Hi there,

Right now, I'm reading "The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma", a three-volume set written by Trungpa and compiled by Judith Leaf.  It's fascinating.  I absolutely love this guy's style, so much that I feel simply reading him has changed my life.

Trungpa is an interesting, controversial figure and I'd rather not debate his ethics/lifestyle too much, if anyone cares to respond to this thread.  Essentially...I became very depressed a little less than a year ago.  I was having major, major "thought suppression" issues.  Since I wasn't working when I got out of school for around 3 months, I spent a great deal of time meditating.  Almost none of this meditation was formal...it was all done while I was going through my day to day life.  I think I hit stream entry, or something like that; needless to say, my practice has taken on a life of it's own.  I've also been to three Goenka retreats...mind you.

But I don't formally sit.  I practice compassionate activity as much as possible, but in general I'm having trouble taking the Hinayana notion of sitting too seriously.  I do it like, every now and then and it definitely clears out a lot of the subtle neurosis that can become associated with the mental work.  However, according to the Kagyu school of buddhism (Trungpa's school), you absolutely have to sit and you have to have a qualified teacher.  Trungpa doesn't really seem to care about stream-entry and arahant ship.  He more or less thinks that you're a complete waste of space if you have insight, yet choose to manifest it "as you please".  He even goes so far to say that your compassionate activity is a waste of time and energy if you never formally sit.  Sitting is an essential, grounding activity for the meditator according to Trungpa.  The thing is that Trungpa is the most intelligent Buddhist writer I've found, and it's confounding to have him tell me that everything I've gained (through trauma and motivations that he doesn't seem aware exist for some people) is essentially...Dharmic, but worthless.

This seems to be the place I've found myself in.  Working too hard to meditate takes too much energy, so my practice has taken on a very relaxed quality for the past several months...I don't think I've hit fourth path or anything (whatever that is!).  My compassion manifests sometimes.  I'm studying.  I have yet to explore tantric practices because I'd rather not jump into that too quickly.  But yes, I don't sit and I don't have a teacher (although I am friends with someone who sat a 30 day retreat in Burma, who is more well-practiced than myself...I do rely on him, but he doesn't formally sit either).

It's bizarre.  I never really realized that you can more-or-less be in this situation where you have a great deal of insight, yet feel pressured by the thoughts of great masters.  I'm thankful that my trajectory is more-or-less careful but it's just so strange that, again as Trungpa points out, once you start to approach Arahantship (I don't think I'm close but I can feel it like a magnet) you simply have more problems.  The anxiety of not working hard enough is still there.

Anyways, any thoughts regarding the jumble of words above would be appreciated.

Peace,
Parks

Hey Parks, thanks for sharing. I just say: whatever works. If you like Trungpa's words theoretically, but have tried his techniques and practical advice,  and those do not seem to work for you, feel free to look elsewhere. He was certainly a good practitioner, but he isn't the only one, right? And he certainly could not be always 100% applicable to everyone... through a book.

Mindfulness in daily life is powerful and useful. If it works,  do that. As for sitting, maybe in a month or a year it will appeal. Keep an open mind. Don't be hard on yourself. Whatever works, is good for you,  is good for others. Could you be doing better? Maybe. Could you be doing worse? Certainly

Regarding the need for an actual formal teacher. People here report satisfying progress also without one. You have this e-sangha. You have a Good Friend. You have access to hundreds of books and Dharma talks on the Internet. You are not alone and helpless - all of this didn't exist when Trungpa wrote his book, and all of this was very much not in his culture.

Take care  

Meditation is a bit like being an artist, in the sense that there is a lot of benefit from trying it out (taking a "drawing from the right side of your brain" type introduction course) because it's relaxing, calming, centering... and all of that can be reapplied to your life and make it better. 

You can go deeper, too, but it's usually a lot of work.

Does everybody need to become an expert in everything? No. Does everybody need to become an expert meditator? No.

When you learn something, it always helps to have some form of guidance. Do you need a meditation teacher in the style of the old days? No. Do you need someone or a group of people that can help guide you? I would say, intially no, but eventually yes.

People who have been down the road, for example, will help you figure out why "Working too hard to meditate takes too much energy". Sounds like you are using too much effort. The most basic meditation instruction is be aware of sensations of breathing and rest in that experience. If you lose awareness of sensations of breathing, find them again, and rest in that experience. Simple, low effort. 

