[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Bernadette,

In answer to your query; I am referring to the entire model, steps and training presented by the book. Somewhere along the line, this amazing miracle (and many others) will dawn.

Put another way; following the stages of the book, step-by-step, stage-by-stage, reading and re-reading, but most of all, doing the practice!

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Yes, I think you are on the right track.

This new relationship should eventually come about as a natural result of following the steps outlines in the book.

There will be a time when it is basically automatic, the default, not something you’ll need to do.

Cheers,
-Ivan/

[Ivan GanzaMember]

|So is it true to say that the relationship to thought is being changed by the repeated perception of thought happening without a grabbing or pushing away response occurring?

Yes!!! Wonderful!!

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Bernadette,

Please let me know if this was of any help to you?

Perhaps you can restate your question in other words, so others might pick up and add their input.

Please let us know.

Cheers,
-Ivan/

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Bernadette,

Let me try and address what I think is the core of what your asking.

All thinking is not aversion and clinging. We don’t want to paint a bullseye on thinking and label it as something bad. There is nothing wrong with thinking, it is a natural process.

Where the trouble starts is the _relationship_ to what is thought. Do we cling to nice happy thoughts and push ugly, uncomfortable thoughts away? Do we want to keep nice memories and discard the ones we don’t like?

When we practice we do not create something in the mind that did not exist before. However we are leaning new skills and abilities, and perhaps we could say, those did not exist before.

We are learning skills and abilities that let us observe mental processes, the process of clinging for example. Skills and abilities that bring these processes to light so they can be seen happening. Once they are seen happening, and enough of the mind-system is present to soak in that insight experience, the usual relationship to thinking can change in a profound way.

As a by product of this, certainly much of the usual thoughts one typically would have will not be generated anymore (or generated much less). That is not to say however one will not think. Thoughts are still generated, but now, for the ones that are still generated, the relationship is different.

Cheers,
-Ivan/

(DT Teaching in Training)

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Greetings,

In additon to the good advise you have received so far:

I think you are doing the correct things and sounds like you are practicing well. The fact is we’ve had a habit of being dull, allowing dullness for a long period in our lives. In my experience it is partly like an deep ingrained habit.

The only way to unlearn a habit is to slowly train yourself out of it.

And you are doing that.

Overtime, when you keep catching the dullness, and not allowing it. As you keep sending the messages to your mind-system that you don’t want to allow dullness any longer, that you won’t just allow it to show up and take over the show, as you keep doing that over time you are slowly re-training yourself not to get dull.

In my experience you will need to keep working at it, slowly and carefully, as you have been doing. You will eventually train yourself out it, that is for certain.

-Ivan/
(DT Teacher in Training)

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hopefully the first post helped explain a little bit of the why.

In terms of how to deal with it. In my experience, especially if this is happening off the cushion, the best thing (but not easy) is to do your best to GIVE SPACE to these mental states. Let them play out and do what they do.

Let it come, let it be, let it go.

This as all things will eventually pass. For now it is a good sign, and probably necessary as your mind-system adjusts to new ways of thinking, new models, that are becoming apparent (even if just on a subconscious level) as you progress in your meditation.

If you don’t engage the anxiety (or any similar mental state/event)–they eventually shift and change —

If we do engage them, in a certain way, it invigorates them with energy so they would likely stick around longer, even get stronger.

Cheers,
-Ivan (DT Teacher in Training)

[Ivan GanzaMember]

I recently wrote this reply to someone on Reddit, I think it may be of help to you:

In my experience these are signs of progress. Hitting the aversion to meditation means you are doing well. Clearly a large group of sub-minds have gotten on board with your intention to meditate — and if that is truly the case — I suspect for many people it inevitably makes the other parts of the mind (which are not yet onboard with that intention) basically rebellious, and a little bit worried. The assumptions and models they are holding about reality are being challenged! We are genetically coded to NOT easily change our assumptions and beliefs.

And hence you start to experience aversion and restless.

This is consistent with what I experienced myself.

The remedy is to keep getting more and more of the mind on-board with your intentions. That can only happen by:
– continuing to sit, stick with your sessions, and never give in to the rebels who want to dump the project
– following the instructions for the stage you are at
– giving space to the rebellious part of your mind: let it do what it will do as best you can
– do your best to observe and let it come, let it be, let it go
once the benefits of meditation start to saturate your mind the rebels are sure to (eventually) get on board one day
– if you don’t energize them, eventually they will give up

Based on everything you have posted it sounds like you are doing a fine job and seems quite normal honestly.
It is not easy to deal with Rebels but you can do it.

