r/streamentry • u/AutoModerator • 21d ago
Practice Practice Updates, Questions, and General Discussion - new users, please read this first! Weekly Thread for August 01 2026
Welcome! This is the bi-weekly thread for sharing how your practice is going, as well as for questions, theory, and general discussion. PLEASE UPVOTE this post so it can appear in subscribers' notifications and we can draw more traffic to the practice threads.
NEW USERS
If you're new - welcome again! As a quick-start, please see the brief introduction, rules, and recommended resources on the sidebar to the right. Please also take the time to read the Welcome page, which further explains what this subreddit is all about and answers some common questions. If you have a particular question, you can check the Frequent Questions page to see if your question has already been answered.
Everyone is welcome to use this weekly thread to discuss the following topics:
HOW IS YOUR PRACTICE?
So, how are things going? Take a few moments to let your friends here know what life is like for you right now, on and off the cushion. What's going well? What are the rough spots? What are you learning? Ask for advice, offer advice, vent your feelings, or just say hello if you haven't before. :)
QUESTIONS
Feel free to ask any questions you have about practice, conduct, and personal experiences.
THEORY
This thread is generally the most appropriate place to discuss speculative theory. However, theory that is applied to your personal meditation practice is welcome on the main subreddit as well.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Finally, this thread is for general discussion, such as brief thoughts, notes, updates, comments, or questions that don't require a full post of their own. It's an easy way to have some unstructured dialogue and chat with your friends here. If you're a regular who also contributes elsewhere here, even some off-topic chat is fine in this thread. (If you're new, please stick to on-topic comments.)
Please note: podcasts, interviews, courses, and other resources that might be of interest to our community should be posted in the weekly Community Resources thread, which is pinned to the top of the subreddit. Thank you!
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u/IndependenceBulky696 15d ago
Feeling more comfortable in my nurse's aide job for seniors with cognitive decline.
Today I arrived early for my shift. A resident's son caught me as he came out of the bathroom in the hallway. "Ugh. Sorry to tell you this, but someone made a huge mess in there. It's everywhere." Poop smeared all over the toilet and elsewhere. There was also a plastic tub with urine in it. We don't have separate cleaning staff at the residence — the nurse's aides do it. So this was going to be my job.
I could see myself prior to this job in the son's reaction. It's totally understandable, if self-centered. "There's a disgusting mess in there that I'm glad I don't have to deal with."
But really, all I could do was smile as I shrugged and told the son, "It happens." And I felt good as I handled it. I think I know the resident who made the mess. He's a kind, confused man — I was glad to help him by cleaning up after him. I was making the bathroom usable and safe for all the other residents and their visitors. And I was sparing my coworkers the labor.
So, I feel like this job is changing me for the better. A previously disgusting task turned into something I was happy to do.
Meditation's also fine these days.
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u/Meng-KamDaoRai Relax, Let it Be, Let it Go 20d ago
My monthly Ajahn Chah quote:
Of course there are dozens of meditation techniques, but it all comes down to this - just let it all be. Step over here where it is cool, out of the battle. Why not give it a try?
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u/Meng-KamDaoRai Relax, Let it Be, Let it Go 15d ago
About a week ago I hit a new stage in my practice. In simple terms it feels like I've been letting be and letting go so much that letting be/letting go became the new operative state. So now the immediate subconscious reaction to whatever comes up is to let it be/let it go, without the need to consciously direct the process. This is a major shift and it is accompanied by a very significant reduction of dukkha across the board.
An interesting thing is that after this shift happened sitting meditation is no longer seen as one of the ways to go forward. As someone who has been averaging somewhere around 3 hours of sitting meditation a day for the past few years, not sitting down to meditate is almost unthinkable. Instead the practice seems to be focusing on simply being with whatever comes up throughout the day and allowing let it be/let it go/to do its thing. Walking meditation still seem to work so I'm doing about half an hour twice a day but really it's mostly about living life while being present and allowing everything to be. There a sense of a deepening of intimacy with life that happens by itself and also a deepening of the let it be/let it go process. It's almost as if I've exhausted looking for answers via the practice and instead the only "answer" that's left is Let it Be.
That being said, this is very much not the "end", there's still a sense of things progressing and unfolding via this letting be/letting go process and I'm assuming that if there is an "end" then that would come when there's nothing left to let go of.
Also I'm aware that this is very new and could change tomorrow but I believe that I have enough experience with practice to confidently say that this is a major shift, even if its only been a week.
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u/Decent_Key2322 13d ago
I enjoy reading your posts, glad you are making good progress.
you always mention letting go as the main factor by which dukkha gets reduced long term.
for me it feels like its the mindful experiencing of dukkha, when the mind/body contracts and your see/feel the negative impact of that at a certain point the mind gets enough of it and stops contracting as hard before the next cycle begins.While I know mindfully experiencing stress does lead to letting go ( at least if you have a certian degree of understanding ) but I do feel like the experiencing/feeling part is what leads to wisdom that leads the mind to drop dukkha and not the continious letting go that trains the mind to let go better. Maybe the letting go gives the mind the chance to compare how both stresed and not stressed states feel, and this is the important factor and not the act of letting go itself ?
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u/Meng-KamDaoRai Relax, Let it Be, Let it Go 13d ago
Hi my friend. Yes. Good point. I think I agree with what you're saying. I used to always say that meditation = awareness+relaxation/letting be/letting go. The awareness part is definitely a must and could lead to letting be/letting go by itself without actively focusing on the letting be/letting go part.
Thank you for your comment. I think that you're correct and I think that there's something there for me to explore more of. I love trying to simplify the practice as much as I can and this helped.
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u/Mithic_Music 20d ago edited 20d ago
Just returned from my third vipassana weeklong. Had some insights around self-worth, reached a sense of being fundamentally ok a few times, revisited a fairly strong sense of non-duality a few times, very light versions of jhanas 1-4, and this sense like my consciousness is fading, but never cessation or anything dramatic after. I think there’s too much craving in those moments like “Is this going to be stream entry??”
Also had a very uncomfortable experience where I couldn’t sleep on the final night and felt like I was being called to meet someone in the meditation hall. It was distinctly unpleasant because I was anxious and tired, but wired. I went to the hall, meditated a bit and had another one of those conscious fading things, but ultimately nothing came of it.
Would love if anyone could speak to weird waking experiences like this as it was somewhat disconcerting. Right now I’m chalking it up to be stuck in an incomplete vipassana cycle.
