Apologies if I am being stupid (or if others have asked this question), but I have some basic confusion:
<i>At least 90% of my suffering disappeared in an instant, never to return. I had hit Stream Entry, the first major checkpoint on the road to Enlightenment...For my entire life, much of my behavior had been driven by desire. I didn’t have desire anymore, but</i>
and after this you say you had to go to a mental ward because you started identifying more stuff as suffering. Am I reading it correctly that stream entry supposedly made your life immeasurably better, but then changed what you view as suffering, and landed you in a much worse place? Doesn’t that make it at least conceivable that stream entry, assuming such a thing exists, may not even be a good thing to happen for most people?
I went to the hospital not because I started identifying more stuff as suffering. Identifying more stuff as suffering is par for the course. That’s meditation working as intended. I went to the hospital because I went too hard too fast and fried myself. It’s like weightlifting. Weightlifting makes my life better, but if you to heavy before you’re ready, you’ll injure yourself. That’s what happened to me. If you lift weights slowly and safely it’s fine.
As for whether stream entry is a good thing for most people, that is a complex topic beyond the scope of this post.
Apologies if I am being stupid (or if others have asked this question), but I have some basic confusion:
<i>At least 90% of my suffering disappeared in an instant, never to return. I had hit Stream Entry, the first major checkpoint on the road to Enlightenment...For my entire life, much of my behavior had been driven by desire. I didn’t have desire anymore, but</i>
and after this you say you had to go to a mental ward because you started identifying more stuff as suffering. Am I reading it correctly that stream entry supposedly made your life immeasurably better, but then changed what you view as suffering, and landed you in a much worse place? Doesn’t that make it at least conceivable that stream entry, assuming such a thing exists, may not even be a good thing to happen for most people?
I went to the hospital not because I started identifying more stuff as suffering. Identifying more stuff as suffering is par for the course. That’s meditation working as intended. I went to the hospital because I went too hard too fast and fried myself. It’s like weightlifting. Weightlifting makes my life better, but if you to heavy before you’re ready, you’ll injure yourself. That’s what happened to me. If you lift weights slowly and safely it’s fine.
As for whether stream entry is a good thing for most people, that is a complex topic beyond the scope of this post.