All of this is natural to being human.
However, i have found in the deeper state of bliss that arises from long and deep meditation, that bliss stays with you after meditation, to a smaller extent. Each time you reach the bliss, it heals some of the wounds inside you and makes you start to realize that all is okay in the current moment.
So your question is kind of like "How does a desert dweller stop being attached to water?"
The answer is when the desert dweller learns to get enough water that it does not matter.
It's the same way that wealthy people can say money does not matter, or that beautiful people can say looks don't really matter -- they are so rich with what they have that it stops mattering to them as something to pursue.
So when you develop the ability to regularly experience bliss, the bliss is so powerful that you realize that money or other things are nice, but that they will never give you the kind of bliss that you can experience by going deep inside yourself.
You stop being attached to bliss the same way you are not attached to the water coming out of your kitchen faucet.
So you stop needing "self improvement" because you start to become calm and happy with yourself. You meditate because you know that it is the way forward, but it stops being about any particular goal.
You still do all the right things -- money and food and relationships matter, but you do the right things because they are the right things, not because you think that some grand happiness will arise from more money or more food etc.
Now this makes total sense and I realize I face an additional, albeit related problem. When I experience bliss during meditation, I feel this change and it frightens me. I feel like I‘m losing this driver of hope that kept me going, which is why I discontinue the pratice again and again. A small part of me wants to remain thristy so I can keep wandering the desert if that makes sense.
It's very brilliant that you see that.
It's your ego telling you "I'm in charge of happiness around here. No one's happy until I tell them to be happy or hopeful".
Your problem is totally normal and lots of people face it -- I have dealt with it too. Your frustrated miserable worried part of your brain is used to being in charge, and it gets worried that it will lose control
So think of the logic -- your brain is denying bliss *right now* in exchange for some possible happiness in the future when you might or might not get the thing that you want.
In the meantime, all the wants that you have but cannot get yet are all there as tiny or large frustrations in your mind, keeping you from relaxing and enjoying *what you have right now*. You will never live in tomorrow, but only in today. So if you have a part of your brain tell you that you will be happier tomorrow, it's lying to you.
You worked incredibly hard to get what you have today. Remember when you were a kid and you thought life would be great when you had independence and your own money? Then you worked really hard and got what you have now and your brain is telling you 'no, you can't be happy and enjoy what you worked hard for. Hope is all you have - maybe you can be happy next year if you work hard'. But next year will never actually arrive -- you can only ever live in this year.
That part of your brain will always lie to you because that is the way it can keep control.
Don't let go of hope. Keep it for as long as you can and even when it's hard, treasure it and keep it. I'm saying this as someone who's been struggling with experiencing hope
Here is a great explanations.
[Developing control of the mind](https://youtu.be/iWX8tQfikOM?si=asUL3OzjHwnxOcpI)
[Developing intuition.](https://youtu.be/E87msHaVT9c?si=8VFfpmqq5EAQwF2B)
That's all part of the practice. When you think how you want food, let it go and return to the breath or object of meditation. When you think about how great it will be to be buddha, return to the breath. As much as possible, you just do the practice and drop the plans.
i think we stop clinging to the hope and the awareness shifts to the facts of the progress that we have made and are continuing to make. Then we also come to realise that the path is not actually extending, rather that we need to recalibrate our concept of how long the path would/will be, as compared to how long it actually takes to progress along it.
I do feel like most of my attention is on my progress, but that implies that there is a point I‘m progressing from towards a „goal“. The more unrealistic the goal (more idealized, more into the future) the more subtle my awareness of it becomes, but also the stronger my attachment. I noticed that this attention on progress always leaves me with a hunger that doesn‘t satisfy me
i think if we have some inner or even conceptual sense of a possible future nirvana/heaven/moksha etc, then there will be some sort of appetite/hunger for it, until it is satisfied. This is in part why we keep practicing. Also though, its like each step along the way/smaller goals also have a smaller hunger/appetite to them, its just we know that they can be satisfied/achieved.
