<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Motivation and Results</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_category?p_l_id=&amp;mbCategoryId=76908</link> <description>All things related to why one would pursue these practices and what they may or may not lead to should go here</description> <pubDate>Sun, 19 Oct 2014 01:05:03 GMT</pubDate> <dc:date>2014-10-19T01:05:03Z</dc:date> <item> <title>RE: The end of suffering - is it actually possible?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606953</link> <description>I still go through pain, depression, fear, anger, anxiety, , low self esteem, confusion, general angst , highs, lows, bliss and desire but I havent actually suffered in about a year and a half at this stage. </description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 22:35:18 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606953</guid> <dc:creator>wylo .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T22:35:18Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596791</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Andrew B.:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I don&amp;#039;t know. It is kind of a bubble burster for my ego, because it makes all my problems seem a lot more mundane and even unrelated (more or less, at least) to the path. On the other hand, it&amp;#039;s very much a relief for the same reasons, because dealing with regular mental stuff, CBT, etc. sounds a lot easier to do than pushing through it via mental noting or whatever.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I highly recommend CBT but in conjunction with meditation it&amp;#039;s better. CBT by the way is actually very hard because you have to treat it like meditation by &lt;strong&gt;constantly refreshing the understandings and beliefs when the old mental habits return.&lt;/strong&gt; I&amp;#039;ve got some book reviews that will give you the highlights of how it works and I hope you can use it. It&amp;#039;s also a good way to see which books you want to buy and there&amp;#039;s enough info that the summary is often enough:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5211785"&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5211785&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Cognitive Behavioural Therapy&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5036272"&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5036272&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Willpower Guide&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5576267"&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5576267&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Effortless Attention&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5552028"&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5552028&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;The Practicing Mind&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5005983"&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5005983&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Meet your happy chemicals&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;These books have all helped me in the direction of conventional happiness and still do. They support the sila part of meditation and make it so much easier to understand the aim of meditation. CBT helps with mental peace but meditation gives a deeper peace than CBT.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Experiment and try things out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Richard</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 14:36:03 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596791</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T14:36:03Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596742</link> <description>Haha, well from what I&amp;#039;ve seen, there&amp;#039;s no divide between feeling better and feeling better.  Maybe CBT sounds mundane because you guys haven&amp;#039;t yet discovered what actual happiness is like.  I don&amp;#039;t mean that as a dig, either.  I can say, quite honestly, that I didn&amp;#039;t understand happiness until earlier this year when I made a real effort to dig myself out of the anxiety that&amp;#039;s been hanging over me since childhood.  It turned out that&amp;#039;s all I was really looking for from meditation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Being truly happy shouldn&amp;#039;t be underrated, and it&amp;#039;s a goal you can achieve in the short term. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/closed_eyes.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, don&amp;#039;t look to me to diagnose your meditation stage - I&amp;#039;m not very experienced with that.  It just seemed from your post that you&amp;#039;re dealing with at least &lt;em&gt;some&lt;/em&gt; things that aren&amp;#039;t related to meditation.  As long as you can identify the cause of a problem, the fastest way out of the problem is going to be to remove the cause.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If it makes you guys feel better, this kind of emotional awareness and balancing is also a major part of traditional Buddhism, it just isn&amp;#039;t emphasized very much in the pragmatic dharma scene.  One of the folds of the path is to maximize skillful thoughts while minimizing unskillful thoughts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;EDIT: I feel like I should mention the &amp;#034;escape hatch&amp;#034; that I&amp;#039;ve found useful as well.  When you have a negative feeling, you don&amp;#039;t actually have to do anything at all with it.  You don&amp;#039;t have to try to make it go away, and you don&amp;#039;t have to try to express it or let it out.  You can simply leave it alone completely.  It can be a major relief to remove this struggle - though it can be a bit difficult to understand completely at first.  I always called it &amp;#034;acceptance&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;letting go&amp;#034; so maybe those words can guide you there.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 08:38:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596742</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T08:38:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596604</link> <description>I don&amp;#039;t know. It is kind of a bubble burster for my ego, because it makes all my problems seem a lot more mundane and even unrelated (more or less, at least) to the path. On the other hand, it&amp;#039;s very much a relief for the same reasons, because dealing with regular mental stuff, CBT, etc. sounds a lot easier to do than pushing through it via mental noting or whatever.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 01:57:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596604</guid> <dc:creator>Andrew B.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T01:57:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596448</link> <description>That is some good advice Tao. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will also add my input here. Coming from a place where I can relate to Andrew B&amp;#039;s situation, almost word for word as it seems like I would have written it, reading advice such as this adds even more fear, anxiety, stress, and doubt to the situation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just like OP&amp;#039;s, my event happened two years ago as well. I don&amp;#039;t want to smear my personal history into this thread, as I have done all over this board already, but something pushed me to search and eventually find this forum. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tao, I respect and appreciate your input. I just thought I would add, since I can relate to this situation, reading advice like this often leaves me feeling worse than before because I question whether or not I am actually on this path of awakening.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 20:13:46 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596448</guid> <dc:creator>Jake WM</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T20:13:46Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596403</link> <description>You seem to have a lot of advice here, so I don&amp;#039;t want to add any complexity.  However, I think it&amp;#039;s too common on here to assume everyone who posts about negative experiences is talking about the dark night.  If you don&amp;#039;t believe you have hit any jhanas, and the energetic experience you are calling the A&amp;amp;P happened two years ago, it seems unlikely that you&amp;#039;re experiencing meditation related problems.  Some questions to ask yourself: Did you already feel negative before your experience two years ago?  Has your negativity been related to specific things in your life?  Does your negativity seem existential (what is the meaning of life) or depressive (why is life so sucky)?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you&amp;#039;re genuinely depressed, noting thoughts and sensations isn&amp;#039;t going to cure you.  You&amp;#039;ll need to work with your emotions and do some cognitive behavioral therapy.  You don&amp;#039;t need to give up meditation while doing this, but if you&amp;#039;re already depressed and you increase your concentrtion ability, you could make things worse by directing your concentration at your negativity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a number of things you can do at home on your own time to dig yourself out of depression.  Mainly, you need to identify the negative thought patterns (Life is dull.  I&amp;#039;m no good.  I&amp;#039;ll never be happy. etc) and challenge them whenever they come up.  There are a number of traps in buddhism, like the three characteristics, that can justify depression.  You might think, &amp;#034;Yes, I can see very clearly that everything is unsatisfying.&amp;#034;  But this isn&amp;#039;t the point of the meditation.  Developing or maintaining aversion to things is just as clinging as wanting them.  What you are trying to find is a way out, and the way out is to understand, and dissassemble the negative thought paterns that feed those feelings.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It sounds like you are meditating with a sense of desperation, hoping it will solve your problems for you.  This is going to cause endless frustration.  Meditation is not going to magically remove habitual negativity - you have to do it manually.  Once you see that removing thought patterns works in a gradual way, though, you won&amp;#039;t feel that desperation anymore because you can see it working in real time.  This will improve your meditation experience and you will probably make much faster progress.  In the suttas - the buddha actually says that a person should find a stable mind before attempting to meditate.  You have to be removed from the hinderances to attain a jhana - the jhanas don&amp;#039;t remove you from the hinderances.  You see what I mean?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So the essential method is this: whenever you notice a negative thought, like &amp;#034;I&amp;#039;m never going to be happy,&amp;#034; you challenge it with logic and bring yourself to the visceral understanding that it is not true.  You don&amp;#039;t need to try to feel better, or struggle to change your mood.  You simply question whether your thoughts are true.  If you can find a person to talk to about these thoughts - even just a friend - they can give you a different perspective on them as well.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another method that&amp;#039;s helped me a lot is negative visualization.  It was used by the Stoics in ancient Greece, and also has applications in modern therapy.  In your situation, you could spend a little time each day imagining yourself in negative situations - like if you had your leg amputated, or you lost your job - and compare that to how your life is now.  This can give you a more positive perspective on things, and it also allows your imagination the freedom to present you with the things you fear most.  As you spend time confronting the worst your imagination can throw at you, you begin to realize that you really could handle any situation.  There is no reason to ruminate over negative posibilities and negative events because you will be capable of dealing with them when they happen.  The thing that&amp;#039;s causing all your troubles is your imagination.  You imagine better times in the past or future, or you imagine negative possibilities and feel the need to rehearse for them.  You can stop these habits by letting the imagination run free and facing it calmly.  There really is nothing there, and the present moment we live in can be truely meaningful if we tame these mental wanderings.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 17:59:51 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596403</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T17:59:51Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596340</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Colleen Karalee Peltomaa:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Richard writes:&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Some of the lack of interest you talk about does sound like depression and the dark night should feel crappy but also have a flavour of freedom from habits. &amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What I&amp;#039;m getting from what you wrote is that the Dark Night is the experience of death of ego;  sometimes I experience embarrassment, depression, disorientation, tears, etc (but not for long) along with a realization, &amp;#034;I don&amp;#039;t have to be-do-have that anymore&amp;#034;.  The intensity of the experience depends on how invested I was.   It has never been a long extended period however so until you wrote this I never understood what was meant by &amp;#034;Dark Night&amp;#034; -- &amp;#034;why are these people suffering so much ?&amp;#034;, I kept wondering.   &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If Dark Night is death of egoic mind, then I understand now and I simply had a disconnect with the term used here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Would you agree that overall our practice activities should be fun, rewarding, etc.?  Yes, I passively open myself to re-experiencing some intense mental hang-ups, but the sit ends with me being better than I was going in, regards discreating fixed importances.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob Burbea&amp;#039;s viewpoints are very interesting -- thank you for the link.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What clinging in the habitual sense is, is like a clenched fist in your mind. That feeling is how wired the brain is for certain activities. When the brain is not activating this clinging behaviour the wiring changes (it goes into atrophy) and that has an affect on how you feel much like letting go of a grip and feeling your hand throb (in this case it&amp;#039;s your head and/or body). The sense of freedom is increasing but there&amp;#039;s some withdrawal symptoms and most instructors like Joseph Goldstein say 100% of people have to go through this.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is also the reason why the dark night doesn&amp;#039;t go away completely until there are no more insights to be had. The first time it happened for me it was an icky feeling all over the body but different than a flu, or depression or anything else. Maybe when I was addicted to coffee and went cold turkey did I feel something similar. I had smaller versions of that until I let go of aversion to a wandering mind. That was another big one that left me with some weird jaw pain and a desyncing of mental talk with actual speaking. It lasted some weeks but I returned to normal and an even better baseline.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When the mind (likely a stream-entry event of some kind) let go of a huge portion of the self-referencing habit it was a massive relief and yet everything was normal. I laughed. It was just a muscle tension that was starting up and let go permanently. All that&amp;#039;s left is some deeper layers of selfing that come with seeing deficiency, indulging in preferences, treating objects with permanent existence.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve done more a dry path than a wet path even though I can do 4 jhanas, but it may be possible to reduce some of these symptoms by having a stronger concentration practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So ultimately the death of the ego is really just death of addictiveness and it happens in layers because there are multiple selves based on the 5 senses plus thinking and multiple ways a self can be measured against criteria, which is just a survival mechanism related to social groups. The self can be as big as any narcissist can be and as small as a consciousness looking at an object in time and trying to decide if that object will be good or bad for a &amp;#034;me&amp;#034; in the future.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 17:17:29 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596340</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T17:17:29Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596307</link> <description>I don&amp;#039;t know how much walking or other kinds of movement meditation you do, but it&amp;#039;s a great complement to the sitting practice. It has helped me get unstuck in the past, especially when feeling caught in the mind or mind-states.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 16:45:02 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596307</guid> <dc:creator>Small Steps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T16:45:02Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Excited for Round 2!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596248</link> <description>Hello, James, and you expressed it so well -- I feel your enthusiasm.   This is one forum I would pay to be a member of solely because of the emphasis on dedicated, knowing practice.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 14:46:08 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596248</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T14:46:08Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596234</link> <description>Richard writes:&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Some of the lack of interest you talk about does sound like depression and the dark night should feel crappy but also have a flavour of freedom from habits. &amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What I&amp;#039;m getting from what you wrote is that the Dark Night is the experience of death of ego;  sometimes I experience embarrassment, depression, disorientation, tears, etc (but not for long) along with a realization, &amp;#034;I don&amp;#039;t have to be-do-have that anymore&amp;#034;.  The intensity of the experience depends on how invested I was.   It has never been a long extended period however so until you wrote this I never understood what was meant by &amp;#034;Dark Night&amp;#034; -- &amp;#034;why are these people suffering so much ?&amp;#034;, I kept wondering.   &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If Dark Night is death of egoic mind, then I understand now and I simply had a disconnect with the term used here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Would you agree that overall our practice activities should be fun, rewarding, etc.?  Yes, I passively open myself to re-experiencing some intense mental hang-ups, but the sit ends with me being better than I was going in, regards discreating fixed importances.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob Burbea&amp;#039;s viewpoints are very interesting -- thank you for the link.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 14:25:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596234</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T14:25:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596225</link> <description>A lot of great advice shared on this thread; I&amp;#039;ll offer my two cents. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s really tough to meditate when thoughts-and-feelings are being taken as a solid seperate self who can &amp;#039;do&amp;#039; the meditation. Yet this is where we all begin. The whole premise (that the true nature of things is allready perfect (or perfectly empty and impermanent), yet we are obviously suffering, and nothing &amp;#039;I&amp;#039; DO can resolve this conflict) is inherantly problematic. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So it can be really helpful to commit to a simple basic approach. For me this means initially paying some attention to getting into a stable posture, letting breathing breathe, and having an open, curious fresh attitude. Starting by returning to the breath and posture whenever noticing I&amp;#039;m caught up in thoughts/feelings can be very grounding. Gradually appreciating how sitting is very dynamic-- blood is pumping, balance is dynamic; how the wind is blowing outside and the birds are chirping and the cars are going by and the light is shifting in the room etc. and all that is happening naturally. Appreciating the vast context in which &amp;#039;I&amp;#039; am sitting and how it is all going on naturally. After a while of shifting attention away from thinking-feeling process into the broader deeper context of being alive, awake, breathing right here in this room with all these activities allready occuring within and around me in a natural way, gradually it becomes more obvious that the thinking-feeling process is also occuring in just such a natural way, just like weather. When the whole scene-- thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, and all the events occurring around one are seen as just happening naturally, there is a very subtle yet distinct sense of interconnection and spontaneity. Then the thinking-feeling process can be seen not to constitute a solid self. The whole process as I described it here is designed to start out in the opposite direction from a goal-driven practice so it can be very helpful if that goal-drivenness is leading to a sense of staleness, frustration, etc. This is a sort of alternative approach that emphasises returning to naturalness, to what is allready the way things are, rather than one of driving forward through states and stages. Of course the punch line is that doing things this way will lead to an unfolding of stages of awakening. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;You&amp;#034; don&amp;#039;t have to know what needs to happen next (which road to go down). &amp;#034;You&amp;#034; don&amp;#039;t really need to know anything. Seeing how &amp;#034;You&amp;#034; as a thinking-feeling being are situated in this broader deeper context of just breathing, just sitting, everything around &amp;#034;you&amp;#034; just happening, that thinking-feeling &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; that has goals and gets frustrated and bored just is seen as more weather happening on its own. It can be a big relief. And it can be a well of insights which transform the baseline of how experience functions.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 14:09:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596225</guid> <dc:creator>. Jake .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T14:09:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Excited for Round 2!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596209</link> <description>Just wanted to drop a quick note to the group about how grateful and excited we are to have accidently found MCTB. It has completely reinvigorated our practice. I started practicing about 16-17 years ago autodidactically and got into some strange places that freaked me out. Had no understanding of what was happening. Living in Las Vegas, I had no other Buddhist to even talk to. Fast forward to now... I live in Seattle now and my practice has gotten into a total rut. I&amp;#039;ve felt at the group I go to like the advanced kid in school that&amp;#039;s bored and starting to fail because I&amp;#039;m being held back by the status quo. I&amp;#039;ve activly started complaining openly about many things... like how I feel like I&amp;#039;m just calling it in on the cusion, the Mindfulness movement is stripped down Buddhism, the deep intertwining here in the NW with the hippies... I could go on and on. So finding this hardcore movement is probably the most important event in my spiritual life. I feel amazing understood and invigorated to start all over from scratch and attack this enlightenment thing. I&amp;#039;m so ready for this!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-Trick</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 14:06:02 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596209</guid> <dc:creator>James Christopher Ferber</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T14:06:02Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596166</link> <description>&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Nice thread&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;J&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;hana remains perpetually out of reach.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;I felt like that for years. It got particularly tough after I crossed the A&amp;amp;P and spent an entire summer practicing samatha-only 2 hours a day without results--while DN&amp;#039;ing. But at that stage I had the technique down and I persisted, and over the following 3 months started sporadically entering them. Eventually my brain seemed to get the picture and I suddenly found I could call up any of them with ease. SE came remarkably quickly after that and I suspect it had a lot to do with having already laid down the pathways to the 4&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;th jhana.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Unless your mind is particularly restless and flighty, I&amp;#039;d seriously consider taking that route. I&amp;#039;ve never come across a long-term, pre-SE DN&amp;#039;er on this site who can call up the 4&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;th jhana at will. See my post &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;view_message&amp;#x2f;4210809&amp;#x23;_19_message_4211402"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for pointers, Ian And&amp;#039;s &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;1191517"&gt;guide&lt;/a&gt;, and the &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;view_message&amp;#x2f;1286373&amp;#x23;_19_message_1286373"&gt;Practical Aspects of Establishing Mindfulness&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 12:17:53 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596166</guid> <dc:creator>B B</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T12:17:53Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596032</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Andrew B.:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I don&amp;#039;t know how you guys manage to keep up this practice all the way to stream entry, much less arahatship.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m at a point in my own practice that feels like I&amp;#039;m standing at the apex of a very complex intersection and I can&amp;#039;t decide which road to take. I&amp;#039;m losing a lot of confidence in my ability to get enlightened at all and wondering if I shouldn&amp;#039;t just chuck the whole endeavor out the window. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hit A&amp;amp;P once a couple years ago, but I haven&amp;#039;t been able to get anything close to that since. It came on kind of suddenly. I wouldn&amp;#039;t even say I gained any kind of insight from it. Just a lot of (frankly terrifying) kundalini activity, and something of a glow that lasted about a week. Since then I suspect I&amp;#039;ve been caught up in the dark night, but I&amp;#039;m at a complete loss as to how to get out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve tried noting, but I find it exhausting. Even very light noting gets very aggravating for me after a while. Mantra becomes similarly exhausting because of the repetetiveness. Koan training (which triggered my initial A&amp;amp;P but hasn&amp;#039;t done much good for me since) is irritating for a combination of the above two reasons. I&amp;#039;ve thought a lot about it and I think the problem I have with these techniques is that I&amp;#039;m already a very cognitive person, though not terribly sensory- or detail-oriented. So noting becomes overwhelming, and mantra and koans just make me too antsy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On the other hand, I seem to have better luck with styles like shikantaza, self-inquiry, and contemplative prayer. Some of my most interesting meditation experiences recently came from following Aleister Crowley&amp;#039;s instructions on asana, which are basically just to train oneself to sit perfectly still, not moving a muscle, for up to one hour (so far I&amp;#039;ve made it as far as thirty minutes). The problem here is that my meditation will be great for about a day or two, then feel like chewing on tin foil the next day.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now that I&amp;#039;m writing all of this down and starting to put some things in perspective, it&amp;#039;s starting to sound like whining to me. Of course, the practice is difficult. It&amp;#039;s not supposed to be a cakewalk. But I&amp;#039;ve hardly got any positive feedback to keep me going at all anymore. I feel like I&amp;#039;m getting more antsy and neurotic as a result of my meditation than otherwise, but at the same time just patient and endurant enough to deal with that without breaking down. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Meditation feels like a chore that doesn&amp;#039;t offer any kind of reward anymore. I&amp;#039;ve tried focussing  on improving my concentration so as to better approach insight, but I don&amp;#039;t seem to be getting anywhere with that, either. Jhana remains perpetually out of reach. I don&amp;#039;t think I&amp;#039;ve ever gotten it. Or, if I have, and it&amp;#039;s possible, it was so light and vague and difficult to hold onto that it wasn&amp;#039;t even worth the effort trying to get.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In my life outside of formal meditation, I feel like I&amp;#039;m constanty running on fumes. Just low energy. Lost interest in things I used to be passionate about. Little motivation to pursue those passions that do remain. My mind is either in total chaos, or totally dull. I feel like I&amp;#039;ve lost most of my creativity, which, as a writer, is pretty devastating.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t understand this. I don&amp;#039;t know how much of this is the dark night, how much is run-of-the-mill depression, and how much of it is just me doing it wrong. It&amp;#039;s enough to make me desperately want to get to stream entry and lessen this load of suffering at least a little bit, but at the same time the wish to do that isn&amp;#039;t motivation enough to actually get it done, because practice itself is just utterly demotivating now, and all I have to go on is word-of-mouth.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thoughts? I have no one else to turn to on this matter.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I&amp;#039;m more of a direct path person so stream-entry isn&amp;#039;t as big a deal for me but to constantly add refinement of understanding and mindfulness no matter which method you use is essential.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It sounds like you&amp;#039;re caught in expectations and now have to refine your meditation practice further and rediscover the joy that is in it. People usually get to stream-entry and beyond because they are consistent in practice and develop strong momentum without a constant measuring of progress and REFINE the practice to workout the kinks.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To me the practice is all about adding more nuance and consistency and daily life practice being the key. Sitting and meditation, when I was letting go of jhanas and starting to do vipassana, showed clearly that I needed to note during the day and even at work. A lot of shifts occurred at work with my eyes open.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To get out of the dark night you have to get refined and look at the 4 foundations of mindfulness and start noting more detail. The foundations create a nice list of things that are there for many people and so very likely you will have those experiences and should note them. There&amp;#039;s usually something that is missing that you aren&amp;#039;t noting like &amp;#034;analyzing&amp;#034; &amp;#034;strategizing&amp;#034; &amp;#034;rehearsing&amp;#034; &amp;#034;catastrophizing&amp;#034; &amp;#034;doubt&amp;#034; &amp;#034;confusion&amp;#034; etc. Make sure to note mind-states like &amp;#034;sadness&amp;#034; &amp;#034;boredom&amp;#034; &amp;#034;dullness&amp;#034; &amp;#034;dissatisfaction&amp;#034; &amp;#034;wanting&amp;#034; &amp;#034;laziness&amp;#034; &amp;#034;restlessness&amp;#034; &amp;#034;equanimity&amp;#034; &amp;#034;desire&amp;#034; &amp;#034;aversion&amp;#034; &amp;#034;measuring&amp;#034; &amp;#034;evaluating&amp;#034; &amp;#034;critiquing&amp;#034;. What you note is registered in your brain with a label of understanding and you&amp;#039;re not likely to cling to it. To note delusion it&amp;#039;s good to understand the interdepedence of objects and how our consciousness needs objects to be conscious. The middle path between 100% permanent and 100% nihilism is treating reality as real but under the 3 characteristics. Objects are made up of sub-atomic particles but appear to us as simplified objects to like or dislike.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I found that a lot of the emptiness talks from Rob Burbea have helped me enormously:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5031205"&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5031205&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For a direct path person doing a Shikantaza practice and treating all experiences as rebounding off a mirror of awareness/consciousness/knowing is the first big step towards developing strong equanimity. The &amp;#034;mirror&amp;#034; doesn&amp;#039;t react and all emotions and experiences can arise and pass away off of it like a non-stick pan. The mirror is completely non-judgmental. Any projections of judgement on it are thinking pretending to be consciousness. This created a lot of reduction of stress but as usual there&amp;#039;s much more refinement necessary.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As the mirror benefits get habituated some of the downsides are noticeable. There&amp;#039;s a tendency to cling to the mirror by batting away distraction (cleaning the mirror of thoughts) and by thinking there&amp;#039;s a location of this mirror at the back of the head.  To see that consciousness is interdependent is to see that ALL experiences are consciousness-experience. Or to put it another way, everything is consciousness, so that all sensations that create a sense of location is just more sensations. Even depth perceptions and 3D qualities of vision are just qualities inseparable from consciousness. You can note &amp;#034;space&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;object&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;remembering&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;impressions&amp;#034; without having to push or bat anything away. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another downside to Shikantaza is laziness. It&amp;#039;s so easy to get caught in stories and not notice detail without the noting feedback loop that keeps you honest. I still use noting instead of 100% bare awareness. Find a balance that moves you forward to more understanding of your experience.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There&amp;#039;s also the sense of time. Another good practice is to notice how objects happen in time and that measuring how good or bad these objects will be for us in the future or ruminating how they were in the past are still in the subjective conceptual world. If you look for a duration for the present moment, any duration can be subdivided into smaller and smaller fractions for eternity so the reality of our remembering and projections in the future are really called into question.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Meditation can be a chore if you note to bat thoughts away. Another trick is to pay attention to thoughts and watch how they feel before, during, and after they subside. When paying attention the thoughts should be painless but when in aversion towards thoughts, a sense of separation appears (which happens with all aversion). The intention to pay attention can have lots of hidden stress/aversion. This leads to the understanding that if you noticed your mind wandered then you&amp;#039;re already back. There&amp;#039;s no need to add stress with beliefs like &amp;#034;there shouldn&amp;#039;t be a wandering mind.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some of the lack of interest you talk about does sound like depression and the dark night should feel crappy but also have a flavour of freedom from habits. That&amp;#039;s how I delineate the two. Depression always felt different and more dull and a scary feeling that nothing is interesting in this world. I&amp;#039;m so far away from that now so if I can get through then so can you. I suspect that if you let your mind wander wherever it wants to go (Daniel&amp;#039;s advice really helped me in this area) your brain will start finding interest, desire, and wonder again. This is why it&amp;#039;s good to make an assessment about what your deep goals are and look at the short-term habits that are getting in the way. This is the liberation we need to seek out and the main goal is to find out what contribution we want to make in this life. This requires lots of thinking but if you&amp;#039;re paying attention with bare awareness you can add more and faster thinking and still be okay.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Right Effort: Let go of unskillfullness, prevent unskillfullness from arising, cultivate skillfullness, and sustain. I used the Right Effort instructions to push my intentions in better areas. It&amp;#039;s been a help but there&amp;#039;s still more. LOL!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Looking at intentions (the feeling of &amp;#034;going to do&amp;#034; &amp;#034;about to do&amp;#034;) before actions zeros in on the most deep conditioning because it&amp;#039;s what happens before you do your actions and actions are remembered for future impulses of consciousness to repeat. Learning to let go of intentions can start to bring some control back into your life. I still have more practice to do because any habitual intentions are so quick that they appear at the same time as the action. I have to increase mindfulness to control actions to prevent unskillfulness. Yet pushing against habits/preferences makes the brain uncomfortable/cortisol/stress. How can I break through this barrier&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally I found the 4 yogas in the Moonlight Mahamudra book. I read this years ago but fucking didn&amp;#039;t understand it and got lost. These are the instructions that I paraphrased that have refined the practice further for me and reduced stress further and has given me an inkling of more deeper freedom than I thought was possible. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Welcome experiences&lt;/strong&gt; - This prevents noting and equanimity inclinations from being half-hearted and full of aversion.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Maintain awareness without examining it&lt;/strong&gt; - ALL measurements can have a danger of being self-measurements.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do not view appearances as deficient - &lt;/strong&gt;Let go of preferences and even purposefully put yourself into growth activities that are different than short-term preferences. Welcoming alleviates much of the stress of doing non-habitual actions.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This is no meditation or meditator&lt;/strong&gt; - This is better understood when the top three are followed because self-referencing and measuring progress is not happening.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;And now as of today I found a nice Gil Fronsdal talk that&amp;#039;s already creating some help by pointing out a constant gratitude and treating things with &lt;strong&gt;importance&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;audiodharma&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;talks&amp;#x2f;audio_player&amp;#x2f;5119&amp;#x2e;html"&gt;http://www.audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/5119.html&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s very easy for equanimity to include a whole bunch of neglect and in the extreme a sort of nihilism. By putting love and care into what&amp;#039;s going on in the present moment creates a palpable feeling of grace that I like.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I just dropped a bunch of jewels and pearls of dharma that has nothing to do with &amp;#034;getting stream-entry&amp;#034; that you can use and should bring back some of what you lost in rewarding meditation experiences (and I mean this as a daily life practice more than a sitting practice).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Good luck!</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 05:11:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596032</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T05:11:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596006</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John M.:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Also: being a particular kind of meditator with a certain kind of practice meant to produce a very special thing sounds like a whole lot of pressure. In truth, the full extent of your responsibility as a meditator is to show up and be present. Whatever else is happening behind the scenes can safely be considered above your pay grade. Want to practice contemplative prayer? Fine, show up and be present with that experience. Want to note? Great, show up and be present with that experience. There&amp;#039;s a kind of hands-off simplicity to the whole thing that one can really open up and relax into.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;You hit the nail right on the head. No doubt I put a lot of pressure on myself to achieve something very specific, then get frustrated when I&amp;#039;m not even close. Which is probably why a more shikantaza-like practice tends to work for me more. Maybe that&amp;#039;s just the shadow side of goal-oriented practice, and I need to balance my yang with a bit more yin. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(Interestingly, in my daily life outside of formal practice, I find I need to balance my yin with more yang. I wonder if there&amp;#039;s any correlation between overcompensating in meditation and undercompensating in daily life, or if that&amp;#039;s just me?)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you. Simply hearing back from a community of people who know what I&amp;#039;m talking about is already motivating me to get back on the cushion.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 04:08:23 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596006</guid> <dc:creator>Andrew B.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T04:08:23Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595990</link> <description>Hrm -- did you &lt;em&gt;ever&lt;/em&gt; know what you were doing? And what does success as a meditator look and feel like? Now might be a good time to revisit your expectations. Consider this meme that popped up here awhile back:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;i&amp;#x2e;imgur&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;eAiKn0Z&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There&amp;#039;s a kind of radical re-contextualization that happens as you get a feel for the cycles, where you finally stop flinching against &amp;#034;negative&amp;#034; phenomena in a deeply reflexive and aversive way and instead begin opening up to the larger lesson at hand. You learn to steer &lt;em&gt;into&lt;/em&gt; uncertainty and bewilderment, in the same way a ship on high seas keeps its bow pointed into the waves. In fact, some totally twisted part of you might even start to enjoy the ride.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also: being a particular kind of meditator with a certain kind of practice meant to produce a very special thing sounds like a whole lot of pressure. In truth, the full extent of your responsibility as a meditator is to show up and be present. Whatever else is happening behind the scenes can safely be considered above your pay grade. Want to practice contemplative prayer? Fine, show up and be present with that experience. Want to note? Great, show up and be present with that experience. There&amp;#039;s a kind of hands-off simplicity to the whole thing that one can really open up and relax into.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 03:47:41 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595990</guid> <dc:creator>John M.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T03:47:41Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595985</link> <description>Thank you. I think that&amp;#039;s just the thing I need to hear.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Doing a bunch of smaller sits that add up to a longer session sounds like the sort of thing that would probably boost my morale enough to get my practice back into a satisfying motion. I&amp;#039;ll have to give it a try. Also the calendar journal thing. I do keep a record of (most) of my sits, though it&amp;#039;s more focused on what I did and how it went. A record that&amp;#039;s more quantitative than qualitative may help me step up my game.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 03:45:25 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595985</guid> <dc:creator>Andrew B.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T03:45:25Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595978</link> <description>This happens, it is impermanent, just keep up a daily practice as best you can.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If one has two sticks, and wants to build a fire, they have to keep rubbing the sticks together, by rubbing the sticks together, persistently and consistently, eventually enough heat will build up to start a fire.  But, the minute one stops rubbing the sticks together the sticks cool down, and one has to start over, maybe not all the way, but some.  Day by day practice is like this, missing a day and the &amp;#034;sticks&amp;#034; cool down.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And, don&amp;#039;t be afraid to give the mind a little mental break, watch a movie, read a book, play a video game, music, whatever, then when the mind is a little more relaxed, then do some formal meditation.  Sometimes, I do some ten minute sits, and do several of them, it still seems to add up somehow for progress, and is less stressful.  Get a calendar journal and write down your sits in minutes, this motivates me, and holds myself accountable, and you can look back and see your effort on paper.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And there is no &amp;#034;bad&amp;#034; sit.  Sometimes the mind just does its thing.  Usually when this happens, I &amp;#034;write off&amp;#034; the first sit, then do a &amp;#034;fun&amp;#034; sit later, a sit with no expectation, just sitting, the second one seems to go better.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And, lastly, progress is sometimes slow, but it is happening, we are just unaware it is happening, there are changes taking place, maybe noting speed is increasing by milliseconds, how can one notice that?  Or maybe tranquility is just around the corner, just by bring the attention back to the obect of meditation one more time might be just what the mind needed for to hit it&amp;#039;s new level of consciousness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Meditation works, it is being scientifically proven effective, and your probably more experienced that you are giving yourself credit for anyway.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;later&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Psi Phi</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 03:24:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595978</guid> <dc:creator>Psi Phi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T03:24:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595947</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Teague:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Have you ever sat a retreat?  If you do decide you want to continue (and if you&amp;#039;ve crossed the A&amp;amp;P, you will have a strong inclination to continue) then it can give your practice a big boost and push you into new territory and help you master old territory.  My advice would be to go sit a Goenka vipassana course.  If you find noting too cognitive, you might find the Goenka body-scanning method more to your liking.  Even after discovering noting and finding it really effective, I still use scanning as my bread and butter.  Or if there is another method that you&amp;#039;ve heard of that strikes your fancy, then go check it out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I totally know what your talking about meditation being a chore.  I think a lot of things had to go right for me to get to the point where I see the value of meditation.  One thing that helped was slacking off and then restarting my practice.  When I slacked off I could see myself getting reactive and angsty, then when I started up again I could see myself getting less so.  I&amp;#039;ve yet to get stream entry, but I&amp;#039;ve seen enough proof in pudding to motivate me to continue.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Good luck,&lt;br /&gt;T&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Used to be that I had a pretty solid practice of basic breath meditation, which kept me calm and serene. And I&amp;#039;d go through periods of slacking off, then come back and the difference was remarkable. Nowadays the difference is a lot more subtle. My meditation doesn&amp;#039;t seem to make as big of a difference. Which can be disheartening, but I&amp;#039;m hoping it&amp;#039;s also just part of the process.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have thought about taking a Goenka retreat at some point. I know a guy who goes up to one a few times a year, I think. The main issue there is just getting the time off.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 02:26:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595947</guid> <dc:creator>Andrew B.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T02:26:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595922</link> <description>Have you ever sat a retreat?  If you do decide you want to continue (and if you&amp;#039;ve crossed the A&amp;amp;P, you will have a strong inclination to continue) then it can give your practice a big boost and push you into new territory and help you master old territory.  My advice would be to go sit a Goenka vipassana course.  If you find noting too cognitive, you might find the Goenka body-scanning method more to your liking.  Even after discovering noting and finding it really effective, I still use scanning as my bread and butter.  Or if there is another method that you&amp;#039;ve heard of that strikes your fancy, then go check it out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I totally know what your talking about meditation being a chore.  I think a lot of things had to go right for me to get to the point where I see the value of meditation.  One thing that helped was slacking off and then restarting my practice.  When I slacked off I could see myself getting reactive and angsty, then when I started up again I could see myself getting less so.  I&amp;#039;ve yet to get stream entry, but I&amp;#039;ve seen enough proof in pudding to motivate me to continue.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Good luck,&lt;br /&gt;T</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 01:52:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595922</guid> <dc:creator>Teague</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T01:52:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595897</link> <description>Thetre being so many different techniques and practices it&amp;#039;s understandable to try this and that.&lt;br /&gt;Add to that the mind&amp;#039;s own resistance and I&amp;#039;m amazed anyone sits at all -- even myself - what got into me to do this?