Some views on the technique in the Goenka tradition - Discussion
Smiling Stone:
Healthy dissociation is the result of resolving your emotions through acknowledgment and acceptance, it is a natural movement of the mind when an experience becomes habitual. The affect linked to the experience then diminishes until it disappears. It will then be written in memory with neutral affect, or forgotten. Pathological dissociation takes place through trauma: you just obliterate what you cannot stand. Bringing back to the conscious mind the body sensations through awareness, the body scan makes conscious (and first full of affect) what was till then unconscious. The practice then tends to make one familiar with all kind of sensations, thus slowly freeing them from their emotional content.
I just want to point out how the statement on body scans making the affect conscious is both true and untrue. In theory, it definitely should work this way, but I've also encountered enough people that seem to be perfectly able to experience sensations and yet be blind to emotions, or urges, or thoughts. So I think it's possible that, for some people, they can connect with body sensations and never quite access suppressed/repressed emotions and thoughts.
It surprised me the first time I encountered it, someone being able to tell me phenominologically what they were experiencing in terms of sensations, but when I asked them if they noticed they were adverse/angry (which was obvious) they didn't connect to it. I also remember someone who could connect to was obviously doubting, uncertain, and always mapping/comparing their practice, but couldn't report their thoughts about it. In both of these cases, they were doing a combination of body awareness and noting ---- but were not noting whole categories of mind objects (emotions and thoughts).
This is why I think working with a teacher helps. We all have blind spots. In both of those cases, it was clear that they need to do dedicated noting of sensations for a period of their sits. Similarly the other person needed to do dedicated noting of "practice thoughts" during their sits. My sense is that body scanning was not going to be the answer for them. But who knows?
I think the biggest factor for Equanimity and SE is actually getting good at noticing urges (pre-emotions) and thoughts-as-thoughts, especially thoughts about practice.
But that's worth what you paid for it!
Hi again! No worries. I just wanted to express myself more clearly, because my initial formulation was obviously foggier than I realized when I wrote it. I share your experiences about the different layers. That’s a very good description.
I do think that Tourette syndrome can take someone way ahead in that specific regard, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. It can make the experience too overwhelming for someone to be willing to work with it, so I guess it depends on a variety of circumstances whether it’s an advantage or a disadvantage. I avoided all forms of both relaxation exercises and vipassana body scanning techniques for many years, until I was able to deal with all the sensations. I know that I’m not the only one. It was Shinzen Young’s many dharma talks about equanimity that made me realize that the tics are actually an excellent opportunity for practice, especially since it worked, and that my sensitivity with regard to sensations in the body is actually sensory clarity and can be a good thing. I noticed that the tics seemed to be my mind resisting insights into the three characteristics, because if I met the impulses to tic with equanimity and let the sensations run wild, so to speak, those insights were hard to miss. Maybe this is something that Daniel could look into in his research, matching insight stages with medical diagnoses. I think there might be interesting connections between neurodivergence and insights. #research #insight stages Anyway, approaching my wiring like this is helpful for me, as it enables me to see opportunities instead of mere difficulties. I think there are some advantages to all kinds of wirings with regard to insights. One just needs to find them.
It sounds very reasonable to assume that hyperactivity in the basal gangliae (a really strong mental spam filter) would prevent someone from accessing at least some sensate experiences. That would actually explain a lot. I know some very non-impulsive people who have great difficulties in accessing sensory input, emotions and even thoughts. Of course, that’s only anecdotal. I have no idea whether that would hold up for a statistic analysis. It sure is an interesting hypothesis.
I do believe that meditation can rewire the brain. Apparently there is some scientific evidence to that, including tests on Daniel’s brain.
Metta right back at ya.
