[leemoore]

I just popped over there. I haven't been in a while. It looks like one of my longer reports was linked up to their wiki. This chronicles my meditative exploits from when I really got into it up until an 8 month sabbatical I took and had some initial breakthroughs. http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/messa...

[awl130]

lee, i copy/pasted one of my hn comments below, that describes my meditation. there's a lot of lingo in your link that i don't understand. can you comment on what i describe as stage 1 and 2 below, and if that is related to stream entry, etc.?

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2009: 1 hr

2010: 30 min

2011-2014: 10 min

2015-present: 0-10 min

these are my daily averages. i have one rule: before I go to bed, I must assume the lotus position on the floor in front of my bed.

2015 was particularly a challenging year for me (startup problems), and it was all i could do to even assume the lotus position for a second. so for much of 2015 i really didn't meditate, which was ironically when i probably needed it the most. such is my life.

it takes around 4 minutes for me to reach what i call stage 1. this is when all the normal chatter in your mind ceases and your breathing is synced (i've also noticed that it takes around 40 breaths, which is roughly 4 min, so sometimes for shits and giggles i just count to 40). after much trial and error i've noticed i don't even need to do anything; it's the mere passage of 4 minutes that gets me to stage 1.

thereafter is when the real effort begins. it is a constant effort to reach what i call stage 2, or what i consider the beginning of true mindfulness, which means you are neither thinking of the past nor the future. i would say i only enter stage 2 at seconds at a time, only to fall out again into stage 1 (usually by an intruding thought, and that thought is usually "oh, i've got it!").

to be honest, i don't know what the effects have been for me. i seriously don't feel any different. anyway, how are we to separate the effects of meditation with the normal process of maturation or aging? am i getting calmer because of meditation or because i am getting older?

i take it on faith. faith in data and science. our personal experience with meditation cannot be the guide with which we measure it's effectiveness, because subjective experience is exactly that. i liken it to flossing. i floss my teeth every day but still have worse gum recession than those who do not. my periodontist and dentist chalk it up to genetics, because that is the best they can conjecture based on the current science. we can measure flossing easily; without a brain scanner in our basement we cannot so measure effects of meditation. so from the research i take it on faith that the effects must be beneficial on my brain.

[leemoore]

Stream Entry is a Theravada Buddhist term for the first of 4 stages or paths of awakening. A precise model has been created but it tends to be only useful if you have a certain mental makeup and you engage in the practices with a certain degree of intensity. Even then it feels to me like too much effort to make a subjective process set of experiences into a hard and fast model masquerading as authoritative and true.

I'm not so familiar with your stages model so I can't really comment. Based on your last paragraph, my engagement with meditation comes from a very different place than yours. It started in order to stabelize attention after an ADHD diagnosis; a way to get off meds. Quickly that was left behind and the real focus was enlightenment, spiritual awakening or whatever you want to call it. It was motivated by a deep spontaneous inner faith that there was something to it and it was important that I go 100% into it and discover for myself. It was not based on research or attempting to find the best approach to make my mind measurably more effective. I just felt a powerful internal yearning for awakening and I had to follow it.