RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Andrew Lyssunov 7/13/23 4:29 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Mind over easy 7/11/23 4:35 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Chris M 7/11/23 5:45 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Julian Wirt 7/11/23 6:00 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Andrew Lyssunov 7/12/23 9:27 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Bahiya Baby 7/15/23 8:28 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Andrew Lyssunov 7/15/23 12:04 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Bahiya Baby 7/15/23 12:10 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Bahiya Baby 7/15/23 12:23 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Andrew Lyssunov 7/16/23 9:48 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Bahiya Baby 7/16/23 11:26 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Tony Norris 7/16/23 10:38 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Andrew Lyssunov 8/2/23 2:15 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Andrew Lyssunov 8/2/23 2:15 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months User 08 8/1/23 11:14 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/2/23 5:14 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Andrew Lyssunov 8/2/23 6:17 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/2/23 6:49 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Andrew Lyssunov 8/2/23 10:13 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Chris M 8/2/23 10:40 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/2/23 12:00 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Julian Wirt 8/7/23 1:33 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months neko 8/2/23 8:07 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/2/23 8:53 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Chris M 8/2/23 9:09 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/2/23 9:18 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months neko 8/2/23 2:13 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Chris M 8/2/23 2:56 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months neko 8/3/23 1:20 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/3/23 10:58 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months neko 8/3/23 12:54 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 8/3/23 1:55 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months neko 8/3/23 2:55 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Siavash ' 8/2/23 11:36 AM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months neko 8/2/23 2:15 PM
RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months Andrew Lyssunov 11/1/24 6:29 AM
Andrew Lyssunov, modified 1 Year ago at 7/13/23 4:29 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/11/23 10:53 AM

Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

Posts: 41 Join Date: 7/10/23 Recent Posts
 Hey guys,

I achieved stream-entry yesterday after only 2 months of formal insight practice. My perception completely changed but life seems to be the same. Most shocking to me is how fast things progressed. I wrote a huge post yesterday morning but the draft seems to be lost, so I'm rewriting this again. Let's start from the beginning:

I grew up a video game/internet addict. My brain seems to perceive gaming and the internet as the same thing, so I'll use those terms interchangeably. I spent my whole childhood playing video games, and have over 15000 hours, not including internet use which probably clocks in at over 20000 hours also. I spent 6-12 hours a day on a PC since I was 6 years old. I am 19. My life goal was earning achievements, and I felt pure bliss when I earned them. 

In 2018 someone in class mentioned that they want to earn a certain grade to get into university. Since then, I had this idea that I should start studying. However, studying was painful. Extremely painful. I couldn't study for more than 5 minutes without excruciating pain and burn out setting in. I rationalised this as just normal. I tried quitting for 1 day, and would have a 100% failure rate. Even if I did succeed in going 6 hours with no internet, it would actually make things worse because I would get back to where I started, with the added learned helplessness. It's like trying to put your hand in a fire. You might have the courage to do it once, but after you get burnt then you will not want to do it again.

My parents would gaslight me, saying "It's not that bad, it's all in your head, just start studying and it will get easier". It never became easier. The more I studied the more pain I received. It's like the longer you sit in a fire, the more you get burnt. Studying and going without the internet for n + 1 minutes is always more painful than n minutes, without exception. I distinctly remember studying intensively for 2 hours and then ending up avoiding studying for 2 months afterwards. The idea of going through the pain terrified me so much that I would do anything, anything to not go through the pain, even if I became homeless and had to starve to death.

In 2021, as my exams came around, pressure built up to start studying but I couldn't do anything. I couldn't study with no pressure, and trying to study with pressure just made things harder. So, when exams came closer and closer I ended up actually studying less until one day I realised I had no time to study for everything and I would completely give up. I failed my exams. Not only is the withdrawal horrifying, but now every time I relapsed it would kill me on the inside knowing I am doing something that I promised I would not do 6 hours earlier, that would trigger more pain, more suffering.

At some point after a few years of trying I ended up realising that I never even felt any bliss any more during my screen time. Whereas in my childhood, I would play video games, feel good, stop, feel good knowing that I played, and then look forward to playing again. Now it was the opposite. I would be in excruciating pain 24/7, and when I relapsed it would just give me more pain. My brain skipped the dopamine hit.  As I'm writing this, I realise this was me realising unsatisfactoriness. 

On September 12th 2021, I started a 4.5 month streak. Sounds extreme, but actually I had no choice. "Moderation" never worked, ever. It's like trying to shoot heroin in moderation. Bull shit, doesn't work, never worked, never will. Seeing 5 seconds of news coverage would give me such horrible pain that I would relapse and binge for 12 hours. Same thing goes for notifications, memes my mom sent, etc. All it takes is one moment of exposure to anything, even if someone says something in a public place about something new, to completely derail all progress. During this streak, all I did was follow my schedule of working out, eating, cold exposure, sauna, and then just sit for the rest of time. Just don't relapse. It doesn't matter what happened, all I wanted was to sit on a couch and wait. Anything more gave me such pain that I just couldn't do it. I was clueless about meditation at the time. 

At the 3.5 month mark I went on holiday with my father to the Maldives. The weather was amazing, the ocean was beautiful and the hammocks were nice to lay on. From an outsider's perspective, I was in heaven. However, I ended up literally being in completely misery and at some point just started crying because it was so painful. The pain progressed gradually day by day, and it never subsided. My father, of course, is confused and looks at me like a dumbass, which was not helpful. 

At the 4.5 month mark on the 1st of February 2022 I relapsed because I saw a picture of a game I used to play on my PC. I browsed everything for 1 hour, had to go to bed but I couldn't fall asleep. Laid down with my eyes open for the whole night. Like someone shot me with a copious amount of drugs. The high was something that I never felt in my entire life before. For reference, sugar and porn for me wasn't even 1% the high that I felt. I quit those easily. But I am dumbfounded as how some people can quit using video games at their own volition just like that. Ingram comes to mind. The next day I finished browsing everything I didn't see, being sleep deep deprived and crashing after the high made me cry again. 

