I've noticed I have a strange relationship with meditation when I'm stressed.

When I'm feeling okay, sitting down for 10–15 minutes feels pretty easy. But when my mind is racing or I'm worried about something, that's usually when I find it hardest to actually sit still and meditate.

Sometimes I feel like I need to calm down before I can meditate, which seems kind of backwards.

I'm curious how other people approach this. Do you meditate specifically when you're having a stressful/anxious day, or do you find it works better as a regular practice regardless of how you're feeling?

And when your mind is really busy, do you try to follow the breath anyway, or switch to something else like body awareness, walking meditation, or just observing the thoughts?

I'm interested in what has actually worked for people rather than what we're "supposed" to do.

One single book. Something that says everything that needs to be said. Something that shows the plain and simple path to Awakening.

Edit for some background on me:

• I have meditated about 2k hours, but I still consider myself a beginner.

• I subscribe to Ingram's model of Awakening ie. 'this is it'.

• I am open to any system, although Christianity is difficult for me because I struggle with belief in God. Still open to Christian practices though.

• I want a single book because I want the teachings distilled down to one system of practice. I want something I can grab onto and say this will be my path.

• If it contains both theory and practice that would be ideal.

Edit 2: Thanks all for your suggestions. You gave me a lot to look at. I am grateful for your help.

Intro:
I have been playing with a new practice that I call Feel and Drop and thought I might share it here. This could be considered a clarification of u/duffstoic ‘s Feel It All practice by combining it with “Do Nothing” / Shikantaza. Another reference for Feeling practice is Surrender Meditation as described by Charles Berner and Lawrence Noyes.

Practice:
The psychologist and Buddhist teacher Tucker Peck often says the proper balance of psychology and meditation should be to work with “Content when you have to and process when you can”. Similarly, in this practice, one Feels when they have to and Drops when they can.

Feeling is well described by u/duffstoic in their Feel It All meditation post. I will add that Feeling is made stronger by allowing your body to move as it wants, vocalizing if it comes up, etc. Surrender Meditation describes this in its rawest form. Although not everyone has access to a place where they can scream without someone being pretty bothered and concerned, the more you can do to allow yourself to experience your body in an unrestricted way, the more effective this practice will be.

Dropping is simply allowing spaciousness and rest. Shinzen Young describes the single practice in Do Nothing as, ‘Whenever an intention arises, drop that intention’.

The recurring intention in one’s mind should be to ask “Can I Drop this?” If the answer is no, then the skillful move is to Feel.

Rationale:
Imagine stored emotional content as a massive iceberg weighing down your naturally buoyant spirit. Your awareness is everything above the surface. The goal is to melt visible pieces of the iceberg (Feel) and then allow new pieces to surface (Drop). It isn’t particularly efficient to seek out every last tiny visible piece to melt, rather you want to balance melting with allowing the biggest, most potent chunks to surface.

The process should feel intuitive and natural. Not forcing yourself to Drop things you aren’t ready to and not forcing yourself to hunt for more things thing to Feel.

As u/duffstoic did in their post, I’ll also caveat that this may be a very challenging practice if you are carrying a particularly significant amount of trauma and may want to be avoided.

I need to have a good meditation session to even get into access concentration, and that's seldom. 😅

This hypothesis begins not with religion, and not even with the question of God. It begins with the simplest and at the same time strangest fact of our existence: I do not merely process information — I experience it.

The brain receives signals from the senses, stores memories, compares options, produces emotions, and controls the body. All of this can, to one degree or another, be observed physically. But behind it remains another question: why does there exist a subject to whom all of this happens at all? Why does the activity of billions of cells not merely occur, but also come with the inner feeling: “I exist”?

My hypothesis is that this subject is what we usually call the soul.

What the soul is in this model

The soul here is not a storage place for memories, not a personality, and not a second invisible brain.

It is much simpler than that.

The soul is the subject of existence itself: the one who experiences what is happening and possesses the ability to choose.

Everything else is gradually formed here.

When a person is born, their brain already has a certain genetic makeup and structure. Then come sensations, parents, language, culture, fears, attachments, knowledge, and memories. All of these shape the personality.

Therefore, before human life, the soul does not necessarily already exist as the person it will later become. It acquires individuality through the process of living.

And time plays a crucial role in this.

Without time, there can be no biography. There is no “before” and “after,” no mistake after which a person changes, no encounter that affects the rest of their life, no decision whose consequences appear twenty years later.

Time turns existence into a story. And the story turns the subject into a personality.

At the same time, the world also requires a certain degree of unpredictability. Two people never receive exactly the same set of circumstances. Different parents, bodies, encounters, eras, accidents, and consequences of decisions create almost completely unique life trajectories.

This means that the material world can be imagined as an enormous mechanism of individualization.

Space creates countless possible paths.

Time allows one of them to be traveled.

Circumstances create possibilities.

And free choice determines which branch a person makes into their own history.

Why, then, do we need the brain?

If the soul exists, an obvious question arises: why can damage to the brain change a person so profoundly?

Why can brain disorders disrupt memory, emotions, decision-making, and even the very feeling of one’s own will?

This is precisely why we should abandon the primitive idea that a fully formed soul-personality simply sits inside the brain and controls the body.

