Hello everyone, my name is Ben, and this will be where I record my meditation journal/log. Others have recommended this to me, so I thought I’d share my journey through the Dhamma.To start, I’d like to introduce myself and how I was introduced to Buddhism. I am 25 years old. When I was 18-20, I struggled greatly. At 18, I dropped out of college. I was using drugs (mainly weed), indulging in mindless activities like video games, and overall not living a very Buddhist life. Around this time, I got into psychedelics. By the time I was 20, I had experienced a few massive LSD trips. During one of them, I felt like I had a mystical experience—not sure how else to describe it.I had some "realizations" that may or may not align with Buddhist teachings. One particularly influential acid trip stands out to me. I took the acid, smoked some weed, and sat back. I was outside and noticed faces forming on everything like a pattern. When I went inside, my entire vision was engulfed by an overlayed image on reality that was identical to a painting by Alex Grey called
Net of Being (
https://www.alexgrey.com/art/fire-eyes/net-of-being). To this day, I can't tell if the image was overlayed on reality or if reality was being overlayed on this "true reality."Some interesting things I noticed during this trip: the entire painting-vision seemed to be projected from my forehead, and I realized everything was interconnected. That was a huge realization for me. Every time I touched objects, they would ripple like water. It was a life-altering experience. After this trip, I became fully convinced that consciousness was fundamental to the universe. I no longer saw myself as just a small being in a vast world but rather as something deeply interconnected with reality, co-creating it in some way.I’m not sure if this would be considered what people in this community call an "A&P" experience, but if that term refers to a jaw-dropping, life-altering realization, then that was it.After this, I committed to complete sobriety—no substances except for a few phases of coffee and nicotine. I also started trying to contextualize my experience through philosophy, coming across thinkers like Alan Watts. Around this time, I was also put on antidepressant medication, and I felt like my entire world became a 24/7 existential crisis. I was desperately looking for answers, listening to people like Alan Watts, Ram Dass, and Sadhguru.Eventually, after things settled, I started seriously investigating Buddhism. I spent day and night consuming content—reading and listening to Dharma talks. I studied a lot of Ajahn Amaro, Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu, Ajahn Chah (every night before bed), Ajahn Brahm, and all the usual teachers. Then I found
The Mind Illuminated and practiced that method for about a month. After that, I didn’t meditate at all until a few weeks ago. Now, I’m basically in full-blown 24/7 retreat mode.I’m 25 and deal with some very poor health due to factors outside my control. This condition reminds me every day of my mortality and the need to practice to be free. I need to see clearly what makes me suffer and why. But suffering is hard to track down—even in meditation—because the moment I notice it, it disappears.So, this is the start of my meditation journal. I’m not exactly sure how to format it, but I’ll log interesting experiences and recap my progress occasionally. Since I’m only about a week into Sirimangalo’s 3-month at-home meditation course, I’ll start with what I’ve been going through.I’ve been doing an hour a day. The first few sits were moderately easy, but I had difficulty breathing, which made meditation tough due to shallow breath. Everything felt very painful and suffering-heavy. This weekend, that feeling was intensified, and I really didn’t want to practice—but I did anyway.Today, I felt a bit healthier. Actually, the past two days, I’ve been feeling improved. My meditation today was 20 minutes of walking and 20 minutes of sitting in the morning. It felt like a normal session. Then I went to work, noting throughout the day as I usually do. I also actively practice sense restraint—limiting YouTube, limiting shows, and only consuming Dhamma material or sitting with my present experience. One thing I’ve completely stopped doing is playing video games.My meditation today felt unique. It was super efficient. I didn’t set a timer, just did walking meditation, and found myself so in tune with the present moment that I was generating immense energy and not missing any bodily movements. It probably ended up being around 30-40 minutes. For the first time, I transitioned from walking to sitting meditation while fully mindful of all my movements.As always, sitting meditation is difficult due to my shallow breathing, which makes it hard to find the rising and falling of the abdomen. But today, that didn’t really matter. I was able to note many different things. My main focus was the rising and falling of the breath, but I also spent time investigating the pain in my back—trying to find the “self” responsible for labeling it as bad. I did the same with my difficult breathing, searching for the “suffering-maker” behind that sensation. I never found anything, but I remained mindful.Throughout the session—both walking and sitting—I found myself focusing less on verbal noting and more on simply
knowing what I was experiencing. For example, during walking meditation, I just
knew it was my right foot stepping rather than mentally repeating “right foot.” When I felt pain, I simply acknowledged it without over-verbalizing. Normally, verbal noting distracts me, but today, my suffering was completely gone.Later, I did another short session—10 minutes of walking and 5 minutes of sitting—since it’s late and I’m already at 1 hour and 20 minutes of meditation today, plus noting all day. Afterward, I sat by a fire and noticed a faint shimmering effect in my vision. At times, in my periphery, the lamp would shimmer and vibrate slightly. My curtains also seemed to shift to the right for some reason. Maybe this is normal—IDK—but if anyone has any thoughts, let me know!Thanks, everyone, for coming to my TED talk.
