when to move on to more complicated practice?

gracelee

Hello

i have quite a sporadic meditation practice, i am wondering when it is appropriate to move on from breathing mediation to metta or tonglen? is it best to have a established daily breathing mediation practice before starting on others or is it OK to experiment?
i ask this because i am in a 12 step program, quite a major part of the program is prayer and as a Buddhist i would prefer to do metta but i don't have an established practice yet.

would love to hear your thoughts on this

thanks

the G dog

federica

When you are sure you have mastered the current practice, and you feel that your current practice is as natural to you, and comes as easily to you, as breathing itself....then consider different angles.....

ajnast4r

as far as i know, i dont think you 'move from' breath to metta... but include them both in your practice. i cant imagine how doing metta at your meetings would be any problem... give it a shot! ajahn brahm has a really beautiful and effective teaching on metta. check it out:

http://mettarefuge.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/ajahn-brahmavamso-teaches-loving-kindness/


that being said, daily practice really is (imo) key to being able to establish meaningful amount of concentration and mindfulness. maybe your next step could be to establish daily practice of one, or both, rather than seeking out other new practices?

Jeffrey

In the first teaching (from the top,,, it is streamed recordings) on this website Ayya Khema gives a discussion of the meaning of metta in our lives. So that we don't misunderstand. This will help you place what metta is in relation to prayer.

Right at the beginning of the talk she mentions that there is a wisdom path that can lead to purifications of the 5 negative mental factors by virtue of the 5 virtuous factors in insight meditaion. The breath meditation beginners do is opening into very advanced practice of insight that as Ayya says purifies the negative mental factors and leads to enlightenment.

For this reason you don't have to do metta, you can just do your breath. However you can also not do the breath and just do metta as Ayya says there is a compassion path that also purifies the negative mental factors. And metta practice would be opening out into that space.

I say opening out because we never get a moment to grasp to and say that is it. As soon as we say that the dead hand of mara comes and deadens that moment because we cannot grasp to any impermanent fleeting experience and rely on that. We always have to open.

Tosh

Hi Gracelee,

The 12 Step program is a practise.

Steps 1 to 9 are about certain mental positions relating to our addiction/alcoholism and clearing away the wreckage of our past (which as addicts/alkies we tend to have a lot of), so that we can live more comfortably in the present, without dragging all that baggage from our previous destructive lifestyles around with us.

Then:

Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

This is basically being mindful.

Step 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Prayer and meditation; subtract the 'Magic Man'; insert Buddha Nature (or delete all together). This can also be the 'wisdom' side of Boddichita.

Step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Practising these principles = an honest and ethical lifestyle. Carrying the message to alcoholics = compassion for other alkies/addicts by helping them recover.

So you have mindfulness, meditation, and the development of wisdom, compassion and an ethical life.

That sounds pretty 'Buddhist' already, don't you think?

Regards from a fellow 12 Stepper (AA).

Jeffrey

Tosh, what should a theravada buddhist utilize in step 11? At least what do you think? There isn't really bodhicitta or Buddha Nature in Theravada.. Perhaps @Hanzze can clear up this matter. Unless this is a non-sequitar on my part??

Tosh

I don't think it matters, Jeffrey; Step 11 is basically prayer and meditation. Even Christians don't hear 'God's voice' booming at them, and right from the inception of the Big Book, how much 'God' to put in it caused much debate.

And much like taking refuge in the 3 Jewels, where the deeper meaning is that we take refuge in ourselves, I think the deeper meaning of 'God', particularly in Step 11, is the 'God within', aka 'Buddha Nature', aka 'That little voice at the back of our mind', aka 'Clarity'.

The 12 Steps is a roomy program and can encompass any world view.

Tosh

It seems many alkies/addicts who do the 12 Steps find an interest in Buddhism. I believe I was one of those alkies who was always a spiritual seeker, only that I didn't know it, and found the wrong kind of 'spirits'.

