Seeker of Wisdom

On 7/4/2017 at 1:13 AM, shortstuff said:

[...] I wish to ask those who have experienced this - what is meant by a pleasant sensation. For example their example of the smile - do they mean making yourself smile? Or just thinking of the sensation of happiness that occurs when you smile - because a smile is automatic like breathing is - how do you observe the pleasure if you are concentrated on creating it? Should you sit there smiling with your eyes closed? When I smile by forcing the muscles etc I feel nothing...

 

I figure it might be easier for me to concentrate on the pleasure one experiences through orgasm?

And if you are consciously thinking of an experience then how can you be an observer without "any attempt to increase the pleasure" if you are creating the pleasure in the first place just to observe it?
 

[...]

Hi there! It sounds like you're following the method of Leigh Brasington? Personally I've found his method very helpful and have entered first jhana as he teaches it*. if you haven't read his book 'Right Concentration', I would definitely advise you to do so.

(*Some people disagree with his methods and/or state that what he teaches is not 'true' jhana. This debate is essentially the debate between 'sutta jhana' and 'visuddhimagga jhana', which has been going on for a thousand years and will not be resolved in this thread, so I'll just say that I think Brasington is a good guide for some very useful attainments and leave it at that.)

From the title of this thread you seem to be conflating the jhanas with stream entry a bit. One can be a master of the jhanas and not be a stream entrant, not be trying to become a stream entrant, have no idea that stream entry is a thing.

The pleasure one experiences in access concentration does not come about from thinking of an experience or from trying to create pleasure! Brasington mentions that some people may find that smiling helps them to tune in to the pleasure. If you don't find this helpful, don't do it. Pleasure will come about as a natural result of access concentration, with your mind being calm and clear and settled. Once you have access concentration, nothing else is needed to cause pleasure to come - in fact, trying to cause it will push it away. Why? Because then you're not resting your focus on an object without clinging. If you're trying to get something, your mind won't be calm/clear/settled so the pleasure won't come.

The pleasure of access concentration is mild but noticeable (you won't be in doubt about it). The mental pleasure is a peace and happiness sort of like waking up on a sunny Sunday morning. The physical sensation can vary but is basically a nice energetic sensation - nothing mind-blowing. To enter the first jhana, stop watching the breath and instead watch the pleasure - just watch it like you watched the breath, don't try to increase it or manipulate it. It will pick up and take you into the first jhana, which is like access concentration but with deeper focus, and rapture and joy (stronger forms of the access concentration pleasure). This is very pleasant and obvious, though perhaps not as dramatic as you may be imagining it.

Quote

At present I focus on the breathe for a few mins then I just sit in the darkness with no thought

What is the 'darkness with no thought'? Are you sure there's absolutely no thought? For how long can you sustain this? It sounds like you might be suppressing your thoughts, using a very forceful type of concentration - if this is the case, you really need to loosen up. Relax. Soak into the breath, watch it come in and out, whenever you're distracted don't clench down or push away anything, instead gently let go and return to the breath. 

I'm sure you'll be able to enter access concentration and the first jhana. I managed it after ~6 years, so don't worry that you aren't there yet after 3. In fact, don't worry too much about the attainment. Go into each session with an attitude of beginner's mind.

10 hours ago, Kongming said:

[...]The Buddha never states "there is no Atman/Self" in the earliest material[...]

True, but it is stated that all views of self are a cause for dukkha. Attachment to views of self is listed as one of the four fundamental forms of attachment, and belief in a self is said to be one of the fetters cut by a stream-entrant. 

many have argued for an assumed Self

As Ralpola Rahula says:

It is better to say frankly that one believes in an Atman or Self.  Or one may even say that the Buddha was totally wrong in denying the existence of an Atman.  But certainly it will not do for any one to try to introduce into Buddhism an idea which the Buddha never accepted, as far as we can see from the extant original texts.

My understanding is that, the question as you're framing it is sort of the wrong approach. To ask 'what is reborn?' is to rely on an underlying concept that there must be one lasting object that gets reborn. Like asking 'why did you beat your wife?' relies on the assumption that you did.

A person is basically a process. Rather than a single object (or subject) persisting through time, each of us is a process. Compare fire burning along a rope to a stone rolling down a hill.

The stone is a single, substantial object, it's the same stone at the bottom as it was at the top. The fire... well, we can say that the fire at the start and the fire at the end of the rope is the same fire, because there's casual continuity there. But it's not the same flame at one point and the next. The process has continued, the parts have changed.

