"All emotions will vanish of themselves" "Those who cannot still all emotions must have at least pure emotions" from Swani Sivananda's article. He is suggesting that most people cannot still all emotions so they should try to hold onto positive emotions; Bhakti Marga helps in this.

"The sublimation of all emotions and mental activities of every kind is the direct practice of yoga."

The Lotus Consciousness

Your consciousness is a lotus. The Egyptians used the symbols of the papyrus and the lotus, and the Indians, the Hindus, use the lotus.

The experience of Samadhi is a lotus blooming, but he goes to the source. - Osho

Just as the lotus grows out of the muck of the pond without having to send down roots into the earth, so does nirvana grow from the muck of the mind. As shown in the below paragraph, Consciousness is behind the Mind.

Brahman - Purusha/Prakriti - Consciousness (Crown/Lotus Chakra) - Mind (Third Eye) - Space (Throat Chakra) - Air (Heart Chakra) - Fire (Solar Plexus Chakra) - Water (Sacral) - Earth (Root) . - The Mahabharata.

The seventh chakra, also known as the crown chakra, is depicted as a thousand-petal lotus flower at the top of the head.

The third eye is a concept in Buddhism and Hinduism that represents a vantage point for achieving enlightenment and higher consciousness.

Mind is merely a reflection of Consciousness. When the reflection is destroyed, Consciousness shines through in all its glory through the jnani (wise person) when the mind is absent or still. - quotes taken from various articles.

"When emotions are high, wisdom is low." “When emotions dominate, maturity and wisdom deteriorate.”

Water does not stick to lotus leaves because of the leaf's hydrophobic, or water-repellent, surface. Emotions have a similar relationship, like water to lotus flowers, to an enlightened person or Jnani or wise-person.

Samatva, or absolute freedom from emotions, has been set as one of the prime essentials for the health of the nerves and brain.” - Relax With Yoga, by Arthur Liebers, [1960].

“He is completely freed from all emotions: Joy, envy, fear & anxiety cause inward agitations in men. Ever peaceful with himself & the world, the devotee is unaffected by these emotions, & deals with them with equanimity. Such a devotee is dear to Me.” - Bhagawat Gita.

"When karma is exhausted and emotions are emptied, that is a true Buddha." - quote from an article on Buddhism.

Brain is the seat of mind. Mind is the seat of emotions.

“Heart is the seat of consciousness.” Consciousness is the seat of peace/samadhi.

In samadhi, the mind returns to its original seat in the heart.

I know this is highly personal, but I'm curious: What are some of your favorite unexpected or unusual books that were helpful for your path? I'm thinking about books that aren't about meditation, or are only tangentially related.

As a personal example, Metaphors We Live By by Lakoff & Johnson led to extensive questioning of what metaphors I tend to use for my "path" of practice. Additionally, I found Inventing Our Selves by Nikolas Rose particularly insightful about modern conceptions of the self, and how they show up in my practice & occupation.

Hello all,

I recently listened to Culadasa's great retreat on YouTube called "The Jhanas". Highly recommend.

However, one of the takeaways from this retreat is that you need to be at least stage 6 for even the "ultra-lite" Jhanas. As someone who is not stage 6, is there a retreat available where he directly addresses the first 5 stages?

What is being trained in these stages and how does it differentiate from the concentration used to attain jhana in stage 6+?

I am mostly curious about what preparatory practices to do before jhana and what suttas these recommendations come from. Thanks!

Considering self-love, I’m not sure if I love myself or not. What does that feel like? Strangely I do find others way easier to have metta for. If it’s a fast path to jhana I’d rather take that path because it would give the double benefit of rock solid self-care beyond what conventional therapy brings.

I see so often that good and evil don't matter and it's just our perspective which could be true yeah. But then yesterday I was reading the manual of insight and saw this. Pretty interesting what the Buddha actually was saying. Im excited to keep reading. There was quite a few examples of people who did nothing but work their whole life and live normal and hear one verse and it liberates them. Some even lived immoral and changed right before death and became liberated.

“Defilement obstacle” (kilesantarāya) refers to three types of wrong views: the wrong view that there is no good or evil (akiriyadiṭṭhi)—the idea that actions do not become good or evil and do not lead to good or evil results;

the wrong view that everything is cut off or comes to an end when a being dies (natthikadiṭṭhi)—the idea that no further existence will occur after death and that there are no good or evil results that come from good or evil actions;

and the wrong view that volitional action does not produce good or evil results (ahetukadiṭṭhi)—the idea that happiness and suffering arise by themselves without causes.

Of these three views, the first denies that effects have causes, the second denies that causes have effects, and the third denies both. So the three kinds of wrong view deny the law of cause and effect.

If one holds steadfastly to any of these three types of wrong view, they are said to have steadfast wrong views (niyatamicchādiṭṭhi) and are bound to be reborn in the lower world immediately after death. Thus these views are an obstacle to celestial rebirth and path knowledge and fruition knowledge.

Started meditating again for the first time in years and getting what I consider beneficial results. I've only been doing 30 minutes a day once or twice a day to build up my stamina. I'm going to aggressively avoid any Buddhist terminology and try to explain things in my own words here. After some initial difficulty what's emerged is a much more calm and fairly persistent feeling even after I finish meditating. I sit down and get a kind of stable united feeling in the body that is very pleasant, and to my surprise, compassionate feelings toward myself and others (something much removed from my typical state.) Lately I've had observations about how my senses work. For example Im beginning to regard seeing as more of a flat image as opposed to the typical way which I would say is more like looking out of a window. The phrase I've heard "in the seeing there is only seeing" now seems significant to me. And today after meditating I had a stronger sense that my body is basically empty space except for whatever nerves are being stimulated.

