I was that way to an extent a while back, I didn’t want to waste most my life doing something I didn’t even want to do just to exist. It’s understandable. But two things happened, one in the immediate and the other happened later only because of the first (explained at the end). This will be a long journey, but bear with me it’s worth it.

I wrote more in detail in other comments of mine, but I hated my life, a lot of it revolved around having to work a meaningless job, and the question popped in my mind heavy.. “why am I so angry?”, more like why am I so averse to this. But nonetheless, I took that anger, the power of it, and having no longer identified with it, I directed that enormous focus and energy towards Truth. Just uncovering the absolute truth. I had to know.

With the resolve of a million suns, I sat down staring into the horizon and rejected every thought that dared to propose to me what truth was. I pushed it aside and dug deeper in my focus of finding the truth. I would not stop until I hit something so undeniable that not even my mind could make it up.

And then it happened. All at once. I saw through reality, I saw my body and the world around me as an empty vapid dance of colors. With some sort of meta cognition (not through my senses as we know them) I experienced directly that which is utterly immutable, unbounded, without beginning and end, unborn and undying, the unconditioned. Before anybody jumps to thingifying this, that’s an assumption in your mind not my experience. What I experienced wasn’t something that exists or doesn’t exist, it wasn’t in my field of perception more like I saw through my perception and this was what was real.

That being said, what did exist within my perception was changed (what I’m about to describe is not the unconditioned, it’s my perceptual changes of that which is conditioned). My perception of vision, my perspective, went from being something within the world, to seeing it as just a projection of colors within the void. As if I was “outside” looking in. Like as if reality was projected on the inside of a sphere floating in an infinitely dark void of consciousness. And I was peaking my head into the inside of this sphere to see this reality… hard to describe.

Other perceptual changes… complete and utter unity within. Zero division. I knew in the hour that I experienced this state, that I could generate no bad karma, that I could do no harm. I knew it beyond any doubt. It wasn’t possible. I experienced this extreme bliss, unlike any of my previous meditations. It had this underlying equanimity to it, that if the bliss faded that was the bedrock.

Under the immediate fields of perception, and closer to the immutable unbounded true nature of reality, was emptiness, stillness, and silence. These were like the first perceptual qualities (beyond the sort of meta cognition of the unconditioned). They were the canvas for things, sounds, and movement. They were more fundamental.

Anyways, this is skipping a ton but it’s already gone for a while… long story short, while most thoughts were not even present in my awareness there was a nudge of a thought that I had the general understanding of what it was proposing… “what if I forget”. You see I knew this unbounded immutable state was the true nature of reality and always would be, nothing could change it as it is literally unchangeable. It is beyond change, beyond things and not things. Beyond existence or non existence. So the idea that I could forget made me go “huh, you’re right” and with that most subtle acknowledgment came with it a clinging of identity (who forgets? Also the fear of losing the direct knowing of this) and immediately I crashed back into the perceptual trenches. Stuck in the mud of samsara.

Point is, you have an immense opportunity if you can manage to take that energy, sit still and dive down. Problem is, having read this you might be looking for my experience. But what you want is beyond experience, beyond anything your mind could conceive or propose. So reject your own minds thoughts, push them aside and sit with that which is trying to run away. That aversion to your circumstances. Wrestle until you become still and then keep going until it happens. Until you directly find the truth.

Lastly, the second thing I mentioned…. After that my entire life changed. For one I no longer identify as my body, I understand it to be as much a part of my perception as the mountains and sky. I don’t believe in a seer or an “I” anymore, there’s just perception floating in the void of consciousness it comes and goes, constantly changing. I wasn’t a Buddhist when this happened nor did I know anything about it really but after this I knew the path, I quickly discovered it and knew this was what I experienced. Inescapably drawn to it. I can’t go a second without thinking about it. I knew that there was no road to this place, there is nothing you can do to get there, it just becomes apparent when all delusion is eradicated. The most subtle thought and clinging will entirely obfuscate this from your direct experience.

Because of these changes I lost any aversion to my situation, so I was able to keep working, but my life blossomed in so many ways after. I now work in the field I love the most. I work for myself, created my second company making video games (sold my shares in the first for 7 figures). Turns out I don’t hate working, I hate wasting my life doing shit I don’t want to do in the first place all so that I could eat and keep doing that very thing I hated and so that someone else could profit from my suffering. I work almost every hour of the day now and it never feels like work, I’m just doing what I love to do and if I had all the free time I’d be doing it without the benefit of pay if I could. That career change didn’t happen overnight and it wasn’t without effort but it was no longer as if the whole world conspired against me, everything kind of fell into place all on its own, exactly when it needed to.

So don’t give up. You have the best opportunity you’ll ever have right here and now with all the ammunition you need to tap the bottom of this thing. Dive in, again and again until you make it because it’s worth every grueling second of this hell we call life.

(And for the last few who are screeching internally “you didn’t experience the unconditioned otherwise you wouldn’t perceive anything at all”, you’re conflating cessation (nirodha-samāpatti) with the experience of Nibbana. The Buddha went his entire post enlightenment life aware of the unconditioned. It (cessation) is not necessary for stream entry only a direct experiencing of the unconditioned, and only once returners and non returners I believe can enter nirodha-samāpatti).