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Daniel Ingram's Practice Log

Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 11:06 PM
Hey, this is something I have meant to do for a long time, but here is a little something about what is up with me these days, in no particular order.

Had a great time at BG12, had fun speaking and meeting lots of cool people. Wow! What a great bunch of brains and hearts trying to do good things in their own minds and in the world. It was great to finally meet some of the original DhO'ers in person, such as Chris Marti and Tom Otvos, and to reconnect with Vince Horn, Hokai Sobol, Kenneth Folk, and the like. I think more gatherings about this stuff where people just hang out and talk is a very good idea and I will try to come up with something when I am not buried in work. BG made me notice how getting a lot of attention for something like a book or giving a talk can rapidly get out of hand in strange ways, projections, the politics of managing ones social attentions, and the like that make things very complicated. While it was a lot of fun in some ways, and coming back to Alabama where I am just some guy who takes care of patients was a real comedown in some ways, it was also really relieving, as then all of that drama, however good most of the time, was over. That said, there was a level of really high mental stimulation there that provoked lots of new and useful combinations of ideas, and I miss that in this green and quiet paradise I call home.

MCTB seems out of date to me, and a few parts annoy me, and I think I should add and reorganize a lot of it, so I work on that in my spare time, which is little. I hope there will also be a version where people contribute their take on things, as some are offering to do. Scrivener is a cool program for working on large projects like this: for those thinking of taking something like this on.

Speaking of authors, just got done teaching a guy named Jeff Warren on a month retreat. Teaching always makes me realize that what I say and what I have written down are not always quite the same, and so that leads to further inspiration to revise MCTB.

Also, at BG I got inspired by some tech-people who are also very interesting practitioners to use visual software to try to map out the processes and some mind maps about the stages of insight, so got yED and started doing that: it is a lot of fun, and has helped me sort out how I internally think about these things (which is really complex) and how that sometimes contrasts with the summary statements I make when talking about them. I will post links when I come up with some...

I am working a ton, we are short staffed at work, so there has been little time for many, many things, such as and including participating much here in the last 1-2 months.

Despite working a lot, on July 24th there was an odd event that changed things, and I am still sorting out how it performance tests in the real world and changes with time, but the obvious points are:

There was a resynchronizing of something, such that, if you imagine a watch with the second hand just one gear-tooth out of sync, such that at, say, the stroke of midnight the second hand was one second behind, and then suddenly the teeth synced up properly, such that suddenly everything was time aligned properly for the first time, that is what this feels like, such that time pressure is significantly less if there at all (again, we'll see how this holds up over time as the months go on and things morph as they do). This has had numerous subtle and not so subtle motivation implications as well as increased a general sense of satisfaction and sense of wellbeing, and my mouth ulcers which I have had nearly daily for years have been gone now since that time, which has happened at times in the past and may not be related, but is worth mentioning, and continues to make me wonder about immune mechanisms and attentional things. I have noticed before that a retreat of over a week or so would give me at least 1-2 months aphthous ulcer free in the past...

This resynchronizing followed very logically from the veil-vanishing thing that put everything in PCE-like perception mode apparently permanently on Jan 18th, which also could be said to have been the vanishing of anything attentional of any kind, really, which eliminated some sort of distortion that I didn't even know was there. Both resulted from just paying an outrageous amount of attention to everything in the spacial field as it occurred.

I got a new wand from Acme Wand Supply through an art gallery in Boulder, CO while at BG 12: carved ebony handle with black glass base, thin snakewood shaft, copper fittings, black bullet/copper tip, very well-balanced, clearly quite focused and quick, like the wand you would want to have if you wanted to send a very narrow beam of dark something precisely to a target even over a great distance. The most interesting thing about having this particular wand is how much it just calls out, "Shoot that black beam!" and how this causes me to really think about what that would do and where that drive comes from and what it would mean to do it, which is very good practice at this point, I think, and provocative and exploratory of the uses of power, which is always a good idea.