I say all that just to give you a sense of what I get out of my meager practice. And it's not all roses, either. The first ten minutes after sitting down is pretty killer tbh. None of this is what I would call easy or effortless. So this leads to my question, what's going on here? I'm not some genius meditator. I would say I'm probably less inclined than almost anyone. I'm definitely nowhere near jhana or even access concentration by the standards I've been introduced to here. So where are these benefits coming from? How is this ultra elementary stage described in Buddhism? If jhana IS meditation, then that means I'm not even meditating, right? The benefits feel substantial, though.

I was inspired to ask this question based on a post from yesterday about sexuality. there seemed to be a debate about whether desire falls off completely vs seeing through the empty nature of desire.

what are other common thinking errors people make on the path? like reifying awareness, the addiction to enlightenment, alienation from regular life perceived as good, the inability to reduce suffering anywhere but on the cushion, the pitfall of viewing things as non-existent vs lacking self nature, etc.

in my own practice, whenever I perceive something as having true ultimate nature, I calmly look at it as empty of self. whether its anger or bliss. good or bad. gently return to the emptiness of even nirvana itself.

After a few catastrophic interactions in recent posts, it has come to my attention that most practitioners here have very different ways of looking at both the path of practice leading to stream-entry and its expected results. More than that, a lot of people around seem to have no idea what this is all about, and some are inching very close to destroying their minds in their misguided attempts at "practicing".

To address that issue, I decided to write this introduction to clarify some of the main points. Hopefully, this will keep you out of trouble. Ideally, it will serve as a guide and inspiration to a select few.

The basis for this work is the oldest known source for the Buddha's teachings: the Pali Canon. In addition to that, we will use teachings from the Thai Forest Tradition [this link downloads a PDF file], as it is currently the tradition that most closely practices the Path as described in the Pali Canon.

This is, by no means, an attempt at prescribing a One-And-Only "True" Path of Practice. This is simply a description of what the Buddha himself seems to have taught according to the historical sources we have available, and how to go about it.

1. What is Stream-Entry?

If you're reading this, you've probably heard the words "Awakening" and/or "Enlightenment": a legendary state of absolute bliss and wisdom that you achieve when you sit down under a tree and focus on your breath. How such a thing is possible nobody seems to know, but that's what the story says.

Well, Stream-Entry is the first stage of that Awakening.

According to the Buddha, there are Four Stages of Awakening, in order:

1. Stream-Entry (Sotapanna)

2. Once-Return (Sakadagami)

3. Non-Return (Anagami)

4. Arahant (Noble One / Worthy One)

The names relate to the idea that there are uncountable past and future lives in the cycle of birth and death (called Samsara, which literally means "wandering on"), and that these stages guarantee a way out of the cycle.

According to the Buddha, a being who has reached Stream-Entry (the First Stage of Awakening) is guaranteed no more than seven rebirths until said being reaches the full liberation of nibbāna/nirvana. Also according to the Buddha, a Stream-Enterer will never be reborn below the human realm - that is, there will be no Hell or other horrible states of deprivation for that being after the body dies.

In simple words, reaching Stream-Entry ends the game. Not completely, not immediately, but it is game over.

Now, this is something to understand:

Contrary to popular belief, "Samsara" is not a place. It is an action. Your mind samsaras around all the time, looking for mental food everywhere, except where it really matters - on the inside. Because of that, you do stupid things and end up with stupid results, which in turn make you do even stupid-er things, producing even stupid-er results, and so on ad infinitum. This is how you end up in hell - both literally and figuratively. This is also how this world becomes hell.

When you die, unless you have reached the Unconditioned, your mind keeps samsara-ing.

No, you will not be obliterated at the moment of death. No, your consciousness will not be annihilated or extinguished. It will simply samsara to a different place - it will wander on, looking for food, for happiness, for satisfaction. And it will never find it.

So, if you think the idea of multiple lifetimes is good consolation... Think again. Rebirth is a horrifying prospect in an infinite cycle of unending misery. The goal of this practice is to escape the cycle, never to return.

No, we don't want to go to Heaven - any of the many types of Heavens available in Buddhist cosmology. We want to reach nibbāna.

No, nibbāna is not obliteration. It's not extinction. It's not annihilation. It is something Beyond every conceivable thing. It is the end of all created things. It is the only thing that is objectively true in all of reality.

So, yeah. This is what we're looking for in this practice: nibbāna.

If you think this is just a cute practice for stress relief and for looking cool in front of your friends, lighting up some incense and chanting some words in a language you don't understand, you're doing it wrong.

2. What does Stream-Entry do to you?

According to the Buddha, there are Ten Fetters that chain you to Samsara. These fetters are not things that exist in and of themselves - they are actions. These fetters are things you do at an unconscious level, which bind you to the process of Samsara. This is why some monks use the word Unbinding to translate nibbana.

What are these fetters? We have five lower fetters and five higher fetters.

“And which are the five lower fetters?

Self-identification views, uncertainty, grasping at habits & practices, sensual desire, & ill will. These are the five lower fetters.

And which are the five higher fetters?

Passion for form, passion for what is formless, conceit, restlessness, & ignorance. These are the five higher fetters.

And these are the ten fetters.”

Stream-Entry cuts/removes/destroys the first three fetters: self-identification views, uncertainty, and grasping at habits & practices.

No, you do not do the destruction - that cannot be done directly. First you go into the Stream, and it is the very act of going into the Stream that destroys the fetters. When you come out, the fetters are gone.

In practical terms, the moment you go into the Stream, you see something so extraordinary, so magnificent, so Beyond everything else, that it completely rewires and reorganizes your mind from the inside. The way you see and process and interact with reality changes completely. You're not free yet, and you can still do a lot of bad stuff, but now you See.

It feels exactly like getting out of the Matrix for the first time. Minus the goo. This is the best description I have ever seen of what it feels like. And it is also why most people simply cannot get out - since they're prisoners of their own minds, they cannot conceive of something better than the misery they know. Because of that, they assume that misery to be the best existence has to offer. To those who look from outside the prison, they're pathetic, pitiful, blind. Seeing most beings like that breaks your heart. But when you see there's very little you can do to help them, you just shake your head and go on your way, hoping against hope that they can catch a glimpse of what can be.

