Seeker of Wisdom

Daniel Ingram, MD, is a key figure in 'hardcore/pragmatic dharma' along with folks like Kenneth Folk and Shinzen Young, advocating a goal-oriented, straightforward technical approach to Buddhist practice which emphasizes vipassana (probing into the Three Characteristics of experience), particularly the Mahasi Sayadaw noting technique, stripped of dogma so pragmatic tech and real results are left. At his forum, The Dharma Overground, there is a controversial cultural norm of being open about attainment, and expecting practitioners to become awakened with good practice. His book, 'Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha' (MCTB) is currently being updated into MCTB2. Bio 1) What teachings/systems/lineages have you been exposed to? A: Many, but it may depend on what you mean by “exposed”. Major ones, in some sort of order: Mahasi, Thai Forest, Sri Lankan Buddhist, Western New-Age/Hyper-psychologized Vipassana, Vedanta, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Zen, Non-aligned Non-Dual, Christian Mystical, Western Magickal (Golden Dawn-based, Thelema, Wicca, Chaos Magick, others), Qabala (spell as you will), Taoism, Shamanistic, Native American, New-Age in general (crystals, auras, spirits, fairies, etc.), Actualism, Scientific Materialist, Classical Greek Philosophy... That’s a pretty good start but incomplete. 2) What practices have you been exposed to? A: Many, but again it depends on what you mean by exposed. My primary meditative practices have been vipassana of various styles, samatha of various styles, Brahamaviharas, Magick, and Dzogchen/Mahamudra-influenced practices. 3) Who have been your Buddhist teachers and are you currently practicing and studying under the guidance of one? A: I have had a lot of teachers of various kinds, including lots of friends who have taught me many useful things, but if you mean formal ones in some sort of traditional or semi-traditional sense, the more important ones were Christopher Titmuss, Sharda Rogell, Fred Von Allmen, Subhana Barzaghi, Yvonne Weier, Norman Feldman, Bill Hamilton, Sayadaw U Rajinda, Bhante Gunaratana, Bhante Rahula, and Sayadaw U Pandita Junior. Really, there were tons of others, with smaller appearances by Christina Feldman, Joseph Goldstein, Chökyi Nyima, and lots of others. Kenneth Folk also was briefly my teacher back in 1996 for about 5 weeks, but that relationship in that way ended then. I am sure I am missing a few. I currently have no teacher in any formal sense, but running an online forum for hardcore practitioners is quite a teacher in its own way, as there are a lot of good and interesting practitioners there. 4) Is there a particular Buddhist tradition that you practice within? A: These days it mostly looks the same to me, but if you need to put it in a labelled box you might call my practice tradition some mix of Theravadan Vipassana and Samatha, with some Mahamudra and Magick thrown in. That is simplifying a great deal but to the point. 5) What is your most recent (last few years) interest in your practice? A: Mostly I just sit when I sit or just recline when I recline, or just drive when I drive, but that is making something seem simple that isn’t, as all sorts of stages and states and things cycle through that are much more interesting than that would make it sound. I also do various brahmaviharas and other formal and less than formal magick. I sometimes do formal samatha practice, sometimes starting with candle-flame kasina. I also sometimes to some free-form energy movement practice. Currently, I am listening to BA Wallace’s Dreaming Yourself Awake and doing more dream practice, as that was how I got into all this stuff in the first place and still a great time and useful. My last retreat was in February and you can read and listen to it here: www.firekasina.org 6) What’s been going on since ‘My experiments in actualism’? A: Lots, as that phase began and ended some years ago. That’s a long time in this business. I enjoyed my time in that phase and would still recommend the basics of what I was focusing on then, in general terms and depending on the practitioner and their goals and abilities. On that relative front, most of what I do is trying to figure out how to balance my life, work, the Dharma Overground, family, rest, music, exercise, service, social responsibility, friendship, health, and the like. It is a complex project but interesting. Practice and results 7) Can you describe the experience of awakening in your system? A: It is not within a system, just is what it is. Everything is where it is, happens on its own, knows itself as part of itself and the field where it is. Those are the major points. That is just how things are, not something in a framework. 8) What are the key features of each of the Four Paths, in terms of: a) The process of attaining each one – any changes in how the insight cycle functions at each one, different emphases in practice needed, etc.? A: That is a huge topic that would probably be better answered for each individual person. Still, were I to say the core of the thing: notice the Three Characteristics of all sensate phenomena without exception all the way through everything: that simple and direct approach will cause the arising of insight and prevent much confusion and complexity. b} What shifts or changes generally result from attaining each Path? A: best to read MCTB for that answer, as it is written down there. The paths are problematic and overly simplistic and naïve as a model, and I much prefer The Simple Model found in MCTB, so, while nearly everyone focuses on the path model, give that one more attention and you will likely do better practice-wise, I believe. 