How Can I Improve My Practice

[Raptorsin7]

17 hours ago, Raze said:

Try unified mindfulness

meditate for 40 minutes every morning, you can enter a flow state that changes the whole day 

do strong determination sitting and “break through pain” and “break through difficult emotions” by Shinzen Young 

Can you expand on the technique?

I'm skeptical about any simple meditation advice because there is a lot of nuance required to have an effective practice. 

Just do mindfulness is how you end up meditating for 20 years without any significant progress

[Consilience]

20 minutes ago, Raptorsin7 said:

Can you expand on the technique?

I'm skeptical about any simple meditation advice because there is a lot of nuance required to have an effective practice. 

Just do mindfulness is how you end up meditating for 20 years without any significant progress

Shinzen’s unified mindfulness system is far more complex than “just do mindfulness” and therefore, not simple. This lack of simplicity is both it’s greatest weakness and strength. 

You should read his articles on Mindfulness and the See Hear Feel technique. If you’re looking to cultivate/manipulate/investigate energetic phenomena, Shinzen’s SHF flow techniques are what you’d want to explore. But it’s all connected. As one becomes more mindful, the entire perceptual field becomes increasingly energetic. The mind can see the moment by moment arising and passing away of all phenomena, impermanence, so clearly, that all solidity, objectivity, and dullness evaporate. High levels of mindfulness are what create psychedelic like experiences during practice. Please note, this is not the ultimate goal and can turn into a roadblock for advanced practitioners. 

Another immediate and crucial way to improve your practice is to go on a meditation retreat. The necessity and importance of this seems to be commonly ignored on this forum. Which given Leo’s recent criticism of meditation makes sense, the collective ego just adopting new belief systems. If you watch his older videos though, he stresses the need to go on retreat. 

Ill just say, the liberating power of spirituality has very little do to with energetic phenomena even if in the beginning this direction feels appropriate and helpful. Getting fixated or stuck in the wrong frameworks, such as fixation on energy, is another way to be a seeker for 20 years with nothing to show for it. 

[Raptorsin7]

@Consilience My goal isn't about the energetic phenomena specifically, it's just a marker for progress. I think i've experienced liberation on psychidelics, or at the very least whatever I experienced on psychs I would be happy if that was the end result of sober practice. 

I agree about going on a retreat, I think that's something I'll have to do at some point if my practice doesn't evolve. 

The one issue I have with conventional meditation techniques and maybe with what the advice you gave is, it doesn't account for the surrender doership or control during practice. I think one major block I'm having right now is the sense of striving and trying to do meditation, but to observe and surrender the control seems like something I have to develop. How do you grapple with the paradox if doing formal practice and specific techniques, but also surrendering the sense of control during the practice?

[GreenWoods]

Watch some KAP videos on youtube.

But I think the transmission is strong like that only for a minority.

 

About surrender, generally the higher your void dimension the easier it is to surrender.

One of the things I listed there for increasing the void dimension is physical exhaustion. In case you go to the gym or do running, try to do some meditation right after.

[Raptorsin7]

@GreenWoods I notice when I read a course in miracles there is a calming energetic transmission from the words. I watched on those KAP videos but I didn't really feel anything.

What is your day to day state of being? I have a lot of tension in the head, it's like a pulsing energy. This is my marker for if something works or not. How do you discern what is effective, and how do you measure your progress?

[The0Self]

10 hours ago, Consilience said:

Ill just say, the liberating power of spirituality has very little do to with energetic phenomena even if in the beginning this direction feels appropriate and helpful. Getting fixated or stuck in the wrong frameworks, such as fixation on energy, is another way to be a seeker for 20 years with nothing to show for it. 

^^
This is exactly where I was for years. One would think getting better at jhanas, and doing not just similar practices but a variety of practices even including some experience going up and down ñanas in noting practice, would necessarily result in at least some degree of progress along the path of awakening. But it apparently turns out it’s not impossible for the two to be more like almost if not exactly, totally parallel... Which is funny because I was aware of the potentiality of that being the case... the entire time ? — turned out to actually be the case, at least for me.

Edited May 11, 2022 by The0Self

[Consilience]

9 hours ago, The0Self said:

^^
This is exactly where I was for years. One would think getting better at jhanas, and doing not just similar practices but a variety of practices even including some experience going up and down ñanas in noting practice, would necessarily result in at least some degree of progress along the path of awakening. But it apparently turns out it’s not impossible for the two to be more like almost if not exactly, totally parallel... Which is funny because I was aware of the potentiality of that being the case... the entire time ? — turned out to actually be the case, at least for me.

Im actually not sure what this means haha.
 

