I “locked in” the perception of emptiness related to visual and tactile sensations

[BipolarGrowth]

This happened about 48 hours ago or so. It’s easy for things like this to come and go, so we’ll see if it ends up having the staying power it appears to have. The process by which I discovered this for myself is about as simple as 1, 2, 3 for me as soon as I discovered it, so I’m a bit doubtful it’s something I’ll lose access to. If anything it will just fall into the background of my experience rather than actually go away I imagine. 
 

Anyway, this is what it’s like:

• the feeling of gravity as a thing pulling down on everything has disappeared
• everything, including the body, is felt to float where it is. Instant stress reducer. How mad can you get when all phenomena are “floating” in emptiness? 
• rather than having concepts of there being no ground to reality or thing behind the scenes of what is perceived, this becomes a visceral process.
• Viscerally felt — this is IT baby ?
• the space within objects, bodies, etc. is emptiness. Not even space is felt to be there
• Mental impressions of the body, objects, visual field, etc. are removed, and only what is in front of you remains. This includes what some call “the dropping away of the body” which is when the mental impression of the body disappears and only the sensations present are felt to be real/present. 

 

The way I discovered this was by investigating the phenomenon of “dropping away of the body.” You can probably find more info online about that if you want. After examining this in a sensate way, it was realized that the visual field pointing to something other than emptiness within the body (such as seeing a leg in front of me yet the mental impression already being removed and no sensations being present there) also can be applied to all visual phenomena as the entire field is fitting that same criteria the leg was. 
 

After that realization, the effects I described above have been continuous. 
 

Vipassana experience or other ways of directly investigating sensations is probably a prerequisite of getting results using the specific way I came to this realization if I had to guess. 

[Fearless_Bum]

@BipolarGrowth yes! 

It's very "real" right? 

Like it's easy to float around in awareness and consciousness and all those words, but then BOOM, it hits you, smacks you awake. 

The energy ?.

[BipolarGrowth]

35 minutes ago, Fearless_Bum said:

@BipolarGrowth yes! 

It's very "real" right? 

Like it's easy to float around in awareness and consciousness and all those words, but then BOOM, it hits you, smacks you awake. 

The energy ?.

I’m just curious when all these shifts slow down. Did you notice a point where it basically reached a “baseline” which continued on rather unperturbed? 
 

Or are new facets/“perceptual” upgrades/whatever we want to call them still getting revealed to you regularly? 

[Consilience]

Sounds very Dzogchen. Nice  

[Fearless_Bum]

@BipolarGrowth for a while I was caught in the Highs and lows, but one day the whole thing became transcendent and always remained, the only thing now is it just gets deeper and deeper.

What ive realized is really that it all comes down to beliefs and what specific and subtle beliefs you let go. 

We can say that the shifts happen faster, the more the momentum builds then the more shifts happen. It's really just the flushing away of beliefs, because your "vault" of beliefs is lighter, then it makes it easier to spot more beliefs, contemplate them, then flush them out, increasing the momentum.

It's quite shocking how simple and unbelievable it may seem, that it literally all comes down to beliefs. 

Like when I stopped believing that space exists, space just disappeared, when I stopped believing I had a body, it just disappeared.

[BipolarGrowth]

42 minutes ago, Fearless_Bum said:

@BipolarGrowth for a while I was caught in the Highs and lows, but one day the whole thing became transcendent and always remained, the only thing now is it just gets deeper and deeper.

What ive realized is really that it all comes down to beliefs and what specific and subtle beliefs you let go. 

We can say that the shifts happen faster, the more the momentum builds then the more shifts happen. It's really just the flushing away of beliefs, because your "vault" of beliefs is lighter, then it makes it easier to spot more beliefs, contemplate them, then flush them out, increasing the momentum.

It's quite shocking how simple and unbelievable it may seem, that it literally all comes down to beliefs. 

Like when I stopped believing that space exists, space just disappeared, when I stopped believing I had a body, it just disappeared.

Yeah this sounds pretty familiar lol. It’s just more and more depth. Momentum keeps going to essentially exponentially stronger levels. 
 