9) Hi Daniel, thank you for taking time out to share your insights with our forum. a) What is your practice schedule like? ie what practices do you do daily and for how long? A: My life is very complex-schedule wise, as I work long and odd hours as an emergency medicine doctor in an understaffed county trauma center. Thus, there is no schedule for almost anything but work, and I fit in everything else when I can as best I can. Still, and this sounds like the standard cliché but it is actually the honest truth: every moment is practice past a certain point. Still, I do formal sitting when I feel like it, which is most days, and I do formal practices when I lay down to rest until I fall asleep. I do formal practices if I wake up and can’t sleep, which is often due to circadian disruption and working shift work evenings and nights. I formally practice often when driving, as paying a lot of attention to the immediate environment is a great idea when driving. I meditate when walking between patients, when looking them in the eye, when listening carefully to heart and lung sounds: all very meditative. See above for my formal practice list. b} What kind of practice schedule would you recommend for a beginner? A: That would very much depend on what you wanted to do, how fast you wanted to do it, and what resources and personal characteristics you had, so it would have to be tailored to the individual to answer that well. c) Here's an Americanized question - What technique have you found gives the best bang for the buck? A: It depends on what you want to do and what side-effects you are willing to tolerate, like medications. For fast progress in insight, I like rapid-style Mahasi practice in high dose on retreat about 18 hours per day, but it can be a very rough ride. For samatha, I think nothing beats candle-flame: see www.firekasina.org. That’s a coarse answer, as really it would depend on the person how I would answer that. 10) What is your definition of nibbana? Is it a state of eternal non-consciousness? If so, what's the point? Also if there is a gap in consciousness and it is discontinuous, what notices the gap? A: Nibbana is not defined by me, particularly, but traditionally in its technical definition it has two aspects: Nibbana without sense data and Nibbana with sense data. Nibbana without sense data is Fruition: reality vanishes and re-appears. It is a nice mental reset and teaches useful lessons, doing something good to the brain, and happens at the beginning of paths. It can help with the attainment of Nibbana with sense data, which is arahatship. In Nibbana with sense data, reality is just as it is, seen clearly, without ignorance, and the suffering caused by ignorance is eliminated. Because of this, both Nibbanas are highly recommended, but the later one is the true goal and very much worth it. These definitions hold up in practice and in theory. 11) In MCTB you briefly mention two Pure Land jhanas. Have you found any more Pure Land jhanas? What is each of them like, and how do you enter them? A: Kenneth Folk has forcefully claimed that the term you use is proprietarily his intellectual property, so I don’t use that term any more in keeping with his personal requirements for hegemony thereof. What I can say is that there are many extended states that can combine various pleasurable and skilful elements from the normal jhanas and add other qualities, so out there I do find lots of interesting territory, and past a certain point, if your concentration is good, you can learn to craft experiences that suit your tastes and imagination, with no obvious limits in that regard. If you can imagine it, you can find a way with strong concentration to experience it, at least temporarily. This explains the many worlds described in the old texts. You should direct further questions to the person who claims exclusive ownership of the term. 12) How can a practitioner, when in rough times, tell the difference between if they’re in a dark night arising as a necessary stage from skilful practice, or if they’re just frying themselves from unskilful or excessive practice? A: The two often go hand in hand, so the differentiation you make may not always be helpful. Signs of frying one’s self: uncontrolled emotional volatility, inability to keep one’s mouth closed when one should keep it closed, inability to function in relationships, inability to function at work, inability to maintain good relationships with dharma companions and teachers: such are the typical signs of both Dark Night gone awry and also of poor practice. Frying one’s self typically results when one is subtly or grossly fixated on something other than what is present here immediately, which also means that one’s practice is poor, as the only basis of good practice is what is right here, as this moment must not only contain but also be the answer. So, if you notice your practice is about something other than what is right here, you know that is poor practice and thus produces the ability to fry one’s self. Part of sorting out this balance is much more easily done in person with a teacher who knows you, who knows what you are capable of and your limits, who knows what the technique you are doing does both good and bad, and can read your tone of voice, body language, energetic quality, and help you balance your practice to avoid the extremes of agitation and dullness. In short, is is a very complex topic. Further, the differential diagnosis of people with the symptoms of frying themselves is wider than just Dark Night vs. Misapplied Effort, including all sorts of things from psychological to medical, as well as situational, so sorting this out can require good help from friends and/or teachers and/or other sorts of practitioners and healthcare providers, as well as experimentation and exploration of various strategies to counter and/or understand the factors creating the ill effects as well as the effects themselves and what they really are and aren’t. If this were simple to explain and do, then this stuff would be easily, which it obviously largely isn’t. Talking about attainments 13) Judging from anecdotes by you and also by Kenneth Folk, there's a bit more openness about attainments in places such as Burma. Any comments on this and any other cultural differences? A: I have never been to Burma, but in general in Asia you find that practitioners are much more willing to simply follow the straightforward instructions of teachers and do the practices rather than endlessly overthink the thing and thus scuttle themselves. There is a sort of open code about attainments in many meditation settings in Asia, as well as just more open dialogue sometimes about actual attainments, part of which is due to the fact of finding many more people around with actual attainments, this largely due to the phenomena of people actually practicing and actually following instructions, such as “concentrate on the breath”, “pay attention to the movements your feet” and “note it”, practical advice that many Westerners somehow seem to consider beneath their intellectual and hyper-psychological dignity. 