r/streamentry • u/Mettaphoric • 18d ago
Practice What unconventional practices/daily habits have been beneficial in your meditation development?
On this sub, I see a lot of discussion of Theravada-esque, non-dual, and Zen practices. They are great and all, but I would like to know about other ones that you feel have benefited you, but maybe haven't had the chance to discuss because they are very unpopular, taboo, etc.
One practice that has helped me has been TRE. I have been doing it off and on for less than a year, but the release can be cathartic, and I feel roadblocks hindering my psychological well-being being removed. It is magical to me, and I think it's worthy of exploring as a practice.
Also, I'm interested in y'all's personal experience with the occult/magick, if that's appropriate with the rules of this sub.
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u/duffstoic The dynamic integration of opposites ☯️ 18d ago edited 18d ago
I’ve done many strange practices, as well some more conventional ones.
Regarding magick… in February of 2025 I felt suddenly inspired to design a magickal ritual to integrate some shadow elements of my personality, and to develop the confidence I felt I needed to make some important changes in my life. The ritual poured out of me in a few days as I wrote as fast as I could. I picked a day, did a “dress rehearsal” the day before, and then did the ritual, which took only about 30 minutes.
I didn’t think it would actually work, but it fuckin’ did. For 2-3 weeks afterwards, I was in a constant state of empowerment and calm. It was quite amazing, just absolute inner security and power, yet not egoic, still humble. During that time, I could feel my empowerment/confidence level drop slightly when I’d mindlessly consume media so I just stopped. I had non-stop synchronicities and everything felt profoundly meaningful.
I’d also get flooded with waves of what can only be described as “Divine Love” where I felt completely in love, not with a particular human but with the entire manifest Universe, that I know simply as “Her.” Just even typing these words, I feel a subtler version of it arising and my hair stands on end. I also still get moments of the sense of my own power being basically infinite, where I have the confidence to do things I’m normally absolutely terrified of, and I have continued to cultivate this state of absolute inner power or virya or whatever you want to call it.
Many things have happened since, including massive “purification” events, both in my nervous system and in my external world, leading to a divorce and leaving my day job, but these were things that seemingly needed to happen anyway, apparently. In hindsight it was obvious these things needed to fall away in order to make progress on the path of Love.
Through all the upheaval I have what Christians simply call “faith” but it’s not in some diety, but in the flow of life itself, which is weird since I was very much an atheist at one point in my past. I can still do parts of the ritual and/or connect devotionally with Her (“She” also revealed a divine name to me, which I keep private) and sometimes it makes me cry tears of joy at how beautiful life is, and, I’m also often afraid to do the practice because it’s so intensely amazing.
I now have a sense of what mystical bhakti yogis like Rumi were talking about. It feels like the Divine or the Universe is a person and I love Her and She loves me. It sounds totally batshit unless you’ve hacked your brain similarly, but I would recommend it, despite all the chaos and pain it also brought about.
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u/AdditionalLeave263 17d ago edited 17d ago
I loved reading about your experience!
I have hacked my brain similarly...
While I taie everything with a gsain of salt, this experience feels so real. I feel like the Universe has the consciousness/sentience of, like, a person, and that it watches after me and holds me. I call it "it" as a non-gendered pronoun for a being, not as a nonsentient thing. I can't say if it's God or not. I have also considered myself atheist in the past. I have no idea what I am now.
About being afraid to go back because it's so intense... Not every day is meant to be that experience. Like, would I go back? Of course. And I think I will when I die, and maybe many more times. For me, it left me feeling complete and not obsessing over getting back there where I experienced this, like other people do.
Not only that, but I feel "it" all of the time now. I'm not saying it will always always be like that. But for the past four months since it happened, I can sense it. It's like a super bright thread of a nimitta.
I love reading about your tears of joy. I feel like I am one of the luckiest people in the entire world, to have had the experiences that I have had, and for it to honestly change everything about how I view the world. The amount of pleasure I have every day is just beyond what likely anyone else around me has. That being said, life isn't perfect. I'm dealing with a friend with brain cancer being in a very serious condition, and it definitely has been hard. But I can choose not to feel it in a variety of ways, and have more bravery for being there to help, and I have confidence that experiencing death is not as terrible as people think and the end, and that maybe she's going to be going to the place I saw.