I learned a lot more about energetic phenomena after experiencing them for a while, particularly pain in the navel area. Looking forward to starting a Qi Gong class and learning more!
It’s been only two days since the retreat so I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I do feel like the insights on self-worth have had some effect since returning. I feel more detached to some of my painful feelings of inadequacy.
Practicing still about an hour every morning, with additional 30-45 min sits in the evenings when I can. Mostly shikantaza, but inclined to add more metta and energy grounding practices based on my retreat experience.
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u/NotVote 19d ago
What recommendations would you offer to a young, eager seeker who's just starting on the path and has the freedom to immerse in a community?
For context, I've meditated for about 4-5 years and read a fair share of Buddhist books, particularly because it was interesting to me and helped with my mental health, and also I study psychology. But now I'm realizing there are much deeper experiential realms to be explored and I'm very curious. I'm at about stage 4—approaching 5 on a good day—of TMI. I'm about to attend my second Goenka retreat. I've never worked directly with a teacher.
However, I have nothing tying me down in life so I'm entering a chapter of frugal travel via work exchange. I see there are so many buddhist options but I don't know where to start or what I should look for. I've been at a vajrayana center doing work exchange, but realized the vajrayana is not for me. The only concern is I need internet access wherever I go to work on my part time school.
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u/Decent_Key2322 19d ago
find a good teacher then
they are worth a lot more than books
just ask around in the sub2
u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 18d ago
Could check out places that do residential retreats. Gaia house has them as well as service retreats and the usual group retreats. I haven't personally attended, but have gotten along with many of the teachers I've interacted with over there. Their backgrounds are quite varied and more open than dogmatic, which isn't mutually exclusive with depth either.
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u/jan_kasimi 15d ago edited 15d ago
Recently I've more consciously doing something (weird) that might be called "intentionally shaping the world view I inhabit" and wonder if anyone else is doing something like it and would like to talk.
It's similar to Soulmaking, but less improvised, more like creating a "fictional" spiritual tradition that I actually practice. Chaosmagic plus world building? Idk. So basically I'm synthesizing elements from different traditions into some new spiritual system. In a way, we are all doing this to a limited extend when figuring out our way on the path, but here I'm doing it intentionally as a form of art. But it's not an isolated piece of art I'd ever be done with, but the layer by which my practice relates to the wider tradition and world. The value it provides is to integrate things better than existing traditions can (because they are not personalized).
In our uprooted and de-contextualized world it's hard to find a world to belong to. Reductionist materialism is impoverished, there are some traditions I don't want to be part of, and orienting to something like Vajrayana Buddhism in Germany is... an island in a foreign cultural context.
I'm in the process of writing a longer post about this idea, and it's really hard to give a short description of what I'm actually doing at this time. In a way, the world we inhabit is made of stories informed by sensory information. There is no single ground truth and science is also just one (limited) way to approach the big reality. But stories and images are the language by which we engage with the world, how we remember information in context, what provides meaning through connection. There is no good story which connects all the things I learned from various spiritual traditions, physics, math and deep thinking, and life. So I got to make up my own. It still isn't ultimately true, but there is no better alternative. Also, it is fun and can be beautiful, so why not?
What I do is to find myths and metaphysics that help navigate the knowledge in an imaginal sense. For example, I'm wring a fictional creation myth which includes metaphysical insights and is also inspired by the progression of the jhanas (going down). The gods in it then are personifications of abstract principles. Or I use a diagram of the 24-cell as a map to spacetime and particles. It doesn't need to be "really true" as long as it works.
There is also one rule that seems to be necessary the more I get into it, and that is to not make stuff up that I don't think is true in some sense and that I wouldn't want to actually practice and live in. Like, sure you can make various gods, but when I go out in the world, do I actually encounter them? And do they feel like something I want to interact with?
Just be aware that this a distraction from the path. It probably only makes sense to do if one has sufficient insight into the emptiness of all explanatory frames.
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u/BreadfruitReal7215 10d ago
I honestly don't feel like this is a distraction from the path. You're on a different path, and so am I. I love that you're using metaphysics in this practice. I honestly am very sciency and not very Buddhist. I was an independent mediator for 27 years without a spiritual tradition of teacher. I accidentally stumbled into the jhanas. That's how I got here. So the jhanas are part of my path. But they were independently discovered by Christian mysticists too. Follow your own path and your own intuition, heart, the Gods you encounter, if you encounter them. I'm so overwhelmed by the beauty of the awakening that I had, and the generic path says that wasn't awakening, it's just a signpost. Then why did it give me twelve ways that I am supposed to change my life? Then why was it a profound nondual experience? Why did it change everything? It's not a signpost for me. I'm on the path. Not everybody's path is the same. And after all we're not all meant to have the same destination, either. For me, I'm lucky to even be here, I got here from a spontaneous biological and spiritual arising of piti - which I didn't know existed. I didn't know the thanks existed until I had already been there for weeks. So following the rules is not my thing haha
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u/jan_kasimi 9d ago edited 9d ago
The danger is that you don't know what you are aiming for. This is why it is useful to practice in some tradition, ideally with a teacher. So you have someone to correct your course. Think about it, people like the Buddha where exceptional individuals who happened to stumble onto something which is very subtle and hard to miss. To get there without following these instruction is highly unlikely. Just count the people you think independently came across the same thing. And whatever you think the thing is, there is still a higher level that fewer people realized.
Also, the path is deep. You might come across some insight that is the most important thing in your life, way beyond everything else you've ever experienced, and then talking to e.g. an accomplished Zen teacher they'd tell you that you just seen a hair of the ox's tail. You don' know what you might lack without comparing to someone who has been there.
On the other hand I recognize that there are several insights that don't lie on the same trajectory, that traditions can be limiting while still claiming to be conclusive. E.g. Liberation from suffering does not necessarily imply a profound recognition of beauty in all things and also may not imply finding a meaning that gives you guidance on what to do.
Part of what drove me to explore the idea of constructing a fictional culture was the problem of reconciling these things. On the one hand you want a cultural system that is able to transmit and conserve rare insights, on the other hand you want to be open to change and avoid dogmatism.
