Forum Replies Created

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #2181

    Blake, it would great to get Culadasa’s input, as well as the input of other senior teachers like yourself. Perhaps what we can eventually do is come up with a more fleshed out proposal (including proposed survey questions), and then send it through to the Dharma Treasure community leaders to review and potentially endorse. I’m also more than happy to hand the project over to someone else who might be in a better position to design and deliver the survey. I primarily just wanted to get a conversation started about this, though I have some ideas about what might be helpful to know.

    Jevan, thanks, that’s great. I pretty much want to know the same sorts of things. Depending on what Culadasa/Blake say in response to our proposal, I might certainly reach out to get your help with this.

    #2109

    Is that aimed at me, Doug? If so, I think you may have misunderstood me. I’m by no means hostile to what Culadasa is offering; I think he’s the best Dharma teacher out there, and I can understand why he has taken the option of offering premium consultations.

    In respect to your comments, I don’t think the analogy with nutritious food really works, because for some people the Dharma is more akin to love or friendship or truth than it is to an item like food. Putting a price on love, for instance, immediately changes what it is in some fundamental way.

    I’m not sure where rioting and boycotting is coming from. Are we not just having a civil discussion about an important matter?

    #2106

    I think Samuel’s underlying concern is that the commodification of Dharma teachings might rub some people the wrong way, especially if the price tag is seen to be rather high. For many, the subject matter of the Dharma has a sanctity to it, and commodifying it would be demeaning. We don’t charge others for our friendship or our honesty, because we see no place for market thinking in these areas of our lives. In a similar vein, perhaps we shouldn’t charge others for sharing the Dharma——particularly when we cannot ultimately claim ownership of its content.
    (For those interested in the moral limits of markets, I’d recommend the work of Michael Sandel.)

    Whilst it has become increasingly common for meditation teachers to charge considerable amounts for one-on-one consultations, I think many people are still concerned about the standards of guidance being provided. At this stage, being a meditation teacher is not analogous to being a lawyer or psychologist. Those professions have established accreditation processes and formalised standards of ethics, for which failure to adhere means loss of licence or civil/criminal prosecution. Meditation is still very new to the West; we haven’t gotten that far with it.

    From a personal point of view, I’m generally not in favour of this trend of commodification, but I recognise that it can be a skilful means in certain instances. And in understanding Culadasa’s circumstances, I’m quite fine with what is being offered, and I think many others would be too. Perhaps it might be worth explaining the context of the offer on the DT website, because I’m not sure everyone is as aware of Culadasa’s health and resulting financial challenges as is assumed.

    Lastly, I’d like to echo Colleen’s suggestion that we as a community try to raise funds to either support Culadasa directly or make it possible for people of lesser means, and who are in need, to gain access to Culadasa’s consultations. And if I can be of any help with this, I hope someone will let me know.

    #1709

    Thanks Neko.

    Again, my question that provoked Wiley’s response dates back a while to May (7 months ago). My understanding of the practice has, thankfully, come along a bit since then. (It’s also gone backwards many times since then, too. Haha!)

    Revisiting my own question, I can now see that I was somewhat confused about the relationship between attention-awareness and what could be called the foreground-background of consciousness. I seemed to have thought that those were more or less synonymous, but what I now understand is that there is an important distinction to be made: Attention/awareness relates to the resolution and scope of perception; foreground/background relates to the extent to which phenomena are dominant or subordinate in consciousness — or, put another way, the “volume” of conscious phenomena.

    In my understanding, directed and sustained attention (vitakka and vicāra), actually continue as one goes up through the Whole-Body Jhanas, but they progressively move to the background. This is different from the Pleasure Jhanas, where, as you say, vitakka and vicāra are forgone entirely from the 2nd jhana onward. What I’ve said there is slightly different to how you described the distinctions between the jhanas above, but this is perhaps more a matter of semantics than any fundamental differences in the distinctions being made.

    As I said in my original question, it’s quite obvious that the methods for attaining the jhanic states are different, but it was the differences in their phenomenology that I was interested in. To my mind, it seems the differences are as follows:

    2ND WHOLE-BODY JHANA
    1. Directed and sustained attention continue on the whole-body breath sensations, but this has now moved to the *background*.
    2. Peripheral awareness of piti and sukha in the form of pleasure and happiness now dominate conscious experience, so they have moved into the *foreground*.

