Heyo, I would like to start by mentioning that NONE of these exercises and the shared resources are used for diagnosing or treating any illnesses. 

It will not solve any problems, whether we’re speaking of financial problems, mental problems, traumas, upsets or family issues. It just works on changing the perception.

PLEASE READ THE INTRO SECTIONS AS THEY’RE MOST USEFUL TO THIS INQUIRY BEING SAFE. Also ask questions where things are unclear, I’m not a native english speaker.

For some reason, it seems necessary to write this down: Michael will not take responsibility for however anyone else uses this guide on their own, this is the path I. The responsibility lies with you to just close this guide and say “fuck this guy” if you feel otherwise.

< If you got questions, DO HIT ME UP on Twitter (@Plus3Happiness) instead of being confused, please!>

Bookmark if ya will!

RESOURCES FOR SAFETY:

Most importantly, if you feel unwell or things are WEIRD, physically, mentally or emotionally, while in this process, YOU CAN JUST PAUSE FOR A LITTLE WHILE, as long as you need; it’s alright, it’s healthy and of course recommended.

The insights will be here when you’re feeling better. Speak with close ones, reach out to people that are on the path or talk with a therapist if you feel the need to verbalize how you feel

As for anyone who’s looking for gurus and illuminated ones, please see they are only humans, even the teachers.

INTRO TO THE PROCESS

What is stream entry? It’s the breaking of the first 3 fetters according to the Pali Canon (details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sot%C4%81panna).

More detailed, it’s seeing through the fetters (illusion of):

  1. Self View (Also known as No-Self) - seeing through the 5 aggregates (form, feelings, perception, intentions, cognizance) or in more layman terms, that there’s no so called “Experiencer” of the 5 aggregates that’s outside of experience itself
  2. Clinging to rites/rituals ( ) - falls automatically
  3. Doubt (finally believing Buddha was right and the Path is real) - falls automatically

Important note: NSE/Breaking the first 3 Fetters/Stream entry is not dealing with the whole sense of the SELF, only the small sense of self or rather, the sense that we could somehow be a:

  • Doer
  • Experiencer
  • Senser
  • Feeler
  • Intender

Instead we see all these are processes that we are Witnessing and they’re happening to the body-mind.

More in the diagram and tweet below, what we’re doing now deals only with the 1st lens:

Detailed explanation: https://x.com/Plus3Happiness/status/1821196812792844640 

Graphic below: Perceptual Changes in the visual field between Self-State and post NSE/Stream Entry/

The only thing that changes with Stream Entry, experientially, is the way that reality/things are perceived aka what is coming in through the physical senses(or ‘doors of perception’) (seeing, hearing, taste, smell, sensations & existence of thinking but not contents of thoughts) and how that’s interpreted. You’ll perceive reality  more directly instead of feeling ‘at a distance’/from a spectator seat.

Note: after Stream entry happens, you’ll have a honeymoon period, which depends on your situation, after which you’ll see yourself ‘selfing’ or rather ‘reacting’. It’s not like you slid back you’re just more AWARE. The great part is you can also just return to being present easier so that helps, you can pretty much pause the thoughts for a while (I use ‘you’ as a pronoun only here)

It’s that stream entry is, for the most part, the start of a larger path. If you did get it, Kevin’s website helps on this issue: https://www.simplytheseen.com/fetters-45-guide.html. You can always tag me here or DM on wherever you found the guide so I can clarify some things for Desire/Ill Will that would have helped “myself”, but are not in there.

You can also refer to the RESOURCES FOR SAFETY above as well.

And as the saying goes – “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.” Keep this in view, good luck!

All the exercises are based on direct insight, which is a fancy way of saying it’s based on your own personal and Direct/Actual Experience e.g. day to day experience, the same you use when you grab a cup of tea.

Intellectualizing is rather detrimental (you’ll read later why). ‘Seeing’ refers to both ‘sight’ as the physical sense and also ‘see/experience on your own’.

If there’s one thing I’ve observed, it’s that it is quite similar to getting in sets and repetitions in a physical gym. If you’re outside waiting in line at the bakery, at a doctor’s appointment or sitting on a park bench, most of the exercises lend to practice there.