So, when you come back from the experience, the first three fetters are cut. What does that mean?

It means you can never identify with the things you used to identify with ever again, because you've seen them for what they are: unstable, unreliable, jerry-rigged for stupid purposes. .

And what are these things? Your body, your feelings, your perceptions, your models of reality, and even your own consciousness.

You will never again think you are one or more of those things, because you've seen them fade away completely, but you were still there - whatever you are, after everything else disappeared, you remained. And then you realize that even that "you" label is wrong, because it's not really you. It's something else. It's a type of awareness you didn't even know existed. For lack of a better expression, though, "there is this".

So, this is how the first fetter is cut.

The second fetter is usually translated as "doubt" or "uncertainty": until you see the Unconditioned for the first time, this is all theory. After you see it for the first time, it becomes reality, and you finally realize: "Holy guacamole... That Buddha guy new EXACTLY what he was talking about! And those annoying guys on reddit were right! I should go apologize!"

You can have blind faith and still have doubt and uncertainty.

Think of it in these terms: you believe that going to the gym will give you big muscles, but until you go there and start working out and getting the results, it's just theory. You think you know what having a beautiful, strong, healthy physique is like, but you have no idea until you get one. This is the same thing.

Finally, the third fetter is "grasping at habits and practices", also translated as "attachment to rites and rituals". This is the "sin" of almost everyone everywhere: people think that the act of doing stuff outside will give them results - be it the position of their hands during meditation, the statues they venerate, the incense they burn, the dances they make, going to mass, praying the rosary, or whatever "externals" they use in their practice. Some people are also very attached to their own way of doing things, whether it actually gives them the results they want or not.

This ceases, too, because you see it makes absolutely no difference at all.

What matters is your mind. It has always been your mind. It will always be your mind.

When you reach the Stream, you stop doing the fetters.

3. The Ultimate Goal

According to the Buddha, the ultimate goal of the practice is nibbāna - to free your mind from all ten fetters and abide in the Unconditioned.

In other words, you keep "diving into" the Unconditioned until all fetters are gone - that is, until your mind stops fabricating the fetters and binding you to this miserable process of becoming.

This is what Cicero called "Summum Bonum" - the supreme/ultimate good of a system, philosophy, and/or religion.

Stream-Entry destroys the first three lower fetters.

Once-Return weakens the remaining two lower fetters to a considerable degree - which means your desire for pleasures of the senses ("sensual pleasures") is reduced. Yes, this includes your sexual desire.

Non-Return destroys the five lower fetters completely, which means you see unskillful things so clearly you don't engage in them anymore.

An Arahant is something else entirely, so we won't touch the subject here.

4. Misconceptions

"The Dark Night"

No. You are not going through "the dark night".

You will see a lot of pseudo-spiritual people talking about this, and since it sounds so amazing and important, you'll want to attribute every mistake you make to "the dark night".

This expression comes from one of the greatest Christian mystics of all time, Saint John of the Cross.

Saint John describes two types of dark night: the dark night of the senses, which happens at the beginning of the Path, when you remove the "external sources of food" from your mind (the pleasures of the senses), and the dark night of the soul, which the Buddha calls "restlessness" - it's the final part of the Path to full awakening. The Dark Night of the Soul is probably the most horrible thing a human being can go through in this Path. It's "the final purification", so to speak.

Most people can barely take the dark night of the senses, because it is so incredibly uncomfortable, let alone reaching the dark night of the soul.

So, no.

"Sexually Vibrant"

No.

This Path does not make your sex life more vibrant.

If you're more sexually active, you're not doing this Path.

If you're more interested in sex, you're not doing this Path.

You do not need sex.

Your body does not need sex.

Your mind wants sex because it doesn't see an alternative source of pleasure.

This is why we meditate and/or practice mental prayer: we provide far better sources of pleasure for the mind.

"Drugs and Alcohol"

No.

If you use drugs and alcohol, you haven't even started on this Path.

There's nothing else to be said.

"Killing, Stealing, Lying, Having Illicit Sex"

You cannot kill. Anything. Mosquitoes, cockroaches, spiders...? No killing. There's no exception to this rule.

You cannot steal. Anything.

YOU. CANNOT. LIE.

More than anything else - even killing - lying will destroy you, your life, and the lives of those around you. Lying is intentionally using false premises to organize and orient your life. It will destroy you. You don't have to believe the Buddha if you don't want to, but the scientific literature on this topic is unanimous: it will destroy you.

"Illicit Sex" is self-explanatory, I hope. No sex with married people, no cheating, no sex with minors, no sex that would hurt or harm anyone, and so on.

"Enjoy the Present Moment"

No.

The present moment is not to be "enjoyed". The present moment is where work is done. You do good work, so you feel amazing. Your work takes you in the direction you want to go, so you feel amazing.

The practice of meditation, reflection, contemplation, and studying the Path is good in and of itself. What does that mean? It means it produces amazing results while having zero drawbacks. It costs nothing. It uses only the bare minimum. And it leads you to Awakening.

"This is very boring and radical and you don't know what you're talking about. Everything you're saying is absurd."

Thank you.

May you be willing and able to act on the causes for true happiness.

May you look after yourself with ease.

Hi everyone 🙏

I hope it’s okay to post here. I’m currently exploring the idea of joining a meditation or spiritual retreat somewhere in Southeast Asia (or anywhere in Asia, really) and I’d love to get some recommendations from those who’ve been on a similar path.

Last year, I went through a pretty difficult time mentally. I’ve been dealing with some emotional stress and have been searching for a way to reset, reconnect, and heal this year. I feel drawn to meditation and spiritual retreats as a way to do this. I’m not necessarily looking for luxury—just a genuine, peaceful space where I can go inward and grow.

