| | Hi
Hoping to get a little guidance from those who might be further along the path than me. I'm trying to work out if my path is going in the right direction, and which path to take and aggressively commit to at this point. I'm experimenting at this stage, and trying to see what fits best for me.
Practice history: 3 years of twice daily meditation, for about 15 minutes each time. This has for a large period been meditation on the breath, using a mantra (I am here now, synchronized with breathing). Huge amounts of spiritual reading - Eckhart Tolle, Rupert Spira, Francis Lucille, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramana Maharshi. Completed the Presence Process by Michael Brown 3 times. Probably about 1.5 - 1.8 years of the meditation practice was AYP - Advanced Yoga Practices by Yogani (spinal breathing pranayama and deep meditation). Constant aggressively breaking myself down and dis-identifying.
"Attainments"
Experiencing myself as awareness within which perceptible forms arise (had a few experiences of this) Dissolution of all emotional reactivity: I'm just calm. Pretty much 99.9% of the time. Totally unruffled and not bothered by anything life spews up. This is from being very emotionally reactive at one point. Deep inner stillness in background of all perceptions Ecstasy and bliss: There's now a general tendency to experience ecstasy and bliss fairly frequently, for no reason at all, simple things like watching it rain, or seeing sunlight often tend to activate this sort of joy No self: Started to see the image of body in the mirror, just experiencing this as a clear perception in consciousness, not my body, not me, just an image in consciousness Addiction breakdown: used to enjoy occasionally getting intoxicated with alcohol, that has seemingly totally dissolved now
Here's where I am at, my perspective, and what I am doing:
1. Even thought there is all this calmness and bliss, I have no interest in pleasant or unpleasant experiences, I'm not trying to be happy, I'm trying to let the I that wants to be happy die. Sincere extreme longing to die, I just want a system which will fucking kill me ASAP, I do not care about the casualties along the way.
2. My practice is currently the following:
Inquiring into experience
Looking at all perceptible experience, and asking myself, can I be a perceptible experience?
Asking, can a perceptible experience be aware?
For example, if we believe the body is aware, and a separate me, looking at bodily sensations and asking, are these sensations aware?
Looking in the mirror and seeing an image of a body, and asking, is this visual image aware?
Who am I? What is aware of perceptible experience?
etcetera
Repeatedly activating and then remaining intensely conscious of suffering / pain body
For anyone not familiar with the presence process it’s basically this:
You cease all the activities that distract yourself from your core suffering: intoxicants, mindless distractions, thinking etc
You cease all emotionally charged / reactive behavior.
You just sit with, and watch your suffering. You watch the resistance to suffering. You no longer try to do anything about your suffering.
This is in summary a practice that takes you deeply into suffering, dropping the mental stories attached to your suffering, and perceiving the suffering directly via your feeling capacity.
Sitting with the suffering and breathing regularly, ceasing to distract yourself from it, feeling it deeply and fully.
Letting all of it float into your awareness.
Meditation
Twice daily breath watching with repetition of “I am here now in this”.
Total dis-identification
Entire personality structure, emotional patterns, thought patterns are constantly noted and observed, and there’s very little identification with them.
3. At present, I find it very hard to take any action to maintain my life. I’m financially successful from working hard in years past, but now, I’d be more than happy to just lose everything. Earlier in my life I did all the stuff your meant to do to get happy: financial success, wealth, attractive girlfriend etc etc and it didn’t do anything, so if it goes, who cares. It might sound unbalanced, but I’m basically just calmly letting everything go to shit, and chuckling as it does. Not sure if this is wise or unwise, but I can’t motivate myself in any direction other than hardcore spiritual practice, which is a burning obsession.
4. Apart from the fact that I’m deliberately and consisting throwing myself into the dark night (and it’s become easier and easier to remain intensely peaceful and kind of ecstatic whilst simultaneously experiencing intensely painful emotions), on a day to day level, life is just pretty damn easy because of the deep peace and equanimity inside. I guess you could say I actually am an example of “living in the Now” or whatever that vaguely garbage statement means.
5. But I’m still not dead. I didn’t completely and irrevocably realize my true nature (at least I don’t think I did). Also, my experience is definitely not non-dual. It’s common to experience witnessing on some level or other, sometimes intensely experiencing myself as consciousness within which perceptible forms arise. But the experience is definitely dualistic in some sense.
I’m rather confused about where I am. I could stop now and just enjoy a life lived with deep inner silence, no worries, and considerable bliss. But as I said, I really have no interest in pleasant or unpleasant experiences, I just want to die, or whatever, permanently. I have no motivation to act in life, or to do anything people usually do to be happy (other than my penchant for reading thrillers and playing computer games).
Any ideas and suggestions from people who’ve been here and moved on are welcome.
Thanks,
Josh |