Spiritum contra spiritus

Jeffrey

I hear you Tosh, I also had a drinking problem and I am about 10 months without a drink.

Hanzze

That's for people who believe in God, I had seen that before. I am sure its a good way and helpful. Just put "clear Mind"(for you) for "God" and work on patiently. Step by step mean, that we really have reached one step before we do the next. If we make a step over 2 or 3 stairs we might fall as well as if we make a step not having a good hold on the feet we are standing right now.

If you are not much into "God" or a if it is difficult for you to make a tantric use of it, a good talk with a real monk would be maybe a alternative way.

There is nothing wrong with this way, important is that you don't lose the trust till the end if you did it with right effort or do not continue if you did it just halfhearted as you would wast the time of the trainer as well as of yours.
*smile*

seeker242

You don't necessarily need to. Of course you don't need to leave behind breathing meditation in order to do metta. Many people do both.

"Anapana sati, the meditation on in-and-out breathing, is the first subject of meditation expounded by the Buddha in the Maha-satipatthana Sutta, the Great Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness. The Buddha laid special stress on this meditation, for it is the gateway to enlightenment and Nibbana adopted by all the Buddhas of the past as the very basis for their attainment of Buddhahood. When the Blessed One sat at the foot of the Bodhi Tree and resolved not to rise until he had reached enlightenment, he took up anapana sati as his subject of meditation. On the basis of this, he attained the four jhanas, recollected his previous lives, fathomed the nature of samsara, aroused the succession of great insight knowledges, and at dawn, while 100,000 world systems trembled, he attained the limitless wisdom of a Fully Enlightened Buddha."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/ariyadhamma/bl115.html

Tosh

That's for people who believe in God, I had seen that before. I am sure its a good way and helpful. Just put "clear Mind"(for you) for "God" and work on patiently. Step by step mean, that we really have reached one step before we do the next. If we make a step over 2 or 3 stairs we might fall as well as if we make a step not having a good hold on the feet we are standing right now.

If you are not much into "God" or a if it is difficult for you to make a tantric use of it, a good talk with a real monk would be maybe a alternative way.

There is nothing wrong with this way, important is that you don't lose the trust till the end if you did it with right effort or do not continue if you did it just halfhearted as you would wast the time of the trainer as well as of yours.
*smile*

Nope, Hanzze, it's not just for people who believe in God. There's plenty of atheists and agnostics who do 12 Step programs; and it's very concordant with Buddhism. All you need to do is have a concept of a Higher Power that fits with your world view. Isn't Dharma a higher power?

And a 12 Step program is tough; and it works. More people have recovered from drinking and drugging using a 12 Step program than any other method. We have thousands of meetings all round the World.

And in A.A., it's important we share only our EXPERIENCE. Yours are only opinions. I guess that's why A.A. works; we don't have non alcoholics telling us how to stop drinking, we have sober alcoholics who share their experience of how to stop drinking. The latter is far more powerful.

Tosh

I hear you Tosh, I also had a drinking problem and I am about 10 months without a drink.

That's brilliant. Problem drinkers are my favourite people (yeh, I know I need to do some work on my equanimity). I think we can learn a lot from our gross addictions; we take the truth and the origin of suffering to it's absolute extreme. We also understand how we can change our perceptions by drinking, in quite a radical way, so it's not hard to understand how with some mind training, we can change our perceptions - in a more positive and healthy way.

Here's the basic text for A.A., it's affectionately known as the Big Book:

http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_tableofcnt.cfm

The style it's written in is a little archaic, and it is a bit of a dry read (shock horror for some people), but should you read it and identify as 'one of us', maybe you'd care to visit an A.A. meeting or two?

We are a brilliant sangar; if I say so myself.

Hanzze

Nope, Hanzze, it's not just for people who believe in God. There's plenty of atheists and agnostics who do 12 Step programs; and it's very concordant with Buddhism. All you need to do is have a concept of a Higher Power that fits with your world view. Isn't Dharma a higher power?

