<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Concentration</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_category?p_l_id=&amp;mbCategoryId=10274</link> <description>A place to discuss topics related to concentration practices, such as samatha, shamatha, jhana, dyana, kasinas, divine abodes (Brahmaviharas) and the like.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 19 Oct 2014 00:51:00 GMT</pubDate> <dc:date>2014-10-19T00:51:00Z</dc:date> <item> <title>An interesting discovery re: concentration always leading up the maps</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606735</link> <description>I would like some feedback on something I just noticed today in sitting:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the past (especially post A&amp;amp;P) I have never been able to concentrate reliably in a way that leads to stronger concentration, without zipping up the maps (and my 3rd and 6-10 nanas tend to be extemely rough - even my A&amp;amp;P is rough for some reason nowdays)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- So the issue for me tends to be then that I get stuck somewhere in the DN, everything gets sticky, etc and I never seem to be able to make progress or disembed from any of those states long enough to get up to 11th nana. My gut feeling is that either I need an x day retreat with solid noting or I need to build concentration before &amp;#039;using it up&amp;#039; so to speak. So far I have been cyling between building up some unification of mind then blowing it all on insight, which seems to allow for progress but in a very slow way... &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I continue to try to discover how this mind works, how I can use it more skillfully.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What I discovered today, and would like to know if this is true for anyone else (or if they noticed it) - is that when I have been &amp;#039;concentrating&amp;#039; I push into the object/raw sensations too hard and also tend to allow the self, or the feeling/belief of &amp;#039;me focusing on that&amp;#039; fade away and of course what happens is things get rough, itchy/burny/ then neck movements/contractions/shaking then eventually go non-dual and superfast (A&amp;amp;P) - and then on from there in a typical maps pattern. (although it is extremely painful to do it that way for some reason)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What I found is that I could keep myself from going that way(up the maps) and charge up the concentration better if I did NOT allow the feeling/belief of &amp;#039;I am focusing on that&amp;#039; to slip away while doing it...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Does that make sense then? First Jhana/access still incudes the nonverbal duality while second and by association A&amp;amp;P drops it? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If thats the case then the reason I have been unable to concentrate for so long is that I am either allowing the duality to slip away or pushing it away enough to go in that direction. I will experiment with this more of course but does that seem to jive with other people&amp;#039;s experience?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 16:59:25 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606735</guid> <dc:creator>bill of the wandering mind</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T16:59:25Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Did I almost reach jhana? I got scared...</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606721</link> <description>What was this strange feeling like?  Jhana is exceedingly pleasant, IME, &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/closed_eyes.gif" &gt; but piti is described in a number of strange ways in the progress of insight, which might be startling if you aren&amp;#039;t expecting it.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 16:34:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606721</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T16:34:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Did I almost reach jhana? I got scared...</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606698</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;rich r a:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I&amp;#039;ve only been meditating on a regular schedule for 2 weeks... is it something that my head decided to make up?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Is thinking you&amp;#039;ve entered a jhana something your head decided to make up? Sure sounds like it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;rich r a:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It also occurred to me that it would be extremely beneficial to me to have a teacher. What is the best way to find a teacher who is knowledgable about jhana? I am in the bay area in cali if that helps.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Shaila Catherine is in Mountain View. She trained with Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw and has written a few books on the subject. You might try to attend her weekly sits.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 15:15:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606698</guid> <dc:creator>Small Steps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T15:15:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Did I almost reach jhana? I got scared...</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606691</link> <description>Leigh Brasington is a knowledgeable jhana teacher. I highly recommend his retreats. You can ask him questions about your practice during the interviews.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 14:57:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606691</guid> <dc:creator>Derek Cameron</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T14:57:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What if breathing isn't pleasurable?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606576</link> <description>Oh it&amp;#039;s not painful, you&amp;#039;re right, it&amp;#039;s more annoying than anything. I was just kind of wondering from a hypothetical perspective. Does somebody who has to experience a lot of physical pain have a harder time achieving jhana? And can something that is painful be turned into something pleasant through concentration, and jhana can be achieved by focusing on an object that is initially painful?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you for your post by the way. The idea that the key is concentration itself that brings about pleasure and leads to jhana made things a lot more clear to me.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 02:17:26 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606576</guid> <dc:creator>rich r a</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T02:17:26Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Did I almost reach jhana? I got scared...</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606569</link> <description>There&amp;#039;s no way I could be near jhana, right? This has to be all in my head?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve only been meditating on a regular schedule for 2 weeks, though I have been reading about it for years. Just now, after about 30minutes into my session, I had a new and somewhat frightening experience.I felt my concentration on my breath getting stronger and deeper. Then for a couple seconds I started to feel an overwhelming feeling throughout my body. It wasn&amp;#039;t bliss, but perhaps it could have been if I let it. Instead, I got scared and felt anxiety and fear. Then I was too confused and weirded out to continue the session so I ended it, and here I am typing this post up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This has never happened to me. I&amp;#039;m usually a very grounded person so I am kind of shocked that I experienced fear. I thought I would embrace that experience, not be fearful of it. One of the main reason I started meditating again was because I wanted to experience something out of the ordinary, and now I am being fearful of it...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What do you guys think happened to me? Can it really be a glimpse into jhana? Or is it something that my head decided to make up?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It also occurred to me that it would be extremely beneficial to me to have a teacher. What is the best way to find a teacher who is knowledgable about jhana? I am in the bay area in cali if that helps.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 02:14:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606569</guid> <dc:creator>rich r a</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T02:14:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What if breathing isn't pleasurable?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606478</link> <description>Haha, well I just thought your clogged nostril was more annoying than painful.  I don&amp;#039;t think you&amp;#039;ll get to jhana by focusing on unpleasant things.  Acceptance of annoying things and concentration on something in the present will take you to jhana, though.  I was just trying to point out that it&amp;#039;s the stable awareness, not the object of awareness, that&amp;#039;s important.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 19:30:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606478</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-17T19:30:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What if breathing isn't pleasurable?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606431</link> <description>Thanks for the quick replies guys.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So it is not that the breathing needs to be pleasurable, but rather, concentration itself becomes pleasurable. Is this the general consensus that everyone agrees on to reach the first jhana?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So hypothetically speaking, if I were to choose an unpleasant or painful object, such as a severe itch or ache on my body, can jhana be just as attainable if I focus on those spots? Would the pain or unpleasantness turn into something pleasant just from the concentration on the object?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;d actually rather not switch objects just because I&amp;#039;ve been doing the breath for so long, and it indeed is easier to keep my concentration on it because the unpleasantness of it draws my attention to it more. But I wonder if this is holding me back?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 15:44:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606431</guid> <dc:creator>rich r a</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-17T15:44:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What if breathing isn't pleasurable?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606392</link> <description>The key to jhana seems to be stability of attention.  It isn&amp;#039;t that you try to make the breath pleasant, so much as concentration itself is pleasant, and most people are watching the breath.  If you have any pleasant sensation anywhere, you can simply watch that.  If nothing seems pleasant, just watch anything at all - whatever captures your attention most easily.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My first forrays into jhana were accidental. I was a teenager, and I was trying to learn telekinesis (hehe).  I was staring at a psi wheel for about 10 minutes, and I began to notice how incredibly beautiful it was.  I looked around and everything was glowing vibrantly with color.  I didn&amp;#039;t know what it was at the time.  Later on, when I started meditating, I liked to do body scanning - where I just placed attention on different body parts in sequence for a few seconds - and after a while each thing became very pleasant until the whole body was buzzing with pleasurable tingles.  From there concentration is very easy, so you can just go along for the ride.  It seems very easy just to stay with anything once you&amp;#039;ve stabilized the awareness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So you can concentrate on anything at all, just remember it&amp;#039;s the act of stabilizing your attention that makes the jhana, not any particular object or sensation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A good way to think about it is trying to stop a train that&amp;#039;s going down hill.  The movement of attention has its own weight and momentum, so the first few minutes of applying the breaks might not make a noticable difference when you first start.  Try not to think of it like you&amp;#039;re vieing for control over your mind, but rather you&amp;#039;re slowing it down with every moment of sustained awareness of a single thing.  Every time you notice you aren&amp;#039;t concentrating, just hold the attention on something.  You will get carried off by the momentum again, but then you&amp;#039;ll have a moment of clarity, and you use that to go directly back to the object.  There&amp;#039;s no reason to scold yourself or anything because that&amp;#039;s just keeping your foot away from the brakes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lastly, if you find your clogged nose distracting, that means you&amp;#039;re already focused on it, so why not just use that as your object of concentration.  &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/closed_eyes.gif" &gt;  Anything can become pleasant if you keep your mind open to the possibility.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 10:45:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606392</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-17T10:45:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What if breathing isn't pleasurable?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606389</link> <description>Another popular object is a visual object called a kasina.  This can be a colored circle drawn on something or a candle flame or other light source shined into the eyes.  After staring at the light the eyes can be closed and then the after-image on the retina can be concentrated on.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 10:42:08 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606389</guid> <dc:creator>Tom Tom</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-17T10:42:08Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What if breathing isn't pleasurable?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606347</link> <description>Samatha (pure &amp;#034;concentration&amp;#034;) practice should be pleasurable/blissful, yes. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Proper samatha should suppress the 5 hindrances of sense desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness, and doubt.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This forum doesn&amp;#039;t seem to talk about the 5 factors of samatha much (probably because the focus here is geared toward vipassana), but the 5 factors of jhana are vitakka (applied thinking)-vicara (sustained thinking) and piti (rapture)-sukkha (bliss) and ekagatta (one-pointedness).  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the first jhana these 5 factors arise and the 5 hindrances are suppressed.  Each subsequent jhana eliminates the factors as a more and more refined level of absorption is obtained.  In the second jhana the forceful attention (vitakka-vicara) is dropped.  In the third jhana the piti (rapture) is dropped.  In the fourth jhana the sukkha (bliss) is dropped and the result is a very refined state of equanimity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In practice all of this happens automatically whenever an object is selected and concentration on that object is maintained for a significant length of time.  Knowing all of this terminology is unnecessary, but helpful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt; My sinuses cause my nostrils to alternate so usually only one is open at a time. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Is this going to be a problem to achieving jhana? Or can I learn to find some kind of pleasantry in the sensation of breathing if I spend more time being mindful of it?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t have any significant trouble with sinuses (though sometimes), but often I would notice that at certain stages one or the other nostril would inhale more air than another.  There is probably some kind of &amp;#034;meditative-energetic&amp;#034; correlation as to which nostril is inhaling, but I&amp;#039;m not sure what this is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If the nose is not working for you as an object of meditation, then pretty much any other object concentrated on for long enough will produce jhana.  Another popular spot is concentrating on the belly a little bit below the navel.  You might want to try the belly as an object instead of the nostrils.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 08:22:25 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606347</guid> <dc:creator>Tom Tom</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-17T08:22:25Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>What if breathing isn't pleasurable?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606333</link> <description>Hi everyone. I read the stickied thread of this forum, and it mentioned that the key to achieving the first jhana is to focus on pleasant sensations.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is news to me, I didn&amp;#039;t pleasure was a requirement for jhana. I always thought all I needed was to cultivate my mindfulness and concentration.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The issue is that for some reason, I have developed a distaste for breathing out my left nostril. I&amp;#039;ve seen doctors about it and they said it&amp;#039;s not too abnormal to require surgery. Anyway, at this point i don&amp;#039;t have money for that. It&amp;#039;s not necessarily painful, it just feels clogged up and unpleasant to breath through. My sinuses cause my nostrils to alternate so usually only one is open at a time. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Is this going to be a problem to achieving jhana? Or can I learn to find some kind of pleasantry in the sensation of breathing if I spend more time being mindful of it?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 07:47:09 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606333</guid> <dc:creator>rich r a</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-17T07:47:09Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Mapping Metta practice, first try</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605451</link> <description>Thanks Bernd for your summary. Have you considered coupling Metta with energetic practices (Heart Chakra)? Also, Daniel mentions in MCTB that there&amp;#039;s a concentration factor arising while chanting/praying (couldn&amp;#039;t find the page, it&amp;#039;s near to where he describes candle concentration practices), I think he mentions how ecos, voice distorsions and &amp;#034;automatic praying&amp;#034; are linked to jhanas. </description> <pubDate>Wed, 15 Oct 2014 15:27:16 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605451</guid> <dc:creator>Pablo . P</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-15T15:27:16Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Mapping Metta practice, first try</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604326</link> <description>I find it useful for dealing with ruminating about enemies. Some people can really mistreat you and the amygdala is going to zero in on that. Metta can help to relieve the constant revenge thinking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here are some opinions and reservations I have on metta:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;li&gt;Being a doormat to domineering people. This is where an understanding of compassionate wrath can help so that anger is directed towards self-defence but without becoming a monster to defeat one. Many people I&amp;#039;ve talked to have rolled their eyes at giving love to all people and they might attack you more if you give them love. Narcissists (I&amp;#039;ve met too many of those) want serotonin from you, not oxytocin.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;It&amp;#039;s conditioned so if there&amp;#039;s any lapse in practice the skills fade. &lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;It doesn&amp;#039;t remove clinging like insight does, and you can cling to the practice itself.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Welcoming unpleasant thoughts/sensations did a better job than metta and it was just an attitude adjustment. This is especially when you note mind states and welcome them. Resisting of any kind is simply more aversion.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;With a reduction of clinging compassion is easier to do (if you&amp;#039;re capable of it because some are psychopaths and cannot develop metta no matter what). It&amp;#039;s impossible to be compasisonate if you&amp;#039;re irritated. When there&amp;#039;s less irritation then compassion comes natural to people with normal brains who meditate. Irritations related to preferences are what block the metta from naturally arising.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Metta can be a form of repression if a person is simply pushing positive thinking on top of negative thinking like a blunt instrument.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Metta works better with insight in tandem just like concentration can aid insight. If you develop metta but don&amp;#039;t cling to the results that should improve the practice. &lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Giving metta to the 4 foundations of mindfulness / 5 aggregates I think has some real value similar to welcoming and helps break down the sense of self at the same time.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Seeing things as cause and effect instead of deficiencies can reduce a lot of stress when cultivating metta seems impossible.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;</description> <pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 03:43:31 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604326</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-14T03:43:31Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Mapping Metta practice, first try</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604280</link> <description>Glad you are beating the drum for Metta practice.   It keeps my core practice moving along smoothly.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 23:30:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604280</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T23:30:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What is the most efficient way of practicing metta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604276</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;katy steger:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Posty scripty: In my opinion, Ivan raises a good point which is often antipated in meditational practice; along side the risks of developing arrogance and strong self-reference, and/or exagerrated dissociation, one can develop a depression, like depressed power in will, &amp;#034;will power&amp;#034;, the will to act/move/ do/plan/be anything other than be. