Samatha contrary to experience?

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Mike Kich, modified 11 Years ago at 8/3/12 6:35 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/3/12 6:35 PM

Samatha contrary to experience?

Posts: 170 Join Date: 9/14/10 Recent Posts
So guys,

Little question, just thought it was interesting: what's the point of samatha stuff, really? Zen makes a whole path out of saying, "yeah...there's that concentration stuff but it kinda runs contrary to how things actually appear and disappear..." I kinda have to agree..I mean if reality is strobing and inconstant, and if jhanic attainments are based mostly on an illusion of constancy, well what's the point of that?

Thoughts?

~M
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fivebells , modified 11 Years ago at 8/3/12 7:38 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/3/12 7:38 PM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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You need a stable perspective to see clearly. If someone were already capable of. tranquilly witnessing the dissolution of the most cherished forms and characteristics, shamatha would be unnecessary for them.
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Mike Kich, modified 11 Years ago at 8/3/12 9:48 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/3/12 9:48 PM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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True dat, but I mean to the extent of absorption.
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Jake , modified 11 Years ago at 8/3/12 10:12 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/3/12 10:12 PM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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Clearly there have been different experiences linked to the term shamatha in different traditions. There have been different experiences linked to the terms jhanna for that matter. Why would 'calm abiding' mean absorption, automatically? Oh and by the way, Zen rhetoric aside, they sure do sit. a. lot.

Another thing to bear in mind. In Chan, Zen and Vajrayana there is a recurrent theme of making a distinction between shamatha that is cultivated, on the one hand, and that which is intrinsic to the natural state, the stillness and openness that already is the nature of experience. You could put these two into a matrix and cross them in different ways to generate many different kinds of shamatha recommended by different systems. There is the purely cultivated kind, i.e. a fabrication or simulacrum, there is cultivation of stillness and openness and clarity which is aimed at dropping the cultivator identity and uncovering the natural stillness openness and clarity, and there is the automatic effortless continuity of that natural stillness openness and clarity. These three could all be 'practices' but only the first one would tend to point away from impermanence.
M N, modified 11 Years ago at 8/4/12 2:38 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/4/12 2:34 AM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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If you practice jhana, you can also practice vipassana while you are absorbed. And it's much easier, because many factors of enlightment are very strong there: tranquillity, concentration, equanimity, joy...
I would say that a jhana is probably the more conducive mind state for vipassana practice.
But in order to practice insight skillfully when you are there you need to obtain some mastery over thoose states, otherwise -for example- the act of investigating can cause the state to disappear; so, before practicing vipassana in there you explore them and refine them for a while...
End in Sight, modified 11 Years ago at 8/5/12 4:27 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/5/12 4:27 PM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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Mike Kich:
I mean if reality is strobing and inconstant, and if jhanic attainments are based mostly on an illusion of constancy, well what's the point of that?


You gonna believe everything you read on the internet?
M N, modified 11 Years ago at 8/5/12 5:19 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/5/12 4:55 PM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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End in Sight:
Mike Kich:
I mean if reality is strobing and inconstant, and if jhanic attainments are based mostly on an illusion of constancy, well what's the point of that?


You gonna believe everything you read on the internet?


God, that was cruel...
lol

However, something like that was written also in MCTB: (even if then it makes clear that it is possible to practice insight during jhanas)

"Try not paying too much attention to the individual sensations themselves, but conceptualize the breath as a coherent and continuous entity, with many different types of sensations all being thought of as being the breath. It is important to know that really getting into a sense of the breath as a continuous entity for ten seconds will do you more good than being generally with the breath on and off for an hour."

For sake of clarity, I'll try to be precise on the thing: basically, jhana arise only in a way that is dependent from a good level of concentration, and if you focus on something solid and plaesent concentration can improve much more quickly than otherwise, so the basic instructions to get there are "Pretend that there is something solid and plaesent", but this doesn't mean that jhana are all about solidity, once you have some mastery over them you can easily see them strobing like anything else...
End in Sight, modified 11 Years ago at 8/5/12 5:43 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/5/12 5:43 PM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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Mario Nistri:
once you have some mastery over them you can easily see them strobing like anything else...


Do you perceive an object that you call "jhana" that strobes in and out of existence?
End in Sight, modified 11 Years ago at 8/5/12 6:17 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/5/12 6:17 PM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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To add something more specifically practical to my response to Mike...

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an11/an11.002.than.html:

"For a person experiencing pleasure, there is no need for an act of will, 'May my mind grow concentrated.' It is in the nature of things that the mind of a person experiencing pleasure grows concentrated.

"For a person whose mind is concentrated, there is no need for an act of will, 'May I know & see things as they actually are.' It is in the nature of things that a person whose mind is concentrated knows & sees things as they actually are.


Try the practice, see for yourself.
M N, modified 11 Years ago at 8/6/12 2:55 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/6/12 2:55 AM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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End in Sight:
Mario Nistri:
once you have some mastery over them you can easily see them strobing like anything else...


Do you perceive an object that you call "jhana" that strobes in and out of existence?