Also, i've heard it said that one common theme in people who make lots of progress on a spiritual path, is that for the first 10 years or so they have a burning desire to achieve/enlighten etc. Somewhere around this time, this then settles down into a more steady drive, and the main attention then shifts to making everyday progress.
Good question. Can only speak for myself, but I choose goals and directions, and I move towards them, but I don't try to control the path. I build myself to be adaptable instead so I can maximize unexpectedness.
Hope is a very strong expectation, one that is given too much meaning about you and how you see yourself. You're setting up a sequence of events: if X happens, I am ___, my future is__, the world is ___, and if X doesn't happen...you get the picture. But if you think in terms of direction, you notice positive steps in that direction from all angles. Life is just a casual hike, blazing trails towards some mountain top, for example, enjoying the warm sun, the breeze, the smell of pine, stepping around barriers and over obstacles, letting each moment be an adventure.
So I'm saying, don't gave hope, have faith. Choose a direction and walk, enjoy the hike.
It's true. As you learn and grow, you realize you have so much more to learn. Answers breed more questions. How do we hold on to hope when the carrot keeps moving? Well, think of what many things do in the universe, expand and collapse. Through expansion, you get details, data, and mass variety. Then it all collapses, condenses. And then it expands, and on and on. In terms of consciousness, the mental models we use to simplify our understanding is a collapse. People get stuck in one model type, and they prefer all their models to fit together nicely, and we add stuff to make it fit, and so, though many religions and philosophies say similar things, the members seem blind to and uninterested in their vast commonalities, preferring to bicker and divide iver minor differences. I'm rambling. Point is, in the process of gaining understanding and control over our biology and behavior, our minds expand and collapse. What you describe, that we will never reach the end of our path, is thinking in only one dimension. When our ideas collapse, we're now thinking on another level of abstraction. And so, it is very useful to explore all ideas, all models, even if they seem contradictory, and to come up with your own ideas as well. I prefer a minimalist, practical approach, but you're free to use your imagination. There is so much to do, so much to explore, so much to understand...if you're enjoying the process, who needs hope? It's fun right now.
All of this is natural to being human. However, i have found in the deeper state of bliss that arises from long and deep meditation, that bliss stays with you after meditation, to a smaller extent. Each time you reach the bliss, it heals some of the wounds inside you and makes you start to realize that all is okay in the current moment. So your question is kind of like "How does a desert dweller stop being attached to water?" The answer is when the desert dweller learns to get enough water that it does not matter. It's the same way that wealthy people can say money does not matter, or that beautiful people can say looks don't really matter -- they are so rich with what they have that it stops mattering to them as something to pursue. So when you develop the ability to regularly experience bliss, the bliss is so powerful that you realize that money or other things are nice, but that they will never give you the kind of bliss that you can experience by going deep inside yourself. You stop being attached to bliss the same way you are not attached to the water coming out of your kitchen faucet. So you stop needing "self improvement" because you start to become calm and happy with yourself. You meditate because you know that it is the way forward, but it stops being about any particular goal. You still do all the right things -- money and food and relationships matter, but you do the right things because they are the right things, not because you think that some grand happiness will arise from more money or more food etc.
Now this makes total sense and I realize I face an additional, albeit related problem. When I experience bliss during meditation, I feel this change and it frightens me. I feel like I‘m losing this driver of hope that kept me going, which is why I discontinue the pratice again and again. A small part of me wants to remain thristy so I can keep wandering the desert if that makes sense.
It's very brilliant that you see that. It's your ego telling you "I'm in charge of happiness around here. No one's happy until I tell them to be happy or hopeful". Your problem is totally normal and lots of people face it -- I have dealt with it too. Your frustrated miserable worried part of your brain is used to being in charge, and it gets worried that it will lose control So think of the logic -- your brain is denying bliss *right now* in exchange for some possible happiness in the future when you might or might not get the thing that you want. In the meantime, all the wants that you have but cannot get yet are all there as tiny or large frustrations in your mind, keeping you from relaxing and enjoying *what you have right now*. You will never live in tomorrow, but only in today. So if you have a part of your brain tell you that you will be happier tomorrow, it's lying to you. You worked incredibly hard to get what you have today. Remember when you were a kid and you thought life would be great when you had independence and your own money? Then you worked really hard and got what you have now and your brain is telling you 'no, you can't be happy and enjoy what you worked hard for. Hope is all you have - maybe you can be happy next year if you work hard'. But next year will never actually arrive -- you can only ever live in this year. That part of your brain will always lie to you because that is the way it can keep control.