I’ll have to examine it from the “vault of beliefs” perspective and see how this impacts things. 

[Fearless_Bum]

6 minutes ago, BipolarGrowth said:

I’ll have to examine it from the “vault of beliefs” perspective and see how this impacts things. 

@BipolarGrowth go for it man, it's so subtle lol. Like one day I was thinking about people, then I was like "oh People is a belief, there are no people." And boom gone. 

[softlyblossoming]

On 17/11/2021 at 1:36 AM, Fearless_Bum said:

@BipolarGrowth for a while I was caught in the Highs and lows, but one day the whole thing became transcendent and always remained, the only thing now is it just gets deeper and deeper.

What ive realized is really that it all comes down to beliefs and what specific and subtle beliefs you let go. 

We can say that the shifts happen faster, the more the momentum builds then the more shifts happen. It's really just the flushing away of beliefs, because your "vault" of beliefs is lighter, then it makes it easier to spot more beliefs, contemplate them, then flush them out, increasing the momentum.

It's quite shocking how simple and unbelievable it may seem, that it literally all comes down to beliefs. 

Like when I stopped believing that space exists, space just disappeared, when I stopped believing I had a body, it just disappeared.

@Fearless_Bum Just tried this on my sense of there being a witness and made objects perceive themselves where they are slightly more. Crazy technique, bro. What do you practice to get better at this stuff, or just get more enlightened in general?

[Fearless_Bum]

@softlyblossoming I would experiment with different meditation techniques, the best technique is the one that puts you in touch with raw experience more. 

On the other hand, noticing beliefs and dropping them is essential. 

For me I did breath awareness for a while, then moved on to self inquiry, then body awareness. 

The confusion of the self is like an onion, you gotta dissolve each layer of beliefs by simply noticing them as beliefs. 

Notice that you're beliefs are so sneaky, as you don't see your beliefs as beliefs, rather you take them on as what's just true. 

Anytime you assume something in regard to this existence (time, space, the existence of others, etc.), step back and notice that you actually think said thing is true, therefore it being a belief doesn't even cross your mind.

[Fearless_Bum]

@softlyblossoming sure no problem, feel free to pm me ?.

[Kamo]

On 11/16/2021 at 8:36 PM, Fearless_Bum said:

@BipolarGrowth for a while I was caught in the Highs and lows, but one day the whole thing became transcendent and always remained, the only thing now is it just gets deeper and deeper.

What ive realized is really that it all comes down to beliefs and what specific and subtle beliefs you let go. 

We can say that the shifts happen faster, the more the momentum builds then the more shifts happen. It's really just the flushing away of beliefs, because your "vault" of beliefs is lighter, then it makes it easier to spot more beliefs, contemplate them, then flush them out, increasing the momentum.

It's quite shocking how simple and unbelievable it may seem, that it literally all comes down to beliefs. 

Like when I stopped believing that space exists, space just disappeared, when I stopped believing I had a body, it just disappeared.

I do agree with you on how it seems to ground itself in Belief.

What can you recommend to help "dropping a belief" or "stop believing something"? The conditioned establishment of a belief seems to really hold on within the mind. It becomes like a memory that cant be forgotten?  Any advice would be appreciated.

[softlyblossoming]

@Kamo The forgetting can be forced if you're on psychedelics, and with lots of patient practice if you're not.

[Fearless_Bum]

@Kamo recognize a belief, and from then on take deep breaths and trust that the belief will rest and fade away. 

Meditation is what let's beliefs settle and fade away.

[softlyblossoming]

@Fearless_Bum Do you ever do mahasi noting? Sounds like it'd be optimal for this - spotting all those pesky unseen beliefs and so forth.

[Fearless_Bum]

@softlyblossoming I've never heard of that honestly, what is that?

[softlyblossoming]

@Fearless_Bum It's a meditation technique where you select a sense door as your object and "note" (mentally verbalize a label) for whatever you find there - e.g. for the body as object, we might note "warm" "cold" "tense" "tingles" "soft" "dense" "sparse" etc, and perhaps add the body part to our note, or weather or not it is a pleasant or unpleasant sensation e.g. "cold calf pleasant" "tension upperback unpleasant". I do one note per out breath, but some people like to double that and do one on the in and on the out, and some just freestyle the rhythm as it comes naturally to them. I usually do not note body part and pleasant unpleasant, as that's too much chit chat for me, but sometimes I will to switch things up.