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So if a person has a lot of the habit of negative (self-)thinking when they also realise the unreliable happiness in anything (&amp;#034;dukkha&amp;#034;) these two ways of perception can compound and make one perceive very badly, very sadly, very madly. So certain meditation is not for everyone all the time-- and buddhist meditation is sometimes held to its &amp;#034;emptiness&amp;#034; aspect which feels like &amp;#034;nothingness&amp;#034; to the depressed mind. So this is one reason there are advisories/cautions all over the mediation retreat liability forms. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But this is true of any deeply practiced hobby. Look at depression in any mastery/master and one will see the wrenching discovery &amp;#034;Is this a worthwile activity? Am I worthwhile? What is worthwhile? What if everything is worth nothing?&amp;#034; This is nothinginess realization, not emptiness realization, but these realizations sit super-close to each other in the transitioning actual brain, I think.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So one way metta helps is it&amp;#039;s an activity, an active training for the brain that&amp;#039;s just had its pleasure source removed or undermined. In one way, it&amp;#039;s similar to giving a person &amp;#034;the patch&amp;#034; when they quit smoking, except that is a passive relief.  Metta is an active relief. So it is more like telling a person after bariatric surgery: now let&amp;#039;s exercise. Let&amp;#039;s show the brain that there are many ways to pleasure and effort is one of the best. That effort is just one part of metta. Metta comes from the word &amp;#034;Mitto&amp;#034; which means &amp;#034;friend&amp;#034; in Pali... so &amp;#034;friendliness&amp;#034; is the practice effort of metta. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This metta, friendliness saturating perception or just having the ability to occasionally draw from it, can be useful to self and others as one is embarking on more &amp;#034;What is life? What am I? What is perception? What is worth? What is this? Where has pleasure gone? When pleasure goes, does it leave behind pain of no-pleasure...What is life? What am I? What are you? Is this worthwhile?&amp;#034; investigations. Because sometimes its very, very hard discovering the unreliablity of pleasure in many of one&amp;#039;s actions and even one&amp;#039;s worldview. A hard crumbing can happen before the curiosity and living re-start-- sort of where the (re)new(ed) practice starts after the floor gets torn up. It can be very hard.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Ivan-- this is just a context around what you&amp;#039;ve written in case others are reading and dealing with some heavy side-effects to having perception changes. I&amp;#039;m not sure it would relate to you at all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This topic is wonderful, too, that you&amp;#039;ve raised. It has application all the time. I&amp;#039;ve noticed that before presenting at Buddhist Geeks some presenters have &amp;#034;gotten in shape&amp;#034; (I would, too). What is motivating these meditation leaders to shape up before a conference in which they present? The issue of variable motivation/will, pleasure, and practice-- clearly arises even in these initial teachers of many years. Who is not telegraphing the continuity of own-practice by way of clear signs of cycling in indulgence and restraint? So motivation/will and pleasure are trainings which clear challenge newbies and &amp;#034;teachers of X-years&amp;#034;. Great topic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So motivation and metta are obviously related and not related. Metta will help a mind that&amp;#039;s gotten pleasure from safe-self-sex learn another source of skilfullful pleasure: well wishing and friendliness towards others (which will help the mind feel this way to own-self... where as others-hatred/distain trains the mind in hatred and will train the mind to mock/hate own-self).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And motivation/ will-in-being doing... this is rich &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hello, Katy, just saw this post.   I think you hit the nail on the head.   Positive creative visualization until the mind feels satiated.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 23:26:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604276</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T23:26:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What else is there to obtain except Jhanas and Anatta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602344</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel M. Ingram:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you are really into the question of the powers, regardless of how you think of them: get your concentration really strong using a visualization object and a mantra and then turn towards those experiences and see what happens.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;These experiences arise regardless of whether or not you think of them as &amp;#034;real&amp;#034;. However, as they arise and vanish, they must be causal, meaning that something lead to them and they lead to something. So to exclude them from &amp;#034;reality&amp;#034; while they still have causality involves a pretty limited defininition of &amp;#034;reality&amp;#034;. More important is the question of what they cause and is that of any value, and here the debate gets much more fun.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Use a visualization object and a mantra -&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So would, for example, the mantra &amp;#039;Magic&amp;#039;, and a visualized luminous orb be adequate here? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I.e. recite &amp;#039;Magic&amp;#039; inwardly while attempting to stabilize and clarify the image of the orb in the mind&amp;#039;s eye? And then, once concentration reaches a certain level - access concentration? - jhana? - turn towards those experiences. If so, could you please describe more in detail - what does &amp;#039;turn towards those experiences&amp;#039; mean here? Thanks in advance!</description> <pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2014 15:12:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5602344</guid> <dc:creator>Martin Petersen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-10T15:12:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601061</link> <description>No problem - it&amp;#039;s interesting reading. I wish you well with your practices.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2014 14:08:02 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601061</guid> <dc:creator>R</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-08T14:08:02Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601026</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;R:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Thanks again Colleen. Out of interest why do you describe each practice as negative and positive? I assume you mean your core practice is sitting and the creative is the off the cushion practice.  &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hello, R, I am very happy to see you here on this forum.  I place a high value on beings such as yourself -- not just talking about it, but actually doing it.  Very rare in my vicinity.  Very beautiful.  The Fourth Noble Path is ours now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To answer your question, both practices are essential part of my sitting.  And I am becoming a changed person as a result of my practice... slow, but sure. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My Core Practice is rather aggressive: it has me bringing up scenes from the past and comparing them with things in the present and then putting it back into the past.   Great for minds that like to haunt one with the past and also use the past to project futures.  This was prevalant in my family.  I am very good at that and have no problem picking something to work on.   &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Through Insight Practice I have also seen that my mind has the job of stacking many similar scenes from the past behind anything in the present.   (For example, when I see a tree, I have also seen stacked behind it multitude of layers of past scenes of similar trees -- this is how my mind sees things, and it likes it that way.) My mind cannot live with a simple present. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Reducing the mind is however problematic -- just as problematic as trying to take away something from a two-year old, if you&amp;#039;ve ever lived with a two-year old.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Because as soon as I take something away from the mind -- because this act of &amp;#034;Direct Looking&amp;#034; bleeds off any importance (i.e., psychic mass, body somatics, emotions, thoughts, etc.) attached to the scene -- I better give it something back.   My egoic mind does not like a vacuum of importance, or threats to its status.  &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;aopdD9Cu-So"&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aopdD9Cu-So&lt;/a&gt;  (this vid will give you an idea what it feels like for me sometimes).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I&amp;#039;m only talking about &lt;em&gt;my&lt;/em&gt; mind here which until recently has been runaway compulsive.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I add something -- thus a &amp;#034;positive&amp;#034; practice  -- before I leave the cushion.  I &lt;em&gt;&amp;#034;create an importance&amp;#034;&lt;/em&gt; and put it all around me until it all seems fine and dandy.  It is a type of Metta practice because I also &lt;em&gt;&amp;#034;have another create an importance&amp;#034;&lt;/em&gt; and likewise put that all around me.  That has helped me be more insightful towards the people I interact with.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Technically it would be correct to call it a Metta &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; Insight practice.   I find for me it also informs me as a being that I am always creating and now I can take the reins back, for when I am off the cushion I also like to consciously create things and put them all around me -- better that than have a noisily creating mind. So, it quiets the compulsive create of my mind.  And identification with thoughts.   Makes &amp;#034;Noting&amp;#034; easier, because there is less to note.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I apologize if the reply was &amp;#034;too much information&amp;#034; -- I am often guilty of that.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2014 12:49:09 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601026</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-08T12:49:09Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601008</link> <description>Thanks again Colleen. Out of interest why do you describe each practice as negative and positive? I assume you mean your core practice is sitting and the creative is the off the cushion practice.  </description> <pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2014 11:45:05 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601008</guid> <dc:creator>R</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-08T11:45:05Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600682</link> <description>I honestly don&amp;#039;t see any difference between me and thee and if I got past the initial distraction - you will too.&lt;br /&gt;I am careful to balance my &amp;#034;negative&amp;#034; core practice with my &amp;#034;positive&amp;#034; creative practice so I get off the cushion rather evened out.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 19:20:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600682</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T19:20:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600649</link> <description>Thanks all. I have been trying to let go to a degree by leaving the room where I sit be however it is without trying to have things in sight be a certain way before sitting which is a start so I&amp;#039;ll try and let go some more I guess. Just as acceptance of one thing or other starts to happen something else seems to pop up but I guess the trick is to keep on letting go.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 18:11:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600649</guid> <dc:creator>R</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T18:11:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600590</link> <description>Hello, N.T.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, agreed -- the actual discomfort is good for target practice too.   I first learned that insight when I took the Sedona Method Course and people were upset because they weren&amp;#039;t releasing and they kept trying to figure things out, or get involved in the &amp;#034;story&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;As with that group there are also some compassionately detached guides here too.   Thank you   :-)</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 16:30:59 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600590</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T16:30:59Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600574</link> <description>Something to remember is that it&amp;#039;s not what you&amp;#039;re doing with your body, but rather how you are thinking about it that matters.  If you find yourself stuggling to understand what to do with yourself, that&amp;#039;s probably your most valuable meditation object.  There was a time when I was purposefully making myself uncomfortable because then I had something to let go of, haha.  If you don&amp;#039;t know what to do with your eyes, use that discomfort as your object - you might be suprised what it shows you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You can meditate in any position and any setting - and the advice is usually to do just that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All that said, I understand you&amp;#039;re looking for a specific technique.  It&amp;#039;s just good to keep in mind, I think.  Especially when/if you feel a little flustered.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 16:10:59 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600574</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T16:10:59Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600529</link> <description>re Jenny (10/7/14 1:55 AM as a reply to Chris J Macie.)&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&amp;#034;Unless the OP wants the thread split, I&amp;#039;d say keep it here. This is all interesting and relavent--to me, anyway.&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The further discussion relates to exploring the nature of what I call the &amp;#034;Brasington-Bucknell-StuartFox&amp;#034; model of &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;. This last January, I was at a retreat with Leigh teaching, and asked his sources; he pointed to (&amp;#039;his mentor&amp;#039;) Ayya Khemma, and a paper by Rodney Bucknell. Martin Stuart Fox is an author Bucknell bases his interpretation on (and with whom he has collaborated in other publications). Their papers are available on-line.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I need to go over that stuff again, and compare it with a just-discovered discussion in Ajahn Sujato&amp;#039;s BLog (&amp;#034;Why &lt;em&gt;vitakka&lt;/em&gt; doesn’t mean ‘thinking’ in &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;&amp;#034;). Interpreting &lt;em&gt;&amp;#039;vitakka-vicara&amp;#039;&lt;/em&gt; as simply &amp;#039;thinking&amp;#039; is a key argument in Martin Stuart Fox&amp;#039;s theory of &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt; &amp;#039;as the Buddha really taught it&amp;#039;. So far, I&amp;#039;ve found nothing in Ayya Khemma talks corresponding to Leigh&amp;#039;s views. Also, probably first take a look at what Alexander Wynne has to say, in &amp;#034;The Origin of Buddhist Meditation,&amp;#034; that just came to my attention in a the new thread here in DhO (&amp;#034;RE: Scientific research on the Jhanas&amp;#034;). I&amp;#039;d rather have a good grasp of at least these (conflicting) views before engaging the topic in this forum, where no doubt a host of further views would emerge.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Perhaps there&amp;#039;s also some other, established place in DhO for this kind of historical and textual analysis&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034; I&amp;#039;ve gotten nimittas for nearly a year, but they have never been stable, still, and immeasurable. They are violet and shift to pure white briefly at times. I wonder if something more &amp;#034;immeasurable&amp;#034; is what happened with my vision last night, when it &amp;#034;popped&amp;#034; into total bright light (pale orange, like flame, with my eyes closed).&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My experience also &amp;#x2013; &lt;em&gt;nimitta &lt;/em&gt;experience as unmistakable but not as reliably stable as Pa Auk Sayadaw et al might recommend. While it&amp;#039;s probably not exactly the same issue, the &amp;#039;immeasurability&amp;#039; aspect I believe holds major promise in terms of deepening practice, as it&amp;#039;s clearly crucial in the &lt;em&gt;&amp;#039;arupa&amp;#039;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt; jhanas&lt;/em&gt;, which I have yet to really get into. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is clear that &lt;em&gt;nimitta&lt;/em&gt; figures prominently in &amp;#039;absorption;&amp;#039; as U. Jagara put it, the mind actually absorbs in itself (the &lt;em&gt;nimitta&lt;/em&gt; as &amp;#039;counterpart&amp;#039; mental image of the concentration object). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What you mention (&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&amp;#034;popped&amp;#034; into total bright light&amp;#034;) does seems a little like that moment of absorption (that I referred to as &amp;#034;Bingo!&amp;#034; in my post). Something shifts radically -- suddenly there&amp;#039;s this awesome, engulfing stillness of mental activity like the opening of a vast space, even though sound, light etc. and thought-like sensations often still show up, but not center-stage; more held off at the edges of that space.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As I brought up briefly somewhere in some thread, the Abdhidhamma writers (maybe even tracable back to something from Sariputta) hold that the &amp;#039;mind-moment&amp;#039; of &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt; absorption shares a unique characteristic with the mind-moment of path-fruition &amp;#x2013; called &amp;#039;change-of-lineage&amp;#039;. Namely, mental focus shifts from the concentration object to the mind&amp;#039;s own &lt;em&gt;nimitta&lt;/em&gt; of that object (but this is conditioned, temporary). In the case of path-fruition, shifting to the presence / touch or whatever of&lt;em&gt; Nibbana&lt;/em&gt;, the &amp;#039;Deathless&amp;#039; &amp;#x2013; I can&amp;#039;t say to have experienced such. (Daniel&amp;#039;s rendition of &amp;#039;change-of-lineage&amp;#039; (p.241 in MCTB seems on a more metaphorical, pragmatic level -- less abhidhammic technical.)</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 13:57:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600529</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T13:57:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600451</link> <description>Thank you both.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:10:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600451</guid> <dc:creator>R</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T11:10:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600447</link> <description>Hello, Jenny, yes that is my recent discovery -- that insights come effortlessly with eyes open and my space for my sits is non-distractive.  In fact, I find the walls rather re-assuring while I&amp;#039;m experiencing some wild stuff.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:08:36 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600447</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T11:08:36Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600346</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Chris J Macie:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;This is a major topic on its own, and diverges from the theme of practicing with kasinas, so I will address it in a separate message. (Should it go into a separate or new thread?)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;I&amp;#039;m quite happy for you to continue here (it&amp;#039;s all interesting and related stuff) but if you think it warrants a new thread....up to you. But if you do start a new thread perhaps you can reply here with the link to the other thread for future reference.&lt;br /&gt;Cheers, Piers</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 08:21:03 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600346</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T08:21:03Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Scientific research on the Jhanas</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600342</link> <description>&amp;#034;Very interesting&amp;#034; indeed -- thanks NT for digging this up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From the abstract: &amp;#034;According to an historical-philological hypothesis (Wynne, 2009) the two forms of meditation could be disentangled. While &lt;strong&gt;mindfulness is the focus of Buddhist meditation&lt;/strong&gt; reached by focusing sustained attention on the body, on breathing and on the content of the thoughts, reaching an ineffable state of nothigness accompanied by a loss of sense of self and duality &lt;strong&gt;(Samadhi) is the main focus of Hinduism-inspired meditation&lt;/strong&gt;. It is possible that these different practices activate separate brain networks.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This dichotomy (Buddhist = vipassana, Hindu = samadhi as &amp;#039;selfless&amp;#039; [not &amp;#039;higher self/Brahman?&amp;#039;]), if meant as strict either/or, is surprising -- will have to see how (Alexander) Wynne supports this view, apparently in a book: &amp;#034;The Origin of Buddhist Meditation.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;btw: found a link having a bunch of articles (all downloadable) by this Alexander Wynne:&lt;br /&gt;http://www.ocbs.org/lectures-a-articles-ocbsmain-121/alex-wynne-articles&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is the first I&amp;#039;ve ever heard of this author.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cjm</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 08:15:16 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600342</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T08:15:16Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600325</link> <description>Hi, Chris,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m going to reread what you&amp;#039;ve given here again when it isn&amp;#039;t past bedtime. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Unless the OP wants the thread split, I&amp;#039;d say keep it here. This is all interesting and relavent--to me, anyway.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By the way, I&amp;#039;ve gotten nimittas for nearly a year, but they have never been stable, still, and immeasurable. They are violet and shift to pure white briefly at times. I wonder if something more &amp;#034;immeasurable&amp;#034; is what happened with my vision last night, when it &amp;#034;popped&amp;#034; into total bright light (pale orange, like flame, with my eyes closed).