Seeker of Wisdom

To quote Spotless: "look at our original poster here - he is asking things like "can we dumb this down a little"." The OP is asking for advice on shamatha/vipassanna, not a debate about jhana in relation to various traditions and the sutras.

An arhat would have no sense of attainment or one who attains. We aren't there quite yet.

In shamatha, we don't note interrupting thoughts. We just drop them and divert our focus back to the object. We use some effort (BUT DON'T STRAIN) to focus on the object with as much one-pointed constant concentration as possible; and whenever that concentration wanders we just patiently bring it back - without actively doing anything to whatever it has wandered off to.

I haven't noticed. Maybe you're just experiencing conformation bias? Try looking out for another random number, and you'll suddenly seem to notice that one everywhere too - when in reality it's not unusually common, you just notice when it's there as you're looking for it.

Imagine a table. What makes it a table? Nothing really, it is simply a set of parts which has features, which we choose to classify as 'table'. Those parts could be arranged into something else. If we separate them, there is no table; and the table doesn't exist independently of its parts. Therefore, the table is 'empty'. Consider yourself. You are made of parts - the 5 skhandas. Like the table, you are not a fundamentally existing thing. There are just constantly changing and interacting processes... which can be conceptually labelled as a 'person'. This isn't saying that you don't exist. Of course you do. But when you classify yourself as a person or an 'I' of any sort, that's a conceptual label which has no real substance to it, a way your mind tries to model reality. It's like the world is there, then you draw a map and take that map to be the real thing. The map is just a way of interpreting the world.

I had got to doing 5 minutes, and now I'm back only being able to do about 2 minutes. It's like my legs got stronger rapidly, then weakened a little. Is it just that it will take time for the muscle to build and micro-fractures to repair, after doing long (for a beginner) periods like that?

Two of every animal, and one amoeba... No, two. Four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two...

Buddha Lao Tzu Confucius Alan Wallace Hui-neng Patanjali Jesus Bill Bodri Swami Sivananda When I get round to reading his 'fundamental verses', I expect Nagarjuna will make that list.

Real normal floods, that people ended up basing stories about global floods on.

See a doctor... allopathy is hands-down best for things like long-lasting blunt force trauma injuries.

In my opinion.

I understand the attraction of things with a 'mystical' vibe. But seriously, if you really want something, give up trying to go to other planes or remember past lives or whatever. Where it's really at, is the less flashy but unimaginably profound and rewarding work of developing a vast, clear, non attached mind like space. Seriously man. I am NOT advanced, at all. But after only a few months focused on the stuff that matters with correct practices... my mind feels bigger, clearer, more luminous in a way that, well, puts a helluva different spin on what seems important.

What seems to be your natural strengths and weaknesses in this life, tells you roughly the kind of person you used to be. So then... what are you cultivating in yourself now? What new virtues, and how hard are you cutting against the grain of your flaws?

Things like this happen naturally when your mind is really strong and razor sharp from shamatha (again, that book I suggested in the grounding thread). If you try without having shamatha, the 'memories' you uncover are probably just imaginary scenarios from your subconscious.

See http://thetaobums.com/topic/27298-horse-stance/. Ask Protector if you're confused, he seems the horse stance expert on here. Enjoy! This is grounding AND really boosts your chi AND builds discipline.

It's not good to fall asleep meditating... we're aiming to develop super vivid, sharp, one pointed effortless concentration. But I'm sure most of us have. Get 'The Attention Revolution' by Alan Wallace to ensure you've got the right balance between effort and relaxation, and understand meditation properly. Aside from that, obviously don't meditate when you're tired, and if you start getting sleepy stand for a bit then refocus.

I've edited the first post to include all the key points, for people who are interested but don't want to trawl through 7 pages.

Hi. I 100% agree that all valid practices lead to the same goal - as someone who uses methods from Buddhism, Daoism and Yoga; and tries to learn from every tradition. However, the question is 'are ALL techniques valid'? To take an extreme example, clearly if our path consists of wearing a hat made of cheese we will only end up with cheesy hair. I think it's sensible to say that a valid path will: foster virtue, develop the mental stability and vividness required for jhana (shamatha), build insight, and cultivate chi without causing kundalini syndrome. Any path that doesn't include all of these is incomplete at best. Let's look at AYP from this angle briefly. *Virtue: AYP does seem to encourage virtue, can't really knock it there. *Shamatha: if you please read the posts made by myself and Tibetan Ice on this thread, you will see detailed arguments and evidence stating that AYP meditation is actually a bit of a disaster in this regard, cultivating an unhealthy mental fuzziness. Also read http://thetaobums.com/topic/21469-patanjalis-sutras-and-samyama-questions/ *Insight: AYP is fair in this regard, though nowhere near, say, Zen. It points towards realisation of pure consciousness, mistaking consciousness for the Self. But that's still a high stage, and AYP'ers have described realisations of no-self. *Chi without kundalini syndrome: this is another area AYP is shocking, which I explain in detail in my previous posts, and TI and others discuss here - http://thetaobums.com/topic/23437-does-ayp-give-bad-kundalini-advice/

Cool! If you tried focusing on the edge of your sphere of awareness, perhaps you could reach the jhana of infinite space or infinite consciousness? Just a thought from someone who hasn't experienced jhana yet...

LOL. Iguanas may be herbivores, but I'm partway to having a dragon digestive system. The ash from the burnt forest provides the right environment for my eggs to incubate, and as for being sustained now the forest is gone, I fly to the neighbouring mountain range and have me some delicious goat.

Yeah, well I'm a f***in' iguana, and when I eat enough of you pathetic butterflies I'll become a dragon. I will scorch the forest with hellfire from my maw, then where will you caterpillars AND butterflies be?

Wisdom is deep knowing, on a level beyond intellectual conceptualisation, regarding both the nature of things, and what you should do. We all have astounding wisdom, the amount of it we access however... well, just look at the world.

Do one, and you must automatically do the other, because they're rooted in the same insights... just 2 equally valid ways of looking at it. I'm sure many people do. Virtue alone can make you a pleasant fool. Shamatha alone can make you focused and stable. Wisdom alone can make you a philosopher. All 3 makes you a Buddha. Of course, the more you advance in one the more you should end up doing the others.

IN the ocean? Ask Aquaman.

Because unless you're a Buddha, oneness is a contrived conceptualisation. If we live as though we don't have the illusion of ego, but we actually still have that illusion, that's just forcing cognitive dissonance on yourself. Delusion is transcended by cultivation. You seem to think that metta/selfless service and seeking Buddhahood are mutually exclusive. Cultivating virtue and doing good is a fairly large chunk of the path; which doesn't become an ego trip just because we also practice shamatha and wisdom... especially if we have bodhichitta.