So let's ask a different question: 'what goes to sleep, and what wakes up in the morning?' Well, the process has continued overnight. What goes from last night to this morning? I'd say there isn't a thing that goes from last night to this morning... it's just that the process of 'you' has continued. Now imagine a fire burning along a rope, reaching the end of one rope, and igniting a new one and carrying on. What goes from one rope to the next? Misguided question. It's a process of combustion continuing, except some component parts have changed. There isn't a thing that goes from one to the other.

I think your confusion is that you're imagining rebirth as something like pouring water from one glass into a new one, where the water is an object quite simply going from one vessel to the next - and naturally this doesn't square with anatta. Hopefully I've made sense, and you see what I mean about how fire burning from one rope to the next is a different situation. 

[...]Sometime into a good walk in the woods when I start to actually be continuesly aware of things in my mind and outside me, what starts happening shortly after is I'm becoming quite 'fatigued'. I cannot pinpoint what is it really. A mixture of irritation, mental strain and a feeling of disappointment. Yet the only thing I'm doing is observing stuff that comes here and now.[...]

Sometimes this can be the sort of thing that's supposed to happen... as you gain clarity about the simple reality of things, it can rub up against your concepts and attachments, and make you more sensitive to your own resistance and the existential strain (dukkha) caused by that resistance. If this is the case - no problem, keep up the practice, be patient and just watch whatever comes up.

It could also be the case that you're just tensing up or straining yourself, in which case you'd need to loosen up. Just be gently curious about what's going on, rather than trying to stare it down.

http://www.kalachakranet.org/

 

the war is coming... so seems to me they are initiating proper seeds into very wide field?

Any buddhist scholars around here to explain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalachakra ?

 

Gracias...

From that wikipedia page:

Though the Kālacakra prophesies a future religious war, this appears in conflict with the vows of Mahayana and Theravada Buddhist teachings that prohibit violence. According to Alexander Berzin, the Kālacakra is not advocating violence against people but rather against inner mental and emotional aggression that results in intolerance, hatred, violence and war. Fifteenth century Gelug commentor Kaydrubjey interprets "holy war" symbolically, teaching that it mainly refers to the inner battle of the religious practitioner against inner demonic and barbarian tendencies. This is the solution to violence, since according to the Kālacakra the outer conditions depend on the inner condition of the mindstreams of beings. Viewed that way, the prophesied war takes place in the mind and emotions. It depicts the transformation of the archaic mentality of violence in the name of religion and ideology into sublime moral power, insight and spiritual wisdom.

I lack the knowledge or experience to comment on Kalachakra, though I will add that I find it hard to imagine the Dalai Lama trying to make an army.

[...]Why should we blindly belief in no self?

I wouldn't say we should, but it's a working hypothesis which fits into the rest of the Buddhist path. At the beginning anatta may make no sense whatsoever - that's fine, in that case just be open to it. Over time ime it becomes increasingly apparent that 'why should I blindly believe in self?' (I haven't had actual realization of anatta yet, but it just seems straightforward that it's true)   

Drop " A certain way of relating to the world " .

 

I'm thinking not of detachment, but of self centeredness, and how we relate our ' centeredness' (selfishness) to the world.

 

Well, the world certainly means the social world (other people).But what if I try to apply this not my relation to the social world, but my very immediate experience as it is happening now.In other words, the world now means my subjective experience .

 

Why this subjective experience always self-centered? And how should relate to it?

 

One answer given by the traditions (Buddhism )is that Ignorance runs deep, can cannot be done away with easily.Thats why not many can breakthrough this and see through the reality of anatta (i.e. in truth there has never been a self to begin with).

Subjective experience is the key thing to deal with here... any conscious, conceptual idea we have about 'self' comes after the instinctive grasping onto some aspect of experience as 'self', which is why any attempt to 'get rid of' the view of self without seeing experience as it actually is clearly (in the seen just the seen, etc) doesn't succeed. So long as experience isn't seen clearly, the mind will construct a 'self' regardless, and trying to convince it that it's mistaken just through thinking about it is like trying to run away from your shadow.

So , one way to break through this bond of ignorance is by holding strongly (blind faith if u would, ) the contrary point of view,the point of view that there is no me,no self, no I. Because if one does not do this,the momentum of ignorance will always carried one back towards this I.

Trying to just believe in anatta will not produce the necessary direct understanding imho (and could end up in depersonalisation/derealisation if misunderstood) though reflecting on it definitely does help you see it as a reasonable working hypothesis, which makes it easier to go on to see directly.

But this fixed view that there is no self (which is at this point only blind belief) must be complemented with virogous investigation into why there is no self, why truly, there is no separate individual here (and there).

