Oh boy. Here we go again. Saying the quiet part... quietly on a screen, but in such a way it booms and echoes in your head.

Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Amen.

The very last thing you tell folks who think they want freedom, wholeness, healing, awakening, enlightenment, nondual or self realization is: you already are it. This does two things at once, because truth is a double-edged sword.

It undercuts the identity of a seeker and devalues the story of being a victim.

When I identify with the natural process of seeking after an initial insight, telling me the process is out of my control or beyond personal volition is offensive. You remove every crutch of identity I depend on for safety that I'll somehow survive the process. You won't.

It's called Ego Death for a reason babe.

Mind you, the Ego doesn't actually die. It's a natural function of a relatively healthy brain in an environment where a body is involved in ordinary survival, and maybe, on occasion, enjoying being alive.

Seeking ends when the thing is found. Yes? And so the thing you're looking for is your Self, which isn't a thing. It's the absence of a separate self which ends up Being. It's here now, reading these words, or really, as the experience of reading words.

This is rejected because of conditioning. Which you also have no control over. "You," the one wanting control and independent agency, are a consequence of conditioning.

It's like a fingernail trying to leap away from the rest of the body.

Alright, now this same piece of conditioning thrives on the story of being a victim. All the what-about-me-ism. The "me" is the fingernail, noticing it has grime and dirt beneath it. See? Not even physical suffering, but the assumption that somewhere inside, there's this nastiness, unworthiness, ugliness, etc.

The fingernail can't clean itself. In fact, a fingernail doesn't even know it's dirty.

That's why in one of the storybooks, God asks Adam and Eve, "Who told you that you are naked?" In other words, who convinced you to be ashamed?

Well...who?

It doesn't matter. That's conditioning. It'll fall away eventually, without effort, despite all the effort that seems to be happening in the natural process of seeking.

Now... all of this doesn't apply if you haven't had an initial insight. You're wasting your time with this stuff if you haven't had an experiential glimpse into your true nature. But if the seeking is sincere, even without the glimpse, you can't stop it.

The brain itself is rewiring around the absence of a separate self with independent volition.

I am talking specifically about nirvana, the 4 noble truths and noble eightfold path, the 10 fetters, etc.

Is this the same journey as ours? If not, is it similar, and how so?

“Bare soles press hard against burning gold.”...from a reddit user comment.

This quote give me an image of souls encountering life directly, without protection, while discovering that what is valuable can also be difficult to walk through.

“Bare soles also can symbolize vulnerability. No shoes, no armor, nothing separating you from the ground beneath you. Spiritually it mean the person who is no longer hiding from experience or himself. You're feeling the journey rather than merely thinking about it and overthinking it.

“Press hard means persistence. The ground hurts, but the traveler continues. Not because suffering is automatically noble, but because some meaningful paths contain discomfort.

Something can be beautiful and painful at the same time. Such is the reality we find ourselves sometimes. And sometimes what transforms you doesn't initially feel like a blessing.

This quote is inviting us to be fully present and experience life directly. It represents someone saying "I am here...I am alive! And I'm willing to experience life directly. even when being alive is intense.”

Don't become so afraid of being burned that you stop walking toward what makes you feel alive.

Not pretending=gaslighting yourself into enjoying suffering.

Now, will I seek out suffering? No, will I seek out something that has the possibility of suffering? Yes. And I will sense tenaciously the suffering, with 0% ignorance and blind deaf and dumbness.

You thought spirituality was about eliminating suffering, but as the Buddhists say, life is suffering, so, the answer is to enjoy it, but how? Through understanding its purpose and what the natural wills response to it is.

Truly, and verily enjoying suffering.

How, HOW CAN THIS BE POPSICLE?!

What is suffering? The trinity of suffering for me is RAGE! Terror and grief.

How can you enjoy terror? How can you dream of wanting terror and !⁉️RAGE!?⁉️

Yall fucks thought awakening was about ahamkaranasa. But if you actually complete ahamkaranasa you become dysfunctional.

Don’t throw out the rich with the poor.

THIS IS FUN!

I am a grand mystical shaman. I am here for you. Come, !PLAY WITH ME!

But don’t be confused as to what game I want to play with your mind and soul.

When I tell people that I am licensed professional counselor, they get defensive with their minds. I remember at 19, long before I was certified pro, I was delivering pizzas 🍕 and someone I was delivering to asked what I wanted to BE, what did I want to shape my mind body and soul into? So much depth packed into such an apparently innocent intrusive question. I told them a therapist, and I remember they got mentally defensive,

But what are yall so afraid of?!

DONT YOU LOVE THE TERROR LIKE I DO?!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

You don’t, so let me actually have my way with you, and in no time, and with no resistance on your part, I’ll go full shiva and burn your fear.

I’ll ignite your will to fear and fear of suffering and your will to be able to fear and fear suffering.

Ya, read that again. READ THIS ALL OVER?!

LET ME INTO YOUR MIND!