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jenny&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;[Edited &amp;#034;violent&amp;#034; to &amp;#034;violet&amp;#034;]</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 06:50:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600325</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T06:50:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600315</link> <description>Piers,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Last night my sit suddenly became scary, so I had to abort it early. I&amp;#039;m not scared anymore; I was just startled by what happened. I was seeing the purple disc when I closed my eyes, and it suddenly started to grow big and contain little brighter purple sparkles. That was fine, and I was just watching it rapidly grow. Then, with my eyes still closed, my vision suddenly &amp;#034;popped,&amp;#034; making my whole visual field flame-bright orange--scared the hell out of me! I opened my eyes and saw the real flame shooting up high, which also rattled me, but it quickly settled back down to a normal flame height. I blew it out and went to bed. I was trembling, so called this session &amp;#034;done&amp;#034; after only 33 minutes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is a photo I took when the flame had calmed back down; I use a fancy oil lamp that I bought a few years ago.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;portlet_file_entry&amp;#x2f;10128&amp;#x2f;FireKasinaWeb&amp;#x2e;jpg&amp;#x2f;4e125420-2a03-4dfc-b845-69640be1bb16" /&gt;</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 06:37:08 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600315</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T06:37:08Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600293</link> <description>Hi, R,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I attended a Tibetan center throughout my first year of practice. The instructions were simply to let the the eyes rest softly a few feet in front of oneself, on the floor, with eyes half closed and soft (but not forced to be so) focus. If you become drowsy, raise your gaze a bit. However, the Tibetans also told us students not to practice with eyes open for the first 6 months to 2 years--it is easier to avoid distraction with eyes closed. I did find it easier to concentrate with eyes closed for many months, but later, during insight practices, &amp;#034;eyes open&amp;#034; became very helpful to me. I do both--sometimes in a single sitting.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope this helps at least a little bit. Kathleen McDonald has a highly touted book on basic Tibetan-style meditation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jenny</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 05:45:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600293</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T05:45:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Scientific research on the Jhanas</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600237</link> <description>&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;ncbi&amp;#x2e;nlm&amp;#x2e;nih&amp;#x2e;gov&amp;#x2f;pubmed&amp;#x2f;24975229"&gt;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24975229&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is very interesting.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 04:51:55 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600237</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T04:51:55Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Scientific research on the Jhanas</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600229</link> <description>Thanks, hopefully I&amp;#039;ll find something there! &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t like it that there is so much research about such an undefined and broad term such as meditation, but practically none about the more concrete phenomenons and methods that the word meditation includes today.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 04:38:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600229</guid> <dc:creator>Pål</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T04:38:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600177</link> <description>re Nikolai (10/4/14 4:27 PM as a replyto Chris J Macie.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&amp;#034;The idea comes from my own experience…&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Candle flame could be considered the &amp;#039;fire&amp;#039; element, no?&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Fair enough.&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&amp;#034;And the candle flame as the &amp;#039;fire&amp;#039; element cannot be taken like so [&amp;#039;onlyblue, only earth&amp;#039;] ?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Do you think the candle flame could not be taken to be experienced like so [&amp;#039;immeasurable&amp;#039;] ? If so, why? &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Likewise reasonable. Just that the discussion here has focused largely on the variablity in the experience &amp;#x2013; shifting colors, shapes, focus of attention, etc. With no mention of the pure, immeasurable / unbounded qualities. That is, from the discussion here, it appears NOT to be taken as such in how people practice, even though it COULD be. Hence my surprise and inquiry. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Incidentally, in using the BrahmaViharas as object of &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt; &amp;#x2013; a separate but related topic -- the extension of nimitta to immeasurability is essential. How could &lt;em&gt;jhanic&lt;/em&gt; absorption be possible into a verbalizedintention of feeling towards other people (or any &amp;#039;sentient being&amp;#039;)?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, it&amp;#039;s also possible we&amp;#039;re talking here with markedly different definitions of jhana. If the discussion here, your ideas, are based on the Brasington-Bucknell-StuartFox intrepretation, then we&amp;#039;re talking past each other. (More about this below and later.)&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&amp;#034;It is one way to tame the five hindrances as I see it.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Interesting topic. (Presenting a viewpoint from my own experience) Beginning &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt; practice with Shaila Catherine&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;Focused and Fearless&amp;#034;, and several (anapanasati) &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;-retreats she taught, the emphasis was on the discerning, dealing with the 5 hindrances and corresponding &lt;em&gt;jhanic&lt;/em&gt; factors. Progress was slow. Later it became clear that the standard retreat format &amp;#x2013; being with 20-30 (more in some venues) other yogis, in a 40-60min sit, 30min walk, etc. schedule &amp;#x2013; was actually a serious hindrance in itself. The Buddha routinely instructed: &amp;#034;go to an abandoned hut, roots of a tree, a charnal ground…&amp;#034; i.e. into &lt;strong&gt;total seclusion&lt;/strong&gt;; and sit, put-off worldly cares (including timers), etc. to develop &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;. Leaving the meditation hall and sitting in my room, or off in some isolated corner, and for 1+hour periods -- started to get somewhere. Then one retreat with Ven U. Jagara (protégé of Pa Auk Sayadaw) as co-teacher, he emphasized just getting comfortable and going only for the breath, back to it, again and again, getting closer and closer to it, breath sensation gradually becoming mental object (nimitta), closer, deeper, more peaceful, letting-go more and more… holding this direction on and on… then… suddenly but naturally the nimitta &amp;#039;swallows&amp;#039; the mind, the mind &amp;#039;falls into&amp;#039; the nimitta. Bingo! His view / method was to go for the ekaggata, so to speak, and with the intensification of which, the hindrances recede on their own having no room in the mind to operate. That&amp;#039;s a viewpoint, an approach. It happens to work. For others maybe not; maybe vipassana-style pre-occupation with the hindrances and constructing the factors works also.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An interesting footnote: once having a handle on absorption, the issues of external &amp;#039;seclusion&amp;#039; away from the other people ( noises, etc), timed schedules and so on, melted away. On a good day, the internal seclusion (from the senses) can withstand whatever&amp;#039;s going on out there &amp;#x2013; shades of Sariputta sitting in jhana at the side of a road, impervious to &amp;#034;500 chariots roaring by&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Maybe substantial differences ofviewpoint here, but it is gratifying to be able to have suchdiscussions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;leighb&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;jhana_4factors&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000cd"&gt;This factor of ekaggata &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;is from the Abhidhamma and visuddhimagga only, no? Not the &lt;/span&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;leighb&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;jhanatrd&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;suttas&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;? (see links)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; This is a major topic on its own, and diverges from the theme of practicing with kasinas, so I will address it in a separate message. (Should it go into a separate or new thread?)</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 02:10:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600177</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T02:10:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Scientific research on the Jhanas</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599884</link> <description>Until Daniel&amp;#039;s Dream of a New Scientific Journal comes into being, unfortunately not.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You might find what little research there is if you try different search terms, e.g.:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=samadhi</description> <pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2014 18:25:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599884</guid> <dc:creator>Derek Cameron</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-06T18:25:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Scientific research on the Jhanas</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599869</link> <description>Do you know any good studies and/or scientific articles on the jhanas? I&amp;#039;m making an essay about it for school, but I have a hard time finding legit sources on the subject...</description> <pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2014 17:59:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599869</guid> <dc:creator>Pål</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-06T17:59:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599794</link> <description>No advices here, just a sharing of a viewpoint, and I also enjoy seeing it from your viewpoint  :-)&lt;br /&gt;My life is just one short learning curve.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2014 15:24:09 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599794</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-06T15:24:09Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599784</link> <description>Thankyou Colleen - I appreciate your advice. If anyone has any knowledge of the any specific eyes-open instructions - where to rest sight, how much to focus/lack of focus there should be, eyes open or half closed etc that would also be useful. </description> <pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2014 15:01:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599784</guid> <dc:creator>R</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-06T15:01:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599718</link> <description>Hello &amp;#034;R&amp;#034; and kind regards.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As with yourself, it took me many months to get comfortable with doing my insight meditation with eyes open.  Now I really don&amp;#039;t think about it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was told that the purpose of keeping eyes open is that it grounds one more into the &amp;#034;now&amp;#034; -- what is here and now and one can compare whatever the mind is bringing up with the now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sometimes, if I want to get more into my mind to bring something up in more full force, then I temporarily close my eyes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I stopped thinking about how my eyes are open and just keep them open and watch what the mind does and note it.  Noting, bullet point by bullet point, what my mind is doing, without getting swamped by images, emotions, thoughts, etc.   If my mind is coming on too strong then I pull back and observe something in the environment.   If not strong enough, then I briefly close my eyes.   &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyways, I admire you for your devotion and discipline and wish you lots of progress with your practice.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2014 12:39:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599718</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-06T12:39:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Eyes open meditation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599662</link> <description>&lt;span style="color: #333333"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Lucida&amp;#x20;Grande&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Trebuchet&amp;#x20;MS&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Verdana&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Helvetica&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Arial&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;sans-serif"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Hello, I&amp;#039;ve been practicing for about a year and have been trying to do eyes-open sitting the past couple of months as per the instructions from some experienced practitioners in a Tibetan tradition. They didn&amp;#039;t go into too much detail regarding the specifics of what to do with the eyes however - as I understand it there should be some kind of soft focus in the space between the eyes and the floor, possibly with the eyes half closed. I&amp;#039;m finding this a bit tricky even after a few weeks with not knowing how much focussing/lack of focussing to do and how much visual blur is normal when doing this practice as when I relax the eyes I tend to go somewhat cross-eyed and everything seems to start moving around which doesn&amp;#039;t seem ideal. Does anyone know of a link to some detailed instructions regarding what to do regarding eyes-open sitting or any suggestions from anyone who has some good experience with this would be welcome. Many thanks.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2014 11:06:27 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599662</guid> <dc:creator>R</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-06T11:06:27Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599628</link> <description>re Jenny (10/4/14 3:48 PM as a reply toChris J Macie.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;… Jhana, in this way, is elevator up and down to the platforms from which to investigate the 3Cs..&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s a great image &amp;#x2013; seems to summarize the progression Than-Geof presented in what I take to be a description of his own SE. May be useful in practice. Thanks.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;If I remember correctly, yeah, kasina practice is a marginal practice in the Pali Canon.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is odd that the Visudhimagga starts off Jhana instruction with the &lt;em&gt;kasinas&lt;/em&gt;, with earth. Maybe that was a common practice in his time. And the &lt;em&gt;anapanasati&lt;/em&gt; approach, which seems most popular and accessible (the breath is right there; you don&amp;#039;t have to go through the extra work of making a physical &lt;em&gt;kasina&lt;/em&gt; object), is buried way down in the list. I don&amp;#039;t recall Buddhagosa presenting any rationale for the ordering in his exposition.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2014 09:27:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599628</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-06T09:27:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599504</link> <description>Nikolai:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&amp;#039;The difference&amp;#039; you talk of is best not told to you but you play with it yourself. That way if you trully see it doesn&amp;#039;t trigger results you want, then there is no second guessing and you move on to what does (or doesn&amp;#039;t) work and so on. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;The more one is able to keep attention in one place, the more one can see, and the sublter stuff comes to the surface as well as how &amp;#039;attention&amp;#039; is working in the moment. There are many ways to do this. The more curiouser an object the more interesting and magnetic it is for attention to move continuously towards. See how attention is operating. Is it bouncing about? Is it segreating and cutting up the field of experience? Is it stable? Is it all over the place? So much good stuff to mine here. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Experiment: try finding a strong light somewhere, preferably from one of those old globes (the energy saving ones). Stare at it. See if you can find a viewpoint (you may have to squint eyes or look to side or some other shuffling of view) of the light till you see the rays and reflected light. See if you can ssee the rainbow colours, then see if you can see refracteded light within the refracted light. (even if this is not possible, be curious about what more sublte details you can see. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;While doing this post-path, I was able to trigger some very interested mindstates that were very conducive for progress. The more you learn to fabricate, the more you know how far fabrication can take you, and the more fabrication you can develop dispassion towards and see drop. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks, Nick. Great response. The last time I worked with the candle flame, I did in fact notice all these rays that shot out like long sticks of hard, uncooked vermicilli. I was using a mantra, too, and I noticed that the rays popped out longer in rhythm with the mantra, the low notes making them shoot out ridiculously far. By keeping with the mantra, I was able to make the rays stabilize at their very long length. So I guess I wasn&amp;#039;t off task, after all. Good to know that I&amp;#039;m not supposed to be getting X result but rather experimenting and learning organically. Nice! And thank you again; I know that you are very busy these days.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jenny&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2014 03:13:10 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599504</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-06T03:13:10Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599324</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jenny:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Nikolai:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&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;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;I&amp;#039;m pretty confident that they can get one to 1st jhana.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;leighb&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;jhana_4factors&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;This factor of ekaggata &lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;is from the Abhidhamma and visuddhimagga only, no? Not the &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;leighb&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;jhanatrd&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;suttas&lt;/a&gt;? (see links) &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;Nick&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi, Nick,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My current cutting edge in jhanas is the 5th one, Boundless Space, which, since SE I repeatedly go to automatically, often racing through or even seemingly skipping the others. So I am not quite a beginner in the sense that I get hard jhana states up through Boundless Space. You aren&amp;#039;t suggesting that kasina practice is just for beginners who are trying to get first jhana, are you? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;I only ever used a candle flame, a blue breakfast bowl and a toilet roll where the light from under the door could come through as kasina-like objects mostly pre-1st path. Post 1st path, concentration levels and jhana access where freakly naturally high. I simply then dropped using the kasina props and played with the power of &amp;#039;intention&amp;#039; to absorb (or not) more in each jhana. It is up to each person to decide what works and what doesn&amp;#039;t for them. Experiment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In MCTB Daniel documents one or two of his experiences with fire kasina, states that it is one of his favorite meditations, and states that he was a very advanced practitioner when doing these practices. I&amp;#039;m still wondering whether there is something different or special about the kasina practices. In other words, if I&amp;#039;m already able to get 5th jhana with breath meditation, what difference can this particular practice make.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&amp;#039;The difference&amp;#039; you talk of is best not told to you but you play with it yourself. That way if you trully see it doesn&amp;#039;t trigger results you want, then there is no second guessing and you move on to what does (or doesn&amp;#039;t) work and so on. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For background, my current best guess, as that of those who follow my journal, is that I&amp;#039;m just past Review of first path and am now working second path. Since SE I&amp;#039;ve been suddenly quite interested in strengthening my concentration to the extent possible and exploring the powers. Thanks in advance for your help!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;The more one is able to keep attention in one place, the more one can see, and the sublter stuff comes to the surface as well as how &amp;#039;attention&amp;#039; is working in the moment. There are many ways to do this. The more curiouser an object the more interesting and magnetic it is for attention to move continuously towards. See how attention is operating. Is it bouncing about? Is it segreating and cutting up the field of experience? Is it stable? Is it all over the place? So much good stuff to mine here. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Experiment: try finding a strong light somewhere, preferably from one of those old globes ( ot the energy saving ones). Stare at it. See if you can find a viewpoint (you may have to squint eyes or look to side or some other shuffling of view) of the light till you see the rays and reflected light. See if you can ssee the rainbow colours, then see if you can see refracteded light within the refracted light. (even if this is not possible, be curious about what more sublte details you can see. