Is arahatship the ultimate failure trip?

"Keep the dharma clean"? How is this possible when the game is complete rigged against you.

Has anyone ever had the "suicide reflex" Its basically a reflex that is like "I want to kill myself" with the knowledge that you can't do it.

Edit. For me it starts at the root chakra, connects to the heart, and the up to the crown.

I've certainly had thoughts & impulses like that.

Have you found anything that helps reduce the depression & increase positive emotions?

I would suggest finding an organization to volunteer for. Do good things for others. Develop a good circle of friends. Socialize. Reflect on all the things there are to be grateful for in this life: food, shelter, nice weather (when it's there), space to move around, shoes, clothes, health, friends, coffee.

As a more specific exercise: count on each of your ten fingers something that there is you could be grateful for. (The "10-finger gratitude exercise".)

Every day, find something nice that you could do for others.

See also the attached article.

Dear Adam,

Talk of suicide rapidly gets a lot of people quite concerned, and understandably so.

Tell me the extent and depth of the thoughts of suicide and something about how you are going to be stable until you can get more help with this where you are on the ground.

I totally agree with someone else's advice to immediately seek help where you are and stop Vipassana practice, if you are doing it, and generally stop all meditation practice beyond just the noticing (when needed) that sensations of fear, sadness, and the like are small and inconsequential things that are worth seeing just as little bits of a much wider field that is ok.

Please forgive me if I alarmed anyone. I am currently having a bit of trouble communicating effectively on this message board. If I tell my parents I am suicidal they don't take it serious anymore after all we have gone through, I suppose I am just pushing the limits of what is acceptable on forums like this and I apologize for that.

I don't know which part of the world you are in Adam, but severe depression can be treated with Ketamine infusion as an in patient. The success rate and degree of relief is very high. Maybe there's a doctor who can help you do this.

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/major-depressive-disorder/new-claims-and-findings-ketamine-severe-depression

The research with dissociatives and hallucinogenics seems much more promising than any other form of intervention so far discovered, especially for severe cases. eg. psilocybin, DMT. But dosage and cleanliness of the drug is essential, therefore medical prescription and administration of the drug is probably quite important.

Hi Adam,

Like Chris, I also have had such thoughts. And I nursed the suicidal thought/plan for a long time because I was quite angry at conditions on the planet even though my conditions were quite comfortable. Social conditions on the planet and my relative impotence to change them pissed me off and when I wasn't pissed about that I was kind of asking non-stop, "Why is it like this?" and from a very depressed mind (I exercised a lot and removed sugars and caffeine as somewhat stablizing countermeasures during that time; this part of my life was before the advent of pharmaceuticals and I don't know how those work, but people may be able to help you evaluate that option). At one point then I began to design a system of suicide that would impact people the least. I lived very remotely (in a very beautiful remote part of the world without many people! I laugh and think, "Wow, I was putting a barrel in the mouth there of all places? That's ridiculous." It was such a beautiful, calm place and I was free to stay there. How amazing that I was creating such a nutty thought all the time, "Don't want to be here, don't want to be here."



So it can be very hard to change habitual thinking when one is living in the habitual place wherein one built the mental habits. It takes very, very regular, dedicated countermeasures of practice to undo a habit in the location it was formed. And even if you moved, it still takes very, very dedicated countermeasures to start building new mental pathways and the old mental pathways take a good while to fade. So if there are suicidal thoughts for 15 years, they can still be there 15 years later, but just without any potency, just like brief silent movie clips.


So if you are ready to take yourself on a mental training experience before you die of any means, I highly recommend, that in addition to traditional help, you start training in friendliness for yourself, your own condition as living animal in this world, right now and have every mental moment directed in kindliness and gratitude. Here is one such training teaching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uirHkgN-pao Else if you are better in a theistic frame, please consider a potent mental re-training tool in that tradition, such as gratitude and "This, too, is God" and relaxing with that. Gratitude is hugely helpful practice and can build metta (friendliness, welcome, kindness) -- even just commit to such mental experiment for two weeks, but every moment the mind is gently told to go to its good practice. Just two pure weeks of experiment.

Clearly, if one has the power to end one's life one has the power to do two weeks immerse in moment-to-moment re-focusing the mind to see things and people with gratitude, kindness, compassion for other people's conditions-actions. When one is so low, it is also I think the most ripe time for such a sincere practice effort.

I would also like to caution you that the suicidal act can be mentally very painful. A friend who did not succeed a few years back (and is very healthy today via his own theistic practice) told me about how time slowed and how very hellish his trip into dying was, the mental anguish all the way down; instead of escaping these thoughts and painful existence, these horrible states seemed to be reifying around him. Being brought back to life it seems he saw he had a lot more choice in his thinking and how he uses his heart-mind.

