(Part 2) Best products from r/TheMindIlluminated

Siddhis absolutely exist, but not in the way that the self wants them to be true.



Social Domain

I have had experiences similar to u/whuttupfoo - the degree of social intuition you can develop is Jed-like; far beyond what you would expect. As he stated though - there is nothing magical about this really. Humans are social beings, so your degree of receptively and influence has the potential to be very high. Mental defilements, attachment to worldview, and self, blocks this natural receptively and influence.

u/whuttupfoo mostly talked about his degree of receptivity. One's social influence can hit pretty high levels too though. When you have no ill-will and see nothing as a threat, people become rather pliant. When I complete an Insight cycle - my state of mind is substantially more powerful than ordinarily, and I have had experiences of deeply influencing people in these states. Again, there is nothing magic about this though.

Some dating coach was involved in a media scandal, whereby the pressure of it enabled him to attain a degree of self-realization, after which he began teaching his own variety of "dharma". He demonstrates what I would consider siddhi-like social influence abilities here.

I consider Tony Robbins healing abilities to be Siddhi-like as well.

Manifestation

People call manifestation of material things "magick" sometimes. There is no need for that because there is nothing magical about it. I wrote about this already here a few days ago.
Despite the fact there is no actual magick going on with manifestation, understanding nuances of motivational psychology and actively working to improve those skills can give you abilities that do indeed seem magical. But there is no magic - the normal mode of viewing motivational psychology is just very out of accord with how the mind actually functions, it therefore can seem like magic. You have the ability to manifest WAY more than you would think possible in the external world. I can promise you that.

Physical Acts

I'm sure people already know of Wim Hof and the miraculous abilities he attained through his own meditative training. Again, nothing magical here. Just aspects of human experience we do not understand.

Sidenote: I don't have the clip, but I remember somewhere Wim Hof mentions he practiced Samadhi and said he looked into Siddhis. He didn't go into much more detail than that though. Interesting stuff.

Collective Consciousness

There is definitely a collective consciousness. The question is the degree of it. Is it something, akin to what Carl Jung writes about in-terms of symbols? Or is it something where we are all connected via consciousness itself? I have no experience with the latter but seeing the former is quite clear. If someone does have experience with this, I would love to hear your thoughts. My opinion on this is undefined for now.

Long story short - us humans are very arrogant and we think we see the world how it is. The world is however, very different from our natural mode of perception. All true "suddhis" are not really magical - but rather are just representative that we are seeing an aspect of reality in a more accurate and refined way that allows for more optimal behavior.

And finally, I will bid you farewell with this quote from A Course in Miracles, which sums up the issue beautifully:

> 1 The answer to this question is much like the preceding one. There are, of course, no "unnatural" powers, and it is obviously merely an appeal to magic to make up a power that does not exist. It is equally obvious, however, that each individual has many abilities of which he is unaware. As his awareness increases, he may well develop abilities that seem quite startling to him. Yet nothing he can do can compare even in the slightest with the glorious surprise of remembering who he is. Let all his learning and all his efforts be directed toward this one great final surprise, and he will not be content to be delayed by the little ones that may come to him on the way.

> 2 Certainly there are many "psychic" powers that are clearly in line with this course. Communication is not limited to the small range of channels the world recognizes. If it were, there would be little point in trying to teach salvation. It would be impossible to do so. The limits the world places on communication are the chief barrier to direct experience of the Holy Spirit, Whose Presence is always there and Whose Voice is available but for the hearing. These limits are placed out of fear, for without them the walls that surround all the separate places of the world would fall at the holy sound of His Voice. Who transcends these limits in any way is merely becoming more natural. He is doing nothing special, and there is no magic in his accomplishments.

> 3 The seemingly new abilities that may be gathered on the way can be very helpful. Given to the Holy Spirit and used under His direction, they are valuable teaching aids. To this the question of how they arise is irrelevant. The only important consideration is how they are used. Taking them as ends in themselves, no matter how this is done, will delay progress. Nor does their value lie in proving anything—achievements from the past, unusual attunement with the "unseen," or special favors from God. God gives no special favors, and no one has any powers that are not available to everyone. Only by tricks of magic are special powers "demonstrated."