DO NOT DO THE EXERCISES WHILE DRIVING A CAR, ON A BIKE OR ANYTHING REQUIRING ATTENTION.

Don’t be reckless and take care (i’m saying this from first hand experience of hitting dumpsters on the sidewalk and almost crashing my bike while doing labeling practice).

Website resources that contribute to the process

These places are where I found my exercises and I’ve mainly put together multiple ways of stabbing at identity – not exactly needed to read through most of these if you do the exercises, just for reference ++ to reveal there’s no claim of “I did this by virtue of my own self illumination” yada yada):

  • https://www.liberationunleashed.com/nation/viewforum.php?f=4 - You can request and get a person who’s already had Stream Entry to guide you through the process here, but it takes a while to get one and they do the exercise one at a time, i basically gathered all of their exercises and did them on my own starting day 1; another note is that the initial questions felt ‘threatening/triggering’ to me when doing them and the framing without context is wack – i will explain somewhere below what they mean about ‘no self’ so that you dont get some weird anxiety
  • https://www.liberationunleashed.com/nation/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9288&p=375912#p375912 - my SE CONFIRMATION THREAD (as I know some will wonder ‘is this guy just spit-balling’) → this is my initial thread requesting to be guided by someone on LU. Fortunately i got to stream entry before they even got to assign a guide; it’s for the sake of example of how a request looks and also the ‘Confirmation’ questions;
  • https://www.liberationunleashed.com/books/gateless-gatecrashers/ - this is a book from LU, very useful, with the conversation with 21 people going through the process. it will be confusing as fk if you read it before doing the exercises for a bit – my click did happen while reading from the book, but i did most their exercises for a couple days while they usually stay for days/weeks with 1 practice at a time

A picture done by Roger Thisdell (https://www.rogerthisdell.com/) and i’m not super sure where on Reddit i found it initially, that does a pretty good job of explaining changes in perception after Stream Entry (2nd picture, the Witness is the one that matters for now):

Below will be the order of the exercises I’ve used, but I wouldn’t say it’s the best order necessarily. I’ve lucked into finding ‘solutions’ in the exercises from Liberation Unleashed that patched the gaps they have that made it easier to see through the assumption of a ‘Self’

LU also asks some questions at the beginning of the inquiry which is feel like they ‘trigger’ in a way people that in no way makes any sense and seems more unproductive than useful, especially for people that are really adamant in ‘being right in their beliefs’.

If you read the doc and at one point you get stuck, do comment and let me know where the confusion appears.

I’m trying to find a picture/description, best I can show visually is “it’s like you’ve put the VR headset, but forgot it’s on so everything seems to be directly experienced”.

I (and possibly most people) felt kinda existentially threatened initially by “there is NO SELF” (you find that reading the questions found in my thread here for reference) because “I KNOW I EXIST TF YOU MEAN THERE IS NO SELF”.

In a kinder phrasing – “you” definitely exist physically, “you” think, “you” feel and also the structure of “you”/’self” is a lot of ways of identifying with what the body-mind structure does and put a ‘me’ label on it. Don’t fret too much AND also don’t worry, you exist, is just that “you” is a pronoun and living is a bit more than just words.

I would suggest going once at the beginning of this process through all the exercise and testing them. Not all need to be done repeatedly if you feel like you ‘got it’ experientially, but for the most part I’ve done most of these daily. Will try to use a ‘once’, ‘until it clicks’ or ‘daily’ tag for most of them.

The Guide

If you haven’t reviewed the website resources section, than I can just let you know you should definitely read these:

Most important to understand from the second link is this aspect: currently you interact more with your imagination (what you think you see) vs perception (what is actually out there).  

You want to get to the point where you perceive MORE & imagine less (last picture).

https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/10/how_to_draw_not_about_how_to_d.html -

This article has 3 exercises, detailed and showcased below, which will help you develop a feel for seeing objects separately instead of your sight being one big lump of ‘something undescript’

Do these for 5-10 minutes each, you’ll notice your sensory/visual clarity increasing

NOTE: NONE OF THE PRACTICES BELOW ARE TO BE DONE WITH ACTUAL PEN AND PAPER, YOU LOOK AT THE IMAGES OR YOUR HAND AND ‘IMAGINE’ YOU WERE USING A MENTAL PENCIL TO DRAW WHAT YOU SEE.

