<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Wetpaint Migration 4</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_category?p_l_id=&amp;mbCategoryId=78028</link> <description>full migration as of 9/9/09 at 7PM EST</description> <pubDate>Sun, 19 Oct 2014 00:35:58 GMT</pubDate> <dc:date>2014-10-19T00:35:58Z</dc:date> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5582210</link> <description>Florian!!!  I&amp;#039;m sorry to reply before I read the whole thread, but you made me too excited.  I want to tell you about my experience with &amp;#039;nada&amp;#039; in deep meditation just a few days ago...  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Every sound (energy radiation) from every event in the whole history of the universe eventually reaches us and interacts via &amp;#039;nada&amp;#039;.  In this high pitch ringing, you are actually hearing All things!!!  Meditating on &amp;#039;Nada&amp;#039; with full samyama births the siddhi of (I think it&amp;#039;s called) Astral hearing!  In my meditation on Nada, I picked up on sounds that had to have been a mile away.  It was so interesting!  </description> <pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2014 04:30:12 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5582210</guid> <dc:creator>Jeremy May</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-13T04:30:12Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5582135</link> <description>Hi, Florian,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, all the time. I&amp;#039;m hearing them this moment, now that you mention it. Often there are many layers of &amp;#034;sound&amp;#034; there, and one of my favorite things to do is take this layered sound and add in the tree frogs and cicadas from outside on a summer night. It is wonderful. I did this a lot in Equanimity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you hear ringing while running a hair dryer, however, that&amp;#039;s the devil. Run! &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/laugh.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jenny</description> <pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2014 03:29:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5582135</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-13T03:29:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5582068</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Dream Walker:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Gary Sanders:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;On my last retreat, where I was working with the jhanas specifically, that high pitched sound began to show me that I was hitting an absorbed state. Not distracting, just a signpost.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I hit 3rd jhana the sound would kick in..look for visual indicators for the 4th jhana. Thats how it played out for me...useful signposts.&lt;br /&gt;Good Luck,&lt;br /&gt;~D&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I&amp;#039;d get it arrising right before I went into 1st jhana....and I&amp;#039;m pretty sure it stayed all thru 2-4 too.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, I get a slight pressure sensation in my skull. Almost as if wearing a beanie or ski cap...but way more subtle. Any one get that?</description> <pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2014 02:27:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5582068</guid> <dc:creator>Gary Sanders</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-13T02:27:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5581378</link> <description>This website has some common tinnitus sounds that you can play for comparison and it gives the hertz : http://www.ata.org/sounds-of-tinnitus .  Tinnitus seems to be a fancy name for hearing weird monotonous sounds, they don&amp;#039;t know much about it and its been assumed that it is due to ear damage, but research suggests the origin of the sound is in the brain, not the ears.  It can be easy to assume that what happens in meditation is special and unique but I suspect that some of this stuff is common in the nonmeditating population as well.  Lots of people have all kinds of &amp;#039;weird&amp;#039; experiences outside of meditation but many are hesitant to talk about it for fear others will think they are crazy or exagerating. If science doesn&amp;#039;t understand something, they tend to give it a name and make it sound like they know about it, even when they know very little, like in the case of tinnitus.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2014 19:54:44 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5581378</guid> <dc:creator>Eva M Nie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-12T19:54:44Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5581083</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Gary Sanders:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;On my last retreat, where I was working with the jhanas specifically, that high pitched sound began to show me that I was hitting an absorbed state. Not distracting, just a signpost.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I hit 3rd jhana the sound would kick in..look for visual indicators for the 4th jhana. Thats how it played out for me...useful signposts.&lt;br /&gt;Good Luck,&lt;br /&gt;~D</description> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2014 18:04:56 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5581083</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-12T18:04:56Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5580203</link> <description>Ah, thank you for showing me, once again, I am not a special snow flake. And thank you all so much for this thread. On my last retreat, where I was working with the jhanas specifically, that high pitched sound began to show me that I was hitting an absorbed state. Not distracting, just a signpost. And my teacher didn&amp;#039;t have anything to offer me about it.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2014 13:14:55 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5580203</guid> <dc:creator>Gary Sanders</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-12T13:14:55Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5323744</link> <description>While doing more research, I came across this book by Ajahn Amaro:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;forestsanghapublications&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;viewBook&amp;#x2e;php&amp;#x3f;id&amp;#x3d;78&amp;#x26;ref&amp;#x3d;deb"&gt;Inner Listening&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve just started reading it, but it &amp;#039;sounds&amp;#039; promising :-)</description> <pubDate>Tue, 18 Mar 2014 22:10:15 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5323744</guid> <dc:creator>Small Steps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-18T22:10:15Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5316407</link> <description>Hi James,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;James Corrigan:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From my readings, the point about trying to hear with the right ear is to make you focus your attention on that side in order to occupy the left brain hemisphere where 95% of us have our speech and language center. By focusing strongly on that side, we shut down or reduce the normal internal chatter, making our concentration that much more absorbed in what is going on. We&amp;#039;re not really hearing with the right ear, because the Nada is internal and not an external sound. The increased audibility of the new tone may have more to do with your increasingly focused attention and absorption in the Nada tone your are hearing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is all new territory for me to explore, but I am inclined to agree. The new tone seemed to become known as concentration improved over time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;James Corrigan:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve never heard of &amp;#034;meditative tinnitus.&amp;#034; Is that a common occurrence? I wonder if it is just the Nada becoming apparent as concentration and absorption skills increase? I&amp;#039;d welcome any information about this!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I can&amp;#039;t speak to how common it is, but I did find some resources describing it on the good &amp;#039;ol Interwebs. If it is indeed related to what we are talking about, it is said to be a manifestation of the &amp;#039;divine ear, (Pali: dibba-sota). There are a few yogic practices that focus on it. &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;greatwesternvehicle&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;clairaudience&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;This&lt;/a&gt; is an interesting article about it by a (former?) DhO participant.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;James Corrigan:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It would be great if you could report back on what your experience is with this as your practice continues. (if you don&amp;#039;t mind me requesting that)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will definitely report back with any new developments. A cheeky thought arises every now and then that I should really give this a thorough investigation and see if there&amp;#039;s any measurable clairaudience to be cultivated. Perhaps if I can get a reliable, stable absorption, I&amp;#039;ll ask some friends to humor me in an experiment or three &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Sun, 16 Mar 2014 23:34:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5316407</guid> <dc:creator>Small Steps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-16T23:34:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5316331</link> <description>Hello, Small Steps! I&amp;#039;m glad you joined this discussion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Small Steps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;This discussion really speaks to me. I was diagnosed around age 10 with tinnitus, and it&amp;#039;s always just been something I&amp;#039;ve begrudgingly accepted. In recent years, it would occasionally be so bothersome as to interrupt my sleep and so I would view it with something of a negative slant. Most recently, however, in the past three or four months, I&amp;#039;ve been much more attuned to a new tone that has appeared. It is sometimes very apparent, and seems to be much more audible in the right ear.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From my readings, the point about trying to hear with the right ear is to make you focus your attention on that side in order to occupy the left brain hemisphere where 95% of us have our speech and language center. By focusing strongly on that side, we shut down or reduce the normal internal chatter, making our concentration that much more absorbed in what is going on. We&amp;#039;re not really hearing with the right ear, because the Nada is internal and not an external sound. The increased audibility of the new tone may have more to do with your increasingly focused attention and absorption in the Nada tone your are hearing. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Small Steps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Whether it is a manifestation of this &amp;#039;nada&amp;#039; sound, meditative tinnitus, or just a new evolution of the original diagnosis, I can&amp;#039;t say.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve never heard of &amp;#034;meditative tinnitus.&amp;#034; Is that a common occurrence? I wonder if it is just the Nada becoming apparent as concentration and absorption skills increase? I&amp;#039;d welcome any information about this!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Small Steps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I have noticed though, that as my concentration has developed over the years, I am able to get a little more absorbed into the original tones if I take them as the object of my concentration. The new tone, however, seems to have some more interesting qualities to it. During one sit, I used it as my object, and was immediately pulled into a very stable and deep absorption. I was so shocked by it, I immediately lost focus. The way I was &amp;#039;sucked into&amp;#039; the samadhi?/jhanic? state felt very much like the descriptions I&amp;#039;ve read of the first Jhana pulling a meditator in when there is a stable and significant nimitta available.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That &amp;#039;pulling into&amp;#039; characteristic is something that I also experience, and often it is accompanied by a strong palpation of my heart. This is actually a stumbling block for me at the moment, because the strength of the palpation (only one) is so strong it scares me, and like you mentioned, I often lose focus because of it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I find that the Nada is such a powerful support for meditation because of its nature... so much more powerful than using the breath.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Small Steps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;These experiences have completely transformed my relationship with tinnitus. Where I once had much trepidation around it, I now see it as a curious phenomena to be investigated. A new relationship waits to be formed.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It would be great if you could report back on what your experience is with this as your practice continues. (if you don&amp;#039;t mind me requesting that)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;James</description> <pubDate>Sun, 16 Mar 2014 23:02:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5316331</guid> <dc:creator>James Corrigan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-16T23:02:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5316296</link> <description>This discussion really speaks to me. I was diagnosed around age 10 with tinnitus, and it&amp;#039;s always just been something I&amp;#039;ve begrudgingly accepted. In recent years, it would occasionally be so bothersome as to interrupt my sleep and so I would view it with something of a negative slant. Most recently, however, in the past three or four months, I&amp;#039;ve been much more attuned to a new tone that has appeared. It is sometimes very apparent, and seems to be much more audible in the right ear. Whether it is a manifestation of this &amp;#039;nada&amp;#039; sound, meditative tinnitus, or just a new evolution of the original diagnosis, I can&amp;#039;t say.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have noticed though, that as my concentration has developed over the years, I am able to get a little more absorbed into the original tones if I take them as the object of my concentration. The new tone, however, seems to have some more interesting qualities to it. During one sit, I used it as my object, and was immediately pulled into a very stable and deep absorption. I was so shocked by it, I immediately lost focus. The way I was &amp;#039;sucked into&amp;#039; the samadhi?/jhanic? state felt very much like the descriptions I&amp;#039;ve read of the first Jhana pulling a meditator in when there is a stable and significant nimitta available.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;These experiences have completely transformed my relationship with tinnitus. Where I once had much trepidation around it, I now see it as a curious phenomena to be investigated. A new relationship waits to be formed.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 16 Mar 2014 22:22:54 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5316296</guid> <dc:creator>Small Steps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-16T22:22:54Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5292166</link> <description>Thank you very much James,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is nice find. I will read it next. At the moment I&amp;#039;m reading &amp;#034;the sound of silence&amp;#034; and listening to the &amp;#034;4th tower of Inverness&amp;#034;(spelling?) that was mentioned somewhere in this thread.&lt;br /&gt;Also about 2 days ago I think I hit stream entry. For a short moment I was aware that everything but my attention and the sound is impernament and therfore not-me. That only the attention is somehow me&amp;#039;ish, but more in the sense that it is always there. From that moment my concentration is oh so strong, as I only have to point my attention at something and it stays there.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Regards,&lt;br /&gt;Rafal</description> <pubDate>Thu, 13 Mar 2014 11:34:33 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5292166</guid> <dc:creator>Rafal K</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-13T11:34:33Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5288401</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Rafal K:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hello!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m also working for some time now with the sound as an object for concentration.&lt;br /&gt;I see myself as a beginer, but the sound I hear, doesn&amp;#039;t apear on either side. It is just somewhere inside (I never understood how in Nada Yoga they say to listen to the right ear).&lt;br /&gt;I also use it as a working day object, just to be mindful about it beeing &amp;#034;back there&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;From interesting things about it, I can &amp;#034;squeeze&amp;#034; it, but don&amp;#039;t really know how to describe that (this is probably taking me to a jahna state, I guess) - after I do that and stop, it flows out through whole of the body.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, I would love to see some more discussion about it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Love, &lt;br /&gt;Rafal&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rafal,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I found the following in &amp;#034;Nāda Yoga - The Science, Psychology &amp;amp; Philosophy of Anāhata Nāda Yoga&amp;#034; by Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;In reality, nāda is present everywhere, because it is beyond space and time. The frequency of nāda and our perception of its center of manifestation shift when our mind is silent. To silence the mind means to stop being the agent of the thinking mind and to watch the body and mind attentively, as a witness. Then we can follow the current of nāda from the ear to our whole head, to our entire body, then through the atmosphere to all of space, experiencing I-AM beyond the body, beyond the mind.&amp;#034; (pg 37)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, I feel that the reference to &amp;#034;witness&amp;#034; is misleading. That is only a very early stage.