Pre A&P practice

"observation/s" might be a good word. it is confusing otherwise.

shargrol wrote: I did a lot of body work, especially yoga and martial arts and massage. There is a lot of overlap, but for me I never got much "meditation insight progress" by yoga corpse pose meditation or even standing meditation in chi-kung. Got a lot of body awareness, though. I tend to think it's easier to consider bodywork and meditation as mostly separate things. Sorta like how learning how to paint portraits might help you with carpentry because it helps you visualize things... but mostly different fields of expertise. I'm definitely willing to be wrong about that though. Everything in life is interrelated so it's not like anything is truly able to be completely separated from everything else.

The problem with many bodywork systems is that they never go past the level of ordinary and subtle mind. In fact many yoga teachers cannot guide their students even to subtle level of mind where the body is experienced as vibrations. In my own practice I have found out that the energetic subtle body is just the starting point for the real bodywork that can catapult the practitioner to a completely new territory. It opened up new realms for me after 4th path+ (including Kenneth's stages of awakening 6 and 7).

The body experience refined with noting practice is impermanent and very vibratory, but still taken to be quite solid most of the time. The more subtle layer of experience, or you can call it a deeper insight into emptiness, is a body that is boundless mind space, manifesting a continuous flow of empty sensations. Finding this changed my own view of the nature of body and mind for good. When this developed into an ongoing experience, the difference between solid reality 'out there' and space of awareness started to collapse seriously.

Antero, what would be your recommendation for someone interested in bodywork and meditation who is pre-stream entry?

shargrol wrote: Antero, what would be your recommendation for someone interested in bodywork and meditation who is pre-stream entry?

I have taught body based practiced to advanced meditators and complete beginners alike. What I have discovered is that noting and body based practiced can work really well together, balancing and strengthening each other. Some of the pre stream entry yogis have really gotten hang of the bodywork and can pass through the door of the body to the space of awareness so well that their main practice has developed into third gear (with some noting to get more coverage). The results have been really surprising for me.

I think the effectiveness of any type of bodywork, depends much on the level of realization of the teacher. I am a great fan of Reggie Ray's work and the way he fuses bodywork with vajrayana view is simply ingenious. I would definitely recommend Your Breathing Body to a beginner, although getting the full benefits from the program may require some coaching from a teacher, just like with any other method.

But, aren't they insights? Mind/body insights, disembedding the mind from the tangly areas of tension in the body?

I think what folks are pointing out is that in the context of the 'progress of insight' which is the context that you are invoking for this discussion, 'insight' has very precise meanings associated directly and simply with the stages of insight. So 'mind and body' is an insight, 'cause and effect' is an insight... (or they are families of very closely related insights). So although the word 'insight' has broader connotations when used generally, and even in Buddhist/contemplative contexts the term can have very broad connotations depending on tradition/system, in the very specific Therevada Progress of Insight context it really has very narrow and precise meaning.

That said, I think (please, please correct me if I'm wrong-- I'm having a hard time fully grasping what you are after) what you are getting at is that your observations of body tensions and their resolution are related to the progress of insight, and may be your way of experiencing and/or articulating those stages of insight. For what it's worth, my first cycle through the progress of insight (and maybe the second one, hard to recall) were very closely associated with working through tensions/vibes in the body which unfolded in a generally upward direction (so that eventually heart area stuff happened a lot furing a&p, throat area stuff happened alot during re-observation, head area stuff refined and dissipated during EQ, etc). Later experiences with body tensions/egery blocks and their resolution/refinement have been more all over the map.

It can be useful to look at different versions of the Stages of Insight to also help get a feel for what is being discussed. Here is a very detailed version of the insights or "knowledges". This version is interesting because it provides lots of examples of the type of things that can happen when going through the insights.... but it also confuses matters because no one has all of these things happen to them. Anyway, it's kind of interesting, albeit geeky, reading.

The Ten Imperfections of Insight (vipassanupakilesas) sections is also a good checklist of possible things that can distract us during meditation or ways that we can unintentionally start hunting down certain experiences and start prejudicing some things over others.

www.vipassanadhura.com/sixteen.html

Good grief, that log of imperfections just about describes all the things that I ever found exciting in meditation and spent most of my time journaling, including seeing an elephant!! (Had a friend who saw an elephant, too - it's apparently not uncommon!!) Who knew?

"Though not in themselves obstacles, the meditator may be tempted to cling to these experiences, believing them to be important, rather than continuing to note the arising and passing away of mental and physical phenomena in the present moment. "

Yup, I don't know how many times I've looked at that list and gone, DOH!