 

By vigorous investigation means an investigative attitude, a strong desire to really know the nature of reality (which is no individual self) ,and not mere curiosity.

Exactly, it takes a method like vipassana... you have to 'come and see'.

Some 'dark night of the soul' idea seems to come up in various paths. It makes sense, in any attempt to change things there must be some inertia, and when one's sense of identity comes into question it can be uncomfortable. I've had times of a few hours or days when negative emotion is bubbling up seemingly without reason, or during vipassana the insubstantial-ness of 'selfhood' feels a bit scary or creepy.

Dan Ingram:

There are two basic things that happen during the Dark Night, one emotional, the other perceptual. Our dark stuff tends to come bubbling up to the surface with a volume and intensity that we may never have known before. Remembering what is good in our life can be difficult in the face of this, and our reactivity in the face of our dark stuff can cause us staggering amounts of needless suffering. On top of this, we also begin to experience directly the fundamental suffering of duality, a suffering that has always been with us but which we have never known with this level of intensity or ever clearly understood. We face a profound and fundamental crisis of identity as our insight into the Three Characteristics begins to demolish part of the basic illusion of there being a separate or permanent us. This suffering is a kind of suffering that has nothing to do with what happens in our life and everything to do with a basic misunderstanding of all of it.

[...]

I have come to the conclusion that, with very rare and fleeting exceptions, 95% of the sensations that make up our experience are really no problem at all, even in the hard stages, but seeing this clearly is not always easy. We tend to fixate on strong sensations when they arise, those that are very painful or very pleasant, and in these times we can miss the fact that most of our reality is likely made of sensations that are no big deal, thus missing many great opportunities for easy insights. Further, the Dark Night can bring up all sorts of unfamiliar feelings that we rarely if ever have experienced with such clarity or intensity. Until we get used to these feelings, they can frighten us and make us reactive because of our unfamiliarity with them even if they are not actually that strongly unpleasant. 

Here's now Gil Fronsdal translates these verses:

House-builder, you are seen!

You will not build a house again!

All the rafters are broken,

The ridgepole destroyed;

The mind, gone to the Unconstructed,

Has reached the end of craving!

In the notes, he comments:

According to the commentarial tradition, these two verses were the first words the Buddha spoke after his Awakening. The commentaries explain that "house" refers to individuality, selfhood or the body. The builder is one's craving. The rafters are the defilements. The ridgepole is ignorance. Interestingly, there is no canonical evidence that the Buddha spoke this verse. The verse does appear in the Theragatha, a collection of verses spoken by the liberated disciples of the Buddha. There the verse is attributed to a monk named Sivaka (Theragatha 183-184).

I think one of the most interesting things here is that the house-builder, craving, is stopped through being seen. In the suttas, Mara is often dispelled when people say 'I see you, Mara,' and he vanishes. IMHO craving is stopped not by force of will to let go, but by seeing it, understanding it, getting the mind to see that it causes dukkha and so freely let it go. Craving relies on our ignorance of what it's really doing.

I get where this mindset comes from, I really do, but the reading of it feels hollow. There's no denying that pain and pleasure are guiding forces in our lives, but it can't all be reduced to that. There is such a thing as self-sacrifice and altruism, versions of which transcend their self-reflexive pleasure mechanisms, versions which place love above all else. Maybe our world doesn't have enough examples for us to really know this and so we turn to reductionism and biology to explain all our impulses.

I'm not saying that that passage is a perfect understanding. And I don't think Nanavira would have said so either, it was just the start of his path. Him seeing life as meaningless lead him to start to understand why the Buddha was all about dukkha (of course, you're right that this doesn't mean just 'suffering'), its cause, its cessation, and the way to its cessation. That is meaningful, and compassion absolutely comes in here as well. IMHO there is a middle way here, between the falling night and rising dawn.

Best wishes, Orion. 

After watching the movie I found myself seeing people out in the world this way, like walking dolls filled with narratives, stories, and egos of purpose, contrasted against the memory of mass graves in the movie. It's a life where nobody is special, but does that mean we're unimportant as well?

A person is just a bunch of processes, but just because 'substantialist' ideas are wrong doesn't mean nihilist ideas are right. You can see people as important (to you and to themselves) at the same time as seeing them as a bundle of narratives.

I would argue that the desire for wellbeing, in various forms, is a key component to all these bundles of narratives walking around in the world. And it's that same desire which prompted you to bother posting this thread, to an extent. I think there's something significant in that. Even the most nihilistic person imaginable holds to their philosophy because they think they get some benefit from it, so their philosophy contradicts itself. 'There is no meaning, so I'll spend all my time thinking about it and trying to convince others of it' - see how that's absurd?

