Motivation, faith, alignment of psyche, ritual

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Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii, modified 10 Years ago at 3/11/14 6:49 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/11/14 6:49 PM

Motivation, faith, alignment of psyche, ritual

Posts: 118 Join Date: 7/21/13 Recent Posts
I would like to bring up a topic that I don't see much discussion of on here. All the knowledge and technique-related information on how to awaken is all over this forum and the level of technical meditation chat here is amazing, off the scale

Or you can go elsewhere on the internet, you can pick noting, self-inquiry, direct pointing, any other vipassana, and all can be very efficient fast ways to wake up. By wake up I mean do something like MCTB 4th path.

So, why does it seem to take some much longer than others? Why have some people not hit MCTB Stream Entry after years, and others do MCTB 4th path in months?

When I started doing the noting practice as described in MCTB, I was really motivated to do SE. I thought it was about technique, and practicing seeing quickly and accurately the sensations which make up experience. I now think this is only 10% of the story.

People wake up (or reach whatever stage they're aiming at) when their whole psyche knows it and wants it. When this alignment occurs, it doesn't matter too much what you're doing, any technique can push you over the edge. Zen literature is full of this - people waking up at the sound of bells, being hit with a broom, etc.

As Alan Watts beautifully and funnily says in this video, the reason people don't wake up, is because they don't think they're worth it. They think some aspects of them are bad or un-spiritual. Another way of seeing the problem is that they are too enamoured, too in love with certain other aspects of their psyche.

If people diligently, with their whole psyche aligned, start noting, they will hit SE, like clockwork. Unless one of these things happens:

1. Various forms of not actually really trying
Self-explanatory. Not enough energy and intent or belief is directed at the practice.

2. Technique fetishisation - over-trying
This is when someone is being a technique freak, but out of fear, not out of genuine unfolding of the examination of reality. The sort of person who is a technically very adept meditator, but is not making progress quickly. They 'hide' in the technique.


=====the traps and escapes: faith, motivation, alignment=====

I would like to open a discussion on situations that occur and ways out of them. In no particular order, some things I have seen

*** unwilling to engage whole psyche
This is something I see a lot in some form or other. I was talking to someone who has done a lot of Mahasi retreats, knows about SE, but is too scared to read up on the nanas and technical elements of how to do SE. This is because they are scared that they are the sort of person who is heady and goal orientated, and they think this will take over their practice. Instead they are just noting diligently and thinking something might happen.
Problem - This is a blatant rejection of one huge aspect of who they are. They have an idea that a goal-orientated or intellectual part of their psyche is "not spiritual", or problematic (fear that it will cause them suffering). So they cut off this half of their mind, now it is a dead weight. It is like a dog trying to fight without biting.
Solution - You have to be willing to meet all the aspects of your psyche. Being afraid of one big part of who you are is going to cause massive deadlock in your mind. The buddha was goal orientated as fuck. and he intellectualised a lot - loads of lists, systems. There are ways to work it. Scholarship, combined with meditating, seems to work very well to awaken people.

*** insufficient belief
the most basic and vague barrier. Basically they now believe SE exists, but don't really think it could happen to them, today, right now, this sit. I did SE the very first day after I formally wrote down my intent to make it happen to me. I'm sure everyone will agree that this is a very important point, but I see little information here on how techniques of how people made this belief real for them.


*** trying too hard
this is something I have seen some good stuff on this forum on. Essentially the meditator is caught in subtle traps of wanting/doing or watching, where the want/doer or watcher is the exact thing that need to be undone.


*** too afraid of 'death' of various identities like career, family, etc.
I have no real experience of this - anyone?


*** afraid of content of own subconscious
What we are trying to do to awaken is drop a deeply help subconscious belief, the visible part of which plays out as patterns of thoughts and sensations. So if you are afraid of your subconscious, your degree of willingness to enquire, prod, work with, investigate, change what is down there will be limited.
Put it this way. If you are the sort of person who has a poor relationship with your dreams, or who is unable to be comfortable with your own desires, or who when drunk does really dark stuff that makes you super ashamed, then this is worth looking at.