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After several years of this and that but never totally giving up I found this forum, got more dedicated and developed Rules of Practice as I&amp;#039;m learning about how my mind works.  It does seem to take years of study and practice.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 01:06:29 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595897</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T01:06:29Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595880</link> <description>Thank you for the response.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That is helpful. I think a Core Practice is something that I am missing. Often I sit and I&amp;#039;m not sure if I want to try just sitting, or focusing on my breath, or any other number of techniques. Unfortunately for me, I&amp;#039;ve always been an indecisive person, so usually I&amp;#039;ll just pick the practice that I&amp;#039;m leaning most towards at the moment, and a minute or two into the sit I want to do something else.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 00:45:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595880</guid> <dc:creator>Andrew B.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T00:45:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595873</link> <description>Hello, Andrew,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I read your post and the only thing I can say that might possibly help is that my Core Practice releases or removes things from my mind, and I compensate with before and aft practices that allow me to consciously fill in for what the mind loses during my Core Practice -- what I decided to give up and to not have bother me anymore, or some subtle letting go.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My Core Practice is a discreate, and I compensate with creative exercises and this has kept me from crashing (or snacking to compensate).  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m interested to read other response.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; </description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 00:37:03 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595873</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T00:37:03Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>I don't know what I'm doing anymore.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595841</link> <description>I don&amp;#039;t know how you guys manage to keep up this practice all the way to stream entry, much less arahatship.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m at a point in my own practice that feels like I&amp;#039;m standing at the apex of a very complex intersection and I can&amp;#039;t decide which road to take. I&amp;#039;m losing a lot of confidence in my ability to get enlightened at all and wondering if I shouldn&amp;#039;t just chuck the whole endeavor out the window. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hit A&amp;amp;P once a couple years ago, but I haven&amp;#039;t been able to get anything close to that since. It came on kind of suddenly. I wouldn&amp;#039;t even say I gained any kind of insight from it. Just a lot of (frankly terrifying) kundalini activity, and something of a glow that lasted about a week. Since then I suspect I&amp;#039;ve been caught up in the dark night, but I&amp;#039;m at a complete loss as to how to get out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve tried noting, but I find it exhausting. Even very light noting gets very aggravating for me after a while. Mantra becomes similarly exhausting because of the repetetiveness. Koan training (which triggered my initial A&amp;amp;P but hasn&amp;#039;t done much good for me since) is irritating for a combination of the above two reasons. I&amp;#039;ve thought a lot about it and I think the problem I have with these techniques is that I&amp;#039;m already a very cognitive person, though not terribly sensory- or detail-oriented. So noting becomes overwhelming, and mantra and koans just make me too antsy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On the other hand, I seem to have better luck with styles like shikantaza, self-inquiry, and contemplative prayer. Some of my most interesting meditation experiences recently came from following Aleister Crowley&amp;#039;s instructions on asana, which are basically just to train oneself to sit perfectly still, not moving a muscle, for up to one hour (so far I&amp;#039;ve made it as far as thirty minutes). The problem here is that my meditation will be great for about a day or two, then feel like chewing on tin foil the next day.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now that I&amp;#039;m writing all of this down and starting to put some things in perspective, it&amp;#039;s starting to sound like whining to me. Of course, the practice is difficult. It&amp;#039;s not supposed to be a cakewalk. But I&amp;#039;ve hardly got any positive feedback to keep me going at all anymore. I feel like I&amp;#039;m getting more antsy and neurotic as a result of my meditation than otherwise, but at the same time just patient and endurant enough to deal with that without breaking down. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Meditation feels like a chore that doesn&amp;#039;t offer any kind of reward anymore. I&amp;#039;ve tried focussing  on improving my concentration so as to better approach insight, but I don&amp;#039;t seem to be getting anywhere with that, either. Jhana remains perpetually out of reach. I don&amp;#039;t think I&amp;#039;ve ever gotten it. Or, if I have, and it&amp;#039;s possible, it was so light and vague and difficult to hold onto that it wasn&amp;#039;t even worth the effort trying to get.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In my life outside of formal meditation, I feel like I&amp;#039;m constanty running on fumes. Just low energy. Lost interest in things I used to be passionate about. Little motivation to pursue those passions that do remain. My mind is either in total chaos, or totally dull. I feel like I&amp;#039;ve lost most of my creativity, which, as a writer, is pretty devastating.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t understand this. I don&amp;#039;t know how much of this is the dark night, how much is run-of-the-mill depression, and how much of it is just me doing it wrong. It&amp;#039;s enough to make me desperately want to get to stream entry and lessen this load of suffering at least a little bit, but at the same time the wish to do that isn&amp;#039;t motivation enough to actually get it done, because practice itself is just utterly demotivating now, and all I have to go on is word-of-mouth.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thoughts? I have no one else to turn to on this matter.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2014 23:41:33 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595841</guid> <dc:creator>Andrew B.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-01T23:41:33Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The end of suffering - is it actually possible?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5582233</link> <description>Like Davide has said, it was how suffering became less and less as pieces of &amp;#039;old self&amp;#039; died.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Believe me, If you follow the Dharma, you can escape suffering.  I have tested it to the extreme.  I still feel extreme pain, but it is like I am listening to a song.  Even grief is something I can choose to explore at will.  The promise of Buddha is real!  KEEP GOING!!!!</description> <pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2014 04:45:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5582233</guid> <dc:creator>Jeremy May</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-13T04:45:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The end of suffering - is it actually possible?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5582227</link> <description>Yes, I assure you.  It is impossible for me to suffer.  I do not suffer.  </description> <pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2014 04:40:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5582227</guid> <dc:creator>Jeremy May</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-13T04:40:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The end of suffering - is it actually possible?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5581909</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Anuthep K.:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I just wanna know whether anyone can confirm from their living reality that there is such a thing as life beyond suffering. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not me, but I&amp;#039;m still firmly convinced that it&amp;#039;s possible. I don&amp;#039;t believe that existence itself, and all things in it, are dukkha. I&amp;#039;m firmly convinced that the &amp;#039;dukkha&amp;#039; aspect of all things can be much more precisely targeted and dealt with. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yet to prove it!</description> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2014 23:56:59 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5581909</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-12T23:56:59Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The end of suffering - is it actually possible?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5581852</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Richard Zen:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I don&amp;#039;t think so.  If you watch the Shinzen Young Batgap interview the masters always have more work to do.  The Syrian torture chamber example. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was going to quote shinzen,too... but if you watch closely he says he does believe that there are people that can pass this rather extreme test.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbznm2NLais#t=2839</description> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2014 23:32:05 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5581852</guid> <dc:creator>x x</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-12T23:32:05Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The end of suffering - is it actually possible?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5581346</link> <description>Hello, Davide,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That was very heartening and well expressed, thank you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, from the &amp;#034;bottom&amp;#034; it does seem to be a restoration of normalcy.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2014 19:44:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5581346</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-12T19:44:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The end of suffering - is it actually possible?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5580508</link> <description>What I am experiencing since few months, after what I consider significant and apparently stable attainments, is not a cessation of suffering but a cessation of my involvment with suffering. In other words, suffering still occurs in its various forms both physical and mental, but I see it, always, as something that does not involves me (since &amp;#039;me&amp;#039; does not really exist). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some practical examples: do I still get mad at people? yes (although way, way less than before, a 90% reduction, I would say). Do I suffer while or after getting mad? Not really. I do feel my heart beating, my voice raising and my thoughts accelerating and narrowing on the object of my hanger, but all that is happening at a distance, is not touching that tender spot (somewhere in the chest) that actually makes me feel pain. And then everything drops away in seconds or few minutes and I am back to equanimity. Before it took me hours, days even weeks to regain balance. Hyronically I am getting used to this state, which is very much mixed into a life that most of the times, in the end, feels very &amp;#034;normal&amp;#034;. In retrospect though the change is dramatic. Also, as other pointed out, all this keeps changing, moving on and I susepct it will until my physical body exists.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hope this helps&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;D</description> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2014 15:28:17 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5580508</guid> <dc:creator>Davide Zaccagnini</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-12T15:28:17Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Summary of thoughts (doubts?)</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5579759</link> <description>Hello, Mattias,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am new to this forum and want to read more posts and read the book and become more familiar with the terminology so that I can stop wondering about this &amp;#034;Dark Night&amp;#034; and learn about the stages.  I will be interested in reading responses to your thread.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For myself, I approach it the same way I approach body-building.   I go for the &amp;#034;burn&amp;#034;, the &amp;#034;pain&amp;#034; to enjoy the increased gains, however I also follow a gradient approach so as not to knock myself out.   My practice is mostly Metta, and I just started at the end of the day to review things that happened during the day and then put them back into the past where they belong.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sometimes a mental conflict comes up, i.e., &amp;#034;I must feed the dog/I must not feed the dog&amp;#034; and that is accompanied by body somatics (heat/pressure) and other phenomenon, but, as with body building, I feel so much better afterwards  :-))   Clean, fresh, alive.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Can&amp;#039;t wait to read the book that is talked about on this forum.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;  </description> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2014 03:00:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5579759</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-12T03:00:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Summary of thoughts (doubts?)</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5579739</link> <description>OK, so this is a summary of my thoughts and feelings after reading too much (here, mostly but also there).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have been meditating and doing yoga and other things for many years, but not as &amp;#034;hardcore&amp;#034; or consistently as most of you people. I have also had spontaneous experiences of many things since childhood, scary things, peaceful things, spirits, other people&amp;#039;s thoughts and feelings, loss of identity in a good sense and a &amp;#034;bad&amp;#034; sense... not something I would call attainment, just sensitivity. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;BUT, I don&amp;#039;t understand the fixation with stages and the dark night, or stages what so ever. In my opinion, sometimes you&amp;#039;re here, sometimes you&amp;#039;re there... If there is a state of mind that is free of &amp;#034;ego&amp;#034; or completely accepting the now, perhaps we go to, into, and from, out of, that stage all the time? Why suffer so much? And, perhaps this is my point, why go hardcore? If meditating too much makes us feel bad, why do it when what we are looking for is not dependant on effort but on an acceptance of existance?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My own experience of meditation is that very little is needed for me to feel good, and feel good is what I want, not in the sense of taking a pill, but in the sense of doing something simple and natural that puts me in touch with what&amp;#039;s already ther but is hidden behind the stress of social conditioning and our society. Why worry about it? Why talk about dark nights when dark nights have been a reality in our lives since we where kids?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope this makes sense somehow, these were spontaneous thoughts and sort of, well just from the heart.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Mattias</description> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2014 02:32:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5579739</guid> <dc:creator>Mat Nolan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-12T02:32:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The end of suffering - is it actually possible?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5574085</link> <description>Hello Anuthep, kind regards.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think you asked yourself a good question.   When you say cessation of suffering it sounds to me you are referring to Nirvana.  I equate the two myself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To sum, in my practice I am rather confidently headed towards that state or condition of existence, but I only get taste of it now and then, not yet stable.   As long as I have a contentious or conflicted reactive mind of course I will bring suffering upon myself.  What about others?  I also have to have no resistence to their compulsiveness and insanity -- to their thirst for sensation at the expense of others.  The practices I use promise to bring me to that endpoint where I can freely step away from the fray or voluntarily join the &amp;#034;fun&amp;#034;.  I plan on finishing this lifetime.  Then I probably won&amp;#039;t be heard from ever again ???   :-) &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, I know of only two people, one of them the author, who have used these techniques and achieved such a state.   Again, the author laid it out so logically and simply that only my own conflicted mind would keep me from finishing his levels of activity required to achieve Nirvana.  I won&amp;#039;t mention more about the author because he does not fit into the framework of discussions on this forum.  I do, however belong to other forums that freely discuss his work.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the past three years I have gone from totally crashed and burned out to a conservative equanimity.  Suffering is a great spur.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another point, when one has reached a state of &amp;#034;high human&amp;#034; they often see no need to continue.   They will eventually find themselves in the soup again some lifetime unless they reach for a more &amp;#034;Causal&amp;#034; or &amp;#034;beyond human&amp;#034; condition.    &amp;#034;To be human&amp;#034; and to have a human mind have to be laid out for examination.   Every &amp;#034;must/must not -ness&amp;#034; dissolved, especially the life oriented goals.  Even the Buddha was a returnee imho.  I view life as a learning curve, so no dogma here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If not this lifetime, for sure for everyone I contemplate their end of suffering.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2014 18:46:03 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5574085</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-08-26T18:46:03Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The end of suffering - is it actually possible?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5574043</link> <description>I don&amp;#039;t think so.  If you watch the Shinzen Young Batgap interview the masters always have more work to do.  The Syrian torture chamber example.  But you can greatly reduce mental stress to a much lower level.  Some people have cured their depression with meditation (though they took years to do so).  The typical stress that people go through is way higher than it needs to be.  Masters also remind students that they need to keep meditating because the underlying habits can return.  I think it&amp;#039;s worthwhile to pursue.  The new baselines you develop through disenchantment are permanent improvements but how far you can go is limited only by lifespan.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Remember the difference between emotional pain and physical pain.  Also remember that a person may not have too many troubles in life.  When the big stuff happens that will be the true test.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2014 16:49:43 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5574043</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-08-26T16:49:43Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>The end of suffering - is it actually possible?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5574030</link> <description>Suppose we lay aside the issue of blissful states and temporary cessation of perception and feeling. Suppose we lay aside the issue of seeing the true nature of reality. All I&amp;#039;m asking is, is there any reason to believe that it is possible to transcend suffering permanently in this life, or is that just one of the wishful-thinking/misinterpretations that caught on? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just to be clear, I&amp;#039;m not talking about lessening stress and gaining more peace of mind or whatever -- I just wanna know whether anyone can confirm from their living reality that there is such a thing as life beyond suffering. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2014 16:43:55 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5574030</guid> <dc:creator>Anuthep K.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-08-26T16:43:55Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Help with getting a grasp of whats required</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5538203</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;1 is not as frequently being lost in the river of mindless thoughts and undercurrent. At times it happens that I am not, however weather I am lost in this river or not, seems governed by factors that operate generally outside of my awareness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Something that has helped me a great deal with this is to realize that this river of thoughts and emotions doesn&amp;#039;t need to be changed at all to step out of it. You don&amp;#039;t have to feel good or stop your thoughts to enter into the &amp;#034;presence&amp;#034; or awareness mode. I like to think of them as two separate worlds, and the gateway is through the senses. If you simply accept whatever is in your mind as it is and come back to the senses, the mind has a way of disappearing on it&amp;#039;s own. Acceptance, then awareness. Make it a knee-jerk reaction and things will change very rapidly - they have for me since I started doing it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve noticed that this ability is directly related to absorption practice as well, so both your ability to reach jhana, and your ability to &amp;#034;dwell as the witness&amp;#034; will support each other. From the reading I&amp;#039;ve done on high stages of attainment, it&amp;#039;s generally reported that there are no feelings, and no self-referential thoughts in the people who have stabilized non-dual awareness. I&amp;#039;ve taken this as a cue for practice and I don&amp;#039;t rest satisfied until I&amp;#039;m able to stabilize a mode of perception that is completely free of that &amp;#034;inner world&amp;#034;. Just go for the throat, I think. When in this witness mode I notice the concept of a central controller is weakened a great deal. I think it&amp;#039;s only a matter of time before it goes completely.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Full disclosure: I&amp;#039;ve based a lot of my practice on the Actual Freedom stuff, but that&amp;#039;s more because it already fit into what I was seeing experimentally. I may be completely wrong. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/big_grin.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 26 May 2014 21:52:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5538203</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-26T21:52:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Help with getting a grasp of whats required</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537904</link> <description>&lt;a href="mailto&amp;#x3a;patjunfa&amp;#x40;gmail&amp;#x2e;com"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href="mailto&amp;#x3a;patjunfa&amp;#x40;gmail&amp;#x2e;com"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Dream walker, thanks so much for your kind offer, you have my contact details now. I’d love to have a conversation about this. Let me know what time would suit, I’m in Ireland and have good availability today and tomorrow.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not Tao, thanks again for responding. That actually seems like a good goal or plan to have, regarding the Jhanas. I may post in the concentration sections on this site as I go along and queries arise. I’ve kept a meditation diary for the last couple of years and I don’t think concentration development is a remotely linear path. Though I’d certainly be interested to find otherwise.I find concentration somewhat comes and goes and at times my mind will be focused easily and I have access concentration, (especially on retreat, naturally) at other times however I can find it impossible to get stability. I bring acceptance to this, but would like if I there was a more skilful way to navigate states of mindlessness and states of awareness. What I like about setting this as a formal goal, rather than just an interest, is I can then see, after time, if its happening or not, and this is a place that I can perhaps reflect on how that path goes and get feedback.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The combination of initial breath focus and then choice less awareness with noting, is pretty much what I find myself doing recently. I will check out some of the writing’s here and also get “the practical insight meditation” book, which I see recommended, for more on noting.  Sometimes I find my experience similar to the effortless manor in which you describe. Christina Feldman has a lovely talk on effort and effortlessness http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/44/talk/22667/. She gives the example of a concert pianist who’s best music, flows, as if by itself, as they stand out of the way, yet in the background is years of diligent effort to create these conditions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have a few ideas for what waking up means. 1 is not as frequently being lost in the river of mindless thoughts and undercurrent. At times it happens that I am not, however weather I am lost in this river or not, seems governed by factors that operate generally outside of my awareness. 2 might be having a deep awareness of the three characteristics. In terms of Annata, I sense my self contraction, the sense of being soo much more important than the rest of what is in my experience and within the universe. I don’t believe in this viewpoint, yet it operates mostly. I have a sense, from lucidity within dreams and other things, that I am in fact the wizard of oz, keeping the illusion going, but forgetting that I am the one pulling the wool over my eyes, about the fact that I have created this grand illusion, perpetuating conditioned beliefs and ignoring the creative potential of life. Like a leg I’ve sat on too long and its gone asleep and been mostly forgotten. I want to wake up. As you say though, that might be too abstract to know if Ive realised it or not. Perhaps my bucket list in this regard would include, Being able to navigate into Jhanas; a deeper awareness of Impermanence and Annata; leading to less self absorbtion and being more available to really make a positive difference to others and the world. Lastly increased lucidity within dreams and deep sleep.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks again for feedbackn best wishes&lt;br /&gt; </description> <pubDate>Mon, 26 May 2014 11:17:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537904</guid> <dc:creator>patrick o connor</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-26T11:17:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Help with getting a grasp of whats required</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537821</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;patrick o connor:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Wow, v cool and kind of you... Skype would be great. Is tomorrow (mon)evening anytime or else morning b4 12 (gmt)good? If not, when suits?&lt;br /&gt; Thanks a lot&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Patrick&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I should have time to chat tomorrow evening Monday west coast time. What is your email or skype name?&lt;br /&gt;~D</description> <pubDate>Mon, 26 May 2014 08:19:11 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537821</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-26T08:19:11Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Help with getting a grasp of whats required</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537718</link> <description>Maybe you could try developing the jhanas.  Those mental gymnastics you were referencing were likely some kind of concentration states.  The Jhanas can be very impressive and have a way of validating meditation due to the &amp;#034;special effects&amp;#034; they can cause. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Noting has, in my experience, been a helpful addition to choiceless awareness as well.  Perhaps you could spend 20 minutes doing pure concentration, then move into choiceless awareness with some noting.  Essentially noting and choiceless awareness are doing the same thing, which is practicing acceptance of everything that arises.  As you learn to accept phenomena, you&amp;#039;ll begin to get insights into anatta that are very liberating - it&amp;#039;s about learning to be &amp;#034;effortless&amp;#034; I think.  This has just started to happen for me, and I&amp;#039;ve been very surprised by it - wasn&amp;#039;t expecting it at all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for the jhanas, they aren&amp;#039;t as difficult as they may seem to be.  You can get some soft jhanas in a few months with just 20-30 minutes of practice each day.  Just be very diligent about paying attention to some object (breath, body awareness, etc) and don&amp;#039;t worry too much about stopping thoughts.  Try to build awareness in little spurts and see every moment of noticing as a success.  If you treat it like a game it&amp;#039;ll progress much more quickly. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Maybe try to develop a clear idea of what your goal is as well, then you&amp;#039;ll be able to make progress towards it.  If you say, &amp;#034;I want to awaken&amp;#034;, that&amp;#039;s very abstract, so you&amp;#039;ll never really know if you&amp;#039;re moving in the right direction.  But if you say, &amp;#034;I would like to strengthen my concentration and be able to demonstrate for myself the factors of the first jhana,&amp;#034; then you&amp;#039;ll have something very clear to move towards.  A few suggested goals might be:  Develop body awareness, develop the ability to maintain concentration on an object, practice complete awareness when taking a shower, etc.  There are lots of fun lists in Buddhism that might give you some ideas for what to work on as well.  Check out the 5 hindrances, the 7 factors for awakening, and descriptions of the 8 jhanas.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Eventually you&amp;#039;re going to have to figure out exactly what awakening means to you.  Does it mean perceiving the world in a non-dual way?  Does it mean the complete end of suffering?  Does it mean finding and stabilizing a ground of being or a higher self?  These are all things people can mean by awakening, and they&amp;#039;ll all tell you they&amp;#039;re the only ones who are right, haha.  It&amp;#039;s best to figure out what you want early on and stick with it!  That way you&amp;#039;ll know if something is working or not.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 25 May 2014 23:09:11 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537718</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-25T23:09:11Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Help with getting a grasp of whats required</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537708</link> <description>Wow, v cool and kind of you... Skype would be great. Is tomorrow (mon)evening anytime or else morning b4 12 (gmt)good? If not, when suits?&lt;br /&gt; Thanks a lot&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Patrick</description> <pubDate>Sun, 25 May 2014 22:36:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537708</guid> <dc:creator>patrick o connor</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-25T22:36:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Help with getting a grasp of whats required</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537695</link> <description>Sounds like a conversation might be better than posting...do you do google hangouts or skype? I&amp;#039;d be happy to chat with you.&lt;br /&gt;~D</description> <pubDate>Sun, 25 May 2014 22:24:13 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537695</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-25T22:24:13Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Help with getting a grasp of whats required</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537583</link> <description>Hiya&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks a lot for your responses. Perhaps for individual guidance I do need to seek out and make relationship with a teacher. But there is something that appeals to me in what I read in MCTB and here, about frank discussion about ideas of progress. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For instance Not Tao, I also like to rest in open awareness. Sometimes as a self instruction, I begin with telling myself to stop meditating and just be here. At times this can lead to what feels like a very natural state of allowing life just to be...a relaxed and expansive embrace of experience...giving less habitual preference to certain thought activities, or identifications with world views and actually resting in the midst of experience.  At other times for me in this practice, I can feel unfocused, or unclear in intent. Not leading to clear seeing, but to confusion about what meditation is...in a certain sense,  as you suggest, thoughts of progress seem to corrupt the natural acceptance of experience.yet there is still a doing, or a not doing...an intention to be with experience in a certain way, that requires something...In this sense I think that in a way, over time, there can be more or less success with this method. As it says  In a nice description of choicesless awareness on The DHO  &amp;#034;One is also advised to various degrees depending on the tradition or teacher to be actively mindful of what arises, rather than just &amp;#034;sitting there like an idiot,&amp;#034; as a Zen teacher once said.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;So even being mindful requires a certain development than can increase or decrease with time. I don&amp;#039;t want to indulge aversion to what I might judge as a &amp;#034;bad meditation&amp;#034; or a series of this experience. I think its good to just keep sitting regardless of what happens. However another part of me feels that, over time I should be able to evaluate my practice. Am I more able to skilfully navigate within my experience? Creating the conditions under which more clear and expansive perception can occur, and recognising and avoiding conditions that lead to fumbling within meditation. I remember years ago seeing a video in which Ken Wilber is hooked up to an ECG machine and quickly goes through various states, that show on the machine as being predominantly alpha waves, then Theta, then Delta waves. This showed a level of mastery and knowledge of the internal terrain, rather than only being able to sit with whatever arises, be that confusion or clarity. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In many ways I&amp;#039;m quite happy with my current practice and the teachings I engage with. However there remains the voice that strives for awakening...&lt;br /&gt;At times I think this voice can have a craving for the certainty and perhaps safety that I can project onto Ingrams teachings. Also a rejection of my own experience or doubt in  my own practice as you suggest. Rob Nairn, from my training has some beautiful writing on avoiding striving, which at times can lead to a much more relaxed letting go of expectations and appreciating reality, as it is experienced...However I think Delusion does exist, can be recognised and a path towards clarity can be established. To a certain extent I am on this path. However I haven&amp;#039;t really apprehended how what I read in MCTB needs to be applied to make this path clearer. It was useful a while ago when I stuck in doubt, to consider that this is a DN experience, and to examine the experience of doubt as best I could, rather than believe it fully. Asides from that, I am to investigate the sensations that make up reality and examine the 3 characterises and don&amp;#039;t get stuck in content etc. fine in theory. How to make this more effective in practice. Making time to go deeper in retreat would be useful no doubt and this seems to be core part of people&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;progression&amp;#034; here, if I am correct. Does this in some way imply that just a daily practice is likely to keep one within kindergarden? Obviously there is a lot of judgment with that and I don&amp;#039;t wish to discount my own experience, but you get the point hopefully...&lt;br /&gt;Perhaps my actions should be to keep going as I am, practicing to the best of my ability, make time for retreat when able and integrate any of these teachings when they really connect with me. I&amp;#039;m just seeing if I can help make these teachings more specific in practice and wondering what stream entry really means, and is it achievable without the freedom to devote much time to retreat.&lt;br /&gt;Thanks again &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Patrick</description> <pubDate>Sun, 25 May 2014 17:16:41 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537583</guid> <dc:creator>patrick o connor</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-25T17:16:41Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Help with getting a grasp of whats required</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537248</link> <description>Hey Patrick,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think it&amp;#039;s important to remember that any one person is not going to be able to tell you what you actually need to do to reach your goals.  Daniel&amp;#039;s book lays out a specific tradition that worked for him, and he does a good job of &amp;#034;breaking the ice&amp;#034; so to speak and making the impossible (enlightenment) seem less like a magical or religious occurance.  That said, the same ethos that helps dispel myths probably goes too far and he ends up disparaging tradions that really do work (like pure mindfulness training).  It&amp;#039;s true that these traditions have a fad quality to them, but that doesn&amp;#039;t mean they&amp;#039;re wrong.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think, in the end, the methods that work best for each individual are going to depend greatly on their personality.  The best way to find a teacher is probably to seek out someone you feel connected to on a personality/emotional level.  If you have really connected with Daniel&amp;#039;s book, and you are attracted to his description of enlightenment, then by all means, give the methods a try, as they will probably work for you!  If you find they aren&amp;#039;t working, or they seem to be leading you in the wrong direction, then change them or scrap them depending on what seems to be bringing you closer to your goals.  Daniel is a strong personality, haha, and he speaks with so much confidence that it&amp;#039;s easy to question your own methods if he disagrees with them, but there are a lot of people in this &amp;#034;business&amp;#034; of mental improvement, and they all have their own dogmas.  Eventually you will need to develop the confidence to stay with what is working for you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All of that said, you sound a bit like you haven&amp;#039;t found what you&amp;#039;re looking for with your mindfulness practices, so maybe MCTB is realy what you&amp;#039;re looking for!  Just remember that the goal is freedom, and eventually you will have to abandon teachings and make the final steps on your own.  This practice doesn&amp;#039;t &amp;#034;produce&amp;#034; anything - so the only measurment of success is your wellbeing.  Only you can judge that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edit: Just to give some personal advice since you asked for methods, I spend most of my time these days resting in open awareness.  I&amp;#039;ve found that the idea of progress in general conflicts with this practice, so I&amp;#039;ve abandoned maps and simply set my goal to &amp;#034;be completely content in this moment for as long as this moment lasts.&amp;#034;  That&amp;#039;s one of the reasons these practices don&amp;#039;t mix well.  If you&amp;#039;re looking to achieve something, then spending your time &amp;#034;doing nothing&amp;#034; is just going to be frustrating.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 24 May 2014 18:08:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537248</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-24T18:08:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Help with getting a grasp of whats required</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537238</link> <description>I&amp;#039;m hearing two kinds of questions here: (1) about practices in general, and (2) about a practice for you in particular. If you address question (2) first, you&amp;#039;ll have a much deeper perspective from which to eventually answer question (1).</description> <pubDate>Sat, 24 May 2014 17:57:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537238</guid> <dc:creator>Derek Cameron</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-24T17:57:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Help with getting a grasp of whats required</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537213</link> <description> &lt;br /&gt;Firstly thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to consider this. It’s a bit long but I’m not sure how to ask more concisely. I’m almost finished reading MCTB and have was watching the interesting cheetah house videos. I’m also close to starting 3rd year of an MSc in Mindfulness studies.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I’m trying now to consider what is unique or actually being prescribed practically, in what is being advocated in MCTB and on this site? I’ll summarize some of my understanding and then ask for advice on the rest.  &lt;br /&gt;Perhaps the 1st bit, is changing mind-set that enlightenment is actually possible and achievable. There are practices that can actually be mastered and there are recognizable stages that can be worked towards in a goal orientated approach. This certainly contradicts what is advocated on my MSc training, but interest’s me a lot. I’ve often noticed how my practice can vary from intense, focused, blissful, to unfocused or impossible to focus, to simply meandering regardless of effort. If feels as though there “should” be potential wisdom from someone more experienced that offers perspective and evaluation, rather than soupy statements like, “whatever happens, happens” and being ok with it. I have a strong desire to know truth and maintain hope that someone with experience can say something specific on it. Frank and open discussion of experience in this regard is useful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are various maps and what is necessary for growth at one stage is different than at another. Ie. Cultivating access concentration and being able to focus at one point, is a useful effort, whereas in some dark night stages attention will be wider and less focused and it is futile trying to narrow again focus. There will be states of peak experience and these are likely followed by disillusionment and perhaps fear and other things that come with the dark night, which can be seen as a potential sign of progress and worked through, rather than being blindsided by this and slipping into self judgment or worse. In MCTB it says most people interested enough to read this far are probably at least dark night yogi’s and will continue to cycle through these stages and so should be aware of this and work to get stream entry.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is a focus on sticking with the instructions and observing sensations, rather than getting caught in psychologising about content.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In considering timing, Ingram advocates something like a time focused approach, preferring to do relatively a lot in a shorter period, so retreats or intensive practice is considered more useful than the same number of hours spaced out in a longer/more regular timetable. He compares this to pushing a car and getting momentum going.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now! Where does this leave me…Ingram mentions MBSR type of approaches and makes something of a comparison between these and hard-core Dharma practice to kindergarten and college. I wonder if it can be gauged where MBSR or MBCT aim at within these maps, or considering their potential in relation to a kindergarten to college spectrum. I presume a lot of it is down to the actual practitioner and their efforts and many factors. I think Ingram mentions that people can attain these paths by yoga and tai chi and I’m not sure which other practices other than Insight meditation practice. How much does choice of technique matter? In practical terms what is the path? Don’t psychologise, put in the effort, do retreats, be aware of the maps and ?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I’ve done a number of Goenka retreats in the past, also some Kryia yoga. I’ve often found my base practice to be some form of breath awareness, sometimes with self enquiry, asking who am I and examining a sense of subject and object. On the Mindfulness MSc I am doing there has been typical MBSR practices of breath and body awareness, quite a focus on compassion practices such as Meta, Tonglen and others, and some insight practices such as backtracking, choiceless awareness and noticing the arising of thought and the subtle thought and identification with it. The training touchs on the examination of self and no-self. Connected (loosely) to the training is Lucid dream practice, which I have often had a practice of and consider it a very interesting investigation into reality. I have also used noting practice in the last while.&lt;br /&gt;If I am to estimate how my experience relates to the maps, I’d guess I’ve crossed the A+P event and had aspects of dark night experience. After that I’m not sure how to apply the maps.&lt;br /&gt;What now? I hope to get to my 1st retreat in years later this year. Even then, what do I take from all this? On retreat I will follow instructions and get where I get anyway… In my daily practice its hard to know how the maps apply. I think I went through a Dark night period of a couple of months a while ago, where, even when attention was very present, I had a sense of “yeah…now what…whats the point anyway”. I still get this at times, however more often there is enough equanimity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So if you’ve read so far the questions I’m putting out are, what is actually suggested to realise truth?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Is it particular technique? Investigate the sensations making up my reality, be this through Goenka like body scanning, reflecting upon the 3 characteristics in a koan like manor, or perhaps many practices may be used skilfully…&lt;br /&gt;Is it knowing how experience correlates to the maps and having an idea what to look for?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Is it effort and time spent, i.e. make the time for retreats or up the time of daily practice (which is usually 30-40 mins presently (I have kids and a lot on)). If it’s just practice diligently, I know a lot of people, (myself included at times) who practice very diligently, but might not be progressing in the way discussed here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A separate but related consideration is that next year I will be doing my thesis on the Mindfulness studies MSc, which may be a research project. I’m considering how I might use the time spent in this, to deepen my own enquiry into the meditative potential, both personally and in a way that might be useful for others…Ingram mentions that the MBSR community’s make claims which are akin to Kindergarten pupils saying there’s no such thing as college, whereas if many of them know of the graduate courses, at least a number of them would be very interested. I’m not doing MBSR, but it overlaps enough. I’m opening to ideas. Such how maps may be related to peoples experience within the training…if any charts of progress can be made. Perhaps looking at peoples peak experiences, what understanding they make of these and where they think their practice is going. Perhaps looking at peoples goals within practice, both goals realised and loftier ones held quietly. Even though on our training there are teachings (liberating in ways) against goal setting and striving.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Thanks for reading and considering&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Patrick&lt;br /&gt; </description> <pubDate>Sat, 24 May 2014 17:00:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5537213</guid> <dc:creator>patrick o connor</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-24T17:00:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>what mental condition / "illness" is closest to MCTB 4th path? [Sadalsuud B</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5527825</link> <description>what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path? [Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii] &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii - 2013-11-28 14:03:18 - what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hey guys. Sorry if this question has come up before. One for the medical people.&lt;br /&gt;I was wondering what western diagnosis psychological condition? psychosis? is closest to MCTB 4th path aka perceptual non-duality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am not talking about far out psychadelic-like experiences, which may occur on the way, I mean the stable, settled mctb 4th path condition.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I guess there must symptoms like:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;no thoughts or actions appearing to be one&amp;#039;s own&lt;br /&gt;no belief in ability to control one&amp;#039;s actions&lt;br /&gt;inability to believe in own identity&lt;br /&gt;inability to perceive differences between sensations relating to self and other&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;which occur to people with &amp;#034;mental illness&amp;#034; and are confusing or debilatiting for them. Sorts of schizophrenia? So I am wondering if there are documented cases of people who have somehow acheived 4th path, or elements of it, and been diagnosed as &amp;#034;mad&amp;#034;...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;does that make sense?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;D Z - 2013-11-28 14:43:19 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are mental illnesses that are somewhat close in terms of described symptoms.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But these are all perceived by the sufferer as having a negative impact on well being. And are risk factors for depression, anxiety etc. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The key difference is that none of them are associated with markedly improved wellbeing. So I suspect the mechanism is markedly different. Either that or maybe its more like a pre-path dark night. Not sure.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That said, I think Depersonalization Disorder / Derealization Disorder is most similar.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here are some people describing Deperseonalization in their own words...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dpselfhelp&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;forum&amp;#x2f;index&amp;#x2e;php&amp;#x3f;&amp;#x2f;topic&amp;#x2f;268-what-is-dpdr-like-for-you&amp;#x2f;"&gt;http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/index.php?/topic/268-what-is-dpdr-like-for-you/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sounds almost like dukkha nanas type stuff, rather than 4th.