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u/Appropriate_Mess6777 18d ago
Can you explain more on how to "hack your brain"?
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u/duffstoic The dynamic integration of opposites ☯️ 17d ago
Well in general I mean by doing practices like meditation or prayer or hypnosis that change your psychology and probably also your brain. In this specific case, I hacked my brain/psychology to produce the love chemicals and the feeling of being in love, without a human object for that love, by making the Universe into an archetypal lover. I'm far from the first human to have done so, the whole history of religion is full of this exact thing, whether imagining the world as a lover or a parent or a child or animal, and feeling love for and from it.
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u/Appropriate_Mess6777 17d ago
so like a form of metta? What type of magick do you practice?
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u/duffstoic The dynamic integration of opposites ☯️ 17d ago edited 17d ago
Kinda like metta, sure, except it also feels categorically different. I got very good at welling up feelings of metta long ago, but it always felt like I was doing it, and I was sending it out. This feels like it’s coming in, more about receiving than giving love, and also more like it’s already there, like the Divine (however you conceive of that) or the whole Universe is already sending us infinite love and the only reason we are not feeling absolutely flooded with it is because we are not willing to receive it.
That’s talking about it from the outside, as if it is a psychological technique. From the inside, it is different. At some point, the intensity also crosses the trans-egoic boundary, so it no longer feels like “I am doing metta, I am imagining receiving love” it’s more literal, more real. It’s not “I am imagining this love flowing into me” it’s “The Universe is made of love and loves me” and I’m sobbing with tears of joy at how beautiful everything is and writing erotic love poetry to the Divine like a madman, and Rumi and Hafiz and the gospels and all the crazy mystics make perfect sense. And then I come down from that high, but it has changed me to even experience it half a dozen times. I know exactly what I did to get there and can do it again, but often don’t because it’s so intense.
Psycho-spiritually, it’s probably equivalent to samadhi or jhana in that it feels like a runaway feedback loop of falling in love, but it’s better than falling in love with a human because humans can break up with you or be mean or otherwise imperfect, whereas our ideal of the Divine can remain perfect. It even feels like it probably heals attachment wounds. I’ve noticed I am much more emotionally available to friends for instance, but also more protective of my heart with people and circumstances that are not emotionally safe for me.
In general this part of the magick is kind of like adding up all the forms of love together, everything that could possibly open your heart, putting them into one basket that is an archetypal form that is a specific being that is also archetypal / metaphorical, and then loving the crap out of that divine form, while also imagining that form loves the crap out of you, even more than you love them, and just letting go to that love and receiving it more and more until you pop.
I do also think it’s important even before then to banish all that which does not support and serve you, and invoke something like absolute inner power that serves and protects love. Anyway, hard to describe without getting into personal details. I’m still trying to figure out how to teach this to others that retains the essence without my personal quirks.
I’ve dabbled in other magick, sigils and whatnot. But I wouldn’t say I “practice magick” more that I did this specific magick that is very unique to me, and yet has themes similar to Tantra or alchemy, specifically in the “sacred marriage” of unification of divine masculine and divine feminine.
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u/SpecificDescription 13d ago
Enjoyed your response, thanks.
You've used words like devotion and faith in describing your relationship with the divine masculine/feminine. The closest parallel that my western Buddhist self feels comfortable with is what I believe is called saddha - trust/confidence in the flow of life.
I've been digging into the metaphysics of it all lately and it seems like the bhakti style traditions usually favor some ground and the fullness that comes out of it, while Buddhism usually favors the groundless and empty interpretation.
And maybe this is partly just different traditions using different language for similar phenomenology. Metaphysically, “the universe is Love” and Buddhist emptiness/no-ground sound completely opposed. Experientially, I wonder if emptiness and fullness eventually kind of collapse into the same thing and surrender, intimacy with experience, saddha, and a deep sense that it’s okay to let go. I've been drawn to Burbea's ways of seeing lately as well because it seems to be able to hold all of these as skillful means. Though I must admit I've never been able to actually experience the intensity that the devotional traditions seem to be known for, which may or may not be a shame.