In my experience, it was only through voraciously exploring jhanas, the ñanas, developing ridiculous, psychedelic levels of  samadhi did the whole thing start to collapse and a truth independent of states of consciousness emerge. Im still exploring consciousness and states but more so out of compassion for other beings; a more purified mind naturally and spontaneously brings harmony to the world. 

I cannot separate any part of the path from itself. It’s a paradox that although this has always been true, unconditioned, unhindered, empty, selfless, utterly lucid and clear, self-knowing, and most importantly, completely equal and without levels, degrees of depth, recognition, and realization are available. This is why a dog does not, in fact, have buddha nature yet obviously has buddha nature - a crucial koan to understand. 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Consilience

[Consilience]

18 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

@Consilience My goal isn't about the energetic phenomena specifically, it's just a marker for progress. I think i've experienced liberation on psychidelics, or at the very least whatever I experienced on psychs I would be happy if that was the end result of sober practice. 

I agree about going on a retreat, I think that's something I'll have to do at some point if my practice doesn't evolve. 

The one issue I have with conventional meditation techniques and maybe with what the advice you gave is, it doesn't account for the surrender doership or control during practice. I think one major block I'm having right now is the sense of striving and trying to do meditation, but to observe and surrender the control seems like something I have to develop. How do you grapple with the paradox if doing formal practice and specific techniques, but also surrendering the sense of control during the practice?

It does account for the surrendering of doership once the insight into no self has emerged. For those who believe applying a meditation technique contradicts surrender, I would point to a lack of clarity around the dynamics of intentionality and the composition of the self activity and ignorance of the nature of impermanence. The neo advaita crowd, for example, is utterly clueless about what meditation actually is. It does not imply or need a doer, even when intentionally concentrating and cultivating states. Surrender, is in fact, already the case, always.

Practically, be careful with throwing the baby out with the bath water. Intentionally practicing with deliberate techniques will eventually lead you into a state of total surrender, but usually this is only after very large amount of practice. In the meantime, enjoy the power and autonomy of intentional practice, and the happiness, bliss, and peace it provides. I would recommend just staying committed and not trying to prematurely jump to the end of the path. If you really feel like you need surrender, the do nothing technique is always an option and is extremely powerful. 
 

Make no mistake about it, intentional meditation practice starts to rival and in many ways, surpass the states available with psychedelics. 

[Thought Art]

Try out Tao Yin

I think this will improve comfort and effectiveness if meditation 

[GreenWoods]

15 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

. I watched on those KAP videos but I didn't really feel anything.

Yeah you most likely won't feel something from these KAP videos. KAP usually only works if you join a live session.

I mentioned the KAP videos only to convey how strong it can be for some people.

15 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

What is your day to day state of being? 

In regard to? 

Currently my state of being is peaceful and blissful but there is also frustration.

There is some surrender but there is also control. 

I could change my attitude and be the whole day in bliss without frustration, but that's not what I currently want.

I like having some level of frustration and even some anger because that makes me more productive. 

Currently my priority is progress. But at some point my priority will become happiness and then I will prefer bliss and peace over frustration and anger.

15 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

. How do you discern what is effective, and how do you measure your progress?

By subjective change and improvement.

Edited May 11, 2022 by GreenWoods

[Raptorsin7]

2 hours ago, Consilience said:

Im actually not sure what this means haha.
 

In my experience, it was only through voraciously exploring jhanas, the ñanas, developing ridiculous, psychedelic levels of  samadhi did the whole thing start to collapse and a truth independent of states of consciousness emerge. Im still exploring consciousness and states but more so out of compassion for other beings; a more purified mind naturally and spontaneously brings harmony to the world. 

I cannot separate any part of the path from itself. It’s a paradox that although this has always been true, unconditioned, unhindered, empty, selfless, utterly lucid and clear, self-knowing, and most importantly, completely equal and without levels, degrees of depth, recognition, and realization are available. This is why a dog does not, in fact, have buddha nature yet obviously has buddha nature - a crucial koan to understand. 

This is something i don't understand either. I think in Jim Newman and Tony parson's teaching there's an assumption that practice has nothing to do with freedom/enlightenment. 

Maybe once you're already enlightened there's no reason to practice? So if you really get it then that would be it, but at the same time it doesn't really help anyone else experience what they are experiencing.

 

[The0Self]

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

This is something i don't understand either. I think in Jim Newman and Tony parson's teaching there's an assumption that practice has nothing to do with freedom/enlightenment.

That's maybe what they'd say, but I wasn't coming from there.

(

In a sense, enlightenment is further than nonduality, because while nonduality reveals there's just energy and no identity (and the seeker was the sought), there's a further deepening that reveals how that energy is still sort of a reflection of what can be revealed when the leftover perceptual filters strip away -- call it whatever; it's the infinite and infinitely efficient, beyond understanding, more logical than logic... And the way I see it, this is what Leo describes as being conscious of how you're imagining the entire reality as God.