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;triple think - 2013-11-28 15:55:40 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hey guys. Sorry if this question has come up before. One for the medical people.&lt;br /&gt;I was wondering what western diagnosis psychological condition? psychosis? is closest to MCTB 4th path aka perceptual non-duality.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I&amp;#039;m not a practicing clinical or therapeutic Psychologist or Psychiatrist but I do think my state is more or less the same as what Daniel reports so on that basis and on the basis of my extensive studies of Psychology and Psychiatry I would say that the two models cover some similar symptoms in very different contexts but should by no means be any basis for comparisons. By taking a more traditional approach to comparisons such as a Classical Theravada Model as opposed to the existing Psychological Models, the former is more concerned with the developments related to typical people who might thereby become exceptional people whereas the other is more concerned more specifically with typical or atypically dysfunctional or diseased people. These two orientations influence the respective findings sufficiently that useful conclusions are difficult if not impossible to draw based on any comparisons undertaken so far. Apples vs. dry cleaning solutions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Psi Phi - 2013-11-28 16:34:05 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sanity&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Maybe  the mental condition closest to 4th path is called sanity. Seeing things as they are. Knowing thoughts arise based on causes and conditions and not believing in the delusion that there is a little homonculus behind the eyes that is often referred to in undiagnosed mass delusion as a self.  But maybe I am mispoken, I too fall for the personal trap now and again.   Of course there there is always a &amp;#034;self concept&amp;#034; that can be used on the relative level, even the Buddha used this.  In this way the &amp;#034;self concept&amp;#034;  is like a mental tool in the ole mental toolbox to be used, same as any other conceptual tool, maybe like, language , algebra, artwork,  But one would not say Algebra is a self, even if it is made of concepts just like the self is made of concepts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Apologies, the thoughts ran astray from the topic presented.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway Peace,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Bryan&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Pawe? K - 2013-11-28 17:20:14 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Experiences of Anatta (no-self) are fine or even great if you work for them and treat them as attainments. If they just happens on their own without any context then they are horrible and traumatizing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;triple think - 2013-11-28 21:04:00 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Pawe? K:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Experiences of Anatta (no-self) are fine or even great if you work for them and treat them as attainments. If they just happens on their own without any context then they are horrible and traumatizing.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Is this your experience or the result of double blind or otherwise thorough and well monitored studies? Just saying the mythologizing tendencies are often a bit extreme...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;trippee&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tom Tom - 2013-11-29 05:11:41 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Depersonalization is when the &amp;#034;watcher&amp;#034; is outside the body and is not the realization that there is actually no watcher.  It is not the same thing as 4th path though it can include the experience of agencylessness since the person perceives themselves to be outside of themselves watching themselves do things without any input on their part.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Derealization is when the visual aspects of reality start to look unreal or &amp;#034;cartoonish&amp;#034; (like feeling like you&amp;#039;re in an episode of the Simpsons).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is no clinical western &amp;#034;mental illness&amp;#034; diagnosis that shares all the features of 4th path.  Mania and A&amp;amp;P can occur together or causally activate one another and the same could be said for schizophrenia and siddhi phenomena.  This is similar to psychedelics occurring together with A&amp;amp;P/insight phenomena / causally activating the other or psychedelics occurring with schizophrenia symptoms / causally activating the other.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;triple think - 2013-11-29 05:26:38 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Would second Tom Tom on the above as always most possible for a 0 - worldling and as observable as qualities and conditions for people who are complete as 1 or 2, should be almost completely attenuated for a completed 2 and anything dysfunctional beyond physical damage, dysfunction or impairment should be well gone close to completing 3. In the 4 conditions I can&amp;#039;t see why it would matter what was happening on those levels, one should be able to tolerate pretty much being hosed down with petrol and set on fire and not flinch - also a very well documented and a well known form of protest in buddhist cultures for quite a long time. A &amp;#034;Take this Demons!&amp;#034;, sort of a thing. So there will be variance from early to late conditions, developmentally and then there is simply whatever either comes to attention or is considered irrelevant in any case for where the path work is at. &lt;br /&gt;Hope this is helpful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;remains&lt;br /&gt;-triplethink&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;p.s. Also would similarly second the immediately following post from T DC, as of time of this last posting. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The path should always reveal more until it reveals All. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So there should be less impairment directly linked to less ignorance, less delusion and less dysfunctional cognition, utterance, and activity. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The demonic stuff in contrast always represents a loss, all there is an increase of in net is insatiable desire. The rest of the forms and functions are always predominantly impaired. In human terms. Not saying there aren&amp;#039;t other factors in the mix that can make for extremely powerful and scary kinds of human beings. There is, but as for performance, not in any &amp;#039;good&amp;#039; ways.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On the other end there is always growth and maturation through divine and transcendent processes which can be quite wild at times but in terms of path work ends up at 4 fully attenuated to the resting state or void. Should be painless by the end of 4th path, hard to comprehend short of there but essentially it is close to totally painless in any significant senses and beyond that almost anything is tolerable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Even the last Buddha states he is getting sick of the body by 80 years. I&amp;#039;m pretty sick of it, but hey, at best I put ol&amp;#039; terra firma at 2500 years, maximally, away from entering a fixed and dominant hell condition overall. So this whole shstball is going down more than a half step soon, for all practical intents, etc.. Known put forecasts mention a brief landing and beach head from there and then it is head out and this ship burns, for a dhamma long long time. So it goes, universally, which is good to know. Probably a good 30 billion years until the MahaBrahmic multi-universal outbreath starts to implode again, plenty of time for more ups and downs more locally but no recorded projections out beyond 2500 years pertain before an interminably unpleasant period on this rock. Or whatever it is by then...  So... never mind Sol dying. Not pertinent.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Considering the current external conditions, related internal compounding in relation to this and the future outlook; even if it drives you nuts, getting to 3 would be a minimal task to work at until then with all due energy and concern.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyone who is still a 0 with a gravitic, fixated and entangled condition is going to be beyond even the remotest of hopes at that point barring a sea change in the individuated kamma which would be a potential reaching 0 as well or this would not be the case. That is the real and present danger at this point and always immanent for any 0. Sounds superstitious? Whatever, it&amp;#039;s your mass, if you want to discount the most sage warnings we have got. For tens of millennium already. There is only appropriately directed prayers beyond this and so if even the path work looks superstitious...etc.....good luck, see ya, ain&amp;#039;t gonna be ya.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Its worth engaging the path work, even if you suffer considerable mental anguish to make it to 1, this is at a minimum simply a general precaution. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No one is going to get there torturing themselves entirely but no 0 can tolerate even minimal relative discomfort comparatively anyhow apart from the long standing bodhisattas, and the asurasattas so if someone has the correct orientation it shouldn&amp;#039;t even then be considered worthless suffering or so it would appear. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Meritorious volition is often linked to added pain, so there are always variables but I began this with the generally observably principles and the exceptions are highly variant and I don&amp;#039;t ever want to speak for the demonic constituents anyways, maybe they like the pain, maybe for them it is candy. It Looks that way from here, totally upside down, all the way down. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you see and know rightly you see sukkha as such and dukkha as such and not the reverse. One can perceive that the contrary percepts are available but qualities and conditions remain clearly assignable. They are clearly assignable and multiple symbolic representations and reasoning are always conceivable, even if you know and tolerate an opposition.&lt;br /&gt;Beyond that, no minimum recommendations are really helpful beyond the immediate and subsequent causes and conditions and dealing with it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;good luck or far better hopes which are more substantive than that for sure&lt;br /&gt;-triplethink&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;T DC - 2013-11-29 05:27:10 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just curious, why do you ask?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Personally, I think it&amp;#039;s tough to compare 4th path and a mental illness. &lt;strong&gt; Mental illnesses or negative states listed above such as de-realization/ depersonalization or schizophrenia have more to do with being overcome or overwhelmed by mental phenomena rather than overcoming it, as is done in realization.  &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At 4th path you see the non-reality, or non-solidity of thought, you see the empty nature of what previously seemed solid and fixed.  Thus you have given up belief in the solidity of your conceptions, and you view the world in a manner less clouded by preconception.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From a normal unenlightened, not mentally ill, mind state or awareness, realization such as 4th path and mental illness are moving in opposite directions.  For instance, if floating in space it your baseline state, realization would mean moving upwards, while mental illness would mean moving down.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would be curious to hear about the cases you speak of in which realization caused a mental breakdown of sorts, but I doubt that this happens that much.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I guess there must symptoms like:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. no thoughts or actions appearing to be one&amp;#039;s own&lt;br /&gt;2. no belief in ability to control one&amp;#039;s actions&lt;br /&gt;3. inability to believe in own identity&lt;br /&gt;4. inability to perceive differences between sensations relating to self and other&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So here you are referring to what happens at 4th path, eh?  Here is my take (as a post-4th pather) on what you have written, for the sake of clarification.&lt;br /&gt;1.  Kind-of.  You see that you are not your thoughts, and this includes thoughts about actions, but you are still acting nonetheless.  This goes with 2.; by all means you are still able to control your own actions and are fully aware of this, you are just not fixed on a solid conceptual image of yourself doing these actions.  Actions are more pure, they are done, life is lived, in absence of a belief or fantasy about who you are and what you&amp;#039;re doing.  You just do things.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3.  Inability to believe in one&amp;#039;s identity is different from seeing that identity to be empty of solid, inherent reality.  I am fully aware of being here right now, I&amp;#039;m just not having a massive conceptual train of though in my head about it.  I&amp;#039;m just here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4. Inability to perceive differences between self and other is not a result of attainment.  Losing your self doesn&amp;#039;t mean you lose anything, such as logical faculties of mind.  This is something which people no doubt have a lot of misplaced fear about.  Attainment, doing away with ego, &lt;strong&gt;doesn&amp;#039;t mean you lose anything.&lt;/strong&gt;  All your &amp;#039;self&amp;#039; is is just fleeting thought which you have confusedly bought into as being real.  What you lose is confusion.  In fact you lose nothing, you just right your perception.  Confusion is really the only negative thing we have, and that&amp;#039;s what we lose on the path. &lt;strong&gt; No sanity is lost!!!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii - 2013-11-29 16:46:15 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks &lt;strong&gt;D Z&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That thread on DP DR was very interesting, pretty close to what I was looking for! In spiritual terms it would certainly seem like a lot of people on the thread have had realisations of the emptiness of self, or emptiness of the sense field /other people, and then the &amp;#039;ego&amp;#039; energy has settled into an anxiety-laden-identification pattern with &amp;#034;something being wrong with them&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;T DC&lt;/strong&gt; - why am I asking this question?&lt;br /&gt;Basically I was having a conversation with a buddhist practitioner who didn&amp;#039;t believe in enlightenment in the 4th path, non-dual perception sense. Anyway they were talking very defensively along the line of &amp;#034;it&amp;#039;s so subjective, you just cannot define or talk about it in any way&amp;#034;, which at a totally ultimate level is true, but my response was, enlightenment is as real as a diagnosable medical mental condition like schizophrenia or the stuff described in &amp;#034;The Man who mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sachs,(an amazing book about case studies of people whose perception becomes messed up in many very interesting ways), and therefore it can be worth talking about or comparing &amp;#039;case notes&amp;#039; of what the &amp;#034;condition&amp;#034; is like.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Which led me to think, hey, it must happen to people and if they don&amp;#039;t know what it is, or deal with it well, it would scare them and then get diagnosed as a mental illness. And the quotes from people on the DP/DR forum seem to indicate this.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tom tom&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t know what DP and DR are, exactly, in medical terms, but it does seem like people on that forum (who may or may not have diagnosed, &amp;#034;official&amp;#034; DP/DR) have had big anatta and emptiness insights, and are suffering because of them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;very interesting stuff! thanks all&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;T DC:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Just curious, why do you ask?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Personally, I think it&amp;#039;s tough to compare 4th path and a mental illness. &lt;strong&gt; Mental illnesses or negative states listed above such as de-realization/ depersonalization or schizophrenia have more to do with being overcome or overwhelmed by mental phenomena rather than overcoming it, as is done in realization.  &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At 4th path you see the non-reality, or non-solidity of thought, you see the empty nature of what previously seemed solid and fixed.  Thus you have given up belief in the solidity of your conceptions, and you view the world in a manner less clouded by preconception.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From a normal unenlightened, not mentally ill, mind state or awareness, realization such as 4th path and mental illness are moving in opposite directions.  For instance, if floating in space it your baseline state, realization would mean moving upwards, while mental illness would mean moving down.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would be curious to hear about the cases you speak of in which realization caused a mental breakdown of sorts, but I doubt that this happens that much.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I guess there must symptoms like:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. no thoughts or actions appearing to be one&amp;#039;s own&lt;br /&gt;2. no belief in ability to control one&amp;#039;s actions&lt;br /&gt;3. inability to believe in own identity&lt;br /&gt;4. inability to perceive differences between sensations relating to self and other&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So here you are referring to what happens at 4th path, eh?  Here is my take (as a post-4th pather) on what you have written, for the sake of clarification.&lt;br /&gt;1.  Kind-of.  You see that you are not your thoughts, and this includes thoughts about actions, but you are still acting nonetheless.  This goes with 2.; by all means you are still able to control your own actions and are fully aware of this, you are just not fixed on a solid conceptual image of yourself doing these actions.  Actions are more pure, they are done, life is lived, in absence of a belief or fantasy about who you are and what you&amp;#039;re doing.  You just do things.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3.  Inability to believe in one&amp;#039;s identity is different from seeing that identity to be empty of solid, inherent reality.  I am fully aware of being here right now, I&amp;#039;m just not having a massive conceptual train of though in my head about it.  I&amp;#039;m just here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4. Inability to perceive differences between self and other is not a result of attainment.  Losing your self doesn&amp;#039;t mean you lose anything, such as logical faculties of mind.  This is something which people no doubt have a lot of misplaced fear about.  Attainment, doing away with ego, &lt;strong&gt;doesn&amp;#039;t mean you lose anything.&lt;/strong&gt;  All your &amp;#039;self&amp;#039; is is just fleeting thought which you have confusedly bought into as being real.  What you lose is confusion.  In fact you lose nothing, you just right your perception.  Confusion is really the only negative thing we have, and that&amp;#039;s what we lose on the path. &lt;strong&gt; No sanity is lost!!!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii - 2013-11-29 17:02:24 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi J and T DC,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I agree with what both of you are saying. I wrote those symptoms quite sloppily.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Basically I was just highlighting that at 4th path, the illusion that there is a single controlling personal agency that is YOU, that controls your actions, isn&amp;#039;t really totally believable anymore, in the way that a regular person believes it. This could appear frightening if it came on suddenly, in a person that was already a bit scared and had no explanation or context for it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My language in describing the other symptoms was poor, but TDC has clarified them quite well.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To clarify, I am not making any value judgements on 4th path, or saying anyone is mad. I consider myself to have done mctb 4th path, and I think it is very nice, pleasant, profoundly liberating, and definitely not mad, in fact, as someone else wrote, much saner.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;J .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;acheived 4th path, or elements of it, and been diagnosed as &amp;#034;mad&amp;#034;...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4th path brings peace, it does not bring pyschosis.  In fact, after the path, your mind is better armed to fight pyschosis.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;At points during the path you may see or feel these things ì&lt;br /&gt;no thoughts or actions appearing to be one&amp;#039;s own&lt;br /&gt;no belief in ability to control one&amp;#039;s actions&lt;br /&gt;inability to believe in own identity&lt;br /&gt;inability to perceive differences between sensations relating to self and other&lt;br /&gt;no thoughts or actions appearing to be one&amp;#039;s own&lt;br /&gt;no belief in ability to control one&amp;#039;s actions&lt;br /&gt;inability to believe in own identity&lt;br /&gt;inability to perceive differences between sensations relating to self and other&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;They are all events (or observations you might make along the path, they are not the constant state.  When the dust settles, after deep progress, you return to feeling normal.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Pawe? K - 2013-11-29 20:56:54 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;triple think:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Is this your experience or the result of double blind or otherwise thorough and well monitored studies? Just saying the mythologizing tendencies are often a bit extreme...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I had wide spectrum of experiences relating to self, no-self and all in between that happened without much external trigger like insight meditation. I know exactly how both wonderful and how traumatizing those experiences can be.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think with proper dharma maps and knowledge I would figure out some stuff much quicker&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tom Tom - 2013-11-29 20:58:28 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Tom tomI don&amp;#039;t know what DP and DR are, exactly, in medical terms, but it does seem like people on that forum (who may or may not have diagnosed, &amp;#034;official&amp;#034; DP/DR) have had big anatta and emptiness insights, and are suffering because of them. [/[//&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would think that most people who have meditated have experienced &amp;#034;the watcher&amp;#034; outside the body (depersonalization) at some point or another (as insight meditation is an attempt to &amp;#034;paint the illusory watcher into a corner,&amp;#034; so to speak).  Having the watcher move around to &amp;#034;abnormal&amp;#034; places is likely to lead to some questioning of its nature or existence (as in reality there is no watcher).  It would not be surprising to find that people who habitually experience depersonalization would have some degree of insight into anatta and agencylessness.  Scientific studies could be done on this..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dream Walker - 2013-11-30 07:15:44 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Interesting link -&lt;br /&gt;Shinzen Young - &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;youtube&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;watch&amp;#x3f;v&amp;#x3d;9zIKQCwDXsA"&gt;Enlightenment, DP/DR &amp;amp; Falling Into the Pit of the Void ~ Shinzen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;1&amp;#x2e;bp&amp;#x2e;blogspot&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;-tlLL60wo7bs&amp;#x2f;Tr_wbcqZ8jI&amp;#x2f;AAAAAAAAAK0&amp;#x2f;7kV1V8RKnpo&amp;#x2f;s320&amp;#x2f;fun&amp;#x2b;and&amp;#x2b;games&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;PÂl S. - 2013-11-30 09:58:01 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Imagine that you&amp;#039;re looking at a familiar room with familiar people. One day you realize that there is something &amp;#034;fuzzy&amp;#034; about the boundaries/outlines of everything you see.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Soon you begin to see the movie projectors above the ceiling. You see rays of colored lights being beamed to every object in the room. You follow the trails.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Soon you get it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Every single thing that you have ever seen is nothing but a projection of light. A virtual reality. A lie.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Smoke.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Mirrors.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dust in rays of light that form images.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As you walk towards the objects, people and existence that you had believed all your life, they start to vanish. You realize they were nothing but ghost images (&amp;#034;wisps&amp;#034; as Dreamer says).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then you realize the big one.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You are nothing either.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But vague dusty light rays. And as you think of that, you begin to fade.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The only way to NOT fade (you believe) is to not &amp;#034;know&amp;#034; this anymore.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So you spend the rest of your days trying to NOT know. to NOT think. Trying to not let yourself disappear into utter oblivion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;See, not only is your BODY an illusion, your Self is an illusion. There is no core. Whatever you once thought of when you said your own name is gone. There is no one in there. And never was.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then you realize that even oblivion is a facade.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nothing. Is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And you spend the rest of your days in silent abject horror.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;THAT, my dear, is Depersonalization. At its deepest.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I lived with it for years. It is not insanity and it is not &amp;#034;truth&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But nobody IN that state can believe it isn&amp;#039;t.&lt;br /&gt;It is a hideous fantasy of self-annihilation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace,&lt;br /&gt;Janine&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;p.s. now don&amp;#039;t keep re-reading this description in hopes of &amp;#034;grasping&amp;#034; it, etc. It will just give you more &amp;#034;Jeeeeheebies&amp;#034;. There is no way to MASTER a fantasy of annihilation. Elsewhere. Other. Stop walking INTO the smoke. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This one looks like straight-forward DN to me as opposed to depersonalization, Tom Toms description is more on point to my view.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I also remember trying to &amp;#034;not know&amp;#034; for a long time, but apparently it was better to &amp;#039;face the music&amp;#039;. After reading others experiences and investigating for my self I noticed that insight is not horrible but horror can be a reaction to insight.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would assume most humans at some point in their life reflects like the quote above (perhaps not that exaggerated), it does seem like a logical line of ego development. Which begs the question: why is this such a taboo? I think I&amp;#039;ll have to agree with Daniel when he says there are a lot of undiagnosed &amp;#039;dark nighters&amp;#039; out there.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To get back on topic it would be interesting to hear from a psychiatrist on what training, if any, they receive on mystical experiences. There certainly can be an overlap between mental illness and mysticism, and a professional should be expected to differentiate the two.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii - 2013-11-30 11:23:40 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;wow thanks DW that&amp;#039;s exactly what I was looking for!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Shinzen seems to have the same view as me, DP/DR can be exactly the same insight as &amp;#039;enlightenment&amp;#039; insights (he calls it enlightenment&amp;#039;s evil twin), but in one case, it is liberating and fulfilling and, in the DP/DR case it is terrifying and debilitating.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Dream Walker:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Interesting link -&lt;br /&gt;Shinzen Young - &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;youtube&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;watch&amp;#x3f;v&amp;#x3d;9zIKQCwDXsA"&gt;Enlightenment, DP/DR &amp;amp; Falling Into the Pit of the Void ~ Shinzen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;1&amp;#x2e;bp&amp;#x2e;blogspot&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;-tlLL60wo7bs&amp;#x2f;Tr_wbcqZ8jI&amp;#x2f;AAAAAAAAAK0&amp;#x2f;7kV1V8RKnpo&amp;#x2f;s320&amp;#x2f;fun&amp;#x2b;and&amp;#x2b;games&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;triple think - 2013-12-05 19:05:12 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Final diagnostic calculus for MCTB 01234 = none&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Can&amp;#039;t fault the man he&amp;#039;s practically a SAINT..?/  \...| (U=3&amp;lt;&amp;gt;4).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;D Z - 2013-12-10 00:56:14 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just thought this was relevant here...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;mediabase&amp;#x2e;shanti&amp;#x2e;virginia&amp;#x2e;edu&amp;#x2f;video&amp;#x2f;buddhist-view-optimal-mental-health"&gt;Buddhist view of optimal mental health by Alan Wallace&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Alan Wallace is very knowledgable and experienced in meditation, and does a lot of work in the scientific field as well.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I really like his view that where as psychiatry is basically looking for anything that is below normal functioning, it ignores states of mind that are exceptionally functional and happy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And he offers an alternative framework in the video.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Matthew Horn - 2014-04-30 17:50:05 - RE: what mental condition / &amp;#034;illness&amp;#034; is closest to MCTB 4th path&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;triple think:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Even the last Buddha states he is getting sick of the body by 80 years. I&amp;#039;m pretty sick of it, but hey, at best I put ol&amp;#039; terra firma at 2500 years, maximally, away from entering a fixed and dominant hell condition overall. So this whole shstball is going down more than a half step soon, for all practical intents, etc.. Known put forecasts mention a brief landing and beach head from there and then it is head out and this ship burns, for a dhamma long long time. So it goes, universally, which is good to know. Probably a good 30 billion years until the MahaBrahmic multi-universal outbreath starts to implode again, plenty of time for more ups and downs more locally but no recorded projections out beyond 2500 years pertain before an interminably unpleasant period on this rock. Or whatever it is by then...  So... never mind Sol dying. Not pertinent.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Considering the current external conditions, related internal compounding in relation to this and the future outlook; even if it drives you nuts, getting to 3 would be a minimal task to work at until then with all due energy and concern.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No one is going to get there torturing themselves entirely but no 0 can tolerate even minimal relative discomfort comparatively anyhow apart from the long standing bodhisattas, and the asurasattas so if someone has the correct orientation it shouldn&amp;#039;t even then be considered worthless suffering or so it would appear. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Does &amp;#034;2500 years&amp;#034; mean 1) 2500 years from now, or 2) 2500 A.D? What are your sources for the &amp;#034;known put forecasts&amp;#034;? What do you mean by &amp;#034;brief landing and beach head&amp;#034;?</description> <pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2014 10:26:08 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5527825</guid> <dc:creator>Migration 6.2 Daemon</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-07T10:26:08Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Arhat: Lonely and Lustful? [Neem Nyima] [MIGRATE]</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5527724</link> <description>Arhat: Lonely and Lustful? [Neem Nyima] &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Neem Nyima - 2014-03-22 22:58:42 - Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It seems to me the Ken Wilber&amp;#039;s model of enlightenment as a state and not a stage continues to ring true. In the Hurricane Ranch talk with Daniel Ingram and friends, the boundary&amp;#039;s of enlightenment and it associated vows, are questioned and discredited. We have a history of people like Chogyam Trungpa, Kalu Rinpoche and others that are challenged in their roles as teachers of states, to live up to perfect super human standards of enlightenment. These roles have failed throughout history.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I recently, had Daniel&amp;#039;s Ingram&amp;#039;s final Teacher come on to me, quite strongly. It was awkward as he is a traditional Monk who also advocates the purity of the Arhat, from a traditional Suttric Perspective. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wonder even from a contemporary perspective, of enlightenment being the mastery of a state, how lonely and lustful does an Arhat get?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thought, Contributions, should I be sharing this as I don&amp;#039;t really wont to go into a long story, to justify the truth of my claim, should I just leave it and take down the thread?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Eric M W - 2014-03-23 01:43:03 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Neem Nyima:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I recently, had Daniel&amp;#039;s Ingram&amp;#039;s final Teacher come on to me, quite strongly. It was awkward as he is a traditional Monk who also advocates the purity of the Arhat, from a traditional Suttric Perspective.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m sorry but I&amp;#039;m a little confused-- who is Daniel&amp;#039;s final Teacher??  &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/blink.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I wonder even from a contemporary perspective, of enlightenment being the mastery of a state, how lonely and lustful does an Arhat get?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am not an arahat, not even close, not even a stream-enterer as a matter of fact... but from what I understand, arahatship is simply the elimination of the gap between &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;experience,&amp;#034; ie no Watcher, no Agent, nothing like that, just a field doin&amp;#039; its thing, sensations unfolding according to the laws of cause and effect naturally and effortlessly.  Sensations that can be labelled as &amp;#034;lonliness&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;lust&amp;#034; may still manifest in arahats but they are simply sensations, no center-point or self is involved at all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Psi Phi - 2014-03-23 04:01:47 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From what I undertand, the four stage model in Buddhism holds true.  In a fully enlightened mind anger will not arise, where can it arise from?  What is there to get angry about anyway?  A stubbed toe pain sensation? There is no longer a self delusion concept for anger or greed to arise from.  What mental formation has to exist to think it is lonely?  Physiologically speaking, the human body still creates glandular excretions, which have cause and effect, pleasure sensations, etc, but... if there is no clinging or attachment , there would follow, no lust.  Even a not fully enlightened being can use mindfulness to dismiss sednsations for what they are before the craving starts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, if one is attempting sexual misconduct, then it would follow that one would not be fully enlightened.  But, hey, recognition, no blame, and change, humans.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Does not look as there is a dogma or super human standards, there just is a path and results.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not claiming anything, just sayin&amp;#039;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And, hey how  ya been, anyway?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Metta&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sigh Fi&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ian And - 2014-03-23 08:27:41 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Neem,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I usually don&amp;#039;t respond to threads like this. But because I respect you and your practice, I&amp;#039;ve made an exception. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Neem Nyima:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It seems to me the Ken Wilber&amp;#039;s model of enlightenment &lt;strong&gt;as a state&lt;/strong&gt; and not a stage continues to ring true.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While this may be true for Wilber, it is, however, not true for myself. From my understanding of the Dhamma, awakening is more a maturation of the mind than an impermanent state. But perhaps that&amp;#039;s just me. While Mr. Wilber is very intellectually accomplished and a prolific writer, there seem to be areas of his personality that are deficient in one manner or another. &amp;#039;Nuff said. (Possible disclaimer: I&amp;#039;ve never been very impressed with any of the ideas that Wilber has expressed. Just my personal opinion. That&amp;#039;s not to say that he hasn&amp;#039;t a very astute and inventive mind.) &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Neem Nyima:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the Hurricane Ranch talk with Daniel Ingram and friends, the boundary&amp;#039;s of enlightenment and it(s) associated vows, are questioned and discredited. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We have a history of people like Chogyam Trungpa, Kalu Rinpoche and others that are challenged in their roles as teachers of states, to live up to perfect super human standards of enlightenment. These roles have failed throughout history.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I recently, &lt;strong&gt;had Daniel&amp;#039;s Ingram&amp;#039;s final Teacher come on to me, quite strongly.&lt;/strong&gt; It was awkward as he is a traditional Monk who also advocates the purity of the Arhat, from a traditional Suttric Perspective. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wonder even from a contemporary perspective, of enlightenment being the mastery of a state, how lonely and lustful does an Arhat get?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That action by the Teacher (depending upon the context, which has not been explained here) was quite inappropriate from a multitude of levels, and would seem to demonstrate an immature mind that has not learned restraint, and is still in the process of acquiring maturation. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just because someone is able to achieve a basic awakening doesn&amp;#039;t mean that they have had time to work on eliminating the &lt;em&gt;asavas&lt;/em&gt; (sensual passion, states of being, the taking of views, and ignorance).  Or perhaps, according to the definition that proclaims that arahants are no longer bothered by the &lt;em&gt;asavas&lt;/em&gt;, perhaps the person is not an arahant. Whatever the case, one still has to deal with these underlying tendencies before he can truly be free of mental defilements. Anyone who still clings to sensual passion, to craving for being, to the taking of views, and to ignorance (or denial of any of these), still has some work to do (whether they think so or not). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The &lt;em&gt;asavas&lt;/em&gt;, according to an explanation given by Ven. Analayo, are mental influxes (or more familiarly, underlying mental formations) which can &amp;#034;flow into and thereby influence the perceptual process. As with the underlying tendencies, &lt;strong&gt;this influence operates without conscious intention.&lt;/strong&gt; The influxes arise owing to unwise attention (&lt;em&gt;ayoniso manasikara&lt;/em&gt;) and to ignorance (&lt;em&gt;avijja&lt;/em&gt;). To counteract and prevent the arising of the influxes &lt;strong&gt;is the central aim of the monastic training rules&lt;/strong&gt; laid down by the Buddha, and their successful eradication (asavakkhaya) is a synonym for &lt;strong&gt;full&lt;/strong&gt; awakening.&amp;#034; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, the question might be asked, can a person be awakened, but not &lt;strong&gt;fully&lt;/strong&gt; awakened? I think so. I see no reason why this shouldn&amp;#039;t be possible. This would explain the anomalies of the people you have mentioned above (I&amp;#039;m thinking of Trungpa primarily; am not that familiar of Kalu Rinpoche&amp;#039;s exploits ). Trungpa has written some powerful passages that suggest a mature understanding of Gotama&amp;#039;s Dhamma. I&amp;#039;ve been impressed with many of the things I&amp;#039;ve read of his. And yet many of his actions contradicted a mature understanding of these passages. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This, then, becomes a matter of personal choice as to what definition of &amp;#034;awakening&amp;#034; one wants to accept as one&amp;#039;s own standard of awakening. Some people are more lax than others. I think we can agree on that. That doesn&amp;#039;t mean that the person is any the less enlightened about the dangers of not being aware of &lt;em&gt;anicca&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;dukkha&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;anatta&lt;/em&gt;. For did not Gotama once utter: &amp;#034;Formerly and also now, I make known only suffering and the cessation of suffering.&amp;#034; That&amp;#039;s a pretty tall order for most people to accomplish in itself. And working on the &lt;em&gt;asavas&lt;/em&gt; may just be icing on the cake. You think?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Richard Zen - 2014-03-23 15:38:53 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is a problem with power.  Power and access to people can create great temptations (serotonin).  This is a problem in all systems where a human has to be responsible for others.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s something that people have to watch out for in any hierarchy.  (Business, Government, Teachers, etc).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The following book has helped me reduce my expectations with other people.  I have a razor sharp awareness now of what people are doing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5005983"&gt;Meet your happy chemicals&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;T DC - 2014-03-24 00:38:03 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Neem Nyima:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It seems to me the Ken Wilber&amp;#039;s model of enlightenment as a state and not a stage continues to ring true. In the Hurricane Ranch talk with Daniel Ingram and friends, the boundary&amp;#039;s of enlightenment and it associated vows, are questioned and discredited. We have a history of people like Chogyam Trungpa, Kalu Rinpoche and others that are challenged in their roles as teachers of states, to live up to perfect super human standards of enlightenment. These roles have failed throughout history.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I recently, had Daniel&amp;#039;s Ingram&amp;#039;s final Teacher come on to me, quite strongly. It was awkward as he is a traditional Monk who also advocates the purity of the Arhat, from a traditional Suttric Perspective. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wonder even from a contemporary perspective, of enlightenment being the mastery of a state, how lonely and lustful does an Arhat get?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thought, Contributions, should I be sharing this as I don&amp;#039;t really wont to go into a long story, to justify the truth of my claim, should I just leave it and take down the thread?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As I have claimed elsewhere, I have fully completed the path of insight, overcome all dualistic confusion, and reached the state of complete enlightenment, the final stage.  There are several things I want to address in response to your post: enlightenment being a state versus a stage, and the standards, or ideas we have regarding the behavior of enlightened individuals.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First, I just want to say that we need to be very clear in what we mean by enlightenment, and why we are on this path to begin with.  It should be clear to any serious practitioner that the purpose of the path is not emotional perfection.  Instead, the purpose of the path is to overcome our dualistic confusion.  The reason we suffer is because we hold to the wrong belief that we are inherently existing individuals, separate from all else.  This is what the path seeks to correct.  If we are not clear about this, and we seek instead self-perfection, we have deviated from the true purpose of the path.  Self perfection is extremely attractive, but it is not realistic.  The path consists not of building ourselves up, or selectively stripping away our faults, but seeing through such conceptual delusion. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for the stage versus state debate, stage implying final and lasting change, and state implying temporary experience, my position is 100% that enlightenment occurs in gradual stages until the end, all of which are lasting.  Attainment of genuine insight is stable and lasting, as can only be attested by personal experience.  So while this can be extensively debated, let me just state that enlightenment as I define it occurs in stable and lasting stages, and temporary &amp;#039;state&amp;#039; experiences of non-duality are simply temporary meditative states.  Experience of &amp;#039;state&amp;#039; enlightenment experiences may help to provide valuable direction, but do not affect your mind in a lasting way, or overcome suffering.  As the overcoming of suffering is the goal, clearly such states fall short.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Secondly, addressing emotional standards of enlightenment, I want to be clear how enlightenment fits into the broader picture of our emotional life.  Ian brought up the idea that while this teacher may be somewhat enlightened, the reason he acted in such an inappropriate manner is that he is not fully enlightened*.  However, as a fully enlightened individual, I can tell you that emotions do not cease upon enlightenment.  I still get angry, jealous, sad, lustful, you name it...  Enlightenment does not affect the spectrum of emotional experience.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(Edited for clarification)  While this may be tempting to dismiss, as &amp;#039;well, you&amp;#039;re probably not actually fully enlightened&amp;#039;, hear me out.  From a metaphysical perspective, we are souls on looong spiritual journeys, with near infinite past incarnations, and likely near infinite more in the future.  What&amp;#039;s more, there are many other planes of existence outside our universe.  Our experience here on Earth is one small part of the overall picture of spiritual development.  Earth is unique however in that we exist in the delusion of separateness, which could be likened to a training program.  Enlightenment is the end of this program, however it is not the end of soul/ spiritual development.  The end of duality does not mean final perfection, but merely the accomplishing of a specific challenge.  Thus our search for &amp;#039;perfection&amp;#039; goes on.. To clarify, what exists after enlightenment, and might be called the &amp;#039;soul&amp;#039;, could be likened to our basic personality structure.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hope this helps, and I didn&amp;#039;t loose you with that last paragraph, ha.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;*It may indeed be the case that he is not fully enlightened.  Arhatship, or 4th path as defined on this board, is very much the beginning of the journey to full enlightenment.  At 4th path, one has an extremely superficial understanding of emptiness.  From 4th path to full enlightenment, one must come to understand that oneself is inseparable from emptiness, which is a long way to go.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Adam . . - 2014-03-24 03:02:10 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I still get angry, jealous, sad, lustful, you name it...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Do these emotions come out in your behavior and harm other people? Do these emotions harm you?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;T DC - 2014-03-24 04:18:34 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Adam . .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I still get angry, jealous, sad, lustful, you name it...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Do these emotions come out in your behavior and harm other people? Do these emotions harm you?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well Adam, hopefully not.  The point I&amp;#039;m making is that I may have overcome the delusion of separateness, but I&amp;#039;m still so far from perfect that there is effectively no difference between myself and unenlightened people.   &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Frankly, a belief in enlightened supremacy on my part would simply be arrogance, the same as anyone else believing that they are better than others.  The point of enlightenment is realizing you are one with everything, which in practical terms means realizing that you and everyone else are just the same, and no one is any better or worse than anyone else.  Sure, in the myraid situations of life, some perspectives may lead toward greater reconciliation, some toward greater divisiveness.. but this is just the facts, how things are.  Ultimately, we all make decisions based on our current life perspective, which is constantly evolving, so everything that occurs produces growth.  No one can claim to be fully growthed out, or perfect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As I said above, life is a spiritual journey whether you&amp;#039;re enlightened or not.  While we all may strive to conquer our demons, such as &amp;#039;negative&amp;#039; emotions, these are things which go deeper than, and are somewhat tangential to, the issue of our dualistic confusion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Adam . . - 2014-03-24 04:36:26 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Well Adam, hopefully not.