Did I Get A Glimpse On What I Am?

[Santhiphap]

55 minutes ago, Telepresent said:

Becuase memory is going to make it a different thing that it was. 

@Telepresent Thanks for reminding . This is definitely something that has been bothering me a lot in life. I can sometimes see an incredible importance in something and a few hours later its all gone.. Not to mention the uncountable times I have laid in my bed before sleep and found things in my mind to be incredibly important, desparately trying to keep them in mind, even writing them down so I can remember in the morning, but even then, I read them and they dont seem as important afterall. I think I try to use emotions alot to remember or set myself back in the state I was but even that does not work.

Now then, I have done a lot of reading today to eliminate some of my fear of ego-death. How I understand it I will not completely and forever be sucked into it if I reach it again during meditation. I think ego always comes back or "re-builds" itself unless we have been experiencing enough to understand it and unless we can keep the mindfull state of mind throughout the day, which requires lots of training i suppose. 

The existential fear from the first glimpse has somehow let me to think that if I let go again, a bit more, it would just "click" and I would never get my ego back. This thought is keeping me from trying again and bothers me alot as I want to try and stay a while in that nothingness without worrying never to be able to come back to my ego. I think its possible to go in and out of nothingness isnt it? And the ego dissolving is just the symptom of staying in nothingness for longer and seeing more and more how false it is, am I right?

Edited February 20, 2017 by Santhiphap

[Santhiphap]

I think I made some progress:

I have recently had a body sensations that I now identify as the mind attacks @Natasha posted the link to in her post.

The sensation was a feeling of pressure in my heart area and the result of that was unconcious worry and nervousity. As far as I remember, it probably started Sunday evening (A day after the glimpse) but I didnt realize/wasnt aware of it until Monday. The sensation was nothing completely new to me which might had also been the reason why I didnt become aware of it immediately. I have had this kind of unsettling feeling near the heart before, sometimes after smoking weed.

Monday evening this sensation become more and more frightening and I was plagued by it before, during and after sleep. It went on today, got worse and I almost completely freaked out when I realized I was literally worried of dying. Then I read the post about mind attacks again and started meditating using the techniques by Ayla.

It was tough... Terrible mindgames were trying to keep me from concentrating on the sensation. What if I make it worse? What if I have a medical heart problem? What if my rising anxiety makes it break?.... I almost gave up. I was one second away from opening my eyes and stopping the meditation when I realized that stopping could make it worse as well. I would just run into the livingroom grab my cigarettes and spend the next few hours in anxiety and endless monkey chatter thought circles.

So somehow I did it. I concentrated on the feeling, tried to acknowledge the sensation, opened my mind to the possibility that Ayla was right and these are just mind attacks. When thoughts of "life is being threatened" came up I tried to drop them, afterall Ayle said "there is no pain in the sensation", "what hurts is the ASSOTIATION with the thought that you perceive negative". Then somehow I became relaxed, I was back in control and the sensation began to fade.

OMG, it worked! I feel so calm now and the sensation hasnt been coming back for a couple hours now. Although I think I can still sense it very subtly it is not making me nervous in any way.

(Now it might make sense that through smoking weed I experienced the same mind attacks before without understanding due to the "dissolving" of the ego while high. I have a history of being very "out of space" while high and also anxious and unsocial which is why I stopped smoking weed for a couple months now.)

Alright and last I want to share an explanation of the ego and the fear of death which I found today. I read it over and over and I am starting to get it now. I really like the way its described here:

Quote

"The Fear of Death is not an instinct: it is a reaction of the animal who is conscious enough to become aware of himself and his inevitable fate; so it is something we have learned. But exactly what is it we have learned? Is the dilemma of life-confronting-death an objective fact we just see, or is this, too, something constructed and projected, more like an unconscious game that each of us is playing with himself?

According to Buddhism, life-against-death is a delusive way of thinking it is dualistic: the denial of being dead is how the Ego affirms itself as being alive; so it is the act by which the Ego constitutes itself. To be self-conscious is to be conscious of oneself, to grasp oneself, as being alive. (Despite all their struggles to keep from dying, other animals do not dread death, because they are not aware of themselves as alive.)

Then death terror is not something the Ego has, it is what the Ego IS. This fits well with the Buddhist claim that the Ego-self is not a thing, not what I really am, but a mental construction. Anxiety is generated by identifying with this fiction for the simple reason that I do not know and cannot know what this thing that I supposedly am is. This is why the "shadow" of the sense-of-self will inevitable be a sense-of-lack.

Now we see what the Ego is composed of: death terror. The irony here is that the death terror which is the Ego defends only itself. Everything outside is what the ego IS terrified of, but what is inside? Fear is the inside, and that makes everything else the outside. The tragicomedy is that the self-protection this generates is self-defeating, for the barriers we erect to defend the Ego also reinforce our suspicion that there is indeed something lacking in our innermost sanctum which needs protection. And if it turns out that what is innermost is so weak because it is...nothing, then no amount of protection will ever be felt to be enough and we shall end up trying to extend our control to the very bounds of the universe." - David Loy

 

Edited February 21, 2017 by Santhiphap

[Natasha]

@Santhiphap Thank you for the update and really enjoyed the quote. Keep us posted 

 

 

[Santhiphap]

@Natasha I tried it again.

First I did the "Enlightenment - Part 3 - Creating An Experience Of No-Self" which I hadnt done before. This technique was quiet nice and has taught me a few more things about how to be in the present. I will try to integrate some of the methods to my daily meditations.

After that I did the Neti Neti method again with Leos Guided meditation. I didnt reach the nothingness again. My ego fought quiet hard. I could keep presence and mindfulness until the part when I tried to find the nothingness but then my heart rate went nuts and my whole body started to sweat. I tried to calm myself which worked but it was already too late, it threw me off track. I kept trying until I realised that I already had lost mindfulness and presence.

Kind of disappointing. But anyway, my meditations skills have improved a lot lately. I think I will just append self inquiry to each of my normal meditation sessions at the end and not put too much focus on it. Right now my ego seems to be too well prepared to trick it into letting go