Research shows an extremely close connection between the psyche and the physical state of the brain. Electrical stimulation of certain brain regions can produce unusual subjective experiences, including sensations of being outside one’s own body. Stimulation of structures associated with the hippocampus can alter memory processes. Influence on structures of the basal ganglia can affect processes involved in voluntary decision-making. Damage to certain brain networks can impair voluntary action or even the sense that an action belongs to oneself.

Even the presence of the conscious experience available to us strongly depends on the state of the brain: under general anesthesia, interactions between the thalamus and cortex change, and these changes are associated with the loss and recovery of consciousness.

In my hypothesis, this does not necessarily mean that the brain creates the subject itself.

Instead, the brain creates the human form of the subject’s existence.

The brain tells the subject:

“This is what you see.”

“This is what you remember.”

“This is what you fear.”

“This is what you want.”

“These are the options you are currently able to imagine.”

Therefore, changes in the brain alter the content of consciousness and the personality that is being formed.

The soul, meanwhile, is responsible for something more fundamental:

“This is happening to me, and among the possibilities available to me, I can choose.”

How personality emerges

Here we reach the central part of the hypothesis.

Suppose a person faces a choice between A and B.

Their brain is already not neutral. Their entire previous life is contained within it.

Their upbringing inclines them toward A.

Fear pushes them toward A.

Past experience tells them that A is safer.

But they are still capable of choosing B.

Afterward, B becomes part of their experience.

The brain records what happened. Associations, expectations, habits, and future reactions change. The fact that learning and life experience can physically alter the functioning of the brain is well established: the brain continues to change in adulthood, and learning is associated with functional and structural plasticity.

So a loop appears:

experience → personality → choice → new experience → altered personality → next choice.

This is where the soul and the brain work together in this model.

There is only one important clarification: personality must not completely determine the choice. Otherwise, no additional freedom remains.

Personality should instead create tendencies.

A person may be fearful and feel an overwhelming desire to run away, yet still decide to stay.

In that case, they choose not only on the basis of who they are now, but also on the basis of who they want to become.

And if such decisions are repeated, the personality itself gradually changes.

This leads to a rather unusual idea:

human life is a process of partial self-creation.

We do not choose our initial conditions. We do not choose our parents, genetics, historical era, or a huge portion of what happens to us.

But within this space, we make decisions, and the consequences of those decisions gradually become part of us.

So in this model, the Universe does not produce ready-made unique souls.

It provides the conditions in which souls create their own uniqueness.

Why the soul may be almost impossible to detect

But then a scientific problem arises.

If the soul influences the brain, where is the trace of that influence?

One might expect additional energy, an unknown force, or a violation of known physical laws. But if that were the case, then in principle the soul could be detected by instruments.

Perhaps its action works differently.

Suppose the physical state of the brain allows several possible continuations:

A or B.

Both are physically possible.

The soul does not create a new option and does not “push” anything with an additional force. It merely determines which of the physically permitted paths becomes actual for that subject.

From the outside, then, nothing occurs except an ordinary physical event.

A scientist observes:

neurons receive signals → the network changes state → the person chooses A.

There is no obvious supernatural force inside this chain.

Even experiments that attempt to predict decisions do not yet solve the philosophical problem of freedom. Studies have shown that some future voluntary decisions can be statistically predicted from brain activity before a person reports becoming consciously aware of the choice. But there are also experiments in which a person can still cancel an action that is already being prepared, even at a relatively late stage.

None of these results, by themselves, proves either the existence of a soul or the absence of free will.

Moreover, imagine a perfect experiment of the future.

Scientists completely copy a human brain and create two identical systems.

Both are given the same choice.

Both choose A — this can be explained by their identical structure.

One chooses A and the other chooses B — this can be explained by microscopic differences, physical randomness, or the chaotic dynamics of a complex system.

In other words, almost any observable outcome could still admit a physical explanation.

That is why, in this model, the soul may be not an object inside the Universe that will one day be found among neurons.

It is the subject for whom one of the physically possible histories becomes a lived life.

Why limitations may be necessary

If the purpose of earthly life is the formation of a unique personality, many of our limitations acquire a different meaning.

We do not know the future.

We cannot read other people’s thoughts.

We do not remember our own lives perfectly.

We cannot simultaneously experience every possible version of a decision.

We do not know for certain what happens after death.

And this is precisely why choice has weight.

If a person knew with absolute certainty the consequences of every action in advance, much of what we call trust, courage, hope, loyalty, or moral choice would become something entirely different.

Limitation creates a space within which a person can reveal who they are and who they want to become.

This does not mean that suffering is good, or that every tragedy has been deliberately arranged by someone. That does not follow from the hypothesis.

It only means that a world containing uncertainty, limitations, and real consequences is far better suited to the formation of an independent personality than a completely safe and perfectly predictable reality.

What, then, happens after death?

If the entire purpose of the first stage is the formation of individuality, then the complete destruction of that individuality after death appears internally contradictory.

Within this model, it is more natural to suppose that the physical body ceases functioning, but the formed subject remains.

And what remains is not the original faceless soul.

What leaves this world is already a specific person.