I share your experiences about the different layers. That’s a very good description. I do think that Tourette syndrome can take someone way ahead in that specific regard, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. It can make the experience too overwhelming for someone to be willing to work with it, so I guess it depends on a variety of circumstances whether it’s an advantage or a disadvantage. I avoided all forms of both relaxation exercises and vipassana body scanning techniques for many years, until I was able to deal with all the sensations. I know that I’m not the only one. It was Shinzen Young’s many dharma talks about equanimity that made me realize that the tics are actually an excellent opportunity for practice, especially since it worked, and that my sensitivity with regard to sensations in the body is actually sensory clarity and can be a good thing. I noticed that the tics seemed to be my mind resisting insights into the three characteristics, because if I met the impulses to tic with equanimity and let the sensations run wild, so to speak, those insights were hard to miss. Maybe this is something that Daniel could look into in his research, matching insight stages with medical diagnoses. I think there might be interesting connections between neurodivergence and insights. #research #insight stages Anyway, approaching my wiring like this is helpful for me, as it enables me to see opportunities instead of mere difficulties. I think there are some advantages to all kinds of wirings with regard to insights. One just needs to find them.
It sounds very reasonable to assume that hyperactivity in the basal gangliae (a really strong mental spam filter) would prevent someone from accessing at least some sensate experiences. That would actually explain a lot. I know some very non-impulsive people who have great difficulties in accessing sensory input, emotions and even thoughts. Of course, that’s only anecdotal. I have no idea whether that would hold up for a statistic analysis. It sure is an interesting hypothesis.
I do believe that meditation can rewire the brain. Apparently there is some scientific evidence to that, including tests on Daniel’s brain.
Metta right back at ya.
Hi Smiling Stone,
Thank you for your post. It's interesting to hear the perspective of someone who has been in the tradition longer than I have. I discovered Goenka 6 years ago and have only been on three retreats so far. I also would say that my daily practice has been somewhat lackluster at a steady 1hr a day for maybe 300/365 days a year. That being said, on my last retreat in late 2016 I got what was definitely A&P and believe I progressed to EQ. I've been going through a difficult transition in my day to day life (got fired and am currently looking for a job for the past few months) and today just realized how important the practice is to the day to day quality of my life.
I've never been the best with sila or continuity of practice. I tend to give into my cravings for sensual pleasures, smoke marijuana/drink socially, lie in the job search to make my resume look better, and will miss a day of practice when I have a really good streak. But the frequency of it is becoming less and less and so is the actual to desire to part take in these behaviors. I use to do all of this pleasure seeking at a much higher volume than I do now, even when it wasn't a "stressful" period in my life. According to his yardstick of if the practice is benefitting my life, I am seing slow but consistent improvement.
I've realized that I tend to devolve into craving and aversion in difficult periods and have yet to see what a "diffuclt period" in my life looks like while maintaining practice. I've spent a number of hours today reading materials for old students and it has made me realize that there is no escaping dependent originiation. Every moment I succumb to craving or aversion, I create more suffering for myself. I tend to make excuses for my practice, ie I'm looking for a job so I can't afford to take 10 days to do a retreat or I can't do two hours of meditation because it will eat into my productivity (meanwhile I just sit around watching TV :grin What today has made me realize is that this is just doubt and aversion talking.
Continuity of practice is the key to success, and the short periods of time where I have been able to maintain it post retreat have been the most peaceful and "in tune" periods of my life. Of course, I understand the whole point of this is to not be pleasure seeking, but maintaining continuity of practice allows me to not get "absorbed" in that pleasantness. I ate some leftovers today that yesterday I was thinking man this is good stuff. Today when I ate it, I didn't not cling to the pleasant sensations. It was just food with pleasant sensations. The difference between the two days? More concentration and commitment to dhamma. I've also been practicing metta more consistently and that has been huge as far as my day to day interactions with others goes.
All this to say that I haven't given the Goenka my 100% effort yet, and it has still been very beneficial for me and moved me along the path. I'd like to give this tradition a real go with 100% commitment and see where it lands me. I suspect it will do me well given the number of people on this forum who have gotten SE and also the benefits it has had in my life up to this point. It may not be the "most efficient" way to get SE, but I think it will get me there eventually. At worst, I will be generating a wealth of good karma for my future attempts at liberation. It has still been the most valuable thing I have discovered in my life as far as reducing my day to day suffering and "finding the truth" is concerned. As long as it continues to do that, I will follow the tradition.