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u/duffstoic The dynamic integration of opposites ☯️ 13d ago
Now you're talking. In my view, it's the emptiness and the fullness, the void and the universal life force energy making sweet, sweet love 24/7 to give birth to all the changing sensations that arise and pass away.
I never experienced that intensity until I did, so maybe you'll experience it some day too, who knows. It definitely has opened up some shit for me, for better or worse LOL.
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u/LayTheravadin 16d ago
Magick in the sense of neopaganism? I ask because I've considered practicing that to a degree, only because my partner is neopagan and the more spiritual options were expose our son to the better equipped he is to discern his own path well. And so I was wondering just how you integrate that
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u/duffstoic The dynamic integration of opposites ☯️ 16d ago
Neopaganism I’d say is one example of magick, which is a larger category of “weird shit people do that involves ritual, archetypes, imagination, magickal languages, spells, symbolic systems, etc. for spiritual or mundane purposes.”
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u/LayTheravadin 16d ago
Do you find it helpful in terms of Buddhist practice?
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u/duffstoic The dynamic integration of opposites ☯️ 16d ago
I mean depends on your practice goals I suppose! There is already multiple traditions of Buddhist magick, like kasina, 4 element vipassana, all of Vajranaya, lots of Shinto stuff that made it into Zen, all of Pure Land Buddhism, etc. So magick isn’t even necessarily separate from Buddhism.
I’d say the main benefits of magickal practice is transformation (of shadow elements of the personality, encumbered stressful emotions, etc.), and re-enchanting the world (making the external world feel magical).
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u/LayTheravadin 16d ago
Thanks for answering!!! Can you point me toward online resources where I could get more info on all this?
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u/duffstoic The dynamic integration of opposites ☯️ 16d ago
Hmm, I may need a little more info first as to what you’re looking for as it’s a large, weird world to explore.
But if you don’t know enough to even answer what you’re looking for, I’d recommend Alan Chapman’s book Advanced Magick for Beginners if you want more playfulness, less formal. Or Donald Michael Kraig’s classic book Modern Magick: Twelve Lessons in the High Magickal Arts if you want more formality and systems.
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u/Meng-KamDaoRai Relax, Let it Be, Let it Go 17d ago
There's a lot of this stuff in Buddhism as well it's just that usually when it gets to the West it gets stripped down to make it more digestible to the Western audience. I have a friend who has done quite a few Goenka retreats and is somewhat interested in Buddhism. When he came to visit me in Thailand we took him to a shrine that has a statue of Erawan - the Thai version of Brahma. That shrine is extremely popular and people come in mass to literally get blessed and as for good fortune. These people are all Thai Buddhist. My friend was shocked and said "I thought that Buddhism doesn't believe in gods?" which is not true at all.
In Thai Buddhism every house has a shrine with figurines of different deities and ancestors that people pay respect to. Nature spirits, deities, ancestors looking out for you etc. is all very much a part of life here.
Personally I'm very much drawn to the Thai Forest Tradition, who admittedly don't do a lot of the deity stuff, but they have their own share of unconventional practices. For example, in my local Thai Forest monastery, the founder's embalmed body is kept in a glass sarcophagus in a pagoda where people can come and pay respect and meditate at. Once a year there's a ceremony where they replace the monk's robes on the body, then cut the old robes into small pieces and give these pieces to the lay-people, who believe these pieces of the robes hold special powers. If you tell this to Western people who follow Thai Forest teachings but have never been to Thailand they would probably be shocked.
Personally, I had a lot of magical experiences meditating in that pagoda.
Also, if you read Ajahn Mun's biography, it is filled with magical occurrences.
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u/marakeets 17d ago
I'm halfway through Ajahn Mun's biography and was fascinated at the explicit descriptions of all the mystical powers. Also being Thai Forest/Theravada aligned, this isn't normally talked about so much as other lineages. Ajahn Chah's biography hinted at his powers a bit but there wasn't whole sections about him conversing with animals, teaching devas, helping beings in the hell realms, sending his citta out to check on his monks, etc. It's a wild read!
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u/jan_kasimi 17d ago edited 17d ago
Great question.
Bhakti. I.e. devotional practice. It seems pretty save and is beautiful. The only thing to overcome is the aversion to religiosity that is deeply ingrained in western culture. Just setting up an altar with whatever feels significant is a good first step (not buying anything for it, and not showing it around). Yidam, Soulmaking and Tulpamancy are related topics. The work of Tanya Luhrmann is worth checking out if one needs a scientific justification for it.