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You hope that they don&amp;#039;t harm you and others? But do they? And if your hopes conflict with the reality then why not do something about it?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The point I&amp;#039;m making is that I may have overcome the delusion of separateness, but I&amp;#039;m still so far from perfect that there is effectively no difference between myself and unenlightened people. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;ok&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Frankly, a belief in enlightened supremacy on my part would simply be arrogance, the same as anyone else believing that they are better than others. The point of enlightenment is realizing you are one with everything, which in practical terms means realizing that you and everyone else are just the same, and no one is any better or worse than anyone else. Sure, in the myraid situations of life, some perspectives may lead toward greater reconciliation, some toward greater divisiveness.. but this is just the facts, how things are. Ultimately, we all make decisions based on our current life perspective, which is constantly evolving, so everything that occurs produces growth. No one can claim to be fully growthed out, or perfect.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Does it have to be a matter of being better/worse than others? Can&amp;#039;t it just be the decision that things are better for me and everyone else without my disturbing emotions (any emotions that aren&amp;#039;t based on contentment and enjoyment of things as they are)?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;As I said above, life is a spiritual journey whether you&amp;#039;re enlightened or not. While we all may strive to conquer our demons, such as &amp;#039;negative&amp;#039; emotions, these are things which go deeper than, and are somewhat tangential to, the issue of our dualistic confusion.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is true I think. For me inner peace + peace between myself and others is more valuable than overcoming dualistic confusion. You seem to have labeled the overcoming of dualistic confusion as &amp;#034;enlightenment&amp;#034; and emotional changes as not enlightenment, which is ok with me, as that is just a matter of how you choose to define the word &amp;#034;enlightenment.&amp;#034; However you seem to talk of emotional changes as though they are way less important, which i can&amp;#039;t agree with at all, but to each their own.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you genuinely, just straight up don&amp;#039;t value being free of emotional discontent and malice towards others, then I guess we just part ways here, and there is little else to say. I would only point out all the war, depression, suicide etc. on this planet (as well as subtler forms of the same in your own life, such as being bored, irritated, melancholic, anxious etc.) and ask whether you genuinely don&amp;#039;t wish to find a way past all that to happiness. (I am assuming that you don&amp;#039;t, or at least it is not a major concern of yours, because of the way you talk about emotional changes being largely irrelevant)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;T DC - 2014-03-24 05:17:22 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Adam . .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;As I said above, life is a spiritual journey whether you&amp;#039;re enlightened or not. While we all may strive to conquer our demons, such as &amp;#039;negative&amp;#039; emotions, these are things which go deeper than, and are somewhat tangential to, the issue of our dualistic confusion.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is true I think. For me inner peace + peace between myself and others is more valuable than overcoming dualistic confusion. You seem to have labeled the overcoming of dualistic confusion as &amp;#034;enlightenment&amp;#034; and emotional changes as not enlightenment, which is ok with me, as that is just a matter of how you choose to define the word &amp;#034;enlightenment.&amp;#034; However you seem to talk of emotional changes as though they are way less important, which i can&amp;#039;t agree with at all, but to each their own.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you genuinely, just straight up don&amp;#039;t value being free of emotional discontent and malice towards others, then I guess we just part ways here, and there is little else to say. I would only point out all the war, depression, suicide etc. on this planet (as well as subtler forms of the same in your own life, such as being bored, irritated, melancholic, anxious etc.) and ask whether you genuinely don&amp;#039;t wish to find a way past all that to happiness. (I am assuming that you don&amp;#039;t, or at least it is not a major concern of yours, because of the way you talk about emotional changes being largely irrelevant)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Overcoming dualistic confusion is peace.  It is final peace because you know you have done all you can, you have overcome all that need to be overcome.  So many of our worries which cause us angst as just projections of our own minds, and to be enlightened is to see overcome these false projections.  So much concern over needing to do this and create peace... are simply conceptual baggage&amp;#039;s which are totally false and unnecessary to believe.  To be enlightened is to have unshakable contact with compassion for self and other despite the arising of negative emotion and circumstance.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When we are confused about who and what we are, we do not truly have faith that the world is a benevolent place.  We see so much evil around us, wars, famine,.., and we feel that it needs to be eradicated, that we need to fix the situation.  Truly however, the universe, all of creation is a benevolent and loving.  The core matter of all things is inseparable from unspeakable joy, or bliss.  We don&amp;#039;t need to fix the problems in the world, and frankly for the most part we can&amp;#039;t.  To work all your life in service of others, to put ceaseless effort into re-mediating a &amp;#039;broken&amp;#039; situation is to turn a blind eye to the fundamental joy that is present always, from which none are ever truly separate.  No situation is truly black, but always a mix of colors, the whole spectrum represented in even the harshest of circumstance.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The problem is truly that we do not see this.  We do not see and feel the boundless joy in us and all around us all the time, irrespective of circumstance.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Adam . .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Frankly, a belief in enlightened supremacy on my part would simply be arrogance, the same as anyone else believing that they are better than others. The point of enlightenment is realizing you are one with everything, which in practical terms means realizing that you and everyone else are just the same, and no one is any better or worse than anyone else. Sure, in the myraid situations of life, some perspectives may lead toward greater reconciliation, some toward greater divisiveness.. but this is just the facts, how things are. Ultimately, we all make decisions based on our current life perspective, which is constantly evolving, so everything that occurs produces growth. No one can claim to be fully growthed out, or perfect.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Does it have to be a matter of being better/worse than others? Can&amp;#039;t it just be the decision that things are better for me and everyone else without my disturbing emotions (any emotions that aren&amp;#039;t based on contentment and enjoyment of things as they are)?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Adam, of course it seems the situation would be better for everyone without disturbing emotions.  I feel the pain of these emotions, and I too feel I would be better off without them.  I agree with you.  I was extremely bothered by my experience, I had a glimpse of enlightenment, and saw a better way.  I struggled though the path, persevering because I wanted more than anything else to conquer my darkness.  Never satisfied at any step, I pushed on until finality, until I could go no further.  And now here is where I report to you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Believe me friend, if I believed an end to the evils of the world possible I would strive for it.  But I see that it is not to be.  I am in the position of enlightened persons before me who reported back that things were actually fine, and there really wasn&amp;#039;t much cause for alarm.  And again, who could believe them?  Clearly evils exist to be remedied.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Everyone exist in different life situations.  If everyone were as enlightened and seemingly apathetic as myself, who would be the doctors that we need?  Who would help the poor?  Everyone has a unique life mission, and enlightenment is not in the cards for everybody, and need not be; to each his own, in his own time. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Emotional perfection cannot be done, and the greatest way to remedy the ills of the world is to overcome your own delusion so that you can act inline with the way things truly are.  This helps people in a spiritual way, in a way that no material help can.  When I die, I will be at peace, because I have done all I could, do you understand?  Everyone gets sick, and some get treatment and get better.  Everyone dies.  Everyone has come to this life for different reasons, to learn different things, at different places on their spiritual journey.  I cannot say what is best for anyone, and ultimately they will decide for themselves.  All I can do is point to the truth of things, and thus act a reference of sorts.  Sorry if I&amp;#039;m rambling..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;sawfoot _ - 2014-03-24 09:45:13 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;T DC:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When we are confused about who and what we are, we do not truly have faith that the world is a benevolent place.  We see so much evil around us, wars, famine,.., and we feel that it needs to be eradicated, that we need to fix the situation.  Truly however, the universe, all of creation is a benevolent and loving.  The core matter of all things is inseparable from unspeakable joy, or bliss.  We don&amp;#039;t need to fix the problems in the world, and frankly for the most part we can&amp;#039;t.  To work all your life in service of others, to put ceaseless effort into re-mediating a &amp;#039;broken&amp;#039; situation is to turn a blind eye to the fundamental joy that is present always, from which none are ever truly separate.  No situation is truly black, but always a mix of colors, the whole spectrum represented in even the harshest of circumstance.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Everyone exist in different life situations.  If everyone were as enlightened and seemingly apathetic as myself, who would be the doctors that we need?  Who would help the poor?  Everyone has a unique life mission, and enlightenment is not in the cards for everybody, and need not be; to each his own, in his own time. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank goodness more people aren&amp;#039;t enlightened!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What are your thoughts on the bodhisattva vow, T DC? I thought you were into Tibetan Buddhism, where Mahayana perspectives seem pretty important.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Adam . . - 2014-03-24 13:53:54 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am only talking about one changing oneself, this is not about some mass movement or &amp;#034;fixing all the problems in the world&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Would you free yourself from disturbing emotions if you did think it were possible?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;T DC - 2014-03-24 16:00:20 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, sure I would free myself from afflicting emotions.  Ha, they&amp;#039;re painful.. However it is not to be.  Again I want to say I made such great progress on the path due to strong motivation; strong motivation to be free from suffering driven by intense experience of suffering, such as pain over afflictive emotions. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, if myself, at the end the path, say to you that afflicting emotions are not to be conquered, this can be interpreted several ways.  I&amp;#039;m lying, I&amp;#039;m wrong..  However I truly am not wrong or lying.  The way I wish for you to consider this is that if I, someone in your same situation, got to the end of suffering and saw emotional perfection to be a futile pursuit, yet was at peace, what does that tell you about enlightenment?  Emotions, seemingly such a great issue, are just part of life upon enlightenment, an accepted part of life at that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The path does not get rid of anything, it simply changes your perspective.  It will not change your personality!  However, better than that, it will allow you to know and accept yourself totally, beyond all doubt.  That is the gift waiting for you.  It is a different way to think about progression than emotional perfection, but it is much more realistic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Adam . . - 2014-03-24 20:44:15 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;However, if myself, at the end the path, say to you that afflicting emotions are not to be conquered&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My path is the path to the end of discontentment, anger, frustration, uneasiness, fear, depression, melancholy etc. so you might be at the end of &lt;em&gt;a&lt;/em&gt; path but not the end of &lt;em&gt;the&lt;/em&gt; path.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Emotions, seemingly such a great issue, are just part of life upon enlightenment, an accepted part of life at that.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Emotions are also just an accepted part of life for 99.999% of human beings.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also you keep talking about &amp;#034;emotional perfection&amp;#034; which sounds moralistic and based on lots of self-control or something like that. That&amp;#039;s not really my path, my path is enjoying every moment come what may such that I have no need for self-control.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think we are at an impasse here, you are completely firm in saying that changing yourself emotionally is not realistic and even not particularly desirable. I am saying it is possible and it is desirable (for example to avoid becoming &amp;#034;lonely and lustful&amp;#034; and acting inappropriately as in the OP). I guess we just have different opinions, and our conviction in them seems pretty firm so I don&amp;#039;t know if much more can come from this conversation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Eric M W - 2014-03-25 01:33:13 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think the big cause of &amp;#034;controversy&amp;#034; with this topic is that there are two differing viewpoints in this forum.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Viewpoint #1-- Enlightenment means uprooting all the defilements, e.g. no more lust or craving for formless realms or anything like that.  The suttic perspective.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Viewpoint #2-- Enlightenment doesn&amp;#039;t eliminate anything, it is a change in perspective, emotions still manifest but there is no self to do the manifesting, &amp;#034;there is no suffering because there is no sufferer.&amp;#034;  This is the MCTB arahat, or perhaps it would be better to call it a Burmese arahat.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My personal opinion is that I ought not to form any opinions, that I should get to MCTB arahatship and see if I need to do anything from there.  I am not an arahat.  That said, I do have some thoughts...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are many on this board who say that MCTB arahatship is actually just a sakadagami in the fetter model.  I&amp;#039;m not sure where this comparison comes from, but not being very enlightened I don&amp;#039;t really feel justified in commenting.  Actualism is, apparently, the way to &amp;#034;finish&amp;#034; the process.  However, isn&amp;#039;t it odd that the Buddha gave four stages of enlightenment, and that vipassana practice (4 Foundations of Mindfulness, anapanasati, etc etc) prescribed in the suttas results in four distinct levels of reduction in self?  It is quite a coincidence, and this ought to be considered when trying to compare the MCTB model with the fetter model.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Furthermore, with post-suttic texts like the Vishudimagga and the Abhidhamma, we find fairly detailed discussions of path moments and whatnot, including three moments before nibbana, the mind taking nibbana as an object, the three doors, and so on.  All these things line up with the actual experience of vipassana mastery.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In other words, the four paths of the suttas have been studied and elucidated in great detail.  The four paths of the suttas, the four paths of the Vishudimagga, the four paths of MCTB, and even some of the maps described in other traditions (e.g. Alchemy), all seem to line up.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And yet... MCTB arahats are just sakadagamis now?  Why?  Because of emotions?  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Taking a look at the opposing viewpoint, that enlightenment involves elimination of specific emotions, we cannot help but run into Actualism.  This is not a bad thing.  Being mindful of one&amp;#039;s emotions was recommended by the Buddha, and if I recall correctly, Dr. Ingram experimented with Actualism with positive results.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, I do have some reservations.  I realize I may be beating a dead horse here, but I feel that it is pertinent to the discussion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First we have Richard, the &amp;#034;founder&amp;#034; of Actual Freedom.  He claims to be free of any kind of affect, and others report something remarkable about his presence along these lines.  And yet, he appears to manifest emotions in certain situations.  His negative reaction towards the &amp;#034;spread&amp;#034; of Actualism on the DHO and his claim that Peter (who wrote most of the AF website?) was no longer Actually Free, are two examples.  I&amp;#039;m certainly not saying that he&amp;#039;s a bad guy, there has been far worse in Buddhist circles (I see Chogyam Trungpa&amp;#039;s name up there somewhere), but it is a bit disconcerting when the man claims to be free of all affect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But enough about the people, what about the practice?  Unfortunately, I have never had a PCE, at least that I can remember, but they sound nice, and plenty of other folks have had them and can attest to their niceness.  But temporary PCEs are hardly the goal-- permanent elimination of affect is the goal.  Let&amp;#039;s look at the practitioners who have done this.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;...And there&amp;#039;s a problem.  There honestly don&amp;#039;t seem to be any.  A look through the past posts on this board indicate a pattern that seems to go along the lines of claiming actual freedom, renouncing the claim to actual freedom, and then disappearing from cyberspace.  Tarin greco and Tommy M come to mind, though perhaps it was more personal and Actualism didn&amp;#039;t play a big part.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s not enough to turn me off completely from actual freedom, but it&amp;#039;s enough to make me nervous.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Furthermore, there are other spiritual traditions with perfectly valid goals that more or less take the opposite path of actualism.  I&amp;#039;m thinking of things like Western Magick, Vajrayana, shamanism, and occultism in general.  For people in this boat, actualism would be a pretty poor choice, for obvious reasons.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is another more complex dimension with regards to the above paragraph-- what if we have a psychic healer who chooses to pursue actualism and &amp;#034;loses&amp;#034; his power in the process?  Is he selfish for doing this?  Other people can no longer benefit from his abilities, but his own personal suffering is eliminated.  In many ways it&amp;#039;s like the old bodhisattva vow vs. getting enlightened debate, but this is a pretty heavy subject.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Actualism basically eliminates the axis of development regarding powers.  I&amp;#039;m not sure if this is a wise decision, considering the powers can be used to help others.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I should go ahead and say that I have some personal experience with &amp;#034;the powers,&amp;#034; and offer no further comment other than our materialistic society may not quite have it right.  ;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This post is turning out longer than I expected, so I will try to wrap it up, but before I do let&amp;#039;s talk about MCTB arahatship again.  At that level of attainment, there is no self, no Watcher, no Agent, no Perceiver, no Doer, nothing like that, just a field of sensations.  Furthermore, there is &lt;strong&gt;no choice&lt;/strong&gt;.  Sensations unfold according to causality, there is no &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; making decisions or anything like that.  Therefore, the decision to pursue actualism, at a high insight level, is not a decision at all, it is simply the inevitable unfolding of experience.  Along these same lines, there is no self to have emotions.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I should also point out that Theravada has its own system for working with emotions called the Sublime Abodes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What I&amp;#039;m getting at is, while actualism may be nice, arahatship is more ultimate, even perhaps the most ultimate realization one can have.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel himself mentions this in his essay regarding his experiments with actualism:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That said, there are lots of aspects of things to develop, lots of ways to continue to grow, lots of things to work on, as that is just one axis of development, albeit a very fundamental one, perhaps the most fundamental one.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And so I have continued to grow and learn and this brain has continued to change and learn new things. None have changed anything about that fundamental insight in April 2003, and that is truly remarkable, given how much has gone on since then.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That whole section is great, Daniel talks about working on emotions while still being an arahat and how those things fit in.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In conclusion--&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The MCTB view regarding Arahatship being a change in perspective, where emotions still manifest but are seen for what they are, lines up remarkably well with later commentaries on the suttas, and on this basis seems fairly sound.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The suttic or fetter view, which is closely tied with Actualism practice, doesn&amp;#039;t seem to line up with reality, as there don&amp;#039;t seem to be any persons that are free of emotions.  There is an unsettling tendency of claiming actual freedom, renouncing that claim, then vanishing, at least off cyberspace.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All this said, we are all mature adults here, we can make our own decisions regarding practice, goals, and even interpreting suttas.  If emotional freedom is what makes you happy, go for it!  Never sell yourself short when it comes to enlightenment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Again, I&amp;#039;m not an arahat, just a guy who has put a lot of thought into goals and practice, who has read some of the suttas and contemplated emotional models, and to a lesser extent has followed the political shitstorm surrounding Actual Freedom.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace,&lt;br /&gt;E&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Eric M W - 2014-03-25 01:38:25 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let me quickly add that I hate the term &amp;#034;MCTB arahat,&amp;#034; but use it for the sake of clarity.  The arahatship of MCTB is the selfsame arahatship of the Buddha as far as I can tell.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Adam . . - 2014-03-25 03:01:16 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a multitude of places where I disagree with you. I will focus on the disagreements regarding facts mostly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;First we have Richard, the &amp;#034;founder&amp;#034; of Actual Freedom. He claims to be free of any kind of affect, and others report something remarkable about his presence along these lines. And yet, he appears to manifest emotions in certain situations. His negative reaction towards the &amp;#034;spread&amp;#034; of Actualism on the DHO and his claim that Peter (who wrote most of the AF website?) was no longer Actually Free, are two examples. I&amp;#039;m certainly not saying that he&amp;#039;s a bad guy, there has been far worse in Buddhist circles (I see Chogyam Trungpa&amp;#039;s name up there somewhere), but it is a bit disconcerting when the man claims to be free of all affect.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Richard&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;negative reaction&amp;#034; was clearly about what seemed to him to be misinterpretations of actualism. (which is pretty reasonable)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;He doesn&amp;#039;t claim that peter is no longer actually free that i know of. (please provide a source from the AFT homepage, as it stands, there are numerous references to peter&amp;#039;s becoming actually free still there.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;...And there&amp;#039;s a problem. There honestly don&amp;#039;t seem to be any. A look through the past posts on this board indicate a pattern that seems to go along the lines of claiming actual freedom, renouncing the claim to actual freedom, and then disappearing from cyberspace.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think those two cases are really, really different. Tarin said that he maintained his claim of being free of emotions but didn&amp;#039;t see fit given a message Richard sent him to maintain that his freedom from malice and sorrow was &amp;#034;actual freedom.&amp;#034; This is the reason that he stopped posting as he explains (not because his way of experiencing reality free from malice and sorrow changed).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tarin:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;this is not to say that i am renouncing my claim of being free of malice and sorrow (which is what all this has been about for me anyway); i am not. what i am indicating is that i no longer have sufficient confidence that what i mean by this claim and what i find it to entail and imply is similar enough to what richard means and what that entails and implies to state any kind of equivalence. accordingly, i no longer find it suitable to use the terms that richard has put to his experiences and observations to describe my experiences or observations. without doing so, however, i find that i cannot participate very meaningfully in the conversations concerning actual freedom (which is essentially whatever richard says it is); as i cannot be sufficiently certain that what i have in mind is closely coherent with what richard does, i rarely find it purposeful to present my thoughts on these topics. conversely, it seems more appropriate for me to retire from any statement or claim of authority or authoritative understanding on these matters, so that it is understood that any further thoughts i may present on an actual freedom and related topics are to be understood in light of this retirement.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tommy said something completely different, that he renounced his claim to being free of emotions (he did this twice actually).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, Trent, Peter, Vineeto, Richard, Grant Brisset, Pamela, Grace, Tom (these last three from the AFT homepage) have never renounced their claim in any way as far as I know.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Sensations unfold according to causality, there is no &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; making decisions or anything like that. Therefore, the decision to pursue actualism, at a high insight level, is not a decision at all, it is simply the inevitable unfolding of experience. Along these same lines, there is no self to have emotions. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;if that&amp;#039;s enough for you, fine.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;What I&amp;#039;m getting at is, while actualism may be nice, arahatship is more ultimate, even perhaps the most ultimate realization one can have. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;if ultimateness is what your looking for then don&amp;#039;t look to actualism in that case&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Trial And Error - 2014-03-25 08:00:51 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I still get angry, jealous, sad, lustful, you name it...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I thought these were the mental &amp;#034;defilements&amp;#034; that are gotten rid of on the path to full enlightenment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Be Free Now - 2014-03-25 08:24:04 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Friends, &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I feel it is important to consider the following from http://www.beyondthenet.net/calm/nibbana19.htm:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;When no more firewood is added to a blazing fire, flames would subside and the logs of wood already burning go on smouldering as embers. After some time, they too get extinguished and become ashes. With regard to the arahant, too, we have to think in terms of this analogy. It can be taken as an illustration of the two Nibb‡na elements. &lt;strong&gt;To the extent the living arahant is free from fresh graspings, lust, hate and delusions do not flare up. But so long as he has to bear the burden of this organic combination, this physical frame, the arahant has to experience certain afflictions and be receptive to likes and dislikes, pleasures and pains.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In spite of all that, &lt;strong&gt;mentally he has access to the experience of the extinguishment he has already won. It is in that sense that the arahant is said to be in the Nibb‡na element with residual clinging in his everyday life, while taking in the objects of the five senses.&amp;#034;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, during one of the last days of his 10-day courses in his evening discourse regarding the ten paramis, Goenkaji says something like (paraphrasing here): &amp;#034;If you want to be liberated, you have to keep filling your ten jars drop by drop. If you want to be a Buddha (or reach Full Enlightenment), the jars are too big. Otherwise, full liberation can come with smaller jars.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just some food for thought.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nikolai . - 2014-03-25 10:34:59 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Be Free Now:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Friends, &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I feel it is important to consider the following from http://www.beyondthenet.net/calm/nibbana19.htm:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peoples,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As one who has incessantly obsessed about what is what in the past, consider simply getting to what is being called &amp;#034;MCTB 4th path&amp;#034; and using that as a base for discussion instead of rampant speculation based on dogmatic leanings, faithfulness to whomever or whatever and whatever else is triggering the empty ponderings. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Get yourself a new baseline, a permanent shift in perceptual baseline, which stays likes so even post-honeymoon period,  which gives one much more to play with, more stability to see cause and effect in play,  and such incessant ponderings about what at the moment lays within the realm of locked-in-thought loops (belief) for most of you no doubt (which in hindsight probably can&amp;#039;t be avoided, maybe &amp;#039;stage&amp;#039; specific behaviour) will begin to seem silly, or simply not be seen to arise anymore. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Post-MCTB 4th path&amp;#034; or whatever you want to title it, if so inclined, one can move in the direction of compoundings ceasing to compound. This compounding arises because of that. Well, what triggers the arising of that? This does. Ah! I see. Seeing this and that leads to this and that&amp;#039;s cessation and all that follows this and that. If this compounding still arises, and one has simply established a relationship with it, whether based on notions of &amp;#039;emptiness&amp;#039; or &amp;#039;equanimity&amp;#039; or whatever, well, they are relationships, in otherwords, fabrications of mind. If that is your cup of tea....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the end, each to his/her own. I don&amp;#039;t think we can have it any other way. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Arahat shmarahat!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;P.S. Bodhisattva Shmodhiratsva!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;P.S.S. Getting it done VS locking in the the loops to condition this moment of experience, and the next...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nick&amp;#039;s current subject to change 2 cents.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Beeeeeeeeeeeee haaaaaaaaaap...........yyyyyyyyyy!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edited as per usual.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Be Free Now - 2014-03-25 12:02:17 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Good post, Nikolai. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s amazing how much time we can waste speculating about certain goals and ends, and what happens when this happens, when the best thing to do is practice doing nothing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Speculating and choosing certain models over others just creates more tension and reaffirms the sense of self&amp;#039;s need to become somebody better, in my experience. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To quote Ajahn Chah (more &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;ajahnchah&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;book&amp;#x2f;Knowing_World1&amp;#x2e;php"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;):&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;All states of mind, happy or unhappy, are called arom. Whatever they may be, never mind - we should constantly be reminding ourselves that &amp;#039;&amp;#039;this is uncertain.&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is something people don&amp;#039;t consider very much, that &amp;#039;&amp;#039;this is uncertain.&amp;#039;&amp;#039; Just this is the vital factor that will bring about wisdom. It&amp;#039;s really important. In order to cease our coming and going and come to rest, we only need to say, &amp;#039;&amp;#039;This is uncertain.&amp;#039;&amp;#039; Sometimes we may be distraught over something to the point that tears are flowing; this is something not certain. When moods of desire or aversion come to us, we should just remind ourselves of this one thing. Whether standing, walking, sitting, or lying down, whatever appears is uncertain. Can&amp;#039;t you do this? Keep it up no matter what happens. Give it a try. You don&amp;#039;t need a lot - just this will work. This is something that brings wisdom.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The way I practise meditation is not very complicated - just this. This is what it all comes down to: &amp;#039;&amp;#039;it&amp;#039;s uncertain.&amp;#039;&amp;#039; Everything meets at this point.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Don&amp;#039;t keep track of the various instances of mental experience. When you sit there may be various conditions of mind appearing, seeing and knowing all manner of things, experiencing different states. Don&amp;#039;t be keeping track of them, and don&amp;#039;t get wrapped up in them. You only need to remind yourself that they&amp;#039;re uncertain. That&amp;#039;s enough. That&amp;#039;s easy to do. It&amp;#039;s simple. Then you can stop. Knowledge will come, but then don&amp;#039;t make too much out of that or get attached to it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Real investigation, investigation in the correct way, doesn&amp;#039;t involve thinking. As soon as something contacts the eye, ear, nose, tongue, or body, it immediately takes place of its own. You don&amp;#039;t have to pick up anything to look at - things just present themselves and investigation happens of its own. We talk about vitakka, &amp;#039;&amp;#039;initial thought.&amp;#039;&amp;#039; It means raising something up. What is vic?ra, &amp;#039;&amp;#039;discursive thought&amp;#039;&amp;#039;? It&amp;#039;s investigation, seeing the planes of existence (bh?mi) that appear.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the final analysis, the way of the Buddha flourishes through impermanence. It is always timely and relevant, whether in the time of the Buddha, in other times past, in the present age, or in the future. At all times, it is impermanence that rules. This is something you should meditate on.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The true and correct words of the sages will not lack mention of impermanence. This is the truth. If there is no mention of impermanence, it is not the speech of the wise. It is not the speech of the Buddha or the ariyas; it&amp;#039;s called speech that does not accept the truth of existence.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All things have need of a way of release. Contemplation is not a matter of holding on and sticking to things. It&amp;#039;s a matter of releasing. A mind that can&amp;#039;t release phenomena is in a state of intoxication. In practice, it&amp;#039;s important not to be intoxicated. When practice really seems to be good, don&amp;#039;t be intoxicated by that good. If you&amp;#039;re intoxicated by it, it becomes something harmful, and your practice is no longer correct. We do our best, but it&amp;#039;s important not to become drunk on our efforts, otherwise we are out of harmony with Dhamma. This is the Buddha&amp;#039;s advice. Even the good is not something to get intoxicated by. Be aware of this when it happens.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Be Happy!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Eric M W - 2014-03-25 12:53:56 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Adam,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My daughter is being a pill this morning so I don&amp;#039;t have time for a detailed response, but I wish to say this-- &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have nothing major against the Actualism stuff or the AF Movement, I just have some reservations due to the political stuff that blew up on both sides of the debate.  I came to the DHO because I am interested in Buddhism, and while some aspects of actualism can be made to sound very Buddhist, I feel it ultimately is outside the Theravada tradition.  Thus, while the discussion surrounding emotions can be interesting, I largely regard actualist posts as a distraction.  This is my own personal issue, I suppose.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Sublime Abode teachings have been more than sufficient in addressing my needs for emotional balance and peace, and I have yet to even come close to mastering these teachings, so I look forward to what more Theravada has to offer in this regard.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;A Course in Miracles&lt;/em&gt;, a Christian mystical text, also talks about dreams disappearing, perception becoming clean, the real world vs. the world of illusion, so it has a lot of very AF-like stuff.  In fact if I had more time this could be an interesting discussion, since the book was around long before Richard was.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At any rate, when I get to arahatship I will re-evaluate my stance on these things, but for now I think I&amp;#039;m all set.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace,&lt;br /&gt;E&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Trial And Error - 2014-03-26 09:13:49 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It&amp;#039;s amazing how much time we can waste speculating about certain goals and ends, and what happens when this happens... &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I get where this argument is coming from. But at the same time, it seems to me that the question of &amp;#034;does an arhat have emotions such as anger, jealousy etc&amp;#034; should be a basic question. I think there should be some sort of consensus on the issue. Simply so that we can say we know how these things work.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course it is possible that I&amp;#039;m entirely wrong.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;sawfoot _ - 2014-03-26 09:33:16 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Trial And Error:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It&amp;#039;s amazing how much time we can waste speculating about certain goals and ends, and what happens when this happens... &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I get where this argument is coming from. But at the same time, it seems to me that the question of &amp;#034;does an arhat have emotions such as anger, jealousy etc&amp;#034; should be a basic question. I think there should be some sort of consensus on the issue. Simply so that we can say we know how these things work.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course it is possible that I&amp;#039;m entirely wrong.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is no such thing as a consensus here. But here is Daniel&amp;#039;s take:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://integrateddaniel.info/my-experiments-in-actualism/&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Adam . . - 2014-03-26 20:03:50 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Speculation and &amp;#034;just practicing&amp;#034; probably have to be balanced. Too much speculation can mean getting stuck in constant worries about the best way to live, and never really giving any of those ways a fair chance. Too little speculation can mean pressing onward in a fruitless direction (this is probably the majority of human beings, never really questioning their basic ideas about how to live). I don&amp;#039;t think there is any easy way out other than to experiment with too much and too little enough times to know how much is ideal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Neem Nyima - 2014-03-28 08:20:52 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Psi Phi:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt; What mental formation has to exist to think it is lonely?  Physiologically speaking, the human body still creates glandular excretions, which have cause and effect, pleasure sensations, etc, but... if there is no clinging or attachment , there would follow, no lust.  Even a not fully enlightened being can use mindfulness to dismiss sednsations for what they are before the craving starts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, if one is attempting sexual misconduct, then it would follow that one would not be fully enlightened.  But, hey, recognition, no blame, and change, humans.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Does not look as there is a dogma or super human standards, there just is a path and results.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yeah, I thought there might be body lust or biological attraction, but that the mind would be able to chose to act on that or not. So it does seem odd that a monk, who might be an Arhat would enquire into breaching their vows. &lt;br /&gt;The approach wasn&amp;#039;t unethical for a gay man, and he didn&amp;#039;t breach his vows, besides maybe touching my hand with desire, which was tender and sensual.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But maybe he can manage his desires but he didn&amp;#039;t want to?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh hello, too by the way, Psi Phi.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;PS&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m going into a one month retreat with him and saw him again today, I&amp;#039;m not overly worried about that though.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Neem Nyima - 2014-03-28 08:38:06 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Ian And:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt; I usually don&amp;#039;t respond to threads like this. But because I respect you and your practice, I&amp;#039;ve made an exception.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Thanks Ian, I&amp;#039;m hoping this site is not only intimate but having people who are open minded about what is enlightenment. Which was my motivation for putting this stuff up here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&amp;#034;It seems to me the Ken Wilber&amp;#039;s model of enlightenment as a state and not a stage continues to ring true.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While this may be true for Wilber, it is, however, not true for myself. From my understanding of the Dhamma, awakening is more a maturation of the mind than an impermanent state. But perhaps that&amp;#039;s just me. While Mr. Wilber is very intellectually accomplished and a prolific writer, there seem to be areas of his personality that are deficient in one manner or another. &amp;#039;Nuff said. (Possible disclaimer: I&amp;#039;ve never been very impressed with any of the ideas that Wilber has expressed. Just my personal opinion. That&amp;#039;s not to say that he hasn&amp;#039;t a very astute and inventive mind.) &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; Ken Wilber&amp;#039;s map or notion of states, seems to be a good but limited way of framing notions of meditation attainment and ethical development. Though it has problems in that it doesn&amp;#039;t represent permanent states, it still seems a useful map to use in certain contexts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Just because someone is able to achieve a basic awakening doesn&amp;#039;t mean that they have had time to work on eliminating the &lt;em&gt;asavas&lt;/em&gt; (sensual passion, states of being, the taking of views, and ignorance).  Or perhaps, according to the definition that proclaims that arahants are no longer bothered by the &lt;em&gt;asavas&lt;/em&gt;, perhaps the person is not an arahant. Whatever the case, one still has to deal with these underlying tendencies before he can truly be free of mental defilements. Anyone who still clings to sensual passion, to craving for being, to the taking of views, and to ignorance (or denial of any of these), still has some work to do (whether they think so or not). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, the question might be asked, can a person be awakened, but not &lt;strong&gt;fully&lt;/strong&gt; awakened? I think so. I see no reason why this shouldn&amp;#039;t be possible. This would explain the anomalies of the people you have mentioned above (I&amp;#039;m thinking of Trungpa primarily; am not that familiar of Kalu Rinpoche&amp;#039;s exploits ). Trungpa has written some powerful passages that suggest a mature understanding of Gotama&amp;#039;s Dhamma. I&amp;#039;ve been impressed with many of the things I&amp;#039;ve read of his. And yet many of his actions contradicted a mature understanding of these passages. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Yes that is the dilemma, how much of the traditional definitions should we take to heart and how much should we disregard? I didn&amp;#039;t think I would be able to resolve this question but I had to ask it any way.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Neem Nyima - 2014-03-28 08:51:52 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Secondly, addressing emotional standards of enlightenment, I want to be clear how enlightenment fits into the broader picture of our emotional life.  Ian brought up the idea that while this teacher may be somewhat enlightened, the reason he acted in such an inappropriate manner is that he is not fully enlightened*.  However, as a fully enlightened individual, I can tell you that emotions do not cease upon enlightenment.  I still get angry, jealous, sad, lustful, you name it...  Enlightenment does not affect the spectrum of emotional experience.&lt;br /&gt;(Edited for clarification)  While this may be tempting to dismiss, as &amp;#039;well, you&amp;#039;re probably not actually fully enlightened&amp;#039;, hear me out.  From a metaphysical perspective, we are souls on looong spiritual journeys, with near infinite past incarnations, and likely near infinite more in the future.  What&amp;#039;s more, there are many other planes of existence outside our universe.  Our experience here on Earth is one small part of the overall picture of spiritual development.  Earth is unique however in that we exist in the delusion of separateness, which could be likened to a training program.  Enlightenment is the end of this program, however it is not the end of soul/ spiritual development.  The end of duality does not mean final perfection, but merely the accomplishing of a specific challenge.  Thus our search for &amp;#039;perfection&amp;#039; goes on.. To clarify, what exists after enlightenment, and might be called the &amp;#039;soul&amp;#039;, could be likened to our basic personality structure.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for your input TDC. I was thinking something of the sort but not so eloquently put. Thought you have attempted to explain this notion, I wonder if can be explained? If lust remains, but you can chose how and when you engage with it, then its perfectly reasonable that you might chose to want a sexual connection with someone. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It may indeed be the case that he is not fully enlightened.  Arhatship, or 4th path as defined on this board, is very much the beginning of the journey to full enlightenment.  At 4th path, one has an extremely superficial understanding of emptiness.  From 4th path to full enlightenment, one must come to understand that oneself is inseparable from emptiness, which is a long way to go.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Neophytes like myself have to take so much on faith. At least I have been able to measure my development in relation to an insight and concentration map, and I have this confidence to rely on!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Neem Nyima - 2014-03-28 09:11:02 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;In conclusion--&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The MCTB view regarding Arahatship being a change in perspective, where emotions still manifest but are seen for what they are, lines up remarkably well with later commentaries on the suttas, and on this basis seems fairly sound.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The suttic or fetter view, which is closely tied with Actualism practice, doesn&amp;#039;t seem to line up with reality, as there don&amp;#039;t seem to be any persons that are free of emotions.  There is an unsettling tendency of claiming actual freedom, renouncing that claim, then vanishing, at least off cyberspace.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All this said, we are all mature adults here, we can make our own decisions regarding practice, goals, and even interpreting suttas.  If emotional freedom is what makes you happy, go for it!  Never sell yourself short when it comes to enlightenment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Again, I&amp;#039;m not an arahat, just a guy who has put a lot of thought into goals and practice, who has read some of the suttas and contemplated emotional models, and to a lesser extent has followed the political shitstorm surrounding Actual Freedom.