Hey Everyone!

Should I go for Stream Entry at Panditarama? or stay at Pa Auk Forest Monastery to develop Jhana?

Background.

Any advice would seriously help!!! I've been practicing meditation for 2 years. My name is Ryan and I'm about to turn 20. I've done a 10day Goenka retreat and a 90 day retreat with Wat Phra Dhammakaya beginning in Jan of this year. I wouldn't say that the 90 day was a waste of time, but I definitely would've made more progress at a silent retreat practicing Anapanasati or Insight meditation. However attending a 90-day retreat looks awesome on your registration app! I'm sure it's what granted me acceptance into the 60-day Panditarama retreat. I know how much intensity I can handle and what my limitations are due to experimentation with psychedelics (bad trips) and having an NDE earlier in my youth. I've done Insight practices at a Goenka retreat a year before going on the 90-day in Thailand. Surprisingly my mind had becoming more still, serene, & sharp during the Silent 10-day than the entire 90-day period in Thailand. On the 10-day retreat within the first day I began feeling sensations around my nostrils and by the 3rd I felt every inch of my body vibrating. I was having full blown Wake-Induced Lucid Dreams and for 2 nights I slept for just a couple hours. I dropped Vipassana practice after that retreat because I convinced myself that the retreat conditions were the sole reason for my incredible experience and that without them my practice was useless. I have not attained first jhana but wish to do so. However I've found that my mind is much more quiet, still and luminous when I let my attention collapse back in on itself. When I don't place my attention anywhere thought ceases, mental chattering falls away and I become very relaxed. Is is possible to enter absorption without using an object? While on my 90-day retreat using mindfulness of breathing and visualization I popped into a space of light and bliss that left me on a cloud for an hour after the sitting session ended. It felt better than sex. Maybe it was Jhana I don't know. At one point I had been able to stay with the object without becoming distracted for 40 minutes maximum. I've failed to enter a state of such stillness, bliss & luminosity since. After experiencing that state I found myself trying to "get back there" by switching techniques. I didn't follow instructions even though my teaching monk told me on multiple accounts that I was trying to rush my progress by using other techniques. I currently don't practice the technique taught to me by the monks at Wat Phra Dhammakaya and do not plan on doing so. I've learned my lesson. I left that 90-day retreat disappointed in myself for succumbing to the hindrances and for not attaining Jhana. It wasn't till after the retreat was over that I realized my technique switching was a reaction to the hindrance of doubt. After the retreat ended my concentration waned and I found myself not even able to stay with the object for 5 minutes. At first, I was so ridiculously pissed and had felt that I wasted 90-days, but I dropped my egoic bs and got over it. I've learned and grown from those mistakes. When I go to Panditarama I will follow instructions to the KEY.

Current Situation.

Right now I'm in Thailand about to get all my Myanmar Visa crap handled for the Panditarama retreat. I'm not sure how I should go about maximizing my shot for stream entry. Should I hone my Samatha skills and develop Jhana by staying at The Pa Auk Forest Monastery? or should I go to Panditrama 2 months ahead of the retreat date and practice in silence until the retreat actually begins? What would be more efficient for attaining stream entry or for my progress on the path overall? or am I getting way too ahead of myself and should just stick with mastering the first Jhana? I read in MCTB that in the Mahasi Tradition most people can get to stream entry within 2 or 3 months of intense practice. I'm willing to put in 4 months of silence for SE. 5 months at the most.

So what should I do?

1) 2months @ Pa Auk -> Samatha aiming for first Jhana followed by 2months @ Panditarama -> Vipassana aiming for SE.
or
2) 4 Months @ Panditrama -> Vipassana aiming for SE
or
3) 4 Months @ Pa Auk -> Samatha aiming for entrance and mastery of first Jhana
-Thus dropping my spot at Panditarama.

Thanks for your time! It's greatly appreciated. javascript:%20;

What happened at Wat Phra Dhammakaya that didn't seem to work for you? What technique do they teach?

As for where to go, some general thoughts.

First, the 1st jhana that MCTB says you have to attain before beginning insight practice is a very simple state, and you have probably attained it numerous times without knowing (because it isn't all that amazing). If you go to Pa Auk Sayadaw's monastary, the 1st jhana you will be working to master there is an entirely different attainment. So don't let confusion about that point be a motivating factor.