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the Surangama Sutra, the Bodhisattva, He Who Hears The Cries Of The World, who became enlightened using this technique, described it generally as (NB, &amp;#034;current of the sages&amp;#034; is the Anāhata Nāda):&lt;br /&gt;“I began with a practice based on the enlightened nature of hearing. First I redirected my hearing inward in order to enter the current of the sages. Then external sounds disappeared. With the direction of my hearing reversed and with sounds stilled, both sounds and silence ceased to arise. So it was that, as I gradually progressed, what I heard and my awareness of what I heard came to an end. Even when that state of mind in which everything had come to an end disappeared, I did not rest. My awareness and the objects of my awareness were emptied, and when that process of emptying my awareness was wholly complete, then even that emptying and what had been emptied vanished. Coming into being and ceasing to be themselves ceased to be. Then the ultimate stillness was revealed.”&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;and somewhat later, as he described his stages in detail:&lt;br /&gt;“Tenth, once sounds were so purified that they ceased being objects of perception, then the ear-faculty and its objects became completely interfused so that there was nothing that perceived and nothing that was perceived.”&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope this is of value to you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;James</description> <pubDate>Wed, 12 Mar 2014 20:56:59 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5288401</guid> <dc:creator>James Corrigan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-12T20:56:59Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5257032</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Florian Weps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Poetry seems like a great way to express it, but you seem to be dissatisfied with poetic expression. Why?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Language doesn&amp;#039;t contain meaning; if it did, then when you first heard someone speak a new language you would understand immediately. And, of course, if language contained meaning we would never misunderstand each other. I once asked Noam Chomsky, the renowned linguist, why he only focused on semantics and never the meaning of language. He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said: &amp;#034;Because no one has ever been able to adequately define the meaning of &amp;#034;meaning!&amp;#034; haha&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Poetry relies on poetic tropes to elicit a feeling in the audience; tropes are taken from the world around us, from our universal human feelings, etc., and as poets, we send them out hoping that they will strike a &amp;#039;chord&amp;#039; in the hearer. But what if the hearer doesn&amp;#039;t have that particular &amp;#039;chord&amp;#039;, whether it is a kind of experience, or a kind of insight, or a kind of enlightenment? How then are our poetic words going to resonate with them. Sure, perhaps they have a different &amp;#039;chord&amp;#039; that begins to resonate with our poetic words; but what does that have to do with what our meaning was? Perhaps this is the reason most poets refuse to explain what they meant by a particular poem...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Florian Weps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Prior Wisdom: every awakening is a private awakening. The Prior Wisdom helps by presenting concepts and words which have been used to communicate it. Thoughts?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would reply the same way here. &amp;#039;Concepts&amp;#039; are meaningless, even when they have a super-duper name given to them, unless, through self-experience we have come to an understanding of their &amp;#039;meaning&amp;#039; hahaha. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here: Sciomorphogenesis (a super-duper name IMHO &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/closed_eyes.gif" &gt; ) That, by the way, encapsulates, my entire understanding of reality and I&amp;#039;ve found it to be very coherent with the entire Tathāgatagarbha Buddhist doctrine as I have understood it. But that is my wisdom (potentially &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/big_grin.gif" &gt; ) and I don&amp;#039;t think it will really communicate anything to you. So, again in my opinion, this is the reason why wisdom is most often carried by someone to us, rather than &amp;#039;picked up&amp;#039; through concepts and names. I imagine it&amp;#039;s also why most of us meditate--to find out for ourselves.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Creation&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A Mind in which matter&lt;br /&gt;Not Matter in which mind&lt;br /&gt;Becomes, what only matter can be&lt;br /&gt;Oh no, matters not what mind brings&lt;br /&gt;For Mind is limitless matters&lt;br /&gt;And limitless minds&lt;br /&gt;Of all sorts &amp;#x2014; you, me, sitting under a tree&lt;br /&gt;A beautiful Summer day, naked&lt;br /&gt;Matters little, matters not, for matter is not&lt;br /&gt;Thought is that which matters in the Mind&lt;br /&gt;Literally&lt;br /&gt;Mind pervades nothing &amp;#x2014; no thing at all&lt;br /&gt;Yet no thing is not nothing&lt;br /&gt;Neither, not a trick of quelques mots&lt;br /&gt;Ni majuscule&lt;br /&gt;Something other, that which brings identity&lt;br /&gt;It is identity that matters within the Mind&lt;br /&gt;For what matter could be anonymous&lt;br /&gt;(Except in the dark minds of the confused)&lt;br /&gt;Even confusion Mind brings&lt;br /&gt;For how else is it possible to sing?&lt;br /&gt;All that matters is the matter which Mind sings&lt;br /&gt;As it silently sings: “mehr, mehr, mehr”&lt;br /&gt;Alone.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 06 Mar 2014 10:03:25 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5257032</guid> <dc:creator>James Corrigan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-06T10:03:25Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5257025</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;James Corrigan:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;So, to answer your question, I don&amp;#039;t disagree with your understanding, but I don&amp;#039;t like how you phrased that sentence :-)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yeah, you and me both. It&amp;#039;s something I noticed a couple of years ago - how when I try to express this kind of stuff, only garbled nonsense seems to come out. Trying to counter this by using careful language would result in more garbled nonsense. Have you watched a 3-4 year old trying to express something but lacking the language skills? It feels a lot like that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Poetry seems like a great way to express it, but you seem to be dissatisfied with poetic expression. Why?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Prior Wisdom: every awakening is a private awakening. The Prior Wisdom helps by presenting concepts and words which have been used to communicate it. Thoughts?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Thu, 06 Mar 2014 09:11:47 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5257025</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-06T09:11:47Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5253681</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Florian Weps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;James Corrigan:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Florian, before I respond, could you clarify for me if the sentence &amp;#034;The sound arises, awareness arises.&amp;#034; means two things arise independently or are linked in an &amp;#034;if ... then ...&amp;#034; relationship (either contemporaneously or sequentially forward or backward (former to latter or latter to former); or that they are equivalent and indistinguishable ways of referring to the same event?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;They are equivalent (but obviously distinguishable, they are separate words and concepts after all) ways of referring to the same state of affairs. &amp;#034;Event&amp;#034; doesn&amp;#039;t quite capture it because to me the word &amp;#034;event&amp;#034; has connotations of discreteness, &amp;#034;one-in-a-row-of-falling-dominoes being watched&amp;#034;, lacking the subtle sense of self-sufficiency, self-evidence, and unboundedness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hard to express. Let me know whether I was able to convey it intelligibly.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, I understand the sense you were expressing now. Thank you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will start with a self-disclosure, I spent thirty years designing software, an endeavor in which nothing can be overlooked or assumed, and then I returned to school to pursue a phd in philosophy and teach. However, I started meditating with the Anahata Nada (never knew it had a name until three months ago) when I was 5 or 6. It was a way of comforting myself after the death of my mother. I did that for about 10 years, until I was in high school and stopped. Unbeknown to me at the time, I had made great progress as a meditator, and it changed my life in non-destructive ways, but ways that were often dislocating. I returned to meditating about 15 years ago, and although I tried to do otherwise, the Anahata Nada had never left. That should be adequate warning ;-)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, I agree &amp;#034;event&amp;#034; is inadequate and carries a great deal of luggage with it. Your understanding is my own in that regard. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Keeping my response related to this type of insight meditation, working with the anahata nada undermines completely (at some point) the mistaken understanding that there is nature--not many natures; not one single nature; only apollophysis (an invented word of mine, literally meaning &amp;#034;not many nature&amp;#034;; but I prefer &amp;#034;not quantitative nature&amp;#034;). As you describe the &amp;#039;sound/awareness&amp;#039; understanding I asked you to clarify, which you indicated had a subtle sense of self-sufficiency, self-evidence, and unboundedness, I see &amp;#034;Nature.&amp;#034; But I add to it &amp;#034;necessary.&amp;#034; That is, Nature is that which is non-contingent. (You can call &amp;#039;it&amp;#039; anything you like, btw; I have called it &amp;#034;Omnific Awareness&amp;#034;; but &amp;#034;Nature&amp;#034; is just fine.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nature is &amp;#034;not quantitative&amp;#034; because it is unbounded. It is real because it is evidenced by everything (that manifests, etc.). It is self-sufficient because there is nothing &amp;#039;beside&amp;#039; it. And this is important. &amp;#039;Everything&amp;#039; is nothing other than the &amp;#039;activity&amp;#039; of Nature. (And it is necessary because there is something rather than nothing, and that cannot be contingent, otherwise there would need to be something other upon which &amp;#039;Nature&amp;#039; is contingent.) &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The reason why &amp;#039;everything&amp;#039; is nothing other than the &amp;#039;activity&amp;#039; of Nature is because there is nothing other than Nature. So what &amp;#039;sound&amp;#039; could there be separate from &amp;#039;awareness&amp;#039;. Distinguishable, sure. Separate? Impossible.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But here&amp;#039;s the difficulty for us: &amp;#034;The sound arises, awareness arises.&amp;#034; And it seems that way. But the Anahata Nada confronts us, when we work with it and are insightful about what we are meditating on, with the reality of the sound not arising, just being. Neither does an awareness of the sound arise. You suddenly notice that the Anahata Nada (which takes many different forms, the more powerful they are, the more subtle and unbounded they are) is (always) already. I know that is awkward language and I&amp;#039;m not trying to destabilize anyone. It&amp;#039;s just a difficult problem: to find a way, other than poetically, to describe what can&amp;#039;t be described. But let me continue: the sudden realization is that awareness of the Anahata Nada is also (always) already. You&amp;#039;re not &amp;#039;noticing&amp;#039; something; you are &amp;#039;unnoticing&amp;#039; something--the vivisected, bounded, and perhaps conceptual-based, understanding of some &amp;#039;thing&amp;#039;, regardless of whether it is a &amp;#039;sound&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;me&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;the pretty girl&amp;#039;, etc. And in its place, there is only the activity of Nature--it&amp;#039;s (pick your favorite word: &amp;#034;The Word,&amp;#034; &amp;#034;Vibrations,&amp;#034; &amp;#034;Dance,&amp;#034; etc.) And this is why this technique is said to be the method that all Buddhas have used to become enlightened in the absence of the Buddha Dharma (i.e. they are Solitary Enlightened Ones who reach Buddha enlightenment). All other techniques use supports that are in some way contingent on Buddha Dharma (prior Wisdom?) to leap over the contingent nature. As Manjushri puts it in his summary in the Surangama Sutra:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;“Breath enters in the nostrils, then goes out again; however&lt;br /&gt;Between each in-breath and each out-breath, there must be a pause.&lt;br /&gt;The breath is discontinuous; how could the nose&lt;br /&gt;Guide beings toward a breakthrough to enlightenment?”&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Excerpt From: A New Translation, Buddhist Text Translation Society. “The Surangama Sutra.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/8g0oV.l&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, to answer your question, I don&amp;#039;t disagree with your understanding, but I don&amp;#039;t like how you phrased that sentence :-)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;James</description> <pubDate>Tue, 04 Mar 2014 11:28:46 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5253681</guid> <dc:creator>James Corrigan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-04T11:28:46Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5253591</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;James Corrigan:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Florian, before I respond, could you clarify for me if the sentence &amp;#034;The sound arises, awareness arises.&amp;#034; means two things arise independently or are linked in an &amp;#034;if ... then ...&amp;#034; relationship (either contemporaneously or sequentially forward or backward (former to latter or latter to former); or that they are equivalent and indistinguishable ways of referring to the same event?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;They are equivalent (but obviously distinguishable, they are separate words and concepts after all) ways of referring to the same state of affairs. &amp;#034;Event&amp;#034; doesn&amp;#039;t quite capture it because to me the word &amp;#034;event&amp;#034; has connotations of discreteness, &amp;#034;one-in-a-row-of-falling-dominoes being watched&amp;#034;, lacking the subtle sense of self-sufficiency, self-evidence, and unboundedness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hard to express. Let me know whether I was able to convey it intelligibly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for the references. I&amp;#039;m still reading the 8000-Verse Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. So now I know what&amp;#039;s next on my reading list &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Tue, 04 Mar 2014 09:59:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5253591</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-04T09:59:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5253203</link> <description>Cool stuff...thanks for posting...always wondered about the &amp;#034;sound&amp;#034;</description> <pubDate>Tue, 04 Mar 2014 01:31:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5253203</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-04T01:31:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5252720</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Florian Weps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Since you&amp;#039;re asking: Currently, I don&amp;#039;t see much of a difference at all between awareness and awareness-of, i.e. awareness of the sound and the sound itself is pretty much the same thing. The sound arises, awareness arises. Semantic difference only.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Your take?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Florian, before I respond, could you clarify for me if the sentence &amp;#034;The sound arises, awareness arises.&amp;#034; means two things arise independently or are linked in an &amp;#034;if ... then ...&amp;#034; relationship (either contemporaneously or sequentially forward or backward (former to latter or latter to former); or that they are equivalent and indistinguishable ways of referring to the same event? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Florian Weps:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Also, I wasn&amp;#039;t aware there were tradidional texts dealing with this phenomenon. Would you recommend any particular edition, or translation? Extra bonus points if available online &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Most of the sources of written info I&amp;#039;ve found have been Yoga texts, like the &amp;#034;The Hatha Yoga Pradipika&amp;#034; chapter “On Samādhi&amp;#034; which talks about how to work with the Anāhata Nāda in much detail. See: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/hyp/hyp06.htm&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On the seeming importance of the practice in some forms of Buddhism, see the Surangama Sutra. It states that this is how all Buddhas reach enlightenment, because all other methods, which are just as good otherwise, require the Buddha&amp;#039;s insights to succeed (and explains in what way they are somewhat less attractive, which I found terribly insightful regardless of the source). There is a pdf with voluminous commentary on all the 8 volumes of the sutra, so much as to render them almost unfollowable; but here is the relevant volume: http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/Shurangama/ps.ss.02.v5.020526.screen.pdf &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The most applicable sections are &amp;#034;Twenty-five Means to Enlightenment&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;Manjushri Selects the Organ of Entry.&amp;#034; But if you want to understand the setting and the intent of the sutra, you have to read all of it, otherwise you don&amp;#039;t quite know what the reason is for the presentations by the 25 bodhisattvas of their means to enlightenment and why Manjushri selects one of them for Ananada, Buddha Sakyamuni&amp;#039;s cousin.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, there is a new edition, also by the Buddhist Text Translation Society, that I highly recommend because of its much clearer presentation and adequate, but much sparser commentary; but you have to buy it. I bought it on iTunes: &lt;br /&gt;A New Translation by Buddhist Text Translation Society. “The Surangama Sutra.