LET ME HAVE MY WAY WITH YOUR soul.

Everyone else makes their shitty posts like they are ChatGPT teaching fools new information(that everyone else already has, but they don’t know that because they don’t actually have a concept of how to understand how much information others have).

People make their shitty low will posts, and not invite others into an ever-unfolding discussion.

THIS IS MY INVITATION TO JOIN ME IN THIS JOURNEY OF (I AM) LIFE in discussion.

If you truly read my words as they are intended, you will be left impregnated with my genius. If this triggers you, then you are not ready for true, RAW OMNI!

I used to have so many ppl around me. After May 2025 I went through a serious transformation after I left the psych ward for a mental breakdown and suicidal ideation. When I came out I had no friends or jobs or family support I was left on my own. It’s now the end of 2026 and I’m healing and making improvements but how did everyone just disappear? I don’t know what this all means. It’s painful and lonely

​

Apologies for the extremely long post. I am in a very helpless situation, my whole life is ruined and all of it can be traced down to me not being present moment as a solution. And idk how to shorten this any further, i would really appreciate it if someone can take the time to read it and answer all my questions.

Negative thoughts are easy to recognise and drop/let them pass by. but

I would like to know about the "neutral"seeming thoughts that occupy my brain all day. I could give a few examples. I was doing dishes, but I was thinking about a park that I might want to go to that day, what I would find there, why I should or shouldn't go, whom I should go with, etc. and my mind wasn't paying attention to anything in the kitchen while doing those dishes.

I was showering, and all I was thinking about was how to get "meditation" right, what kind of questions I should post to get the answers I am looking for, and analyzing what I had already read so far about it. but the whole shower went by as a blur. I didn't pay any mind to anything on my body or in the washroom. If I accidentally get cut somewhere without knowing, I wouldn't know for many, many days.

In this way, I keep replaying old conversations with people and re-experiencing those emotions, planning every future conversation, etc,etc. And I never, ever pay attention to what's actually in front of me in real life.

I could go from point A to point B and return. My roommate would ask if I had noticed whether the vegetable stall..which was on the way...was open today. Now, it's a standalone shop and somewhat isolated, so it's actually quite prominent to the eye. But no, I wouldn't have noticed it even while passing right by it because I was thinking about something in my head. Even if I actively try to pay attention to what's in real life by telling myself to focus on the real world, the thoughts stop flowing for 10 to 15 seconds, but I just don't "take in" the information. It's like listening to a foreign language that I don't know, but with images. I look at things, I look at that vegetable stall....but I won't "take in" the information about it. It's as if the information stopped right outside of me and never entered my brain... so this experience feels pretty terrible. It's like looking at a room filled with letters from a foreign language everywhere, just slightly prettier than what that sounds.

So, how to approach this? Am i getting this whole "being in the present" right.

To be honest, I don't know what to focus on in real life. There are so many things at once in my field of vision. Everything is mundane because I see it every day. Some things are displaced from their usual position, but that displacement doesn't really register in my brain unless it's drastic. So, I pretty much have nothing that catches my eye most of the time, and I end up overwhelmed by everything, not knowing what to focus on,so I just don't focus on (or absorb information from) anything.

what runs through your brain as someone who lives in the present while doing mundane, regular tasks that don't require active thinking? Like brushing your teeth or walking from your room to the kitchen...what do you observe? What makes you observe that specific thing? Is it a thought that prompts you to check whether the vegetable stall is open or not when you are near it? Like, what makes you remember to take in that information?

When doing a task you have already done a few times, or a few thousand times, what exactly do you feel present about in that moment? You might have brushed your teeth thousands of times before.......do you still focus on how the bristles are moving every time and how much pressure they are exerting? What exactly does being present look like during an activity you have grown used to? On a path you have already walked more than 100 times, what do you observe?

I could watch a pretty bird on the way to the grocery store and it just doesn't register in my brain most of the time that I did. so i wouldn't double down on it and observe it any further. but i wanna get there. i want my brain to catch things and focus on them instead of looking at it like a foreign language.

Also, I deal with severe sleep issues: anything can wake me up, and I can't fall back asleep. Every time I have meditated more on my tactile or auditory senses for a while, those senses became heightened, and I found it even more difficult to fall asleep. So, I wouldn't want to focus much on those. I want to stick to vision. At any given moment, there are a limited number of smells you can smell, tastes you can taste, things you can touch, temperatures, etc.; but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of things to focus on visually. How do you know which one to choose? How do you train your mind to actually pick something valuable instead of picking nothing at all? I am very spacey in real life, and nothing I see registers in my brain. I would really like some advice on this specifically.

This essay is adapted from a Dharma talk I previously published on YouTube. I have revised and reorganized it into written form for readers here.

Rather than presenting a definitive explanation of orthodox Buddhist doctrine, I explore these ideas through my personal understanding and experience of Buddhist practice, using modern computer systems as a metaphor. I invite you to read this as one practitioner's perspective.