I got an email from a woman who described having relatively well-developed and natural psychic abilities, which lead to a series of dreams in which they were all about competition and power issues related to the powers (very brief example: me and a woman arm wrestling at a distance of about 6 feet apart with our arms psychically linked but not touching, and her once making her arm go all floppy such that the bone was rubber so that there was no way the arm wrestling could take place, and the other time her using her other arm to aid the first arm, resulting in twice the strength, that sort of thing, which sounds boring, but seemed to have profound implications at the time), which has also caused me to wonder what that is about, and how much of things related to the power being about power and competition universal (as things related to powers have caused those sorts of things for as long as there have been those), and how much of that is specific to me and why. No firm conclusions, just a general inquiry ongoing.

Anyway, that is all for the moment. I hope something in this useful to someone. It was useful to me to just get it down.

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 9:21 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Which parts of MCTB seem out-of-date/annoy you the most?

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 3:59 PM as a reply to Fitter Stoke.
The most annoying thing for me is that many practice points that I wish to keep in the first part actually would benefit from things in the third part, and vice versa, such that I can't figure out the optimal order of things, as simple pragmatic points often would seem to be better placed much later, but then I worry they will be lost in the complexity of those later sections.

There are a number of things in the Models of the Stages of Enlightenment chapter that I will revise based on things similar to those I have posted here.

More interesting to me is what others have found annoying about it and wished to see clarified or revised, as if you have suggestions, now is the time.

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 5:38 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
hi,

what do you do for your aphthous ulcer. I take an over the counter topical but my condition isn't chronic...maybe a reoccurrence every 6 weeks.

Why no apperceptive awareness of the pristine purity of this moment yet? is it pride that's getting in the way? that would be my guess from my own projections... a person with his life completely together and an impressive reputation to boot would feel a lot of pride. just one partial and uneducated guess. Or maybe it's your busy schedule...a Self may be felt necessary in order to keep it all together.

jon

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 7:31 PM as a reply to Jon T.
Hey: aphthous ulcers: I tend to avoid acidic foods, such as pineapple and tomatoes, but when they occur I do nothing, as if I did, I would be doing it a lot, as they have generally occurred often. I have used betamethasone ointment in the far past to good effect, and would recommend it for the occasional one, but to be on a steroid such as that long-term, as there is some systemic absorption, is not that appealing if I can help it, and I can, so I don't. I find teas with tannins helpful, such as peppermint and licorice tea. Just simply running relatively hot water (but not hot enough to burn) on them is actually simple and relatively effective.

As to pristine purity and pride and the like, I have learned to be extremely careful with words like "pristine" and to assume that there is no "pride" would be a truly dangerous act. As I said, these things are worth observing over periods of time long enough such that however impressive they are (and this one is truly impressive at the moment), most in time reveal some subtle or gross something that initially wasn't obvious, as has been stated even by some who have thrown around terms like Actual Freedom to describe their practice. I find these things are best tested out on a retreat, but just finding a free day to work on revising MCTB and to contribute a bit here has been tricky, so no retreat forthcoming.

As to my life completely together, that is a truly high complement, I think, but, however nice the sentiment, it wouldn't seem so from this side: just ask my wife, for a start. As to reputation, it also varies depending on the person you are talking with, and beyond a small amount of temporary fame in a very small, obscure end of the dharma world, there goes a small but I think slightly larger amount of infamy in a similarly small, obscure corner of the dharma world just next to it, but the sentiment again is a kind one, and I wish that my life met with your ideals, as they are nice ones.

As to a "self" to keep things together, I don't recommend it, as that is the sort of thing that the distortions of perception that lead to the transient sensations that are commonly misperceived as being a self will come up with, but it is total fantasy and not true at all.

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 7:40 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
"Hello Mrs Jones, this is your new doctor, Daniel. Don't be afraid of his evil expression and wand. It's true he's killed a few people with it, but it was only because they annoyed him. Behave yourself and do exactly as he says, and you'll be fine. It's a bit like God in that way - obey or be destroyed. Have a lovely day, Mrs Jones!"

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 9:46 PM as a reply to C C C.
Hmmmm... that was interesting, CCC. What's on your mind?

Don't like the wand? Shouldn't have shared about the wand? A bit too much disclosure of my thoughts at the moment? Don't like the picture? I a missing something here.

Too much for me to be a bit open on my own forum? I very rarely say much about my practice to anyone, have barely posted in the last month or two, and then I do and get something that hopefully is humerus but feels a bit toxic, and if I need to create a more specialized environment where honesty is met with something a bit more empathic, that is easy.