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/8g0oV.l&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Most of the sources of written info I&amp;#039;ve found have been Yoga texts, like the &amp;#034;The Hatha Yoga Pradipika&amp;#034; chapter “On Samādhi&amp;#034; which talks about how to work with the Anāhata Nāda in much detail. See: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/hyp/hyp06.htm&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is also (originally) described in the Nada-Bindu Upanishad: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/tmu/tmu31.htm#fr_239&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a few more current books on the subject, such as “The Law of Attention” by Edward Salim Michael (iBooks. https://itun.es/us/chRty.l )</description> <pubDate>Mon, 03 Mar 2014 21:36:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5252720</guid> <dc:creator>James Corrigan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-03T21:36:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5251179</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;James Corrigan:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I agree with you that if I could move the sounds around with my attention, then they would be, given their other characteristics, internal. But as I have found, they are presented in reference to my attention, so that &amp;#039;left&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;right&amp;#039; mean, roughly, on the left side of my attentional field or point of focus, or on the right side.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All right, I originally misunderstood your description. Thanks for the clarification.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since you&amp;#039;re asking: Currently, I don&amp;#039;t see much of a difference at all between awareness and awareness-of, i.e. awareness of the sound and the sound itself is pretty much the same thing. The sound arises, awareness arises. Semantic difference only.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Your take?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, I wasn&amp;#039;t aware there were tradidional texts dealing with this phenomenon. Would you recommend any particular edition, or translation? Extra bonus points if available online &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Mon, 03 Mar 2014 10:18:54 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5251179</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-03T10:18:54Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5244536</link> <description>I should add: I have found it useful to use earplugs--those simple foam plugs that can be found in most pharmacies--to enable awareness of the subtler sounds. I don&amp;#039;t have a cave on a mountaintop to sit in, so the earplugs help to block out noise. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In one yoga text I found they presented a sitting position in front of a low table that you could put your elbows on and place your thumbs in your ears; but I find the earplugs a bit more comfortable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And yes, once I plug up my ears, I hear the sound of my blood flowing then and my heart beating; but they are clearly physical and distinguished from the Anahata Nada.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 01 Mar 2014 12:41:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5244536</guid> <dc:creator>James Corrigan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-01T12:41:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5244531</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel F Gurzynski:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I think there is something about listening that is different as far as mental states. Years ago when I was very into ham radio and using morse code at high speed, I would get into very strong concentration states just trying to listen thru noise or static and not get in the way of my brain converting dots and dashes to a message. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Initially the Anahata Nada is subdued and simple. But the more you work with it, the more complex and powerful it becomes. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Most texts that I have found that speak about the Anahata Nada give specific sounds that you will hear, and those descriptions go back to and are found in the Nada-Bindu Upanishad. But I don&amp;#039;t hear the sounds of various ancient Indian musical instruments. Initially I heard &amp;#039;tones&amp;#039; and those &amp;#039;tones&amp;#039; progressed to metallic squeals, and the closest match I&amp;#039;ve found has been a recording of an elevated train in Queens, New York going around a very tight turn. The &amp;#039;squeals&amp;#039; I &amp;#039;hear&amp;#039; are that strong, but block absolutely no external sound and cause absolutely no discomfort.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And the sole technique that I have discovered that truly progresses this practice is to get into &amp;#034;very strong concentration states just trying to listen thru&amp;#034; the squeals for the ever more subtle sounds that present themselves. So the effect that you spoke of Daniel is very much an appropriate analogy of the power of hearing as a support for strong concentration states. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Above the cacophony of squeals (of different pitches, amplitudes, arising from different attentional quadrants, etc.), I find a &amp;#039;layer&amp;#039; of moving/falling water that seems to be everywhere. Sometimes, it sounds like a very low waterfall with a very clean sound; at other times it sounds more like a gurgling stream with many obstructions. I have discovered that the obstructions seem to be related to how &amp;#039;at peace&amp;#039; my feelings are; how non-judgmental I am in response to the sit--clear heart; clear water. Note that I am distinguishing between feelings and emotions--thus I can talk about how it feels to be angry; or how it feels to be in love; etc. Emotions affect concentration in my experience. Feelings do not, but are a judgmental attitude we have to what we are experiencing (while concentrating). However, the presence of feelings do seem to &amp;#039;stir up the water&amp;#039; that I &amp;#039;hear&amp;#039;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Continuing: now, I hear a Tibetan singing bowl sound. I have been working with it for a short time. At first it was very difficult to hold onto. Now it overwhelms everything else and is accompanied by very powerful physical effects and a well-defined state of samadhi. There is also a &amp;#039;wind in a cave&amp;#039; sound that comes at times, and various lower frequency rumbles, all very faint. In my youth, I would come upon &amp;#039;whispering of human voices&amp;#039; and I have found a reference to that as one of the &amp;#039;advanced&amp;#039; sounds that one will hear. According to the Surangama Sutra, this practice gives one the power to hear conversations everywhere.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The trick with this as a meditation support is to realize the &amp;#039;sounds&amp;#039; presence and concentrate on them--and to note that they are always already there. That is to say, they don&amp;#039;t come into being and pass away; rather, they are always already there when you suddenly notice their presence. They present themselves to you, but there is always an &amp;#039;already present&amp;#039; nature to the experience. If you don&amp;#039;t focus on them, they often recede into the distance until they are swallowed up; but they never end. What comes into being and passes away is your consciousness of them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How you characterize the qualities of the &amp;#039;sounds&amp;#039; you &amp;#039;hear&amp;#039; is very culturally-biased and perhaps even personally subjective. I think this is because it is difficult to &amp;#039;objectively&amp;#039; characterize them because they really aren&amp;#039;t sounds at all. But that is my personal understanding. At times in my practice now, their quality changes from a &amp;#039;sound&amp;#039; &amp;#039;heard&amp;#039; to something that is &amp;#039;being done&amp;#039;. Again, it&amp;#039;s hard to describe, but I would phrase it as the difference between watching a runner and running yourself. The perspective changes completely.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 01 Mar 2014 12:35:04 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5244531</guid> <dc:creator>James Corrigan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-01T12:35:04Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5241846</link> <description>I think there is something about listening that is different as far as mental states. Years ago when I was very into ham radio and using morse code at high speed, I would get into very strong concentration states just trying to listen thru noise or static and not get in the way of my brain converting dots and dashes to a message. &lt;br /&gt;Very similiar in some ways to Kenneth Folks mahamudra practice of listening for &amp;#039;ships in the harbor&amp;#039; even if you could in no way physically hear them. Anyone else notice this?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Rafal K:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hello!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m also working for some time now with the sound as an object for concentration.&lt;br /&gt;I see myself as a beginer, but the sound I hear, doesn&amp;#039;t apear on either side. It is just somewhere inside (I never understood how in Nada Yoga they say to listen to the right ear).&lt;br /&gt;I also use it as a working day object, just to be mindful about it beeing &amp;#034;back there&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;From interesting things about it, I can &amp;#034;squeeze&amp;#034; it, but don&amp;#039;t really know how to describe that (this is probably taking me to a jahna state, I guess) - after I do that and stop, it flows out through whole of the body.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, I would love to see some more discussion about it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Love, &lt;br /&gt;Rafal&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 28 Feb 2014 14:48:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5241846</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel F Gurzynski</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-28T14:48:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5241644</link> <description>Hello!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m also working for some time now with the sound as an object for concentration.&lt;br /&gt;I see myself as a beginer, but the sound I hear, doesn&amp;#039;t apear on either side. It is just somewhere inside (I never understood how in Nada Yoga they say to listen to the right ear).&lt;br /&gt;I also use it as a working day object, just to be mindful about it beeing &amp;#034;back there&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;From interesting things about it, I can &amp;#034;squeeze&amp;#034; it, but don&amp;#039;t really know how to describe that (this is probably taking me to a jahna state, I guess) - after I do that and stop, it flows out through whole of the body.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, I would love to see some more discussion about it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Love, &lt;br /&gt;Rafal</description> <pubDate>Fri, 28 Feb 2014 11:14:48 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5241644</guid> <dc:creator>Rafal K</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-28T11:14:48Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5240001</link> <description>Thank you for the welcome, Florian.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I agree with you that if I could move the sounds around with my attention, then they would be, given their other characteristics, internal. But as I have found, they are presented in reference to my attention, so that &amp;#039;left&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;right&amp;#039; mean, roughly, on the left side of my attentional field or point of focus, or on the right side.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Normally, we attend to where our head is pointing, so, left and right correspond with the left and right side of my head and by habit to my brain; but if I am saying that the sounds are presented in reference to my attention and not my head, then the question is: &amp;#034;So, where is the attention arising from?&amp;#034; If you want to try to stick it in your head, then your criticism is well-founded.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks again for the welcome.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 27 Feb 2014 23:38:53 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5240001</guid> <dc:creator>James Corrigan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-27T23:38:53Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5239831</link> <description>Hi James&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;welcome to the DhO!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s an nice summary you present there.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Your points about the sound not being &amp;#034;internal&amp;#034; are interesting but not convincing to me, unless by &amp;#034;internal&amp;#034; you mean something other than &amp;#034;subjective&amp;#034;. If I can move it using my attention, then it is highly subjective.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Thu, 27 Feb 2014 22:28:27 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5239831</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-27T22:28:27Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Nada" sound</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5239052</link> <description>I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to share some conclusions that I have come to about the &amp;#039;Anahata Nada&amp;#039;. I practice insight meditation using the Anāhata Nāda as support (literally &amp;#034;unstuck sound&amp;#034; which is the immanent vibrations of one&amp;#039;s true nature). My practice is known as Nāda Yoga in Hindu traditions, and is described in the Surangama (Indestructible) Sutra as &amp;#034;turning your hearing round to listen to your genuine true nature.&amp;#034; By the way, that Sutra, predominant in the Ch&amp;#039;an Buddhist tradition, specifies this technique as surpassing all other methods: &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;“I bow now in respect to all the Buddhas, and I bow&lt;br /&gt;To all their Dharma-treasuries and to the marvelous ones&lt;br /&gt;Who&amp;#039;ve put an end to outflows. And may beings of the future&lt;br /&gt;Be empowered so that they will have no doubts&lt;br /&gt;That this one method is the most accessible.”&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;“It is the easiest way to reach enlightenment.&lt;br /&gt;It is the teaching most appropriate&lt;br /&gt;For Ānanda and for the beings drowning&lt;br /&gt;In the Dharma&amp;#039;s ending-time. They only need&lt;br /&gt;This practice of the faculty of hearing&lt;br /&gt;For them to break through to enlightenment,&lt;br /&gt;For it surpasses all the other methods.&lt;br /&gt;It is the genuine path to the true mind.”&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Excerpt From: A New Translation Buddhist Text Translation Society. “The Surangama Sutra.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/8g0oV.l&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My Notes are attached as a pdf.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 27 Feb 2014 17:30:48 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5239052</guid> <dc:creator>James Corrigan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-27T17:30:48Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Mushrooms in Vancouver, Canada</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=3573596</link> <description>Hi James,&lt;br /&gt;In Vancouver Satipatthana society (http://www.satipatthana.ca) runs a Dharma Lab on Wednesdays where Sayar Miat used to teach and now Sean Pritchard (U Vansa) teaches. They teach in Mahasi tradition: very practical and gives good results.&lt;br /&gt;Hope it help,&lt;br /&gt;Radim</description> <pubDate>Thu, 04 Oct 2012 21:39:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=3573596</guid> <dc:creator>Radim .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2012-10-04T21:39:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The physics of Karma</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=3294359</link> <description>Here&amp;#039;s my take. You&amp;#039;ll find it a lot more common sense and pleasant than the religious views. You know everything that is said by the old masters? It&amp;#039;s quite possible that it&amp;#039;s all bullshit.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When you do something hurtful and you&amp;#039;re aware of it, you feel guilt. Guilt = fear of punishment by God. So we think &amp;#034;ok I&amp;#039;ll get in first and punish myself before God does&amp;#034;. So we hold the fear, and the fear attracts the thing feared.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The solution is &lt;strong&gt;not &lt;/strong&gt;to say &amp;#034;don&amp;#039;t do bad things to others&amp;#034;. That&amp;#039;s for children. The solution is to say &amp;#034;when you come to a point where the action you&amp;#039;re contemplating is likely to cause harm, you&amp;#039;re acting out of fear&amp;#034;. Then think &amp;#034;what am I fearing?&amp;#034;. Then don&amp;#039;t fear it. Then the impulse for the &amp;#034;bad&amp;#034; action goes away.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:29:23 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=3294359</guid> <dc:creator>C C C</dc:creator> <dc:date>2012-07-13T02:29:23Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Goenka terminology and DO terminolgy</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=435771</link> <description>Lena: Seems like equanimity to me: during the equanimity stages, the hard-core suffering tones down, and I am left in a kind of dumb state with slippery attention. I got in and out of equanimity many times before stream-entry. To go from equanimity to stream-entry, you make your attention wider and wider and wider (include space, include the whole body at once, see everything appear and disappear at once), and then perceive the three characteristics in the whole wide field of attention all at once, repeatedly, with no strain. Eventually this happens by itself, and then you just loosen up, let go, and &lt;em&gt;bzzt&lt;/em&gt;, nirvana. It will feel &amp;#034;right.