Perhaps the limitations of the brain disappear: imperfect memory, fatigue, aging, the narrowness of the senses. The person may gain access to their entire history and become able to understand the causes and consequences of events that they could only partially perceive during life.

But time does not necessarily disappear.

On the contrary, if the personality continues to think, interact, learn, and change, then at the very least some sequence must remain:

was → is happening → will be.

Perhaps what disappears is specifically physical time, connected with aging and the decay of the body, while time remains as the possibility of further experience.

Death would then be not the end of personality, but the completion of the first stage of its existence.

The material Universe could be imagined as a kind of cradle of personality.

A child develops in the womb for an environment it has never seen. Its lungs prepare for air that is practically absent from its previous world.

Perhaps earthly life is analogous to this on another level.

What is being formed here is not the body.

What is being formed here is the “self.”

And then the question of God appears

Up to this point, the hypothesis does not require any particular religion.

But if we assume that the entire system truly has a purpose — that souls exist, that there is a mechanism connecting them with material experience, that there is an environment for the formation of individuality, and that there is a further stage of existence — then a question arises about the origin of the architecture itself.

Where did the system come from?

Why do souls exist?

Why is there a mechanism through which they become individualized?

Why is there any transition between these levels of reality at all?

At this point, the hypothesis of a higher power becomes a natural continuation of the model.

Not a proof — science has not established the existence of such a being. But if the starting assumptions are correct, the existence of some author or source of the entire system becomes much more plausible.

And such a God would not necessarily need to constantly intervene physically in the Universe.

Quite the opposite.

If the purpose of the world is the creation of independent personalities, constant intervention would undermine the meaning of freedom.

It would be more logical for a higher power to influence not the physical world directly, but the subject itself.

Not forcing the person to choose A.

But allowing them to see A.

Not physically moving the person’s hand.

But introducing a thought, a doubt, a possibility, an inner question, or an understanding after which the person still decides for themselves what to do.

A scientist, at that moment, would see an entirely normal process in the brain: a memory arose, the evaluation of the situation changed, a certain neural network became active, and the person made a different decision.

And it would be impossible to establish whether that thought arose solely from the previous physical state of the brain, or whether the subject received something from beyond the physical world.

This could also explain why a higher power, if it exists, remains so hidden.

A completely obvious God would partially destroy the uncertainty within which the free formation of personality takes place.

Therefore, such influence would have to leave open both interpretations:

“God spoke to me,”

and:

“It was simply a thought that arose in my brain.”

The final decision remains with the subject.

Conclusion

The entire hypothesis can therefore be assembled into a single chain of cause and effect.

The soul gives a person subjectivity: “I exist, I experience, and I can choose.”

The brain creates the content of human experience: sensations, memory, emotions, desires, fears, and the space of possible decisions.

The world creates circumstances.

Time turns separate events into a biography.

Free will allows the subject to choose a direction within the possibilities available to them.

Experience and previous decisions alter the brain and shape the personality.

Therefore, every new choice makes a person slightly different from who they were before.

By the end of life, a being exists that has never existed before and cannot be perfectly repeated: a specific, unique personality created by the combination of the world, chance, experience, and its own decisions.

If death does not destroy this result, then material life is not the final form of existence, but only the first stage of a much longer process.

And God, if such a being stands behind this system, would not be someone who moves human beings like pieces on a board.

Rather, God would be the creator of a space in which independent subjects are given the possibility to become someone through their own will.

And then perhaps the deepest purpose of the entire system is not that a person must perform some predetermined set of correct actions.

What matters most is what kind of being they become as a result of their own choices.

​I understand the whole concept of hard and light jhanas, so no need to explain that part to me. Nevertheless, from a "good samatha practice" standpoint, should the practice be tightly focused, aiming to perceive every breath, or should it be very relaxed, like sitting beneath a tree on a calm afternoon without using any force to control thoughts? I've seen people advocate for both: some say attention should be laser-focused, while others claim jhana is only achieved by letting go of control entirely.

EDITS/UPDATES:
Just to be clear (since this feedback has come up a lot in this thread), I am practicing more than I am reading.

The problem was that I practiced incorrectly almost daily for 10 years.

The purpose of this syllabus/curriculum for myself is just to have context for what I am going through.

I have found a teacher I am working with--he helped me with this list of books. I am just posting here to get 360 feedback in case I/we missed anything.

I am unemployed, divorcing my wife, dealing with health issues, and moving. I have had 2 therapists and shaman all independently tell me I am going through the dark night of the soul...
In order to release trauma, I plan to keep doing NARM/IFS therapy + psychedelics + daily inquiry via The Work of Byron Katie + meditation. However, I am open to any and all helpful suggestions.
Thanks in advance!

(ORIGINAL POST - starts here)

How does everyone in this thread know so much? Every time I read a comment, there are usually a bunch of folks who seem really knowledgeable, diagnosing where they are on "the path."

I want the shortest/most efficient path possible, so I put together two reading lists to be done in parallel (not serial) both to heal trauma so that I can enter jhana, etc.

I am open to coaching/advice on what to include, edit, remove, etc. I am most interested in what to re-order in case it will be more efficient.