Got anything in the spirit of mutually supportive adventurers sharing their journeys together and helping each other?

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 9:33 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Hey Dan,

Daniel M. Ingram:
As I said, these things are worth observing over periods of time long enough such that however impressive they are (and this one is truly impressive at the moment) [...]


Could you go a bit more into what makes this one truly impressive? You've given a few details but not too many. I'm curious to hear more about your current experience. Some particular questions to prompt you but feel free to add more or decline to comment:

1) What were you looking for pre-July 24th, if anything in particular? Like were you looking to have anything in particular happen or just seeing where experience goes or trying to pay as much attention to everything as possible or...? Any particular focus, I mean?
2) Are you enjoying life in general?
3) Does anything in your experience match the description of "a manifest life-force; a genuinely occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the perfect and vast stillness that is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe." (link)?
4) Care to comment at all as to the status of the universe being: infinite or finite or it doesn't matter; eternal or with beginning and end or it doesn't matter; things inherently existing or not inherently existing or it doesn't matter?
5) What happens if you try to meditate nowadays? Can you still get regular jhanas, arupa jhanas, pure-land jhanas, psychic powersy type stuff, etc?

Cheers,
- Claudiu

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 9:38 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Hi Daniel,

Interesting update, and inspiring for practice down here in the shallow end. I had a couple thoughts:

The version of MCTB I've been wishing for may not be relevant to your current revisions. I've been wanting something for people who are not initiated, not dark night yogis, have no mushroom culture dust about them, but who need something as accessible as Thich Nhat Hahn for example. Just a primer on noting, the progress of insight, 3 c's, etc. Basically, something for my mother. Why shouldn't the casual shopper have a shot at the real thing, instead of waiting for them to come out of the other end of a 10 year mostly fruitless search (like most of us who wind up here)? We (you) are ceding prime market share!

Also: nice wand. The forum section on powers seems pretty quiet. In fact, I have the sense it's still widely looked down on even here to discuss them... . I just want to know, in what sense does consciousness extend beyond the body? I've had some experiences that suggest it does, but I'm surprised to find many advanced yogi's are staunchly dismissive of the idea. (Let's assume I understand that I'm asking only because I fear death, and my time would be better spent examining the bare phenomena of this moment. I know.)

(Also, nice to hear AF-related practice described in a straightforward way. I hope I'm not jinxing the thread by saying so.)

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 10:08 PM as a reply to Some Guy.
Thanks for the update, Daniel.

I relate to the following descriptions of yours. I've had two shifts that resulted 1st in the PCE-like perception and no more attention wave/bounce. And there was a further shift which seems similar to what you mention below. The subtle and nor so subtle motivation implications....can you elaborate on this development?

There was a resynchronizing of something, such that, if you imagine a watch with the second hand just one gear-tooth out of sync, such that at, say, the stroke of midnight the second hand was one second behind, and then suddenly the teeth synced up properly, such that suddenly everything was time aligned properly for the first time, that is what this feels like, such that time pressure is significantly less if there at all (again, we'll see how this holds up over time as the months go on and things morph as they do). This has had numerous subtle and not so subtle motivation implications as well as increased a general sense of satisfaction and sense of wellbeing, and my mouth ulcers which I have had nearly daily for years have been gone now since that time, which has happened at times in the past and may not be related, but is worth mentioning, and continues to make me wonder about immune mechanisms and attentional things. I have noticed before that a retreat of over a week or so would give me at least 1-2 months aphthous ulcer free in the past...

This resynchronizing followed very logically from the veil-vanishing thing that put everything in PCE-like perception mode apparently permanently on Jan 18th, which also could be said to have been the vanishing of anything attentional of any kind, really, which eliminated some sort of distortion that I didn't even know was there. Both resulted from just paying an outrageous amount of attention to everything in the spacial field as it occurred.



P.S. I up your wand with a Sith lightsabre.

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 10:38 PM as a reply to Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem.
Dear Claudiu,

Hey, wasn't looking for anything in particular, just happened, relatively surprising when it did.

I am enjoying life, thanks for asking.

Questions 3 and 4 don't seem that interesting in terms of ways to think about this stuff: sorry of this seems like a dodge. Those extremes seem to be missing something.

