What are /r/Wakingupapp's favorite Products & Services?

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I'm really glad the colouring pointer helps. The first time I heard Sam's version I just felt I was breathing out stale air into the world. But I felt the instruction had potential so decided to put it to use during a run the next morning. The idea to use colours just came naturally. And what followed was a sequence of insights that I've tried to capture here: https://write.as/nabeel-oz/breathe-in-the-world-breathe-out-yourself

Sorry, I didn't think of chronic health issues being related to the sensation in your head. That would make it more prominent. I'm learning to respond to such nagging issues with a curt "Not I"; whatever I observe is an object in the mind, and I am not that object.

Yeah it does spend some time on dzogchen too! But it's so direct and incredibly framed without going into the deep end, and staying at well under 200 pages, getting right to the nature of mind.

This is the version I have and can be grabbed for around $11

https://www.amazon.com/Pointing-Dharmakaya-Khenchen-Thrangu-Rinpoche/dp/1559392037

I have seen another one with a different cover but I'm certain it's the same text.

You (and /u/RZoroaster) might find "The Hidden Spring" by Mark Solms interesting. It's a contemporary review (from one scientist's perspective) on what scientific progress we've made so far toward understanding the neurological origins of consciousness.

Among other interesting points, he argues that consciousness does not originate in the cortex. (Fun fact, mice that have had their entire cortex removed can live full and relatively normal lives, including foraging for food, navigating complex environments, mating, and rearing children). He argues that consciousness seems to be generated by very evolutionarily old brain structures in (or near) the brain stem -- which I would expect crows also have.

>But there IS a "you" in that existence/being/awareness/presence are all right here, right now, and you know it.

As far as pointers (metaphor/poetry) go you’re right, I just wonder less about its truth and more about the wisdom of its use. Is the pointer pointing at the dharma, clarifying ultimate reality…or is it illusorily resuscitating the ego that isn’t.

>That's as good a "you" as anything because if those things were NOT here, you wouldn't be here either :)

I’m really taken with the middle way right now, about half way through. Some very frustrating ambiguity in it, but Garfield has a brilliant contextual disambiguating. The subject you’re talking about is “emptiness”. The construct of ego is not, but the construct of ‘person’, ‘awareness’ is. To say the latter two are not is nihilism. To say they literally are is reification. The middle path is that they exist but without essence, not independent but interdependent, enmeshed in the causal matrix. The necessary perception of independent existence is neurally conditioned perception.

They are very interesting and subtle differences, these shades of existence and non-existence of constructs. And when you look at the average nondual person, you generally find nihilism or literal reification predominating, which I think is the product of misleading poetic pointers. I love poetry and playing with language and bending perceptions for psychedelicesque experiences, it’s phenomenal the power of language. To go from the default dual state yesterday, then tuning into Harris radio, he nearly fully removed my sense of self for 5 minutes with no effort, just by stringing together sounds.

So I guess I can meet you halfway and say the pointers are good as a raft to get to the other side, or for just plain fun, but as philosophy it’s best to be a bit more scrupulous.

I remember Feynman talking about discovering that while reading, if you stop yourself from subvocalizing, you can think two thoughts at once (which I later discovered is essential to good reading comp). Excited to read this book to get a deeper look.

"Better not to start, once begun better to finish." https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?t=4362 . Obviously, you've already started, and you seem to have found yourself around the dangerous dip area of the spiritual path.

You will definitely need to focus on the constructive aspect of the spiritual path at this time, like compassion. Society doesn't have free will any more than individuals do, and you seem a little resentful of society.

In Indian Buddhism, with the bodhisattva ideal, the bodhisattva simply seeks to remove suffering: https://www.amazon.com/Way-Bodhisattva-Book-Audio-Set-ebook/dp/B006L8SE58/

It sounds like you don't really have any choice at this point but to continue to press forward using constructive spiritual role models / mature spiritual paths that move beyond emptiness and disillusionment.

I recommend Tibetan Buddhism, as they have a pretty strong modern tradition with a strong signal and recent Western transmission and the strong compassion, etc. to balance views of emptiness.

Sam's "direct approach" encourages you to confront the matter head on and give it a nudge toward immediate resolution.

People have different inclinations, so we have different spiritual paths.

You might try Soto Zen. Generally, it emphasizes "intrinsic enlightenment" to such an extent that it never really advocates "confronting the matter directly".

I'd say you probably want to get some objectless meditation into your practice regularly to make progress, whether Soto Zen or not. This works pretty well: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Pristine-Mind-Practical-Unconditional/dp/1611803276

I think you got it right and started to understand the point, but that it didn't work well for your personality/history right now. You might have a lot of body connection from the breath focus/body scanning.

Ultimately, you'll want to get rid of subject/object and harsh boundaries in consciousness. Knowing the objective, you can take a more scenic and safer route. Metta meditation can help soften your mind up, loosen up those boundaries, and generally doesn't have adverse effects for people.