Metta,
Maher
P.S. - I tend to run into newcomers in this tradition more than others. Very few people tend to stick with it from waht I've seen. Perhaps this tradition was only meant to introduce them to dhamma. Regarding the discussion about feeling different cravings, emotions, thoughts, and sensations etc I can definetely tell when they arise separate of each other and am able to distinguish them. For example, an ithcing sensation arises on my nose and a craving to itch it arises which causes a thought of moving my arm to scratch the itch to arise. If I just observe this process and do not react, I believe I am eliminating some sankharas
Thank you for your post. It's interesting to hear the perspective of someone who has been in the tradition longer than I have. I discovered Goenka 6 years ago and have only been on three retreats so far. I also would say that my daily practice has been somewhat lackluster at a steady 1hr a day for maybe 300/365 days a year. That being said, on my last retreat in late 2016 I got what was definitely A&P and believe I progressed to EQ. I've been going through a difficult transition in my day to day life (got fired and am currently looking for a job for the past few months) and today just realized how important the practice is to the day to day quality of my life.
I've never been the best with sila or continuity of practice. I tend to give into my cravings for sensual pleasures, smoke marijuana/drink socially, lie in the job search to make my resume look better, and will miss a day of practice when I have a really good streak. But the frequency of it is becoming less and less and so is the actual to desire to part take in these behaviors. I use to do all of this pleasure seeking at a much higher volume than I do now, even when it wasn't a "stressful" period in my life. According to his yardstick of if the practice is benefitting my life, I am seing slow but consistent improvement.
I've realized that I tend to devolve into craving and aversion in difficult periods and have yet to see what a "diffuclt period" in my life looks like while maintaining practice. I've spent a number of hours today reading materials for old students and it has made me realize that there is no escaping dependent originiation. Every moment I succumb to craving or aversion, I create more suffering for myself. I tend to make excuses for my practice, ie I'm looking for a job so I can't afford to take 10 days to do a retreat or I can't do two hours of meditation because it will eat into my productivity (meanwhile I just sit around watching TV :grin
What today has made me realize is that this is just doubt and aversion talking. Continuity of practice is the key to success, and the short periods of time where I have been able to maintain it post retreat have been the most peaceful and "in tune" periods of my life. Of course, I understand the whole point of this is to not be pleasure seeking, but maintaining continuity of practice allows me to not get "absorbed" in that pleasantness. I ate some leftovers today that yesterday I was thinking man this is good stuff. Today when I ate it, I didn't not cling to the pleasant sensations. It was just food with pleasant sensations. The difference between the two days? More concentration and commitment to dhamma. I've also been practicing metta more consistently and that has been huge as far as my day to day interactions with others goes.
All this to say that I haven't given the Goenka my 100% effort yet, and it has still been very beneficial for me and moved me along the path. I'd like to give this tradition a real go with 100% commitment and see where it lands me. I suspect it will do me well given the number of people on this forum who have gotten SE and also the benefits it has had in my life up to this point. It may not be the "most efficient" way to get SE, but I think it will get me there eventually. At worst, I will be generating a wealth of good karma for my future attempts at liberation.
It has still been the most valuable thing I have discovered in my life as far as reducing my day to day suffering and "finding the truth" is concerned. As long as it continues to do that, I will follow the tradition.Metta,
Maher
P.S. - I tend to run into newcomers in this tradition more than others. Very few people tend to stick with it from waht I've seen. Perhaps this tradition was only meant to introduce them to dhamma. Regarding the discussion about feeling different cravings, emotions, thoughts, and sensations etc I can definetely tell when they arise separate of each other and am able to distinguish them. For example, an ithcing sensation arises on my nose and a craving to itch it arises which causes a thought of moving my arm to scratch the itch to arise. If I just observe this process and do not react, I believe I am eliminating some sankharas
Hi again Smiling,
Nice name btw.
So, I just went through your thread and now about the POI. I'm not an expert but here is something interesting. I went through it in daily life a long time before I ever started formal meditation. When I read mctb I thought : "wow, the DN sounds scary, what i'm gonna do is hold off vipassana practice until I can do a long retreat to be sure to go through it there and not in daily life."
Little did I know that I had been in it for years and had dealt with most of it by that point, and was already quite established in equanimity.
So when I did tentatively start doing noticing practice as described in mctb, I quickly realized that I was going through kinds of stages, but they were very very mild...
That could be your case. What if you were deeply established in EQ from all those years of practice and experienced the nanas but in such a mild form that they just don't register ?
