This is an awesome video; as you were saying absorbtion at first I had the thoughts trying to figure out what you meant but I just stayed with the feeling of absorption. At the end you clarified what it was and I am guilty of letting the analytical thoughts start to take over so I’ll practice the shit out of this 🎉 Alot has left go but I’m seeing the analytical thoughts alot atm it’s like the next subtle layer. ❤
I’ve been shown eternal freedom. Now the job is to preserve it and nourish it. See the subtle pulls and merge with them until they dissipate. I’ve slipped, more than once 😅 but the lessons are being learned and this may keep expanding.
This is interesting. I feel like I can't really make any headway with inquiry *because* of my lack of absorption. So that's what I'm working on at present.
I feel this way every day, as if my consciousness is observing the present moment, but filtered through something. It's as if the present is happening somewhere else in time. Now I wonder, where is the present? It feels like I'm wearing tinted glasses, and these glasses are altering the light, distorting it into different colors. And those colors are delayed by several seconds.
This whole thing is so confusing I don’t know where to go. I had an experience after smoking weed two years ago where I aksed myself in complete desperation, trying to find a solid sense of self: “wait a second, who am I talking to, If I’m trying to find myself, WHO am I even talking to, which must be myself???” And something broke. I realised fhere was no answer to that question and I was *actually* not and never have been a person. No honeymoon, severe suffering continues, I spent the rest of the year hating myself for feeling empty, but have always felt emptu. I read your book sometime in november 2023. Since then I am obsessed with awakening. Had periods of inauiry (where am I??) whcih have become distilled into “just this, just this, pls surrender” because nothing else IS But now the thought is: “was that an awakening??, if it was, is this just it?? No honeymoon?I still feel like a person… still suffering? What should I do? i know I’m not a person… do I ask who I am? Whst is Mu???? . i don’t know where I am or what to do. Inquiry is a waste of time, just this. If the thouvht that’s binding me is: “But you maybe already had an awakening” then I’m FUCKED, because I cannot confirm or deny this for myself. what should I do???. Reality is this right here, fine. but…??? It’s not enough, I’m not awake, nothing feels like enough. If i had awakening would this be ok? And these are doubt thoughts, my ego is wants me to think I am doubting awakening so I don’t go there. BUT I genuinely want to go there. i was meditating and felt a panic attack and stay as close as I can. Nothing. Can I wake up if I’m already awake? Am I delusional? show me how I’m delusional!! I am done trying so hard because it all feels like bullshit. I’m just so confused
If you’re having doubts, it wasn’t the awakening, but a foretaste. But for someone such as yourself, whose commitment to truth is obviously so strong, it’s not necessary to decide whether or not you’ve had an awakening. The realization process continues after that anyway, so just keep going. Follow your instinct. Eventually, there will be no more doubts.
There are many ways of waking up. I guess I would say it is very clear you have perspective on a deeper nature of being. I'm trying not to label it because ultimately that's not super helpful. It's totally forgivable and understandable, especially in our culture. We are very deterministic and love certainty even when it's inappropriate. This causes many cultural problems, science denial for one. I am getting a hint of a thread Tad you recognize what you think about it. Label it or how you feel about it in some sense doesn't really matter but there's a stuckness like something is missing, I would look as directly as possible, as literally as possible, for what or where this stuckness is Note here that the distinction between mind and body is fluid So what I mean is there may be a thought that says I haven't gotten there yet. And the reason that thought is believable has something to do with your physical body as if you are literally holding on to that thought with your face muscles or your neck muscles or your back muscles. You ever watch a movie and you're really into the character and you know something awful is going to happen to them and you can feel yourself holding on tensing your body. Maybe your fists? Maybe your abdomen neck and face muscles? It is as if you are trying to pull them away from the bad event you know is going to happen or perhaps push the bad event away from them. It turns out this happens in our experience of life as well. Looking for this working with this relaxing into it. Learning to tolerate it. However, it shows up is one form of emotion work, body work, Shadow work. It took me many years to figure this out. My heart goes out to you in reading what you have written here as it reminds me of many, many years of my struggle. The latter half of this video discusses this a lot and is a really good pointing towards it. If one point it approaches don't feel like the thing for you. Perhaps the aforementioned Shadow work would help, or perhaps a one-pointed approach on broadness spaciousness or emptiness would be helpful as well. You will have to feel into what works for you and what kinds of practices you just bounce off of. For me, I bounced right off of Mu. Remember always. You will not always feel like this. It will not always be like this.
