Advice on refining my custom practice? - Discussion
Advice on refining my custom practice?
JDW 3621, modified 1 Month ago at 10/19/24 10:23 PM
Created 1 Month ago at 10/19/24 1:53 AM
Advice on refining my custom practice?
Posts: 12 Join Date: 10/11/24 Recent Posts
Near as I can tell, this appears to be the best place to post this, but redirect it to a more specifically appropriate board if I'm missing the right one. I don't see anywhere dedicated to personal intros or descriptions of personal practices.
Anyways, let me start with some background before getting into the thick of it. I became extremely absorbed in metaphysical case study research during high school. In particular, my specialty is in childhood past-life memory cases as studied by Ian Stevenson and his successors. Very soon upon getting heavily involved in the field, I figured out that this phenomenon is exactly what it appears to be, and the need for more proof has passed. The research needs to progress toward understanding of process, and most of all, practical implementation of the findings. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, or a metaphysical scientist, to imagine how the discovery of a full-scale metaphysics including reincarnation could radically transform everyday life as we know it. If you need a hint, finally having the antidote to mortality is kinda just the beginning of the potential here.
From there, I decided that I needed to take up a rigorous personal practice to internally align myself optimally for the task of making use of reincarnation to the fullest capacity imaginable. No other goal could possibly be as important or valuable as this, so there's no rational justification not to invest the maximum possible effort toward it. But while I certainly want this serial reincarnator lifestyle for myself, my path is at its core one of power for the sake of everyone; the concept of bodhisattva is the best comparison I've come across for the targeted endpoint of it. My ultimate goal is to use my future attainments to inspire more people to take up my efficient-reincarnating methods.
My resulting preparatory practice, as it stands now, is unusually hardcore. It is conducted on a constant basis regardless of what else I'm doing; it does not and cannot leave my mind. I find it to be equally penetrant in my awareness regardless of whether I'm otherwise occupied or not. Above all, there is nothing gentle about it. I have no use for self-kindness toward a self that isn't real. Only will is real, and I prefer to enforce my will with violent intentions. My method is best described as a form of psychosurgery, charged with seeking out fetters and defilements and silencing them. It is basically designed to turn me into a ruthlessly engineered machine of uncompromising metaphysical efficiency, a truly, eternally restless entity. I lay it out here to ask if I could improve it to effectuate this function even better.
Upon discovering Daniel's work on the path of awakening which, he claims (and I'm sympathetic), manifests in parallel forms across all sorts of practices, I saw that mine seems to be some sort of insight practice. The three characteristics are front and center in it, to be sure. All of them are almost tautological to me. However, it adopts some radically different attitudes toward them than either the Buddha's or Daniel's, in service to a very different objective from theirs. It definitely doesn't progress through to the end of the path, as those late stages are way too far gone to serve my purpose. Rather, I suspect that it stops at the stages that are most conducive to its aims and cultivates them to a perverse perfection. But it also goes places I've never heard any contemplative practice dare to tread, so it probably steps outside the established maps entirely at points.
Here's how it conceptualizes and navigates the 3 Cs, for your consideration:
Anicca: Probably the most orthodox approach is taken toward this one. It's the least complicated of the three to begin with. Things don't truly last, no matter how hard you hold on. It really just is what it is. Its relevance is heavily amplified from the extreme longtermist perspective of this practice, though. Impermanence is truly experienced to the fullest over the geologic timescales I plan on, as I know nothing I hold dear is going to last longer than a drop in the bucket relative to that abyss of time. So the right outlook is simply to embrace impermanence and become one with it, never being unable to adapt to change. In an ironic twist, this makes one a sort of island of persistence in the midst of the ocean of transience. Thanks to anatta, a perfectly coherent internal continuity can be maintained, possibly indefinitely, without necessarily preserving any one aspect. You, too, can be Theseus' ship.
