r/streamentry

You meditate, watch your thoughts, notice the gap between your thoughts

You do this night after night, and eventually the gaps are so big that there's like a minute between a thought you have

Now what? Sure your mind is quieter and you're calmer, you have achieved a degree of turiya/samadhi, you feel very equanimous

But where do you from here? What's the point? It doesn't get you more money, doesnt get you more women doesn't get you more of anything really .. I mean except more peace I guess

You might say thats not the point of a meditation practice, but really, whats the point of something if it doesn't get you any results in the real world?

Hey Everyone,

I'm really curious as to what the actual experience of Stream Entry is like. How does one know if one is a Stream Enterer?

Does there come a precise moment deep in meditation where something happens? Like a vision, or an altered state of consciousness? What is the actual moment of attaining Stream Entry like? What is the experience of it? What happens in the mind? How can one be certain of attaining it? There must be a universal, clear sign that one has just attained something, right?

I hope all of this is okay to ask. Best wishes to everybody!!

Hi all,

I’ve been meditating for a few weeks and came across something I hadn’t yet seen before until now.

I saw these orbs/spheres that were 3D, detailed, and somewhat translucent and glowing. They moved in a loop on an axis and then flew away/disappeared. There were several of them.

I was in a deep meditative state at the time and also saw what seems to be the Kutastha (spiritual eye) in that same session, before they appeared. Various waves of pleasure and energy rolled through my body and made me shake.

Has anyone else seen this? I know of people seeing the spiritual eye, but I’ve not read accounts of this particular phenomenon with the different colored spheres of light so was wondering if anyone had any insight.

Thank you, I love you all!

Hello!

I have been practicing to deal with "mental suffering" for a while and well I think I got a little better to deal with various stuff throughout difficult times etc. Also I would need to say that right now its a good time for me in general so its easier to deal with stuff.

Yesterday I started to have shoulder pain (again after 8 months of not having) and I found myself very annoyed and angry about it. Then disappointed to be so annoyed and angry. Im not sure if it is because I tried some new meditation the day before and that messed something, or because of gym or because I was working more the last 2 days. The thing is If i was practicing this past 8 months so much and became better with mental suffering why is this physical pain affecting me like this?

My question would be, do you work through physical pain in a different way or should be treated similar-ish to mental pain? A problem I have is that what unconsciously I tell myself is that mental pain is not real. Its something I do to myself. But physical pain is there because the body is telling my mind is there and there is a problem with the body. So I cannot think its the same.

Thanks in advance!

Hi.

As per rules, context about my practice:

I meditate regularly, however I am not very keen on theory, I suppose it needs to be said here. I usually do 1h minimum a day. I lie down, put earplugs and an eyemask and try to relax as if I was going to sleep, without actually falling asleep. This is important because, although of course I can be mistaken, I know what hypnagogia feels like, I know when I am about to drift and when I am experiencing spontaneous thoughts and of course hallucinations, phosphenes, etc., which I tend to acknowledge and then ignore. During my last 6 months of practice, I've experienced all kinds of strange states of consciousness, so it's pretty natural for me to observe them and question them.

Now, during THIS particular practice (1h30 aprox)...

Not only did I have earplugs but I was also hearing theta waves through my headphones.

And, after all the relaxation process and almost on the cusp of hypnagogia (only some spontaneous thoughts at that point), I felt a weird heartbeat. It was: tutum-tum, tutum-tum, ternary and sometimes quaternary, so not extremely regular either. I was already feeling 1) my own heartbeat; 2) this other pulsation of my body I am used to feel; 3) obviously hearing my tinnitus; 4) hearing the theta waves. (Yes, I tried to isolate this 5th thing.)

So, if none of them, what was it? I remembered that something was different for that session. My dog was sleeping on the other side of our rather small room. Normally, I would meditate in complete isolation. I wondered... could it be? So, when I ended the session, I checked her hearbeat and felt a pretty similar rythm to the one I felt, only faster, bearing in mind that she was probably a bit excited to see me up at last!