Here is a way to get a sense of the nanas : the AP is a sense of something more, a strong sensitivity to something spiritual and beautiful, I associate it with Rilke's line "For the beautiful is but the begginning of the terrible which we can still bear." Then there is what Sartre would call a "transcendental accidental in daily life". Something cracks, some familiarity is lost, something... Then comes the desert and the dark night of the soul. Many things there... But again, I think the easiest way to describe this is to mention Sartre's book "La nausée". It doesn't really get more clear than that... Nausea. The myth of Sysiphus by Camus also comes to mind. Then comes revolt, Shargrol's translation for the 10th ñana. Do you remember Camus' book "The revolted man" ? Existential revolt. All this existentialist stuff. Then acceptance, space, etc. It's pretty simple.
I went through it completely unknowingly. So I got SE with seemingly almost no progression through the POI doing formal "vipassana". Vipassana just means observing, basically. People with high curiosity, strong concentration, etc., will have these events occur naturally. You can find traces everywhere, in the arts, etc., by people who have never known anything about buddhism. It has nothing to do with a technique or a tradition.
The thing is, it then happened again. But this time, in a controled environment. And that just confirms that this way of theorizing is more or less correct, because you then go through new, fresh ñanas one by one over again. And this time they feel real, although you know have a lot of knowledge on how to handle it.
Still, it's surprising : when you hit a new AP, it's incredibly amazing and you had no idea this existed or was possible or what the FFFF man ! When you hit a new baya ñana, it's really scary, and you can't get away or observe the creep from afar. It's transcendental creepiness again. When you hit a new re-observation, you're really actually really pissed. Pissed in a way you haven't been for years and thought would be impossible from the equanimous perspective which seemed to have become your baseline - more existentially pissed than since the last time that the first DN was really burning your ass, actually. And when you hit equanimity again, it might just feel normal, or spacious. But you can see the difference happening in a ridiculously clear way. "Wow, after this new level of angst, this space just litterally opened up for the first time in front of me." I observed this new obvious EQ in terms of completely pure bodily sensations based on strong retreat concentration and the transition from revolt to eq went something like "I can't see anything, where is that fucking tiny ass sensation, it hurts I'm gonna cry" to this huge, soft, fresh, comparatively enormous new bunch of movements appearing right at the center of attention again, with the sense that a balloon had been filled with air around it, a complete relaxing of all tensions, and the capacity to perceive several sensations from different sense modalities all at once with perfect ease.
It's real
It also confirmed the notion that I had experienced the ñanas in daily life prior to any real meditation practice, because when I experienced the whole new baya ñanas, for instance, I recognized events which had happened years ago. I thought it was really cool to have that confirmed, but again, I staid convinced that this was just "something" happening, not the main point.
When I said I was "moving away" from the POI, it's not that I was saying it was never true, just that I sensed there was something deeper and more fundamental, which is in everything and behind the whole POI, which has more to do, actually, now that I think about it, with the mysteriousness of how SE happens. But it does happen kind of the way it is described, and I just want to put the hypothesis I mentioned out there. I honestly would find it extremely surprising if in some way or other you didn't go through it, perhaps decades ago, who knows, and are just so deep in equanimity that it appears like nothing to you when you go through it.
This happens to many people, and my experience is probably quite common.
Metta
Nice name btw.
So, I just went through your thread and now about the POI. I'm not an expert but here is something interesting. I went through it in daily life a long time before I ever started formal meditation. When I read mctb I thought : "wow, the DN sounds scary, what i'm gonna do is hold off vipassana practice until I can do a long retreat to be sure to go through it there and not in daily life."
Little did I know that I had been in it for years and had dealt with most of it by that point, and was already quite established in equanimity.
So when I did tentatively start doing noticing practice as described in mctb, I quickly realized that I was going through kinds of stages, but they were very very mild...
That could be your case. What if you were deeply established in EQ from all those years of practice and experienced the nanas but in such a mild form that they just don't register ?