*** willingness to use ritual and imagination
In your subconscious there are hugely powerful themes, images, stories, currents, that, if you are willing and able, you can ride to awakening very quickly.
For me personally, McDonalds and consumer culture were a huge part of my life, I grew up in shopping centres and worked in advertising and the hedonistic industries for a while. So integrating these into my journey was a vital part of awakening.
Now, being subconscious, you cannot just access these currents. So you need some kind of technique to find out what these are, and how to ride them.
For different people, this will take different forms e.g. religious ritual, deep psychotherapy, dream analysis. I am not that far out, so I used basic psychological principles, and life-coaching type stuff, story-work, hero's journey type stuff, and creativity to just try to integrate, align as much as possible.


*** mahasi noting: the technique IS the faith
the nice thing about noting is that it's a faith and a technique. It's a religious ritual, a prayer if you like, where you basically build your faith in direct experience, and undermine your faith in your thought-concept-belief of self, til one day while noting, in a way that is totally unrelated to noting, you just stop believing in a self as doer and watcher, and the patterns of doer and watcher die. However I believe the above mentioned stuff around faith is vital and can really speed up this process.


A closing note:
This is not about your content, or dealing with 'your stuff' as Daniel Ingram puts it. It is simply about the most radical non-attachment to any of your stuff, and dropping any belief that any of your stuff makes you more or less likely to be able to wake up. It is about simply aligning all your stuff, your personality, your skills, preferences, into the direction of awakening.


I am interested to hear everyone's thoughts and maybe we could put together some common traps & escapes from a motivation/belief standpoint.
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tom moylan, modified 10 Years ago at 3/12/14 9:55 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/12/14 9:55 AM

RE: Motivation, faith, alignment of psyche, ritual

Posts: 896 Join Date: 3/7/11 Recent Posts
Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii:

So, why does it seem to take some much longer than others? Why have some people not hit MCTB Stream Entry after years, and others do MCTB 4th path in months?


Hey howdy,
i would take issue with this assumption. Having viewed and been involved with other traditions and techniques I have not seen the level of accomplishment in this forum anywhere else. Even myself, who makes no claim to serious attainments, see much progress here.

One of the factors underlying this may be the secrecy and lack of clear communication about attainments in other traditions. There is the question of the level of awakening too. How they line up between traditions etc. The pragmatic Dharma is a very fast path.

cheers

tom
Sakari, modified 10 Years ago at 3/12/14 12:55 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/12/14 12:55 PM

RE: Motivation, faith, alignment of psyche, ritual

Posts: 38 Join Date: 12/28/13 Recent Posts
Hi Sadalsuud,

I feel what you're saying.

I, too, have been and continue to be impressed by the depth of discussion on this forum. And even my own modest experience with Mahasi noting has made me feel sharper and more able to understand the processes of my mind. But with that also has come restlessness, and I have drifted towards including more compassion in my practice.

Practices such as the cultivation of bhakti (devotion) as described in the AYP system (which regards bhakti as the central cause of spiritual progress), and variations of tonglen have done wonders for me. For example, just a few breaths, breathing in whatever difficult emotion seems current and breathing out compassion, set me in a noticeably calmer and more accepting state of mind, from which to do other practices (to paraphrase Watts) not seriously but sincerely. Music, dance and prayers have all been useful and fun ways for me to cultivate faith and compassion. With compassion has come the bravery to, using your terms, engage more of my psyche. Such practices could probably benefit many on this forum.

Not that faith has been excluded from the discussions. There are sections here for a wide variety of practices besides vipassana, for example a thread for links to buddhism-inspired music. And MCTB explains, for example, ways to balance the "wheels" of one's practice, and how to harness all kinds of emotions for the goal of attainments. But, as probably has been mentioned on the forum before, perhaps the MCTB approach tends to attract more than its fair share of technical and goal-oriented people, and less of the touchy-feely kind.

