Hi End in Sight.
End in Sight:
The big question is...what do you really want out of all this?
Well, my goals are pretty modest. Freedom from suffering and a happiness independent of conditions would be nice...(*sigh) ;)
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End in Sight:
If you want there to be less suffering, choose the paradigm that shows you the clearest way there.
I totally agree, which is why I spend time hanging out at this place. I haven't yet figured out best way to reconcile the MCTB/pragmatic dharma approach with the AF approach...I'm happy to just kind of sit back and let the more experienced guys do the heavy lifting on that one.
At the moment my view is that AF seems to be the mack daddy, but the best thing I can do is shoot for stream entry using a MCTB/pragmatic dharma approach, and then see what happens after that, while at the same time absorbing and taking on board all the different perspectives and approaches to practice I come across.
Do you think that's reasonable? I'd be very interested to know what you think about this.
I've been reflecting, and I think that part of the reason I even brought this subject up is that I had to outwork some deep-seeded conditioning that has been intimately connected to my approach to practice.
I was born to fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian parents. In my early years my parents belonged to what I think you could fairly describe as a cult. They've moved right away from all of that now - my father went in the direction of radical, bitter atheism, while my mother pushed on into something that's much more rooted in the Western mystical traditions. Good for her.
Anyway, those early years, up until my teens, were formative years, and I have to say I was around some pretty weird shit. There was the usual Pentecostal stuff - praying in tongues, laying on of hands, born again experiences, supposed faith healings. But there was even weirder shit than that - possessions, talk of exorcisms (I never saw one but I was around places where they were happening), constant discussion of curses, demonic realms, and black magic, some of which I thought I saw evidence of.
It's been a long journey to try and get some distance and perspective on all of that, but I still haven't managed to find explanations for it all that entirely satisfy me. That, I guess, is part of the reason for my slightly incredulous question - Is it all just in the brain?
Another reason is this.
As I said in an earlier post, I've arrived at this stage of the path partly due to being propelled by some intangible, intuitive conviction that there is some grand, profound mystery to be understood, some greater consciousness to be opened to. But maybe I'm coming to the realization that at some deep level of my psyche, this intuitive sense of the greater mystery still may be generated by a subconscious need to believe in some kind of "benevolent other". Uurgh...i don't like even admitting that...but I think it's true.
When I saw that video of Dr. Jill Taylor, which at least implied the possibility that enlightenment/AF is purely a result of the activation of specific neural circuitry which can be switched on and off, part of me said, holy shit, there really is nothing else. I really am alone in this with just me and my brain. Fuck.
That was a pretty interesting insight to have about myself.
Anyway, I get the sense from your post that your saying to me - 'Dude, just figure out what you want and then do what you have to do to get it.' Yeah, sure, totally. I guess I'm just working through what I have to work through in order to do that. I really admire the guys around here who have been able to just go and get it done. Impressive and admirable.
Dylan