Hello, everyone!

Thought I´d start a practice log and see if it helps to keep me on track, since sometimes it´s so easy to "miss" to meditate.

I have been practising Vipassana alone for a little bit over a year, altough it was more of a hobby and to relax me in the evening. I didn´t even dare to think of enlightenment, since it seemed so far away and impossible for "poor little me". However after reading MCTB and checking this forum out I am completely amazed and totally liberated from that limiting belief! I´m fine with it taking many years, but god damn it I AM GOING TO GET ENLIGHTENED HAHAHA !!!

My motivations are the ending of my suffering, happiness, serenity, love, understanding and all that. I want to learn how to open up, love completely, how to die, how to live, how to choose, how to not choose, how to let go of unwholesome states, to make my mind luminous. My proffessional goal is to become a doctor, joining Doctors Without Borders and my big dream is to one day open clinics where people learn how to cure themselves, instead of being maltreated like today. The clinic would offer medical consultation, meditation, yoga, education, psychedelic sessions with a therapist and lots more! I feel like I could to a lot of good in the world and that is a big part of my motivation.

Other than meditation I am very interested in nutrition, exercise, all kinds of lifehacking


Thank you for reading and any advice, resource recommendation (books, lectures, websites, hacks everything), critic, complaint, compliment and whatever is gratefully accepted!

May there grow flowers in our footsteps!

So I have been starting practising "seriously", sincerely and diligently is better, for the last month as I joined a Zen center in my city. It´s great to have a place to meditate since this greatly increases cushion time and motivation. Also finally I get to meet and socialise with people who want to purify their mind, since I have been feeling more and more lonely the more spiritual I have become.

After reading MCTB 2 weeks ago I increased my cushion even more, since it showed me that Awakening was possible. I am now determined to get to stream entry as soon as possible. I try to wake up at 5o´clock in the morning to meditate (today for example I overslept, it´s hard!), my goal is to meditate 2 hours in the morning, 1 hour in the evening and to try to be as mindfull as possible during the day with the help of noting. I mainly practice concentration, counting to 10 while feeling the whole body, and metta.

I have also started to clean up my act in the rest of the domains of life: Making my diet more strict, try being more ethical, stop hanging out with people of low character (including 2 of my previously closest friends who have changed a lot the last months to the worse), and making my life a lot more boring in different kinds of ways. Just the boringness is a great tool for me and keeps me on the right track.

Thank you for reading

hell ya man! Good to hear! Indeed, if you want enlightenment and you put in the time, you can attain it! Don't get ahead, of yourself, make sure to shoot for reasonable logical goals, but by all means set your sights on insight. You got it!

It doesn't seem like you specifically want advice, but if you do, people are no doubt happy to give it. Cheers!

thank you, DC!

actually I do have a couple of questions, altough I know that for now and some time a head I just need to meditate and meditate some more.

1. What is Dharma Overground´s view on psychedelics? They certainly can be chaotic but I´ve gained deep insights by them

2. I have joined a zen center in my city where I go as often as I can to meditate, however I also enjoy the theravadan tradition doing metta and striving to reach the jhanas. All the lists are great too. Is it possible to combine the 2 paths or should I choose one and stick with it?

3. How important is it to live a calm life, a "monastic city life", in order to gain deep concentration states and gaining insight, or just a good meditation session? If something make you mentally excited should you try to avoid it if possible?

Those 3 questions are the ones I´m thinking on for the moment

These are my personal opinions on these subjects.


1. The purpose of meditation is not to merely gain a glimpse of the ultimate state, but to attain the progressive stages which lead to full enlightenment, the eradication of dualistic confusion. Thus psychedelics fall short of the goal. In addition as you noted they create disturbance in already chaotic mental conditions. While it may be that psychedelics could provide a glimpse of the ultimate state and thus provide motivation, this is not without peril of distraction and misinterpretation. My own basic view is that psychedelics are wholly unneeded on the path to enlightenment. What is needed is genuine inspiration and desire to attain enlightenment.

2. By all means it is possible to combine two paths. Personally I practiced mainly in the Tibetan tradition, but I got my serious start of the path of attainment by following MCTB. Go with what you feel to be most beneficial, but truly MCTB is a great resource and serves as an excellent basis for practice.

