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Meditation Tips
Joshua
Veteran
I've done some cherry picking along my meditative journey, and so I know how confusing it can be for a beginner and even thereafter to get started and especially to gain momentum, so here are some great links to learn exactly what one can to lead directly to stream entry and beyond. But first make sure you know exactly what vipassana is and isn't. A good piece of knowledge is that you are aiming for insight practice, not concentration practice if you want fruitions. There are shifts that occur in meditation called jhanas, and there are two types, vipassana jhanas and samatha jhanas, both are generically called jhanas in the Tipitaka and thus the concept is very confusing. Vipassana, your friend, always investigates the three doors of reality: impermanence, no-self and suffering, whereas samatha simply merges the mind with a meditative object so firmly that the three doors cannot be perceived and therefore progress is impossible in terms of fruition. This doesn't mean both are not important, as samatha develops concentration ability, a necessary tool for developing vipassana jhanas. A useful concept is that vipassana jhanas move up and down, whereas samatha jhanas move in and out. To better understand this one must learn the meditation maps, called the progress of insight (read about them here and here) in which vipassana is broken down into 16 ñanas. There are four vipassana jhanas, the first jhana and the first ñana correspond, and as one investigates phenomena the jhana will become more and more unstable as one discovers the second and then third ñanas' truths. Upon reaching the fourth, with a shift, as it corresponds to the second jhana, it will lead into what's called an Arising and Passing event, one will get an immature and poor glimpse at nirvana, called pseudo-nirvana, it is the point of no-return for the yogi. After this the yogi will enter the third jhana, encompassing the fifth through tenth ñanas, called the dukkha ñanas (common in many religions) and finally with the eleventh ñana one rests in the fourth jhana, Equanimity, where one experiences formations. After investigation one experiences cessation of reality for a split second, fruition occurs after seeing nirvana, and that person has first attainment.
Some popular meditative instructions:
Goenka
Noting: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Also, in my opinion, all of the links on this page should be read and reread until mastery as well as this entire website.
Also, here's a nice description of how one's practice ought to progress.
Most importantly this is only one method, mostly influenced by Mahasi Sayadaw with other popular followers like U Pandita and Jack Kornfield, there are others like Ajahn Chah, as I understand it, who have very different methods, influencing people like Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Hope this gives your practice some momentum!
Some popular meditative instructions:
Goenka
Noting: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Also, in my opinion, all of the links on this page should be read and reread until mastery as well as this entire website.
Also, here's a nice description of how one's practice ought to progress.
Most importantly this is only one method, mostly influenced by Mahasi Sayadaw with other popular followers like U Pandita and Jack Kornfield, there are others like Ajahn Chah, as I understand it, who have very different methods, influencing people like Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Hope this gives your practice some momentum!
0
Comments
It goes so much further than any other answer I have read regarding meditation on this forum, ie, ''just sit'' or ''focus on your breath''.
Thanks for the great post,
Tom
As far as my personal experience is concerned, it has been enormously beneficial.
A year ago about I began meditating mostly through my own invented efforts, I experienced some odd shifts, internal light shows, kundalini, spinning sensations, etc. I later found out I attained jhanas, only by that experience did I figure out about the existence of these states. Did I find good instructions how where to go from there, how to understand these states or anything valuable? No. I became a jhana junkie until the very act fizzled out my ability to achieve it but not before reaching the dukkha nyanas. Before leaving this site I became uncharacteristically destructive, and the odds are that any of you who attempt the progress of insight will have it happen to you too, as an intermediary stage before stream entry. This is important information, don't you think? I now know the importance of that kundalini light show, it was an Arising and Passing event. It leads inevitably to the dukkha nyanas, and if they aren't passed one falls back and must cross the A&P event again. Over and over. Only a good yogi tool box is going cross the stream, complete with a proficiency in the maps and jhanic territory. Which leads too...
I have meditated three times today whereas before I would maybe meditate twice a week during a 'good' period. But I have started with noticing the sense doors, mostly 'touch' and keep with that, it really does focus ones mind from what I have experienced so far.