How about 'there is no meaning (to the universe), but I can't do anything without it being related to this 'wellbeing' thread anyway, so let's investigate that'?

And all this past week I keep seeing flashes of the graves of mass bodies, reflecting on my own nothingness, and trying to reconcile the inescapable free fall of an ultimately narrative-less reality. These thoughts have begun to permeate every aspect of my life... like how much food one person eats in their lifetime, the amount of jet fuel required for a person to go on vacation on the other side of the earth, the countless daily activities we engage in and that we tell ourselves have purpose, how many babies are born and how many people die. It's a ticker tape that goes on and on. It's dizzying. It's also a bit crazy-making.

Yeah, the universe doesn't give a shit. But just because nothing matters to the universe doesn't mean things can't matter to you. Things will in fact matter to you regardless (though what things and in what way may well change).

I am having a lot of trouble reconciling these lifeless dolls with a so-called meaningful life. It seems like there is no escape, and any escape is really still partaking in it; and that you can't get anymore into it no matter how much you try; and that all you can really do is abide in any given moment, whether it's a suffering one or a blissful one, because there is no goal. The downside is: you're free. The upside is: you're free.

If there's no goal, why did you post this thread? Why abide in any given moment? What do you want to do with your freedom?

How do you transcend it when it seems like there is clearly nothing to transcend? Do you put faith into the soul?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'it', but in any case, I don't think the answer is to swing back into a substantialist lie like 'oh there actually is a soul and it's inherently meaningful in a cosmic way and permanent and special' whatever. The abyss is showing you a side of things people shy away from, and I think you really have the opportunity to go somewhere from here without denying its lessons.

When I read your post, I thought of this quote from Nanavira Thera's Clearing the Path:

At the time I read [Joyce’s Ulysses]—when I was about twenty—I had already suspected (from my reading of Huxley and others) that there is no point in life, but this was still all rather abstract and theoretical. But Ulysses gets down to details, and I found I recognized myself, mutatis mutandis, in the futile occupations that fill the days of Joyce’s characters. And so I came to understand that all our actions, from the most deliberate to the most thoughtless, and without exception, are determined by present pleasure and present pain. Even what we pompously call our “duty” is included in this law—if we do our duty, that is only because we should feel uncomfortable if we neglected it, and we seek to avoid discomfort. Even the wise man, who renounces a present pleasure for the sake of a greater pleasure in the future, obeys this law—he enjoys the present pleasure of knowing (or believing) that he is providing for his future pleasure, whereas the foolish man, preferring the present pleasure to his future pleasure, is perpetually gnawed with apprehension about his future. And when I had understood this, the Buddha’s statement, “Both now and formerly, monks, it is just suffering that I make known and the ceasing of suffering” (M.22:38), came to seem (when eventually I heard it) the most obvious thing in the world—“What else,” I exclaimed, “could the Buddha possibly teach?”

You might find my post thoughts for beginners helpful.
 
I would suggest to focus on getting to grips with Theravada - without it, you likely won't fully appreciate where Mahayana and Vajrayana pov's and practices are coming from. So basically, learn about the Four Noble Truths, 8fold Path/Three Trainings, Three Characteristics (especially anatta, which trips people up in the start) and get used to doing some shamatha and vipassana before you really look into stuff like emptiness, Buddha-nature, tantra...
 
I haven't read it properly myself, but I hear good things about What the Buddha Taught as an introduction. This translation of the Dhammapada is solid, and the introduction is a quite good intro to Buddhism. (Gil Fronsdal also has a great translation of this text.)
 
In terms of practice, a great place to get started imo is with a shamatha practice such as mindfulness of breathing. Here's a practical guide for getting started on that. (I'd also recommend looking into Leigh Brasington). It's a practice which is easy to get started with and relaxing, but really develops you, goes to profound places in itself, and builds an important foundation for other practices. (Later on, when you feel you've got good shamatha skills, look to Daniel Ingram for vipassana).

Best wishes in your toe-dipping!

Does that mean stilling the mind to the point of no-thoughts is wrong?

No, learning to still the mind is part of the 8fold path as 'right concentration'. The Buddha talked about jhanas and advocated becoming skilled in them a great deal, as they are beneficial states and help prepare the mind for wisdom. But in themselves they don't bring awakening. Awakening comes through wisdom.

If you just sit in jhana all the time, and never use your strengthened mind to gain wisdom, it's like getting in a ferrari and then... just sitting there.

Why? Is Zen state a bad thing?