&amp;#034;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:11:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=435771</guid> <dc:creator>Bruno Loff</dc:creator> <dc:date>2010-04-16T13:11:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Goenka terminology and DO terminolgy</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=435751</link> <description>I am desperately trying to figure out, at least approximately, where I might be on the map, and am especially keen know whether I have yet to enter the Dark Night. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Vince suggests that dissolution is a sign of the first stage of Dark Night. I am pretty certain that I haven&amp;#039;t yet experienced total, full body dissolution/ bhanga. Does this mean that I have very likely not yet entered the Dark Night?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:14:36 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=435751</guid> <dc:creator>Aziz Solomon</dc:creator> <dc:date>2010-04-16T12:14:36Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Dream Yoga and visualisation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=257663</link> <description>Thanks for all the help and insight everyone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m trying to catch up with old posts now, since everything&amp;#039;s switched from the old site. I&amp;#039;ve not been getting notifications anymore, so I kind of lost track of DO, which is a shame.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think I was wondering what to do with it mostly.&lt;br /&gt;I got a couple of books, though I&amp;#039;ll look at getting Stephen LaBerge&amp;#039;s book as well, thanks for the info. Just need to save up for it.&lt;br /&gt;I think I&amp;#039;ve not been serious enough about my Buddhism.&lt;br /&gt;I seem to just know a lot of things subconsciously, that I&amp;#039;ve never been taught, or studied, and I should take advantage of that, and not just pootle along doing next to nothing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have a weird feeling though, it&amp;#039;s like I know I&amp;#039;m not meant to be enlightened in this life. And that puts me off learning things, like I worry I&amp;#039;ll learn too much. I don&amp;#039;t understand it at all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But I&amp;#039;m going to try and practice some of this Dream Yoga stuff, and see where it gets me :-)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nicola&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Djon Ma</description> <pubDate>Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:34:13 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=257663</guid> <dc:creator>Nicola Joanne Dunn</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-11-21T16:34:13Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>How do we distinguish kamma making from resultant kamma?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=97748</link> <description>Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m splitting this discussion off from a subject that awouldbehipster/Jackson initiated in the &amp;#034;Is Non-duality Amoral Thread&amp;#034; because it is basically OT there but I think it would be a useful subject for serious consideration.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To get the ball rolling...&lt;br /&gt;Imho, resultant kamma is sensation of the six kinds or whatever sort that is purely passive, purely experiential and unbidden. Kamma making, again imho, is generated intentionally, be it in the form of mind, body or combined mind &amp;amp; body action.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:24:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=97748</guid> <dc:creator>triple think</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-07-04T12:24:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: weak or strong defilements</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89267</link> <description>Hi Simone,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;d like to suggest that perhaps even diagnostics can be (and usually are) theoretical.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Which commentary did you get these ideas from?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jackson</description> <pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2009 13:08:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89267</guid> <dc:creator>Jackson Wilshire</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-21T13:08:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: weak or strong defilements</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89264</link> <description>Hi Simone,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Trent&amp;#039;s pointer was to pp. 119ff and 272ff respectively, of the PDF edition of Daniel&amp;#039;s book &amp;#034;Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha&amp;#034;, (download here: http://www.interactivebuddha.com/mctb.shtml )&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m uncertain actually whether you&amp;#039;ve read the book and find it to contain hypothesis and speculation, or whether Tren&amp;#039;ts reference was too oblique.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Either way, it would be great if you could tell us more about what you find disappointing. My first reply to your initial post was really far out, mainly because I didn&amp;#039;t appreciate which angle you were coming from.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2009 12:24:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89264</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-21T12:24:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What to do with run of the mill fear and disillusion?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89239</link> <description>3 - Yup, I&amp;#039;m trying to do the mahasi way. I think I need to get my precision and speed up a bit so I can catch the fear and whatnot. I tried making a firm resolution to &amp;#034;note as accuratly and quickly as possible for the whole meditation period&amp;#034; this morning and that seemed to keep me from bolting from my seat. Back to the basics for me, I think.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for the walking suggestion! Worse comes to worse I can turn bolting from the cushion into walking if I catch it. I havn&amp;#039;t given walking much of a chance, but it seems pretty full of stuff to pay attention to. The coffee totally mixes it up too because you&amp;#039;ll go from noting one set of notables to another and have to pay close attention.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks again, it&amp;#039;s awesome to have some encouragement to keep it up!&lt;br /&gt;Sorry for the brain dump &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/smile.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nick</description> <pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2009 11:27:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89239</guid> <dc:creator>Nicholas Marchi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-21T11:27:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What to do with run of the mill fear and disillusion?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89236</link> <description>Thanks for the encouragment!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1 - I think it was a moment where I went from &amp;#034;Of course it will be hard.&amp;#034; to &amp;#034;Oh Sh*T, this is hard!&amp;#034; and it kinda took me by suprise.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2- The daylong was a beginners sort of thing where we did 30 minute intervals of sitting and walking from 9 -5, which was the longest period I&amp;#039;ve done anything for. Definitly alot of frustration and expectations during the first 1/2 of the day, but during the second half of the day there was a period of walking where I felt like I was really just noting stuff and leaving it alone, which made it more obvious that previously I was clubbing stuff I found distracting out of the way with the noting.&lt;br /&gt;Id say that my speed and accuracy improved quite a bit over the course of the day, as I was noting things come up that I had never noticed before, and I was noting closer to when they occured rather than after the fact. Part of that could also be that there were people around, and people come with a whole slew of things to note.&lt;br /&gt;Also, at lunch, there was a good instruction to &amp;#034;Try to really notice taste. How big is it? How long is it? Where is it?...&amp;#034; which I hadn&amp;#039;t considered before. At the time I was able to note that taste was a series of discontinuous, speedy pinpricks of sensation in the toungue(maybe) as well as accompanying &amp;#034;taste&amp;#034;, each interspersed with tiny blips of sound of chewing, feeling of chewing, and all sorts of other stuff. I hadn&amp;#039;t thought to use food in this way before so it was totally interesting.&lt;br /&gt;(cont.)</description> <pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2009 11:22:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89236</guid> <dc:creator>Nicholas Marchi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-21T11:22:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What to do with run of the mill fear and disillusion?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89233</link> <description>hi nick,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1- yeah its a lot of effort. you&amp;#039;ll get used to it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2- what was your daylong retreat like? what happened?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3- presuming you are following the mahasi method, you should be verbally noting in your mind. those moments of free floating fear, distraction, and disillusionment are golden opportunities, regardless of where you are on the maps. dont miss them, stay on them, and that means note like crazy. label it and move on. all the way to ordering pizza if you have to, but for the sake of your concentration it is *probably* better that you remain seated or in formal body usage (like walking back and forth) or whatever.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;i have a friend who taught himself to do walking meditation by having a cup of coffee to sip from waiting for him at every round. hearing about that made my day and i&amp;#039;ll pass the technique on to you.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2009 07:58:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89233</guid> <dc:creator>tarin greco</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-21T07:58:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: weak or strong defilements</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89261</link> <description>Author: SimoneRühle&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am rather disappointed. The answers look like mere hypothesis and not experienced materials, as could be expected on this forum of so many highly realized people...&lt;br /&gt;A pointer to a book maybe helpful if there would be a page number</description> <pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2009 06:08:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89261</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-21T06:08:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>What to do with run of the mill fear and disillusion?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89229</link> <description>Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As opposed to Dissolution, that is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I went from a long (for me) gung-ho period of much more intense daily practice than I&amp;#039;ve previously engaged in to a daylong retreat where I had the pleasure of running into some of the expectations I appear to have been carrying around, as well as the idea that, if it took that much effort to try to truely commit to a full day of practice (and I came out the door feeling like I had been mentally beat up,) then to describe the effort require to make actuall progress as &amp;#034;thoroughly ass-kicking&amp;#034; might be insufficient.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At this point I havn&amp;#039;t manage to practice well in days. I&amp;#039;ve got some on and off free floating fear that I havn&amp;#039;t been able to notice when sitting, and often 1/4 into practice I&amp;#039;ll find myself staring out a window, or standing in the kitchen with a vague reccolection of a &amp;#034;what&amp;#039;s the point&amp;#034; floating by that I didn&amp;#039;t manage to notice in time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I suppose the question is: What to do?&lt;br /&gt;And I suppose the answer is: Just keep trying and see if I can notice the fear and disallusionment when it arrises and see what it&amp;#039;s actually composed of.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That being said, any advice on this kind of thing? Sneaky stuff that gets you off the cushion before you can notice it? Or team attacks where you catch part of what arrises, but the rest sneaks by and suddenly you&amp;#039;re on the phone ordering a pizza?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks!&lt;br /&gt;Nick</description> <pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2009 11:44:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89229</guid> <dc:creator>Nicholas Marchi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-20T11:44:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Counting sensations, telling mental sensations from physical</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89072</link> <description>Author: understandingcat&lt;br /&gt;Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi everyone!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In his book Daniel recommends counting the number of sensations the meditator experinces per second, noting which were mental and which were physical.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) When I experience a sensation in the body - say heat - it is a physical one, right? The second I make a mental note of it, it also becomes a mental sensation as well, or? Here I seem to have difficulty saying which one is which and since it seems to be of importance to tell one type from another I would appreciate any help on this one. Is not bringing the sensation into the light of consciousness automatically makes it into a mental one?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) Often I seem to be noticing lots of sensations AT ONCE. They are ll there, sort of passing through me. Trying to count them brings the amount to only 2-3 or even fewer per second. It seems that also the quality of the perception is influenced as I bring the light of consioicness onto them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wonder if this is some internal resistance I am experiencing because in a way this wave of sensations can be perceived as more pleasurable and easier to stay with than &amp;#034;breaking things down&amp;#034;, not as much &amp;#034;work&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Has anyone had similar difficulties? Thanks in advance!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Gassho,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Irina</description> <pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2009 04:01:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89072</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-20T04:01:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Advaita vs Buddhism</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89047</link> <description>This has been debated like nuts around here. I think the common consensus is that &amp;#034;both are good and both lead to pretty much the same thing, just do it and find out for yourself.&amp;#034; Personally I have used both buddhist and advaitist techniques and found both to be of great for various reasons, some of which overlap.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2009 17:38:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89047</guid> <dc:creator>Trent S. H.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-19T17:38:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Advaita vs Buddhism</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89043</link> <description>Author: Crazywisdom&lt;br /&gt;Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is a thread over at thetaobums.com were someone is claiming strongly that only Buddhism with it`s doctrine of dependent origination alows one to reach the highest stage of enlightenment. Can any of you with actual experience of the territory of enlightenment comment on this?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.thetaobums.com/Advaita-Vedanta-vs-Buddhism-t10041.html</description> <pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2009 12:54:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89043</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-19T12:54:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Integrative Body-Mind training (IBMT)</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88981</link> <description>Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/552538/&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Chinese researchers have unlocked the mechanism of an emerging mind-body technique that produces measurable changes in attention and stress reduction in just five days of practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The practice -- integrative body-mind training (IBMT) -- was adapted from traditional Chinese medicine in the 1990s in China, where it is practiced by thousands of people. It is now being taught to undergraduates involved in research on the method at the University of Oregon.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In October 2007, researchers led by visiting UO professor Yi-Yuan Tang and UO psychologist Michael Posner documented in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences that doing IBMT prior to a mental math test led to low levels of the stress hormone cortisol among Chinese students. The experimental group also showed lower levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue than students in a relaxation control group.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Audio clips available at: http://comm.uoregon.edu/archive/news-release/2009/5/body-and-mind-and-deep-meditation&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;UO psychology department: http://psychweb.uoregon.edu</description> <pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2009 10:35:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88981</guid> <dc:creator>Robert Daron Larson</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-19T10:35:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Does experience track maps always or only sometimes?