MCTB Map vs the Tao Map

Matthew Moore, modified 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 12:47 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 12:41 AM

MCTB Map vs the Tao Map

Post: 1 Join Date: 8/14/13 Recent Posts
MCTB Insight map:



The Map of Tao (or any other Wisdom)




I went on a long and rather crazy 'spiritual' adventure over a period of many years full of varying degrees of suffering and including 2 trips to the mental hospital. I have now more or less found my centre and seek nothing. Once I feared life and I burnt myself up trying to escape it. The most intense, miserable and desperate time was the MCTB 'Insight Meditation Period'

Now I love life and am happy and am throughly 'Off the path'. emoticon

I turned over-many stones on the way, one was insight meditation, Ingram Style ... In retrospect looking back over my various fumblings to get 'enlightened' something to me stands out about the MCTB book... the book that often lands on your doorstep in the deepest, darkest period. It is that it is somewhat repulsive and full of enough rocket fuel to drive otherwise sensible people around the bend. If there was ever a guide that was more aimed at keeping you in a miserable state chasing your own tail for the rest of your life not understanding the paradox of your own efforts, then MCTB is it.

I don't know if he's still banging his head against the same brick wall but 'Daniel M. Ingram, MD MSPH FAAEM FACEP, Arahat, Physician etc etc.' is full of horseshit. He's got all the maps and charts to sail you off on some grand adventure.. but he lacks any kind of the natural wisdom that you need in a somekind of a 'guru'.

Maybe he'll discover one day he really is a bit thick, and that will be the day he gets enlightened. (but he'll probably just turn that into another 'stage' on one of his flow charts)

Maybe many round here really enjoy to whole hardcore no-frills intensely and aggressively trying to achieve a special title style meditation AKA Daniel 'The Arahat' Ingram and it is just a bit of fun. That's fine.

But I write this to anyone who has got stuck in the wormhole up Daniel's Ass.. AKA MCTB.

Daniel is a person who must put himself on top and explain how stuff works to others. He speaks in pie charts, equations and technical data and ladders, loops levels and dank stairwells. Most of it is nonsense, it's just we get sucked toward 'The Dark Secrets' and he's good at setting them up and explaining them like he is an expert.

To anyone who has got lost along the way and been sucked toward the ring of middle earth MCTB style and feel you need to get off the Great Path here is a short list people, and 'philosophies' i feel are helpful. There are many more.. but that's what comes to mind...

Jeff Foster
Alan Watts
Tim Freke
Non-Duality (groups who discuss it not as a state to achieve, but as an every present that encompasses all)
Tao

These all come under the category of there not being 'a path' that leads anywhere and there being nothing to attain. What you seek is already present. It is the other way around to look at it than the progressive path. Neither is right or wrong. They dont need debating. But you have to look from both sides.. otherwise you can get totally stuck.

Matthew
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 5:59 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 5:52 AM

RE: MCTB Map vs the Tao Map

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
You are definitely not the first to have had an similar reaction nor will you be the last.

Being a pragmatist at heart, I am glad you found something that works for you.

My sincere apologies for any difficulties that MCTB caused you.

It is definitely not for everyone, and how people read it and what they get out of it varies widely.

Were you to offer a more nuanced, practical critique, what would it be?

Or, put another way, what aspects of your interpretation and implementation of the advice and frameworks in MCTB caused trouble, what did the trouble look like, and what did you do that helped, and what were the functional results?

All the best,

Daniel
Brother Pussycat, modified 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 10:13 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 10:13 AM

RE: MCTB Map vs the Tao Map

Posts: 77 Join Date: 12/21/11 Recent Posts
Matthew Moore:


I turned over-many stones on the way, one was insight meditation, Ingram Style ... In retrospect looking back over my various fumblings to get 'enlightened' something to me stands out about the MCTB book... the book that often lands on your doorstep in the deepest, darkest period.


And the book that says very early on that the techniques it describes are NOT for people in their 'deepest, darkest period'.

You've got only yourself to blame.
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Simon T, modified 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 10:33 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 10:32 AM

RE: MCTB Map vs the Tao Map

Posts: 383 Join Date: 9/13/11 Recent Posts
Welcome to the DhO. You do make a few important points but the path is full of nuances and you going to one extreme or another is a trap we all fell into at a point or another. We can get all technical and really buy into the stages, which are nothing more than pattern some people that have walked this path have reported, or go at the other extreme and believe that those pattern don't exists at all, as a guy like Gary Weber would says. Still, as soon as you are willing that there was a time you were miserable, you are willing to admit of at least one pattern. You mention Jeff Foster and I find him a nice inspiration but still, this guy recall being through a dark night of the soul so him admit the existence of at least a few pattern: 1. Not being enlightened at some point, 2. deeply seeking for something, 3. going through a dark night, 4. Finding that the answer is here and now. He also admits going through an honeymoon or a time of extasy after getting enlightement, where enlightement appears so obvious that he cannot believe there was a time his consciousness was buying into duality. May I suggest you are going through that phase?

All that the pragmatic movement is interested in, as is the subset of the therevada tradition that keep the Visuddhimagga on their bookshell, and some others traditions, even outside the buddhists lineage, is to identify those pattern that tend to arises. They aren't 100% reliable but they are helpful as long as we don't buy too much into them. I do believe that the pragmatic movement is sometimes too technical and should sometimes turn to a more philosophical mindset like the authors you suggests represents. It's all about balance. The stages are useful when you have a day job and need to navigage through the side effects of the path. I wish I could just call myself enlightened and be done with it but so far, it appears I still buy into dualistic pattern. The stages are part of those patterns I buy into but they happens in an order and fashion that has been documented by people that walked this path before me. Paradoxically, the fact that they documented those pattern help me to dissolve my belief in them. I'm sure there is intelligent beings on another planet that are walking the path and would agree with Allan Watts writings and discards the Visuddhimagga. But as a human being, I'm glad those patterns that arises in a human mind as been documented before me.
Shel S, modified 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 11:46 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/15/13 11:45 AM

RE: MCTB Map vs the Tao Map

Posts: 16 Join Date: 3/4/13 Recent Posts
If you're trying to be a spokesman for these other philosophies you speak of, you're not doing a very good job.