> 4 Nothing that is genuine is used to deceive. The Holy Spirit is incapable of deception, and He can use only genuine abilities. What is used for magic is useless to Him, but what He uses cannot be used for magic. There is, however, a particular appeal in unusual abilities which can be curiously tempting. Here are strengths which the Holy Spirit wants and needs. Yet the ego sees in these same strengths an opportunity to glorify itself. Strengths turned to weakness are tragedy indeed. Yet what is not given to the Holy Spirit must be given to weakness, for what is withheld from love is given to fear and will be fearful in consequence.

> 5 Even those who no longer value the material things of the world may still be deceived by "psychic" powers. As investment has been withdrawn from the world's material gifts, the ego has been seriously threatened. It may still be strong enough to rally under this new temptation to win back strength by guile. Many have not seen through the ego's defenses here, although they are not particularly subtle. Yet, given a remaining wish to be deceived, deception is made easy. Now the "power" is no longer a genuine ability and cannot be used dependably. It is almost inevitable that, unless the individual changes his mind about its purpose, he will bolster its uncertainties with increasing deception.

> 6 Any ability that anyone develops has the potentiality for good. To this there is no exception. And the more unusual and unexpected the power, the greater its potential usefulness. Salvation has need of all abilities, for what the world would destroy, the Holy Spirit would restore. "Psychic" abilities have been used to call upon the devil, which merely means to strengthen the ego. Yet here is also a great channel of hope and healing in the Holy Spirit's service. Those who have developed "psychic" powers have simply let some of the limitations they laid upon their minds be lifted. It can be but greater limitations they lay upon themselves if they utilize their increased freedom for greater imprisonment. The Holy Spirit needs these gifts, and those who offer them to Him and Him alone go with Christ's gratitude upon their hearts, and His holy sight not far behind.

I wrote a comment a couple months back on /r/streamentry that I think could be helpful:

> I'm sorry this has been rough for you, and definitely sympathize since I've been trying to work through some trauma-related stuff for the past few months. You may want to read Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness to learn more about how meditation and trauma interact, or this post on the DhO discussing it. I've also found it really useful to work with a somatic experiencing therapist at the same time, as well as reading this book on somatic experiencing.
>
> This is an incomplete list of things that I've found helpful at various points. A lot of it is the standard advice for purifications and difficult emotional territory, but I found that for me it actually took quite a long time to accept that the advice was applicable and that I shouldn't just crank up the intensity of vipassanna to try to resolve it all today. So the following list is all stuff to try to intend to do when you can -- it's only natural for things to be raw and demand your attention right now.
>
> Backing off from trauma-linked body sensations, thoughts, and images. Not all the way -- but trying to turn down the volume. Culadasa talks about attention alternating between different sensations, and ideally for working through trauma most of the attention is placed on something pleasant or neutral, with attention occasionally flickering to something difficult. This is beyond just seeing that the the traumatic sensations are impermanent -- seeing that they don't have to be the biggest thing going on can be equally freeing.
>
> Social engagement. airbenderaang has already touched on metta and compassion practice, and those can be very helpful. One of the things with trauma is that at a neurological level, the freeze/fight/flight response actually disconnects the social engagement system. The reverse is also true -- so if you're in a traumatic state, socially reconnecting can diminish the intensity of the trauma and help integrate the trauma-related subminds. And it's useful to remember that social engagement isn't just happy/easy/compassionate feelings -- sometimes it's just being able to tell someone else why you feel bad, setting a social boundary, etc.
>
> Finding neutral body sensations. Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness talks some about this, and it's a focus in somatic experiencing therapy. Focusing on the breath or on certain parts of the body is not necessarily safe or trauma-free -- in fact it's common for those with a history of trauma for the breath and front of the body to be trauma-linked. So you can look around and see if the hands, the legs, the feet, or somewhere else feels safe, neutral, and unrelated to the trauma.
>
> Self-validation and positive self talk. To the degree that you can, try to start accepting the different emotions and thoughts that you have. One thing that can help sometimes is to try to experience an emotion in the body and then try to understand how it's compassionate or self-protective from a certain point of view. Over time this can help you build up the opposite of an inner critic. Tara Brach's RAIN method is good for this, and I've also found Harnessing the Energy of the Defilements from MCTB inspiring. Shargrol's Therapeutic Models for Meditators is also great in general.
>
> Re-engagement in ordinary life and regular tasks. It can be really grounding to just get back to work and friends that know nothing about your difficulties in meditation or with trauma, and to just re-immerse yourself with that. At the same time, it can also be very freeing to confide in a few people that you really trust. Exercise and task-focused manual labor are also helpful.
>
> Working with a meditation teacher. The feedback you can get from a teacher can help keep your meditation practice focused towards enhancing your emotional regulation, which provides a supportive base for eventually integrating the trauma rather than making it worse.
>
> Being extremely gentle with yourself, both in mediation and off-cushion. Start listening when part of you doesn't want to do something, and try to start acting from unanimous consensus rather than making yourself do stuff. If you're in internal conflict about what to do, try to figure out what both sides really want and then come up with a temporarily workable compromise.
>
> Humor. Some of the moments that have felt like a lot of progress towards integrating trauma have been when something about the situation was surprisingly much funnier than I expected, whether from dark humor about how it can't get worse or due to moments of insight feeling like I'm getting an undefinable joke.
>
> * Grief. Assuming that you're not getting sucked in too fast due to it, sometimes letting yourself really grieve and cry can be a relief from the constant pressure. This has gone best for me when it's limited in time and partially mixed in with a sense of hope, compassion, or humor. For instance, I've found reading The Sarantine Mosaic by Guy Gavriel Kaye seems to evoke a blended sense of tragedy and hope that despite everything I've got a meaningful role in the world.