The only type of change that's anathema to the practice is any sort of hard discontinuity of knowledge between physical lives or discarnate inter-lives. This is strictly speaking a fetter, an attachment preventing absolute equanimity toward anicca, but we don't want to measure up to abstract ideals, we want to do effective practice. The entire point of it is to stabilize and perpetuate the concrete firsthand metaphysical process knowledge that many reincarnated children display. A practice is not effective if it attains equanimity with what renders it ineffective. If this practice doesn't abhor such hard discontinuities, it isn't much of a practice at all, because the discontinuity prevents any further development of the practice.
Dukkha: "Remembah, boyz, dere ain't no such thing az enuff dukkha! Wut we need iz MORE DUKKHA!"
That about sums it up, with a fittingly Orkish delivery for a practice that's brutal yet cunnin'. You didn't hear that wrong, MORE dukkha. HERESY! First thing, I'm not a masochist who wants life to suck. I don't think "suffering" is a good translation of dukkha, because we colloquially define that word as "severe pain or sorrow to a point that impedes normal functioning". That, obviously, is not one of the characteristics of all experience. How I read it is in the sense of "dissatisfaction, struggle", which absolutely is, and I know that firsthand. In my first thread here, I described my earliest experience of existence in-utero, in which this sense of imperfection was utterly absent. I was truly satisfied, such that I could not imagine the very concept of wanting. That's adukkha. It does exist, but no longer can once a being has been exposed to external reality. But while I know for a fact I can never escape the dissatisfaction, I cannot help but keep up the endless struggle to satisfy. And you don't need to have prenatal memories to feel like you're perpetually lacking something, always want more than you have, never feel complete. Everyone does. That is dukkha. It is all existence. The struggle is real. Resistance is futile.
I wouldn't have it any other way. Wait, what?!
A central refrain in the field of reincarnation case research (henceforth RR) is the theme of "unfinished business". People come back, and retain past-life memories, to fulfill some desire left unrequited from the first life. This is one of the most robustly demonstrated findings in RR. It could be construed in karmic terms, but is really just basic psychology. In fact, RR has reduced the entire concept of karma as an operative force in metaphysics down to unremarkable human psychology. I agree with this interpretation. My innovation of this "unfinished business" axiom is to give myself unfinishable business, and as much of it as possible. My practice not only attains equanimity with dukkha, but goes where mortals fear to tread and embraces dukkha. It seeks to understand what causes me the most dukkha, the most deeply unsatisfactory, unceasing craving, and lean all the way into it. True total satisfaction is not real; temporarily perceived satisfaction is anathema. At the bottom of it, dukkha is a driving force. It is the creative power behind all reasons to go on forever. It is the killer of rest. There's no rest for me. Only wrath.
Anatta: First of all, the inane physicalist bastardizations of anatta that are popular in modern times are low-effort frivolity that does a great dishonor to the actual profundity of the Buddha's teaching. I will not debate this point.
Anatta deserves its full due consideration in the context of the metaphysical structure it operates alongside. At the bottom of it, what it's about is the impossibility of empirically identifying anything we can call a self. The deeper we inspect whatever we want to identify with a self, the more we understand it can't possibly be a self or part of a self, because that thing could change completely or have been different to begin with, and you wouldn't be any less you. Every single thing you identify with a self could simultaneously be different than it is, and you'd still be just as much you. I didn't even have 99% of those things yet before I was born, but I was still 100% me! What we think of as a self is a construct as entirely artificial as the idea that a specific ship once belonged to Theseus. We are individuals, and thanks to metaphysical science, we know we'll remain individuals. But what makes us so is unknowable to us.
My practice directly confronts the illusion of selfhood, but doesn’t abandon it as something undesirable or useless. It does reject the conventional single-lifetime social identity. But it emphasizes that realizing the fundamental truth of anatta renders the self-construct infinitely malleable, enabling it to be commandeered and repurposed to incredibly useful ends. With regard to surface-level identity, my method is to identify only with features that aren't bound to the circumstances of a particular life, and can easily be carried over to the next, so as to construct a self that stays stable at least over the short term of centuries or millennia.