Practice #1

Trace the outline your own hand with a ‘mental pencil’ and then move on and start mentally tracing the small little lines in your palms (no need to use something like the below “frame”)

Notice how your brain is switching between “this is my hand” and “this is just image, colour, shape, form, some physical sensations)

Practice #2

Trace the below reversed image in the same way, notice how the brain starts trying to move between ‘it’s a dude’ to ‘no it’s just shapes, colours and lines’

Notice how your brain is switching between “this is a dude in a jacket” to “this is just image, colour, shape, form), moving from abstraction to direct experience and back.

Practice #3

Tracing backgrounds to see the foreground/actual objects– for this one you’d trace the blankspace, the space around the chairs and where would be just ‘the air’, not the object

Notice how your brain is switching between “this is a chair” and “this is just image, colour, shape, form” and also how the brain seems to make “real-er” either the object when focusing on it OR the so called blankspace on focusing on the emptiness.

<><><><>Note: I’ve made templates inside a notes app for the ones below and did them daily as working with Direct/Actual Experience/Tasting the pudding is the most important aspect; this way you can keep track of doing these exercises fresh each day <><><>

Preparatory notions Emptiness or Essence-less-ness & Free Will

Emptiness 

Fortunately, the ‘emptiness’ Buddhism talks about has nothing to do with what nihilistic western philosophers think about.

Simply said, in buddhism ‘emptiness’ refers to the “lack of intrinsic essence of things”.

For example, taking the image below.

Sure, you might call it a glass for water. But another might project on it that it’s a vase, a really crappy pot or something to keep buttons in.

As such, it’s not that things are empty, it’s that they lack a definite nature, and we end up projecting our thoughts, labels, concepts upon them, depending on our purpose.

What is immediately obvious is the color/lack of colour about the image, being able to feel the sensations of it and all “purposes” and “meaning” is projected like a film in a cinema upon “what it is and what it’s for”.

The subject of “Free Will”

This gets us into a seemingly tricky subject of “free will”, but that’s just to the western mind intoxicated in layers of concepts and abstractions.

“Free will” presupposes we can take ANY decisions at ANY moment. Alright, if you happen to believe in free will right now, could you do a few things for me:

  • freely will the body to levitate 15 cm above the ground?
  • freely will to speak mandarin, or japanese, or another language you never spoke before?
  • freely will to keep your eyes open and not see?

Unless you’re above our physical plane, you likely can’t do the above (and if you can, please DM me, i have a couple of business ideas, we’ll get rich in no time).

Other examples:

This of course doesn’t mean turning nihilistic, au contraire. You have conditioned will, where the conditions are simply natural factors (such as temperature, gravity), genetic (would have loved to freely will myself to about 1.8m in height, but no luck), social (you were born in certain society in a certain moment in time) and so on.

You can say you have “free won’t”, in the sense that conditions might arise (like getting cold), but you can choose to do something else about them (put on a sweater).

See? We’ve solved this conundrum while keeping quite a lot of power of choice.

If you want to learn more, here’s a talk from Delson Armstrong, enlightened teacher and Arhat, 4th path on the more traditional Buddhism model, speaking of “free won’t”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=Tp0nYBVX3R9Ej97V&t=1437&v=PzX6j4CijMU&feature=youtu.be 

PLEASE DO THIS ONE FIRST TO UNDERSTAND EVEN BETTER WHAT DIRECT EXPERIENCE FEELS LIKE

UNDERSTANDING DIRECT EXPERIENCE

Part I

The distinction between mental activities (thoughts and images primarily) and direct experience of the five ‘body’ senses should be pretty obvious – perhaps you’ve even been meditating for quite a long time and think you are already very familiar with this difference.

However, it’s surprising how we can subtly ‘mentally simulate’ direct experience and this can hoodwink us into believing that a thought or image about an experience is the same as the direct experience itself. Before starting any experiential insight practice, it’s important to be clear – experientially – about the difference. This is actually very simple – the main thing is just to notice.