Meditation practice does have a way of becoming the center of your life, it really takes over. So if life has other directions, don't worry so much about meditating. Pursue what needs to be pursued.

Having an honest life guided by your conscience is the most important thing. Living that way will give you a solid foundation for meditation practice if you want to go that direction. 

Too often people substitute a real life problem with a meditation practice, trying to fix one thing with the other. Much better to directly fix a problem. 

But if you find rest and wholeness in having a gentle meditation practice, then enjoy what you have found.

As far as I understand, you seem to be saying

1) I really like the message/transmission I get from Trungpa in his book
2) He says I should sit if I want to go deeper into Dharma
3) I don't want to sit because of my own personal reasons/thoughts/problems/etcs
4) Hey DHO what should I do?

It sounds like you really like Trungpa's teachings, and you want to start a sitting practice but aren't quite sure about it, so I think you should just start sitting, and take Trungpa as your teacher (through his writings) until you find a living teacher who you can practice with in person. And you can practice effortlessness in sitting too if sitting requires too much effort right now

Thanks.  I think this is pretty accurate.  It's sort of like exercising...it's becoming clearer to me that when I get in the habit of sitting, inevitably there's this shadowside where I forget to sit one night and feel extremely guilty.  That's a very "rigid" approach, and I want something that's beneficial but softer.  I love the transmission I get from Trungpa, it's both insightful and delicious.  So I guess I'll start slow or something, aiming to eventually find a teacher/natural sitting practice.

I find a fair amount of rest and wholeness, but I also want to go deeper.  I'm all for directly fixing problems too.  I'd say it's taken over but I still have trouble sitting because sometimes I can "pseudosit" when I'm doing lots of activities.  I love the notion of Bodhichitta being like the sun reappearing from behind temporary clouds, but again there is a subtle guilt about not taking things deeper and not finding a teacher/grounding practice.

There's a Shambhala center in Seattle that I'm always thinking about going to.  Other Buddhism centers are so steeped in rituals that I find them intimidating for what seem like the right reasons i.e. it's as simple as not wanting to learn how to do any new activity that seems extraneous.  Would you say awareness of the breath continues?  When I practice mindfulness often things seem more diffuse, and the breath is just one thing I return to.  But I'm aware that mastery of the breath is a thing...

I really appreciate your gentleness.  It is an interesting question, regarding the difference between modern Buddhists and the Buddhists of old, since Westerners have the privilege of being able to shop in what you might call "spiritual supermarket" and reconsider the superficiality of certain rituals.  However, I think the notion that one must continue to sit is grounded in a lot of wisdom.  I'd love to find a good teacher at the Seattle Shambhala center...

But I shouldn't be so hard on myself.  It's a different age, one where society is basically linked up by this huge nervous system which we call "the internet".  It can be regarded as impermanent and extraneous, and impure maybe, but I think it's a real, valuable resource that changes things like having a Sangha.  I just want to be careful.

In particular, there are two quotes that trouble me.  The first is where Trungpa says, "I don't want to freak you out, but you'll probably be reborn as a donkey."  Now, he was saying this to his senior students.  Was it just crazy wisdom?  Who knows, but it's certainly stuck with me.

The other is where he points out that Western students tend to become obsessed with their own discoveries.  They lose the purity a good Sangha and teacher can bring to a practice.  My friend reminds me of this a great deal.  He's become absolutely obsessed with his own theories about men's rights and feminism, to the point that he's always agressively arguing with people about it on facebook, and he's also become very good at visualizing his neurosis as deities, and using that as a means to quickly approach awakenings.  He has no interest in the Bodhisattva path or returning to sitting practice (because forced compassion and forced sitting are too "rigid", in his words).  But I mentioned his forray into deity visualization to some teachers, some well known dalai lama affiliated teachers, and they replied that to use deity visualization incorrectly is extremely dangerous and a complete waste of time.

So I'm realizing that there is this trap one can fall into, there are numerous traps and that's anxiety provoking (yet not anxiety provoking since I do feel rooted in a rather consistent feeling of wakefulness).  Pratyekabuddhas are out there but their practice can still become "heavy".

a person:


I like Seattle Shambhala.  Here are a couple other Seattle Buddhist centers that aren't completely "steeped in rituals," and do provide a good sense of community (if thats what you're looking for).

http://mindfulnesspugetsound.org/
http://www.seattlebuddhistcenter.org/
http://seattleinsight.org/



If you ever wanted to chat about off-cushion practice some time, I'd be down.  That's been my main practice source up until very recently.