I see things in terms of cause and effect: if I plant daisy seeds, I likely get the daisy flower consequences. To plant suicide, puts in motion new consequences which are related to their cause. I have no reason to think the consequences of suicidal act would not then also put in motion more painful seeds, and my friend attested to this (up paragraph). From your mental state now, it may be very hard for you to reason this or anything but "wanting out". I hope you give your self a two-week experiment in sincerely retraining the mind positively, suffusively.

I wish you the best, Adam, and thank you for sharing this. A lot of beings experience the desire to not be here. One can effect such a death, but one can also train one's mind-heart to being here well among others despite relative conditions. I don't know what your conditions are, though and what your mind is having to re-train through. For example, when children are abused, their brains and brain stems (I think) have higher vigilance/faster triggers and so one should know if one is also have to train the old "reptilian brain" (brain stem brain) in addition to the big new brain. The countermeasure for physical violence in childhood (or war zone) may also include a lot of physical therapy and learning about how the body is very primed for reactivity and that executive function (self-reflective and decision-making capacity) needs to know it is dealing with a very reactive animal (the brain stem). I hope this makes sense.

Hey CCC. I actually have experimented with DMT in the past. Below is a report I submitted just a while ago for publication on erowid.


I wanted to write a short piece about my experience with DMT.

Why did I do it?

I wanted to find answers. I was looking for the meaning of life. I wanted to "Go deep." I wanted to find contact with the divine feminine. I had an idealistic streak in me, and I followed it to its peak of inspiration/insanity.

My hands shook as I handled the box that contained my sacred spice. My stomach was churning as I opened it.
I had done this substance in smaller doses a few times before, and I knew full well where I would be "going" with its ingestion at higher amount.

And yet, I was fully convinced that despite my previous reactions, that somehow a larger dose would be necessary. I needed to break through, and break through I did.

Have you ever done something where you knew you crossed the line? This was like that, only projected out into infinity. I seemed to recall and experience dying simultaneously into infinity. Words cannot describe this state that I was in.

Needless to say, I freaked out. I could go into detail about different personifications of the wrath I expired that evening, but those I feel are not the important part. It was the feeling of infinite death that left a huge rift in my psyche.

Thankfully(?), the evening didn’t have such a bad conclusion. The drug lefts its permanent mark by wrenching open something in my head that I had “forgotten about.” It was the good side of death. White lights, the whole shebang. Very strong and seemingly pure joy arose, as did peaceful and colorful visions.

I spent the next three years trying to cope with what I had seen. Every action was colored by my fear/desire for the states I had experienced. OCD symptoms, which had previously been manageable, spiraled out of control into full time “dark night” episodes. I lost my job, my girlfriend, and moved into the house with my parents. I would be hospitalized four times for psychosis.

Why did I write this?

I write this A) Because I want people to know what a powerful drug DMT really is. It will change your outlook on life, guaranteed. Because none of the states that you might access will save or enlighten you in and of themselves, it is important to realize that DMT is only a tool to be discarded, and a potentially dangerous one at that. B ) Because I have been chasing my experience ever since it occurred and am trying to move into a better alignment with reality.

Thank you for reading>>>

Thanks Adam.

I think the doses they use with research and treatment are very small. Enough to dislodge or weaken the pesky self just slightly, but not enough to cause premature ego death type experiences. Massive jolts to consciousness seem to always be harmful.

In my DMT experience, I was surrounded by complex morphing fractal entities who seemed mildly interested in my presence. I had been reading a lot of weird literature at this time and I too freaked out. I squeaked out something about an author known for his bleak outlook on life, and how his works were affecting me. Then my ego collapsed, etc. Doing it again, I was outside, and as soon as it hit I became paranoid about these kids playing street hockey near my house. The leaves on the trees turned all pointy and sharp, and I had a sense that I was being taken back in time, back to the age of dinosaurs. Then I realized it was just a bunch of kids playing hockey, Im a dopey hippie who just took a massive dose and that I should remember to breath. As soon as I did that a cloud of faerie streamers erupted from a small hill nearby and rose into the air shouting "YAAAAY".

I'm sharing this not to encourage drug use, but because I think it demonstrates, in a small way, how our thoughts shape our reality and how changing the thought can have a dramatic effect on reality. I think that if the DMT beings have an agenda, it could be dharma related because they seemed really happy that I was able to turn the direction of my trip around like that. I'm not saying that you're in control with these things, but you do have the wheel and the ability to change direction.

And the Divine Feminine is out there, working for you. May you practice well and begin to notice it.