Important to note, that at this point I was already eating healthy for 1.5 years. My diet, as far as I was and am concerned, is as good as I think it could be. Any external health factors were not the cause of my withdrawal/depression. I am not getting into specifics, but I felt and feel physically amazing, but mentally I was crushed. After this for the next few months I was fighting my addiction on and off, go for 2 weeks, relapse, etc.

Around July 2022 a thought came to me. I remembered watching this Veritasium video where the person said that asteroids could land at anytime, and we have no defence for them. This made me really scared of asteroids for 2 days. After, I thought, why am I scared? Because if this event happens, I will die. But in this lifetime, my chance of death is 100%. This put me in a completely different existential dread independent of anything I felt before. I felt this dread only once before as a kid for a few seconds but I ignored it completely.

For the next 2-3 weeks I have this dread 24/7. I got nightmares. I had dreams where I would be on a very tall, wobbly building above the clouds. It would collapse and I would fall and die. I had dreams where I would be below a very tall building, it falls and crushes me. I had dreams where a dark figure comes by my bedside, stabs me in the throat and I die. I had dreams where a monster crawls out of my window, jumps on me and eats me. I had dreams where asteroids fall on me and I die. I had dreams where a black hole sucks the whole planet and I die. I had dreams where I see a frame of my estate. Then the frame moves closer to where I live, one frame at a time. It shows my house. Then I wake up. This is mortality coming to kill me. 

I continued like this until one day I thought, why does it matter if I die? The world doesn't revolve around me, and if I die things will still continue on. Thousands of people die each day, why do I care if I die? This put me at ease. In retrospect I realise this is an intellectual understanding of no-self without realising it was no-self. In September my exam results don't put me into university as I thought the grades would fall after COVID. After relapsing back and forth for a few months I am now put in a position where I need to study, and I actually manage to do one hour a day without feeling much pain.

On October 9th 2022 I read Joseph Everett's Substack newsletter (What I've Learned). He mentions jhanas, interviewing Daniel Ingram and MCTB2. I am convinced this is 100% true and start reading MCTB2 . I read the whole thing in 1 month. I feel completely burned out and I don't care about any theory. I just want to practice. I read literally nothing else because I felt like I knew enough theory. The idea of the Dark Night scared me shitless. Having to grow through all the hard parts of my withdrawal again, even though I am recovering, terrified me to the core. I thought that shamatha before vipassana would be easier and made more sense to me, so I start doing shamatha. However, since I am pressured to study and I can manage to do 2 hours a day without much pain, I literally do no on-the-cushion practice. The only thing I do is try to focus on my breath while doing my daily activities. 

As you can guess, this didn't work. I got nowhere for 6 months. During this time if I looked something up online that I wanted to look up, as long as I only looked at things that I searched for and not anything else, the pain would be minor and I could do this once every 2 weeks and still function. However, this was still a fix and the withdrawal got too much, and I fully crash. I browse everything for 3 weeks for 15 hours a day. I stop doing my daily routine and do absolutely nothing. It destroys my progress and I feel helpless again. My exams are in 1.5 months and the idea of not sitting for 15 hours a day, yet alone 0, terrifies me to the core. My fix now has to be all day, otherwise I am terrified. Sleep, everything, doesn't matter in the face of withdrawal. 

I realise studying or doing anything is impossible, and the best I can do is just sit in pain for as long as possible. I say fuck it, and start doing vipassana in May 2023. I am already at rock bottom, and I am willing to progress as fast as possible, even if it means even more pain and the Dark Night. I sit 8 hours a day, only taking breaks for eating and exercise. 2.5 hours in the morning, 2.5 hours in the afternoon, and 3 hours in the evening. But this is just a general guide, not a rule, if I sat for only 1 hour because I woke up late for whatever reason then whatever. Obviously I don't set alarms, I don't want to feel worse than I already feel with sleep deprivation.

I meditate without noting. Notes feel like they slow me down and require me to think about what to mediate, and a chore. I don't do them at all. Just focus on the rise rise rise, fall fall fall of the breath. I do this all day. To my surprise everything feels so easy. I am no longer lost in content, and anytime I get lost it doesn't suck me in deeply, so the pain is never bad. On May 20th I meditate for 5 hours, ate and then had a thought of wanting to decide to check where I am. I remember reading about this thing called the A&P event and I was expecting it but I had no idea what stages were before then. I remember Daniel talking about this great guy called Mahasi Sayadaw. I decide to read Progress of Insight. I read for 1.5 hours and reach the end of the section on Knowledge of Mind and Body. 

The author states: 

"Understanding it thus in these and other instances, he knows and sees for himself by noticing thus: "There is here only that pair: a material process as object, and a mental process of knowing it; and it is to that pair alone that the terms of conventional usage 'being,' 'person' or 'soul,' 'I' or 'another,' 'man' or 'woman' refer. But apart from that dual process there is no separate person or being, I or another, man or woman."

I read the last word and suddenly, a surge of joy, happiness, and excitement occurs. The whole day I felt basically nothing, so this is a surprise. However, there are no bright lights, shaking, trembling, visions, powers. It feels like just a normal, joyish feeling. Noticing no longer follows each breath, and I feel 5-6 sensations per second. I get it. When this happens, I am meditating, when I am not, I am not. Holy shit, this is it. However, due to the mildness of my joy, I don't even know if this is what I think it is. I tell my mom that this is a big event and I am happy. I continue with my day until the next when I realise the joyish feeling hasn't gone away. Usually this feeling would be gone in a few minutes with anything else.

As I said prior, with any dopamine hit I received, my brain reached a point where it would just skip the happy part and just give me pain. Here I genuinely feel good. This ascertains at this point with relative confidence that this is the A&P event. I keep in mind the 10 Corruptions of Insight and stop reacting to the happiness and keep noticing. I no longer notice my breath, and try to notice all 6 sense doors, alternating between vision, hearing, body, thoughts and mind.

The next 3 weeks I feel basically nothing. I just continue meditating. Sensations feel less clear but the intellectual understanding of how to mediate never went away, so I just incline my brain to notice anyway. After 3 weeks sensations feel slightly clearer, but again mostly nothing. I am confused as to what is happening. As with Daniel Ingram's advice, I just keep practicing and see what happens. I know logically that I should be in the Dark Night, so I just perceive the 3C at the 6 sense doors.