I'm guessing you'll probably want to avoid Sam's instructions in particular, and maybe avoid "the direct path" a little. You might try Loch Kelly's practice series on the app--he seems to have a gentler and more empathetic touch, but does still lean toward "the direct path"...less "confrontationally", somehow. Same for Adyashanti, though Loch seems a bit softer.

Good luck, no expert here, but there are a lot of paths out there, and a lot of truth and insight and tailoring to the various inclinations people have.

Interesting - I think I can see where you're coming from but I've not been following his work for that long. I only mention him because he addresses this specific point in a way that I find more accessible than many others, but how the message is conveyed will of course be a matter of individual preference.

I don't know which episode is most relevant without re listening to all of them, but the first few of this short series (The Essence of Non Duality) are relevant and may be worth a listen: https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9ydXBlcnRzcGlyYS5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw

There's a Mooji meditation called Nothing Here but You that has a bit where he says to be like a movie screen. If it shows fire it isn't burned. If it shows water it isn't wet. Similar idea to Sam's mirror.

Site trip but, I really dislike the term "meditative state" and generally find the idea misleading. The correct mental state for meditation is whatever one you're in right now. If you're present, if you're sitting and you know you're sitting, that's all there is. Yeah, sometimes your brain is quiet and the sitting is "better" but the goal isn't to feel any particular way, it's to be present with whatever you're currently feeling, thinking, doing. 2¢.

This was just speculation on my part.

Harris recently announced the removal of session streaks from the app. The feature is prominent on many popular meditation apps and Harris removed it when they recognized that it was the cause of suffering when app updates reset the streak.

This suffering is a byproduct of the attention market. Twitter and Facebook exploit this suffering in many ways to keep you engaged with their platform. Attention seeking is considered an anti-pattern when abused.

Whether or not group meditations are the result of similar attention seeking is the speculation on my part.

Signal and Tusky are examples of non-profit social media apps that try to remove anti-pattern features from their products.

As a result they are not as widely adopted by their corporate counterparts, WhatsApp and Twitter.

Haha thanks. I'm not sure I am qualified to teach, but I can't seem to resist discussing the topic.

I have been keeping a blog since I started using Waking Up in Feb 2020. Not sure if it will be helpful, but it does capture how understanding evolves as we spiral deeper into the mystery of being.

https://write.as/nabeel-oz/

I'm happy to exchange messages on Reddit if you ever feel like it.

Also, I highly recommend Nisargadatta Maharaj's dialogues. Those were a turning point for me.

Hi Jeremy, I enjoyed your podcast. Thanks for sharing your meditation journey so openly.

I am nowhere near as experienced a meditator as you. I began using the Waking Up app in February and have been practicing daily since then. I have tried to document my journey on a blog so you can see if it interests you.

The statements from your list that ring most true with my experience are:

• The default perception of separation between ‘self’ and ‘world’ collapses
• The feeling of being a separate self disappears
• The sense of subject-object perception disappears
• It is clear that my true identity is consciousness itself, rather than a separate sense of self

I read this book: The Attention Revolution, some years back, and still find its recommendations for maintaining awareness in longer sits to be helpful.

As for the app, can't say as I just started it.

You might want to explore doing "parts work" using a framework like internal family systems or Connirae Andreas' Core Transformation. They both pair really well with meditation.

>The "self", or at least the sense of it, is there depending on the degree of our craving or aversion at the specific moment.

This is a great observation! (As are the others you mention--really nice work.)

Are you familiar with Rob Burbea's work? He's an exceptional meditation teacher who sadly passed away last year. A few years ago, he published a wonderful book, Seeing That Frees--Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising, that specifically teaches "different ways of looking" to (gently) deconstruct experience and explore the relationship between craving/aversion and the sense of self and even awareness.

I'd not normally recommend this book right off the bat, as it invites the meditator to take quite a deep dive (and the practices assume solid skills in samadhi/concentration), but since you apparently have already discovered this relationship between craving and the self you might want to take a look as part of your explorations.

This site has stats; it’s ranked at around #300 in health and wellness apps for both iOS and Android

https://www.appannie.com/en/apps/google-play/app/org.wakingup.android/

The Google Play site puts downloads at 500,000+

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wakingup.android&hl=en

We can assume 1 million+ downloads with iOS as well.

As for how many active users / paying users, not sure. But usually freemium services have a 1%-10% conversion rate so probably between 10,000 and 100,000.

Michael Taft, the host of the deconstructing yourself podcast, has a section on his website with recommended books on meditation. I haven't read the book yet, so I can't personally recommend it, but one of the books he recommends reading on the topic of mindful sex is " <strong><em>Good Sex: Getting Off without Checking Out</em></strong>, by Jessica Graham."

If you got results with this, you might find Kriya Yoga to be of interest. The book I linked to has a ton of woo in it, but if you can look past that, the exercise you mentioned is like lesson 5 or 6 in the book out of 30+, so who knows how crazy that shit gets :) I've never had any luck with it myself, and wondered if the white light was actually a thing. But hey... if it works, it works.