I think Trent just summed everything up there, so I wanted to offer some advice to you based on experience of being where you are right now and given in the hope that you won't see it as me having a go at you.

It's clear that you mean well and are offering advice based on your own experience which, from your previous threads and postings, does not appear to include practicing vipassana, samatha or AF techniques. This means that you're trying to help people by giving out information and suggestions which are nothing to do with the techniques being used, are based in your own ideas about what will and won't work which is based on a non-experiential understanding, and are likely to be inappropriate to the discussion.

The observations you've made are very generalised, psychology-based (with a flawed understanding in some basic areas, in my opinion.) and are given as if you really know what you're talking about. You're confusing yourself and risking confusing others with this approach, you're taking second-hand experience through a book as the way things are without actually experiencing it for yourself. By doing this you then filter the information from that book through your own understanding which colours your presentation of it, you present this as being truth when really it's just a flawed projection. You don't even offer the possibility that you could be wrong so it seems like you're speaking with certainty. Do you see what I mean and how this could be unhelpful?

Think about it for a minute, most of us (you included) know there's more to our experience of reality than can be explained by science, art, philosophy, or whatever other paths people tred before exploring experiential paths such as Theravada or shamanic training. We know this because we've experienced "something" which shows us unquestionably that there is more to reality than what we previously understood and so we can begin the spiritual journey towards enlightenment. What I'm saying is that most people, and I know this is generalising, who encounter this site will have at least a rudimentary understanding of psychology so you're advice just comes off like pop-psychology you found on wikipedia.

As I said, I'm not having a go at you and I mean you no offence but think before you offer advice in future. Ask yourself if you really have the experience to offer any relevant advice or would you only be offering an opinion? You could make a suggestion which isn't the same as telling someone to do this or that, just avoid claiming you know things with any certainty. We can all be wrong but at least we'll learn something from it.

Take care of y'erself.

What part of what I said is flawed?
Everything I say is from personal experience and practice. Some of it is originally learnt from books, some of it I came up with myself. What's wrong with that? Are you suggesting that learning things from a website is somehow a better approach? Is that what you do? You criticize my not practising AF/meditation and for offering a psychology-based approach. There's a very good reason for me having this angle, and that is that a lot of people lurking here suffer depression (which they sometimes dress up as Dark Night to make it sound more acceptable to the ego). Creating a strong sense of self is necessary for this. I don't believe anyone has ever got to no-self without first having a strong sense of self. My writing style in here does have a very forceful tone, and i'm not quite sure where that comes from because I'm not that way on other forums. But I will try to offer what i have in a more gentle way in future.

Thanks for your replies and commentary Trent.

It probably would have taken a long, long time to fix all the issues that came up when I was going through my first Dark Night. Much more effective to keep meditating =).

Beo I do actually use a form of meditation which I designed myself to strengthen the sense of self (rather than transcend it, which I plan to attempt that later on). I concentrate with as much openness and non-judgment as I can on my body, then my feelings (and maybe thoughts if i have any), repeating "this is who i am, this is my body, these are my feelings, these are my thoughts". I haven't ever shared this technique with anyone before. Perhaps someone would like to try it as a comparison to AF. It works within 2 minutes for me, whereas i can't get anything from AF despite sincere effort.

What does it do within 2 minutes for you?

Also if that appeals to you... it seems close to some approaches, which I don't know much about, but they entail asking yourself "Who am I?", then finding the answer experientially (which is something like "I AM!"), then there are places to go from there. But the answer to "Who am I?" isn't "my thoughts," as far as I can tell.

CCC, to continue discussing this matter on this thread would be unfair to Dan and the others interested in AF so I'll respond to what you've said here then I suggest we carry on the discussion privately or at least in a more appropriate thread.

What part of what you've said do I consider flawed? I'll show you what I mean.



Emotions aren't only the product of the "subconscious mind", can you define your use of the term further? In basic psychological terms the subconscious is only part of the strata of "mind" immediately below waking consciousness, to explain the process of emotion in these terms limits proper exploration of the mechanisms through which we experience "emotion". It's not that the subconscious mind can't respond to rational thought, it's just less effective than using symbolic or metaphorical language since this is it's 'native tongue'.



