Reddit reviews Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Core-Teachings-Buddha-Unusually/dp/1904658407

Or

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985

Daniel ingram, author of the book in the first link, is a PHD medical surgeon and a self declared arhat. He touches on the DNotS often and often speaks to how treatment of it is something that our medical community should pay attention to in the future.

That book has a ton of information on the subject and will deepen your practice in so many other ways. The book is mostly concerned with the jhanas and will take you through the 4 rupa jhana into the 4 arupa jhana. I believe it discusses the ninth jhana as well(it does i just googled it).

He also runs a website with a ton of information on the DNotS. https://www.dharmaoverground.org/

Overall its a great book and one can spend perhaps a lifetime on that work alone.

the 2nd one is just as good for different reasons. Check out the amazon reviews.

But bro i think you just gotta push through it. Keep meditating.

Good luck to you.

I think you might find better advice on /r/Meditation or /r/Buddhism. Actually, the best thing you can do if you plan to continue meditation is to find a real teacher. It's possible to get started with meditation on your own, but to make real progress, you're going to need to spend at least some time with a teacher.

Some schools of meditation would tell you that your experiences, while unusual, aren't any more important or any more or less real than your experiences working or studying or browsing reddit, and that it's important not to be seduced by the exotic. In other words, whether those experiences and those beings are "real" or not isn't really an important question; it's just something else to let go of.

Other schools would say that intense concentration allows you to both see things that you normally can't see and to mentally travel to realms you normally can't visit. Some schools even cultivate these experiences, which are variously called the siddhis, the Divine Eye/Divine Ear, and a bunch of other terms I'm too lazy to look up right now.

Another relevant angle would be found in The Progress of Insight by Mahasi Sayadaw (specifically section VI). This is an explicitly Buddhist approach that delineates the levels of insight that lead to the four stages of enlightenment. The Mahasi text is a hard slog if you're not familiar with Buddhist terminology already, but there's an easier-to-understand, though somewhat controversial, modern treatment written by Daniel Ingram called Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha.

A teacher in the Mahasi tradition, then, might tell you that this was an Arising-and-Passing-Away event, which signals the beginning of the spiritual path in earnest. Of course, the teacher might also tell you it was just a dream (and certainly wouldn't tell you anything at all based on just an internet post :) ).

Arising-and-Passing-Away is usually followed by all kinds of unpleasantness, all of which is considered necessary for mental purification. St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul is considered the best exposition of this process from a Western Christian perspective.

So, yeah. If you're determined to keep at this, it's probably best to find a teacher.

You have overlooked the only person who can help you; it's you. You are intelligent and perceptive and most assuredly sentient. You are a piece of the universe that can see itself. Through you, the universe can become self aware. This incredible experience is your birthright. Self-loathing is a very narrow-minded stance to take for a being in such a position. You are able to escape from your box and claim all that is yours, and it is spectacular beyond reckoning. Nothing can stop you except yourself.

Your state of mind is not something you should entrust to other people because you have no power over them and how they behave. You do, however, have power over your own mind, so clearly, this is the place to start.

I suggest you save yourself by allowing your mind to travel in a direction that is so fantastic and overwhelming that your attention will automatically change its focus from your family and all of their demoralizing troubles to something much greater and interesting: the search for the Big Picture.

By the Big Picture, I mean having some understanding of the true nature of the self and of reality. What exactly is this thing you call "I" that is not an object? What is going on in this space/time? What is being experienced and what is experiencing and how does it take place? What is real and what is illusory? How does all this fit together?

There are many ways to study reality. The academic or intellectual path is useful up to a certain point, but is inadequate in this case, because it necessarily objectifies and conceptualizes experience and experience is, by definition, completely subjective. Thus, the Big Picture must be sought from within. The goal is to see things clearly, just as they are, prior to conceptualization.

There are ways to train the mind for this journey. One of the best road maps I've come across for exploring the Big Picture is Zen Buddhism. The practice is very simple. You are not asked to believe in anything that deviates from your own experience. You are discouraged from relying on dogma or on the words and teachings of others because they won't help much. Zen is the see-for-yourself guide to insight. Meditation is the most important part of Zen. I'll give you the briefest peek into how it works.

You sit in a position that allows you to be relaxed yet alert and to be still without muscular exertion. Most sit cross-legged but it's of no consequence. Sit with your back straight and your muscles all relaxed and, instead of thinking, simply watch your breath. Watch your body breathing as if it were the most important thing in the world. Without going into further detail, as you watch your breath you discover that something you are able to observe cannot contain you. You, the observer, is not the body. After a while, you learn to observe the thinking mind instead of your breathing. You will find that you are able to observe your thinking mind without becoming involved in its context. Eventually, you will see that the thinking mind also doesn't contain the observer.