Sit with your eyes open, look at what is appearing.

Note this as a direct sense experience of seeing. Close your eyes and imagine the scene you were just looking at. Identify this as a mental activity – imaging. Repeat until you’re completely clear about the difference.

Now with hearing. If you’ve got a bell or some kind of musical instrument you could use that – or put some music on, for instance. Imagine the sound, then listen to the sound. Mental activity … direct experience. Know the difference, directly.

With body (tactile) sensations: try mentally imagining / naming ‘hand’, ‘foot’ and other parts of the body and then bring attention to the direct sensations of the part you’ve just named.

Notice the process: is it ‘hand’ … mental image of hand … actual sensations of hand? Or what?

Or, try it by imagining lying down on the floor. Then lie down, feel the pressure/weight/sensations of contact with the floor. Or, imagine crossing your legs. Now cross them. Similarly, you could imagine walking, then walk, imagine pinching your skin, then pinch …

 Try something similar with smelling and tasting – have, say, a sultana or small piece of fruit available (but far enough away that you can’t smell it). Now imagine the smell / taste of the fruit. Note this as ‘mental activity’. Now pick up the fruit and smell it and eat it, noting this as ‘direct experience’.

Questions:

  • What do you notice in these experiments?
  • Is there a difference between tactile experience and mental activity about a tactile experience?
  • Does the sensory experience have anything to do with what the thoughts are about?

1… DIssolving experience into sense store – Direct Experience or Actual Experience Labelling (DAILY)

DE or AE (abbreviations for above) is:

Seeing

Hearing

Feeling (Sensation, not emotion. Emotion is Sensation plus made-up thoughts & labels)

Tasting

Smelling

Thoughts Arising (but not their content)

Direct Experience - Labelling Daily Activities

Seeing a cup, simply= image/color

Smelling coffee, simply = smell

Feeling the warmth of the coffee cup, simply = sensation

Tasting the coffee, simply = taste

Hearing the spoon stirring the coffee, simply = sound

Thought about drinking the coffee, simply = thought

Just break down daily activities into these categories (which are all Actual/Direct Experience) and report back with lists exactly like the one above.

WRITE DOWN several of your own observations in a list *exactly* like the one above, please. Same word forms. Same order. EXACTLY.

Lunch

touching the knife, simply = sensation

smelling the chicken, simply -= smell

hearing the oil, simply = sound

smelling the chicken cooking, simply = smell

seeing the fridge contents, simply = image/sight

seeing the pan on the oven, simply = sight

washing the utensils, simply = sensation

tasting the chicken, simply = taste

holding the fork, simply= sensation

tasting the pasta, simply -= taste

2…Dissolving the association between thoughts/actions and a non-existent “I”/Self – Mind Labelling Experience (DAILY)

Here is an exercise which examines the way in which the mind labels experience - it takes about 20 minutes and you will need a pen and paper.

This exercise is broken into 10 minute lots. For each 10 minute period pay attention to any bodily sensation i.e. is there any tightening, or any relaxing?

For the first ten minutes write down what you are experiencing right now using the word “I”.

For example:

I am sitting on a chair,

I am hearing a clock ticking,

I am looking at a computer screen,

I am feeling hungry.

Get right to the point, no past or future fantasy, just a plain description of your experience right here and now.

i am sitting on a bed

i am holding the laptop

i am looking at a screen

Then for the next ten minutes continue writing down what you are experiencing but this time without using the word “I”. Just describe the experience as it is happening using verbs.

For example:

Sitting on a chair,

typing,

breathing,

blinking,

At the end of the twenty minutes compare the two ways in which the experience was labelled and answer the questions to yourself:

1. What is here without labels?

  • just being, just awareness without names, experiences and experiecing

2. Do labels affect the experience or just describe it?

  • labels at best describe an approximation of experience, a much rather incomplete description of what is

3. Did you notice any differences in the body?

  • less tension, more relaxation, easier to relate when just noticing when not attaching to the process

3…Dissolving automatic association between your name and words & reality – Label-Reality Correlation (DAILY OR UNTIL YOU REALLY GET IT)

The purpose of the above exercise is to realize how words are not realities, they are only labels pointing TO realities. As such, what a words ‘is” is different from what a ‘real thing” is.