Dealing with a phobia requires a realignment of the individuals response to stimuli, this involves an incremental process where the person is brought closer to, literally and psychologically, the stimuli which invokes that particular emotional reaction. Knowing a phobia at a conscious level is essential to treatment as it's this level where the reaction manifests.



I can't even begin to tell you how far off you are in your understanding of the area you're claiming knowledge of. CBT has as much to do with AF, or enlightenment for that matter, as bricklaying has to do with quantum physics. Sure you could find ways to interpret either within the other but it would be the product of your own desire to make it fit. "What the thinker thinks, the prover proves", as Robert Anton Wilson said. No, it wouldn't be "wiser to devise some sort of strategy...." as these are only temporary coping mechanisms, sleights of mind which do not address the source of suffering and will not reduce it at a fundamental level.



No it's not. How can you possibly reduce the infinite variety of human experience to that? Yes, the need/want is part of the duality which creates fundamental suffering as we look for something "other" to make us feel complete, but the psychological process you're referring to is of an entirely different level of functioning.



How is this "best treated"? On what do you base your assertion? You'd suggest than anyone having difficulty with applying AF try this approach but, your own admission, are not pursuing AF, and are not applying the techniques used? In that case, how do you know it works? What works? What is the outcome you're referring to?



There's nothing wrong with trying to help, but don't sit there and claim you know best when you clearly don't. Yes, I am criticising your lack of practice in AF/meditation as without this you have no right to offer advice on technique, a purely psychological approach will not work in vipassana or AF practice. You're trying to deal with the technique of attaining pure consciousness devoid of self so how would analysis of a psychological process, a process which relies on there being a seperate self to examine, be of use here? In a PCE there is no self, no mind, no emotion so how can you possibly get there through currently used psychological techniques?

A strong sense of self is necessary, I agree but, from a vipassana point of view, it means that we can clearly note the sensations which make up the sense of there being a self. While I also agree that some people may dress up depression as Dark Night, for whatever reason, there's a difference between the two which only experience will show you. I know this because I spent a long time as a dark night yogi and have been treated for clinical depression as well, so while dark night can mimic depression they can be examined as two different sets of sensations once we're more familiar with them.

Look, I left my first reply because I, and no doubt countless others, have tried a purely psychological approach to understanding reality and found that it always comes up short so I would like to suggest, not tell you, to try exploring other avenues of experience too. I said that I mean no offence to you and it's unfortunate that the limitations of writing, for me at least, mean that I too can come across as being forceful or like I somehow know better than anyone else which is far from the truth. My only wish is that you find freedom from suffering, the same as I wish for every single person, in this lifetime. How you attain this is up to you but you won't find it in a book, forum, website or anywhere outside of your current experience of being.

I'll be leaving my responses to CCC on here until later on tonight and then I'll be removing them. The reason for this is that our discussion is not directly related to AF and doesn't belong in this thread. My apologies for sidetracking this thread. If CCC wishes to leave his responses then so be it, I can't make a decision for anyone else. Apologies once again.

this thread begins in response to this post.

Hey there, Tommy.



I can't really speak to the similarities between CBT and AF, as I am not an AF practitioner. However, in saying that CBT has nothing to do with "enlightenment," are you suggesting that the theories between CBT and, say, vipassana meditation are all that incompatible?

I ask this because I am currently a psychotherapist in training. I've been practicing meditation, primarily vipassana, for longer than I've been studying psychology at the graduate level. That said, I think that your statement shows how little you know about how CBT actually works. This is quite all right, as most people don't (not even those who claim to practice it professionally).

Good CBT theory involves the idea of "mechanisms of change." For any given psychological (cognitive/affective/etc.) process one wishes to change, there are processes of mind -- habitual for the most part -- that support the symptom one wants to alleviate. For example, the mechanisms responsible for claustrophobia are (1) intolerance to lack of personal space, and (2) intolerance to labored breathing (i.e. suffocation). Therefore, for claustrophobia to be treated, the two 'mechanisms' that need to be manipulated are (1) personal space, and (2) suffocation. By encountering these processes directly, in a controlled environment which allows one's anxiety responses to peak and then subside without the person reacting with fight or flight, the deeply ingrained habitual tendencies responsible for the problem begin to 'change', like being reprogrammed.

