Has anyone here used exclusively Rob Burbea's methods for insight practice? - Discussion
I'm curious about people's thoughts here. I've posted about my practice history elsewhere but for the majority of my practice career, for better or for worse (mostly better I hope 
) I've practiced using Rob's techniques.
Rather than noting sensations using bare attention which is what the majority of insight meditation appears to espouse as the primary meditative technique, with insight emerging as a result of of noting, Rob focuses on adopting a stance to phenomenal experience. Viewing a phenomena that appear in consciousness as one of the three characteristics is the most common one. For example, rather than note sounds when you notice them, you take a stance of deliberately viewing the sound as not me/not min (anatta way of looking/stance), or notice its impermanence (anicca way of looking/stance), or drop contraction around it (dukkha way of looking/stance). One also employs a subtle sense of the body to gauge whether practice is opening towards liberation, or a fading of perception by sensing the relief that comes from reducing clinging, craving or aversion. The main thrust of practice is to grok emptiness and dependent orgination (in both its linear and non-linear forms).
I've found this to be a really lovely way to practice and it's lead me to have some fairly deep meditations. They don't really "map" to anything on the PoI or what I've seen in MCTB. At times when meditation gets particularly deep, fear or other types of aversion can arise, but rather than hone in on the fear I can expand the awareness to include a sense of the loveliness that can be inherent in fading or the lessening of clinging.
Some examples of this fading business from my own practice I can describe come in the area of sound and pain. After some samadhi has been established, I can take a sound that sustains (like a fridge humming or AC blowing), deliberately sustain attention on it, reduce the felt-sense of contraction (dukkha way of looking) that comes from hearing the sound (but maintaining attention) and gradually the perception of the sound begins to fade. If I stop using the meditative technique, the sound comes back. Another example is using some sense of pain - I can take a pain in my knee, rather than noting the pain, I can root out the aversion in my energy body, sustain a way of looking (anatta or dukkha) on the aversion itself (not the vedana or the bare sensate experience of the pain), and the pain begins to fade. Essentially, rather than waiting for an insight of dependent origination to emerge from using bare attention, I can use these ways of looking and watch phenomena become more or less prominent in attention and notice dependent origination directly from relaxing various links within the chain.
I know there are many people who like Rob's teaching here, but even then the majority of people practice using other insight techniques, or have adopted Rob's techniques after stream-entry. I'm curious if there are any here who have taken Rob's techniques all the way to stream-entry. This avenue of practice feels incredibly rich to me, but from what I can tell there are a very tiny number of people who practice this way which has me feeling a bit lonely at times.
) I've practiced using Rob's techniques. Rather than noting sensations using bare attention which is what the majority of insight meditation appears to espouse as the primary meditative technique, with insight emerging as a result of of noting, Rob focuses on adopting a stance to phenomenal experience. Viewing a phenomena that appear in consciousness as one of the three characteristics is the most common one. For example, rather than note sounds when you notice them, you take a stance of deliberately viewing the sound as not me/not min (anatta way of looking/stance), or notice its impermanence (anicca way of looking/stance), or drop contraction around it (dukkha way of looking/stance). One also employs a subtle sense of the body to gauge whether practice is opening towards liberation, or a fading of perception by sensing the relief that comes from reducing clinging, craving or aversion. The main thrust of practice is to grok emptiness and dependent orgination (in both its linear and non-linear forms).
I've found this to be a really lovely way to practice and it's lead me to have some fairly deep meditations. They don't really "map" to anything on the PoI or what I've seen in MCTB. At times when meditation gets particularly deep, fear or other types of aversion can arise, but rather than hone in on the fear I can expand the awareness to include a sense of the loveliness that can be inherent in fading or the lessening of clinging.
Some examples of this fading business from my own practice I can describe come in the area of sound and pain. After some samadhi has been established, I can take a sound that sustains (like a fridge humming or AC blowing), deliberately sustain attention on it, reduce the felt-sense of contraction (dukkha way of looking) that comes from hearing the sound (but maintaining attention) and gradually the perception of the sound begins to fade. If I stop using the meditative technique, the sound comes back. Another example is using some sense of pain - I can take a pain in my knee, rather than noting the pain, I can root out the aversion in my energy body, sustain a way of looking (anatta or dukkha) on the aversion itself (not the vedana or the bare sensate experience of the pain), and the pain begins to fade. Essentially, rather than waiting for an insight of dependent origination to emerge from using bare attention, I can use these ways of looking and watch phenomena become more or less prominent in attention and notice dependent origination directly from relaxing various links within the chain.
I know there are many people who like Rob's teaching here, but even then the majority of people practice using other insight techniques, or have adopted Rob's techniques after stream-entry. I'm curious if there are any here who have taken Rob's techniques all the way to stream-entry. This avenue of practice feels incredibly rich to me, but from what I can tell there are a very tiny number of people who practice this way which has me feeling a bit lonely at times.