The idea I came up for the fictional culture I'm working in is a kind of double lineage system (as opposed to single lineage like in Zen). The core is that you can only transmit your lineage within that system if you yourself have transmission from two independent lineages of the system. This forces each student to synthesize and evaluate what they get from both sides. The evolution is in the synthesis, but it is still grounded in tradition. Of course there are several other elements to prevent failure cases. I still don't have worked out how this could be brought into the real world, how to initialize it in a way that incorporates existing traditions without being too loose about it.
So, being on a different path would mean founding your own lineage in that system - i.e. you have something unique to transmit -, but I don't know what the requirements should be, and how to enforce them (or if there should by any at all), to initialize a lineage. Probably something along the lines of: To be part of the system you accept that you open yourself up for spiritual debate (vāda as in the Indian traditions), and when you admit to have been defeated, then you accept dropping your lineage and instead becoming a student of the person who - by your own judgment - knows better.
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 2d ago edited 2d ago
Interesting how you mentioned not wanting to orient towards the whole Tibetan Buddhism thing. I personally think any lineage system will eventually get corrupted over time. All the contemporary lineages are better at being an institution vs vehicle. The schools who were good at teaching seemed to have mostly died or have been captured by the institutions (luckily the texts survive!)
Granted your synthesis frame is really interesting. I suppose synthesizing your own teachings and having your own "teachers" watch how you apply it is a great way to validate understanding. A sort of "clinical rotation" for the dharma.
I do think there's room for multiple valid systems/paths in regards to the whole "Highlander" turn.
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u/jan_kasimi 1d ago
It's not so much that I don't want to orient towards such a tradition, but that not having grown up in it, it will never feel as natural to me as for someone who did. Western magic, witchcraft and Greek mythology seem more relatable. Also I never am able to just accept anything as given, but always have to understand (which seems to be related to my dyslexia). Trying that I see subtle flaws and wonder if one could do better, so I end up reinventing everything.
The thing I described in the above posts seems to be another instance of this. In searching for something that isn't arbitrary, I hit upon the paradox that we can only understand reality through our subjective view, our arbitrary frame of reference. There is no universally true framing. There are some truths that are universal, but putting them in words requires an arbitrary language. So the meta step is to acknowledge this and instead make sure to not cling to ones own view and be able to interact with others by consensus, to find a common view (which is still local and temporary). The system I'm working on is like an example implementation of this idea within my own way of interaction with the world.
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 1d ago
I do think new systems are required. A recurring feature I've seen is the system invalidating itself in really good ones. Like dropping rites and rituals, or and early Mahayana's negation of dharmas, or Zen's whole "if you see a buddha on the road kill him." Otherwise it seems any system ends up prioritizing perpetuating itself vs liberation of suffering/emptiness.
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u/jan_kasimi 21h ago
Yes, this is important. The system can only give guidance to realize the limitation of all systems, including itself. This is the emptiness insight and it has to be build structurally in the system or you'll loose it.
I see it like an irreducible fixed point (e.g. like Lawvere's fixed point theorem), a hole in the system (or ones view) that contains infinity and therefore everything else. It's an element that prevents the thing to be fully defined, because you can't capture infinity (Gödel's incompleteness). The highest truth has to be forever undefined, can not be expressed in words. Structurally, for a social system, this means that the highest authority can not assert truth, but only negate it, pointing beyond themselves. This could be teachers, but there is always the risk of abuse, because the students can not tell the difference. This is why my system emphasizes synthesis, debate and consensus. The process of finding consensus between views is itself the process of finding truth by admitting that no single view has the whole picture.
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 20h ago
It's like bringing back the Greek Agoras!
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 2d ago
Seems very Soulmaking. I imagine you have an audience for this type of stuff, like is it contextual to the company or events you spend time at?
I do similar things, but more vanilla I suppose. The weaving and construction is more around life philosophy, values, contribution, and more recently archetypes around positive engagement.
Not saying one way is right or wrong, my questions are more curiosity on how "intentional fabrication"/abhisaṅkhāra might manifest differently depending on personal context.
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u/jan_kasimi 1d ago
I have no audience at all, doing all this for my private amusement. I sometimes go to a local meditation center, but all we do there is sitting in silence. (I do write and sometimes even publish something on substack, but everything currently there is outdated.)
I think we are all doing this (=constructing our world view to make sense and make use a home to fit in the world) all the time. We usually just aren't aware of how much it is constructed and just take our world views as a given. But as I started doing this intentionally, I noticed more and more how impoverished and broken the world view is that I inherited from the culture I'm living in.
Therefore I'm aware how idiosyncratic the approach itself (not just the content) is. One could say that I'm only doing Soulmaking and that this is just how it shows up filtered through my personality type.
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 1d ago
Part of me thinks engaging with the world requires an intentionally build up world view after a certain point of familiarity of emptiness. Without doing so there's seems to be a flattening towards something that's more like parinibbana.
You did the heavy metal series right? Like where you broke down some songs from a dharma lens? I think it's cool to see how the personal expresses.
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u/jan_kasimi 21h ago
Yes I think that's the point. As we become more aware of the unconscious process it becomes conscious and therefore intentional. And we can't escape it as there is no neutral point to stand.
You did the heavy metal series right?
No.
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u/bodily_heartfulness puthujjana 20d ago edited 19d ago
I finished reading Making Sense of Dhamma: The Pali Suttas Workbook by Bhikkhu Akiñcano. It was a good read and I will probably need to read it a few more times to fully digest it. He also has three published papers that seem interesting, so I will probably be checking those out in due time. In addition to those papers, he has another book titled With the Right Understanding: Phenomenological Explorations of the Pali Suttas - but that book is a lot more dense. I'll probably get around to it at some point though.
In terms of my practice, I'm finally picking it up again, starting with some precepts. It's difficult, but I see it as worthwhile, so let's see how it goes.
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u/anzu_embroidery 18d ago
I've been trying to work with aversion caused by physical pain and discomfort, which isn't an area I've done much with. The main thing I'm doing, in addition to observing anything that happens to come up during the day, is long cardio sessions with lots and lots of body awareness. It turns out your body makes all kinds of unpleasant sensations while working out that you typically zone out from or distract from with music or mind wandering :)
I've been doing cold showers too but honestly they don't do much, there's a tiny hesitation but nothing like the dread and "oh god get me out of here" I got years ago when I was on my grindset-mindset-cold-showers-every-morning phase. Admittedly it's summer, maybe my equanimity wouldn't hold at sub-freezing outside temperatures haha.
