What approximate percentage of time/effort have you put into achieving enlightenment through reading vs. meditation? I'll admit reading MCTB helped me tremendously but ultimately you have to sit with the mundane and the insight rollercoaster. Maybe there is a pattern of heavy reading before the simple doing. Maybe the percentage shifts once results are found and the stage attained doesn't matter to you anymore (dropping of clinging and attachment). I propose that it goes through a pattern and was wondering if you notice one yourself? Maybe the pattern can be changed if told to new meditators. I know that is, in-part, what the meditation logs are for but it seems people obsess a bit on what stage they have attained and to have it verified. Alternatively, it seems there are a lot of formation hang-ups.

Just sit with neutrality to what arises (pain, images, sounds, bliss, anything), be patient with a paradigm of impermanence.

Well this didn't go anywhere. I think I am a 10/90. 10% reading and a 90% meditating. Back in the good old days it was probably flipped. What art thou?

Well, if reading would take you places I would be a Jedi master by now Seriously, I have often noticed how reading actually impedes my meditation efforts, as I continually try stuff out, second guess myself and all the teachings and advice (just see my diary for proof!) and generally intellectualize stuff too much. But, I still do the reading, although I think someone just meditating in a cave with nothing to read would be better off.

My approach is to devote almost all the time to practice until I don't seem to be making progress, or I seem to be having some experience that tells me I'm doing something wrong. Then I go back to the books about how to practice, and look for something I missed before. Usually I find that I had gradually lost the habit of doing some important step, or gotten in the habit at looking at some slightly incorrect thing, and after I get inspiration from the book, things start going better in the practice. In general I think experience should be emphasized over anything conceptual. If we could get enlightened through concepts, it would happen to all kinds of bookworms, but it never does, because it's practice that produces the benefit.

I read everything I could get my hands on for a long time, especially early in my practice. I read about every practice type and style. I read stories about the great masters, I read teachers' biographies, and I read books written by scholars. I read material from long ago and material from the present. This informed me about the vast range of Buddhist practices and philosophy. All this reading informed my practice, and it put the experiences I encountered along the way in a trusted context.

Hi

I think we all have different learning styles. My style has been to treat reading as a supporting activity. I would read stuff in order to distill out of it instructions that I can do either as an independent instruction set or as a supplement to the technique I may be working on right now.

Like a textbook that gives a little bit of theory and then scores of drill problems and then the next chapter, and the next ... and the next.

​​​​​​​I believe that such a learning style is well suited for getting optimal progress.

Each person probably has their own ratio based on age and time to begin meditating vs current success.
My question would be the ratio of posting vs sitting.
I took Daniel 's advice and tried not to post teaching advice until after second path... Not too popular here/now apparently. I did ask questions and hypothesize which some found annoying back when. I still find it annoying when experts of every sort are overly vocal about how expert they are without cultivating recognition of how, when, practice type, other specific details that garners community respect. Lots of first posters with vague details and large opinions not based off of direct phenomenon/experience but preaching to the echo chamber.
Oh well,
Thanks as always Robert,
​​​​​​​~D

That's good advice. Being clouded by your own unresolved issues can easily cause harm, however good the intentions may be.

I appreciate your clarity and directness, keep it up.

Apologies for going off topic.

Angelo Dillulo says that those who begin teaching before they are fully liberated tend to get stuck at the place they were when they started teaching because they have reason to defend or reify or cling to what they teach. According to this way of seeing it, abstaining from teaching too early benefits the prospective teacher as well. 

I think it is unfortunates that you try to stifle communication Dream Walker. Only if "I" give you street cred can you post a question or offer support. That is ridiculous. I think you would be the last person that I would seek advice from. Do you claim 2nd path? I don't care if your 99th path, you've turned me off teacher. Not to posting as much as I would like though. Thanks for the inspiration. It is because of you =)

Heya Robert
I completely disagree that I stifle communication. I feel like I directly, openly and honestly try to elevate the "communication" to a higher level. Off topic stuff I try to guide back to on topic, vagueness I break down and ask for clarification, Total crap posts I try to flush such that they don't stink the place up to much but doing any of this is thankless work and I don't get anything out of it but complaints. Oh well.

Street cred? where did you get that idea?
Developing real relationships with fellow practitioners has always been the vital backbone of any forum community. I feel like we are doing that thru our conversations...The Dho has been described as going to a college bar and yelling, screaming, dancing on the tables. I think at a dull roar we all benifit from that freedom here. Now going to the bar every night and acting that way tends to show who you are in contrast to others.

You might be suprised...most people like me quite well, especially those I've coached.

