Meditation / Enlightenment Experiences

[Natura Sonoris]

Hello everyone

As discussed in this topic 

 

We should focus more on doing ''more honest work and discussion'' ( pardon me, but i don't know how to say it different). We all can talk about ego as illusion just by spending some time watching Leo's videos and understanding it on logical level. Other case would be some of read some books from Leo's booklist so we are biased in some way that may distract us from looking deeply. So the focus on this topic would be sharing honest personal experiences. Now, it does not matter if it is meditation or enlightenment experience, everything honest here is welcomed. Maybe if this topic grows, we could open sub forum where you could share some of yours most deepest experiences (just like journal page). 

 

So, I will start first :

- I am doing enlightenment work mostly everyday by doing meditations that last from 30 mins minimum to 1 hour. My goal is to get most out of meditation so i am not really stressed about time. Anyway, my most strange experiences happen when i go into 20 mins of meditation (sometimes it starts after 10 mins, depends on my focus during that day). I am observing with my eyes closed what i am experiencing in each moment and after some time, the visuals in my head start to vibrate and massive tension builds up. This tensions feels like my mind is going explode, however it is not something really unpleasant (by the way, i have to stress on the fact that i am not forcing this to happen). I can ''hold'' this feeling for very long time and after that it fades away. The state of being in that phase cant be truly described but i have a sense that this is not something which i can call enlightenment  experience.

However, once i felt some sort of strange void-like sensation in which all sensations were just happening. This was one time when i was into 45 mins of meditation and it was my second tension build up. But still, i dont know what that was. 

 

 

[Sarah Marie]

This is so interesting to me, although I'm not sure what it is. I hope someone else with similar experiences chimes in because it sounds so interesting! 

 

[Leo Gura]

There are a lot of weird state-experiences that can happen during meditation. You could have life-like hallucinations of giant spiders crawling around you, or of Jesus coming to bless you, or the Buddha, or people's faces can start to warp and distort, or you may see bright lights, or images of demons, or total blackness, or an explosion of energy in your head, etc.

All of that is called Makyo in the Zen tradition. Literally it means, "abode of the devil". It's all a distraction from truth. It makes you feel like you're making progress or gaining some deep spiritual insight when in fact you're identifying and getting lost in sensory phenomena. It's the devil playing tricks on you, testing to see if you're wise enough to distinguish between truth and illusion.

The important thing to remember is that enlightenment is NOT a state! It is not an emotion. It is not a sensory experience. It is not a high. It is not some blissful light, or any other thing you can imagine. Everything you can perceive or imagine is guaranteed to NOT be enlightenment.

Enlightenment is the Truth! It is what you are! You are it ALWAYS! You cannot ever not be it. You're IT right freaking now as you're reading this sentence. No special state is required. Truth is ALWAYS present. In fact, it's the ONLY thing that's present. It cannot EVER be lost. You already are enlightened! (You just don't know it.)

The only problem is that your mind doesn't know what to do with this. The mind only knows how to conceptualize. The mind only knows illusion. It cannot know truth no matter how hard it tries because truth isn't something that's known, it is BEING itself, and it is not an object. Absolute Truth is indescribable and unimaginable. It has no shape. It is not even an "it". It transcends even existence and non-existence. Absolute Truth is ETERNAL -- it NEVER changes. Ever!

Instead of trying to attain a grandiose meditative state (and I've been guilty of this myself A LOT), try relaxing your body and mind and focus on genuinely wondering, "Who am I really if I'm not the body?" or "What is true independent of all phenomena?" or "What is it that's aware of all of reality?"

Hint: don't neglect the possibility that you may literally be nothing at all

Ask yourself, "What is the only 'thing' that could be ETERNAL, untouchable, and indestructible?"

Also make a distinction in your experience between meditation and self-inquiry. Lean more towards self-inquiry vs meditation if you wanna get enlightened faster.

[VT]

Leo - Very Nice!

[Juan Cruz Giusto]

Do you recommend enlightenment practice (self inquiry) or meditations (do nothing or sensory cycles). I've been doing meditation for like an year now and I dont know if I should change to self inquiry or just add 20 minutes to my practice. How much are you meditating Leo and what type of meditation are you doing right now?

[Leo Gura]

I recommend both meditation and self-inquiry. I do both. Lately I've been doing 1 to 3 hours per day.

My meditation techniques right now include:

• Do nothing
• Labeling (formal mindfulness practice)
• Strong determination sitting

I use the Do Nothing technique the most. Although I want to start doing more Labeling because it's so powerful.

Try experimenting around with all of them. Try doing 1 month straight of Do Nothing, then 1 month straight of Labeling, then 1 month straight of Strong Determination Sitting. Then compare your results. You'll make huge gains no matter what and you'll discover your favorites.