Zen state? I'm no expert on Zen, but I wouldn't say it's just about having a state where your mind is still. Or any state in particular. States are just states, they come and go - wisdom is seeing them as they are, whatever they might be.

And what is inherently wrong with being reborn in the animal form or a formless realm?

Not well suited for cultivation. I can imagine someone wanting to be the formless realm for a sort of long holiday, but why would you want to be an animal? Would you choose to lose most of your understanding and ability to reflect on things; to be a predator or prey? 

What's the alternative?

Getting your ferrari ready, and then actually driving somewhere. Get skilled in jhana, and then use your strong mind in vipassana to gain wisdom to progress on the path.

If you're just starting to learn what Buddhism is about, perhaps you'll find these tips helpful: http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/42995-thoughts-for-beginners-after-6-years/

Thank you for clearing up many misunderstandings. What is insight meditation? How is it performed?

So in Buddhism there's two main branches of meditation - shamatha (for training the mind to be clear/concentrated/calm/etc) and vipassana (for gaining insight into the four noble truths). Both are necessary: shamatha (as well as being great in itself) makes the mind better suited to doing vipassana well.

Shamatha basically involves placing attention on an object such as the breath, and bringing it back when it wanders.

In vipassana, you observe experience closely and objectively. Moment-to-moment, what's going on? Really it's incredibly simple, so simple it might seem pointless, though it's not always easy. As you investigate (by looking, not intellectual reasoning) you see that things are impermanent, arising and ceasing rapidly. You see that things are not self, or owned by one. You can get to see the four noble truths.

One method of vipassana which is fairly popular is 'noting', where you apply a short label to things to help you see them in the most objective, simple sort of way, without spinning any extra ideas. Hear a sound - 'hearing'. Headache - 'pain'. Feel bored and frustrated and want to do something else - 'boredom', 'desire'.

Yeah the Buddha was called Siddhartha Gautama. He practiced (shamatha - concentration) meditation until he mastered advanced states of mind, the jhanas. He didn't become awakened, so then he tried harsh austerities instead. After giving up that (deciding on a 'middle way'), he combined concentration meditation with a new approach, vipassana (insight) meditation. Insight meditation showed him the four noble truths, and concentration meditation made his mind sharp enough to do that.

I always thought the founder of the 8 noble truths was the first Buddha as with out his 8 noble truths there would not exist Buddhism.

Perhaps I am confused would someone please clear this up?

Thanks.

I think you mean 'four noble truths', the last of which is the eightfold path. The Buddha did not create these, they are intrinsic to the way experience works - he discovered them. He wasn't necessarily the first being anywhere ever to discover them, nor did he claim to be.

'Buddhism' wouldn't exist without the Buddha, but that which it describes (Dharma) would still be true. Someone else could've found the exact same things, and used different terminology and expressed themselves differently. 

If you hang round Buddhist circles you will notice that no one ever admits to being enlightened or even claims any sort of realisation whatsoever.[...] No one speaks of their attainments either, though they do speak of their non-attainments.

Generally true. There is something to be said for not being hasty to claim things or showing off, but that has swung so far now that it's become sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy where people exaggerate how high various attainments are and how impossible it is to achieve them, and thus don't achieve them. The Pragmatic Dharma folks have a better attitude about these things.

[...]I asked: Was Siddhartha from the book by Hermann Hesse the first Buddha?

 

It is a work of fiction but it sure did a good job of explaining the process of becoming a Buddha or so it seemed anyway. Have you read the book? Is that what a Buddha is?

Haven't read it, but judging by parts of the wikipedia summary: "Siddhartha does not follow, claiming that the Buddha's philosophy, though supremely wise, does not account for the necessarily distinct experiences of each person. [...] Siddhartha realizes that time is an illusion and that all of his feelings and experiences, even those of suffering, are part of a great and ultimately jubilant fellowship of all things connected in the cyclical unity of nature. [...] Siddhartha replies that for every true statement there is an opposite one that is also true; [...]  Siddhartha simply urges people to identify and love the world in its completeness."

-Siddhartha from the book isn't Siddhartha Gotama (the Buddha). They are different people with different understandings.

-Buddhism deals with the fundamental structures of experience, so while people do have distinct experiences and need to adjust their practice accordingly, all experience follows the same framework (as ice and steam and water are all H2O).

-Whether or not time, as a metaphysical thing, is an illusion, is irrelevant. The experience of things arising, changing and ceasing is real.

-'Ultimately jubilant fellowship of all things' contradicts the first noble truth.

-The opposite of a true statement is false. 

-Loving sentient beings is good, but 'loving the world in its completeness' sounds like attachment to an idea of a mystical Absolute sort of thing.

