It's been almost a year since I've started meditating regularly. My first epiphanies in meditation happened via ayahuasca, and I think my yoga practices also help me being consistent in this practice. Since leading this lifestyle, I've noticed numerous changes in my behavior, attitude and an extremely positive improvement regarding communication with others. I have to confess that I used to be frustrated and had a really low self-esteem due to certain family issues, however, with the aid of ayahuasca, weed, yoga and meditation, I now feel I've succeeded to let most of my frustrations go for good. This journey into myself turned out to be the best healing process possible, and I wish to improve it even more, with a 10-day Vipassana course that I'm going to in August.

I'm very interested to find out if any of you fellow nexians have participated at a Vipassana course, or doing meditation regularly, how this practice has changed your lifestyle, and if it gives the willpower for groundedness and practical thinking. These areas certainly need lots of improvement in my case, on my quest in becoming a healer.

Your replies are deeply appreciated!

good vibes,
drishti

Well, Vipassana is a particular meditative technology that works to take you through the process of Insight. At various stages along the way, your willpower and sense of groundedness can completely disappear, particularly during the dukkha nanas.

If you're looking specifically for groundedness and focus, the shamantha meditation techniques are more appropriate. Really would suggest doing both, but don't be surprised by some pretty uncomfortable experiences from vipassana. Also, once you hit the dukkah nanas, definitely push through into equanimity, or they'll just keep spontaneously arising until you do.

I personly have not done a vipassana retrea, have thought about it though.
peolple that I have talked to about it seem alot happier and... free, but it is a hard thing to go through. very uncomfortable after the first 3 days your probably going to want to stop. Once you get past that phase though it's nothing but enlightenment

Good luck report back afterwords, I would like to do it but I dont think I could handle the silence for 10 days

i haven't attended a Vipassana course either, but from what i've heard about it, I would highly recommend it. I've listened to a few of S.N. Goenka's tapes, and it seems very beneficial. A few of my relatives have done the 10-day course in india, and it has helped them enormously. they said that it allows you to very deeply examine not only your deepest psyche, but also your mind and body at many levels..sometimes even at the cellular level. Vipassana is one of the most important teachings that Buddha left us.
I was going to attend last month, but circumstances prevented that from happening. it may be tough sitting in silence for 10 days, eating a monastery diet, etc, but i'm sure you won't regret it, and will go back for more. If you do decide to attend, please post your experience, and results here. I would also be very interested in hearing about the changes in the nature of your follow-up psychedelic experiences if you choose to do that
<3

I've done a 10 day course and would speak highly of it. There is a mild dogma attached, as with any practice, but the effect of the disapline is potent. If you go, don't allow the idea of leaving before the 10 days are up to be an option in your mind. stick it out and see how you feel when your finished.

vipassina brings you into your body, which is something I really appreciate. A large and very fundamental part of my spirit way is in deepening my sensory awareness and embodiment. I have found vipassina to be an effective tool in this way.

my mom has sat two 10 day vipassana courses.
She speaks very highly of them, saying they've entirely changed her perspective and life.
it enabled us to connect on a level of deeper reality, very strongly.
she would wake up tripping when i would smoke dmt late at night.

I meditated regularly (Samatha) for a long while, then tricked myself into thinking I couldnt carry on due to my drinking/smoking/student lifestyle etc. However, a few recent aya experiences have totally put me off alcohol, and I have returned to daily meditation. I think the beauty is, even if you dont practice for a while, the lessons you learn can be taken up again with relative ease. I remember how to meditate quite well, and aya has allowed quite large leaps to be made.

Samatha really does help with tranquility and focus etc, and conjunction with certain psychs seem a match made in heaven! Vipassana does intrigue me though, and I have just been reminded of it now. And that is thanks to this post! Many thanks for the reminder.

Peas

Your "experience arc" does feel familiar!

More than a few years ago, an introduction to yoga and meditation led to a big reduction in amount of frustration I carried around with me. Then in short order, I was investigating these things deeply....I recognize I was extremely fortunate to take the time to become initiated into this path, and to have the time to intensively practice it for the next 5 years...with some good results (tho far from completion!). A couple of years ago I got acquainted with this site, and with its aid performed a few very successful San Pedro experiments...which led ultimately to some successful ayahuasca experiments.

