the morality part

I've been confused for a long time about how any of this intersects with morality or compassion, probably because I've seen little of it myself.

Sure there is the teaching of meditation, but for the most part that sector of it has fallen flat for me because it appears the specifics of my situation were not taken into account and addressed in any way, with some exceptions.

So I wonder how morality has anything to do with it when I have seen slim pickings of it in life and have had my many many hours of practice overlooked on cushion, like I am just confused and am not actually doing real practice.

Where is the morality when one isn't even interested in trying to get the practice bit squared away.

This seems a cri de coeur-- but one phrased in an oblique way, so that I'm not sure what the subject of the upset is. Could you spell it out a bit for the clueless?

My experience has been for the most part some type of enlighten-centrism that has neglected all the time I've put into this.

I don't know if a cry form the heart has anything to do with it. It's a functional question to me - what is the morality part in this

Femtosecond wrote: some type of enlighten-centrism that has neglected all the time I've put into this.

Say more about this. What do you feel neglected by?

There's more to this practice than attaining goals. I guess that fact sometimes gets neglected with pragmatic dharma. As for morality: there's the 8-fold path, and for us laypeople, the 5 precepts. I do think these things are important. There is also the intentional cultivation of the four divine abidings: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.

What I mean by neglected is that I think for the first thousand hours of practice or more, I was proceeding in the wrong way and wasn't doing the right practice. I'm not saying no one tried to help me with this, they did and that's really nice and in fact probably the best thing that happened to me in those few years, but it didn't break through.

To me this seemed like its an important part of the morality part of this whole thing, being able to translate and proffer guidance to others, otherwise what can this claim to be?

As for the off cushion morality, pragmatic dharma should have an alternative to it, because I've experienced a small amount of compassion/whatever in the time I've spent in numerous meditative communities. It just hasn't been there, and this is with people who I've seen at least a couple times a month for about two years. It just does not hold any water so far, it's more like a mirage to me.

This is why I'm interested in what pragmatic dharma might have for the understanding of morality

It sounds to me that you encountered more a lack of skills in diagnosis and teaching than a lack of compassion or morality.But I am the last person here to speak on behalf of "the pragmatic dharma community" as I'm very hazy on what that might mean.

Femtosecond wrote: As for the off cushion morality, pragmatic dharma should have an alternative to it, because I've experienced a small amount of compassion/whatever in the time I've spent in numerous meditative communities. It just hasn't been there, and this is with people who I've seen at least a couple times a month for about two years. It just does not hold any water so far, it's more like a mirage to me.

Femto, I see that you are describing how compassing was/is missing in your long-term interactions in meditative communities. I'm curious about what you were expecting vs. what you got. What is it that you got that didn't quite cut it? And what would this missing compassion have looked like?

Femtosecond wrote: Sure there is the teaching of meditation, but for the most part that sector of it has fallen flat for me because it appears the specifics of my situation were not taken into account and addressed in any way, with some exceptions.

So I wonder how morality has anything to do with it when I have seen slim pickings of it in life and have had my many many hours of practice overlooked on cushion, like I am just confused and am not actually doing real practice.

I get the sense that your search for "morality" is really about something else. Is it a search for a teacher? Is it a search for recognition for your hours on the cushion? Is it a search for a kind of identity as a meditator?

What kind of finding would satisfy your search for "morality"?

What I'm talking about isn't what I didn't get - I didn't get much of anything and my heart is a bowlful of almost dead goldfish but that's not the point.

What I'm thinking about is I guess the definition of pragmatic dharma. To me its fairly clear I could have received better advice for those few thousand of practice hours , but I didn't. Obviously this says pretty dismal things for anyone in a tough situation, whereas I've actually had the time to do something about this. What I'm talking about is a sense of leadership where people are interested in what it actually takes to meditate and what meditation is all about - not just what it is at some upper enlightened level.

As far as meditative communities and what I was expecting vs what I got, I wasn't expecting much, maybe that people would like get to know you a little bit, or maybe something else that was implicit in my thoughts about compassion but unexplained or recognized is that it necessarily entails some type of leadership -- but obviously this is not something that comes with associating with people with spiritual practice in mind -- for the most part

Anyway, when it comes to pragmatic dharma, there is the unique opportunity to be inquisitive about what it actually takes to meditate and succeed, if that were taken advantage of.

Femtosecond wrote: To me its fairly clear I could have received better advice for those few thousand of practice hours , but I didn't.