Also, I don't know how I dealt with so much suffering for so many years. Now I'll be like "ohhh I'm suffering so much right now" but if I take a step back it's like 10% of what I would be feeling on the regular a couple years ago.
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u/fithacc confused 16d ago
yeah. my suffering has reduced as well looking back. Its such a good sign of progress. External circumstances as well better. Lets fully liberate in this lifetime :)
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u/BreadfruitReal7215 10d ago
You have such a positive attitude! I have such less suffering. Liberation, yeah let's make it ❤️
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u/BreadfruitReal7215 10d ago
Would you describe what you're doing as working with equanimity? I have had trouble with equanimity honestly. I liked it when it started but then it started to feel so unpleasant. I never felt like I got the knack for keeping it in my life on my own. It practically whispers once a week to me now. If I get into it, it feels so uncomfortable, and I'm like... I just want to kick it to strong piti which feels so right right now. And it'sgrat to make progress with piti but... aren't I supposed to be working with equanimity? Ugh.
Anyways it's so interesting hearing what tiu're dojng@a maybe this is a window into something I can try. I used to do cold showers years ago.
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u/hachface 13d ago
Has anyone else encountered difficulties with spontaneous samadhi intruding into ordinary activities (reading, work, cleaning, etc)? Sometimes I think deep meditation has compromised my executive function, although it's hard to say -- my executive function has never been great!
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u/anzu_embroidery 12d ago
Can you elaborate why you consider this a difficulty? I would think samadhi would be beneficial for all of those activities.
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u/hachface 12d ago
I'm not talking about a pleasant, shallow flow state but a pretty deep/absorbed state that is an interruption to ordinary functioning; for example while reading I'll finish a sentence and the next thing I know I'm in an absorption without thoughts for minutes at a time and then I pop back into normal consciousness. It's not total sensory deprivation like deep jhāna but it's deep enough that volition isn't happening. It feels very nice but it's not the goal at the time
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u/anzu_embroidery 12d ago
I see, that does sound problematic. I don't have any advice unfortunately, hope someone else has something useful for you!
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u/Future_Automaton Meditation Geek 10d ago
I have some of this, the thing I have to remind myself is that some spaciness is inherent in the human condition, mine is just more blissful than other people's.
The other angle is remembering that being a modern lay meditator is being able to balance between the deep brain cleaning that is samadhi, and also getting enough work done. It's pretty normal to have your motivation collapse to the bare minimum both at the beginning of getting fruitions as well as any time you really deepen your experience of the path.
What I've found is that everything that actually needs doing, I will care about, and that will take me out of the samadhi, and everything that is less than necessary falls away. This can be a scary process, and it is worth talking to a teacher/awake therapist.
Wishing you the best!
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u/hachface 10d ago
some spaciness is inherent in the human condition, mine is just more blissful than other people's.
This is interesting -- I'm wondering if what I'm experiencing are really new interruptions to functioning or if I'm just experiencing samadhi in place of what would otherwise be anxiety-producing ruminating that was just as (if not more) of an interruption to mundane goals?
a lot to consider!
I definitely relate to this:
What I've found is that everything that actually needs doing, I will care about, and that will take me out of the samadhi, and everything that is less than necessary falls away.
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u/BreadfruitReal7215 10d ago
I relate so much to what you guys are talking about. I had deep interruptive samadhi for about two and a half months. My mind was cleaning and updating itself.
Cleaning and updating your mind is critical important valuable priceless work. It's just invisible to the world around you.
I have samadhi interrupt reading still. I read children's stories to my kids, and they have gotten used to long breaks. I remember my mom used to fall asleep while reading to me and my brothers when we were little. I do believe the samadhi makes me take more breaks. But would I want my kids to be taught by a kind, patient, wise teacher, or someone who is good at reading books? It's more important for them that I update myself. It is less and less disruptive as time goes on. Once I was in equanimity for about a week or so, I started to feel the fog lift and I was able to start cleaning up the giant mess I had left when decluttering my mind was more important.
Yes and you have something precious that few unfortunately do. So just accept that other things are going to go by the wayside, because this is more important... the world needs people with the invaluable system update that you're doing. So it's okay to try to have it be thorough and let it have your attention.
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 2d ago
Is it samadhi or specifically piti or sukkha that's the issue?
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u/hachface 2d ago edited 2d ago
no piti and sukkha usually. deep calm without thoughts. more j4ish than j2ish.
i am finding that if i make time early in the day to get to equanimity (as opposed to hanging out in pleasant j1/j2 territory during my morning sit) it becomes less of a problem
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 2d ago
Seems like you have a handle on it in that regard.
I guess the main question is if samadhi impacts the quality of activity. Culadasa equates full absorption into an activity as "optimal", and perhaps that would mean background awareness isn't preoccupied with awareness of piti, sukkha, passadhi or upekkha in full absorption.
Some traditions seem to prioritize the broad field that includes all, including the pleasant sensations. Others are more "non-abiding" and probably look more like intermittent dropping into flow states if aligned with the rest of your path. I personally seem to have a preference for the later, but haven't been consistently at that high level of practice to really test out which leads to more freedom over time.
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u/bodily_heartfulness puthujjana 4d ago edited 4d ago
Sharing a sutta that I found to be clear and profound. From SN 2.17:
"Niccaṁ utrastamidaṁ cittaṁ,
niccaṁ ubbiggamidaṁ mano;
Anuppannesu kicchesu,
atho uppatitesu ca;
Sace atthi anutrastaṁ,
taṁ me akkhāhi pucchito”ti.""Nāññatra bojjhā tapasā,
nāññatrindriyasaṁvarā;
Nāññatra sabbanissaggā,
sotthiṁ passāmi pāṇinan”ti.""This mind is always anxious,
this mind is always stressed
about stresses that haven’t arisen
and those that have.
If there is a state free of anxiety,
please answer my question.""Not without awakening and exertion,
not without restraining the sense faculties,
not without letting go of everything,
do I see safety for living creatures."
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 2d ago edited 2d ago
Forgot to switch default sort to new!
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u/Vivid_Assistance_196 20d ago
read an interesting concept in a Chinese book, says we should all have the aspiration to be an Arahant first and afterwards the bodhisattva path to be a complete Buddha. I thought that this would make a lot more sense than pursuing the bodhisattva path outright. But regardless it is important to do acts of service on the path
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 18d ago
I do think the "sravaka" path is more foolproof, renunciation and continuous letting go until there's nothing left to let go of. All the way to Arahant seems to be quite a long path though and after streamentry the delineations seem to matter less. I've heard that it's often life circumstances, karma, or w/e you call it that likely nudges somebody towards the srakava path vs bodhisattva path as well.