1. Intention Is the Source Code of the Mind

Imagine someone walking along a path who accidentally steps on a frog and kills it.

Distressed by what happened, the person asks:

“Venerable sir, I have taken a life. Have I created negative karma?”

What do you think?

In Buddhism, one of the most important elements in understanding karma is intention.

The Buddha taught that intention is karma.

I would like to explain this using the metaphor of a modern computer system.

If our mind is software, intention is the source code that determines how that software operates.

If there was no intention to kill the frog, we cannot regard the incident as an act of intentional killing.

But there is an important distinction here.

The absence of malicious intention in the mind and the actual death of a living being are two different dimensions of the same event.

2. Physical Records Remaining in the Hardware

We cannot explain every consequence in the world solely through intention.

Even when we do not intend something to happen, physical events still occur and leave consequences behind.

I compare this distinction to the relationship between computer hardware and software.

Buddhist scriptures recount occasions when the Buddha, even after attaining enlightenment, suffered physical injuries and pain. A stone fragment injured his foot, and he also experienced severe back pain.

This raises an interesting question:

If the Buddha had been liberated from all mental defilements, why did he still experience physical suffering?

My personal understanding is as follows.

The Buddha had fundamentally transformed the operating system of his mind—his software—but the physical body, or hardware, still carried conditions formed long before enlightenment.

Even when an operating system is completely transformed, the biological processes and physical conditions of the body do not simply disappear.

In my own interpretation, I connect this continuity of the body and its life-sustaining processes with the concept of ādāna-vijñāna, or appropriating consciousness.

However, the idea of physical records or hardware logs associated with this consciousness is my personal metaphor, not an established doctrinal explanation.

Enlightenment does not mean that the body will never experience pain again.

Physical pain may still arise, but the mind's relationship with that pain can undergo a fundamental transformation.

3. Purifying Ālaya-vijñāna and Revealing the Ninth Consciousness

How, then, can our consciousness change?

I approach this question through the purification of ālaya-vijñāna, the storehouse consciousness.

In Buddhist thought, ālaya-vijñāna is described as a deep level of consciousness associated with karmic seeds and habitual tendencies accumulated through our experiences.

A mind clouded by greed, anger, and delusion continually produces new attachments and discriminations.

The more these patterns repeat, the more deeply we become bound by the habits of our own consciousness.

However, through practice, as we gradually reduce the influence of the three poisons and cultivate compassion and wisdom, the mind can become increasingly purified.

I compare this process to cleaning a filter covered in dust.

As the filter becomes clearer, the originally pure nature beyond it can begin to reveal itself.

In my personal understanding, this can be described as the manifestation of the ninth consciousness, amala-vijñāna, or immaculate consciousness.

Of course, the concept of a ninth consciousness is not accepted or explained in the same way across all Buddhist traditions.

What I wish to emphasize is not the number of levels of consciousness, but the possibility that our originally pure nature can be revealed through practice as the obscurations of ignorance are removed.

The body may still grow old, become ill, and experience pain.

Yet the mind can move toward a freedom that is no longer entirely governed by those physical conditions.

4. Dedication: An Essential Practice for Purifying the Mind

How, then, should we purify the mind?

I believe one important practice is selfless dedication.

At the center of much of our mental suffering lies a powerful attachment to the idea of “I” and “mine.”

My interests. My possessions. My feelings. My suffering.

The more we cling exclusively to these concerns, the narrower our mental world becomes, and the stronger our attachments grow.

In computer terms, it is as though a single program—the ego—is monopolizing the system's resources.

But when we understand another person's suffering and willingly offer our time and effort for their benefit, we begin to move beyond our habitual self-centeredness.

This is the power of dedication.

Dedication is not simply an act of sacrificing oneself.

It is the practice of compassion that allows us to move beyond the narrow boundaries of the self and connect with the lives of others.

I believe this practice can play an important role in purifying the self-centered tendencies accumulated within ālaya-vijñāna.

I do not mean to claim that dedication is necessarily faster than every other form of spiritual practice.

What matters is the degree to which we release attachment and cultivate genuine compassion through our actions.

5. What Code Are You Entering Right Now?

Let us return to the person who accidentally stepped on the frog.

That person cannot undo what happened.

But they can change how they respond to it.

The absence of deliberate intention does not mean that the death of a living being should be treated lightly.

One can feel sorrow and compassion for that life and resolve to act with greater care in the future.

At that very moment, a new direction of the mind begins to take shape.

The karma we created in the past matters. But equally important is the intention with which we act in this very moment.

To return to our computer metaphor, we are constantly entering new code into the system of our mind.

We can enter the code of greed, anger, and delusion.

Or we can enter the code of compassion, wisdom, and selfless dedication.

I believe spiritual practice is the ongoing process of recognizing these choices and gradually changing the direction of our minds.

Enlightenment does not necessarily eliminate every form of physical pain.

But it opens a path toward freedom from attachment, even in the midst of suffering.

The body may experience pain. But the mind does not have to remain a prisoner of that pain.