14) There are a lot of people nowadays on the internet, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, claiming to be accomplished and teaching others. Why do you think there is such proliferation of this kind of thing, and how can people distinguish the genuine from the false? A: There are more real practitioners out there who actually do know things these days, at least in the West, and more people who would otherwise be obscure and isolated who are now able to reach people through the internet, so part of it is that there are more teachers who really do know things and really are able to reach people. However, in terms of sorting out the quality from the less-so, this is often difficult. I would stick to techniques that are time-tested most of the time: that is the first thing. If they are teaching methods that are well-known to work, then you are much more likely to have them work for you as well. As to the quality of the person themselves: look at what they produce: what do their students know? What good things bloom around that teacher? Do they walk their talk? Are they really interested in helping people? Are they down-to-earth and straightforward? Do you know people who know them as actual people and, if so, what are they like? Still, it is not easy, and plenty of people who have been well-vetted still end up being trouble, or a mix of blessing and curse. No particularly easy answers, or the dharma scandal sheets wouldn’t be as full of news as they always are. Tradition and innovation 15) You seem to be an advocate of pared down Buddhism by eliminating from the dharma anything that doesn't fit with your own view and experience. Don't you think there is a risk of throwing out the baby with the bath water by ignoring 2,500 years of practice and experience, especially if the causes and conditions which gave rise to, say, the Vajrayana, are not understood by you? A: I hardly know what you mean by this. I have advocated for a wide range of practices and that people are pragmatic and find what works for them. I run a forum that encourages a wide range of styles to suit people’s needs, resources, goals and tastes. I have practiced all sorts of things and encouraged people to practice all sorts of things. I have practiced Vajrayana but don’t talk much about it, considering those methods profound. Interestingly, the audiobook I am listening to now as I drive back and forth to work is mostly Vajrayana at its core. I am advocate of paring down the dharma of things that are harmful, useless, and impede people from reaching their meditative goals and potentials, but that is not an easy thing to define and often involves a careful evaluation of the person themselves and how they relate to various practices and concepts at that time. 16) Many people accuse you of teaching the extreme of nihilism. Are you aware of these criticisms, and if so, how would you respond? A: I don’t know of those criticisms and have no idea why people would say that. Thoughts? I am aware of people accusing me of teaching the opposite, that of Atman-Buddhism, as they pejoratively call it, but they are also wrong in this. Help me understand what they are saying and why and perhaps I will be better able to address this. 17) Have you corresponded with mainstream Theravada teachers? If so, what do they think of your teachings? How do you respond to their criticisms? A: I am in touch with many mainstream teachers of various kinds, but, oddly enough, I am becoming vastly more mainstream than I was before, this being a shift in the world of meditation more than much about myself, such that, what long ago seemed revolutionary and extreme now doesn’t appear so and is becoming commercialized, and, if the trend continues, I will likely do what everyone else eventually does, meaning become part of the stodgy and entrenched establishment fighting in my dotage for the maintenance of a regressive and out-dated conservative orthodoxy against the new young rebels. So it goes with most things like this. For example, Shinzen Young just asked me to be part of a special project with him to help sort out things related to standardized terminology related to meditation attainments, and will be working with some others on this, such as Culadasa. I have talked with people such as Joseph Goldstein and others about things and am aware of their perspectives. The criticisms and debates that I might think you are referring to are many, but most of them are very, very old debates, going back thousands of years, so my responses would likely look like standard responses that have arisen through the centuries, as do their replies. I actually just got back from an invite-only Dharma Teacher’s conference in New York at Omega Institute with a few hundred teachers, most of which would be considered pretty mainstream, and we had a jolly-good time talking about and sharing the dharma. Philosophy 18) Hi Daniel, may I ask you about your opinion concerning the strict dualistic view (the seer -> <- the seen) of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras? Thank you very much! A: I am not sure that Patanjali is advocating for strict dualism, and actually suspect the opposite, but I am no expert in Patanjali, just someone who read his Yoga Sutras some years ago and enjoyed them, particularly the parts about magick, which I found interesting and inspiring. 