[Fearless_Bum]

@softlyblossoming oh nice, if that helps you be in touch with raw sensation then continue for sure!

[fi1ghtclub]

@Fearless_Bum could you elaborate a bit on what was your practice?

also - what is the nature of those shifts? what's the difference between then and now?

what's your current moment to moment experience like?

[Fearless_Bum]

19 minutes ago, fi1ghtclub said:

@Fearless_Bum could you elaborate a bit on what was your practice?

In the very beginning just basic breath awareness meditation. In the middle self inquiry style practice, questioning who's really there. 

Now just body awareness, but in all honesty there really isn't a certain practice, as it's easy to just be, and it occurs to one at this point that meditation is reality.

19 minutes ago, fi1ghtclub said:

@Fearless_Bum also - what is the nature of those shifts? what's the difference between then and now?

I'm not sure what you mean by what is the nature of the shifts, like their substance? I'd say there isn't any. 

The real difference is that the vault of beliefs has been emptied out so much, that everything's changed really. For example, I don't even really look into differences between then and now. I also don't have any states really, as a state is created when I look into the past/memory and then call it a state then wish I could be in that state.

19 minutes ago, fi1ghtclub said:

@Fearless_Bum what's your current moment to moment experience like?

Free and weird which is awesome. 

Like on one hand I'm pretty normal, I'm working out, trying different diets and feeling their impact. 

On the other hand, there is mostly just reality, nowadays I am the embodiment of the word mindfuck. 

I have no clue where I am anymore no joke, there's just BOOM energy and that's it. 

Interestingly enough, I was sitting in my chair yesterday and suddenly realized that sensation/energy is all there is and it's here right now. Suddenly the distinction between in breath and out breath disappeared and I was just sitting down soaking in this energy, the distinction between all senses disappeared. Before then I had emptied out the 4 senses, but the sense of touch was the hardest to let go of. 

But now I'm here working just being a normal guy, and that memory is just a memory, what's here is here and that's all that matters. 

Also just to shake up your brain a bit, notice that most spiritual aspirants want to be free from samsara but slaves to nirvana. 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Fearless_Bum

[BipolarGrowth]

14 hours ago, Fearless_Bum said:

In the very beginning just basic breath awareness meditation. In the middle self inquiry style practice, questioning who's really there. 

Now just body awareness, but in all honesty there really isn't a certain practice, as it's easy to just be, and it occurs to one at this point that meditation is reality.

I'm not sure what you mean by what is the nature of the shifts, like their substance? I'd say there isn't any. 

The real difference is that the vault of beliefs has been emptied out so much, that everything's changed really. For example, I don't even really look into differences between then and now. I also don't have any states really, as a state is created when I look into the past/memory and then call it a state then wish I could be in that state.

Free and weird which is awesome. 

Like on one hand I'm pretty normal, I'm working out, trying different diets and feeling their impact. 

On the other hand, there is mostly just reality, nowadays I am the embodiment of the word mindfuck. 

I have no clue where I am anymore no joke, there's just BOOM energy and that's it. 

Interestingly enough, I was sitting in my chair yesterday and suddenly realized that sensation/energy is all there is and it's here right now. Suddenly the distinction between in breath and out breath disappeared and I was just sitting down soaking in this energy, the distinction between all senses disappeared. Before then I had emptied out the 4 senses, but the sense of touch was the hardest to let go of. 

But now I'm here working just being a normal guy, and that memory is just a memory, what's here is here and that's all that matters. 

Also just to shake up your brain a bit, notice that most spiritual aspirants want to be free from samsara but slaves to nirvana. 

Hitting the single sense door is great. Meditation is absolutely effortless at that point, and everything is meditation at that point. I really got into the one sense door last night while listening to Frank Yang coaching calls and doing vipassana on the visual field while staring at a bright light. The vipassana just kind of did itself and expanded to what felt like everything. Cool shit for sure.