But of course, anatta runs much deeper. I know that nothing I can observe is me or part of me, it's just pieces of non-self information in orbit around whatever actually makes me a unique instance of consciousness, and those orbiting pieces can thus be manipulated in a directed and detached manner. As such, I also reject the notion that human nature is immutable; the only traits that are truly fundamental are those which are necessarily common to all possible entities. However, as with surface identity markers, these lower-order traits can be reorganized to ones that are more optimized for stable reincarnating, all thanks to my best friend anatta. As with my other best friend dukkha, my practice not only attains equanimity with anatta, but is deeply indebted to it for its instrumental adaptations.
All the above makes up at minimum a very significant proportion of how my practice works, and I think this is a good place to leave off. It clearly uses the tools of insight practice, by my assessment, but is much more about instrumentalizing said insight for a unifying purpose than insight for its own sake, and explicitly sanctions use of extreme force to impose its devices on me, because the objective is of unparalleled importance. Hopefully I wrote it all in a way that makes sense.
Is there any way I could configure it more efficiently, in the opinion of the experienced readers here? What would you do for a personal practice if your ultimate goal was turning yourself into a reincarnating Terminator?
Anyways, let me start with some background before getting into the thick of it. I became extremely absorbed in metaphysical case study research during high school. In particular, my specialty is in childhood past-life memory cases as studied by Ian Stevenson and his successors. Very soon upon getting heavily involved in the field, I figured out that this phenomenon is exactly what it appears to be, and the need for more proof has passed. The research needs to progress toward understanding of process, and most of all, practical implementation of the findings. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, or a metaphysical scientist, to imagine how the discovery of a full-scale metaphysics including reincarnation could radically transform everyday life as we know it. If you need a hint, finally having the antidote to mortality is kinda just the beginning of the potential here.
From there, I decided that I needed to take up a rigorous personal practice to internally align myself optimally for the task of making use of reincarnation to the fullest capacity imaginable. No other goal could possibly be as important or valuable as this, so there's no rational justification not to invest the maximum possible effort toward it. But while I certainly want this serial reincarnator lifestyle for myself, my path is at its core one of power for the sake of everyone; the concept of bodhisattva is the best comparison I've come across for the targeted endpoint of it. My ultimate goal is to use my future attainments to inspire more people to take up my efficient-reincarnating methods.
My resulting preparatory practice, as it stands now, is unusually hardcore. It is conducted on a constant basis regardless of what else I'm doing; it does not and cannot leave my mind. I find it to be equally penetrant in my awareness regardless of whether I'm otherwise occupied or not. Above all, there is nothing gentle about it. I have no use for self-kindness toward a self that isn't real. Only will is real, and I prefer to enforce my will with violent intentions. My method is best described as a form of psychosurgery, charged with seeking out fetters and defilements and silencing them. It is basically designed to turn me into a ruthlessly engineered machine of uncompromising metaphysical efficiency, a truly, eternally restless entity. I lay it out here to ask if I could improve it to effectuate this function even better.
Upon discovering Daniel's work on the path of awakening which, he claims (and I'm sympathetic), manifests in parallel forms across all sorts of practices, I saw that mine seems to be some sort of insight practice. The three characteristics are front and center in it, to be sure. All of them are almost tautological to me. However, it adopts some radically different attitudes toward them than either the Buddha's or Daniel's, in service to a very different objective from theirs. It definitely doesn't progress through to the end of the path, as those late stages are way too far gone to serve my purpose. Rather, I suspect that it stops at the stages that are most conducive to its aims and cultivates them to a perverse perfection. But it also goes places I've never heard any contemplative practice dare to tread, so it probably steps outside the established maps entirely at points.
Here's how it conceptualizes and navigates the 3 Cs, for your consideration:
Anicca: Probably the most orthodox approach is taken toward this one. It's the least complicated of the three to begin with. Things don't truly last, no matter how hard you hold on. It really just is what it is. Its relevance is heavily amplified from the extreme longtermist perspective of this practice, though. Impermanence is truly experienced to the fullest over the geologic timescales I plan on, as I know nothing I hold dear is going to last longer than a drop in the bucket relative to that abyss of time. So the right outlook is simply to embrace impermanence and become one with it, never being unable to adapt to change. In an ironic twist, this makes one a sort of island of persistence in the midst of the ocean of transience. Thanks to anatta, a perfectly coherent internal continuity can be maintained, possibly indefinitely, without necessarily preserving any one aspect. You, too, can be Theseus' ship.