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;While doing this post-path, I was able to trigger some very interested mindstates that were very conducive for progress. The more you learn to fabricate, the more you know how far fabrication can take you, and the more fabrication you can develop dispassion towards and see drop. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jenny&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;Experiment!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;Nick&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sun, 05 Oct 2014 20:44:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599324</guid> <dc:creator>Nikolai .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-05T20:44:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5598477</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Nikolai:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&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;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;I&amp;#039;m pretty confident that they can get one to 1st jhana.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;leighb&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;jhana_4factors&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;This factor of ekaggata &lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;is from the Abhidhamma and visuddhimagga only, no? Not the &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;leighb&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;jhanatrd&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;suttas&lt;/a&gt;? (see links) &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;Nick&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi, Nick,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My current cutting edge in jhanas is the 5th one, Boundless Space, which, since SE I repeatedly go to automatically, often racing through or even seemingly skipping the others. So I am not quite a beginner in the sense that I get hard jhana states up through Boundless Space. You aren&amp;#039;t suggesting that kasina practice is just for beginners who are trying to get first jhana, are you? In MCTB Daniel documents one or two of his experiences with fire kasina, states that it is one of his favorite meditations, and states that he was a very advanced practitioner when doing these practices. I&amp;#039;m still wondering whether there is something different or special about the kasina practices. In other words, if I&amp;#039;m already able to get 5th jhana with breath meditation, what difference can this particular practice make.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For background, my current best guess, as that of those who follow my journal, is that I&amp;#039;m just past Review of first path and am now working second path. Since SE I&amp;#039;ve been suddenly quite interested in strengthening my concentration to the extent possible and exploring the powers. Thanks in advance for your help!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jenny</description> <pubDate>Sun, 05 Oct 2014 05:52:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5598477</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-05T05:52:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597897</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Chris J Macie:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;re &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;c&amp;#x2f;my_sites&amp;#x2f;view&amp;#x3f;groupId&amp;#x3d;1331536&amp;#x26;privateLayout&amp;#x3d;0"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;u&gt;Piers M &lt;/u&gt;&lt;/a&gt;(9/16/14 6:15 AM )&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Okay, so the last few days I’ve tried the Candle Kasina meditation. I’ve followed the advice given by Nikolai . in this link: …&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Where does this conception of &amp;#039;kasina&amp;#039; meditation come from (in the link from &amp;#034;The Yogi Toolbox,&amp;#034; and as apparently commonly agreed upon in this forum)? No sources, written or oral are mentioned there. I ask on the chance that there is, in fact, some tradition that uses &amp;#039;&lt;em&gt;kasina&lt;/em&gt;&amp;#039; in this sense, as a sort of &lt;em&gt;vipassana&lt;/em&gt; practice (noting changing stuff), and using &amp;#034;momentary concentration&amp;#034; (&lt;em&gt;khanika-samadhi&lt;/em&gt;), which is similar to access-concentration and s/t taught in the context of &lt;em&gt;vipassana&lt;/em&gt; meditation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Chris,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The idea comes from my own experience and take, from my own experiments and analysis in and of  practice. Thus no sources, written or oral are mentioned there. Whatever works goes into the yogi toolbox. It worked for me in getting to the place I wanted to get to, so to speak, in practice. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I&amp;#039;m curious because this is different from the &lt;em&gt;kasina&lt;/em&gt; practices in the Theravada Pali Canon (both the Suttas and the commentaries):&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First, there were traditionally 10 kasina objects &amp;#x2013; the 4 Great Elements (earth, water, fire, air/wind); 4 colors (blue,  yellow,  red and white); plus space and light (or s/t consciousness). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;Candle flame could be considered the &amp;#039;fire&amp;#039; element, no?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Second, each was considered a pure phenomenon, i.e. only earth,… only blue,…; that is, as exclusive, one-pointed object, to the exclusion (&amp;#034;seclusion&amp;#034;, s/t considered suppression of all other objects), i.e. as an object for absorptive concentration (&lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;And the candle flame as the &amp;#039;fire&amp;#039; element cannot be taken like so?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Third, the respective object (or rather the mind&amp;#039;s corresponding &lt;em&gt;nimitta&lt;/em&gt;) is cultivated to fill consciousness, and then to be &amp;#039;&lt;strong&gt;extended&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;#039; beyond all boundaries, all limits, to become an &amp;#039;immeasurable&amp;#039; experience. The term is &lt;em&gt;kasina-ayatana&lt;/em&gt; &amp;#x2013; &lt;em&gt;ayatana&lt;/em&gt; as in the term for the 4 &amp;#039;higher&amp;#039; &lt;em&gt;jhanas&lt;/em&gt;, which also use &amp;#039;unbounded&amp;#039; objects (in fact, 2 of those are in the &lt;em&gt;kasina&lt;/em&gt; list). In the suttas (in AN, DN, MN), the expression is (in one English rendering) &amp;#034;one perceives [the &lt;em&gt;kasina&lt;/em&gt; object] above, below, on all sides, undivided, unbounded.&amp;#034; In the Visudhimagga (commentaries) extending the sign (&lt;em&gt;nimitta&lt;/em&gt;) was described in more detail (Chapter IV, 126ff). Note: the Brahma-Viharas (goodwill, compassion,…) also were, for G.Buddha, &amp;#034;immeasureables&amp;#034;, and as such among the possible objects of &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt; absorption.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;Do you think the candle flame could not be taken to be experienced like so? If so, why? &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As Jenny put it (9/23/14 5:40 PM as a reply to Dream Walker): &amp;#034;Again, is there a special purpose to this kind of meditation object? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the original sources, the purpose of kasina objects was for attaining &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;Same for the instructions but probably more for beginners. It is one way to tame the five hindrances as I see it. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nikolai answers (9/25/14 7:56 AM as a reply to Jenny) &amp;#034;The purpose, as I see it, is to calm, direct and sustain the incessant flow of thought,&amp;#034; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;i.e. standard preparation of jhanic factors for 1st &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;. He adds &amp;#034;The Buddha asks one to contemplate secondary objects…&amp;#034; i.e. &lt;em&gt;vipassana&lt;/em&gt; interpretation of &lt;em&gt;anapanasati&lt;/em&gt; instructions. (Sujato, tho, seems to insist the thrust of &lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;&lt;em&gt;anapanasati&lt;/em&gt; is towards &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;.) &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;So do I,  just jhana that have discernement established as well. By contemplate I mean also to direct the flow of thought in a particular direction and trigger a particular result. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But this all lacks mention of working with the immeasurable quality to deepen the &lt;em&gt;ekaggata&lt;/em&gt; (one-pointedness of mind) factor. Is that because these instructions are intended only at a beginning level?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;I&amp;#039;m pretty confident that they can get one to 1st jhana.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;leighb&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;jhana_4factors&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;This factor of ekaggata &lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;is from the Abhidhamma and visuddhimagga only, no? Not the &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;leighb&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;jhanatrd&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;suttas&lt;/a&gt;? (see links) &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;Nick&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 21:14:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597897</guid> <dc:creator>Nikolai .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T21:14:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597877</link> <description>Hi, Piers,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well, I traveled up to Virginia this weekend to stay with a long-lost cousin in her 200-year-old, perhaps haunted (!) colonial home. I didn&amp;#039;t bring my candles, which I&amp;#039;m sure the owners are relieved to know because a huge fire broke out here a few years ago and destroyed much of the second floor. So my last work on the fire kasina is near the end of my practice journal (Jen Pearly&amp;#039;s Practice Journal). I&amp;#039;ve done some reading. I would like to spend many hours with this practice, as Daniel suggests, to see if something new breaks out from the momentum.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jenny</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 20:54:25 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597877</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T20:54:25Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597871</link> <description>Yes, for whatever reason, when I left Tibetan Buddhism I gravitated to the Thai Forest tradition, particularly to Thanissaro, and they teach not to separate concentration practices from vipassana. As you say, the two are conceptually different, but the idea is to practice both in any given sit. Jhana, in this way, is elevator up and down to the platforms from which to investigate the 3Cs. I loved those interviews in Shankman&amp;#039;s book, as well. I got a lot out of them, especially Thanissaro&amp;#039;s. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If I remember correctly, yeah, kasina practice is a marginal practice in the Pali Canon. </description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 20:48:09 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597871</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T20:48:09Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597430</link> <description>&lt;u&gt;re Piers M (&lt;/u&gt;10/3/14 4:20 PM as a reply to Chris J Macie. )&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Hi Chris, Are you saying that heis describing the same experience from two different perspectives?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I suspect the first description, using concentration, shows how he actually experienced SE, while the second description is more a theoretical teaching, but an equally valid approach.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Listening to Ajahn Brahm recently … ultimately there was little difference between concentration and insight practices...&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, follow that line of thought /teaching. Than-Geof often makes the same point (as well as aboute very major Theravadan monk (or nun &amp;#x2013; check out Ayya Khemma) / teacher who&amp;#039;s written / taught in English). Namely that concentration and insight are two sides of the same coin, complement each other, in practice virtually inseparable (though conceptually distinguishable). The recorded teachings of G. Buddha reflect this again and again.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A &lt;strong&gt;contemporary problem&lt;/strong&gt; is that the traditional discussions, which at times make a conceptual distinction between samadhi and vipassana for the sake of analytical exposition, have been &lt;strong&gt;interpreted as two distinct &amp;#039;Paths&amp;#039;.&lt;/strong&gt; This reflects at least two influences:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) The inclination of &lt;strong&gt;Western &lt;/strong&gt;mind to disect things into &lt;strong&gt;either/or dichotomies&lt;/strong&gt; and wage scholarly if not armed crusades on either side of the dichotomy. (This tendency finds root in Aristotlian logic, but also clearly manifests in the history of the Christian, Hebrew, and Islamic religions.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) The historical situation is that concentration / &lt;strong&gt;samadhi practice was not much or well introduced to the West &lt;/strong&gt;until the last couple of decades. In fact, in Asian Buddhist countries, samadhi practice had been somewhat lost during the period (19th-20th centuries) of rapid, often disruptive change as traditional societies came into contact with Western culture. The prominent teachers of English-American VM (vipassana or insight movement) were not exposed to concentration / jhana teaching in the formative years of their careers. The standard teachings in the institutions they founded (IMS, SRMC/Spirit-Rock, etc.) clearly reflect this, to the point of routinely denegrating Jhana practice as a) not necessary, and b) dangerous (&amp;#034;addicting&amp;#034;).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(I attended the annual &amp;#039;concentration&amp;#039; retreat at Spirit Rock back in 2012, as distinct from the 40 or so &amp;#039;vipassana&amp;#039; retreats there every year. Only one of the four teachers had any credible background in Jhana, which he was noticable reserved about in the formal teachings. The overall teaching was along the lines of &amp;#039;momentary (kanika) concentration&amp;#039;, and actively discouraged discussion, questions along the line of &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;nimitta&lt;/em&gt;, etc. aspects. And in the last couple of days, the retreat turned into a total focus on &amp;#039;choiceless awareness&amp;#039; vipassana techniques.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tellingly,  the book &amp;#034;The Experience of Samadhi&amp;#034; by Richard Shankman (a VM heavyweight), though it surveys the topic well, emphasizes the idea of two distinct, separate paths. The book is basically an apolegetic discourse to support the VM attitude towards concentration / &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;. The best part of the book, in my estimation, is inclusion of interviews with 8 &amp;#039;experts&amp;#039; from across the spectrum, from Kornfieldto Pa Auk Sayadaw --  including some biased towards the primacy of vipassana (e.g. Kornfield, Salzberg), some with the traditional balanced view (e.g. Than-Geof, Gunaratana), and Pa Auk Sayadaw, who&amp;#039;s routinely seen as a jhana extremist (but in fact, when one reads his books fully, teaches the &amp;#039;balanced&amp;#039; view).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank god [or whatever -- in Stephen Levine&amp;#039;s words: &amp;#039;God, Shiva, Buddha, Yahwey, Allah,… or Fred the Duck&amp;#039;] for hardcore Dharma!!!</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 03:07:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597430</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T03:07:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597131</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Interesting light is thrown on this topic in talks by Than-Geof (aka Thanissaro Bhikkku, aka Ajahn Thanissaro &amp;#x2013; I asked him once, &amp;#039;thanissaro&amp;#039; means &amp;#039;born on Wednesday&amp;#039;). &lt;strong&gt;He described achieving stream-entry (SE, first path,…) in two ways, one relating to concentration, one relating more to vipassana.&lt;/strong&gt; (Neither of which descriptions, btw, is in his book &amp;#034;Into The Stream,&amp;#034; which deals mostly with Sutta material.)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Hi Chris,&lt;br /&gt;Are you saying that he is describing the same experience from two different perspectives?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Listening to Ajahn Brahm recently (if I can find out which talk I&amp;#039;ll post it later but I&amp;#039;ve heard a few lately) I&amp;#039;m pretty sure he said that ultimately there was little difference between concentration and insight practices.&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve also heard him say in another talk that insight practices can be done whilst in jhanic states (ie samatha jhana)....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Piers</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 21:20:15 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597131</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T21:20:15Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597113</link> <description>Hi Jenny, how are you getting on now?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I&amp;#039;m wondering if it is best to focus on one aspect of the flame, such as the light, or the whole thing. The color of flame is a bit hard for me to discern unless I close my eyes slightly, and then it looks very pale orange, almost white.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, it&amp;#039;s a bit of a funny one. Sometimes the flame lengthens - quite tall - and although I do sometimes look at the tip or the darker bit where the wick is, I usually settle on the brightest spot in the &amp;#034;middle&amp;#034;. Feels quite comfortable. I used to perceive the colour as bright white or bright yellow but these days it doesn&amp;#039;t seem so bright any more (not sure why, same type of candle) and seems to take on an almost dullish yellow hew.&lt;br /&gt;Once I shut my eyes that&amp;#039;s when it&amp;#039;s usually obvious what to focus on but that said when the halo is very bright or occasionally it the background changes to a purplish colour a bit like an inky midnight sky, then I feel like looking at that out of interest (but don&amp;#039;t).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Had a funny one today or yesterday when it was briefly like being cross eyed (when my eyes were shut) and I had two images floating around before they merged. Maybe my physical eyes had crossed or something although they weren&amp;#039;t when my eyes were open.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I&amp;#039;m kind of winging it until I can do more reading&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Have you managed to read up about it yet?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just been reading up from the link you gave to your journal. Phew whee, you&amp;#039;ve been going through some interesting stuff lately.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 20:40:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597113</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T20:40:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596761</link> <description>(9/16/14 6:24 AM as a reply to Piers M. -- &lt;u&gt;Why am I doing this?&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;…I’ve read many differing opinions on this forum about what does/doesn’t constitute Jhana, and &lt;strong&gt;whether you even need concentration (for first path at least) &lt;/strong&gt;…&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Interesting light is thrown on this topic in talks by Than-Geof (aka Thanissaro Bhikkku, aka Ajahn Thanissaro &amp;#x2013; I asked him once, &amp;#039;thanissaro&amp;#039; means &amp;#039;born on Wednesday&amp;#039;). He described achieving stream-entry (SE, first path,…) in two ways, one relating to concentration, one relating more to &lt;em&gt;vipassana&lt;/em&gt;. (&lt;strong&gt;Neither&lt;/strong&gt; of which descriptions, btw, is in his book &amp;#034;Into The Stream,&amp;#034; which deals mostly with Sutta material.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) via concentration &amp;#x2013; in a day-long dharma-talk (on &amp;#039;papanca&amp;#039;), April 28, 2012 at IMC (Redwood City, CA) &lt;br /&gt;(available at audiodharma.org: 20120428-TG-IMC-reading_continued_part_3.mp3) &lt;br /&gt;The following I transcribed from the talk, starting at about 1hr 20 minutes into the MP3, shortly before the end.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;QS &amp;#034;… this term stream-entry,  &lt;em&gt;sotapana&lt;/em&gt;, people talk about it, but in different ways,… would you tell us what you think about that?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;ANS: &amp;#034;What I think about that? (chuckling) (QS: Yes, would you define it for us…) It&amp;#039;s bascially…stream-entry happens when you&amp;#039;ve got the mind as quiet as possible that you can through your concentration practice. And you start asking the question &amp;#x2013; is there still some stress here? And you look for it. And this is one of the reasons that you look for inconstancy, because you want to see the rise and the fall of the level of stress experienced by the mind. (We&amp;#039;re not talking about the body now.) And you begin to notice that there&amp;#039;s certain things that you do that are going to raise the stress level, just minor things at this point in your concentration. And you say &amp;#039;I going to stop doing that.&amp;#039; And then you stop doing that, and that will take you to another level of concentration. So you go through the levels of concentration this way. Finally you get as far as you can go in concentration, and you begin to realize, you know, if I make…, once you get that question comes up -- there&amp;#039;s stress if I stay here, but there&amp;#039;s going to be stress if I move. And this is where is gets kind of paradoxical, because you neither stay nor move. There&amp;#039;s no intention either way. Because you realize whichever way you intend, there&amp;#039;s going to be stress. And it&amp;#039;s in that moment of non-intention that things open up. And it&amp;#039;s very impressive &amp;#x2013; it&amp;#039;s not one of those things you say &amp;#034;Gee, I had stream-entry and I didn&amp;#039;t know it.&amp;#034; (laughter) I mean it&amp;#039;s earth-shattering.&amp;#034; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That sounded to me like a description from first-person experience. (Note, the text isn&amp;#039;t as polished as Than-Geof&amp;#039;s writtings; some grammatically strange wordings, as it&amp;#039;s impromtu dialog.) That clearly relates to concentration practice, tho inter-mixed with insight work in reflecting upon, evaluating the concentration experience. