I'm changing my technique

Rousseau Matt, modified 1 Year ago at 1/8/23 4:54 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 10/29/22 2:33 AM

I'm changing my technique

Posts: 136 Join Date: 5/1/22 Recent Posts
I have been shooting for hard jhana for a couple of years. I have had great meditations  and bad meditations.  At most I get some access concentration.  I am a working man and a home  meditations. 2 hours a day is my high end for what I do but often only do one. Lately  I am all over the place.      THIS  IS WHAT I AM THINKING.   NEED YOUR OPINIONS GUYS.     I want to change my coarse and shoot for stream entry.  I have mahasi  sayadows practical  Insight meditation.    It seems like favorite manual on the Dho.  . I would like to do 1 to 2 hours a day. Morning and hopefully night.   I should get good feedback. It seems to be the favorite method on here.  Anybody  who uses the noting please chime in. I want to stay in touch and get feedback. Thanks
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Chris M, modified 1 Year ago at 10/29/22 8:26 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 10/29/22 8:26 AM

RE: I'm changing my technique

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
Start your new practice and then post here about what happens. We'll chime in.
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Jim Smith, modified 1 Year ago at 10/30/22 12:24 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 10/30/22 12:19 PM

RE: I'm changing my technique

Posts: 1639 Join Date: 1/17/15 Recent Posts
Matt Jon Rousseau I have been shooting for hard jhana for a couple of years. I have had great meditations  and bad meditations.  At most I get some access concentration.  I am a working man and a home  meditations. 2 hours a day is my high end for what I do but often only do one. Lately  I am all over the place.      THIS  IS WHAT I AM THINKING.   NEED YOUR OPINIONS GUYS.     I want to change my coarse and shoot for stream entry.  I have mahasi  sayadows practical  Insight meditation.    It seems like favorite manual on the Dho.  . I would like to do 1 to 2 hours a day. Morning and hopefully night.   I should get good feedback. It seems to be the favorite method on here.  Anybody  who uses the noting please chime in. I want to stay in touch and get feedback. Thanks


If you are going to define a goal (which is a good idea) I would suggest your goal be to understand how the mind produces suffering. Every type of meditation technique has many subtleties that are not explained in the instructions but when you know your goal you know what to do with the practice.

Learn how the mind produces suffering by watching the activity of the mind: thoughts, emotions, sensory experiences, impulses, self concepts. Whatever meditation technique you use, noting is one, concentrating to produce jhana is another, notice when dukkha arises, notice what dukkha is like, notice how it fades. Do this during meditation and in daily life. When you observe dukkha arising and fading, you are observing dependent origination and the three characteristics. 

Also, Buddha taught his students to practice both samatha and vipassana not one or the other.

https://accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/onetool.html

Samatha quiets the mind so you can be mindful and see what is going on in it, and samatha soothes some of the unpleasant emotions that may be released when you look closely at the activity of the mind. Vipassana let's you see what is going on in the mind - how it creates suffering. When  you understand how the mind creates suffering you know what to do to stop suffering - what seemed to be involuntary now seems to be intentional although habitual - and you can start learning to give up the habit of suffering.

And there is samatha in vipassan and vipassana in samatha. When you practice vipassana, for example noting, you have to keep the mind focused on noting. This helps to quiet the mind. When you try to concentrate the mind in samatha every time you get distracted you see that you don't control your mind, you see the distraction arising and fading. (Also, I think relaxation is a better translation of "samatha" than concentration)

From the above link to accesstoinsight.org:
In the few instances where they do mention vipassana, they almost always pair it with samatha — not as two alternative methods, but as two qualities of mind that a person may "gain" or "be endowed with," and that should be developed together.
Rousseau Matt, modified 1 Year ago at 1/8/23 4:54 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 10/30/22 1:44 PM

RE: I'm changing my technique

Posts: 136 Join Date: 5/1/22 Recent Posts
I meditated about 3 times since my last post doing noting.  I sit in a straight  back chair and do not use the back rest. Feet on the floor hands on my knees or lower thigh. It's the European posture I guess. I have done it for years.  I start by counting breaths for a few minutes usually sequences of 10. Than concentrate on rising and falling of the abdomen. Over and over . Trying to note and label everything  that comes into awareness . I notices I can go on daydreaming for minutes at a time before catching myself . Then I note. Daydreaming.  This  incredibly difficult.  . And I do notice that meditation increases suffering and depression. But that's OK.  If it yields results later on.   I try on keep my life simple. I work and come home.  Keep things boring.  I do not practice mi.dfullness at work because the added mental effort makes me look spacey to others .also I seem distant(sort of monkish lol).  But  I will keep trying
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Dream Walker, modified 1 Year ago at 11/4/22 12:25 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 11/4/22 12:25 AM

RE: I'm changing my technique

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
Some people are better at insight and others are better at concentration. After first path Jhana is usually a whole lot easier.
Your milage may vary,
Good luck
​​​​​​​~D
Rousseau Matt, modified 1 Year ago at 1/8/23 4:54 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 11/6/22 12:32 AM

RE: I'm changing my technique

Posts: 136 Join Date: 5/1/22 Recent Posts
Perhaps but how difficult  is first path ?is it possible  for your average joe?
Adi Vader, modified 1 Year ago at 11/6/22 3:10 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 11/6/22 3:10 AM

RE: I'm changing my technique

Posts: 268 Join Date: 6/29/20 Recent Posts
It is certainly a very do-able thing.

