Welcome!

Welcome Jenny!

Hi, Jenny. Good to have you here.

In the picture of you, I'm gonna assume you're the one on the right.

Welcome, Jenny!

It is nice to see you here.

Hola Awaken Network,
My name is Braxton, I am 24 and started meditation after a psychedelic experience I had when I was 19. During that trip everything I thought I knew about myself and reality collapsed into a void and the sense of there being a me returned when I came across a CD that had an angel falling apart on it titled "This place is haunted, everything you know is wrong." After being slightly traumatized and unsure of what to make of this, I searched the internet for answers. I can't remember which forum it was, but there was a post where someone said "The sense of there being a me fell away too, but with meditation." A week later I decided to move to Los Angeles for a fresh start and ran into a Shinzen Young facilitator.

There I became completely obsessed with the practice after crossing A & P for the first time. Since I was going through a huge shift in my social surroundings I spent most of the next 3 years practicing and reading about various traditions and philosophies. After doing two ten days with Shinzen and one ten day at Spirit Rock I felt called to spend a good portion of my time on retreat before I acquired too many responsibilities. I wanted to go to Burma to do the annual rains retreat with Upandita, but my father was not to keen on that idea and offered financial assistance if I could find a place in the US. Shortly following I came across the annual 3 month retreat at IMS and quickly signed up.

That retreat was a huge shift in my practice. Prior to this retreat I really got off on the flashy experiences that would occasionally occur in my practice. When they started to happen at IMS I was instructed to primarily work with choiceless awareness for the entire 3 months. This has since become my primary practice. After that retreat I have felt the sense of seeking anything falling away more and more. Slowly my life has shifted from being solely about chasing enlightenment to actually integrating into the world. Most of my time now a days is on my studies (psychology and neuroscience), juggling/poi, and continuing to deepen my practice.

Hey Braxon, welcome. I look foward to hearing more about your practice.

Yes! Great to have you here, looking forward to hearing your contributions Welcome!

Hi, I really don't like writing introductions. I live in the UK with my Estonian partner and our 5 year old daughter.
I have dabbled with meditation for about 10 years but only settled down to a solid daily practice about a year ago. Currently I am practicing a relaxed noting style with trying to shift to choiceless awareness when concentrated enough. I think I crossed the a&p a few weeks ago (a few days of trippy vibrations all over ect combined with easy and strong concentration) and so far after that I have had no major dark night stuff just was in a bit of a fug for a bit and then concentration improved with just a low grade anxious feeling at times. I Am practicing somewhere around 1 to 2 hours a day but this varies quite a lot.

Welcome, Charlotte! You will find lots of practice support among the wonderful people here!

Hi, Charlotte! Good to have you here.

Welcome, Braxton!

Hi Braxton and Charlotte. Nice to meet you.

Hi Braxton and Charlotte, welcome!

Hello everyone. I'll try to keep this short and sweet, but a little background might be good so people know where I'm coming from when I ask my weird questions.

First off, I'm 38, with a teenage son who lives with me full time. I grew up Southern Baptist, but over time and especially the past few years I really starting questioning things. What things in particular I won't get into now because that's a book by itself, but let's say I came to realize that most popular Christianity should really be called Paulianism. By concentrating on the four gospels, I started to believe that the true message had been distorted beyond all recognition over the years. All this may or may not be strictly relevant, but it's said to point out that I don't follow a specific school or style of meditation. I'll use any valid tool or technique that helps me become more self-aware or "awake" and helps me recognize where the ego is still influencing my thoughts and actions.

Sheesh, this thing seems really rambly but there's just a lot that could be covered here. I am open to questions though. And I'm glad to be here. I feel there are some good things here for me to discover and learn.

Hi all,

I remember some of you from when I was briefly a member of the KFD Wetpaint forum in 2012. I'd had what I think was an A&P experience followed by a traumatic DN which saw me rolling up the mat, resigning from my job and moving my wife and I half way across the world. My wife is very ill and I'm now her full-time carer. At the time we were living in the UK and a long way from our families in Australia and we both felt that we needed to be home amongst family and friends. It's been a year since we left the UK and we're only now beginning to feel settled.

We're in our mid forties, no children, both trained as artists.

I recently began sitting again and feel like the "reset button" has been hit; Back to square one. I try to sit every day for at least 20 mins (working my way up to the goal of twice daily 60 min. sits) but I live in a house which is hostile to meditation and as such I need to do it clandestinely. Good grief! (We're hoping to be in our own place in the not too distant future.) Occasionally, I go to the local Sri Lankan temple to meditate. For the most part, I do indiscriminate noting. My goal is to achieve Stream Entry with a view to attaining to Arahatship in this lifetime.

I'm very happy to be here amongst you all and I'm looking forward to beginning a journal here.

Thanks for having me.
Cheers,
Shaun

Hi Shaun, welcome - best wishes for your wife's health. There are a couple of us here in Australia - I'm in Canberra but moved from Sydney earlier this year. Nice to see others.

Best wishes in a difficult time, Shaun.

I recall a friend who started meditating in a "hostile" house used to sit with a book in his lap and his headphones on, so in case anyone caught him they would think he was just reading and listening to music.

Welcome, Shaun. I'm sorry to hear about your wife. It must be a very stressful time for you both.

Hi Shaun,
Welcome and sounds like you and your wife have some challenges (best wishes for her recovery). I am in Australia, (Sydney). Its hard to understand a 'hostility' to meditation practice but hope you can get to a more friendly place to support your practice soon. Does your wife find any benefit or have any interest in this stuff?

Hi Charlotte, Braxton and Brian - welcome to you all.

Thanks for your kind welcomes and best wishes. We're staying with my mother briefly, who is a fundamentalist Christian and who believes meditation "lets demons in". It's an attitude and belief that I find quite offensive but "eh, what are you gonna do?" My wife decompresses while listening to binaural beats. Apart from curiosity about my interest and practice, this is the extent of her interest in meditation.

Hi Shaun

sorry to hear about your wife's problems. I wish her well.

Yeah, family is difficult! There's this possibly apocryphal Ram Dass quote: "if you think you're so enlightened, go spend a week with your family". They know where all the button are, and they will push them. Much power to you!

Actually, if your mother is into reading the Bible, you might find some common ground on private quiet practice in, for example, Matthew 6:5-13, which are the most detailed prayer/contemplation instructions handed down from Jesus which I know of. I don't know if this is your thing, or hers, but the instructions are to be in a quiet, private place, and the individual phrases of that prayer form a nice map...

Cheers,
Florian

Hello Everyone!

Dharma Overgrounder here. I'm not a refugee, just someone who wants to tap another dharma resource. Looking forward to trawling (not trolling) the depths of this site.

-T

p.s. I may begin a practice thread of sorts here, but until I do, here's my latest updates at the DhO

Hey Teague. Welcome and nice to have met you last weekend!