Mike Kich:
From the point of view of someone who's a stream-enterer, how would you say your ability to concentrate and pay attention in everyday circumstances is different? Or is it different at all?
And how do you mean, the right way for exercise?
(1) From the point of view of being a stream enterer: concentration has improved massively in comparison to that first dark night, but is still pretty bad (worst than many people I know who never meditated). I am more able to pay attention to every day mundane stuff, but still have a hard time with studying and reading --- quiet activities tend to expose an undercurrent of restlessness that makes such activities rather hard to do.
(2) Well, perhaps there is no right way, but I have found a way of exercising which is very pleasurable, and seems to have a generic beneficial influence in my life. To get it right I had to experiment, but I there were a few specific things I noticed:
During cardio, I noticed how it is hard at first, I have to push, but if I am persistent and yet don't strain excessively, at some point I "break through" (at the beginning it was around 15-20 minutes from the start) and running becomes easy; If I pay attention to how the body is warm and how the breath is flowing, it can even become very pleasant.
Then I notice that this way of breathing, and this warming of the body can be given privileged attention, so that I "break through" earlier, nowadays it is usually 8-13 minutes. Also, it is more effective for me to keep at the right level of effort without straining, and what that level of effort is (as measured by the km/h of the elliptical running machine at my gym) depends on the day ---sometimes I am more tired, sometimes I am more energetic.
Since I found exercising to be so pleasant, I don't shy away from doing it as much as I used to (typically I exercised consistently for a few weeks, then drop it gradually and eventually abandon it altogether). Exercise makes my life a bit better. It is nothing grand, no great insights into the non-dual nature of reality or whatever, instead it actually works rather consistently. Also meditating 10-15 minutes after exercise is really good for me.
(3) As in your succeeding reply you have pretty much described many past and present impressions of my own, regarding life, society, and the path, I could maybe complement them with some more words. Specifically regarding your third paragraph:
Mike:
There's also though this undercurrent underlying it all, and that's the DN business I'm fairly certain. I'm not just bored, I'm restless, and I do become more aware of these underlying feelings as time and practice advance.
Mike:
I want something to believe in, something that I can really pour myself into, and something that produces results for both my mind and body. I know there's this serenity I can attain, this sense of magic in everything too, and more than even that this effortlessness about it, like it just happened on its own.
My own imaginations about self-improvement and deliverance were even more wild. Recently I have come to a point when I am not as fond of pleasure as I used to be, and accordingly, my imaginations about attainment became more rare, and less ambitious. More about tranquility, and getting rid of that restlessness, so I can enjoy the scenario in peace.
You probably already know this, but your whole discourse indicates a form of disenchantment. The same disenchantment which you (eloquently) describe towards society, in me it seems to have generalized, to some degree, to pleasure itself. And here it flips around, because if pleasure isn't really that desirable, pain isn't really that bad. And if pain isn't really that bad, I can be more patient and friendly with myself when in pain.
And it turns out, actually, that my imaginations about self-improvement were, to some extent, a desire/mental-movement to dissociate from deep pain, a dissociation which I think dates back very far to my childhood, and is fundamental in certain features of my personality (such as being prone to intellectualizing and overly abstract thinking). When I saw this dissociation, it was felt like there were two "me"s, and that "I" didn't like "myself."
This felt so sad that I, as a reaction of sorts, started practicing metta, or something along those lines (and actually, I am somewhat embarrassed to say, hugging myself occasionally). Self-kindness is a real help when things get tough, and when that restlessness eats me under my skin I can mostly just bear with it. I used to be very impatient with restlessness, but I have since realized that restlessness is a very profound feature of the human mind, that it can be found everywhere and in everyone (that I have met). Also, in the buddhist 10-fetter model it is apparently only lost at the culmination of the path. So now I am more patient with it.
This practice has also put me into contact with that "me" that "I" would have otherwise disconnected from; a "me" that is full of weird mental analogues of biological traits. People's psychology and behavior becomes better understood with an enriched vocabulary such as digestion, defecation, immunity/allergy, filtering, homeostasis, temperature, etc, where as before explanations were limited to belief, justification, mental trait (courageous/shy/egocentric/etc), social pressure, etc. The common feature of the latter is that they fit well in a narrative (she did X because of Y), whereas the former do not.
I don't know if this is of any use to you, I guess the bottom-line is: my fantasies about what the path supposedly is were partially dissociative, you
might maybe profit from inquiring yourself in that regard. Take this with a grain of salt, though, this is definitely
not advice or "wisdom" in any shape or form, I'm just sharing because I recognized my thoughts and feelings in your words.