Zed Z:
Nick,
Thanks for the reply. It was not my intention at all to imply that you were biased. I also tend to agree with you that different people could find different methods fruitful. I think talking and thinking about issues around meditation is a huge identification problem: Too many unknowns, too few equations. The only solution for finding the answers seems to be the practice of meditation and direct experience. But even this can seem questionable (for me - I have no attainments at all), as even the advanced meditators, who claim to have various attainments, seem too often to disagree and unable to credibly verify/falsify each other's achievements and claims.
One of the drawbacks of an open approach such as the pragmatic dharma movement. But the positives have outweighed the negatives in my own experience. Past the tipping point (i think being 4th path as talked of in pragmatic dharma circles), there is all sorts of disagreement on what means what. Except i dont think anyone will disagree that it isn't a 'tipping point'. Lots of places to explore post-tipping point. A vast improvement on the baseline pre-tipping point. And a place i highly reccomend getting to to then do what one wishes to do.
On the substance. Yes, I think I understand what you mean by averting phenomena via anapana. On the other hand, the Buddha thought jhana as an important basis for insight meditation. As I understand (I think from one of Bhante G's books) that strong concentration helps temporarily put aside some hindrances, and this can be useful for vipassana meditation. Is this inconsistent with what you think?
Yes. But i'm biased towards a more 'panoramic' peripherially informed means of calming and collecting the mind (as opposed to narrowing it on an object). The anapana sati sutta calls for this in my take on it. A narrowly focused approach tends to cultivate a a tendency to narrow awareness. What is the alternative? A narrow approach VS a panoramic peripherally informed approach (all encompassing of the entire field of nama rupa). I reccomend experimenting with the differences in approach to see what the differences in result i may be pointing to. I think the anapanasati of the anapanasati sutta avoids the narrow focus and is more all encompasing. The practices we do over and over cultivate and reinforce habits. The habit of narrow focus is a hard one to overcome. And a narrow focus often arises with the object it is narrowed around, coarising/giving rise to. This goes for any aspect made an obejct of mind from the field of experience which ends up in the sequence that has craving and clinging involved. When craving and clinging, is the mind more narrowed in focus? And when not craving and clinging, is the mind more panoramic and periphally informed?
Think about the territory where 1st path is supposed to happen (as talked of here). Is the focus narrow or panoramic? High equanimity (4th jhana territory), is it a narrow focus or peripherally informed? If awareness was trained early on to not be so narrow, perhaps the route to 11th nana territory would be a much quicker one. My current 2 cents.
Also, switching techniques seems an important issue. Especially for those who report to be in the Equanimity nana. It seems that many people sort of get lost at that stage, and those who find the way out are often the switchers. In this forum, obviously many switched to noting. But I also read somebody here who switched from noting to scanning and got Stream Entry. So, maybe not the method itself but the fact of changing from one method to another is what matters. Some variation has to be introduced, a shock to the system. But I guess I'm just speculating.
Yes, this was my own experience. I was getting stuck, bored, spacing out in the meh-ness of equanimity of formations territory. In other words, the tendency of the mind was to still lunge on (narrow focus on) aspects of the field of experience that were presenting, and here it would narrow onto the compounding of 'spacing out, wandering'. If awareness was more informed peripherally, it would be aware of all the phenomena, including the urge to wander and space out and identify such compounding phenomena as self. Too narrowly focused and ignorant of the rest of the field of experience was the block. The noting technique snapped me out of such stagnation. If one is aware of the dangers of getting stuck at certain stages, then perhaps a technique change is not so neccessary. Which is why i wrote that article on "to the tee".
For the moment, I don't want to change from scanning, I want to give it a real try. I've already read your SE blog post (a while ago), I remember you saying to follow Goenkaji's teachings "to the tee" as an alternative to what you did. But I keep noting as Plan B...
Being wary of the places one gets stuck is a good idea i didn't know to follow. The maps for me shed light on where i was spinning wheels. Then, I found it helpful to think it was SE i was aiming for, not to get stuck supporting and adhering to the dogma and rules of whatever tradition. After SE i would ask for forgiveness for using and abusing. Do what you have to do to get where you wish to go was my approach. I didnt feel like following goenka into the next life (some of the dogma i referred to).
Edited more than a few times as per usual, typed on a mini ipad, forgive the typos.
Nick
Edited again for more info,