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No nirvana without vipassana mediatation practice..
rohit
Maharrashtra Veteran
in Meditation
Eightfold path, panchashila are just entry to be noble but to experience actual arya satya/truth..vipassana practice is necessary...
We can eliminate lots of our drawbacks of several past through practice of Vipaasaana mediation and empty our mind..otherwise there is just struggle to remember and try to follow texts of religion.
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Comments
Wow..lucky us, luckier you
Finally a member willing to come back from Nirvana to tell us of the only path there.
Well come on, tell us..
Just how did you find it?
@how so if someone says to follow the eightfold path it means they are coming back to us and they have realized Nirvana :we say sarcastically:? There are plenty of teachers who say the insight only starts with the eightfold path. So it is only the starting point when the noble view is found. Until then the 8PF is self improvement. Insight found in meditation is needed to even start the 8FP and then it is just a path.
@rohit, from what I gather in regards to the different schools/traditions of Buddhism...
It is "Different strokes for different folks" one size does not fits all, but all is one size when it comes to the crunch... the "Absolute"...
From what I understand, Vipassana meditation is a fairly recent style which is called by many Mindfulness Meditation.
It's the style I use most along with walking meditation but it's still hard to get used to having my eyes slightly open.
I wouldn't assume Vipassana is any "better" than say, Placement meditation just for one example.
@ourself it is a new movement 'Vipassana' referring to a specific sangha (or maybe group of them).
But shamata vipashyana meditation just means calm and insight. This has been around from probably before Buddha. A lot of sanghas say this is the only way to reach enlightenment because calm alone is contrived and falls apart.
They couldn't be wrong? I mean, how many meditative styles did Buddha demonstrate?
I am starting to think the word "enlightenment" holds too much baggage.
Who couldn't be wrong? The sanghas praising insight meditation? Sure they could be wrong and there would be no way to know but see for yourself. It's kind of a crap shoot what meditation you choose. And even if you choose 'insight' or whatever method leads to awakening (i like that term better) you might get run over by a bus anyways.
It seems rather dogmatic (not to mention short sighted) to credit Insight meditation without at least a nod to analytical meditation.
I doubt anyone ever woke up completely with insight meditation alone.
I could be wrong though.
I don't know what analytic meditation is. The meditation I do is noticing the qualities of awareness that are always there. I've been working on it 9 years and I haven't scratched the surface of videos and scripture. Like I say I think it is a crap shoot and you could just get run over by a bus anyways before getting very far. It might be dogmatic I guess but it's kind of like the paranoia saying: just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you! So just because it seems it might be short sighted does not mean that it is not the truth. As far as dogma I am not sure what you mean. Is having beliefs dogma?
Once the mind is strengthened in the practice of sustained concentration, or along with it, as it were, the development of insight through the contemplation on the skandhas, the three marks of existence and development of bodhicitta, is essential to counteract ignorance.
Cessation of suffering comes with cessation of ignorance.
Don't get me wrong, @Jeffrey, insight meditation is what I mostly do so I am not saying it's no good or something like that.
There is concentrative and analytic Buddhist meditation styles. I'm on my phone but will try to post a link in a few. The berzinarchives.com has a great article on the difference between analytical(discerning) meditation and concentrative (stabilizing) meditation.
I think insight is the same thing as analytic at least it sounds the same to me. But in my sangha you are in the present just seeing the qualities of awareness that are intrinsic. In my sangha the qualities are named as: openness, clarity, and sensitivity. Lojong teaching from my understanding is using concepts to open up concepts. Like using a rod to unclog the gutters along the house. For the marks and so forth you might think of them but the more important thing is to understand the awareness as it is rather than an idea. At first Openness, Clarity, and Sensitivity are course concepts also as a starting point.
That's true but the meditation I described is calm together with insight. The calm helps the awareness get subtle enough and precise enough for the insight to notice and question false views. And the insight is to notice the awakened qualities that are not a 'me'. It is in the present though. You could be thinking of ideas, but need a lot of practice not getting caught clinging into thought worlds that you are just losing yourself in. I think this but not sure.
