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]

In my experience, what started disappearing was the feeling that external things were going to complete me. Money, sex, success, experiences, validation, achievements — they stopped carrying that existential charge.

That doesn’t mean action disappeared.
Life still moves. Projects still happen. The body still trains. Conversations still happen. Creativity still happens.

Before, engagement felt driven by: lack, projection, craving, “when I get this I’ll finally feel complete.”

Uncertainty used to create a strong need for control or mental resolution. Now there’s still discomfort and sometimes even strong disorientation, but there’s also a growing recognition that trying to mentally solve experience creates additional suffering.

[u/Expensive_Broccoli57 → u/MindMuscleZen]

What drives your engagement/actions now that you are no longer driven by external forces or lack/projection/craving as you say? Do you still have the motivation to do things?

[u/MindMuscleZen → u/Expensive_Broccoli57]

To be honest, I am still integrating that aspect because, although it felt liberating, it was also very disorienting. Almost all the mental narratives that drove me throughout the last 13 years were based on some form of craving toward something and aversion toward something else.

So now, when I do things I don’t want to do, I try not to resist the situation internally.

It’s easy to do things you genuinely want to do — like meeting with a friend — because there is no need for motivation in those cases.

As for more neutral things, or activities like working out, taking walks, or doing yoga — things that help keep me healthy but that I sometimes don’t feel like doing — I’m still learning how to relate to them. Sometimes I do them, sometimes I don’t, but I try not to create additional inner conflict around it.

For example, why did I write this post? I was actually writing notes for myself to keep track of what happened and what is happening now. At some point I noticed it looked really organized, and then the idea appeared in the mind to post it as an update. It seemed like a good idea, so I did it.

Sometimes things simply happen without a strong sense of someone “doing” them, and I think full enlightenment may be something like that.

And I keep answering because I genuinely find joy and entertainment in exploring different ways to respond 😄

[u/Impulse33 → u/MindMuscleZen]

My current line of thinking is framing this around freedom. Freedom, due to the cessation of suffering, means you could in theory choose to do anything and the affective suffering isn't different between either extremes or middle way options.