You’ll answer each question above as for the exercise; most peopl get it pretty quickly and realize that ‘THEIR NAME’ is not the same as “WHO THEY ARE’, to start with, and that applies for a lot of the words, “I” included.

4…Separate between reality and concepts – Actual/Direct Experience - lemon —Lemon (Daily)

 

Have a look at a LEMON (or any fruit you like.) If you have a ‘real’ lemon, you can use it for this exercise. Google for a picture of a lemon.

When looking at a lemon, there's color; a thought saying ‘lemon’; and maybe a thought saying, "I'm looking at a lemon."

What is known for sure? Color is known and thoughts are known.

  • the certainty of seeing an image, of seeing a color, the existence of thoughts about the lemon

What about the content of thoughts, what they describe?

  • thoughts describe an approximation, a representation of an actual experience that is sensed/felt

Actual experience does not refer to thoughts ABOUT something…because that is only just more thought.

Actual experience is sound, thought, color, smell, taste, sensation and the fact of thought arising, but not its content.

Is there really a ‘lemon’ here, or only color and a thought ABOUT ‘lemon’?

  • there is no lemon, there just is THIS, what is being seen and then a thought of it being a lemon

Can ‘lemon’ be found in actual experience?

  • there’s no such thing as lemon in actual experience, it’s an abstraction, a label, a concept, an approximation

While these thoughts are known, what they talk ABOUT can't be found in actual experience.

  • yes, in experience there is just the color of it, the image of IT, the smell of it, the taste of it and even the thoughts about what it represents

This is what is meant by "looking in actual experience." What you know for sure, and, is always here.

Taste labeled ‘lemon’ is known

Color labeled ‘lemon’ is known

Sensation labeled ‘lemon’ is known (when lemon is touched)

Smell labeled ‘lemon’ is known

Thought about/of an ‘lemon’ is known

However, is an lemon actually known?

  • what IS is never known, it’s only experienced, it’s happening. what is known is an after-the-fact of experience thought, a post-experience thought
  • looking at the bananam there s felt sensation of touching, some smell, some image, a thought maybe of where to put it

5…Dissolving the association between emotions & ‘feeler of emotions’ – Emotions = Sensations + Stories/Narratives (Daily, very useful later on as well)

Part I

Emotions are only Sensation plus a label & a story.

Notice that only the Sensations are Direct Experience .The rest is made up.

Thoughts will not stop. That's not the goal. You will simply see through them & not believe their content.

Being made up stories, it can be said that no thought content is true.

The same way you always have, but with the awareness that it's all made up.

Shakespeare got it,

"All the world's a stage and men & women merely players."

Note about part I & “emotions”:

Some psychological/therapy models centered around “feeling your emotions” in a narrative way (instead of a raw direct experience way) can be active hindrances and can contribute more to your suffering. E.g. these narratives can keep you stuck in the past, or keep you looping and ruminating over your misfortune.

Instead, try feeling the sensation without the narrative.

“I feel resentful” is an abstraction. It implies that there is a narrative and series of events that you feel “resentful” about. Can you “feel resentful” without this story?

Part II

Okay have you got all of that? Ready to LOOK? Philosophical discussion won't do it.

It is about LOOKING, not how you answer questions.

ButtChair (or Back-bed or any other Body-Object interaction you prefer, such as Hand-Sweater or Leg-Jeans)

Please LOOK, in Direct Experience, for any place or point where your butt ends & the chair begins.

Is there any clear dividing line between them? Or only the Sensation with no clear division?

It is simple direct & nonverbal. Just LOOK.

  • there a sense of the label butt pushing against the bed. though that s all thoughts
  • what is is sensations everywhere without the ability to pinpoint without the use of labels, just are

Then write what is true.

6…Dissolving the Decider/Intender

Part I

Lift up your left hand and move the palms and finger a bit, randomly, don’t think too much.

Does it seem like you are doing it? Does it obviously seem like you are moving your hand or does it seem like it’s moving by itself?

If you are like most seekers, you’ll answer “yes, i do it”. And this is our starting point, let’s poke a bit at this.