As for attahments to meditation sensations, I am fully aware why it is unskillful to become attached to anything, so I doubt I will become a 'visual junkie'. I went through that phase when I was on acid bindges
But seriously thanks because it has brought new life to my practice alone, I hope it can help others too.
Regards, tom
"Four possibilities:
1) Awakened but not an Arahat. (Pretty common, but the access to Awakeness may be sporadic.)
2) Arahat but not Awakened. (Have you ever interviewed with a Mahasi Master?)
3) Both Awake and an Arahat. (This is the ideal. Tibetan Buddhism seems to target this explicitly.)
4) Neither Awakened nor an Arahat. (Most people who have ever lived, so don't scoff.)"
And to better understand the 2nd possibility let me quote a post from a certain Chelek:
"With Mahasi Sayadaw ... There wasn’t any community practice; ... Everything you did was in the service of one thing: silent meditation. You would meditate for ten, fifteen, eighteen hours a day ...in order to have certain deep experiences in meditation that would transform greed, hatred, and delusion... I went to a Mahasi monastery and trained with a famous monk, Asabha Sayadaw, who was quite skillful in teaching meditation but nevertheless turned out to be a very problematic teacher. ...With his instruction, all kinds of cool things began to happen. My body would dissolve into light, and I had all kinds of classic insights into emptiness, just like in the old texts. My progress in insight grew, and my understanding of impermanence and emptiness deepened, and I thought, “Wow, I know this is what the Buddha meant.” But then I’d look out from the window of my cottage ..and there he would be, Asabha Sayadaw, sitting with his feet up on the table, smoking his cigar and reading the paper, belching and yelling at the gardeners because they were doing the wrong thing, and throwing rocks at the dogs to get them to stay out of his garden. He obviously had deep meditation experiences, but by temperament and character he was a very coarse and, in many ways, not a terribly kind person. ... I’d look at him and say to myself, “Oh my God, even though I’m grateful, I don’t want to be like this person.”
It is best to embrace both Enlightenements, for one is only half the goal, although any tradition embracing both seem to prioritize the Awakened goal over the Arahantship goal. However, Arahantship is a tremendous achievement par exellence. Anyone can experience being Awakened for a moment, a newbie's experience is just as profound as the Buddha's, the Buddha simply rested in primordial awareness/rigpa 24/7, he was also a fully enlightenement arahant who possessed the psychic powers that come with Equanimity which also pre-arahant can master.
Read, above all, Kenneth Folk's website, begin with the 3rd gear and work into the 1st gear. The information I'm relaying is but a leaf in the forest.
When I say rudimentary I simply mean I'm giving you a small piece of information. The real motivation comes from reading Daniel Ingram's book and then Kenneth Folk's website, all the while practice and then ask questions on either of their forums, as they are full of people with meditative mastery and are littered with people of attainments.
If I may give some hard won advice, just note. It will seem stupid, especially to verbally note. However, the goal is twofold:
1. It will use up most of your remaining non-meditative brain power and lessen the ability to become distracted, and
2. It will objectify all your experiences because whatever can be objectified isn't you. This is profound, especially when applied to mental formations and consciousness--the center point, the witness.
Start at a rate of once a second if you can, verbally, your mind ought to naturally speed up, perhaps reaching even six times a second. You will hit the first jhana eventually, keep noting mental and phsyical sensations like a rabid dog, keep up at it, the jhana will destabalize, it is easy to rest in a jhana, it is harder to use samatha concentration to move up a jhana, but it is a step toward enlightenment to note rigously and meticulously to move through the nyanas up to the next vipassana jhana. Around the second jhana, and especially as it matured and reality becomes fine and increasingly formless the noting will become nonverbal and eventually not fast enough to keep up with noticing, switching to "blips" or whatever works, go as fast as you can, but relax, don't strain. This can take you to enlightenment. There is also Goenka body scanning, but I'd try noting first.
If you want to see some other dudes' questions about it go here.
..
PS. Another great map of insight can be found here.
For example, if I am walking I say it to myself, 'walking, walking' or if I feel an itch I say 'itch itch' and so forth. I assume it establishing that mental connection to what is actually going on without letting any afflictive thoughts to arise along with such a sensation.
