There's plenty of material out there, you just have to look.
Check out Buddha's brain by Rick Hanson, Ph.D. It looks into Buddhist teachings from a modern neuroscientific perspective.

Anyway, I'm putting a stop on the enlightenment topic for now. Too much confusion/resistance and I don't want people to shy away from this as GeneralTsao did.
If you're interested in it, ask away. But having an argument about what it is or isn't where one side of the debate never heard of it before is not only a waste of time for all of us, it also puts a large shade on my intentions.

If you can't help yourself, at least read this first:
https://dharmatreasure.org/wp-conten...ightenment.pdf



I'll only post once a week from now on unless there is something urgent.
Good luck at the tables and take it easy.

Last thing I will say on the topic but one of us is published in legitimate scientific journals and the other isn't. You're talking down to people (not sure if intentionally) who probably have a far greater understanding of scientific rigour than yourself.

Regardless, no point arguing so will drop it, am interested to see how the poker goes though. gl with the thread.

what you are not realising Ponty is that once you are enlightened/ awakened you can never actually be wrong.

I think I already mentioned everything in our last skype conversation

I took up meditation last year and I found that it helped significantly in respect of self-awareness and introspection. I usually just use Headspace and meditate between 5-20 mins a day. Does extending the period of meditation help with 'mindfulness' significantly? Also, does it make a difference if you break it up into separate session? (i.e. meditating in two 20 min blocks instead of 30 mins straight. Cheers and gl OP

This, that maslow pyramid is like wtf? Not what I've seen during university.

Btw, I think OP is right to search for more balance and mental health/peace, but he looks to be way extreme on that, specially justifying the use of drugs for the sake of that and playing very little volume despite being a winner in the toughest games in the world.

Many experienced meditators across the world have had direct experience of what CRAI is talking about, even if not completely "awakened" (you can get brief glimpses that are non-abiding, i.e. right after the experience you go back to your normal "self" state), from multiple cultural/religious backgrounds and for hundreds (thousands?) of years.

Experiment done at Harvard medical school:
https://jeffwarren.org/articles/scie...nlightenment2/

For anyone who's highly skeptical, I recommend reading up The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young. He's not attached to the buddhist teachings and all the religious bs that is included over the mindfulness core concepts. He is collaborating with various scientific institutions to basically find a magic pill to enlighten everyone ezpz.

Finally cuz i like triggering people about this, enlightenment doesn't mean becoming more compassionate or whatever (although it seems that often happens). It just means you check out of the matrix and have no attachments whatsoever Osho style. It's like a true backdrop of no ****s given behind everything you do. It's all ok.

@CRAIBaby:

First of all, I really do not mean to offend you, but I am geniunely curios about your opinion on following subject:

Im usually not using 2+2 forums, but a buddy has linked me since he knows that I am somewhat interested in meditation.
I do meditation, but only as a hobbyist and not very intense - meaning , just one daily 20 minutes meditation (vipassana).
I have read some books, but likely more basic ones, such as mindfulness in plain english (will check out soon your recommendation).
But now on topic:

In the past i have frequented for a while a forum about meditation and buddhism and I have stopped, since I got a very disturbing vibe.
I want to be very concrete here:
I have sensed a ton of entitlement and what you likely call spiritual ego, that
I was really fascinated how the high-count-super-advanced posters there, could not get the irony.
Also to be very honest, many of them just seemed to me to be not really societical functioning any more or to put it different, there was something very strange and odd about them - some of them just came across to me not as the type of people who should give life-advice, but who are in need of psychotherapy or to put it harder:
Not few of them came across as somewhat ******ed and heavily psychological disfunctional.

I mean, do not get me wrong:
We all like to decrease the lever of suffering and be more in peace with all, but if the price is to become with a decent high chance like many posters at this bhuddistic forum, I almost wanna pass.
How does your life look like?
Are you in a relationship? are you married? planing to have kids one day?
Is the normal life with hobbies and what not even doable when one is (partially) enlightened or does this all seem pointless and/or contradict your spiritual way?
Also how do you agree in regards to playing poker again professionally with one of the buddhistic guideline to follow a "healing" profession (I do not know the correct english translation , but you will know to what I am referring to)?
You think your justification for it is sound?