From what I understand about rituals, they can actually be very powerful forms of practice. Imagine a ritual as a form of moving meditation, that is using all your senses - hearing, seeing, touching, smell, etc, and organising your thoughts in a very focused and concentrated way, with a group of people, in a holy setting - i think this type of practice can be very powerful. No reason why you can't be doing this while focusing on gaining insight simultaneously.

As for the guilt around sitting, yes be gentle with yourself - I think this isn't so much an issue with your sitting format, its just a mental affliction that you need to work with directly whenever it arises - which is the whole point right. If you miss a session, its only as big a deal as you decide it to be - and the way you feel about it is also your own "decision" in some sense - to guilt yourself etc - nobody else is there making you feel guilty. So in those moments of guilt, perfect opportunity to look at your mind and see what is going on. I read recently that guilt in buddhism is a form of self punishment, anger directed at onesself.
Its not like you need to plan out or figure out an approach before-hand. Its working with your mind moment by moment right - so a daily sitting practice is going to naturally evolve and emerge and become more stable and longer as you naturally get better and better with working with your mind at each moment. My2c!

I definitely can relate, I've fallen into a trap many times of judging my practice based on whether or not I stick to a self-defined set of commitments, and losing momentum if I miss a single session, but the point is to just be aware of what the mind is doing in each of those moments too and what sort of neurotic thinking is taking place in those instances too, this idea of building up a type of sitting routine and sticking to it and getting upset when it doesnt work doesnt really have all that much to do with mind training and compassionate awareness in every moment does it!

I've been "freaked out" too (in a good way) by some of the stuff I'm reading from Tibetans about rebirth. I'm starting to believe it more and more, for a whole variety of reasons I don't want to get into now, but it makes sense to me from everything I can understand about karma. Also the idea that most humans won't be reborn as humans because it takes a lot of merit to be reborn as a human and most of us don't cultivate enough virtue during this lifetime, we don't practice enough. Whether or not it's true, it's really made me want to get more strict with myself about what is a good use of my time or not, and the quality of my thoughts and daily life activities and trying to make less excuses.

I met someone recently and for the first time I could imagine myself having someone (him) as a teacher. The phrase "when the student is ready, the teacher appears" seems apt. For a long time I felt like I needed to go at my own pace and that I could learn everything I needed from books and goenka retreats, and now I feel that I would benefit more from having the instruction of someone who is really far along the path and can help keep me out of ruts and really guide my practice effectively. I think there is something absolutely insane about trying to go this path without the guidance of actual people who are further along the path than you (or perhaps even enlightened). Why WOULDN"T you seek out the aid of such beings, if they are out there, and teaching for free? 

howdy,
i started in the kagyu lineage. it was enticing but i was no milarepa and the advanced teachings were castles built on sand.  the preliminary practices stressed by the tibetan schools are often emphasized but the sitting practice is an absolute necessity and prerequisite for the tibetan schools but is often de-emphasized in the western schools.

i shopped around the tibetan teachers in europe until I landed by sharma rinpoche who stressed sitting and basic hinyana practices. this changed my entire emphasis and allowed me to back away from the party lines of many of the tibetan schools and to open myself to pragmatic dharma amoung other things.

sitting was often a chore at the beginning but for my particular body / mind complex it is where i could see the where the rubber meets the road. at this point nothing approaches my sitting experience for both pleasure and untying the knots of dual thinking.

my advice: sit until it is difficult not to.

peace

tom

I like all the responses I've seen to your post. I will pitch in with a metaphor.

My 2c are to add that bringing any kind of formalism or schedule, or specificity to whatever practice format you are into is like bringing a power tool to the garage, you can get more done more quickly. But if the tool scares you, it's probably smart to proceed with caution.

If hand-tools feel like a productive arrangement, then why get fancy, why not wait until you are hungry for equipment.  Listen to those kind of signals.

That said, once you get into power tools, having a very experienced person at hand to show you the gross and fine points and ensure you are safe is a great idea.