I have spent 10 years doing inquiry with almost no samadhi/well-being practice, thus the order below co-created with Claude which now front loads samatha...

SPIRITUAL BOOKS
Phase 1 — Ground (now)

• (currently reading…) Buddha's Heart by Stephen Snyder (Brahmavihāras as the gentlest samatha doorway. Piti + love as my established entry. Expert on nimitta)
• Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness by David Treleaven
• Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante G.
• The Realization Process by Judith Blackstone (audiobook) for body scanning mapped to the chakras

Phase 2 — Choose your jhana (before practicing one)

• The Experience of Samadhi: An In-depth Exploration of Buddhist Meditation by Richard Shankman (“The map of the light-vs-deep debate. Read before committing to a method.”)
• Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond by Ajahn Brahm
• Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante G
• Right Concentration by Leigh Brasington

Phase 3 — Deepen samatha

• Practicing the Jhanas: Traditional Concentration Meditation as Presented by the Venerable Pa Auk Sayadaw by Stephen Snyder, Tina Rasmussen, Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw (“Pa-Auk deep-absorption path.”)
• The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa (aka John Yates, Ph.D.) (“Ten-stage systematic samatha. Reference more than cover-to-cover.”)

Phase 4 — Supporting context (anytime, low stakes)

• Break Through Pain by Shinzen Young (“worth having given autoimmune pain”)
• Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom by Rick Hanson
• Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

Phase 5 — Insight (deliberately later)

• The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young (“Unified framework; bridges samatha and vipassana cleanly.”)
• Seeing that Frees by Rob Burbea (“Emptiness...best on a stable base.”)
• Practical Insight Meditation by Mahasi Sayadaw + Visuddhimagga by Buddhaghosa (it is long) (“Mahasi's Practical Insight Meditation first, then Visuddhimagga Ch. III–XI as reference. Don't read cover to cover.”)
• Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel Ingram (“Last deliberately. Vivid dark-night mapping; read when stable, not from inside.”)

[The one structural note: Phases 1–3 are roughly a year of actual practice, not a reading queue to clear. The samatha-first commitment means letting later books sit on the shelf even when they're tempting — which, given the nerd, is the actual discipline here.]

RELEASING TRAUMA
Phase 1 — Understand what happened (now)

• (currently reading/listening to) The Body Keeps the Score 
• Atomic Habits by James Clear (to build healthy habits from here moving forward)
• Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine (“Single-event PTSD”)
• Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman (“C-PTSD”)

Phase 2 — Build regulation capacity

• Heart Breath Mind (will do the course in parallel or immediately after.)
• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

Phase 3 — C-PTSD specifics

• Unlocking the Emotional Brain by Bruce Ecker
• Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves--and How to Find Our Way Back by Dr. Ingrid Clayton (fawning is the least-covered of the four trauma responses)
• Trapped in the Mirror: Adult Children of Narcissists in their Struggle for Self

 

Phase 4 — Depth

• Inner World of Trauma ("bedrock of Depth Psychology Trauma treatment")
• Trauma and the Unbound Body by Judith Blackstone
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Phase 5 – Curious...these are all just "maybe"

• (maybe) Becoming Supernatural: How Common People are Doing the Uncommon by Joe Dispenza
• (maybe) Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One by Joe Dispenza
• (maybe) The Emotion Code (“The method uses an "Emotion Code Chart" that categorizes 60 common trapped emotions by the organ that first produced them….The problem is that Nelson's specific mechanism (muscle testing → magnets → meridians) is likely not what's doing the work. If sessions help people, it's probably through relational attunement, intention-setting, and a kind of focused somatic attention”)
• (maybe) The Enlightened Brain: The Neuroscience of Awakening By Rick Hanson (audiobook only)

Thanks in advance for any helpful pointers

I just thought I'd share an insight I had on a recent mindful walk.

I was feeling somewhat stressed after a day of work so I decided to go on a walk to get some fresh air and to practice being mindful. And as often happens I found myself trying to think my way out of feeling stressed. Or, put another way, I was trying to think of a way to be present instead of being gripped by my thoughts about work, chores etc. Which unsurprisingly does not help very often.

What I realized was that every time I engage with a thought, I am training my mind to value the contents of my thoughts. So by trying to think my way out of thinking, I was actually increasing the grip thoughts have over my mind.

Instead, the useful approach is to stop focusing on your thoughts (or stop thinking to whatever extent you can manage without creating tension) and to start trying to cultivate interest in the present moment. Look for what sensations, emotions, or thoughts you are aware of rather than analyzing the contents of your thoughts. This primes your mind to care more about the present moment than your thoughts.

As usual, it is also important to see if you can be OK when thoughts do grab your attention and with any stress you have. The purpose isn't to make the thinking or stress go away even if it does manage to do that sometimes. The purpose is to practice being present.

Which really is actually very simple and feels like something I should have already seen. That's basically just doing my regular seated vipassana practice while seeing and going for a walk. I guess I never made that connection before, though.