My roommate argued that this was probably that I heard the beating from afar since, she says, I have very good hearing. But the thing is, I had earplugs and was listening to a tape (yes, at the same time). I am not entirely discarding this possibility, after all you never know. But another important point is that I was not exactly hearing it but rather feeling it in my body, if that makes sense.

Have you ever experienced this? Do you know if there is any text talking about this?

Has anyone tried to pinpoint how long alcohol affects the intensity of their meditative experiences or how long it takes to be able to access deeper meditative states once you stop consuming alcohol? I am contemplating giving up drinking because of how it suppresses the intensity of my meditations and for how long the suppression effect lingers after consuming alcohol (so long!). At the same time, I enjoy drinking, its social benefits, and don't suffer from addiction or anything like that (I have ~ 1-3 drinks total/week). Also, I do not use any drugs.

This year, I did dry January on a whim, which I think led to me having deeper meditations than they were previously and have been since, despite no other change in my practice. Once the month ended, I thought I could sort of game the system - drink only once a week and then be able to still meditate deeply, but that hasn't been the case. I think even relatively light/moderate amounts of alcohol completely destroy my potential for deep meditation for weeks.

In late January and into the first week or two of February, I had a handful of surprisingly deep meditations. For example, during savasana at the end of yoga classes:

1. I once lost my ability to process English (my first language); this was very relaxing in the moment, but afterwards I was sort of freaked out because I didn't even know that was possible. The instructor was reading a passage, but it sounded like gibberish to me... I could hear what she was saying, but it was like my brain couldn't interpret a single word.
2. I had the sensation of observing my body from outside of it, like kind of above one of my shoulders?
3. A handful of times had the sensation of falling through the floor despite remaining conscious.

While listening to yoga nidra tracks:

1. I experienced the falling through the floor sensation multiple times, sometimes in succession??? while remaining awake.
2. Also, felt the sensation of floating on a wave, like almost a really relaxing carnival ride hah. This was pretty durable, too - my dog interrupted a couple times to hop onto/off of the bed, but the feeling would quickly return.

These meditative experiences were not subtle, but I also didn't do anything special to achieve them - it was just the amount of alcohol I was consuming around that time that changed. They didn't emerge until the very end of my dry January month, and l was able to have them into the 2nd week of February (I started drinking lightly again once January was over).

It's now May, and I haven't had any of those sort of deeper meditative experiences since the 2nd week of February. The way I feel post-meditation is similar to how I felt during that time (relaxed/floaty), but the intensity of my meditations themselves has been dialed way down - no falling sensations, riding waves, out of body experiences, or lack of language processing.

I've only had 1 other really memorable meditation experience before, ~15 years ago, at a yoga retreat when the instructor played an mp3 that made it feel like there was a bouncy ball pinging around inside my head - I also barely touched alcohol at that time.

Anyways, I am wondering if others have found the same thing. When I googled it, there was some info about how people who meditate often end up giving alcohol, but not a lot behind the "why." There was also a fair amount of content about using meditation to help cope with alcohol addiction, which isn't what I'm after since I don't suffer from alcohol addiction - I just don't like how even small amounts of alcohol affect my access to deep meditation experiences for days or even weeks.

Hi everyone. I crossed the A&P suddenly at age 19, and it was the usual amazing blissful stuff and then faded and then Dark Night stuff started showing up. It’s 9 years later now and I haven’t achieved steam entry, basically because I’ve struggled to establish a consistent sitting practice.

I want to finally finish the thing off because the thoughts and feelings of the Dark Night can be a real pain, but the issue is the past year has been extremely hard on me in just an ordinary sense.

I’ve had both parents diagnosed with cancer, a grandparent die with another in bad condition, and a beloved family friend die of cancer as well, all within the same year. Thoughts of mortality, impermanence, sickness, and death are extremely common every day and it’s very distressing and I have been emotionally exhausted, depressed, and anxious from the whole ordeal, and don’t know if I have the strength to establish a consistent insight practice.