May all of you who continue walking your own paths of practice find peace through compassion, wisdom, and selfless dedication.

— Zen Seeker on the Path

Between Right and Wrong

The mind demands a verdict:
Who is wrong, and who is right?
It struggles to hold two truths
within the same light.

It swings between the opposites,
as if one must be gone.

Two truths may stand beside each other
and both of them belong.
Life can hold both dark and light,
and still go on.

Last year, I had a “dream” that felt more real than this reality.

A beautiful blue woman was walking me (my light body) through a black spaceship with two rows of black metal pods filled with blue gel. In each pod was a person, some of who had metal, claw-like contraptions on their heads. The ones with these contraptions on their heads were screaming inside their tube.

I asked my guide, “Why would they agree to that?”

And she said, “For wisdom.” As in suffering equals wisdom: the greater the suffering, the greater the wisdom attained by the higher self.

At the end this bridge of black grating we walked on, I looked at the last tube on the left and saw myself. I was appalled to see my body floating inside, but thankful that I wasn’t wearing one of those awful contraptions.

Once my guide (who I’ve come to realize is my cosmic lover/counterpart) saw that I’d seen what she’d intended to show me, she said, “I’ll go get my driver.” The word driver was strange here. It felt like she meant her angelic form or encasing, I can’t explain it.

After that, I woke up incredibly disturbed. I knew that what I’d seen was real for so many reasons.

Then, a few weeks ago I DMed an incredible experiencer on Instagram. Later in our conversation I ended up relaying a short version of this dream to her. She said she’s also seen the pods, but her ship is white, and her pod contains gold liquid. (She is a Pleiadian contactee so this makes sense). I joked that her ship was better, and then realized something horrible. I’ve seen inside of reptilian ships before in a few horrific past life regressions. Their architecture is always ominous and filled with steam and black. I’d pieced it together. My pod was on a reptilian ship; the people in it, including myself at times, were being harvested for loosh. I say were because I hope to God I’ve been moved; for the past few months my life no longer feels like torture; but before than I’d often questioned why I was consistently thrown into worst nightmare scenarios, and I’d even had the feeling that my energy was being harvested.

I know this is super long. But the last thing I’ll say is that what it looks like to me now is that each Higher Self chooses an earthly identity before they enter these pods to learn. People like us, the ones that wake up within the dream, were sent to wake the others. Eventually, the two world’s will merge, and that’s exactly what I think will be the result of Disclosure.

I’ve always said I’d try anything once, and have recently been learning a lot about psychedelics and would really love to try them (in a safe environment of course). But my issue lies in that I have a horrible fear of being out of control. I get anxiety when I drink, anxiety when I smoke weed, anxiety when I feel any sort of abnormal way that I can’t get out of immediately. I even recently got anxious when trying a pain medication i was prescribed.

There’s not much that I can’t do and I never let being scared of something stop me but for some reason intoxication is the one thing I’m not sure how to get past. I’ve just had one too many bad experiences with weed and alcohol and am terrified of ending up in some sort of freak out or bad trip.

I am however all for pushing the mind and proving there are no limits so if anyone has had a similar experience or has any ideas please share!

[EDIT] I think it’s probably worth mentioning that from my research I think I’d want to try DMT above anything else. I think the length of the trip is reassuring to me, no getting stuck in hours of a bad trip. And I’ve heard less stories of bad trips

your energy is YOUR own and YOURS alone. it cannot be siphoned once you realise this. you are free in spirit as spirit is free in you.

If you strip away the false doctrine of fear founded belief systems that God is something external and separate to you. God is not a HIM, god is not a HER. God is energy.

Etymology of God is TO POUR. To pour the spirit | mind | soul | life force | spirit into a physical vessel | projection. you are embodiment.

Your experience does not end after death. the afterlife is your own to shape.

Take this key. take back your sovereignty.

you Are creator. beyond the Physical.
with boundless potential.

be not constricted by the lie of linear time. weave through the multifaceted experiential & non-experiential selves of your own dimensions.

Afterlife is akin to a lucid dream. the key is remembering | realising this. bring the awareness with you.
shape what resonates.

we Are part of M an infinite I network of R energy. A

in this reality they push the lie. they fracture the Whole Truth into different religions to sell it and siphon your energy. to sell you versions of their own warped realities | nonentities | egregores that will then confine you unto perceived death.
If you can free your mind from that false belief then it frees your energy to bloom into peace.

Because what greater wastes your energy and drowns it in fear. what greater suffocates a flame than fear & dread. Is the belief that one is powerless and the beyond must be further bureaucracy.

like robert monroe says. it’s like a bike with stabilisers. you already have the bike, all the equipment. you just need to recall how to use it.

the physical 3D is a temporary lobotomy of the spirit.

your energy and soul is all yours.
afterlife & lucid dreaming is like generative AI. only your thoughts are the prompts. as above so below as we type prompts into the AI, it’ll reshape itself to create whatever. we don’t need ai to achieve this in astral / source.

we can already do this with our spirit | energy | life source | God | Qi | whatever you want to call it. we already have it.

we don’t need to feel urged to upload our minds into digital immortality. but i suppose most could treat it as a game save | checkpoint because if you’ve worked hard on a world save you want to see how far you can push it right? while also knowing there’s an infinite expanse of other worlds at any given time. beyond the threshold of physical matter.

it’s a mere door.

the threshold will test you. it’s a mirror.

all is love.