I gain a few key insights:  I realise there is just a giant lump of pain in the neck area, where my emotions are. It's there always, no matter if I feel positive or negative. On the surface level, I feel the stages of Insight, but deep down the negative emotional pain is always there, no matter what. This was so profound, because in the past before meditation where I tried to "do nothing", my mind would feel this negative lump of feeling, but since I perceived it to be "me", I ignored it and my mind would get lost in content, as the feelings were not perceived to be an observable object. I know this is not the case and now I can't ignore it. This pain is always there, and it enters my consciousness like 80% of the time no matter what I try to pay attention to. I decide to just notice this area over and over again. 

Around 12-14th June I have a few negative feelings arise a few times, but they feel so mild compared to this lump of emotional pain that they only suck me in a few times for a few minutes but then I just carry on. On the 15th of June I have my 4th exam that I was taking that I expected to fail as I of course stopped studying. I take it and know absolutely everything. My other exams were good as well. I come home joyful. The next day sensations again feel somewhat less clear.

On the 31st of June, after feeling a few negative emotions a few days prior that felt extremely mild and irrelevant, I no longer feel these negative thoughts. However, I have no happy thoughts either. Sensations still feel clear, not like in Dissolution. I don't think much of it. On the 1st of July, I binge for 2 hours and feel good due to the fix but it's not a full binge and I manage to close and go to eat and then sleep. The next day 2nd of July, I feel like sensations are less clear again.

It hits me. Woah. That was it? Did I just hit Re-Observation, Equanimity and now I am back in Dissolution? I realise what those negative feelings around the 13th were. I am dumbfounded. Where are the negativity I read so much about? Where is the months/years of destruction to my personal life that I expected to happen due to my chronic Dark Night yogi mind? Literally nothing happened that I expected to happen. All the stages were mild. Even the negative thoughts that happened in Re-Observation were nothing compared to the aforementioned huge unignorable pain area in my neck. Equanimity felt okay, but again, the emotional pain was still always there, so it really didn't feel that Equanimous at all.

I am now turbo optimistic. I remember the 3 month figure that Daniel Ingram mentioned, but I was not on retreat, nor were my sessions flawless. My mind wandered maybe 20% of the time and every time that happened I felt like my session was wasted. I realise I can just learn from Dissolution and just see how it feels without reacting. I sit in Dissolution and in 2 days sensations become clearer again. A few days of this pass.

On the 6th of July I have an insight so huge and profound I literally just sit there shook as to how crazy this is. In the past, when I meditated, I would look for an object in my reality, notice the object, and then have a thought about the object to keep my attention on the object and re-affirm that yes, I infact noticed the object. This would happen for every noticing that I did. But, when you notice, you notice reality. You can't notice something that isn't reality, because reality is always present. Not only that, but you don't need to look through reality to see an object to meditate, because you meditate on your current reality as is without changing it. Trying to look for an object is trying to change reality, which is aversion. 

What this means for my practice, is that instead of looking for an object through reality, noticing it, and thinking that I noticed that said object through reality, I just notice. If you notice, that means you noticed reality, since no matter what you do, consciousness will still have sensations coming in whether you like it or not. So you don't need to look for anything, since reality will happen by itself. Again, I have no words to describe how profound this insight was. I notice so quickly that there is no mental impression of what I noticed and I don't get sucked into anything because there was nothing to get sucked into. There are only physical sensations, the mental impression gets skipped. I literally just sit and notice and now I really get it. I understand now that this was me discovering choiceless awareness.

On the 10th of July, yesterday, I woke up at 1 AM due to the heat. It's so hot there is no chance of me falling asleep and I get irritated and go to pee. My leg touches the toilet seat and I got annoyed that there is bleach residue that burns my leg (I sit, it's likely cleaner that way). I accidentally drop my nightlight into a bucket full of washed clothes with washing detergent. I get super mad. I have a thought "Mexican sombreros are so stupid" and I get disgusted. Wait, this is Re-Observation, those thoughts are empty and I can just notice them. I get back to my room and meditate for 2 minutes. Negativity doesn't return.

I continue meditating for 6 hours while laying down. One of the recurring thoughts I had was "Holy shit, this is so easy, so intuitive, so clean, I am going to get stream-entry this week. Nay, I want it now." I didn't take the now part seriously because in the back of my mind I still expected stream-entry to take years. I meditate and when my mind wanders for a few seconds it's only because of the awe at the insight I gained on the 6th. I'm happy but not because Equanimity feels good, it doesn't. The negative lump of emotional pain is always there, and by default my consciousness receives this pain, but that's only when I think about what I feel, most of the time I don't intentionally try to think about what I feel so I don't notice that it's painful, only empty. I just continue noticing. 

At 06:51 I get up to pee again. As I sit down I think, "lol what if I get stream-entry like that one dude on the toilet" (@stop). I start slowly closing my eyes. Instantly, I feel that the fan in my room is quieter. My eyelids are closed. "Was that it? No fucking way." I notice instantly that I feel slightly good but I dismiss it as maybe just Equanimity. I get up and go to walk into my living room to find out what's up. The first thing I notice as I start walking out of the bathroom is that everything is in sync. There is no delay between looking at things and feeling it. Before when I feel a sensation, I instantly grab it for a moment,  then let go and grab another one. This would translate as basically having 3 FPS. Now my brain stopped doing that. So I feel every sensation without delay by default. So it's like I went from choppy reality to infinity FPS. The "meditation with no mental impression" that I described now is doing itself with no impression. 

I notice that the pain I feel is basically gone and I feel bliss. The aforementioned emotional pain is no longer there. Before it would be concentrated in my head and diffuse outwards everywhere. Now outside my head I feel nothing and those pain sensations are reduced in my head by 90%. Everything around me as I walk is like 3D. Before I was looking outwards from my head in a 2D way and "3D" was constructed from said 2D. Now it feels like everything around my head is spacious, broad and diffuse. Combined with infinity FPS (or as many sensations as in my consciousness) it feels like I am walking in some 3D smooth movie. I, of course, as I realise this am joyful beyond belief. 

