I like the idea of having a Practice Journal here. I also like the idea of creating multiple "Posts" as if I were separating my logs into "books", so I gave this an interesting title based on my Latest Dream with Daniel M Ingram.

Without further ado, let's start

- date: 20241223
- object: earth kasina
- duration: 30 minutes
- goal: develop samadhi whilst balancing energy (counterbalance intense kasina practice of two days prior)



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takeaways
- when excited about developing stronger concentration, let it develop naturally. Blocking the excitement because “it's not part of the meditation object” will diminish attention
- attempt to maintain natural blinking whilst doing visual kasina practice

 
See you next time

Awesome! Excited to see your progress, welcome

I've been doing some experimenting with kasinas lately as well, so my notes may be helpful! (But don't feel obligated to use them if you don't want)

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/33382542#_com_liferay_message_boards_web_portlet_MBPortlet_message_33126756

> material objects have a huge power for grounding energy! (They are essentially earth kasinas).

This is gold, dude! I realized that rocks / stones are obviously great tools for Earth Kasina, but from the principle of Solidity, any object is Earth Kasina.

This book on Jhanas (extremely thorough) talks about the Solidity aspect of Earth, as opposed to:
- Fluidity (water)
- Heat (fire)
- Lighteness (wind)

I want to focus on other Meditation Objects because of this amazing resource (which is referenced on Daniel's "Fire Kasina"), but I will definitely get to Earth eventually.

I am very interested in Zazen and Zen practice in general, since at this point I know a lot (at least theoretically) about Theravada Practice.

Thanks for the insightful comment!

For an elemental ladder experience you might like also the Tibetan book of the dead or any other place that talks about the panchabhutas. Even the episode of the Last Airbender on the avatar state. Vedic literature has a lot of fire elements, my favorite being the story about the infinite fire pillar of the Shiva lingam and how Brahma finds an end but Vishnu falls endlessly. I like some western esoterica for the elements like the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram but the space element akash is kind of hidden in western esoterica and I think the space element is probably the most juicy element to contemplate.

If you are interested in Zen and Zazen I would advise you to join a local Zen center and follow their way of doing zazen and then see if really you prefer it. Im saying this as I too thought Zazen was for me but after being part of my local Zen center for several months I realised that was not my thing. This helped me remove some wishful thinking and put energy where I was most serious about my practice. 

Best wishes! 

Thank you for the comments, friends!

@heisenbug I am so familiar with Avatar: the Last Airbender as to be hilarious. I actually have dreamt with my "dream body" being several of the characters of the show, and also dreamt with the villains several times.

Tibetan book of the dead is on my Reading List and I actually already found some very useful tidbits in it when I skimmed through the book before buying. Thanks for the recommendation!

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@che I really like Zen Poetry and writings, but the practice of zazen per se? I don't understand how it's any different from reguar vipassana / mahavipassana, which I already do.

I picked up a few Zen books to read but I couldn't diggest "The 3 pillars of Zen".

Perhaps I should just skip to the Practical Zazen part. The introductions assume I have no formal experience with Meditation which is just strange. Even "Dreaming Yourself Awake", IMHO a more "lay" book, showed more "respect" in this regard.

I found myself reading the Visuddhimagga (yes, the Pali canon Theravada book) instead of Zazen / Zen stuff, and finding extremely useful information about Shamatha practice there.

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More about my practices in the reply below.

Insights from last practices:

1. "Terrain vs Map": We have several Maps for Insight and Concentration practice, and I realized that I find myself constantly trying to "fit" my practice into specific Maps, when the "Terrain" - actual experience - is MUCH MORE important.
This happens a lot when I am doing samadhi, when I keep wondering:

"What Jhanna is this"?
Obviously, just thinking about this is an instance of one of the 5 Hindrances (lack of faith), which instantly drops me out of Access Concentration or even Higher Jhannas

2. Improvements on Earth Kasina and Nimitta (sign)
It takes me only mere seconds now to see the Nimitta during Earth Kasina practice, which is usually a colored aura covering the object (I use brown discs, brown / green balls and rocks). I can close my eyes and see the "Murk" that Daniel discribes in "Fire Kasina", which is a sign of the Third Jhana.