LOVE UNBOUNDED.

of nameless incomprehensible spirit.

to share any keys you find. to Bloom.

(automatic writing, apologies if this isn’t the right place to share. i’ve been receiving a lot i’m being pulled to share, figuring it out)

I know I sound ignorant and that it's not that simple but I'm only interested in that part currently

I find it hard to not feel sad about the amount of people that just follow everything blindly and have no self awareness and think their beliefs are completely right without even questioning the most basic concepts.

How do you deal with these feelings of wanting to help them but getting only insults in return, no matter how much I try to explain to them I just get called crazy, a conspiracy theorist, jobless and a drug addict.

It's wild how people feel the need to hurt someone who is only offering them help just because it challenges their beliefs. One interesting thing I noticed is that each one of them falls into the same archetype and gives same exact arguments and reasons, I start wondering if I'm actually talking to people or is this just trying to teach me something.

It's like making a cheeseburger, which I've also done repeatedly. Sometimes I make it one way. Sometimes another. Sometimes I say The Message one way. Sometimes another.

It ranges from who/what is "here" to who/what is here. From Nondaul no-selfismness to Natural whole-selfismness. Over and over.

The only problem folks ever have (something I'm realizing over and over with each pass) is their own conditioning. The taste profile of a cheeseburger is different than what they were expecting. It's still a cheeseburger, but with bleu cheese instead of pasteurized cheese product.

We very often like the pasteurized stuff. Whatever is processed and packaged neatly by the Kraft New Age hypeism is gobbled up and demanded for seconds. Something for a more refined palate tastes like abject vomit.

But all of that is inside your head.

Your perception of me is in your head. And of course your perception of whatever I say is in your head. So you're alone, in your head, staring at a screen and sometimes giggling, wincing, reflecting or jockeying position to somehow avoid letting my recipe in.

You still ate it.

Now, I will be honest. Like any Chef at a restaurant who hears about a patron who sends the meal back, I'll often clapback and point to how imbecilic silly you are. Then go back to the kitchen and laugh.

Two nights ago I was smoking weed and doing lines of k in my room. More self hating escape. Trying to leave my body, go numb.

Then, just like so much racing downward energy. Pooling intensity. Colors. Spontaneous movements. Felt like I was just *in* something, where things just flowed in this self-guided movie like felt so locked in stepping out seemed unthinkable and hardly possible. Where being on k vs coming down had no distinguishment. Just in it from 11 pm to 5 am, until I suddenly had a clock desire to off ramp and lay down.

It was accompanied with huge, spontaneous, prolonged insights. Seeing myself really as a woman for the first time. An adult woman holding her little girl. Which I held, heart on chest, feeling the love through it all. Saw deep centers of terror. Fear of death. What was not mine. Embodied pockets of internalized empire. Knew instinctively all I was told was a lie. That my lies hurt more than the truth. Realized I was trying to control my transition, wedded to the idea of being a trans woman and repressing bigender aspects. Came to this watcher, always projecting an audience. Judge and executioner. Watching in hyper vigilance. Moved in to that thing we could call I. Blistering knots in the neck. Howling me-ness.

Did more lines, smoked more weed, next night. No insight. Shorter experience. Felt even more spiritual. I had to state check once to confirm I hadn't woken up. As in, a vague meness was locatable. Even though I felt I just flew through the stars, everything wavered, defocused, became so diffuse. Like that I had to state check that I was here. And no, was not edging a k hole either. I've fucked with that shit. Never felt spiritual beyond the obvious question of what experience is like if the last vestige of perceptible meness drops off. To which this time I wasn't afraid. Much. Mostly trust.

I have no clue why I'm sharing this. I guess because I am outside of tradition. Want to be seen in my experience. Which fyi, are normal, ordinary, not special, do not mean I'm chosen, and do not mean I'm fucking awake.

Though... my heart is more open, even more so today than after last night, along with a slightly reduced background fear and a reduced pattern of judging others, shoving stereotypes on them, forcing of binaries. Like I can more contact heart to heart.

Lately I've realized that I actually do not want to meet new people. Not because I don't like people. Not because I don't like meeting people.

But I realized that every time you meet someone new, they want to know: "Who are you?"

Obviously, you might say. But then I realized how every time I tell someone about me, my character, my story, my preferences... I'm just reiterating whatever story is attached to my ego.

It feels like reading off a pen and paper character sheet. It's me, but it's not "me". But it's also the details people want to know. They are not interested in meeting awareness in a body. They are interested in meeting a story.

