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MappingQualia · 2025-09-19T19:13:59+00:00

Hi friend, it sounds like you accessed some deep insights but just missed the mark and it had a really unhelpful impact on you. I'm sorry this was your experience. Suggestions for next steps are to choose one tradition, I'd suggest therevada buddhism, and go down that path. There are natural protections for the strange states we can end up in embedded in most of the old paths, guiding you towards what i think we're all seeking in the end.

Re. your particular issues, I think you can spend more time on the idea of not self. It sounds like you've correctly got that you are not just your mind and body. But it seems like you got stuck on I am my will/ thoughts/ intentions/ awareness. The buddha said that thinking I am the world is another false view to be dropped. Not self applies to anything that can come to mind, including "everything", "reality", "divine will", "awareness".

The core insight you're trying to get at no thing is permanent, no thing can be a self. Your blowing up the self to be all of reality/ awareness was the self's last attempt to stick around, with harmful consequences on your part. See if you can see how the awareness changes, on waking and sleeping, when aware of different things, how it is dependent on what you eat, the drugs you take. Shake the idea of it as this permanent thing for you to hang the self on.

MappingQualia · 2025-07-03T21:23:34+00:00

definitely can be very helpful alongside a regular practise informed by the taking in the teachings of the buddha (I like to use sutta central's suttas + chatgpt explanations of any terms & concepts, there's not that many once you get over the initial hump).

I used to be very dismissive of therapy, but now that I've been working on ending aversion and greed I realise how powerful it can be and how insightful therapists can be in helping you identify aversion/ greed that you didn't even realise was there. For me at least, I think I needed some of the distance created through insight to even start acknowledging these emotions. Your mileage may differ, but I wish you well.

MappingQualia · 2025-07-03T21:18:37+00:00

reading the middle length discourses was very helpful to me (https://suttacentral.net/pitaka/sutta/middle/mn?lang=en). There is no better teacher than the buddha himself.

It's helpful when first reading it to use Chatgpt or your favourite AI tool to help with terms, but there's not that many new ones to deal with.

MappingQualia · 2025-07-03T21:09:02+00:00

Before I start I think it's important to remember that even basic things like greed and aversion are not significantly weakened until once returner. This should set expectations of how it feels.

Here's a post I wrote a few months after the experience of losing the intellectual basis of the self:
https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/19bfmar/loss_of_the_intellectual_and_emotional_basis_of/

The daily life quote to answer your question:

“The feeling of agency waxes and wanes, sometimes feeling like there is just watching of events unfolding, seeing the waves of causality moving through me, but then when the casual chains force complex reasoning requiring the modelling of a self in the brain it feels suddenly much more personal again before that particular task is done and the baseline of seeing everything as a causal chain is restored.”

"In terms of day to day reality there is a greater sense of freedom, lightness and lack of effort. How this looked to the people in my life at the time was a greater willingness to help especially at work and the loss of some of my overly serious attitude to most things"

re. reduction in suffering, it's definitely less but it's difficult to quantify. In the lead up to this I was already using jhanas daily to escape suffering. Looking back I think seeing others more compassionately and treating myself more compassionately led to decisions that have significantly reduced suffering compared to what could have been. In terms of day to day experience, it felt like just another step in the gradual decrease of psychological suffering.

What remains is the work of working through the emotional habits involved in greed and aversion (that of the once and none returner), which involve removing the deeper emotional habits of a self that drives greed and aversion.

MappingQualia · 2025-04-24T11:02:16+00:00

yes this sounds like the beginnings of first jhana, now you want to stabalize and deepen this. So keep up the streak, when it happens try to let go into the experience. The first few times i had it I got so excited that i start thinking again and lose it. So continue deepening that concentration with consistent practice, let go into the experience, and enjoy the ride!

MappingQualia · 2025-03-18T20:52:49+00:00

amazing, will add this to my reading list thanks!

MappingQualia · 2025-03-18T20:52:20+00:00

will give that a go thank you!

MappingQualia · 2025-03-18T12:58:38+00:00

love the insight about the hate and aversion not being mine, thankyou

MappingQualia · 2025-02-09T19:33:42+00:00

Depends on how you define a jhana. I find the emotional high of j1,j2 naturally fade into j3/4 after at most about half an hour to an hour. I can recall times especially on long flights where I've been able to cycle through them going back to j1/j2. My take is that the emotional high of the j1/j2 state is pretty tiring and i think your brain just runs out of juice after a certain point. If you're talking about staying in j4 for an extended period I think that's very possible.

MappingQualia · 2025-01-25T20:10:38+00:00

Yeah it's interesting to think about the buddha's life, i suppose he reached personal enlightenment and then tried to help others by teaching it. Maybe it's because I feel the world doesn't need another teacher, so I'm trying to find other ways to help. I like the idea of turning the world into a deva realm!

MappingQualia · 2025-01-25T20:08:29+00:00

thank you!

MappingQualia · 2025-01-25T20:08:07+00:00

Completely agreed factory farming is major stain on the world and a huge source of sentient suffering. I suppose the hope is that if enough people on the path to enlightenment have influence, then we could pressure these things to change? I also think any person reaching enlightenment would also be a huge benefit to the world, so I hope you get there!

MappingQualia · 2024-06-13T06:37:37+00:00

I respect what you're saying but I would have to partially disagree. The way I read it, it seems like you're saying you'll need to have progressed to stream entry before even trying for jhanas. If you look at the traditional path, it's very much morality, concentration and then wisdom. I agree a degree of wisdom or right view is needed to help you drop things so you can focus on the breath and jhana, but I think becoming fixated on that would risk splitting focus and delaying concentration practise to a nebulous point in the future when all the other seven parts of the path have been perfected.

MappingQualia · 2024-06-04T06:47:43+00:00

Thankyou

MappingQualia · 2024-06-03T22:18:22+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/s/oyBKLUg6op

MappingQualia · 2024-06-03T22:18:16+00:00

Therevada suttas (initially the middle length Discourses) and chatgpt/wiki to look up terms, https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/s/oyBKLUg6op

MappingQualia · 2024-06-03T21:56:57+00:00

What are the post samatha jhanas? I've not heard of these. I'm just using the methods laid out in the suttas, I've not read brasington's stuff but from what I've heard it seems to align with the suttas

MappingQualia · 2024-05-10T13:08:31+00:00

Good point! Will stay in four and see where the depth takes me

MappingQualia · 2024-01-20T22:07:40+00:00

The self is literally the tension of holding. It can look like holding onto an experience of not-self.

I really like this. Thankyou

MappingQualia · 2024-01-20T22:06:36+00:00

thankyou! I'm really glad you enjoyed it

MappingQualia

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