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) At another place, in some dharma talk (forget where), he describes it from the viewpoint of vipassana alone (but not so vividly): &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(paraphrasing frommemory) &amp;#034;you examine experience exhaustively exploring cause-and-effect at work, the conditioned nature of of every aspect of experienced phenomena, in greater and greater detail…eventually, once you can see how conditionality is present totally in every &amp;#039;thing&amp;#039;, the mind gets to a place where it can finally understand ( or &amp;#039;touch&amp;#039;, or some other term) what is unconditioned.&amp;#034;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 11:20:36 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596761</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T11:20:36Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596757</link> <description>re &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;c&amp;#x2f;my_sites&amp;#x2f;view&amp;#x3f;groupId&amp;#x3d;1331536&amp;#x26;privateLayout&amp;#x3d;0"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;u&gt;Piers M &lt;/u&gt;&lt;/a&gt;(9/16/14 6:15 AM )&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Okay, so the last few days I’ve tried the Candle Kasina meditation. I’ve followed the advice given by Nikolai . in this link: …&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Where does this conception of &amp;#039;kasina&amp;#039; meditation come from (in the link from &amp;#034;The Yogi Toolbox,&amp;#034; and as apparently commonly agreed upon in this forum)? No sources, written or oral are mentioned there. I ask on the chance that there is, in fact, some tradition that uses &amp;#039;&lt;em&gt;kasina&lt;/em&gt;&amp;#039; in this sense, as a sort of &lt;em&gt;vipassana&lt;/em&gt; practice (noting changing stuff), and using &amp;#034;momentary concentration&amp;#034; (&lt;em&gt;khanika-samadhi&lt;/em&gt;), which is similar to access-concentration and s/t taught in the context of &lt;em&gt;vipassana&lt;/em&gt; meditation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I&amp;#039;m curious because this is different from the &lt;em&gt;kasina&lt;/em&gt; practices in the Theravada Pali Canon (both the Suttas and the commentaries):&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First, there were traditionally 10 kasina objects &amp;#x2013; the 4 Great Elements (earth, water, fire, air/wind); 4 colors (blue,  yellow,  red and white); plus space and light (or s/t consciousness). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Second, each was considered a pure phenomenon, i.e. only earth,… only blue,…; that is, as exclusive, one-pointed object, to the exclusion (&amp;#034;seclusion&amp;#034;, s/t considered suppression of all other objects), i.e. as an object for absorptive concentration (&lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Third, the respective object (or rather the mind&amp;#039;s corresponding &lt;em&gt;nimitta&lt;/em&gt;) is cultivated to fill consciousness, and then to be &amp;#039;&lt;strong&gt;extended&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;#039; beyond all boundaries, all limits, to become an &amp;#039;immeasurable&amp;#039; experience. The term is &lt;em&gt;kasina-ayatana&lt;/em&gt; &amp;#x2013; &lt;em&gt;ayatana&lt;/em&gt; as in the term for the 4 &amp;#039;higher&amp;#039; &lt;em&gt;jhanas&lt;/em&gt;, which also use &amp;#039;unbounded&amp;#039; objects (in fact, 2 of those are in the &lt;em&gt;kasina&lt;/em&gt; list). In the suttas (in AN, DN, MN), the expression is (in one English rendering) &amp;#034;one perceives [the &lt;em&gt;kasina&lt;/em&gt; object] above, below, on all sides, undivided, unbounded.&amp;#034; In the Visudhimagga (commentaries) extending the sign (&lt;em&gt;nimitta&lt;/em&gt;) was described in more detail (Chapter IV, 126ff). Note: the Brahma-Viharas (goodwill, compassion,…) also were, for G.Buddha, &amp;#034;immeasureables&amp;#034;, and as such among the possible objects of &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt; absorption.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As Jenny put it (9/23/14 5:40 PM as a reply to Dream Walker): &amp;#034;Again, is there a special purpose to this kind of meditation object? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the original sources, the purpose of kasina objects was for attaining &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nikolai answers (9/25/14 7:56 AM as a reply to Jenny) &amp;#034;The purpose, as I see it, is to calm, direct and sustain the incessant flow of thought,&amp;#034; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;i.e. standard preparation of jhanic factors for 1st &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;. He adds &amp;#034;The Buddha asks one to contemplate secondary objects…&amp;#034; i.e. &lt;em&gt;vipassana&lt;/em&gt; interpretation of &lt;em&gt;anapanasati&lt;/em&gt; instructions. (Sujato, tho, seems to insist the thrust of &lt;em&gt;anapanasati&lt;/em&gt; is towards &lt;em&gt;jhana&lt;/em&gt;.) But this all lacks mention of working with the immeasurable quality to deepen the &lt;em&gt;ekaggata&lt;/em&gt; (one-pointedness of mind) factor. Is that because these instructions are intended only at a beginning level?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 11:12:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596757</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T11:12:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596074</link> <description>NIck,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for the explanations. I&amp;#039;ve always done breath meditation--whole body breathing that involves really a type of body scanning--via Thanissaro Bhikkhus. My sits have become confusing, so I&amp;#039;ve thought it a good time to experiment with new objects&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I had a pretty wild experience with the candle last night. I don&amp;#039;t want to highjack this thread, though. So here is the link to my &lt;a href="journalhttp&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;5569853&amp;#x3f;_19_delta&amp;#x3d;20&amp;#x26;_19_keywords&amp;#x3d;&amp;#x26;_19_advancedSearch&amp;#x3d;false&amp;#x26;_19_andOperator&amp;#x3d;true&amp;#x26;_19_resetCur&amp;#x3d;false&amp;#x26;_19_cur&amp;#x3d;3&amp;#x23;_19_message_5595319"&gt;journal&lt;/a&gt;, and the date would be October 1, if anyone is interested in commenting on what happened.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;EDITED to see if I can make 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;message&amp;#x2f;5569853&amp;#x3f;_19_delta&amp;#x3d;20&amp;#x26;_19_keywords&amp;#x3d;&amp;#x26;_19_advancedSearch&amp;#x3d;false&amp;#x26;_19_andOperator&amp;#x3d;true&amp;#x26;_19_resetCur&amp;#x3d;false&amp;#x26;_19_cur&amp;#x3d;3"&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; work this time: &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jenny</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 05:44:55 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596074</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T05:44:55Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Grainy Screen</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593991</link> <description>I would think the grainy screen would be a better object than the breath because it is constant and unwavering, whereas the breath is hard to keep track of and tied up with emotional states - or maybe that&amp;#039;s a benefit of using the breath ? Then again, the grainy screen is obscured by the visual component of emotional thinking. Hmm, interesting.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 18:42:24 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593991</guid> <dc:creator>John</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T18:42:24Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Grainy Screen</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593927</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Bronson Michael Miller:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Then of course some people use the subtle sensations or tingling/vibrating on the upper lip. So, like I said, it seems like anything can be used...I wonder if anybody uses taste haha&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Not quite taste perhaps, but I used to use the tingling pain on my tongue from eating extremely hot curries as an object. This was one of my first insight meditations. I could literally &amp;#034;see&amp;#034; sensations as bubbles popping all over my tongue and I used it to train equanimity.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 17:12:20 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593927</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T17:12:20Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Grainy Screen</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593922</link> <description>I used to use it &lt;strong&gt;all the time&lt;/strong&gt;, and specifically to get visions. I saw golden Buddhas and lots of cool stuff.&lt;br /&gt;More strikingly, I also had a couple of precognitive visions -- which came true &lt;strong&gt;perfectly &lt;/strong&gt;as seen in the vision.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I never had a teacher or guidance; I just used to play around with things. It&amp;#039;s only since getting MCTB and hanging around here that I&amp;#039;ve found people talking about many of the cool things I&amp;#039;ve done.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 17:09:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593922</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T17:09:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Grainy Screen</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593121</link> <description>I&amp;#039;m very new to meditation but for the short six months I&amp;#039;ve been into it I&amp;#039;ve done a lot of reading about it but I&amp;#039;ve never heard of that being used as an object of meditation. However, it wouldn&amp;#039;t be surprising to me at all. I&amp;#039;ve heard of a lot of different things being the object including something similar which is the faint high pitch buzz or ring that is in your ears all the time if you concentrate on it. I thought that was interesting and it seems like the same thing as the screen in your eye but for the audio sence door. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then of course some people use the subtle sensations or tingling/vibrating on the upper lip. So, like I said, it seems like anything can be used...I wonder if anybody uses taste haha</description> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 19:49:29 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593121</guid> <dc:creator>Bronson Michael Miller</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-26T19:49:29Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Grainy Screen</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592631</link> <description>I went through a period when it seemed like I was looking through my eyelids when I woke up, like Daniel mentions, but I never took it for anything but a trick of the memory.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The grainy screen was said by a new age guru to be a property of the universe, something like the background radiation, but it seems to me just to be an aspect of the visual system. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The idea was to concentrate on the black space between the fuzzy bits and take your mind back to the timeless, not a bad idea I suppose as you are basically looking into black space and ignoring the mind. The claim was that you would then be looking at the primal universe before time, but I think you just look at your own self produced blackness.&lt;br /&gt;It never did much for me. I&amp;#039;ve never seen it do anything but look like grey fuzz. &lt;br /&gt;Pretty dull but it does show that our nervous system produces it&amp;#039;s own sort of baseline light. I don&amp;#039;t think we ever can experience pitch darkness - coud be wrong. It still might be OK as an object of concentration (is why I posted in this section) - I just wondered if it has been used like that before ?</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 21:30:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592631</guid> <dc:creator>John</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T21:30:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Grainy Screen</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592611</link> <description>You know, John, that question took me back a few years.  I used to know some people who could see through their eyelids because they had removed the consideration of there being a screen (remember the &amp;#034;...there is no spoon&amp;#034; young man in the movie, The Matrix?).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When you do purposely look at it in your meditation do you notice any change occurring -- with the screen or otherwise?</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 21:11:55 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592611</guid> <dc:creator>Colleen Karalee Peltomaa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T21:11:55Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Grainy Screen</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592594</link> <description>I&amp;#039;ve seen new age meditators describe the &amp;#034;grainy screen&amp;#034; - which is basically the grey fuzziness you see when you close your eyes. Some recommend staring into it and meditating on it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Is this mentioned in Buddhist canon or tradition ?</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 20:56:45 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592594</guid> <dc:creator>John</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T20:56:45Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592374</link> <description>Hey, first off , Candle meditation is awesome! Trataka &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Trataka  &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;en&amp;#x2e;wikipedia&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;wiki&amp;#x2f;Tr&amp;#x25;C4&amp;#x25;81&amp;#x25;E1&amp;#x25;B9&amp;#x25;ADaka"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C4%81%E1%B9%ADaka&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But:  Be safe, and healthy some candle smoke contains toxins, use soy or beeswax&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;theredheadriter&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;2012&amp;#x2f;03&amp;#x2f;the-truth-about-paraffin-wax-candles-are-they-toxic&amp;#x2f;"&gt;http://www.theredheadriter.com/2012/03/the-truth-about-paraffin-wax-candles-are-they-toxic/&lt;/a&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 14:57:54 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592374</guid> <dc:creator>Psi Phi</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T14:57:54Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592339</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jenny:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: times&amp;#x20;new&amp;#x20;roman&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;times&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since I don&amp;#039;t yet know the special purpose or good technique for this meditation object, I&amp;#039;m kind of winging it until I can do more reading. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The purpose, as I see it, is to calm, direct and sustain the incessant flow of thought. Though these days, I would lean more to advising the practice of the Buddha&amp;#039;s more body-orientated anapanasutta instructions. The idea, as I see it though, is to learn how to direct thought till it is sustained thought. This may then allow pleasure and joy to establish. Thems there are the 1st jhana factors in place. Then it is a matter of letting go of the grosser aspects/factors of the jhana to experience the next one up and so on. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A short Experiment:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Stare at a visual object in front of you. Don&amp;#039;t do anything else. Just stare at it for a minute.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff0000"&gt;VERSUS&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Stare at the same visual object in front of you but at the same time contemplate the &amp;#039;shape&amp;#039; or the &amp;#039;colour&amp;#039; or the &amp;#039;perception&amp;#039; of it as a &amp;#039;thing&amp;#039;, or some other quality being mentally assigned to it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Which way seems to direct the flow of thought more so?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The candle kasina instructions in the linked article use the latter method. One contemplates a quality of the flame along with staring at it. The contempalting aspect is actively moving the flow of thought in a direction away from the usual objects of the 5 hindrances. And as I see it, so do the anapanasutta instructions. The Buddha asks one to contemplate secondary objects along with the incoming and outgoing breath.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One is actively directing the energy of thought in a particular direction, eventually leading to sustained thought. With the tempering of the 5 hindrances, pleasure can get established. Joy leaps from the pleasure. If this is fullbodied as the &lt;a href=""&gt;anapanasutta instructions &lt;/a&gt;set one up for, all the better to let go of at 4th jhana to experience the mental realms and/or cessation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nick&amp;#039;s cent.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 12:48:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592339</guid> <dc:creator>Nikolai .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T12:48:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592167</link> <description>Raazik--very helpful &amp;#034;attachment&amp;#034; &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/laugh.gif" &gt;. Thanks!</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 06:51:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592167</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T06:51:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592156</link> <description>&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: times&amp;#x20;new&amp;#x20;roman&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;times&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;serif"&gt;Hi, Piers,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m doing these meditations now as a little experiment because I am trying to strengthen concentration and explore jhanas. I&amp;#039;m usually heavily into whole-body breath meditation vis-a-vis Thanissaro Bhikkhu. I am not really a &amp;#034;noter,&amp;#034; more just a noticer. I need to come back and read Nick&amp;#039;s thread you linked to (when it isn&amp;#039;t way past bedtime).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Written as a descriptive above, it all sounds more dramatic/impressive than it really is. It’s quite mundane although relatively enjoyable. Of interest to me (and I’ve sat like this about 10 times now for an hour each time) is that I’m not waiting for the alarm to ring alerting me that the time is up. In fact I’ve even gone past the 60 minute mark for a few mins if I’m ingrossed in the image. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: times&amp;#x20;new&amp;#x20;roman&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;times&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;serif"&gt;This rings true for me, too. I just sat for an hour but it felt more like just 20 minutes, and I felt like I could keep going--only I needed to go to sleep for work in the morning. All my aches disappeared, and toward the end, my sense of body was gone--even with my eyes open!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since I don&amp;#039;t yet know the special purpose or good technique for this meditation object, I&amp;#039;m kind of winging it until I can do more reading. But I tried adding a mantra tonight (&lt;em&gt;om mani padme hum&lt;/em&gt;, because that was the only one I could remember, back from my Tibetan Buddhism days), and that seemed to make everything more intense somehow, more Moiré patterned. When I close my eyes I see a bright purple disk. Tonight it started showing a greenish-golden border. I&amp;#039;m wondering if it is best to focus on one aspect of the flame, such as the light, or the whole thing. The color of flame is a bit hard for me to discern unless I close my eyes slightly, and then it looks very pale orange, almost white.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Maybe on the weekend I can spend a longer stretch of time doing this meditation. It certainly goes by fast. Also, the afterglow tonight feels really endorphic, but maybe that is because I slipped into one of those formless realm things toward the end. I&amp;#039;ll check back and see how yours is going.&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 06:34:12 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592156</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T06:34:12Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What else is there to obtain except Jhanas and Anatta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591055</link> <description>Regarding insight: if you are really into science, do the experiment and see for yourself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Investigate the transient nature of sensate phenomena (something that I hope we agree on) until it is understood automatically for all of them in real-time and see what that does to you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you are really into the question of the powers, regardless of how you think of them: get your concentration really strong using a visualization object and a mantra and then turn towards those experiences and see what happens.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;These experiences arise regardless of whether or not you think of them as &amp;#034;real&amp;#034;. However, as they arise and vanish, they must be causal, meaning that something lead to them and they lead to something. So to exclude them from &amp;#034;reality&amp;#034; while they still have causality involves a pretty limited defininition of &amp;#034;reality&amp;#034;. More important is the question of what they cause and is that of any value, and here the debate gets much more fun.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 24 Sep 2014 07:19:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591055</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-24T07:19:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What else is there to obtain except Jhanas and Anatta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590734</link> <description>John,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;1) Why is it a materialist bias when I simply don&amp;#039;t believe in things for which we have no evidence for.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Look at most of the world religions, they rely on dogma and convince people to commit atrocities in the name of God.