For the first time in my life, I'm financially stable. Not

>>18177260
Pics of your girlfriend and then I'll tell you what to do.

what are you into doing?
do that more. obviously :)

>>18177260
The drive to live comes from a desire. Look for another goal. To start with, find out why it feels like purposelessness feels bad to you. Why should things have a purpose? Meditate, go without some things you normally enjoy from time to time and study how it affects you.

That's what keeps me going, the "why". Once that why is answered, in theory, there really is nothing left to do.

Some good books are: Mindfulness in Plain English, or The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah. I found Franny and Zoey useful too, but that might be too specific to my life.

same but without a gf

I'm listless and gay (not homosexual)

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>>18177265
not her, but similar enough I had to double check

>>18177287
I have no idea. chasing women used to be fun. I wanted to do something to help people (and sort of am with my career), but the world seems hopeless at this point

>>18177293
I sort of came to terms with life being purposeless a long time ago, but I think the stress/trial of trying to scrape by for so long left an imprint. I think you're on to something here, though, thanks. Can you describe in more detail what you do?

>>18177307
In a few words: know and let go.

Literally all you need to do is pay attention. To everything that you perceive - your feelings (physical), your mental states (moods), your thoughts, all of it. Watch it without getting involved - somewhere deep down behind it all is an awareness that "sees" these "things". The more of these "things" you let go of, the closer you come to this awareness.

To let go of things, there are many techniques, oriented towards specific classes of "thing". For example, to let go of the way your body feels, consider how it changes - it gets old, it becomes sick, it dies - it is ultimately not worth holding on to. Convince your mind that this is the case, and it will naturally let go. Two specific meditations are 1)parts-wise (consider each part of the body and its unreliability individually) and 2)on death (imagine how your body will decay - personally I imagine it laid out as on a clock, all around me; at each position it is in a state of decay, from 12 o clock, when it is freshly dead, all the way back to 12, when even the bones have decayed to nothing)

Remember, the goal here to let go of the phenomena your body senses. Train your mind to be disinterested in heat, cold, pressure, pain, pleasure, etc, and it will naturally focus on finer things.

The same goes for mental states - they change, they arise, transform, and fall away - they are nothing worth clinging to. Concentrate on your breath as a seat, as if you are "sitting" on your breath, and so each mental state, thought, feeling, etc. cannot take the seat, cannot throw your concentration. Over time, it will become easier and easier to allow your mental phenomena to pass without you going chasing after them.

It's this chasing that causes pain and unsatisfactoriness. "Sitting" with your awareness in one place, you are by nature satisfied. Stop. Don't go forward, backward, up, down, left, right, nothing. Just stop. This is what I try to do.

>>18177372
I see what you mean, but the absence of desire is not a solution that I can accept anymore. When buddha ate a single grain of rice a day until he nearly starved, eventually he stopped because he knew that wasn't the way. If I go sit naked on a mountaintop in a storm, all that happens is that I get wet. I have power, limited as it may be. What do I do with it?

>>18177372
lovely

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>>18177260

Try use Maslow's theory of human needs. The theory itself has been proven as bollocks by research, but the model could be helpful for you to figure stuff out.

>>18177404
Yes, the buddha found the middle way between self-denial (asceticism) and hedonism. With the power that you have, you should find out what it is that drives you to want to do something with it, like a master a slave. The goal isn't absence of desire, it's the understanding of it, the watching it in action and seeing its unreliable, unsatisfactory ends.

There is a force in you that says "do something". This is a lack - it must be filled in with activity. But activity is temporary, it will need to be replaced. If you want to do this, then no one will stop you. This cycle doesn't have an end, until you find out what causes the lack and end it.

There is no special ceremony, you don't need to be naked. You can do this right now, this very moment as you type. Feel your breath, pause, and watch as questions come up, as doubt arises, as the desire to do something else comes up. Be patient and they will fall away on their own. What comes next? How deep does it go? You have to see this for yourself, reading is not enough.