I have seen green auras (Heart Chakra), Cyan (Throat) and White (Eigth Chakra). I was actually doing Vipassana, not Samadhi, using the Brown Ball as Meditation Object / Subject, which was an interesting realization for me. 

3. Attempting to reach Eye-Open Nothingness / 7th Shamatha Jhanna
One of my "fun hobbies" nowadays. I have already reached Nothingness a couple of times during intensive practice and hypnagotic / dream states, so I will probably have some useful tips about this Jhanna in the future. Stay tunned!

First tip: "Reminder":
The books (for example the Canon Visuddhimagga) instruct us to pay attention at the Nothingness of experience by using such "Vocal" reminders as saying "Nothing", "Empty", "Void", etc in our heads whilst meditating. I have found these other words useful:
- Meaningless: that is, stop payig attention to Sensory / 6 doors experience because it is ultimately devoid of meaning and No-Self
- Inexistent: mixing No-Self knowledge seems to make it more likely to reach this Jhana (something that can also be observed on N.S)

No word reminder: probably the most important, doing a "Non-Mental Vocalization" reminder. My favorite is Inhaling.
Rationale: it's easier to Close the 6th door (Mind) if you deny its usage.

Second tip: "Closing doors"
Instead of trying to Close all Doors at once to reach Nothingness, close one or two instead. Obviously closing your eyes would help.
I find the easiest door to "Close" is touch, but the most important to close is probably "Thought / Feelings".

Parting tips for Nothingness:
- You need to get used to maintaining awareness without thought (remembering that in Nothingness, there's just Awareness and a completely Pitch Black experience)
- Get Really comfortable with the Base of Neither-pleasure-nor-pain / Equanimity (Fourth Jhanna)

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Let me know what you think!

Hope you can understand the phenomenology and see you again soon!

Hello, friends. 

My post on a request for a List of Self-Proclamed Arahants got quite a bit of attention. I logged today and saw over 10 notifications on it.

I confess I lost some of the interest in the subject after reading the thread. It was pointed out to me that it was an extremely weird request, and I can't argue much against it. A friend of mine did send me a link with a list of "awake" people (alegedly), so I might look onto that in the future.

Allow me the benefit of not replying there since I am erring to the side of "maybe that post was a mistake to begin with".
However, if you do consider yourself an Awake being and would like to tell your story, please DM me

Let's talk about practice.

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I have had my most lucid dream ever after my first official session of Zazen.
It is an extreme paradox as "Dreaming yourself Awake" suggests the development of samadhi for Dream control, not vipassana. ^^;

I was able to become aware of dreaming multiple times (it was an extremely rough nightmare), "layer navigate" (I dream in Layers), and choose to stay within a particular layer to study a subject I was interested in; then purposefully wake up to write about the dream in my Journal.

So for at least this week, with the success of my Zazen practice (3 sessions* thus far), I have decided to:

1. Invest solely on Zazen for at least one week or until I have useful Insights onto Samadhi practice
2. Develop Concentration through "Non-Meditative" means: Musical Instruments and Hard Videogames

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How did I start Zazen?
20 pages of the book "Moon in a Dewdrop" by Dogen simply gave me enough information. Actually, the practice instructions are contained in a single page. Versus 30+ pages I read from "3 Pillars of Zen".

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Theravada Practice:
Water Kasina, Breath, Nothingness:
Topic for another day.

What I can tell you right now is that I met a person who reached a level of Nothingness (open eyes) so high the Material World "Froze" for her.
She was at a pool, and the water simply stopped moving, according to her account, which I 100% buy, as this person is the Highest Level Magician I know personally and simply has no reason to lie - in fact, the experience mesmerizes her.

