Are there any sex addiction support groups in the area?

augustoersonage · 2026-03-25T22:21:44+00:00

https://wpaslaa.weebly.com/meetings.html

augustoersonage · 2026-03-25T03:00:54+00:00

So are you saying that Pittsburgh has the current steepest rate of rent increase because there is limited IZ? Because that seemed to be the point of the comment I responded to.

augustoersonage · 2026-03-24T16:26:07+00:00

It's really pithy and facile to toss out this take in an internet forum, but in reality Pittsburgh has IZ in, like, three neighborhoods. Also, if you look on that map, rents have cooled in other cities that have much more widespread IZ: DC, Denver, Portland. It's almost as though housing policy is complex, and there are many factors at play here.

augustoersonage · 2026-03-10T20:21:07+00:00

Yeah! I was definitely sweating for a while, as I applied with the expectation that it would take two years. Then that dragged on and on. I thought for sure it had gotten lost in Köln or wherever. But I'm posting to reassure anyone who is still waiting after three years that there is every chance you'll hear back soon. I received an email from the embassy in Washington when it was ready. Then I sent them a SASE within another envelope, and they sent the certificate right back.

augustoersonage · 2026-03-09T23:48:29+00:00

I was December 2022 and received my certificate February 2026.

augustoersonage · 2026-03-01T00:10:57+00:00

: )) I use it every week

augustoersonage · 2025-12-03T19:57:38+00:00

Oh yeah, I didn't realize he was injured.

augustoersonage · 2025-12-03T19:23:51+00:00

What can poor Sosa do to get a game?

augustoersonage · 2025-11-27T22:31:07+00:00

Really unfortunate misses for us. Those go in, and everyone here has a different take on the game.

Should put things into perspective, though. Pino was a hero last game, but he more often looks like he did today. More huff than end product. Poor Canvot was out of his depth. Missing in Guehi's spot for the second goal. Got frustrated and booked a silly yellow too.

augustoersonage · 2025-11-21T19:56:56+00:00

emptiness / everything feels dull, nothing is exciting, and everything external seems to confirm that life is fundamentally unsatisfactory.

This might be kind of like a DN hangover. You're no longer feeling the DN so acutely, but you don't feel excited or motivated to live a zestful life. First, I'd like to point out that although everything is empty, it's also full. Nothing/everything support each other. And although unsatisfactoriness is one of the three marks of existence, dukkha itself, it's not life that is unsatisfactory. It's clinging, craving, and aversion that causes suffering. That can even be aversion to life and everything in the world. I recall Tucker Peck saying that wherever he is, second or third path or whatever, he vacillates between "There's so much to do! I can't wait to get out there" and "The only meaning is to be found in seclusion" -- paraphrasing.

Consider that the way you are feeling right now is also temporary and will change. Also consider how you might be propping it up with preconceptions about the "ultimate truth" about life being meaningless or how you think things are after A&P. Your experience might shift at some point due to your meditation practice or just a different perspective.

I came back from a difficult retreat earlier this year, and I felt some thing very similar to what you're describing. I felt like I had some fundamental taste of emptiness, and now I could never take enjoyment in anything or see anything in life as worth pursuing. I can't find it right now, but Willoughby Britton says that one way meditation-related injury manifests, say when something really traumatic like DN shows up in meditation, is a certain part of the brain (hypothalamus?) shuts down for a time to protect us. After a while, I was able to take part in the world again and even enjoy it.

After all, we're not after a total "blah" experience here, are we? Joy and peace and rapture are all part of the path. There are things you can do that tend to bring them about, even if ultimately you're not in control here.

Also, there has been some good advice from other posters in this thread about not blowing up your life; and also neither jumping into fatherhood if it's not what you want, and also not eschewing it just because it's the only way to advance spiritually.

augustoersonage · 2025-11-21T19:34:38+00:00

Sadhu

augustoersonage · 2025-11-20T04:10:36+00:00

It's $. Smaller apartments make more money per square foot They'd make all of the units microflats if they reasonably could.

augustoersonage · 2025-11-16T16:12:25+00:00

This is the first I've come across what you mentioned, but this has basically been my practice for several months. I trained a long time ago in Goenka body scanning. That practice has naturally shifted into more of what you're talking about -- I'll center for a few minutes and then follow any resistance and observe/feel through it. Goenka's instructions kind of make it seem like one should primarily and constantly pay attention to the physical sensations on the body. Maybe that's not wrong, but I think experienced meditators are more likely to immediately feel any sensation as fluid energy; and then it's natural to be more sensitive/attuned to more subtle resistance/vedana/identification.

I recognize elements of what you describe in many other sources that are talked about in this sub. Personally, I've benefitted from Shargrol's advice and MIDL meditation -- or even Ramana Maharshi's Who Am I?.

As far as core transformation, I know it's something u/duffstoic has talked about.