By all accounts it's a cool book, but I wouldn't consider it Buddhist teaching.

I'd suggest mindfulness of breathing... a profound practice in itself, and sets a foundation for anything else you might want to do. Here's a good guide to get started: http://www.wildmind.org/mindfulness

So there's a negative feeling, and then after that something like anger? This negative feeling is not an emotion itself?

Can a sound be negative, then? Well, I guess they could if it is spoken in for instance an angry way? 

 

So... I guess that emotions in general often arise from clinging and aversion then? 

[...]

it was stated that in my book that the emotions in skandha four do not arise from words and concepts[...]

Yes, emotion is elaborated from feeling. For example the exact same situation could cause many people to have the same type of feeling, but based on their differing life histories and way of thinking and so on they could all have a subtly or not-so-subtly different emotional response.

Well the sound itself is just sound. Other factors lead to a certain feeling in response, further factors elaborate that into the emotion.

Emotions, like everything else, arise from a complex interplay. Certainly attachment and aversion have roles.

All this is just how I see the idea of the skandhas. I can't see quite where your book is coming from on this. Bhikkhu Bodhi also seems to say that emotion involves the forth skandha:

The Pali word vedanā does not signify emotion (which appears to be a complex phenomenon involving a variety of concomitant mental factors), but the bare affective quality of an experience, which may be either pleasant, painful or neutral.

I don't see how emotions not arising from conditioning could even be a thing.

Hi, new member! 

My understanding - the second skandha, vedana (feeling - positive/negative/neutral), refers to something more basic than emotion. It's the immediate liking/disliking/indifference that comes before or alongside the emotion, which is more complex. Emotion is an aspect of the fourth skandha.

For example, you hear someone say something unpleasant about you and the process is something like this (numbers = skandhas 1-5):

Sound enters ear[1] and ear consciousness arises[5]. The sounds are perceived as words and understood[3, 4]. Negative feeling[2]. Depending on interpretations based on who is talking and the wider social context[4] there may be emotions of sadness or anger or embarrassment, etc[4].

Hopefully that makes things clearer?

Though a more important point imo is to bear in mind the purpose for this teaching about the skandhas. The idea isn't to give the one and only way you can put all the stuff that makes a person in different categories. There are lots of ways you could do that. The simplest way would be to use just two categories: 'physical' and 'mental'. Or you could think up as many categories as you wanted. This set of 5 is just a way to be comprehensive but not ridiculously complicated. It doesn't matter as such whether a particular thing is this skandha or that skandha. This is just to help us understand anatta - it makes it easier to see that we are a bunch of processes, and all these processes interacting account for our entire being - without there being any central 'self' or 'perceiver' or 'subject' independent from the rest. 

As the Buddha says to Bahiya:

When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress.

It helps to stay mindful if you approach it with a mood of investigation... for example, get curious about the impermanence of everything you're experiencing.

The experience of breathing can be broken down into many pulses of air, muscular movements, all really rapidly arising and passing. Each thought - many pulses of mental experience. Same with everything!

Does anything last for over a moment? Be curious, try to get to know firsthand how experience works in a nonconceptual, direct, moment-to-moment way.

Hope that helps. Welcome to the DB's.

I've been into this stuff for roughly 6 years now. So far I've changed a fair bit and came to see things very differently - partly from just life, of course, but also very much through this path. The first year or two were very interesting and challenging times as I tried to figure things out, adjusting to ideas and practices I'd never encountered before and often found very confusing at first.
 
Looking back on those first steps, here's some of the things that might have helped me find my bearings quicker. If you're starting to be interested in Buddhism, maybe you'll find this helpful.
 
Starting meditation.
 
There are various options for where to start. IMO the most important thing for a beginner is to learn to relax, and make practice a habit. This has all you need to get a shamatha practice going: http://www.wildmind.org/mindfulness. Better 15-20 minutes every day then an hour intermittently.
 
There's no rush. Don't think you're a failure for being 'bad' at this. Meditation is the process of training your mind to be more focused than before. Someone who wanders into a gym for the first time and can't lift like a bodybuilder hasn't 'failed'. Saying 'I can't meditate, I'm too distracted' is a fundamental misunderstanding of the process. The whole point of going to the gym is to get stronger. So what you can't lift twice your body weight yet? Do the practice each day, enjoy it, and see how your mind changes. 
 
Try to resist the urge to switch practices too much, or think 'oh this looks cool', 'wait this seems more advanced', 'oh actually this one'... You'll want to try out different things until you find your groove, but give a practice at least 40 days. And don't think that there's some practice out there that fits you perfectly and will make you instantly a Buddha. 
 
