In my July-August update video I told folks I would be making some space for myself to concentrate on my book this month and that by the end of August I will most likely be enabling the friend lock feature on my youtube channel as well as closing down my comments section so I do not feel compelled to moderate and answer everyone. No offense folks. I love your stories. I learn so much from people that choose to comment here. The time has come however to really work on my project and get it done. To that end I can’t be getting so much feedback all the time from so many sources. At least for a little while.

Next item. I have taken the time to create several talks about a variety of meditation frequently asked questions that I get.

Not too long ago I made an introductory video to introduce an article I posted about the phenomena of the Dark Night of the Soul.

Soon after I was stalled for a muse to talk about the spiritual experience I had back in 2000 that stabilized me and gave me a reason to live. So I made a video about it instead, resolving the question of how to tell if you have been possessed demonically, spiritually or inhabited by aliens and what to do about it.

This week, pressed with a sense of urgency I have been releasing talk after talk about meditation covering FAQs and much more.

Can you meditate on drugs? Can you meditate on entheogens, street drugs, psych meds etc?

Meditation, spirituality and drugs.

There is quite a few beginning meditation videos out there on the Tubes and I was not intending on making one myself. After a recent spate of heartfelt requests that I give a talk about it I gave in and made a Meditation for Beginners video. God help you now.

A few weeks ago I released a long fuzzy video about Meditation, ptsd and trauma triggers and discuss how you should use meditation to release yourself from the prison of psycho emotional triggers that limit your life experience and options.

Today I may have released my most contentious meditation video yet. You will probably agree totally with me or you will disagree vehemently with me. Maybe both here and there. That is ok with me. I am not going to pretend to have all the answers. I am not a scholar or historian or disciple of Buddhism, Taoism or Zen.

Repeatedly I get asked:

What is the best meditation?

What meditation do you, Jane, recommend?

Do I need a meditation teacher? Why?

Do I need a meditation community? Why?

This video answers all that.

Meditation: best kinds, finding teachers, origins of

There is religious and *intellectual* paths and then there is just sitting. My meditation heroes, Da Mo, Dogen and Siddhartha all got some basic training in meditation and then they went and did the hard work of doing it and seeing where it would go. They practiced for long periods by themselves, in isolation without a communal reinforcement or constant guidance from an attentive teacher.

Da Mo Dogen Siddhartha

I chose not to be a Buddhist or aspire to Boddhisattvahood. I chose not to be a Tao Shr or Lao Shr or whatever. I chose not to go to a TM foundation, a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery or a yoga ashram in India or or a Soto zendo in Japan.

Instead I did a kind of *meta analysis* of meditation. I have stacks of books about the subject and have had perhaps over a dozen meditation teachers over the years.

I realized I did not need to work on Koans or learn the Lotus Sutra or hear satsang in a sangha in order to meditate and gain benefit from it.

Instead I realized that you could separate out all the *ism* portions of religion and mysticism and just focused on certain practices like being present, dissolving, breathing, sitting, standing and moving and gain incredible benefit from it. You practice ontology. Forget the word ontology or existential and just work on the important stuff. Breath, relax, inhale, exhale, dissolve the content of your mind and body and ask yourself, really ask yourself. “Who am I?, What do I want? Who is it that asks? Where am I? Why am I? What is it that opens and closes it’s eyes? Who is that sleeps and eats and defecates? Where is the Inquirer that is inquiring?”

Keep breathing and dissolving. The end result may just be a spiritual accident which turns out to be life changing.

Do not worry about enlightenment, kensho, *getting it* or chasing sensations. Do not let your search for validation for your experience cheapen it or distract you from getting on with more work as needed.

When I had my experience I kept it to myself quite frankly. I did not email everyone I knew and babble enthusiastically about my experience searching for validation from others. “Did I do it? Is it real? Is it can be enlightenment time? Is this kensho? What happened? Can you explain it? Am I dialed in now?

I kept my mouth shut about it for years.

Only upon reflection did I realize the nature of what happened to me. It was a major internal adjustment and realization but no more or less than that. It was a powerful series of enlightenments, insights, realizations and vibrations culminating a long series of them that had occurred during the previous years as a result of my honest and earnest practice.

I did not ask for an explanation or validation then and I do not now. There is no need to pigeon hole my personal experience into some pseudo meditation experience hierarchy. Besides, how many people do you know that tried to detect and exorcise a possessing spirit using meditation and chi gung? I was in uncharted waters and I mapped them myself on my own terms out of necessity and desperation.

Enlightenment and spiritual powers are for those that really want them. I was not looking for either when I had my spiritual experience. I just wanted to be sane. Not perfect or a model saint. Just sane and reasonably normal.

They say meditation takes a normal person and elevates him or her to a superior person. I don’t know anything about that. All I know is that I was an inferior person and meditation elevated me to a level of normalcy. That is what I know about, that is what I can teach.

As a result when people ask me what the best path is, who the best teacher is, do they need a teacher or not. My answer comes from a point of view of what do you want from meditation?

I have other news for you. Not all my minor realizations, insights, higher vibrational states or enlightenments happened when I was sitting. Sometimes they happened when I was fully engaged and present at work by my machine in a factory trying to support myself and my internal martial arts habit.

Sometimes they happened to me when I was doing chi gung sets or tai chi. Sometimes they happened while merely walking through the park and staring into the horizon.

Not for a moment would I sell myself as a guru or enlightened master. I am not a saint or a martyr for morality. I like to cuss and eat fish and sometimes I leave snarky comments on a blog or a video. I would not be entirely opposed to having a beer, a cigarette or something even stronger at a birthday party of a close adult friend or on New Year’s Eve or something. I take occasional pain meds, opiates and even the occasional cannabinoid for old back injuries from time to time.

If I said I was Enlightened I could not have the freedom to let my temper flare or be imperfect. I would have to roleplay irl™ someone that is holier and better than thou. I simply won’t pretend to a throne, a title or a role that I do not want.

That means you are going to have to accept that normal imperfect people who meditate largely on their own can have meaningful meditation experiences and make lasting changes in their own personality or consciousness. If you think meditation teachers should all be perfect and above the mundane, you will want to pass on any instructions I might have to give.  I work with the mundane, the banal, the profane and normality. In short I work with reality, here and now,  down to earth. I work with getting one’s self back to balance while still engaging in a normal life complete with stresses and toxins.

If I wanted to be to be pristine and undisturbed and unshakably stable at all times I would not interact with the world! I would be in retreat always. The true test of enlightenment, of meditation stability is to come from great sickness and confusion and stay reasonably healthy, sane and relatively balanced in a normal ordinary life. It is easy to seem balanced and perfect all the time when you are safe from all stresses and distractions in the peace of your isolated retreat. It is much harder to keep that level of grace and lead a normal life of indulgence and participation.

If you are looking for a miracle promiser or someone who will state the obvious make pronouncements or utter trite cliches profound wisdom that delights and confounds you there are plenty of people who shoulder that mantle you can learn from.

In the meantime I hope these videos will tie you folks over for a bit.

Here too is a list of some of my other older meditation vids. Quality does vary from vid to vid but hopefully you are more interested in the message than technical merits.

Meditation and mental fog

Meditation and dissolving

Meditation: real versus false

and an older albeit shorter version of working with triggers.

Meditation and triggers

The longer one is better and far more detailed with actual instructions.

It’s great to have my new digital camera instead of the limits of web cam/microphone set up. The quality of video, frame rates, voice and color should be less variable more standard as I usher in a new era of low budget youtube videos.

That is all for now.