A great word to describe what I feel now is detachment. What I perceive as my hand, and the sensations of the hand, have a small distance between them. This feels most pronounced in my vision. Everything looks further away, even things 5 CM in front of me, and they all look equally far away from each other. This instantly reminded me of what Shinzen Young said as "God's arrow" - he sees everything normally, but also sees into infinity. I see a bit further away, but not into infinity. It's like a mini version of what he was describing. I woke up my mom and started talking and it's like the sound of my voice wasn't booming in my head, it was silent and was broad everywhere diffusely. Most of my life I hated talking because it would give me a huge headache if I talked too much, and now there is no headache. It's like they leave no imprint whatsoever on how I feel or drag me anywhere. I can observe a thought and have it disappear despite paying attention to it, when this happened for the first time as I observed it blew me away. 

First thing I want to do is write thank you letters to everyone who helped me out. I start writing a draft of this post but one thing I notice: I can meditate "broadly", and this happens quickly like before. However, I realised if I focus on the area of where my emotional negative lump of pain was, there is a smaller, less noticeable pain that I haven't felt before. I didn't pay attention initially but later on in the day I realised I could meditate on this pain and the sensations that make it up are extremely slow, hard to pay attention to, like every time I do one notice it's like putting hand in a viscous liquid that you need to take out before putting back in again, once a second. And as I pay attention to this pain, this pain spreads to entire reality and now I feel even more pain than before. I realise instantly that the "broad" meditation is Review, and the pain in my neck is 2nd Path territory. 

Later in the day when I walked outside it's like everything is super spacious. It's mind blowing that I could feel this. I was talking about this cessation thing for 2 weeks with my mom but she never took it seriously. She literally laughed a day before stream entry when I told her I will not leave my house to do anything until I get enlightened. I had a cessation at around 21:30 yesterday as I was re-reading the section on Review in MCTB2. It felt like the frame after the cessation was like 1 blank frame of what I saw in my vision with nothing else but then instantly I started feeling "normal" again. I'll try to investigate this re-boot further, but still somewhat excited so can't meditate well.

That is all. 

Here is a list of all the resources I used (in chronological order):

What I've Learned (Joseph Everett's) Substack series (Thank you again!)

MCTB2 (#1 resource, thank you @danielmingram!)

r/streamentry (surprisingly useless, found nothing there)

A couple of posts on dharmaoverground.org

Frank Yang (legendary enlightenment video, a few of his interviews)

A couple of Shinzen Young's videos on Do Nothing, God's Arrow

Literally nothing else.

Any questions or corrections are welcome.

emoticon 

EDIT: Just had another cessation while re-reading this post. I "zoned out" and then I heard a noise like warp that sounds like a doorbell but there was no doorbell ringing. This was my fan. After the cessation for a split second I felt frozen and then only after I thought. "Was that a cessation?" Just like the simulations.  
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Mind over easy, modified 1 Year ago at 7/11/23 4:35 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/11/23 4:35 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

Posts: 297 Join Date: 4/28/12 Recent Posts
Hey, just wanted to say a hello/welcome and congratulate you on your hard work, sounds promising! It sounds like you put in a lot of consistent work and effort, often a great recipe for results! I'm not going to try to diagnose you or try to tell you what you experienced, but hope you don't mind if I regale you with little bits of my own experiences with vipassana and generally how it fit into my own life...

On my road to stream entry, there were ups and downs, lots of "aha's" and "uh-oh's"... specifically, once practice had matured a bit, there were a few experiences I mistook for stream entry, and even actual stream entry that I still had doubts on, even for years later after being reasonably sure some of the changes and signs were there, including cessations and changes to perception, etc...

One thing that helped me a lot was the realization that whether or not it was really "it", "stream entry", there was still simply more work to do, and happily, the fundamentals of practice are largely the same (attention to the 3 characteristics, weeding out attachment/aversion, balancing energy with relaxation, consistency of practice, attending to my "daily life" skillfully). So in that sense, it takes some of the pressure off since wherever we're at, the direction remains the same: forwards emoticon

I can relate to a lot of the relief you describe post SE! Things were more spacious, especially in my head, and one change I hear a lot of people describe, which I can relate to, is the sense that the mind is less "sticky". Thoughts and feelings come and go a bit more naturally, there is a lot less spiraling out in compelling trains of thoughts and emotions, the mentals were just more centered... all very good and well!

Something that can come up a little though, is what I'd honestly describe as negatives, challenging/unskillful things that resulted from SE. These were just my experience, but hopefully sharing could be of some benefit.

I honestly became kind of evangelical around my friends and family. I had cracked this huge thing, I was so enlightened, I was feeling so cool in my new mental powers and nonchalance. On one hand I had put in this huge heroic effort to accomplish something mysterious and significant, and on the other hand I had this mystical sense of everything being chill, nothing being a big deal, feeling like problems in my life were not actually a problem. So I was super eager to tell people they should do vipassana and look at all the cool stuff that happens and its so hard but so worth it, etc... honestly I was overbearing and not really feeling my audience in my ramblings.

The side I regret the most was... I got into vipassana in search of relief from my problems, my stress, my depression and anxiety, my traumas, etc... and I do feel like the path has helped in so many ways! But after stream entry, there was again, this sense of problems not being problems. Family issues? All just sensations. Depression, anxiety? Just sensations I could blast away with my holy enlightened gigabrain. While there may be some truth to how awakening helps, many years later (before I even started to work on 2nd path), I had a much more important "awakening"...

That "awakening" was that despite my efforts to make my life better through SE/awakening/meditation, my problems such as depression, relationship issues, issues with socialization, etc... just all of it really, it was all still there. And I realized that blasting the sensations of that stuff away with vipassana was actually a cover-up for the really important truth: I'm still a human, with human needs and emotions, with all the regular development needs of a human. Where I thought I could supercede my human problems with meditation, I realized I left messy relationships, uncontended depression and anxiety and trauma, elements of natural human growth I thought I had sidestepped, etc...

So my realization was, I need to continue to commit to my regular life, commit to examining my emotions and thoughts, issues I deal with and have dealt with in my life, and not with vipassana, but with therapy, regular introspection, healthier habit-building, honesty, maturity, deepening my own self-love and appreciation, and not just through vipassana blasting. This has been and continues to be extremely important to me, and I guess my point is that while awakening is undoubtedly huge and beneficial, I wish I had been more honestly working towards having the best regular life and developing in the regular human ways, with the same zeal I had started vipassana with. 