    1ST PLEASURE JHANA
    1. Directed and sustained attention is on sukha in the form of pleasure. This occurs in the *foreground*.
    2. Peripheral awareness is of piti and sukha in the form of happiness, which at this stage is in the *background*.

    What are your thoughts here? Does that sound about right to you? Or is there something that’s not quite right?

    You’ll have to bear in mind my experience of the jhanas has exclusively come from following Culadasa’s instructions in TMI. So, I guess if you’ve engaged with a broader range of jhanic methods, that might explain the differences in our understanding/experience.

    Anyway, thank again for sharing your thoughts. Much appreciated.

    Cheers,
    Nelson

    #1698

    Thanks Wiley.

    My question on the jhanas dates back a while. Thankfully, things have progressed a little since then.

    To be fair to Matthew, I think in his reply to me he was maybe noticing that I’d only just begun to access jhanas, so perhaps he didn’t think I needed to be splitting hairs about which jhana I was technically in. Well, at least that’s how it seemed to me. I found it helpful at the time.

    That said, I will bear in mind your point about the importance of meditative joy as I progress further, because I have by no means mastered the jhanas yet.

    Thanks again. It’s always useful to get another perspective on these things.

    #1397

    moln1, yes, some of it might be a little dense on details, and perhaps not entirely for our purposes. Sorry, I should have mentioned that the parts that are social commentary and political in nature can be ignored. It’s really only the bits of animation that illustrate how perception can be narrowly focussed or broadly open that are relevant, in particular the sequence of images of the bird being narrowly focussed on a seed (attention), whilst being on the lookout for predators (peripheral awareness). For me, this was the closest thing to capturing what the first-person experience of attention with peripheral awareness felt like.

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by  Nelson Satoru.
    #1389

    I’ve been following the attention-awareness discussions from afar, and I think (well, I hope) I might have a couple things that I can contribute here.

    It seems what often makes the distinction between attention and awareness so vexing is that, initially, many of us try to understand awareness *through* the lens of attention, so what naturally follows is the tendency to try and *pin down* awareness conceptually and/or through our intentions. But awareness is not pin-down-able. It does not get experienced or known in the same way we know and understand via attention. It is more naked. (Naked of concepts.) It is more direct. (Direct in that it bypasses conceptualisation.) And it is not necessarily cultivated with more effort. (It probably requires the opposite if anything: more letting go.)

    In any case, the RSA has created an excellent animation of neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist’s work on the divided brain (attention vs awareness), which illustrates quite well the nature of these two modes of perception. Jon, Blake, Culadasa, I’m wondering if it might be a useful pedagogical tool to help students intuit what awareness is, rather than them trying to understand it through the usual attention-centric processes of language.

    The link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI

    moln1, if you get a chance, please check it out, and let us know if it was illuminating or useful at all.

    Anyway, I hope some of this is helpful.

    Nelson

    #1330

    moln1,

    Before I saw Blake’s response, I wanted to reply to you and repeat the point about taking it easy, so perhaps we (Blake and I) have picked up on something similar.

    Maybe the key in getting through this stage of your practice is less to do with *what* you’re doing in your practice and more so about *how* you’re doing your practice. *What* you do is still of relevance, and I would continue to recommend that you experiment with walking practice as a means of working with the “fuzziness” (and what appears to be some agitation), but *how* you practice is probably central here. It is, after all, what is being brought to your attention by the practice itself.

    Another thing to recognise as part of this are our very human limits. Raising a toddler and running a home would no doubt create some challenges around practice, and it might well be depleting your capacity to remain attentive whilst meditating. If this is so, you can only work on letting go, as Blake suggested. The question to explore, though, is to let go of what? Perhaps striving. Perhaps some idea about practice or progress. Perhaps something else.

    Lastly, you might also be bumping up against the limits of meditation itself (viz. cushion practice). Perhaps part of the remedy here is to also do some bodywork (exercise, yoga, massage, etc.), assuming that you don’t already do so. In my own journey, incorporating bodywork was crucial in moving beyond the earlier stages. It also helped erode the illusory division between “mind” and “body”.