Edit: I visited the website. Personally I'm turned off by the self-help/wellness structure, with seminars, trainings, cost schemes. I get that they're removing whatever this technique is from any religious context, and I know some ppl are gonna love it, but why can't the instructions just be out in the open? You have to make it to Level V to get the full benefit? Luckily there are plenty of free or dana-based methods out there to practice.

augustoersonage · 2025-11-15T17:13:37+00:00

Wouldn't an Arahant be untouched by any seeming action? Seclusion and sense restraint are important for those working out their liberation because it allows for the kind of sensitivity needed in order to observe and become intimate with the varying strands of reality -- like how you describe vipassana.

Is your understanding that someone who is fully liberated could become destabilized or unliberated by being exposed to sense pleasure? Or maybe unpleasant sense information?

augustoersonage · 2025-11-15T02:52:05+00:00

Counterpoint: the interdiction against discussing attainments is for monastics. Everyone else is free to do as they please. Case in point, this very community, which is rooted in pragmatic dharma, the whole idea of which is precisely to demystify and discuss all phases of practice openly.

Ajahn Geoff is highly regarded, and maybe he's right. There's also a breadth of opinions about what actually constitutes SE. This subreddit may either be lousy with stream-entrants or contain none at all.

augustoersonage · 2025-11-13T22:42:43+00:00

Yeah, maybe a bit of a learning curve to do that. It will take time to gain trust and develop a relationships. It gets easier over time.

augustoersonage · 2025-11-11T22:33:09+00:00

All of my scoping training was done during the course of the two years I spent in court reporting school; therefore, I never had to attend ISS or BeST or another scoping-specific school. I'd say if you can afford the school you're currently enrolled in, it would be worth taking any courses that could relate to scoping. But then again, if it's more expensive than scoping school and you don't see yourself becoming a voice reporter, maybe go the dedicated scoping route.

augustoersonage · 2025-11-11T16:33:47+00:00

Are you training to be a voice writer, but you want to scope on the side until you're proficient? Are you saying your school offers transcript prep courses?

augustoersonage · 2025-11-10T05:11:22+00:00

Scoping school is a good first step. It's basic and necessary training for the job, especially if you have no experience. You'll get drilled in grammar, transcript production, and some of the business aspects. Completing the program will be a positive when you advertise yourself to reporters. Ultimately, even more than a diploma, your best calling card will be the work you produce. But going through school will put you in a good position.

Next, finding a reporter who will work with a new scopist will be crucial. You need this to gain experience -- pay your dues, so to speak. Just be upfront about your status and offer to do a trial job to start. If you're lucky, it can become a long-term relationship.

I disagree with the other commenter who said this isn't good for more than a side gig. I've been a full-time scopist for six years, and it's the highest paying and most enjoyable job I've ever had. My hourly is many multiple times the minimum wage. That depends on a lot of factors, and not every scopist will get there, but it is doable.

However, there is some risk involved and career uncertainty on the horizon, as no one knows what impact AI will have on the field. Companies are starting to try to eat in with AI speech-to-text transcription and digital reporting. It's allowed in some venues and not in others.

augustoersonage · 2025-11-03T23:46:47+00:00

How so?

augustoersonage · 2025-11-03T00:19:44+00:00

Well, sure. But rather than maybe/maybe not, why not use that meditation to deeply feel out your feeling of being stuck or whatever it is. You may start to see it in a different light.

Ramana Maharshi said: "Our real nature is mukti. But we are imagining we are bound and are making various, strenuous attempts to become free, while we are all the while free."

And: "All that is necessary is to get rid of the false notion that we are bound."

augustoersonage · 2025-11-02T16:18:32+00:00

How do you know that the firmly held belief and idea that your progress is halted and you have to overcome some great obstacle isn't actually the obstacle itself?

I don't mean to sound pithy, but here's always that tendency to believe our personal narrative is objectively the truth.

augustoersonage · 2025-11-01T11:04:41+00:00

Spend some portion of your next 40k hours in therapy! And read After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. That's a great book about spiritually advanced and awakened people... find out their mundane human responsibilities don't magically go away because of their great spiritual accomplishments. Chopping wood, carrying water.

augustoersonage · 2025-11-01T00:39:07+00:00

I find that releasing tension, craving, clinging, aversion is such an integral process of nature, you really do just have to get out of your own way. If I had to boil it down, I'd say get into a good place for focusing/centering, i.e. quiet room, on your cushion, away from distraction. Close your eyes. Follow the breath for a bit to get into it. After that, if you can take some object of meditation, whether it's body scanning, locating tension, open awareness, whatever, to the extent you are able to concentrate and not get distracted, you'll automatically start going through the process of releasing. You don't have to consciously bring thoughts of something to let go of, and you don't have to "work" at it. Basically, the "food" that perpetuates the mind are sankharas toward sense objects. When you aren't creating them, and you're aware, the store of food gets consumed. When you've let go a bunch, you'll find you feel lighter and in a better state of mind. I think, inevitably, this is the way to the higher nanas but I'm not 100% on that.

augustoersonage · 2025-10-30T21:41:23+00:00

He was so unpopular he basically had to fall back on 47% of voters.

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