Here is a way to get a sense of the nanas : the AP is a sense of something more, a strong sensitivity to something spiritual and beautiful, I associate it with Rilke's line "For the beautiful is but the begginning of the terrible which we can still bear." Then there is what Sartre would call a "transcendental accidental in daily life". Something cracks, some familiarity is lost, something... Then comes the desert and the dark night of the soul. Many things there... But again, I think the easiest way to describe this is to mention Sartre's book "La nausée". It doesn't really get more clear than that... Nausea. The myth of Sysiphus by Camus also comes to mind. Then comes revolt, Shargrol's translation for the 10th ñana. Do you remember Camus' book "The revolted man" ? Existential revolt. All this existentialist stuff. Then acceptance, space, etc. It's pretty simple.
I went through it completely unknowingly. So I got SE with seemingly almost no progression through the POI doing formal "vipassana". Vipassana just means observing, basically. People with high curiosity, strong concentration, etc., will have these events occur naturally. You can find traces everywhere, in the arts, etc., by people who have never known anything about buddhism. It has nothing to do with a technique or a tradition.
The thing is, it then happened again. But this time, in a controled environment. And that just confirms that this way of theorizing is more or less correct, because you then go through new, fresh ñanas one by one over again. And this time they feel real, although you know have a lot of knowledge on how to handle it.
Still, it's surprising : when you hit a new AP, it's incredibly amazing and you had no idea this existed or was possible or what the FFFF man ! When you hit a new baya ñana, it's really scary, and you can't get away or observe the creep from afar. It's transcendental creepiness again. When you hit a new re-observation, you're really actually really pissed. Pissed in a way you haven't been for years and thought would be impossible from the equanimous perspective which seemed to have become your baseline - more existentially pissed than since the last time that the first DN was really burning your ass, actually. And when you hit equanimity again, it might just feel normal, or spacious. But you can see the difference happening in a ridiculously clear way. "Wow, after this new level of angst, this space just litterally opened up for the first time in front of me." I observed this new obvious EQ in terms of completely pure bodily sensations based on strong retreat concentration and the transition from revolt to eq went something like "I can't see anything, where is that fucking tiny ass sensation, it hurts I'm gonna cry" to this huge, soft, fresh, comparatively enormous new bunch of movements appearing right at the center of attention again, with the sense that a balloon had been filled with air around it, a complete relaxing of all tensions, and the capacity to perceive several sensations from different sense modalities all at once with perfect ease.
It's real
It also confirmed the notion that I had experienced the ñanas in daily life prior to any real meditation practice, because when I experienced the whole new baya ñanas, for instance, I recognized events which had happened years ago. I thought it was really cool to have that confirmed, but again, I staid convinced that this was just "something" happening, not the main point.
When I said I was "moving away" from the POI, it's not that I was saying it was never true, just that I sensed there was something deeper and more fundamental, which is in everything and behind the whole POI, which has more to do, actually, now that I think about it, with the mysteriousness of how SE happens. But it does happen kind of the way it is described, and I just want to put the hypothesis I mentioned out there. I honestly would find it extremely surprising if in some way or other you didn't go through it, perhaps decades ago, who knows, and are just so deep in equanimity that it appears like nothing to you when you go through it.
This happens to many people, and my experience is probably quite common.
Metta
From the thread named "Titmuss on (a book about) Goenka" (could be relevant here):
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GG: ...In addition, I think one needs to remember that Goenka tradition is not attainment oriented. Thus, for them, the maps and attainments are a red-herring, the real deal is how we handle challenges in the off-the-cushion life i.e. real life. I.e. if your practise helps you to not lose your equanimity in the face of challenging hardships in real life - because you can constantly see the way things really are i.e. you can easily spot how it is your mind which keeps on constantly generating cravings and aversions, then, in this view, your practise is successful.
This fits well with one of the things about Goenka which Erik Braun wrote in the article linked by Smiling Stone above:
"This was a man who was adopted by his uncle at 13 so that the uncle would have an heir, married by arrangement to a 12-year-old when he was 18, and denied by his family the university education he sought; who trekked over the mountains out of Burma with the Japanese on his heels and lost his thriving business to a government takeover."
In an extreme version of this view of practise, when not accompanied by a constant attempt to develop alertness towards one's defilements, the meditative attainments are just special experiences which happen to be labeled by fancy names in an Ancient language (Pali).