I notice that I, too, am partially motivated by maps and locating myself on them, as well as the "fireworks" of meditation, though those are not my goals. Perhaps I'm one of those people who subconsciously believe that I'm not worthly and must suffer in order to be liberated, as Watts put it, and thus I find disproportionately appealing those practices which tend to produce a rough ride. And I doubt I'm the only one here.
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Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii, modified 10 Years ago at 3/12/14 7:14 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/12/14 7:14 PM

RE: Motivation, faith, alignment of psyche, ritual

Posts: 118 Join Date: 7/21/13 Recent Posts
Hi Tom, how are you doing!

I think maybe you misunderstand me - I don't mean to say at all that pragmatic isn't a fast path. It is. The levels of attainment here are unquestionably strong and people get there quick. My point is just that some people in pragmatic make much quicker progress than others - why? I think the answer is ability, drive, belief, motivation - all the 'soft' factors.

I'm sure everyone here agrees that motivation and belief are totally key to making fast progress, but I am just pointing out that there isn't anything like the same quality of advice on motivation and belief as there is on say, attaining jhanas. Not a complaint, just an observation which I am interested in exploring in this thread to see if useful stuff comes out.

I think there is opportunity maybe for some "pragmatic dharma faith & ritual how to" talk...

tom moylan:
Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii:

So, why does it seem to take some much longer than others? Why have some people not hit MCTB Stream Entry after years, and others do MCTB 4th path in months?


Hey howdy,
i would take issue with this assumption. Having viewed and been involved with other traditions and techniques I have not seen the level of accomplishment in this forum anywhere else. Even myself, who makes no claim to serious attainments, see much progress here.

One of the factors underlying this may be the secrecy and lack of clear communication about attainments in other traditions. There is the question of the level of awakening too. How they line up between traditions etc. The pragmatic Dharma is a very fast path.

cheers

tom
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Avi Craimer, modified 10 Years ago at 3/12/14 11:54 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 3/12/14 11:54 PM

RE: Motivation, faith, alignment of psyche, ritual

Posts: 114 Join Date: 10/29/13 Recent Posts
Sadalsuud,

I loved your post, and I agree with much of what you said. It resonates a lot with the perspective of bhakti yoga and Vajrayana stuff I've been exploring lately, as well as shamanism and lots of other Western esotericism. Basically, it comes down to the idea that if you are willing to use all the colourful craziness of the many levels of existence to pursue God/awakening, you get there a lot faster than just staying on some thin veneer of consensus reality. This however, requires a direct confrontation with shadow, demons, monsters, seemingly impossible happenings, and so on. Most people don't choose to go there. It speaks to the fact that the invisible light of God/awareness is actually hidden in everything. The more of everything we come to deeply know, the more we come to know that pure light which can't be seen with the senses.

However, I must add that there is another crucial factor that you didn't mention explicitly that might account for the different speeds with which people more through the process. That is concentration ability. I think that the ability to concentrate well is one of the biggest factors determining how quickly stuff happens with any contemplative practice. Some people seem to have a better natural concentration ability than others, and some practices also develop concentration faster and deeper (the best one I know of is the Pa Auk lineage jhana practice). Of course, samatha alone doesn't lead to insight directly, but vipassana without strong concentration leads to insight extremely gradually and haltingly.

Another factor is having good maps so you know what you're supposed to be doing. In a talk, Willoughby Britton mentions the case of a woman who suffered in the dark night stages for over 20 years despite daily meditation practice. Within one year of working with Shinzen Young, she hit stream entry.

This is all definitely important to think about. As a meditation teacher, I often notice that most of my students are not really interested in enlightenment, or at least not rapid enlightenment. If they aren't yet in the dark night, or even if they've found a stable identity within the dark night, I try not to rush them forward before they're ready. There are so many ways that meditation or other contemplative practices can help people improve their inner and outer lives that don't involve furthering enlightenment. Most of us here at DhO are a bit enlightenment obsessed (myself included). Yet, as I get closer to it, I increasingly have the sense that it's not the be all and end all of a good human life. I've seen amazing effects come from facilitating a depressed person who's never meditated before to do just 3 minutes of focused loving-kindness meditation directed toward themselves. They may not have gotten more enlightened, but their life was tangibly affected for the better.

Avi Craimer

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