stirling

.., again, what do you really want to achieve? There are tried and true paths for this kind of knowledge.

Yes, please.

What I said was: ...but yes, meditation itself, even outside of retreat can be dangerous from a mental health perspective. Meditation in therapeutic dosages WILL dig up your obscurations, emotional/psychological damage and much more. In fact, meditation IS psychedelic. You will see visions, have time distortions, unitive experiences and much more. In small doses it can make you more calm and less reactive, but in doses intended to be transformative it can cause significant cognitive dissonance at the very least. It isn't a bug, it is a feature. Retreats are where the rubber meets the road. As a meditator of over 30 years, with many retreats under my belt I have witnessed many people spontaneously burst into tears next to me as great traumas have arisen and often resolved, have to leave the retreat, or even have realizations. To learn more about the dangers of meditation and retreats some judicious reading here might illuminate: https://www.cheetahhouse.org/ I would appreciate it greatly if you could please stop assuming there is some malicious motive or intent in my posts. If you would like to address your concerns I would be happy to speak to you directly via messaging. _/\_

Not really any more dangerous that going on a meditation retreat or working with the most direct practices. Real, transformative spiritual practice digs up our most protected and ancient pain, attachment, aversion, and leads to a "death" of sorts - it inherently includes risk, and inevitably creates some difficulties for the practitioner. Realization necessarily breaks all of our closely held beliefs about who "we" are what "reality" is, any clinging to what you thought was "true" or "real" has to be let go of.

Aren't entheogens a fairly common cornerstone to shamanic ritual? They were in my experience, but I was admittedly only ever a dabbler. I know a couple of people who have had entheogens as part of their "path" or even the moment of illumination, myself included. While it wasn't part of the moment when understanding dawned for me, it was part of the story. I wouldn't discount it entirely, myself. These substances CAN be quite beneficial in softening or even removing conceptual concretions of the "self" when there are experiences of "unity"/no-self or other/etc. The danger they pose is primarily to those who already have intense grasping to "self" or underdeveloped and weak "self" to begin with, like those with more profound mental health issues such as schizophrenia. Of course, these substances can be unpredictable and have mixed success without some screening and supervision, and aren't really necessary in most cases. Whatever method or lack thereof that works for one person very likely won't work for another. It can happen in countless ways - for some there will be the sound of a pebble on a pot, for others it might happen while in a dentist's waiting room, or while skydiving, or even after ingesting Lysergic acid diethylamide. Most are never going to worry, or need to worry, about abstract conceptual underpinnings as they are entirely dualistic in nature and have no real bearing on the complete realization.

I'll just say that combining entheogens, or medically treatable mental illness with meditation (especially on retreat) is asking for trouble and should be carefully monitored by a mental health professional.

Of course... all of them caught in the delusion that there is increase or decrease. It is entirely possible to understand if there is a desire to gnow.

What I say is unimportant. If you are curious you can find it out for yourself. That is the beauty of practice.

Have you ever truly been in control of physical impulses? Emotional impulses? Emotions and thoughts arise in the same way anything else does. Trees, the wind, calculators and persian carpets appear and disappear, arising and passing moment to moment in consciousness. No "self" controls these things. They are impermanent. Almost everything is. One thing isn't. "Heart energies"? They are construction of the mind, like all cosmologies, systems, levels, phases, paths, etc. Enlightenment is a moment when the unity/emptiness/dao is realized. It changes the understanding of everything you could imagine. It undoes the idea that you are a separate person that acts in space and in time. It is the realization that there is nothing else to do or realize. It is an understanding that dissolves all old assumptions and ideas about reality. Interestingly this space of unity/emptiness is available, though attenuated, to ANY meditator who has become skilled in allowing the mind to become still. It is worth finding a teacher who understands it if you are curious to understand it.

This is the essence Tommy, yes. "We" cannot manhandle the mind, we must just drop our control of it. It is like a bar of wet soap - you can hold it and let it rest in your open hand and it will stay there... still, BUT if you grasp at it it will shoot out of your hand. The more you allow for stillness to well up of its own accord the more frequently it will.

BTW Neirong (from the site) posts here. Why not read their posts and get a feel for what kind of teacher, and what kind of wisdom and knowledge they might have?

What is your goal for your practice? What do you want out of it? I have looked through most of website out of curiosity. In general I would say that teachings intended to get at the heart of what reality is, and TRUE transformation are relatively simple (but requiring some regular and dedicated work) and available everywhere, free. Teachers are also generally free, though some will take dana when offered to them. Most are looking for your dedication and intention to truly understand, not your money.

What system is this in reference to?

Good catch! Unlearning, or letting doing fall away might be more accurate.

I like presence as a term. Awareness might be my favorite. Not keen on Source, as (to me) it implies something separate from anything else. Worlds? Other than here/now?