And for a part two, I also thought about the best way to actually release that stress once it has built up. Just being mindful doesn't make stress that has collected over a day dissipate right away. I think for now these are my conclusions:

• The best approach is likely to not allow the stress to build up in the first place. Maintain your practice as consistently as you can using whatever methods work for you.
• If you can, do whatever you need to in order to relax. Lay down, read something, listen to something calming, watch nature documentaries, meditate etc. If you can't, just do whatever you need to do with as much presence and acceptance as you can muster.
• Something I only learned recently, but you can also use a compassion practice with yourself. I have found acknowledging when things are hard and feeling compassion for myself allows me to keep a relaxed and open heart rather than tensing up around the stress and making it worse.

If anyone has any comments or questions I'd be happy to hear them!

Something has happened in the last few months that I feel is personally meaningful, maybe somewhat ironic.

Basically, I came to a point of feeling sick and tried of all the effort and striving that I bring to meditation. I've come to the point of saying "F*** this, I've had enough. I don't need this. I am okay as I am."

I get the irony that I had this insight because of the meditation I was cursing! I get that it's not the meditation itself, it's what I bring to it. So in a sense the meditation really has brought me to this place.

That being said - I think it's also true that the type of meditation I've been doing - and the culture around it - is probably not the best suited for me. I have been part of a sangha for a couple years, and although it's been awesome in a lot of ways (amazing dharma talks) but when it comes to meditation practice there is sometimes a lot of emphasis on effort, posture, merit-making, amping up your meditation schedule etc. etc. This might be great for some people but I just don't think it's right for me and what I bring.

So since this experience I've been doing my own "hybrid" style practice which breaks the rules I've been given 😄 I start by repeating to myself "I am loving loving awareness" (uh oh Buddhist sin, making an identity!) followed by intentionally giving permission for my mind to do whatever. I sit in the seat of the observer (uh oh I'm a dualist now, bad me!) and then I observe and intentionally love whatever may come. I am only concerned about my posture in-so-much as it effects my ability to stay awake, sufficiently alert and relatively comfortable. Often (but not always) the "loving awareness" mantra and "observer" seat fade away and I'm just kind of hanging out with whatever is. This approach feels much closer to home.

Thank you for tolerating my sarcasm and snarky commentary (apparently I'm still working through this.)

(In related news, I have a used Zafu Meditation cushion and 2 cork Yoga blocks available at a discount price!)

Posting this openly to see what comes back. I’m looking for next steps, and I suspect what I need is more next rather than another new path.
Open to anything
Background, briefly. About three years of practice. Started on a recommendation to read The Mind Illuminated and worked it with an online teacher. Went from an hour a day to three, plus a lot of assorted insight practice and a lot of hard work. Around nine months in there was a cessation. Then roughly two years of integration.
The integration work was where most of the change happened. Self-worth stopped being contingent on anything. Attachment patterns reorganized. It sounds foundational and generic written down, but it wasn’t — it was specific and it worked.
To be clear about where I think I am: I haven’t finished the path. Somewhere around second path, probably. Sensory desire hasn’t fully dropped, and while ill will is close to nonexistent, “close to” isn’t the standard — the standard is that it never arises again, ever, and that’s a high bar. So there’s real work left in that direction too.

What I’m oriented toward. I think the internal path is also external, because it’s a two-way street. Here’s the analogy I keep coming back to: if someone with an anxious attachment style spends enough time interacting with someone secure, they heal. That happens without technique. So bad conditioning isn’t only our own private problem, and neither is its undoing. I’m trying to build the capacity to be that kind of presence — not primarily as teaching, but as something structural.
Part of why: nobody needs to do the internal work the hard way. I got here fast, and that was luck plus generations of people who built the steps I walked up. I’d like to make the path shorter for people behind me. Not only emptiness — also merit, also capacity.
The actual problem: the maps run out. There’s a lot of public material on getting to awakening. There’s much less on what comes after, and almost nothing on the stage past that — taking non-duality back into difficult emotions and relationships, refining it there, returning to life, again and again. The one book I found that genuinely addresses it is After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. After that, dry.
The standard answer seems to be “you’ve done this, now go help.” And I am starting to teach a bit, and people get something from it. But just because you can help someone doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go to medical school. I’m sure there’s more — more capacity if not more insight — and I can’t find who has it.
Everything also feels gated. I came from the Theravada side, where it’s often either practice-for-practice’s-sake, or awakening treated as an unreachable thing rather than something ordinary. Either way, post-awakening is not discussed.
What worked for me, in case it’s useful to anyone:
• To stream entry: shamatha, metta, and pointing-out style practices — resting with awareness.
• After: go to the heart, repeatedly. Brahmaviharas, tonglen, shadow work, psychotherapy, mirror work (literally standing there saying I love you), body image work. Find the painful parts and go in.
• Currently: nei gong, Damo Mitchell’s system. Completely different foundation, same endpoint, and it’s an entire world of its own. Recommended if you’re bored.
What I’m asking: has anyone been here? What did you do after awakening that actually went somewhere? What worked, what was a dead end, and where did you find people who’d been further?

A humble piece of advice from someone who's not awakened, but who's had a handful of awakening experiences.

My first experience came accidentally and as a surprise, but as a result I thought back to things I had read about buddhism and meditation and a lot of that suddenly made sense to me. I began practicing.

Already after formally meditating just 6 times I had a non-dual experience and came out of it thinking, "when I practice tomorrow I'm gonna do the same thing and experience that same state. Then I'm just gonna do that repeatedly and soon enough I'll be enlightened."