Looking at impermanence and no self and suffering and the like just feels too overwhelming at the moment because I’ve been surrounded by it traumatically. At the same time, I know that it’s likely that my suffering has been compounded by still being in dark night territory, and that the only way out is through. Should I just not practice at all for a while? Just focus on concentration/lovingkindness? Power through and do insight anyway? Any words of advice or compassion would be appreciated. Thank you all💜

In the last 18 months I have sat my second and third courses, and spent 3 weeks in service. My practice outside has been consistent, but for 1hr total over 2/3 sits, and not vipassana, instead only anapana.

To the latest retreat! It was a very positive experience for me - I connected with the work in a deeper and more consistent way than before, and I was able to sit adhithan consistently after the 7th day of the sit with almost no pain. This was due to greater understanding of anicca. I came to think of it more like a practice, a verb perhaps; it arises, and we can play a role in letting it pass away. I'm not sure if this is an accurate interpretation so would love to hear guidance on this.

The two instances that particularly stood out. On the 2nd day I went outside and my senses were greatly intensified; I could smell the air very clearly. Everything looked bright and sharp, and I saw a bird singing in a tree and it filled me with joy. I felt high in the best possible way. It struck me that I was experiencing bliss. What was likely happening here?

Similarly on the 5th day I noticed a physical cue, something I did with my fingers, that suggested to me a lack of presence, due to its automaticity. Realising this brought me to the most intense presence I have experienced. The footsteps in the dining hall were loud and intense, I could hear the guy to my left chewing. Also curious to hear thoughts on this experience!

Overall it was an amazing sit, but the thing I emerge with for which I am most grateful is this: no matter what happened, sitting daily and consistently is the priority.

Hi,

I'm curious if there are any serious Jhana practitioners in this subreddit.

I've been feeling a calling towards exploring Jhana lately ...

would love to know what's worked for people and specific instructions

The following thread is something I have already posted in r/buddhism (where it received 10k views) and in r/secularbuddhism. I assume it might also be interesting here, as it provides a different perspective. To be honest, I have no personal stance on the matter other than delivering facts; to me, the research speaks for itself.
A further notice: I have been accused of using AI to generate this text. This is not the case. I spent several hours conducting the research, conceptualizing the material, and finally writing it. If you are already familiar with this information, feel free to skip it; if not, enjoy the read.

Hello from Wiesbaden, Germany

“Pragmatic Dharma”

This is something I came across several times, and I have to admit, I was blissfully ignorant of what it is about. To make my motivation clear from the start: this thread is not meant to dismiss or diminish this or any other attempt. Rather, it is to clearly show why it is at best problematic and in the worst case, dangerous.

If I ever had to describe my own approach to Buddhism, it would also be as "pragmatic"; however, it is as rigorous as possible:

Serious study of the different Canons, especially the Abhidhamma.
Meditation grounded in the Visuddhimagga (Vimuttimagga).
Application in real life—not "McMindfulness," but asking: do my deeds represent Dhamma?

Because it is not grounded in any single tradition/lineage, my approach could be called syncretic and eclectic. Furthermore, it requires a solid understanding of Physiology and Neurophenomenology (Varela / Thompson / Metzinger).

In contradiction to this, “Pragmatic Dharma” is more or less based on:

Ingram, D. M. (2018). Mastering the core teachings of the Buddha: An unusually hardcore dharma book (Revised and expanded ed.). Aeon Books.
→ https://www.integrateddaniel.info/book/
(If curious, this book and several other materials are free for download. I honestly appreciate the generosity.)

Education: He received his MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1994.
Specialty: He was a board-certified Emergency Medicine physician.
Status: He practiced for many years but is currently retired from clinical medicine to focus on his research and the EPRC (Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium).