The average joe needs to have the following:

1. Structured methodical approach, with persistence, patience, and forbearance
2. Willingness to do the work
3. Willingness to accept that they will not feel 'meditated' everytime they sit
4. Willingness to embrace the idea that this practice is about knowledge and wisdom and not about chasing states
5. Willingness to chase states and at a metacognitive level understand how states are constructed and fall apart
6. Willingness to develop intimacy with experience
7. Willingness to accept that 'distance' from experience is also an experience
8. Willingness to see that all 'models' and 'maps' are tools to get the job done and to abandon all love, loyalty towards models, maps, techniques, traditions
9. 'Can do' go-getter attitude balanced with looking out for one's own physical and mental health
Thor Jackson, modified 1 Year ago at 11/7/22 12:41 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 11/7/22 12:41 PM

RE: I'm changing my technique

Posts: 5 Join Date: 11/7/22 Recent Posts
Anything but complete focus on your "self" inside your head, continuously, thoughout the day will do nothing for you.
One, two, ten, hours will do NOTHING.
Unless you can focus on your "self", the REAL YOU, the one behind your eyes that you hide from everyone else, without a SINGLE THOUGHT interferring, you will get NOWHERE.

The ONLY way to transend the body identity is to comit to TOTAL, ONE POINTED, CONTINUOUS CONCENTRATION.

Don't be disheartened by that. If you comit to it totally, it can happen in under a week.

The commitment has to be TOTAL. Nothing else will do. The more you sacrafise the more you gain.
Rousseau Matt, modified 1 Year ago at 1/8/23 4:54 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 11/7/22 3:34 PM

RE: I'm changing my technique

Posts: 136 Join Date: 5/1/22 Recent Posts
Nobody has that mental capacity .at least I don't. Sounds like continuous hard jhana.
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เอียน พิชฟอร์ด, modified 1 Year ago at 11/8/22 4:52 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 11/8/22 4:47 AM

RE: I'm changing my technique

Posts: 40 Join Date: 2/10/20 Recent Posts
After trying various difficult and intense methods the Buddha famously recalled an episode of first jhāna as a child and suddenly realised it was the path to awakening:

"Then it occurred to me, ‘Whatever ascetics and brahmins have experienced painful, sharp, severe, acute feelings due to overexertion—whether in the past, future, or present—this is as far as it goes, no-one has done more than this. But I have not achieved any superhuman distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones by this severe, grueling work. Could there be another path to awakening?’ 
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Then it occurred to me, ‘I recall sitting in the cool shade of the rose-apple tree while my father the Sakyan was off working. Quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, I entered and remained in the first absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of seclusion, while placing the mind and keeping it connected. Could that be the path to awakening?’ Stemming from that memory came the realization: ‘That is the path to awakening!’ Then it occurred to me, ‘Why am I afraid of that pleasure, for it has nothing to do with sensual pleasures or unskillful qualities?’ I thought, ‘I’m not afraid of that pleasure, for it has nothing to do with sensual pleasures or unskillful qualities.’" (MN 100)

In 'Two Kinds of Thought' he recommends choosing wholesome over unwholesome thoughts:

"Then, as I meditated—diligent, keen, and resolute—a malicious thought arose … a cruel thought arose. I understood: ‘This cruel thought has arisen in me. It leads to hurting myself, hurting others, and hurting both. It blocks wisdom, it’s on the side of anguish, and it doesn’t lead to extinguishment.’ When I reflected that it leads to hurting myself … hurting others … hurting both, it went away. When I reflected that it blocks wisdom, it’s on the side of anguish, and it doesn’t lead to extinguishment, it went away. So I gave up, got rid of, and eliminated any cruel thoughts that arose. Whatever a mendicant frequently thinks about and considers becomes their heart’s inclination. If they often think about and consider sensual thoughts, they’ve given up the thought of renunciation to cultivate sensual thought. Their mind inclines to sensual thoughts. If they often think about and consider malicious thoughts … their mind inclines to malicious thoughts. If they often think about and consider cruel thoughts … their mind inclines to cruel thoughts."

If you think this approach has merit here's a good introduction. Dhammarato usually recommends six sessions of ten minutes per day with the first and last being when you're in bed. This means you only have to squeeze in 4x10 minutes the rest of the day.
Rousseau Matt, modified 1 Year ago at 1/8/23 4:54 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 11/8/22 4:56 AM

RE: I'm changing my technique

Posts: 136 Join Date: 5/1/22 Recent Posts
Thankyou 

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