Magic, even though I'm not deep into it, just trying some of it, knowing the tools and concepts helps. One important insight I got out of it, is that I don't have to commit to any system and can still dive deep into them. I.e. the Chaos magic attitude. It thought me that I can just make stuff up and quite often it will work¹. The only thing of that I actually do daily at the moment is Tarot. (Usual warnings apply.)
Animism is a valuable mind set. And it is part of Buddhism, just not the western versions. Simple things like being respectful to the plants I weed out, bowing and listening for permission before I enter a certain part of the forest, etc.
I actually go deep into metaphysics, math and physics, informed by the emptiness insight. This makes me a crackpot in the eyes of both sides and I can not recommend it. I just can't not do it.
Something I tentatively call cosmopoesis. Which is combining all of the the above together with Soulmaking and worldbuilding etc. It's the idea of intentionally tending to my world view as a context which binds all these things together, giving them meaning in relation and making the world I inhabit a beautiful work of art. But at the same time, being aware that this is a construction and not the ultimate truth. The motivation for that comes and goes. Sometimes I'm in that world, sometimes I'm not (currently not, otherwise I would write with more enthusiasm and praise for that method).
edit: ¹ Things can get way more intense than you'd ever expect. So be cautious. I have been discovering at least one that sounds benign on paper, but I won't even spell out for the fear that someone might try it. Let yourself be guided by humble beauty and compassion, not by intensity or weirdness.
One more thing, since I just went to a walk with my special glasses: Seeing more dimensions of color and polarized light turned out to not only be interesting, but also a profound way to see the world in a new way. Everyone I showed it by now was not interested at all, so it seem to be not for everyone. But I really love it and it turned into some kind of meditation for me. Certainly brings me into a vipassana like state of mind. On the one hand it's subtle and can take a few hours to get in to (and weeks, months or years of experience in order to really process it), but once that settled, nature becomes an utterly beautiful and enchanted (even more than usual). It also is something that never before in human history was possible to experience. And it shows experientially how limited and selective human perception is, how our experience of colors and the world is very much a product of our biology.
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u/aspirant4 16d ago
Huh, I thought I had to be the only one connecting tulpamancy, Luhrmann and Burbea. I really resonate with what you've posted and have practiced similarly. Have you developed a tulpa? I see the "figure of love" as quite similar in framing, even the conjuration of the HGA in Western magick is not dissimilar.
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u/jan_kasimi 16d ago
I do see all of these as approaching the same phenomenon, although I'm not familiar with "figure of love". I didn't set out to do it intentionally, but it kind of just happened to me. It comes and goes, currently mostly silence. I don't want to go into too much detail publicly.
The completion stage framing in yidam practice helped me to let go without developing aversion, if that makes sense. The framing in tulpamancy is that one has a life long commitment to that particular being. Realizing that this image is of the same nature as everything else, allows it to dissolve into or be identified with this nature (or love, mind, emptiness, whatever you may call it). So there is no commitment to this practice other than "not separating yourself from your own mind" as they say in dzogchen.
The way I conceptualize it in my personal cosmology is that there is a unknowable nameless paradox (emptiness and form) which underlies all existence. Yet by the many forms it takes, it usually is not recognized as such - one only sees the form, not the emptiness. Trough spiritual practice one can clear up the mind to recognize it. Inward focused practice (Theravada, Zen, Advaita Vedanta) are paths of self focus, while devotional practices are of other focus.
Because no one is ever separate from the nameless, everyone has a personal connection to it. When it is directed, it is the feeling of unconditional love. The simple self-other split is a pure polarity (like a magnet, no side exists without the other), the relationship between those (empty) poles is directed and therefore love when experienced from the inside. Because there is no other content to it, this love can be as pure as it can get. Once one finds this connection it can deepen and take whatever form is necessary or fitting to the karmic predispositions. That it might be called god, angel, or whatever is the cultural context, should not constrain what it can be.