His main publications, from the perspective of academia, are the following papers:

Lomas, T., & Ingram, D. M. (2023). "Exploring the Varieties of Meditation-Related Experiences." This is his attempt to enter the "Varieties of Contemplative Experience" (VCE) world pioneered by Willoughby Britton.

Ingram, D. M., et al. (2022). "The Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium: A new model for interdisciplinary research on spiritual emergence and emergency."

The "Strength"

His MD gives him a veneer of "scientific authority" and "clinical sobriety." He frames himself not as a mystical guru, but as a hard-nosed scientist/doctor who happened to "accidentally" get enlightened.

Ingram as “Steelman”:

→ The Physician's Perspective: He isn't claiming magic; he claims a predictable neurobiological result of specific sensory training. He argues that he is a "sensory technician."

→ The Transparency: Unlike many gurus, he is brutally honest about his own life (divorces, frustrations, health issues). He claims Arhatship doesn't make you a perfect human; it just changes the "perceptual baseline." This is his defense against the "Arhats must be saints" argument.

→ The Data Advocacy: He is one of the few voices in the meditation world advocating for better tracking of meditation-related injuries, which aligns with concerns regarding physiological reality.

Critique:

Anālayo, B. (2020). "Meditation Maps, Attainment Claims, and the Adversities of Mindfulness." Mindfulness, 11, 2102–2112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01389-4

→ Fabrication of Experience: Anālayo argues that Ingram’s specific method (high-speed "noting") doesn't reveal reality; it constructs a specific type of experience. He suggests Ingram has essentially "trained his brain" to produce the very "vibrations" and "cessations" he then claims as proof of enlightenment.

→ The "Dark Night" as a Methodological Error: Anālayo suggests that the terrifying "Dark Night" symptoms are not universal stages of human insight (as Ingram claims), but rather a side effect of Ingram's aggressive, penetrative technique. In other words, the "Dark Night" isn't a stage of growth; it's a sign you're doing it wrong.

→ The "Old Switcheroo": Anālayo points out that Ingram redefined "Arhat" to fit his own experience, then claimed he attained it. He argues that Ingram’s description of his internal state contradicts the early Buddhist texts (EBTs) so fundamentally that the term "Arhat" no longer means anything in Ingram's mouth.

→ Clinical Irresponsibility: He explicitly warns that promoting these "maps" can lead to "adversities"—meditation-induced crises that are then misdiagnosed by the "Pragmatic" community as "progress."

The rebuttal to this can be found in the podcast:

Guru Viking – Ep73: Dangerous and Delusional? - Daniel Ingram
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbJiy6EJLsI

My criticism is from Neurophenomenology and is built on Metzinger:

Metzinger, T. (2003). Being no one: The self-model theory of subjectivity. MIT Press.

Metzinger, T. (2024). The elephant and the blind: The experience of pure consciousness and the concept of the self. MIT Press. https://thomasmetzinger.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Metzinger_MIT_Press_2024-1.pdf

Category Error:

→ Being a doctor does not make one a Neuro-Philosopher.
→ Describing a "Cessation" (a gap in consciousness) is not the same as explaining the Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC).
→ Ingram’s "data" is entirely hetero-phenomenological (based on reports), but he treats it as auto-phenomenological truth. So-called “anecdotal evidence” is like “cool story bro”; it should not be misunderstood as anything but anecdotal, which, under scrutiny, is hardly ever evidence.

Before I am criticized for misrepresenting the Ingram approach and his circle, I am very aware of the differences, and I am by no means trying to straw man him. However, in circles like the “Dharma Overground Forum” and its successors, Ingram’s ideas are being taken literally as shortcuts and bypassing "hacks" toward enlightenment.

“Folk Psychology” & “Lifehacks” have their eligibility as long as they are not handled like dogma. The main issue here is that if problematic mental or physiological states are seen only through the lenses of a checkbox list or the "next hack," it can lead to severe states, which are well documented:

The "Varieties of Contemplative Experience" (VCE) Study:

Lindahl, J. R., et al. (2017). "The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists." PLoS ONE.