19) Is there rebirth after death? If not, then what's the point of practice? A: It is an old debate and question. Is there even rebirth moment to moment in this life? It really depends on what you mean by rebirth, and this is not just some intellectual debate, but really what it means for you in your moment and mind right now. There are tons of reasons to practice even if you take the view that there is no rebirth, as practice can make huge positive changes in this life. Further, if you believe there is rebirth, then it clearly creates good conditions for that next birth, so if you hold that view then you should still practice. Also, if you feel that getting off the round of rebirths as you conceive of it is the best option, then that should be good motivation to practice. If, instead, you subscribe to an ideal such as a Bodhisattva ideal and feel you should reincarnate skilfully to help all beings, that is clearly a great reason to practice. In short, however you view rebirth, you should practice well. Practicing well enough answers the question in ways that talking about it doesn’t. I have had past-life experiences that were very profound and informative, providing clear and deep insights into current causal patterns. I have seen that this moment is totally self-less, utterly discontinuous with any movement, and utterly ephemeral even within itself, including past-life experiences, so I find no self to be reborn even at this instant. I find both perspectives very practically useful within their scopes and no longer see any conflict at all. Causality rings out into the future, so creating positive effects in this stream of causality is beneficial now and in the future. There is no future, being only this transient and luminous moment which automatically self-liberates. Helpful? 20) What is your position on pure awareness in the Advaitic sense? I.e. as Swami Krishnananda says: ‘The whole universe is a spiritual unity and is one with the essential Brahman [which] is the ultimate Knower. [...] “There is no seer but That, no hearer but That, no thinker but That, no knower but That.” It is the eternal Subject of knowledge, no one knows it as the object of knowledge.’ A: How I would answer that would largely depend on the person I was talking to at the time. It would be easy to pick it apart phrase by phrase and word by word, to do it experientially or theoretically, but I think that would be missing the spirit of what he was trying to get at. The problem with translating lots of things to do with Vedanta is that, like basically all of the traditions, they use words in very specific ways that make more sense in that context and are teach designed to counter imbalances in a specified audience to point them at something useful. Specifically, concepts like “pure awareness” make much more sense at certain points in practice, and so sometimes pointing out things like that is a very good idea, as are concepts such as “intrinsic luminosity”. At other points in practice, such language and concepts can lead people into trouble, causing reification and solidification of things that are neither real nor solid. So, it would largely depend on the practitioner and what I thought would be best for them at that time. 21) What is your thought on non-duality? A: The experience of the perfect non-duality of the thought of non-duality and of the field of manifestation in which it arises is great and I highly recommend it. Miscellaneous 22) What will be the main differences between MCTB and MCTB2? From the section out now, there seems to be a touch more on 'allowing reality to reveal itself' - a bit of Zen influence? A: The differences are many and varied, but a more Mahamudra/Zen/Dzogchen/Narual approach is somewhat more incorporated into this version, largely as an attempt to counterbalance forces in MCTB that emphasized effort, themselves of which were attempts to counterbalance forces in much of the meditation world towards slackness and ambitionlessness. Thus, the target is moving as the world and audience changes, and figuring out how to keep people on the Middle Way requires shifting approaches as the deficiencies and excesses of the audience shift. 23) Have you had a brain scan or EEG done? If not, why not? If so, how does your brain compare with other, normal brains? A: By the kindness of researchers and those who funded them, I have spent 3.5 hours in an fMRI up at Yale with Dr Jud Brewer and Dr Willoughby Britton in a study measuring blood flow to the PCC (posterior cingulate cortex) as a proxy for function and providing slightly-delayed but close to real-time biofeedback on that during the study to measure the ability to activate and deactivate the PCC on command, the results of which were that I have control of the PCC and can activate and deactivate it on command and hold it in that chosen state stably, and also have a somewhat unusually large brain. I have been wired to Dr Jud Brewer’s 134-lead (128-lead plus motor leads) research-grade EEG at his lab at Yale and then later at The Center for Mindfulness in Worcester, MA (a la John Kabat Zinn) for a good number of hours, which was using beam-forming algorithms to look at specific frequencies and areas they also felt were related to the PCC, the results of which are that I can activate and deactivate the PCC on command and hold it in that chosen state. I am very grateful for those opportunities to play with those evolving technologies and be one small part of advancing the science of the study of the brain and how measuring it relates or doesn’t to meditative practice. FYI: the PCC helps regulate whether or not attention is focused on the material/immediate/physical sphere of experience or the mental/internal sphere of experience, so far as I can tell from playing with those technologies. To conclude: 24) Anything you'd like to add? A: As stated above in numerous places, how I would answer many questions would relate a lot to the person I was talking to and where they were in their practice. Thus, read any answers with a grain of salt, as how they might apply to your specific situation could be very different than how they might apply to someone else with a different set of paradigms, concepts, cultural background, and practice experiences and abilities. Thanks for your interest in practice and for the opportunity to clarify things. Let me know if this was useful and if you have further questions or responses. Be well and practice well, Daniel