So far, I’ve come across a few places:

• Pa Pae Meditation Retreat (Thailand)
• iMonastery (Thailand)
• Hariharalaya Retreat (Cambodia)

They all look beautiful, but I’d love to hear if anyone has personal experiences with these or knows of other similar retreats in Asia—especially ones that might offer something more private or 1-on-1 coaching. I’m a bit of an introvert, and while I don’t mind a small group, I’d really prefer a more personal, quieter setting if possible.

A little more about me:

• I’m from the Philippines, so anything somewhat accessible would be a plus, though I’m open to traveling further if it feels right.
• I’m hoping to do a retreat for 1-2 weeks, but open to staying longer (maybe even a month or more) depending on the experience.
• Budget-friendly options are definitely appreciated.

I’m coming into this with a humble heart and an open mind. I really just want to take a step toward healing and would deeply appreciate any suggestions, stories, or insight you might have.

Thank you so much in advance, and may your practice be peaceful. 🌱

Something I've been thinking about recently is the role of dopamine / craving in my daily life. In TMI, there's a footnote where Culadasa talks about the "links of depending arising", where craving is the weak link in the chain that leads to suffering.

Using mindfulness, I've been able to eliminate a large amount of the craving in my life that leads to suffering. For example, I would often use social media such as youtube or discord to procrastinate when I had some aversion to getting work done, and I was able to get rid of that aversion.

I'm mostly wondering about the role of craving in situations that are not so clearly detrimental. Let me give two examples.

Let's say I'm chatting with a friend on a discord text channel. I see discord as this gamified, extra dopaminergic version of in person conversation. On discord, you can see if someone is typing, and this builds some anticipation of what they might say. Scientifically, this randomness and anticipation produces more dopamine than if we were talking on voice chat, or IRL. Is this craving / anticipation bad, if I don't see how it leads to suffering?

Here's another example - let's say I don't have that much work to get done today, so I wake up, and decide to spend 3 hours watching youtube videos, which is highly dopaminergic. I am confident that I will get the work that I want to get done later, and do not detect any aversion or escapism while watching youtube, or later when I do the work efficiently. Is the craving / dopamine from watching youtube bad, if it doesn't lead to suffering?

Hello

At some point on the stream entry, there comes a time, all the individual cares about is attaining the "final realization". It has a snowball effect, the deeper concentration and meditation, the more ego and desires fade away. Once I got insight into a few things, my Ego lost its strength,

Question for the advanced ones or ones that have been on the path, sexual desires are slowly dying, I don't initiate it. Wife needs it, asks for it. She said not initiating means men don't find their women attractive. I tried to explain it slightly but didn't work out and I don't like to talk about extreme spirituality to too many people. She said I'm too out there, etc. I don't want to hurt her feelings, but I could be celibate forever at this point.

Is it Normal for sexual desires slowly to go away? Peace and harmony is strong, no time to get aroused about senses? As soon as thoughts come, a force pulls the mind back to its source.

What to do? Erections were thought driven, but since there's less thoughts, little monkey down there is realizing anatta too following his daddy's footsteps

Mediation, Awareness & Attention

The brain creates a simulation of reality.

A delayed simulation based on external data from sense organs and filtered, coloured via EGO into perception. Reality as we know it, probably similar to real reality, but still just a simulation, a best guess, a prediction.

That’s why optical illusions can flick back and forth between different objects, prediction bouncing back and forth, which is relatively rare to see so obviously. That’s why vision appears smooth despite really being stitched together by more discrete points.

Awareness is the space of consciousness within the simulation. The space in which all that can be experienced is experienced.

Subconsciousness is another space where activity feeds into the space of open awareness, which we consider consciousness. But we cannot perceive or experience that directly. Experience, awareness, attention, consciousness. It doesn’t emerge from that layer, but it is derived from and heavily influenced from it. Due to this, we can “Know” things about these layers, discern things about them, sink further away from objects that have been constructed with bias and colouring, and focus more on raw, unfiltered perception.

Conscious experience, however, is just a memory, a delayed simulation of reality, it is literally our mind's best guess at the very recent past. But contains not just objective material predictions like the location of objects in space, but thoughts, feelings, and emotions. All that can be experienced.

We think we are a permanent self, living, thinking, feeling, and reasoning. A never-ending stream of attention. Some think this is the soul, something beyond our mind and body, something more permanent than even our bodies.

But this idea, this concept, is also just an experience; it is something that appears within awareness, within this internal simulation that makes up our reality, this knitting together of memories, life experiences, making it seem like it was one constant stream being experienced by a permanent self.

The same way, the flickering of our eyes looks like a smooth movement across a landscape.

We see smoothness where there is chaos of electrical inputs to the brain, we see a signal from the noise.

In reality, there is just subconscious processing, a conscious space of awareness in which we experience reality, and attention. What we attend to in this moment, an object within that space of awareness.

This movement of attention, this is a moving signal, emerging as a property from the dance of brain chemistry, an idea, sensation, feeling, connection. And the movement of one signal to the next, one object of attention to the next, this is the experience of the present, and all there is. Within that experience of the present, you can have objects which are memories of the past, you can have objects which are anxieties or excitement about potential futures. But these are all appearing as objects within the present moment, that signal which is you at this point in time and space. Your current experience.

There is no permanent outside self; there is just the experience itself, the signal. No one experiencing it, no constant you experiencing all of it, just one experience after the other. Not experience and experiencer, just experience.

This signal is finite, a moment, always replaced by the next, the next object we attend to it within this space of awareness. The current moment, thought will always pass, and the next will come. A never ending river, a stream of consciousness that we cannot pause, we can just thrash in, fight against or flow with.