→ The Gist: This is the foundational paper for modern "meditation harm" research. Britton and Lindahl mapped 59 categories of "challenging" experiences.

→ The Punchline: It proves that things like depersonalization, loss of agency, and executive dysfunction are not rare "glitches" but documented features of intensive practice. The crowd is playing with fire.

The "Meditation-Induced Psychosis" Review:

Lambert, D., et al. (2021). "Adverse effects of meditation: A review of observational, experimental and case studies." Mindfulness.

→ The Gist: This review focuses on the "non-clinical" crowd and catalogs hallucinations, delusions, and derealization triggered by meditation.

→ The Punchline: It highlights that the "valence" of an experience (whether you think it's "Stream Entry" or "Psychosis") often depends entirely on the social script you are following. The map itself may be inducing the pathology.

So, as for me, I find the Ingram material palatable only with a solid spoonful of skeptical scrutiny. Since “Pragmatic Dharma” seems to be larger than I imagined, what are your thoughts on it, regardless of whether you are pro or con?

Intuitive dance/movement is incredibly powerful for healing. Surrendering to physical sensations creates a space of fluidity that yearns to be created. This is FLOW state. It is CHOOSING to embody the physical body IN the experience, here and now, with whatever is felt... unease? discomfort? fear? Can i surrender to it? Can i simply continue to feel despite the resistance? Right here, in the present moment, i don't analyze, i don't judge. All i have to do is feel within my body. I shift my awareness within my physical form, i become the one who creates through it, i no longer identify with it. I AM the intention behind the creation, and i watch the movement unfold on its own.

Two years ago i wasn't able to go outside without panic attack.. through somatic practices i heal bit by bit my nervous system and i feel safe again, to be present in my incarnation. Just for that, i'm totaly grateful.

Because I certainly do and, to be honest, I wish this wouldn't be that way. For many reasons, and mainly spiritual reasons, I feel mentally isolated from other people. I do have great and many friends... And I love all of them and make sure to spend a grand and good time enjoying this material life with them, because they are incredible. They are a part of me, and I am a part of them, all entrenched in this material world with all its joy and bliss, but also with misery and suffering. It all comes together, and such an intrinsically human ability to share this life with others is, in my opinion, divine in an of itself.

The problem is: when it comes to topics of spiritual life (its ups and downs), sadhana, meditation, sacred scriptures, history of religion, astrology and everything else that is more or less considered "transcendental", they (most of the time) cannot handle it. They simply dismiss me as being "weird" (which I have no problem being so) and/or mock me with the "hahahah, oh, look, he is doing it again!" sort of discourse. I mean... The topics proposed may be unconventional, for sure -- but I speak (or at least I think I do) about these subjects as if it's like any other, you know? But they don't take me seriously. Spirituality is very important to me, Moksha (liberation) is very important to me, but it is irrelevant to them. And... That's ok. So be it. Many things in life are irrelevant for me, and nonetheless here I am, writing this post. This doesn't affect me liking them at all.

Well... I have some (astrological) hypothesis as why things are that way, but I won't bore you with the details. The thing is: I don't have a guru. I don't have anyone else (apart from the internet and this community, of couse) to speak to and share common (or different) experiences about how we deal with spiritual matters, and this f'ing sucks. I wish I could speak about this knowledge with someone face to face. Oh, well...

What do you think?

A few years ago I shared the changes that happened when stream entry was reached, and I received many messages from people saying it helped them. So these past few days I’ve been writing about my current changes and wanted to make an update. Maybe there are others out there who have lived through what I lived through, or who are going through something similar, and this might help.