So just an example the skhandas. I wouldn't start out with a project to analyze the skhandas. But my body and mind and so forth are already here always. So when I notice the present moment I can say "oh there is my body".. "what was that about the skhandas?" :back to the breath: "Oh there is tension".. and over time the skhandas are understood.
It is amazing how Sariputta attained stream entry by hearing just two lines in this short stanza given by Assaji.
http://www.vipassana.com/canon/vinaya/mv1-23-5.php
I certainly won't argue its merit and you are right as well @Jeffrey. Insight meditation would be considered analytical but there is still concentrative meditation. I'm sorry I confused them.
I think there is time for both and neither practice will take away from the other. In fact, I think if used together, they serve better than using one exclusively. But then, what do i know?
I found that article I mentioned and the site is a wealth of information so I'll share it although @DhammaDragon explained it pretty well.
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/sutra/level2_lamrim/advanced_scope/bodhichitta/difference_discerning_stabilizing/difference_discerning_stabilizing.html
I think all that the poster is saying is that practice is vital to the Buddhist path. Intellectual understanding is not enough.
I do quite agree but I don't think we were doing a "vs" thing so much as a partnership. That's how I'm seeing it anyways.
Sariputta walked towards that stream for many years before finally dipping his toe in.
It would be like building a car from scratch and saying how amazing it is that by just turning a key in the ignition..it runs.
I read somewhere I think maybe it was in one of bhikkhu Bodhi's notes that Sariputta was developing the mundane eightfold path for like many lifetimes or eons before, and it became a supramundane eightfold path after listening to the stanza spoken by Assaji.
You sweep the body starting from the top and work down your body.
The idea is to observe every sensation all over your body. Inside and out.
This obviously requires years of practice to sharpen your mind to feel every sensation.
What happens then is you get a free flow of sensations through the body. You then understand it's all Anicca and Anatta.
Vipassana is normally done seated. Because of the level of concentration it requires.
From what SN Goenka explained is that Vipassana originated in India around the time of the Buddha. It was then secreted to Burma past down by teacher to student.
It's not a recent style, it's only been brought to light recently.
Its definately one way to wake up. I wouldn't say the only way.
I used to think about by just thinking and believing on scriptures text, i can eliminate flaws of my mind like being jealous, grudge, looking at other's faults...but i found that it does not helped me to remove my faults but it increased some faults in me which were impossible to remove...
After hearing from one monk and actual practice of vipassana, i found that it is easier and effective way to pure mind...and perhaps the only effective way to come to original nature of mind without flaws..Although i am not saying i have reached to extreme peak but just eliminated few flaws of mind through meditation..
Yes. I am not arguing about this school vs that school, but trying to say that practice of vipassana meditaion is important to remove flaws of mind effectively...otherwise intellectual understanding can not remove flaws but experience teaches more..and we have accumulated several complex behavior which need to solve in the limited time we have, otherwise we may delay our liberation without proper technique.
Yes, vipassana is often referred to as method, but like samatha it's actually a quality. The distinction between vipassana ( insight ) and samatha ( tranquillity ) is made in the suttas, but detailed methods are not described.
Most of the popular vipassana methods are based directly or indirectly on the four foundations of mindfulness, as described in the Satipatthana Sutta.
Vipassana methods are used in some US prisons. Are there cognitive benefits in Vipassana?
I'm not sure what "cognitive benefits" are, but I feel an important point is still being missed here. People don't "do" vipassana, what they actually do is practice mindfulness in various ways.
Samatha and vipassana are in fact paired qualities, 2 sides of the same coin, and you don't have one without the other. An analogy is a pool of water. When the wind is creating ripples on the surface you can't see into it clearly, but when the wind drops and the surface calms then you can see clearly.
Thanks for that clarification. I was starting to wonder what on Earth I was missing as it seems "insight" meditation could fall in with samatha and vipassana or concentrative and analytical depending.
I still don't think either one is "better" but that both could be used to compliment the practice of mindful awareness, or awakening.
Vipassana is used like as a "cognitive therapy" for prisoners with a poor lifecontrol. Results have been great in getting rid of anger and getting compassion instead. My off-topic...
