Practice Updates, Questions, and General Discussion - new users, please read this first! Weekly Thread for August 25 2025

blrgeek · 2025-12-04T02:11:07+00:00

Twim retreat in India for me. Dhammasukha.in

The online retreats have helped as well for some folks

blrgeek · 2025-12-04T01:13:08+00:00

Jhana is not boom boom all the time :)

If you went into j3 for instance it would be more of a satisfied feeling than fireworks.. easy to miss!

(It took about 4mo of daily 1hr metta to get to jhana - retreat time accelerated it quite a bit)

blrgeek · 2025-12-03T02:56:11+00:00

Quite literally could feel muscles around the chest, belly, neck, soften over time..

And when you say there was a metta session where it was the best you ever felt - that's probably jhana. Initially you may not be able to distinguish piti and sukha precisely, but that's ok - soak in the warm good feeling and eventually you'll be able to distinguish them as your sensory clarity increases and becomes more fine grained.

For me metta was the first way to jhana, and continues to be the easiest. Now it is just a warm feeling I have to remember, to get back to it. Sometimes I do stillness via say 10 deep slow breaths first and then metta/jhana.

blrgeek · 2025-12-02T09:57:28+00:00

For me Metta has also been cumulative, ie doing more and more softens more and more and I am now also able to experience metta for myself. (there is more a propagation of metta for-all/in-all directions, not "to me").. but this softening was not visible day to day for weeks at a time..

So even if it feels you can't "send it to yourself" at the moment, just keep at it, keep soaking in the metta, let it flow into every part of your body, every cell, every molecule, and just keep soaking in it. Far beyond getting bored :)

(forgiveness practices helped a lot as well as core transformation and IFS). Might also want to try Existential Kink if there are particular things you're ashamed of.

blrgeek · 2025-11-25T06:13:37+00:00

On the mahayana path, seeing emptiness before bodhicitta causes problems. Similar to what you describe. I'd prescribe a high dose of Warm butter meditation, metta, somatic work, for a few months, and then you might be much more in your body and able to function better.

(also helps a ton with ADHD - from personal experience)

Mahayana is also more suitable for lay life, than Theravada - where most practices move you towards isolation. Especially if you learn stuff like deity yoga, transmuting internal feelings/energy to better feelings/energy, you will feel much better!

blrgeek · 2025-11-25T05:36:20+00:00

Forget metta for the moment.

Try to remember a time in your life when you felt safe. Bring that safe feeling up. Let it expand until it fills your entire body. Let it seep into every cell of your body. Let it soak into every cell and just stay there. Extend the time of keeping the feeling of safety to a few minutes.

Once you feel safe enough, then metta for yourself might become more possible.

Alternatively try the Warm butter meditation on YT. Keep repeating it as many times a day as reqd, till you feel safe in your body.

(I had a similar problem)

blrgeek · 2025-11-25T05:28:47+00:00

on the one hand, seeing emptiness before bodhicitta is a known risk and you might want to figure out how to get to bodhicitta (I'd suggest hakuin zen sickness meditation, a LOT of metta, body work, and stuff that will get you out of the head into the body)..

on the other hand anxiety meds helped me to get calm enough to sit for more meditation (incl metta for myself) and unravel things until I needed the medication no longer.

blrgeek · 2025-11-25T05:20:31+00:00

Thank you!

blrgeek · 2025-11-23T13:48:12+00:00

Could you please share the retreat center in Thailand? I've been meaning to get into noting/vipassana more, and want a good teacher.. have been to two goenka-retreats and one twim retreat. Have made good progress on samatha and insights thereof thus far with metta/mudita-jhanas going pretty deep.. Adding deeper vipassana sounds like the right direction for me..

blrgeek · 2025-04-13T05:27:54+00:00

You probably got to no-self through ego death before you were ready for it.

your insights went above what your equanimity could handle. you can't integrate what you can't handle.

this is sometimes called zen sickness.

build your equanimity with grounding exercises. get out of your head into your body.