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks Eric, you seemed to have got it for me in a long nut shell. I guess I wanted reaffirming, that it was quite possible that Sayadaw could still be an Arhat, and that thread of thoughts helped me to resolve my doubt, even though it hasn&amp;#039;t given certainty. I had resolved, that even if he wasn&amp;#039;t an Arhat he was a good teacher, but maybe at a lower path. But who&amp;#039;s to know, though we may have more of a context for measuring this in the future.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Eric M W - 2014-03-28 19:05:49 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think if you spend much time around enlightened teachers, it&amp;#039;s pretty clear that they have issues and quirks like the rest of us, cases in point: Chogyam Trungpa, Mahasi Sayadaw, Crowley...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, I think it is also clear that beings of high attainment also have a sort of peace about them that is hard to describe.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All this is talked about in MCTB fairly extensively...  The big thing to ask yourself is &amp;#034;What are my personal beliefs and expectations about enlightenment in the Buddhist tradition?&amp;#034;  And then compare those beliefs with how arahats actually are, or better yet, become an arahat yourself and go from there.  &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Check out these paragraphs from the section on the Action Models of enlightenment:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The list of highly enlightened individuals who have bitten the proverbial dust by putting themselves up on high, screwing up and then being exposed as actually being human is remarkably long, and the list of spiritual aspirants who have failed to draw the proper conclusions about reality from the failures of the enlightened is even longer. There are many schools of thought on this issue, and I will give them formal names here, though in reality they donít think of themselves this way. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Halfway Up the Mountain School essentially believes, ìThose who screwed up and caused a scandal were only part-way up the mountain, only partially enlightened, as anyone who was really enlightened couldnít possibly have done those terrible things.î While clearly some were only partially enlightened, or perhaps not enlightened at all in the technical sense, a number of those who screwed up clearly knew ultimate reality inside and out, and so this model misses many important points. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is the Crazy Wisdom School that believes, ìEnlightened beings transcend ordinary reality and with it ordinary morality, so that they are the natural manifestation of a Wisdom that seems crazy to us foolish mortals but is really a higher teaching in disguise!î While not entirely absurd, as there are many cultural aspects and societal rules that can seem a bit childish, artificial, unnecessary, unhelpful or naive in the face of realization, the Crazy Wisdom School provides too easy an excuse for plenty of behavior that has been and is just plain bad, irresponsible, stupid and needlessly destructive. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then there is my school, for which I donít have a catchy name, and it promotes the view that, ìEnlightened beings are human, and unfortunately humans, enlightened or otherwise, all screw up sometimes. There is nothing special or profound about this.î In short, my school categorically rejects the specific lists and dogmas of the traditional Action Models in all forms, from the preposterous lists of the Theravada to the subtle sense that enlightened beings somehow are guaranteed to act perpetually in ìenlightenedî ways, whatever those are. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That said, the ability to see things as they are does allow for the possibility of more moderated responses to situations and emotions, as stated earlier. That is a very different sort of a concept from coming up with a list of things that an enlightened being never would or could do, and it certainly doesnít mean they will necessarily act the way we think they will.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel M. Ingram - 2014-03-29 06:41:56 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;@T DC: I am assuming, perhaps inaccurately, that the initial post refers to Sayadaw U Pandita, Jr., though I don&amp;#039;t in any way consider him my final teacher, as I continue to learn a ton from lots of people every day, including many here. I know nothing of his sexual habits, so can&amp;#039;t comment on those, but I can tell you something of my understanding of his understanding.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When the split is gone, talk of emptiness being separate from phenomena, or emptiness being joined with phenomena, or of any such thing is really missing something important. The phenomenal world speaks for itself, is itself, all the way through, being transient, empty of substantial nature, empty of any abiding self, empty of any observer or controller or doer in that felt, perceived, believed etc. sense. However, the whole point is causality. Causally things occur, on their own, dependent on conditions, naturally, effortlessly. That causality is some stuff, and it includes mammalian causality, which intrinsically involves sexuality and hormones and all sorts of other stuff. Those who imagine that eliminating misperception of duality will so totally rewrite the causality they now deeply understand just by perceiving it clearly at their baseline are in for a rude awakening, to make a perfectly appropriate pun.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Neem Nyima - 2014-05-02 22:11:50 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To all those interested and concerned.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I want to retract the statement &amp;#039;made a pass&amp;#039;. As I think it was excessive. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sayadaw U Pandita Jr and me were talking, when he asked to look at my palm to give me a palm reading, he described that the puffiness of my thumb designated a high level of lust. A bit later he ask, about the size of my penis and whether I was circumsised.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; At this point i thought maybe it was some kind of buddhist body sign reading, though i felt uncomfortable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A bit later in the conversation, he ask me to show my penis to him. I thought I didn&amp;#039;t hear right and said nothing, but he repeated himself. And when i said nothing he asked if I was shy. To which I replied it wouldn&amp;#039;t be proper.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Later in the day, while driving to the shops to recharge his phone, we continue the conversation around sexuality. And Sayadaw was quite interested in the specifics of whether I had ever had a homosexual connection, even though the topic of the conversation was around my hetrosexual lifestyle&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While on retreat with Sayadaw, he mentioned two particular stories. The one of Sariputta jumping the small stream like a monkey and the how this was metaphor for to the latent tendencies of an Arhat. And another about being on deaths door in the golden triangle with malaria, and how he felt he could die calmly as he had kept his precepts amongst other things. This story had the ring of truth for me. So as he did nothing to breach his Vinaya in the situation above, and there is a clear context even from a tradition perspective to explain his actions assuming his attainment. And along with the story of his death bed, I feel it best to take him on faith when he says he has lived as a good monk.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for your input everyone and Daniel too. Sorry I didn&amp;#039;t mean to imply that you had ceased learning, but just that he was you last teacher before the final attainment of the Theravada tradition. Also sorry for not speaking more openly at first, I&amp;#039;m not usually one to hold my tongue about anything, but for some reason I felt it was less judgemental to tell the story outright, even though that has the dilemma of giving rise to speculation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Faithfully Neem&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Eric M W - 2014-05-03 00:32:07 - RE: Arhat: Lonely and Lustful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s kind of bizarre.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2014 10:15:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5527724</guid> <dc:creator>Migration 6.2 Daemon</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-07T10:15:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>What is the goal, really? [Luke P] [MIGRATE]</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5527655</link> <description>What is the goal, really? [Luke P] &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Luke P - 2014-04-16 07:46:36 - What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hello DO.  Iíve debated a lot whether I should post here or not, but Iím at the point where I need some real information, and this is the only place Iíve found that seems to care about these things.  Iím posting in this forum because the opinions Iíve developed over the last few months are a bit hostile to the whole viewpoint presented by Daniel and the rest of this crew.  (Iíve come to call you all ìType A Buddhistsî hahaÖ  Many people wear that designation with pride, though, so please donít be too offended. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/tongue.gif" &gt;)  I know this is a huge post, and I feel pretty conceited talking about myself so much, but Iím hoping you all can understand.  Iím giving all the gory details because I want solid opinions.  Iíve spent a lot of time over the past four months steeped in doubt and Iíd like to remove it once and for all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, Iíll start with a the back-story.  Around July last year I started meditating.  I donít remember exactly what my thought process was at the time, but I can link it to an understanding I came to in the shower on July 4th after watching some fireworks.  Iíve found a few potential names that could apply to it in DO terminology, but the ìno-dogî state seems to work the best.  I called it ìfreedomî at the time.  I know thatís a bit corny, lol, but Iíve always dealt with a lot of anxiety in my life, and Iíve gone through lots of philosophies trying to figure out how to get rid of it.  I called myself a Taoist for a number of years, dabbled with psychology, etc.  Anyway, this was the first time I really felt like I had any control over how I felt.  I realized I was anxious, but it didnít seem to have any real bearing on my mental state.  It was like I was outside of it looking in, or the anxiety was perfectly fine as it was.  Truth is, I became pretty obsessed with it for a while.  It was VERY difficult to access (and still is, really), but I noticed that a kind of complete submission was required.  Obviously this sets up a dilemma: you have to accept the feeling to be free from it.  This actually links up with Taoist thought rather well, so it makes sense that thatís the first real ìinsightî I would have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Months went by and I was still struggling, but I felt like I was on track to something real for once.  Meditation started out very difficult.  I could hardly sit still, I couldnít watch my breath at all, to be honest Iím not sure why I kept doing it, haha.  Things got easier over time though, and I found a method that I liked.  I wasnít sure it even counted as meditation, but it felt nice enough so I continued with it.  (Basic method was ñ and still is ñ pay attention to different body parts in succession.  Like feet, lower legs, upper legs, etc.  I linked it to the breath at some point, too.)  Eventually I started getting what I called ìdeepî meditation, where my body would go a bit numb and I could sit still without 100 little pains screaming at me.  My mind never went blank, but I noticed there was a foreground and a background of attention, and I could keep the thoughts in the background mostly.  Looking back, this might have been that torpor state that they warn about in Zen, or maybe some kind of Yoga Nidra.  Later in the year I had a few ìvisionsî.  They werenít anything in particular (I saw a jar with stickers in it, lol) and I didnít give them much credence, but it was probably something on the dreaming end of the spectrum.  They were very vivid and realistic, like Iíd opened my eyes for a moment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then on New years eve I had A Big Event.  (I know, the timing of these things are kinda fun. ^^)  I was sitting on my couch, again trying to deal with anxiety, and I was able to let go completely into some kind of full-body euphoria.  It lasted for, maybe, ten seconds and afterward I felt a kind of open spacious quality in my chest for the rest of the night.  It was an almost emotionless state.  I felt so relieved.  I just sat there for a few hours doing nothing at all.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;I hadnít done much research on Buddhism, but I ran into the progress of insight and thought it might have been an A&amp;amp;P experience.  I ran into the DO around that time in my googling, and thatís where my ìepic journey of confusionî began lol.  Nothing in the progress of insight the way itís described in MCTB seemed to match up with my experiences aside from the A&amp;amp;P, and even that just didnít match much at all.  I didnít seem to have any special vision of things arising and passing, I couldnít relate to the three characteristics in any way, all the talk about vibrations seemed like nonsense.  You might say I hated the whole concept of ìvipassana meditationî and threw it out the window fairly early on.  (Sorry guys! :3)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know the first question youíll all ask is, ìwhat about the dark night?î  Itís hard for me to say though.  Iíve always had a lot of anxiety, even since I was very young, so if anything changed in intensity or duration itís hard to know.  I kept the possibility of it in the back of my mind, though, hoping it would help me understand whether I was doing insight meditation or not.  I had a few experiences that could be related to that, but itís hard to say.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, I decided in the end that I must have had a jhana experience, and began thinking of my meditation as jhana ñ even though that didnít seem to line up fully either.  When Iíd sat down on the couch to deal with the anxiety, the event had happened very quickly ñ probably within 10 seconds ñ and I couldnít say I was concentrating on anything in particular at the time.  The following days, when I would sit down to meditate, I would focus on letting go, and I would go into the euphoric feelings almost right away.  I tried to force it at first and had problems with my eyes getting so crossed I would see purple black spots, but I quickly discovered it was much easier just to let go.  Sometimes I would hit a state of mind so emotionless that I would simply lay on the floor for hours thinking about how relieved I was.  I felt completely empty and free.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My thoughts never stopped during meditation, and Iíve never made much real effort to concentrate.  ìJust let goî always was the core principal.  Iím fairly certain that Iíve developed the jhanas up to the 7th at least.  Iíve had a few hints of the 8th recently, maybe.  Itís hard for me to say, though.  Nothing ever seems to match up quite the way itís supposed to.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As you can see, I donít have much to go on with all this.  If I really did have an A&amp;amp;P experience, it wasnít really preceded by the other insight knowledgeís that I can relate to.  I still donít have a clue how a person is supposed to meditate on the three characteristics.  Iíve read about the noting technique, but it felt so clunky when I tried it.  In the first month or two after the big experience I was practicing mindfulness in a very deliberate way and found that, a few hours into the day, I could consistently hit a state where I could remain in an Eckhart Tolle style ìnowî for the nest of the day.  It would be gone when I woke up the next day, though, and it really impacted how much work I was doing (I work from home).  It was definitely a kind of concentration state.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;  I had a few things that could have been the dark night, and I seem to have gotten past them.  There was one point where my anxiety had a new quality to it.  It felt a bit like I was going to be sick to my stomach.  I thought that could have been dark night related.  I would hit that state off and on, try to let go, be incapacitated for an hour, then it would flip over completely and Iíd spend the rest of the day in a rather calm and relieved mood.  I figured maybe that was equanimity?  I still didnít understand how any of it related to the three characteristics or the things I was supposed to understand with the insight knowledges.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At this point, thought, I was operating under the assumption that I was following the progress of insight ñ maybe just in a way that ignored some/most of the steps.  I was hitting a state of mind that seemed to line up with ìhigh equanimityî (though I thought this could just be the 4th jhana) and I was getting some interesting phenomena.  One night as I went to sleep I felt like I was inside my skull.  I was moving my jaw and it seemed like it was outside of ìmeî.  I had a feeling of being sucked down a vortex, but nothing seemed to happen with it.  It just kind of stopped at some point.  That had happened to me before while meditating (along with my eyes rapidly flickering back and forth), and I wondered if I was close to a fruition.  I also felt like I was probably deluding myself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thatís when another wrench was thrown into the works.  I started hitting a state during the day where it felt like I was living in a jhana.  It was a kind of warm contentment that would just sit in the center of my chest.  It was very different from any of the other things I had felt with meditation, and I linked it to a very specific way of looking at things.  The first time it happened I was sitting on my couch, looking at a plastic cup on the table, and trying to practice mindfulness.  The thought occurred to me that I was trying to see the cup as something special so it would capture my attention, but it really wasnít.  It was just ordinary.  That seemed to trigger something and I looked around at everything and realized how ordinary it all was.  This sounds pretty dumb typing it out, but it seemed like Iíd removed my judgment of things in such a way where Iíd finally found a balance.  This warm glow started, and you could almost call it the ìanti-boredomî and the ìanti-anxietyî.  Equanimity seemed cold and dead in comparison.  I felt like every breath I took wasÖwell, like eating chocolate, haha.  These descriptions are actually the best Iíve come up with.  All I can say is that it had this deeply rooted feeling of contentment attached to it that didnít seem related to anything in particular.  The state would come and go on its own, but it seemed to be linked to letting go, like everything else had.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is where things really diverged for me.  Iíd been practicing jhana all the time these other things were happening (generally 20-30 minute sit every day), and while I wasnít too certain about the insight knowledges, I was fairly certain about this new state and the jhanas.  It almost seemed like, through mindfulness, the third jhana was becoming a baseline state of mind.  Around this time I started spending a lot of time reading through the sutta pitaka and trying to understand for myself what the Buddha was saying.  I really began to wonder if Theravada (and the DO by extension) was really just something quite different from the original teachings.  Iíve seen many places where Keneth Folk and Daniel talk about enlightenment as the realization of anatta or ìno-self,î but what about nibbana?  What about the ten fetters?  What about transcending all stress and suffering?  I understand how the four paths are supposed to relate to the fruitions, and how things are done in Burmese Buddhism a la the vissudimagga, but that doesnít line up with my readings of the sutta pitaka.  The Buddha seemed, mostly, like a jhana teacher who found a way to bring jhana out of meditation and into everyday living through mindfulness.  The morality teachings and the philosophy all seem to support this idea.  The meaning of Anatta in pali is actually ìnot-mineî and ìnot-Iî, so saying the buddha taught ìno-selfî doesnít make much sense in context as Iíve read it.  There are even a number of suttas where he specifically says those sorts of metaphysical views arenít helpful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, I guess the question I have really been burning to ask is, whatís the point of it all in the end?  What will this ìType A Buddhismî ñ Pragmatic Dharma ñ Burmese Theravada bring me in the end if I continue trying to develop it?  I donít doubt that you all have a very real tradition youíre carrying out here, but I just donít understand how it relates to the promises made by the Buddha right in the original texts.  Those of you who are Arahants in this tradition, are you completely free from all stress?  Are you ever angry or sad?  Are you anxious?  If you do still have these problems with your life, why would you recommend anyone follow the same path you have?  Iím being very honest when I say I donít really care about truth or ultimate reality.  I spent a lot of time in my late teens and early twenties ìthinking about the universeî, and Iíve grown mostly disinterested in it.  The ultimate reality Iíve come to like most is the one that has the least explanation. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, I guess thatís the point of this post.  Whatís the point?  If Iím close to a fruition for stream entry, and that just means more cycles to go through with a final ending that is basically just a disconnection from my emotions, or that ìno-dogî state, it doesnít seem very worthwhile to me.  My path so far has been focused on the jhanas and mindfulness, and Iíve found a state of mind that really is extraordinary.  Itís not permanent, and it isnít nibbana, but I wonder if it will lead me there ñ or, at the very least, if it can bring me to the baseline of contentment Iíve been searching for.  If that means my destiny is to become a jhana junkie (as Iíve seen it called here), then thatís fine, because Iíve seen it actually work.  Thatís the spirit of pragmatic dharma, isnít it?  Do what works to reach the goal you want. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I donít mean these questions as an attack, either.  I know you all put in a lot of hard work and have a great deal of conviction in what youíre doing.  If you believe I can reach my goal by following your path, please feel free to offer guidance.  Iím still completely unsure if Iím even lining up with your practices at all.  I really do feel like Iím at a crossroads, though, and Iím very open to whatever you all have to say.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If youíve taken the time to read all this, thank you for listening. :3&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;katy steger - 2014-04-16 08:29:57 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I donít mean these questions as an attack, either. I know you all put in a lot of hard work and have a great deal of conviction in what youíre doing. If you believe I can reach my goal by following your path, please feel free to offer guidance. Iím still completely unsure if Iím even lining up with your practices at all. I really do feel like Iím at a crossroads, though, and Iím very open to whatever you all have to say.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; I think it&amp;#039;s fine to ask &amp;#034;as an attack&amp;#034; and...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Iíve debated a lot whether I should post here or not, but Iím at the point where I need some real information, and this is the only place Iíve found that seems to care about these things. Iím posting in this forum because the opinions Iíve developed over the last few months are a bit hostile to the whole viewpoint presented by Daniel and the rest of this crew. (Iíve come to call you all ìType A Buddhistsî hahaÖ Many people wear that designation with pride, though, so please donít be too offended. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To me, a lot of times &amp;#034;attack&amp;#034; voicing is looking for &amp;#034;How stable is their practice? What are they saying? What gratification/rewards are they getting from saying/writing that? Is this a community of nuts or are they doing something useful and should I try doing this as, by and for myself?&amp;#034; I mean, really, there&amp;#039;s no actual attack here, just some debate and affective provocation. &amp;#034;Attack&amp;#034; voicing also lets me know where I/you stand emotionally, reflects on the user . When I exhibit it or someone else does, I at least know there&amp;#039;s some sincere affective core there and that sincere core of digging can be applied to so-called good practice: sincere diligence.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;So, I guess thatís the point of this post. Whatís the point? If Iím close to a fruition for stream entry, and that just means more cycles to go through with a final ending that is basically just a disconnection from my emotions, or that ìno-dogî state, it doesnít seem very worthwhile to me. My path so far has been focused on the jhanas and mindfulness, and Iíve found a state of mind that really is extraordinary. Itís not permanent, and it isnít nibbana, but I wonder if it will lead me there ñ or, at the very least, if it can bring me to the baseline of contentment Iíve been searching for. If that means my destiny is to become a jhana junkie (as Iíve seen it called here), then thatís fine, because Iíve seen it actually work. Thatís the spirit of pragmatic dharma, isnít it? Do what works to reach the goal you want. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; Frankly, Luke, to me your post is so useful. I hope you keep doing what you&amp;#039;re doing. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Practical reply, based on my limited experience:&lt;br /&gt;1. Someone leaving anxiety terrain and entering LOW equanimity (as in: &lt;em&gt;&amp;#034;I was hitting a state of mind that seemed to line up with ìhigh equanimityî (though I thought this could just be the 4th jhana)&lt;/em&gt;, &amp;#034;) and  where deep body comfort and interesting daily perception is increasingly showing up, as in how you felt &lt;em&gt; &amp;#034;I felt like every breath I took wasÖwell, like eating chocolate, haha&amp;#034;&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt; &amp;#034;Equanimity seemed cold and dead in comparison.&amp;#034;&lt;/em&gt; (To me, &amp;#034;cold&amp;#034; EQ is low EQ, but it feels great after years of anxiety-dwelling, for example; and 4th jhana is amazingly warm, intimate almost, at its purest doesn&amp;#039;t move preferentially, but can enter &amp;#034;formless&amp;#034; mental perception and can have a lot movement/proprioceptive sensations). I feel that it is perfectly natural that one follows this and both wants more jhana while cautioning themselves about becoming a spewing &amp;#034;jhana junkie&amp;#034;; and...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. ...because nibbana is sort of an unknown treat hanging out on the horizon, the thought of which can diminish when a person&amp;#039;s brain begins to hunger for more sensation related to unified, content/bliss mind (jhanic mental states and afterglows) it&amp;#039;s also becomes totally natural to stop thinking of nibbana; obviously, now one is becoming happy with own-life after, say, years of own-anxiety. So &amp;#034;jhana junkie&amp;#034; is natural and enjoying life becomes more common, anxiety starts to lessen its impact. (This can take years). I think morality naturally arises, too, even in the new pleasures of living. It&amp;#039;s like the brain got a perfect pizza (jhanas), is learning how to access that pizza again and again, and so it starts to forget about the famed &amp;#039;banana split sundae&amp;#039; (nibbana exposure);&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3. Yet when jhanas become known as conditioned states (pizza gets familiar, less exciting) with valuable but not reliable sorts of mental relief, one naturally begins to remember and take up sincere interest in the &amp;#039;banana split sundae&amp;#039; chatter again (&amp;#034;What&amp;#039;s nibbana? What are they all talking about in the ancient texts and these blow-hard posters?...&amp;#034;) and goes naturally back to that pursuit, which as you already know and, in your words, &lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;ìJust let goî always was the core principal.&amp;#034;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Welcome to the DhO.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;_____EDIT____&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;If you believe I can reach my goal by following your path, please feel free to offer guidance. Iím still completely unsure if Iím even lining up with your practices at all. I really do feel like Iím at a crossroads, though, and Iím very open to whatever you all have to say.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #c012ca"&gt;No way. Read about it, ask about it, attend some retreat if you&amp;#039;re piqued, but I hope you never give up your own compass and exploration. You&amp;#039;re gonna die your death, not mine, so I hope you keep very curious and open and testing and investigating for yourself. With own sincere practice it&amp;#039;s possible to find good friends and &amp;#034;a one great answering practice&amp;#034;, if you will, of someone else&amp;#039;s is not so relevant or seems a little funny as an outset position. But I like that this study is said to be &amp;#034;sanditthiko (here and now), akaliko (timeless, not suited to just an era), ehipassiko (put forth effort and see for oneself)  opanayiko (leading inwards, calm) paccattam veditabbo vinnuhi (can only be known through direct experience)&amp;#034;, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Florian Weps - 2014-04-16 12:00:55 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Not Tao,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;nice post!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My answer to what I understand your question to be:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Anyway, I guess the question I have really been burning to ask is, whatís the point of it all in the end? What will this ìType A Buddhismî ñ Pragmatic Dharma ñ Burmese Theravada bring me in the end if I continue trying to develop it? I donít doubt that you all have a very real tradition youíre carrying out here, but I just donít understand how it relates to the promises made by the Buddha right in the original texts.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Me, I&amp;#039;m not interested in carrying out a tradition. Rather, that which is expressed in the religious traditions, and which also has other expressions which are not religious or spiritual, is what I&amp;#039;m interested in - that which the Buddhists call &amp;#034;Dharma&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Theravada expression of the Dharma is, to my present understanding, very much spot-on, &lt;em&gt;in the areas which it covers&lt;/em&gt;. There are areas which it (i.e. Theravada) only lightly touches on, which is fine by me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Am I coming across coherently? Blind men and the Elephant, handful of leaves, is what I&amp;#039;m trying to say.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As to &amp;#034;in the end&amp;#034; - I don&amp;#039;t know, I&amp;#039;m not dead yet.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Those of you who are Arahants in this tradition, are you completely free from all stress? Are you ever angry or sad? Are you anxious? If you do still have these problems with your life, why would you recommend anyone follow the same path you have?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m not claiming arahatta. I have had profound shifts take place in my life, outlook, understanding, and overall experience, which may or may not line up with some of the traditional milestones.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I get angry and sad, I get stressed. It is painful when I hurt my body. I need food, shelter, medicine, clothing, love, consideration, attention and so on for my physical and emotional well-being.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One of the profound changes was when I saw/understood/experienced/whatever that these needs are universal, not my own, not me, not my defining characteristics.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That doesn&amp;#039;t make these needs go away, or diminish them. The change concerned me, not these conditions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t know about recommending &lt;em&gt;my&lt;/em&gt; path. It didn&amp;#039;t get &lt;em&gt;me&lt;/em&gt; anything, though it changed me undeniably, and I recommend that change. Whatever it takes for you to get here, I&amp;#039;d highly recommend. Whatever floats your raft.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Iím being very honest when I say I donít really care about truth or ultimate reality. I spent a lot of time in my late teens and early twenties ìthinking about the universeî, and Iíve grown mostly disinterested in it. The ultimate reality Iíve come to like most is the one that has the least explanation.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yeah. Reality does have this &amp;#034;in your face&amp;#034; quality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not Tao - 2014-04-17 17:26:03 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you both for taking the time to read all this, haha.  I think just typing it all out helped me quite a lot, but you guys have given me a lot to think about.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Katy, your post helped me realize that all my confusion was probably coming from trying to fit my meditation experiences into a box where they just wouldn&amp;#039;t fit.  Pointing out to me my own method - &amp;#034;just let go&amp;#034; - helped me dislodge myself from the mud I&amp;#039;ve been stuck it (the same mud that probably caused me to write this novel in the first place).  I never considered that the warm/comfortable state could be high equanimity, but after chasing in for the last few days with poor results, simply letting go brought me back.  I think the main pit I keep falling into is clinging to peace that arrives through non-clinging.  I try to have a bit of compassion for my poor anxiety-soaked mind, but once in a while we need to crack the whips, right? Lol...  It helps me to remind myself that the peace is the letting go, not the result of letting go.  One doesn&amp;#039;t follow the other, they&amp;#039;re the same thing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think this old thread has also helped me a great deal.  I&amp;#039;ve run into Ajan Chah&amp;#039;s stuff around the internet and always felt a connection to the methods he talked about:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://jaytek.net/KFD/KFDForumOld/kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/4402183/Mahasi%2band%2bChah7fa4.html?offset=0&amp;amp;maxResults=20&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wonder if these differences could be related to which of the three characteristics a person understands best.  Noting is probably most conducive to understanding impermanence, and letting go is obviously oriented towards suffering.  Kenneth Folk talks about self-questioning as a method as well - &amp;#034;who/what am I&amp;#034; type questions - which would relate directly to anatta.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Am I coming across coherently? Blind men and the Elephant, handful of leaves, is what I&amp;#039;m trying to say.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From this I take it that you&amp;#039;re most interested in understanding truth or reality?  The main thing I was asking about in reference to &amp;#034;in the end&amp;#034; was, what is enlightenment, not necessarily death.  If pragmatic dharma only leads to understanding and there is still suffering, I don&amp;#039;t see it as very helpful for what I&amp;#039;m looking for - though I can understand the draw.  I&amp;#039;ve spent a lot of time looking for truth in the past.  Are you able to explain the profound shifts you&amp;#039;ve had in an experiential way related to how you feel?  What has it meant for you in daily life?  That&amp;#039;s mostly what would help me right now, I think.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;katy steger - 2014-04-18 02:21:42 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt; my own method - &amp;#034;just let go&amp;#034; - helped me dislodge myself from the mud I&amp;#039;ve been stuck it (the same mud that probably caused me to write this novel in the first place). I never considered that the warm/comfortable state could be high equanimity, but after chasing in for the last few days with poor results, simply letting go brought me back. I think the main pit I keep falling into is clinging to peace that arrives through non-clinging. I try to have a bit of compassion for my poor anxiety-soaked mind, but once in a while we need to crack the whips, right? Lol... It helps me to remind myself that the peace is the letting go, not the result of letting go. One doesn&amp;#039;t follow the other, they&amp;#039;re the same thing.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; Awesome. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If a useful analogy or comparison can be made to a physical hobby, I think a lot of people can relate to the tension of &amp;#034;trying too hard&amp;#034; ~ when one adds a lot of extra action to an activity they were doing. So, like you said, there&amp;#039;s letting go, but occasional &amp;#034;cracking the whip&amp;#034; if one is become too lax.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;If pragmatic dharma only leads to understanding and there is still suffering, I don&amp;#039;t see it as very helpful for what I&amp;#039;m looking for - though I can understand the draw. I&amp;#039;ve spent a lot of time looking for truth in the past. Are you able to explain the profound shifts you&amp;#039;ve had in an experiential way related to how you feel? What has it meant for you in daily life? That&amp;#039;s mostly what would help me right now, I think.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;No, good lord, no, this practice is not just about knowing &amp;#034;there is still suffering&amp;#034;. There are a lot of translators who don&amp;#039;t even like to use this word, &amp;#034;suffering&amp;#034;. I just heard the scholar-meditative monk Analayo insist that dukkha does not mean &amp;#034;suffering&amp;#034;. &lt;br /&gt;To me, &amp;#034;dukkha&amp;#034; means things are conditioned and therefore there is no reliable place in conditioned things. What is the condition? Constant cause and effect. Basically: all conditioned things change and they are changed by related causes. Aka: interbeing, contingent identities, dependent origination.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So if a person is born into  good life then they may really love changes as novelties, but even one born into a perfect life faces death, if not also old age and sickness of themselves or their loved ones. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So to me, this practice is about coming to know the mind that seeks a reliable place for its dwelling. And as there is no place without ever-changing conditioning, as far as I can directly tell for myself, then this requires I look at that which wants a reliable condition in the first place: this mind, this self-reflective consciousness. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is nothing special about this. It is like if my new dog would ask himself, &amp;#034;I circle around a lot before I lay down, yet still the bedding is not perfect. Or what was perfect five minutes ago is now far from perfect!&amp;#034; And he goes off for three decades in search of canine bedding schools and gurus. One day, he&amp;#039;s fed up paying bones and biscuits, and he says, &amp;#034;Dammit, I&amp;#039;m just gonna lay here in this unreliable bed until I know why my mind seeks a reliable bed in the first place.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;What has it meant for you in daily life?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; I&amp;#039;m looking forward to reading Florian&amp;#039;s answer. For me, it means I know I&amp;#039;m alive, that I&amp;#039;m gonna die in any moment and so I am living. There&amp;#039;s generally more enjoyment in this being alive. Also, due to meditation, the scope of &amp;#034;What is being alive/conscious/I?&amp;#034; is very broad and curious. Naturally, this changes also what &amp;#034;I want in life&amp;#034;, how I experience life and others: again, interbeing, aka: contingent identity, cause and effect... what goes around comes back around... golden rule... And there&amp;#039;s less fundamental &amp;#034;Holy shit, how (well) am I gonna survive!!&amp;#034; I&amp;#039;m not. Neither are you. No one. It&amp;#039;s now, &amp;#034;How am &amp;#039;I&amp;#039; actually living,&amp;#034; being aware of its cause-and-effect and one&amp;#039;s nature as something conditioned by causality, too. What is the restlessness when this is seen through? What is fear when its known as natural to a living being? It&amp;#039;s just natural fear of death and misery in self and others. What is wisdom? Detecting cause and effect in anything and understanding how can this &amp;#034;I&amp;#034; ~ a derivative social species~ feel well or why it may not? What can one do with the hobby? There are certainly other hobbies to follow. I like this one, sitting and learning about mind via a simple activity: sitting, breathing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Florian Weps - 2014-04-18 17:20:27 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;From this I take it that you&amp;#039;re most interested in understanding truth or reality?  The main thing I was asking about in reference to &amp;#034;in the end&amp;#034; was, what is enlightenment, not necessarily death.  If pragmatic dharma only leads to understanding and there is still suffering, I don&amp;#039;t see it as very helpful for what I&amp;#039;m looking for - though I can understand the draw.  I&amp;#039;ve spent a lot of time looking for truth in the past.  Are you able to explain the profound shifts you&amp;#039;ve had in an experiential way related to how you feel?  What has it meant for you in daily life?  That&amp;#039;s mostly what would help me right now, I think.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The reference to the blind men and the elephant, and the simile of the handful of leaves, was not about understanding but about expression. I see the Dharma expressed in the ducks swimming on the canal a few streets away just as much as it is expressed in MN 111 or in the presence of a good friend. To expect it to be expressed only in ancient texts or in certain practices or places is ultimately selective and limiting (though depending on the situation, probably as good a place to start as any), like picking up a handful of leaves off the forest floor, or groping at an elephant&amp;#039;s ear and claiming it to be the whole of the elephant and nothing but the elephant. Or saying that Facebook is the internet. Or something like that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My definition of &lt;em&gt;enlightenment&lt;/em&gt; is &amp;#034;not fooling myself&amp;#034;. I like it because it keeps me on my toes. It doesn&amp;#039;t have to work for everybody.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Truth and reality are that which do not require me to fool myself. There is not much to understand about that. Death is a nice example: there&amp;#039;s nothing much to understand about death, but there is a huge amount of delusion (&amp;#034;fooling myself&amp;#034;) surrounding the truth and reality of death. So enlightenment and death &lt;em&gt;are&lt;/em&gt; closely related. Many traditions reflect this in their mythologies, including Theravada and Pragmatic/Hardcore Dharma.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The two big shifts which I discern looking back were: first, when I could not find my core self and realized that it was not hiding, but just not there; and later, when my heart was released from tight constraints which had limited the emotions I would allow.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The first shift was a freeing of my mind: it had been bound to the assumption that it had a core or center, a little controller mini-Florian sitting at the controls and keeping an eye on the CCTV. In terms of feeling, the loss of this fantasy about a center was a lot like zooming out or falling backward, more panoramic, less limited and limiting. This is a description of how it feels, not how it looks, despite the visual metaphor.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The second shift was a freeing of my heart: it had been shut away out of shame and fear regarding certain emotions, and once let out of the little box I had hidden it away in, it started unfolding, un-cramping, and developing. It is a receptor for emotions, and it will pick up happiness and sadness, joy and anger and so on, pain and grief and gratitude and love and compassion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Both shifts were confusing at first, especially the second one, which I had not anticipated at all. It is this second shift which I currently understand to be most closely related to the &amp;#034;training is morality&amp;#034; which is so important in the Theravada teachings, and in hardcore Dharma. I also find it accurately described in big portions of the &amp;#034;Perfection of Wisdom&amp;#034; Sutra (8000 verse version), and in other ancient texts, and in what many people I respect, religious or not, say and, more importantly, do. This ties into your question about daily life - figuring out how to live life with my family and friends, harmlessly and happily to borrow a phrase I find very apt, is just this training is morality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well, that was a bit preachy and more than a little poetic. I still hope I was coherent, and if not, please ask.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Fllorian&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not Tao - 2014-04-20 11:45:14 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you guys for your answers.  It&amp;#039;s funny since I JUST posted this, but katy you were probably right about that mind state I was talking about being high equanimity.  I think I may have gotten SE.  I posted a thread about it:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5440252"&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5440252&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;...In terms of feeling, the loss of this fantasy about a center was a lot like zooming out or falling backward, more panoramic, less limited and limiting. This is a description of how it feels, not how it looks, despite the visual metaphor.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This seems to be what it felt like after the event I posted in that other thread!  It&amp;#039;s not my waking experience right now, though, so it didn&amp;#039;t really last for me.  I suppose I can remember what it felt like, though.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The second shift was a freeing of my heart: it had been shut away out of shame and fear regarding certain emotions, and once let out of the little box I had hidden it away in, it started unfolding, un-cramping, and developing. It is a receptor for emotions, and it will pick up happiness and sadness, joy and anger and so on, pain and grief and gratitude and love and compassion.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This sounds very similar to what happened after that blissful experience that happened around new years for me.  It also didn&amp;#039;t last, but I&amp;#039;ve worked on a lot of my &amp;#034;stuff&amp;#034; and it seems like it&amp;#039;s very reduced now.  A warm, open heart feeling is what I was trying to describe as the new contented feeling that&amp;#039;s normalizing for me in day-to-day life.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Do you think that your first shift was directly related to the second, or is it something that could have happened in a different order for you?  Where do you think it&amp;#039;s all leading?  Maybe you can&amp;#039;t know, since you were surprised by the second shift...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Adam Dietrich Ringle - 2014-04-20 13:38:03 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If your a christian, the goal is resurrection with christ and ascend.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Buddhists want to become extinct. I am not sure if I am being smart or not.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Psi Phi - 2014-04-20 13:56:20 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Adam Dietrich Ringle:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;If your a christian, the goal is resurrection with christ and ascend.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Buddhists want to become extinct. I am not sure if I am being smart or not.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Greetings Adam,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From my view a true Christian seeks purity of heart and mind, follows the teachings of Jesus, which was to love everyone with a limitless and unconditional love, to be perfect even as the Father in heaven was perfect, and to stop sinning here and now, no excuses!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From my view, a true Buddhist does not want to become extinct, wanting anything is a form of craving, either wishing for something that is good, or wishing for something bad to go away.  Either form of wishful thinking is a delusion, for regardless of wishes reality will always be just as it is.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, from my view, resurrection and extinction are both wishes, and both delusions not supported by the facts of reality.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Psi Phi&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Florian Weps - 2014-04-20 20:13:01 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;This sounds very similar to what happened after that blissful experience that happened around new years for me.  It also didn&amp;#039;t last, but I&amp;#039;ve worked on a lot of my &amp;#034;stuff&amp;#034; and it seems like it&amp;#039;s very reduced now.  A warm, open heart feeling is what I was trying to describe as the new contented feeling that&amp;#039;s normalizing for me in day-to-day life.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nice! The contentment and warmth are great. There are a lot of emotions, not all of them feel nice, but all of them are real emotions, none of them last forever, and they are not a problem, though for me, it took a lot of development to get to where they are no problem.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Do you think that your first shift was directly related to the second, or is it something that could have happened in a different order for you?  Where do you think it&amp;#039;s all leading?  Maybe you can&amp;#039;t know, since you were surprised by the second shift...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just guessing about the order - generally, it could happen either way, or even only one of them could occur, or none at all. And maybe I will be surprised again and again. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Where is this leading? Answering facetiously: nowhere, I&amp;#039;m here, it&amp;#039;s now... &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/big_grin.gif" &gt; Seriously, I don&amp;#039;t know, but I&amp;#039;m looking forward to finding out. And while I feel certain things are done and over with, such as the core of being thing, there is a lot of work to be done all the time, and doing it makes me better at it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh, and congratulations on whatever it was you achieved there. Sounds good, keep on moving!