The only type of change that's anathema to the practice is any sort of hard discontinuity of knowledge between physical lives or discarnate inter-lives. This is strictly speaking a fetter, an attachment preventing absolute equanimity toward anicca, but we don't want to measure up to abstract ideals, we want to do effective practice. The entire point of it is to stabilize and perpetuate the concrete firsthand metaphysical process knowledge that many reincarnated children display. A practice is not effective if it attains equanimity with what renders it ineffective. If this practice doesn't abhor such hard discontinuities, it isn't much of a practice at all, because the discontinuity prevents any further development of the practice.
Dukkha: "Remembah, boyz, dere ain't no such thing az enuff dukkha! Wut we need iz MORE DUKKHA!"
That about sums it up, with a fittingly Orkish delivery for a practice that's brutal yet cunnin'. You didn't hear that wrong, MORE dukkha. HERESY! First thing, I'm not a masochist who wants life to suck. I don't think "suffering" is a good translation of dukkha, because we colloquially define that word as "severe pain or sorrow to a point that impedes normal functioning". That, obviously, is not one of the characteristics of all experience. How I read it is in the sense of "dissatisfaction, struggle", which absolutely is, and I know that firsthand. In my first thread here, I described my earliest experience of existence in-utero, in which this sense of imperfection was utterly absent. I was truly satisfied, such that I could not imagine the very concept of wanting. That's adukkha. It does exist, but no longer can once a being has been exposed to external reality. But while I know for a fact I can never escape the dissatisfaction, I cannot help but keep up the endless struggle to satisfy. And you don't need to have prenatal memories to feel like you're perpetually lacking something, always want more than you have, never feel complete. Everyone does. That is dukkha. It is all existence. The struggle is real. Resistance is futile.
I wouldn't have it any other way. Wait, what?!
A central refrain in the field of reincarnation case research (henceforth RR) is the theme of "unfinished business". People come back, and retain past-life memories, to fulfill some desire left unrequited from the first life. This is one of the most robustly demonstrated findings in RR. It could be construed in karmic terms, but is really just basic psychology. In fact, RR has reduced the entire concept of karma as an operative force in metaphysics down to unremarkable human psychology. I agree with this interpretation. My innovation of this "unfinished business" axiom is to give myself unfinishable business, and as much of it as possible. My practice not only attains equanimity with dukkha, but goes where mortals fear to tread and embraces dukkha. It seeks to understand what causes me the most dukkha, the most deeply unsatisfactory, unceasing craving, and lean all the way into it. True total satisfaction is not real; temporarily perceived satisfaction is anathema. At the bottom of it, dukkha is a driving force. It is the creative power behind all reasons to go on forever. It is the killer of rest. There's no rest for me. Only wrath.
Anatta: First of all, the inane physicalist bastardizations of anatta that are popular in modern times are low-effort frivolity that does a great dishonor to the actual profundity of the Buddha's teaching. I will not debate this point.
Anatta deserves its full due consideration in the context of the metaphysical structure it operates alongside. At the bottom of it, what it's about is the impossibility of empirically identifying anything we can call a self. The deeper we inspect whatever we want to identify with a self, the more we understand it can't possibly be a self or part of a self, because that thing could change completely or have been different to begin with, and you wouldn't be any less you. Every single thing you identify with a self could simultaneously be different than it is, and you'd still be just as much you. I didn't even have 99% of those things yet before I was born, but I was still 100% me! What we think of as a self is a construct as entirely artificial as the idea that a specific ship once belonged to Theseus. We are individuals, and thanks to metaphysical science, we know we'll remain individuals. But what makes us so is unknowable to us.