Now, you may already know all of this. But, vipassana meditation isn't much different. In basic terms, suffering is caused by clinging/craving, which can be broken down into the Three Poisons of greed, aversion, and delusion. Those three are the root processes, or 'mechanisms', that one will need to manipulate in order to move through to awakening. Vipassana counteracts all three: 'greed' by not acting our desires, 'aversion' by refusing to turn away from things we don't like, and 'delusion' by not ignoring the subtle sensations of experience that we generally repress out of boredom. Balancing this process through the stages of meditation also results in peaks of both bliss and anxiety/stress/dread, and if one is able to sit through them long enough for change to occur... well, then change will occur :-D

By all accounts, the goal of CBT as practiced in psychotherapy clinics does not usually have this aim in mind, for various reasons (sociological, political, economical, etc.). But the principles are similar to those described by the Buddha in the Pali canon. They just have a different goal in mind.

So, see -- not as different as you might think. I'm not at all saying that they are the same thing, just that they are more like distant cousins than they are complete strangers.

Jackson

P.S. It's true that some forms of psychotherapy are ego-centric, particularly the psychodynamic variety. But not all forms of psychology, or even psychotherapy, have much to do with a separate self. It is very much about changing processes in the mind that cause various types of suffering. The more contemporary, Evidence-Based approaches are less ego-focused than the psychodynamic or existential approaches that were more en vogue a decade or so ago.

In other words, not all psychological approaches involve wandering through one's personal crap for hours on end. It's not always about talking about your mother. Rather, it's about fixing actual problems, through action, built around sound theory and supported by empirical evidence. That's a fact that I believe has been missing from the dialog between the Hardcore Dharma crowd and those who have a higher opinion of psychology/psychotherapy.

Hiya Jackson, that's an excellent reply and I admit that my knowledge of CBT is minimal to say the least. I'll answer what you've said here but please don't think I'm trying to make out that I know more than I do, it's my intention to study to become a qualified psychotherapist in the upcoming year(s) so any discussion of the subject, particularly in relation to vipassana, would be massively helpful and appreciated.



I don't think that the theories are incompatible, but I think, as you've said yourself, the goals of both techniques are different which is what I was getting at. My example of dealing with phobia was based on experience of treating phobias through hypnotherapy and NLP techniques in my friends and family so I hope I didn't come across as making out that I was talking about CBT.



This is exactly what I think about the integration between the two areas!! You've hit the nail on the head there Jackson, thank you. I hope that others will be able to learn from what you've just said as there's much to be gained from a proper understanding of what psychotherapy "is", as you say it's not just about trawling through neuroses.

I believe that meditation (and magick) and the techniques of psychotherapy share a common ground and that, at some point in the future, the two will be integrated into a more holistic system of development.

There's a lot in your posting that I'd like to discuss with your further but I'm in work so excuse the brief response. Again, thanks for taking the time to put me straight on these areas and I'll try to get a more full reply in later tonight.

Hi again, Tommy.



Glad to hear it :-) I think that there is a unique opportunity for pragmatic dharma practitioners within the psychotherapeutic community. That is, up to this point much of the Eastern Dharma/Western Psychology in-breading has focused on either Jungian/Archetypal or Existential/Humanist approaches, with Mythical/Tantric or dry secular Dharma. There's some vipassana research out there, but I'm not keen on the language being used (I wish I had a good example). I think attainments like stream-entry and the jhanas can be described using the practical language of some of the better CBT style approaches to treatment, without falling prey to the misunderstanding/misapplication of "mindfulness" being pushed around today.




I hope that better integrative theories and practices will begin to emerge sometime in the near future. Though, I'm afraid that insight work won't be making it to the top of the APA's priority list any time soon. Insurance companies and other third-party payers (including employers, the government, etc.) are primarily interested in fixing any debilitating issues that keep an individual from being a productive member of society and/or their work environment. If one is able to get up in the morning, go to work, play well with others, and meet their general societal obligations, then there's no reason why third-party payers would want to continue to pay for their therapy. So any approach aimed at producing optimal well-being, rather than a return to basic functioning, is not likely to take the world of psychology by storm. Sad, I know.

On the up side, learning to teach and explain what insight is, why it is a valid goal, and how to do it, within the context of the psychological language of the day will hopefully result in the greater acceptance of the practices and goals involved. The less "wo woo" it sounds, the better. I guess that's why I've been borrowing the term "mechanism of change" -- nothing woo woo about it! ;-)

Good talking with you. Best of luck with your goals.
Jackson