John Coetze:
I know vipassana is not necessarily supposed to be pleasant, and I'm wondering if the "no pain no gain" adage applies here.
it seems that the vipassana approaches most used here: goenka-scanning, mahasi-noting, high-frequency looking (which is basically insight into impermanence + suffering first), do tend to be painful... but culadasa here hints that it does not have to be so (that there are other methods that are more pleasant):
Culadasa:
2. Insight into Dukkha is a miserable experience if a) one launches into Insight without the "lubricating moisture", i.e. piti (joy), passadhi (tranquility), and upekha (equanimity) of Samatha; and if b) Insights into anicca, sunyatta, and dukkha precede insight into anatta. Deepening Insight into impermanence by someone who still has a strong intuitive sense of being a real, separate Self can be a terrifyingly miserable experience. A "Self" in a world of impermanent and empty "things" to which that Self tries to cling is the very definition of dukkha.
With regard to a):
A mind imbued with piti, passadhi, and equanimity can navigate this voyage of discovery with far more... well..., joy, tranquility and equanimity to mitigate the fear misery and disgust of confronting the reality of the way things are.
And with regard to b):
Of course, to the degree to which the emptiness of Self has been both intellectually realized and intuitively assimilated, to that degree one is effectively immunized against the experience of dukkha during the process of further deepening of Insight into the nature of dukkha.
So to restate your question, "Who in their right mind would follow a method that broaches Insight without first cultivating Samatha, or plunge into the Knowledge of Dissolution and Insight into Impermanence without first properly addressing the issue of emptiness with regard to the perceived Self?"
Here are a few answers that come immediately to mind:
With regard to why someone would not first cultivate Samatha;
- Someone might be unaware that there is any other approach.
- Someone might have been taught that Samatha practices are useless or difficult or dangerous or are to be avoided for some other reason or combination of reasons. eg. "Concentration practices are a waste of time. The only real Buddhist meditation is Vipassana."
- Someone might have been unsuccessful in Samatha practice due to lack of proper instruction, and so has abandoned it in frustration.
- Someone might have practiced Samatha incorrectly in a way that has led to dullness, and so has abandoned the practice as fruitless.
With regard to why someone would pursue Insight into anicca before anatta;
- Anyone who is resistant to and cannot accept the idea that what the Buddha meant by anatta is that there really is not, never has been, and never will be a separate Self other than these conditioned, impermanent, suffering aggregates. This is part of what makes anatta so much more inaccessible than anicca. There are countless Buddhists, Western and Eastern alike, who think, "Buddha just meant that the Self was not in the aggregates, not that there is no Self at all." They feel like they are a Self, and they fully expect to have the mystery of the doctrine of anatta solved and their "True" Self revealed through the practice. You know the one they are thinking of: the Self who has lived countless previous lives, the one that accumulates merit and kamma, the one that is going to be reborn in the future. These are the closet "eternalists".
- Anyone who craves non-existence, who embraces the Dhamma as the path to an ultimate end to the endless cycle of suffering and rebirth, but who can only conceive of liberation in terms of oblivion. The rebirth they wish to escape is, of course, that of a Self that for them does exist, although admittedly in a mysteriously relative and mind-dependent way, but a Self that is all too painfully and undeniably real none-the-less. Since this Self exists in some mysteriously mind-dependent way, it is the mind that must put an end to it. Insights into impermanence and suffering are seen as the path by which the Self will be destroyed and become a No-Self that will not be reborn. These are the closet "anihilationists".
- Anyone who is aware that Insight into anicca is in fact much more readily attained than Insight into anatta. This is quite true and is perhaps the best of all possible reasons for seeking Insight into Impermanence.
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i do not have experience with other methods, so i cannot offer you much advice.. but i will say that, though the 2nd approach was painful, it did work for me, and pretty rapidly too. it seems like the first method would work (and seems to cultivate insight into no-self more readily than the 2nd approach), so long as at some point you realize that that awareness/background itself is also no-self, impermanent, and unsatisfactory (thus turning the investigation to that aspect as well), but i don't know how you'd take it to stream entry[1], so somebody with more experience with some other methods will have to chip in.
in general though, don't equate pain with progress. pain does not (necessarily) lead to progress. progress might certainly lead to pain, as Culadasa outlined above, but there's no need to feel pain for the sake of feeling pain.. be sure to identify the cause + effect carefully there. and if you are feeling too much pain, it might be good to cultivate more tranquility, equanimity, rapture, and concentration to balance it out (and sometimes that is what is necessary to make further progress)
[1] meaning i don't know what the map for that would look like.