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This is a very deep topic and hoping for others will chime in as well.
I have heard Culadasa say may times that traditional therapy may be needed and actually assist this process. I am fairly certain this is not a requirement though. So much is based on the individual situation. I believe he used the statement in the context of someone who has practice for quite some time and hit a block, then, in that situation, perhaps they should look to supplement with some traditional therapy. I do not believe he meant it as in you needed to combine that right out of the gate. This is probably something that might be best answered by working closely with a good teacher and might help answer if just doing the regular practice makes sense, and if and when one might need to add a component of traditional therapy.
Having said that: If you practice diligently and consistently – you will definitely end up purifying a huge amount of repressed and closed off content. In my experience, this would be inevitable. As when the usual mental processes quiet down, and a space becomes available for communication, those closed off and orphaned parts of ourselves will always take the opportunity to sneak a peak and start projecting their contents into consciousness, giving huge opportunities for purification (if we welcome and allow that process to play out, it is not always easy or comfortable).
Another aspect to be aware of, and I do not know it is mentioned enough, is that one needs to have a fairly health and strong ego in order to allow this process to take play and proceed in a healthy way. If the ego structure is not healthy it may be very difficult to allow this process to take place and instead have detrimental effects — in a case like that — therapy might be a better choice right at the beginning.
To Summarize: In a base case scenario, a regular practice that is consistent and diligent would allow a huge purification (with much more efficiency than traditional therapy in my mind). In the worst case one needs to either do therapy first, or supplement in some way during the process.
This would usually be something a seasoned teacher would probably assess and speak to the individual about (if the person is lucky enough to have access to such a teacher).
Hope that helps!
-Ivan/ (DT Teacher in training)
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This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by
Ivan Ganza.
Greetings,
There is a thread on the Reddit group about this, with basically the same question. Was it you perhaps? 😉
Will past my reply here for your reference. I am sure others will jump in as well.
In one sense, TMI illuminated is a map. It charts the general path that might (and often) unfolds. The path has been mapped (over a very long time) based on the range of common experiences that often occur.
However, it is only a map, NOT the terrain.
The experiences do not unfold in the precise same way for everyone. There is quite a bit of variance. Over time though, there is commonality, hence, the ability to make any kind of map at all.
Some people definitly have less to work through. It all depends on what transpired in your life before you started meditating, your current world view, and a huge amount of other factors.
Try to use the map as a guide but don’t hold too strongly to what experiences are described, the order they might occur and such. It is impossible to know how it will unfold for you. Still having some kind of guide map is important or we would be totally lost.
You may very well experience very little apparent purification right now, and experience it much later when you would not expect it.
Even if you are sitting and it feels like nothing is happening, something probably is, and the purification may be occurring calmly just below the surface. There are just so many possibilities….
We are all going up the same mountain but taking our own path to reach the summit (don’t forget to jump off when you reach it)
I think you probably safe to work on stage 5, it is not like purification would stop if you started stage 5+….
-Ivan/ (DT Teacher in Training)
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This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by Ivan Ganza.
It seems we’re talking about pliancy as if it is an on/off thing.
It can also be experienced as a gradient, where the end of the gradient scale is the very strong physical/mental pliancy being discussed. So you could certainly have the beginnings of pliancy which is allowing a long comfortable sit(2-3 hours). This would very likely be accompanied by pleasant bodily sensations and other phenomena — but is not yet the fully mature pliancy discussed in the later stages.
In a strong level of pliancy, as charlesanaata said, for that time physical pain and discomfort are basically temporarily plucked out of your vocabulary. As long as the pliancy lasts…; you will definitely know what that is like once experienced for the first time.
In terms of the the comment:
“pleasure experienced at that point is much, much more stronger than sex. ”
True but just want to point out –it would be quite uncomfortable to remain with that level of busy high energy in all your sits. Eventually there is a maturation (Culadasa talks about this somewhere…) and it becomes far more bearable and less busy. Basically similar to moving up the Jhanas. Eventually you may just get a quick burst and then it evens out to a nice kind-of background hum. I suspect something must have also occured in the body energy system to accommodate that maturation.
Andrew C: Just wanted to echo what the other’s said. You have a good attitude. We can only do the best we can, and keep measuring, checking, discussing and such. There is a constant deeper clarification of everything we thought we already knew, only to realize we didn’t know it, then going deeper, repeating, onward ho!!!
Cheers,
-Ivan (DT Teacher in Training)-
This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by Ivan Ganza.
Hi Andrew,
I think you have experienced something that could be very illuminating for you.
You could look to sit in a more comfortable way, do all kinds of stretches, basically everything possible to make your sit more comfortable. Maybe eventually you would even be able to hit physical pliancy before the sit became uncomfortable for you.
You would miss a great opportunity though.
You said you could “ignore the sensations but it would become distracting”
Can you find a relationship with those sensations where they are just sensations?
Can you notice in your sit the precise point when your sit shits from comfortable to uncomfortable? How does it happen?
What was your mental state before and after?? How does it differ?The boundary you are hitting is a great opportunity….
(PS: In my experience, one would need to have experienced sensations as just sensation extensively, experienced that shift, in order to have the possibility of sitting longer, and eventually pliancy)
-Ivan (DT Teacher in Training)
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This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by Ivan Ganza.
Couple more points;
TMI is not meant to be applied as a straight jacket. One is certainly free to mix and match a bit, especially if you would find that a certain practice is just not working for you.
However, you have to be really careful and wise here!! If the feeling to try something different is arising from within, kind-of like a deep intuitive feeling, that is one thing. If the reason for something different is just the ego playing games to keep from doing what is required, that is another. The ego would happily keep you moving from one thing to another, endlessly.
(Let’s keep in mind as well, Culadasa has arranged and selected certain practices for good reason, hence, we should be cautious to make changes without deep consideration)
Be wise! And feel it out!!
This is all part so just keep at it!
Post back and let us know how you are doing.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by Ivan Ganza.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by