3. In my experience, for gaining concentration, morality is the best support. The three pillars in Buddhism are quite realistic. Morality is the basis for concentration, which is the basis for insight. The 5 precepts in this case serve as a good general framework for moral action. The key to gaining insight is constant mindfulness. Deep sessions of meditation are not to be solely counted on, frankly I think what matters more is a strong continuity of mindfulness throughout daily life in conjunction with regular daily meditation. As for mental excitement, again, what matters most is that you are able to maintain mindfulness in all activities. Mindfulness does not mean a calm mental state or mental control, but rather maintained awareness of what is occurring in your mind. If excited, as far as mindfulness is concerned what matters most is that you can notice this without getting caught up and carried away into unconsciousness by it.

1) Search and read up on it. google this -> site:http://www.dharmaoverground.org psychedelic
2) Ascertain your goal and read up on what will accomplish it the best
3) Don't feed the monkey mind before the cushion or on the cushion...if you practice constantly throughout the day then I'd say be a bit wary of the diet you're feeding the monkey mind. Do not let this hold you back from practicing....you'll just be making excuses for yourself and as you believe it, it will be true for you.

thank you both for your answers!

I have noticed that meditating as much as I can first thing in the morning completely changes the whole day, with regards to being mindful, which in turn starves the monkey mind of it´s nutrients and making me more moral aswell, especially when being considerate to other people. It´s sort of when I workout then I also eat and sleep well, otherwise the workout will feel as a waste of time.

Right now I can notice how I have gotten a "spiritual ego". When I am very peaceful I want other people to notice how peaceful I am haha, it´s riddicilous. I´ve ordered the book Cutting trough Spiritual Materialism, so hopefully that will cure it

Hello everyone again!

I´ve been meditating pretty regularly, morning and night at home, 2-3 evenings in my zencenter and also being as mindfull as I can during the day especially during work which is great.

My concentration have improved a lot, altough I still haven´t gotten into jhana. I have started seeing my thoughtsformations before they actually arise, for example I can kind-of "see" how my judgements pop up about things. Also, I have started to get really tired of my thoughts, like I´m weary of them. I long for silence

The last 4 days though I´ve felt tremendous amount of resistance towards meditation (and also studying). I took a break from everything as much as I could but I still feel it and I don´t want to rest anymore. How do you work with resistance? Do you just push trough it? Or is it alright to take a rest? How can you feel the difference between resistance and the need to rest? I will now search trough the web just wanted to check with you guys, to get a "meditation"-spin on it kinda

May you be safe, happy, healthy and peaceful (I love doing metta btw haha!)

Know thyself
Learn by doing. Push thru the resistance by using diligence. Sit every day for the minimum amount of time you deem necessary to move forward (for me this is 45 min). Do this every day without fail. Not every sit will be productive but by doing it you will learn everything you need to know about yourself.
I give myself a break after each path, I figure I deserve it. But I still sit every day.
Good luck,
~D

Hello everyone, again!

Just wanted to come in and report on my progress.

So it´s now been 4 months of meditation with some periods of a lot of meditation (3+ h and being mindful troughout the day) and some periods with doing nothing (see Resistance in above posts). I am now at a comfortable 1-2 hours meditation/day and a lot of "focus in/out" with some labeling during the day especially while working. However I feel that I get deeper and deeper into it, slowly but surely.

I don´t think I´ve reached jhana yet, however I am experiencing (sometimes) deep peacefullness. I mean amounts of peacefullness where it actually comes in the way of me being an "effective member of society". After a good meditation session I don´t even want to speak, just enjoy the moment. Does this peacefullness become an everyday thing in the future? Like the norm?

Oh, and I´ve gotten rid of my anxiety. I mean totally rid of it, in a way that I actually miss it! So even though nothing much has really happened on the cushion it has had a very big impact in my life.

I do wonder something, about my balls.
I am very tight in my balls. I mean literally the muscles that go into my balls are not relaxed at all. Are the balls some sort of chakra (haha this is hilarious)? I feel a lot of energy down there. I tighten them up especially in situations where I loose my mindfullness i.e. in social interactions, in fear situations etc.

Namaste, gassho,
Voje