Focus on the foundation.
 
When I first started looking into these things, I tried to learn everything at once. In retrospect, it's much better to leave emptiness and Buddha-nature and so on to the side until you have a reasonable understanding of the basics underpinning them. Focus primarily [not saying it has to be exclusively] on Theravada/the first turning for a while. Right now I find 'the basics' suit me fine anyway, and others who do practice Zen or Vajrayana or whatever will tell you to learn and respect the first turning anyway. There's no rush to understand everything - get your foundation. Nobody is going to make you sit an exam in two weeks.
 
Learn about the Four Noble Truths. Does 'dukkha' really mean 'suffering', or something more sophisticated than that? What is dependent origination? Are 'craving' and 'desire' the same thing? What is 'sense craving', 'craving for being', 'craving for nonbeing'? It's important to resolve any doubts you have about anatta (you've probably misunderstood something). Why is "what gets reborn" a misguided question? How does all the theory tie together and link to practice? Ask people questions!
 
Translations and reading.
 
If you're reading an old - or even a modern - text, it's using English to get across the meaning as well as possible, and it won't be 100%. There often aren't exact English equivalents for key terms. A lot of people get thrown off by 'suffering', not realizing that this isn't an ideal translation for 'dukkha' because English doesn't have an equivalent word. It can be a good idea to check alternate translations sometimes, and look up the original terms.
 
At some point you'll probably want to read the Dhammapada. For some reason there are really bad high-selling translations out there which really twist the meaning. Two excellent translations are Acharya Buddharakkhita's and Gil Fronsdal's. Go only for translations by practicing Buddhists who know Pali.
 
When it comes to the rest of the Pali Canon, you only really need the suttas: IMHO, the abidhamma and commentaries are more trouble than they're worth. http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/37325-jhana-suttas-vs-commentaries/ When it comes to modern writing, I recommend Ven. Thanissaro, Leigh Brasington and Daniel Ingram.
 
Assumptions to watch out for.
 
You almost certainly carry a lot of preconceptions from pop culture's version of Buddhism and from your own ideas about all sorts of topics.

Many of them are so ingrained that you don't know they're there or think that they're just obviously true. For example, when I first looked into Buddhism I took 'no-self' to mean 'no individual self because we are all one' and 'dependent origination' to mean 'because everything is connected we should identify with the whole' - essentially 'there must be a self really' and 'a spiritual tradition must have some sort of ontological absolute'.
 
Reading, asking questions, and most importantly doing practice will gradually set this straight. Be open-minded, curious and skeptical. You will often assume that you understand something fully, or think 'well this is just saying an obvious thing everyone knows', and then over the next few years come to see whole new angles and depths.

 
Phenomenology.
 
I.e. this is primarily about first-person experience [phenomena], not the nature of external reality. This principle will help you understand why Buddha rejected certain questions, like the origin of the universe, as fundamentally beside the point. It will also help you see the theory in a much deeper and more practical light. For example, instead of seeing impermanence in terms like 'someday the sun will run out of hydrogen' or 'the seasons change', see it in terms like 'this itch on my elbow is actually made of many brief flashing sensations'. If you can see impermanence like that, you'll gain the level of insight needed to awaken.
 
I spent a lot of time confusing myself trying to figure out how the mind relates to the body. It took me a long time before I thought to ask myself what I was really hoping to get out of that.
 
Practice > intellect.
 
I'm not saying that intellectual understanding doesn't matter at all - a lot of the advice here is about it. Your intellectual understanding helps prevent you completely getting the wrong end of the stick, guides your practice, clears false ideas and doubts out of the way, and gives you confidence. This is all important, but you can't think your way to awakening. 
 
If you find yourself getting stressed about whether X or Y is true, or stressed about a doubt you have over some arcane bit of doctrine that you don't know how to apply to practice anyway, maybe leave it aside, at least for a little while. If you find yourself just having to argue with someone on the internet, or defend yourself against someone arguing with you on the internet, take a breath, cultivate some metta, and let it go.

You can do this!

Don't put the jhanas and awakening in a magic box labelled 'someday, in a far-flung land of mystery and wonder'. A lot of people - past-me included - by default, without quite thinking about it, treat the attainments described in the texts as things that they don't expect to happen to them, not really.

People meditate for 'calm' or 'clarity' or 'insight' - all well and good - but don't actually aspire to personally experience the jhanas or stream-entry. Which is a very strange thing, isn't it, because the Buddha wandered around for 40-odd years teaching people how to get awakened.