I've started using the zhunti mantra. "NAMO SAPTANAM SAMYAKSAMBUDDHA KOTINAM. TADYATHA: OM! CALE, CULE, CUNDI SVAHA!" So far I'm seeing some effect in my heart and 3rd eye chakras, this mantra is good stuff. Bill Bodri says: Is there anyone here who's recited this for a while - if so, what is your personal experience?

Hi there! It sounds like you're following the method of Leigh Brasington? Personally I've found his method very helpful and have entered first jhana as he teaches it*. if you haven't read his book 'Right Concentration', I would definitely advise you to do so. (*Some people disagree with his methods and/or state that what he teaches is not 'true' jhana. This debate is essentially the debate between 'sutta jhana' and 'visuddhimagga jhana', which has been going on for a thousand years and will not be resolved in this thread, so I'll just say that I think Brasington is a good guide for some very useful attainments and leave it at that.) From the title of this thread you seem to be conflating the jhanas with stream entry a bit. One can be a master of the jhanas and not be a stream entrant, not be trying to become a stream entrant, have no idea that stream entry is a thing. The pleasure one experiences in access concentration does not come about from thinking of an experience or from trying to create pleasure! Brasington mentions that some people may find that smiling helps them to tune in to the pleasure. If you don't find this helpful, don't do it. Pleasure will come about as a natural result of access concentration, with your mind being calm and clear and settled. Once you have access concentration, nothing else is needed to cause pleasure to come - in fact, trying to cause it will push it away. Why? Because then you're not resting your focus on an object without clinging. If you're trying to get something, your mind won't be calm/clear/settled so the pleasure won't come. The pleasure of access concentration is mild but noticeable (you won't be in doubt about it). The mental pleasure is a peace and happiness sort of like waking up on a sunny Sunday morning. The physical sensation can vary but is basically a nice energetic sensation - nothing mind-blowing. To enter the first jhana, stop watching the breath and instead watch the pleasure - just watch it like you watched the breath, don't try to increase it or manipulate it. It will pick up and take you into the first jhana, which is like access concentration but with deeper focus, and rapture and joy (stronger forms of the access concentration pleasure). This is very pleasant and obvious, though perhaps not as dramatic as you may be imagining it. What is the 'darkness with no thought'? Are you sure there's absolutely no thought? For how long can you sustain this? It sounds like you might be suppressing your thoughts, using a very forceful type of concentration - if this is the case, you really need to loosen up. Relax. Soak into the breath, watch it come in and out, whenever you're distracted don't clench down or push away anything, instead gently let go and return to the breath. I'm sure you'll be able to enter access concentration and the first jhana. I managed it after ~6 years, so don't worry that you aren't there yet after 3. In fact, don't worry too much about the attainment. Go into each session with an attitude of beginner's mind.