My experiences in life, my fleeting emotions, these passing moments with those I love, they may consist of sensations, and it's okay to work towards understanding the nature of those sensations... but I feel that there's beauty, maturity, healing, growth, deep fulfillment in being able to acknowledge the importance of vipassana and those truths, while also fully honoring the beauty of your life, the beauty of our vulnerability and human nature, our basic needs to grow in emotion and maturity, in realizing that life is to be enjoyed, relationships and memories are to be cherished, and that even if sensations make all these things up, it's not wrong to appreciate the picture they paint. And most importantly, that it's important to not get in the habit of side-stepping the regular axis of emotional and mental health development! 

Again, I'm not trying to diagnose you or telling you what you need to do or even that I have any idea where you're at with things... I'm really happy and excited for you in your development! I just felt like recounting a little bit of my own experience from the time of my life when I was working towards and past stream entry in the hopes that you might find it encouraging or find some bits that could be worth reflecting on. Again, congratulations and welcome to DhO, hope to see ya around! 
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Chris M, modified 1 Year ago at 7/11/23 5:45 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/11/23 5:45 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

Posts: 5474 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
“And I realized that blasting the sensations of that stuff away with vipassana was actually a cover-up for the really important truth: I'm still a human, with human needs and emotions, with all the regular development needs of a human.”

That’s a beautiful comment. Great realization, and utterly healthy approach to life and practice.

​​​​​​​Congrats!
Julian Wirt, modified 1 Year ago at 7/11/23 6:00 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/11/23 6:00 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

Posts: 37 Join Date: 3/31/23 Recent Posts
Hey! First of all I must congratulate you on beating your video game addiction (at least that's what I'm getting from your post? haha). That shit is serious. Idk if you heard about Apple's new VR/XR headset, Vision Pro -- it's coming out in a year, and it apparently has this really tightly integrated brain-computer interface. Basically they managed to get the latency down below 12 ms, which is how long it takes your consciousness to register a visual signal, so that via eye-tracking this headset would know what you're thinking even before you do. So there are now no technological barriers to this real-time VR integration. For instance, it would be relatively easy to code in a functionality to the effect that when you read a text, and you don't understand some word, a definition just pops up on the right even though you've done nothing to ask for it, and indeed you didn't even register that you don't understand the word, you just looked at it. 

What I'm getting at is, with the way things are going, in a few years there's definitely going to be real-time AI-based generation of 3D interactive content. You can certainly imagine how addictive *those* video games will be! You should really count yourself lucky that you were born when you were and not a few years later.

Anyhow, if I would recommend anything as a slightly older guy that kinda relates to what you wrote, is -- I've gotten a general vibe of grinding and obsession with hierarchical progression from your post. You spend a lot of time thinking about whether this particular experience matched this stage you've read about. This is unsurprising; I think modern video games in general are built like this, to sort of arrest your impulse to self-improve and force it to grind toward passing meaningless milestones. Actually the obsession some societies have with school is quite similar, and if you had a calmer nature you'd probably find switching between video games and school super easy.

What I think a person of your sort would get most out of, is periodically asking, 'what if I actually haven't experienced anything important?', or in shorthand 'what if nothing?'. Just as a safety check! And in general, when perusing any sort of Buddhist/spiritual material, try putting extra focus to those parts of it that say something about "being in the present moment".
Andrew Lyssunov, modified 1 Year ago at 7/12/23 9:27 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/12/23 9:27 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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@mind-over-easy 
Thank you. I agree. 

@chrismarti 
Thank you.

@tetragonites 
​​​​​​​No, I have not beat my internet addiction. I don't play video games for 1.5 years now but I relapse many times with the internet. A comment like this would trigger another relapse. However, I feel less pain from everything now. It feels harder to relapse since the pain is not that bad after stream-entry. So I think theoretically I can go longer on any streak. I just don't know because it's only been 2 days. But right now I technically am getting a small fix. 

I think that in the future we will have a split between people being turbo addicted from birth and never realising that it could be better and those who realise at some point that it's all meaningless and do a full 180. Things like TikTok destroy your neurochemistry like nothing else. Thankfully I never used it. Some people will be stuck in the matrix for ever because they will constantly think "this craving is me" and therefore never question that they actually don't want to do it. I realised 5 years ago that it's not me and took me so long to get something. 

You can't improve if you don't realise there is a problem. 
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Bahiya Baby, modified 1 Year ago at 7/15/23 8:28 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/15/23 6:43 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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How do you feel now?

Has your interpretation of what occured shifted or changed in any regard?

Could you offer a detailed account of your experience of the review cycle and how that has showed up for you?
Andrew Lyssunov, modified 1 Year ago at 7/15/23 12:04 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/15/23 12:02 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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@bahiyababy
I'm past the post SE high and comfortably meditating in second path territory.

Nothing has changed in regards to my assessment.
​​​​​​​
The review stages are so mild that I can't even tell where I am. At best I noticed slight irritatation an hour or so before a cessation but that's about it. I've had 6 cessations but they seem to have slowed down after I started paying attention to second path.
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Bahiya Baby, modified 1 Year ago at 7/15/23 12:10 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/15/23 12:08 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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What does paying attention to second path mean? In a detail rich, raw phenomenological sense.
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Bahiya Baby, modified 1 Year ago at 7/15/23 12:23 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/15/23 12:20 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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The aspects of phenomena which make up your assessment or your experience of second path. Can you percieve them to be impermanent, dissatisfactory and ultimately not self? and how does that occur for you? What sort of space do they arise in? What do you notice about space and its breadth, width or depth? The sensations that make up your experience what color, shape or texture are they? How do your thoughts arise and where do they occur? What sort of emotions are you experiencing and what are they made up of on a vibratory level?

In the above terms:

What differentiates what you're calling first path from what you're calling review & what you're calling review from what you're calling second path?
Andrew Lyssunov, modified 1 Year ago at 7/16/23 9:48 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/16/23 9:48 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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@bahiyababy

First Path/Review makes up the "surface" sensations while 2nd Path makes up the deeper sensations that are harder to meditate on. These sensations expand to everywhere if you pay attention to them. So far I actually find it more difficult to pay attention on a "surface level" because I moved past the post-SE high. I literally can't answer your question in your terms because I don't think in those terms. I don't even know how it would even help you even if I could. It's not that deep. It's like trying to explain what chocolate tastes like. I don't know, chocolatey? Just get there and find out. 
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Bahiya Baby, modified 1 Year ago at 7/16/23 11:26 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/16/23 10:33 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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"I don't even know how it would even help you even if I could."