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88978</link> <description>Author: sean2.0&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cont&amp;#039;d&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, sitting started to get a lot more interesting. These days, my sitting usually starts with a few slow breaths, allowing my attention to settle on whatever it experiences, usually starting with the breath at the nostrils. Within a couple of minutes, the twitches in fingertips and toes start. Usually (but not always) a few more minutes, and the twitches spread to my shoulders and spine, sometimes with what I think of as kundalini -- energy/shudder/surger running from tailbone along my spine to my shoulders. Sometimes it gets hard to hold open the noticing and sometimes the mind gets lost in thinking about the experience, but the physical sensations usually bring the mind back to the noticing practice pretty quickly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sometimes, as happened a couple of days ago, the buzzing/twitching/etc. subsides quite suddenly, and there is a kind of space and quiet. On one occasion last week, &amp;#034;normal&amp;#034; perceptions then re-started, but they seemed to do so only on the periphery of my awareness -- the center seemed void/empty/potential, if that makes any sense. I hadn&amp;#039;t previously thought of awareness or perception having a shape, but it seemed to have, at least, a center and a periphery.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This morning was a more &amp;#039;typical&amp;#039; buzzing/twitching/kundalini experience. The physical sensation compares to driving fast down a gravel road. But this time, it occurred to me to try to perceive each twitch-perception individually, and then to perceive their individual arising and subsiding. I&amp;#039;m not sure if that&amp;#039;s a productive approach, but it did seem to be possible to perceive the sensations more acutely than I&amp;#039;m currently doing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Any suggestions would be more than welcome.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2009 08:52:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88978</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-19T08:52:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Does experience track maps always or only sometimes?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88975</link> <description>Author: sean2.0&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks to all for your responses and thoughts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My life (both before and after starting meditation) has been characterized by relatively brief moments (seconds or minutes) of heightened perception or understanding or experience that seem scattered across an otherwise pretty typical life. I&amp;#039;ve generally thought of them as pointers toward a path that has led me to where I find myself now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Where am I today? As I noted above, for a number of months, I consistently practiced meditation, noticing thoughts and sensations arising and subsiding, naming them as I noticed them. It was all pretty placid, though it was a bit alarming to see how readily my mind wandered from here to there to god-only-knows-where. It was a useful practice that led to a new experience of lightness in my daily life, even to periods when normal existence seemed a bit transparent -- like I could see through the experience to the awareness of the experience. So when I first read Daniel&amp;#039;s book and he mentioned the possiblity of noticing five or ten or twenty things per second, I thought, &amp;#034;No way -- that&amp;#039;s impossible. You can&amp;#039;t perceive things that fast.&amp;#034; After a couple of days of so thinking, it occurred to me that even though I couldn&amp;#039;t perceive things *that* fast, I could probably notice things more rapidly than my usual placid pace.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since then, I&amp;#039;ve moved (blessedly) out of the constant back/neck pain experience I had lived in for months and months of my meditation practice. It seems that the more rapidly I began noticing sensations, the more sensations there were to notice. Tiny twitches began to occur in my finger tips and toes. As I tried to bring my noticing attention to those perceptions, they multiplied and amplified.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2009 08:39:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88975</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-19T08:39:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88835</link> <description>Shokolah,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I understand what you are saying and have felt that way at times too. I then recognized it to be a form of craving, insisting that reality meet my expectations. In an interdependent universe, everything unfolds as it does due to a myriad of causes and conditions. This situation provides you with an opportunity to witness that firsthand. Furthermore, If they&amp;#039;re progress suffers because of their habits and practices, then some compassion would make sense. They are trying to find their way like the rest of us and hitting a snag.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is by no means a criticism of your reaction, which is also a product of myriad causes and conditions. If you feel anger, then self-compassion is a skillful response.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Perhaps you could continue to work with them, take a break and come back, or split off completely, whichever you decide is the most appropriate choice. Sustaining initial anger that flared up at this point is really of no help to you, unless of course you use it as an opportunity to examine the three characteristics. If so, then Shantideva points out that these people are your teachers, providing you a precious opportunity to learn and develop your skill.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope this is useful to you.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 15 May 2009 21:53:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88835</guid> <dc:creator>Marcello Spinella</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-15T21:53:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88832</link> <description>Author: KellyBrady&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Wow!! Thats alot of energy. I can relate to your righteous indignation, your inspiration, and your consuming passion to achieve enlightenment. That being said...my experience with that sort of self righteous attitude is that it has often served to alienate me from many friends, so I caution you to speak with kindness and compassion to your old sangha before you move on. They have aided you until now....do you really need this anger to leave them? Or, is it just time to move on? I wish you peace during this transition....and hang on...it sounds to me like things are getting really good!</description> <pubDate>Fri, 15 May 2009 20:28:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88832</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-15T20:28:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Does experience track maps always or only sometimes?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88972</link> <description>While I can&amp;#039;t be sure to map every little quirk of the path and every experience, I agree, Three Characteristics sounds right, and perhaps hints of the A&amp;amp;P, which can be very profound at points, though there is room for argument here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One way or the other, I think your teacher&amp;#039;s advice was good, but I would add upping the speed of the noticing or noting, as that sort of speed helps get one into A&amp;amp;P territory, and look for anything that is even a hint vibratory.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 15 May 2009 02:04:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88972</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-15T02:04:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88829</link> <description>Dear Shokolah,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I second the advice of those above and should some admit some of my own reactions to these things.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just after stream entry, when I was really on fire with the dharma, I found myself trying to hang out in all sorts of Buddhist scenes, from trying to be on staff at IMS, to every local sitting and Buddhist group in my area, and it was pretty much a universal catastrophe. They had no idea what I was talking about, and I couldn&amp;#039;t imagine they wouldn&amp;#039;t be way into my point of view, and there is basically ended.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Over the years I found that the side effect of my very hardcore attitude and practice was that I basically couldn&amp;#039;t figure any way to fit into any other community, so I ended up creating this one some 12 years later, which is a long time to go it alone with a few scattered dharma friends, but there it is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am not sure that this was a great outcome, but I found that by simply letting them do their rituals, social gatherings, little sits and the like, they were happy and I was happy doing my thing somewhere else, as really, while all in theory under the heading of &amp;#034;Buddhism&amp;#034; or more broadly &amp;#034;Spiritual Communities&amp;#034; the fact is that the vast majority of people are simply not on fire, not into hardcore practice, and it just rubs them completely the wrong way. I can remember times in my earlier life before I suddenly was on fire that I would have had the same reaction they did to the wound-up dharma-evangelical hothead I later became, so there it is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;These days I try to carefully limit the message and conversations to those who obviously care about this stuff, as I have never in hundreds, and I mean hundreds, of attempts to reach anyone who wasn&amp;#039;t already all about this stuff had any success at all, period. C&amp;#039;est la vie.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 15 May 2009 01:59:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88829</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-15T01:59:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Does experience track maps always or only sometimes?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88969</link> <description>&amp;#039;But one morning as I walked from the meditation hall to the dining hall for breakfast, a moment came when awareness seemed to be at a distance from my body/mind -- not &amp;#034;up&amp;#034; or &amp;#034;down,&amp;#034; or any other 3-D dimension, but more like a little distance along a new dimension. At any rate, that awareness was still fully connected to what I think of as &amp;#034;me,&amp;#034; but it seemed somehow independent of me at the same time. &amp;#039;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;sean,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;i think i know what you&amp;#039;re talking about. that can show up in any stage, but i would think only after one&amp;#039;s crossed the a&amp;amp;p before already (which you probably have, otherwise you&amp;#039;re not gonna be spending years meditating and reading daniel&amp;#039;s book). i also think its most likely to show up in the a&amp;amp;p and certain parts of equanimity. kenneth&amp;#039;s right in that there&amp;#039;s something like mind &amp;amp; body in there, but from the way you describe it, it seemed more developed. ask awouldbehipster and hokai their thoughts, i&amp;#039;ve talked to them both about this particular one. in fact, check out http://dharmaoverground.wetpaint.com/thread/2354717/Pushing+Through?mail=1131 - particularly the first two posts, my response to it, and the short conversation that ensues.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2009 17:45:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88969</guid> <dc:creator>tarin greco</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-14T17:45:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Does experience track maps always or only sometimes?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88966</link> <description>Hi Sean,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It sounds to me as though you are, as you have intuited, &amp;#034;at the cusp of the A&amp;amp;P.&amp;#034; That would mean that the cutting edge of your practice is in the 3rd ñana, Knowledge of the Three Characteristics. The experience of awareness being &amp;#034;at a distance from the body/mind&amp;#034; is something I would associate with the 1st ñana, Knowledge of Mind and Body. This is to be expected, not because you regressed in that moment, but because ñanas are cumulative; it&amp;#039;s common to have flashes of a previously attained ñana.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2009 16:33:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88966</guid> <dc:creator>Kenneth Folk</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-14T16:33:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88826</link> <description>In this connection, run don&amp;#039;t walk to the section on &amp;#034;Harnessing the Energy of the Defilements&amp;#034; from MCTB, available in handy blook form at http://tinyurl.com/mctbharness&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;They are some of the best instructions I&amp;#039;ve seen for dealing with strong negative emotions.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2009 15:49:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88826</guid> <dc:creator>Antonio Ramirez</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-14T15:49:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Does experience track maps always or only sometimes?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88963</link> <description>Author: sean2.0&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Last December, I did a five-day retreat. I spent most of the sitting sessions very uncomfortable with cramps in my back and pains in my neck. The teacher said that if the pains continued after I got up off the cushion, I should try a different seat, but if they went away, I should just allow my awareness to be aware of the discomfort and continue. Other than a few brief periods of peace, the meditations in that retreat continued to be unpleasant. But one morning as I walked from the meditation hall to the dining hall for breakfast, a moment came when awareness seemed to be at a distance from my body/mind -- not &amp;#034;up&amp;#034; or &amp;#034;down,&amp;#034; or any other 3-D dimension, but more like a little distance along a new dimension. At any rate, that awareness was still fully connected to what I think of as &amp;#034;me,&amp;#034; but it seemed somehow independent of me at the same time. It was aware of my aches and pains and thoughts, but it seemed somehow more encompassing of the entire setting. A few moments later, the experience subsided, and my awareness was again intertwined closely to my body/mind experience. Later that afternoon, I was back in the &amp;#034;everything hurts and is miserable&amp;#034; meditation mode I&amp;#039;d been in throughout the retreat. There were other moments of peace and quiet and profound happiness during the retreat, as well, so I don&amp;#039;t want to over-do the discomfort, but the discomfort was certainly the predominant experience in terms of duration.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After the retreat, I went hunting for some explanation of the experience I had. I ran across Daniel Ingram&amp;#039;s book, and found myself a little confused.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Based on how I understand the maps, I’m at about at the cusp of A&amp;amp;P. But when I hunted through the book for something akin to the experience I had, the only thing that seemed to fit was “Formations,” which is much further down the path than I think I am at present.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Any thoughts would be appreciated.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2009 15:48:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88963</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-14T15:48:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Does experience track maps always or only sometimes?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88959</link> <description>Author: sean2.0&lt;br /&gt;Forum: Maps of Meditation&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First, gratitude: I have benefited very significantly from Daniel Ingram&amp;#039;s book and Vince&amp;#039;s podcasts and I thank them for their effort and my benefit.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here&amp;#039;s my question: Is experience along the map sequence always linear? I&amp;#039;m interested in the map, but not completely sure how to square my experience with it. I&amp;#039;ve practiced yoga for ten years. Four years ago, I began meditating after reading Jack Kornfield&amp;#039;s _A Path with Heart_. I felt like my practice was valuable for a number of reasons. About two years ago, I began meditating generally daily, and for the last 18 months, I usually sit for 30-45 minutes per day.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(con&amp;#039;td)</description> <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2009 15:39:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88959</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-14T15:39:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88823</link> <description>Author: shokolah&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you for that Craig, this is a great advice. I shall definitely investigate!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Fabien</description> <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2009 08:04:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88823</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-14T08:04:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88820</link> <description>Hi shokolah&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What I have found is that feelings of freedom, when escaping from a situation, often relate to aversion. It&amp;#039;s a false freedom as we&amp;#039;re actually less free than if we didn&amp;#039;t have to escape in the first place.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I recommend investigating the newfound feeling of freedom and all the sensations which give rise to that. Then try thinking about going back to the group .. explore how it would feel to go back there, and how that would affect your feeling of freedom. Stay with it. Really convince yourself that you&amp;#039;re going back and you&amp;#039;re not going to try to change them. Investigate what arises.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Craig</description> <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2009 07:16:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88820</guid> <dc:creator>Craig N</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-14T07:16:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88817</link> <description>I&amp;#039;d like to second what yadidb said.