But I cannot thank you enough as you have seemed to come here at the correct time with regards to my practice
Keep it up, on my part, I'd been reading to do exactly that for 1.5 years, did I? No. Did I hit dead ends, yeah. I kept seeing those instructions and pretended I didn't. I did them, now I'm in a proselytzing phase due to my great success with it. Hecks yeah.
I am curious though because I have been on and off this forum for at least a year and a half, and to me you seem to have simply appeared.. How long have you been studying/practicing buddhism and how old are you?
it has cleared up a lot of bullshit!
hehe, I'll be turning 24 in mid November, and I've been interested in Buddhism for something like 1.5 - 2 years, but only very seriously for the last. At which time I focused almost entirely on Thanissaro Bhikkhu's essays on Access to Insight, then I went through a huge Berzin Archives phase. You can see how I was tripped up with lots of dogma, unfortunately it will only appear so with the latter.
From my understanding now, still pre-attainment--but finally with an enormous amount of confidence in what I'm reading, Theravadins can be pretty dogmatic. It's a pity. On the one hand they seek only one form of enlightenment, the so-called "physio-energetic"/vipassana model while completely ignoring the "psychological" model. I was told early on in this forum that Hinduism and other such advocates of enlightenments like moksha weren't "real", only Buddhism's was. How silly and arrogant! Perhaps even the great Thomas Aquinas' Beatific Vision could have very plausibly have been the latter, he and Ajahn Chah may have had much in common! Theravadins, in addition to their general inflexibility (this is a great stereotype, but one which early on was proven to me in this very forum), also have presented the dharma to a two millennium old audience deep in the orient. It often took absurd things to get those folks to listen. Hence these ideas of arahants achieving mystical feats and being walking supermen. As an arahant you can be your own personal Jesus too, huh? No! And we should know that in the twenty-first century. There are some psychic powers which aren't necessarily deliberately wielded and which are distractions nonetheless, this is the most mystical of all things, as well as interesting inquiries on the nature of the Kundalini/Chi(Qi Fede) which completes the energy circuit for the physio-energetic models. The point is, the Tipitaka isn't always very reliable, and to make matters worse.. The most important thing in the Tipitaka ought to be the progress to insight, since that's exactly what the Theravadins practice. Is it explicitly laid out anywhere in those beefy 12,000 pages of glory? Hells no! What is the most legit source in which it can be found, then? None other than the goddamn Visuddhimagga, the most important commentary indeed, in fact considered a post-canonical work, but a work which, however, is often discredited by information found therein not found in the Tipitaka, the "differences" so-to-speak. What are they you ask? Details on the progress to insight, the vertical latter to physio-energetic enlightenment. The glory of the A&P and the terror of the dukkha nyanas! It contains it all, no holds barred!
Erm. I do like the approach of hitting attainments then studying the scriptures with new eyes. It's not like the information isn't there (well, mapless) but rather that it's almost always, without exception, some degree of cryptic to downright confusing. Go read the Tao Te Ching and find enlightenment. It aint gonna happen. Go hit at least the A&P then read the Tao Te Ching, it becomes brilliantly put, a work of genius. Thus is the Tipitaka.
Hey dude, sorry I'm not responding promptly, I gotta go to a library and the weekends don't typically cooperate with my better wishes! Nor does my job.
tradition which is popular in burma.
goenka follows the same tradition.
They make a disticntion between samadhi n vipassana.
Teachers like ajahn chah do not make this distinction.
'samadhi n vipassana are like 2 sides of your
palm, inseparable and both as important.'
I mean, there is a distinction, you know. That's like saying ice and water are the same thing. I suppose it's a matter of emphasis, but it's also a matter of enlightenment. Insight isn't developed in samatha states, maybe the witness or nondualism is, but this is not Buddhism per se. Perhaps sects practice this, though I doubt it in that sense, but this sounds like Hinduism for one and for two Buddhism's kernel = the Tipitaka, which is all about that vipassana.
