(UPDATE: 3/11/2020 Here is the most recent summary of how I practice:
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/04/an-overview-of-how-to-practice.html)
(UPDATE: 4/26/2020 My views on awakening are summarized here:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/04/my-views-on-gradual-awakening.html)
(UPDATE 8/28/2020 Also see my thread on "Natural Awakening Without Systematic Practice - Buddhadasa Bhikkhu" This is the closest thing to my own practice that I have found so far that is taught by a qualified expert.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/natural-awakening-without-systematic.htmlMy practice is a little bit different from what I have read about in books on Buddhism. While I feel it is the best system for my own interests and expectations, I don't know if it would be right for anyone else here. I have developed it over many years trying different techniques and keeping what seems to work best for me. But I am sure I can learn from other people on the forum so I would like to set it out here in case anyone has any advice or constructive comments to make.
I would describe my practice as cultivating a state of relaxed happiness by various means in order to assist in letting go of attachments and aversion in order to avoid dukkha. I see the
anapanasati sutta as justification for this as a legitimate Buddhist path, but I don't have a personal need for this to be a form of Buddhist practice. I draw on relaxation techniques from different sources - anything that can activate the
parasympathetic nervous system: counting the breath meditation, yoga poses, quigong (8 Brocades or Ba Duan Jin or Baduanjin), tai-chi, progressive muscular relaxation, hypnotic induction. Over time these exercises develop the parasympathetic nervous system and due to neuroplasticity it becomes easier and easier to turn off stress. I cultivate happiness through a technique I learned from reading Thich Nhat Hanh who wrote, "
... practice breathing with a half-smile. You will feel great joy.". But too much great joy can become tedious (believe it or not) so I try to cultivate just a pleasant positive slightly happy feeling. Also, to cultivate happiness, I try to use information on how to increase
serotonin levels in the brain that I might read about here and there. I say "relaxed happiness" above because in my experience they are two different antidotes to dukkha. Relaxation alone is not sufficient to eliminate dukkha, and happiness alone is not sufficient to eliminate dukkha (you can be relaxed and sad, or happy and stressed). However, taken together, it seems to me they come prety close.
I meditate by counting the breath, trying to notice a pleasant feeling of relaxation as I inhale and exhale and I notice the pleasant feelings released when I let myself half-smile. It produces the state I am seeking. It may start out as a very faint feeling barely noticeable, but it increases gradually during the meditation session so I take a patient attitude and trust the technique. Worrying "am I happy now?" just creates stress which is counterproductive.
As I meditate and practice mindfulness during the day I am not just cultivating bliss. I am observing what causes stress. This means I notice the activity of the mind and notice sensations in the body that accompany emotions. By learning how to to return to a pleasantly relaxed state, I learn to let go of attachments and aversions that cause dukkha. This is a form of insight meditation. In the sutras Buddha did not distinguish samatha and vipassana as a distinct forms of meditation.
Producing bliss in meditation does not end suffering. Suffering ends when the mind stops producing suffering. I use the pleasant state produced by meditation as a background upon which to make suffering noticeable. By observing itself as the source of suffering, the mind learns how to refrain from producing it.
This system does not require will power any more than taking an aspirin for a headache takes will power. When I experience dukkha, I know what to do. And I experience enough dukkah to motivate a daily practice.
Some amount of renunciation is a natural consequence of this practice. Over time, the more things I realize are making me unhappy and stressed, the more I renounce. I don't believe the point of the practice is to make me invincible to life's catastrophes. The point of renunciation is if you give up your attachments, they no longer cause suffering. I can renounce as much as I do because I am a retired bachelor. I can "cultivate seculsion" I don't necessarily recommend this for anyone else. And I am willing to renounce only so much.
Which is okay for me because I am not looking for perfection, just a system to help a householder cope.
I don't have the inclination to spend all day meditating, but I have an intellectual interest on what perfecting the "end of suffering" would mean, and how it is accomplished, and what is the relationship between western scientific concepts about the nervous system and eastern practices and theory. Because that kind of understanding can lead to changes in my own practice to make it more efficient.
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I tend to view the relationship between samatha and vipassana the way it is described in this quote:
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/onetool.html
One Tool Among Many
The Place of Vipassana in Buddhist Practice
by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
...
But if you look directly at the Pali discourses — the earliest extant sources for our knowledge of the Buddha's teachings — you'll find that although they do use the word samatha to mean tranquillity, and vipassana to mean clear-seeing, they otherwise confirm none of the received wisdom about these terms. Only rarely do they make use of the word vipassana — a sharp contrast to their frequent use of the word jhana. When they depict the Buddha telling his disciples to go meditate, they never quote him as saying "go do vipassana," but always "go do jhana." And they never equate the word vipassana with any mindfulness techniques. In the few instances where they do mention vipassana, they almost always pair it with samatha — not as two alternative methods, but as two qualities of mind that a person may "gain" or "be endowed with," and that should be developed together. One simile, for instance (SN 35.204), compares samatha and vipassana to a swift pair of messengers who enter the citadel of the body via the noble eightfold path and present their accurate report — Unbinding, or nibbana — to the consciousness acting as the citadel's commander. Another passage (AN 10.71) recommends that anyone who wishes to put an end to mental defilement should — in addition to perfecting the principles of moral behavior and cultivating seclusion — be committed to samatha and endowed with vipassana. This last statement is unremarkable in itself, but the same discourse also gives the same advice to anyone who wants to master the jhanas: be committed to samatha and endowed with vipassana. This suggests that, in the eyes of those who assembled the Pali discourses, samatha, jhana, and vipassana were all part of a single path. Samatha and vipassana were used together to master jhana and then — based on jhana — were developed even further to give rise to the end of mental defilement and to bring release from suffering. This is a reading that finds support in other discourses as well.
