Forum: Hurricane Ranch 09 - Dharma Discussion

Hi All,

I just posted the first part of a long conversation we had recently at Daniel Ingram's house in Alabama. It is available on the page, "Hurricane Ranch 09 - Dharma Discussion" as an .mp3 download. Feel free, once you've listened to post your comments/questions/etc. here.

I will notify people when parts 2 and 3 are posted. It may be a little while till I have a chance to get to them, but the 1st part will hopefully whet your appetite!

Thanks for all the work you did to edit and post this, Vince. I'd almost forgotten how rich and fun the discussion was.

By the way, everyone, I apologize for saying "nexes" twice in the opening minutes of the session. I just learned yesterday that the plural of "nexus" is "nexuses" or just plain "nexus." Oops. How humiliating. 0_0

Kenneth

Hey Vince,

I just listened to Part 1.

I found Hokai's descriptions of Shingon practice to be fascinating. I found it helpful when Daniel used comparative terms within the Theravada lexicon to describe the concepts that Hokai was laying out. I could tell that everyone involved in the conversation was really in to it. It's hard not to feel the same sense of enthusiasm while listening to talks like this.

Needless to say, I'm really looking forward to Part 2. Thanks for taking the time to make this available to us at the DhO.

LOL - I like Daniel's "Disease Model".

The Pathology: Insight Disease.

Etiology: Crossing the Arising & Passing Away. Full blown cases are seen at Stream-entry.

Prognosis: Treatable.

Treatment: A cocktail of samatha, vipassana, and choiceless awareness practices (when appropriate).

The Cure/Resolution: Arahatship.

Alright, so I edited and uploaded parts 2 and 3 today. The whole thing is now ready for download!

-Vince

I really enjoyed this. A big smile was on my face for a lot of it.

The variations of practice was facinating and such a great discussion on the pros and cons of each approach!

Just great, thanks for this.

edit: and that's just my response from part 1!

thanks for posting the audios. good to hear your voices riffing on the dharma.

love Hokai's description of Shingon practice. that's very similar to how Shinzen Young teaches vipassana (no wonder since Shinzen is ordained in the Shingon tradition).

but one thing i noticed though about style of vipassana is that Shinzen teaches the classic vipassana approach of "untangling" the sensations (touch, sight, sound, feel, image, talk), but he doesn't dwell specifically with the samatha and vipassana jhanas.

my understanding of Shinzen's basic approach to mindfulness is this: cultivate concentration by practicing any of the "5 ways" (e.g. focus in, focus out, focus on rest, etc...) then once you sense the impermanence (waves, vibrations, expansion, contraction), you ride it out and let it "meditate you." this sounds like a mashup of vipassana and Shingon approach. Shinzen calls this process "the miracle of purification."

looking forward to listening to the rest of the discussion.

~C

Thank you C4, glad you liked that. Now Japanese Vajrayana is extremely rich yet condensed, almost an super-abundant overload begging to be down-translated into something like what Shinzen is proposing. His touch/body, sight/image, sound/talk is a great application of body, mind and speech trinity, or the mudra, mandala, and mantra principles, the "three actions" and "three mysteries" through which individual practitioner and "cosmic Buddha", i.e. actual dynamic reality, come face-to-face and then inter-penetrate to merge. It was an exquisite challenge for me to discuss this stuff with hardcore vipassana colleagues, without relying on - or hiding behind :-) - the arcane symbolic language of esoteric transmission.

Strictly speaking, Shingon doesn't use shamatha and vipashyana as stages in practice, seeing them as mutually inclusive, but I find the sequential logic useful for training purposes, i.e. calm as platform for insight, at least for initial stages. Further on, the relationship between shamatha and vipashyana gets much more flexible, and eventually they become one and the same thing.

Developing a broad, hybrid terminology allows sharing and transparency across traditions, and this was an utterly open-minded gathering in that respect. Such sharing then enables a common experience to be recognized and confirmed, which in itself is delicious.

"What the fractal!"

Very inspiring!!

At last, I managed to listen to the entire recording. Needless to say, I'll be listening to it a few more times for fear of missing something.

I really like the "insight disease model". It's the most naturally convincing one I've come across so far. I can't wait to try it on the next person to seriously ask me why I meditate.

One theme that really struck me was "add an outside perspective". I've been doing the "mirror" exercise for several days now, and I think I'm beginning to see how this ties in with equanimity territory (which I sometimes believe to be in). I'm also more inclined than ever before to grant our Western Mystery / Magick friends that they've really got something going with their "holy guardian angel" model.

Hokai mentioned something about understanding every sound as an utterance of deity, every form as a gesture of deity and so on, and Kenneth added a quote about abiding in Buddha mind for a month. I remember a similar passage from Daniel's book (in the "God model" section, iirc), and, again, from a Western Magick text (the "oath of the abyss" I think it is). I can now appreciate to a larger extent than before why Hokai puts such emphasis on View.

Finally, the "competetive enlightenment" and "team sport" comments were good. With all these new stream enterers here on the DhO, it's beginning to feel a bit lonely up here on the metaphorical waterside.

Thanks for sharing this!

Cheers,
Florian

Great discussion -- thanks for sharing!!! Like Florian, I'm going to be listening to this one several times!

I hear you Florian! So I mean this both in jest and inspirationally: race ya! First one to stream entry buys the other the other a drink of their parent's choosing.

(And we can compare notes along the way, team sport afterall!)

Author: Tracy.

Where's the album art for my iTunes?

Excellent Exchange!

This is more accessible than any other source I have come across. Maybe it's just the type of my western mind, but as Florian pointed out - Enlightenment as Competitive / Team sport puts things in perspective (also gives you a swift one in the behind to get crackin').

Thank you Vince for putting this up. Thanks to all involved for their contribution.

Thanks for this, I've listened to all parts twice in work now, and have really gotten a lot from the discussion. Kenneth you have a fantastic style of discussion and tone of voice! Very enjoyable and easy to follow. I think there is huge potential here for further straight-up hardcore dharma audio.

As a quick introduction, I've been a fan of Daniel's book ever since I found it repeatedly mentioned on the website of some crazy Western magicians that have already infiltrated this forum with their tomfoolery ;0) I have also lurked around this forum for a while without speaking up, but today I finally decided to register and voice my appreciation for this audio, and maybe begin to contribute to some of the chats going down around here.

Back to the audio; the discussions of spaciousness, awareness and formations were particularly useful for me as I believe I'm in the equanimity/high equanimity stage of my first insight cycle. So you have one more person company Florian, although I don't plan on staying here long! I feel pretty close, but who knows I could be way off.

I also found the talk about consciousness taking itself as object to be very useful, as this helped me refine my current "formless" inclusive practice, a method that has always suited me more than noting, and if I'm where I think I am, has taken me through my first cycle in relative haste.

I'm curious as to Daniel and Kenneth's history, as it's only partially clear from the audio. You both seemed to be taught by Bill Hamilton and lived with eachother for a while?

Anyway, hi everyone and thanks for this excellent website! Cheers, Dan

Regarding "license" - one thing that occurred to me today is that the traditional "earth witness" pose of many Buddha statues (sitting in lotus and touching the earth with the finger tips of one hand) actually implies claiming "license". I've known that legend for several years now, but suddenly it makes a lot of sense.

@Beta, Danbartlett, and whoever else wants to join: here we go!

Cheers,
Florian