)

I understand @Consilience and what he said totally resonates. Basically what I meant is, while yes the jhanas and meditation/mindfulness are certainly valuable if not indispensable on the path (I probably was being misleading by not including the fact that it couldn't be any other way), there is an orthogonal or "backwards step" (happened with self inquiry + spiritual autolysis but not until I had done it for quite some time) that I was somehow able to avoid even while exploring jhanas with pretty good technique and even with lots of bliss in every day life. And that backwards step can open up glimpses into what's really going on, which is so intimate that it can be constantly overlooked even in the midst of very advanced practice. Maybe it isn't generally that way for everyone's path -- I can see that. I did not mean for it to come across that those practices were useless -- they were in fact crucial. In the grand scheme, there probably wasn't a single month where I wasn't "further along" by the end of the month relative to the beginning, even though in a sense there was something missing.

But at least for me (again my practice could've had a subtle flaw so to speak, and actually, in a sense, in fact it did) it was possible to get really good at concentration and even mindfulness... all the while not taking what I now see to be a key step that I was somehow missing up until the point it began: Directly attending to the thought space (rather than raw sensations, as I had intuitively assumed until then was the right way -- and in a sense it was right for the time) in a discerning way, for the purpose of investigating which (and how) thoughts/fixations pull me back into illusory view, thought, and doership. Yeah, I actually managed to avoid that for quite some time! I would add that, intuitively, I think culprits may have been that I: 1. mainly just focused on jhanas and metta... and 2. didn't consult with a teacher. My practice was sort of well rounded, but in relation to how much metta and concentration practice I did, I was only really dipping my toe in what I now recognize to be at least a few of the prime movers of practice: 1. noting, 2. inquiry, and 3. in a way, "beyond practice," a very strong desire to wake up + the constant intention to break out of filtered reality and applying that passion to investigating the thought space and seeing everything discernible as a thought / thought layer / fixation / filter that creates the sense that I'm here and I'm separate from everything... or in other words clarifying enlightenment: what it actually is; how it truly isn't just another state... There's no it and yet at the same time it's an indescribably total shift in relating to experience.

 

The process of waking up is kind of like this: you're leaving enlightenment, then once totally out, you're instantly back in again, but for real this time...  Only now, instead of a separate you looking through the senses, something else is looking... and movement is absolute stillness.

Edited May 11, 2022 by The0Self

[Consilience]

2 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

This is something i don't understand either. I think in Jim Newman and Tony parson's teaching there's an assumption that practice has nothing to do with freedom/enlightenment. 

Right. Well this hasnt been my experience.

 

2 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

Maybe once you're already enlightened there's no reason to practice?

 Catching the Ox is only the 4th picture out of 10 in the Zen Ox Herding pictures model. Initial enlightenment is just warming up. Or you could stop there, but suffering and delusion won’t be uprooted. So if your goals are either truth, or happiness/end of suffering, initial enlightenment won’t cut it. If your goal is to see your true nature and that’s that, well great yeah stop practicing. 

[VeganAwake]

10 hours ago, Consilience said:

Catching the Ox is only the 4th picture out of 10 in the Zen Ox Herding pictures model. Initial enlightenment is just warming up. Or you could stop there, but suffering and delusion won’t be uprooted. So if your goals are either truth, or happiness/end of suffering, initial enlightenment won’t cut it. If your goal is to see your true nature and that’s that, well great yeah stop practicing. 

There will always be something else....thats how the ego/sense of self keeps running in circles tripping over itself.

It has to be clearly recognized that this desperate seeker that is jumping through endless spiritual hoops & believing it's getting closer to so-called enlightenment is just an illusion of self and never satisfied. 

The seeking ends because it's seen for the first time that this very individual attempting to become enlightened was never real from the start.

❤ 

[Raptorsin7]

1 hour ago, VeganAwake said:

It has to be clearly recognized that this desperate seeker that is jumping through endless spiritual hoops & believing it's getting closer to so-called enlightenment is just an illusion of self and never satisfied. 

This is the main issue I have with this kind of teaching. What is your solution or advice to do this?

If you don't have any practical advice then your approach is very odd and your reasoning to sharing it makes no sense.

It would be like HEY GET ENLIGHTENED. STOP BEING NOT ENLIGHTENED MAN. 

[The0Self]

1 hour ago, VeganAwake said:

There will always be something else....thats how the ego/sense of self keeps running in circles tripping over itself.

It has to be clearly recognized that this desperate seeker that is jumping through endless spiritual hoops & believing it's getting closer to so-called enlightenment is just an illusion of self and never satisfied. 

The seeking ends because it's seen for the first time that this very individual attempting to become enlightened was never real from the start.