My practice directly confronts the illusion of selfhood, but doesn’t abandon it as something undesirable or useless. It does reject the conventional single-lifetime social identity. But it emphasizes that realizing the fundamental truth of anatta renders the self-construct infinitely malleable, enabling it to be commandeered and repurposed to incredibly useful ends. With regard to surface-level identity, my method is to identify only with features that aren't bound to the circumstances of a particular life, and can easily be carried over to the next, so as to construct a self that stays stable at least over the short term of centuries or millennia.
But of course, anatta runs much deeper. I know that nothing I can observe is me or part of me, it's just pieces of non-self information in orbit around whatever actually makes me a unique instance of consciousness, and those orbiting pieces can thus be manipulated in a directed and detached manner. As such, I also reject the notion that human nature is immutable; the only traits that are truly fundamental are those which are necessarily common to all possible entities. However, as with surface identity markers, these lower-order traits can be reorganized to ones that are more optimized for stable reincarnating, all thanks to my best friend anatta. As with my other best friend dukkha, my practice not only attains equanimity with anatta, but is deeply indebted to it for its instrumental adaptations.
All the above makes up at minimum a very significant proportion of how my practice works, and I think this is a good place to leave off. It clearly uses the tools of insight practice, by my assessment, but is much more about instrumentalizing said insight for a unifying purpose than insight for its own sake, and explicitly sanctions use of extreme force to impose its devices on me, because the objective is of unparalleled importance. Hopefully I wrote it all in a way that makes sense.
Is there any way I could configure it more efficiently, in the opinion of the experienced readers here? What would you do for a personal practice if your ultimate goal was turning yourself into a reincarnating Terminator?
Truth Seeker, modified 1 Month ago at 10/20/24 6:16 AM
Created 1 Month ago at 10/20/24 6:16 AM
RE: Advice on refining my custom practice?
Posts: 105 Join Date: 2/27/21 Recent Posts
I have no attainments and still consider myself a noob in reference to developing right concentration in the 4 listed ways. With that being said, I do feel I could provide some feedback here that may be of benefit to you in the long run. I will not be answering your last 2 questions directly. Take what you will of these words for whatever may be of benefit to you as you tread on the otherworldly path.
"I have no use for self-kindness toward a self that isn't real. Only will is real, and I prefer to enforce my will with violent intentions." Based on what you wrote, it sounds like you should be somewhat familiar with the Noble Eightfold Path. I recommend looking over the fold of Right Intention. Ill will will only lead to an unwholesome experience. Even if things are not designated as self, if "you" treat them with ill intent then that sets the precedent for ill intent to continue to come back in the future regardless of the neighboring phenomena you are interacting with. Karma 101.
"With regard to surface-level identity, my method is to identify only with features that aren't bound to the circumstances of a particular life, and can easily be carried over to the next, so as to construct a self that stays stable at least over the short term of centuries or millennia." - if you wish for a stable ship that can traverse the infinite seas, then I recommend reading The Sammaditthi Sutta with the part that has the title "The Wholesome and the Unwholesome". If your ship is not whole, then leaks will come about and a capsizing becomes an inevitability.
"the concept of bodhisattva is the best comparison I've come across for the targeted endpoint of it. My ultimate goal is to use my future attainments to inspire more people to take up my efficient-reincarnating methods." - their aim is to help others attain enlightenment which means reaching the end goal of ceasing ones suffering. Your aim that you speak of would only lead to more suffering for other individuals.
The more you fabricate, the more ignorance there is.
I wish you well on the journey ahead.
"I have no use for self-kindness toward a self that isn't real. Only will is real, and I prefer to enforce my will with violent intentions." Based on what you wrote, it sounds like you should be somewhat familiar with the Noble Eightfold Path. I recommend looking over the fold of Right Intention. Ill will will only lead to an unwholesome experience. Even if things are not designated as self, if "you" treat them with ill intent then that sets the precedent for ill intent to continue to come back in the future regardless of the neighboring phenomena you are interacting with. Karma 101.
