Here is a list of all my public writings and videos (from before February 2025).
lsusr
Karma: 18,867
Traditional Food
To clarify: I do not claim that I have experienced enlightenment. Just awakening, stream entry, etc.
A plane of existence that does not interact with conscious beings is a priori unobservable, because there would be no one to observe it. In that way, world without conscious beings is value-equivalent to no world at all. In my opinion, there is positive value in the world I live in. That said, it is possible to imagine worlds with negative value too. This isn’t much related to Buddhism or special insight. It’s just philosophy.
The target was food intake, not metabolism.
The meditation practice I used to get to stream entry was Zen (shikantaza).
While The Mind Illuminated was important to my personal intellectual journal, I didn’t find it personally useful to getting stream entry. MCTB was useful for some general principles too, but it’s more like an quirky reference book than a simple instruction manual.
Regardless of what technique you’re using—even Zen—you need to reach access concentration before you can drop into an altered state of consciousness. For me, just counting to 10 isn’t enough to build that much momentum. It takes more like 30 minutes of focused attention on the breath [with, perhaps, 1-2 short breaks to move my legs] before I can drop into a state of mushin. In fact, I personally avoid counting altogether because the act of counting is too attention-grabbing.
As for consistency, I recommend starting short (1-5 minutes) and building up to longer sits over time. This shouldn’t be too hard, because you should feel like you’re getting something out of the shorter sits. If you’re not getting anything out of the shorter sits, then you’re unlikely to be motivated to do longer sits.
I also recommend joining the most hardcore[1] meditation center in your city. It doesn’t matter what lineage they are. They could be Zen, Therevada, Vajrayana or even Sufi. By “hardcore”, I mean that you want to maximise . Guided meditation counts as “time talking”. Chanting and bowing are neutral (they count as neither talking nor meditating).
As for books, I recommend The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice by Philip Kapleau Roshi. I found the more cryptic stuff like Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki useful too, but your mileage may vary. The same goes for the translated poems of Ryokan.
Feel free to email me if you want more personalized feedback.
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I assume you live in a Western country. If you live in Asia, then you need not go for maximum hardcore.
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Different people use the word “enlightened” to refer to different things, and it’s unclear to me which definition you’re using. What do you mean where you use the word “enlightened”? For that matter, what do you mean when you say “just a story you tell yourself”? This trick question seems like an attempt to drag a useful discussion about directly observable qualia into the wasteland of undefined words.
As for what stage I’m in right now, that’s a moving target. It’s usually several months after time that I understand what was going onn in time . Since I’m in the midst of insight cycles, I don’t think it’s a good source of data for me to describe the exact stage I’m at this moment. On the other hand, decribing changes that have stabilized for a while does make sense.
“Insight” in this context is a technical jargon referring to what happens when you get direct perception into the process of your mind constructing what seems to be reality, but is actually just conscious simulation of it.
By “significant insight”, I mean enough insight that [1] you’re passed a point of no return and [2] the insight affects your regular day-to-day experience of life in a significant way.
Sometimes the bad habits are load-bearing.
Insight doesn’t act on the conceptual level, it acts on the perceptual level. It’s like noticing that you’ve got a rock in your shoe. Doing violence to the part of your brain that notices the rock in your shoe is just going to draw more attention to that area of neural activity.
If meditation is producing some negative effect, stopping the meditating usually stops the problem.
The “usually” is really imortant. If the problem you’re dealing with is altered states of consciousness, then yeah, stopping the meditation ought to solve the problem. But if you’re dealing with the fruits of significant insight then too bad; there is no going back.
Yeah, I’m talking about covering appliances’ small indicator lights, because gaff tape alone allows light to shine through.
use tin-foil
I do this too to block out light.
Kensho is insight. Enlightenment is the fruit of insight. Kensho is a state of consciousness that provides insight into your world model. Enlightenment/awakening typically comes from having a world model that has (usually) been modified via such states of consciousness (and other thinngs).
What you want to avoid are temples, churches, and missions.
Note: The Zen practice center I go to is officially listed on Google Maps as a “temple” even though it’s not really a temple (the way Gordon is using the word “temple”).
This is a good idea for a separate post.
This is good advice, especially “pay attention for a feeling of coming home”.
I’m tempted to recommend books too, but all of them come with tradeoffs.
That looks to me like an accurate description of kensho, which is a taste of enlightenment. It indicates you’re going in the correct direction and is a good source of insight.
I haven’t asked.
There’s two people I know in meatspace that have been doing this stuff for decades and to whom I look up for inspiration and guidence. They’re super humble since they have no need to prove anything.
I’ve never seen them express the slightest stress or mental tension. Zuiko of them is an old woman who’s hands hurt and are failing due to arthritis and she seemed more concerned with just listening to me than talking about her problems. In fact, she barely mentions her health issues unless I specifically ask. I have a friend who didn’t even realize she was highly awakened until after I pointed it out to him.
To paraphrase Nick Cammarata: “If you want to be a billionaire, try getting enlightened first and then check to see how much you still care about becoming a billionaire.” This awakening stuff tends to disassemble the status-seeking and ladder climbing motivational systems that cause people to get famous. I’m a more empathetic dancer due to meditation, but I doubt that’ll make me world famous.
It isn’t?