I don't have a device to measure HRV, but studies point out that if you slow down the number of breaths per minute, you increase HRV. Higher HRV is also linked to more willpower, according to Kelly McGonigal in her book:


https://www.amazon.com.br/Willpower-Instinct-Self-Control-Works-Matters/dp/1583335080


This post summarizes her point:


> Pause-and-plan gives you a few precious moments to bring your higher brain back on line and increase your heart rate variability. Not just lowering your heart rate/blood pressure and returning to a calmer baseline, but increasing your heart rate variability -the capacity of the heart to respond to changes in input from the body in a flexible way. Higher HRV allows people to better ignore distractions, delay gratification, persevere with difficult tasks, tolerate critical feedback and resist temptation. Psychologists consider heart rate variability a key predictor of willpower.

> One technique to apply the pause-and-plan response and improve your heart rate variability is to slow down you breathing to four to six breaths per minute. Ten to fifteen seconds per breath rather than the normal ten breaths per minute (or much faster when we’re stressed). One or two minutes of breathing at this slower pace can shift the body and brain from a state of stress to a mode of self-control with more capacity to handle cravings and challenges to our willpower. (One study found that a daily 20 minute practice of slowed breathing increased heart rate variability and thus willpower reserves among adults recovering from substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder.) There are even apps such as Breath Pace to help you slow down your breathing.

> https://lindagraham-mft.net/strengthening-willpower-a-key-step-in-strengthening-resilience/


There's also this video:


Improve Willpower in 5 Mins | How Heart Rate Variability helps Brain Functio


So, it seems to me that, perhaps, slowing down the frequency of your breaths might be a good pre-meditation practice.

As to arguments supporting free will I will suggest based on some of the references cited below that it is very hard to support the idea that we live in a purely deterministic universe.

Based on the 'meditative perceptions' of the Buddha the concept of interdependence and non-self emerged. I interpret interdependence as emergence, and non-self as the separation of consciousness from the concept formed in the mind as self.

The perceptions arising during mediation circumvent and trump the conditioned and conceptual responses of our cortex/mind, greatly expanding the parameters of what we could consider our free will.

see also Shulman, Eviatar. Rethinking the Buddha: Early Buddhist Philosophy as Meditative Perception Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.



A response to your comment, with some references..."I could understand that a neural network may have an internal mechanism of information flow which is so complicated that it exceeds our current level of knowledge in being able to map or understand it (the complexity of the connections create consciousness and we aren't advanced enough to understand this?).'

The efficacy of neural networks applied to AI is that the repetition of simple units or Boolean nodes-on/off, allows complexity to arise from very simple uncomplicated structures.