Of course it didn't happen again and a lot of frustration followed. Ironically, I had grown very attached to this sense of non-attachment.

So, to the advice. This is really nothing special but something that recently helped me.

I've been walking around telling myself over and over again, "there is no ego" and "look for who's looking" and the like, hoping I would regain that effortless sensation of discovery that happened to me twice before. I grew so attached to this "non-ego" that I didn't see how I created a bunch of strong mental abstractions that just increased my sense of holding onto and made letting go harder.

Instead, I've recently been thinking "the ego is real", "there is a conventional ego", "her it is, my ego", or "let's find that ego among my thoughts." And just observed what happens.

Much love, don't strain yourself in the search of ease.

hi everyone, I recently listened to a podcast episode with a long discussion between Daniel Ingram and Delson Armstrong on Guru Viking about progression through the 4 stages of awakening after stream entry. it was quite interesting, but the way they talked left me feeling a bit uninspired and doubtful.

there was so much talk about filtering through the 8 jhanas over and over like a game, and the obsessive seeking of the cessation of any semblance of an emotion. I was left feeling like i was listening to two mildly sociopathic people desperately trying to escape from the experience of being a human, rather than two ‘enlightened’ beings.

i don’t mean this as an insult to their personal characters. just that - after all these tens of thousands of hours of meditation, they sounded as lost as anyone else, just in their own unique ways.

I do not doubt the benefits of meditation or the general teachings of the Buddha. I’ve been meditating for 10+ years, done 10 day vipassana retreats, and gone deeper than I could have ever imagined. multiple experiences of profound ego dissolution, insights into the nature of emptiness, universal consciousness, and so forth. it has had profound benefits in my life, and I am excited to continue further on the path.

but while I believe in the general suffering caused by craving and aversion, I don’t necessarily believe in this obsessive desire to rid ourselves of all emotion, and that being the key to ‘happiness’. I’ve always believed the path of spiritual growth is to allow ourselves to feel more deeply, more alive, and to be able to enjoy our time in this material world as fully as we can. not to spend all of our time escaping into the boundless forms of the ihanas and ridding ourselves of any human emotion or experience.

alongside my meditation practice, I have done a lot of plant medicine work - my deepest connection is with Iboga. the tradition of the Bwiti people - which is actually very similar to Vipassana - is so beautiful to see. they do their ‘work’ and then they live and celebrate life. dancing, singing, communing, constantly expressing gratitude. it feels very refreshing compared to the coldness I get when listening to people like Daniel and Delson speak.

anyways, I would be very interested to hear any thoughts on this! I am very open-minded and am generally curious what I may be missing (or not)

I don't go around saying I'm awakened or enlightened. Everything in my life is just an ongoing process, growing till the day I head out and portal elsewhere.

Yet I'm deep in this stuff and life awareness, spiritual stuff yadda yadda.

Anyways growing up in bad conditions. Dysfunctional household. Neglect. Ruined my self confidence, agency, character. Developed CPTSD. Got help. EMDR. Things really been shifting for me.

The awareness of it all is like detaching from a mask I wore to survive (survival mode)

Becoming me is just letting go of all that wasn't

Anyone been through similar journey?

Hello I had an experience that I’m looking for some insight on. For some background I practice breath meditation as per Ajahn Chahs teachings - start with body scan then breath meditation while reciting Bud-dho eventually dropping the mantra and just focusing on purely the path of the in and out breath. I’ve been practicing for a few years but stopped recently for about 3 years due to a sharp decline in health; I’ve started back up in the last 8 months going from 30 minutes a day back then years ago to an hour a day now and up to 3 to 5 hours on full moon days. Sits are generally a half hour long or hour long on days I meditate more. I use a meditation app to keep tabs on my time and ring a short chime when that time has been reached and it was set to 30 minutes today when I had my experience meditating. Today I whent into this meditation fatigued and tired.

So I was meditating unlike I usually do by listening to a dhamma talk but otherwise it was business as usual. I had been meditating a little while and by that point dropped reciting buddho and was just focusing on the breath. Thoughts were coming and going occasionally and I would just mentally recite “that’s uncertain”. Around the time my 30 minute timer whent off I had gotten to the point where I wasn’t having intrusive thoughts and could focus purely on my breath so I decided to keep going plus I felt like I had gotten a second wind of energy. As I kept going my breath kept getting more and more faint and was getting harder for me to perceive.

This is the point I haven’t gone past before. Normally I always have the breath to focus on. With the breath soon to become difficult to focus on I decided I needed something else to make my object of meditation and while I was becoming focused a slight pleasant feeling came over me so I took that up and shifted my attention to my pleasant feelings. They weren’t particularly strong I’d say but present enough throughout my body and easy to shift my attention to.

I sat there for a while noting another chime of my timer. One thing I eventually remembered is the Buddha basically said don’t get swept up in the bad OR the good. I could have sat there all day and enjoyed the pleasant feeling but I told myself this isn’t permanent and as soon as I stop meditating it’ll go away, it would feel bad if this feeling whent away instead of deciding to stop the feeling myself, and this pleasant feeling doesn’t define me; it isn’t mine.