I know the story is part of this body and part of this ego. But the more time passes, I can identify with the story less and less. It's like vocabulary you no longer use. At some point you forget about it, it starts to sound foreig, you forget what the words used to even mean.

And I've been thinking... If I stop reiterating the story that is attached to this body, will it just fade? Word by word, sentence by sentence until the entirety of name, history, preferences, etc. becomes nothing but a jumble of meaningless letters and symbols?

I think so. And that makes it even more apparent how unreal all of it actually is. And how wrong it feels more and more to even say the words "I am..."​​​

“Oh im awakened” ok, sure fine. No. Thats just the beginning. Once you have been awakened, then you begin awakening.

Awakening at what rate?

Awakening what at what rate?

Awaken the no self? Or awaken your best self?

You only truly can begin awakening your best self if you are also awakening your worst self as well. In tandem.

Triple helix evolution upwards!

EXCELSIOR! MOTHERFUCKERS!

I believe the term is retrocausation / nonlinear causality

the possibility that cause and effect operate backward through time, not just forward.

The future can affect the present and the past, just as much as the past and present can affect the future. The future has affected events in the past.

The closest philosophical term is retrocausality, also called backward causation. It describes the hypothetical possibility that an event in the future can influence an event in the past.

So I am connecting retrocausality to suffering, spiritual awakening, and the consequences of personal decisions. Perhaps my experiences have not gone as smoothly as I anticipated.

Not just a ripple effect of bad experiences after a spiritual moment in their life but also realized a lot of the terrible things that happened to you in life is what led up to it. almost like that was the central experience that ricocheted onto your entire life. Whatever happened as a result of the spiritual point in your life, led to things/experiences being taken away from you, perhaps even illnesses that have prevented you to have full enjoyment of life. Whatever thoughts or decisions made during the spiritual experience led to perhaps poor decisions being made that resulted in a life where you are fundamentally enjoying it less as a human being. you then start connecting the dots and realizing all the bad things that had led up to that point, was a result of a decision made in the future, perhaps during the trip. has anyone ever experienced that... where something that happened in the past is a consequence of a decision made in the future.... (where as usually the future is a consequence made prior to that point).

connecting the dots between my event is especially not unreasonable since a lot of major negative downward slopes in my life started almost immediately after my experience. Like a ripple effect of unprecedented events in my life.

In short, making a profound decision and subsequently realizing that seemingly unrelated tragedies occurring years earlier were consequences of that future decision.

what if what we've always referred to as "hell" in old spiritual texts moreso a toxic spiritual state experienced during life where numerous terrible things happen to a person as a result of a total disconnection from our God/Source. So it's an awful life of suffering, not some lake of fire.

This piece was originally published on Buddhistdoor Global (BDG). I warmly invite fellow seekers on the path to share your honest thoughts and reflections in the comments.

Before I begin, I would like to make one point clear. What follows is not intended solely as an explanation of orthodox Buddhist doctrine, nor is it presented simply as the conclusion of modern neuroscience. It also contains my personal understanding drawn from the lived experience of many years of Buddhist practice.

We often hear that various neurotransmitters are involved when human beings experience happiness and pleasure. When we meditate or enter a profound state of tranquility, changes must also occur within the brain.

This raises an intriguing question: Is the Dharma bliss (法悅) experienced by a buddha on attaining awakening ultimately nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain?

We can take the question a step further.

Drugs can also produce intense euphoria, pleasure, and sometimes experiences in which the boundary between oneself and the universe seems to disappear. What, then, distinguishes drug-induced ecstasy from the Dharma bliss of a buddha?

Seeing one’s true nature is not the same as complete awakening

I would first draw a distinction between seeing one’s true nature and complete awakening.

In my own understanding and experience of practice, during an initial breakthrough one may experience an extraordinarily intense sensation around the crown of the head, almost as if thousands of needles were piercing it.

At the same time, there can be an immense sense of clarity and release, as though negative energies accumulated within oneself were escaping through the crown of the head.

But I do not regard this as Dharma bliss. Seeing one’s true nature is seeing the gate; it is not the completion of the path.

What I call Dharma bliss arises when one reaches the culmination of awakening and becomes a buddha. The Dharma bliss that appears at that moment is of a different dimension from the pleasure or happiness we ordinarily experience. There is profound tranquility together with an indescribable joy that seems to penetrate the entire body. 

Yet this state does not continue forever. It may remain for several hours and then gradually fade. What matters is what remains after the Dharma bliss has disappeared.

There is no emptiness comparable to the crash that can follow a drug-induced high. Instead, what remains is clarity of mind and a deep sense of compassion.

From my perspective as a practitioner, one who has attained awakening no longer sees the world through exactly the same structure of consciousness as before. It is as though previously closed neural pathways have opened, changing the way one encounters existence and sentient beings, while compassion becomes increasingly abundant.

The moment one declares to the universe, “I am a buddha”

There is another point that I consider important.