SS: ... As to attainments being a red-herring, well, Goenka talks about the stages but interprets the dukkha ñanas as being tempted to lose oneself in the subtle realms after bhanga (I write about this somewhere here, it is not so clear in my mind now)... and there is this half-baked idea of the constitution of a Boddhisatva army (us!) that will meet at the gate to support Maitreya (hum)...
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Here's my response to the above very interesting remarks of SS:
Goenka may have made some passing remarks about dukkha nana and other stages (and may have interpreted them in some peculiar way), but it is worth noting that most of his instructions and discourses in (10 day, 1 day, 2 day, 3 day courses) aren't about those remarks. This means the at least the introductory courses are not intended to focus on those aspects (I don't know about longer courses).
In the introductory courses, his instructions and discourses are almost exclusively:
(a) pacify your mind and develop the faculty of awareness of sensations,
(b) observe the sensations - not just when you meditate but all the time - especially when you realise that a klesha (e.g. fear, anxiety, anger, jealousy, lust) has arisen;
(c) while observing, remain as equanimous as you can by never forgetting that the sensation is impermanent (and hence will eventually go away);
(d) keep continuing to practise diligently.
In addition, his discourses involve (among other things): (i) suffering caused by self-clinging to things which are impermanent, (ii) the five aggregate model of the mind etc. Neesless to say, the experiential understanding of the five aggregate model of the mind will help us experientially observe how even the slightest sensation (whether pleasant or unpleasant) leads to suffering (in the form of desire or aversion which arise from self-clinging) if we aren't equanimous.
My understanding is that one is then expected to develop experiential wisdom rather than merely intellectual wisdom. Let me give a simple example: even when the conditions and circumstances remain completely unchanging, e.g. in the middle of a retreat, my thoughts and bodily sensations constantly keep on changing and there are associated mood swings; this happens because (a) I often forget that some transitory unpleasant thought or feeling of aversion is merely a thought / sensation, and, (b) I strongly cling to my mental picture of myself so much (e.g. "By participating in a retreat whose members worship their teacher, am I - such an educated and smart individual - joining a cult?"). Note that the disturbance arises because of a thought and an existing picture of myself.
To me, many accounts of unpleasant retreat experiences basically boil down to some variation of this. It is also noteworthy that when one observes this as a phenomenon, with perfect equanimity, there is no suffering: all kinds the thoughts, feelings and sensations still arise but one simply witnesses them objectively / dispassionately.
Given this, the experienced meditators can tell us this: if instead of constantly pursuing thoughts which arise due to self-clinging (such as "Why is this happening to ME? MY life is so full of disappointments! Everything is so disgusting, I WANT them to be different!"), someone just follows these Goenka instructions to the tee (may be out of devotion), will it even be a little helpful while going through dukkha nanas?
The maps etc are of course extremely important if one is going through such peculiar stages; in addition, even from a scientific point of view, if there are any maps, someone should figure them out. But, is there a possibility that, if one knows about the maps, the thinking-narrating module of one's mind starts expecting certain kinds of experiences and then the mind could create some experience which closely resembles what we've been reading about? If this is true (for a fair fraction of meditators), then this might explain the taboo in many cultures against discussing the maps (AFAIK, even Mahasi Sayadaw says, this shouldn't be introduced to new-comers: but welcome to internet age ! ).
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Concerning Goal etc (I'm sure my views about these are pretty rudimentary):
SS: "Well if you are into pragmatic dharma, you believe that a total cessation of experience will mark the transformation, if you are into Goenka (or into the thai forest tradition), you believe you will experience something totally beyond mind and matter, which has a koan quality to it..."
GG:
Those of us who haven't attained stream-entry or Arhantship can't say what those transformations really involve and probably can't understand any description of them since the meaning of words is closely linked to an associated experience.
- Concerning transformations: by reading Jack Kornfield, Daniel Ingram etc, one gets an impression that (feel free to correct me), while some things will change, life would not stop bringing challenges and one has to still figure out how to operate under those conditions. Also, I got an impression that a person who is an Arahant has basically only (!) reached the highest milestone in the direction of Pragya but typically still needs to work towards other dimensions (e.g. Sila and Samadhi).