>This new science centers on the study of “coupled oscillators.” Groups of fireflies, planets, or pacemaker cells are all collections of oscillators—entities that cycle automatically, that repeat themselves over and over again at more or less regular time intervals. Fireflies flash; planets orbit; pacemaker cells fire. Two or more oscillators are said to be coupled if some physical or chemical process allows them to influence one another. Fireflies communicate with light. Planets tug on one another with gravity. Heart cells pass electrical currents back and forth. As these examples suggest, nature uses every available channel to allow its oscillators to talk to one another. And the result of those conversations is often synchrony, in which all the oscillators begin to move as one.

>As he considered increasingly homogeneous populations of oscillators, no sync occurred until he reached a critical point, a threshold of diversity. Then, suddenly, some of the oscillators spontaneously locked their frequencies and ran around together. As he made the distribution even narrower, more and more oscillators were co-opted into the synchronized pack. In developing this description, Winfree discovered an unexpected link between biology and physics. He realized that mutual synchronization is analogous to a phase transition, like the freezing of water into ice. Think for a moment about how astonishing the phenomenon of freezing really is. When the temperature is just 1 degree above the freezing point, water molecules roam freely, colliding and tumbling over one another. At that temperature, water is a liquid. But now cool it ever so slightly below the freezing point and suddenly, as if by magic, a new form of matter is born. Trillions of molecules spontaneously snap into formation, creating a rigid lattice, the solid crystal we call ice. Similarly, sync occurs abruptly, not gradually, as the width of the frequency distribution is lowered through the critical value.

>Strogatz, Steven H.. Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life (p. 54). Hachette Books. Kindle Edition.

To elaborate on the microbe I will refer to a description of slime mold found in 'The self-organizing Universe' by Erich Jantsch

When food is abundant there are a group of single celled organisms that go about their individual lives in the forest floor. When hard times occur these organisms start 'randomly' emitting ATP.

Suddenly populations of these organisms start to come together - 10,000 to 100,000 individuals form a worm. Cells with high cellulose form a foot, and high sugar form a mouth/head. This worms then crawls through the forest until it finds a good food source and then it dissolves and all the single cells go about their lives again. Complexity arising from the organization of the chaotic and unpredictable behavior of simpler units.

A couple more references...

>What makes the Prigoginian paradigm especially interesting is that it shifts attention to those aspects of reality that characterize today’s accelerated social change: disorder, instability, diversity, disequilibrium, nonlinear relationships (in which small inputs can trigger massive consequences), and temporality—a heightened sensitivity to the flows of time.

> The work of Ilya Prigogine and his colleagues in the so-called “Brussels school” may well represent the next revolution in science as it enters into a new dialogue not merely with nature, but with society itself.

> The ideas of the Brussels school, based heavily on Prigogine’s work, add up to a novel, comprehensive theory of change. Summed up and simplified, they hold that while some parts of the universe may operate like machines, these are closed systems, and closed systems, at best, form only a small part of the physical universe. Most phenomena of interest to us are, in fact, open systems, exchanging energy or matter (and, one might add, information) with their environment. Surely biological and social systems are open, which means that the attempt to understand them in mechanistic terms is doomed to failure. This suggests, moreover, that most of reality, instead of being orderly, stable, and equilibrial, is seething and bubbling with change, disorder, and process.

>In Prigoginian terms, all systems contain subsystems, which are continually “fluctuating.” At times, a single fluctuation or a combination of them may become so powerful, as a result of positive feedback, that it shatters the preexisting organization. At this revolutionary moment—the authors call it a “singular moment” or a “bifurcation point”—it is inherently impossible to determine in advance which direction change will take: whether the system will disintegrate into “chaos” or leap to a new, more differentiated, higher level of “order” or organization, which they call a “dissipative structure.” (Such physical or chemical structures are termed dissipative because, compared with the simpler structures they replace, they require more energy to sustain them.)