Of course there is a sense in which trying to 'get' jhanas like they're trophies is spiritual materialism, and who 'gets' awakened anyway, yadda yadda yadda, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. You can do this!

---

What do you wish someone had told you when you'd started out? 

IMHO this sounds like superstition hitched onto Buddhism to give it 'authority'... No different really from Christians deciding that there's something magical about the water at Lourdes.

I think the basic question for anything claiming to be Dharma that feels 'off' is - does this, do the qualities involved here, foster virtue/concentration/wisdom?

AN 7.79:

Then Ven. Upali went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One: "It would be good, lord, if the Blessed One would teach me the Dhamma in brief such that, having heard the Dhamma from the Blessed One, I might dwell alone, secluded, heedful, ardent, & resolute."

 

"Upali, the qualities of which you may know, 'These qualities do not lead to utter disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, nor to Unbinding': You may categorically hold, 'This is not the Dhamma, this is not the Vinaya, this is not the Teacher's instruction.'

 

"As for the qualities of which you may know, 'These qualities lead to utter disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding': You may categorically hold, 'This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher's instruction.'"

Love is associated with biological processes - but so is hate, and indifference, and so on. Whatever a person is feeling has biological correlates, so why only dismiss love as an illusion? If the absence of love and emotions is being a cold cruel asshole - well, the mental states involved in that also have biological correlates! So wouldn't cold-cruel-assholery be illusory too?

IMHO trying to figure out the exact nature of the relationship between the mind and body is a minefield and a distraction. Look, let's get back to basics. Just stick to experience - see in an experiential way what is going on, what effect it has, what you can do to get better effects.

Here's some snippets of the Kalama Sutta:

"...When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. So in this case, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering' — then you should abandon them.

 

..."Now, what do you think, Kalamas? When aversion arises in a person, does it arise for welfare or for harm?"

 

"For harm, lord."

 

..."When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness' — then you should enter & remain in them.

 

"When lack of aversion arises in a person, does it arise for welfare or for harm?"

 

"For welfare, lord."

 

..."Now, Kalamas, one who is a disciple of the noble ones — thus devoid of greed, devoid of ill will, undeluded, alert, & resolute — keeps pervading the first direction [the east] — as well as the second direction, the third, & the fourth — with an awareness imbued with good will. Thus he keeps pervading above, below, & all around, everywhere & in every respect the all-encompassing cosmos with an awareness imbued with good will: abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will."

I think you're making things a lot more intellectual than they need to be. 

If you feel goodwill, it's better for you and the people you interact with. Simple. Maybe try some metta practice: http://www.wildmind.org/metta/introduction.

I feel like I want to give love freely, but most people in society FORCE me, by their own lack of love into the "me vs them" bubble that makes it all sort of vain

What do you mean? Do you expect 'giving love freely' to happen in some certain way, have a certain result for you? What is this "me vs them" bubble? In what way do others force you to do anything? Go on...

I really want to ... be more vulnerable, and feel safe in doing so, but it actually might just be feeding my ego construct

Who has more of an ego - the person who has a lot of goodwill, or the person who is closed off? I suppose there's the risk that someone might be kind but conceited about their kindness, but this is not a reason to be less kind, eh?

It sounds to me like part of you wants to be more in touch with your emotions, and another part is looking for reasons to close itself off from emotions. 

Even a noble spiritual tradition like Buddhism is hell bent on preserving life

In what way? What do you mean by 'preserving life'?

and furthering some kind of spiritual progression, but who says it's supposed to go forward? Why shouldn't it go backwards?

'Supposed'? Who cares about 'supposed'? The universe doesn't care. Nobody built it to carry out some particular function. Reality just is what it is, does what it does.

The question isn't 'am I meant to progress', but 'do I want to'. Whatever you mean by spiritual progression and going forward.

Who said that there is any correct method of doing anything, ever?

If you don't want any specific outcome for your actions, sure, it doesn't matter what methods you use. But if you want a cup of tea, you'll want to do things like boil water and have a mug and teabag ready.

Whatever consequence of any action one might take may be, it's still just an experience like any other, it just has different characteristics, and one of those characteristics being our opinion of it.

Yeah, but some consequences/experiences are preferable to others.

I mean, it's all the same to the universe whether you help people or run around flaying them (even karma is just an impersonal happening), but you don't live as though these options are exactly equal, do you? Because they aren't equal to you. And when you want to achieve something - and you do - you follow a method you consider likely to bring the results. It's straightforward cause and effect, isn't it?

Don't get too mired in your head. There's always people philosophizing ideas that they obviously don't actually live by. When there is a gulf between your ideas and your everyday life, there's something you're missing.