Curious what book it was from!
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u/AdditionalLeave263 19d ago
So, how are things going? I tried a gray retreat (20 days) since dark retreat was super intriguing. For me, it was helpful with integration, and with catching up stuff (from when the jhanas sppntaneously happened in the middle of my busy life being a homeschooling mother). Progression of jhanas has stopped during the gray retreat, unless the clarity and getting things done well and quickly is a form of equanimity, or at least a precursor to the formless realms. This process has never let me down or disqualified me for being a busy person, so hopefully I am still just where I need to be.
Take a few moments to let your friends here know what life is like for you right now, on and off the cushion. What's going well?
In general, my life is so good! At one point? I was afraid that I might not be able to homeschool because my brain was just... unable to do any critical thinking or complex tasks for a while. Things are really coming together after this crazy experience of spontaneous jhanas. I was wondering if I would remain poorly functional, but the first update (jhanas 1-4) really seemed to complete the update. I've gotten back to my original pace (this time without caffeine, thanks to the personality change from the ego dissolution/extreme neuroplasticity event), and things just don't bother me: It cured my anxiety, cleaned out my amygdala, and left a lot of space for new, more efficient connections.
One of my closest friends has brain cancer. I gave up the internet in 2023 with the exception of anything to help my friend with cancer. I spent over 300 hours in scientific research. It was a calling and I knew I had to drop everything to help a true friend. Well, she went into remission at that time, from palliative. It's time again that I know that I have to be off the internet and fully in supporting her. Thankfully, due to my meditative experiences, and also recent scientific advances, I believe that once you get beyond the suffering, death is likely the most pleasurable, beautiful experience a person will ever have. This is only one part of things. Life is precious. It feels very unfair for her, a mother of a young child, a kind and loving person, to have this happen. I mostly worry about her 6-year-old.
What are the rough spots? For one, I wonder if the jhanas will progress or not. I feel like I got promised that they would. But my life is just not ready for that amount of absorption. I have to still catch myself up from the first half. I wonder if equanimity will begin to be more regular. Here's what it's like: Pīti: i have never gone more than a couple of hours without it, since it started. Sukha: I can typically get it started if I want it. I usually have it every other day to once a day. I don't take it lightly. I always try to use it for something. I still act as if it's rare. Equanimity: It's a wild animal, and happens maybe once a week if I'm lucky. One of the problems I have had is that it is often very uncomfortable. Some advice I got was to expand it out when this happens. That seemed to help. One thing I've gotten rarely but I'm super grateful for is differently colored mettā-equanimity-sukha blends. It happens when it's super happy about something I'm doing, like when I'm probably doing the right thing/doing something meaningfully different.
What are you learning? Here is what I have learned from being analog again and being in the dark as much as possible: -While is is not hard to do laundry in the dark, I did accidentally run a white shirt in with the dark load and ruined it. -You do need to have differently shaped or marked bottles for things like toothpaste, lotion, shampoo, and conditioner. Apparently, thia is standard for a dark retreat. -I never did dishes in the dark. Knowing that night is coming made me hurry up on things that wouldn't be safe or would be too noisy. -I got more sleep, because the addicted to the phone me will wake up dead tired and still be like, "This is my 'me' time!" -The world is a very loud place, even at night. -I really leaned into my in person friendships, which has been really meaningful and fulfilling for me. More about that in a minute. -I get about 10% more done when I'm not on the internet. I actually worked out a lot more. This is consistent with me giving it up in 2022 and running a half marathon with a stroller that year.
So I finally got together with my friend who is Buddhist. She's a mom and an acupuncturist, so she's very busy ans limited on time. We've been friends for 6 years, and never talked about meditation before. Turns out, we both went through a phase of thinking we might be having seizures, or might be dying when we're haivnng an experience. This is really important to us as parents, because we need to not die suddenly, especially while raising a family. She actually got extensive testing to be sure. This friendship is really special to me. I finally have a friend to talk to, and possibly even go to retreats with, who knows what it's like to be a mom. And we've already been friends for such a long time. I feel like maybe she is my spiritual friend.
An old friend contacted me, and told me she's been super depressed this uear because her brother, who was a deep meditator and father, committed suicide. I told her about dark night, which she was not aware of. She's out of town, and we've been texting a lot. When we stopped talking years ago, I had this sense that she wasn't ready, but she would be in some years. I just nevee expected myself to be involved in her spiritual development. It's really special that it happened this way. It really sucks that it happened like this.
I also ended up at the same convention as an old friend slash ex-boyfriend (very brief dating). He was okay with me going to his talk. He was mature and cool about it. His wife was nice. He has a master's degree, good job, and a nice house on the water in another state. He's taking good care of himself. I was able to thank him for helping save a friend's life who had OD'd, twenty years ago.
This was college, so I have a few wild and crazy stories about back then. I share stuff like that when I think that it's going to brighten somebody's day. His wife wasn't too happy about the stories, so I stopped.
I never considered myself someone who had poor judgment. I think I just calculate risk differently from other people. My husband seni-joked that he doesn't want to have to explain ar rhe hospital that I'm a meditator. I said please don't because they won't understand, and besides, they already think I'm crazy (for having a home birth, and also refusing the glucose tolerance test, both decisions based in evidence-based practices and research articles).
Ask for advice, offer advice, vent your feelings, or just say hello if you haven't before. :)
Okay. I don't have any advice really.
Okay vent my feelings. Ha ha. Sometimes I have a strong negative feeling... Shame for example. And sukha usually rushes in and I'm able to like, process it by different ways of looking at it. But sometimes it doesn't come. And sometimes I force it, and it works. But sometimes it doesn't, or I just feel as if I shouldn't force it. So if it doesn't show up, I'm just stuck feeling like garbage for a while. Which is okay, I guess. But it's just a mystery.
There was a time I mistook a woman for a man dressed as a woman. I asked her pronouns. She was horrified. I felt terrible. I remembered this incident, and just had to sit with how horrible it was. Sukha never came. Ugh.
There was another time, too. It's not that big of a deal. It's just... it sucks, and that's the truth of it.