Attention can be steady on one object, a movie, a person, the breath, or a game of table tennis. You can let all other objects fall away, and be fully attending to one thing, single-pointedness, flow state. Or you can be scattered, attention bouncing between various signals, often searching for what’s best to do or overly worried about an event or events that may come to pass. Feeling the need to prepare but too afraid to make a decision and commit to an action. x

What people fail to realise, along this meditation journey. Is that this one pointedness, this pure focus on the object of meditation, it’s not about finding it, building it, striving for it. It’s not about effort, trying harder, or figuring something out you don’t know. It’s about removing things. It’s about letting go, at least for a while, of the objects that are pulling your attention away. And in doing so, it can focus on just the desired object itself. It’s about letting go, moving away from tension towards effortless, and recognising that this can be done with a bright awareness.

Meditation is about short-term working memory. That through this exercise of having a focus for attention, recognising you have forgotten what that focus, that intent was, recognising you are lost. This is the muscle that you do need to grow, to catch yourself faster, to remember more about the thoughts and journey you took, from input - Maybe a sound, through several thoughts, or signals, to where you finally realised you were lost again. This cause and effect, one thought leading to the next,t all by itself.

This is your ability to see the simulation in action, to glance at what you have spent your whole life constantly forgetting, being overwritten into the smooth story of your life. This is where you can see how repetitive and habitual most thoughts are, how coloured and influenced they are by internal bias and beliefs, warping reality as we know it. Two people can see the same beautiful sunset and have completely different experiences.

With this short term working memory, you can analyse this journey, this being lost in thought, when before your mind would have stitched it together as part of the simulation, as just you living life. But this short term memory lets you analyse it, see it before it’s modified into the story of your life. You can investigate this with curiosity, because what this all points to is something that can be known but not directly experienced, which is the rules of the game itself, the rules of this simulation we know as our reality.

You do this enough times, you do it with curiosity at what is happening, not at frustration of being lost. Soft attempts to discern the underlying rules and not worry about the content itself, and you will come to realise what all traditions eventually arrive at.

Hope everyone is doing well. First a short update on where my practice is before I get into the gist of this post. Rigpa is stabilising and awareness is now unhooked from being within my head to now being no where with no location. It's not even that it unhooked and went from being within my head to nonlocal but instead was always nonlocal. It's also obvious that it is nontemporal as well.

I haven't made a post in a while and I tend to only do so when I arrive at something that leads to a significant change so I'm making a post about being gentle and an insight I arrived at this morning that has me in an ecstasy deeper and more worthy than any jhana I have accessed before.

Earlier I was walking in the park and I saw a child crossing a road and I had a flashback to when I was a child and had a traumatic experience with crossing a road with my mother. Suddenly a sense of warmth for myself as a child arose, in the same way metta has always arisen for any other child I see in day to day life. This hasn't happened before and so I was intrigued to go into it more. I thought perhaps I should see if I can main generating metta towards myself as a child but to go up in the years until I reach myself now and direct the metta towards myself now.

I reached a certain age it became obvious that there was a blockage like I couldn't give it to myself. I probed into why and it now makes sense why I have always gone from relationship to relationship seeking out love. When I was young, I never felt or received the love I should have, so I internalised that I would only be worthy of love once it was received from someone external.

This then resulted in not being able to give it to myself and is why I've always been so hard on myself. I thought that perhaps I should reconcile this by realising I am worthy of love regardless if someone is giving it to me right now or not but this didn't resolve the blockage.

So I probed into how I give love to others and it then it became obvious. Being gentle and being soft comes with giving love and this is how I have been towards others that I've felt love towards. So then I thought, have I ever given myself that same gentleness/softness and it's obvious I haven't. It took a single second from that insight, to be able to be gentle with myself and now it hasn't gone away and it doesn't require me to think about. The phrase you can't love someone until you love yourself really is true haha I always thought it was just a dumb cliche.

It feels like I'm now drunk in love, that is similar to when I've taken ecstasy or being in in deep romantic love but it's much stronger. The ending of tension in the body is great and for a while I thought that was all that would be needed. Once that's done and dusted, I'll have got what I wanted. But I was wrong, this love that comes without a condition, has been missing from my life and I never knew that it was missing because I didn't give it to myself.

As soon as I have became gentle and soft with myself, it is here and now will not go anywhere.

In a nutshell, be gentle towards yourself. Be soft with yourself. Growth is good and necessary but don't be hard on yourself. You don't need to be anything in order to be loved. I would hear statements like this before and think it was just philosophical jargon but it's not. Once you become gentle and soft towards yourself this love will overflow. It now feels like a great amount of metta that wants to flow outwards towards others.

🫶🏽

TL;DR:

• The behaviour and interactions we observe in/by others is said to reinforce how we think and behave

• Many people are becoming more and more socially isolated, without ethical communities to model virtuous behaviour around us

• Many people are spending more and more time on social media, and/or watching visual media (possibly as a surrogate for social interaction), and both of these aggregate as Youtube (solely visual media), and social media platforms are filled with visual media that people watch

• Social media algorithms promote anger and outrage as its the most effective means of getting the most engagement from users

• Consequently, for those already in the world of screens and visual media, what are some examples of shows, films, youtube channels, etc. that embody virtuous behaviour, congruent with The Four Immeasurables, and other virtues? Please share in the comments.

• The reason for this post: I watch X, Y, Z in my downtime, do not live in a spiritual community, and whilst I have friends in my area, and most are good people, over the years, my fellow practitioner friends have all moved to different ends of the country, and I find that if I watch X content vs Y, outside of my spiritual practice and day to day duties, it has a palpable effect on my personal well-being, as well as conduct, and I'm hoping to help others in the same situation

"Albert Bandura's social learning theory suggests that observation and modeling play a primary role in how and why people learn. Bandura's theory goes beyond the perception of learning being the result of direct experience with the environment. Learning, according to Bandura, can occur simply by observing others' behavior.