No need to worry about whether you have had an awakening or not. Don't run too hard away from the resistance and suffering you are experiencing. For a change do the opposite. Just work with what is actually happening. Just sit and try to peel away sensation/thought/feeling from the resistance to it that you are experiencing so sharply. It might be completely mixed up right now. Once you can see them closely and seperately just put your attention on resistance. It might start dissolving on its own. To accelarate you can also inquire into why/whether resistance needs to accompany sensation. You might soon find the feeling of emptiness is harmless. Be patient a little bit, even though it might feel impossible right now it isn't.
During meditation I often experience what seems like two extremes. I'll slip into a deep relaxation... a sleep-like state where experience seems to stop. Other times it's like I got zapped, and I'm wide awake, and the visual field with eyes closed is buzzing with energy...often accompanied by a blu-ish shifting light, and many thoughts. Like "woah here we are again."
The other day I woke up with the word Shikantaza. It just kept popping up-over and over-and I was like, ‘What the hell is shikantaza? So thanks for the definition 🙏
Hey angelo, Years ago, during an LSD trip, I realized I didn’t have to follow the stories I’d built around myself. Since then, life’s felt calmer-like a layer of mental noise dissolved. But I’m confused: was this an awakening? Part of me thinks awakening is overhyped (maybe I’m already there?), while another part insists it’s some magical thing I’ve missed. The biggest shift is seeing through labels and stories, but now my mind obsesses over whether that’s “it.” You always say that when you experience an awakening you will know it, but what if it's in the past? Thanks for the content, and loved your book by the way
If you had an awakening you wouldn't ask that question. It's very, very obvious and unquestionable. That you possibly had one in the past is just another thought. You say "a part of me thinks" and I would directly investigate into that. What is doing the thinking. Where is it arising? Who tells that awakening is overhyped or even an object that could be anything in the first place?
I'm not Angelo but I think this is apropos: A friend of mine had an experience on LSD or mushrooms, and a month or two later he went into a Zen Temple to ask them about it. He had lived for a couple of years in a Zen temple about 25 years previous. They told him he'd had an awakening. He didn't know till they told him. He's a Zen priest now. 🤷
A lot of traditions/teachers caution against psychedelics because modern western people, generally, don't have a clue what they are doing while in those spaces.
@@IAmMatann god damn!! I understand how you feel. It’s very confusing to have insight while on drugs (for me weed) because you have no way to tell how genuine it was. For me the insight that I was not a person was 100% genuine and also 1000x more real than any other drug experience, yet I am still full of doubt. Horrible
Hello Angelo, what about animals? They don’t develop the persona and they don’t have problems in moving through their world. Look at starlings when they form their gorgeous flocks. Why do we humans need to develop a persona first?
I think it's connected to the limbic system and how we are wired as social mammals. We require acceptance by the group for survival. Also connected with the idea that in order to let anything go, we need to properly grasp it, first.
If I’m understanding correctly, I’m to remain thoughtless without labeling in the visual field and then feel into the question as to whether or not I can find a subject/object. Is that correct or am I off base? ♾️❤️
Shikantaza ("Sit. Don't make anything.") Is physical movement prohibited? At least it appears to me that I need to do something i.e. "make something" to prevent spontaneous movement from occurring quite frequently.
There is no advice to follow. Nothing you can do to "awaken". It may "happen" for "you" (even though there is nothing that can happen and NO YOU for it to happen to) or it may not. No one can give you advice on how to achieve it. No one knows. There's nothing to know. There's nothing to achieve. Still, I love the advice though! Because they (who they think they are) can't help but give it. They don't have free will. You don't have free will. You are not "the witness". Witnessing what?! There would have to be separation to be a witness. A witness and a thing to witness. Does that mean videos and channels like this are pointless? Yep. But everything is pointless. I can't help but watch and love these videos. And they can't help but make them. They aren't deciding to make these videos. No one decides. No one. You are nobody. No. Body. Happy waking! 🥰
Amazing, thank you.
Thank you 🙏
This is an awesome video; as you were saying absorbtion at first I had the thoughts trying to figure out what you meant but I just stayed with the feeling of absorption. At the end you clarified what it was and I am guilty of letting the analytical thoughts start to take over so I’ll practice the shit out of this 🎉 Alot has left go but I’m seeing the analytical thoughts alot atm it’s like the next subtle layer. ❤
I’ve been shown eternal freedom. Now the job is to preserve it and nourish it. See the subtle pulls and merge with them until they dissipate. I’ve slipped, more than once 😅 but the lessons are being learned and this may keep expanding.