There's a difference between saying "the only way" and "my way". I am happy that you have found a door that allows you to start experiencing the life-changing Dharma instead of just talking about it. That doesn't mean it's the only doorway. There are as many doors as there are people, I think.
Here is the chapter describing what Vipassana Meditation is, from a website:
The course requires hard, serious work. There are three steps to the training. The first step is, for the period of the course, to abstain from killing, stealing, sexual activity, speaking falsely, and intoxicants. This simple code of moral conduct serves to calm the mind, which otherwise would be too agitated to perform the task of self-observation. The next step is to develop some mastery over the mind by learning to fix one's attention on the natural reality of the ever changing flow of breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils. By the fourth day the mind is calmer and more focused, better able to undertake the practice of Vipassana itself: observing sensations throughout the body, understanding their nature, and developing equanimity by learning not to react to them. Finally, on the last full day participants learn the meditation of loving kindness or goodwill towards all, in which the purity developed during the course is shared with all beings.
This is basically what every Buddhist from every school of practice I know does, with one degree of success or another. It's what following the 8-fold path looks like when it becomes more than words on a page. It seems to me you've found a practice and are doing now what so many of us eventually should do; we put away all those mind-distracting rituals and petty distinctions and focus on what's important. The people who pointed me in the right direction called it the path of Zen. Yours calls it Vipassana. Names are without meaning.
Let me give you a glimpse of even more to come, and a bit of a warning. Because of our human nature, the hardest thing for us to do is nothing. When you sit and cross your legs and take that first breath that you focus on, what are you doing? Nothing, really. You're sitting quietly, doing nothing. What are you learning? Nothing, really. You're learning that your lungs are working and they're going to do that anyway, with or without you paying attention. But, our minds rebel against all this nothing and insists we must have a purpose to do something so strange. We can't just be doing nothing or we're wasting our precious time.
So we call it Zazen, or in your case Vipassana Meditation. Suddenly we're doing something again. We can put a name on it. "Ah, I'm doing Zazen now. I have to do an hour, at least, today. Maybe stretch it to two hours if my legs don't hurt too much. Oh, the heck with it. I have to make it to two hours or I'm not getting anywhere. No pain, no gain..."
Our monkey minds are satisfied. We're accomplishing something. We're getting somewhere. We can go back to measuring success and failure and keep score on how we're advancing. Even this definition of Vipassana starts off warning "this is hard, serious work" because that gets our motivation going.
There comes a time when even this will be seen as the empty illusion it always was. Vipassana, Zazen, Tibetan, whatever. What are you doing when you sit? Nothing. I'm just sitting, until it's time to get up. What do you do then? Whatever the situation calls for. If you see someone in need, help them if you can because compassion calls for it. If there's chores to be done, then do them. If the chores can wait because you feel like spending 15 minutes or so typing your thoughts into a Buddhist forum while you drink a second cup of coffee that will probably upset your stomach, like I do today, then do that.
@how -- Pardon the aside, but your query put me in mind of the old joke about the guy who died on the operating table and was subsequently revived.
"You died, you know," a friend told him.
"Yes, I know I did," the patient replied.
"Well, what was it like ... did you see God?"
"Yes, I did," the patient said.
"Well c'mon -- what was it like?"
And the patient was thoughtful for a moment or two before answering, "Well, first of all, She's black...."
I no longer follow any method by any meditation teacher and any instructions found in the commentaries like the visuddhimagga, I follow the eightfold path the way that I think I once saw it, i'm pretty much following a memory of a past understanding of the way things really are that I believe I had, so I guess people would say that i'm doing it my own way.
For my sangha vipashyana is not the same as a body scan (although I understand that Anicca and Anatta are analzed as you say @Earthninja ). We do do body scan to help relax at the beginning of the session (optional). I do. In my practice I am actually focusing on body scan and breathing just to see where it goes and if it makes the 'formless meditation' easier? not sure that is the word. Of course we may feel the body at times in 'formless meditation' as we come to it in the present. But the goal isn't to feel the transitory feelings in the body I guess although that is one of the four foundations of mindfulness so it is great to feel the body!