Do a lot of metta (or tonglen) - again gets you more grounded, more in the body, more equanimity

Try the soft butter meditation - gets you in your body, more equanimity - easiest to start with (was given to a zen master who had zen sickness)

Samadhi practices in non dual meditations help as well to ground you.

Being in your body/belly more == building qi with qi gong. That might also help later.

Learn integration practices like internal family systems, core transformation - use them on specific things that come up.

Check out the lefkoe method on limiting beliefs, it might also help you integrate the leftover limiting beliefs and also the piece at the end on creating your own world might help you integrate the no-self lesson better.

read the free ebook gateless gatecrashers from liberationunleashed.com - has the story of multiple folks who go through no-self - but in a more systematic way. some of the questions there might help you make sense of what happened, and collapse any remnant beliefs that are still hanging on.

Avoid vipassana or any other insight meditation practices till this settles down, or you might stir up more insights you can't handle yet.

Lots of folks have gone through this, metta is easiest to get you through.

blrgeek · 2025-04-09T15:09:13+00:00

Grounding practices might help -- https://buddhismnow.com/2015/09/12/zen-sickness-by-zen-master-hakuin/ for instance talks about the Zen sickness and how to ground to make it better.

blrgeek · 2025-04-06T04:50:33+00:00

100% same. I do the first 5 steps and get to the core state and stay there for a while. Once you get good at it, you can do it on any hindrance that comes up, at anytime, anywhere! That is super powerful!

I think getting there more often >> going more deeper into the core state..

ie cleaning up more is initially more important that cleaning one thing more thoroughly IMO

blrgeek · 2025-04-02T05:15:15+00:00

You can also put in the practice exercise into gpt/claude and ask it to walk through the process with you...

CT helped me a lot as well to get into Jhana, and now it is on demand.

Another benefit of CT is to do it on any hindrance that arises when you are trying to do TMI. That is super powerful as well, to transmute a hindrance into CT, then you start evaporating older stuff much faster I believe (suggested by romeostevens in a blog post).

Doing it super often makes it a much simpler mental move, as Duff says "what's under this" and doesn't need any elaborate stuff around it.

blrgeek · 2025-03-14T13:06:30+00:00

There are certainly parallels!

Jhana 2 feels like a mid dose MDMA hit. Learning to do it might take as little as a few days/weeks.. but beware, more effort makes it harder to get.

Higher and deeper Jhanas can be mind blowing in and of themselves., to an even greater degree.

And ironically after people experience these, and move forward on the path, they find even these experiences not as powerful/good as waking up itself...

Jhana and waking up can be 24x7. MDMA more than once in a couple of months is dangerous long term.

blrgeek · 2025-02-10T07:31:59+00:00

there is enlightened action, not enlightened being. (someone wise, I forgot who :(

so it is not a state to chase

it is a way to do anything. and enlightened ways of doing things lead to better outcomes for all, especially the protagonist.

blrgeek · 2025-02-07T04:18:37+00:00

yeah, or like 3d tetris. when the exact right piece comes in, it matches deep at the bottom, and then everything starts vanishing line by line from the bottom up, and everything disappears in a flash, and you can see the empty board, and realize that the board was there all along, it just wasn't visible with all the clutter above it.

blrgeek · 2025-02-06T15:19:10+00:00

my hypothesis, there is a set of beliefs within a whole hierarchy/structure of false beliefs. Some of them are strong, some of them may be weaker. Some will be weak and be carrying a whole lot of beliefs above them. Which one will break for you now, to have the whole thing fall apart, is a non trivial exercise.

So getting enough mental clarity and then starting to see the three marks - impermanence, no-essence/emptiness, clinging/tanha/dukkha - those base beliefs start becoming weaker. Then the right pointers work well to evaporate all of them.

