Unbearable pain without causing physical damage to the body.

[Endangered-EGO]

Sorry for sounding insane:

I'm looking for ways to induce strong pain, like SDS or Hot sauce, that doesn't damage the body. I want to test my equanimity levels.

I'm gonna try hot hot sauce soon, but I was looking for other alternative safe methods.

It's either too dangerous, or not painful enough or takes too long.

Another issue with SDS is I can stop anytime, so I cannot surrender fully to the pain. Hot sauce is not that easy to stop.

[The0Self]

SDS.

Maybe needle in fingertip?  Don't actually do that. SDS is sufficient -- you can't stop anytime if you've determined already that you're going to sit for x hours. I mean you can but not really -- it's SDS. Plus there are techniques that will induce so much equanimity you won't even want to move. Dive into the pain and try to feel into what it actually is. Turn up the dial of pain intensity intentionally -- it has the opposite effect if you've been still bodied and minded for long enough.

[Endangered-EGO]

@The0Self I can zoom out of the senses into equanimity while meditating or while my skin burns in the sauna.

I already got insights into what turns pain into suffering. I've taken thousands of cold showers. It's the minds:"Oh I don't wanna do that, it's gonna be uncomfortable" and "what do I do about it" thoughts that makes pain into suffering.

I have back/neck issues that I'm worrying about, it starts hurting right away when SDS, so I want the "Am I physically hurting myself" thoughts out of the equation.

 

Can you give me clearer instructions? First equanimity asap before pain shows, or from pain into equanimity?

Ignore/still the mind, or observe it's reaction, and it's reaction to it's reaction?

[The0Self]

@Endangered-EGO Yeah I can give instructions, why not. Be very still, perhaps start with some meditative technique like following the breath. follow the sensations in a very relaxed but diligent way with clear bright full awareness of the whole egg-shaped energetic body sense in the background. Appreciate any joy that arises and let it build like a fire which you can add fuel to with continued close unwavering following of the breath. When it gets painful, continue with the breath following until it gets unbearable -- though if there's a lot of joy it might not even be a big deal, but I digress... Then place attention on the sensations associated with unpleasantness and dive into them in a relaxed diligent curious way to see what it is. Dive in completely like you can't get enough of it -- you want to find out what it is. Intentionally try to increase the unpleasantness with a sort of mind-dial on the unpleasantness itself -- it will have the opposite effect. Eventually you might break through and the pain may be just empty space essentially. You can zoom out like you said, but for this instruction it seems a more profound equanimity is associated with zooming in or rather absorbing-in. It's all a huge game, there are all kinds of things the apparent you can seem to learn and do and progress with.

Edited September 25, 2021 by The0Self

[jake473]

Pain is meant to signal you're damaging the body. Be careful pushing yourself if your neck hurts or something.

[The0Self]

5 minutes ago, jake473 said:

Pain is meant to signal you're damaging the body. Be careful pushing yourself if your neck hurts or something.

Yeah if it's neck then idk... I was mainly referring to the general pain caused by profound stillness in half lotus for long periods, usually primarily in the legs.

[Endangered-EGO]

@The0Self I'm gonna try that tommorow. Gonna aim for 1h30min.

Let's see what's gonna happen.

[Javfly33]

SDS can hurt the body obviously , for example the back

[Consilience]

I took an SDS course from guru viking awhile back :

Dude is a beast.

He offered some really great suggestions during the course Ill outline.

1) Work yourself up incrementally. No reason to jump into something super challenging immediately. This is a pretty standard principle of any domain of mastery though.

2) Three strike rule - the first time you’re genuinely wanting to quit, let it go. Second time, let it go. Third time, go on ahead and move.

3) Allow yourself to minimally adjust and reposition your spine/posture. SDS Light that is probably better for the body overall but given how small the movements are, you wont be interrupting the stream of pain. 
 

4) Duration training - rather than making the SDS about not physically moving the body, just sit for a long period of time allowing yourself to adjust as needed. The length of the sit will create emotional tension/dis-ease (and physical pain as well, just not as much as a normal SDS) which we can apply equanimity towards. Don’t underestimate this form of sitting either. 
 

5) Have fun  Don’t take the pain or discomfort too seriously.

[Endangered-EGO]

@Consilience Thanks, great advice.

I like him, he's probably 10times more enlightened than he would admit.

Daniel Ingram couldn't even get him to talk about his own perception of his enlightenment.

[Consilience]

2 hours ago, Endangered-EGO said:

@Consilience Thanks, great advice.

I like him, he's probably 10times more enlightened than he would admit.

Daniel Ingram couldn't even get him to talk about his own perception of his enlightenment.

Glad it was helpful. ?

And seriously! He is truly on another level.

[The0Self]

8 hours ago, Endangered-EGO said:

@The0Self I'm gonna try that tommorow. Gonna aim for 1h30min.

Let's see what's gonna happen.

??  ? Try diligence but have fun and perhaps don’t take it too seriously.

[Nahm]

@Endangered-EGO

If you were to cut a food from your diet what would it be?

If you were to exercise daily, what kind would you do?

[Endangered-EGO]

@The0Self Hey I somewhat followed your advice. I focused on the pain and mudras. For 1h

I noticed something weird. Sometimes I dropped into equanimity, and the pain disappeared for the duration of that white-cotton-equanimity. Just all the way gone. And then after 30 seconds, it came back.

Also I noticed that sometimes the sensation of 2 fingers touching (mudra) disappeared for a longer while.

I'm not able to maintain a good posture, it seems like milimeter by milimeter I start slouching, without noticing it.

 

Fascinating was also: when I stopped and sat back, I could barely feel my body and dropped into equanimity and was about to fall asleep in a few seconds. Weird.

 

5 hours ago, Nahm said:

@Endangered-EGO

If you were to cut a food from your diet what would it be?

If you were to exercise daily, what kind would you do?

@Nahm Probably processed foods, I'm not someone who enjoys eating that much. I'm more of a tea-drinker

And cycling.

Why those questions?

[Nahm]

29 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

processed foods, and cycling.

 

Why those?

[Endangered-EGO]

@Nahm because processed food feel weird in the body and cycling because i like nature, but I don't like being slow in nature

[Nahm]

@Endangered-EGO

Sounds like you naturally prefer those because they feel good. 

[Endangered-EGO]

@Nahm No, it's because it's easier and faster to prepare.

[Nahm]

@Endangered-EGO

Oh, ok. Why do you prefer ease, speed & efficiency? 

[DualityHurts]

I am very into hot sauces and got into having extreme levels of heat with every meal. I can tell you that BY FAR  the hottest sauce is "da bomb the final answer". Don't be confused with "da bomb beyond insanity" from hot ones on youtube. It is the same brand but there is a massive difference. This sauce will really mess you up. It comes with a mini dropper. All you'll need is one drop.

Edited September 26, 2021 by DualityHurts