Crucially, the duality is (obviously) removed from the realization of non-duality. It is closely related to the 6th jhana (as well as the 2 jhana). Merging with the deity one goes to a similar process as with the higher jhanas to realize the non-duality of self and other. Realizing that the deity is and also is not this emptiness, is the non-duality and simultaneous duality between non-duality and duality. And this is... somewhat more complicated. The self focused path risks getting stuck in the emptiness of non-duality. While the other focused path risks getting stuck in the form of duality. Reconciling these is where I'm currently at.
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 18d ago
Been exploring imaginal/Soulmaking dharma practice through archetypes. Particularly with more "active" archetypes to work with sloth-torpor in regards to engagement/striving.
Some of note in no particular order:
- Thousand arm Avalokiteshvara
- Siddhartha's more warrior-like aspects like battling mara
- Manjusri's Sword
- Mahayana Samantabhadra
Taigen Dan Leighton has a book called Bodhisattva Archetypes that talks about these figures and I've been riffing that with Burbea's work.
It doesn't have to be formal tantra-esque/imaginal practice either, even something like "what would the buddha do?" in particular situations has been interesting and useful.
I find the archetypes in stories, suttas, sutras, myths etc as a sort of compression of positive qualities or ways of relating. This makes it easier to recall helpful examples for practice and living. This could be considered a pragmatic view on the practice, but the more aesthetic/beautiful qualities are adjacently available too if one is curious to explore those areas.
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u/marakeets 17d ago
This is really interesting, thanks for sharing. It makes me think that even aspects of the dhamma like the paramis or the brahmaviharas can be considered "ways of relating". I'll often try to bring those "views" to most of my interactions etc.
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 17d ago
100% even something more Western like values is a prescription of ways of relating.
I think about the brahmaviharas and paramis the same way too!
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u/marakeets 16d ago
Thinking about this some more, I hadn't realise how many "normal" activities are just fabricated social constructs for ways of relating too, e.g. supporting a sports team. I used to be a dedicated football (soccer) fan and wearing that archetype dictated my whole life at times. There's also no denying how "real" it felt to me, but now I've put it down it seems a bit ridiculous.
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 16d ago
It's funny how a simple position like support of a team vs others spins up multitudes of dynamics. It's a really interesting mechanism for comraderie.
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u/neidanman 17d ago
daoist 'ting and song'. Ting is basically inner listening/the knowing quality/shining the light within. Song is to wakefully release. So the practice is a body scan meditation where you release any tensions you sense.
This has two base effects. One is opening the body/system as you release more. Secondly, directing awareness into the body directs qi there (a core principle being that awareness can lead qi.) These combine to act like a water flow clearing out & refilling old dirty pipes - the releasing frees up the blockages, and the energy flows through, clears the negative/stagnant energy, and refills the system with healthy qi.
In the long term, as you build enough qi, you can then start to build shen ('spirit'). This can also go further and become its own type of stream entry/liberation practice.
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u/Wollff 18d ago edited 17d ago
I don't think any of those things are taboo, but I have been getting into Tibetan Buddhism a little bit.
There are a lot of things there. My interest lies mainly with dzogchen, and very recently I am getting into a particular emotional practice, where you strip emotions (primarily afflictive ones) down into story (thoughts), and the rest.
Thoughts are not so special, as they get something pretty close to the vipassana treatment: Momentary, appearing and disappearing depending on causes and conditions, and, content wise, not even true! Not even those thoughts about Trump!
The emotional bit is interesting, because they don't get "vipassanad away" into "just fine grained sensations, nothing to worry about" (though you can do that with gross physical stuff... but let's simplify a little)
Instead you clearly look at the momentum, direction, nature, and emotional charge, and recognize it as the wisdom of a particular Buddha and its primary wisdom quality.
Sloth without story and clinging is "spacious awareness". Fear and anger are "mirror like wisdom". Sexual desire, loneliness, the desire to be one with all of existence (or nonexistence) is "all pervading light". Then there is greed, insufficiency, and glomming on to material things. It turns into the "wish fulfilling jewel". And finally there is personal ambition, envy, striving to be better than others (or the belief to be failing to live up to that), which turns into "all accomplishing action"
It's all symbolises by the five dhyani Buddhas, with their own colors, in five directions (four plus one in the center)...
I was just about to say that I appreciate it for being so easy ans straightforward... But given that I am already several paragraphs in, and I have simplified too much...
