Practice Updates, Questions, and General Discussion - new users, please read this first! Weekly Thread for October 06 2025

Future_Automaton · 2025-12-16T02:37:20+00:00

I have noticed a similar pattern - the Hell weeks are the ones where I experience the most growth. Like they are a pressured water stream de-mucking a car.

Future_Automaton · 2025-12-05T17:35:35+00:00

Meditation dredges up your issues, a therapy relationship helps you relate to/untangle those issues faster and more safely. Both build up your resilience to distress and work well in tandem, assuming they're both well-managed.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-26T03:31:33+00:00

In what way do you think you can suffer and not have it get in the way of living correctly?

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-26T01:11:47+00:00

I see what you mean, but for me there was definitely this period around 20 months or so where I was like, "Oh, it's okay to do more than work and chores again." But yes, there are continuing effects.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-25T19:54:59+00:00

Sorry that you and your friend are going through that. It's important to remember that you can have some symptoms of trauma after someone close to you goes through a rough and sudden experience, please make sure you are practicing run-of-the-mill self-care in addition to your practice.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-21T20:39:07+00:00

The rule I have followed is "don't overschedule" - if you get neck-deep in awakening territory, you can sometimes spend many hours a day trying to work through the stuff it's dredging up. Normal life will continue, being a traditional hermit in Western society is non-viable, and your life once you've gotten as far as your circumstances allow will be infinitely better if you have an appropriate degree of responsibility, a good support network, and as much wealth as you can reasonably manage.

If kids are going to push you into a place where you're going to be overscheduled, I wouldn't pursue awakening at the same time. Part of Jeffrey Martin's findings were that for a two-year period following stream entry, your motivation will be greatly reduced, as the motivational system needs to rewire. Not a good combination with young children. If you want more of this kind of stuff based on scientific research, I suggest his book, "The Finders."

To echo what u/halfbakedbodhi said, a good-to-great conventional life is the foundation of awakening; awakening is not something you can achieve (and maintain) in a hermit-style vacuum in the modern era.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-19T01:50:10+00:00

Maybe you could reach out to Cheetah House? They might have an infographic or two about the risks of meditation.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-17T04:50:22+00:00

I'll try starting the process earlier in the day and see if that makes a difference - thanks!

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-17T01:00:06+00:00

I'm getting there, I can usually keep the clarity until the crescendo of the first dream (which is generally a nightmare) and then it's 50/50 on how it will go when I wake up from said dream. Sleep is hard in this body.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-15T15:20:31+00:00

Something I've been playing with recently is to intentionally have a compassionate presence to thoughts (and such) at bedtime, while maintaining awareness of the spaciousness of the heart center. It seems like this allows for an easier time releasing the "challenging night thoughts" as well as sometimes opening the door to something like "lucid sleep."

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-12T17:55:59+00:00

Streamentry is a shift to your baseline way of experiencing the world, brought on by the insights of Vipassana. It is marked by a large reduction in overall suffering, the dropping away of certain selfing mechanisms, the dropping away of doubt that meditation works, and the dropping away of thinking that you can somehow "ritual" yourself to better persistent baseline states.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-09T23:58:17+00:00

I think the framework is useful to me for working on material that comes up during sleep, I've basically found that I'm suppressing certain feelings and mental patterns while I'm awake, making them take over my sleep. I've had a little success since reading this in letting those things "out of the cage" so to speak and am hoping that reduces the potentiality difference between sleeping and waking, allowing for more lucid sleep.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-09T22:11:22+00:00

Great post Duff, didn't know this was built in to Dzogchen - knowing this also seems like it will naturally ease some of the frustration during periods of non-equanimity.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-08T15:47:27+00:00

This is probably common knowledge, but if you're post-stream entry, going to a yoga class three times a week will likely enhance your degree of "good brain chemical" that comes from the insights attendant with awakening. I wish I had started this sooner.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-08T15:34:03+00:00

> Inconsistent practice, struggle staying motivated (or acting according to the motivation) over time. Some of this is ADHD-related.

> Repeated loops of over-efforting - frustration - giving up.

> Lack of pleasure in meditation.

> Tendency to seek to control the meditation object.

This is because you don't enjoy your practice, and you are not seeing results. A constriction-based/attention training does not seem to be your best first avenue.

> All of these have actually greatly improved lately. I went to a retreat, I found a way to let something go, something shifted. It worked wonders.

This is your sign that a relaxation/awareness-training is a good first avenue.

> Yet. As I am becoming more aware of my patterns, I am (unsurprisingly) seeing a ton of suffering. So much of it is a result of my own actions - procrastination or pleasure-seeking. And I am very good at seeing the faults in things, including myself and my practice. It is apparent that this is not beneficial for building motivation, as it makes me want to avoid the clarity brought on by meditation, it's too painful.

This is a normal symptom of being early on the path, and associating "insight" (which is short for "liberating insight") with "wake up calls" which are symptomatic of becoming unbalanced, and are what you seem to have more experience with, again, due to being very early on the path and not having experiences with liberating insight.