Second, I don't think many people here are familiar with Pa Auk Sayadaw's practice style. I read parts of "Knowing and Seeing" and the practice style seemed pretty alien to me. I doubt that you will get many informed comments about whether you should practice at his monastary, simply because of a lack of familiarity here with what that would be like.

Third, are you at all interested in doing Pa Auk Sayadaw's vipassana practice, which I assume you would need to be at his monastary to learn?

In general, the best advice I can offer is, ask yourself whether you think you're more inclined to concentration practice or vipassana practice, and choose accordingly. Keep in mind that switching between monasteries halfway through your retreat may be disruptive, and I would count that as a reason not to do it, unless you have high confidence that it won't derail your practice. It sounds to me like you've had good vipassana experiences and less good concentration experiences, so, assuming that's true, it would seem that time spent at Panditarama would likely help you accomplish something valuable, whereas time spent learning concentration at Pa Auk Sayadaw's monastery has more variable possible outcomes, and you'll need to make a judgment call based on that and other factors.

On a practical note...



If you keep doing this, you'll eventually experience a nimitta and then enter absorption. The nimitta will be the formal "object" but you may not recognize it as such, because you're not "focused" on it.

Ajahn Brahm teaches something that sounds a little similar to what you describe as the basis for concentration, where your "object" is the knowledge that you're breathing (and not anything to overtly place attention on, such as the anapana spot).



The experience of the DhO is something like, lots of people get MCTB 1st path in 3 months or less, sometimes not even on retreat. Others take longer. There are some unknown individual factors at work, it seems. But your chances on a long retreat are really good.

One thing I'd like to know (which maybe you know), is, how common is it for people early in their practice to attain 1st jhana at Pa Auk Sayadaw's monastery in a certain amount of time?

Leigh Brasington spent about 4 months with Pa Auk Sayadaw and apparently only attained jhana once: http://www.leighb.com/jhana_fr2.htm (I find his interpretation of which jhana he experienced a little strange, but that's a separate issue, and irrelevant.)

I point this out not to discourage you from practicing concentration, but to remind you that concentration practice is very difficult for some people, even experienced meditators like Leigh, whereas many more people can figure out how to do vipassana effectively from the beginning; so it's important to try to assess whether you think you have an aptitude for concentration or not.



Being willing to put in so much time suggests an extraordinary commitment to the practice, in relation to your peers (early 20s westerners). I think it's worth going over what your reasons for this commitment are, before setting any absolute kind of limit.

Pure VIPASSANA! The Jhanas will come naturally and easily as you progress in insight.

Good luck and don't care so much! You're 20 years old and doing GREAT

-d

That doesn't sound all bad, I sometimes find myself envious of the way in which my dogs live their lives.

I'll do my best to balance effort & mindfulness.
Examining those sensations to my full ability without going overboard.
Letting go when I know I'm holding on too dearly

Thank you for the input Blue!

Hahahaha
Chill out let your mind be as a dogs-mind would be!

Thanks man

Ok I thought that attaining first jhana as a prerequisite for insight in MCTB meant entering the first samatha jhana, exiting into access concentration and then observing sensations.

Well I've decided I'm gonna arrive at Panditarama a month early and stay a month past the retreat or until I hit SE. I have around 2 and a half months to prepare for the retreat. I've ditched Samatha trying to follow the whole of the breath. However an interesting phenomena has occurred.

I've been observing sensations arise and pass on a very tiny part of the anapana spot. Where the 2 halfs of the upper lip meet, right beneath the piece of skin between the nostrils. Observing and noting tingling sensations, etc. This is what I was taught to do on the Goenka retreat until we began body scanning. I found that my concentration was so much better observing the tiny sensations on that little spot in comparison to following the breath. I could stay on the object observing sensations for 30-40 minutes without getting distracted. It feels very Samatha-like. More Samatha-like than when I'm practicing Anapanasati. My concentration was glued to the sensations on that tiny spot. I began to feel as if I was shifting from awareness of my body into awareness of a tiny hole. Joy arose as I found my mind silenced. I kept noting the sensations. Investigating no-self as the main characteristic. I really have absolutely no idea if I'm doing this right because it's sensations on a tiny spot that I'm noting as opposed to sensations accompanied with the rising and falling of the abdomen.