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You don&amp;#039;t believe things for which there is no evidence, that is a very good thing. Blind faith gets a lot of people in trouble, such as the atrocities you mention. I am inclined to point out, though, that &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;amazon&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;The-Conscious-Universe-Scientific-Phenomena&amp;#x2f;dp&amp;#x2f;0061778990"&gt;there is evidence for the existence of psi.&lt;/a&gt; Please check out these books I am linking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Regarding magick, can you please tell me how you do it? So I can try it and see whether it is imaginary or something real.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;I&amp;#039;m not much of an expert on magick, but you might try &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;astralinfo&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;astral-projection-methods&amp;#x2f;"&gt;these techniques&lt;/a&gt; for travelling out-of-body, or this &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;remote-viewing&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;"&gt;remote viewing tutorial.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;2) &amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;You must be assuming that consciousness is somehow generated by the brain, which is a &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;amazon&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;The-End-Materialism-Evidence-Paranormal&amp;#x2f;dp&amp;#x2f;1572246456"&gt;huge problem.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt; &amp;#034; But modern&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;science does say that consciousness is generated by the brain. When you die you are plugged off and you don&amp;#039;t experience anything.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;This is fundamental problem which has been solved. ;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;I&amp;#039;m not familiar with any studies showing that &amp;#034;when you die, you are plugged off&amp;#034;. I am, however, familiar with hundreds of case studies regarding near-death experiences, where a person dies and then continues to experience things, often being able to report accurately what the actions and words of the medical staff whilst floating overhead. A physician named Raymond Moody pioneered research in Near-Death Experiences in his book, &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;amazon&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;Life-After-Investigation-Phenomenon-Survival-Bodily&amp;#x2f;dp&amp;#x2f;0062517392"&gt;Life After Life.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;I should mention that scientists once believed that the sun revolved around the earth. However, later observations showed that this wasn&amp;#039;t true. Along those same lines, I&amp;#039;d say that things science claims today may be entirely replaced later as more data becomes available. For example, quantum physics is replacing the old Newtonian model. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;3) &amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;The concept of rebirth in Buddhism can be dogmatic, but plenty of practitioners here have had vivid experiences of what could be termed &amp;#034;past lives,&amp;#034; including myself.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;You can have very vivid dreams but if you mistake them for God telling you something then you are in deep trouble. It doesn&amp;#039;t make&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;them real just because they are vivid.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, just because dreams are vivid doesn&amp;#039;t mean they are true. But perhaps I wasn&amp;#039;t clear enough. With my personal experience of a past life, I heard a very unusual name and military rank. I did some research in &amp;#034;real life&amp;#034; and found this person in historical records. It was not merely an experience, but an experience that I was able to verify.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At any rate, it doesn&amp;#039;t really matter what beliefs we hold. I am merely trying to assist you in expanding your horizons, since &amp;#034;psychic&amp;#034; phenomena can arise during meditation practice, and I don&amp;#039;t want this to be scary or unsettling for you. You could read some of the material I linked, or you could spend your time much better by meditating and sorting this all out for yourself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Regards,&lt;br /&gt;Eric&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 23:46:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590734</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T23:46:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590587</link> <description>Daniel:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;By visualize, I mean see the images you have been working with while walking around. This takes strong concentration and not many can do it without a seriously large amount of momentum if at all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;So by &amp;#034;visualize&amp;#034; you mean actually see, see it in front of one--not merely imagine it, correct?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 22:46:54 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590587</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T22:46:54Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590560</link> <description>Unfortunately, I cannot see in true 3D, because I lack stereoscopic vision (eye surgery when a baby). I have to infer depth perception by seeing that things that are far away are smaller than things near. This is why I suck at sports.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I also tried this candle flame meditation a few times over the past week. I did it for only about 45 minutes each time because it was before bed on a work night. I guess I wish I had more detailed instructions and understood the purpose of doing concentation this particular way (kasina). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It does help to be mindful not to tense up the face and brow; otherwise, it can be unpleasant to keep watching a jittery flame. Although I tend to enjoy looking into a bon fire, so go figure.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I closed my eyes, I always would see a purple or cobalt blue disk. It grows in size for a short while and then fades away. Nothing spectacular, and I have a tendency to want to keep eyes closed and just go on into Boundless Space, etc. I am slightly concerned that this kind of meditation could be migraine-inducing if continued for many hours, but maybe it wouldn&amp;#039;t. I think it would be difficult, though. Maybe one has to work up to it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Again, is there a special purpose to this kind of meditation object?</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 22:38:35 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590560</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T22:38:35Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What else is there to obtain except Jhanas and Anatta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5589886</link> <description>Hi John,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First of all, I&amp;#039;m no Dharma salesman, and you are not asking any explicit questions but voicing your opinion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you were asking &amp;#034;what&amp;#039;s the difference between Stream Entry and Arahat-ship?&amp;#034;, here&amp;#039;s a model of the stages of awakening which I like a lot: &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;MCTB&amp;#x2b;A&amp;#x2b;Simple&amp;#x2b;Model"&gt;The Simple Model&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It does not rely on anything supernatural at all to describe the process.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s a short text but it packs a lot into the few paragraphs, so if you like, read it slowly and re-read passages as needed to unpack them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You also mention (belief in) dogma. Something I&amp;#039;ve found to have happened to me is that I hold fewer beliefs nowadays than, say, 20 years ago. I would not attribute that entirely to my meditation practice and the progress if insight, but the connection is there and strong, I&amp;#039;d say. Finding not-self in a belief kind of defeats the purpose of holding the belief in the first place.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As I said, I&amp;#039;m not here to make you a happy customer and there is nothing to sell or buy into. If you do find that this question (or any question of that nature) won&amp;#039;t let go of you, and you want release from the hold it&amp;#039;s got over you, the best and really only advice is to see for yourself by practicing well.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;Florian</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 05:06:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5589886</guid> <dc:creator>Florian Weps</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T05:06:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What else is there to obtain except Jhanas and Anatta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5589839</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Look at most of the world religions, they rely on dogma and convince people to commit atrocities in the name of God.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Look at most of the world political systems, they rely on dogma and convince people to commit atrocities in the name of &amp;#039;freedom&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;patriotism&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;American exceptionalism&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;revolution&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;democracy&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;Manifest Destiny&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;Hope&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;white man burden&amp;#039;, etc. The same can be said of almost any human institution. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;But modern&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;science does say that consciousness is generated by the brain. When you die you are plugged off and you don&amp;#039;t experience anything. This is fundamental problem which has been solved. ;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;That consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon of brain function is an assumption. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You use the word &amp;#039;real&amp;#039; several times. Can you define &amp;#039;real&amp;#039;?</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 04:02:56 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5589839</guid> <dc:creator>Droll Dedekind</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T04:02:56Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What else is there to obtain except Jhanas and Anatta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5589006</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Eric M W:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hey John,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;What I don&amp;#039;t understand is what insight does an enlightened one have that one is SE doesn&amp;#039;t have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Oh, enlightened beings have all kinds of things. Access to nibbana is a big one (fruition), and there&amp;#039;s Nirodha Samapatti at higher levels of enlightenment as well. Much better concentration, which means greater access to concentration states such as formless realms. But I&amp;#039;d say the biggest bonus is a reduced/eliminated sense of self, which results in less fundamental suffering and great levels of peace. Life just becomes much easier.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;It seems like no-self is as deep as you can go and then you are done, it doesn&amp;#039;t seem you can obtain more insight&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;than that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That is the end of the &amp;#034;no-self&amp;#034; axis of development, yes, but there are other axes that can be developed as well. It&amp;#039;s not like someone gets a black belt in karate and then says &amp;#034;Well, I guess there&amp;#039;s nothing more to do, so I&amp;#039;m going to stop practicing.&amp;#034; There&amp;#039;s still plenty to learn.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Some have mentioned about reading others&amp;#039; minds and having no rebirth afterwards but for magic, I don&amp;#039;t believe in it&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;and it seems to be dogma and same with rebirth. I&amp;#039;ve tried reading about it but it goes deep into dogma, same like&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;the idea of recalling your previous lives. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What does &amp;#034;believe&amp;#034; have to do with anything? I don&amp;#039;t believe I have next-door neighbors out of blind faith. I know I have neighbors because I see them and interact with them. In the same token, I don&amp;#039;t believe in magick, I know it exists because I have tried it and it works. You can also try it and see for yourself. It would be most unfortunate to ignore this axis of development because of your personal materialist bias.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;I think Daniel has written about his past lives but it seems contrary to science and to&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;reason.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How is it contrary to reason? You must be assuming that consciousness is somehow generated by the brain, which is a &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;amazon&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;The-End-Materialism-Evidence-Paranormal&amp;#x2f;dp&amp;#x2f;1572246456"&gt;huge problem.&lt;/a&gt; The concept of rebirth in Buddhism can be dogmatic, but plenty of practitioners here have had vivid experiences of what could be termed &amp;#034;past lives,&amp;#034; including myself. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Perhaps it is more helpful to think of these experiences as deep levels of the psyche rather than literal past lives? It is a perfectly valid phenomenon regardless of how we view it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Enlightenment is a profound thing and I think it is worthy to be pursued. &amp;#034;Highly recommended, can&amp;#039;t tell you why.&amp;#034; -Bill Hamilton&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;1) Why is it a materialist bias when I simply don&amp;#039;t believe in things for which we have no evidence for.&lt;br /&gt;Look at most of the world religions, they rely on dogma and convince people to commit atrocities in the name of God.&lt;br /&gt;Regarding magick, can you please tell me how you do it? So I can try it and see whether it is imaginary or something real.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) &amp;#034;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;You must be assuming that consciousness is somehow generated by the brain, which is a &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;amazon&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;The-End-Materialism-Evidence-Paranormal&amp;#x2f;dp&amp;#x2f;1572246456"&gt;huge problem.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt; &amp;#034; But modern&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;science does say that consciousness is generated by the brain. When you die you are plugged off and you don&amp;#039;t experience anything.&lt;br /&gt;This is fundamental problem which has been solved. ;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3) &amp;#034;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;The concept of rebirth in Buddhism can be dogmatic, but plenty of practitioners here have had vivid experiences of what could be termed &amp;#034;past lives,&amp;#034; including myself.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;You can have very vivid dreams but if you mistake them for God telling you something then you are in deep trouble. It doesn&amp;#039;t make&lt;br /&gt;them real just because they are vivid.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank you.&lt;br /&gt;Cheers.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 00:06:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5589006</guid> <dc:creator>John</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T00:06:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What else is there to obtain except Jhanas and Anatta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588993</link> <description>HI John,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;What I don&amp;#039;t understand is what insight does an enlightened one have that one is SE doesn&amp;#039;t have.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think in September 2013 the scholar-practitioner monk, Bhikkhu Bodhi, explained that one who is fully enlightened is compared to seeing the full moon, whereas one who has merely &amp;#034;entered the stream&amp;#034; is compared to seeing just the quarter moon. If I remember correctly, the behavior changes reflect one who is always aware of dependent origination and impermance, but one who has lately and just briefly become directly aware of causality and one of the three characteristic (anatta, anicca and/or dukkha) that person (the so-called stream-enterer)has not absorbed deeply enough the direct experience to remember it all the time (dependent origination, a characteristic) nor behave accordingly. I am just recounting what I&amp;#039;ve heard. I may also have made a mistake here with my imperfect memory.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Some have mentioned about reading others&amp;#039; minds and having no rebirth afterwards but for magic, I don&amp;#039;t believe in it&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;and it seems to be dogma and same with rebirth. I&amp;#039;ve tried reading about it but it goes deep into dogma, same like&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;the idea of recalling your previous lives.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is training and philosophy in Buddhism; if you see something as baseless dogma, then you can ignore that or if those apples (rebirth and siddhis) spoil the whole cart for you there are many more world philosophies and religions to turn to and you could also create your own. &lt;br /&gt;For myself, I do cherry-pick around Buddhism to avoid some of its political stuff, like the genital-based discrimination-- that discrimination I try to avoid and leave alone or to support equanimity towards the genders/genitals, for example. As for siddhis and rebirth, yes, one can ignore that, too, and just adhere to a training technique and see how it goes; for some people over time, their experience of those two events changes, for some not. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I use the inhale-and-exhale-breathing training method, anapanasati.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Bye for now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;______&lt;br /&gt;EDIT: about practice:&lt;br /&gt;+1 Eric: &lt;em&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;What does &amp;#034;believe&amp;#034; have to do with anything? I don&amp;#039;t believe I have next-door neighbors out of blind faith. I know I have neighbors because I see them and interact with them.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/em&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2014 23:19:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588993</guid> <dc:creator>katy steger</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-22T23:19:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What else is there to obtain except Jhanas and Anatta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588986</link> <description>Hey John,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;What I don&amp;#039;t understand is what insight does an enlightened one have that one is SE doesn&amp;#039;t have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Oh, enlightened beings have all kinds of things. Access to nibbana is a big one (fruition), and there&amp;#039;s Nirodha Samapatti at higher levels of enlightenment as well. Much better concentration, which means greater access to concentration states such as formless realms. But I&amp;#039;d say the biggest bonus is a reduced/eliminated sense of self, which results in less fundamental suffering and great levels of peace. Life just becomes much easier.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;It seems like no-self is as deep as you can go and then you are done, it doesn&amp;#039;t seem you can obtain more insight&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;than that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That is the end of the &amp;#034;no-self&amp;#034; axis of development, yes, but there are other axes that can be developed as well. It&amp;#039;s not like someone gets a black belt in karate and then says &amp;#034;Well, I guess there&amp;#039;s nothing more to do, so I&amp;#039;m going to stop practicing.&amp;#034; There&amp;#039;s still plenty to learn.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Some have mentioned about reading others&amp;#039; minds and having no rebirth afterwards but for magic, I don&amp;#039;t believe in it&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;and it seems to be dogma and same with rebirth. I&amp;#039;ve tried reading about it but it goes deep into dogma, same like&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;the idea of recalling your previous lives. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What does &amp;#034;believe&amp;#034; have to do with anything? I don&amp;#039;t believe I have next-door neighbors out of blind faith. I know I have neighbors because I see them and interact with them. In the same token, I don&amp;#039;t believe in magick, I know it exists because I have tried it and it works. You can also try it and see for yourself. It would be most unfortunate to ignore this axis of development because of your personal materialist bias.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;I think Daniel has written about his past lives but it seems contrary to science and to&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;reason.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How is it contrary to reason? You must be assuming that consciousness is somehow generated by the brain, which is a &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;amazon&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;The-End-Materialism-Evidence-Paranormal&amp;#x2f;dp&amp;#x2f;1572246456"&gt;huge problem.&lt;/a&gt; The concept of rebirth in Buddhism can be dogmatic, but plenty of practitioners here have had vivid experiences of what could be termed &amp;#034;past lives,&amp;#034; including myself. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Perhaps it is more helpful to think of these experiences as deep levels of the psyche rather than literal past lives? It is a perfectly valid phenomenon regardless of how we view it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Enlightenment is a profound thing and I think it is worthy to be pursued. &amp;#034;Highly recommended, can&amp;#039;t tell you why.