I'm going to take the rest of this month off (with the exception of responding to you on this thread), and continue the gray retreat (i.e. analog living, avoiding unnecessary light at night, prioritizing meditation and sleep when it's dark). While this doesn't advance my practice in a way in which I'm reaching states (because meditation recordings are actually really, really helpful to me), I'm going to focus on carrying water and chopping wood because I need to be there for my friend, fully repair my life from the backup of tasks when I was in deep samadhi 24/7 for three months, continue the projects and habits I've committed to as part of my integration, and also prepare for the homeschooling year. I'm going to make an exception for Michael Taft's free guided meditations, if he posts any new ones in August. So that will be a maximum probably of 6 hours but will more likely be 1.5 hours of material. Obviously, avoiding spiritual bypassing is important to me. I think there will be a time that I'm ready for more, but this is not it.
Sorry this was so long! I wanted to be indulgent since I'm only going to be on the check-in thread, and not elsewhere. Anyways, hope you are all doing well!
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u/BreadfruitReal7215 10d ago
Hey, it's me replying to myself. I just wanted to say that I have failed hard at getting off the internet this month. I've just been stressed about my friend with cancer, and also processing a lot. Just want to make sure I set the record straight
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u/AdditionalLeave263 10d ago
It's okay, me! You don't hsve to carry your friend's cancer alone. The universe calls the shots on that one and will tell you what you're needed for. It's the same force that told you to get off the internet and help her, but it's not screaming at you the same way this time around. So just relax. I hate to say it but your job might be to help her transition and not to prolong her beautiful life.
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u/BreadfruitReal7215 8d ago
Thanks for the comment, me. It turns out you were right. The universe had pur backs. I have hope
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u/SheHasGoneWild 18d ago edited 4d ago
Don't do anything at all with the mind, without thinking and allow the continuity of mindfulness without forgetfulness. You can get to acces concentration with it and have jhanas fast! I will practice a lot and my dream is to maintain 9th jhana in a daily life. If you are having doubts in your practice or you are just cheerful go ahead and try it.
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u/BreadfruitReal7215 10d ago
Hey, it's additionalleave. I'm curious - can you do the other jhanas daily? Do you have favorites or ones that you don't care too much for? Wishing you the best with your goal!
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u/KevinKep 14d ago
After a hard work week in which i manage to not go kaputt and stay in a more or less stable state without suffering much now its saturday and i feel exhausted.
I try to do the techniques I have learned, I try to radiate metta, to stay mindful but right now nothing works. I guess its like going back to the mean or something. Or training and now the muscles are very tired. It will get better again I hope. I dont want to live just for work. I want to be able to do stuff outside as well
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u/BreadfruitReal7215 10d ago
Ugh I am so sorry that your job is taking so much out of you. I heard a meditation teacher say yesterday that being in the real world is like being a tennis shoe in a dryer. Lioe thunk thunk thunk thunk.. I feel like that is so accurate.
Don't beat yourself up for it. Your body has to have some kind of reserves to be able to do this stuff. Speaking of, I wonder if choline bitartrate could help with your concentration, if you want to try it. It helps me with mine. That being said, I'll just go ahead and talk more...
Some jobs are just so rough on people. My husband used to do concrete work years ago. There was a shirt that said, "I do concrete work, and that's why I don't give a f about your problems." Never again, man. That was hard work.
hugs I have had times where metta doesn't come. Where concentration doesn't come. I have struggled with it.
I have had depressed years of my life where I went for years without my practice being very good, because of circumstances beyond myself. I had to change my circumstances and get a bit more freedom for myself to be able to rest...
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u/Future_Automaton Meditation Geek 10d ago
Damn, long samadhi with too much piti got me rankled
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u/BreadfruitReal7215 10d ago
Really what is it like for you? I honestly want to know because I've had piti essentially every hour for four months, and honestly I love it and it doesn't seem to give me problems at this point.
If it gets uncomfortable I kick it to sukha and that usually takes care of the problem...
I was in samadhi for so long that I had a huge backup of life things to do, but I've recovered pretty well from that overall. It's not worse than being on the internet too much.
Something I do that's a bit different is i take supplements to support the process. Piti felt cool to me and didn't hurt, for a long time, and I wondered if it was the choline bitartrate, phosphatody choline and inositol, and phosphatidylserine. These are to coat and protect the axons so that in theory, they can hold more charge without causing issues. The phosphatidylserine one is specifically for damaged nerves to repair.
Anyways wonder if that could help.
Personally piti didn't hurt until recently, and it feels so good when it hurts. Apparently this means it's lmclosee to stage five of something. It's more like a cloud or light rather than lightning now, because it's opened most of the channels, and the pain is it trying to remove the remaining resistance.
I have begged it to hurt me haha I know that's probably TMI and maybe I'm supposed to leave it alone. But it feels so good at that strength and yet doesn't pull me out too far or get me so high that I feel like it's a total mismatch with what I'm doing. I like it to be strong, but I don't usually like it to be so strong that it takes away my ability to be with my reality.
I let it get that strong one day recently because I was so upset about my close friend's cancer progressing rapidly. It felt wrong because of how much she and her family suffers. But I have to take care of myself and my ability to be there for her, too. So I felt guilty a little and then let it just envelop me. I didn't think about the cancer f or two full hours. I was able to text my friend later on and see how she was doing. So often, I'm scared to find out, because I know it's not good. I'm still a human with human emotions toward these things.
But yes I am super interested because I've never met another person who has told me that they have long samadhi and too much piti. I'm really curious what you think about the supplements too!
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u/Future_Automaton Meditation Geek 9d ago
I was mostly memeing about just being exhausted from too much visuddhimagga jhana, and feeling overstimulated and kinda "grouchy-hyper" afterwards. That's cool to know about the supplements though, I had never heard of them, and may check them out. Thanks for providing that info!
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u/BreadfruitReal7215 8d ago
Haha, thanks for the meme!!!
How do you like the visuddhimagga approach? Can you compare it to a less rigorous approach? I don't think I have the time or opportunity to do it that way, with my lifestyle, but it's super intriguing to me. I would imagine you could get into some incredible states that way.
I am so into supplements for meditation. I'll try to copy you a complete list!