I will DEFINITELY pry on her brain and experience to figure out the nuances of the context and maybe try to reproduce. In 1 month

So fascinating, I use the dream realm itself for navigating usually like a Harry Potter port key where everything is a portal to everything. I guess this topology is influenced by encounters with Indra's net. When I am awake or meditate I also use a layer model but it looks more like an emanation mandala or a yoga kosha or a six or 31 realms dharmacakra with the bardo in the middle than a vertical topology like chakra or tree of life. Somatically going in and out feels more resonant than up and down but either seem to work.

Somatically going in and out feels more resonant than up and down but either seem to work.

Fascinating statement. I do not know how to speak about the Layer phenomena yet because I have not seen it in Dream Literature.

But I definitely ressonate with what you say.

Dreams about the Meditation community are getting more and more frequent. 3 in the past 7 days.

Today, I actually dreamt that I took a glance at my "List of Arahants" post, which was bombarding with notifications. In the Dream, a Moderator using a Bear avatar thanked the "OP" for not feeding the post anymore and letting it die.

Curious thing that, when I read it in the dream, it was as if the post was both mine and not mine.

Yet more curious that some part of me that is dreaming seems to care about that post.
Maybe a good interpretationof the Dream is that the Moderator is simply a reflection of a deeper personality part of me that understands that post should be left alone by me, instead of the actual forum Moderator.

I definitely, definitely enjoy this more Jungian analysis approach!

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However, that was not the most interesting Dream (2 out of 7)

In a Dream, I do an absolutely audacious "State Check" - technique used to gain Lucidity by proving that the situation you're going through is impossible, for those that are not familiar.

I try to damage my left arm with a pen. When I hit the arm, the image I see simply distorts, as if the pen was moved against my will to the side of my arm, and the hole that I would create in my arm disappears. That lasts merely 0.5 seconds.
I must have been half-lucid already because I do it again to confirm that indeed that happened, and the effect is amplified.

I then regain full Lucidity, and then the most interesting part: Knowing that Reality itself is just a form of Dream, I try to reach Ultimate Reality comprehension in one go during the Dream by attempting to reach the "Maximum Level of Lucidity" (basically Buddhahood), by simply trying to awake from as many Layers as I can in this single dream.

However, as I do this, I feel more and more that my conscious is rejecting the experience or, even better put, that some form of forces stop me from doing so and, in my last effort to "Subjectively" wake up to Ultimate Reality, I wake up Here.<

Bare with me that this is a completely subjective experience. In the Dream, it does feel that attaining Maximum "Awakefulness" is possible, regardless of my current enlightenment level.

I like seen Reality as "Here". It helps with Lucid Dreaming, seeing Reality as just a very dense Dream. So when I wake up, instead of writing that I "awoke" from the Dream, I say that I "awoke Here".

Practice wise, I am just continuing with Zazen until the end of the month.

I will then do a review of the Practice, main differences and benefits, then continue with more Jhana stuff, elemental Kasines, the kind of stuff I was doing before

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I gave a Guided Meditation to a public mental care institution I participated in. Interesting experience!
Super basic stuff though, just giving some general practice guidelines and the basic "Meditating is not focusing on your breath, and definitely NOT stopping with thoughts for 3 hours"

The shortest depiction of layer stuff is probably from the Mandukya Upanishad.
It is just a couple of sentences and describes a very simple 3 layer + (indescribable) cosmology and how it connects to AUM.. The extra dot is the bindu.

The three layers are wake, sleep and deep sleep and the fourth is the Turiya.

Amazing. I was not familiar with the term, although "4 Layer Dream Theory" is something I have created (or thought I had created until now).

Thanks for bringing it up!
 

Practice wise, I am just playing with Zazen, doing a bit of reading on it and various non-meditative activities that indirectly rise my samadhi.
I am on my Third Zen book (4th, if you count Musashi, which you definitely should).

When I was weak
I practiced for power, and was a fool

When I was powerful
I practiced for wisdom, and was unbalancedWhen I was wise
I practiced for Harmony, and was no more

When I am in Harmony
I don't practice at all

When I don't practice
Sometimes I become a fool
Sometimes I become weakSometimes I keep not being

Written on the 19th of March, 2025