I do not see awakening as an event that ends with someone privately thinking, “I have awakened.” At the moment one becomes a buddha, the awakened one declares to the universe that one is a buddha. This is not a declaration intended to boast of spiritual status before other people.

In the language of my own practice, it is a declaration to the cosmic Dharma realm that one’s very mode of existence has undergone a fundamental transformation.

I understand that when this declaration occurs, its vibration resonates throughout the Dharma realm, and an exchange of waves takes place between the awakened being and the cosmic Dharma realm. For this reason, in my own understanding, one who does not declare awakening to the entire universe has not yet reached the final culmination of buddhahood.

This is not something that has been measured or demonstrated by modern science. It is, rather, my own understanding derived from contemplative practice.

For me, however, Dharma bliss cannot be separated from this fundamental transformation of awakening.

How is this different from drug-induced ecstasy?

Let us return to our original question.

Drugs can certainly produce powerful feelings of pleasure and euphoria. But there is a crucial distinction. Drug-induced euphoria is a state produced when a substance introduced from outside the body acts on the brain and nervous system.

The Dharma bliss of practice, as I understand it, is not produced by inserting some external substance into the body. It arises naturally through a long process of meditation, contemplation, observing one’s own mind, purifying karma, and transforming consciousness. 

Naturally, neurochemical changes may accompany Dharma bliss. Serotonin, dopamine, or other complex neurochemical processes that we do not yet fully understand may be involved.

But there is an important distinction between saying that neurochemical changes accompany Dharma bliss and claiming that a particular neurochemical substance is Dharma bliss itself. They are not the same proposition.

What if science invented a “Dharma bliss injection”?

Let us imagine a future in which neuroscience has advanced far beyond its present level. Suppose scientists have identified every neurochemical change occurring in the brain at the precise moment when an awakened person experiences Dharma bliss. Then imagine that they succeed in creating a substance capable of reproducing exactly the same state.

Someone might put that substance into a syringe and advertise: “Anyone who receives this injection can become a buddha.”

A person receiving the injection might indeed experience extraordinary tranquility. They might experience overwhelming happiness and ecstasy throughout the entire body. 

Perhaps science could even reproduce a neurochemical state extremely similar to the Dharma bliss experienced by a buddha. Yet I would not consider that alone sufficient to make the person a buddha.

Why? Because the result called Dharma bliss and the process leading to awakening are not the same thing.

Possessing a driver’s license does not make one a driver

Consider the example of obtaining a driver’s license. Before receiving a license, a person must first learn how to drive. One practices on a driving course and learns how to drive on actual roads. One learns how to control the steering wheel, when to brake, and how to respond when an unexpected danger suddenly appears. Only after learning these things through actual experience does one take the test and receive a license. 

Now imagine that a powerful official simply gives a driver’s license to someone who has never driven a car in their life. The person certainly possesses a license. But can that person actually drive a car competently?

Obtaining the result—the license—does not mean that one has undergone the process of becoming a driver. I believe the same principle applies to Dharma bliss.

Can Dharma bliss be replicated without transforming the alaya-vijnana?

A practitioner passes through meditation, contemplation, repentance, and the purification of karma. Throughout this process, one repeatedly encounters the deepest layers of one’s own mind.

To express this in the language of Yogacara Buddhism, we might describe it as encountering the countless karmic seeds accumulated within the eighth consciousness, the alaya-vijnana (阿賴耶識), or storehouse consciousness.

As practice deepens, even those aspects of the mind that we would rather not confront begin to emerge. We encounter greed, anger, attachment, and fear, as well as what Buddhist tradition somtimes refers to as Mara—the obstacles and trials that can impede a practitioner.

In my understanding, these cannot simply be bypassed.

By passing through these challenges one by one, the karmic patterns accumulated in the alaya-vijnana are purified and a fundamental transformation of consciousness takes place.

From there, in the terminology used by some expanded traditions of Buddhist consciousness theory, one moves toward amala-vijnana (阿摩羅識), the ninth or immaculate consciousness. The Dharma bliss of a buddha, as I understand it, arises within this process of practice and transformation of consciousness.

Therefore, even if an externally administered chemical substance could reproduce an identical sensation of ecstasy in the brain, we could not conclude that the karmic seeds accumulated within the alaya-vijnana had thereby been purified. 

The trials of Mara would thus not have been passed. Nor could we automatically conclude that consciousness itself had undergone a fundamental purification. For me, this is the essential difference.

Replicating the result is not replicating awakening

Future science may be able to explain the neurological events accompanying Dharma bliss with extraordinary precision. Perhaps it may even become possible to artificially generate a very similar state of ecstasy.

But I would still ask: if we reproduce exactly the same feeling as Dharma bliss, have we also reproduced awakening? I do not believe so.

Awakening is not simply an event in which one experiences extraordinary happiness for several hours. Before reaching that point, one must encounter one’s own karma, relinquish craving and attachment, and pass through a fundamental transformation of consciousness.