My contemplative and phenomenological context:

• I’ve been engaged in practice for approximately 5 years.
• My path is primarily SOMATIC and INTEROCEPTIVE, based on vedanā, rather than classical cognitive/visual/non-dual approaches.
• The process happens implicitly: things “let go” on their own, and afterward I notice structural changes in everyday life.
• I don’t do much conceptual investigation into “emptiness,” nor do I have major visual non-dual experiences.
• My process happens more as somatic unlearning and extinction of craving.
• The practice has become increasingly automatic and less driven by willpower.
• I feel the system “enters on its own” into contemplative and vipassanā-like processes.
• My current practice is mainly:
  • non-resistance,
  • allowing vedanā,
  • stopping the urge to modify experience,
  • not turning sensations into a problem..

What changed structurally:

• The belief deeply collapsed that: were going to complete me.
  • money,
  • sex,
  • success,
  • travel,
  • experiences,
  • achievements
• Coarse projective craving seems heavily eroded.
• I no longer feel a strong emotional charge toward external achievements.
• I used to compulsively chase experiences and external completeness; that fell away.
• Today I can achieve things, make money, improve physically, or advance projects, and they no longer generate the old existential charge.
• The fantasy of “when I get X, I’ll finally be complete” has lost a tremendous amount of force.

Changes in identity and personality:

• The “nice guy pattern” weakened significantly.
• I began to feel physical resistance toward acting artificially.
• There is less energy available to sustain social masks or personas.
• The need for approval and external validation has diminished.
• Psychological identity feels less solid and less central.

Current phenomenology:

• Current suffering no longer seems centered around sensual desire or external problems.
• The current conflict seems more related to:
  • vedanā itself,
  • tension,
  • baseline anxiety,
  • a sense of threat,
  • mental fog,
  • inner agitation,
  • hypersensitivity,
  • uddhacca.

hello fellow people,

i used to have low self love (since primary school probably) and therefore trying to make people around me happy and taking in their feelings and the like.

now that im kinda at peace with myself and having a kind of constant feeling of love or acceptance for myself and others i started to get a problem with my bladder, probably because i did start to set boundries where before i just absorbed anything negative from others and showering them with love. that made them kind of dependent on me. at least thats what i believe.

am i going into the other extreme too much or is the problem elsewhere?

i work in retail at the moment as a supervisor where im kinda dependent on my coworkers, but at the same time im supposed to delegate work so that i can manage my own workload in a healthy way.

i also keep having skin problems, which point to boundries.

i do a semi consistent mindfulness meditation practice.

any pointers? and thanks for your time.

i may not awnser much today, but im interested in insightful responses.

I’m just wondering as I understand this to be the first stage in awakening and being comprised of a fundamental shift in awareness that cannot be reversed.

This happened for me around almost 7 years ago now but the journey towards deeper awakening is ongoing and I’m still learning new things all the time.

Please lmk if you guys have entered the stream or not and how you came to be aware that you have.

Forgive me if this is in the beginner's guide. I read it some time back, and browsed through it again today, but I can't recall an answer to this.

When does contemplation come in? I understand that contemplation is separate from meditation.

Thanks.

I sit 30-45m most mornings (mostly noting-style vipassana, some shikantaza). About a year ago I started noticing something — I'd reach the end of a sit and realize my head had slowly dropped 10-15° forward without me catching it. Not slumping dramatically, just slow drift over 20 minutes.

Once I started paying attention to it, I realized it correlates with the sits where mind-wandering was worst. Like the body proprioception goes offline at the same time as metacognition does.

Curious if other long-sit practitioners notice this. Have you found ways to catch it? Body scans every N minutes? Some teachers say "ignore the body, it'll find its own level" — but that doesn't seem to be my experience.

(Full disclosure: this question turned into me building a small thing to measure my own drift using AirPods motion sensors. Happy to share if useful, but mostly curious about the phenomenology first.)

previous post here

https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/s/q1zA8sUie2

TLDR: switched from GPT to Claude. Heart opened. Went somewhere non-Euclidean. Then something that breaks all the labels.

~200-250 hours lifetime meditation

Since my last post I switched from GPT to Claude. It gave prety good advice but would usually agree with whatever point I was making. I was using it mostly as a diary, then I told it to take on the voice of a teacher and it became much morewilling to disagree with me, or just give me minimal answers rather than indulge every thought. In retrospect I feel it's steered me in the right direction almost every time, helping me to know what to track and respond to, and what to ignore/let go.