This is interesting. I feel like I can't really make any headway with inquiry *because* of my lack of absorption. So that's what I'm working on at present.
I feel this way every day, as if my consciousness is observing the present moment, but filtered through something. It's as if the present is happening somewhere else in time. Now I wonder, where is the present? It feels like I'm wearing tinted glasses, and these glasses are altering the light, distorting it into different colors. And those colors are delayed by several seconds.
This whole thing is so confusing
I don’t know where to go. I had an experience after smoking weed two years ago where I aksed myself in complete desperation, trying to find a solid sense of self: “wait a second, who am I talking to, If I’m trying to find myself, WHO am I even talking to, which must be myself???” And something broke. I realised fhere was no answer to that question and I was *actually* not and never have been a person.
No honeymoon, severe suffering continues, I spent the rest of the year hating myself for feeling empty, but have always felt emptu. I read your book sometime in november 2023. Since then I am obsessed with awakening.
Had periods of inauiry (where am I??) whcih have become distilled into “just this, just this, pls surrender” because nothing else IS
But now the thought is: “was that an awakening??, if it was, is this just it?? No honeymoon?I still feel like a person… still suffering? What should I do? i know I’m not a person… do I ask who I am? Whst is Mu???? . i don’t know where I am or what to do.
Inquiry is a waste of time, just this.
If the thouvht that’s binding me is: “But you maybe already had an awakening” then I’m FUCKED, because I cannot confirm or deny this for myself. what should I do???. Reality is this right here, fine. but…??? It’s not enough, I’m not awake, nothing feels like enough. If i had awakening would this be ok?
And these are doubt thoughts, my ego is wants me to think I am doubting awakening so I don’t go there. BUT I genuinely want to go there. i was meditating and felt a panic attack and stay as close as I can. Nothing. Can I wake up if I’m already awake? Am I delusional? show me how I’m delusional!! I am done trying so hard because it all feels like bullshit.
I’m just so confused
I had no interest in “waking up” when that happened. Just interest in philosophical truth, and not being miserable, fixing cptsd
Easily I can ask “am I over there where I see the mug, or am I “here” in my head? Wnd I don’t know
If you’re having doubts, it wasn’t the awakening, but a foretaste. But for someone such as yourself, whose commitment to truth is obviously so strong, it’s not necessary to decide whether or not you’ve had an awakening. The realization process continues after that anyway, so just keep going. Follow your instinct. Eventually, there will be no more doubts.
There are many ways of waking up.
I guess I would say it is very clear you have perspective on a deeper nature of being. I'm trying not to label it because ultimately that's not super helpful. It's totally forgivable and understandable, especially in our culture. We are very deterministic and love certainty even when it's inappropriate. This causes many cultural problems, science denial for one.
I am getting a hint of a thread Tad you recognize what you think about it. Label it or how you feel about it in some sense doesn't really matter but there's a stuckness like something is missing, I would look as directly as possible, as literally as possible, for what or where this stuckness is
Note here that the distinction between mind and body is fluid So what I mean is there may be a thought that says I haven't gotten there yet. And the reason that thought is believable has something to do with your physical body as if you are literally holding on to that thought with your face muscles or your neck muscles or your back muscles.
You ever watch a movie and you're really into the character and you know something awful is going to happen to them and you can feel yourself holding on tensing your body. Maybe your fists? Maybe your abdomen neck and face muscles?
It is as if you are trying to pull them away from the bad event you know is going to happen or perhaps push the bad event away from them. It turns out this happens in our experience of life as well. Looking for this working with this relaxing into it. Learning to tolerate it. However, it shows up is one form of emotion work, body work, Shadow work.
It took me many years to figure this out. My heart goes out to you in reading what you have written here as it reminds me of many, many years of my struggle. The latter half of this video discusses this a lot and is a really good pointing towards it.
If one point it approaches don't feel like the thing for you. Perhaps the aforementioned Shadow work would help, or perhaps a one-pointed approach on broadness spaciousness or emptiness would be helpful as well.
You will have to feel into what works for you and what kinds of practices you just bounce off of. For me, I bounced right off of Mu.
Remember always. You will not always feel like this. It will not always be like this.