"With regard to surface-level identity, my method is to identify only with features that aren't bound to the circumstances of a particular life, and can easily be carried over to the next, so as to construct a self that stays stable at least over the short term of centuries or millennia." - if you wish for a stable ship that can traverse the infinite seas, then I recommend reading The Sammaditthi Sutta with the part that has the title "The Wholesome and the Unwholesome". If your ship is not whole, then leaks will come about and a capsizing becomes an inevitability.
"the concept of bodhisattva is the best comparison I've come across for the targeted endpoint of it. My ultimate goal is to use my future attainments to inspire more people to take up my efficient-reincarnating methods." - their aim is to help others attain enlightenment which means reaching the end goal of ceasing ones suffering. Your aim that you speak of would only lead to more suffering for other individuals.
The more you fabricate, the more ignorance there is.
I wish you well on the journey ahead.
Martin, modified 1 Month ago at 10/20/24 11:44 AM
Created 1 Month ago at 10/20/24 11:44 AM
RE: Advice on refining my custom practice?
Posts: 1057 Join Date: 4/25/20 Recent Posts
I admire your enthusiasm and energy. It's great to have such motivation. To maintain that in a healthy way, I would consider temporarily broadening your focus. A very narrow focus can be destabilizing. There are risks in meditation practices, and losing balance is one that we see quite often. I would suggest pausing formal meditation and deliberate mindfulness practices in daily life for a few months. This will broaden your perspective when you return to practice. During this time, you could further your Bodisatva goal and keep momentum going by volunteering in a community organization, such as homeless outreach. It would also be good to talk to other people, and especially people who do not meditate, about their goals, interests, and concerns. The idea is to be a useful listener. Spending time in nature and engaged in physical activity also encourages expansion. This a training followed by many meditators, in which periods of intense practice and study are alternated with periods of engagement with the community and nature.
JDW 3621, modified 1 Month ago at 10/20/24 1:22 PM
Created 1 Month ago at 10/20/24 1:19 PM
RE: Advice on refining my custom practice?
Posts: 12 Join Date: 10/11/24 Recent PostsIll will will only lead to an unwholesome experience. Even if things are not designated as self, if "you" treat them with ill intent then that sets the precedent for ill intent to continue to come back in the future regardless of the neighboring phenomena you are interacting with. Karma 101.
This is what I want. To dwell in my rage against all possible obstacles to my objective, and hone it to a warped perfection that cannot be subdued. To exceed the limits of obsession a normal human can reach. How can I be assured of my success otherwise? I'm trying something that hasn't been systematically pursued before (although there are parallels with what Tibetan lamas do, but I haven't seen the kind of power from them that suggests they're taking it far enough), relating to a topic that I only know a lot about in strictly relative terms, because the field is very incipient. With so much uncertainty, I have to be prepared to triumph in any possible scenario, no matter how remote.
There are risks in meditation practices, and losing balance is one that we see quite often. I would suggest pausing formal meditation and deliberate mindfulness practices in daily life for a few months. This will broaden your perspective when you return to practice.
First off, I'm not a trained meditator, although I suspect I've essentially been doing the same thing in my downtime all this time without having a model for it. So same difference.
The problem here is that this is like asking Stockfish to maybe stop obsessing over chess for a while. I can't just stop practicing. I'm inevitably going to do it no matter what else I'm doing, as long as it's furthering its own objective, and I can't see how it would stop doing that or how stopping it now would help progress it later. I can't burn out, because the objective holds infinite value, so no finite investment in it is sufficient. Whatever I can sacrifice upon the altar of reincarnating attainment, I will. If you can convince me the practice itself is a useful sacrifice, be my guest. But how?!
shargrol, modified 1 Month ago at 10/24/24 11:26 AM
Created 1 Month ago at 10/20/24 7:18 PM
RE: Advice on refining my custom practice?
Posts: 2757 Join Date: 2/8/16 Recent Posts
Some ideas:
Strong determination sitting: sit without moving at all for 30 minutes and notice all the ways the mind/body rebels. Do this consistently, daily, and study if changes happen over two months. If not, quit.
