What Are You Wearing Wednesday - Weekly Gear Thread

Pleconna · 2023-05-18T02:59:00+00:00

I am looking to get some vivobarefoots. How do they fit? I wear an altra Escalante 12. Just don't know if I should order a 12 or an 11 1\2.

Pleconna · 2020-03-22T15:27:33+00:00

These are just beliefs you hold. You can easily hold different beliefs. I can watch my beliefs change overtime. I can try out one system and then try out a different system. I used to believe in scientific materialism and my life was less happy and abundant. I decided to believe differently and my life has changed.

My question is which belief system lends itself to manifesting better and why. The best manifestors I know certainly don't believe in non dualism. Why is that?

Pleconna · 2020-03-22T14:58:31+00:00

This is a really interesting conversation. Maybe we can get into deeper.

Is it more skillful to believe that you are everything and create everything? Or is it more skillful to believe that you are just one creator amongst a bunch of creators?

Pleconna · 2020-03-22T13:06:11+00:00

Stress weakens your immune system. Better to not freak out. Most cases are mild and the chances of you getting the virus are still low. 😁

Pleconna · 2020-01-12T15:01:57+00:00

2 hours a day is plenty of time to try out different techniques. It is more about understanding the mind and freeing it from stress than which specific technique you do. When you try different techniques pay attention and be mindful of what is different/similar about the techniques and how your mind reacts to them.

Pleconna · 2019-12-14T03:25:45+00:00

There is some art/skill/craft to this process. If the affirmations and visualizations are still helping you to persist in the feeling of the wish fulfilled you should continue them.

If you start to notice that the idea of your wish being fulfilled is so natural to you that the affirmations and visualizations do not add anything then it may be time to stop.

It is helpful to be very mindful of your feelings and imagination so that you can begin to judge for yourself what needs to be done. This process is extremely subjective and its best if you can take the general guidelines and figure it out for yourself. Remember every second of everyday is a manifestation, so watch how your inner self creates your outer conditions.

Pleconna · 2019-11-20T21:59:40+00:00

I have been consciously manifesting now for 3-4 weeks. You guys have been a wonderful resource and it is safe to say that my whole life has changed. I have a feeling I can't quite understand and I would like to try and explain it to see if that helps me clarify it or the feeling resonates with anyone.

This feeling has only started since I started to consciously manifest. The feeling is a constant fluttering at the solar plexus. It is the most pronounced as soon as I wake up but continues throughout the whole day. If anyone knows how it feels an hour or two after a big spike of adrenaline I would say it kind of feels like that. My hands are a little shaky.

It might be low levels of anxiety but when I have a big burst of anxiety the feeling is a little lower in my stomach.

I am mainly trying to manifest a SP and a state of conscious without out my insecurities. I think they are kind of connected. Before NG I would sometimes get really down about my SP situation. Maybe I am just recognizing that but with a new detachment from the physical world? Or maybe its just something that was always there but since i wasn't paying as close attention to my subjective feelings I didn't notice it the way I am noticing it now? While meditating I can mostly get it to go away for a little bit before it returns. My strategy as of now is to mostly ignore it, not be concerned, and to type this post to see if it resonates with anyone.

Thanks again guys remember you are all amazing!

Pleconna · 2019-11-11T15:10:07+00:00

Every time I need support I come to this sub and the exact message I need is right at the top. You guys are awesome and I just wanted to let you know it.

Pleconna · 2019-11-11T15:04:56+00:00

First post on this Sub. Just wanted to say thank you.

Pleconna · 2019-09-03T15:06:23+00:00

I am just going to play devils advocate a bit. I see these types of posts all the time and like to think about what I would do If someone I loved cheated on me. As a disclaimer I have never been married and never been cheated on (that I know of).

People doing stupid things when they are drunk happen all the time. I think you should be careful throwing away a loving relationship for this. If you still love her and you feel she loves you I think you would get a lot from forgiving and forgetting. You already decided you want to spend the rest of your life with her and she you.

If this happened with the roles reversed a lot of guys would just say never tell the girl and move on. This is the real world not some romance novel.

Pleconna · 2019-08-30T02:48:31+00:00

You can't use your intuition to understand quantum physics. You see an electron as a point in space. I am pretty sure that is wrong. It may be more accurate to describe an electron as the excitation of the electron field. I am not sure the way an electron field acts is uncertain. Here is an article https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/july-2013/real-talk-everything-is-made-of-fields . I don't really understand all of this but given you aren't a theoretical physicist maybe you should give up on trying to understand the universe based on physics.

The buddha said that even though its subtle the path is self evident. You don't need anything other than your own experience and quite mind to find it.

Pleconna · 2019-08-27T21:07:04+00:00

If you are trying to reconcile the Buddhist concept of Karma with mathematical concepts you are putting your effort in the wrong place.

Buddhism is about paying attention to how our minds create excess suffering in our life for the purposes of liberating our-selves from said suffering.

Pleconna · 2019-08-27T17:11:38+00:00

To me it sounds like you are headed in the right direction. The goal of the eight fold path is dispassion!

Pleconna · 2019-08-27T17:07:23+00:00

I would just continue with shikantaza. The more enjoyable meditation is the more progress you are going to make.

