/lit/ - Literature

>>15181864
Nothing

A growing urge to blow it out

>>15181864
enlightenment

>>15181864
I did it for 15 yesterday, intermittently with closed eye meditation. Trying to create a meditation habit, but finding it a little difficult. Will Culadasa help me solve this problem?

>>15181864

If you believe the (excellent) Roald Dahl tale "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar", you'll soon be making a killing at casinos.

Well, "soon". I think it took many years.

>>15181864
retina image burn-in

>>15181941
Try Eckhart Tolle audio books for swift enlightenment

candles are lit but they’re not /lit/

try r/buddhism

>>15181941
>intermittently with closed eye meditation.
That's called blinking

>>15181864
What flag is that in the background?

Real hiqh IQ meditators use walking simulators.

I'm about to go into my room and shut the door and pray to my Father who is in secret; and my Father who sees in secret will reward me
what am I in for?

>>15182084

you might have done something here

>>15181864
If you can truly keep your attention on it for the whole time, without your mind wandering, then enlightenment. Don't even let you eyes flicker - every thought will make them move around. Try to just relax, be totally present & absolutely attentive to it. Let everyone know how long you can go before you have a random thought & get distracted.

OP here just came back from a 15 minute sesh

This shit is fucking impossible, I think I spent 30 seconds max in full concentration, for the rest my mind just wandered. My eyes hurt.

>>15182277
sorry guess you don’t have what it takes

>>15182277
you were supposed to concentrate on yourself, the flame is just a backdrop

>tfw candleanon will ascend in a month and we'll still be here shitposting

>>15182277
30 seconds today, 30 minutes in a year or two

Don't give up now, you're going to make it

>>15182287

no, it is object meditation. you focus on the object to build concentration

>>15182287
Eventually. Focusing on an external object is easier though at the beginning.

>>15182277
Well done. And I bet it wasn't even 30 seconds lmao. Good effort though, keep it up for a few years and you'll start to make progress. Then shift to being aware of yourself instead (more abstract & tougher to start). From there you can obtain access concentration & attain the jhana states, or move into deconstructing yourself (through perception of the truths of impermanence, no-self & unsatisfactoriness) to attain Nirvana.

low-grade damage to your rods, possible cataractogenesis

>>15181864
>>15182277
>>15182287
OP dont listen to them!

Focus meditation is some hardcore shit.
You have to focus and reign yoursefl in.

It´s supposed to be an horible experience for training

>>15182322
wow sounds cool
>>15182350
I guess I'll stick with it for a while then :)

candleanon will keep yall posted

>>15182295
lmao

I >>15182078 realize now that is a window not a flag

>>15182084
No they use Dark Souls

>>15182034
He might have fallen asleep tho

Is thisa reference to this Dotoievsky short storywhen the dude gets actually enlighned by a watching a candle?

>>15183307
that just a big blink

>>15183377
OP is making fun of the guy /lit/ roasted the other day.

>>15183628
I think the only reason this guy got roasted so hard was that he described it so autistically
Candle meditation is a real thing practiced by monks, but he had to go and say "I watch a candle burn" instead of "I meditate using a candle for a point to focus on"

>>15181864
Eyestrain.

>>15181864
don't people go blind from doing that?

>>15181864
Dots in your vision as your rods and cones readjust.

>>15181864
An annoying afterimage

>>15182084
for me it's euro truck simulator

>>15182084
Or you could just walk by yourself. A good 5-10km walk always puts me in a good meditative state.

>>15183967
this, I go on hikes/walks in the woods and it always leaves me in a calm and clear state of mind

>>15182084
I currently use coloring game 3

>>15183967
this. when my head was all fucked up the best thing i would do was just walk aimlessly around the city until i couldn't anymore. i would usually go about 10 or so miles without food or water before i started feeling like i was gonna pass out at which point I'd walk to my favorite diner and eat as much as I could. It felt like I was fully emptying myself of everything and then sitting in a comfortable place and filling myself with good shit.

Got a lot of thinking done on those walks

>>15182141
>And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray posting in the chans and on the interbutts to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
shouldn't have told us, u fucked up son

Damage to your retinas

>>15185437
How do you survive in a world where the sun exists?

>>15185470
By not staring at the sun

>>15185086
Blessed and righteouspilled

>>15185086
but anon... I'm just being cheeky towards OP for being talky about his practices
th-those stormclouds gathering near my house are just a coincidence, right?

