Derek Cameron:
I'm not sure anyone sets out on this path because they've been sold on the future benefits. It's more like something you're either drawn to or you're not. In my case, it was a kind of curiosity, even a philosophical curiosity, about the true nature of reality. That being said, there are benefits, though perhaps not the ones you imagine in the beginning. BTW your earlier post (May 11) is correct. It is the fiction of an independent self that gives uncomfortable feelings something to stick to. Seeing through that fiction, along with the other factors Tom mentions, is the definition of "stream entry."
Exactly, I started on this path because it was an imperative, I
had too. It was do or die.
I like to use the metaphor of a poison or vaccine, the bitter toxic venom is injected into your body, it is samvega, it urges you to act, if you don't act you die. But there is a catch, the poison is a vaccine, it is not harmful. No one dies. Rather it makes a man out of you.
After the body has digested the poison and alchemised it, it continues to remain in your system. However you only keep the positive beneifts of the poison, as the toxin is now harmless!
This is the definition of the dark night, transmutation and alchemy.