>Prigogine, Ilya. Order Out of Chaos (Radical Thinkers) . Verso Books. Kindle Edition.

also

>"Biological theorists who seek to explain consciousness have gotten stuck in the cerebral cortex, citing it as the situs of consciousness, i.e., where consciousness arises. I will challenge this notion and, accordingly, offer a new theory of how we become conscious during various natural or induced states in which we are unconscious." - Pfaff, Donald. How Brain Arousal Mechanisms Work (Kindle Locations 107-110). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition. https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Arousal-Mechanisms-Work-Consciousness/dp/1108433332

and

>A new theory is taking hold in neuroscience. The theory is increasingly being used to interpret and drive experimental and theoretical studies, and it is finding its way into many other domains of research on the mind. It is the theory that the brain is a sophisticated hypothesis-testing mechanism, which is constantly involved in minimizing the error of its predictions of the sensory input it receives from the world. This mechanism is meant to explain perception and action and everything mental in between. It is an attractive theory because powerful theoretical arguments support it. It is also attractive because more and more empirical evidence is beginning to point in its favour. It has enormous unifying power and yet it can explain in detail too. This book explores this theory. It explains how the theory works and how it applies; it sets out why the theory is attractive; and it shows why and how the central ideas behind the theory profoundly change how we should conceive of perception, action, attention, and other central aspects of the mind.

>Perception, action, and attention are but three different ways of doing the very same thing. All three ways be must be balanced carefully with each other in order to get the world right. The unity of conscious perception, the nature of the self, and our knowledge of our private mental world is at heart grounded in our attempts to optimize predictions about our ongoing sensory input.

>The theory promises not only to radically reconceptualize who we are and how aspects of our mental lives fit into the world. It unifies these themes under one idea: we minimize the error between the hypotheses generated on the basis of our model of the world and the sensory deliverances coming from the world. A single type of mechanism, reiterated throughout the brain, manages everything. The mechanism uses an assortment of standard statistical tools to minimize error and in doing so gives rise to perception, action, and attention, and explains puzzling aspects of these phenomena. Though the description of the mechanism is statistical it is just a causal neuronal mechanism and the theory therefore sits well with a reductionist, materialist view of the mind.



>Hohwy, Jakob. The Predictive Mind, Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

How can free-will not exist in a brain that is constantly creating choices?

Both of what you describe hearing from the neuroscientist and ex-nun sound much more like a few off the cuff anecdotes than actual well researched positions that you should count on as meaningful in deciding whether you personally continue with the practices described in TMI.

To start with the ex-nun. In what sense is she a meditation expert and what is her understanding of TMI? As has been already stated elsewhere on the thread TMI is not a novel system that has been dreamt up complete with trademarks and a mystical backstory. It's a modern synthesis of very well established meditation approaches from both Tibetan and Theravadan schools that have a long historical pedigree. Mindfulness of breath, body scanning, metta, walking meditation and the like are all staples of Buddhist meditation across the world. In that regard stating that there is no enlightenment to be gained by following it really needs some further clarification on her part. What about the system makes enlightenment impossible?

On the neuroscience front maybe Minsky is considered outdated, I have no way of knowing personally, but I do know that the attention/awareness distinction is what Culadasa considers the core of how his approach differs from others. If your ex boss failed to comment on that then I'm sceptical he's given the book a thorough reading. The scientific backing for attention and awareness being separate but related in the way Culadasa describes is discussed in great detail in The Master and his Emissary so you could look into that if you want.

What role science can or should play in your decision is seems very important to you. Some of the blurb for TMI may have bigged up the science side of things a bit much. Certainly prior to the recent unpleasantness that was the main criticism that we heard about the book and Culadasa. However, those of us who are familiar with the system know that TMI is a meditation book that also contains some very well thought out theoretical models to explain what you experience if you follow the meditation instructions. Currently science has great things to say about the benefits of basic levels of mindfulness but is not ready to endorse ideas around awakening. If you want to do practices that are rigorously evidentially backed up then you can take a course like MBSR or MBCT. However, these courses are short and they do not offer a detailed long term progression. In fact, the aim is that at the end of them you go off and seek out your own personal practice. You'll also note if you take a course that they are teaching you the same basic techniques you find in TMI: mindfulness of breath, body scan, metta and so on.

The scientific speculation that is in TMI is useful insofar as it can help demystify the experiences that occur in deep meditation and thus help people find a clear and well mapped route through the territory. Ultimately the book has become popular through word of mouth because it delivers on what it promises and so each copy sold inevitably leads to a high number of personal recommendations to others. If you want to pursue the benefits of advanced levels of mindfulness then it is still one of the best options out there despite Culadasa's recent controversial behaviour.

Sure :)

Here are my two favourites:

This is a pithy and powerful little book that's available for free online: The Noble Eightfold Path by Bhikkhu Bodhi. It's so good and so tiny that I carry it around with me in my backpack.