He explains in his 1977 book Social Learning Theory, "most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions, this coded information serves as a guide for action."" https://hr.berkeley.edu/grow/grow-your-community/wisdom-caf%C3%A9-wednesday/how-social-learning-theory-works

"Observational learning occurs in prosocial behaviour as well as in antisocial behaviour. Empirical results show that prosocial and antisocial behaviour is learned quite easily and rapidly by observation. Models frequently function as a releaser that contributes to the performance of prosocial behaviour in children and adults." https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203003459-5/psychology-compassion-prosocial-behaviour-hans-werner-bierhoff

So, in addition to specific, solitary practices focused on cultivating the Four Immeasurables: "Loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity" https://www.academia.edu/41022802/Four_Immeasurables_A_Science_of_Compassion - there's a potential important role in observing behaviour to help reinforce their cultivation.

Though, in the modern world, many people are becoming increasingly socially isolated, without communities of people embodying the values of The Four Immeasurables, and other virtues.

"Vices, Seneca warns, are contagious: They spread, quickly and unnoticed, from those who have them to those with whom they come into contact.2 Epictetus echoes this warning: Spend time with an unclean person, and we will become unclean as well.3 In particular, if we associate with people who have unwholesome desires, there is a very real danger that we will soon discover similar desires in ourselves, and our tranquillity will thereby be disrupted. Thus, when it is possible to do so, we should avoid associating with people whose values have been corrupted, the way we would avoid, say, kissing someone who obviously has the flu." A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - Irvine

I, and the Stoics, am not saying here, to avoid people who may spread their vices:

"The Stoics, it should by now be clear, are faced with a dilemma. If they associate with other people, they run the risk of having their tranquility disturbed by them; if they preserve their tranquility by shunning other people, they will fail to do their social duty to form and maintain relationships." A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - Irvine

This would be incongruent with The Four Immeasurables in the first place. This post isn't about who to and not to associate with in real life, but (and this brings us to):

The ubiquity of screens, visual media, social media, etc. in combination with those of us who are increasingly isolated from religious, spiritual, or otherwise ethically focused communities. As well as, how social media algorithms seek engagement, and anger is the most efficient means of getting it: "Two platforms are examined: Facebook and YouTube. Based on engagement, Facebook’s Feed drives views but also privileges incendiary content, setting up a stimulus–response loop that promotes outrage expression." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-00550-7

Creating an even worse problem of: people are spending more time alone, watching content/figures on screens, and this content, instead of helping to model/cultivate virtues, is specifically doing the opposite, cultivating vices.

Overall, my experience is that the less screen time the better, but balancing realistic goals with ideal ones, many of us in our downtime (or procrastinating during what should be productive time) will watch media, use Youtube, etc. for better or for worse. So, the intention here is to use bootstrapping (get (oneself or something) into or out of a situation using existing resources), for anyone using visual media, social media, screens, etc. for the purposes of good; and as a post whereby individuals can share X, Y, Z examples they've found benefit from, for this purpose. As well as, for those with kids, or those of us with friends with kids, who already watch things together, finding media that provides good sources for social learning/modelling.

Further, there's specific validity re: learning through stories, for both adults:

"The findings from the literature review completed confirmed the authors' view that storytelling is effective for adult learners." https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275076005_The_effectiveness_of_storytelling_on_adult_learning

And children: "A randomised controlled trial found that children learn about evolution more effectively when engaged through stories read by the teacher, than through doing tasks to demonstrate the same concept." https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/pupils-can-learn-more-effectively-through-stories-than-activities/

A practice common in Wisdom Traditions, Religions, etc.

So, in summary, for those already utilising screens, visual media, etc. what go-to examples of shows, films, youtube channels, etc. as well as books and audiobooks, do you think help provide good sources of modelling The Four Immeasurables, and other virtues, for both children and adults?

You're welcome to share both guided meditations and theory from specific Dharma focused channels if you feel anything is of particular benefit, but as these instances of visual media do not display social interactions, but instead a teacher teaching, or guiding students, they don't meet the criteria re: this particular topic.

Some suggestions from my end (for both adults and kids):

FILMS:

Arrival: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543164/

The Shawshank Redemption: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161

The Green Mile: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120689

Big Fish: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319061

Mary and Max: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978762

I Heart Huckabees: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356721

The Song of the Sea: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1865505 (As well as ALL films by the animation studio: Cartoon Saloon)

My Neighbour Totoro: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096283 (As well as ALL films by the animation studio: Studio Ghibli)

Amelie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211915 (As well as ALL films by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet)

SHOWS:

The Expanse: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3230854/

The OA: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4635282

Adventure Time: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1305826/

Avatar: The Last Airbender: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0417299/

Bravest Warriors: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2474952/

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062588/ https://archive.org/details/mr-rogers-neighborhood/Mister+Rogers'+Neighborhood

(This list is not exhaustive, and I may add to it later).

A lot of us are practicing with this model in which we are individuals struggling to somehow break out of this reality and "reach" a supernatural alternate reality of Nirvana.

We think that if we sit in just the right way, behave in just the right way, practice in just the right way, we can climb a ladder of achievement and holiness to be worthy of entering Nirvana.

That is not what is going on.

First, let's define Nirvana. What is it? If you examine it carefully, what Nirvana is - is a state of perfect satisfaction. A flawless and limitless existence. Universal, requited Love.

The key element to understand is - satisfaction. Nirvana is when everything is perfect, just the way it is. Where nothing needs to be done or changed.

The key thing to focus on here is change. Nirvana does not feature change. What we find, is that change is a function of perception and meaning. If you look at the universe as a big ball of entropy, there is no actual change going on. If you project meaning, separating particles from waves from fields, etc, then you see change.

The seed of meaning is dissatisfaction. We dissect the world and apply schemas to it - in order to solve our problems. In order to try and find satisfaction. In Nirvana, everything is fine, so there is no reason to invent gradients of value or to draw circles and call things - things. Without the need, meaning doesnt arise on its own.

So Nirvana is a state without meaning or narrative, without flaw and without change.

Where is Nirvana? When is Nirvana?

