Find a problem with 6.2? Post it here! - Discussion
Ugh, right, I probably messed up the encoding somewhere along the way when getting the data from the mysqldb so it's probably been converted to latin-1 or similar in between. It shouldn't cause to much trouble though as the discussions are mostly in english. Pawal will have to live with an invalid last name in the 10 days of migrated posts 
Simon
Simon
Daniel M. Ingram:
Working on private messaging. Wouldn't hold your breath, as it is harder to perceive the sensations that make it up when it is not moving. ;)
That made my day
I also can't find the "Recent Posts" button on my iPad - was it removed? It would be useful to have it back on the top of the page.
Daniel M. Ingram:
Were any in the Trolling Thread? There were one or two threads that I didn't update, but all were throw-away stuff. I still have copies of all of the threads. Anything specific you can remember? Know which threads?
Daniel
Daniel
The first thread was titled "Sleep problems - practice related?" and was posted on 2014-04-27 and there was 2 replies to it (one from someone else, one from myself); the text was something like
Hi everybody,
I've been doing samatha-like practices daily since 1998 and switched over to vipassana in 2011 - I've done 8 retreats in the Chom Tong tradition, with extended fruitions (from 20 minutes to 1 hour) occuring at least since the 3rd retreat.
I observed that usually about 4 weeks after the retreat (fruitions), I have very sound sleep, there is little mental noise going on during the day, and lots of mindfulness. Then there is usually about 4 weeks transition period with mood swings, non-specific stress building up (clenched teeth after waking up), phases of big tiredness altering with energetic states and high concentration, and very bad sleep - in some cases only a few hours in the entire night, usually 6 hours sleep, then practice (for the lack of doing something better at 5am), then 2 more hours of sleep. It is only rarely that the mind wakes up with some thought I could not get rid of spinning, it is really much less specific "tension" somewhere. Then progressively the mind stabilizes in a relatively dull region, where the swings are not so radical, but the state is unpleasant and any depth of experience is absent. I practice usually between 30/30-50/50 (walking/sitting) daily.
I tried to see if this could be explainable by the mind cycling through the POI stages, but there is no clear match really (though the stages are very clearly present at retreats, and were even during retreats when I knew nothing about those stages).
I am not sure if all this is practice-related; before starting vipassana, I had a few years of serious depression due to being (not just spiritual) perfectionist (MCTB 244: "In fact, buying into a strong renunciation trip is well known for making people quite neurotic, and then the challenge is to see the true nature of the sensations that make up the renunciation-induced neuroses." -- perfect description of my vipassana basic course, which lifted the depression big time, though there is some proclivity to melancholy and being out of touch with feelings).
In any case, I welcome any recommendation about practices which could help this (I've done some metta practices and also some samatha jhanas with making wishes for good sleep, as funny as it sounds) and also some explanation about what might be going on. (My girlfriend is not very excited when I say after 3 months since the last retreat that I need to disappear again for 10 days as I don't feel well anymore; she said I had a 3-month period ;) ).
I think I am quite fine with non-meditation conditions generally considered to support sleep - no coffee after 5pm, some sport (yoga, jogging), no heavy food in the evening, no alcohol and such.
I've been doing samatha-like practices daily since 1998 and switched over to vipassana in 2011 - I've done 8 retreats in the Chom Tong tradition, with extended fruitions (from 20 minutes to 1 hour) occuring at least since the 3rd retreat.
I observed that usually about 4 weeks after the retreat (fruitions), I have very sound sleep, there is little mental noise going on during the day, and lots of mindfulness. Then there is usually about 4 weeks transition period with mood swings, non-specific stress building up (clenched teeth after waking up), phases of big tiredness altering with energetic states and high concentration, and very bad sleep - in some cases only a few hours in the entire night, usually 6 hours sleep, then practice (for the lack of doing something better at 5am), then 2 more hours of sleep. It is only rarely that the mind wakes up with some thought I could not get rid of spinning, it is really much less specific "tension" somewhere. Then progressively the mind stabilizes in a relatively dull region, where the swings are not so radical, but the state is unpleasant and any depth of experience is absent. I practice usually between 30/30-50/50 (walking/sitting) daily.
I tried to see if this could be explainable by the mind cycling through the POI stages, but there is no clear match really (though the stages are very clearly present at retreats, and were even during retreats when I knew nothing about those stages).
I am not sure if all this is practice-related; before starting vipassana, I had a few years of serious depression due to being (not just spiritual) perfectionist (MCTB 244: "In fact, buying into a strong renunciation trip is well known for making people quite neurotic, and then the challenge is to see the true nature of the sensations that make up the renunciation-induced neuroses." -- perfect description of my vipassana basic course, which lifted the depression big time, though there is some proclivity to melancholy and being out of touch with feelings).
In any case, I welcome any recommendation about practices which could help this (I've done some metta practices and also some samatha jhanas with making wishes for good sleep, as funny as it sounds) and also some explanation about what might be going on. (My girlfriend is not very excited when I say after 3 months since the last retreat that I need to disappear again for 10 days as I don't feel well anymore; she said I had a 3-month period ;) ).