You go onwards from there; searching to discover where the observer is located and what is its nature. This path takes years but there are mind-blowing insights and experiences all along the way.

This, I think, is the most important pursuit a sentient being can undertake and the most fantastic. I won't go into further detail because I've already produced an embarrassing wall of text. Suffice it to say that Zen is a way to train the mind in such a way that it ceases to torment itself. This kind of practice is not only helpful for dealing with life's problems, but is also the source of a great deal of wonder and deep insight into how things are. Best of luck saving yourself from yourself. [Book suggestions: The Dhammapada, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book. I haven't read the 2nd book but I like its table of contents and, from a quick glance, it seems legit.]

Look for a lineage that speaks to your heart. Mastering the core teachings of the Buddha is the best direction for myself personally, which I found from this podcast which led me to this kind of wacky 3 part video, which inspired me to read the book. There is a free pdf of the book linked from the author's website. Time is probably better spent just going with something then flittering back and forth and always looking for a path but never walking one.

If you can manage to get yourself to a buddhist retreat do it. Practicing every moment every day for a week or so is incredible and I think inherently perspective/insight changing. I'd recommend studying what to do on retreats beforehand, so you are better able to practice effectively in every moment during the retreat, and better able to communicate questions to the teacher. Honestly, if you make a ten day retreat with some knowledge of what to do, and just keep on trucking through it to the end, you will probably reach insights & samadhi/jhana intensity which will make weed/alcohol appear essentially boring, and which will also really establish a pretty unshakeable Saddhā in the Dharma, with a strong sense that you know where you are going and how to get there (and a sense of how much it will actually take to get there.)

Put some dharma talks onto your phone/ipod. Listen when you drive/clean whenever seems appropriate. Joseph Goldstein is one of my favorite speakers to listen to. He's repetitive, but so are the original texts. Here is his kind of epic 46 part talk over 5 years on the Satipatthana Sutta.

I always use a timer for formal practice for myself, 20 minute sits etc., the fact that I may sincerely need to do something else timewise (eat, bathroom, pay bills) or be actually hurting myself from a certain posture for too long will require my attention otherwise.

Also, the world outside of practice is hard, especially when the heart is open. I've found The way of the Superior Man and especially some torrentable live discussions of the authors to be the most useful perspective I've come across for trying to deal with practical reality & relationships.

Metta my friend, may your path be easy and true.

Buddhist author Daniel Ingram calls himself "the arhat". http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Core-Teachings-Buddha-Unusually/dp/1904658407/

Geshe Michael Roach claims to have become an arya through direct perception of emptiness at age 22. His claim is questioned in several blog posts here https://michaelroachfiles.wordpress.com/tag/seeing-emptiness

Read and do the exercises from this short but epic book.

Then read this and diligently work the practices for years.

Magick and meditation can't give you easy answers to the hows and whys of existence, but they will give you the tools and discipline to make the best of the time that you do exist.

Nice, man. I wish for you to persevere in your practice. Just like you I've studied and now practice Zen, Buddhism, and some of the Taoism.

I should look into the set of authors you've written. If you have time look into it, some of the books I found most inspiring in my practice are:

Zen mind, Beginner's Mind
Not always so
The two above are for inspiration and breathtaking take on the spirit of practice, the once below are for the practical and daily aspects of the practice:
Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha - Supremely useful!
Mindfulness in Plain English - Of course "Beyond Mindfulness" is equally as impressive, just goes into a greater detail on what to expect, and how to achieve higher jhanas.

Mastering the Core Teachings is VERY dense, but I highly recommend it: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1904658407/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504129824&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=mastering+the+core+teachings+of+the+buddha&dpPl=1&dpID=517lPE5zu9L&ref=plSrch

Anything by Stephen Batchelor

Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

It used to be online for free until recently. It's an excellent read. More specifically it addresses meditation in a far more from a western "how-to" formula. "Do this, see what happens". I generally appreciated that approach.

Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book:

free online: http://integrateddaniel.info/book/

on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Core-Teachings-Buddha-Unusually/dp/1904658407

It's more Therevada and is heavily inspired by the Visuddhimagga but even if it's heavy and highly technical, it's progressive and complete in his presentation.

Cut to the chase.