Dhamma is reality, no higher power. Your personal wolrdview has nothing to do with Dharma. Its just your personal movie. If you wait for some higher power you will have to wait long.
Even if many mix Hinduism with Buddha Dhamma, or use Tantric ideas, it has nothing to do with Dharma.

But as told, important is that it help. What ever one believes to help, till to the level he is able to walk.
To go beyond one needs to stop believe and starts to use his mystical power chetana (will) in the right way. :wave:

BonsaiDoug

Regards from a fellow 12 Stepper (AA).

I always had problems with Step 8.

Regards from a fellow 12 Stepper - "A friend of Jimmy K" (NA)

Tosh

Hi Bonsai,

Regards from a fellow 12 Stepper (AA).

I always had problems with Step 8.

Regards from a fellow 12 Stepper - "A friend of Jimmy K" (NA)

This probably isn't much use to you, but my sponsor wrote my Step 8 list while I shared my Step 5. Once you work through your various inventories:

Resentment inventory
Harms to others inventory
Sexual harms inventory
Fears inventory

You should easily be to reproduce a list of people you have harmed. We're not really talking about stuff you've done years-and-years ago when you were three years old in nursery; just current stuff you've lost sleep over.

My problem was Step 9 and making amends; I had some really tough ones to do. Scary stuff.

genkaku

Hello

i have quite a sporadic meditation practice, i am wondering when it is appropriate to move on from breathing mediation to metta or tonglen? is it best to have a established daily breathing mediation practice before starting on others or is it OK to experiment?
i ask this because i am in a 12 step program, quite a major part of the program is prayer and as a Buddhist i would prefer to do metta but i don't have an established practice yet.

would love to hear your thoughts on this

thanks

the G dog

Generally, I think the practice moves itself. No need to push the river.

grout4cake

Boredom is probably the biggest challenge people have with meditation....and yet the perseverance to sit thru it provides the possibility to experience spaciousness and emptiness ,true freedom from our delusions.
It is probably one the reasons people drink and really all other addictions- the need to escape boredom.,in many ways that is the root of all samsara.
Perhaps you could tighten up your sitting meditation until you allow boredom to be just another passing experience ,nothing to escape.You may find mastering boredom a huge mark of progress in every way, spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically

Floating_Abu

Hello

i have quite a sporadic meditation practice, i am wondering when it is appropriate to move on from breathing mediation to metta or tonglen? is it best to have a established daily breathing mediation practice before starting on others or is it OK to experiment?
i ask this because i am in a 12 step program, quite a major part of the program is prayer and as a Buddhist i would prefer to do metta but i don't have an established practice yet.

would love to hear your thoughts on this

thanks

the G dog

The manifold branches emit from the one root

Continue _/\_

taiyaki

when you can just sit and do absolutely nothing. just sitting.

this is the hardest and highest practice.

Floating_Abu

this is the hardest and highest practice.

Who says, t ?

Talisman

I thought the point is to move on to a simpler practice. Complications are just that, complications.

Simonthepilgrim

I thought the point is to move on to a simpler practice. Complications are just that, complications.

I wondered when someone would make this point.

My own experience has been that most of the 'extras' pass away. To refer, once again, to the Ox-Herding Pictures: complications are the reins and the whip. They disappear, as does the ox itself.

The rest, as Hamlet says, is silence.

Jeffrey

Move to another practice when your current practice is not accomplishing your goals. Of course it may be your karma to make a poor decision.

Floating_Abu

Move to another practice when your current practice is not accomplishing your goals.

:-/ :skeptic:

Of course it may be your karma to make a poor decision.

:wtf:

AMH

I think when you are stuck, that is about it. Sitting can cover it all, and then when something is really sticking with you, getting in your way, coming back round and round again, ok that is the thing you need to find the best practice for.

Kinda throws the planners and Type A's for a loop huh,