But it's interesting, too, because these things can be transformative by giving us a sense of basic inner appreciation (if we're the negative type, rather than the prideful type). For example:

3. Passadhi

The third defilement of vipassana is passadhi which means "tranquility of mental factors and consciousness." It is characterized as follows:
...
j.A cruel, harsh or merciless person will realize that the dhamma is profound.
k.A criminal or drunkard will be able to give up bad habits and will change into quite a different person.

Chris Marti wrote: That's about all I've ever done - a half hour sitting, one at a time, over and over, twice a day.

YMMV

Same here. Sometimes more in EQ phases. But like Chris said, everyone is different.

I have some experience in "grasping experience" when it comes to these insights (bwahahahahahahahahaha).

It does seem that they are important to continue on the path. If you want to ever get SE or bring some tranquility and clarity to your life these experiences are obviously the way forward and what's in the way. So it's a no brainer that you want to get them.

The grasping that comes in with these things has been potentially a little disorienting for my practice, because it appears that it is still working. For instance with my neck/tensions in face, I'm noticing that I tend to seek out the motions that it has and still assumes while it's reorienting itself. And it works, but not as fast as just paying pence to awareness itself would do.

Moving on, while on the train I was thinking about how I may be in the DN and not have known, because of my reading of Jake's post here. What gives? Could this really be my DN? If so, I'm underwhelmed!!!!!

What are the factors that could be shaping my experience, if this is the DN, or if it isn't?

I think the advice others have mentioned bares repeating: we have to be very careful with the maps because each person's experience of passing through these stages can be and will be *totally unique*. So yes there are deep structures/stages; and yet, we go through them as the uniquely wired, uniquely historied, uniquely socialized humans that each of us is. Sometimes I feel that for every person who has been really helped and set on-track by discovering MCTB and related fora, there is at least one person who is totally confused because the *content* they are experiencing does not match the content of many of the loudest posters or Dan Ingram.

But you gotta remember that the maps are maps of stages, deep structures, NOT contents/experiences, but rather, typical insights into the *nature* of experiencing generally. So my advice is honestly: save yourself the headache of all this comparison and doubt, because generally the method is going to be roughly the same all the way through: cultivate calm abiding, kindness, and clarity in a balanced way. Whatever you are experiencing, be with the WAY that it presences-- emerging, functioning, dissapearing-- rather than focusing on WHAT is presencing.

Be patient with yourself and your unfolding process. Being with the process exactly as it is unfolding is what progress *is*. Being with it with patience, kindness, simplicity, and dare I say naivete-- just letting one moment follow another without preconception-- IS progress.

Progress can be pleasent, unpleasent, neutral. It can be all of these things in each stage, from moment to moment. Progress IS being with your experience as it is, as it is unfolding. The process unfolds non-linearly, so you will likely pass through stages multiple times and see them in different lights, sometimes in a single sit.

The method is not enough, and the maps are ultimately more helpful for communication and reflection than for practicing. In addition to the methods (which help you cultivate patience, clarity, kindness, openness) the ATTITUDE is crucial. Personally I would go so far to say, attitude is more important than method-- for awakening. Method is sufficient for experiencing altered states and conditional insights. An attitude of not-knowing, openness, willingness to 'die' to old ways of being/seeing and continually emerge into fresh territory-- this is the key to the beginning middle and end imo of the progress of insight cycle.

Let that attitude carry you past the point where your mind can make sense of the process that is unfolding, and you will unleash a natural process of transformation that culminates in fundamental shifts in your way of being.
Then in the wake of this shift in way of being, there will be plenty of time to reflect and look back at your log notes to look for patterns and integrate the significance of what occured. But the process can't be controlled

Great Post Jake!

I think I am good in that way now, but that's not what I hoped to address with this thread. There was a long time, thousands of hours of practice, where I wasn't okay with this, and while some of the things that I needed were told to me, they weren't issued as a primary focus. This thread was about thinking what the conditions are in which someone really primitive on the awareness spectrum needs guidance.

I think we all look back at times and think "how could I have missed the point" or "why did I spend so long doing that practice, when this one now is such a better style for me". That's partly a re-reading of the past through the present. Besides that, a lot of things we think we get at point A, we realize a year or two later we really didn't get at all, and only now, at Point B, do we truly see what they meant. Except that a year or two later we realize that back then at Point B we had no idea and were deceiving ourselves thinking we got it, and only NOW, at Point C, does it really mean something. And so on, for ages. This goes on all the time, not because the system is broken or info is lacking, but because it's a natural part of how we operate.