❤ 

But it’s not like in the story there isn’t basically a hack that can open the sense of separation up to the boundlessness.

Self inquiry when done very simply and skillfully, simply can, in the story, lead to a shift out of identity.

Ultimately it’s an airtight illusion, because it’s not there, yet nonetheless, this hack is available.

Better to know about what awakening really is and yet not be there, than to be unaware of the possibility at all.

[The0Self]

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

This is the main issue I have with this kind of teaching. What is your solution or advice to do this?

If you don't have any practical advice then your approach is very odd and your reasoning to sharing it makes no sense.

It would be like HEY GET ENLIGHTENED. STOP BEING NOT ENLIGHTENED MAN. 

If this is for just for generally higher consciousness, check out techniques and literature such as TMI and Seeing That Frees. Practice gratitude, Metta, TMI, maybe noting, or maybe do some targeted psychedelic work. But if this is all for enlightenment, honestly I would just get in contact with Angelo Dilullo — there are others available in this effective capacity, but he’s new and less encumbered by his popularity decreasing the ease of one-on-one conversations. Why I don’t teach — I’m not sure exactly what it is (and ultimately there’s no reason) but it might be that at least right now I don’t have the extraordinary humility that he has to actually be an effective teacher to a degree that I’d find worthwhile (seems weird, but it seems this, probably among other things, really does somehow directly prevent me from being able to effectively teach), but he is absolutely willing to teach without hesitation. I think for like 5-10 years (or it could have been 20, I can’t remember) after awakening he didn’t (and perhaps couldn’t) teach as well, though he occasionally talked about it with a few people or something. Not that he’s the only one, but anyway.

Just think, if in literally every moment your only intention was to wake up to ultimate truth and unfiltered reality right then and there, even if it’s going to kill your identity / what you are (or rather what you take yourself to be)... and no other option exists or is even conceivable. <— I’ll say one thing, once you have that, you actually have everything you need to wake up. As in you don’t need any more spiritual information, or really even practice. It’ll just play out how it plays out, with forces utterly beyond your power to influence, understand, or relate to.

For waking up, it’s less about energetic work than it’s about inquiry and directly attending to thought and self (not just raw objective sensations) in a discerning way, for the purpose of investigating which (and how) thoughts/fixations pull us back into illusory view, thought, and doership. And tackling the problem at its actual root, going into it knowing full well what your main obstacle will be: that the seeking setup will at all times try to co opt the bid for freedom, for its own purposes... you starve that at its root.

I do hope this opens whatever door you’re at, if one needs opening.

Edited May 12, 2022 by The0Self

[Consilience]

10 hours ago, VeganAwake said:

There will always be something else....thats how the ego/sense of self keeps running in circles tripping over itself.

It has to be clearly recognized that this desperate seeker that is jumping through endless spiritual hoops & believing it's getting closer to so-called enlightenment is just an illusion of self and never satisfied. 

The seeking ends because it's seen for the first time that this very individual attempting to become enlightened was never real from the start.

❤ 

A self isn‘t what drives the continuation of practice, purification, and awakening.

[Consilience]

@Raptorsin7 If you don’t see the deulsion of the Neo Advaita movement, I’m not sure anything can be said or any advice given, it’s something you must experientially grasp. After a certain level of attainment, the trap this group has fallen into becomes very clear. They’re still not only identified, but clinging to self in one of the most counter intuitive ways. The tragedy is they’ve fully convinced themselves they’re free. All I can offer is a heart felt warning not to fall into this delusion, and instead, walk the path of transforming the mind until the mind truly, honestly, experientially, sees not only its own nature, but the nature of all phenomena and reality. That is happiness. 

[VeganAwake]

11 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

This is the main issue I have with this kind of teaching. What is your solution or advice to do this?

If you don't have any practical advice then your approach is very odd and your reasoning to sharing it makes no sense.

It would be like HEY GET ENLIGHTENED. STOP BEING NOT ENLIGHTENED MAN. 

Trust me I get it.... it sounds ridiculous and makes no sense! That's also why it's very rare.

All I can really say is it can just become obvious at some point that this Seeker/Sense of self & it's entire conditioned belief system is completely unreal. 

And of course this Seeker/Sense of self absolutely hates this because it truly believes it's on a spiritual path acquiring multitudes of spiritual knowledge along the way to finally attaining something incredible called spiritual enlightenment.

But there is no 'you' that finds or attains enlightenment. 

As the saying goes:  "Nobody Becomes Enlightened"

Enlightenment is the collapse of the seeker desperately struggling to attain it & simultaneously the recognition that enlightenment or this, is all there ever was without separation.

And this revelation can become obvious after weeks, months, years, decades of desperate seeking without rendering any lasting results.... the futility is realized and becomes exhausted!

❤