Absent change, time stops having meaning. There is no way to measure the passing of time, no way to even conceive of it. Absent change and boundary, there is no location either. No way to separate here from there. Now from then.

So what we find is that Nirvana is always here, always now.

Think about that for a bit. You are currently in Nirvana, because you too are always here and always now.

The problem we face - is that we dont believe it. We have been wound so tightly into narrative, self and meaning that it seems absurd. How can this be Nirvana with Putin on the march and global warming coming for us all?

That is what the path is really all about. It is about deconstructing and then letting go of our complex and contradictory models of reality so we can see that - actually - this is Nirvana, always has been and always will be and the only rational course of action is to chill and be satisfied.

There is a lot of confusion out there between what states of realization mean and what role the soma and nervous tension play in our minds and on our paths.

The best way to understand this is as two entirely separate systems of navigating the world. In reality, they are interconnected and recursive, but we can understand them as separate for clarity.

The first system is our rational mind. We generally look at the world with reason and try to determine what our best next course of action is based on who we believe we are, what our situation is and what is important to us. Within these givens, we form a rational plan and act upon it. Like Spok.

The second system is our Soma or unconscious. A complex, seething sphere of feeling, intuition and fear.

If you pay close attention, you will find that the amount of time your rational mind is driving the ship is really small. Most of us, most of the time, are going on our gut and acting by somatic compulsion rather than rational planning.

If it is unclear what somatic compulsion is, an easy way to see it is to try and hold your breath. Make a rational decision to hold your breath for 4 minutes and then watch as reason is overcome by somatic compulsion and you take a breath long before you hit your goal. This is the process at play most of our lives and why we are all doing stupid self destructive stuff - a lot of the time.

To accept that this is actually Nirvana, you have to see through and let go of both systems of control. It aint easy.

To rationally accept that the current moment is always perfect and nirvana, we can use many different techniques. We can use reason and self inquiry to examine our assumptions about the world. We can watch carefully as our minds construct reality for us and see how the process works. We can isolate ourselves and stop participating in irrational frames or mind for long periods until it becomes obvious that there is no actual supernatural self and no actual supernatural meaning. The difference between a spoon and a fork is just a set of imagined labels that have no meaning to a Tilapia or a pigeon.

Breaking through the giant meaning structures that constrict and control our rational minds - is actually the easy part. It's all bullshit and it isnt that hard to see.

What is interesting as you develop this ability, is that the rational frame one puts on reality, becomes reality to you. All of us know we are on a spinning earth orbiting a sun. That is reality for us. If you were raised to believe we are on a flat earth and the sun is a God - that would be reality for you. We actually, unconsciously, switch frames of reality all of the time. We are different people in a different world at work than on the beach, doing something we shouldn't or when we are with mom. Our entire frame of what is real, who we are and what is important changes in the background.

Over time and with practice, one can begin to consciously reframe reality and switch from "work frame" to "beach frame". etc intentionally. It is an amazing feeling, like looking at an optical illusion that can be seen one way and it is a boat and another and it is a fish. The drawing doesnt change, but your mind can read it completely differently and it seems as if the drawing has transformed.

The end of this path of reason is to see that it is all fabricated nonsense and to be able to sustain a frame of reality in which there is no separation or gradient. Rationally, it's just One Love.

That - again - is the easy part.

The hard part is tackling the Soma. Sit with that rational frame of universal love and somatic compulsion will pull you out and set you hurtling down this path or that. The rational mind is essentially powerless before the soma.

One can generally say that the rational struggle is what we would call Realization. We see through, we realize the emptiness, of structure after structure until it becomes obvious that this is this and thats all there is to it.

People often speak about the path up the somatic mountain - or deep into the somatic ocean - as a process of purification. This is a false construct, because there is nothing "impure", I prefer to think of it as a process of letting go. Of release.

The fact that these two control structures are kind of separate is why we have the frequent experience of teachers who seem highly realized falling prey to somatic compulsion. Having a clear rational understanding - being fully realized - is not enough.

There are a million ways to work with the soma and the unconscious. What I have found is that the easiest way is to see that the soma is really a concrete physical system of nervous tension on earth. It is your body.

Engaging with the soma at an emotional level through therapy of some kind, is a much more difficult path. One way of looking at the Soma is a a hoard of unresolved narrative. Things that we think went wrong, are going wrong or might go wrong.

When engaging with them at an emotional level, we need to examine each one of these narratives. To build the courage to even look at them and then to be able to hold them in consciousness long enough to see that they are empty and to let them go. You were not responsible for you parents divorce.

Think of it like trying to clear the house of a hoarder. Each left shoe and banana peel has a story and a meaning to them and getting them to drop them in the trash is almost impossible. This is compounded because they know that there are dead cats in there somewhere and they dont really want to dig much deeper and find one.

Anchoring the soma in the physical body allows one to approach the soma the way a Junk Lugger would. Its all just crap and you dont need too look at each piece, just keep throwing them in the truck.

After a few decades of Junk Lugging, there becomes less and less stuff and so when the rational mind applies a frame of - everything is fine the way it is - the soma no longer has the ammunition to compel the mind into a different frame.

Then - it's stupidly obvious that this is Nirvana, We are nirvana, and there is nothing fancy or supernatural about it. It is only our imagined meaning structures and self narratives that lie to us about this now not being perfect as it is. Nirvana.

For a lot of people life really has one large purpose, to endure until consciousness ceases. That's it, to endure.

And that seems like an extremely painful way to exist and leads to short term harmful action solely for the experience of relief. Take food and drug indulgence, or even having children when one can't provide.

My question is, does jhana make life not just easier, not just more endurable...but actually easeful and joyful? Or does it just make life less shit, but it's still a shit that we need to endure? I will obviously have to remove ill health and physical disease as a factor from this question.

Looking for hope here. Looking for motivation. Looking for a real way out not just after death for a better rebirth or no rebirth at all, but looking for a way out of suffering in this very life.