Over time my attention became less consistently panoramic, kinda switched from very open when walking around to narrower when doing something. Felt like a maturing rather than a loss.

April: heart opening

Early April I had a significant shift during a Michael Taft gratitude meditation, specifically around gratitude for awareness generating self and world moment to moment. Everything became kinda luminous like a hologram lit from all directions at once. Immense warmth and awe. It really fit the Adyashanti framing of head, heart and gut awakening separately. The earlier nondual stuff felt like the head waking up, this felt like the heart. After this I could tune into a self luminous quality of awareness pretty easily and predictably make myself weep. A feeling that all is full of love usually accompanied this.

Around the same time during a Rupert Spira sit something interesting happened at the edge of sleep. There was a sense of two frequencies coming into sync, awareness getting very still, and then excitement or fear would generate a sense of self right at the threshold and it would abort. Like being able to see the mechanism of the thing that was stopping it from tipping over.

Mid April: non-Euclidean attention

A few weeks later I did a long Michael Taft self inquiry and went somewhere new. Where my 2023 nondual experience felt like awareness going from a cone with a focal point to a flat even field, this felt like that flat sheet folding into something non-Euclidean, like the surface of one of those wrinkly lettuce leaves. Attention moving around in and with awareness in weird fractal ways. Kinda disconcerting. The comfortable evenness I'd associated with nonduality wasn't there, this was stranger.

Late April: Buddhist centre, the next question

Started attending weekly guided sits at a local Buddhist centre. During Q&A I asked the teacher how to reconcile the deep silence/void I can access with the bright luminous presence. They both feel fundamental but kinda opposite. The teacher said these states will gradually drop characteristics and converge over time, the brightness drops but clarity remains. I started noticing this already, the luminous awareness becoming less visually dramatic but not less real.

May 10: something without a name

Did a self inquiry meditation, same Adyashanti guided sit that triggered the 2022 and 2023 experiences. First 20 mins pretty unremarkable, looked behind the eyes, found silence. Then when he said something about resting in not knowing, energy started buzzing around the chest and head. I remembered the head heart gut framing and had some anticipation/fear about what a gut awakening might feel like. Then all the energy suddenly drained downwards to the lower belly and disappeared into the void below me. Brief fear that my physical body would drain away with it. Then deep stillness. A sense of self would start to form, I'd look at it, the cycle would repeat. Happened a few times. Afterwards I felt like I'd been crying.

The shift wasn't obvious during the sit. It became clear in the shower afterwards when the mind suddenly realised it had touched something timeless and eternal. I started laughing, at the funniest joke that can't be told or understood. Weeping and laughing at the same time, writing things that sounded kinda nonsensical. "Is is is is is is" "emptiness dancing". A slightly scary thought killed the humour for a second, "how can this awareness be separate from the human/mind that encoutered it", then it got funny again.

Since then

For the last two days I've been able to go back to this source fairly easily and it's indescribable. "The Dao that can be spoken is not the true Dao" resonates really hard now. If I call it awake void or the cosmic joke or awakening or Dao or anything the name just kinda slides off the thing I'm trying to name. Very little sense of a separate self since this point, intense feeling of wellbeing.

I'm not sure if enlightenment is being in constant contact with this 24/7 or about integrating it into all aspects of life, or what it could mean, but I'm curious about how things will unfold. Part of me feels like the seeking has ended, like there's nothing left to do. A part of the mind is still in seeking mode wanting to have more/do more with this realisation

For my last few practice sessions I've been experiencing what feels like intense heat mostly from my head. My upper body, neck, shoulders, chest are also quite warm. It comes on suddenly and then stops after meditation. Kind of like having a short "fever", but just the heat and no other symptoms.

So I'm wondering why this is happening and the possibilities of what it might indicate.