With hindsight being 20-20, what is the advice you wish you had gotten?

Well, given that I have a bone condition and little flexibility - somatic practices. They have been working pretty well for the last year, and before I was totally lacking in body awareness and many of the factors of enlightenment and the spiritual faculties, but this really wasn't breached.

I'd like everyone to notice that I wasn't talking about this forum insofar as I was talking about off cushion things, this seems like it could be getting lost here................

Ah, I understand. Yes, it's tricky isn't it? Given all the different things we need, it's hard to find a single perfect authority that will diagnose us perfectly and give us the perfect practice. That's even true within >just< meditation practices. That's why the buddha said "work hard to gain your own salvation", because even he couldn't guarantee the right teaching or meditation practice. He didn't say, "practice exactly what I told you", he said "gain your own salvation" recognizing that there are a lot of peculiarities in our own body-mind that we have to search out, find teachers or information, and work out for ourselves.

I don't think it is a lack of morality that you didn't find the teachings you needed. It just was a long shot to find somatic practices from meditation teachers. Meditation teachers mostly know meditation, although their own lives may have also included investigations of somatic practices.

I can imagine the opposite situation: what if someone was looking for meditation practices from somatic teachers? The person would probably be disappointed because they wouldn't be given noting practice or other meditation practices. It wouldn't be that the somatic teachers were immoral, it would simply be that they didn't know meditation.

When I think of all the dimensions of being human --- bodily health, nutrition, exercise, social relations, dating, financial, artistic --- it's clear to me that every dimension is important and everyone really has to figure out their own way of being, which is going to be different from everyone else. Thank goodness, otherwise what a boring world if everyone was the same. Instead we get lots of different people with lots of different experiences. Lots of different ways of being a moral person, without any one person being completely omnipotent and omnicient (sp?).

I find morality to be helpful and pragmatic in various ways. To act morally, we have to be mindful of our actions, and that itself becomes a kind of off-the-cushion meditation. By acting morally, we're more likely to generate a more peaceful, friendly atmosphere around us. And by acting morally, we have fewer things to regret or feel conflicted about so when we sit down to meditate we may be able to practice better.

One anecdote: On one retreat I sat I got bedbugs. I have compassion for all living things that are just trying to eke out their existence, but at night when I was going to sleep, I would feel a crawling sensation (real or imaginary) and I would scratch at that spot with lethal intent. I was conflicted and upset about being in such a position. It certainly affected my course, but I did get some interesting insights into of the first precept as it was the first time I had had the intent to kill something in a long time.
... I'm not sure what the moral to this anecdote is.

I don't know, I think about my situation and it seems that it was pretty obvious. It seems that if people were just really interested, they would have figured out enough to orient someone in the right direction. But that's not what happens. People find what works for them and that's the end of it, the world stops growing, and even when there is a practically ideal situation where someone is spending hundred and hundreds of hours doing what they're told, it falls through the cracks. To me it seems more like no one is interested in refining their knowledge or ability to guide, or what the person is really going through.

never mind

Femtosecond wrote: I don't know, I think about my situation and it seems that it was pretty obvious.

Out of curiousity, why do you think it would have been obvious to others, if it wasn't obvious to you? I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm actually wondering what I'm missing. On the surface, it seems like most folks involved with meditation are not necessarily going to be experts in somatic practices. It seem unfair to question their morality, almost like accusing an eye doctor of being immoral beause she doesn't know how to shoe a horse. What am I missing?

Well, I'm going to answer that, but I don't know if I'm questioning morality (shaming) so much as just talking about an idea of what morality can be.

Cool. Looking forward to your answer and your ideas on what morality can be.

Actually I don't think I'm going to say anything more about it if no one is interested, other than

I couldn't tell because I was just that primitive - it can be done to grasp someone's location on a continuum of development and to place oneself and experiences on this.

I also don't think what I mean involves figuring out all the problems for everyone and basically doing it for them. I'm just thinking about guidance.

Finish what you start! Or not, but remember the primitive you might be reading this thread and won't have the answer if you don't say anything more. (I'm kinda joking, but kinda serious too.)

No, I understand that meditation is about shedding the self, I do.

But it seems like that's all that its about, it is only a measure of self-help for the people who are well enough off to get there with the meager guidance that exists already.

It doesn't seem anyone is interested in this topic, judging by the lack of 'thank yous' for anything I've said and the general silence around the issue. It's just not a concern here.