I’m sure others will have some great advise about how they face the restless when encountered.

In my own practice, I encountered massive restless and agitation at some point pushing towards 45 minutes. From what I remember — I basically kept sitting and going back to the breath, back the instructions, over and over again. I let the restless be there as much as possible — did not engage it. One day I finally felt the restless just dissolve, poof, it was just gone and what a relief that was! Meditation really improved after that. Of course, that was not the end, but one step along the hike.

Cheers,
-Ivan (DT Teacher in Training)

[Ivan GanzaMember]

It may be of help to define “Fully Enlightened”

We can only use this term loosely and not get too involved with it. I think that “Fourth Path” is what we usually think about when we talk about someone being “Fully Enlightened”.

I think when jimisommer is using the term, he may be thinking about a Fourth Path Arahat?

There are plenty of cases that we know about of people reaching Fourth Path. (Assuming you believe the reports or descriptions).

I personally think I know of two people who are probably third-fourth path. So it is not unattainable, and in the realm of what is possible, here and now.

As is often pointed out, Fourth Path is NOT the end, but there is a continuing deepening, of what form and depth, does not seem to have been well documented as of yet.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by  Ivan Ganza.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by  Ivan Ganza.

[Ivan GanzaMember]

In my understanding, when we talk about craving and desire, we are talking about craving and desire that is rooted in the belief in a self, in the idea and assumption of being a separate self.

This is not referring to biological needs and such.

The context of craving is related to craving that is a link in the production of suffering (the second arrow).

The type of craving I am referring to CAN be 100% eliminated. That is what this path promises. We CAN eliminate the second arrow, not the first.

Pangs of hunger do not go away. If I step on a nail, it still hurts.

What motivates a being who does not experience the second arrow — what motivates such a being to do anything at all?

Please see this link for the Sutta: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.than.html

Let’s explore….

Cheers,
-Ivan/
(DT Teacher in Training)

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by  Ivan Ganza.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by  Ivan Ganza.

[Ivan GanzaMember]

>If, however, you mean that there just will be no “reaction” to the news, I’ll just keep sipping coffee and breathing or whatever, that obviously seems very undesirable (I would consider that zombie behaviour).

What you are describing seems like “indifference”, total indifference to whatever occurs. That is certainly NOT desirable, and not the true result of the path. It can certainly be very easy to mistake and mix up descriptions of equanimity with indifference. I suspect this is a common point of possible confusion.

>I guess my main question at this point is how *absolute* the experience really is.
>Similarly, how absolutely do you mean the “no suffering” thing? It is my understanding that suffering wasn’t completely eliminated until death according to doctrine.

Insight is permanent change, whatever insights and changes occur for you, those are permanent. Even if they come up, but then get buried underneath other layers for a while. (* please see my notes later about the words permanent and absolute)

There is an excellent Sutta, the “Sallatha Sutta”, where the Buddha talks about the core of what I think you are wondering about:

>”Monks, an uninstructed run-of-the-mill person feels feelings of pleasure, feelings of pain, feelings of neither-pleasure-nor-pain. A well-instructed disciple of the noble ones also feels feelings of pleasure, feelings of pain, feelings of neither-pleasure-nor-pain. So what difference, what distinction, what distinguishing factor is there between the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones and the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person?”

Notice that both an “uninstructed run-of-the-mill person” and a “well-instructed disicple” BOTH feel feelings of pleasure, pain, and so-on!

So what is the difference?

>The Blessed One said, “When touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, & laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical & mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pains of two arrows; in the same way, when touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, & laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical & mental.

The second arrow (the mental event) is how we make ourselves suffer!

The Dharma largely promises to eliminate this second arrow, first attenuating it (such that it occurs far less often), and second, later at some point, completely and totally eliminating the second arrow.

Let’s say someone very dear to you dies. Your body still generates whatever it will generate. Energies probably course in your system. There is an adjustment period — you will probably cry — all these things may still occur — but they stop at the first arrow. The second arrow does not need to be fired.

A really KEY POINT is that, by virtue of INSIGHT into how things really are, by the powerful change of our mental models and assumptions, the second arrow stops being fired. It never provided any value anyhow.