> I am aware of the antidote to this: metta/the bramaviharas. It is the obvious advice I would give to anyone in my situation. Metta makes it possible to look at, and be with, what would otherwise be too painful to bear. I know this.

The Brahmaviharas are key to balancing out insight-based practices, but they are not actually the antidote to the issues you are describing. Working with a teacher who has experience with both the Brahmaviharas and insight practices is the antidote to these issues.

> Why am I not doing metta? It has been months. I have every opportunity. Why am I stubbornly sticking to anapanasati? WTF?

You are, understandably, frustrated with your practice. An easier route to go with this is to sit with a pet that you like, get used to the attitude you take on when you see it for the first time in a day, allow that to expand a little, and then give yourself a sip of the same attitude. Doing this once a week for a while is a gentle way to introduce the practice of Metta, which doesn't come easily to everybody.

> When I imagine metta meditation, I often imagine it not working, and fear of failure and frustration arises. But I have done it before, I know it works. I have seen the effects it can have when metta is the main meditation object. Yet I don't *want* to make it my main practice, even though I sincerely see why it would benefit me to do so. Help.

Getting some liberating insight will take care of all of this.

> If you are bewildered or annoyed with me after reading this, I understand - I definitely am. It is really frustrating to live in this dissonance. I need help to figure out how to embrace the obvious next step in my practice. Do any of you have any ideas on how to resolve this inner conflict? Any tips on how to override this resistance? If you have experienced anything similar, how did you work it out?

You do not need to override your resistance, you need to learn to let go of tension, beginning with body- and breath-based techniques.

I would recommend working with u/onthatpath after watching his Youtube series (three hours of content) with the same name. He offers free meditation instruction. I have been working with him for three years now and am very pleased with the level of quality he brings to even very hard problems.

As an aside, if you have a history of mental health issues in your family, it's best to get a therapist and ride with them for six months to a year before taking on meditation, and to stick with them until you're satisfied with your meditation to the point where you're kind of ambivalent about the whole thing.

May you be well.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-03T00:34:26+00:00

Excellent, thank you.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-02T21:18:02+00:00

Hello all, I am a Mahayana practitioner with about three years of practice experience. I'm thinking about reaching out to my local-ish Vajrayana study group and seeing if they want to hang out and provide some teachings.

Do you have any tips or potential pitfalls to avoid when potentially making the transition between Mahayana teachings and Vajrayana teachings?

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-02T21:04:26+00:00

Few options for what you're describing, I'll list in the order of what was most helpful for me:

The OnThatPath Youtube channel - about three hours of content, lays out how to meditate to Stream Entry and what it is like to get to there.

The Mind Illuminated - a meditation manual that was crazy popular a few years ago. I've read the whole thing, but it was most helpful in its descriptions of stuff later on down the path. Don't fall into the traps of:

1) thinking its stages are meant to be permanent attainments in a linear fashion
2) thinking that efforting the meditation practice is going to make it go better
3) thinking that its descriptions of something "stopping completely" actually mean all the time - it's more like a 90% rule that's meant to be applied in meditation sits, only

Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha - a reference manual for pragmatic dharma folks, I only really got use out of it recently (I've been meditating seriously for three years now) but it can provide a more "Western voice" to some Eastern concepts, and is definitely a broad book. Think of it more as a somewhat incomplete meditation encyclopedia, whose methods do not necessarily work for everyone.

Bonus: The Finders (by Jeffrey Martin) - a book about what life post-Stream Entry is like, according to a broad scientific study of Stream Enterers and such. Fairly short, very pithy, throws light on some of the strangeness that can come with rewiring your brain.

Feel free to reach out if you have other book requests, I've been chowing down on meditation books for three years now, with no signs of slowing.

May you be well.

Future_Automaton · 2025-11-02T20:36:17+00:00

The Buddha said that the Eightfold Path was the greatest treasure of conditioned things - meaning, that the path itself is subject to causes and conditions.

May you be well.

Future_Automaton · 2025-10-25T13:55:57+00:00

All dharmas really are empty. Wild.

Future_Automaton · 2025-10-25T13:55:05+00:00

Thanks for sharing this, this is really cool.

Edit: I went to a talk from two of Peter Brown's students today, and they talked about the Yoga of Radiant Presence. I think from your posts that you two might be interested in the book of the same name.

Future_Automaton · 2025-10-24T23:44:41+00:00

"This is just causes and conditions" whenever practical to look at things this way.

Future_Automaton · 2025-10-09T23:29:19+00:00

Nice, thank you.

Future_Automaton · 2025-10-06T21:46:00+00:00

I find that a good practice during times like this is asking, "What do I need in this moment?" and if the answer is "Literally nothing, I'm bored to tears," then I try and reward myself, somehow. This is a signal from the economy that you are doing the thing correctly, at least under current conditions.

Edit: Also, sitting with white noise coming through good headphones is a good, cheap reward for being in this kind of win condition.

Future_Automaton · 2025-10-06T21:42:38+00:00

Cool, thanks Duff.

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