No need to worry about whether you have had an awakening or not. Don't run too hard away from the resistance and suffering you are experiencing. For a change do the opposite. Just work with what is actually happening. Just sit and try to peel away sensation/thought/feeling from the resistance to it that you are experiencing so sharply. It might be completely mixed up right now. Once you can see them closely and seperately just put your attention on resistance. It might start dissolving on its own. To accelarate you can also inquire into why/whether resistance needs to accompany sensation. You might soon find the feeling of emptiness is harmless. Be patient a little bit, even though it might feel impossible right now it isn't.
Bumper sticker: “The struggle isn’t real”
There is no bumper, no car, no driver... and no mind to read stickers. No cops to check for nobody's license.
During meditation I often experience what seems like two extremes. I'll slip into a deep relaxation... a sleep-like state where experience seems to stop. Other times it's like I got zapped, and I'm wide awake, and the visual field with eyes closed is buzzing with energy...often accompanied by a blu-ish shifting light, and many thoughts. Like "woah here we are again."
The other day I woke up with the word Shikantaza. It just kept popping up-over and over-and I was like, ‘What the hell is shikantaza? So thanks for the definition 🙏
Hey angelo, Years ago, during an LSD trip, I realized I didn’t have to follow the stories I’d built around myself. Since then, life’s felt calmer-like a layer of mental noise dissolved. But I’m confused: was this an awakening? Part of me thinks awakening is overhyped (maybe I’m already there?), while another part insists it’s some magical thing I’ve missed. The biggest shift is seeing through labels and stories, but now my mind obsesses over whether that’s “it.”
You always say that when you experience an awakening you will know it, but what if it's in the past?
Thanks for the content, and loved your book by the way
If you had an awakening you wouldn't ask that question. It's very, very obvious and unquestionable. That you possibly had one in the past is just another thought.
You say "a part of me thinks" and I would directly investigate into that. What is doing the thinking. Where is it arising? Who tells that awakening is overhyped or even an object that could be anything in the first place?
I'm not Angelo but I think this is apropos:
A friend of mine had an experience on LSD or mushrooms, and a month or two later he went into a Zen Temple to ask them about it. He had lived for a couple of years in a Zen temple about 25 years previous. They told him he'd had an awakening. He didn't know till they told him. He's a Zen priest now. 🤷
A lot of traditions/teachers caution against psychedelics because modern western people, generally, don't have a clue what they are doing while in those spaces.
That’s what Angelo calls a “foretaste”. Have you read his book?
@@IAmMatann god damn!! I understand how you feel. It’s very confusing to have insight while on drugs (for me weed) because you have no way to tell how genuine it was. For me the insight that I was not a person was 100% genuine and also 1000x more real than any other drug experience, yet I am still full of doubt. Horrible
I am the man on the silver mountain.
Dio is god!
Been thinking of this song a couple of days now
I cant take it anymoreeeeee 😉
It's just so yummy
Like the best book ever you never want to end.
🙏
It seems to me that the absorbtion is at a slower pace. That reality moves more slowly. Does that track?
Hello Angelo, what about animals?
They don’t develop the persona and they don’t have problems in moving through their world.
Look at starlings when they form their gorgeous flocks.
Why do we humans need to develop a persona first?
I think it's connected to the limbic system and how we are wired as social mammals. We require acceptance by the group for survival. Also connected with the idea that in order to let anything go, we need to properly grasp it, first.
It's the blackbirds forming flocks... starling just hang out, squeal like a rusty gate and shit.
If I’m understanding correctly, I’m to remain thoughtless without labeling in the visual field and then feel into the question as to whether or not I can find a subject/object. Is that correct or am I off base? ♾️❤️
Shikantaza ("Sit. Don't make anything.") Is physical movement prohibited? At least it appears to me that I need to do something i.e. "make something" to prevent spontaneous movement from occurring quite frequently.
EVERYTHING IS ALIVE STARS SUN EARTH U I ANIMALS MAMMALS ..
just ask yourself that question and the first voice that answers is the answer lol
There is no advice to follow. Nothing you can do to "awaken". It may "happen" for "you" (even though there is nothing that can happen and NO YOU for it to happen to) or it may not. No one can give you advice on how to achieve it. No one knows. There's nothing to know. There's nothing to achieve. Still, I love the advice though! Because they (who they think they are) can't help but give it. They don't have free will. You don't have free will. You are not "the witness". Witnessing what?! There would have to be separation to be a witness. A witness and a thing to witness. Does that mean videos and channels like this are pointless? Yep. But everything is pointless. I can't help but watch and love these videos. And they can't help but make them. They aren't deciding to make these videos. No one decides. No one. You are nobody. No. Body. Happy waking! 🥰