Super-clarity of subtle ill will: sit more relaxed/balanced (i.e., small body adjustments are fine) for 30 minutes, but focus on any part of the mind-body that has ill will, any kind of aversion to being in the present moment, including any ill will toward sitting the full 30 minutes. Do this consistently, daily, and study if changes happen over two months. If not, quit.
Super-clarity of clinging/desiring: sit more relaxed/balanced (i.e., small body adjustments are fine) for 30 minutes, but focus on any part of the mind-body that wants anything other than what is occuring. Really make a study of what human desire is, how it seduces us, how it traps us, how desire takes us out of the present moment, including any desire to quit sitting the full 30 minutes. Do this consistently, daily, and study if changes happen over two months. If not, quit.
Super-clarity of mind nature: sit more relaxed/balanced (i.e., small body adjustments are fine) for 30 minutes, and focus on any part of the mind-body that isn't flowing. Notice whenever the mind clings to a sensation, an emotion, an idea. Allow anything at all to arise, but notice if it also passes. Your experience should be like a bird in flight -- no path in front of it, leaving no trail behind it, only action in the present moment. Notice how the mind wants to clamp down on a sensation and indulge in it, notice how the mind wants to wallow in a emotion, notice how it wants to ruminate and become emboiled in an idea. Notice this, including any clinging to sensations, emotions, or judgements about sitting for the full 30 minutes. Do this consistently, daily, and study if changes happen over two months. If not, quit.
In all of these practices, hold off on trying to "fix" things right away. Instead focus on really getting good clarity on what is occuring and how it is occuring. Your own natural intelligence will drop the bad stuff and keep the good stuff. The problem is we never look closely enough to really experience the difference -- we're usually in our head thinking "about" stuff, not directly experiencing the reality of the present moment. It's funny, a lot of people say "of course I can stay in the present moment", but then sitting practice kicks there ass. A lot of people talk about wanting/doing hardcore practice, but very few people are serious/dedicated/pure-hearted enough to maintain a consistent, daily practice.
Notice note of these recommendations are not abstract things you "should" do (like some banal "sitting for 30 in meditation is good for you" recommendation), but rather these are ways to intentionally and directly uncover the subtle stuff that messes us up. If we can't do it sitting, there is no way we can do it walking around in real life.
Everybody knows "do good and avoid evil" as a philosophy and many people suspect "nothing is me, mine, or I" as ultimate reality... but regardless, practically speaking, it doesn't matter what we think, what matters is how the subconscious/unconscious will bubble up very subtle ill will/aversion and desire/fantasy which undermines the purity of our actions despite what we "know".
Sitting practice seems so lame, but it's like sitting in a cauldron and having our impurities burned away.
Strong determination sitting: sit without moving at all for 30 minutes and notice all the ways the mind/body rebels. Do this consistently, daily, and study if changes happen over two months. If not, quit.
Super-clarity of subtle ill will: sit more relaxed/balanced (i.e., small body adjustments are fine) for 30 minutes, but focus on any part of the mind-body that has ill will, any kind of aversion to being in the present moment, including any ill will toward sitting the full 30 minutes. Do this consistently, daily, and study if changes happen over two months. If not, quit.
Super-clarity of clinging/desiring: sit more relaxed/balanced (i.e., small body adjustments are fine) for 30 minutes, but focus on any part of the mind-body that wants anything other than what is occuring. Really make a study of what human desire is, how it seduces us, how it traps us, how desire takes us out of the present moment, including any desire to quit sitting the full 30 minutes. Do this consistently, daily, and study if changes happen over two months. If not, quit.
Super-clarity of mind nature: sit more relaxed/balanced (i.e., small body adjustments are fine) for 30 minutes, and focus on any part of the mind-body that isn't flowing. Notice whenever the mind clings to a sensation, an emotion, an idea. Allow anything at all to arise, but notice if it also passes. Your experience should be like a bird in flight -- no path in front of it, leaving no trail behind it, only action in the present moment. Notice how the mind wants to clamp down on a sensation and indulge in it, notice how the mind wants to wallow in a emotion, notice how it wants to ruminate and become emboiled in an idea. Notice this, including any clinging to sensations, emotions, or judgements about sitting for the full 30 minutes. Do this consistently, daily, and study if changes happen over two months. If not, quit.