&amp;#034; -Bill Hamilton&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2014 23:10:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588986</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-22T23:10:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>What else is there to obtain except Jhanas and Anatta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588898</link> <description>Hi,&lt;br /&gt;What I don&amp;#039;t understand is what insight does an enlightened one have that one is SE doesn&amp;#039;t have.&lt;br /&gt;It seems like no-self is as deep as you can go and then you are done, it doesn&amp;#039;t seem you can obtain more insight&lt;br /&gt;than that.&lt;br /&gt;Some have mentioned about reading others&amp;#039; minds and having no rebirth afterwards but for magic, I don&amp;#039;t believe in it&lt;br /&gt;and it seems to be dogma and same with rebirth. I&amp;#039;ve tried reading about it but it goes deep into dogma, same like&lt;br /&gt;the idea of recalling your previous lives. I think Daniel has written about his past lives but it seems contrary to science and to&lt;br /&gt;reason.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2014 21:32:53 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588898</guid> <dc:creator>John</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-22T21:32:53Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588772</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel M. Ingram:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;By visually detail, I mean very careful and interested attention to exactly what you are seeing as you walk around, particularly noticing things like perspective shifting as you walk around, how three-dimensionality is created as you walk around, subtleties of lighting, and the like.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I just started to notice &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;en&amp;#x2e;wikipedia&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;wiki&amp;#x2f;Parallax"&gt;Parallax &lt;/a&gt;last weekend doing concentration exercises, mostly walking. Things got very extra 3D.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;upload&amp;#x2e;wikimedia&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;wikipedia&amp;#x2f;commons&amp;#x2f;a&amp;#x2f;ab&amp;#x2f;Parallax&amp;#x2e;gif" /&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2014 15:51:04 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588772</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-22T15:51:04Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588581</link> <description>By visualize, I mean see the images you have been working with while walking around. This takes strong concentration and not many can do it without a seriously large amount of momentum if at all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By visually detail, I mean very careful and interested attention to exactly what you are seeing as you walk around, particularly noticing things like perspective shifting as you walk around, how three-dimensionality is created as you walk around, subtleties of lighting, and the like.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2014 06:27:15 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588581</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-22T06:27:15Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: "Childhood" Awareness of Breathing</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588432</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Now, reading this brings back some vague memories about being interested in my breath as a young child. I&amp;#039;m not sure what happened while I was aware of my breath, but it sounds somehow very familiar. Do any of you have memories like this? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am right there with you EMW and in my fantasty world we have a global MOOC that starts at a very young age, everybody everywhere is safe to participate and it&amp;#039;s about being alive. Class basically means going out and laying on the lawn/your local terrain around you and looking up at the sky and clouds. I don&amp;#039;t know why but this is a potent means for observing being alive, at least for me as a kid it was and it was addictive. This is how I would become aware of breathing and heartrate and just the jolt of not knowing what all this is, what am i. Great stuff. &lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:29 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588432</guid> <dc:creator>katy steger</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-22T00:32:29Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>"Childhood" Awareness of Breathing</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588365</link> <description>Hey everyone. In one of the dharma books I&amp;#039;ve been reading, the author remarks that it is said that the Buddha practiced mindfulness of breathing spontaneously as a child. I remember running across these paragraphs by Frank Kepple, a guy who used to post extensively about astral projection:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I&amp;#039;m not sure how common this is, but I hold a remembrance of what I call &amp;#034;play states&amp;#034; I used to enter as a child. There was a time in my life, for example, when breathing was a novelty and I used to revel in the wonder of it while lying in my cot. What I found is when I enter this play-state then all thoughts of the physical world at large, simply falls away and it&amp;#039;s like the curtains open in my mind. From this point, it&amp;#039;s usually just a matter of applying a simple awareness shift and I&amp;#039;m immersed within non-physical reality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I say concentrate on my breathing, I&amp;#039;m not concentrating on breathing in any particular way. I&amp;#039;m simply focusing my attention on it and revelling in the wonder of it &lt;em&gt;as a concept.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, reading this brings back some vague memories about being interested in my breath as a young child. I&amp;#039;m not sure what happened while I was aware of my breath, but it sounds somehow very familiar. Do any of you have memories like this? </description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 22:17:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588365</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T22:17:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588318</link> <description>Daniel,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When you say:&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;when you have to get up as your legs/eyes/back can&amp;#039;t take it anymore, &lt;strong&gt;walk while trying to visualize&lt;/strong&gt; or at least &lt;strong&gt;visually detail exactly what you see while you are walking&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Do you mean visualize the object (in this case the candle flame) as you see it with eyes open or the imprint image when the eyes are shut? Or the second highlighted sentance &amp;#034;visually detail exactly what you see while walking&amp;#034;. What does this mean? The eyes are open. You see objects in the room or outside such as a chair or trees...... Could you elborate a bit please?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;mantras can add more umpf,&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am just considering how to factor in a mantra at the same time as trying to intently note the objects colours/characteristics..... it seems mutually exclusive.....to have two thought processes going on at the same time......I know I need to try it first really but it is something that comes to mind as I think about gearing up for a self retreat (hopefully) in a few weeks time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks, Piers</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 20:59:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588318</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T20:59:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What happened?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587792</link> <description>Hi John, &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;d like to mention that Jack Kornfield wrote a book called &amp;#034;Modern Buddhist Masters&amp;#034; in which some very famous and well regarded meditation practitioners have quite divergeant views of what jhana is and how the jhanas are defined--- even if they are using the same descriptions of jhana (mental concentration states) from the Pali canon. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So it is certainly okay to train in one teacher&amp;#039;s way, but to not be too gripping of &amp;#034;This happens in jhana, this does not&amp;#034;.  Teachers do say theses things, but over time a person learns well-regarded teachers are saying contradictory things, even opposing each other, sometimes in veiled ways. One teacher says, &amp;#034;If someone tells you you cannot hear in jhana, they are wrong&amp;#034; and other teacher will say, &amp;#034;If you can hear, you are not in jhana!&amp;#034; I have sat with some of the famed folk and learned: this is own practice, own investigation. If one practices well, there is comfort in being independent of deemed teachers-- though I am grateful to many deemed teachers who were available to me at the outset and I have my one or two go-to teachers who are still just natively the ones I listen to or I pose questions to-- and just learning, just curiosity, not presuming or declaring or grabbing the &amp;#034;raft&amp;#034; shaking it and saying this is what happens in fourth, etc. One can just practice and not know. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And one can just use these maps as helpful orientation amid the vast ocean of mental terrain, as if the mind were a giant mall and it&amp;#039;s relaxing to have a &amp;#034;you are here&amp;#034; sticker, and that orientation alleviates some major exhausting searching for a while by giving the mind a useful directionality. So jhana training is useful and positive-direction (not harmful, yes helpful) mental development. It can be a stressors if one gets caught up in views of it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edit: For me, John, when there is comfort in sitting at length, that is the start of 3rd jhana, called sukkha, which is often translated as &amp;#034;ease&amp;#034; or &amp;#034;comfort&amp;#034; or &amp;#034;contentment&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And, for me, 4th jhana (a mentally focused state wherein the mind is still generating and/or knowing forms it detects through the senses (including the sense of consciousness), but mind is not also not making itself separate from form) is pure equanimity; there is no ego, no I, no central part. There is just attention-magnetized-with-objects, attention-bridge.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is your study though. Good luck.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(edited to reduce this a lot)</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 03:20:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587792</guid> <dc:creator>katy steger</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T03:20:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What happened?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587762</link> <description>You do have to access prior jhanas and after stream-entry you have easier access.  Once you get them and practice them really well you can skip the order if you want.  The problem was that your description was too vague to make any easy diagnosis.  This is a good site to learn about jhanas:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;leighb&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;jhanas&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;http://www.leighb.com/jhanas.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An enlightened person IMHO is someone who doesn&amp;#039;t cling/obsess/ruminate about anything.  They are unattached to all experiences (including not attached to Buddhist concepts).  Being attached to jhanas would not be enlightenment.  Jhanas for an arhat would be more about the 7 factors of awakening and using concentration as a tool to understand the 3 characteristics of all experiences.  Seeing the 3 characteristics over and over again creates disenchantment and a natural letting go so that the mind is relaxed and peaceful instead of noisy with attachments.  The noise = stress chemicals.  Also jhanas interfere with thinking which means you can&amp;#039;t sustain them in a normal life.  Try doing work while being in a jhana? Useless.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 01:51:25 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587762</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T01:51:25Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What happened?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587710</link> <description>Don&amp;#039;t I have to access the first Jhana before moving to the other ones?&lt;br /&gt;And what about pleasant sensation I didn&amp;#039;t focus on a pleasant bodily sensation, just the breath, it did feel good but it was only the breath.&lt;br /&gt;Is it correct to say that a person who is enlightened is in that state all the time?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 01:14:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587710</guid> <dc:creator>John</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T01:14:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What happened?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587650</link> <description>It&amp;#039;s hard to say but what you described sounded like the 4th jhana equanimity.  It depends on what &amp;#034;force-field&amp;#034; means to you. Floating on a cloud sounds more like 5th jhana.  Access concentration never made me feel like those things so I have no clue.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In terms of the time of year I think anytime you don&amp;#039;t feel too cold or too hot would be conducive for any brain work and the more you practice the better you get.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 23:42:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587650</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T23:42:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>What happened?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587627</link> <description>Hey,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On Wednesday after a pretty anxious period I managed to focus on the breath and come to a point where I felt there was a force field around my body and it felt extremely good and it lasted a long time. I didn&amp;#039;t need to intentionally focus anywhere to make it stay, it was just there.&lt;br /&gt;There were thoughts and it wasn&amp;#039;t a complete absorption but felt pretty good nevertheless. I managed to replicate the experience 5 times.&lt;br /&gt;Is this what is called access concentration?&lt;br /&gt;Today I did it for 40 minutes and it&amp;#039;s so effortless that it&amp;#039;s mind boggling, it feels like I&amp;#039;m not meditating but sitting on a cloud.&lt;br /&gt;My other question is, is the time of the year somehow connected to how easy meditation becomes?&lt;br /&gt;Because I&amp;#039;ve been meditating for months and even though I could lock my attention to the breath it took effort and this never happened.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 23:28:17 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587627</guid> <dc:creator>John</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T23:28:17Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What is the most efficient way of practicing metta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586569</link> <description>I&amp;#039;m good. I just finished a short self-retreat of Metta and came back here to log the differences. Then I wondered how others were doing with their Metta practice, so I thought I&amp;#039;d just ask (:&lt;br /&gt;In my experience, 3 months is enough time to make some really significant progress, so it&amp;#039;s your turn reporting now &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/tongue.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 08:18:10 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586569</guid> <dc:creator>bernd the broter</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T08:18:10Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Mapping Metta practice, first try</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586230</link> <description>Motivation:&lt;br /&gt;In December 2013, I went on a Metta retreat with Bhante Sujato, which was great. I&amp;#039;ve been practicing according to his instructions for 9 months, and although the transformation went slow and almost unnoticably gradual (except for 3 distinct points of letting go), I think it was (and still is) definitely worth it. Since the retreat, I&amp;#039;ve only been practicing the first person (myself).&lt;br /&gt;Also, I recognize that developing Metta and thus removing anger to myself was certainly what I needed now. When I started, I was caught in anxiety for quite some time. Now it&amp;#039;s over, and that&amp;#039;s only a side effect of many good changes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, I&amp;#039;m wondering why&lt;br /&gt;-few people on DhO actually talk about their Metta practice or don&amp;#039;t do it at all&lt;br /&gt;-newcomers with problems are usually told to go practice insight meditation and reach stream entry as fast as possible, when it is obvious that lots of their issues are probably due to other conditions which will hardly change by experiencing a fruition or two.&lt;br /&gt;My speculation is that Metta is largely ignored because&lt;br /&gt;1) a great part of the psychologized Mushroom culture dharma is so obsessed with it&lt;br /&gt;2) MCTB talks little about it&lt;br /&gt;3) It&amp;#039;s hard to find detailed information as Metta. Compare that to descriptions of how to attain Jhanas or the Progress of Insight. Maybe that makes it easy to write it off as a practice without real lasting effect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) ...Nothing to do here.&lt;br /&gt;2) I do recognize that MCTB does indeed mention Metta, and recommends it under certain circumstances. Maybe it would be a good idea to mention it more often in MCTB 2 because I think it&amp;#039;s something people need to realize. (Or I&amp;#039;m just over-generalizing from my own experience. I actually don&amp;#039;t know how valuable the practice of metta is, if you&amp;#039;re not an anger type) At least I only really noticed the recommendation when I was rereading the book for the third time some months ago.&lt;br /&gt;3) Hey, this is actually a problem I/we could do something about. My Metta practice (http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5131630) log was my first small step in helping Metta gain world domination (IS really needs it. Once IS is removed, there will still be a lot of anger around...). By now, I feel that I gain some experience with the patterns of the practice. So I thought to myself: &amp;#034;Why not just draw up a Map of Metta, share it, and see what comes back?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;So, this is my first attempt at creating a map that describes what happens in Metta practice. Maybe this is only valid for my own experience. (In this case, take this as a very brief summary of my Metta practice log...)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Possibly I will look on this in a year&amp;#039;s time and think &amp;#034;what the fuck did I think I was doing here, it&amp;#039;s just so blaringly obvious how completely wrong and unhelpful this is.&amp;#034; Also, 9 months of practice obviously don&amp;#039;t qualify for mapping anything.&lt;br /&gt;So I hope, others with experience in Metta will contribute. Maybe we can create a better map together or decide that no map can ever describe Metta appropriately. (If the Progress of Insight needed 1000years development time, I guess we can&amp;#039;t expect to be finished with this in 2 weeks.)&lt;br /&gt;Also, it may be completely skewed, because I had the idea after I tried to find similarities between the progress of insight and Metta practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will describe a few stages here. In my experience, you are for quite some time caught in the first and second stage. Stage 3 is the turning point. I think it&amp;#039;s not possible to go back once you&amp;#039;ve been there. Then, stages 1-6(especially 3-6) chaotically appear in seemingly random order. When you&amp;#039;re in the process, it&amp;#039;s rather useless to try and discern &amp;#034;ah, now I&amp;#039;m in the 5th stage of Metta&amp;#034;. The patterns become more obvious only after you&amp;#039;re done with the Peace stage. In hindsight, the described phenomena are still remarkable. The Peace stage is the end of the cycle. No going back after this one.&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve gone through this process three times now. Each cycle took 3 months, with daily practice 30-120minutes, and 5-20 days of self retreat with 4-6 hours/day.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) Learning to swim:&lt;br /&gt;You&amp;#039;re trying to learn Metta. Great idea. You&amp;#039;re saying the words, and you often remember to do so. Sometimes you don&amp;#039;t, and you&amp;#039;re somewhere off. Sometimes the feeling of Metta appears, sometimes it doesn&amp;#039;t. It seems that there&amp;#039;s not really much you can do here except come back to the words time after time. This stage is pretty neutral. Not much interesting happens here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) Getting a handle:&lt;br /&gt;It becomes easier to stay with the words. Also, they seem to have more meaning. The feeling of Metta comes up easy, and saying the phrases of Metta is usually enough to call it up quite reliable.&lt;br /&gt;While it&amp;#039;s easy to stay with the words, you also notice how other intentions become mixed in the words.&lt;br /&gt;Your task is to nudge the words back in the right direction. Otherwise you&amp;#039;ll be saying &amp;#034;May I be happy&amp;#034; with a grim face and a brutal tone of voice which probably leads nowhere. These intentions can be anger, doubt, boredom, more anger, anger in other form, insults, making yourself seem ridiculous, sarcasm, irony...&lt;br /&gt;This is the first step in getting familiar with the anger, which will finally be removed. But it&amp;#039;s not clear enough yet. Only further practice will uncover the whole dimension of this anger, so you realize how important it is to get rid of it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3) Disidentification:&lt;br /&gt;The anger becomes really visible. Before, it was a side effect of the words, somewhere in the background. Now it&amp;#039;s obvious. Maybe you can hear thoughts of anger, maybe you feel attacked by anger (like someone is throwing stones on you), maybe you start to cry as a result, maybe you feel your body tensing up. The anger is there, it&amp;#039;s alive, it&amp;#039;s wild and it&amp;#039;s not just going to disappear if you don&amp;#039;t learn more about it. Of course, the anger is also a behaviour which YOU do, but at this point, it can seem like a foreign animal which is a bit out of control.&lt;br /&gt;(This is a bit like the misery stage.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4) Fed up with all that anger:&lt;br /&gt;You have seen the anger in various forms for some time. It won&amp;#039;t leave. You feel incapable of saying the Metta phrases without there being some form of anger. It&amp;#039;s frustrating. As you recognize the anger in its entirety, you are convinced of the necessity of removing it.