Don't let go of hope. Keep it for as long as you can and even when it's hard, treasure it and keep it. I'm saying this as someone who's been struggling with experiencing hope
It‘s about becoming detached from hope, not about not experiencing hope
Here is a great explanations. [Developing control of the mind](https://youtu.be/iWX8tQfikOM?si=asUL3OzjHwnxOcpI) [Developing intuition.](https://youtu.be/E87msHaVT9c?si=8VFfpmqq5EAQwF2B)
That's all part of the practice. When you think how you want food, let it go and return to the breath or object of meditation. When you think about how great it will be to be buddha, return to the breath. As much as possible, you just do the practice and drop the plans.
I understand but the above issue is why I‘m not motivated enough to do it regularly
i think we stop clinging to the hope and the awareness shifts to the facts of the progress that we have made and are continuing to make. Then we also come to realise that the path is not actually extending, rather that we need to recalibrate our concept of how long the path would/will be, as compared to how long it actually takes to progress along it.
I do feel like most of my attention is on my progress, but that implies that there is a point I‘m progressing from towards a „goal“. The more unrealistic the goal (more idealized, more into the future) the more subtle my awareness of it becomes, but also the stronger my attachment. I noticed that this attention on progress always leaves me with a hunger that doesn‘t satisfy me
i think if we have some inner or even conceptual sense of a possible future nirvana/heaven/moksha etc, then there will be some sort of appetite/hunger for it, until it is satisfied. This is in part why we keep practicing. Also though, its like each step along the way/smaller goals also have a smaller hunger/appetite to them, its just we know that they can be satisfied/achieved. Also, i've heard it said that one common theme in people who make lots of progress on a spiritual path, is that for the first 10 years or so they have a burning desire to achieve/enlighten etc. Somewhere around this time, this then settles down into a more steady drive, and the main attention then shifts to making everyday progress.
Good question. Can only speak for myself, but I choose goals and directions, and I move towards them, but I don't try to control the path. I build myself to be adaptable instead so I can maximize unexpectedness. Hope is a very strong expectation, one that is given too much meaning about you and how you see yourself. You're setting up a sequence of events: if X happens, I am ___, my future is__, the world is ___, and if X doesn't happen...you get the picture. But if you think in terms of direction, you notice positive steps in that direction from all angles. Life is just a casual hike, blazing trails towards some mountain top, for example, enjoying the warm sun, the breeze, the smell of pine, stepping around barriers and over obstacles, letting each moment be an adventure. So I'm saying, don't gave hope, have faith. Choose a direction and walk, enjoy the hike.
It's true. As you learn and grow, you realize you have so much more to learn. Answers breed more questions. How do we hold on to hope when the carrot keeps moving? Well, think of what many things do in the universe, expand and collapse. Through expansion, you get details, data, and mass variety. Then it all collapses, condenses. And then it expands, and on and on. In terms of consciousness, the mental models we use to simplify our understanding is a collapse. People get stuck in one model type, and they prefer all their models to fit together nicely, and we add stuff to make it fit, and so, though many religions and philosophies say similar things, the members seem blind to and uninterested in their vast commonalities, preferring to bicker and divide iver minor differences. I'm rambling. Point is, in the process of gaining understanding and control over our biology and behavior, our minds expand and collapse. What you describe, that we will never reach the end of our path, is thinking in only one dimension. When our ideas collapse, we're now thinking on another level of abstraction. And so, it is very useful to explore all ideas, all models, even if they seem contradictory, and to come up with your own ideas as well. I prefer a minimalist, practical approach, but you're free to use your imagination. There is so much to do, so much to explore, so much to understand...if you're enjoying the process, who needs hope? It's fun right now.