I think I am quite fine with non-meditation conditions generally considered to support sleep - no coffee after 5pm, some sport (yoga, jogging), no heavy food in the evening, no alcohol and such.
Hi everybody,
I am fairly new here. I've been doing daily non-buddhist concentration practices since 1998, then stopped in 2008 due to psychosomatic problems (spiritual perfectionism), went almost by accident to the basic course in the Ajahn Tong tradition in Dhammacari in 2011; that solved most by physical&neurotical troubles, I've done 8 retreats with various teachers from that tradition since then, with (extended) fruitions in last 2.5 years, and substantial changes to my personality (in good ways) and such.
In the Ajahn Tong tradition, concentration practices are really recommended against (they lead to attachment since they are pleasant, suck up a lot of energy, and don't lead to permanent uprooting of suffering - those are arguments I've heard).
In last few weeks, besides daily vipassana practice (usually 30/30 walking/sitting), I try to do 30-60 minutes of samatha (breath concentration) practices when I have time. When in a good shape (not tired and such), I go up to the 2nd or 3rd jhana, usually spelling out some intention when the practice is finished (regarding insight of mine or people close to me, or in general - sort-of like the traditional metta meditation); developing some basic siddhi would be welcome, though it is not the goal.
Contrary to what MCBT says, I don't seem to experience pleasant states during samatha (save for absence of unpleasant feelings, plus some kind of self-satisfaction from being able to make the mind very concentrated). After the practice, I usually have higher "energy level" (mind buzzing, but in a sort-of pleasant way), but also being less grounded (which already is my problem in daily live usually), as if slowed down externally and sped up internally.
So, well, the questions I am asking myself (and I welcome any comments on) are:
* how is the pleasure aspect to be cultivated? Is it desirable? My sense of pleasure has been rather damaged through my extreme renunciation before I started vipassana and learned to accept myself a bit, could that be the root cause, and perhaps also a thing I might deal with in samatha by focusing on the pleasure aspect? * is there an interference between vipassana and samatha, when practiced in separate sessions?* how strongly should I concentrate on the object (breath)? I am generally over-concentrated (being programmer, my usual problem when being with people, with headaches and such), perhaps I am missing the pleasure because I ignore it?* anything else basically
Cheers!
I am fairly new here. I've been doing daily non-buddhist concentration practices since 1998, then stopped in 2008 due to psychosomatic problems (spiritual perfectionism), went almost by accident to the basic course in the Ajahn Tong tradition in Dhammacari in 2011; that solved most by physical&neurotical troubles, I've done 8 retreats with various teachers from that tradition since then, with (extended) fruitions in last 2.5 years, and substantial changes to my personality (in good ways) and such.
In the Ajahn Tong tradition, concentration practices are really recommended against (they lead to attachment since they are pleasant, suck up a lot of energy, and don't lead to permanent uprooting of suffering - those are arguments I've heard).
In last few weeks, besides daily vipassana practice (usually 30/30 walking/sitting), I try to do 30-60 minutes of samatha (breath concentration) practices when I have time. When in a good shape (not tired and such), I go up to the 2nd or 3rd jhana, usually spelling out some intention when the practice is finished (regarding insight of mine or people close to me, or in general - sort-of like the traditional metta meditation); developing some basic siddhi would be welcome, though it is not the goal.
Contrary to what MCBT says, I don't seem to experience pleasant states during samatha (save for absence of unpleasant feelings, plus some kind of self-satisfaction from being able to make the mind very concentrated). After the practice, I usually have higher "energy level" (mind buzzing, but in a sort-of pleasant way), but also being less grounded (which already is my problem in daily live usually), as if slowed down externally and sped up internally.
So, well, the questions I am asking myself (and I welcome any comments on) are:
* how is the pleasure aspect to be cultivated? Is it desirable? My sense of pleasure has been rather damaged through my extreme renunciation before I started vipassana and learned to accept myself a bit, could that be the root cause, and perhaps also a thing I might deal with in samatha by focusing on the pleasure aspect? * is there an interference between vipassana and samatha, when practiced in separate sessions?* how strongly should I concentrate on the object (breath)? I am generally over-concentrated (being programmer, my usual problem when being with people, with headaches and such), perhaps I am missing the pleasure because I ignore it?* anything else basically
Cheers!
I am fine re-posting and losing what I posted, no big deal, since I have the text, but other may have issues as well.
edx
Eric G:
Using the link button, the thing that pops up for the URL, it's just too small I guess to be readable. I had to just assume I cut and pasted it correctly and hope for the best.
FWIW see below. Same thing on the add image thing.
Eric G:
Eric G:
Using the link button, the thing that pops up for the URL, it's just too small I guess to be readable. I had to just assume I cut and pasted it correctly and hope for the best.
FWIW see below. Same thing on the add image thing.
I've been having this exact same problem. I have to hit Ctrl+A to select the too-small text, delete it, and then paste the url in the box. This is not ideal as I can't really see what I am doing.
I'm using the Chrome Browser on a Chromebook.