That said, i really think Jake's simple advice applies to the beginningest beginner (as well as to the more experienced). Especially this part: "Be patient with yourself and your unfolding process. Being with the process exactly as it is unfolding is what progress *is*. Being with it with patience, kindness, simplicity, and dare I say naivete-- just letting one moment follow another without preconception-- IS progress."

I've seen super beginner meditators do very well, by the way, by just simple practices like watching the breath or counting slowly from 10 to 1, then when they can sit for more than five or ten minutes, start verbal noting (or other techniques). They often do better the LESS they know about meditating, ironically, because they aren't constantly trying to evaluate everything and compare it to books they read. People who are very cerebral or studious sometimes have a challenge with that, as they bring a lot of preconceptions and plans to their practice, and spend too much time looking for what "should" be happening rather than just observing what's actually happening.

What qualifies a super beginner? I'm talking about people who are seriously miserable. These people don't have the luxury of patience.

Meditation practice simply isn't a cure-all for everyone. If people are seriously miserable, meditation is 99% not likely to be the best modality.

I disagree and cite the lack of any better option

What is the problem we are discussing? Please be specific.

EDIT: Actually, please ignore. I can imagine a conversation like this with me is likely to go no where. I'll stay out of this thread.

Nono, I think it could.

We're talking about how to address meditators in nana #0, the waterfall, and how maps could help do that.

Of course, that premise is coming out of me not believing I'm in the DN, but just pre A&P.

And a quick caveat, I think therapy can be helpful, ext ext, but not for these people. They're getting spit around in a waterfall.

Okay, for what it is worth...

If we are talking about serious misery --- something like that has causes and conditions.

If someone feels like they can't change any of those causes and conditions, and if they are drawn to meditation, then it's basically a done deal. When we're drawn to something like this in times of desperation, then it's going to go it's course. You have to work with people where they are, understand what options they see. If people have faith that only meditation is the answer, then only meditation will be the answer. They'll keep doing it until they are on the other side of serious misery. It probably won't be fast and it won't really be because of the meditation, but rather just from a sense of mission, faith, and more time being away from those causes and conditions -- plus time healing all wounds. Time really does heal all wounds if we find away not to keep getting wounded.

Meditation can be a pressure cooker for people with serious misery and pressure cookers can explode, so I would look at other options. If someone is seriously miserable, I would actually advise some form of long exercise and some form of art, not meditation. I would say that someone would get more relief from their misery by bike riding or hiking or dancing than they would trying to sit. Someone could build attention through drawing or sewing or ceramics or blacksmithing, really any art, rather than trying to sit. I personally find it very cruel to advise someone to sit when they are miserable. I would rather make their life more enjoyable.

Therapy is an important option, but not a cure all. It takes a reasonable therapist with a reasonable modality with a somewhat reasonable patient. None of those are a given. But if they are all present, it's a fast way to unbury conflicting emotions -- the kind that fight internally with each other, but which we consciously only see one at a time, so we don't tend to see the conflict. (EDIT: although I didn't like Peter Fenner's "Radient Mind" cds, his book www.amazon.com/ESSENTIAL-WISDOM-TEACHING...Fenner/dp/0892540532 describes the psychological dimensions of conflicting emotions well and it uses Buddhist terminology quite often.)

The type of misery is important. I usually use the Buddhist "realms" model when I think about what to suggest to someone. God realm people are so satisfied that the only way you can reach them is by a form of entertainment. Titans are so power hungry and manipulative that the only way you can reach them is through challenging them to prove their discipline. Animals can learn to see the beauty of ethical actions. People in hot hells need cooling and patience. People in cold hells need warmth and affection. Greedy/hungry ghost people who are never satisfied need to learn generosity and sacrifice. Humans need to work on all 8 aspects of the 8 fold path, to figure out what is failing and work on that. It could be meditation, but it's as likely to be right view or right livelihood. Without a foundation for meditation, again, it can kinda be cruel to recommend it an not work on the actual weak link. This is the traditional formulation and I don't believe in it as a reality, but rather a diagnostic tool.

The waterfall is more a description of just a generally functional but busy mind. Basically what happens when even a happy person sits on the meditation the first time. An absolute beginner. It doesn't really refer to someone that is miserable or emeshed in one of the realms.