It wasn't about helping me. Best of luck ;)
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Tony Norris, modified 1 Year ago at 7/16/23 10:38 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/16/23 10:38 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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Congrats!

My mind wandered maybe 20% of the time and every time that happened I felt like my session was wasted.

That's pretty good, my mind is wondering at least 80% of the time in my best sessions.

You sound obsessional, I dont' say that derogitorilly,  I'm a bit envious in fact, reminds of me of when I was into the chess tournament scene some players were so obsessed & I just wanted to win w minimal effort (whih is no way to become a .1% player).

I'm hoping to get from the phase where meditation feels like a "should do" chore I push off & delay to a joy that I feel is building me up & I look forward to.

I'm nowhere as near addicted to tech/internet as you but maybe that's why I'm not totally sick of it yet.

Anyway, keep up the good work & thanks for sharing.  I'm also a Frank Yang fan, that's how I found Ingram.

​​​​​​​Where are you from?
User 08, modified 1 Year ago at 8/1/23 11:14 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/1/23 11:14 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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Congrats!!! You didn't mention what you were experiencing--if anything--immediately before stream entry (aside from wondering if you were going to attain it on the toilet, haha). Was there nothing in particular you can identify that you did that may have caused it (other than meditating for 6 hours that day and very consistently prior to that)? (Sorry if I missed that you did mention this somewhere.)
Andrew Lyssunov, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 2:15 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 2:14 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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@narz

Second generation Russian Irish. Apologise for late response, I was burnt out from getting triggered from online responses so I didn't really want to reply to anything at that point

@user08

​​​​​​​Yeah that's about it, no specific event in particular that caused it. I'm guessing I would've gotten a cessation elsewhere if I happened to go somewhere else instead of the bathroom.
Andrew Lyssunov, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 2:15 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 2:15 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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@narz

Second generation Russian Irish. Apologise for late response, I was burnt out from getting triggered from online responses so I didn't really want to reply to anything at that point.

@user08

​​​​​​​Yeah that's about it, no specific event in particular that caused it. I'm guessing I would've gotten a cessation elsewhere if I happened to go somewhere else instead of the bathroom.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 5:14 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 5:11 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

Posts: 7135 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Andrew Lyssunov:

Apologise for late response, I was burnt out from getting triggered from online responses so I didn't really want to reply to anything at that point.


As happy as I am that you experience lots of relief (yay!), it sounds to me like you could get moore free than this. This is not typically something that would happen to someone who just had stream entry, and even less so for someone who got second and third path (which you claimed to get in another thread). I would recommend that you investigate the selfing involved in the reactivity, very gently. Be compassionate with yourself and don’t overdo it.


Yeah that's about it, no specific event in particular that caused it. I'm guessing I would've gotten a cessation elsewhere if I happened to go somewhere else instead of the bathroom.


You are going to need to develop your phenomenology and curious investigation of mind moments more than this if you want to deepen your practice. Not every moment of not being present to what happens is a cessation. On the contrary, there is a profound presence to what leads up to one. If that’s not in place, it’s probably not it.
Andrew Lyssunov, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 6:17 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 6:00 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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@pollyester

"Place" is a concept of your mind. There is no place in meditation, only sensations. You could be doing literally anything and get a cessation provided you're actually meditating. That's why it literally doesn't matter where you get a cessation. If anything, if you have a "profound presence" then you're almost certaintly too hyped to get a cessation. Literally all my fruitions happen when I dose out or look in the distance. It's almost crazy how it feels like I can just summon a cessation at will after a few hours of not meditating by simply dosing off. 
​​​​​​​
And no, feeling triggered or resentful a few days after SE is completely normal simply because it's not enlightenement. It feels good, sure, for a few days, but then you realise that there's still so much to go. You don't automatically become a god just because of 1 path. You need them all. After 3th Path, SE in retrospect was barely anything compared to what I have now. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 6:49 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 6:49 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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Okay, dude, I can see that this was unwanted advice. I don't wish to trigger you further so I'm going to take a step back, but since I'm also a moderator I feel that it's my responsibility to say that with any other participant of the forum than me, you might want to make sure you aren't burning your bridges in case you will eventually welcome some advice. 
neko, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 8:07 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 8:07 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö
Andrew Lyssunov
Apologise for late response, I was burnt out from getting triggered from online responses so I didn't really want to reply to anything at that point.
This is not typically something that would happen to someone who just had stream entry, and even less so for someone who got second and third path (which you claimed to get in another thread). 
Amusing to see ideas of emotional perfection being stated as fact here of all places.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 8:53 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 8:52 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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Fair point, if interpreted like that. That's not what I intended. I just become somewhat wary when someone comes here and claims getting first path in two months and then second path in two weeks and third path a few days after that while erasing posts and radically changing posts back and forth and getting triggered. Wouldn't you? 
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Chris M, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 9:09 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 9:09 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

Posts: 5474 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
I just become somewhat wary when someone comes here and claims getting first path in two months and then second path in two weeks and third path a few days after that while erasing posts and radically changing posts back and forth and getting triggered. Wouldn't you?

​​​​​​​It's concerning that there's so little experiential/phenomenological information to back up the claims being made. And there's no evidence that the person truly understands the progress of insight, so they could be misinterpreting their experiences or just making stuff up. I'm waiting for more detailed reports and hope for less BS.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 9:18 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 9:18 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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Yeah, that was my thought too. And I have seen so many cases when people get in trouble because they get invested in progress and therefore bypass stuff that they might benefit from working through, whether or not one believes in any "emotional perfection" (I surely don't). That's what I meant but I probably wasn't phrasing myself very well. Thanks for helping me clarify! 
Andrew Lyssunov, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 10:13 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 10:12 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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@pollyester

Just because I rebuke your advice doesn't mean I don't want advice. I literally explained why I deleted the post in my other post. It just looked cleaner that way. It provided not much context other than a question on my experience so I thought it wasn't necessary. Claiming I am radically changing posts like I am trying to appeal to someone on this forum for attention as opposed to trying to encourage people to not get brainwashed by the far fetched claims that SE or other paths take years of being a monk to achieve is just malicious lol.