The discerning person, learned,
doesn’t sense a (mental) feeling of pleasure or pain:
This is the difference in skillfulness
between the sage & the person run-of-the-mill.

For a learned person
who has fathomed the Dhamma,
clearly seeing this world & the next,
desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His acceptance
& rejection are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.

Knowing the dustless, sorrowless state,
he discerns rightly,
has gone, beyond becoming,
to the Further Shore.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.than.html

NOTE: The words “permanent” and “absolute” are not totally accurate. It’s hard to say anything is totally “permanent” or “absolute” in a final sense. In a system of interacting processes (impermanence) nothing is truly “permanent” or “absolute”. Experience is always shifting and changing.

This may all sound a bit odd, or esoteric, strange even — honestly it is very near, and down-to-earth. The clearest thing once you taste it. And it can be tasted, there is no doubt. Countless noble meditators have tasted this over the ages!!

Take the leap!!

Hope this helps somewhat!

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Greetings,

I’ve been reading and re-reading your post, you hit on some really deep issues that may take quite a while to unpack.

Honestly — I still highly suggest listening to the full retreat I posted above — it is really golden and amazing — may help to give you a bit of confidence and answer many of your questions. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve listened to it. There is also a huge amount of other material available on the DT website which may help.

Let’s look at your statement “I could really use some help understanding the goals of this path since I feel like maybe it isn’t for me.”

I can imagine a great many have been on the fence (so to speak) at the same point, and asked themselves the same question. “Is it really for me?”

Can I turn a question back at you, and ask you, are you ready and willing to know what is really going on?

And by virtue of learning that, being an order of magnitude more free in all your affairs, or even totally free? (Free in the sense of having NO suffering, or greatly reduced amount of suffering). And having a new (much better and healthy) relationship to life and all affairs?

It’s not free though. Many current assumptions are discarded, and much needs to be faced and accepted, that is not always a pleasant process, as you can see by your experience of current doubts.

How much is true freedom worth?

We are here to help so let us know your doubts and thoughts!

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Perhaps a poem:

Face Everything, Let Go, and Attain Stability (Zen Poem):

“Vast and far-reaching without boundary, secluded and pure, manifesting light, this spirit is without obstruction. Its brightness does not shine out but can be called empty and inherently radiant. Its bright-ness, inherently purifying, transcends casual conditions beyond subject and object. Subtle but preserved, illumined and vast, also it cannot be spoken of as being or nonbeing, or discussed with images or calculations. Right in here the central pivot turns, the gateway opens. You accord and respond without labouring and accomplish without hindrance. Everywhere turn around freely, not following conditions, not falling into classifications. Facing everything, let go and attain stability. Stay with that just as that. Stay with this just as this. That and this are mixed together with no discrimination as to their places. So it is said that earth lifts up the mountain without knowing the mountain’s stark steepness. A rock contains jade without knowing the jade’s flawlessness. This is how trust to leave home, how home-leaving must be enacted.”

–> Right in here the central pivot turns, the gateway opens. You accord and respond without labouring and accomplish without hindrance. Everywhere turn around freely, not following conditions, not falling into classifications.

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Cheese,

Thanks for being so clear in your post.

It is very difficult to understand conceptually. You will not become a robot or uncaring to your family (there may or may not be challenges as you adjust though).

Culadasa has some good talks somewhere where he gets deep into this very thing you posted about. You may find this talked about in the “Meditation and Insight” retreat available on the DT website under http://dharmatreasure.org/teaching-retreats/ (high suggested listening!!)

One way coming to mind to describe some of this is as: Your experience becomes much more equal to you. Emotions by definition seem to be movements of energy. Whatever situation you are in (ideally) you will still act of of Compassion and take care of the needs of others around you. Emotional and otherwise….

You say you generally you are happy person? What brought you to meditation?

The truths and insights to be faced are not always easy to swallow. Human life is precious and easily lost, the opportunity to awaken a brief glimpse — all good situations eventually end. Imagine how long your “good” situation may continue…; (contemplation of our current human situation can be of great help…)

Cheers,
-Ivan/

(DT Teacher in Training)

[Ivan GanzaMember]

Hi Manjushree,

I wanted to add; you may find these sensations a bit strange, uncomfortable, fascinating, distracting, enjoyable, even annoying at times — that all will pass in time. it is usually a bit uncomfortable and unsettling at first.

Hope you keep going 😉

Cheers,
-Ivan/

(DT Teacher in Training)

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