No; I percieve a particoular mental state that I call jhana composed by a lot of sensations; I don't percieve strobing in and out of existence, but there there are sensations moving, changing in a way that does not seems to me particoularly different from the normal vipassana practice... [here I'm talking just of the first, never had access to all the others].
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Mike Kich, modified 11 Years ago at 8/6/12 5:37 PM
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RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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yeah I've read that before..I'm not very interested in a strictly "Buddhist" approach as per the suttas and so on. It seems like every time I ask a question on this site, people answer and make it out to be more complicated than what I'm asking. I'd really just like an answer for once that runs something like, "yes...daddadada" or "no, because....dadadadad". You'd think I'd know better by now.


It's really a huge point of frustration though that finding and adhering to one tradition and one or two techniques from that tradition seems necessary, in any world religion. I think they're all interesting approaches and I've read extensively about just about anything you could think of, but yet...I dunno it's just never for me, ancient formal approaches like that. Do I think koans are cool and useful? Sure. Do I care enough about the answers to their riddles to devote a lot of consistent interest and effort? Not really. What's the sound of one hand? Fock if I know, and does it perturb my emotional landscape that I don't know? No, not really. I just want a teacher and a tradition that doesn't seem filled with bullshit and sundry religious stuff and chock full of assumptions (lineages, chakras, karma, rebirth, sacred language(s), patriarchs, gods, devas, angels, demons, lokas, sacred directions, etc.) which unfortunately every spiritual tradition in the world has its fair share of. Unfortunately it doesn't seem I can get off the ground without believing in something that I doubt exists or don't care if it does - I doubt everything, and unfortunately that doesn't work, but it's not easy to believe what I feel I need to either.
Change A, modified 11 Years ago at 8/6/12 5:50 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/6/12 5:50 PM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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Mike Kich:
Unfortunately it doesn't seem I can get off the ground without believing in something that I doubt exists or don't care if it does - I doubt everything, and unfortunately that doesn't work, but it's not easy to believe what I feel I need to either.


Yes, you can get off the ground without believing in something like lineages, chakras, karma, rebirth, sacred language(s), patriarchs, gods, devas, angels, demons, lokas, sacred directions, etc. If you doubt everything, may be emptiness will be your cup of tea. If not, then emptiness of emptiness will be! If you haven't read mulamadhymakarika, you may want to give it a try.
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fivebells , modified 11 Years ago at 8/6/12 7:58 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/6/12 7:58 PM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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There are plenty of people teaching Buddhist meditation from a pragmatic point of view. Try this guy (my teacher) or this guy (another student of his.) Buddhadasa Bhikku is good, too.
End in Sight, modified 11 Years ago at 8/6/12 8:05 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/6/12 8:05 PM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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Mike Kich:
yeah I've read that before..I'm not very interested in a strictly "Buddhist" approach as per the suttas and so on. It seems like every time I ask a question on this site, people answer and make it out to be more complicated than what I'm asking. I'd really just like an answer for once that runs something like, "yes...daddadada" or "no, because....dadadadad". You'd think I'd know better by now.


Well, MCTB says one thing, other sources say other things, so you're not going to get a clear yes or no unless you accept some source on faith, or try the practice for yourself and come to your own conclusion.

The explanation that satisfies me is, the perception of gross strobing (the kind that you can notice while walking around) depends on the rapid interplay of various mental states. If you can get your mind to stop spinning so fast, the gross strobing will be reduced, and in that state, perhaps, the experience of gross strobing (if you care to remember and reflect on it) may seem more and more like some grotesque aberration rather than an insight into the nature of reality.

But really, check it out for yourself. And keep in mind that if there are different methods of concentration, there's no guarantee that they're all producing the same states of concentration.
End in Sight, modified 11 Years ago at 8/7/12 8:49 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/7/12 8:49 AM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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To clarify my explanation: if a person is experiencing a rapid procession of mental states, then to see experience strobing is more accurate than not to see it strobing, as all those mental states (etc.) are impermanent, and impermanent mental states running through the mind, experienced as impermanent, strobe in a very gross way. But the strobing effect lessens as the mind gets more under control and becomes more concentrated...so the strobing effect is an artifact of a certain kind of mental functioning, and not the way reality will necessarily be experienced as a consequence of insight.
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fivebells , modified 11 Years ago at 8/7/12 2:37 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/7/12 2:37 PM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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BTW, is this question motivated by anything that's coming up in your own practice? All the different schools have different theoretical approaches, but modulo superficial differences there are generally really only a few ways to approach a given practice problem.
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Mike Kich, modified 11 Years ago at 8/7/12 7:35 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/7/12 7:35 PM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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oh I don't know, I mean I like mantras so I've been making an extra effort lately not to miss a day, to at least do two strings of earnestly concentrated-upon mantra repetitions every day. It's hard for me to overcome doubt though, always has been. I mean there're thoughts like, "well why not this other mantra, maybe that one feels better, or is more what I want at the moment." Or, I also have thoughts like "mmm well how do I know all of this isn't just placebo effect?" I mean what if all the intriguing stuff about auric energy and the power of a mantra to change that dramatically over time is just made up? What if it's just wholly superstition? What if everyone who's religious in the world, including me, is just grasping at straws and all there is is crude matter? What if it's all in my head?