True, but it is stated that all views of self are a cause for dukkha. Attachment to views of self is listed as one of the four fundamental forms of attachment, and belief in a self is said to be one of the fetters cut by a stream-entrant. As Ralpola Rahula says:

My understanding is that, the question as you're framing it is sort of the wrong approach. To ask 'what is reborn?' is to rely on an underlying concept that there must be one lasting object that gets reborn. Like asking 'why did you beat your wife?' relies on the assumption that you did. A person is basically a process. Rather than a single object (or subject) persisting through time, each of us is a process. Compare fire burning along a rope to a stone rolling down a hill. The stone is a single, substantial object, it's the same stone at the bottom as it was at the top. The fire... well, we can say that the fire at the start and the fire at the end of the rope is the same fire, because there's casual continuity there. But it's not the same flame at one point and the next. The process has continued, the parts have changed. So let's ask a different question: 'what goes to sleep, and what wakes up in the morning?' Well, the process has continued overnight. What goes from last night to this morning? I'd say there isn't a thing that goes from last night to this morning... it's just that the process of 'you' has continued. Now imagine a fire burning along a rope, reaching the end of one rope, and igniting a new one and carrying on. What goes from one rope to the next? Misguided question. It's a process of combustion continuing, except some component parts have changed. There isn't a thing that goes from one to the other. I think your confusion is that you're imagining rebirth as something like pouring water from one glass into a new one, where the water is an object quite simply going from one vessel to the next - and naturally this doesn't square with anatta. Hopefully I've made sense, and you see what I mean about how fire burning from one rope to the next is a different situation.

Sometimes this can be the sort of thing that's supposed to happen... as you gain clarity about the simple reality of things, it can rub up against your concepts and attachments, and make you more sensitive to your own resistance and the existential strain (dukkha) caused by that resistance. If this is the case - no problem, keep up the practice, be patient and just watch whatever comes up. It could also be the case that you're just tensing up or straining yourself, in which case you'd need to loosen up. Just be gently curious about what's going on, rather than trying to stare it down.

From that wikipedia page: I lack the knowledge or experience to comment on Kalachakra, though I will add that I find it hard to imagine the Dalai Lama trying to make an army.