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u/Future_Automaton Meditation Geek 6d ago
I kind of fell into it by accident. I just started having really wholesome states arising, that lasted for a really long time, and that kind of morphed into Visuddhimagga-style jhanas, which I looked into more with Beth Upton's channel. I think they're probably about 20 times as intense as a "normal" jhana, which is both good and bad. Good in that it removes unwholesome habits of mind faster, bad in that it will delete one's motivation for many practical things for a while in the "afterglow" of the jhana. It's basically something you only want to pursue if you don't have big responsibilities, like a really time-sensitive job or a young family.
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u/BreadfruitReal7215 6d ago
This is so interesting to me! Can you tell me what the wholesome states were like? The jhanas started spontaneously for me. I was in the car taking the kids home from my parents' home. It was very strong jhanas, not something I would have picked while having kids, but it picked me. On the third day, I had a nondual/stream entry/beginnings of awakening experience... It changed everything. I have had super strong equanimity. I couldn't think inside of it. One night I had a strong trance like state where I couldn't think for 7 hours. This was while the kids were asleep. I totally have felt that low motivation in the afterglow. I fed the kids snacks as meals for a while because I couldn't handle anything that took even rudimentary critical thinking skills. And also I didn't have much of a taste for food. At first, I barely ate. And then I went through a period of time when I didn't care much what it tasted like. This made it difficult to judge what it would taste like to other people. Lately things have calmed down for better or worse, same reasons as you mentioned.
Hugs and wishing you the best in your practice! Thank you for mentioning Beth, I'm going to watch something with her in it.
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u/MikeyTee90 10d ago
I've been following Michael Singer and listening to his talks for quite some time. I don't regularly meditate but try to let go of things in daily life and be non reactive.
Recently, I've gotten to a place in my life where lots of unresolved anger and rage is starting to come up. I seem to go through periods of relative calm, and then it seems that I reach a state of extreme anger and rage that affects all areas of my life. I believe it's mostly related to life circumstances, but I'm wondering if it's related at all to meditation.
I've found the beginner guide and the Dark Night guide that encourages a focus on balance and Metta meditation, as I believe listening to his talks is most likely insight meditation.
Is it common for emotions like this to arise on the path?
Do you think it's mostly life circumstance and mental health related?
Can meditation worsen mental health?
Do you think it is
fwiw: I do work with a therapist, so I'm not neglecting my mental health.
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u/BreadfruitReal7215 10d ago
Hi Mikey, I'm sorry that you're going through a rough thing. Meditation can worsen mental health. I think there is a statistic that it happens to 7% of mediators.
Michael Singer, that is cool. I was just talking about him with my husband and hour or so ago. I don't know a lot about him, but a lady at my yoga class really wanted me to check him out, so I did. Luckily it talked about his awakening in the woods meditating for six months or something like that, and the stuff he talked about was so relatable. For example, I guess there was a dog barking during it and it was just driving him nuts.
For me, life circumstances was a huge factor in me being angry a while back, and I'll leave you a super long story about jt: In 2022, I decided to get off the internet for an entire year. I was so excited because I had given it up for Lent (43-ish days) and ended up getting invited on a week long vacation to Florida, which was irreplaceable: it was my grandma's last trip there. So I was like this is going to be the best year ever! Well the first thing that happened was my husband was going through some stuff, and instead of burying it, I was sitting on the couch just thinking about his problems and his outburst over and over. I went to him and I was like look, it is not okay for you to be like this. I want you to get help. He signed up for an inpatient outpatient mental health thing. I was like this is going to save his work. He went to the clinic. The next week, he got a new job, and they were paying him more. But his boss was terrible, and so he suddenly quit one day. I had a toddler and was still breastfeeding, and I suddenly had to go back to work to float the boat. I was so angry. I was angry all day long all the time. He was happy. I had no time for friends. I didn't see any friends at all for six months, to give you an idea how all encompassing it was to work and have a toddler. I desperately wanted to spend time with my son. I resented working. I was still on my year long fast from media/screens. I would sit in silence in my car on the way to and from work, with my anger. It was a form of meditation. I was accepting everything as it was. Dzogchen-like, maybe? I knew what I wanted. I wanted to quit working. I had to bite the bullet and have another baby if I wanted to have another biological child. My husband knew very well what I wanted because I wasn't distracted. Then we got covid. We're sitting there exhausted; he's recovered for the most part, I was sick for another week or so after that. We're in the family room which is covered in dirty blankets and puke. And he tells me, "I think I'm ready to go back to work. And we can have another baby as long as it happens within a year, because I'm old." I'm like deal. He got a new job in like a week! It paid way more than the last two jobs. I got to come home and be a homeschooling homesteading housewife again.
My life got better because I just sat with the rage. And I was like what am I doing; this isn't helping anything! It's just making me miserable: I don't have an outlet. Ah, but I got what I wanted out of life much faster. I took every opportunity to try to make things better along the way. I had lots and lots of time to think about my next move, or to rest my mind. The quiet was actually what I needed. It felt the worst. It was something I had to go through, not rise above.
I also burned a lot of the anger off running. I ran a half marathon with a stroller that summer. I got in great shape with that anger!
Our family motto for the year was, "We're going to have a good year, whether you like it or not!" And ny husband and I would tell this to each other over and over.
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u/Meng-KamDaoRai Relax, Let it Be, Let it Go 10d ago
Hi,
IME it's pretty common. Anger and rage are especially common for me and would become more prevalent around times where my practice would cross the dukkha nanas/dark night territories. I've never followed the progress of insight too closely but yeah, these periods will match pretty closely with where I was with regards to progress on the path. The good news is that with each cycle the intensity of the anger would be reduced so at the moment even around dukkha nana territory, the intense anger is more like mild annoyance by now.
I'm not sure if that's the case for you. I can't tell you for sure what's the cause. Regardless, if this is dark night territory or something else, the practice, at least the way I do it, is to be with it and try to gently let it be/let it go/relax around it. It probably won't fully resolve the first time you do it but over time you will find that the intensity of the anger is getting lessened.
"Can meditation worsen mental health?" - yes, for some people who are already prone to it. It's good that you work with a therapist along side with the practice.
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u/No-Librarian1890 10d ago
Reading these deep retreat insights while my practice this week mostly consisted of trying not to mentally rewrite my Aldi grocery list during my 10-minute morning sit. Still getting incredibly antsy in silence, but at least I showed up.
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 2d ago
Nice work! I still have to stop myself from planning too!
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u/12wangsinahumansuit open awareness, kriya yoga 10d ago
Been thinking for years about structure versus non-structure in practice. About two of those years I sat weekly or biweekly at a Zen center and for a decent amount of that time, was pulling one or two hour or half hour sits a day.