Well, I coach, no claims to be a teacher, too much work and I'm inheirently lazy, in fact I can just sit there for hours doing nothing.

I'm glad I could inspire you.
Thats the best complement you could offer.
Good Luck,
~D

That is idea is very valid.
Defining oneself as fully liberated does in fact locks the person in a self inflicted bubble.

It would be better if people rather than using catchy ideas like 'full liberation' or 'being done' ('... on path of insight' - like if they knew all there is to know about mind, cosmos and literally everything, LOL) defined what their issues really were and not assuming everyone has said issues went from there to specific solutions for these issues.

They know however all too well it wouldn't never 'sell' and for it to sell they need to really believe in that stuff being necessary and final.
Therefore all people who as much as have 'teacher' mindset will always be limited.
It isn't tht different from any other kind of teacher really

Use a recording of someone who explains it in a way that energetically resonates with you as a peripheral meditation object.

[Recording]
{main object}
[Recording]

That way you
a) Develop better mindfulness because of the secondary object.
b) get rapid insights / transmission
c) don't have to waste time reading
​​​​​​​d) learn to move from normal concentration to the whole field. Slowly undermine having to jump from one object to another which automatically leads to no self.

​​​​​​​Only works if your concentration is already at least a bit developed. Otherwise you might not be able to handle it attention-wise.

I think anyone can teach, coach or share an idea. I welcome it and filter out what I don't agree with. Attempting to stop someone's organic response to posting is stifling of communication. You should be to this level, met these people and have proven something that is unfathomable before you can post a nugget of wisdom on dharma underground, cough, overground.

I am also on a mission but to fixing "crap" posts that control others unreasonably. Alas, it is thankless job.

The pattern was true for me as well. For almost a whole summer, I listened to Ajaan Geoff's recordings all the time yet did very little meditation, but I still think it reduced my suffering immensely. More recently, I read a ton, and while perhaps the reading was partially avoidance of meditation, I think that's ok because I've noticed that I basically hit a wall with the reading. I still frequently come across something helpful, but at the end of the day, I now understand that it's all the same sort of stuff, and that only meditation is going to give me what I'm looking for. So I guess I went from a 95/5 to 50/50 reading/meditation split.

I think reading a ton is a good phase to go through, and now I read or listen to things especially to get into the mood or mindset to meditate. It's possible that I read too much though, because now when I sit to meditate, I sometimes think of several ways to deal with each moment and have to make some effort to simplify things for myself.

from “the way of chuang tzu” trans merton:


DUKE HWAN AND THE WHEELWRIGHT

The world values books, and thinks that in so doing it is
valuing Tao. But books contain words only. And yet there is
something else which gives value to the books. Not the words
only, nor the thought in the words, but something else within
the thought, swinging it in a certain direction that words
cannot apprehend. But it is the words themselves that the
world values when it commits them to books: and though the
world values them, these words are worthless as long as that
which gives them value is not held in honor.

That which man apprehends by observation is only outward form a
​​​​​​​nd color, name and noise: and he thinks that this
will put him in possession of Tao. Form and color, name and
sound, do not reach to reality. That is why: "He who knows
does not say, he who says, does not know." 

How then is the world going to know Tao through words?

Duke Hwan of Khi,
First in his dynasty,
Sat under his canopy
Reading his philosophy;
And Phien the wheelwright
\Vas out in the yard
Making a wheel.
Phien laid aside
Hammer and chisel,
Climbed the steps,
And said to Duke Hwan:
"May I ask you, Lord,
What is this you are
Reading?" 

The Duke said:
"The experts. The authorities."

And Phien asked:
"Alive or dead?"

"Dead a long time."

"Then," said the wheelwright,
"You are reading only
The dirt they left behind."

Then the Duke replied:
"What do you know about it?
You are only a wheelwright.
You had better give me a good explanation
Or else you must die."

The wheelwright said:
"Let us look at the affair
From my point of view.
When I make wheels
If I go easy, they fall apart,
If I am too rough, they do not fit.
If I am neither too easy nor too violent
They come out right. The work is what
I want it to be.
You cannot put this into words:
You just have to know how it is.
I cannot even tell my own son exactly how it is done,
And my own son cannot learn it from me.
So here I am, seventy years old,
Still making wheels!
The men of old
Took all they really knew
With them to the grave.
And so, Lord, what you are reading there
Is only the dirt they left behind them.

This reminds me of something Ajahn Geoff said: that there's book knowledge and warrior knowledge, and that what we're trying to learn when we meditate is warrior knowledge (i.e. something that can only be learned by doing, not by reading). (In spite of this, I've probably still listened to his recordings for longer than I've meditated lol.)