause one to cycle through the progress of insight. Rather than feeling weird stuff like euphoric explosions at the top of head, insomnia, mania, etc. In some cases I think bipolar may be a diagnosis that completely ignores all spiritual causes, such as piti/dark-night cycles. The newer field of transpersonal psychology may be addressing this kind of stuff, however.

Arahatship is really just an amazingly fun toy, it's not liberation.

If defining an arahant as one who has transcended suffering completely, there’s no one size fits all mold for how an arahant will behave, nor the experiences that arise within their phenomenological field. An arahant most definitely can cycle rapidly between emotions — sometimes even exhibiting behaviour/mind states that would be classified as mania or even severe depression. The arahant merely stays aloof no matter what’s occuring. 
 

I don’t know if I misinterpreted what you’re saying, just thought I’d give my two cents. 

[diamondpenguin]

On 11/7/2020 at 1:58 PM, electroBeam said:

just keep in mind there's no such actual thing as survival  if you contemplate what survival is, you wont find an answer, perhaps because the concept of survival was actually a lie designed to wiggle your vibrational state, rather than explain some truth about what's happening. 

What do you mean brother? I got an answer from contemplating survival. 

[electroBeam]

3 hours ago, diamondpenguin said:

What do you mean brother? I got an answer from contemplating survival. 

Context dependent to him specifically, for you I wouldnt have answered that way.

Although keep in mind you could get a profound answer to what a unicorn is too... doesn't mean contemplating what a unicorn is, is worth your time, neither does it mean that answer to what a unicorn is, is as fruitful as other answers from contemplating different things could yield you.

[Ariesleith]

@Leo Gura Lmao: Science! 

[Enlightenment]

Daniel has not tried 5-MeO (starts at 26:30)

https://thegoodtimeline.com/podcast/2020/4/20/046-daniel-ingram-ii-buddhist-pragmatism

He did very high dose ayahuasca and didn't like it  

 

[Leo Gura]

8 hours ago, Enlightenment said:

and didn't like it

Haha!

Classic noob mistake: diving in too deep too fast. That's like selecting a 30 day meditation retreat as a noob and then not liking it. Exploring psychedelics requires years of patience.

[Lyubov]

doesn't sound like he had a breakthrough. even my worst trip on aya was incredibly profound and grew me a bunch even though it left me messed up for a long time after. 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Lyubov

[The0Self]

It's possible that psychedelics and meditation are simply 2 different axes of development. 2. Yeah development is inherently dualistic so what did you expect?

[Forestluv]

It seems like Daniel has some depth with meditation and Buddhism, yet is at a shallow level with psychedelics. Why give a noob such credence?

Imagine an Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon. He has a lot of experience and understanding about training methods - yet I wouldn't give him much credence on what he says about integral calculus. 

[The0Self]

3 hours ago, Forestluv said:

It seems like Daniel has some depth with meditation and Buddhism, yet is at a shallow level with psychedelics. Why give a noob such credence?

Imagine an Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon. He has a lot of experience and understanding about training methods - yet I wouldn't give him much credence on what he says about integral calculus. 

Perfect analogy.

[Leo Gura]

Well, I think there is more overlap between meditation and psychedelics than decathlon and calculus. But psychedelics require a patient and methodical approach, just like meditation. You can't just jump into it once and understand.

It's good if we get more advanced meditators like Daniel to also go deep into psychedelics because right now these two fields lack integration. We need more mystics and nondual teachers and Buddhists doing serious psychedelics.

[How to be wise]

@Leo Gura Except they’ll go to jail if they do.

[levani]

@RedLine frank yang has done it ...

[RedLine]

5 hours ago, levani said:

@RedLine frank yang has done it ...

not after enlightenment

[knakoo]

@Leo Gura I am curious, you are conscious that you are god but you still have an ego. How can your ego not identify to some degree to being god, and therefore solidify itself. Like don't you ever have thoughts pop up like "I am god" "I am everything" "I understand the universe totally" "I have been infinitely conscious"... ?

Edited November 22, 2020 by knakoo

[knakoo]

On 06/11/2020 at 2:01 PM, The0Self said:

Because arahatship is supposedly indestructible. It closes the loop of ego-death/ego-backlash cycles and kundalini/piti. It can’t get more closed than closed.

I am going through a kundalini awakening so I am very curious, what is piti ?

[The0Self]

1 minute ago, knakoo said:

I am going through a kundalini awakening so I am very curious, what is piti ?

Going by the Buddhist framework: Piti is another name for kundalini energy. Caused by concentration and mindfulness, it is a feeling of pleasant exhilaration, and it is the proximate cause of bliss/sukkha/happiness. Kundalini awakening is another name for The Arising and Passing Away (caused by penetrating the object of meditation and separating it into its components, which are separated into their components, and so on down to pure impermanence-information-flux), the experience and layer of mind that is the home of the second Jhana.

[Leo Gura]

On 11/22/2020 at 2:47 PM, knakoo said:

@Leo Gura I am curious, you are conscious that you are god but you still have an ego. How can your ego not identify to some degree to being god, and therefore solidify itself. Like don't you ever have thoughts pop up like "I am god" "I am everything" "I understand the universe totally" "I have been infinitely conscious"... ?

Yes, ego does identify with those things to some degree. But it's not so much a problem unless you let it spin out of control.

Ego can understand that it is God. And in a sense that's correct. It is God. Just don't stop there. Keep going deeper. This is a long journey.

My ego knows it's God, but it doesn't become too narcissistic about it. You can think of it as an expanded ego. A trans-human ego.

This kind of thing only becomes a serious problem if the ego tries to monopolize God and tries to put itself above everyone else and stops doing any further consciousness work.

Continued spiritual practice is what keeps the ego from solidifying itself too much. The more I trip the more humble it makes me. But of course I can still get carried away if I'm not vigilant -- self-deception is always lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce.

[Guest EmptyVase]

25 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Ego can understand that it is God. And in a sense that's correct. It is God.

Taken from  "Tantra Illuminated":

"In the Tantrik tradition, an enemy is simply an ally viewed in the wrong way. Thus, the ego is not to be annihilated in Tantrik yoga but rather purified and infinitely expanded until it simply melts into all that is."

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, EmptyVase said:

Taken from  "Tantra Illuminated":

"In the Tantrik tradition, an enemy is simply an ally viewed in the wrong way. Thus, the ego is not to be annihilated in Tantrik yoga but rather purified and infinitely expanded until it simply melts into all that is."

Yes! Good quoting.

Fighting with the ego is just more ego. Analogous to how judging yourself for being judgmental is just a doubling of the mistake.

Which is why I said that Self-Love is the highest teaching. Hating the ego doesn't work. Loving the ego works better. If the ego is acting out it's only because it seeks Love which it has been denied. So give it some Love to pacify it.

The best way to get the ego onboard with killing itself is by showing the ego that "killing itself" just means Infinite Love.