>>15183080
Absolutely based. I know it so well by now I've honestly considered using it as a kind of "Memory Palace" for meditation.

>>15181864
> what am I in for?
I don't know what crime you were convicted of, but I doubt they'll let you have candles in prison.

>>15185706
>I've honestly considered using it as a kind of "Memory Palace" for meditation.
isn't it a bit frighting and degenerate for such a purpose?

>>15185732
The hub areas are pretty comfy. Majula is my favorite and I've actually been trying to make it a memory palace too.

>>15185732
No, that actually makes it easier. You want strong emotions to encode the information more easily, that's one of the tricks of a decent mnemonic system.

>>15185866
That is true. My biggest issue is priorities - what is worthy of placing around Firelink shrine?

>>15181864
I don't know but I kind of feel like perhaps this is something I should do. My day is riddled with distraction and lack of focus and purposelessness. All I do is fuck around and waste time never accomplishing anything and it really bothers me that I've lost focus, even though it's been a number of years now, since I was a child in the early 90s before I had unmetered and unrestricted internet. I would actually be so bored I had immense concentration and focus on whatever I could find to amuse myself. The modern world was a mistake.

>>15185866
ds2 is the only souls game that I played through, and i can agree Majula very comfy

>>15183377
Which one is that?

You’ll see a candle for one half of one hour.

>>15186925
Actually, it'll be less than that because you blink.

>>15186822
>ds2 is the only souls game that I played throug

>>15187009
pleb filtering at its finest

>>15182010
Jiddu Krishnamurti frequently said that anyone painting themselves as a guru should not be listened to, as any claims they have made about "achieving" enlightenment are offset by the ego required to place oneself in the position of being a guru.
Tolle fails to mention in his book that he had several years of Buddhism behind him when he supposedly became enlightened. In the book he makes it sound as though he figured it all out by himself. This is not the case. He also claims that a psychic friend told him the name Eckhart, which he had also heard while he was dreaming. Anyone who claims such things can only be lying, because magic does not exist. The fact that he claims to believe in psychic powers shows that he's either a) very naive or b) a con artist. Given his marketing model and the fact that he's a self-help author makes me inclined to believe the latter is the case. It's also surprising to me that while a whole bunch of bullshit artists get called out, Eckhart continuously gets a pass. Meditation is certainly an excellent tool for focusing on the present moment, but the cult of personality that Eckhart and his marketing team have built up around him kind of ruin the image he purports of being both humble and kind.

>>15187009
Honestly, that's a lot better than DaS3 kiddies.

>>15181864
I'm interested in meditative practice but I can't do clear mind for reasons. Does candle/trataka meditation actually fuck up your eyes?

>>15187207
highly doubt it'd fuck up your eyes more than the 8 hours a day you spend looking at your computer monitor

>>15182295
real life picture of candleanon right now (colourised)

>>15182141
The living water.

"Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water." John 7:38 (cf. John 4:14; Jeremiah 2:13).

>>15182966
Every flag worth its salt is a window.

>>15186822
You're missing out. 1 is better simply for the world layout in itself itself.

>>15187177
3 is still better than 2.

>>15182322
Or you could go online and get one of their CDs. I’m partial to Nevermind.

>>15187741
3 is the worst Souls game

Anyone looking for info on fire kasina/trataka should look into what Daniel Ingram has written on it. Very strong practice for concentration:

https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-vi-my-spiritual-quest/69-bhavana-society-2001-retreat/fire-kasina-practice/

He's also done two great episodes on Fire Kasina on the Deconstructing Yourself podcast. Good luck everyone, wish I had found this stuff sooner myself.

>>15181959

>>15188313
Thanks anon

>>15181959
Then you can stare at the candle without actually owning a candle. Very minimalist

>>15187128
I thought the friend who called him Eckhart just had a nickname for him that stuck. Eckhart has to operate in the modern world and make money just like the rest of us, wheras Jiddu “rose to fame” through the Star of the East society, a very well connected old-world kinda cult associating with aristocratic European circles that took care of all the money and shit. He was selected as their new leader and raised from a young age, but later dismantled the whole club, as I’m sure you’re aware. That’s a rather nice position to bitch on other self-made people, I would say.

In this day and age, where old-world rich-ass theosophists don’t push forward their new leaders, all spiritual folks that don’t operate from a church of some kind need to be capitalist pigs to survive, and it’s hard to blame Eckhart for creating a little mystique around his work.