Often one way people compare paths is by whether they aim at detachment from the world, or a full engagement/immersion in the world and its cycles. But I've been thinking, this could be a false dichotomy. It depends exactly what you mean by 'detachment'. One way to 'detach' is to leave behind the world. Drop all this for something transcendent which can only be experienced in the absence of everything making up the world. But another way is to drop a certain way of relating to the world, detaching from views and cravings towards the world. And this seems to actually imply a deeper immersion in the world as it truly is, since self-made perceptual or conceptual barriers have been removed. Thoughts?

I wouldn't say we should, but it's a working hypothesis which fits into the rest of the Buddhist path. At the beginning anatta may make no sense whatsoever - that's fine, in that case just be open to it. Over time ime it becomes increasingly apparent that 'why should I blindly believe in self?' (I haven't had actual realization of anatta yet, but it just seems straightforward that it's true) Subjective experience is the key thing to deal with here... any conscious, conceptual idea we have about 'self' comes after the instinctive grasping onto some aspect of experience as 'self', which is why any attempt to 'get rid of' the view of self without seeing experience as it actually is clearly (in the seen just the seen, etc) doesn't succeed. So long as experience isn't seen clearly, the mind will construct a 'self' regardless, and trying to convince it that it's mistaken just through thinking about it is like trying to run away from your shadow. Trying to just believe in anatta will not produce the necessary direct understanding imho (and could end up in depersonalisation/derealisation if misunderstood) though reflecting on it definitely does help you see it as a reasonable working hypothesis, which makes it easier to go on to see directly. Exactly, it takes a method like vipassana... you have to 'come and see'.

Some 'dark night of the soul' idea seems to come up in various paths. It makes sense, in any attempt to change things there must be some inertia, and when one's sense of identity comes into question it can be uncomfortable. I've had times of a few hours or days when negative emotion is bubbling up seemingly without reason, or during vipassana the insubstantial-ness of 'selfhood' feels a bit scary or creepy. Dan Ingram:

Here's now Gil Fronsdal translates these verses: In the notes, he comments: I think one of the most interesting things here is that the house-builder, craving, is stopped through being seen. In the suttas, Mara is often dispelled when people say 'I see you, Mara,' and he vanishes. IMHO craving is stopped not by force of will to let go, but by seeing it, understanding it, getting the mind to see that it causes dukkha and so freely let it go. Craving relies on our ignorance of what it's really doing.

I'm not saying that that passage is a perfect understanding. And I don't think Nanavira would have said so either, it was just the start of his path. Him seeing life as meaningless lead him to start to understand why the Buddha was all about dukkha (of course, you're right that this doesn't mean just 'suffering'), its cause, its cessation, and the way to its cessation. That is meaningful, and compassion absolutely comes in here as well. IMHO there is a middle way here, between the falling night and rising dawn. Best wishes, Orion.

A person is just a bunch of processes, but just because 'substantialist' ideas are wrong doesn't mean nihilist ideas are right. You can see people as important (to you and to themselves) at the same time as seeing them as a bundle of narratives. I would argue that the desire for wellbeing, in various forms, is a key component to all these bundles of narratives walking around in the world. And it's that same desire which prompted you to bother posting this thread, to an extent. I think there's something significant in that. Even the most nihilistic person imaginable holds to their philosophy because they think they get some benefit from it, so their philosophy contradicts itself. 'There is no meaning, so I'll spend all my time thinking about it and trying to convince others of it' - see how that's absurd? How about 'there is no meaning (to the universe), but I can't do anything without it being related to this 'wellbeing' thread anyway, so let's investigate that'? Yeah, the universe doesn't give a shit. But just because nothing matters to the universe doesn't mean things can't matter to you. Things will in fact matter to you regardless (though what things and in what way may well change). If there's no goal, why did you post this thread? Why abide in any given moment? What do you want to do with your freedom? I'm not sure what you mean by 'it', but in any case, I don't think the answer is to swing back into a substantialist lie like 'oh there actually is a soul and it's inherently meaningful in a cosmic way and permanent and special' whatever. The abyss is showing you a side of things people shy away from, and I think you really have the opportunity to go somewhere from here without denying its lessons. When I read your post, I thought of this quote from Nanavira Thera's Clearing the Path:

