[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Pablo,

Very nice 😉

The way we talk about this, it sometimes seem esoteric, far away, strange, even unattainable.

That is NOT the case at all though. This is so simple, so clear, anybody can do it. You don’t need to be a super-star meditator or drop you life and live in a cave!

Cheers!
-Ivan/

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Peter W,

Is is very hard to put a number of hours of meditation required….;

As for how do you do it; increased powers of attention and peripheral awareness would eventually take you to the place where you can perceive in that way.

Building the skills outlined in the book should hopefully help in that 😉

(Edited: The level of detail in the paragraph from Shizen is some pretty darn GOOD concentration…, depth of concentration is a factor)

Cheers!
-Ivan/
(DT Teacher in Training)

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Thanks much for the replies!

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Peter W,

Not sure if you are familiar with the Teaching Retreats on the DT website? They are a golden resource.

There is one specifically on this topic called “Meditation and Insight”, if you have time time, it is highly worthwhile to have a listen.

https://dharmatreasure.org/teaching-retreats/

Cheers,
-Ivan/

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Peter W,

Great questions, that may take some time to unpack. I’ll try to give input on just the first part of what you asked.

|Is it a sudden flash of understanding where you now know something you previously didn’t?

How does insight arise?

Yes it could be a sudden flash of understanding. It is not really a conceptual understanding however, not an understanding in the usual way we think of understanding something. Its is more of a gut level understanding that might punch you in the gut. Certainly after that the conceptual mind will spin up and might try to answer it or understand it in conceptual terms.

How does the conceptual mind come in and try to make sense of the insight? I think this is mainly based on what is already pre-loaded in the mental model of the individual. Basically based on the current beliefs and information acquired during a lifetime. Using what I’ve got in my brain-box, I explain it to myself.

This is after the fact however, not the actual insight. Just how “I” try to make sense of it.

It does not always appear to be a “sudden” insight though. You may only realize later what happened, and finally realize “oh yes, actually this is how that is” for example. I think what is happening in that case is the mind-system is playing a bit of catch up. Where certain groups of subminds have had the insight, but it has not been communicated further ‘up-the-chain’ for example. Or the insight was temporarily buried under the covers due to lack of being ready, or lack of sufficient unification of the mind, where instead of allowing the insight to propagate, it is temporarily stopped, temporarily taken off the table. With continued practice and deepening of meditation skills and abilities, the insight can arise again, and then hopefully be allowed to saturate more of the mind system.

To summarize; it could happen in any of the three ways you posted, but does not happen fully in the conceptual way that we usually think of knowing something.

I hope that helps somewhat, with at least the first point?

Cheers,
-Ivan/

(DT Teacher in Training)

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by  Ivan Ganza.

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Sanjeev,

I created a thread where people can add links to good posts related to the above topics.

(Rather than try and write something myself, I figured there must already be some great resources related to topics we talked about.)

I hope it may be of help to you:

http://dharmatreasurecommunity.org/forums/topic/good-posts-on-tmi-and-mindfulness

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Sanjeev,

It may be difficult at first, as we face old habits.

By training the mind and developing more conscious power, you will certainly learn how to find the balance of attention and peripheral awareness — mind wandering will come under control — many more benefits — I hope you continue with the stages…;

Cheers,
-Ivan/

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Dear Bernadette,

|Thinking feels at the time of thinking more solid and real than the state of awareness and yet it proves to be the more ephemeral. What is thinking? What is happening when i am thinking? Why do i think?

Part of that — only you can answer this for yourself 😉 (Anything someone could write would be just words that may or may not help) It can be good to ask the question and leave a space for the answer to appear to you!

The rest — we could look at a long technical answer but I’m not sure how helpful that is, it would be very conceptual.

The Buddha taught something called “Dependant Origination”. Not sure if you are familiar with it? There are many good texts and resources all over place which talk about it. Very healthy to become familiar if not already.

Cheers,
-Ivan/

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by  Ivan Ganza.

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Bernadette,

I had sent you a personal message. If you click on your name on the top right and follow into “Message” area you should see it. A little bit of click around should reveal it 😉

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Sanjeev,

Myself (and others I hope) will add more details as this thread matures.

I think we need to first clarify what is your definition of mindfulness? Of being mindful?

In the context of TMI, we define Mindfulness as the “optimal interaction of attention and awareness in a given situation.”

Another way to state that is to think of having “the proper balance of attention and awareness in any given situation”. And the optimal balance will of course be shifting and changing based on what the current situation is.

Based on your description above, about “attention dimming”, it seems that the balance may have shifted a bit too much into awareness.

Knowing the appropriate balance and being able to maintain that is one of the key points.

—-
In terms of how to practice that in daily life, the quick answer is that practice off the cushion if basically very similar to practice on the cushion.

During daily life, we set intentions all day long. Are those intentions followed? Or do we quickly degrade into mind wandering?

Each time we set an intention to do something off the cushion, and we notice we’ve wandered into day dreaming or something else, one returns gently to what the intention was. Essentially the same process as returning to the breath.

This is however a really deep topic….; one can really go deep.

Does this help as a starting point?

Cheers,
-Ivan/

(DT Teacher in Training)

[Ivan GanzaMember]

I’m glad you found the recordings. I found them of immense benefit.

Especially the “Meditation and Insight” retreat.

Cheers,
-Ivan/

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Bernadette,

Quick note: I’m not sure if you are familiar. There are a wealth of audio recordings available on the DT website. They can serve as an excellent aid to practicing from the book. Really helps fill things into context. Would highly recommend the teaching retreats.

Cheers,
-Ivan/

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Bernadette,

|Does a time come through practice that thinking occurs in an aware space and not in the rarefied atmosphere of seemingly only being the thinking event?

The answer is yes.

If we use TMI terminology, thoughts arise _first_ in peripheral awareness, with each thought basically trying to bait attention so it (the thought) can become the star of the show.

So thoughts basically occur first in that aware space. Then the thought grabs attention, until the next though comes along, and the process repeats itself. Most people are going to spend their entire lives like this.

When following the practices of TMI, you would inevitably have the experience of thoughts arising in peripheral awareness, and basically remaining in peripheral awareness, similar to a shooting star in the sky, the thought would travel or hang around in peripheral awareness for a bit, and then disappear.

I think what are are really talking about is knowing how thoughts arise in the two contexts, in the context of peripheral awareness, and the context of attention being brought to bare on a thought.

In terms of your question, if you keep on with the practice, I suspect you will inevitably have this experience.

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Certainly…:-)

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Bernadette,

It does sound familiar.

Honestly sounds very within the range of what is reasonable to expect. The habit of being kind-of ‘fused’ with thought is an old one. Naturally it may feel uncomfortable when this is being shaken up.

The forced feeling is okay for now. At first it does feel forced. That will change with time.

Keep on with the practice based on where you are in the book. All will work itself out in time 😉

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