    Anyway, keep experimenting and please keep us posted on your progress.

    Best of luck.

    Nelson

    #1320

    moln1,

    It sounds like what you’re experiencing is a textbook case of strong dullness and gross distraction, which, as I’m sure you know, are the obstacles of Stage Four in Culadasa’s model.

    So, firstly, and without trying to be condescending: congratulations! This is a sign of progress — at least according to the model and my own experience of it. That said, strong dullness and gross distractions aren’t really a lot of fun, so I’m sure you’re eager to progress beyond this phase of your practice.

    Some suggestions:

    If you haven’t yet, I recommend starting to incorporate into your routine the walking meditation set out in Appendix A of the Mind Illuminated. Not only can it be just as profound as what might be achieved on the cushion, it actually seems quite crucial for one’s development when one arrives at a certain stage of practice. Perhaps you are there.

    You might also want to experiment with when and where you do your sit. I have found that, at different times of day, our capacity to be mindful would peak, plunge, and plateau. Of course, what this suggests is that one’s capacity to meditate is contingent on other factors, like biological factors (general health, circadian rhythms, etc.) and environmental factors (lighting, temperature, noise, etc.). So, basically, try to take care of yourself, your health, and the setting in which you are doing your practice. In many ways, working on these things seems to be part of the practice, and perhaps some might say *is* the practice.

    Finally, and perhaps most simply, you might just want to try meditating with your eyes open — at least while you’re working on getting through this stage of the practice. It might be a little distracting at first, but it should offer an immediate boost to the mind’s ability to be alert and attentive. It should also start helping cut through the apparent duality of “inside” and “outside”.

    In any case, I hope some of this proves useful for you. And I encourage you to go easy on yourself whilst you’re navigating this stage of the path — which is something that gets said a lot, but perhaps can’t be said enough.

    Best of luck.
    Nelson

    #658

    Thanks for your reply, Matthew.

    The chapter of the Mind Illuminated on Stage Six seems to suggest that one should learn to access jhana via the breath sensations in the body before moving onto the pleasure jhana, but I suppose there’s probably no need to adhere to that rigidly, so I will take your advice and just work on accessing jhana consistently by whatever means.

    Thanks again.

    #588

    Hi Jonas,

    In the practice of loving-kindness, as I understand it, we’re essentially attempting to do two things. Firstly, we’re trying to evoke a state of profound ease and goodwill in the mind; and, secondly, we’re wishing for that mental state to be directed both outwardly to others and inwardly to ourselves.

    Which statements or sentiments are used to bring forth the feelings of ease and goodwill (e.g. “may I be free from suffering”) are often a matter of personal preference and dependent on one’s present mental state, so my sense is that we have a bit of a creative licence to play with these as we wish. What’s important, though, is whichever sentiments are used, or however we choose to phrase them, that they actually yield the *feeling* or *attitude* of genuine ease and friendliness in the mind. Once that feeling/attitude has arisen, we are working with that quality of the mind, which is distinct from the statements that were used to evoke them, to then wish others and ourselves well.

    In the process we may repeat statements/sentiments, or deploy new ones, to kindle the flames of ease and goodwill, calm and kindness, peace and benevolence, etc., and the mind will tend to push back and resist. But it will also leave openings. We are basically trying to become sensitive to those openings.

    For me, it feels like I’m gently sparring with my own mind, testing its defenses, studying its traps, and locating its weaknesses. In this context, these are the defenses, traps and weaknesses of a mind convinced that it is a separate entity, which often needs to be on guard and protect itself from all that exists “outside” of it. This aspect of mind seems both comic and tragic, for it is the posture of being guarded that is so often inherently disempowering, and which keeps the empowering nature of feeling connected at bay. Yet it persists, usually enabled by the intellect, which so often concocts seemingly sophisticated arguments about the minimal degree of love and kindness that is reasonable to inhabit in the modern world — or something like that.

    But if caught in action, defenses and traps seem to reveal weaknesses of the guarded mind, and they offer a backdoor into self-compassion. For it is through the tragic realisation that it is one’s own mind, so captivated by its story-telling, that it blocks the door to its own well-being, that one can spark the heart.

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)