- Unlike other discussions of morality, ethics (which involve a lot of relativism), for an insight meditator, it seems morality has an absolute basis: "if something gets done by my body or mind with the intention which arises from self-clinging, it will eventually lead to suffering". How do I know whether I did something with the intention arising from self-clinging? Insight training (i.e. awareness of as many sensations and thoughts as possible) helps me in observing an increasing fraction of thoughts and sensations to immediately see whether an action is being performed with the intention rooted in self-clinging.
- Well, I guess this might mean that any intention which doesn't originate from self-clinging is fine (and anyway won't agitate us or spoil equanimity). This could mean: get driven dispassionately by what is true (i.e. rationality, facts, evidence) or what leads to good for all others (the Brahmaviharas) rather than by unrecognised compulsive emotional / physical urges which originate from clinging to oneself.
- From Daniel Ingram's writings and interviews I also got an impression (correct me if I am wrong) that all of this obviously doesn't mean that an attainer of insight won't eventually do anything with the intention which arises from self-clinging ("if one is born, one is bound to suffer"), but to avoid suffering, one just needs to still constantly develop this faculty - even after one achieves the highest possible insight!
So, it seems to me that, irrepective of which stage one is in, in order to reduce suffering, one needs to constantly be aware of thoughts/intentions which originate from self-clinging and witness them dispassionately. It is possible that doing this may become far easier for an arahant than a beginner.
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Finally, let me thank SS for patiently entertaining the views of someone as inexperienced as I am.
Now a days, I'm experiencing a strong desire to get some sense of what this is all about (may be a sign of some early stage of the path?): proof of the fact that currently I constantly fail to dispassionately observe the work of some analytical module of my mind
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GG: ...In addition, I think one needs to remember that Goenka tradition is not attainment oriented. Thus, for them, the maps and attainments are a red-herring, the real deal is how we handle challenges in the off-the-cushion life i.e. real life. I.e. if your practise helps you to not lose your equanimity in the face of challenging hardships in real life - because you can constantly see the way things really are i.e. you can easily spot how it is your mind which keeps on constantly generating cravings and aversions, then, in this view, your practise is successful.
This fits well with one of the things about Goenka which Erik Braun wrote in the article linked by Smiling Stone above:
"This was a man who was adopted by his uncle at 13 so that the uncle would have an heir, married by arrangement to a 12-year-old when he was 18, and denied by his family the university education he sought; who trekked over the mountains out of Burma with the Japanese on his heels and lost his thriving business to a government takeover."
In an extreme version of this view of practise, when not accompanied by a constant attempt to develop alertness towards one's defilements, the meditative attainments are just special experiences which happen to be labeled by fancy names in an Ancient language (Pali).
SS: ... As to attainments being a red-herring, well, Goenka talks about the stages but interprets the dukkha ñanas as being tempted to lose oneself in the subtle realms after bhanga (I write about this somewhere here, it is not so clear in my mind now)... and there is this half-baked idea of the constitution of a Boddhisatva army (us!) that will meet at the gate to support Maitreya (hum)...
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Here's my response to the above very interesting remarks of SS:
Goenka may have made some passing remarks about dukkha nana and other stages (and may have interpreted them in some peculiar way), but it is worth noting that most of his instructions and discourses in (10 day, 1 day, 2 day, 3 day courses) aren't about those remarks. This means the at least the introductory courses are not intended to focus on those aspects (I don't know about longer courses).
In the introductory courses, his instructions and discourses are almost exclusively:
(a) pacify your mind and develop the faculty of awareness of sensations,
(b) observe the sensations - not just when you meditate but all the time - especially when you realise that a klesha (e.g. fear, anxiety, anger, jealousy, lust) has arisen;
(c) while observing, remain as equanimous as you can by never forgetting that the sensation is impermanent (and hence will eventually go away);
(d) keep continuing to practise diligently.
In addition, his discourses involve (among other things): (i) suffering caused by self-clinging to things which are impermanent, (ii) the five aggregate model of the mind etc. Neesless to say, the experiential understanding of the five aggregate model of the mind will help us experientially observe how even the slightest sensation (whether pleasant or unpleasant) leads to suffering (in the form of desire or aversion which arise from self-clinging) if we aren't equanimous.