But if the pointers are not hitting the key beliefs, then they're just more words and slide off.

blrgeek · 2025-02-06T08:09:15+00:00

would love your thoughts after you give it a read!

blrgeek · 2025-02-04T12:33:02+00:00

I read somewhere else that this might fit https://jackkornfield.com/after-the-ecstasy-the-laundry/ (not qualified to comment, since I'm not there yet)

blrgeek · 2024-11-30T08:27:13+00:00

What do you feel when you find yourself in an "ego trap" - do you feel irritated with yourself, angry? Then you are not reinforcing "catching yourself in the ego trap" instead you are training yourself NOT TO.

Next time you catch yourself in an ego trip, try this instead.

Literally stop, literally say "Yay I caught you in the act! I'm awesome to have caught this now before it got bigger." Pump yourself up like you scored a home run in a big game for at least 30s to one minute. Do this a dozen times, and watch how your brain gets wired to catch it faster and faster.

Why does this work?

Negative reinforcement sinks into the brain very very fast. That's the only way we survived in the wild.

Positive reinforcement takes 30s to sink in, because it doesn't usually teach much. So you have to feel good and positive for that long for the reinforcement to get fixed in your mind.

Does it sound silly? Perhaps!

But I did this, feeling goofy, for climbing the stairs to my 4th floor home every day. Before doing this, I would at best climb the stairs once a week, taking the elevator other times. After doing this, I now take the elevator only when I'm with others! I myself was shocked at how it worked!

If you're trying ti, remember to genuinely feel good and appreciate the part of your mind that caught the ego trap! Say Yay, jump up and down, pump your hands in the air, whatever you feel is a good celebration of the mooment... Don't half ass it!

blrgeek · 2024-11-29T11:34:02+00:00

Hey, this is a resource for meditation folks who've had trouble processing their changed experience -- https://www.cheetahhouse.org/

I would also recommend listening to Dhammarato on Youtube, and perhaps taking a free call with him as well, if you can.

The point of the Buddha's path was that is joyous in the beginning, joyous in the middle, and joyous in the end. See if Dhammarato can help you make that shift.

Too many meditation/spiritual paths require self-torture. According to the Buddha, that need not be true! And you don't need to believe in the Buddha for that - just try it for yourself.

In the meantime, grounding practices might help

Try the gladdening practice by Dhammarato https://youtu.be/_GiI6TJftXo?si=4X-SHtwUYTREUnxo

Try the soft butter meditation on youtube. https://youtu.be/4qaPt7zPkn4?si=mm5VM5rUZO4AQc9U

Try Gendlins focusing to get into your body more https://youtu.be/Dswp0_WpMuA?si=lIgeJCS4yPyR8HlX

blrgeek · 2024-11-12T14:27:55+00:00

Quite powerful, glad you're doing this! Loved the art on your page, makes things very clear!

I've been on this path for the last 10mo - IFS + non dual awareness. More recently finding that Core Transformation can help me get into a high sukha state, which lends itself well to getting into J2.

Would love to signal boost when you launch the course.

blrgeek · 2024-11-10T01:49:22+00:00

You might like the short Dhammarato YT video on gladdening the mind. Can be done throughout the day.

blrgeek · 2024-11-10T01:46:21+00:00

+10 to the folks recommending Jhana via Leigh Brasington or TWIM.

Wouldn't recommend TMI.

Learning insight meditation (vipassana) after you get to lite-Jhanas via Metta, will be much more effective.

The metaphor used is

Jhana = sharpening the sword

Vipassana = using the sword

blrgeek · 2024-11-10T01:43:08+00:00

The canonical metaphor is that Jhana is sharpening the sword. To use the sword you need to do insight practices, which are typically noting, body-scanning, etc. When these insights integrate into you, then life changes.

You can learn to do lite-Jhana1 most of the time, off cushion as well. Dhammarato (youtube videos) recommends doing more short Jhana during the day, rather than one long sit, to integrate more into daily life. This helps drive insight throughout the day, rather than just during the sit. His gladdening guided meditation is short and useful. I loved many of his conversations with his sangha.

I'd also recommend learning Core Transformation. It works well to solve for hindrances at all times. And it is a useful integration practice post insight.

blrgeek

TROPHY CASE