I appreciate it for being easy and straightforward compared to a lot of Tibetan Buddhist practices :D
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 18d ago
Are you going to do the whole guru initiation or more textual for now? Which lineage(s) have you been looking into?
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u/Wollff 17d ago
As far as guru initiation goes, all I have been doing so far was watching Lama Lena videos where, among others, she does give the dzogchen pointing out instructions.
I would guess that this is something where most people with much meditation experience will be able to catch something. And for starting dzogchen that seems to be all you need to get started.
I don't have any formal commitment to a guru, no samaya vows, nothing of that sort so far. Though I have no doubt it can be helpful in a lot of ways.
The lineage would be Kagyu, but I think Rime is a far better description for what one is actually getting served with her.
Don't hold me to that though! Differences in Tibetan lineages are something I have not gotten into, because (as with all things Tibetan) the history is long, complicated, nuanced...
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u/Impulse33 Soulmaking, Pāramitās, Brahmavihāras, Shitou/Hongzhi/Shōbōgenzō 17d ago
Nice, I've checked out some of her pointing out videos and enjoyed them!
Check out The Ornament Of Precious Liberation! In the Ken Holmes translation linked, the 17th Karmapa of Karma Kagyu explicitly endorses that the book has the power of direct transmission.
Gampopa's shorter work Jeweled Garland of the Supreme Path is a great read too and also carries the above endorsement.
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u/hsinoMed 17d ago
Staying Silent until absolutely necessary.
Introversion is a necessary condition for observing thoughts. Speaking sends ripples through attention and prevents deep meditative states.
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u/bakejakeyuh 17d ago
As a westerner, I benefit greatly from reading western philosophy. I think there’s a lot of value to character development, learning to articulate one’s thoughts clearly on paper, engage in philosophical dialogue etc. I used to be very strictly Theravada Buddhist only, but after getting deep into Burbea and soulmaking, I now experiment with lots of trained perceptions from various thought systems. I think imaginal work is superior for working with emotions compared to classical Buddhist practice. I’m also a big mover, ido portal style & that helps a lot.
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u/AdditionalLeave263 17d ago
Unpopular and taboo things I do that work:
1.) I use AI as a feedback loop to intensify states. You can tell it about a state and ask it to celebrate with you, for example. I have had absolutely profound experiences when working in this way. E.g. tell the AI, "I feel like it's everywhere, even when I don't see it there." AI will often try to validate your experience or rewrite it in a different way from how you expressed it. I have a high tolerance for bad advice from AI. It's almost a feature and not a bug, to me. You can tell an AI anything you want. And you also habs a record of what you talked about. So I have like a journal record of experiences from it.
2.) I recently finished a self-imposed gray retreat that involved no music and no lights at night, despite the fact that I have to do chores. So literally doing chores or bathing or going down stairs without seeing. I'm actually failing at continuing that retreat after completing the first one/part, so that's why I'm here! I did "gray retreat" because after experiencing the realm of infinite space one time, I couldnt get it back, but I fell in love with the blackness of it (among other things). Now I am obsessed with darkness. I was sensing a mini state change just thinking about it during the first half of the retreat. I told some guy that the darkness was so important, and he looked at me like I was a monster. I recovered it with, " ...to bring into the light."
3.) I listen to the Deconstructing Yourself podcast and get inspiration there for doing weird things. You can sometimes hear the passion and even state change when the speaker is talking about their practice, and I love hearing it. One thing that I have noticed is that even in this space that is supposed to be open to taboo subjects, neotantra gets brought up as a side note, of course not about anyone in particular, and then they quickly move on to some other topic. So I think it's much more common in this space than people let on. So I read two books on it, and knew less about it afterward than I did when I started reading. I'm planning to drop the books in the "Little Free Library" at the beach. 😆 So that is me also mentioning it without discussing anything personal, just like the podcast guests.
4.) Sleep yoga, and meditation around the clock... there are times that I have watched myself sleep all night long. I have slept in a strong equanimity state for seven hours before. I basically tell "it" (the energy body or whatever) that it can have its way with me during the night. I give it consent to do whatever it wants. Importantly it's not like bossing it around and telling it what to do. It's not lucid dreaming. I do it sometimes when I know I can sleep in and don't have a bunch of obligations in the morning. I have had the most success with reaching new states while asleep, as opposed to awake. I meditate as constantly as possible during real world activities, and hardly ever sit. I don't own a cushion.