So for the next 2 and half months of preparation...
Should I keep observing sensations at the Anapana spot? Thus having a narrow spot for observing sensations which strengthens and unifies my concentration or observe the sensations with the rising and falling of the abdomen? As would be instructed on retreat. I'm leaning towards staying at the Anapana spot because so far its been PHENOMENAL. But doing otherwise may also be a good idea. I wouldn't want to be doing Samatha thinking it was Vipassana.

And wow... this noting stuff is really gonna take a while to get used to. Hahahaha.
When I note am I actually supposed to mentally say a word? for example, intention to lift, note intention, while lifting note lifting? Am I actually saying to my self those words or am I just supposed to be aware of the intention, and then the lifting?

Sorry if these questions seem redundant!

No. MCTB conceives of concentration practice (and the resultant states) in a way that's quite different from traditional sources. If you have Pa Auk Sayadaw's 1st jhana (or any jhana) as a goal, most of what you read in MCTB concerning concentration is highly likely to be misleading or confusing.

"Access concentration" in MCTB is another thing that is quite easy to attain and unglamorous. There isn't much of a relationship between it and what's meant by "access concentration" in traditional sources.



My guess about the problem you've had with observing the anapana spot is that you're trying to "focus" on it in order to make it the object of your meditation (as you've been taught to do). But, the activity of "focusing" as you currently understand it, putting your mind or attention "on" an object, etc., is (simplified) just clinging, and so what you're doing is unhelpful to developing useful concentration. That's why, when you don't focus on a particular object, you get better results.

So, I suggest continuing to do the Goenka-style practice you mentioned, and see how that goes, with the important qualification that you don't tune out the rest of your bodily experience. You should be open to the entirety of your bodily experience (or as much as you can naturally perceive as this point in your meditative development). Don't tune it out, but don't pay it any special attention; rather, let it just be there. (It may occur to you that tuning it out is the way to get jhana, because you would be more "focused" on your breath or whatever if you tuned out everything else, but the opposite is true; you need to be so indifferent or equanimous towards the rest of your experience that it eventually disappears, and tuning out is the opposite of indifference or equanimity.) You may have to re-read this advice as your meditative practice deepens in order to understand it fully.

(You can also experiment with whether Ajahn Brahm's technique of "knowing that you're breathing" (instead of paying attention to the little tingly sensations) helps. I think it's ultimately better than paying attention to the tingly sensations you experience. But, be realistic concerning what's working and what's not working for you where you are right now.)

Also, this is not "samatha" or "vipassana", but just meditation. If you emphasize concentration, you'll eventually enter absorption. If you emphasize understanding the various sensations you'll experience, you'll gain insight. You can emphasize whatever you think is better to emphasize at any particular moment, and eventually experience various good qualities in tandem. When you meditate, it might be helpful to think about maximizing your experience of the factors of enlightenment, getting them all to be experienced at a high level at once. You can accomplish a lot this way in terms of insight, whether or not you reach the 1st jhana.

Also, a crucial point about nimittas...the nimitta that precedes absorption ("counterpart sign") can be described in terms of sense experiences (e.g. a bright light), but it is not a normal sense experience. That doesn't mean that it occurs like an object in your imagination would (as opposed to being seeing by your eye), or that it's in the imagination and the imagination is exceptionally powerful, but that it's simply not experienced in any of those ways. All the teachers that I know of who teach jhana according to the Visuddhimagga's standards agree on this point, so knowing this will help you not be confused about what you're experiencing, whether it's jhana, whether it's almost jhana, etc. If you literally see it, in the way that you literally see things before you and in your mind, then it isn't the counterpart sign.



First, keep in mind that (as I recall) noting is a method that one uses in the Mahasi Sayadaw tradition up until concentration reaches a certain level, not permanently. The right transition point (as I recall) is when you can notice large amounts of your experience without needing any notes.

According to Mahasi Sayadaw the note should be gentle, nonverbal, something more like "recognizing" the thing to be noted.

Also, if you stay at Panditarama, the method of noting may be different than what you find in MCTB. Mahasi Sayadaw's method seems to emphasize noting various sensory experiences more than MCTB does. So if you want to practice noting before your retreat officially starts, it would help to practice the exact technique that will be expected of you so that you don't have to switch. (I assume "Practical Insight Meditation" by Mahasi Sayadaw, which you can find online, would be appropriate.)

