I have the ordinary hopes for my practice log (recording progress, tracking insights, receiving advice, etc.), and a few unusual goals. But first, I should introduce myself and my practice.
HistoryI have been meditating for three years now (since December 2010). It has always been aimed at real achievement (read: enlightenment), although I have had various ideas about what this means and how to accomplish it. Moreover, while I think I have had real benefits from my practice, I don't think I've advanced in the progress of insight on any map. So, so far it has been largely touchy-feely, and I hope to make real, significant progress in the near future.
My practice has been somewhat unusual so far in that I have largely emphasized daily practice over retreats. I use the Equanimity iOS program to stay accountable to a minimum amount of time for daily practice, which has gradually increased from 15 minutes per day to 2 hours. As such, I have some basic statistics about how much I have practiced over time, although no real data about the quality or kind of practice. I am about to reach 700 hours.
(As an aside, I have a working hypothesis that enlightenment will occur at around 10k hours. Does anyone have any ideas / thoughts about whether or not significant development in insight conforms to other areas of expertise?)
I started by paying attention to my breath; I am not sure whether I was emphasizing concentration or insight. I was likely conflating the two practices. After doing a Goenka retreat in August of 2011, I used his techniques, especially the Body Scan technique, from 2011 to 2013.
In 2013, I read Daniel's MCTB, and Shinzen Young's "Five Ways to Self-Knowledge." I also did a retreat in Burlington, at the Shinzen-associated Center for Mindful Learning. I'd be interested in hearing from others, such as Tarver, who have "worked with" (literally or metaphorically) teachers like Daniel (and Kenneth Folk, and co.) as well as Shinzen.
At first, I had a little bit of confusion as to how these two related to each other and also to the rest of the ideas that I had about meditation (both the practice and my motivation), but they have largely been converging. I also realized retroactively that Goenka's Body Scan includes what Shinzen calls Feel In, and that I could do similar techniques with other areas of my experience, e.g. Hear In / Hear Rest, See In / See Rest, all of which had been coming up in my practice for years but I had been unequipped to deal with them except by brute force.
When I first started doing two hours a day (after said retreat at CML), I was splitting it into four half-hour units, where I would do Focus Out, Focus In, Focus on Rest, Focus on Flow (Shinzen's terminology for his first four "Ways"). For the last two months or so, though, I have been switching to "Note Everything," which is Shinzen's terms for Mahasi-style Noting. I use his (one word, not two word) terminology for labels, too, in addition to the others that I add (emotions, blinking, pleasure, pain, etc.).
In terms of the Three Trainings, I have largely been focusing on insight / wisdom. I am under the impression from something either/or/both Daniel and Kenneth said that it will be easier to make progress on concentration after I reach First Path; also, I am under the impression from those two as well as Shinzen that it is actually possible to increase concentration and insight simultaneously. I currently believe that I am capable of at least access concentration.
GoalsMy long term goal for meditation is the Big One, enlightenment. I appreciate Daniel's advice that one focus each session (via resolutions) on this big goal.
The most pertinent thing to this post/thread, though, is my short / mid-term goals towards accomplishing this long term goal.
I am still new to map-based practice, so I hope to make my current assumptions and reasoning explicit so that others can evaluate and adjust these assumptions and goals.
I am under the impression that:
- The first stage of insight for an absolute beginner is First Path's Arising and Passing.
- The First Path Arising and Passing can be achieved in somewhere between one week and one month, with diligent, consistent practice (every day, all day).
- (I have the ability, motivation, and will power to work this hard.)*
- The second step after the A+P is Stream Entry / First Path, which can take up to three months or more of diligent practice (all day, every day).
* Historically, my main obstacles towards hard work at meditation have been four-fold: 1) not being on retreat for most of my practice 2) understanding of what I'm doing 3) concentration and 4), most importantly, lack of lower-back strength / the assumption that meditation progress can only be made in a good sitting position. I mention this mostly for people to evaluate / adjust my newfound belief that I can make good progress in meditation in any position whatsoever, provided I do not fall asleep or get distracted. As such, of late, I have mostly been sitting lying down and on chairs (as well as walking meditation), because it is more convenient and comfortable at this time. If you believe that I am wrong, please let me know. (Also, as an aside, for those with weak lower backs, I have found plank exercises to be extremely efficient at quickly developing a stronger back.)
Given these assumptions, my (practical/directly related) mid-term plan for my meditation is two-fold: maintain my practice at two hours per day on average, and do at least one, if not two, long term retreats in 2014 (26-day at
Wat Rampoeng). I will try to attain the First Path A+P on this retreat, if not full Stream Entry / First Path.
Do any of these assumptions seem questionable? Are my goals unrealistic? If so, please explain; if not, please give any relevant advice or suggestions.
Character of threadWith respect to meditation alone, I would like this thread (both from my writing a log, and from interacting with the DhO community) to help me achieve the highest standard of excellence in practice that I can, as well as the highest attainment (read: enlightenment). I want to record specific attainments, changes in my thinking, and related progress. I hope the community will interact with this thread, especially people who have experience with Basic Mindfulness in addition to DhO-oriented practice.
I may also post relevant statistics from my data, as I become increasingly able to analyze it. Moreover, I would like this to be a place where we can talk about how to log data in practice, not just with quantity, but also qualitative data, phenomenological or measured. I want my practice and this thread to find ways to converge different disciplines: not just meditation, but also yoga, phenomenology, computer science, mathematics, science, and psychology. I am extremely ignorant of, but very interested in, all of these areas of thinking, and suspect a high-level, modern meditation practice can include all of these disciplines. I talk about some of these things in this
blog post.
That said, these are intellectual interests, something that can be complementary to or obstructive of actual practice, and practice comes first. So much of this thread should be about that.
Please let me know what you think of all of this. I'll post updates as they are relevant.