Update: Unbanned following private conversation.

No, you are missing the point.

I'm banning you from commenting on my posts on the grounds that your comments are, on tone alone, argumentative rather than constructive. This has nothing to do with whether you are correct.

Thanks. Fixed.

I increasingly use tactics like this for regular human interactions. The difference is that I am okay with the person saying "no", since I am not paid on commission.

We played the Intrusive Questions Game a lot at Less Online 2024 (especially the Summer Camp between Less Online and Manifest).

Rules:

• One person at a time volunteers to be in the hot seat. Ideally, this is a big throne-like chair.
• A stopwatch is started. For a predetermined period of time, maybe 2 minutes, anyone in the room can ask any questions to the person in the hot seat.

[Note to readers: This conversation has been continued elsewhere on a private channel.]

Can you tell me more about your practice?

• Do you have a teacher?
• What type of meditation do you do / have you done?
• How long have you been doing it for (both time per sit and calendar time)?
• What books and other material have you read?
• What have you tried that you like and dislike?

Until then, here are a few tips. Please consider this comment to be general guidelines, as mystic insights are easy to miscommunicate.

• Set up a video call with this teacher. He is legit. You can set up a video call with me too, if you like.
• Don't attempt to consciously shut down your DMN. Don't even worry about it. Getting into a state where the DMN is shut down by default temporarily feels like a side effect of concentration. Changing the DMN's default state comes from insight and/or mindful living practice, not mere concentration. Even people with normal DMNs feel like thoughts are running galore when they begin meditation. This is normal.
• Did a teacher you respect give you the koan? If not, I recommend against koan practice entirely. (If you like koan practice and feel koan practice is working for you, then disregard this bullet point.)
• If you have a mystic experience and then it goes away due to something like "I could not stay there long as ego reappeared", that isn't a failure of the practice. It actually means things are going correctly, because it is giving you insight into what your ego is and how it operates.
• If possible, find a local community of good practitioners who do lots of sitting (not too many trappings of religion) and who don't ring any culty^[1] alarm bells. They can be any denomination.

Here are some good books to read.

• The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment by Philip Kapleau Roshi
• Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
• Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf: Zen Poems of Ryokan translated by John Stevens

In addition, how do you recognize that you've reached Access Concentration?… Would you please comment on that and how do you generally reach it?

Your description of access concentration seems correct to me.

When I was starting (first few years) I could hit it after about 30 minutes of sitting. I sit in my best approximation of full lotus position (moving my legs if I was worried about joint damage) and gently bring my attention to my breath at the base of my nostrils. When my attention drifts, I bring it back. I get my best results in Zendo and in a quiet park on a nice day, but can do whenever just to get the hours in. Meditating on the lightrail (when I was going somewhere anywhere) has been helpful too, even though it is difficult to achieve access concentration on it.

It also helps to do few days of meditation in a row. If I did 45 minutes of meditation every day, then access concentration might show up around the 30 minute mark of the third day.

If you're having trouble with access concentration, then I recommend doing your meditation with eyes open. Pick a point to look at and don't divert your eyes from there.

Finally, a warning: This meditation stuff can make sensory overload worse [for months] before it makes it better.

"Why Aren't Rationalists Winning" is quite a broad question. I prefer to ask myself "Why Aren't Rationalists Winning at Chess". I believe it has to do with insufficient education in openings and endgames.

I had a many similar experiences when I started writing on this website. Eventually, I learned to predict what people tend to get triggered by, and how to get my point across while evading those triggers.

If this is your first post, I am curious what your 100th post will look like, should you get that far.