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Florian Weps - 2014-04-20 20:27:26 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Adam Dietrich Ringle:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;If your a christian, the goal is resurrection with christ and ascend.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Depending on the sect/school/church, that can also be found in Buddhism, e.g. the Pure Land school.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then there is the Christian teaching on finding, seeing, or inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven, which is said to be within and at hand, but certainly not limited to one place.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Buddhists want to become extinct.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No, craving for extinction, while some Buddhists probably want that, was ruled out by the Buddha, who called it &amp;#034;vibhava tanha&amp;#034;, and categorized it as just more of the same old craving, which is to be abandoned.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;C C C - 2014-04-23 11:03:23 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The goal is to end suffering, but no one on this website has done that so as usual we have the blind leading the blind.  How typical of the dharma overground.    I think a lot of people are liars on this website.  In one breath, they lie about how much meditation has improved their lives.  In the next breath, &amp;#034;oh no meditation won&amp;#039;t help anxiety or depression&amp;#034;.  I &lt;strong&gt;hate &lt;/strong&gt;liars - they make my blood boil.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think what I&amp;#039;m beginning to realize about people in general is that they are bullshit artists.  People don&amp;#039;t like the fact that life&amp;#039;s a bitch, and they conjure up all these fairy tales about how things can be changed for the better.  Life is a goddamned mother fucking bitch, and there&amp;#039;s not a goddamn thing that can be done about it.  Who has the guts to face the truth?  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No.... it&amp;#039;s nicer to continue dreaming about the fairy tale that &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;strangely&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, no one has actually realized.  Hmmm, strange isn&amp;#039;t it?  What a sucker I was.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Change A. - 2014-04-23 13:34:07 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Meditation has improved my life. Meditation has helped me with anxiety and depression.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;. Jake . - 2014-04-23 14:56:55 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Me too, no doubt.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The role of rumination in perpetuating negative mindstates is huge. Meditation and awakening have in my experience had a powerful impact on this tendency (basically a form of prapanca)  thus cutting way down on one of the key mind-functions that perpetuates negative mindstates and behaviors.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Seeing more clearly how mind works in real-time (rather than having a theoretical understanding) has directly impacted my capacity to have a positive attitude, which is hugely signifcant for being functional and relaxed and succesful in life. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Meditation and awakening have revealed a source of innate well-being which becomes easier and easier to access/appreciate in the flow of life&amp;#039;s activities which translates to greater resilience and interpersonal autonomy (as the tendency to enter into codependant relationships of various kinds has reduced markedly). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Life isn&amp;#039;t perfect; life includes very challenging experiences without doubt. I&amp;#039;ve been through many difficult times and no doubt will again. And no matter how well I navigate my way through all thr beauty, sadness, joy, loss, success, failure etc of this life I know that all my loved ones and possessions and everything else will be taken away at the end, and I know that I don&amp;#039;t know what is on the other side of that mysterious point, and depending on what it is or isn&amp;#039;t, I may well never know. That&amp;#039;s the same with or without the path; meditation and awakening don&amp;#039;t alter our fundamental condition and existential circumstances, they give us deeper access to the process of experiencing them though.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Florian Weps - 2014-04-23 14:57:08 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;C C C:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I think what I&amp;#039;m beginning to realize about people in general is that they are bullshit artists.  People don&amp;#039;t like the fact that life&amp;#039;s a bitch, and they conjure up all these fairy tales about how things can be changed for the better.  Life is a goddamned mother fucking bitch, and there&amp;#039;s not a goddamn thing that can be done about it.  Who has the guts to face the truth?  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No.... it&amp;#039;s nicer to continue dreaming about the fairy tale that &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;strangely&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, no one has actually realized.  Hmmm, strange isn&amp;#039;t it?  What a sucker I was.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s it? Why not use the energy of your anger to actually get to the bottom of this all? &amp;#034;What a sucker I was&amp;#034; is kind of a lame cop-out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Pawe? K - 2014-04-23 16:34:25 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;if you really practiced you should know that meditation trigger something similar to bipolar syndrome &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;en&amp;#x2e;wikipedia&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;wiki&amp;#x2f;Bipolar_disorder"&gt;wiki&lt;/a&gt; so people will sometimes say things like mediation is cure for depression and other times will doubt that mediation is all that great&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;normally without meditation over time manic episodes gets shorter over time and depression longer. With meditation it is usually reverse, bliss times lengthen and crap times get less and less.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;isn&amp;#039;t that like a very good deal?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;James Yen - 2014-04-23 18:21:03 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;C C C:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The goal is to end suffering, but no one on this website has done that so as usual we have the blind leading the blind.  How typical of the dharma overground.    I think a lot of people are liars on this website.  In one breath, they lie about how much meditation has improved their lives.  In the next breath, &amp;#034;oh no meditation won&amp;#039;t help anxiety or depression&amp;#034;.  I &lt;strong&gt;hate &lt;/strong&gt;liars - they make my blood boil.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think what I&amp;#039;m beginning to realize about people in general is that they are bullshit artists.  People don&amp;#039;t like the fact that life&amp;#039;s a bitch, and they conjure up all these fairy tales about how things can be changed for the better.  Life is a goddamned mother fucking bitch, and there&amp;#039;s not a goddamn thing that can be done about it.  Who has the guts to face the truth?  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No.... it&amp;#039;s nicer to continue dreaming about the fairy tale that &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;strangely&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, no one has actually realized.  Hmmm, strange isn&amp;#039;t it?  What a sucker I was.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;CCC,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The problem with the stance you have is that you have nowhere to go. Sure you want the truth, but if you don&amp;#039;t know &lt;br /&gt;what the truth is how can you find it?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You want to shut everything down so that the only thing left is what is real. But you can never reach the truth &lt;br /&gt;through this method.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You have to try. You have to be sincere, sincerity is truth.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not cynicism, cynicism is lying.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I think what I&amp;#039;m beginning to realize about people in general is that they are bullshit artists.  People don&amp;#039;t like the fact that life is awesome, and they conjure up all these fairy tales about how things have changed for the worse..  Life is mother fucking awesome, and there&amp;#039;s not a goddamn thing that can be done about it.  Who has the guts to face the truth?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You see my point?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;They tell me Christians don&amp;#039;t see, they are deluded, but has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not Tao - 2014-04-23 23:18:42 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hey guys, thank you for the input.  I do understand the benefits of meditation, especially the jhanas and mindfulness as I&amp;#039;ve seen how they have changed my life dramatically in a very short period of time.  I don&amp;#039;t see what the point of the Mahasi/MCTB/Theravada path is, though.  It mostly seems focused on creating the mental frame, or mindset, of a non-centerd perspective and a lack of a cohesive whole, or a &amp;#034;self&amp;#034;.  What does that have to do with Buddhism generally and stress, or suffering, specifically?  I&amp;#039;m not very interested in universal truths, so is simply becoming a &amp;#034;blissed out jhana junkie&amp;#034; a better goal for me to set?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve seen some pretty vitriolic posts on this forum, especially concerning Jhanananda, and while I don&amp;#039;t really think he&amp;#039;s practicing Buddhism or jhana, really, I feel like the general consensus (both here and on the internet as a whole) is that jhana is a trap or a dead end, or, at best, a nice way to relax.  This always kind of disappointed me, because after all the success I&amp;#039;ve seen with my practices, it seems like no-one else seems to see the same value I have - even people who claim to have mastered the jhanas, like some of you here.  I&amp;#039;m willing to admit I could be mistaken in thinking the jhanas and mindfulness will take me all the way to my goal, but at this point it will take a great deal of convincing.  This is what I was hoping someone could do - explain the Mahasi/MCTB/Theravada practices in a way that&amp;#039;s cohesive and leads to the end of stress and suffering.  Daniel&amp;#039;s book didn&amp;#039;t really do this.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The goal is to end suffering, but no one on this website has done that so as usual we have the blind leading the blind. How typical of the dharma overground. I think a lot of people are liars on this website. In one breath, they lie about how much meditation has improved their lives. In the next breath, &amp;#034;oh no meditation won&amp;#039;t help anxiety or depression&amp;#034;. I hate liars - they make my blood boil.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think what I&amp;#039;m beginning to realize about people in general is that they are bullshit artists. People don&amp;#039;t like the fact that life&amp;#039;s a bitch, and they conjure up all these fairy tales about how things can be changed for the better. Life is a goddamned mother fucking bitch, and there&amp;#039;s not a goddamn thing that can be done about it. Who has the guts to face the truth?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No.... it&amp;#039;s nicer to continue dreaming about the fairy tale that strangely, no one has actually realized. Hmmm, strange isn&amp;#039;t it? What a sucker I was. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is essentially what I&amp;#039;m talking about, but I don&amp;#039;t want to offend anyone so I spew a lot more words hoping enough of them are nice.  Jhana meditation and mindfulness centered on &amp;#034;letting go&amp;#034; and the development of equanimity really has greatly reduced my stress and anxiety in just four months.  I can conceive of a future - maybe not too far off - where they would be completely gone.  It feels like a direct path, to me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;James Yen - 2014-04-23 23:42:27 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not Tao,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I can independently verify that jhanas are the path to Awakening, and are Awakening if they are realized with wisdom.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Buddha once said: &amp;#034;Samadhi is the path, no samadhi is the bad path.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And this is entirely true, his criticism of the Niganthas was that they (among a host of other things) did not practice jhana.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wish you well on your path and hope that you come back with even better news in the future.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sincerely,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;James&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edit:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m not Awakened, just clarifying that because it sounded like I was saying that I was.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rather I have touched jhana with my body, I know the heartwood. I am a sekha.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An especially pertinent quote for you:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Therefore, Ananda, you should live as islands unto yourselves, being your own refuge, with&lt;br /&gt;no one else as your refuge, with the Dharma as an island, with the Dharma as your refuge, with no&lt;br /&gt;other refuge. And how does a monk live as an island unto himselfÖ.with no other refuge?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;    Here, Ananda, a monk abides contemplating a body in the body, earnestly, clearly aware,&lt;br /&gt;mindful and having put away all covetousness and discontent for the world, and likewise with&lt;br /&gt;regard to feelings, mind and dharmas. That, monks, is how a monk lives as an island unto&lt;br /&gt;himselfÖwith no other refuge.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;    And those who now in my time or afterwards live thus, they will become the highest, but they&lt;br /&gt;must be anxious to learn. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://dharmafarer.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/d22-Mahasatipatthana-S-tltr-piya_111203.pdf&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But I agree with you that the tradition, represented as Theravada, especially the Burmese Vipassana.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Is more or less barren.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;James&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Florian Weps - 2014-04-24 14:58:18 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;(the point of the Mahasi/MCTB/Theravada path) mostly seems focused on creating the mental frame, or mindset, of a non-centerd perspective and a lack of a cohesive whole, or a &amp;#034;self&amp;#034;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No, creating some delusion and then entering it and living in it only makes people miserable (aka &amp;#034;makes people suffer&amp;#034;).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;What does that have to do with Buddhism generally and stress, or suffering, specifically?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Letting go of / leaving such delusions (abandoning the desire for these delusions to be true, &amp;#034;abandoning the second noble truth&amp;#034;) is what it has to do with Buddhist doctrine.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I&amp;#039;m not very interested in universal truths... &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hmmm... but the central doctrine of Buddhism is formulated in the form of four universal truths.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;... so is simply becoming a &amp;#034;blissed out jhana junkie&amp;#034; a better goal for me to set?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve seen some pretty vitriolic posts on this forum, especially concerning Jhanananda, and while I don&amp;#039;t really think he&amp;#039;s practicing Buddhism or jhana, really, I feel like the general consensus (both here and on the internet as a whole) is that jhana is a trap or a dead end, or, at best, a nice way to relax.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jeffrey/Jhanananda actually &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;1575996"&gt;discussed jhana here on the DhO&lt;/a&gt;. I think he&amp;#039;s quite the Jhana master. I also think he&amp;#039;s not into DhO type mapping and measuring of stages. There were a few personality clashes between him and DhOers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Jhana meditation and mindfulness centered on &amp;#034;letting go&amp;#034; and the development of equanimity really has greatly reduced my stress and anxiety in just four months.  I can conceive of a future - maybe not too far off - where they would be completely gone.  It feels like a direct path, to me.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In order to let go of stuff, you have to get to know it first / make some realization about it first. What if not insight do you think this &amp;#034;getting to know / realize it&amp;#034; is?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not Tao - 2014-04-24 17:42:08 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Jeffrey/Jhanananda actually discussed jhana here on the DhO. I think he&amp;#039;s quite the Jhana master. I also think he&amp;#039;s not into DhO type mapping and measuring of stages. There were a few personality clashes between him and DhOers.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That was actually the thread I was referring to.  He took quite a beating there, haha.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve read some descriptions of what he talks about as jhana, and it doesn&amp;#039;t seem to line up with the suttas or my own experiences.  For example, he talks about random involuntary movements, seeing visions of &amp;#034;beings of light&amp;#034;, charismatic sounds like ringing ears and ocean waves, astral travel, ect.  This is all characteristic of lucid dreaming and OBEs.  I&amp;#039;ve done some experimenting with Wake Induced Lucid Dreaming and I&amp;#039;ve encountered these kinds of things while the body relaxes and goes out of focus.  I think there are two directions you can go in meditation, one is down toward the sleep end - yoga nidra and WILDs, and the other is upward toward mental unification and Jhana.  I&amp;#039;ve been interested in this idea for a while, so forgive me for the side track, haha.  It&amp;#039;d be interesting to hear Jhanananda&amp;#039;s take on it.  Perhaps he practices both ends of the spectrum.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;No, creating some delusion and then entering it and living in it only makes people miserable (aka &amp;#034;makes people suffer&amp;#034;).&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I try to avoid labeling things as delusional or not, because, end of the day, how can you know what is a delusion and what isn&amp;#039;t?  I also wasn&amp;#039;t implying that &amp;#034;no-self&amp;#034; is a delusion.  I&amp;#039;m saying that following the Burmese methods yield a specific state of mind that seems to stick around for people.  This state of mind is characterized by the distinct and confident feeling that there is &amp;#034;no one home&amp;#034;.  I can&amp;#039;t make the connection between this state of mind and the lack of suffering.  This is what I mean when I say I don&amp;#039;t care about truth.  I can&amp;#039;t see any way where I&amp;#039;d be satisfied that anything I found was &amp;#034;true&amp;#034; anyway, so I&amp;#039;m only interested in the distinct mental experience itself, how easy it is to maintain (should be effortless in the end), and how it relates to negative feelings and stress.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve made some progress in my thoughts about these things, though.  The reason I&amp;#039;ve had trouble understanding these methodologies is because I&amp;#039;ve been practicing in a way that&amp;#039;s very close to the actual freedom stuff.  Daniel pointed out in a thread that these concepts don&amp;#039;t really go together with vipassana, and that&amp;#039;s been suggested by other people as well.  It&amp;#039;s interesting to me that the AF practitioners are saying that the ending state created by AF is also &amp;#034;no-self&amp;#034;, but their descriptions seem to be referring to an ego of some kind disappearing into the present moment rather than a dissociative condition where stressful emotions are simply seen as having no agent.  This makes more sense from a practical perspective, because I&amp;#039;ve already experienced the truth of that sort of mind-state.  In any case, anything that changes in my reading of the reality of the &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; would be a side effect of achieving a lack of stress and suffering, rather than the goal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hmmm... but the central doctrine of Buddhism is formulated in the form of four universal truths.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All I can say is that they apply to my situation and have helped me understand how to deal with stress.  Their &amp;#034;truth&amp;#034; isn&amp;#039;t very important.  I tend to stay at the sensory level these days.  I just want to get rid of stress and suffering - I really have no other goals with these practices.  I&amp;#039;m not a spiritual person or a philosopher.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;In order to let go of stuff, you have to get to know it first / make some realization about it first. What if not insight do you think this &amp;#034;getting to know / realize it&amp;#034; is?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The main thing I do is search for clinging and attempt to let go of it.  Doing this shows me how negative feelings don&amp;#039;t have a great deal of power unless you give it to them.  This doesn&amp;#039;t take much thought or understanding, apart from seeing that there is something I&amp;#039;m attached to, and that attachment has caused stress.  By letting go of any desire to change the feeling or my situation, I can actively ignore it and it dissipates quickly on its own.  This also helps me take it less seriously the next time it arises.  This could be called insight, but not in the way vipassana seems to work.  I see the three characteristics as a philosophical construct to understand why clinging creates stress - not a description of all of reality.  Once you understand how it works, I don&amp;#039;t think you need to actively describe your experience through that lense to be liberated from stress, you simply watch for clinging.  Noting may help remove clinging through dissociation, but that also seems to end up being the ultimate result.  A fourth pather doesn&amp;#039;t cling, but they also haven&amp;#039;t made any attempt to change the patterns that lead to the arising of negativity, so it still arises.  (This is speculation on my part, of course, based on what I&amp;#039;ve been reading while trying to understand what the goals of this practice really are.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Florian Weps - 2014-04-24 20:41:51 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;No, creating some delusion and then entering it and living in it only makes people miserable (aka &amp;#034;makes people suffer&amp;#034;).&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I try to avoid labeling things as delusional or not, because, end of the day, how can you know what is a delusion and what isn&amp;#039;t?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If it requires that I fool myself, it&amp;#039;s delusion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I also wasn&amp;#039;t implying that &amp;#034;no-self&amp;#034; is a delusion.  I&amp;#039;m saying that following the Burmese methods yield a specific state of mind that seems to stick around for people.  This state of mind is characterized by the distinct and confident feeling that there is &amp;#034;no one home&amp;#034;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sounds like fooling oneself into believing that there is no one home, in other words.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s why I said that creating such a delusion and then inhabiting it just makes whoever does that miserable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I can&amp;#039;t make the connection between this state of mind and the lack of suffering.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Good.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;This is what I mean when I say I don&amp;#039;t care about truth.  I can&amp;#039;t see any way where I&amp;#039;d be satisfied that anything I found was &amp;#034;true&amp;#034; anyway, so I&amp;#039;m only interested in the distinct mental experience itself, how easy it is to maintain (should be effortless in the end), and how it relates to negative feelings and stress.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You&amp;#039;ve just described your interest in the four noble truths.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If the T-word bothers you, that&amp;#039;s ok. It&amp;#039;s just a word.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I&amp;#039;ve made some progress in my thoughts about these things, though.  The reason I&amp;#039;ve had trouble understanding these methodologies is because I&amp;#039;ve been practicing in a way that&amp;#039;s very close to the actual freedom stuff.  Daniel pointed out in a thread that these concepts don&amp;#039;t really go together with vipassana, and that&amp;#039;s been suggested by other people as well.  It&amp;#039;s interesting to me that the AF practitioners are saying that the ending state created by AF is also &amp;#034;no-self&amp;#034;, but their descriptions seem to be referring to an ego of some kind disappearing into the present moment rather than a dissociative condition where stressful emotions are simply seen as having no agent.  This makes more sense from a practical perspective, because I&amp;#039;ve already experienced the truth of that sort of mind-state.  In any case, anything that changes in my reading of the reality of the &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; would be a side effect of achieving a lack of stress and suffering, rather than the goal.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, well, goals are tricky beasts. MCTB has a great chapter on dealing with goals skillfully. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;All I can say is that they apply to my situation and have helped me understand how to deal with stress.  Their &amp;#034;truth&amp;#034; isn&amp;#039;t very important.  I tend to stay at the sensory level these days.  I just want to get rid of stress and suffering - I really have no other goals with these practices.  I&amp;#039;m not a spiritual person or a philosopher.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s ok. No need to strike any pose, if you don&amp;#039;t want to.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Incidentally, the Buddha is quoted as saying he taught only suffering and the end of suffering.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;In order to let go of stuff, you have to get to know it first / make some realization about it first. What if not insight do you think this &amp;#034;getting to know / realize it&amp;#034; is?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The main thing I do is search for clinging and attempt to let go of it.  Doing this shows me how negative feelings don&amp;#039;t have a great deal of power unless you give it to them.  This doesn&amp;#039;t take much thought or understanding, apart from seeing that there is something I&amp;#039;m attached to, and that attachment has caused stress.  By letting go of any desire to change the feeling or my situation, I can actively ignore it and it dissipates quickly on its own.  This also helps me take it less seriously the next time it arises.  This could be called insight, but not in the way vipassana seems to work.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Why not? Sounds like it, anyway.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That word, &amp;#034;actively ignore&amp;#034; - probably you mean something else by it than I do. Ignoring stuff is dangerous. What you describe sounds a lot like &amp;#034;Right Effort&amp;#034; in Buddhist terms, though.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I see the three characteristics as a philosophical construct to understand why clinging creates stress - not a description of all of reality.  Once you understand how it works, I don&amp;#039;t think you need to actively describe your experience through that lense to be liberated from stress, you simply watch for clinging.  Noting may help remove clinging through dissociation, but that also seems to end up being the ultimate result.  A fourth pather doesn&amp;#039;t cling, but they also haven&amp;#039;t made any attempt to change the patterns that lead to the arising of negativity, so it still arises.  (This is speculation on my part, of course, based on what I&amp;#039;ve been reading while trying to understand what the goals of this practice really are.)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For one not interested in goals (other than sensing sensations), you sure are interested in goals! &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is a lot of talk in the old scriptures about uprooting and cutting off and completely extinguishing just these patterns. Also, if you talk to practitioners here on the DhO, they will usually talk about how much work this uprooting is. I know I have a lot of uprooting and weeding and cutting to do.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What gives you the impression that people here on the DhO - at whichever path they find themselves - are not engaged in that very important work?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not Tao - 2014-04-24 21:46:09 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you for all the replies Florian, but I still don&amp;#039;t think you quite understand my problem.  I&amp;#039;ll try to be more specific.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have read through most of MCTB, a lot of Kenneth Folk&amp;#039;s stuff, various posts on this forum, and the main focus I&amp;#039;ve seen is on realizing anatta as no-self or some kind of non-duality.  I do have a very specific goal: I want to remove my anger, sadness, and anxiety and prevent it from resurfacing in the future.  Is this the end result of these practices, and if it is, how does it relate to non-duality?  From what I&amp;#039;ve seen in my internet wanderings, it doesn&amp;#039;t seem to be the end result of vipassana meditation.  Pretty much every claim of 4th path I&amp;#039;ve seen seems to say, &amp;#034;Well, I&amp;#039;ve done it, but there&amp;#039;s so much left to do.&amp;#034;  And that after decades of practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jeff Grove - 2014-04-25 00:41:20 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;CCC how do u know no one has ended suffering, I have there is only the perfection of this moment, everything goes in one ear and out the other, of course it helps being partially deaf&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace&lt;br /&gt;Jeff&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;C C C - 2014-04-25 01:42:53 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jeff Grove:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;CCC how do u know no one has ended suffering, I have there is only the perfection of this moment, everything goes in one ear and out the other, of course it helps being partially deaf&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace&lt;br /&gt;Jeff&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve never read about anyone on here having ended the potential for suffering.  You&amp;#039;re saying torture would not touch you?  While your body might struggle and cry, you would remain in eternal peace and bliss?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jeff Grove - 2014-04-25 13:46:19 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;CCC your right suffering is the wrong word to use, dukkha is what I meant. This body certainly reacts to pain like any other. If you think enlightenment gives you superhuman powers, best sticking to marvel comics&lt;br /&gt;Cheers&lt;br /&gt;Jeff&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;sawfoot _ - 2014-04-25 14:12:12 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;CCC, I am sure there a few out there from this website who have ended suffering, but since they are now dead its hard to hard for them to post about their achievements. Otherwise, ending of suffering is a sucker goal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Not Tao&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I do have a very specific goal: I want to remove my anger, sadness, and anxiety and prevent it from resurfacing in the future&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Are you insane? You want to lobotomize yourself? If your best-friend/partner/child/parent died, for example, you wouldn&amp;#039;t want to feel sadness?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How about an alternative (non-marvel comics) goal. Something like: I want to reduce dysfunctional expression of anger, sadness and anxiety, and reduce the expression of those dysfunctional patterns in the future.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Florian Weps - 2014-04-25 14:50:23 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Not Tao&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;thanks for the clarification.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I do have a very specific goal: I want to remove my anger, sadness, and anxiety and prevent it from resurfacing in the future.  Is this the end result of these practices, and if it is, how does it relate to non-duality?  From what I&amp;#039;ve seen in my internet wanderings, it doesn&amp;#039;t seem to be the end result of vipassana meditation.  Pretty much every claim of 4th path I&amp;#039;ve seen seems to say, &amp;#034;Well, I&amp;#039;ve done it, but there&amp;#039;s so much left to do.&amp;#034;  And that after decades of practice.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I see your concern now. From the name of the thread, and the question you asked in your original post, I was somehow assuming that you were asking what people here have achieved. In fact you are saying, whatever it is they have achieved is not what you are looking for. So you are not asking a question but expressing your observation and disappointment, and my persistent attempts at answering a question I thought you were asking were at best annoying to you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for bearing with me, and being a good sport about it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you were looking for inspiration and didn&amp;#039;t find it here, that&amp;#039;s a bit of a shame, since the sense of meeting other strong practitioners can be a real boost. I hope you got something out of it anyway. Don&amp;#039;t get sidetracked into too many discussions like this one here with me. Keep on practicing well!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I still think the chapter titled &amp;#034;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;dharma-wiki&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;wiki&amp;#x2f;Main&amp;#x2f;MCTB&amp;#x25;20A&amp;#x25;20Clear&amp;#x25;20Goal&amp;#x3f;p_r_p_185834411_title&amp;#x3d;MCTB&amp;#x25;20A&amp;#x25;20Clear&amp;#x25;20Goal"&gt;A Clear Goal&lt;/a&gt;&amp;#034; from MCTB contains very valuable advice, regardless of which goal you are pursuing, and merits many slow re-reads, pausing at the end of most sentences. YMMV, obviously.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not Tao - 2014-04-25 21:52:31 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;sawfoot _:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Are you insane? You want to lobotomize yourself? If your best-friend/partner/child/parent died, for example, you wouldn&amp;#039;t want to feel sadness?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sadness doesn&amp;#039;t add anything to the happy memories about a person, and there&amp;#039;s no reason I can see to be sad that a person died besides some kind of longing for future happiness that&amp;#039;s no longer possible.  If someone where able to find happiness without relying on the content of a situation, they wouldn&amp;#039;t be saddened by death, because that person could be happy with or without the people they loved.  Love does not necessitate clinging.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, if someone I knew was in great pain or suffering some kind of mental anguish, I would like to feel compassion for them and help them.  What I&amp;#039;ve noticed from my own experience is that, the easier it is for me to be happy without relying on the content of the moment, the easier it is for me to be willing to help others, as there are no emotional blocks stopping me from doing so.  Before I started all this I didn&amp;#039;t have much of a connection with other people.  I was extraordinarily selfish.  This seems to have changed quite a lot since I&amp;#039;ve begun to dispose of my perpetual discontent.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;sawfoot _:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;How about an alternative (non-marvel comics) goal. Something like: I want to reduce dysfunctional expression of anger, sadness and anxiety, and reduce the expression of those dysfunctional patterns in the future.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve already done this, mostly, and it&amp;#039;s given me great faith in the possibility that I could take it all the way.  That&amp;#039;s the main reason I&amp;#039;m posting here.  I&amp;#039;m very serious about the &amp;#034;marvel comics&amp;#034; goal.&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;If you were looking for inspiration and didn&amp;#039;t find it here, that&amp;#039;s a bit of a shame, since the sense of meeting other strong practitioners can be a real boost. I hope you got something out of it anyway. Don&amp;#039;t get sidetracked into too many discussions like this one here with me. Keep on practicing well!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve been really inspired by a lot of the Actual Freedom stuff, because it seems like it&amp;#039;s actually worked for people.  Over the last four months I&amp;#039;ve had tons of PCEs and I kept thinking that must be related to the goal somehow.  This is why I&amp;#039;ve been a bit disappointed by a lot of what I&amp;#039;ve read, because it all kept saying to dissociate from positive experiences as well.  Everyone seems to repeat &amp;#034;all states are conditioned&amp;#034; like a mantra.  It&amp;#039;s kind of nice finally to find something that verified what I&amp;#039;ve been thinking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I really have changed my views of this site since I started posting.  I realized there&amp;#039;s actually a pretty large array of different practices people are doing, and the experimental nature of it all really lends to finding something personal that will work for you.  I wasn&amp;#039;t frustrated by your replies or anything, haha, don&amp;#039;t worry!  I think I&amp;#039;ve had my questions answered.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m mostly interested in the 10-fetter model, as people call it, and while I think the vipassana practice probably falls on it somewhere, I&amp;#039;ve had a lot more success with a kind of strong attentiveness or mindfulness practice.  It leads to a mind-state that feels like I opened a second pair of eyes.  I&amp;#039;ve know about this mind-state for a number of years, but I never thought it could be made permanent (or, even, long lasting).  Like you said, meeting other practitioners has really inspired me to try for it seriously.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Psi Phi - 2014-04-26 05:36:25 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m very serious about the &amp;#034;marvel comics&amp;#034; goal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Me Too! &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034; Breathing in long, Hulk Smash Jhana, breathing out long, Hulk Smash Jhana&amp;#034; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;psychoticscrivener&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;wp-content&amp;#x2f;uploads&amp;#x2f;2014&amp;#x2f;04&amp;#x2f;yogi-hulk-diffuse-anger&amp;#x2e;gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Florian Weps - 2014-04-26 15:06:47 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Not Tao&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Please do not attribute quotes to me which I did not write.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The &amp;#034;not want to feel sadness&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;marvel&amp;#034; attributions in your reply to my post were &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; written by me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you very much.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Are you insane? You want to lobotomize yourself? If your best-friend/partner/child/parent died, for example, you wouldn&amp;#039;t want to feel sadness?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sadness doesn&amp;#039;t add anything to the happy memories about a person, and there&amp;#039;s no reason I can see to be sad that a person died besides some kind of longing for future happiness that&amp;#039;s no longer possible.  If someone where able to find happiness without relying on the content of a situation, they wouldn&amp;#039;t be saddened by death, because that person could be happy with or without the people they loved.  Love does not necessitate clinging.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, if someone I knew was in great pain or suffering some kind of mental anguish, I would like to feel compassion for them and help them.  What I&amp;#039;ve noticed from my own experience is that, the easier it is for me to be happy without relying on the content of the moment, the easier it is for me to be willing to help others, as there are no emotional blocks stopping me from doing so.  Before I started all this I didn&amp;#039;t have much of a connection with other people.  I was extraordinarily selfish.  This seems to have changed quite a lot since I&amp;#039;ve begun to dispose of my perpetual discontent.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;How about an alternative (non-marvel comics) goal. Something like: I want to reduce dysfunctional expression of anger, sadness and anxiety, and reduce the expression of those dysfunctional patterns in the future.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve already done this, mostly, and it&amp;#039;s given me great faith in the possibility that I could take it all the way.  That&amp;#039;s the main reason I&amp;#039;m posting here.  I&amp;#039;m very serious about the &amp;#034;marvel comics&amp;#034; goal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;If you were looking for inspiration and didn&amp;#039;t find it here, that&amp;#039;s a bit of a shame, since the sense of meeting other strong practitioners can be a real boost. I hope you got something out of it anyway. Don&amp;#039;t get sidetracked into too many discussions like this one here with me. Keep on practicing well!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve been really inspired by a lot of the Actual Freedom stuff, because it seems like it&amp;#039;s actually worked for people.  Over the last four months I&amp;#039;ve had tons of PCEs and I kept thinking that must be related to the goal somehow.  This is why I&amp;#039;ve been a bit disappointed by a lot of what I&amp;#039;ve read, because it all kept saying to dissociate from positive experiences as well.  Everyone seems to repeat &amp;#034;all states are conditioned&amp;#034; like a mantra.  It&amp;#039;s kind of nice finally to find something that verified what I&amp;#039;ve been thinking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I really have changed my views of this site since I started posting.  I realized there&amp;#039;s actually a pretty large array of different practices people are doing, and the experimental nature of it all really lends to finding something personal that will work for you.  I wasn&amp;#039;t frustrated by your replies or anything, haha, don&amp;#039;t worry!  I think I&amp;#039;ve had my questions answered.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m mostly interested in the 10-fetter model, as people call it, and while I think the vipassana practice probably falls on it somewhere, I&amp;#039;ve had a lot more success with a kind of strong attentiveness or mindfulness practice.  It leads to a mind-state that feels like I opened a second pair of eyes.  I&amp;#039;ve know about this mind-state for a number of years, but I never thought it could be made permanent (or, even, long lasting).  Like you said, meeting other practitioners has really inspired me to try for it seriously.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;sawfoot _ - 2014-04-26 15:58:26 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;sawfoot:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hi Not Tao&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Please do not attribute quotes to me which I did not write.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The &amp;#034;not want to feel sadness&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;marvel&amp;#034; attributions in your reply to my post were &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; written by me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you very much.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;cdn&amp;#x2e;memegenerator&amp;#x2e;net&amp;#x2f;instances&amp;#x2f;500x&amp;#x2f;49039398&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Florian Weps - 2014-04-26 18:40:01 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi sawfoot&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;i&amp;#x2e;imgur&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;boXR2wB&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not Tao - 2014-04-26 20:48:42 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Haha, I don&amp;#039;t see how I attributed them to you.  I just copied the text into the quote boxes. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/blink.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Florian Weps - 2014-04-26 21:20:22 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh well, this is the Battleground after all. &amp;#039;Splaining and all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Look closely. You replied to my post, it says so right on your screen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The quote boxes imply that you were quoting me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Haha, I don&amp;#039;t see how I attributed them to you.  I just copied the text into the quote boxes. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/blink.gif" &gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;SK R - 2014-04-26 22:32:52 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;What is the goal, really?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;accesstoinsight&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;tipitaka&amp;#x2f;mn&amp;#x2f;mn&amp;#x2e;029&amp;#x2e;than&amp;#x2e;html"&gt;Maha&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;accesstoinsight&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;tipitaka&amp;#x2f;mn&amp;#x2f;mn&amp;#x2e;030&amp;#x2e;than&amp;#x2e;html"&gt;Cula&lt;/a&gt; Saropama Sutta the Buddha says:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Monks, this holy life doesn&amp;#039;t have as its reward gain, offerings, &amp;amp; fame, doesn&amp;#039;t have as its reward consummation of virtue, doesn&amp;#039;t have as its reward consummation of concentration, doesn&amp;#039;t have as its reward knowledge &amp;amp; vision, but the unprovoked awareness-release [&lt;em&gt;akupp? cetovimutti&lt;/em&gt;]: That is the purpose of this holy life, that is its heartwood, that its final end.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;According to this Sutta &amp;#034;knowledge &amp;amp; vision&amp;#034; is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;u&gt;not&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; the final goal. &amp;#034;The unprovoked awareness-release&amp;#034; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;u&gt;is&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; the final goal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not Tao - 2014-04-27 00:22:29 - RE: What is the goal, really?&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;Oh well, this is the Battleground after all. &amp;#039;Splaining and all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Look closely. You replied to my post, it says so right on your screen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The quote boxes imply that you were quoting me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I edited the post for the sake of posterity. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/kiss.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;SK R:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;According to this Sutta &amp;#034;knowledge &amp;amp; vision&amp;#034; is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;u&gt;not&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; the final goal. &amp;#034;The unprovoked awareness-release&amp;#034; &lt;strong&gt;&lt;u&gt;is&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; the final goal.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is my thinking too - thanks for the reference! &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;  I suppose we&amp;#039;ll all know eventually.  It&amp;#039;s a little strange how much people keep repeating that &amp;#034;these goals are impossible!&amp;#034; though.  Why limit yourself?  If you&amp;#039;re really shooting for something called &amp;#034;enlightenment&amp;#034;, I doubt you&amp;#039;re going to be scared away by seemingly impossible tasks.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;SK R - 2014-04-27 15:49:37 - RE: What is the goal, really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, this conversation found in &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;accesstoinsight&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;tipitaka&amp;#x2f;sn&amp;#x2f;sn51&amp;#x2f;sn51&amp;#x2e;015&amp;#x2e;than&amp;#x2e;html"&gt;Brahmana Sutta&lt;/a&gt; is interesting:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;#034;Master Ananda, what is the aim of this holy life lived under Gotama the contemplative?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Brahman, the holy life is lived under the Blessed One with the aim of abandoning desire.&amp;#034;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Is there a path, is there a practice, for the abandoning of that desire?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Yes, there is a path, there is a practice, for the abandoning of that desire.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;What is the path, the practice, for the abandoning of that desire?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Brahman, there is the case where a monk develops the base of power endowed with concentration founded on desire &amp;amp; the fabrications of exertion. He develops the base of power endowed with concentration founded on persistence... concentration founded on intent... concentration founded on discrimination &amp;amp; the fabrications of exertion. This, Brahman, is the path, this is the practice for the abandoning of that desire.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;If that&amp;#039;s so, Master Ananda, then it&amp;#039;s an endless path, and not one with an end, for it&amp;#039;s impossible that one could abandon desire by means of desire.