Jhanas: seem interwoven in a shimmery way with the rest of the shimmery stuff, state shifts still occur, but haven't had much time at all to practice much along that front. Fruitions still occur, if that is interesting. Haven't actually tried full formless realms, but would be surprised if they weren't functioning somehow: will do at some point, though the most interesting thing regarding the jhanas is that any inclination to them just dissolves in a pleasant puff of nothing, and then later some shift occurs, which seems to be a somewhat different functional and temporal arrangement from before, but again, there have been lots of odd points along the way where things were somewhat different for some period of time and then later went back to some more familiar way of functioning, so we'll see.

Powers: energetic stuff, visualization stuff, emotive-intent stuff: all still occur.

How are you? How goes pure intent?

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 10:54 PM as a reply to Some Guy.
Hey JB,

Your request for something with just the good information and none of the rant is a great idea, and that is also part of what annoys me about MCTB: 1) that it seemed like it needed the rand at all, and 2) that there are large parts of the world where it just doesn't apply, 3) that parts of the dharma world where it needed to be said now don't need it said, as they have moved on to something better. If I can, I will see what I can come up with. Time is short now, but hopefully come winter there will be more.

Sometimes in the longer medical textbooks there are "Just the facts" versions that summarize the core nuggets of practical knowledge, and a Just the Practices and Theory version of MCTB would be a great idea! It might be a bit boring, but then sometimes boring is healthy.

Yeah, even here in this little protected corner of the web, the powers and that stuff don't always go down well. I am always reluctant even here to mention just a little bit, and as CCC's comments indicate, even that tiny bit garnered strange reactions.

I actually don't believe there is anything called consciousness that can be differentiated from sensations, and as thoughts and the other sensations can occur anywhere there is a field of experience, then anywhere they occur there is what would conventionally be referred to as consciousness. You can clearly imagine flames coming off your computer monitor, and so those thoughts must be occurring there in that space outside the body, and you can clearly perceive ordinary things beyond your body and outside your body, so clearly there must, in the conventional sense, be consciousness there also.

I am not exactly sure that what I describe is AF related practice necessarily, as I wasn't doing anything but paying attention, which would just seem like a generally good idea, and maybe this is my own fear of jinxing things as well, as this place can get touchy, even as much as I hope it will do better than what happens in the rest of the world, which it mostly does, but obviously there are moments... ;)

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 11:04 PM as a reply to Nikolai ..
Dear Nicolai,

Hey, great light saber! I should have pulled out the black silk hooded robes for the wand picture, but that probably would have really set people off! ;) Buncha wowsers!

interesting to hear you had similar experiences.

Motivation:

Ok, I'll give it a shot, realizing that this is relatively new, and may change...

For example, as noted above, when the inclination to test out jhana arises, that inclination itself is a pleasant shimmery thing that itself is so satisfying that it would seem strange to even want to go into jhana, and similarly with numerous other similar inclinations, though I am not sure about all of them, and suspect that some don't do this.

That inclinations are themselves satisfying has implications that I don't think I can even appreciate the full profundity of at this point, and I think that some longer period of time will be required to see what happens when that way of things functioning permeates through various older mental structures for a while.

How are you, anyway? How's down under? Got a bunyip on the barbie?

Daniel

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 11:23 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel M. Ingram:
Hey, wasn't looking for anything in particular, just happened, relatively surprising when it did.

I am enjoying life, thanks for asking.

Cool cool, good to hear.

Daniel M. Ingram:
Questions 3 and 4 don't seem that interesting in terms of ways to think about this stuff: sorry of this seems like a dodge. Those extremes seem to be missing something.

No, that doesn't seem like a dodge at all. I actually thought that would be the most likely way you'd answer, but wasn't sure, which is why I asked.

Daniel M. Ingram:
Jhanas: seem interwoven in a shimmery way with the rest of the shimmery stuff, state shifts still occur, but haven't had much time at all to practice much along that front. Fruitions still occur, if that is interesting.

I actually haven't had a fruition happen in a while. I haven't been practicing for them, nor meditating, so maybe they happen and I don't notice anymore, but I haven't noticed anything like that in a while.

