Retreats these days seem to want to create a pressure cooker atmosphere. Kind of a chemotherapy approach - if it doesn't kill you (drive you crazy) it may cure you (awaken you). There is no indication to me that the traditional approaches in the suttas intended to create this kind of atmosphere. What seems lacking in this modern approach is the qualities of relinquishment, dispassion, tranquillising, calming. You find these statements throughout the suttas in regards to how to practice.
For example, in Daniels favourite sutta (
MN 111 ) you find that Sariputta is not sitting there noting 'sitting', 'sitting', 'thinking', 'crazy', 'crazy', 'crazy', etc. He has "entered & remained in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born of seclusion, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation.
Whatever qualities there are in the first jhana — directed thought, evaluation, rapture, pleasure, singleness of mind, contact, feeling, perception, intention, consciousness,2 desire, decision, persistence, mindfulness, equanimity, & attention —
he ferreted them out one after another......He remained unattracted & unrepelled with regard to those qualities, independent, detached, released, dissociated, with an awareness rid of barriers. He discerned that 'There is a further escape,' and pursuing it there really was for him." - and so on through the jhanas.
I don't know that anyone has gone crazy paying attention to how jhanic qualities arise and pass. The statement "He discerned that 'There is a further escape'" is very important. There is the intention of relinquishment here - of letting go of stressful states however subtle they may be. This is a proactive practice. But how did Sariputta get into the jhanas in the first place?
A typical approach is found in the Anapanasati Sutta (
MN 118) where you find the following:
"He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the entire body.'2 He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the entire body.' [4] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in
calming bodily fabrication.'3 He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming bodily fabrication.'
"[5] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to rapture.' ... [8] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming mental fabrication.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out
calming mental fabrication.'
"[9] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the mind.' [10] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in satisfying the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out
satisfying the mind.' [11] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in steadying the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out steadying the mind.' [12] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in
releasing the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out releasing the mind.'"
You find these kinds of descriptions throughout the suttas not just in one or two of them. Have we some where along the way lost some of the essential elements that Buddha taught? How does calming the mind and body with every in and out breath change our experience of the practice? This is not vipassana lite - this is what the big guy taught - and presumably he knew what he was doing.
-Chuck