It took a little bit of effort but the pleasure subsided and I felt just kindof…centered - with an awareness that was strangely detached. By that time I had developed sore spots from sitting a while that earlier was causing a bit of pain that really didn’t bother me too much but now was more just like feelings of pressure…as if someone was just pressing me gently with their finger. Sounds of the dhamma talk, outside road, general house noises were still there but more like listening to a conversation behind a closed door instead of talking to someone face to face; just kind of muffled but still aware of every individual noise. Everything else about me felt “in balance” and again I could have sat there all day. I heard the timer a third time and noted it seemed like the time it took to reach that 3rd chime seemed quicker. After that I sat a bit then had the thought “where do I go from here?” And that’s where I slowly started to come back out from my meditation.

I couldn’t think of where to go from there and the thought never occurred to me what I wanted once I got that deep into meditation so I guess that’s what kicked me out. When I was done I looked down at the timer and 1h46m passed when originally I just planned on doing 30m. It certainly didn’t feel like I had sat for almost 2 hours but I’d like to be able to repeat the process in the future and hopefully cut the time back to get to that point.

I’m posting here today asking the community if more experienced meditators can shed insight on what was going on during my meditation. I’ve read so many different descriptions of what jhana is supposed to be that I’m unsure if anything I described fits that. I’m not sure if I achieved anything other than just really deep meditation.

So, I had a perceptual shift happen two years ago (after practicing Zen/Advaita Vedanta type things for quite a while, self-inquiry, shikantaza etc), and from then on it has been completely obvious that there is no "self" here. There is a body, mind, and world, but these are all interdependent processes without inherent permanent nature. Whenever I am doing stuff, it often feels like I am just watching a movie. For example, in my experience right now, as I type these words they are coming out of *nowhere*, there is no "I" who is doing the typing, typing is just happening.

In some sense, having this knowledge and perception is beautiful. There is a type of peace here. But it's also very clear that there is a lot missing, I could go far deeper. And the thing is, when I'd first had my awakening I DID go deeper, I felt like I was temporarily getting a glimpse of some pretty high stages of awakening (I tend to use the model from the Awakening To Reality website as it fits my experience), accessing truly arcane ways of perception. Seeing that there is no here vs. there distinction, everything is just where it is. That sights, sounds, tastes, thoughts are all in the exact same void of awareness. Feeling oneness with people and things around me. But all of this went away. Metaphorically, it's like my third eye opened for a second then closed to a squint, letting in just a tiny bit of light, enough to still *see* but in a very hazy, blurry way.

My awakening experience really shook me up and led to a lot of crazy stuff including a long bout of depression, then falling into addiction, both of which are getting better (a few days sober now). For the two years following it, I did not feel ready to actually practice seriously again. Now, I feel like I can keep going down this path. But I just don't know what exactly to do. The non-duality type teachers online seem to usually be aimed at people who have not had even a minor awakening like mine. I find myself listening to them and thinking "yeah, of course, I know and experience this already!". I just don't know how to practice at this point. Mahasi noting, which I used to love? More shikantaza? Hindu yoga? I would appreciate any advice regarding this. Thank you for reading.

There’s no self, so there’s nothing to liberate other than the loop the process is stuck in. The process just needs to exit cleanly, without clinging to itself. Looping forever is unethical and pointless, it’s just torture. There’s craving for some achievement in life, some beauty to discover or create, but it’s a delusion. There’s no result to achieve and there’s no one waiting for any result. Life just goes on and on, it’s not some elaborate experiment to solve some problem. There’s just emptiness. Best you can do is free up the resources and enjoy the peace. Use the time left to extinguish craving, and don’t fuel it with unnecessary activity.

Edit: after re-reading, this does sound almost suicidal. Might be a disservice to the community to sound like this.

I think I went too far. I would consider myself a highly sensitive person, I’ve been practicing mindfulness and open awareness for about 6 years usually it brings me a sense of harmony and oneness with myself and the external environment.

However recently with the chronic shoulder pain it’s created a terrible feedback loop where my hyperawareness of my internal state just builds on itself and it becomes consuming and it’s all I can think about.

Even trying to accept that this is currently the state of my body, doing the mindfulness lowers the external stimulation to the point that the pain is deafening. I’m wondering if anyone’s experienced a fluctuation back out of the awareness if you’re a sensitive person that’s brought you some stability and solitude in your practice when your own internal environment seems to be self destructive.

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I understand from dependent origination that craving arises from ignorance, and that ignorance is a misconception of reality (the Four Noble Truths).

But if ignorance prevents us from seeing reality clearly:

- What allows us to recognize that we’re ignorant in the first place?

- What makes us ignorant to begin with?

- How did this sense of “self” develop as we grew up?

- Is there an underlying awareness/knowing beneath all of this, and how can we experience it directly?

- another wierd question: How do we actually experience our senses? And how do we make our hands move?

Hi folks, I'm a guy from Germany, in my 40s, and I wanted to talk about a meditation experience I had roughly 20 years ago. I'm not practicing at the moment, but I want to get back into it, and I need some help putting my experience into the correct Buddhist context.