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;In that case, brahman, let me question you on this matter. ... ... ...</description> <pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2014 10:08:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5527655</guid> <dc:creator>Migration 6.2 Daemon</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-07T10:08:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Motivations and Intentions for my 2014 retreat</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5527026</link> <description>Testing a reply</description> <pubDate>Sun, 04 May 2014 20:55:11 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5527026</guid> <dc:creator>Bruno Loff</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-05-04T20:55:11Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Confused</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5445199</link> <description>Hmm... I just reread my last post. It&amp;#039;s been 3 months since then. Reflecting back I&amp;#039;ve mostly done noting practice. I felt like I needed some catching up to do since I stumbled into the A&amp;amp;P with little meditation practice. I&amp;#039;ve seen qualities grow in myself and have watched actual progress unfold before my eyes. This has helped with motivation. I&amp;#039;m trying to take a long term perspective since I shifted from the attitude &amp;#034;SE is possible, sure, but only for me at some point in the future&amp;#034; to something more like &amp;#034;liberation is possible this moment&amp;#034;. But even that last sentence is an approximation that I would question.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m planning on going on an Goenka retreat first of all. I&amp;#039;m grateful to have access to one only 20 minutes away in a beautiful location so it seems natural that this is my next move. I tried to go on one last year but I may have been in way over my head and backed out at the last minute. I&amp;#039;ve got more into theory since then and have a clear goal now. My practice since then has been of a higher quality and it seems the time is ripe for retreat. I&amp;#039;m sitting an hour a day as much as I can to prepare for this physically demanding retreat (so I hear) and shorter times as well. I&amp;#039;ve read around and the best advice I&amp;#039;ve found is to do the vipassana instructions as instructed. Other than that I may let myself add noting to the practice during the body scanning. After that I may try for and IMS retreat to practice a more mahasi type technique.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Something really heart warming and motivational to me has been the fact that I&amp;#039;ve consciously breached EQ territory. I may slip back into DN (I am right now possibly) but just the fact that I know I can do it helps tremendously.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That being said stream entry is a mystery to me. It is my goal but I find my relationship to it amusing in its different forms. Right now I&amp;#039;m confused about it, I&amp;#039;ve been thinking broadly about my entire life, past and future. It&amp;#039;s funny that this is my purpose now to &amp;#034;attain&amp;#034; some mysterious thing called &amp;#034;stream entry&amp;#034;. Never saw that coming.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I really don&amp;#039;t know what to do now. I sat for three days consistently and then my streak ended even though I resolved to do it each day till retreat. I think I need to be careful not to get burnt out. I&amp;#039;ve sat several hours since then and multiple times for my nice little 24 minute sits several times on some days. I new something had to change when I was honest with myself and realized I was living each day to &amp;#034;get to equanimity&amp;#034; and I no longer could. Since that point then I&amp;#039;ve been going easier on myself and doing more concentration exercises.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The meat and potatoes of practice right now involves a choiceless awareness noting and letting my curiosity about sensations lead me into fresh experiences with them like a child&amp;#039;s mind. I also really like the practice where you pay careful attention to the beginning and end of breaths. Besides that I will do concentration on a black kasina or the pleasure in my body. I think I should try some more techniques described in the 3Cs chapter like the two fingers impermanence practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also I&amp;#039;ve been consuming other sources of dharma beyond this website and MCTB. Buddhist Geeks podcast has been tremendously helpful for me. I recognize that besides developing on this fundamental level that I&amp;#039;m developing psychologically and probably on other useful models that I haven&amp;#039;t recognized. I know I&amp;#039;ve heard at least 2 stories about young Buddhists who (paraphrasing) &amp;#034;know how to meditate but need to know their zip codes&amp;#034;. I&amp;#039;m dealing with certain life circumstances that are the opposite of supportive to my practice and difficulties in the first training in general. I&amp;#039;ve had thoughts about getting a teacher, possibly online. I&amp;#039;m realizing now how important it will be for me to connect with other &amp;#034;pragmatic dharma practitioners&amp;#034; at some point as the past three years have been in mostly isolation and I really think it would be helpful for me to talk about this with another actual human to ground the thing some more. The dharma friend idea is really appealing to me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hmm... I really don&amp;#039;t know what else to include in this post. I want help but don&amp;#039;t know what may be useful. At least I&amp;#039;ve got the retreat and can turn of my &amp;#034;thinking about things mind&amp;#034;, just do the practice as instructed and see what happens and only have to deal with being a &amp;#034;contemplative scientist&amp;#034; for a 10 day period. Well I&amp;#039;d appreciate any input at all about anything that I posted or more.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 22 Apr 2014 05:01:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5445199</guid> <dc:creator>Alex E</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-22T05:01:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Dangers of Meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5445004</link> <description>Lots of information in my post here: &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;3373753"&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/3373753&lt;/a&gt;</description> <pubDate>Tue, 22 Apr 2014 03:39:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5445004</guid> <dc:creator>Tom Tom</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-22T03:39:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Dangers of Meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5443993</link> <description>It depends what kind of meditation you do.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you practice the kind where you absorb yourself in sensual pleasures, in doubt, remorse, laziness or anger then your meditation is harmful to yourself and useless.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you practice the kind where wholesome qualities grow in you and unwholesome qualities cease, then your meditation is beneficial and useful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In peace,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;James</description> <pubDate>Mon, 21 Apr 2014 20:26:39 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5443993</guid> <dc:creator>J J</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-21T20:26:39Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Dangers of Meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5443898</link> <description>I&amp;#039;m trying to compile information about the dangers of meditation. By understanding how things can go wrong, what not to do, I hope to get a better understanding of how to do things the right way. I got a few links, which I will share in the hope of stimulating more sharing or conversation on the subject.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;lorinroche&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;dangers&amp;#x2f;homeless&amp;#x2e;html"&gt;Dangers of Meditation&lt;/a&gt; on the website of Lorin Roche, Ph.D., &amp;#034;a zesty, life-affirming approach to meditation&amp;#034;, &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;suggestibility&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;surprise&amp;#x2e;php"&gt;Falling Down the TM Rabbit Hole&lt;/a&gt;, a website all about the problems associated with Transcendental Meditation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;vincenthorn&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;2006&amp;#x2f;06&amp;#x2f;30&amp;#x2f;arguments-against-meditation&amp;#x2f;"&gt;Arguments against Meditation&lt;/a&gt; from the website and blog of Vincent Horn.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 21 Apr 2014 19:22:27 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5443898</guid> <dc:creator>James Phillip Turpin</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-21T19:22:27Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What I don't have</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5443828</link> <description>In the process of trying to help a friend who was quite messed up, I happened upon a meditation process for addressing moral discipline more directly. I will add the caveat that lots of people disagree with me about this, but mostly they haven&amp;#039;t tried it and/or misunderstand what I&amp;#039;m suggesting.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Basically one meditates on remorse, which I tentatively define as compassion plus regret for past moral failing leading to resolve to improve one&amp;#039;s moral discipline. I would stress that this is not about guilt or blame, but rather one examines one&amp;#039;s own moral failings in order to develop compassion and resolve that have a real world context. When examining one&amp;#039;s own faults, one should also have compassion for oneself. In fact, the main goal here is to purify one&amp;#039;s own sila and karma, so compassion for oneself could be the driving motive for examining one&amp;#039;s own moral failings, and one should definitely cultivate compassion for oneself in order to be able to continue this practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My theory is that this practice of meditating on remorse &amp;#034;burns up&amp;#034; negative karma much more effectively than, say, dedicating merit from pujas. You are addressing the negative seeds within your mind before they ripen, while simultaneously replacing them with positive seeds. For me this seems more expedient than waiting for negative seeds to ripen and then just trying to react positively so as not to create more negative seeds.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 21 Apr 2014 19:02:35 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5443828</guid> <dc:creator>James Phillip Turpin</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-21T19:02:35Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What I don't have</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5434123</link> <description>if your Christian friends really see God and gave up their lives for God out of love for him and themselves then yes: they will be in heaven if not already are. But if their &amp;#039;faith following&amp;#039; is just practicing only prayer and going to church to secure themselves &amp;#039;if all this crap is true&amp;#039; then they got nothing and follow Satan, not God... and are burning in hell already and will burn some more if they continue this course...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;true faith and true goal of Christianity is equal to enlightenment. True enlightenment that is. Crappy simplified versions that are usually floating around here don&amp;#039;t cut the mustard...</description> <pubDate>Thu, 17 Apr 2014 18:31:29 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5434123</guid> <dc:creator>Paweł K</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-17T18:31:29Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What I don't have</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5426598</link> <description>There is a stage prior to Sotapanna that can be relieved of the 4 lower realms of existence. It is called a cula-sotapanna. What makes one a cula-sotappana I am not sure. It is also said that a cula-sotapanna will automatically reach sotapanna in at most 7 lives. Work hard, keep sila, you&amp;#039;ll be fine&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;\&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;mahajana&amp;#x2e;net&amp;#x2f;texts&amp;#x2f;kopia_lokalna&amp;#x2f;MANUAL08&amp;#x2e;html"&gt;http://mahajana.net/texts/kopia_lokalna/MANUAL08.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;#034;Cula-sotapanna or the Virtuous One&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To understand Dependent Origination or to gain Knowledge in comprehending the Law of Causality enables one to discard the three aforesaid Wrong Views of No-cause, Unjustified Cause of Creation, and misleading belief in past-kamma alone. In fact this Knowledge equips one to be a virtuous one, ever freed from the ignoble destinies of the Four Lower Worlds, a Cula-sotapanna, a future-stream-winner&amp;#039; - so the Commentaries say. Hence a goal well worth striving for.&amp;#034;&lt;/em&gt;</description> <pubDate>Tue, 15 Apr 2014 02:30:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5426598</guid> <dc:creator>Bailey .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-15T02:30:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What I don't have</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5426572</link> <description>I&amp;#039;m not scared of any suffering after death. Before death, I make sure that I have a comfortable enough lifestyle by working and having enough money and savings for the future.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Neither does sila bother me.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 15 Apr 2014 02:07:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5426572</guid> <dc:creator>Change A.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-15T02:07:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What I don't have</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5426099</link> <description>I have no idea why this occurs (the remorse thing), but the experience is not uncommon and I experienced exactly the same thing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I first came to this place I became certain that I was going to hell and deathly afraid. I began to freak out and started essentially to panic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But this was not rational panic, as far as I could recall I had not done anything morally reprehensible, in such a way that it would be a blockage for me, and furthermore I didn&amp;#039;t just feel bad, I WAS bad.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is what Richard talks about, you are bad to your core. And there is no changing this, the parasitic nature of your existence is in fact painful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It seems extremely difficult to go extinct, but it can be done, one must first be sincere.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;But how James? How, how, how? Everything I do seems insincere, I am bad to the bone, I am a liar, and a fake.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Exactly, you are false.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But the point is the little bastard (as McKenna calls it) who tells you what to do, the burning desire to be real is in fact your pure intent.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And that is the way, extinction.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/smile.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 14 Apr 2014 22:09:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5426099</guid> <dc:creator>J J</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-14T22:09:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>What I don't have</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5425851</link> <description>Despite all the insights that I have had over the past several years, and the peace that has been afforded me with regard to my mind, there is something I don&amp;#039;t have that many people do.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I talk to my &amp;#034;faith following&amp;#034; Christian friends, they tell me that they are not scared of the fires and misery of hell. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Despite all my spiritual practices, I am still very scared of such a prospect and am also aware of certain &amp;#034;bad&amp;#034; actions that I commit on a daily basis. My sila once seemed quite (dare I say completely) pure and my suffering level quite high. Now my suffering level seems quite low, but I have never felt more unclean and dirty, a bad person, than I do now.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 14 Apr 2014 21:10:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5425851</guid> <dc:creator>Adam Dietrich Ringle</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-14T21:10:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Wanting to become a monk</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5396191</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Brian K.:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Maybe someone can offer some sort of advice for me. I&amp;#039;m thinking about becoming a monk, I&amp;#039;ve been thinking about it for a number of years now. I don&amp;#039;t think I want to be a monk my whole life, but I feel like it&amp;#039;s something I need to do, and I don&amp;#039;t necessarily put any expectations on if I want to be a monk for the rest of my life or for a few years, etc, whatever. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Basically I&amp;#039;m stuck and don&amp;#039;t know what to do. In a few months I&amp;#039;ll be transferring from a 2 year school to a 4 year university to get a bio degree. My plan was to make the decision to go into monastic life after my bachelor&amp;#039;s degree is finished. But a large part of me wants to just go for it now.&lt;strong&gt; I go in and out of being excited about things to being very unhappy about daily life&lt;/strong&gt;. Furthermore, &lt;strong&gt;it&amp;#039;s hard for me to invest so much into education,relationships, my professional future, etc. when I feel I will most likely just end up monking it up in a few years regardless. &lt;/strong&gt;It&amp;#039;s tough. I feel like, at the end of the day, &lt;strong&gt;I feel most at home and at peace during times of meditation&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;strong&gt; I know material things will not make me happy and at the end of my life I feel my most important thing will be my spirituality.&lt;/strong&gt; And I have &lt;strong&gt;serious doubts whether or not I can make it where I want to go&lt;/strong&gt; fitting in my practice in between daily life. I don&amp;#039;t want to get caught up in things, and then years from now realize I never did what I wanted to do, which was seriously invest in my meditation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Does anyone have experience with this? What can they suggest? It&amp;#039;s frustrating - and it&amp;#039;s a difficult decision to kind of give up my &amp;#039;life&amp;#039; to go meditate. Any feedback totally appreciated. Thanks!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Need or want?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know our culture is conditioned on the belief that material things will make you happy, but if you are aware of that, you don&amp;#039;t have to buy into it. There are other ways of being. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sometimes I think what is the point in investing in my career, friendships and so on knowing that one day I will just be space dust. But thankfully it doesn&amp;#039;t last long. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Where do you want to go?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sounds like you want to be &amp;#034;happy&amp;#034;, and cure &amp;#034;unhappiness&amp;#034;, and that you see spirituality as that cure. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, meditation is peaceful and nice! (and so is snuggling under the covers on a lie on Saturday mornings...) And life can make you unhappy. And life can also be exciting.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 08 Apr 2014 20:03:47 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5396191</guid> <dc:creator>sawfoot _</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-08T20:03:47Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Wanting to become a monk</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5396030</link> <description>Hi Brian,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You haven&amp;#039;t provided us with enough information regarding a mature inclination to ordain. What have your realized about yourself, about your practice, about the Dhamma, about life in general, that is feeding this desire to &amp;#034;become a monk&amp;#034;? Is &amp;#034;becoming a monk&amp;#034; some kind of romantic ideal that you hanker after? (Possibly not, I&amp;#039;m just asking in order to illustrate a point.) &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While I can certainly understand the surface elements involved in this inclination (&amp;#034;I know material things will not make me happy and at the end of my life I feel my most important thing will be my spirituality.&amp;#034;), just responding to things based on surface feeling is not always the best or strongest reason to committing oneself to an action (such as ordaining). And yet, even with a mature inclination, timing and the right situation can be an important consideration when one is contemplating making such a move. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve been in the same situation that you are likely undergoing now, and I know that it is difficult to continue doing what society agrees is the right thing to do in terms of what you should be doing with your life and setting up a career path that will help you make a living. Yet, at your age (approx. 20 years), there is plenty of time for you to pursue this desire and yet at the same time, gain some further experience in life that may help you to take a better decision about the timing and situation in ordination. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was twenty-eight when I met a man who impressed me enough with his knowledge and spiritual experience that it encouraged me to become a student of his. Even then, it took two more years under his tutelage before I was able to join the order that he founded. This gave me more time to observe this person in a variety of situations and circumstances to see how he handled himself. Having that knowledge and exposure was a tremendous advantage. It allowed me to take a very natural decision when the time for it arrived. Unless you are in that kind of situation, it may be prudent to hold off until such a situation turns up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What I&amp;#039;m saying is: give yourself some time to get to know yourself a little better, to experience more life, to become more disillusioned with the current world situation, to mature in your budding practice to the point where you have a much better idea of the specific things you are seeking to achieve through becoming a monk. Because, how you perceive these things today may not be the same as how you will perceive them two, four, or six years from now. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the end, though, this is a personal decision. And sometimes youth and enthusiasm win out over maturity and experience. Just remember: anything that you decide to do, you will ultimately have to be responsible for. All I&amp;#039;m really saying is: think this thing through and be thorough about it (or as thorough as you are able) before arriving at a course of action. It can be a real downer to realize &amp;#034;Yeah, I really want to do this &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt;, but now is not the time.&amp;#034; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This comes down to an old spiritual saying, one that I&amp;#039;m certain that you have heard before: &amp;#034;When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.&amp;#034; You are much better off being pissed off (and enduring that feeling) and waiting for the right situation to develop, than to plow forward into the unknown and perhaps set yourself up for a fall that you did not see coming.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, take some time to contemplate some of these things before you take any action. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Best to you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In peace,&lt;br /&gt;Ian</description> <pubDate>Tue, 08 Apr 2014 18:34:56 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5396030</guid> <dc:creator>Ian And</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-08T18:34:56Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Wanting to become a monk</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5395650</link> <description>Hello Brian, &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A similar query was answered by Nathan over &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;4887303"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I dont know how to quote a specific post so I&amp;#039;m just copy pasting it. I feel you&amp;#039;ll find it more valuable than anything else most of us can come up with. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Unfortunately he&amp;#039;s not around ATM to respond to further queries. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By &amp;#034;seriously&amp;#034; I mean is it something worth dedicating one&amp;#039;s life to? Ordaining as a monk for? Spending upwards of a year on retreat for? I don&amp;#039;t request that you answer each of these questions, but just want to elaborate on what I mean by that word.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By &amp;#034;think&amp;#034; I mean for you to assume you are forced to take a position on whether or not each of the relevant teachings (such as karma and rebirth) are true, based on your meditative experience alone, and whichever position is more likely. By &amp;#034;true&amp;#034; I mean being in literal accordance with how it is defined in the Pali canon.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By &amp;#034;strive towards&amp;#034; I mean endeavor to attain. By &amp;#034;attain&amp;#034; I mean be for the rest of their lives accurately characterized by.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for defining your terms, that helps considerably with understanding your meanings and intentions and with my understanding what is important for you. Also thank you for elaborating on what is important for you more specifically because otherwise I would not know anything about it. I am far better equipped to offer some more appropriate and potentially useful insights as a consequence of those kinds of appropriate considerations. I will do my best to respond satisfactorily. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Consider this as like a rough first draft. Feel free to let me know where or how it is deficient for your purposes and I will work on the next draft based on that guidance. Does that sound fair?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;[Edit - A more succinct answer has come to mind. If you are impaled on a stake you will have some adequate sense of how seriously you should take this. An example exists in the form of someone who succeed by this means in the form of the story of one of Sariputta&amp;#039;s students and attendants who, properly prepared, realized this under these, appropriate in that context, conditions. Something you can research among other excellent examples for yourself at your leisure.]&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Personally, I don&amp;#039;t think this specific goal could ever be taken too seriously. Anyone else will need to make these determinations for themselves. To put that in context I think that to take it with complete seriousness will not only require but also strongly reinforce your sense of humor and that you will laugh much more often than you would have otherwise but what will develop will be a very, very serious sense of humor. You can get a &amp;#039;serious sense of humor&amp;#039; other ways but however you may acquire such a nature people with a more conventional sense of humor will not get the jokes a lot of the time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Personally and based on all of my life experience so far I have no cause for not considering the doctrines in the Pali Canon that are considered Buddha Vacana as anything other than entirely correct. In the same context then I can&amp;#039;t see how or why any of the discipline involved is not also very valuable in some way if taken seriously even if in the contexts in which it is undertaken it often seems anachronistic now, some 2500 years later. As an option we could certainly undertake similarly effective disciplines if we first fully understand the intentions and methodologies of those given disciplines and can discern serviceable contemporary equivalents which are more appropriate to our times and places.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think an important criteria for ever succeeding with becoming an Arahant as the Pali Canon defines it will have to involve becoming a bhikkhu or bhikkhuni or minimally a mendicant and renunciant, as far as becoming an Arahant is concerned in this world. (Which is why I fully support the restoration of the Bhikkhuni Sangha and consider doing so comprehensively urgent and not doing so yesterday contemptible and the fact that this is not obvious to the Bhikkhus something for everyone to think about very, very seriously - as far as the surrounding cultures go I think they and everyone including many of us in the West are very wrong headed about all of this.) &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think it would be significantly easier at this point to become an Arahant in one of the other realms where there is a lot less dukkha in general. I think for that to happen it will probably be an important condition to have established oneself in the stream by the same strict criteria and that any time spent as a bhikkhu/bhikkhuni in this world will be important conditioning that will incline one to do so in a more pleasant world otherwise the pleasure is going to be irresistible to indulge in and more of an obstacle than the extra pain is in this realm.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think that once you have a clear enough sense of the scale of the difficulties involved by making strong and skillful efforts the expectation of how much effort is involved starts to stretch out. I think what determines the length of a more accurate assessment of that is the depth of the difficulty for you as an individual together with the depth of the insight you are bringing to accurately assessing such a question for yourself. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So the definitive answer is going to come for you and from you and we have to begin by being honest with ourselves and accepting the truth of this. So the only honest answer to the question how seriously do you have to take something like this to have a hope of achieving it is completely seriously.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I often use my case as an example because it also serves as a way to introduce people to where I am at with all of this and helps to demonstrate why I find it so hard to give definitive or final answers to these kinds of questions. If I base my view of this only on experiential criteria such as how various other people define meditation experiences, I don&amp;#039;t think there is any experience of consequence that anyone else has reported experiencing that I couldn&amp;#039;t recognize from my own experience. There is one exception to this and that is summed up in a declaration like the Buddha made that is usually phrased along these lines; &amp;#034;Birth is ended, done is what needed to be done, the holy life has been lived, there is no more returning to being and becoming in this or any other world.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I see this as very very clear, definitive and final, first of all for the Buddha for himself and then for those he addresses. I think that everything else that the Buddha does and says (in the Pali Canon Texts) supports this. I can see how the entire Buddha Vacana, the Pali Canon, the entire Sangha and the Theravada Buddhist school of thought is an effort to enshrine the doctrines about all of this as rock solid establishment stuff. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So as far as all of that goes, those are the authorities to turn to in relation to all of your questions. You can see what is a rule for them and what they declare to be so and not otherwise and it is all very black and white. I think in the context of that there is still a lot of uncertainties in relation to how this could play out for any one of us. If they are right about everything, then I think we have to lean in the direction of being very conservative about adding to our expectations. Also I think in that context that we are given every indication that the difficulties are serious and that we will really have to give it everything we&amp;#039;ve got to have any hope of any serious progress towards completing the work.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you are a woman you will find that if you are entirely serious about this you are going to be as upset by the crap that men are doing in this context. You will probably be just as sad about how they are so insecure about being less of anything than anyone else that they have to oppress women in this context as you would be in any other. You will see that you have about a hundred years of progress to work at on all of this that has been done in other contexts still needs to be done in this one. I find that to be a very strong indication that the institutions involved are highly compromised by profound ignorance on the state, cultural, institutional, community and personal levels and this includes the Sangha so if you are a woman, my heart goes out to you, you have twice the support from me that I would give to any man and I would like you to know that I think all of this is criminal in any context and it is probably the main reason I have strong reservations about the sincerity and authenticity of all of the men involved and this includes the Sangha.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know the texts might indicate, but then again more likely not, that there has to be some kind of unbroken line of succession of handoffs of something or other that needs to go all the way back to the Buddha. That kind of logic makes no sense to anyone but lawyers so… I very much doubt that this is true of any group today in relation to the Buddha and I know it to not be publicly proven by any group. So no group should be allowed to claim such a status that can&amp;#039;t give all of the evidence necessary to demonstrate the truth of it. I take thinking that there is some kind of lineage that long that is verifiable or necessary as an indication of indulging in delusions. So there is no good reason that makes any sense as to why women couldn&amp;#039;t have a fully functional Sangha yesterday or anyway and the longer this unfair arrangement persists the sooner it will fully destroy the viability of the Sangha for men as well. What we are seeing today was much more likely what the Buddha meant about women shortening the length of the Sangha by half. Not because of women being included but because of them being excluded by men. Not only that but in terms of one of the recorded versions of this prediction, the one that is more likely an authentic prediction the dates match perfectly, 5000 years shortened to 2500. So in that context either all the men wake up and get this handled right now or else we are actually watching the entire Sangha kill itself live and on TV, so to speak. Watching the Sangha predominantly refusing deal with this wisely does not bode well for any of the other institutions in this world either…&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another thing to get conversant with is the idea of living a holy life of renunciation. One would need to try that out for a while and I think one can do so alone to an extent if not as well as in any other context. This is something to do before we have any sense of whether or not we could even get started with that before we can hope to imagine when we would be finished with that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m not willing to simply conform entirely to any establishment doctrines that exist today in any form anywhere without making a lot of study of what is involved beforehand. I have really given it a big effort and there have always been difficulties with that for me even though sometimes it is the best option for me. Groups that are appropriate to what you are dealing with are really great when you find them and if they will accept you and work with you then that can really be helpful. Sometimes that works very well for a period of time and everyone benefits and then it starts to become counterproductive, other times it just gets better for a person or a group. A big part of the difficulty is often just finding a group that is going to be suitable for you personally at a given point in your life.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I just so happen to come down on the side of the Buddha Vacana most of the time after I have really hashed something out for myself and gathered a lot of experience with it first hand, but that doesn&amp;#039;t mean that all of the subsequent details and uncertainties that the various institutions involved attempted to further set in stone beyond those which they attribute to the Buddha himself are more helpful than the uncertainties which remained.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So that would be my first advice, find out what the Buddha said in response to the same or similar questions. I say that because he is the only one who so far receives my complete confidence without any reservations.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I do think the difficulties any of us have are usually greater than the insight we have to deal with those difficulties. That should be another indication of just how steep the learning curve and the workload can be sometimes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know if I could find a Noble Bhikkhu and his associates who were willing, that I thought could be excellent examples and guides in entering into that life of renunciation and doing this work that way, that I would drop everything else and do that at any moment. So far for me finding precisely that is a lot harder than it looks. I have found excellent Bhikkhus who I have the utmost respect and regard for but more often than not they are unwilling to take on that kind of responsibility with anyone and I am not at all surprised because it is a big responsibility and a lot of work even if someone is very well prepared.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So if you are very serious about all of this already and you understand how serious all of this is then I suggest you give preparing for that day every effort and that like me you continue your search for someone who is clearly making progress ahead of you on the path and beg them to take you on. The best way to move them to take you on is by doing as much of that work for them beforehand that they are otherwise going to have to do for you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you have a family you are probably very invested in those commitments and have strong feelings in those regards. I would not walk away from that without thoroughly considering everything very very carefully. I can&amp;#039;t advise you to do such a thing at all and I will not. The Buddha was in a similar situation and he just walked away. So it would appear that he considered all of this much more serious and he is the most serious person I have ever heard of. I would consider the situation very serious either way and I am neither married nor do I have children and I do not intend to take on any of those very serious responsibilities either. I do think this is a serious commitment that if you do well understand you will also understand you should continue to take seriously so in such a case I would take all of that much more into consideration.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In such a context I would make my criteria for ordaining very high. We aren&amp;#039;t going to become the Buddha on our own when we join the Bhikkhu or Bhikkhuni Sangha, we are going to be disciples and we need to understand very very well what we are entering into and committing to and take it much more seriously than a marriage particularly if we are leaving a marriage to do so. Also, as I indicated we need to very carefully assess the authenticity and viability of any community we make such a commitment to.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you don&amp;#039;t have a family then I think if you want to succeed with the aims as these are defined in the Pali Canon then you should give it everything you have starting right now and put arriving at the goal entirely out of your mind. I would study and practice all of it as if I was a monk and at the same time I would work and save and travel and search for a community that I like and that likes me where I can really start doing it entirely &amp;#039;by the book&amp;#039;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you want to try out being a bhikkhu for a while the easiest place to do that is Thailand, they really don&amp;#039;t mind if you ordain there at various monasteries for a short period and then disrobe and then do so again later at the same or some other place. Other countries are more inclined to take the attitude that either you are going to stick with it once you start and think if you stop at any point for any reason that you are just giving up because you are not ever going to be suitable to do this. So that is very good to know, how this is perceived differently in different places in SE Asia. In the west it is very difficult finding anyone who will take on a new monk and the tendency is to want to see a few years of serious involvement first and then they will be more comfortable with maybe taking someone on. No matter how you go into it it will be far better if you get very clear about a lot of stuff before hand. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would really like to do this if the conditions were right but even defining that has been a learning curve and I am still learning and preparing all the time. The advantage of remaining unattached, unaffiliated and secular is that I can enjoy those freedoms as minimal and limited as those are. The better I understand how differently freedom is viewed from a bhikkhu&amp;#039;s perspective the less of a culture shock I will face if and when I enter into that life in any permanent sense. If you know nothing about what is involved I suspect it will come as such a shock that your staying power will be measured in days and not years.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope that helps, if I&amp;#039;m still falling short of the kind of info or perspective you are looking for just let me know and I will give it another try.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;straight trippin&lt;br /&gt;triplethink&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Tue, 08 Apr 2014 16:47:29 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5395650</guid> <dc:creator>Sweet Nothing</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-08T16:47:29Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Wanting to become a monk</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5395456</link> <description>Maybe someone can offer some sort of advice for me. I&amp;#039;m thinking about becoming a monk, I&amp;#039;ve been thinking about it for a number of years now. I don&amp;#039;t think I want to be a monk my whole life, but I feel like it&amp;#039;s something I need to do, and I don&amp;#039;t necessarily put any expectations on if I want to be a monk for the rest of my life or for a few years, etc, whatever. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Basically I&amp;#039;m stuck and don&amp;#039;t know what to do. In a few months I&amp;#039;ll be transferring from a 2 year school to a 4 year university to get a bio degree. My plan was to make the decision to go into monastic life after my bachelor&amp;#039;s degree is finished. But a large part of me wants to just go for it now. I go in and out of being excited about things to being very unhappy about daily life. Furthermore, it&amp;#039;s hard for me to invest so much into education,relationships, my professional future, etc. when I feel I will most likely just end up monking it up in a few years regardless. It&amp;#039;s tough. I feel like, at the end of the day, I feel most at home and at peace during times of meditation. I know material things will not make me happy and at the end of my life I feel my most important thing will be my spirituality. And I have serious doubts whether or not I can make it where I want to go fitting in my practice in between daily life. I don&amp;#039;t want to get caught up in things, and then years from now realize I never did what I wanted to do, which was seriously invest in my meditation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Does anyone have experience with this? What can they suggest? It&amp;#039;s frustrating - and it&amp;#039;s a difficult decision to kind of give up my &amp;#039;life&amp;#039; to go meditate. Any feedback totally appreciated. Thanks!</description> <pubDate>Tue, 08 Apr 2014 16:13:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5395456</guid> <dc:creator>Brian K.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-04-08T16:13:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5336653</link> <description>You&amp;#039;re welcome. Will be interested to read more. If you are curious, on Kenneth Folk&amp;#039;s site me and another practitioner Antero have been intermittently documenting practice results for a little bit now, many of which are influenced by Reggie&amp;#039;s work.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 23 Mar 2014 16:43:17 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5336653</guid> <dc:creator>William Golden Finch</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-23T16:43:17Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5335552</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;William Golden Finch:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;John: If you go to Reggie&amp;#039;s Dharma Ocean website there&amp;#039;s a set of free downloadable mp3&amp;#039;s regarding talks and guided somatic practices. May be useful.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks Bill, I&amp;#039;ll check those out when I&amp;#039;ve done some more of the ground work.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 23 Mar 2014 01:42:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5335552</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-23T01:42:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5335227</link> <description>John: If you go to Reggie&amp;#039;s Dharma Ocean website there&amp;#039;s a set of free downloadable mp3&amp;#039;s regarding talks and guided somatic practices. May be useful.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 22 Mar 2014 19:53:51 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5335227</guid> <dc:creator>William Golden Finch</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-22T19:53:51Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5330620</link> <description>Okay, preparations over... &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Equinox marks the beginning of three years&amp;#039; practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is the framework:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Continue investigating the human condition with openness, curiosity and a basically benign intent. Act with restraint, but gently take the lid off all that&amp;#039;s within in order to know it better. Find out what&amp;#039;s there, and learn from experience what can or can&amp;#039;t be done with it. Continue developing the ability to harmlessly contain it all while investigating and experimenting.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Be true to the intuition that practice is mainly about removing ignorance, seeing through or removing obscuring factors, and discovering afresh the unfabricated qualities that are already the case. Use as touchstones: clear seeing, effortless benevolence, natural enjoyment, etc. Use the best fabricated means to enable these unfabricated qualities to manifest unhindered/ unobscured.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Develop mindfulness, concentration and discernment with daily sitting practice. Two sits per day with the aim of building a strong foundation: balancing, tuning, dealing with the five hindrances. Cultivate a stable, equanimous, mindful presence that can employ finer pointed concentration at will. Be patient; avoid overreaching. Do this for six months before trying anything more ambitious.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Personality wise, be basically benevolent but don&amp;#039;t try to be too pure. Keep the darker energies, let them remain part of the mix, let them be harnessed and used wisely, for benefit and enjoyment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Stay with it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;************&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I appreciate all the feedback and discussion. It&amp;#039;s helped me to make what I think is a viable plan.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Will post updates now and then.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 20 Mar 2014 22:27:47 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5330620</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-20T22:27:47Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5328940</link> <description>[Deleted in the interest of maintaining practical focus]</description> <pubDate>Thu, 20 Mar 2014 09:53:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5328940</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-20T09:53:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5327676</link> <description>[Deleted in the interest of maintaining practical focus]</description> <pubDate>Thu, 20 Mar 2014 05:16:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5327676</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-20T05:16:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Motivation, faith, alignment of psyche, ritual</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5289350</link> <description>Sadalsuud,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I loved your post, and I agree with much of what you said. It resonates a lot with the perspective of bhakti yoga and Vajrayana stuff I&amp;#039;ve been exploring lately, as well as shamanism and lots of other Western esotericism. Basically, it comes down to the idea that if you are willing to use all the colourful craziness of the many levels of existence to pursue God/awakening, you get there a lot faster than just staying on some thin veneer of consensus reality. This however, requires a direct confrontation with shadow, demons, monsters, seemingly impossible happenings, and so on. Most people don&amp;#039;t choose to go there. It speaks to the fact that the invisible light of God/awareness is actually hidden in everything. The more of everything we come to deeply know, the more we come to know that pure light which can&amp;#039;t be seen with the senses.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, I must add that there is another crucial factor that you didn&amp;#039;t mention explicitly that might account for the different speeds with which people more through the process. That is concentration ability. I think that the ability to concentrate well is one of the biggest factors determining how quickly stuff happens with any contemplative practice. Some people seem to have a better natural concentration ability than others, and some practices also develop concentration faster and deeper (the best one I know of is the Pa Auk lineage jhana practice). Of course, samatha alone doesn&amp;#039;t lead to insight directly, but vipassana without strong concentration leads to insight extremely gradually and haltingly. