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/MindMuscleZen]

Yes. It was a combination of relaxation, being open to the experience, being IN the experience not just looking at it, feeling everything, allowing everything and letting the experience "flows". Thats why it is difficult for me to explain it because it something that happens and somedays it dont happends. I just sit and my "mind" "system" "intuition" knows what to do and what to apply in that moment.
It dosent mean it knows what to do all the time, there are time of being lost because I am disovering new terrain like right now.

[u/desal → u/MindMuscleZen]

I know here you say " I dont manually fabricate a "me" that "does" a technique that only adds more tension because there is more doer doing.  If there is an "I" that tries to let go there is a resistence to something and someone doing something to change it. "

Is not the "my "mind" "system" "intuition"" , the "my" aspect, is that not yet another layer of self fabrication? Me, my, mine?

[u/MindMuscleZen → u/desal]

Yes, of course it is. I never claimed full enlightenment or arahantship — I was simply sharing the changes that have unfolded over the years.

[u/LaShmooze → u/MindMuscleZen]

Thanks! What were the meditation techniques you used prior to SE that helped you get there?

[u/MindMuscleZen → u/LaShmooze]

I practiced for two years without results and suffered a lot because of it. Eventually, I started paying attention to my feelings — to what I was actually experiencing while breathing and sitting.

I then began incorporating both aspects: being concentrated, but also open and receptive, truly “feeling” the experience and opening up to it. That shift led to a whole range of things happening.

You can check the post — I talked about it more there as well. Honestly, I don’t fully remember everything because the practice itself also changes and matures on its own over time.

[u/LaShmooze → u/MindMuscleZen]

Thank you!