Hi everyone,

TL;DR: Tried practicing 'love' style practices, initially felt great then doubt arose, and it felt like straight visualisation. Wondering wheter a more traditional concentration object wouldn't be more suitable for me and hoping for advice.

I won't go too deep into my background. I've been practicing various self-enquiry/meditation/processes for about a decade and feel while I have made a lot of progress I still have a few bad habits and my concentration isn't as strong as I'd like. I guess because I have tried so many differing approaches perhaps that has scattered my aim. However I also feel I have made progress, and I can get into some interesting states, be they A&P, or some aspect or other of jhana.

I've always shied away from 'love' style processes as they seemed a)too wishy washy for the person I was and b) too transient and changeable to find rest in. Recently been working through Reggie Ray's Your Breathing Body and he has some lovely meditations, and his instruction has been resonating with me. For example, in one of the meditation you lie comfortably, begin to allow your sense of body to drop down into the Earth, progressing to your self and all perception with it. He leads you to a place where you visualise a burning, and this he describes as the 'centre', a place of 'diamond love' (I'm not putting it as well as he). And you relinquish all your perceptions into this centre. It's I believe a letting go into jhana with the object being an all encompassing sense of love.

The first few times it felt like coming home. Blissful, cleansing. I was nice to people afterwards. But then after practice yesterday it just felt like I was imagining any sense of 'love' while I was there. I could feel and i was letting go, but I wasn't bathed in any form of love or emptiness if strictly honest. So now I'm wondering if this is a worthy way to practice or if it's just visualisation and imagination. Part of the attraction to this style is that I can bring some more of a sense of joy and metta into my daily life. But on the other hand the breath is stable, even space is more stable. So maybe I should stick with the basics, or stick with working with metta/love at this stage?

(NB. I have recently after a few months gap also reintroduced straight noting sitting practice at a different time of day. The Vipassana feels like the tough bit that I never make progress on, and so I want the concentration practice to introduce a bit of pleasure).

tbh I'm not sure what your question is.
I like the Metta practice which I learned from Ajahn Sujato.
You may want to look into that. It's very simple and not "wishy-washy", and calming.
If you do it right, it will eventually lead to Jhana (, which I personally haven't achieved yet).
If you look into my old posts you'll find audios of Sujato explaining the technique. Maybe his approach is helpful for you.

Just? Everything is just everything.....what do you want it to be? If you are practicing visualisation and imagination then do so and do it well and see the results. Notice the results and measure them and maybe write it down. Maybe you are JUST doubting. If so, notice that with all your ability.
Here is what I do

• Start meditation...get comfortable and adjust body....scan it to make sure it is relaxed and calm and make any last minute adjustments...crack pop snap stretch
• Internally I say "May we be happy" and focus on my stomach area....I notice the sensations there as I say this and cultivate the giddy feeling of opening a presrnt as a child or on a swingset. I take this feeling as an object  and expand it with each inbreath. This gets me into a light sense of jhana. I expand this bubble of happiness with each inbreath until it reaches my heart chakra.
• Internally I say "May we be filled with loving kindness" (sometimes I shorten it to "love") and focus on my heart area....I notice the sensations there as I say this and cultivate the feelings/sensations that arise there. I take this feeling as an object  and expand it with each inbreath. This shifts me up a jhana. I expand this bubble of loving kindness with each inbreath until it is as big as I can.
• About 5 to 10 minutes of this and I move to noting or if I am then concentrated enought to not start the internal dialog I just notice without the note.
• Sometimes I just let go completely and sink into a deeper jhana.
• 45 minutes up.... bow, get up and do it again later but at least once a day

That is my most typical sit for the last couple years. Metta to jhana to noting to bare awareness to letting go.
Wanna try it and see what it does for you?
Here is a wonderful article that I think you might enjoy - http://integrateddaniel.info/magick-and-the-brahma-viharas/
Good luck,
~D

[quote=]
Hi
Bernd, I'm not familiar with Ajahn Sujato. I have had a quick look at
his resume, looks very interesting to say the least. I didn't mean to
imply btw that I thought Metta is a 'wishy-washy' technique or practice.
Perhaps I just haven't developed the skill for it yet. What I meant was
that I can't tell if I'm doing it correctly. Of course I feel
compassion and kindness but not all the time, and sometimes I find it
hard to find. So in cases where there may be other emotion I feel like
it's a guessing game.The closest I can say is I feel warmth, beyond that
I may just be conceptualising. Maybe that's enough, I'm not sure. Anyway, listening to your recommendation now, thanks for your response.






Dream Walker
Just? Everything is just everything.....what do you want it to be? If you are practicing visualisation and imagination then do so and do it well and see the results. Notice the results and measure them and maybe write it down. Maybe you are JUST doubting. If so, notice that with all your ability.
Here is what I do

• Start meditation...get comfortable and adjust body....scan it to make sure it is relaxed and calm and make any last minute adjustments...crack pop snap stretch
• Internally I say "May we be happy" and focus on my stomach area....I notice the sensations there as I say this and cultivate the giddy feeling of opening a presrnt as a child or on a swingset. I take this feeling as an object  and expand it with each inbreath. This gets me into a light sense of jhana. I expand this bubble of happiness with each inbreath until it reaches my heart chakra.
• Internally I say "May we be filled with loving kindness" (sometimes I shorten it to "love") and focus on my heart area....I notice the sensations there as I say this and cultivate the feelings/sensations that arise there. I take this feeling as an object  and expand it with each inbreath. This shifts me up a jhana. I expand this bubble of loving kindness with each inbreath until it is as big as I can.
• About 5 to 10 minutes of this and I move to noting or if I am then concentrated enought to not start the internal dialog I just notice without the note.
• Sometimes I just let go completely and sink into a deeper jhana.
• 45 minutes up.... bow, get up and do it again later but at least once a day