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another factor is having good maps so you know what you&amp;#039;re supposed to be doing. In a talk, Willoughby Britton mentions the case of a woman who suffered in the dark night stages for over 20 years despite daily meditation practice. Within one year of working with Shinzen Young, she hit stream entry. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is all definitely important to think about. As a meditation teacher, I often notice that most of my students are not really interested in enlightenment, or at least not rapid enlightenment. If they aren&amp;#039;t yet in the dark night, or even if they&amp;#039;ve found a stable identity within the dark night, I try not to rush them forward before they&amp;#039;re ready. There are so many ways that meditation or other contemplative practices can help people improve their inner and outer lives that don&amp;#039;t involve furthering enlightenment. Most of us here at DhO are a bit enlightenment obsessed (myself included). Yet, as I get closer to it, I increasingly have the sense that it&amp;#039;s not the be all and end all of a good human life. I&amp;#039;ve seen amazing effects come from facilitating a depressed person who&amp;#039;s never meditated before to do just &lt;em&gt;3 minutes&lt;/em&gt; of focused loving-kindness meditation directed toward themselves. They may not have gotten more enlightened, but their life was tangibly affected for the better.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;avicraimer&amp;#x2e;com"&gt;Avi Craimer&lt;/a&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 13 Mar 2014 04:54:05 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5289350</guid> <dc:creator>Avi Craimer</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-13T04:54:05Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Motivation, faith, alignment of psyche, ritual</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5289005</link> <description>Hi Tom, how are you doing!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think maybe you misunderstand me - I don&amp;#039;t mean to say at all that pragmatic isn&amp;#039;t a fast path. It is. The levels of attainment here are unquestionably strong and people get there quick. My point is just that some people in pragmatic make much quicker progress than others - why? I think the answer is ability, drive, belief, motivation - all the &amp;#039;soft&amp;#039; factors.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m sure everyone here agrees that motivation and belief are totally key to making fast progress, but I am just pointing out that there isn&amp;#039;t anything like the same quality of advice on motivation and belief as there is on say, attaining jhanas. Not a complaint, just an observation which I am interested in exploring in this thread to see if useful stuff comes out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think there is opportunity maybe for some &amp;#034;pragmatic dharma faith &amp;amp; ritual how to&amp;#034; talk...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;tom moylan:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, why does it seem to take some much longer than others? Why have some people not hit MCTB Stream Entry after years, and others do MCTB 4th path in months?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hey howdy,&lt;br /&gt;i would take issue with this assumption. Having viewed and been involved with other traditions and techniques I have not seen the level of accomplishment in this forum anywhere else. Even myself, who makes no claim to serious attainments, see much progress here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One of the factors underlying this may be the secrecy and lack of clear communication about attainments in other traditions. There is the question of the level of awakening too. How they line up between traditions etc. The pragmatic Dharma is a very fast path.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cheers&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;tom&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 13 Mar 2014 00:14:04 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5289005</guid> <dc:creator>Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-13T00:14:04Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Motivation, faith, alignment of psyche, ritual</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5288253</link> <description>Hi Sadalsuud,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I feel what you&amp;#039;re saying.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I, too, have been and continue to be impressed by the depth of discussion on this forum. And even my own modest experience with Mahasi noting has made me feel sharper and more able to understand the processes of my mind. But with that also has come restlessness, and I have drifted towards including more compassion in my practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Practices such as the cultivation of bhakti (devotion) as described in the AYP system (which regards bhakti as the central cause of spiritual progress), and variations of tonglen have done wonders for me. For example, just a few breaths, breathing in whatever difficult emotion seems current and breathing out compassion, set me in a noticeably calmer and more accepting state of mind, from which to do other practices (to paraphrase Watts) not seriously but sincerely. Music, dance and prayers have all been useful and fun ways for me to cultivate faith and compassion. With compassion has come the bravery to, using your terms, engage more of my psyche. Such practices could probably benefit many on this forum.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not that faith has been excluded from the discussions. There are sections here for a wide variety of practices besides vipassana, for example a thread for links to buddhism-inspired music. And MCTB explains, for example, ways to balance the &amp;#034;wheels&amp;#034; of one&amp;#039;s practice, and how to harness all kinds of emotions for the goal of attainments. But, as probably has been mentioned on the forum before, perhaps the MCTB approach tends to attract more than its fair share of technical and goal-oriented people, and less of the touchy-feely kind.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I notice that I, too, am partially motivated by maps and locating myself on them, as well as the &amp;#034;fireworks&amp;#034; of meditation, though those are not my goals. Perhaps I&amp;#039;m one of those people who subconsciously believe that I&amp;#039;m not worthly and must suffer in order to be liberated, as Watts put it, and thus I find disproportionately appealing those practices which tend to produce a rough ride. And I doubt I&amp;#039;m the only one here.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 12 Mar 2014 17:55:05 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5288253</guid> <dc:creator>Sakari A</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-12T17:55:05Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Motivation, faith, alignment of psyche, ritual</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5287736</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, why does it seem to take some much longer than others? Why have some people not hit MCTB Stream Entry after years, and others do MCTB 4th path in months?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hey howdy,&lt;br /&gt;i would take issue with this assumption. Having viewed and been involved with other traditions and techniques I have not seen the level of accomplishment in this forum anywhere else. Even myself, who makes no claim to serious attainments, see much progress here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One of the factors underlying this may be the secrecy and lack of clear communication about attainments in other traditions. There is the question of the level of awakening too. How they line up between traditions etc. The pragmatic Dharma is a very fast path.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cheers&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;tom</description> <pubDate>Wed, 12 Mar 2014 14:55:39 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5287736</guid> <dc:creator>tom moylan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-12T14:55:39Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Motivation, faith, alignment of psyche, ritual</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5286675</link> <description>I would like to bring up a topic that I don&amp;#039;t see much discussion of on here. All the knowledge and technique-related information on how to awaken is all over this forum and the level of technical meditation chat here is amazing, off the scale&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Or you can go elsewhere on the internet, you can pick noting, self-inquiry, direct pointing, any other vipassana, and all can be very efficient fast ways to wake up. By wake up I mean do something like MCTB 4th path.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, why does it seem to take some much longer than others? Why have some people not hit MCTB Stream Entry after years, and others do MCTB 4th path in months?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I started doing the noting practice as described in MCTB, I was really motivated to do SE. I thought it was about technique, and practicing seeing quickly and accurately the sensations which make up experience. I now think this is only 10% of the story.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;People wake up (or reach whatever stage they&amp;#039;re aiming at) when their whole psyche knows it and wants it. When this alignment occurs, it doesn&amp;#039;t matter too much what you&amp;#039;re doing, any technique can push you over the edge. Zen literature is full of this - people waking up at the sound of bells, being hit with a broom, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As Alan Watts beautifully and funnily says in &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;youtube&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;watch&amp;#x3f;v&amp;#x3d;WUXodFgbDfQ"&gt;this video&lt;/a&gt;, the reason people don&amp;#039;t wake up, is because they don&amp;#039;t think they&amp;#039;re worth it. They think some aspects of them are bad or un-spiritual. Another way of seeing the problem is that they are too enamoured, too in love with certain other aspects of their psyche.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If people diligently, with their whole psyche aligned, start noting, they will hit SE, like clockwork. Unless one of these things happens:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. Various forms of not actually really trying&lt;br /&gt;Self-explanatory. Not enough energy and intent or belief is directed at the practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. Technique fetishisation - over-trying&lt;br /&gt;This is when someone is being a technique freak, but out of fear, not out of genuine unfolding of the examination of reality. The sort of person who is a technically very adept meditator, but is not making progress quickly. They &amp;#039;hide&amp;#039; in the technique.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;=====the traps and escapes: faith, motivation, alignment=====&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would like to open a discussion on situations that occur and ways out of them. In no particular order, some things I have seen&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;*** unwilling to engage whole psyche&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is something I see a lot in some form or other. I was talking to someone who has done a lot of Mahasi retreats, knows about SE, but is too scared to read up on the nanas and technical elements of how to do SE. This is because they are scared that they are the sort of person who is heady and goal orientated, and they think this will take over their practice. Instead they are just noting diligently and thinking something might happen.&lt;br /&gt;Problem - This is a blatant rejection of one huge aspect of who they are. They have an idea that a goal-orientated or intellectual part of their psyche is &amp;#034;not spiritual&amp;#034;, or problematic (fear that it will cause them suffering). So they cut off this half of their mind, now it is a dead weight. It is like a dog trying to fight without biting.&lt;br /&gt;Solution - You have to be willing to meet all the aspects of your psyche. Being afraid of one big part of who you are is going to cause massive deadlock in your mind. The buddha was goal orientated as fuck. and he intellectualised a lot - loads of lists, systems. There are ways to work it. Scholarship, combined with meditating, seems to work very well to awaken people.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;*** insufficient belief&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;the most basic and vague barrier. Basically they now believe SE exists, but don&amp;#039;t really think it could happen to them, today, right now, this sit. I did SE the very first day after I formally wrote down my intent to make it happen to me. I&amp;#039;m sure everyone will agree that this is a very important point, but I see little information here on how techniques of how people made this belief real for them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;*** trying too hard&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;this is something I have seen some good stuff on this forum on. Essentially the meditator is caught in subtle traps of wanting/doing or watching, where the want/doer or watcher is the exact thing that need to be undone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;*** too afraid of &amp;#039;death&amp;#039; of various identities like career, family, etc.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have no real experience of this - anyone?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;*** afraid of content of own subconscious&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What we are trying to do to awaken is drop a deeply help subconscious belief, the visible part of which plays out as patterns of thoughts and sensations. So if you are afraid of your subconscious, your degree of willingness to enquire, prod, work with, investigate, change what is down there will be limited.&lt;br /&gt;Put it this way. If you are the sort of person who has a poor relationship with your dreams, or who is unable to be comfortable with your own desires, or who when drunk does really dark stuff that makes you super ashamed, then this is worth looking at.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;*** willingness to use ritual and imagination&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In your subconscious there are hugely powerful themes, images, stories, currents, that, if you are willing and able, you can ride to awakening very quickly.&lt;br /&gt;For me personally, McDonalds and consumer culture were a huge part of my life, I grew up in shopping centres and worked in advertising and the hedonistic industries for a while. So integrating these into my journey was a vital part of awakening.&lt;br /&gt;Now, being subconscious, you cannot just access these currents. So you need some kind of technique to find out what these are, and how to ride them.&lt;br /&gt;For different people, this will take different forms e.g. religious ritual, deep psychotherapy, dream analysis. I am not that far out, so I used basic psychological principles, and life-coaching type stuff, story-work, hero&amp;#039;s journey type stuff, and creativity to just try to integrate, align as much as possible.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;*** mahasi noting: the technique IS the faith&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;the nice thing about noting is that it&amp;#039;s a faith and a technique. It&amp;#039;s a religious ritual, a prayer if you like, where you basically build your faith in direct experience, and undermine your faith in your thought-concept-belief of self, til one day while noting, in a way that is totally unrelated to noting, you just stop believing in a self as doer and watcher, and the patterns of doer and watcher die. However I believe the above mentioned stuff around faith is vital and can really speed up this process.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A closing note:&lt;br /&gt;This is not about your content, or dealing with &amp;#039;your stuff&amp;#039; as Daniel Ingram puts it. It is simply about the most radical non-attachment to any of your stuff, and dropping any belief that any of your stuff makes you more or less likely to be able to wake up. It is about simply aligning all your stuff, your personality, your skills, preferences, into the direction of awakening.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am interested to hear everyone&amp;#039;s thoughts and maybe we could put together some common traps &amp;amp; escapes from a motivation/belief standpoint.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 11 Mar 2014 23:49:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5286675</guid> <dc:creator>Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-11T23:49:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5281307</link> <description>Pulled from this thread over here:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5223267&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Change A:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will wait and see what you have to say after you get some experience with Vajrayana. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At the moment I&amp;#039;m working with the Mahamudra Meditation Guide that I posted a link to elsewhere, and also looking into some of Reginald Ray&amp;#039;s work -- Touching Enlightenment. Finding it fascinating. Pleased to discover there&amp;#039;s so much interesting stuff that I&amp;#039;m completely ignorant of.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 10 Mar 2014 22:07:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5281307</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-10T22:07:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Looking for more Noting Partners on Skype</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5281140</link> <description>I find noting with others on skype to be very supportive of practice.&lt;br /&gt;please contact me at reevescedric at gmail com if you are interested in doing skype noting together. Generally I&amp;#039;ve done 5 mins of general discussion at the beginning and end of each session and about 50 mins to an hr of just noting.&lt;br /&gt;I am Pre-first path, likely in EQ and have been practicing meditation for 9 years and practical dharma/noting etc for about 15 months and am rather serious about it.&lt;br /&gt;Thanks,&lt;br /&gt;Cedric</description> <pubDate>Mon, 10 Mar 2014 21:00:36 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5281140</guid> <dc:creator>Cedric .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-10T21:00:36Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>This Dakini is not yours</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5258644</link> <description>Let her go.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 06 Mar 2014 17:23:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5258644</guid> <dc:creator>Adam Dietrich Ringle</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-06T17:23:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Knee pain can't practice well - need some motivation/guidance</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5253706</link> <description>Thank you all for the support. I am deeply grateful.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 04 Mar 2014 13:42:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5253706</guid> <dc:creator>George S. Lteif</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-04T13:42:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5252592</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John Wilde:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;. Jake .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Sounds like an incredibly rich and multifaceted place from which to engage &amp;#039;practice&amp;#039; in a more playful way; fullfillment or a basic happiness/wholeness as the starting point. Practice as an enrichment of an already whole starting point. An authenticity that can grow and transform in an undirected, spontaneous way, a freedom from practice as &lt;em&gt;needing to be different&lt;em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s how it feels, Jake. No compulsion to induce change, but a lot of things to explore and cultivate if I want, and a lot of interesting ways to do it. For someone of my basic temperament, that&amp;#039;s a bounty of riches.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is sweet, yeah, but also very ordinary. I don&amp;#039;t want to give the impression that it&amp;#039;s something special... because, again, it feels like it should have been the case all along.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Reality happens and we immediately paint over it and respond to our painting&amp;#034; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just stopping the obscuring of reality is a cool thing...it&amp;#039;s my daily off the cushion practice now.&lt;br /&gt;Good luck with it.&lt;br /&gt;~D</description> <pubDate>Mon, 03 Mar 2014 20:50:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5252592</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-03T20:50:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Knee pain can't practice well - need some motivation/guidance</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5250588</link> <description>My 2 cents... maybe a kneeling chair could do it for you :&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;naturalliving&amp;#x2e;co&amp;#x2e;uk&amp;#x2f;acatalog&amp;#x2f;Kneeling_chair_A1&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hope you&amp;#039;ll find what fits! Let us know.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 03 Mar 2014 00:32:47 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5250588</guid> <dc:creator>Jean B.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-03T00:32:47Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Knee pain can't practice well - need some motivation/guidance</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5249892</link> <description>Any position you can find that is somewhat comfortable and supported however you need to be will work fine, as it is much more about the quality of your attention to what is happening than much about the postural specifics beyond just the fact of pain or falling asleep or whatever, so anything goes and do what you need to do.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As to not being able to sustain postures for long, even in movement, mindfulness is the same, the Three Characteristics are the same, the basics of reality are the same, so just be mindful during movement transitions as you would during walking or any other transitions and it shouldn&amp;#039;t be a barrier to practice.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 02 Mar 2014 22:22:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5249892</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-02T22:22:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Knee pain can't practice well - need some motivation/guidance</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5249674</link> <description>The IKEA Poang chair with footstool does it for me. I have fibromyalgia, arthritis, and all sorts of aches and pains.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 02 Mar 2014 20:11:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5249674</guid> <dc:creator>Jane Laurel Carrington</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-02T20:11:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Knee pain can't practice well - need some motivation/guidance</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5249592</link> <description>I know you said lying down you fall asleep. Do you lie with your legs straight? In tantric buddhism somatic practices are typically done lying on the back with knees bent and a yoga strap to hold the legs, hands folded across stomach. Also, sawfoot&amp;#039;s super comfortable looking chair. If you are in overwhelming pain, any practice will be for nought. I would try to find a way that is a meeting place between what is comfortable and alert, WHATEVER, that might be.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 02 Mar 2014 18:45:16 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5249592</guid> <dc:creator>William Golden Finch</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-02T18:45:16Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Knee pain can't practice well - need some motivation/guidance</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5248999</link> <description>&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;i01&amp;#x2e;i&amp;#x2e;aliimg&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;photo&amp;#x2f;v0&amp;#x2f;100346355&amp;#x2f;Zero_Gravity_Padded_Reclining_Patio_Lounge_Chair&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Folding garden chair. Super comfortable and super cheap. Not ideal, in terms of having a straight unsupported back as in the ideal meditation posture, but less likely to fall asleep than lying on the ground, and beggars can&amp;#039;t be choosers.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 02 Mar 2014 17:31:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5248999</guid> <dc:creator>sawfoot _</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-02T17:31:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Knee pain can't practice well - need some motivation/guidance</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5246633</link> <description>I had condromalacia patella aka runners knee and had the operation. This didn&amp;#039;t help it any. The problem is that the patella isn&amp;#039;t tracking right. The solution for me was lots of stretching. This might only apply to me but I think any doc or physical therapist will say stretching is good for this. One problem is finding a orthopedic doc who know anything beyond bones and surgery. I found a good physical therapist more knowledgable for this condition.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When meditating, try sitting in a chair with your legs straight. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have bursitis in my shoulder now which produces a similar pain to what you have. I have done sitting meditation with this pain as the sole object of meditation. It had some but limited success. You might try it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Good luck.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;jack</description> <pubDate>Sun, 02 Mar 2014 14:34:55 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5246633</guid> <dc:creator>Jack Hatfield</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-02T14:34:55Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Knee pain can't practice well - need some motivation/guidance</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5246473</link> <description>Hello,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Almost a year back I started having knee pain when sitting cross legged to meditate. Went to doctor and did all necessary tests, turns out that I have &amp;#034;condromalacia patella&amp;#034;. Probably got that from extensive yoga exercises in the past. Tried physical therapy and some medications, long story short: an operation is the only solution but not an option at the moment.&lt;br /&gt;I can no longer sit cross legged, nor do walking mediation, not even sit in a chair for long periods without moving. &lt;br /&gt;Now I practice while sitting in a chair but experience pain during/after the sit. &lt;br /&gt;Lying meditation doesn&amp;#039;t seem very effective as I usually fall asleep. &lt;br /&gt;I would really like to go on a retreat to advance my practice but been hesitant lately. &lt;br /&gt;I feel stuck, as I can&amp;#039;t push my practice forward. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyone with similar experiences?&lt;br /&gt;How far can one progress with such conditions? &lt;br /&gt;Would really appreciate some advice or helpful thoughts on how to practice. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Many thanks,&lt;br /&gt;George</description> <pubDate>Sun, 02 Mar 2014 09:58:35 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5246473</guid> <dc:creator>George S. Lteif</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-02T09:58:35Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5243779</link> <description>Yeah John, I dig it-- there is something quite profound about finding a basis in the authentic ordinary so to speak, even though it doesn&amp;#039;t stop being, well, ordinary ;) . I&amp;#039;ve found myself in similar terrain for a while now, or at least, found myself basing my practice in a basic and ordinary wellbeing rather than a sense of lack. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What I find intriguing about this is that on the one hand, the process of approaching life this way is very mundane almost-- even on a meditative, practice level-- as if nothing special could possibly come of it yet that is part and parcel of the initial basic goodness. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While on the other hand, it occasionally becomes/seems so clear that within the very ordinariness of that basic and prior wellbeing, there can flash a profundity and simplicity and awakeness and goodness that exceeds any &amp;#039;fruition&amp;#039; I ever &amp;#039;achieved&amp;#039; when practicing out of a sense of incompleteness.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 01 Mar 2014 01:38:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5243779</guid> <dc:creator>. Jake .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-03-01T01:38:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5243314</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;. Jake .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Sounds like an incredibly rich and multifaceted place from which to engage &amp;#039;practice&amp;#039; in a more playful way; fullfillment or a basic happiness/wholeness as the starting point. Practice as an enrichment of an already whole starting point. An authenticity that can grow and transform in an undirected, spontaneous way, a freedom from practice as &lt;em&gt;needing to be different&lt;em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s how it feels, Jake. No compulsion to induce change, but a lot of things to explore and cultivate if I want, and a lot of interesting ways to do it. For someone of my basic temperament, that&amp;#039;s a bounty of riches.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is sweet, yeah, but also very ordinary. I don&amp;#039;t want to give the impression that it&amp;#039;s something special... because, again, it feels like it should have been the case all along.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 28 Feb 2014 22:22:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5243314</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-28T22:22:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5241926</link> <description>Sounds like an incredibly rich and multifaceted place from which to engage &amp;#039;practice&amp;#039; in a more playful way; fullfillment or a basic happiness/wholeness as the starting point. Practice as an enrichment of an already whole starting point. An authenticity that can grow and transform in an undirected, spontaneous way, a freedom from practice as &lt;em&gt;needing to be different&lt;em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sweet &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 28 Feb 2014 15:16:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5241926</guid> <dc:creator>. Jake .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-28T15:16:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5240603</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John Wilde:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Okay, thank you all for your suggestions and comments. Now begins a three month trial, during which I test and tweak my practices in preparation for three years of intensive practice. I&amp;#039;ll post the results of my trial run here in due course.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Things haven&amp;#039;t gone according to plan. Instead, something seems to have shifted in an unremarkable but satisfying way. Instead of feeling like I&amp;#039;m trying to solve an existential problem or trying find my way into or out of something, I feel that I can at last just be here, without any of the different aspects of me taking possession of the totality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s absolutely nothing special. In fact, it seems like something I should have been able to do all along.... but for whatever reason it wasn&amp;#039;t happening that way, and now it is. I&amp;#039;m going to let this settle for a month or so, live in it without further comment, and then see how things look from there.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 28 Feb 2014 04:18:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5240603</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-28T04:18:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5197703</link> <description>Okay, thank you all for your suggestions and comments. Now begins a three month trial, during which I test and tweak my practices in preparation for three years of intensive practice. I&amp;#039;ll post the results of my trial run here in due course.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 11 Feb 2014 10:24:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5197703</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-11T10:24:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5197019</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;. Jake .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;This ontological belief [which Claudiu later specifies as: &amp;#034;the ontological belief that nothing exists in and of itself outside of interpretation&amp;#034;] precludes one from experiencing a PCE and using that experience to guide one down that path.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So you think neither Bruno nor John have experienced a PCE? Or just that harboring this view, they no longer will? If so, I wonder what they would say about that.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What I&amp;#039;d say firstly is, I don&amp;#039;t have an ontological belief that nothing &lt;u&gt;exists&lt;/u&gt; outside of interpretation. What I&amp;#039;ve been saying is more about epistemology than ontology: that &lt;u&gt;knowing&lt;/u&gt; is an act of interpretation. (Which doesn&amp;#039;t mean that nothing can be known, either). In practical terms, this way of thinking about experience and knowledge doesn&amp;#039;t preclude, or necessitate, any particular kind of experience. I&amp;#039;m surprised that it&amp;#039;s even controversial.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for whether I&amp;#039;ve had the experiences that actualists call PCEs: Yeah, definitely. It&amp;#039;s the main reason why actualism had a significant place in my world every day for 10 years, regardless of how I thought and felt about other aspects of it. Those experiences have shown me [speaking in terms consistent with actualism] that, when everything that constitutes psychic/ psychological/ affective-intuitive-imaginative &amp;#039;being&amp;#039; evaporates, the universe, experienced apperceptively, is utterly immaculate and amazing. Those experiences have shown me that this whole human drama, inward and outward, is happening against a backdrop of utter peace and perfection. Knowledge of this is what made actualism interesting to me in the first place. It&amp;#039;s not something I&amp;#039;ve forgotten, not something that I reject, and not something that I find meaningless or insignificant, by any means.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nevertheless, I&amp;#039;m an amphibian. I live in the human psyche, the human mind and heart, as well as the world.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I guess &lt;u&gt;one&lt;/u&gt; way of thinking of this is as spectrum with absolutes on either side: &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Self-with-no-world &amp;lt;-------------------------------- life as I know it ------------------------------&amp;gt; World-with-no-self.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;or&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Spirit*-with-no-flesh &amp;lt;-------------------------------- life as I know it ------------------------------&amp;gt; Flesh-with-no-spirit*.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;[&amp;#039;spirit&amp;#039; == &amp;#039;psyche&amp;#039;]&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I understand the attraction to one or the other extreme, and have done plenty of sliding up and down along that scale without permanently popping out one end or the other. And at present, I&amp;#039;m not interested in heading toward either end. (Nor in limiting myself to thinking in those terms). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So if my view precludes me from actualism (as an aspiration with its associated views, culture and personnel), so be it. In fact, I&amp;#039;d much rather see things afresh without having to drag the whole Richard/actualism thing into everything I think. I don&amp;#039;t want to drag the actualism vocabulary into everything I write, or have to position everything I think or say in relation to actualist terms and concepts. Basically, how anything (or anyone) stands in relation to actualism is something I don&amp;#039;t intend to make my problem any more.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 10 Feb 2014 23:18:35 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5197019</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-10T23:18:35Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5193090</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Part of the PCE is that everything you are experiencing is actual, i.e. actually existing in and of itself. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If that were to be the case, then everyone who has a PCE should describe the universe in the same way because they experience the actual.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 08 Feb 2014 18:46:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5193090</guid> <dc:creator>Change A.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-08T18:46:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5193087</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;No, it boils down to nothing + a wide variety of possible somethings.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was talking about at the microscopic level, so it would be just elementary particles. But who knows if they are composed of something else. These elementary particles then give rise to a wide variety of possible somethings but even then, they have lot of nothing in them.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 08 Feb 2014 18:44:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5193087</guid> <dc:creator>Change A.</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-08T18:44:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: How meditation helped me to manage acute pain.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5193009</link> <description>Good job! Breakdown the physical pain into vibrations. Curiosity is also very helpful.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 08 Feb 2014 16:50:24 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5193009</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-08T16:50:24Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>How meditation helped me to manage acute pain.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5192734</link> <description>I know, this is a mundane effect of my meditation practice, but I think it is worth sharing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I broke an ankle some days ago and found myself in the emergency room with four guys trying to force fix it without painkillers before x-rays.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I had been practicing Samatha and Vipassana before for about 1.5 hrs/day for 3-4 months, after reading MCTB.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, I was expecting excruciating pain during the process. Well, the pain came but as I started to focus on sensation it became bearable. The interesting part is that they didn&amp;#039;t manage to fix the broken bones in their very place and had to refix it after x-rays, with the same painful brutal procedure. Well, the second time, I was looking for it with a sort of curiosity, if not anticipating pleasure. The guys were trying to talk to me to keep my focus out of the operation, but i laughed and told them to do whatever is to be done and I took it with indifference.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I found out during this experience, by surveying my mental state during the process, that the most painful thing regarding pain is not pain in itself, but the thoughts on the bad effects the source of the pain must be having on the body. The mind fears that the cause of the pain is highly harmful and threatens survival. As long as one inspects the process of pain, trying to refrain only to it and, most important, to ignore the speculations of the mind relative to the body damage which underlies it, the pain becomes not relevant and quite bearable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An important note is that I was helped to undergo that level of pain by not scratching my itches during my meditation sittings. I had been trying to determine their scope, duration and acuity and keep on concentrating with this itchy background until they become irrelevant to my attention. Also, not changing position in spite of muscular pain during sitting was of great help.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would dare to say that a well trained meditator could undergo even torture without much inner discomfort.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 08 Feb 2014 11:11:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5192734</guid> <dc:creator>Iulian Doroftei</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-08T11:11:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5191952</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;. Jake .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, JC, the method of Actualism isn&amp;#039;t asking how one is experiencing this moment. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s not? That seems to be how it&amp;#039;s &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;dharma-wiki&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;wiki&amp;#x2f;Main&amp;#x2f;Actualism&amp;#x3f;p_r_p_185834411_title&amp;#x3d;Actualism"&gt;generally described.&lt;/a&gt; What is it then?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 07 Feb 2014 21:27:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5191952</guid> <dc:creator>J C</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-07T21:27:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5191949</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;J C:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;J C:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I don&amp;#039;t understand how it&amp;#039;s these views that preclude them from actualism. There are many offputting factors regarding AF and Richard, but simply asking how you&amp;#039;re experiencing each moment shouldn&amp;#039;t be precluded by ontological beliefs.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This ontological belief precludes one from experiencing a PCE and using that experience to guide one down that path.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t understand how that&amp;#039;s possible, unless you define a PCE as including ontological beliefs. I thought everyone had experienced a PCE before? How do these abstract ideas prevent the experience?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Part of the PCE is that everything you are experiencing is actual, i.e. actually existing in and of itself. This is not an ontological belief or something that comes in the form of thoughts during the experience, rather, it is part of the experience. If you have an experience that you call a PCE yet part of the experience isn&amp;#039;t that everything you are experiencing is actual, then it is not a PCE, it&amp;#039;s simply a different experience, perhaps resembling the PCE in many ways.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If one has the ontological belief that nothing exists in and of itself outside of interpretation then one would argue the PCE is at best a viewpoint and at worst a delusion - thus one would of course not follow it to see where it leads.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I commented on this earlier: I don&amp;#039;t understand how you can experience with sensory input that things are there independent of sensory input. That seems contradictory. The experience itself can&amp;#039;t tell you whether or not everything is actual: it might seem actual, but it remains to be determined whether that perception is correct or not.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How do we distinguish between the following two experiences:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. A PCE, in which, by definition, everything you experience is actual.&lt;br /&gt;2. An experience that seems exactly like a PCE -- we can call it PCE&amp;#039; -- except that what you experience isn&amp;#039;t actually actual. It just seems like it. The PCE feels the same, every perception and sensation is the same, but the truth of the matter is that what you experience is not actual.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Or, in other words, how do you know you&amp;#039;re not dreaming about having a PCE?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The experience of perceiving things as actual is just that, an experience. What you do with that experience or how you interpret it is a separate question. And regardless of your beliefs, an experience like either of those is intriguing enough that I&amp;#039;d expect many people would of course follow it to see where it leads. Nothing prevents someone from having a genuine PCE but incorrectly thinking it&amp;#039;s a PCE&amp;#039;, or not being sure whether it&amp;#039;s a PCE or PCE&amp;#039;.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 07 Feb 2014 21:25:59 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5191949</guid> <dc:creator>J C</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-07T21:25:59Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5191644</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;J C:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;J C:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I don&amp;#039;t understand how it&amp;#039;s these views that preclude them from actualism. There are many offputting factors regarding AF and Richard, but simply asking how you&amp;#039;re experiencing each moment shouldn&amp;#039;t be precluded by ontological beliefs.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This ontological belief precludes one from experiencing a PCE and using that experience to guide one down that path.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t understand how that&amp;#039;s possible, unless you define a PCE as including ontological beliefs. I thought everyone had experienced a PCE before? How do these abstract ideas prevent the experience?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Part of the PCE is that everything you are experiencing is actual, i.e. actually existing in and of itself. This is not an ontological belief or something that comes in the form of thoughts during the experience, rather, it is part of the experience. If you have an experience that you call a PCE yet part of the experience isn&amp;#039;t that everything you are experiencing is actual, then it is not a PCE, it&amp;#039;s simply a different experience, perhaps resembling the PCE in many ways.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If one has the ontological belief that nothing exists in and of itself outside of interpretation then one would argue the PCE is at best a viewpoint and at worst a delusion - thus one would of course not follow it to see where it leads.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Everything is actual... experiencing that everything is actual... doesn&amp;#039;t preclude everything from actually being empty of solid-seperate essence that defines it as what it is. Every actual thing could as easily be defined as a particular way that Universe interfaces with itself. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, the distinction between artifacts and self-organizing systems is really significant I think, both to be able to critique classical buddhist notions of &amp;#039;emptiness&amp;#039; and contemporary forms of realism, becuase there is no way that cars and other artifacts exist &amp;#039;out there&amp;#039; beyond experience *at all*, although, some aspects of them do (i.e., the non-cultural, purely material aspects), and not seeing this is actually kind of funny, especially in a conversation about what actually exists and how. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So... who says that the experience of things actually existing necessarily means that they exist as solid seperate essentially defined things and when you admit that things are ever-changing and exist contextually in relation to other things, what makes you think your view is so different from that of emptiness?/ Unless you are just committed to the notion that you indeed have a very very differenmt view, 180 degrees different...?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 07 Feb 2014 20:17:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5191644</guid> <dc:creator>. Jake .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-07T20:17:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Finding the right practice</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5191637</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;J C:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John Wilde:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Adam . .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;who are you referring to when you say &amp;#034;our&amp;#034;?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I mean us, the people who have contributed to the thread. Like you said, I&amp;#039;d &amp;#034;question whether these differences have any operation in a persons daily life&amp;#034;. I think we&amp;#039;d experience things like trees and tennis balls and selective attention video clips in pretty similar ways, so whatever is driving a wedge between us is more philosophical than experiential.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well, you &amp;amp; Bruno&amp;#039;s views preclude you from actualism, so... that&amp;#039;s more than just a philosophical difference. Or maybe you and/or Bruno adopted these views in order to preclude yourselves from actualism? Clearly Bruno did not think this way until he was &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;2802092"&gt;put off actualism by some unnamed person who supplied him with some unspoken about evidence&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t understand how it&amp;#039;s these views that preclude them from actualism. There are many offputting factors regarding AF and Richard, but simply asking how you&amp;#039;re experiencing each moment shouldn&amp;#039;t be precluded by ontological beliefs.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This ontological belief precludes one from experiencing a PCE and using that experience to guide one down that path.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So you think neither Bruno nor John have experienced a PCE?Or just that harboring this view, they no longer will? If so, I wonder what they would say about that. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, JC, the method of Actualism isn&amp;#039;t asking how one is experiencing this moment. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And, it is certainly possible for a view to condition the significance one attributes to a given experience such as the PCE, and thus the view conditions the path one is likely to follow, or the way in which one is guided by what is apparently revealed in given experiences.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 07 Feb 2014 20:09:16 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5191637</guid> <dc:creator>. Jake .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-02-07T20:09:16Z</dc:date> </item> </channel> </rss> 