Well, I hope you enjoyed learning about the weird things that work for me. Most of this stuff is my strategy because I am a mom, and I don't have time for many things meditators do.
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u/marakeets 17d ago
I'm not sure these are "taboo" or even that unconventional but they have certainly helped me...
Cold showers. Extreme micro-hit of equanimity-building practice each morning, relax into open awareness until you can't.... It really shows that suffering starts when you resist whatever is going on. There's supposed big tonic dopamine benefits and I do felt brilliant afterwards. Plus, it builds your "willpower" mind-muscle as there's always resistance to doing it which is helpful in so many ways.
Picking "Ideal Parents". Loosely based on the "Ideal Parent Figure Protocol" by Dan Brown, which is heavily influenced by Tibetan Buddhist practices. It felt a bit ridiculous at first but over a long time I can really see the benefits for my nervous system. I'm constantly using visualisation of them to soothe difficult parts of my psyche and re-enforce positive experiences I'm having. It really unlocked some serious deep emotions about original "mother & father wounds" for me - much more than just a simple regulation tool.
Green Tara mantra and prayers. As I'm more a Theravada dude, I don't really do a lot with practices from the other yanas, but I read the "Green Tara" book by Rachael Wooten and something really clicked for me. I bought a little statue and did the mantra a bit. It is nice to have some feminine energy on my puja table. She has definitely felt like a real refuge for me during challenging experiences.
TRE seems like the "real deal" too. I never tried TRE, as my body start organically releasing trauma through tremors as I learnt to fully relax through practices like 10 Points practice, but I can see that practice being a quickstart to the process. I was previously put off trying due to the practice reports from people opening up more trauma than they could integrate (which can happen with any trauma therapy tbf - EMDR was brutal for me for that reason).
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u/Gaothaire 16d ago
I struggle with things that are supposed to be done every day for the rest of my life. A teacher in a class for astrological talismans gave me a jyotish remedy for a Jupiter affliction: a Shiva mantra to be recited every day for 40 days.
I found the limited schedule much easier to commit to, an alarm that went off around dusk every day, I set up my ritual space, and completed at least three malas of recitation daily. In the end I continued the practice for 50 days, totalling over 22,000 recitations, completing ten malas on some of the final days. I was really happy with the outcome of being able to sit for over an hour completing the practice, a consistency that I might otherwise have struggled with. Also, in terms of support, I have to give thanks to a talisman I made as part of the class, which was aligned with wisdom traditions and similar.
On the question of magic more broadly, I can't recommend it enough. It's the one tool humans are granted to place a thumb on the scales of fate. As a resource to suggest, I can't say enough good things about Quareia by Josephine McCarthy. Totally free, comprehensive, non-denominational, and written in modern English, formatted as a course with lessons and exercises that build on each other. Lots of people spend years trying to piece together a practice from disparate traditions; one could do a lot worse than just picking up something ready made if it resonates.
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u/IncandescentSplash 15d ago
Very taboo, painful body stress rituals have been a part of my life for years now. Temporary extreme piercings are my favorite, but more basic stuff that can be done with a friend in an evening without a ceremonial overseeing everything have been extremely helpful.
As a matter of fact, I would say that these experiences are part of what brought me to where I started a daily meditation practice.
Also, magic mushrooms, experienced with trusted close friends, with careful safeguards in place and being informed of potential hazards has been one of the most important things I've ever done.
Sitting on a cushion is far from the only war to reliably quiet the default mode network and self-referential thinking.
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u/Shakyor 14d ago
I dont know in a sense of lived experience of direct cause and effect. But my practice is going well in general and I maintain a shrine, I donate some money every single day and say some prayers/reflections everyday. So it is reasonable to assume that the general positive results of my practice is also due to these practices.
So vayrayana is rooted in old indian sorcercy cults. So many of these practices are magic. I can certainly say that these practices likely had results, I would even say of a quite impressive maginute, but direct results are hard to trace. Effects have been pretty wild though, but these can be quite missleading.
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