The description of the 4 material jhanas and the formless absorptions in MCTB are the same from what I've read in "Practicing the Jhanas", written by the two Western Teachers I spoke of earlier. However the Pa Auk tradition emphasizes "hard" jhanas, where not a single thought enters the mind. Mastery of Jhana in their tradition is defined as being able to maintain thoughtlessness in Jhana for 4hrs and exit the Jhana exactly at the 4hr mark. Daniel's and Tina Rasmussen's (student of Pa Auk) descriptions of the formless realms are the same. The only difference would be the strength and depth of the absorption, since Pa Auk's version of jhana mastery is absolute absorption where external sounds and bodily sensations can longer be felt.

In this state, the rapture drops away, and what is left is more cool
“bodily” bliss and equanimity with a lot of mindfulness of what is going
on. (It must be noted that it is possible to be so deeply into any jhana,
even the first jhana, that the sense of the body is quite vague, distorted
or even entirely absent, so this must be kept in mind when reading these
descriptions.) -MCTB

I read on one of the discussion boards a man's criticism of Daniel's description of Jhana. Apparently he missed the above portion of the book.



The problem was that I was trying to follow the length of the breath! If there is a solid object I can place my attention on then I'm ok. If I have to visualize the object my attention will drift. Yes what I've experienced in the past is that if I let go of all effort to do anything whatsoever my mind becomes very still and quiet. The quality of the stillness itself surpasses what can be accomplished through moderate effort, but the amount of time it can be maintained for does not. It isn't clinging unless I'm over-exerting myself or getting upset for losing the object. I'd call it striving to maintain mindfulness upon the object. However there were many times in the past, where out of clinging, I tried to follow the breath. It creates a lot of tension and negative feelings. The effort that is coming from the place of "damn it c'mon already!!!" is clinging, which is different then putting in the necessary effort into mindfulness of the object that gives rise to the 5 jhanic factors.



Such great advice. Thank you! I understand. It's similar to when people experience negative feelings and try to distract themselves from the present moment, thus escaping and tuning out the negative feeling. The quality of stillness from equanimity and just letting go surpasses what can be accomplished through effort, at least in my experience. I just gotta to learn to balance my effort so that when I do let go my attention doesn't drift from the object/sensations.



Right.



Ok will do. I'm going to experiment with observing the rising and falling of the abdomen, but If I feel that more sensations can be felt with greater clarity at the Anapana spot than I'll stick with it until my concentration strengthens and sensitivity increases.

Thank You End in Sight! Your advice has really helped

MCTB uses similar language to the Visuddhimagga (etc.) with regard to these experiences, which gives the impression of the experiences being basically similar except for "depth", but if you ask people who practice them what they're like, you may find that the meaning of basic terms in MCTB (e.g. "piti") that are used to describe these experiences do not correspond with the same terms elsewhere, and that may shed some light on ways that the descriptions in MCTB are not similar to other sources' descriptions. And there are other important variances.

This is sort of an older topic and I don't care to revisit it in depth, so if you want to figure it out for yourself, go attain Pa Auk's jhanas (or whichever orthodox teacher's jhanas you like), and then talk to Dan Ingram or to people who have practiced MCTB's and see what you think. But I'd recommend putting aside MCTB's descriptions while you're doing this. Some of the subtle differences can be highly problematic, in my view.

(I'm not claiming that there is no relationship at all between what MCTB teaches and what others teach about jhanas, but rather, that there are major differences between the two.)

Good luck with your retreat!

For the benefit of posterity, a thread detailing some of Dan Ingram's views concerning jhana is "Advanced Jhana Classification", which is somewhere in the archive. The fundamental point of divergence between his views and traditional views (as I see it), responsible directly or by proxy for all other differences, is the way in which he experiences jhanas as having a fundamental characteristic called "width of attention" which varies from narrow to wide, and which varies from in-phase to out-of-phase.

(Investigation of what "width of attention" is, and what "phase" is, can be very fruitful, though it can also be very tricky.)

Will Do!

Thanks for everything

Hi Ryan,

I am going to the same retreat in dec 1st. I think it will be a great experience.

See you at the forest

blessings