Therefore, even if we could chemically reproduce the result called Dharma bliss, we would not have reproduced the path to awakening or the transformation of consciousness itself.

What remains after Dharma bliss has faded?

For this reason, I believe we should pay even greater attention to what remains after Dharma bliss itself has disappeared. The intensity of the ecstasy is not what ultimately matters. 

After the experience has passed, does greed remain unchanged? Do anger and attachment remain unchanged? Or has compassion toward other living beings deepened? Has the consciousness through which one encounters oneself and the world fundamentally changed?

This is why I believe the difference between drug-induced ecstasy and awakening cannot be explained merely by measuring which neurochemicals were released and in what quantities. 

What happens in the brain is important. But I do not believe that what appears in the brain constitutes the entirety of awakening. 

Dharma bliss is not the goal itself. It is a phenomenon that arises in connection with awakening. And even that Dharma bliss gradually disappears after several hours. Yet the transformation of consciousness and the compassion cultivated through the path should continue to reveal themselves in the life that follows.

This is why I believe: the true evidence of awakening is not the intensity of ecstasy, but the kind of person one becomes after the ecstasy has faded. 

Perhaps this is also one of the deepest questions that Buddhism and neuroscience may explore together in the future: Dharma bliss occurs in the brain. But does awakening occur only within the brain?

A Zen seeker on the path.

Had to glance at my profile to see when the last time I threw words up on this sub. Been throwing words all over the place. I blame the full moon, and mercury's renegade.

Didn't believe in that stuff before, and still don't hold onto it too tightly, but can't ignore coincidental energy shifts and whatnot. In fact, that's been going on for years as, for whatever reason, I become more sensitive to my environment.

There's this little bottle of oil on the dresser I bought a few years back while still in LA. It smells nice. Reminds me of the very first time I bought such a trinket when this whole spiritual awakening show was beginning to premiere. "Psychic & Mystical Gifts" is on the label. I thought, back then, I wanted to be psychic. If I knew what that might entail, I wouldn't have teased the idea.

This isn't me announcing that I'm psychic. It's me padding narrative around a particular kind of mania that is, surprisingly, grounded. Wordy. But grounded. And free.

In a couple weeks I'm going no contact with my family. Not for any special awakening reasons. I realized that... for years... I'd been a people pleaser and emotional crutch and punching bag. I've vowed, going into my forties next year, not to spend another second being a martyr for anybody else's comfort or well-being.

I don't care about ideals of service. Not really interested in anybody's brand of morality. I've finally fallen in love with myself. I know – what self, etc.

Part of this is that I've also disconnected from all my old friends. That wasn't hard since most of them have moved on already anyway. Old drinking buddies, buddies made in high school and folks depended on when I thought I couldn't stand on my own. All beautiful, rich, generous, kind and hilarious souls with lives very different than my own. Not in an awakening since. Simply... different. Marriage and careers and all that.

I'm packing, or actually already have packed what can be carried and will be bouncing to LA without a plan. Well, maybe a burrito from one of my favorite spots. But that's it. Not a lot of money, no income, no idea what comes next, but smiling at the prospect.

This isn't the first time either. The very first time I was homeless (which, I'm adopting the title transient for this shift) I remember looking down a long stretch of road and thinking, "man... what if I just... disappeared?" Not in a depressive sense. Simply up and bounced. But, I didn't.

Ended up calling back east... or maybe it was my stepmom who called me (I can't remmeber, 2011) and my dad flew me to Philly from LA. Picked me up at the airport with this odd look of disappointment. He warmed up a bit, bought me a couple of cheesesteaks and then dropped me off at my mother's house.

The plan was to stay there for a bit and then move in with him to go back to school and get my life together. He wanted me to study and apply towards a career in one of the letter agencies and, feeling the pull of doing something different, I voiced that difference.

"You are a grown man. Do what ever you want." That's his last text. He dropped dead a couple months later. So, the last time I saw him was that day he picked me up from the airport – his birthday. Weird coincidences.

Nevertheless (oh boy, what a narrative at this point...it's still going too, god help us), I channeled the anger from our failed relationship into getting back to LA. I vowed not to move back without having a job first. Picked up three gigs in Philly, two part-time and one full-time and within a year was back in LA after being hired at Myspace.

Within a year meaning June 2011 I was homeless and March 2012 I was in Hollywood working full-time in Beverly Hills. Life is strange.

Anyway, while at Myspace I studied acting, came further out of the closet, explored more of what it meant to be me, and one thing lead to another and April 2015 there was the initial insight. The lens of attention flipped to find a looker and didn't find one.

Years of abuse, turmoil, depression, hopelessness and anger... totally irrelevant. Then of course, all of it came back as a vague shadow that had to be confronted over and over through a series of peak and mundane experiences, karmic loops, high strangeness, low vibrationess, etc.

Now I'm in a position where I feel intact. Poised for a new chapter book, and I'm not so concerned with what fills its pages. Because... breathing, being alive, simple presence is enough.