[Calmdown5]

I've only started meditating quite recently, however I am really inconsistent with it. Some periods I would meditate every day and others I completely forget to.

However what I have noticed is when I meditate after a long period of abstinence, I get two sensations.

- A tingling sensation in my brain and whole body, like a less intense versin of pins and needs.

- It feels like I'm spinning round and round when I'm actually sitting still and not moving.

 

Has anyone else had similar experiences and what does it mean, if anything?

[JoshFukumoto]

I've meditating inconsistently for the last 8 months (20 minutes 5-7 days a week) and I haven't really experienced much of anything too fantastic or mind blowing. Thoughts come and go or ramble on, sometimes I do this thing where I realize I'm thinking and then I trace back my train of thought to the physical stimuli that sparked it. I find that I'm really not focused enough yet for self inquiry, I'll inquiry these big questions, but no answers come so my mind moves to something else. When my thoughts cease I'm still occupied by the ambient noise in the room or what seems like forced breathes.

I still consider myself new to meditation or at least inexperienced, is there more that I can be doing to increase my gains?

[Markus]

Hey Leo, 

do you also combine strong determination sitting with the other techniques you mentioned? Also, do you use any specific approaches (such as "zooming in and out at the same time" or "focusing on the global spread of the pain") to deal with the sensory challenges (pain, mental images and talk) that tend to tangle as the pain gets really bad, or do you just try to bring mindfulness to them? I personally fail very quickly once I'm attacked by a machine-gun fire of mental images about moving my legs.

[Codrago]

I think that if you fail to get any actual results in meditation or self-inquiry, then you are separating “self-actualizing” with all the other stuff you are doing, your work, relationships, every damn second you are living. Mind does that way because it is easier, it wants to stay within its comfort, while the real way is trough struggle. Actually I would say it is good to trick your mind into thinking that struggle is good 

So what your mind does, is you tell yourself like “it’s enough that I do meditations – meditations are all I need, if I meditate I can rest forever and enlightenment is going to come by itself” – so don’t use meditation as an excuse and after meditation don’t be like phew I can fell back asleep now  

I am meditating very inconsistently as well, but I try to analyse casual situations and be aware, and I try to realize that every thought like EVERY ONE without a single exception, is yet another trap. The question lies are you going to fall for it? Are you going to live in this illusion or choose to be aware of it? So very little I can suggest (it’s just how I get it) is you need to understand how your thoughts process and work at first. There is a book about this by James Allen “As a man thinketh” and maybe “The secret”

For me personally those were the books that raised my awareness at the very beginning of this journey. Only my own opinion though.

[jasonjp1016]

A few weeks ago I got out of bed and started doing my normal 30 minute meditation that I’ve been doing for over a year now.  My mind was very quiet that morning.  I started feeling like I was expanded and taking up more space.  I also felt at one point like I was higher then my head and then at another point felt like I was lower in my body.  It lasted for like 20 minutes.  It was a pretty neat experience.  The last 10 minutes my mind started getting chatty and it was over.  I’m not quite sure if it was an enlightenment experience or not, but nevertheless it was cool.

 

Has anyone else had an experience like this when your mind gets very quiet?

Edited February 7, 2016 by jasonjp1016

[goodguy]

Ive had a moment of oneness, similair like the one Leo described in his video " my enlightenment experience". I thought at the time that that was enlightenment but Im still not content and still searching :D. So I guess thats not it yet.

[Don_Avocado]

Interesting thread guys.

I'll share something that has recently occurred whilst meditating, twice within the scope of two weeks.

Firstly however, to introduce my current practice; predominantly based around 'Strong Determination Sitting' (Leo's videos) and Mindfulness (using mainly techniques from Shinzen Young, in The Science of Enlightenment - labeling, equanimity, and so on). I have meditated for at least 2 x 20 minutes, every morning and night, for around 200 days; I try to get longer sessions in at the weekends... any advice on how I should grow my practice would be greatly welcomed!

 

Anyway, these occurrences both happened whilst diverting off from my formal meditation into a bit of a 'contemplation'. On both occasions I had been sitting there for around 15 minutes, on my longer, weekend meditations. As my attention flitted between different pieces of content in consciousness, I kept up my Mindfulness techniques, as I always do, labeling experiences i.e. Self, Other, Image, Sound, Subtle Processing and so on... I became extremely aware of the frailty of the thinking mind; I became aware (beyond subtle appreciation) that the Self was a total illusion, a system of thoughts, beliefs, categorizations etc, based on past experiences (i.e. pains and pleasures).