Daniel M. Ingram:
Haven't actually tried full formless realms, but would be surprised if they weren't functioning somehow: will do at some point, though the most interesting thing regarding the jhanas is that any inclination to them just dissolves in a pleasant puff of nothing, and then later some shift occurs, which seems to be a somewhat different functional and temporal arrangement from before, but again, there have been lots of odd points along the way where things were somewhat different for some period of time and then later went back to some more familiar way of functioning, so we'll see.

Powers: energetic stuff, visualization stuff, emotive-intent stuff: all still occur.

Sounds interesting; thanks for the extra info.

Daniel M. Ingram:
How are you? How goes pure intent?

I'm doing alright. Pure intent is quite exciting and fascinating and seems to be leading to a delicious place. Recently I've mostly been focusing on the 'me' side of things, seeing what makes 'me' tick, how 'I' am built up, understanding what makes up a belief, letting certain beliefs stop being believed in, seeing why certain bodily tensions happen and how to lead to them not happening, etc., interspersed by periods of just contemplating what it means to be alive, to be seeing things, breathing, interacting with the world, etc., during which periods pure intent is much more obvious. Investigation (the former) and contemplation (the latter) seem to go hand in hand, contemplation providing the motivation for investigation as it leads to the realization that it is 'I' who is preventing that purity from always being apparent (thus showing that investigation is necessary) and also shows experientially what will be left in 'my' place and how to go about getting there (thus providing hints that make the investigation possible). It's all fitting together pretty nicely and it seems to just be a matter of willingly going further and further along.

In case it's of interest to you, I don't really think my insight training has helped me much in this endeavor, at least not in terms of helping with either the investigation or the contemplation in and of themselves. Investigating the three characteristics a la MCTB operates on a different level with a different goal than investigating 'me' does a la Actualism, and it doesn't seem to help much, practically. As for the contemplation, investigating the 3Cs seems to have nothing to do with that, and as contemplation shows the goal, I'd say that the insight training I've done seems to lead to a totally different, rather unrelated outcome. What I can say the insight training has done is given me a higher tolerance for pain and for weird things to happen, along with some added motivation in that I can see a huge potential for 'me' causing pain (aka dukkha nyanas a la MCTB ) that I probably wouldn't have seen in quite the same way had I not done insight training a la MCTB at all.

Anyways, I'm happy with what I'm doing now, and quite looking forward to seeing where it takes me!

Cheers,
- Claudiu

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/19/12 11:42 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel M. Ingram:
Dear Nicolai,

Hey, great light saber! I should have pulled out the black silk hooded robes for the wand picture, but that probably would have really set people off! ;) Buncha wowsers!


Peoples, why so serious!?!


For example, as noted above, when the inclination to test out jhana arises, that inclination itself is a pleasant shimmery thing that itself is so satisfying that it would seem strange to even want to go into jhana, and similarly with numerous other similar inclinations, though I am not sure about all of them, and suspect that some don't do this.


I only experience an inclination when it is triggered by thing s like this, people talking about it or I read about it somewhere which triggers a thought of curiosity and only then does the mind get directed to fashion them.

That inclinations are themselves satisfying has implications that I don't think I can even appreciate the full profundity of at this point, and I think that some longer period of time will be required to see what happens when that way of things functioning permeates through various older mental structures for a while.


Interesting. I've never really paid attention to the quality of 'intention' before the jhanas are fashioned (and they seem less about absorption and more about 'exclusive objects' of mind, which don't give off the same absorption feel that they used to before previous shifts). Doing so now, perhaps because you have now introduced this explanation of your ongoing experience, the mind does fashion intention into quite a 'heightening' experience. It is pleasurable in an emotion-free way. Hard to describe. I might be scripting/fabricating it due to reading about it though, so the intention to create the same mind-made experience is resulting in something assumed similar. I never really noticed though that 'intention' towards jhana was pleasurable. Though i do experience a serious lack of mental urge to fashion them and thus don't experience the intention that much. The intention though does seem awfully close to when they are fashioned. Meaning, when the intention is there to fashion 'space' as the exclusive object of the mind, the intention seems inherent in the the 'space' being the exclusive object of mind or at least melding quickly with its very fashioning. Intention co-arises with the jhana so to speak. And thus it seems quite freeing, at least from rupa thus quite inherently 'pleasant'.

Thanks for the trigger.

How are you, anyway? How's down under? Got a bunyip on the barbie?