Vipassana IS one way to do this, yes.
It's expressed in various ways in different traditions, but it's worth remembering that the 8-fold path includes both concentration and mindfulness.
We tend to do Anapasati(spelling?) to relax/sharpen the mind. Then onto Vipassana.
Goenka explained that before anything reaches the mind/thought process. It goes in through the sense doors first (body)
The goal in this meditation is to be one fully aware of all your body, including I side your body.
Once this happens old (Sankharas) latent tendencies surface. These manifest in physical and thought process. They create blind spots in the body. You then become aware if these blind spots and the tendency goes.
It's weird, on day 6 of the retreat. These intense emotions surge up from my subconscious. You feel like your purifying the mind.
Not sure if this is true but Goenka said this was the meditation technique used by the Buddha.
Starting with breath, then onto the sensations. He said the Buddha could feel every particle of his body popping into and out of existence. He even had a number like a trillion times a second.
He then understood he was not the body. Annica.
This is very different from your style hey?
interesting @Earthninja. I think I have only started to scratch the surface of my style. My style is not Dzogchen or Mahamudra because realizing those styles is a big deal. But mine is 'formless meditation'.. as I say I am only starting to pick up on it. Hadn't heard of the blind spots. I think I have those at least I feel them when I do body scans. I had wondered if they were there because of my anti-psychotic medication.
My tradition says it has the meditation technique of the Buddha (Mahamudra) much like yours says it has Buddhas method. Though in Tibetan 'Buddha' can mean the historical Buddha (because he pervades all time and space as like any other Buddha), or the union of all Buddhas at all times, or your own mind because it has the womb of Buddha (tathagarbagotra).
Great thread and insights everyone.
I particularly liked what @Cinorjer said. Concentration/focus is necessary, one might just call it regular practice rather than glued to cushion grim determination to count the breath or fulfil the time slot. Anybody doing that? Hard eh? That is dukkha and I would suggest it is why people have difficulties. They are trying to meditate.
Never meditate. Never try to achieve. Instead regularly sit (there is the concentration) but don't 'DO MEDITATION'.
In essence it can't be done by doing, rather we have to sit and undo.
The techniques are wonderfully efficient at getting used to being at ease with stillness. Even if practicing walking meditation, the body is focussed and the mind eased.
Here is a traditional meditation pose you might try for the dedicated ease . . .
Are you familiar with the four tetrads of the Anapanasati Sutta? Those describe a progression from samatha to vipassana.
http://suttacentral.net/en/mn118
The Buddha sure loves repeating himself
(The Buddha never repeated himself. The Suttas were transmitted in that way originally, because they were passed on verbally. Repetition aided memorising his teachings....)
The point really is that contemporary approaches to insight and vipassana are all based on the Satipatthana and Anapanasati Suttas.
@SpinyNorman no that's really cool thanks. Although Goenka mentioned that the original teaching was never written down.
It was taught via student to teacher. Generation to generation. When India was invaded they secreted it to Burma for keep on the teachings. The goal was eventually to bring the teaching in it's truest form back to India.
This only happened after the sutra was written.
I'm not sure the truth in this, although I have no doubt Goenka was awake so I'd say the technique works.
How do you know Goenka was awake?
oh.
He doesn't talk about enlightenment directly but he talks about him being a business man and then Vipassana was the raft that carried him to the other side.
He also said that once he had become aware of every part of his body and mind. All annica Anatta and dukkha, he then realised what lay beyond body and mind. He said this is wordless but wants all beings to realise this.
I guess it's intuition, you can sense it in this human. Someone who is just so open and compassionate. You can just tell. It's a quality.
I used to be all about letting go, not trying to meditate, and not trying to not try, it just led me to a state of being aware of being aware, I don't think that practicing that way leads to disenchantment, dispassion, and cessation, letting go is not in any of the 37 factors of enlightenment.
Yes @bookworm the watcher is just another arising of thought. But that just means you need instruction not that you are fabricating Nirvana.