The thing is, all this was coming from WITHIN the thinking mind... I was not yet outside of that thinking, judging, contemplating place. As I began to realize this too, small spasms began to happen all over the body periodically. Everything became (for a lack of a better description), warm, calm, tranquil, mellow, yet scary and unknown. Everything I was experiencing, in terms of the feeling body, was very strong and 'rich', and for a while I used a technique called 'Free Floating Awareness' to focus one-by-one on individual experiences that were happening throughout the body. After a while, I began to sink further and further into this state.

Then it happened, the same way in both meditations. As commonly discussed in the books; I remember contemplating the possibility that what if I wasn't the thinking mind; what if the thinking mind was just like another sense perception, and my true identity was the observer. But in this state, this made total sense, in a way that I'm struggling here to put into words. It just seemed to click, it made sense, and my paradigm shifted. My whole body, as well as my mind, and my surrounding environment all came into ONE awareness, all at once. Everything was total, and complete in my experience, for that moment of time. I felt consciousness itself expand outwards in a way i cannot really describe any better. The mind, body, environment, and all sensations derived from these hung in what I can only describe as a VOID; I remember the following so strongly as a reminder of this - I was sitting cross legged, and I could feel sensations associated with this - the pressure on my butt, and the warmth of my rug, but they sort of just hung there in the void, coming from no place in particular. All these sensations just hung like stars in the night sky. I was nothing, but also everything. I know how cliche that sounds.

I tried to keep focusing on individual sensations as best I could, such as my breathing... this was an overwhelming experience. My breathing felt as if I had become like some sort of enormous air billow. I became that entire sensation, hanging there in the void.

Irritations were still there, massively reduced in terms of there pain... but they just sat there in the periphery, neither good or bad.

 

However, one thing I will say is that this place can be quite scary... it is totally unknown, and the spiritually immature may find themselves getting scared, and drawn back into the thinking mind. Part of the process is to continue to observe; handle it with equanimity. Allow it to be. I can see how easy it would be to damage such experiences from my period of Mindfulness practice.

Also, in hindsight, I find myself craving to be back there; I know I must not identify with these thoughts... it's like catch-22, you think you can 'think your way there'... and then you realize you're identified with those thoughts again etc etc, and the cycle goes on. It takes a lot of determination and maturity to keep going as if these experiences would never have happened; and not try to forcefully return there. These perhaps only lasted in their entirety whilst my eyes were closed, but the high consciousness state lasted for perhaps an hour or two each time, as I went off to bed.

 

Don't know if this will make any sense to anyway, but I would love to hear any thoughts and opinions of what happened, and what it means (probably nothing )

Edited February 8, 2016 by Ed

[Khin]

@Leo Gura I also think Do nothing is the best

[Naviy]

I've had some realization a couple days ago. I've finished my meditation/inquiry sit and opened my eyes. My cat came close to me and sat on floor. I looked at her and started wondering: "What is the exact difference between her and me?". And I started looking like this - "This is her. This is me. This is her. This is me". I've noticed, that I can point at some "her" (whatever it is), but when I point at "me" to compare us, what do I point at? There is nothing exact I can point at as "me" to compare "me" with something else.

I think now I better understand what Leo means by "360 degree camera".

There is nothing, and then experiences happen. And it is not even like "I see experiences". The percieved experience is what it is. "Seen experience" is the experience itself. It is not "seen by me". The seeing of an experience = the experience itself. Hard to explain, but is possible to observe.

And now I see a better possibility for myself to grasp the instruction from Leo's Self Inquiry video - when you try to find what you really are, you fail, and when you fail, you actually succeed - become this what you cannot find - nothing, which is not an experience itself. I think now I can kind of better "feel" what nothing is (these words are wrong).  

 

 

 

[Oneness]

On 6/2/2016 at 10:31 AM, Leo Gura said:

I recommend both meditation and self-inquiry. I do both. Lately I've been doing 1 to 3 hours per day.

My meditation techniques right now include:

• Do nothing
• Labeling (formal mindfulness practice)
• Strong determination sitting

I use the Do Nothing technique the most. Although I want to start doing more Labeling because it's so powerful.

Try experimenting around with all of them. Try doing 1 month straight of Do Nothing, then 1 month straight of Labeling, then 1 month straight of Strong Determination Sitting. Then compare your results. You'll make huge gains no matter what and you'll discover your favorites.

But strong determination sitting is can also be combined with those two techniques right? 

at the moment I do strong determination sitting combined with mindfulness, applying mindfulness to the physical and emotional pain as it arises.

[charlie2dogs]

enlightenment  is a state of being,  that is a way of life,  not just some weird experience that could have come from any place, because of any thing that is rooted within your own consciousness.