&lt;br /&gt;Now, 2 things can happen:&lt;br /&gt;- You practice with more enthusiasm and despair. Metta brought you here, so it will bring you out.&lt;br /&gt;- You start to doubt if it really works. Instead of practicing Metta, you start to play around with other techniques. (&amp;#034;Insight Meditation may be uncomfortable sometimes, but at least it doesn&amp;#039;t lead to this kind of anger...&amp;#034;)&lt;br /&gt;(This is somewhat similar to Desire of Deliverance.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5) Have a break:&lt;br /&gt;Now it&amp;#039;s a bit more quiet. Somehow the anger isn&amp;#039;t present that much. The feeling of Metta is there, and it&amp;#039;s possible to enjoy it. But it&amp;#039;s not stable yet. In this part of the process, the words and the feeling are re-stabilized.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;6) Despair:&lt;br /&gt;The anger doesn&amp;#039;t really get stronger, but somehow there is some bleed-through. You go about your day, and have vivid visions of hitting the person next to you in the bus. You want to shout ridiculous insults to whoever is there. It&amp;#039;s somewhat frightening.&lt;br /&gt;You get some despair that you never will get out of here, but you keep practicing because what else could you do. You are in the process so deep that it&amp;#039;s obvious that there is no way of turning back. Enthusiasm has lessened but somehow you still keep practicing.&lt;br /&gt;(This is somewhat similar to Reobservation, but with much less of the &amp;#034;I&amp;#039;m absolutely not willing to sit down and meditate&amp;#034;-quality.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;7) Peace:&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s over. This may happen at any time when you&amp;#039;re not expecting it. Maybe you haven&amp;#039;t been practicing for a week, and suddenly you notice, that anger is no longer dangerous for you.&lt;br /&gt;Anger still arises, but it has no power any more. It still has the same feeling, but you realize that this can&amp;#039;t really hurt you. Maybe you are scared when it arises, but realize half a second later, that it&amp;#039;s not necessary.&lt;br /&gt;After some time, deep peace arises, and anger subsides completely for some time. You just dwell in the feeling of Metta, and it&amp;#039;s wonderful. (this won&amp;#039;t last long though. maybe only one session.)&lt;br /&gt;You look at all this anger and know that it won&amp;#039;t come back to power anymore. It&amp;#039;s very relieving to know that you&amp;#039;ve just discarded a behaviour which isn&amp;#039;t good for you or anyone else. You feel like a new person, although it seemed not to be a giant step from Despair to Peace. Usually, Peace happens, when you aren&amp;#039;t actually highly despaired.&lt;br /&gt;This stage lasts only one or 2 days, but the lack of old anger remains impressive for 1-2weeks.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(This is very similar to Equanimity, but it&amp;#039;s much shorter and not really an impressive stage in and of itself.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;8) Backlash:&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m not sure about this stage and have hesitated to include it here.&lt;br /&gt;After the peace stage, I often become very irritated and other people tell me. This is somewhat weird becauce it co-exists with the relief from the Peace stage. I also don&amp;#039;t really know where this is coming from, if it is a remainder of the old anger, or some now anger or (I guess this one) some reaction to the peace and vulnerability of the Peace stage. So this isn&amp;#039;t really a stage in itself, but I include it as separate because it only happens some time after the shift to Peace. Maybe if you&amp;#039;re psychologically much more sane than me or in a protected environment, it doesn&amp;#039;t happen at all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;______________________________&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, that&amp;#039;s it.&lt;br /&gt;If you have more ideas or if this is helpful for anyone, that would be great. Metta for world domination!&lt;br /&gt;Best regards,&lt;br /&gt;Bernd.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2014 18:35:45 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586230</guid> <dc:creator>bernd the broter</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-18T18:35:45Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What is the most efficient way of practicing metta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586197</link> <description>When I got the notification, I was tempted to reply with something witty or pithy &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/smile.gif" &gt; But I&amp;#039;ll just stick to answering the question &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/tongue.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hakuna matata, my friend. No troubles in sight &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;You?</description> <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2014 17:23:20 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586197</guid> <dc:creator>Shaun Ivan Muzic</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-18T17:23:20Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: What is the most efficient way of practicing metta?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586182</link> <description>Hey Ivan,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;how is it going?</description> <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2014 17:04:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586182</guid> <dc:creator>bernd the broter</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-18T17:04:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585773</link> <description>I find that about 4-6 feet (~1.2-1.7 meters) away is good and positioned so that the flame is probably at approximately the height of your upper abdomen to lower chest, such that eyes are angled down gently.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is really important to learn not to strain the eyes and not to confuse tensing eye and facial muscles for the act of bringing more concentration and effort to the practice, something that initially can take some sorting out. More practice with attention to this typically sorts this out in a few minutes or hours.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just let the eyes rest easily on it, noticing that flames are naturally enchanting, easy to just stare at, and that it requires no strain to see them, as they are bright already. You need not stare at the flame for very long, maybe a minute or two, and then close the eyes and see the afterimages and go from there. Again, even with the eyes closed, there is still this habit of straining eye muscles as a false proxy for turning attention to internally generated images: try to gently relax and not do this, which may take some steady practice until it is natural.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:22:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585773</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T21:22:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585759</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;ftw:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I hope the owner of the thread doesn&amp;#039;t mind me asking in here but I have a problem with candle meditation. Watering eyes. How do you deal with those? How far should candle flame be? If it&amp;#039;s to far it&amp;#039;s after image is small, to close it&amp;#039;s to bright. Tips?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Erm, I don&amp;#039;t really get that problem of watering eyes (even when it seems very bright at times which I quite like), so sorry can&amp;#039;t give you any tips. You are right, too far and the image is rather small. Also, I usually wear glasses but don&amp;#039;t like to when sitting (no point) so I need the image fairly close to my face anyhow (if I stretch out my arm in front of me the candle flame is roughly at my wrist). That seems about the right distance for me.&lt;br /&gt;As the other link suggests perhaps switching to a coloured disc might be the solution.&lt;br /&gt;Just a further thought. I do blink. Do you blink? If you don&amp;#039;t that might be the cause of watering eyes.&lt;br /&gt;Piers</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 20:32:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585759</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T20:32:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585755</link> <description>Thanks Daniel. Hotels - too expensive but it&amp;#039;s a good idea and gives me the thought about renting a caravan in a caravan park. If it&amp;#039;s out of season and not school holidays (ie when noisy families might be around) it could well be ideal.&lt;br /&gt;I can only imagine that momentum is key.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for the other pointers. Tell me, the bright white lights I get whilst seeing the Kasina image and when the image fades. Should I pay any attention to it or not? I&amp;#039;ve had bright white lights (and to a lesser extent a few varients, example: kinda tourquoise colours but not for long) whilst doing Mahasi style noting of rising and falling abdomen but have always been told by various teachers not to give it any importance. Just basically ignore (or note &amp;#034;seeing seeing&amp;#034; briefly before returning to primary object).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The lights I see now are very similar if not the same. Are they the same phenomena?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks again. Piers</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 20:25:26 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585755</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T20:25:26Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: THE MYSTERY OF THE BREATH NIMITTA OR THE CASE OF THE MISSING SIMILE</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585685</link> <description>Yes, I was very confused by the whole Nimitta debate before...  I think I&amp;#039;ve actually read this article a few times.  I&amp;#039;ve never had any strong visual effects when meditating - actually quite the opposite.  The dark field that&amp;#039;s covered with little moving spots and that tunnel of squares when I normally close my eyes tends to smooth out completely while doing concentration meditation.  It&amp;#039;s part of a general &amp;#034;smoothing&amp;#034; that happens to all the senses for me.  I tend to use body awareness as an object, though, so maybe this is a &amp;#034;body awareness nimitta&amp;#034; haha...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The visuddhimagga, from what I&amp;#039;ve read of it, has a stong focus on kasina practice, so it probably was common for the monks using it to see a bright light of some kind.  Eventually I just ignored the commentaries and went with the sutta definitions.  It&amp;#039;s pretty obvious when the body disappears that you&amp;#039;re going into a &amp;#034;formless realm&amp;#034; - what else would it be?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think there&amp;#039;s an equally passionate (angry?) debate about how thoughts relate to the jhanas as well.  Best thing, in my mind, is to look at concentration meditation like a slope rather than a staircase.  You can ascend 8 jhana type experiences that match the descriptions perfectly, and then things flip over and 8 more stages unfold.  Suddenly you think, wow, I must never have been doing jhana before!  But then, HEY, another 8 levels appear.  At that point you just give up and let it do its thing - that&amp;#039;s when the really weird stuff starts to happen, haha.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 19:10:03 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585685</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T19:10:03Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>THE MYSTERY OF THE BREATH NIMITTA OR THE CASE OF THE MISSING SIMILE</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585639</link> <description>Here is an interesting article about Nimittas. It goes into some great details and some interesting directions...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;arrowriver&amp;#x2e;ca&amp;#x2f;dhamma&amp;#x2f;nimitta&amp;#x2e;html"&gt; THE MYSTERY OF THE BREATH NIMITTA&lt;br /&gt;OR&lt;br /&gt;THE CASE OF THE MISSING SIMILE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;preparatory image or sign&amp;#034; (parikamma-nimitta)&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;acquired sign&amp;#034; (uggaha-nimitta)&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;counter-image&amp;#034; or &amp;#034;counter-sign&amp;#034; (the patibhaga-nimitta)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This has been discussed before &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;4461305"&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt; but it was immediately hijacked and the article was never really discussed.&lt;br /&gt;I thought is worthy of pointing out again and possibly discussing.&lt;br /&gt;~D</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 16:43:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585639</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T16:43:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585566</link> <description>&lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 14:28:39 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585566</guid> <dc:creator>Raazik Gatrad</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T14:28:39Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585508</link> <description>I hope the owner of the thread doesn&amp;#039;t mind me asking in here but I have a problem with candle meditation. Watering eyes. How do you deal with those? How far should candle flame be? If it&amp;#039;s to far it&amp;#039;s after image is small, to close it&amp;#039;s to bright. Tips?</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 12:24:47 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585508</guid> <dc:creator>ftw</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T12:24:47Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585471</link> <description>Try a hotel, or, if you have conducive weather, a national park or similarly cheap area.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I learned this I was in a very small wooden cabin out at Bhavana Society in the dead of winter in West Virginia with a cantankerous wood stove for heat and no power.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It doesn&amp;#039;t really take anything but the candle (I actually typically use an oil lamp for this, as you can go longer), freedom from distractions, time and work. Setting can be really simple. Just need a relatively clean and undistracting background. There really is no substitue for the momentum you get from a few days of doing this basically all day long.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Other recommendations:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;use no clock&lt;br /&gt;sit in a very comfortable sitting situation if possible to maximize the time you can keep at it and remove pain as a distraction&lt;br /&gt;when you have to get up as your legs/eyes/back can&amp;#039;t take it anymore, walk while trying to visualize or at least visually detail exactly what you see while you are walking&lt;br /&gt;as soon as you can go back to sitting, do so&lt;br /&gt;really pay attention to the colors above all else and whatever is happening in the visual field regardless of what it is&lt;br /&gt;mantras can add more umpf, so play with one of those: a very simple one that can naturally ring on in the background without requiring much thought about it, one that sounds good to you and you like and means something good and powerful to you&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 10:07:17 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585471</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T10:07:17Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585097</link> <description>Incidentally, Daniel suggests trying this for 10-15 hours for a couple of days to see the results. This would be difficult for me at home.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Unless I can find a place to self retreat, I am wondering where you can practice these kinds of Kasina meditations in a retreat environment. I’ve heard that they do it in Pa Auk in Burma but you need to have mastered the 4 Jhanas first through ananpansati (which begs the question for me, if you’ve mastered the first 4 Jhanas with breathwork, why would you then need to use an object such as a candle or a disk? For what purpose?)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Any suggestions for Kasina retreats?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks Piers.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 11:28:29 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585097</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T11:28:29Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585093</link> <description>&lt;u&gt;Why am I doing this?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have started to think about trying to attain first Jhana. And how important this could be. It doesn’t matter to me how long or short this process takes. (Obviously the quicker the better &amp;#x2013; I was listening to Ayya Khema (from a talk in the 1990s) who mentioned that one of her students in Germany aged 78 had attained first Jhana after trying for 25 years!! And he was then walking round like the cat that got the cream. Hopefully it won’t take me as long as that).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I’m not even sure if it matters whether it is soft or hard (in terms of attaining first path)...... I’ve read many differing opinions on this forum about what does/doesn’t constitute Jhana, and whether you even need concentration (for first path at least). See here a little booklet by Bhikkhu Bodhi entitltled “The Jhanas &amp;amp; The Lay Disciple according to the Pali Suttas” which you can read online &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;hkims&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;documents&amp;#x2f;bodhi-jhanas&amp;#x2e;pdf"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I’m also confused about when some of the nanas are matched to Jhanas  (When I say Jhana I’m talking about Samatha Jhanas. Are some of the nanas so called Vipassana Jhanas?) Further, I read/heard  some people saying you need to come out of Jhana to then practice insight. Ajhan Brahm I know has said this. Because he says the mind has calmed down sufficiently and the hindrances are suppressed enough for clear insight to arise. He reckons if you’ve really attained jhana, that for some people this “washover period” &amp;#x2013; my term &amp;#x2013; will last a few hours and  for others it can even be several days.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;[ sorry I cannot give you all the sources &amp;#x2013; I really ought to use a notebook when I read/hear these things to jot down the detail of who said it/when or the book etc].</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 11:24:09 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585093</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T11:24:09Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Just Started Kasina practice - How am I doing?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585083</link> <description>&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;thehamiltonproject&amp;#x2e;blogspot&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2e;au&amp;#x2f;2010&amp;#x2f;12&amp;#x2f;nicks-current-candle-flame-kasina&amp;#x2e;html"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Okay, so the last few days I’ve tried the Candle Kasina meditation. I’ve followed the advice given by Nikolai . in this link:&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;thehamiltonproject&amp;#x2e;blogspot&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2e;au&amp;#x2f;2010&amp;#x2f;12&amp;#x2f;nicks-current-candle-flame-kasina&amp;#x2e;html"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/nicks-current-candle-flame-kasina.html&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was going to experiment with a coloured disc and maybe I will at some stage because I wonder how it would differ and if it would be harder to get an imprint when you close the eyes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So far, I start by staring at the flame for about 5 minutes. I note intently, usually the colour as in “bright white, bright white” or yellow yellow. Sometimes I note the motion as in “moving, moving” or the shape etc. But usually I prefer to settle on the brightest spot of the flame. I note at a rate of maybe 3x per second. If I do it too slow (Nikolai notes every 5 secs he said) wandering mind has a tendency to take over.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After this initial settling in period I close my eyes and begin to note the impression. It takes maybe 30secs or so usually for the image to consolidate and become clearer. Initially it tends to be a greenish colour, which changes to a pinkish or redish hue. Then it sometimes turns black or very dark. Whilst it is pink or black there is often what I think has been termed a “halo effect” behind the object. Very bright white light which sometimes “threatens” to consume the object completely only for the image to re-emerge from the light. Occasionally, there is a kind of a “super nova” effect when the bright light “overwhelmes&amp;#034; the object and the image is almost gone, down to a full stop size dot, which is fading. Eventually it does disappear altogether. When this happens I sometimes linger a bit wondering if it will come back. The bright lights are sometimes still there a bit. (When it is black/pink/red the image is around the size of a large rice grain). When it is rice grain size there seems to be a spinning disc inside usually redish/pink colour.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When the image eventually fades &amp;#x2013; this process takes around 5-7 minutes I reckon. I open my eyes to “top up” for about 2 &amp;#x2013; 3 mins or so. Therefore in 60 mins, I probably open my eyes around  6 or 7 times. Don’t know if this is relevant or typical or what exactly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Written as a descriptive above, it all sounds more dramatic/impressive than it really is. It’s quite mundane although relatively enjoyable. Of interest to me (and I’ve sat like this about 10 times now for an hour each time) is that I’m not waiting for the alarm to ring alerting me that the time is up. In fact I’ve even gone past the 60 minute mark for a few mins if I’m ingrossed in the image. Even when I’ve been sitting with aches and pains in my back. If I had been noting the rising/falling of the abdomen or anapana at the nostrils or body scanning sensation I would have invariably been hankering for the alarm to ring. And gotten up pretty much straight away once it had.&lt;br /&gt;Also, when the eyes are shut, my concentration seems to be far better than any other object (primarily breath or walking) I’ve used in the past. Far less wandering mind.  And I’m not even on retreat.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Any helpful comments thus far to what I’m doing would be appreciated.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 11:15:16 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585083</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T11:15:16Z</dc:date> </item> </channel> </rss> 