In all of these practices, hold off on trying to "fix" things right away. Instead focus on really getting good clarity on what is occuring and how it is occuring. Your own natural intelligence will drop the bad stuff and keep the good stuff. The problem is we never look closely enough to really experience the difference -- we're usually in our head thinking "about" stuff, not directly experiencing the reality of the present moment. It's funny, a lot of people say "of course I can stay in the present moment", but then sitting practice kicks there ass. A lot of people talk about wanting/doing hardcore practice, but very few people are serious/dedicated/pure-hearted enough to maintain a consistent, daily practice.
Notice note of these recommendations are not abstract things you "should" do (like some banal "sitting for 30 in meditation is good for you" recommendation), but rather these are ways to intentionally and directly uncover the subtle stuff that messes us up. If we can't do it sitting, there is no way we can do it walking around in real life.
Everybody knows "do good and avoid evil" as a philosophy and many people suspect "nothing is me, mine, or I" as ultimate reality... but regardless, practically speaking, it doesn't matter what we think, what matters is how the subconscious/unconscious will bubble up very subtle ill will/aversion and desire/fantasy which undermines the purity of our actions despite what we "know".
Sitting practice seems so lame, but it's like sitting in a cauldron and having our impurities burned away.
Truth Seeker, modified 1 Month ago at 10/24/24 8:21 AM
Created 1 Month ago at 10/24/24 8:21 AM
RE: Advice on refining my custom practice?
Posts: 105 Join Date: 2/27/21 Recent Posts
To JDW 3621: been thinking about you and have also following your interactions with others on https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/24961497
I was considering posting this last night, but wanted to sleep on it to see if I feel the same today. I still feel this sutta may be of benefit to you: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn51/sn51.020.than.html
It provides instructions on how to attain powers such as one in which it seems you have a strong desire for: ""He recollects his manifold past lives,[3] i.e., one birth, two births, three births, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred, one thousand, one hundred thousand, many aeons of cosmic contraction, many aeons of cosmic expansion, many aeons of cosmic contraction & expansion, [recollecting], 'There I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose there. There too I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose here.' Thus he remembers his manifold past lives in their modes & details."
I was considering posting this last night, but wanted to sleep on it to see if I feel the same today. I still feel this sutta may be of benefit to you: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn51/sn51.020.than.html
It provides instructions on how to attain powers such as one in which it seems you have a strong desire for: ""He recollects his manifold past lives,[3] i.e., one birth, two births, three births, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred, one thousand, one hundred thousand, many aeons of cosmic contraction, many aeons of cosmic expansion, many aeons of cosmic contraction & expansion, [recollecting], 'There I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose there. There too I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose here.' Thus he remembers his manifold past lives in their modes & details."
JDW 3621, modified 1 Month ago at 10/24/24 10:38 AM
Created 1 Month ago at 10/24/24 10:38 AM
RE: Advice on refining my custom practice?
Posts: 12 Join Date: 10/11/24 Recent Posts
I warned about rebirth mimics yesterday. Phenomena that can seem related unless you know what it actually looks like. Strange beliefs like the above don't derive from the real thing. Real reincarnation is very hands-on. This looks like some psi-mediated information access, but going that far back has a high likelihood of just being imaginative.
Truth Seeker, modified 1 Month ago at 10/24/24 6:37 PM
Created 1 Month ago at 10/24/24 6:36 PM
RE: Advice on refining my custom practice?
Posts: 105 Join Date: 2/27/21 Recent Posts
"To exceed the limits of obsession a normal human can reach. How can I be assured of my success?"
How can you learn the truth if you keep covering it up? Your truth can be found at the bottom of a pond, stop disturbing the surface.
How can you learn the truth if you keep covering it up? Your truth can be found at the bottom of a pond, stop disturbing the surface.