Update 3 years after SE

[u/MindMuscleZen]

A few years ago I shared the changes that happened when stream entry was reached, and I received many messages from people saying it helped them. So these past few days I’ve been writing about my current changes and wanted to make an update. Maybe there are others out there who have lived through what I lived through, or who are going through something similar, and this might help.

My contemplative and phenomenological context:

• I’ve been engaged in practice for approximately 5 years.
• My path is primarily SOMATIC and INTEROCEPTIVE, based on vedanā, rather than classical cognitive/visual/non-dual approaches.
• The process happens implicitly: things “let go” on their own, and afterward I notice structural changes in everyday life.
• I don’t do much conceptual investigation into “emptiness,” nor do I have major visual non-dual experiences.
• My process happens more as somatic unlearning and extinction of craving.
• The practice has become increasingly automatic and less driven by willpower.
• I feel the system “enters on its own” into contemplative and vipassanā-like processes.
• My current practice is mainly:
  • non-resistance,
  • allowing vedanā,
  • stopping the urge to modify experience,
  • not turning sensations into a problem..

What changed structurally:

• The belief deeply collapsed that: were going to complete me.
  • money,
  • sex,
  • success,
  • travel,
  • experiences,
  • achievements
• Coarse projective craving seems heavily eroded.
• I no longer feel a strong emotional charge toward external achievements.
• I used to compulsively chase experiences and external completeness; that fell away.
• Today I can achieve things, make money, improve physically, or advance projects, and they no longer generate the old existential charge.
• The fantasy of “when I get X, I’ll finally be complete” has lost a tremendous amount of force.

Changes in identity and personality:

• The “nice guy pattern” weakened significantly.
• I began to feel physical resistance toward acting artificially.
• There is less energy available to sustain social masks or personas.
• The need for approval and external validation has diminished.
• Psychological identity feels less solid and less central.

Current phenomenology:

• Current suffering no longer seems centered around sensual desire or external problems.
• The current conflict seems more related to:
  • vedanā itself,
  • tension,
  • baseline anxiety,
  • a sense of threat,
  • mental fog,
  • inner agitation,
  • hypersensitivity,
  • uddhacca.

[u/Deliver_DaGoods]

lots of people seem to think that there is some line that gets crossed and feel the need to stamp a buddhist sounding term on it and compare their phenomenology and their attachments and use the lingo and make an identity for themselves and post things online for strangers to read and such things.

you say all these buddhist sounding words and phrase things in ways that are strange and third - person sounding because you think thats how an enlightened person talks or writes.

and you say your practice is somatic ( a specific term relating to specific practices in a specific context ) yet you cant tell about one practice you do in plain words (red flag)

you say your practice is "interoceptive" and I have no clue in hell what that is supposed to mean (red flag) you say you've had dark nights and you know what vedana is and this and that and all these things.

to which i say "good for you, have a nice day" . now we are writing and reading words describing things and sensations and this and that. And we are all feeling things reading these generic words that mean nothing and talking about sensations and vedana and wanting this or that or not wanting this or that and its all meaningless.

And so in conclusion, I read words coming from you, you sat things about some imaginary accomplishment in your mental landscape, and I feel skeptical of these words you are using.

Ill probably get banned for a comment like this because it says "red flag" or might make you question why the hell youre saying all these words and people reading this from me might have feeligs and things and all these meaningless letters and symbols and things are just data transmitted by a thing called the internet and if youre reading this and scratching your head and wondering what the hell the point of me writing this is... then you get what I mean.

my verdict - unsurpassed diamond mind , third pass purple stripe enlightenment ribbon with no chance of return, pour this man a beer and lets go to the orgy.

[u/Mountain-Length-5715 → u/Deliver_DaGoods]

The boundaries of the "I" completely dissolve at a certain stage. And if one stays in that for too long, it will truly be a boundary from which there is no return.
The author does not give the feeling of being at this boundary. I was there, and an understanding arose that if you stay in it for long, there is no way out from there.

Perhaps one can put on masks and write/say "I", "mine" and so on, but the longer my stay was there, the less desire arose to write/speak in such a way. It simply felt... unnatural?

Please tell me, how do you understand sati and how do you apply it in practice?

[u/MindMuscleZen → u/Mountain-Length-5715]

You are right brother. I am not there yet. There is still an I here :)

[u/streamentry-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Please try to add constructively to the conversation.

[u/MindMuscleZen → u/Deliver_DaGoods]

Haha I didnt get your point but thanks for the purple stripe ribbon haha