Think of it like this. There's 16 nyanas, most of them are unstable, but four are very stable, so the stable ones are called jhanas, this is where you can solidify them into, eventually, perceptionless states. However, as you climb the latter you hit the unstable nyanas, numbers 2, 3, 6-10, and 12-14. This is done only through vipassana. You can draw your own conclusions from that. I've experienced the nyanas up till 11 and have experienced samatha up till nothingness, this isn't dogma to me.
i have a question in regards to rigpa. how does one navigate the arhat territory if one awakens to non dual consciousness. from the vantage point of rigpa is it worth exploring the linear model of the arhat?
or is such the inevitable conclusion of deepening rigpa?
because people project hardcore onto you.
for daniel to come out and give us practical guides and a voice of authority is a very compassionate thing to do.
Maybe this article will help: My understanding from other things also that I've read is that even being able to rest in emptiness in real time doesn't last 24/7, that would be the ideal of the Buddha, and thus the perspective of the dualistic split is always there. I also know that from the perspective of a physio-energetically enlightened dude, it will seem that "done is what needs to be done" and may take a lot of motivation to become psychologically enlightened, perhaps it works the other way around? Perhaps a better answer would involve knowing the implications of completing the kundalini circuit? I can't answer these questions. I'd imagine Kenneth would just say get there and find out, perhaps the answer is on his site and I can't remember it. I've also read that it's possible for the rigpa dude to have gotten enlightened physiologically but unlikely for the physiologically enlightened to even comprehend rigpa rightly, let alone to practice it. The two camps argue.
Sorry I can't help. I'm just the messenger boy I guess.
Correct, Mahasi and Goenka style are one style, but like Buddhism is the superior tool for Enlightenment (physio-energetic) so are they for vipassana. Not for Awakening (psychological/nondual), use them for what they were designed for and expect the results they offer and they will be yours.
“I hope you find these clarifications helpful. Those who wish to debate these points should realize a few things, chief among them that I am a strong debater and that I am not going to have my views changed on these points.”
That’s arrogance in a nutshell.
Not my cup of tea, have fun though.
and it makes sense that the gradual cultivation of enlightenment ultimately brings about the fruition of non dual awakening. but it seems like you said many who take the path of the arhat fail to even recognize rigpa.
it seems awakening to rigpa is the better position for it begins the process of buddhahood.
this has really opened my eyes and cleared up a lot of doubt in the split between the two buddhist traditions.
thanks again.
The whole basis of Buddhist meditation is to see the contents of our minds as they are, without judging them. This is the first step, but in some sense, it's the whole thing. By doing that we begin to relate to our state of being, not just to the superficiality of our mind. And we don't allow the judgmental mind to send us scurrying off or convince us we're not suited to meditation. In fact, everybody is suited to this kind of meditation because, basically, our minds are the same. Meditation is about relating to the mind in the simplest, most direct way possible. And while that might be irritating or seem difficult to do, any irritation and difficulty is equally just another part of the mind's display.
Meditation is part of our sanity as human beings. It is a natural function of mind and , in some sense, a natural function of the body. There are other methods where you try to invent yourself as a better person, but that won't help you see the contents of your mind as they actually are. This meditation is about relating to the mind as simply and directly as we can. And as we sit quietly, experiencing our thoughts and feelings, we can be confident that this is not only something we need or want to do; it is part and parcel of being human."
~Rigdzin Shikpo in the book Never Turn Away
He is definitely describing vipassana, stripping the husk down to expose the kernel, without any method like noting. Awakening to rigpa, on the other hand, something a Tibetan would also consciously strive for, requires no striving, it, being the state that always was but wasn't allowed, cannot be investigated, it simply is. This is important to know.
You know, not as an attempt to proselytize further, you may enjoy Kenneth Folk far greater, I find him to be much more light hearted and, frankly, more open minded than Daniel. He offers both of these enlightenment approaches and offers another approach, which, although not a direct vehicle to any form of enlightenment per se, is a helpful instruction to develop rigpa. It is what he calls "the watcher/no-dog" on his site, it is directly described under his second gear but is given attention in the other two. And again, as a reminder, his third gear is rigpa with the first being vipassana as catered toward Mahasi style.
Also here is another very great website elucidating the "progress of insight", or the "path" as it were. It is invaluable.
A good site on noting mediation.