@chrismarti

What else am I supposed to say? Repeat that I am doing choiceless awareness 100000 over daily and copy paste that? I literally do not have much to add so I don't add it. Meditation is not that deep. What else am I supposed to say about the progress of insight? Again, it's not that deep. There's a high, there's a low, there's equanimity. Your brain doesn't have much more emotions that that.
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Chris M, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 10:40 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 10:37 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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What else am I supposed to say? Repeat that I am doing choiceless awareness 100000 over daily and copy paste that? I literally do not have much to add so I don't add it. Meditation is not that deep. What else am I supposed to say about the progress of insight? Again, it's not that deep. There's a high, there's a low, there's equanimity. Your brain doesn't have much more emotions that that.
​​​​​​​

This explains a lot to me. I suggest you search around DhO and read the meditation logs of some people here to see the difference between what they reported and what you're reporting, i.e., choiceless awareness. There is a stark difference in the amount of detail, the depth of their knowledge of the progress of insight, and their meditation experiences. They did not report just their high-level process (again, choiceless awareness), which you seem to do. They reported on their moment-to-moment experiences while meditating, the nature of those experiences in great detail, the resulting insights, the effects these had on them, and many other things.

Please try.
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Siavash ', modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 11:36 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 11:36 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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@nek neko
Great to see you back emoticon
​​​​​​​I hope all is well with you emoticon .
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 12:00 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 12:00 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

Posts: 7135 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts

Just because I rebuke your advice doesn't mean I don't want advice.

Agreed. I merely meant that I could see that my advice was unwanted. That is fine.
neko, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 2:13 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 2:13 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö
Fair point, if interpreted like that. That's not what I intended.


Isn't it? You seemed pretty explicit and clear about it.

Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö
I just become somewhat wary when someone comes here and claims getting first path in two months and then second path in two weeks and third path a few days after that while erasing posts and radically changing posts back and forth and getting triggered. Wouldn't you? 


This is another matter.

1) I have not followed the posting and edit history of Andrew Lyssunov, so I cannot comment on that as a whole.

2) I consider the four paths model to be so flawed as to be unserviceable and too often conducive to getting embroiled in pointless discussions with very religious people, so when someone claims second and/or third path I tend to shrug it off as meaning fuck all unless a very substantial amount of effort is invested in defining what one means by that exactly.

3) Cessation, however, is a useful concept and an honest attempt at diagnosis should be made when possible. (Ditto non-duality, FWIW.)

In this vein, full disclosure. I did read a version of the original post a few days ago, and I wrote a reply asking whether there was anything that looked like cessation for OP, since what he described at that point sounded like some form of Equanimity and/or A&P. I almost immediately deleted my comment, because it is not really a discussion I have the energy and health resources to get into. In fact, I probably won't be able to follow up further on the matter. (People subscribed to the thread might have received a copy of the message I deleted by email, for what it's worth.)

Not a very helpful comment on my part, but this is all I can do at the moment.
neko, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 2:15 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 2:15 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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Siavash '
@nek neko
Great to see you back emoticon
​​​​​​​I hope all is well with you emoticon .
Thank you, that's very kind. Not much is well around here though, so I probably won't be back any time soon. Have fun!
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Chris M, modified 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 2:56 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/2/23 2:56 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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Neko --
​​​​​​​1) I have not followed the posting and edit history of Andrew Lyssunov, so I cannot comment on that as a whole.

2) I consider the four paths model to be so flawed as to be unserviceable and too often conducive to getting embroiled in pointless discussions with very religious people, so when someone claims second and/or third path I tend to shrug it off as meaning fuck all unless a very substantial amount of effort is invested in defining what one means by that exactly.

3) Cessation, however, is a useful concept and an honest attempt at diagnosis should be made when possible. (Ditto non-duality, FWIW.)

In this vein, full disclosure. I did read a version of the original post a few days ago, and I wrote a reply asking whether there was anything that looked like cessation for OP, since what he described at that point sounded like some form of Equanimity and/or A&P. I almost immediately deleted my comment, because it is not really a discussion I have the energy and health resources to get into. In fact, I probably won't be able to follow up further on the matter. (People subscribed to the thread might have received a copy of the message I deleted by email, for what it's worth.)

This is very well stated. I do, however, think it's worth having these discussions. Otherwise, anyone can make any claim they want without providing evidence in the form of the details of their personal experience. There are quite a few experienced practitioners here who no doubt have the same issues with the OP that you do, that Linda does, and that I do. This place, DhO, was not created to allow anyone to claim anything at all without being asked for more than just the stating of the claims.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 1 Year ago at 8/3/23 10:58 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/3/23 6:05 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

Posts: 7135 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
In reply to neko: I definitely do not adhere to any model that states that somebody who has attained insight is automatically incapacitated with regard to any unskillful action. However, it should make it easier to identify reactive behavior when it occurs and do something about it, which includes — for the benefit of all sentient beings — taking a step back and thinking "hey, maybe with all this identity attachment stuff coming up and limiting me all of a sudden, there's still some basic stuff that I haven't seen, so maybe it's more important to address that here and now than to position myself as some spiritual wonderchild". That doesn't require any kind of emotional perfection, just some common sense and some putting things into proportion. Also, it's not a position that diverges from MCTB2, so it is not funny to express it on this forum. Maybe you should reread the book.

