[elbear]

Even if you don't go on retreats and just have a regular daily practice, there could come a point where you experience unusual, unpleasant moments.

The explanation might be difficult for you to accept, if you don't accept Buddhist philosophy (if you don't believe in enlightenment, basically).

If you are a materialist, you don't believe there is anything else besides matter. You are just your body.

Well, at some point during your meditation, you might experience the fact that this world is a construct, a fabrication. But if you don't know how to put it into context, it will feel like nothing, void, nonexistence. This could shock your mind-body system.

There are several ways to avoid this.

First, familiarise yourself with the Buddhist conceptual framework. Entertain the possibility that it is an accurate view of reality. The best book that I know for this is Dreams of light by Andrew Holecek.

Second, look into practices that cultivate positive mental states. Some examples are forgiveness meditation and metta meditation. A relaxed and open mind can more easily hold difficult experiences.

Third, take it slow and don't push yourself if you're having difficult experiences. Find a teacher or a community where you can ask for advice. One community that I recommend is /r/streamentry on Reddit.

I hope meditation is fruitful for you. Let me know if you have questions.

[eurasiantiger]

Simply put, one is directly experiencing the fact that their sense-experiences are a construction and not the real thing.

[yomly]

>Well, at some point during your meditation, you might experience the fact that this world is a construct, a fabrication. But if you don't know how to put it into context, it will feel like nothing, void, nonexistence. This could shock your mind-body system.

Without being arrogant or facetious this feels like a truism to me? After all, our sense of self is an emergent property of unfeeling chemical machines.

I suppose this is where philosophy of the self and ego comes into play which tends to stick people into two camps.

That said, I have yet to feel my mind wander down these paths and experiences during meditation. Although I have experienced something almost similar to psycho activity/wakeful dreaming during yoga shavasana

[elbear]

I'm not talking about just the sense of self. I'm talking about the fact that the world is an illusion.

In any case, I may not be conveying the message properly, because I'm still trying to understand these things conceptually.

The book I mentioned does a far better job with this.

[labawi]

> the fact that the world is an illusion.

I may not be disagreeing with what you mean, but one should be careful to differentiate between concepts, that are knowable, and things they refer to, which are not¹. Lots of confusion stems from mistaking the two. From what you were taught are apples to the world or ones own self.

As an illustration, if I slap your face, you may argue it is an illusion, it may not affect your later in life, and you may not even remember it. I take it as true, that words nor imagination are no match for an actual good slap. After a slap, people may disagree whether it was a slap, they may have illusions about who, what, how or why .. yet I don't think many will argue it is an illusion in the sense that nothing in fact happened.

¹ Well, most of them anyway.

[elbear]

This is the risk of trying to summarize a big conceptual framework in just a few words. It leaves out a lot and its only hope is to entice the reader to explore further and discover that entire conceptual framework.

Even that conceptual framework can not describe what can't be described. It can only get you to experience again and again what can only be experienced until the moment that concepts drop off.