I'm just saying these are the kind of powerful doubts I've always had to wrestle with, and in general I manage to keep on keeping on, but it's still very challenging. What makes it more difficult to combat is that I feel sure I've had a lot of positive results, but they're very subtle and over a long period of time - I've never had any whish-bang events or conversations with magickal beings or all that business, and if I had it'd be easier to point to that as proof that there is something to all of this, that it's not just alternative therapy for the socially disgruntled. I've been meditating a long time too, maybe not crazy intensely and consistently, but if those sort of things were going to happen, I feel they would have already. I mean how many people really would easily admit that the path they've been on has been bullshit, that it turned out to be a mirage?
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fivebells , modified 11 Years ago at 8/7/12 9:52 PM
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RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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I don't want to get into an argument about it, because ontological concerns don't seem to have any relevance to my practice, but I generally relate to the world from the default assumption that we are simply crude matter. Until recently, I actually wrote "Scientist" on forms which asked me my occupation. Again, I don't want to argue about that, I just want to point out that it is possible to have a serious practice without expecting any supernatural benefits. How are the secular concerns you raised earlier going? It's possible to benefit in those directions from practice, too, no auric energy required.
J Adam G, modified 11 Years ago at 8/8/12 12:06 AM
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RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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A really interesting thing to do is to dedicate your attention solely to pleasurable sensations of breathing, or to pleasurable feelings around your heart during metta practice. You may at some point notice a repeatable phenomenon where you at first feel exhilarated (but also mildly upset by the work required to sustain a tight focus), then you settle down a bit as the exhilaration is made sweeter by a sense of effortlessness and ease. Next, you may drop into a quieter, more peaceful form of happiness, and finally the peace and quiet will deepen as happiness is replaced by profound clarity.

At this point, a really REALLY interesting thing to do would be some sort of insight practice. There is choiceless awareness, there is whole-body awareness, there is noticing (i.e. silent noting)... A frequent favorite is trying to notice the ends of sensations. Or, what's left at the place where there used to be a sensation after that sensation has ended. That could be quite the fruitful practice, especially if you have first made your mind quiet, peaceful, and clear.

That is the POV I find most helpful in understanding the connections and distinctions between shamatha and vipassana. Though like all views, it is limited. Its primary function is to get you to do the practice, and if it fails that critical litmus test then it would not be a useful view for you.

If the above practice does not appeal to you, there are myriad other effective practices and you should not feel bad for preferring one over the other.
M N, modified 11 Years ago at 8/9/12 2:06 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/9/12 1:55 AM

RE: Samatha contrary to experience?

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"I mean what if all the intriguing stuff about auric energy and the power of a mantra to change that dramatically over time is just made up? What if it's just wholly superstition? "

I'm not an expert, but I wouldn't rule out such a possibility.

"What if everyone who's religious in the world, including me, is just grasping at straws and all there is is crude matter?"
Not for sure. You are aware. A rock is crude matter and it's not aware.

However, something about mantras:
-I think it's one of the most effective ways to improve concentration, to the point that some monk says that it's even a most effective preparation to insight practice than jhanas...
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/thate/buddho.html
Even if everything elase is wrong, concentration will improve for sure, and that's in my opinion more than enought to keep doing it. That's not an illusion, it can't be, if your concentration improves you know for sure it worked.

-Also, they can be used as an object to develop insight meditation; here I'm quoting from MCBT, chapter on the Bill Hamilton model of the vipassana jhanas:

"To give another example, using a different object, if one is using a mantra, one may notice that at some point one shifts to being able to stay with mantra clearly and perceive it as an object, which is the first jhana, starting with Mind and Body. Once the mantra is clear, one may notice all sorts of things about the process of mentally creating the mantra, such as the stream of intentions being followed shortly behind by the string of the mantra itself, in turn followed slightly behind by the mental echo of the perception of the mantra, making what appear to be three separate streams of the mantra. This is direct insight into Cause and Effect, and as the Three Characteristics of each of these streams become clear, the first jhana matures.

Then the mantra will shift to presenting itself, and will become very clear, as if it is reciting itself. This is obviously the second jhana, and one may experience A&P-like phenomena around here. As the practitioner shifts into the third jhana, the mantra gets wide in the stereo field, complex, with interesting harmonies if one is so inclined, and yet it may seem to be out of phase with attention or it may seem distorted, annoying, like something that was once beautiful but has become noisy. One may experience Dark Night-related phenomena in this phase. As the shift to the fourth jhana comes, the mantra may become part of a very wide, more quiet background, as attention becomes inclusive. Other fourth jhana-like or high equanimity-like phenomena may occur around here."

Observing all of theese shifts of perception in a mantra can help you to be sure that you are making progress in the territory of insight, not having to fear to be fooling yourself in any way...

Bye!