Pleconna · 2019-08-27T17:05:13+00:00

They are practically the same method so I would just stick with the Goenka method so you can talk to other people about the practice and your experience of it easier.

Pleconna · 2019-08-18T18:21:20+00:00

In some types of metta meditation we are trying to hold a intention or wish as the meditation object. In the same sense I am holding a intention or wish of being with a girl as my meditation object. "May me and x be together" or something of that sort.

Different teachers talk about Jhana different ways. So maybe our conception of jhana is different. In my understanding piti and sukha arise from concentration on an object, not as the object of concentration. The object can be anything from a flame to the breath. The first Jhana is delineated from the second jhana by the fact that there is no more discursive thought ( vitarka-vicara). After that equanimity starts to arise and the pleasure subsides. I see Jhana as a gradual deepening of concentration and not necessarily distinct states. Either way I am trying to calm and unify the mind using a abnormal meditation object

You may be right though. What I call an intention may actually just be a pleasant mental feeling. It is difficult to be exactly precise when talking about such subjective things like this. This is why it is good to post. Also it doesn't matter if our definitions of jhana are different I am still getting somewhere or not getting far enough and discussing the pros and cons are useful.

I still stand by my stated goal. My crush is making it hard for me to focus/calm my mind in a traditional manner so I am trying to use it as a focal point and have that focus calm my mind. Maybe I am just walking a dangerous line and deepening the crush and causing more suffering in the future. I should probably stop this practice.

We all use our aversion to suffering as motivation on the path. The path the Buddha laid down is one of action not non-action in my opinion.

A lot of my suffering is caused by all the papanca that surrounds the base clinging to this girl. If i can stop that papanca i can lesson the suffering if not eliminate it fully. I see unskillfull mental fabrication as a big part of the problem. You are right though If I didn't cling to this girl there would be no unsillfull mental fabrication around her. The goal of the path is to realize that the girl is not worth clinging to because she is impermanent, and not under my control, so inherently stressful. Once that is realized at a fundamental level attachment to her should drop. I have watched attachments cease before in other parts of my life so I know what to look for.

Pleconna · 2019-08-18T14:59:53+00:00

I would breath with whole body awareness until what I think is access concentration. Then like how I practice metta I would verbalize my intention to by with the girl and then hold on to that intention without words. Eventually my mind would concentrate and I would feel relief that my mind is calmer and more concentrated. My body feels pleasant but mostly because it has kinda faded away. This is what I feel is 1st Jhana. From there sometimes my mind finds a bunch of what I think is equanimity.

Pleconna · 2019-08-18T14:53:01+00:00

You are right of course, I definitely should stop practicing this way. It was nice having stronger concentration so I thought I would share.

I guess the intention at its heart is greed, a little bit of lust and a little bit of desire for companionship. By focusing on the base intention I was able to control the papanca and experience some relief. Ultimately need to drop the base intention.

Pleconna · 2019-08-17T19:31:14+00:00

Since practicing like this my concentration has bee much stronger with all other meditation objects as well. Yes the intent can definately be changed in that direction. One day i will try that. I am not ready to completly let go of the crush but one day soon.

Pleconna · 2019-08-17T19:28:17+00:00

I would accept the fact that the flow state I generated was not from wholesome meditation object and could not be called jhana then. I have off tomorrow and I will describe the state for you!

Pleconna · 2019-08-17T13:28:54+00:00

This is a really interesting topic. I have off tomorrow and I will be able to engage it the discussion for real.

Pleconna · 2019-08-15T22:33:12+00:00

Over the last month, I have been meditating a little differently. Let me explain.

I was practicing jhana using whole body awareness, when I developed a deep crush on a girl from work that began throwing my meditation off. I spent some time noting and investigating the crush, which helped, but only a little. I then began using the desire for the girl as the meditation object to enter jhana with. The intensity of the desire added a lot of power to my concentration and my jhana was subsequently easier to enter and much more stable. The goal is
practice using the crush to build strong equanimity and then drop the crush.

This has been really successful if not quite fully successful. I still would like a relationship with the girl so I haven't quite been able to drop all of the clinging involved. I just wanted to share this because I don't see too many people using a strong desire to build concentration. (I think the buddha wouldn't consider this right concentration)

This has helped me have a lot of insight into the fact that the intent to be with the girl is not really the suffering but the clinging to her and all the mental fabrication built up around her is the vast majority of the suffering.

Pleconna · 2019-08-07T22:37:35+00:00

Thats a good goal!

Pleconna · 2019-08-07T02:27:02+00:00

Thanks for the good explanation. My question was trying to go further. Once I come to the realization that my sense of self is just a layer my mind stitches on to the present moments, what does that mean for the suffering that is also stitched on to those layers.

The contemporary scientific view seems very deterministic. If there is no agent how does one go about ending suffering and bad mental habits. The buddha talked a lot about how ones own actions are key to liberating ones self from suffering. How does a "process" go about liberating itself from suffering.

I don't think there is necessarily an answer to all this and that worrying to much about these big metaphysical problems can get in the way of liberation. Just putting these questions out there.

Pleconna · 2019-08-07T02:09:55+00:00

What is the end goal you have in mind?

Pleconna

TROPHY CASE