I am doing quite well. Studies in shiatsu and Traditional Chinese Medicine is com ing along and is starting to seep into my way of thinking...and fabricating.

Edited twice to add extra stuff.

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/20/12 12:14 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel M. Ingram:


Got anything in the spirit of mutually supportive adventurers sharing their journeys together and helping each other?


Yes I'd like the 'how to practice' part of MCTB to be changed from:

-- effort, striving, goal-oriented, narrow focus

to...

-- effortless, surrender, open focus, spacious


so that practitioners don't get Dark Nighted or worse.

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/20/12 12:24 AM as a reply to C C C.
The how to practice part of MCTB contains that second perspective in abundance. Need endless examples?

That said, I definitely see how people could miss them if they were looking at it through its obviously predominant lens of effort, which is strongly present.

Which sections, specifically, would you modify? It is a long work.

Are you sure that people can be spared Dark Night stuff as you advocate? Are you sure there not a place for skillful effort in dealing with Dark Night phenomena? Are you sure that attempts to surrender to things that aren't pleasant may not involve effort? Are you sure that the wide open spaciousness of the higher levels of attainment are not easiest to obtain for some by a path involving effort?

Narrow focus is advocated in those stages where it pays off, namely the early ones, and wide and inclusive focus is advocated where that pays off, namely the later ones. Did you miss that part? I may need to make it more clear.

Thanks for your suggestions.

BTW, what was up with your strange little series of messages earlier today? I was away from the computer when they arose but was still logged in, so didn't see them until about an hour after you put them up.

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/20/12 12:32 AM as a reply to C C C.
C C C:
Daniel M. Ingram:


Got anything in the spirit of mutually supportive adventurers sharing their journeys together and helping each other?


Yes I'd like the 'how to practice' part of MCTB to be changed from:

-- effort, striving, goal-oriented, narrow focus

to...

-- effortless, surrender, open focus, spacious


so that practitioners don't get Dark Nighted or worse.


Not to poo poo your approach and forgive me for using an old text quote by dead peoples, CCC, but effort and exertion are part and parcel of at least the the theravadan approach. Though i do think if the ability to fabricate exertion is slightly warped or not complete and not cultivated correctly it can lead one down pretty shady alleys and make one desire and exert effort to fabricate in the wrong direction, i.e. the other way from the ending of stress. Thus, one suffers a 'dark night'. As far as I can tell, the dukkha nanas don't have to suck and pull one under. Everyone has a choice to react or not and fabricate the madness that can be termed 'dark'. Perhaps beforehand there is a need to emphasize developing and cultivating the pre-requisite skills before jumping into the deep end. But alas, many don't have such patience, which is probably also a vital prerequisite

"Monks, whoever neglects these four bases of power neglects the noble path going to the right ending of stress. Whoever undertakes these four bases of power undertakes the noble path going to the right ending of stress. Which four?

There is the case where a monk develops the base of power endowed with concentration founded on desire & the fabrications of exertion. He develops the base of power endowed with concentration founded on persistence... concentration founded on intent... concentration founded on discrimination & the fabrications of exertion.
Whoever neglects these four bases of power neglects the noble path going to the right ending of stress. Whoever undertakes these four bases of power undertakes the noble path going to the right ending of stress." SN 51.2

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/20/12 12:33 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Hi Daniel,

If you can add more detail on your recent shifts and where this diverges from the original book I think that would help since I'm not quite sure how you view beyond fourth path differently. What is beyond 4th path for you? I've talked to Ron Crouch and he's talked to the different camps, including AF'ers, who find that reality is "really real" and those following a noting style find reality feels "not real". emoticon There seems to be a divergence there.

If you have a lot of new information to add then just do another book. A second edition could revise the book extensively if treated like a textbook. The audience will see that not all has been discovered and that there is room for added knowledge.

Also, is there any new published scientific studies from Whiloughby Britton or others you can add to the book? Do you and other scientists know more about the dark night?

RE: Daniel Ingram's Practice Log
Answer
8/20/12 12:40 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel, I keep some notes on my laptop, I'll just see if I can collate it in a meaningful way.

The messages were just me blowing off a bit of steam.

Cheers.

Feel free to poo poo my posts, Nick (and others). If I'm going to criticize others, I'm open for the same. The only way, I reckon.