Edited to add: OP, for what it's worth, I'm sorry that this discussion has made us talk about you as if you weren't here. I did not want this to be the way you received this kind of feedback. Also, I really did not phrase myself well. I think staying off the internet for a while was a skillful choice in a situation of being triggered. Lots of people have made claims like yours here while making a reactive mess all over the place. You were wise enough to wait until you were less triggered. So yes, it would have been more relevant to just ask you about the phenomenology (it's just that I was assuming that the questions on phenomenology were part of what had been triggering you on the internet so I didn't want to add to that). The rest was just unsolicited advice. Maybe I should have just shut up. It's just that things started to look a little bit frantic and ungrounded and it actually made me worried because sometimes it backfires for people. I hope you're okay and that your practice is benefitting you and that I'm just unnecessarily wary. 
neko, modified 1 Year ago at 8/3/23 12:54 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/3/23 12:54 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö
However, it should make it easier to identify reactive behavior when it occurs and do something about it, which includes — for the benefit of all sentient beings — taking a step back and thinking "hey, maybe with all this identity attachment stuff coming up and limiting me all of a sudden, there's still some basic stuff that I haven't seen, so maybe it's more important to address that here and now than to position myself as some spiritual wonderchild". That doesn't require any kind of emotional perfection, just some common sense and some putting things into proportion.
I won't comment on what it should do because that's a subjective value judgement, just that it doesn't: There's enough psychopaths going around with various degrees of awakening you don't even need to look very hard to find evidence of that.
neko, modified 1 Year ago at 8/3/23 1:20 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/3/23 1:12 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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Chris MThis is very well stated. I do, however, think it's worth having these discussions. Otherwise, anyone can make any claim they want without providing evidence in the form of the details of their personal experience. There are quite a few experienced practitioners here who no doubt have the same issues with the OP that you do, that Linda does, and that I do. This place, DhO, was not created to allow anyone to claim anything at all without being asked for more than just the stating of the claims.
Just to be clear, it's discussions about what Daniel calls second path and third path that I don't generally get overly excited about. I find that in practice it is often (but not always) too difficult to diagnose them with certainty. Cessation and non-duality are another thing, because cessations have a bunch of technical markers that one can point out and look for, particularly when it comes to practitioners with strong concentration and microphenomenological clarity, and non-duality is so very not subtle.

Perhaps more importantly, the first and the fourth claims are much more important than the second and third ones when it comes to practice and development. Someone who has indeed attained the first but not the second and the third ones and thinks otherwise will find out soon enough if they practice properly --- and they are probably practicing properly anyway because the way they should be practicing is roughly the same either way, so it's not that big of a deal where on the path they think they are. If you decide to work on fourth when you are on first, you will hopefully get to second and third anyway eventually. (And frankly, who cares about social points for the middle paths?)

It is, however, a serious problem if someone believes mistakenly to have attained first or fourth, because they are probably practicing incorrectly under that belief, they may never find out, and they won't progress.

And that's leaving aside the baggage that the four paths model carries with it, specifically the whole ten fetters bollocks and ideas of psychological development, let alone perfection. It is much more important to counter superstitious beliefs about what awakening is than about who has or hasn't attained it. If the ideas about what it is are correct, then ideas about who has attained it will fall in line naturally, but not the other one around. Teaching people to fish and all that.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 1 Year ago at 8/3/23 1:55 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/3/23 1:48 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

Posts: 7135 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Agreed, but as far as I know psychopaths typically don't display a sudden frantic behavior, but are more manipulative and sly. This just looked to me (through my own biasses and from the context of previous posts changing the claims back and forth from having attained both first and second path super fast to no it was just a bad dark night to oh actually now I've got third path and then getting triggered when people ask about phenomenology — if that was what the internet triggering was about; I may have misinterpreted that) like maybe things got a little bit intensive a little too fast, which very often makes people lose judgement a bit and both overclaim attainments and continue to practice frantically and sometimes fry themselves, which would be a bad thing (again, value judgement, of course, but I'm gonna assume that most people would prefer not frying themselves). I could be wrong. As I said, it was unsolicited advice (indeed involving a value judgement) and I was phrasing myself badly. I can understand that it looks like I'm making a claim about how people will behave on the path, but the way I see it it's a matter of probability. I find that usually when someone makes claims like this in rapid succession here on Dho, while having a similar posting pattern, it turns out that they got in way over their head and then sometimes they get into trouble (and most of the time it turns out that their claims of attainment didn't hold up, and then that becomes a sensitive issue). I wish I would have said that to begin with, in a respectful way, and then just shutted up. 

I know that there are psychopaths in the dharma, but I think it's much more common for people to just have very human backlashes of reactivity. I sure do. And I'm in a romantic relationship with a guy that was banned from here at a time of crisis, and I do believe he is an advanced practicioner. So please believe me, I really don't think of the path as some kind of guarantee that someone will never act reactively. I really did phrase myself badly, and it seems like I'm still not getting through what I want to say, namely that if things get frantic it might be helpful to let things integrate for a while before jumping to conclusions as the terrain can be pretty destabilizing.

I have seen in real time a friend develop a psychosis here after intense meditative experiences and it started with a rapid succession of path attainment claims. That guy, who was no psychopath but an amazingly sweet and kind guy with a wonderful sense of humor, then challenged Daniel on a magickal duel, kept demanding of Shargrol that he kill his own kids, and apparently threatened Daniel's family, and then he isolated himself from people because he was too afraid that he would hurt someone if it were to happen again. So that's my bias here. That's why I find it extremely important to take a step back and integrate things and work through one's issues. Of course, a psychopath wouldn't be interested in that, but others might.

(In my own experience, it does get easier to notice reactivity and do something about it, but at least so far it still takes work, and I'm definitely not always fast enough.)

Anyway, as Siavash said, it's good to see you back here. May life be kind to you. 
neko, modified 1 Year ago at 8/3/23 2:55 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/3/23 2:55 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö
Anyway, as Siavash said, it's good to see you back here. May life be kind to you. 
Thanks! emoticon
Julian Wirt, modified 1 Year ago at 8/7/23 1:33 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 8/7/23 1:33 PM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

Posts: 37 Join Date: 3/31/23 Recent Posts
Well if meditation is just about feeling emotions isn't doing drugs easier?
Andrew Lyssunov, modified 1 Month ago at 11/1/24 6:29 AM
Created 1 Month ago at 11/1/24 6:25 AM

RE: Achieved Stream-Entry in 2 Months

Posts: 41 Join Date: 7/10/23 Recent Posts
See other threads I wrote about.

I don't really have much to add to any of the replies.

I've been meditating every day for over 1.5 years and my understanding of how to meditate and what to do hasn't changed much. My assessment hasn't changed either.

@pollyester

​​​​​​​Thanks for concern though. 

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