edited to under 2/3 original length as I felt it just got too long to read and respond to well
If you're short on time, that's where the question is inbetween the two underscored lines.
Over the last few days I felt a strong pull to just get some practice in. I did a 2 day mini retreat "on a whim" with your stream entry guide as a template. Stuff happened, which I'll put into a soon-to-be practice thread.
Anyway I re-read this thread and some thoughts occurred:
tarin greco:
go for too long (longer than you are capable of practising diligently at your fullest capacity) and you risk spreading yourself too thin and squandering all of your time (as well as developing 'butt rot').
I have not heard this before. Could you elaborate briefly?
The statement seems slightly at odds with elements of the article you linked in your original reply.
The way I understand it (not from experience but rather reading advice, warnings and such) is that most people do not practice at their fullest capacity, often throughout entire long retreats. The whole point of being on retreat is to find conditions where the mind can, in a sense, have a greater capacity to practice. Getting to that point, assuming more-or-less static retreat conditions (not a given, I know, but still within reasonable expectation), one will increase his 'capacity' as insight develops (and also as he simply gets better at the technique). Failing that, I can't really think of anything, except a particularly nasty dark night, that would not be unstuck by diligent practice.
Other stuff I'm thinking is:
-Is it a good idea to stop meditating, take breaks, etc, inbetween paths or stages of insight? Is there value to decompressing and 'letting it sit' after some insights arise that simply continuing to practice will miss? My intuition says no?
-Are there things people commonly get stuck on during long retreats? What causes them to get unstuck during the intervening periods, if they even help at all?
-What is 'butt rot'? =p
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I'm gonna go ahead and ask the question I was trying to ask originally but was too caught up in weird psychological biases to use words to the best of my ability (biases regarding the terms, mind you, not the vanilla biases you've probably been swamped by in this post!).
In a quantitative sense, what are elements/modes of practice most conducive to fast insight?I feel like this is a clearer, more direct and answerable rephrasing of the "How much do I practice?".
Our goal is 'fast insight', or progression through the stages.
Think actionable, like Fabrice D's thread on sleep time. Retreat centers all around the world run on 6ish hours, Bruno sleeps 8. Who knew?
On qualitative vs quantitative, there is a lot of precise, actionable advice on here about how to practice and what to do when practicing. For example 'pay attention every second', and 'don't indulge in your crap'.
But stuff like specifics of daily practice, retreats, retreat length, often aren't helpful if you're confused and looking for help because they usually boil down to "what is right for you", which I suspect keeps a lot of people in their comfort zones when they realize they are after all confused and not sure what is right for them (pretty much like I am right now). How many people finishing Goenka retreats felt at points before completion, that 10 days was unnecessary long, but would respond with positiveness or ambivalence if asked directly after? There's likely a fair bit of overlap I'm not fully considering here, but I think I'm getting my point across sufficiently well. Specifics of practice not exclusively pertaining to how/in what way to orient one's mind 'on the cushion'.
Answering the question for myself, with my limited experience and understanding, it seems obvious to me that trying your best to do every-second practice, every actual second, minute, hour, day, and so on, would be 'it' in a nutshell. Mould conditions and aim for as close to that as possible. If it's the way to go moment-to-moment, why not week-to-week?
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All that aside, in real-world terms I'm thinking of consolidating liquid assets, 'tying up loose ends', booking a flexible ticket with an airline that allows me over a year's rebooking room, and getting this 'done'. That is, 4th path.
Re-reading as I type it sounds foolish, over-enthusiastic, near-sighted, and generally a bad idea on so many levels from a common sense standpoint, as I can't predict how I'll feel about this whole thing a few months in.
Then from an insight perspective, if all of that stuff arises on retreat (and not, say, at an airport), could I just not perceive the sensations that make them up as they are, and just roll with it?
I feel like the hesitation I'm experiencing is about what a non-meditator would feel about a 10-day goenka retreat. Anchor points when trying to judge what constitutes a 'big time commitment'. Plus, as most of these meditation centers run retreat after retreat, and the ticket is open, I'm not even truly locked in at any point (if you're desperate enough, you rarely are).
To end off with a bit more of where I'm coming from, I recently read one of Tarin's posts from quite some time ago resonated with me. It's saved on my notepad and I'm unsure if it's pre-wetpaint migration. He's responding to Daniel responding to someone's question about what has changed for DhO'ers (?) post-enlightenment, I believe. Perhaps it will be helpful for others.
tarin greco:
i relate to this except for the sentence 'the drive is gone' - for me, the drive is there as the exact same thing as the drive to anything else i am driven to - survival, lust/affection/love/connection, pain-avoidance, food/water (hunger/thirst), entertainment, felicity, the end of malice and sorrow. since all were ever only issues of the self to begin with, there's nothing to do outside of attending to these drives themselves (which leads to a reshaping of them).
A lot of people have said a sense of completion comes with 4th path, as in 'my vipassana problem was solved'. That appeals to me right now, especially with the foreknowledge that it won't be the 'it' that 'fixes my life'. If I have false expectations about what I eventually aim to attain (I most assuredly do), it seems I'll still be better off. Seems like a stab in the dark, but nothing else makes anywhere near as much sense, so I might as well apply some kind of heuristic to the stabbing, and stab with some vigor.
Thoughts? Apologies for missed words and general poor grammar in advance.