After the first one or two San Pedro events, but also because of who the Nexians are, I realized how these events are really sacred ceremonies, and even since every single such experiment is for me a deep meditation. Personally, at this stage of my life, I believe that the consciousness of those who take vipassana/mahamudra, etc to completion very likely has something to do with endogenous DMT playing a larger and larger role in one's neurochemistry. So it is perfectly natural to me that both my meditation and non-meditation seem to have unfolded at a good pace, and very much in line with the well-documented experiences of other explorers and psychonauts.

I won't say that the frustration I encounter these days have gone away, or even decreased compared to a few years ago, but I certainly have new, improved ability to deal with it ... so in that sense I feel increasingly "grounded".

Modern, internet-rich Westerners have greater access to thousands of years of wisdom that can make our own lives, and the world, better .... you can click a few buttons on a Kindle while hiking in the mountains and download, for example, original dzogchen teachings by Padmasambhava (and by no means need it be "buddhist".
Most people probably get pretty squrimy and uncomfortable thinking about all the suffering and sickos in the world, but the technology and knowledge -and molecules - that aid consciousness exploration at our fingertips make it easier than ever to do something about it. Healing, if you will.

But you still need strong guts to walk down that path...

It is amazing! I feel blessed to be living in these times... we have access to sacred texts from Asia, and sacred plants from the Amazon and more! Maybe this will be a good time for the human evolution of the mind

These texts really do have some power. The E Ching by Laozu is one that springs to mind. I swear its magic or something. And the Tibetan Book of the Dead...I am by no means an expert, but the ones I have read are just... wow

And as far as sickos and suffering goes...my study means I have to study very grim things (Colonialism, Post-Structura;ism, Critical theory, Racism, Criminality etc.), but i find through practicing with entheogens and meditation, you can 'step back' and look at the problems that arise objectively - which is important in being able to help IME (It is hard to solve problems and help when you are stricken by grief. When I first started studying, the subjects caused me to wallow in gloom for about a year lol)

But this time in history really does seem like a crossroads, so all the good people that can help, need to...

I started meditating when I was abotu 13 or 14..way back before I ever knew anything about psychedelics or even had cannabis. I did alot of martial arts back then and meditation was a big part of the school I attended. I never got really deep into the more esoteric aspect of meditation though until I was 19-20 when I got back into it. I was really into lucid dreaming at that time..and while I had used cannabis very infrequently in high school it never ever really worked on me until I was 19. I was already practicing lucid dreaming and astral projection at that point and began smoking cannabis more and more and got really into buddhism at some point, and then yoga to a degree.

Then I discovered deeper psychedelics..mainly mushrooms, LSA and then salvia. I took alot of mushrooms and salvia and began to shift more towards shamanism over time and got less interested in buddhism and india etc in general.

After I got sick though my doctor told me to do yoga and change my diet..and I began doing it on and off again. Now I am doing it again and it feels good..I feel like I can appreciate it much more now living on a pure diet full of raw foods and pure water..it is just living pure..ayahuasca, raw vegan food and yoga/meditation go together very very well. I feel like yoga and meditation were most likely first practiced in cultures where psychedelics were present..it seems obvious yoga emerged in the presense of soma.

When you combine yoga/meditation with a very clean diet full or raw life giving foods, and get proper sleep etc..something definatily awakens. I think it really is the pineal, and that tryptamine based psychedelics are like catalysts for this awakening. I know for a fact that I have endogenous experiences that mirror harmalas and DMT and my lifestyle supports it, and I think this is what yogis and meditators have been tapping into for a long time. Is anyone here in Mantek Chia and darkrooming? Darkrooming is something I really want to get into.

Fractal, that's incredible!

I've thought before about moving to Canada, but I didn't realize that doctors there could prescribe changa to citizens until now. How long do you think it would take to attain citizenship?

Plus, Whistler is just around the corner.