Let’s answer a few questions:

  • If you are the decider of when the hand moves, how did you do it? How did you send the signal from the brain, down the spine, to the shoulder, moving each tendon and individual muscle fascia? Could you tell how do you move your thumb exactly?
  • Or does it moves ‘by itself’ seemingly?

You, the decider, doesn’t seem to have that much deciding power is it?

In case you feel this hasn’t made sense, try this second version

Part II

In a moment you will go and make a drink. If you don't feel like one right now it doesn't really matter but if you'd prefer, wait until you do.

Come back here (to where you're reading this) when you have the drink and are ready to sit down with it. But please avoid reading the next few questions until you are actually in place because otherwise it could ruin the usefulness...

—————————————————————————————————————————

Ok. I'm assuming that you already have your drink and are ready to consider the following questions about how things happened?

Was a 'decision' noticed to go and get a drink?

Was an entity noticed deciding or choosing to get up?

Was there a decision to move legs in just the right sequence that balance could be maintained? That forward motion could be achieved? That no overshooting of kitchen would happen?

I'm taking it that legs did move and just enough to arrive where the kettle is? Was 'control' of legs exercised by a 'self' during all this?

In fact if there was an idea that 'I decide to get a drink' , did that 'decision' make legs move?

Or is it more that this thought 'I decide' appeared and then 'legs' did the moving entirely without a 'self' having to pull control strings or push levers , or even having to be conscious of anything in particular?

'Choosing' or 'deciding' can appear to be 'making things happen' because 'choices' do happen and 'decisions'. (An example would be arriving at a fork in the road and somehow one way is the way that gets 'chosen' by sheer necessity or lack of time. With more time, or a map, or both, thinking might be part of the ultimate 'choice' of route but whose decision is it… 'mine' , or 'the map's', or the 'lack of time,' or 'someone needs a wee wee soon' ?

Who, or what, is 'making' those decisions?

And in fact, are they choices or decisions of a 'me', or an idea ABOUT a 'me' that 'decides' ?

7…Dissolving association of thoughts as me/mine/Self – Finding the Gap (Daily, will be trickier in the first try potentially)

Here is a step-by-step description of how to look at thoughts. First thing is to sit for at least 5 minutes quietly somewhere, several times throughout your day.

Close your eyes and just notice thoughts. Don’t engage with any thought, just notice them.

1. Notice the current thought that is present.

Like when you sit observing the body, a thought might arise “this is my feet” or "here is a pain” or “my breathing is too quick” or “I am bored with this exercise” or “I have better things to do” or any sorts of thoughts.

2. This thought will pass and another thought will come. So just observe this thought passing.

3. Then wait for the next thought to come.

4. When the next thought is present, just notice it, and see how it passes.

5. Then wait for the next thought to come.

6. Repeat #4 and #5 many-many times.

Between the 2 thoughts there is a gap. It can be very short or subtle, just a second or a few seconds before the next thought come in.

This is how to look at thoughts:

Looking how they come and go, and Observing the short gap between them.

Noticing how the current thought is passing. And waiting for the next thought to come.

Personal note/practice extension: start noticing how the inner thoughts or what you’d call monologue can be verbalized and made to pass further when they bother you mentally.

Further, at times, especially when in comfortable settings, ‘you’ can talk for hours, WITHOUT thinking about what you’re going to say.

That’s interesting isn’t it? So in one case you have regular mental chatter which seems YOURS and it might seem you couldn't function without owning ‘your thoughts’, but at other times, you can go hours without thinking and still function just as well.

So you’ll find yourself in a situation where either “you control all thoughts” as in mental chatter is yours or “you control none”, like when you can formulate a phrase without planning. Lightly consider ‘what if thoughts came from a somewhere-ness and then there’s identification with it?

<< Note for the gap: Brent has shared with me this article that has helped others see the thought gap: https://buddhism-for-vampires.com/the-dead-dont-think. If you don’t like zen stories more on the sober side, you can just skip it >>

Last note:

After doing these for 1-2-3 days and even randomly in the day, you can give a read to the stories in Gateless Crashers mentioned at the top and see if there’s any hint of it making sense. For some it might be useful, for some the practice is enough.