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;With all due respect to progress and going further, no matter how noble you think your intentions, when you start directing your anger at others you&amp;#039;re immediately on slippery ground in my book. How long has it taken for you to get serious about your practice? Why was it OK for it to take until now for you to get serious - without having to experience the anger of others about you not getting serious until now? Who are you to say how serious others should be? And even that your serious approach is the best approach?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In my experience anger relates to a sense that things should be different to how they are, impatience, and a belief that we can change the way things are by struggling sufficiently against it. When the feeling is that we cannot change things, depression results. Usually all of this involves quite a complex conception about the world, about others, about a passionately felt sense of RIGHT and WRONG. But all of that boils down to just one thing: thought. Your thoughts about how things should or should not be are supremely relative. If you&amp;#039;ve ever changed your mind about a topic. If you&amp;#039;ve ever been proven wrong. If you&amp;#039;ve ever learned otherwise... follow that to its logical conclusion about the validity of your thought structures.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I also second the opinions raised that this may be dark night related phenomena. I have experienced the most trivial things being felt as utterly unbearable when in the dark night.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I strongly recommend Daniel&amp;#039;s advice in in MCTB about resolving not to let dark night bleed through to those around us.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally, I heartily recommend investigating the sensations which give rise to these feelings.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Craig</description> <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2009 07:06:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88817</guid> <dc:creator>Craig N</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-14T07:06:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88814</link> <description>Am I making progress or it is just my imagination.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Which attitude is more constructive? Which will take you to enlightenment?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You are now in a community that accepts the fact that good practice leads to the promised results. You don&amp;#039;t have to worry about people who think the cushion is a therapist&amp;#039;s couch.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Whatever the case, take where you are now to move yourself forward.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hope this helps! :-)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ed</description> <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2009 06:03:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88814</guid> <dc:creator>Ed clay vannoy</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-14T06:03:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88811</link> <description>Author: shokolah&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hello Florian,&lt;br /&gt;I am feeling free now that I have broke away from them. However I can still feel a huge discomfort or heaviness in the stomach area. I am very aware of it. When I go to bed, I can feel my body more than ever, I can&amp;#039;t sleep as my mind seems to be searching and investigating. My body seems to vibrate somehow. I am experiencing confusion too. Is it possible or arrogant to think that I&amp;#039;ve entered a nana state or is just my imagination? Thank you.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 12:28:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88811</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-13T12:28:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88808</link> <description>Thanks, man. I&amp;#039;m glad my site isn&amp;#039;t just a waste of time. Directing people to communities like this one is what it&amp;#039;s all about for me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I discovered this site via the Buddhist Geeks podcast, and have thanked Vince many times over for producing the show. It just goes to show that we can do what we love (write, produce, etc.) while also getting this empowering message out to the meditation community.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 11:54:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88808</guid> <dc:creator>Jackson Wilshire</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-13T11:54:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88805</link> <description>Author: shokolah&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Too right! I am disappointed but not surprised. It was a bit naive I suppose to think that they would see my point of view but as it turn out they see it as an attack on their belief and takes them out their zone of comfort. At the end of the day, I don&amp;#039;t need to justify myself to anyone and this training is all about finding our own answers as supposed to looking up to a guru. Thank you!</description> <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 10:48:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88805</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-13T10:48:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88802</link> <description>Author: shokolah&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dear Jackson,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for your advice. After mature reflection, I have decided to have a break from my Sangha. I&amp;#039;ve tried to talk to a couple of people but they don&amp;#039;t seem to understand me. I realised that expressing my feelings openly so we could all learn, would only antagonise people. They would only see it as pure arrogance on my behalf and that is totally untrue. I feel I have found something very special with this online Sangha which by far encompasses anything I have experienced before. Interestingly, all this is because of you Mister! I &amp;#034;stumbleupon&amp;#034; your site and found it most intriguing. This triggered a chain of events that left me completely flabbergasted. The rest is history! Thank you mate!</description> <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 10:42:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88802</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-13T10:42:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88799</link> <description>Author: yadidb&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hey mate,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I can definitely relate to what you&amp;#039;re saying from personal experience aswell.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let me ask you this: why do you need them to &amp;#039;get serious about their practice&amp;#039; for you to become serious about yours? need them to acknowledge that progress is possible for you to be able to make progress ?</description> <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 10:29:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88799</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-13T10:29:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88796</link> <description>shokolah:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This scenario of yours is very familiar to me. Though I&amp;#039;ve not been with any meditation groups (other than the DhO), I have spent most of my life touring spiritual scenes, only to out-grow/out-pace each one of them (though, I don&amp;#039;t think I&amp;#039;ll ever out-pace many of the people here). I think the majority of spiritual seekers are looking for a new map of reality that they can simply adopt to make them feel happier, have less anxiety about death, and have a sense of purpose/meaning. But there are those of us who aren&amp;#039;t looking for a new belief system. We want the truth. I feel that there are many such people here at the DhO.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you find that the group no longer suits you, and there&amp;#039;s no way to be authentic while practicing with them, you should get out. Do your best to be gentle about it, so as to not demolish any good friendships you&amp;#039;ve made along the way. Unfortunately, sometimes losing friends is part of the process.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, since you seem to be experiencing strong feelings/emotions about this, use them to your advantage. First, use that anger and frustration as fuel for your practice. That kind of energy, though generally looked down upon in spiritual scenes, can be an incredible motivator. Second, use this opportunity to really observe the hell out of these feelings. What is anger, really? Where does it show up in your body? Your thoughts? How does it arise and vanish? Can you just sit with it instead of feeding in to it or trying to push it away? What happens then?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope some of this is useful to you. Practice well.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jackson</description> <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 08:20:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88796</guid> <dc:creator>Jackson Wilshire</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-13T08:20:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88793</link> <description>By all means talk with your teacher and see how that goes. Hopefully he will be able to help you intensify your practice without that disrupting the rest of the group.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Don&amp;#039;t burn your bridges if you don&amp;#039;t have to. Maybe all you need to do is loosen your ties with them for a while and see where that takes you. Slow down, step back and see where you are in a month or so. Maybe a social tea club might be a nice thing to have in your life, a place to chill more that a place for intense practice.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 07:54:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88793</guid> <dc:creator>Ed clay vannoy</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-13T07:54:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88790</link> <description>Hi There,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One way to look at that, an accurate one I think, is that your eleven months of practice is bearing some fruit. Not to say that help you have gotten here hasn&amp;#039;t had an effect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ed</description> <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 07:32:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88790</guid> <dc:creator>Ed clay vannoy</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-13T07:32:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88787</link> <description>This is completely a guess due to my not knowing the situation well, but you may want to check in and see if you&amp;#039;re dark nighting right now. As I think Florian alludes to, the start of your post describes something I would use to describe an A&amp;amp;P, and now you seem to be preeeeeetty agitated! It can be staggering just how much of a temporary shift in attitude toward life can change over night. Perhaps truly ask yourself how you will feel to lose ties with some of your group-- have you made good friends?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Best of luck whatever the situation is.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 07:11:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88787</guid> <dc:creator>Trent S. H.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-13T07:11:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88784</link> <description>Author: shokolah&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dear Florian,&lt;br /&gt;I just had an email from a member in the group who has made his voice clear that he didn&amp;#039;t want me to &amp;#034;wreck the day&amp;#034; for them as it would upset everyone. What I am going to do is raised a few points with my teacher and tell him how I feel by email. If he is not prepared to listen, then I am finished with them. The fact is I do not want to leave and my over riding &amp;#034;ambition&amp;#034; was to share my experiences with them, lay myself bare, transparent and I tell you coming from me who has made a career of chicken out of difficult situations. It takes guts! However so far I&amp;#039;ve been getting so much negativity, that it is amost impossible to get the message through to them. They will almost certainly think that I am arrogant bastard and I&amp;#039;ll need my bottom thoroughly spanked for daring to speak up. I am little boy blue compared to some who have years of practice. The fact is my concentration has got better in the space of barely a week. What does this say to you about my 11 month-old practice or am I missing something? Many thanks for helping me, I am truly overjoyed!</description> <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 06:44:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88784</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-13T06:44:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88781</link> <description>Hi Fabien,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Right! Give them a good hiding! &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There&amp;#039;s a really funny (and tragic) story in MCTB, where Daniel recounts how at a retreat, during a group interview, everyone was going on and on about their personal problems and back pains. Daniel got fed up and interjected, &amp;#034;The BREATH? Has anybody tried paying attention to the BREATH?&amp;#034;, and they all looked at him, and went back to complaining about their girl/boyfriends.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Chances are, you&amp;#039;re going to encounter the same pattern whith your group.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Me, I wouldn&amp;#039;t alienate them just yet. Read the &amp;#034;dark night&amp;#034; chapters in MCTB first, and then decide whether now really is a good time to rashly sever your ties. There&amp;#039;s a recognizable pattern in that, too. Also, people tend to move at different speeds: maybe you&amp;#039;ll be able to encourage practitioners there by example more than by preaching. Just my 2 cents.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;OTOH, if you feel out of place at the group, obviously, leave them to do their thing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 05:26:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88781</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-13T05:26:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Angry and aware</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88777</link> <description>Author: shokolah&lt;br /&gt;Forum: The Big Issues&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Last night, I felt I was in bath of pure awareness. I was truly aware of all my body&amp;#039;s sensations. I could hardly sleep and then now, I am feeling so angry at myself and my Sangha for being SO complacent and sloppy with their practice. It is fast becoming a fucking social tea club and I am sick and tired with it all. So much so that I am going to give them all an ultimatum at the end of the month. They either get serious about their practice or I&amp;#039;m off. What I&amp;#039;ve been reading on this website has totally blown me apart and the emotions are incredibly raw. I&amp;#039;ve made a vow to practice with utmost diligence. I know there are dangers of making such vow but I feel there is fire that has been ignited and I can contain it no longer. Thank you to your all, my True Family, from the bottom of my heart for your unconditional support.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 04:50:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88777</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-13T04:50:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: weak or strong defilements</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89258</link> <description>Dear Simone,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are lots of controversies regarding the criteria for Third Path, lots of dogma, speculation, nice dreams, good advertising, spin, and some truth also.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The models we use can have some significant implications for our practice and our relationship to our humanity and reality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I make a long and pretty thorough case for some models that are squarely grounded in practice, actual experience, and reproducible results, as many here can attest, in my book, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, which can be found various places, including a print version from any major bookseller and for free on my website www.interactivebuddha.com, and other places. I would consider reading that, as many here agree to various degrees with the descriptions there, as they have navigated the territory for themselves and come to similar conclusions.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 10 May 2009 12:38:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89258</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-10T12:38:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hey everyone!!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88261</link> <description>Dear Kelly,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Glad you are here. As Vince said, let us know what is going on, how you did it, what it is like, and what you are shooting for, if you wish.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel</description> <pubDate>Sun, 10 May 2009 12:13:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88261</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-10T12:13:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: weak or strong defilements</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89255</link> <description>Tarin,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not sure man. I&amp;#039;m glad it wasn&amp;#039;t bad for you, though! Most of my speculation is based on my experience, but there are some places in the traditions that seem to indicate 2nd path dark night being a typically miserable one. Tozan&amp;#039;s 5 ranks and &amp;#034;the fall from grace&amp;#034; is one place that I see commentary that suggests this. Letting go of &amp;#034;me as an enlightened being&amp;#034; can be particularly painful if one has invested heavily into that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Mostly I think that whether or not it is bad depends a lot upon what sort of importance is put into it in regard to dogma and odd beliefs regarding attainments. I went through the bulk of that dark night prior to meeting Daniel &amp;amp; the DHO, so I had some notions about what was going on that made the situation extremely painful, confused and misguided. If I had known better, I would have done exactly what you suggest: nothing different than before. At the same time though, I do see some validity in the fractal view and how it aligns with the stages of the 4 path model. At the end of the day, I don&amp;#039;t think it really matters as far as pragmatism and progress is concerned.