That is my most typical sit for the last couple years. Metta to jhana to noting to bare awareness to letting go.
Wanna try it and see what it does for you?
Here is a wonderful article that I think you might enjoy - http://integrateddaniel.info/magick-and-the-brahma-viharas/
Good luck,
~D

Hey DW,

Thanks. I've had a quick run through of your practice and it seems like a really interesting way to get into jhana. I will start my Vipassana practice that way for a few days and see how I get on with it. But you put it into a simple and understandable way, so I thank you for that. Thanks for the link also. I've been round and round with my belief and magick (initially through the Secret- eurgh!). I'm interested and I kind of half believe it. At the moment I'm at the stage where I think if I have a regular once/twice daily practice focusing on Metta it would do myself a huge amount of good, if not the rest of the world. If other beings are benefiting then I'm certainly happy about that.

Sam

On reflection, I no longer think metta is wishy washy, in fact now I'm thinking it's a really hardcore and transformative practice. I think my initial conclusion was caused by the fact I just couldn't connect. I listened to Ajahn Sujato's talk on youtube a couple of times and realised it's not easy for me to feel. He talks about the first step (metta for yourself) maybe taking years to develop, and I wonder if that's true for me. Then the next steps obviously not easy but I think I'll stay with the first for a while.

So I was hoping someone could advise, when I say the words 'may I be happy', sometimes I wonder what feeling it is I'm looking for. I'm not emotionally illiterate(though others have called me withdrawn before). I feel sorrow and compassion. In fact I get a much stronger response in myself if I move to the second step, the loved one. I usually pick a family member, remember some time of hardness for them, and then just gently feel around the compassion and well-wishes that I feel inside my body. Can anyone say if this is ok, or if there's more resources I could follow they could point me to?

Thanks so much.

Note that the first part of the method is to get the words right.
If the feeling of Metta isn't there, so what - stick to the words.
I did this for quite some time until the feeling of Metta began to reliably show up.

So my take on this is: if the feeling isn't there, don't worry about it, but stick to the words. This in itself may be difficult.
Sujato in his talks also gives advice on this, such as:
-say them as if you really mean it
-maybe you're trying to hard. in this case just 'give up'. and just pretend to be doing the meditation.

He has also some more advice about what to do if the feeling isn't there but I don't know in which talk it is. If you listened to the complete series you should've heard it.

I also remember that he somewhere says that the emotion you're looking for should be somehow connected to the words. If it's not, then it's not the one you're looking for.
So if you're happy because you smell Pizza maybe that's not it (-:

btw I've been sticking with metta for self for 5 months and there's obviously still more to learn.

Is anything of this helpful?

Yes that's very helpful thanks. I'd be curious to read your practice thread if you'd care to share it,(well I can prob find it myself). But as for Ajahn Sujato I have only listened to one of his talks, the first one which comes up if you look for Sujato and Metta on youtube. Is there more available somewhere? Thanks again for your feedback.

I posted links to all the talks I found in this thread:

http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/4385593

My experience with metta has been that it is a great way to pick up on and dissolve unpleasant things that are happening in the body. It's a great method of observation, almost like vipassana, for some things that are really unwieldy. There are some things in experience that just do not ply well to observation - they're too disorienting. Metta can be really helpful with this. But it is not the classic type of metta you find around, sending well wishes to the world and such. It's more a totally introverted method of doing metta. Villum Lassen, from KFD and maybe DhO, gave me a great way to look at it, which is just as good I think as Reggie Ray's formerly mentioned in this thread. Villum's way of doing it was to find the areas that are difficult, and allow a sense of vulnerability in those areas. Try to allow that area to be vulnerable to itself, to the pain it is in the throes of. Do it by sending it love that it might be able to tolerate those sensations. I found that this is a great way to actually dissect troubled areas. In the case there is an unpleasantness warping perception such that its difficult to observe, try taking the metta and putting it in the center of the unpleasant area. It's hard. It doesn't feel like its working, but I think maybe what's really happening is it's a way of applying equanimity to the area. You can't push it, can't be overbearing with the love you're trying to send to the area, but you can be tolerant and persistent, and this ammounts to grade A observation and vulnerability to these clusterfucks.

Thanks Bernd and sorry for replying late. I read your thread with a lot of interest, hope it is going well still.

Thanks James also for your reply. I have come across similar processes also and find them helpful. For some reason the more formal processes don't resonate as well, and I fail to get far with them. Other instruction such as the one you reference help me connect. Feeling vulnerability of an area isn't a practice I've made directly before but on trying it out with some rough emotions it feels effective.

What I've been doing the last couple of days is kind of a mash up of various practices I've done before, such as Kenneth Folk's mahamudra, Shinzen Young's focus on rest, and others. It's kind of a 'background' focus, sensing in on space around thoughts, feelings objects, allowing the object to dissolve and focusing on whatever is left(which is usually a feeling of openness, wellbeing and empathy). Rinse and repeat. Probably this would not be considered metta but I'm not tied to the specific practice, just continually interested. I'm practising this for a few weeks while I'm try to regain some positivity after a stressful time, and intend to do so alongside vipassana once I'm feeling more confident.