Can the jhanas as taught by Leigh Brasington make one actually happy to be alive? And I really mean that, happy to be here.

I am starting a full 21 days silent retreat next week.

I will be taught the Mahasi Sayadaw technique extensively.

How can I make the most of it to go as deep as possible ?

Specifically the second half of the first tetrad which is 3 and 4 from the list below.

1. Aware of in breath and out breath
2. following in breath and out breath all the way to the end
3. Aware of body
4. Calming body.

3 and 4 if practiced regularly really makes the breath a more understandable and enjoyable object. It can deepen the breath to a degree that's not even subtle. It can also really help with reducing the tendancy to control the breath. If you want to increase your concentration abilities, #2 is very good.

I know this is probably obvious to a lot of of you, but for those who aren’t aware of this, it can be good to know.

Wouldn’t body scanning lead to all of the insights you can have on the path? It seems craving would be calmed. You would get into jhana and the body-scanning would scan for the three characteristics. What am I missing here?

I’m genuinely curious whether anyone has experienced streamentry (sotāpatti) through practices centered on mantra repetition—specifically:

Nianfo/Nembutsu (reciting Amitabha’s name)

"Buddho" meditation (as taught in the Thai Forest Tradition)

Or any other mantra-based practice that was used as the primary method

I understand that insight into the three characteristics is essential for awakening, but I also know some traditions emphasize that deep samādhi and unwavering mindfulness—developed through repetition—can become the foundation for insight to arise naturally.

So I’m wondering:

Did mantra or name-recitation play a central role in your path to streamentry?

How did you bridge from repetition to insight? Were you following a particular teacher or tradition?

I’d love to hear your experience or any resources/stories you’ve come across where streamentry was reached through these methods. 🙏

I've been sitting consistently for about half an hour a day for last half a year and I see some gains and progress, usually after about 10 minutes my mind quiets down and I actually enjoy the practice and the slowing down of thoughts.

However my worry is, in daily life I dont see much improvement and I tend to succumb to the suffering created by the mind as easily as before. Any insights gained on the cushion dont seem to help in my busy daily life, and I tend to fall into unhappy thought loops, same as before starting the practice.

Any hints, comments?

I've recently started noting in day to day life and am wondering if it's okay to note in terms of categorising an experience into either a positive or negatively valanced thing. I typically note without having this problem but sometimes I encounter qualities that feel like they may be positively valanced so I think about using labels like beautiful or sublime. But these feel like qualitative judgments which I think may interfere with equanimity where perhaps we are neither attached nor averse to the thing we're experiencing.

I have not seen many discussions on the spectrum of Buddhist teachers and what they emphasize and don’t emphasize. Though I am aware many Buddhist teachers discuss this amongst themselves and it’s more known who specializes in what, at least among senior teachers in the Western scene.

Is anyone aware of a study or detailed discussion around this topic? Also, glad to hear any thoughts this community may have. Thanks!

For example -

Mahasi Sayadaw - focuses on noting practice with a bent towards “dry” vipassana

Ayya Khema - focuses on the gradual path with a balance of jhana and insight

Pa Auk - specializes in deep jhana and mystical power

This happened earlier last summer but the vision has not left my head.

I'm a novice practitioner by all means. Meditation is one of those things I know I should do but keep putting off. But i've always had a side interest in paranormal topics, and with my Korean upbringing, concepts such as reincarnation and karma were never foreign to me. So when I came across a hypnosis video that people claimed had they had good results from, I gave it a try.

Of course, nothing happened. At least the first time. However, it did put me into a pleasant, trance-like state. I'd been meditating semi-consistently for the first time in my life when I took to this video, and I could my practice and the video synergizing. I never fell completely under the hypnotic spell, but I did reach states where I finally understood religious art like this.. First jhana I guess.

The video also had the welcome effect of putting me to sleep. I started to fall asleep to the video while half-heartedly trying to "see my past life."

One of those nights, about halfway through the video, I entered, well, an especially hypnotic state. For maybe the first time in my life, I did not have a single thought in my head. I heard the words, but I wasn't processing them, and I felt more asleep than awake.

Then suddenly, abruptly and violently, a vivid, horrific vision of a screaming, contorted face appeared. A face, but it was not human. You know that famous painting, Scream by Edward Munch? That exact expression, but it was real and in front of me, its mouth agape in horror, the dark eye sockets sunken into its dark red skin showing every tendon. Truly, I cannot find the words to describe the agony this being was experiencing. Pure and utter suffering. It struck fear into the depths of my heart, fear like I'd never felt before.

All of this, I saw for less than a literal split second, because as soon as it happened, I got the FUCK out of that, as fast as I could.

I stared into the dark ceiling of my room, feeling my shallow breath and my heart pounding. Once my fear dissipate, my following reaction was honestly, shame. Shame at taking this past lives thing so flippantly. Shame at my pouting self-pity for the suffering I've had in this life, because it was child's play compared to what I had just seen. Blood on a birds foot.

Then I thought to myself, holy shit, was I in hell in my past life? What the fuck did my past self do?

Apparently, that is not considered a useful question in bodin's. I'm still morbidly curious.

Anyways, My pet theory is that my hypotonic state allowed me to access parts of consciousness that I should not have been able to with my level of practice. I knew about the warnings against attempting accessing without proper preparation, but I'd brushed it off — a part of me must've been skeptical. But holy shit, they weren't fucking around. And me — I fucked around and found out.

I haven't opened that video since... the vision, nor have I wanted to. The experience replaced most of my curiosity with fear, which is probably a good thing. I was treating this stuff too flippantly.

I'll occasionally revisit that brief, less-than-a-split second of pure, utter suffering. Tonight's one of those nights. And somehow, I'm still putting off consistently meditating, lol.

I do not quite know what to make of the experience. At least not yet. But whatever the fuck I did in my past life, I'm glad I was given a chance to be reborn as a human. Maybe that's the lesson.