Then there's this more extensive but really accessible book that I understand has been used as a college textbook: An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values and Issues

It's great because it "At the same time it develops a careful, probing analysis of the nature and practical dynamics of Buddhist ethics in both its unifying themes and in the particularities of different Buddhist traditions. The book applies Buddhist ethics to a range of issues of contemporary concern: humanity's relationship with the rest of nature; economics; war and peace; euthanasia; abortion; the status of women; and homosexuality."

Hope this helps!

OP appears quite happy with his current situation but FWIW it is always nice to refer back to this very short essay by Thanissaro Bikkhi: No-self or not-self?There are too many great points he makes in that essay so I'll just mention two:

- The Buddha categorically refused to answer the question of whether or not there is a self. Not-self/Anatta is a practice, its purpose is to outgrow itself. It is not a teaching on "ultimate truth".

- A unitive state (being identified as "everything") is still a self to cling to. If one is to realize complete liberation in the Buddhist sense, the Buddha suggests there's still work to be done.

​

I am all for scientific research related to meditation (I'd recommend Altered Traits for a summary of what has been done so far), but we have to recognize the limitations involved. A big one is the degree to which the researchers themselves the phenomena they are studying. The above excerpt is a good example of completely uncalled for speculation.

Two books profoundly helped me develop good posture:

3 Pillars of Zen

[Zen Training] (https://www.amazon.ca/Zen-Training-Philosophy-Shambhala-Classics-ebook/dp/B007WVNUUW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1523978417&sr=1-1&keywords=zen+training&dpID=411-sI-PVQL&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=srch)

I am posting them only for the pictures and explanation of posture, not the other content. Although it does stand on it's own, if you use TMI as a filter.

One of the most important things is to sit a little bit forward on the cushion and make sure your spine has it's natural curvature. You can achieve that by slightly pushing out the belly button so your back naturally curves and the weight settles nicely.

Where you actually sit on the cushion is key...

I'm sure others might know better books than the ones I posted...

Nice job! And thanks for sharing.

Is this the book you're reading? Is it good for a modern audience? https://www.amazon.com/Noble-Eightfold-Path-Way-Suffering/dp/192870607X/

The metta style in the TMI appendix wasn't resonating with me. If that happens definitely search for other ways of practicing metta - the one in this book has been helpful for me:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/1909314552/

More info related to the author and book mentioned above:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/2oid0e/bhikkhu_analayo_on_alternative_metta_methods/

Hope you're well :)

This kind of mind-induced somatosensory pain when meditating is often associated with trauma. I've worked with similar issues myself, though what you're describing sounds markedly more pronounced than what I've worked with.

If you know yourself to be a trauma survivor, then I would suggest finding a teacher that has some kind of background in trauma-sensitive mindfulness, and ideally some kind of professional mental health background.

One book (that I have not read myself), but gets mentioned a lot in this context is Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness by David Treleavan.
Another one (that I've partially read) is The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van der Kolk. That last one is very informative but also difficult as many of the case studies that are described are pretty harrowing to listen to - just a warning.

I meet with a teacher twice per month, and much of what we do, besides meditation, and discussing practice, is essentially talk therapy. She also prescribes me a number of non-meditation exercises that are pretty standard in working with grief and trauma. I've found it very helpful and beneficial to my practice.

Incorporating some metta, or what Shinzen Young calls Nurture Positive would likely also be beneficial. If you can cultivate some practices that plain just make you feel good, that you can depend on as a resource, it can provide a sense of security that lets you navigate more painful sensations and associated memories/emotions/thoughts with a much needed felt sense of grounding.

I recommend Compassion and Emptiness in Early Buddhist Meditation by Analayo.

It is a quite fascinating book, and gives a very different perspective on how to practice the Bramaviharas. The standard method of sending compassion to several people, first yourself, then a close friend or mentor, then an acquaintance, etc... This was not how the early Buddhists did it, according to Analayo's analysis of the suttas.

Yeah, I'd suggest a simple book like this. It outlines basic daily mindfulness that a person can do. Great for getting things started!

https://www.amazon.com/Peace-Every-Step-Mindfulness-Everyday/dp/0553351397/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=everyday+mindfulness+thich&qid=1572270253&sr=8-2

> I love sci-fi/fantasy

So you'll probably also love "S.N.U.F.F."