Lastly,
I always do wonder about one aspect:
Finally one of the biggest goals of following the buddhist path is to basically loose yourself, meaning your ego or your "I"?
If so,
how does it differ from a disorder which is called in psychology
an "I-disorder"?
Again, I apologize since I do not know the professional term in english, so I translate from German - for who is interested - here German wikipedia:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich-St%C3%B6rung

For my last question it would be cool to have a professional opinion - maybe someone who is a psychothearpist or studies psychology is reading this thread and would not mind to take on this question.

Again, I really do not meant to offend and I also want to find more inner peace as most of us.
But I am just really turned off and somewhat scared to really involve myself more into the buddhistic way, since so many people who are, seem to me to be from another planet and this is unfortunately not meant in a positive way.
So I would appreciate if you could reply to my concerns and give me your perspective.

In for the poker pls

Thanks, Torg0th.

@Magistero
I agree with you that many practitioners exhibit those kinds of behavior.

Spiritual ego can indeed develop, but this should happen less and less as more information about enlightenment surfaces and better coaches emerge. Mostly this is simply a result of incomplete development and confusion.

The same goes for the detached behavior that you talk about. This is mostly a result of confusion between non-attachment and aversion, and too just a sign of incomplete development.

Overall, all you need to understand is that as you become more and more enlightened, this will only result in more choices, never less. It is likely that your behavior will change. Some of this will be due to confusion, some will simply be due to a now deeper understanding of the world. As you gain wisdom, compassion naturally arises, and your priorities shift.

Have a listen to Culadasa on the topic of craving, aversion and worldly desire here:
https://youtu.be/7UdHOJqB03o?t=3680


In any conventional sense, I live a very fulfilling life.
I have a beautiful girlfriend, I enjoy a variety of sports and have a strong sense of worldly purpose.
I don't care about Buddhism at all. I only care about the things that make sense and work for me. A lot of what the Buddha taught does. A lot of what Buddhism teaches doesn't. Overall there are far too many assumptions about what enlightenment is and what an enlightened being is like, and too little actually working towards seeing how it's actually like.


In terms of the difference between the fully enlightened state and the I-disorder. The I-disorder still suggests a sense of self, just a disordered version of it. The fully enlightened experience is devoid of a sense of self. Everything is experienced as dependently arising perfection.

I highly recommend it.

You rip any drugs or what?

Approx 1000 hours of meditation away from transforming into Charlie Carrel

Just wondering if there is a path to enlightenment that doesn't involve becoming an insufferable bore along the way?

Probably not. People who are removed from hierachy(western for ex.) seem boring from far away.

In your case, probably not

My life is a total mess. During the last 3 or so years I went from having a better life than I could have ever dreamt of to being much more miserable than I ever thought I could be. I am completely broken down in every way. What would be your advice for someone in this state? and plz no 'go see a psychiatrist' replies im obviously not looking for a generic answer.

Lmfao

Week 1

Poker


Enjoying my new office. Enjoying my 4-hour morning grinds. Been playing 500z, 1k and 2k.


Optimization

I've been spending quite some time this week researching nutrition and supplementation. The Ultramind Solution (book) is a great resource. Here is a mini-summary, but I recommend reading the whole thing and doing your own research.

1. Eat whole, real, fresh, organic, unprocessed food.
2. Eat a lot of fruit and vegetables full of colourful phytonutrients.
3. Eat foods with plenty of fiber.
4. Eat foods containing omega-3 fats.

No sugars in any form, no toxic fats, no food additives and chemicals, no toxin-rich foods

Supplementation:
1. A high quality, high potency, highly bioavailable broad-spectrum multivitamin, which contains all the basic essential vitamins and minerals
2. Calcium and magnesium
3. Vitamin D3
4. Omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA
5. Methylation factors: folate, B6, B12
6. Probiotics or beneficial bacteria to improve digestion, reduce allergies, reduce gut inflammation

I also put some thoughts into improving sleep quality. I am currently going to bed at 8:30 pm and waking up at 5 am. Likely we will start sleeping at 8pm instead and wake up at 4:30, to include morning yoga and having breakfast together into our schedules. I also bought an air purifier and a humidifier. We plan on decreasing our bedroom temperature to around 18-19 degrees at night. I recommend listening to Matthew Walker's interview on JRE to learn more about sleep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig.

I also did some research on artificial lighting and realized how harmful it is. I took most of the light bulbs out and switched the remaining ones with incandescent 25W bulbs. We also bought nice essential oil candles which we are now using as our main light source after the sun goes down.