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Trent</description> <pubDate>Sun, 10 May 2009 11:45:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89255</guid> <dc:creator>Trent S. H.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-10T11:45:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: weak or strong defilements</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89252</link> <description>simone: in my experience, when someone, whether a once-returner or otherwise, doesn&amp;#039;t experience craving and aversion much except for times when they experience it very strongly and violently, it is because they are repressing those feelings.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;yabaxoule: my 2nd path dark night wasn&amp;#039;t that bad and i&amp;#039;m not even sure when it ended because it was so subtle (and i was easily distracted). but what i think is that it might be due to the sense of &amp;#039;where do i go from here?&amp;#039; that starts kicking in hard, that gets some people. i had/have a pretty easy time with that because i&amp;#039;m so used to dealing with that question that when it comes up i just do what i&amp;#039;d already gotten used to doing - which is nothing. and that seems to work well, from an insight practice perspective anyway. other than that i cant see what would be so bad about 2nd path dark night. what do you think?</description> <pubDate>Sun, 10 May 2009 10:59:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89252</guid> <dc:creator>tarin greco</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-10T10:59:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: weak or strong defilements</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89249</link> <description>Simone,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The commentary was evidently using a classic &amp;#034;limited emotional range model,&amp;#034; if you have not already, check out the MCTB chapter on this model. Also, chapter 17 &amp;#034;Harnessing the Energy of the &amp;#034;Defilements,&amp;#034; may shed some light here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is extremely sticky, tough thing to put onto paper. The best I can say is that the defilements themselves never actually leave, but something about how they are perceived is altered in a way that changes our reactivity &amp;amp; repulsion toward them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, for the once-returner, it may be the case that the commentary is mentioning a few cycle-stage specific events and is mapping them in an emotional range model. Thus, it is probable that the &amp;#034;usually weak desire and aversion&amp;#034; are citing the relative lack of desire/aversion as compared to their previous stage of enlightened experience.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Furthermore, &amp;#034;when they do have them, they are very strong and violent&amp;#034; is probably pointing to the 2nd path 3rd Vipassana Jhana (dark night). This would seem probable to me, as most folks I have spoken to about this area , and myself included, have a hell of a time with 2nd path&amp;#039;s dark night.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is mere speculation on my part, but careful analysis of the 4 path model through the lens of a fractal path model (cycles/sub-cycles) seems to indicate that once-returners typically go through a multi-layered dark night in this period. That is, the whole of 2nd path seems oddly dark night, even while in the 2nd vipassana jhana area of the stage, due to an underlying dark night cycle. When the practitioner moves through 2nd path, they will eventually cross a point where all of the dark night cycles converge; a Grand Dark NIght (&amp;#034;very strong and violent&amp;#034;) experience of the defilements.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The important thing to realize is that the defilements are empty, causal, transient, typically cyclical, and thus not a fundamental problem.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 10 May 2009 09:31:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89249</guid> <dc:creator>Trent S. H.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-10T09:31:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: weak or strong defilements</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89246</link> <description>Author: SimoneRühle&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;actually I&amp;#039;d like to reply to monkeymind: for me it is not theoretical. On the contrary, it is a criterion of diagniostics, if I may say so.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 10 May 2009 07:10:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89246</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-10T07:10:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>weak or strong defilements</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89242</link> <description>Author: SimoneRühle&lt;br /&gt;Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I read once in a commentary that a oncereturner has usually weak desire and aversion but when he does have them, they are very strong and violent. What would you say from your experience about this? I can&amp;#039;t really solve this contradiction. Either one has reduced defilements forever and they don&amp;#039;t come up heavily on some occasions or the work is not finished yet and that is why defilements pop up from time to time? Or the commentary is wrong...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My thread appeard on my profile page so I put it here&lt;br /&gt;There was one reply: from monkeymind&lt;br /&gt;HI Simone, Welcome! Nice to have you here. So, what&amp;#039;s the context of this statement, in terms of the noble eightfold path, or in terms of sila, samadhi, panna? I like to look at such questions in this way, because it encourages me to take a practice-oriented approach. So for example in terms of sila / morality, to me, the statement seems to be a heads-up, even an encouragement: don&amp;#039;t be complacent. Desire and aversion come and go, in various degrees of intensity; be prepared for the big ones. In terms of samadhi / concentration, there are instructive maps like the one about the planes of existence, and the defilements certainly seem to bump the meditator around these states, keep them out of some states, or within some states.&lt;br /&gt;http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sagga/loka.html&lt;br /&gt;In terms of panna / insight, this statement seems to be about attraction and repulsion, about preferences regarding how things should or should not be. Sometimes these are noticed strongly, sometimes not. It&amp;#039;s all a bit on the theoretical side for me, however. I tend to identify this kind of worrying about the &amp;#034;one true interpretation&amp;#034; with the &amp;#034;fetter&amp;#034; of sceptical doubt. I strongly assume that it will all resolve when I get there. All these fetters, hindrances and defilements are countered not by obsessing about them, but by diligent, mindful practice, after all. Cheers, Florian</description> <pubDate>Sun, 10 May 2009 07:01:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=89242</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-10T07:01:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88248</link> <description>hi jamesAlexander. Thanks forthe reply,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I agree its really challenging to practice informally, especially the times when caught &amp;#039;&amp;#039;Off-guard&amp;#039;&amp;#039;. My challenge is having enough energy to stay mindful from wake to sleep. Some days are easier, some days are harder as anxiety, stress, craving can really drain energy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;good luck with ur x, mom, and bills.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 09 May 2009 12:59:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88248</guid> <dc:creator>Dark Night Yogi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-09T12:59:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88245</link> <description>Author: JamesAlexander&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have thought a great deal about these things and I have come to the conclusion that practice must pervade life. In a certain sense, the most important time too practice is when your &amp;#034;in the shit&amp;#034;. When you were informed that you won the lottery - did you practice? When you saw a friend punched down on the street - did you practice? When your mother died...!!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If we&amp;#039;re only able to practice when on the zafu we create a dualistic conception of practice time vs. non-practice time. I suppose shamata practice needs ideal surroundings, especially for us beginners, but insight related practices I truly believe should be carried along all the time!!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I try to remember myself all through the day, meaning that I as often as possible try to rest in the witnessing capacity of the mind. I&amp;#039;ve discovered something quite interesting. The capacity to rest in bare attention/witnessing seems to solidify when things really get intense (it happens automatic) or when I voluntarily slide into it in formal meditation (intentional). The hardest time to practice this being-aware-of-everything-and-the-thing-thats-being-aware-type of practice seems to be in between these two extremes. Like when your hanging out with friends, watching tv, writing a forum post etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So one of my greatest challenges so far, in terms of practice, has been how to integrate the formal and the informal ways of practice with &amp;#034;normal life&amp;#034;, basically because if I can&amp;#039;t practice in a normal life situation there&amp;#039;s not that much time left to do it in...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;...but I must admit that &amp;#034;a monks life&amp;#034; does seem alluring, especially when your dealing with your x girlfriend, unpaid bills or a mother who&amp;#039;s on visit and staying in your apartment for a week ;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rock on mindful1983!!</description> <pubDate>Sat, 09 May 2009 12:21:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88245</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-09T12:21:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88242</link> <description>thank you Jackson to both replies! It&amp;#039;s also very motivating to see someone like you. I read some of your posts.&lt;br /&gt;I think i wanted to be a monk because I felt it was so much easier without having to deal with the world as it takes a lot of discipline. I admire your discipline ! Way to go dude! !&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am also very fortunate to have no wife or kids, obligations or debt.&lt;br /&gt;I guess, feeling a lack of a sense of purpose or fulfillment in having a normal job, like its just a waste of time, no one really benefiting.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope to keep practicing and stayin in this site. I&amp;#039;m learning already! I&amp;#039;m also finding Shinzen Young&amp;#039;s site helpful!</description> <pubDate>Sat, 09 May 2009 11:23:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88242</guid> <dc:creator>Dark Night Yogi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-09T11:23:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88239</link> <description>Hi Mindful,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You seem to have a strong desire to make progress in insight, which is great. I&amp;#039;m a householder in every sense of the word. I&amp;#039;ve never been on a meditation retreat (save for some long sessions at home while on vacation). I used to fantasize about being a monk all the time, and I think that ordination is valuable for both monastics and lay people. But you don&amp;#039;t have to be a monk or nun to make life changing progress. This is wonderful news &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Looking forward to hearing more from you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jackson</description> <pubDate>Sat, 09 May 2009 10:48:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88239</guid> <dc:creator>Jackson Wilshire</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-09T10:48:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88236</link> <description>i guess about the &amp;#039;superman&amp;#039;&amp;#039; stigma, and also the trust in teachers, or the respect to be given to monasteries, and monks.&lt;br /&gt;i was thinking about becoming a monk ! (so im kinda... u know shocked, relieved).. i dont need to do it. and perhaps retreats are ok.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;hopefully it will strengthen my practice and lead it in the right direction = )</description> <pubDate>Sat, 09 May 2009 05:31:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88236</guid> <dc:creator>Dark Night Yogi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-09T05:31:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88233</link> <description>Hey mindful1983,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Welcome!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What are some of the preconceptions you feel have been shattered? How has that affected your approach to practice?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-Vince</description> <pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2009 23:22:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88233</guid> <dc:creator>Vincent Horn</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-08T23:22:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88229</link> <description>Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi. I started practicing meditation only last July, and then more seriously this January. I am reading Daniel Ingram&amp;#039;s book and really liking it. = ) thank u so much! A lot of my preconceptions are sort of being &amp;#034;Shattered&amp;#039;&amp;#039; at the moment and this happens a lot to me. I guess i have that &amp;#039;grandiose&amp;#039; thinking &amp;#039;You can&amp;#039;t touch this&amp;#039; interpretation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a lot of questions and confusion now. I am guessing its common</description> <pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2009 23:17:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88229</guid> <dc:creator>Dark Night Yogi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-08T23:17:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hey everyone!!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88258</link> <description>Welcome Kelly!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since this is a community all about open, down-to-earth, &amp;amp; transparent contemplative practice, I figured I&amp;#039;d just ask some questions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Who have you been doing koan study with? What has koan practice been like? What is some of the &amp;#034;wild cool shit&amp;#034; that has been happening on the cushion? What is your current perceived edge in practice?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh, and I love your spunkiness. ;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sincerely,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-Vince</description> <pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2009 23:16:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88258</guid> <dc:creator>Vincent Horn</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-08T23:16:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hey everyone!!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88255</link> <description>Author: SoManyThoughts&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi,&lt;br /&gt;I friended you &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2009 23:15:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88255</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-08T23:15:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Hey everyone!!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88251</link> <description>Author: KellyBrady&lt;br /&gt;Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m new to this site, turned on by Buddhist geeks. I&amp;#039;m a zen practitioner, student of we Sensei Lawson Sachter... Lineage roshi phillip kapleau, yasutani roshi...etc... Working at koan practice. Just got dan ingrns book. So, here I am. By the way, I&amp;#039;m not a white guy. A white dyke with a pedicure, an eight year old daughter, a booming career, and some wild cool shit happening on the cushion. How do you make a friend on this thing?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2009 20:10:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=88251</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-05-08T20:10:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Possible insight into an old experience</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87943</link> <description>Author: StacyCurl&lt;br /&gt;Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve just read MCTB and I think I&amp;#039;ve gained a new understanding of some old and recurring experiences.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Starting from childhood I&amp;#039;ve had this occasional experience of an all encompassing fear, the experience has a vibratory quality to it and I feel unusually closeness to my thoughts, like I&amp;#039;m being watched. Once when I remained intently present on the sense of being watched (like staring down a demon) when the experience shifted it felt like the snake/rope story. This experience reoccurs perhaps once a year.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My most significant experience occurred in 1997 when I began practising the Quan Yin method (QYM) (though I&amp;#039;m mostly disillusioned with this practice and its teacher today). QYM&amp;#039;s model of enlightenment includes limited emotional range and action. One day I applied this model to myself and found myself lacking, I did some chores around the house and beat myself up emotionally whilst I did them, I was not cleaning the floor I was cleaning as my unsaintly self. Predictably enough I soon felt quite upset and on hearing some touching music on tv I wept all this built up emotion away. At the end of this a judgement popped into my mind and I realised these thoughts were what made me see my self / meditation as bad and I felt a complete disgust with these judgements and with the whole opinion formation process, somehow I threw all of this out, as thoughts popped in I ousted them in an almost physical way and very soon I experienced a dropping away and a brilliant clear faceted light. Because QYM describes progress as that of seeing higher and higher heavens I became attached to this experience, but I also became interested in scepticism, falsification, etc. as it seemed like not accepting or being defined by opinions triggered the experience.