Same here. Started smoking during a spiritual crisis over a decade ago, and it's been hell trying to kick this addiction. I've quit numerous times, sometimes for 6+ months at a go. Then the trigger of anxiety flares up and I'm smoking again. I've recently had some success, however. My meditation practice has definitely helped me see craving more clearly, and given me skills to deconstruct the craving (e.g., mental image, mental talk, inner tightness/tension). Judson Brewer's book The Craving Mind also helped. https://www.amazon.com/Craving-Mind-Cigarettes-Smartphones-Hooked/dp/0300234368/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+craving+mind&qid=1571317406&sr=8-1 He also has an app called "Craving to Quit" that involves a mindfulness based approach to smoking cessation. It costs money, but it seems to have a high success rate.

What helped most was seeing the suffering that my addiction was causing my wife and having her plead with me to stop. That was huge. It's been going well, but the craving still rears its head some days.

The struggle is real. Best wishes to you.

I got this a couple of weeks ago and it changed my life.

​

https://www.amazon.com/bonVIVO-Adjustable-Comfortable-Semi-Foldable-Meditation/dp/B07DL5PG74?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_2&th=1

​

Back support, but no need for something to lean against a wall or furniture, since you can place it in middle of a room on top of zabuton. I just place the floor chair on top of my zabuton, sit cross legged, and use a couple of pillows to prop up my knees. It's way more comfortable than what you're currently doing, which is what I used to do.

Much Metta to you!

Agreed. Daytime sleepiness is a definite sign you are not sleeping enough or well enough at night. it is true that sleep pressure builds over a period of 16 hours from the time you wake up. But if you are sleepy during the day and need caffeine to manage it, you're not sleeping enough.

If you want to understand why that is so critical, read this book. You will never see sleep the same way again. Or, if you don't have time to read the book, watch Joe Rogan's interview with Matthew Walker on The Joe Rogan Experience..

https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501144324/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=78477646311922&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvqmt=e&keywords=why+we+sleep&qid=1569147331&sr=8-1

I'm glad you found it useful and I think its really difficult to work out what is adverse experiences of insight practice vs underlying anxiety/depersonalisation issues. This book is an excellent resource as well: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Overcoming-Depersonalization-Disorder-Mindfulness-Acceptance-ebook/dp/B003TU29X4

I looked at Kelly's book last year and it didn't quite grab me. I don't think the glimpsing method wasn't working for me at the time. I'm glimpse-resistant. Maybe I should revisit.

What do you think of this book? https://www.amazon.com/Falling-into-Grace-Insights-Suffering-ebook/dp/B004LLINOY He wrote the forward to Shift into Freedom.

The Body Keeps The Score is a fantastic book. Also, check out Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness.

/u/TMIMeditation you might find this book helpful as a companion reference: https://www.amazon.ca/Trauma-Sensitive-Mindfulness-Practices-Safe-Healing/dp/0393709787

I've had an accumulation of doubts, and after having a steady daily meditation routine of 45 minutes, I'm not meditating hardly at all. I know that strong doubt is my problem, not so much doubt in the method of TMI or Culadasa, because I don't actually doubt either at all, but more worried that I'm not ready for all of this, that as a mother of small children I need to have different priorities :( Feeling a bit sad and lost, but I have actually taken some action to address some trauma that I know needs attention via therapy, and before doing TMI it didn't occur to me to address this as my life was functional and happy anyway, but now I know I have to address all of this sooner than later if I want to take my meditation path seriously... I'm planning to read from the dharma treasure recommended reading list and center on shorter meditation sessions, and especially do metta and walking meditation. And see how things go and how I feel I suppose...I feel sad about my practice, but I feel very good and happy about my life in general... Its a bit strange, but before having my children when I started to delve into Buddhism, I was sort of ready to jump head in to everything, but now I have very strong attachments to my children and their welfare, and I worry if I come to pieces as I walk my meditation path,if they will be affected...I did ask Culadasa about this via the patreon questions, but sadly the question didn't get answered as only those questions of who attended got answered (again couldn't attend that day as there was a change of time and I would have had to get a baby sitter). The path is going to have ups and down I suppose... I'm also reading a book called Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness as it addresses one of my doubts and worries.

​

​

​