What I am working on
I just bought the 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss which I will be plowing through to read about all the hacks he came up with to design my exercise regime.

I also bought the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown, after listening to his interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8u4clhDHvQ.
I love his ideas and am looking forward to implementing it in my own life.

We recently moved into a new place. This week is all about getting everything fully set up and getting our routines going.


Peace and take it easy,
CRAI

If possible, try to take some days/week off from your usual activities/jobs. Give yourself a much-needed break. Spend this time on relaxation and introspection. Evaluate where you are at, and come to terms with it. Fully accept the current situation you are in; then you can start thinking about actionable steps to change it.

Probiotics or beneficial bacteria to improve digestion, reduce allergies, reduce gut inflammation

Can u tell me what type of supplement are u using for "reduce gut inflammation" or just reduce inflammation ?

a bit late but my ego needs to chime in here!

even if you find a way to take your mask off or find it within yourself to believe that parts of your persona aren't "real", you are still using a social/societal understanding of the world to contrast what you are from what you are not. In a way "taking off your mask" is just another mask that you're putting on?

realizing you really know nothing at all is probably the greatest gifts. be open to being wrong, help people, laugh, f*** alot and get the paper. this OCD-like-newage-optimization is for computers, we are (imo) some sort of ape like creature, this approach never ends well also it kind of acts as a repellent because no one likes a "know it all"

Very well said imo


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

First of all, thanks for the detail reply and the link - will check it out and also have ordered already his book which you recommended (german version tough).

Not sure about the quoted final paragraph.
Just have no clue bout how a life might even look like - will listen to the link you posted.

Also you seem to be at least in the sense for real, that you do not give a fukk bout all this religious part of buddhism and you try to explore what's real.
I do not get the part where people always refer that with enlightment there comes the realization that we all one and what not.
But I truly wonder how high the chance is that this sense is just unreal in terms of like a halluzination and shifted sense of reality as one might experience by taking psychedellic drugs?
Universe can be just random and non-deterministic, evolution can be random and we are just individual mammals - no "perfect" unity at all.
I mean,such questions are so easy to put when you wanna try to falsify your own biases (scientific approach).
Why nobody seems to consider the possibility that all the results from year long meditation are just non-real shifted fantasy-realities as any
psychedellic drug noise trip most likely is as well (and no gate to the real reality aka enlightement).
Usually at this point I would often get the argument "Trust me, once you are there, you know its real real and so long you just cannot know".

This is tbh such an absurd laughable weak argument - I mean, paranoid heavily shizophrenia-disordered and mentally sick people also are 100% convinced that their experienced reality is 100% true, while it is obviously not.
Hence experiencing a dtm-trip or getting after year long meditation practice more and more "awakening-moments" are at least for me no evidence that what you think is real, really is reality.

I hope you know what I mean, it is not easy to express my thoughts on this one in words and english being not my first language does not make things easier xD
But in regards to my previous post you also have understood where I was coming from, so hopefully this will be also the case here ^^


offtopic:
Do you know in accident the youtuber Leo Gura?
He is a former selfhelp-guy, but seems nowadays to wander on the path of enlightment - his recent material seems somewhat fancy, lol, to put it mildly inclusive dtm-trips live on air xD
If you happen to know him, is he or his way in your eyes legit?
He is a good example for what I fear.

Like 2 years ago he still made just very wordly personal development stuff, had himself very normal and relateable goals and what not.
Nowadays, I would think, what the **** has happened to him and was he kidnapped maybe by aliens xD
To be fair, thats only an superficial spontaneous impression from me, since I did not watch his new highly enlightement content at all...
But come on, drug trips live on air xD
Is this how it will end for all of us practitioners, finally xD
If so, I do not know, but actually I would like to stay away from being at risk at getting delivered by force to a mental hospital, at some point xD
Again, my impression can be off here, but yeah - some of this way seems to me fancy, some other stuff pretty helpful and beneficial.

Oh no, was meant to get this for you mate! Sorry lol.

Just to be pedantic: no sugar means no fruit, so should change it to no hidden sugar/sugar added to food or something

What brand of probiotics are you going for?

Curcumin (tumeric extract) is a pretty great supplement for inflammation. Also has many other proven benefits relating to health and brain function, check it out. I take it everyday (and so does Wey).