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Perhaps I&amp;#039;ve experienced Fear, Misery, Disgust, Desire for Deliverance (from opinions), and then something ? This happened in 1997 and I don&amp;#039;t think I cycle.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 26 Apr 2009 04:33:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87943</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-26T04:33:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Three Doors of Liberation - Emptiness, Signlessnes and Aimless</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87940</link> <description>Yo.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m not at all familiar with his works, but they seem like separate things. Signless sort of alludes to no-self, but I would not draw that conclusion. Signless/Aimless seem in line as a &amp;#034;non-dual&amp;#034; school. If that is the case, they will differ fundamentally simply by their emphasis on the subject (rather than the Theravada focus on the object). That&amp;#039;s not to say they aren&amp;#039;t useful, though. I&amp;#039;ve heard a lot of people speak highly of his works and the non-dual teachings have loads to offer us.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Trying to draw parallels to other tradition&amp;#039;s lexicons, and even the lexicon from individual to individual takes a great deal of work. The amount of substance implied by each of the Three Characteristics is quite vast, and the scope of that substance will vary from person to person. As with anything, there is much more going on behind the scenes. Forming a complete concept of impermanence, no-self or suffering (or any other complex topic) is like building a castle, with each brick being one piece of that understanding. A castle that vast is bound to be a unique structure. That said, I do not think any topic as complex as these will translate to each other without many problems arising.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thinking about concepts in that way helps us see a lot of the problems that go on around here. For instance, I use the word &amp;#034;language&amp;#034; with the qualification of years of studying philosophy and rhetoric. The word inspires a complex understanding as deep as one of the three characteristics. If the audience receiving that word does not share my lexicon, we will fundamentally disagree regardless of what we say to each other.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sorry for the tangent, didn&amp;#039;t mean to derail on you =p.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Trent</description> <pubDate>Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:36:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87940</guid> <dc:creator>Trent S. H.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-24T19:36:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Three Doors of Liberation - Emptiness, Signlessnes and Aimless</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87937</link> <description>Oh I thought I should add a bit more for those unfamiliar with this terminology.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Aimlessness is apparently also translated as wishlessness, and refers to knowing that nothing needs to be done, that in one sense everything is OK just the way it is. No urgency to be something other than what you are. Does motivation to be enlightened count? You bet it does. This is why some talk about the end of seeking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Signlessness refers to the sign we &amp;#034;see&amp;#034; not truly being the thing itself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally Joan Halifax translates emptiness as boundlessness, which I haven&amp;#039;t explored yet since I&amp;#039;m on lunch at work but I thought I&amp;#039;d drop in the discussion to muddy the waters further &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here is a google books link on what Thich Nhat Hanh has to say about the topic in &amp;#034;Understanding Our Mind&amp;#034;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://tinyurl.com/esa-oh-my&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;[edit: to make this page wrap properly!]&lt;br /&gt;Craig</description> <pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:41:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87937</guid> <dc:creator>Craig N</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-23T21:41:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>The Three Doors of Liberation - Emptiness, Signlessnes and Aimlessness</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87933</link> <description>Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi all&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Following a hunch I came across an alternate description of the Three Doors which Thich Nhat Hanh talks about (at least all the references to them so far that I&amp;#039;ve seen are from him) rather differently to Daniels coverage in MCTB.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Culavedalla Sutta from the Pali Canon describes them in those terms so theoretically it&amp;#039;s not a Mahayana view as opposed to a Theravada one.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.044.than.html&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway in these terms, signlessness and aimlessness make a lot more sense to me than impermanence and suffering.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Are these really just different ways to describe the same things, or is there a more fundamental difference here eg descriptions guided by solid practice vs translation error or insistance on dogma?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Perhaps someone with experience into these matters can shed some light on this? I hope other people may also find this topic helpful to look at these fundamental aspects of reality in a new light.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Craig</description> <pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:25:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87933</guid> <dc:creator>Craig N</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-23T21:25:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Standards - Impossibly High?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87874</link> <description>Author: msj123&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You need to have compassion and love for oneself as well. Is your life less valuable than the tigress? I would say no. Many people are willing to sacrifice themselves because they don&amp;#039;t value themselves. I don&amp;#039;t think this is right.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think deep down, in the core of it all, you know the right answer. I would follow my intuition.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:13:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87874</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-18T21:13:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Standards - Impossibly High?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87871</link> <description>Author: garyrh&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Nicola,&lt;br /&gt;To post this, shows this situation to be very real to you and quite a predicament. So there is a chance this reply will seem a little light and off the mark. Also it would seem the decision has been made so my reply is only in reflection ( some burden off me) and for those that might give such a situation some thought.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In staying with the story what ever the decision one would make it would seem to me it is near on impossible to value one life over another and this includes ones own life. So there is a sense in which a right or wrong decision is based in the intention. I am suggesting this to be the case when the outcome a descision cannot known. If in the giving ones life there should any hint of fear or merit this would be of no more value than allowing another to die that you might live for one life is not more valuable than another.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Again; what ever the decision, consideration of these matters has a way of bringing us to our roots and perhaps there is more in this than the result of our descisions. For this I thank you in being so bold to make this post.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wish you the very best in the descision you made.&lt;br /&gt;Gary</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:02:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87871</guid> <dc:creator>Wet Paint</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-18T19:02:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Standards - Impossibly High?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87868</link> <description>Oh, and if you&amp;#039;re the tigress, don&amp;#039;t try to make someone elses&amp;#039; decision for them. Be open and talk about it. In either case, there may be creative opportunities which would give both sides of the party hope.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All of my responses sound like horoscopes or something!</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Apr 2009 11:24:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87868</guid> <dc:creator>Trent S. H.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-18T11:24:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Standards - Impossibly High?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87865</link> <description>Hi Nicola,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since we don&amp;#039;t know the situation, it&amp;#039;s tough to give any helpful perspectives. I would like to mention, though, that feeling guilty for not letting the tigress eat you is an emotional boundary issue. Now, it is a very real human thing that we all do from time to time, but it is indicative of a type of suffering: hurting because of something which is uncontrollable to you, because you feel helpless.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There&amp;#039;s a principle called &amp;#034;sunk costs,&amp;#034; which may or may not be relevant here. It essentially indicates that time spent cannot be taken back-- it&amp;#039;s a way of pointing out that, although difficult, sometimes we just have to let go of something.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lastly, not letting the tigress eat you does not mean that you &amp;#034;caused the death of the tigress.&amp;#034; The death of the tigress is from a million different conditions leading up to that moment, and choosing to keep your life doesn&amp;#039;t negate the other myriad conditions that lead up to the tigress&amp;#039; condition.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Best of luck to you and your difficult situation, whatever it may be.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Trent</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Apr 2009 10:14:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87865</guid> <dc:creator>Trent S. H.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-18T10:14:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Standards - Impossibly High?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87862</link> <description>It comes down to:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Don&amp;#039;t let the tigress eat me: Feel guilty for the rest of my life; having caused the death of the tigress.&lt;br /&gt;Let the tigress eat me: possibly kill the tigress by doing so anyway. Possibly die myself. Cause terrible suffering to the tigress even if we both survive.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And yet, she&amp;#039;d have the chance of survival.&lt;br /&gt;Is that chance enough? Even if it means I might die? I also have a responsibility to my boyfriend and my family to not let them lose me just like that. Buddha didn&amp;#039;t have that in the story.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Djon Ma&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nicola</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Apr 2009 06:15:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87862</guid> <dc:creator>Nicola Joanne Dunn</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-18T06:15:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Standards - Impossibly High?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87858</link> <description>Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Is there such a thing as impossibly high standards?&lt;br /&gt;Surely, if we&amp;#039;re trying to attain enlightenment, and further, then there is no limit, and we should set ourself standards as high as we can imagine.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I always loved the story about how Buddha Siddharta, in a previous life, came across a starving tigress, and because she was starving, he offered his body to him, so she ate him and lived, and he died.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now whether you believe in these stories, or see them as a mythology designed to offer us inspiration and a guideline of what we should be aiming for, what would you do?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you suddenly had that situation, in this very life, what would you do?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve always hoped that I would happily die for another, but also that I would never hold anyone else to my standards.&lt;br /&gt;But I&amp;#039;m kind of in the situation in that story now, and my boyfriend is pointing out to me that there&amp;#039;s a thing about not having to do things if they&amp;#039;ll seriously impact ones own health.&lt;br /&gt;And then I remembered that story.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now... if I knew for certain the &amp;#039;tigress&amp;#039; in my situation would be harmed by my actions as well (high possibility), or not live to see the result (also high possibility), then I would feel so much easier making the decision to not give up my body.&lt;br /&gt;But I don&amp;#039;t know.&lt;br /&gt;And the decision has to be made tonight.&lt;br /&gt;And I won&amp;#039;t know any kind of useful information like whether the &amp;#039;tigress&amp;#039; would be ok, or live, for weeks, months maybe.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know this probably sounds really weird and confusing, since I&amp;#039;m sticking to a story and using it as an example without giving any further clues whatsoever, but I really don&amp;#039;t want to post the full details on a public forum.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;more in comment....</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Apr 2009 06:13:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87858</guid> <dc:creator>Nicola Joanne Dunn</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-18T06:13:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Mixing Traditions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87731</link> <description>My view on this topic has gained a lot of vitality by integrating other people&amp;#039;s perspectives. I like the common theme of continual change, moving from broad to narrow focus in relation to ones stage of development. Balance seems to come from breaking away from a static ideal which is too rigid for the continual change taking place.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The idea of building a foundation before branching out makes a lot of sense, as nathan28 said &amp;#034;...some &amp;#034;spiritual&amp;#034; traditions have an overlap at the &amp;#034;absolute&amp;#034; level...&amp;#034;. I think this is particularly true among most Buddhist traditions. As Hokai said, once one has developed a &amp;#034;continuous, strong, pristine awareness. ...with good conceptual understanding...&amp;#034; then fundamentally there isn&amp;#039;t much of a jump to cross the line between traditions. The practical methods may differ drastically, but one’s foundation will span the gaps existing on a grosser level. Without a foundation it could be really destabilizing to continually uproot and move to brand new territory.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I see a lot of interdependence in this dialogue as well. With such a dynamic balance being struck depending on the conditions of the moment, skill seems important. I would say skill depends on concentration and wisdom. Just as with so many attainments sought by practitioners, the need for concentration and wisdom seem central. If we consider concentration and wisdom to depend on moral discipline and compassion, then we get a nice micro (balanced mix of different practices, or any other specific goal) macro (enlightenment) synthesis of dharmic experiences all playing into each other.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:24:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87731</guid> <dc:creator>Wes Harris</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-17T06:24:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>The perfection of wisdom and wisdom on perfection</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87705</link> <description>Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thoughts? Pointers.&lt;br /&gt;No comments to begin with, I&amp;#039;m all ears.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:24:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87705</guid> <dc:creator>triple think</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-17T03:24:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Mixing Traditions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87728</link> <description>Let me see if I can ruin that!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, one thing worth considering is that some &amp;#034;spiritual&amp;#034; traditions have an overlap at the &amp;#034;absolute&amp;#034; level, but not much practically speaking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;E.g., you could probably practice internal/esoteric kung-fu, Western magick and Zen all at once, with the three having little overlap. You&amp;#039;d need a lot of free time, obviously, but in practical execution, you&amp;#039;d be able to keep them separate.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That said, I think it&amp;#039;s easiest to stick to just one tradition, at least initially, as one&amp;#039;s source for depth and theoretical understanding that enables depth. I.e., working with one dominant framework, while having enough looseness that you could transition into the others.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And that said, you wouldn&amp;#039;t want to mix things up too much for intensive practice, I don&amp;#039;t think.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:20:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=87728</guid> <dc:creator>Nathan I S</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-16T20:20:00Z</dc:date> </item> </channel> </rss> 