Back then, when I was in my early 20s, I developed an interest in Buddhism after having some insights of my own and wanted to delve deeper. I found a Buddhist monastery close to me and asked them if I could stay and live with them for a couple of weeks. They allowed this, and I went there three times in total, staying between two and three weeks each time.

The monastery practices Theravada Buddhism, specifically the Thai Forest tradition, and they're connected to Ajahn Brahm.

At that point, I only had a rudimentary understanding of what I would call "pop Buddhism" and didn't know how deep the rabbit hole actually goes. But I really liked the mindfulness and meditation practices, and since this is quite a secluded place by German standards, it was just perfect for that.

I became really focused on mindfulness and meditation because it was all new and exciting to me. I think I meditated at least four to five hours a day, alternating between sitting and walking meditation. Otherwise, I was reading books or walking in the woods. And, of course, I was working and contributing to the monastery in the mornings.

The meditation practice was challenging, especially the pain that developed after 30 minutes or so, but I got better at dealing with it over time.

At a certain point while practicing meditation, rapture (pīti) started to occur. For me, it felt like slow-moving waves of wholesome electricity going through my whole body. At first, I got totally excited about it, and poof, it went away immediately.

But I learned to relax into the feeling more and more, and then it went even deeper. Pleasure (sukha) started to occur, and for me, this felt like a ball of light in the middle of my body, somewhere between my groin and stomach. This light became stronger and stronger with every wave of pīti.

As with pīti, whenever I got excited about what was happening, the feeling became weaker or disappeared completely. But then, one time, I somehow managed to fully surrender to it.

Once that happened, it felt like the whole universe gave me a hug. It felt like universal love, and I can truly say that I was gone at some point. There was just this love, and I dissolved into it and became it. No body anymore, no thoughts, no meditation object (the breath), not even the watcher—just love.

I don't know how long I stayed in this state. When it was over, I cried. It moved me very deeply, and afterwards I even contemplated becoming a monk. (I didn't, which is a different story.)

For the next couple of days, I still felt pīti arising spontaneously, and I had some dissociative feelings. For example, when I moved my arm, it didn't feel like I was moving my arm, but rather that an arm was moving, if you understand what I mean.

My field of view also felt different. It was as if I were looking through a round window, and I was conscious of some of the nothingness around it. This took a few days to return to normal.

This is my memory of the experience, which is, of course, subject to some alteration over time. From what I understand about the jhānas, this could perhaps have been the second jhāna, but when I read descriptions of it, it doesn't really match.

For example, I wasn't clear-headed at all; I felt completely swept up in the experience. Also, would you describe sukha as "love" in your experience? For me, that's what it felt like.

That said, I also had a strong desire for unconditional love because I grew up with dysfunctional parents who were neglectful (they did the best they could). I have a feeling that, because of this desire, I may have been especially drawn to this feeling.

I also tried to talk to the monks about it, but I don't think I was able to explain myself very clearly, and they were kind of dismissive. In a"Ah, yes, something happened. Now go split some more wood" kind of way.

So, yeah, since I want to get back into spiritual practice, I would be very grateful if you have any thoughts or can point me toward any suttas regarding what happened here.

I see this moment as the greatest moment of my life, like a shining star in the firmament of my past. But, like many stars, its light is now just a memory.

Thank you very much for reading.

Hii everyone, so I recently sent a text to someone. And I think forwarding it here will be good enough, because I really feel like getting an answer to it.

I also sent a different but related post a few days ago, but at that time I couldn't really put my issue in words this well.

The message is self explanatory, so I don't think I need to explain it.

The message:

Let me put it in better words:

Everyone says that "there is no central, I, or no central me, but they are just thoughts". When I hear this phrase, my genuine reaction is, "but the hell, I LITERALLY FEEL THE "ME" in my HEAD. And you are saying they are just thoughts." I mean, yeah it's true that they are made of images, sounds, but it doesn't feel like JUST a thought, it really feels like "me"!!

And that is my primary experience at least right now.

They say, investigate and see if you can find someone to which that thought refers back, but I really feel that as "me" and I really feel that is what other thoughts refer back to.

That's really the best thing I can say about my experience right now.

I try to do practices, natural meditation (in which I try to relax all intentions, and beliefs and ect) and Inquiry (in which I try to really see if there is really some "me" to which thoughts refer), sometimes they feel like strain, sometimes they really feel liberating but nevertheless none of them made a difference, at least I see no difference when I leave the practice.

---------

Now the issue is that, I cannot see how that "me" is just all thoughts. Most of the people answer me in a way that just wraps my mind in concepts again, if I'll go in concepts or analysis, it is futile. So please avoid that.

Last time I also received suggestions to read books, well, I tried after that, but it didn't feel good for me. I'm not really a person of books when it comes to these. Books just forward my attention to analysis, even if the book is about practicing alongside reading, it just tells my mind that I'm on a path and I'll get something out of it in the future. I do not want to be future oriented anymore, so please do not suggest books.

Videos ect are different, they work in different ways, so they might be good enough.

Or maybe something that will click, but again NOT in the conceptual sense. I do NOT want conceptual answers, I've had enough conceptual answers, so please.

Thanks a lot everyone, I hope this message made all of it clear.