...
This excerpt from
Mahasaccaka Sutta is also important in my opinion:
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.036.than.html"I thought: 'I recall once, when my father the Sakyan was working, and I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, then — quite secluded from sensuality, secluded from unskillful mental qualities — I entered & remained in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from seclusion, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. Could that be the path to Awakening?' Then following on that memory came the realization: 'That is the path to Awakening.' I thought: 'So why am I afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities?' I thought: 'I am no longer afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities, but that pleasure is not easy to achieve with a body so extremely emaciated. Suppose I were to take some solid food: some rice & porridge.' So I took some solid food: some rice & porridge. Now five monks had been attending on me, thinking, 'If Gotama, our contemplative, achieves some higher state, he will tell us.' But when they saw me taking some solid food — some rice & porridge — they were disgusted and left me, thinking, 'Gotama the contemplative is living luxuriously. He has abandoned his exertion and is backsliding into abundance.'
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These updates are mostly from my replies below. After I integrated update 3 into the body of the post I don't know if these updates are really helpful here any more. I'll leave them for posterity but feel free to skip them if you want.
UPDATE 1 (This is from a reply I wrote below - should have been here in the first place):
I don't think you can totally separate insight from concentration. You need some minimum concentration to do insight, and every wandering of the mind during concentration produces an iota of insight which adds up over time.I didn't say much about it in the OP, but reading between the lines what I wrote about renuncination, insight is implicit. You see what causes you stress and it changes how you think about things. Renunciation = letting go of attachments.
You can't rest in a pleasant state unless you have reached perfection. There is always something that disturbs your peace but since you prefer a pleasant state, you see what is disturbing your peace and you figure out how to let go of it (get back to a peaceful state) during the meditation session and during daily life.
UPDATE 2 (from a reply I wrote below):
Practicing relaxation in mediation or with another technique strengthens the parasympathetic nervous system, it gives you the skill to stay relaxed during daily life. It is a skill that continues to develop as the parasympathetic nervous system gets stronger with 'exercise'. When you can produce happiness through meditation you realize it is impermanent and illusory, and you lose your attachment to it and other emotions, at the same time you develop the skill of being happy if you want to (as an antidote to dukkha). The practice helps you to get better and better at being relaxed and happy during daily life. So from my experience, I would say it is a practical technique that is highly effective at reducing suffering.
UPDATE 3 (I integrated this into the body of the post): I should have mentioned this in the op: As I meditate and practice mindfulness during the day I am not just cultivating bliss. I am observing what causes stress. This means I notice the activity of the mind and notice sensations in the body that accompany emotions. This is a form of insight meditation. In the sutras Buddha did not distinguish samatha and vipassana as a distinct forms of meditation.
UPDATE 4: Rather than keep increasing the length of this post I will just put links to posts on my practice here.
5
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/14374804#_19_message_142089506
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/14374804#_19_message_143748047 How my practice his helping me abandon some of the ten fetters:
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/14564976?_19_delta=20&_19_keywords=&_19_advancedSearch=false&_19_andOperator=true&_19_resetCur=false&_19_cur=2#_19_message_148789778 An excerpt about gradual awakening from an article by Shinzen Young:
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/15808951#_19_message_158089519 Here is an overview of how I meditate in terms of the seven factors of awakening:
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/18536978#_19_message_18536978
10 Excerpts from an article on gradual enlightenment by Herb Eko Deer
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/18666987#_19_message_1866698711. How to maintain commitment to practice - meditation can provide positive reinforcement, life is practice.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/18771890#_19_message_1877279812 Disembodied voices
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/18734490#_19_message_1875997413 Tips on soft jhanas.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/1879807414. Updated summary of how I practice 3/11/2020
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/1931216115. My views on the cause of the many scandals by "enlightened" teachers.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/19420484#_19_message_1942048416. My views on gradual and sudden awakening.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/04/my-views-on-gradual-awakening.html17. Forgiveness. A lot of dukkha (unpleasant emotions) would cease if you would/could forgive.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&messageId=2001687818. The relationship between samatha and vipassana
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2011161219. Meditation on the breath encompasses many different forms of practice including samatha and vipassana.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2036252520. The point of relaxation.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&messageId=2082257521. Varieities of non-self and non-dual experiences.
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/05/varieties-of-non-self-and-non-dual.html22. Four parts to meditation.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&messageId=2102947923. Forgivig
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/05/forgiving.html24 The Unexpected
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&messageId=2116632525 Mantra of the Day
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&messageId=2151832726. Practice without sitting or noting.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/21528048#_19_message_2152804827. The current definition of awakening is different from Buddha's teachings
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/21530641#_19_message_2153064128. Recommendations for a beginner including relaxation exercises.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2154481029. Avoiding activities that produce dopamine addiction
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/21553530#_19_message_2155353030 Jhana troubleshooting
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2172662031 My beliefs about cosmology
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2178872832
Buddha's teaching on anatta is not about whether there is a self or soul.https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2186348733 Beginner's home retreat.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/21963567#_19_message_2196356734 Latest explanation of how I practice (1/5/2021)
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/22029078#_19_message_22029078_