My understanding is that one is then expected to develop experiential wisdom rather than merely intellectual wisdom. Let me give a simple example: even when the conditions and circumstances remain completely unchanging, e.g. in the middle of a retreat, my thoughts and bodily sensations constantly keep on changing and there are associated mood swings; this happens because (a) I often forget that some transitory unpleasant thought or feeling of aversion is merely a thought / sensation, and, (b) I strongly cling to my mental picture of myself so much (e.g. "By participating in a retreat whose members worship their teacher, am I - such an educated and smart individual - joining a cult?"). Note that the disturbance arises because of a thought and an existing picture of myself.
To me, many accounts of unpleasant retreat experiences basically boil down to some variation of this. It is also noteworthy that when one observes this as a phenomenon, with perfect equanimity, there is no suffering: all kinds the thoughts, feelings and sensations still arise but one simply witnesses them objectively / dispassionately.
Given this, the experienced meditators can tell us this: if instead of constantly pursuing thoughts which arise due to self-clinging (such as "Why is this happening to ME? MY life is so full of disappointments! Everything is so disgusting, I WANT them to be different!"), someone just follows these Goenka instructions to the tee (may be out of devotion), will it even be a little helpful while going through dukkha nanas?
The maps etc are of course extremely important if one is going through such peculiar stages; in addition, even from a scientific point of view, if there are any maps, someone should figure them out. But, is there a possibility that, if one knows about the maps, the thinking-narrating module of one's mind starts expecting certain kinds of experiences and then the mind could create some experience which closely resembles what we've been reading about? If this is true (for a fair fraction of meditators), then this might explain the taboo in many cultures against discussing the maps (AFAIK, even Mahasi Sayadaw says, this shouldn't be introduced to new-comers: but welcome to internet age ! ).
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Concerning Goal etc (I'm sure my views about these are pretty rudimentary):
SS: "Well if you are into pragmatic dharma, you believe that a total cessation of experience will mark the transformation, if you are into Goenka (or into the thai forest tradition), you believe you will experience something totally beyond mind and matter, which has a koan quality to it..."
GG:
Those of us who haven't attained stream-entry or Arhantship can't say what those transformations really involve and probably can't understand any description of them since the meaning of words is closely linked to an associated experience.
- Concerning transformations: by reading Jack Kornfield, Daniel Ingram etc, one gets an impression that (feel free to correct me), while some things will change, life would not stop bringing challenges and one has to still figure out how to operate under those conditions. Also, I got an impression that a person who is an Arahant has basically only (!) reached the highest milestone in the direction of Pragya but typically still needs to work towards other dimensions (e.g. Sila and Samadhi).
- Unlike other discussions of morality, ethics (which involve a lot of relativism), for an insight meditator, it seems morality has an absolute basis: "if something gets done by my body or mind with the intention which arises from self-clinging, it will eventually lead to suffering". How do I know whether I did something with the intention arising from self-clinging? Insight training (i.e. awareness of as many sensations and thoughts as possible) helps me in observing an increasing fraction of thoughts and sensations to immediately see whether an action is being performed with the intention rooted in self-clinging.
- Well, I guess this might mean that any intention which doesn't originate from self-clinging is fine (and anyway won't agitate us or spoil equanimity). This could mean: get driven dispassionately by what is true (i.e. rationality, facts, evidence) or what leads to good for all others (the Brahmaviharas) rather than by unrecognised compulsive emotional / physical urges which originate from clinging to oneself.
- From Daniel Ingram's writings and interviews I also got an impression (correct me if I am wrong) that all of this obviously doesn't mean that an attainer of insight won't eventually do anything with the intention which arises from self-clinging ("if one is born, one is bound to suffer"), but to avoid suffering, one just needs to still constantly develop this faculty - even after one achieves the highest possible insight!
So, it seems to me that, irrepective of which stage one is in, in order to reduce suffering, one needs to constantly be aware of thoughts/intentions which originate from self-clinging and witness them dispassionately. It is possible that doing this may become far easier for an arahant than a beginner.
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Finally, let me thank SS for patiently entertaining the views of someone as inexperienced as I am.
Now a days, I'm experiencing a strong desire to get some sense of what this is all about (may be a sign of some early stage of the path?): proof of the fact that currently I constantly fail to dispassionately observe the work of some analytical module of my mind