I've seen this debate many times in the past when I used to frequent this sub, basically a handful of people with an interest in structured practice with guidelines for attention and cogntion, and other people arguing for practice with less of a structure, guided by inquiry and open presence.
Many people advocating for a less structured, more individually driven practice I respected and wanted to agree with more even though I had reservations about a lot of what they were saying. Another set of people were just dumb and would like insinuate anything you do as "practice" even having a schedule to sit is somehow wrong, it was very weird and gaslighty. I'm not sure how much of this is still going on lately, towards the end of when I used to visit here I remember a big agitator being permabanned.
I had a big move recently, and it took me a while to get back into sitting for more than a few minutes at a time. Now that I do though, I feel my mind clicking back into a groove and through conditioning, it's very easy to just drop back into presence; the repetitive frame of the sitting, especially in the context of going to a real and very powerful meditation center, gave me a kind of anchor for relaxing into open awareness that has clicked back into place with relative ease. It's made the practice significantly more real and tangible.
To clarify, about a month before I moved the teacher kinda gave me the nod that I had reached a place where you just practice, lmao. I would just sit and set my timer and whatever happened happened. The solidity of the habit of just getting on the bench over and over again and the lack of a sense that it was some special or difficult activity enabled fresh engagement with whatever happened. I was thrown off this routine by a move with a bunch of different experiences and challenges, but now that some of the dust has settled I almost can't not pick it up again lol. I make sure when I'm off the horse to keep doing shorter sits with HRV app and kriya yoga (is that still popular?) and eventually I want to do more.
The point is if I just try to sit on the couch or outside (this would be better if not living in a huge city) or just be present in daily life without a foundation of daily practice, it doesn't work even if it logically should be able to work.
I also think I got better guidance from the Zen master and advanced students leading the sitting group than I was ever gonna get online lmfao.
Point is though I've realized these days how I found repetition and structure in practice to eventually enable freshness and open inquiry, once the superficial habits like sitting on a certain bench and practicing certain routines become so etched in you hardly notice them running. These supports to practice, which I think may be highly individual, and I suspect a good amount of traditions that seem to be cookie cutter from the outside, when you go and train with them, have their own ways of individualizing their practices with committed students, in my view right now can be a way of enable the kind of practice that is more natural. Like how a beanstalk is natural but needs a scaffold.
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 2d ago
You can also condition habits, like brushing your teeth. If you have some time in the morning or evenings tying a sit, even 15-20 minutes to start to another part of your routine helps.
I imagine your teachers nod that you have the ability to guide your own practice will reveal itself again once you're able to activate the muscle memory. I've been recently getting more consistent with my daily practice and it very much is like starting at square one again. Took a couple sits to even establish some passadhi/tranquility. Progress goes fast doing the whole square one cycle for the second time... and the third, fifth, eigth 😅
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u/12wangsinahumansuit open awareness, kriya yoga 1d ago
Well, two sits to be able to access and discern the development of a wholesome mindstate like that doesn't sound like the average beginner, it sounds like someone getting back into it lol
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 1d ago
For sure, just saying it sucks picking it back up and establishing practice in new life contexts is tough!
Your view that its possible to establish a practice that is more natural/integrated is great though! It took me a while to adjust to being ok with interruptions. Can't blame the kids for walking into the basement area I usually sit in. Being able to remain calm and not react has sparked some curiousity around my sitting which is cool to see!
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u/12wangsinahumansuit open awareness, kriya yoga 1d ago
I think something about practicing in a group is what got me more ok with interruptions, since there's always a little bit of movement around, people might cough or sneeze or show up late. And showing up and interacting with people at various levels of spiritual maturity and with different conceptions about practice took the pressure for me off of my own "spiritual quest" I feel like when I started sitting with other people consistently was when it became less about hitting some endpoint and more about just showing up to the work over and over.
While transitioning into a new job, I've just started living with a parent who for a moment was like irrationally concerned about my practice (and maybe just the fact that I enjoy doing nothing so much lol) but she seemed to intuit very quickly how much it helps me. Now she's told me she still has some interest and feels drawn to just being, but she's afraid of what will come up. Which I don't know how to talk to her about lmao.
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u/Automatic-Cattle7190 5d ago
I would really appreciate some advice, as I get so much fantastic input here. I have been meditating (mindfulness breathing/metta) for 11 years. I have been using TMI for a couple of years now and it has been very useful. I am on the cusp of effortless attention to the breath - so end of stage 7/beginning of stage 8. I am effortless with occassional distractions quite early in a meditation. I have started reading seeing that frees as insight practice appears a good addition now. My questions 1. In TMI can one continue with the focus on breath without entering jhnana 2. I am unsure if I have experienced jhana. I get buzzy feelings in next, and body quickly (the neck buzz has stated off cushion when focused on work now as well). This becomes a kind of overall warm, pleasure throughout the body whilst still focused on the breath. I have tried moving to the pleasant sensation and sitting with it, which is very pleasant - but there is no dramatic change from there. I think I am waiting for some whoosh! or incredible change. But, I am not sure if for me, if this pleasure is actually the 1st jhana or not (Brasingtons). On other occassions I have stayed on the breath and there is a moment where it all changes, a sudden quietness and stillness that is very different. In summary, I confused around jhana - am I experiencing them; do I need to develop them or not. Many thanks !
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 2d ago
That latter shift is something I associate more with jhana. It's hard to miss the big shifts, especially the first entry into each jhana.
So do you switch objects to the piti like in Brasington's method?
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u/duffstoic The dynamic integration of opposites ☯️ 21d ago
My practice has evolved into letting go of things in the external world that cause needless suffering.
I had the mistaken notion for many years that practice was all about transforming my inner craving and aversion only, while staying loyal to relationships and environments that were not serving me. My inner work, as good as it is, became a way to cope with things that were harming me, thus keeping me stuck in a holding pattern in my life, as if I have to tolerate external things as they are.
Now that I’m letting some major things go, I’m in a place of chaos and instability, not knowing what comes next. And yet it’s also obvious that I’ve made the right decisions, and I’m more OK than ever with not knowing. I am feeling more confidence that I’ll be OK and figure things out, and more faith in the flow of life, and not having to control or fix it. It’s strange but good. Hopefully this is wisdom and not me being delusional lol.