I still suck at understanding insight practice

thumbnail
Stick Man, modified 7 Years ago at 9/22/16 2:37 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 9/22/16 2:37 PM

I still suck at understanding insight practice

Posts: 396 Join Date: 9/23/14 Recent Posts
At what point can I say a concentration practice, say gettin into 1st jhana, become insight practice ?
Say I get into the feeling of piti. Obviously it's not one monolithic thing - it tingles and fizzes and has a kind of grainy pixelated quality to it as well as being perceived as flowing, varying streams and currents. It doesn't stay still and constantly changes, has impermanent form, flow and constituency. I've seen this right from when I started concentration.

Is the recognition of these qualities, basically, insight practice ?
What is there to add or further develop (apart from other jhanas or examination of other mental contents etc.) ?
Simon Liu, modified 7 Years ago at 9/22/16 11:08 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 9/22/16 11:08 PM

RE: I still suck at understanding insight practice

Posts: 83 Join Date: 8/23/16 Recent Posts
When you have attained access concentration, you can switch to vipassana.

At that point, you focus on breath until another sense object enters into your awareness. You note the new object until it disappears, then the next sensed object until it disappears. When there is none, you go back to breathing until another object shows up. Sense object can be an itch, pain sensation, smell, or anything that your six sense faculties senses a contact.

You observe the  arising and passing away of objects.
Banned For waht?, modified 7 Years ago at 9/24/16 5:29 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 9/24/16 5:10 AM

RE: I still suck at understanding insight practice

Posts: 500 Join Date: 7/14/13 Recent Posts
John:
At what point can I say a concentration practice, say gettin into 1st jhana, become insight practice ?
Say I get into the feeling of piti. Obviously it's not one monolithic thing - it tingles and fizzes and has a kind of grainy pixelated quality to it as well as being perceived as flowing, varying streams and currents. It doesn't stay still and constantly changes, has impermanent form, flow and constituency. I've seen this right from when I started concentration.

Is the recognition of these qualities, basically, insight practice ?
What is there to add or further develop (apart from other jhanas or examination of other mental contents etc.) ?
Your pracice should cause you dispassion and abandonment or renounciation. When you see impermanece whatever you do it becomes pointelss thing to do. Thing is the insightpractioners or noters(the not right insightpracticers who do it wrongly[will cause them to stay in that hamster wheel like forever] imo) doesn't see actually impermanence they see impermanece after the fact, they just tag a name to objective reality(still it is requiered, it gathers the mindfulness doer prana[but if you could figure that out you could switch to focus on that prana cultivcation directly]).

When you get dispassion, you then need to see the selfreference or that this sense is coming from a self, that measn you need to add power or selfknowledge to your practice to overcome dispassion, then you reach insightlevel practice(even igf it is not true insight practice of sutras, at least it would be higher grade than your current type). Also to add it isn't possible t odo it rightaway or from scartch there are pranapractice needed, preliminary steps and training..MCTB path could be done atleast 4 times quicker than it took for the author(what MCTB is anotehr completion to other type of practice).

edit: lots
thumbnail
Dream Walker, modified 7 Years ago at 9/24/16 12:01 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 9/24/16 11:47 AM

RE: I still suck at understanding insight practice

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
John:
At what point can I say a concentration practice, say gettin into 1st jhana, become insight practice ?
When you stop focusing on one object as a thing  and investigate it 's nature as permanent/non permanent, mine/not mine, pleasant/ not pleasant. Yopu can still be focusing on one object or you can begin the work of seeing attention moving from sense door to sense door and investigate whatever arises. If you need a way to keep on task and not daydream, noting can help you keep on task- Seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking. captures 90%+ of whats happening.

John:

Say I get into the feeling of piti.
Ok

John:

Obviously it's not one monolithic thing

1) tingles
2) fizzes
3) grainy pixelated quality
4) flowing, varying streams and currents.
5) It doesn't stay still and constantly changes, has impermanent form, flow and constituency.
Right, but what are you talking about? is piti pixelated? or do you mean sight is pixilated? What is grainey - seeing? what is tingling and fizzing - feeling? Does hearing flow from one thing to the next? Investigate

John:

Is the recognition of these qualities, basically, insight practice ?
As they apply to the 6 senses, yes.

John:
What is there to add or further develop (apart from other jhanas or examination of other mental contents etc.) ?
What do you mean by other mental contents? Are there some other sensations you are expereincing? Please list them.

First path is as simple as moving up the jhanas/nanas invertigating all the way to high EQ and then let the investigation happen by itself while you let go of trying/tensions.


My compter locked up and I realized I was spoon feeding you. Why don't you answer your own question for everyone? Break down each of your questions and find the relevent chapters and post the results?

Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, an Unusually Hardcore
Dharma Book, by Daniel Ingram, EXPANDED VERSION: meaning, that some DhO
members have made additional links, comments, etc.


Good luck,
~D
thumbnail
Stick Man, modified 7 Years ago at 9/26/16 6:00 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 9/26/16 6:00 PM

RE: I still suck at understanding insight practice

Posts: 396 Join Date: 9/23/14 Recent Posts
Ah, well, I meant the piti is pixelated. This should be no surprise as I was introduced to meditation in the first place as looking for the "pins and needles" feeling - which is pointillist from the get-go.

Whether sight is pixelated - hmm - the meditation methods I started with also emphasised the graininess of the grey
fuzz you see when you close your eyes, so in a way yes. (I haven't seen this mentioned as a useful thing anywhere else).

As to the other senses, now you mention it, I don't think I have approached them in that way. I've never really applied much concentration to sound, smell, touch. I don't think I've ever broken hearing down into finer vibrations or whatever.
That could be an interesting exercise, I should look at what happens when people practise on hearing.

I do get tinnitus (too many gigs I think), though, when the piti ramps up, and it used to be a source of suffering and a dis-incentive to practice.

By other mental contents I basically mean thinking/emotions. I've got quite far just meditating on inner sensation, not so much work on vipassana on thinking though I think that comes naturally somewhat after concentration develops.

Thanks!

Breadcrumb