You might find my post thoughts for beginners helpful. I would suggest to focus on getting to grips with Theravada - without it, you likely won't fully appreciate where Mahayana and Vajrayana pov's and practices are coming from. So basically, learn about the Four Noble Truths, 8fold Path/Three Trainings, Three Characteristics (especially anatta, which trips people up in the start) and get used to doing some shamatha and vipassana before you really look into stuff like emptiness, Buddha-nature, tantra... I haven't read it properly myself, but I hear good things about What the Buddha Taught as an introduction. This translation of the Dhammapada is solid, and the introduction is a quite good intro to Buddhism. (Gil Fronsdal also has a great translation of this text.) In terms of practice, a great place to get started imo is with a shamatha practice such as mindfulness of breathing. Here's a practical guide for getting started on that. (I'd also recommend looking into Leigh Brasington). It's a practice which is easy to get started with and relaxing, but really develops you, goes to profound places in itself, and builds an important foundation for other practices. (Later on, when you feel you've got good shamatha skills, look to Daniel Ingram for vipassana). Best wishes in your toe-dipping!

No, learning to still the mind is part of the 8fold path as 'right concentration'. The Buddha talked about jhanas and advocated becoming skilled in them a great deal, as they are beneficial states and help prepare the mind for wisdom. But in themselves they don't bring awakening. Awakening comes through wisdom. If you just sit in jhana all the time, and never use your strengthened mind to gain wisdom, it's like getting in a ferrari and then... just sitting there. Zen state? I'm no expert on Zen, but I wouldn't say it's just about having a state where your mind is still. Or any state in particular. States are just states, they come and go - wisdom is seeing them as they are, whatever they might be. Not well suited for cultivation. I can imagine someone wanting to be the formless realm for a sort of long holiday, but why would you want to be an animal? Would you choose to lose most of your understanding and ability to reflect on things; to be a predator or prey? Getting your ferrari ready, and then actually driving somewhere. Get skilled in jhana, and then use your strong mind in vipassana to gain wisdom to progress on the path.

If you're just starting to learn what Buddhism is about, perhaps you'll find these tips helpful: http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/42995-thoughts-for-beginners-after-6-years/

So in Buddhism there's two main branches of meditation - shamatha (for training the mind to be clear/concentrated/calm/etc) and vipassana (for gaining insight into the four noble truths). Both are necessary: shamatha (as well as being great in itself) makes the mind better suited to doing vipassana well. Shamatha basically involves placing attention on an object such as the breath, and bringing it back when it wanders. In vipassana, you observe experience closely and objectively. Moment-to-moment, what's going on? Really it's incredibly simple, so simple it might seem pointless, though it's not always easy. As you investigate (by looking, not intellectual reasoning) you see that things are impermanent, arising and ceasing rapidly. You see that things are not self, or owned by one. You can get to see the four noble truths. One method of vipassana which is fairly popular is 'noting', where you apply a short label to things to help you see them in the most objective, simple sort of way, without spinning any extra ideas. Hear a sound - 'hearing'. Headache - 'pain'. Feel bored and frustrated and want to do something else - 'boredom', 'desire'.

Yeah the Buddha was called Siddhartha Gautama. He practiced (shamatha - concentration) meditation until he mastered advanced states of mind, the jhanas. He didn't become awakened, so then he tried harsh austerities instead. After giving up that (deciding on a 'middle way'), he combined concentration meditation with a new approach, vipassana (insight) meditation. Insight meditation showed him the four noble truths, and concentration meditation made his mind sharp enough to do that. I think you mean 'four noble truths', the last of which is the eightfold path. The Buddha did not create these, they are intrinsic to the way experience works - he discovered them. He wasn't necessarily the first being anywhere ever to discover them, nor did he claim to be. 'Buddhism' wouldn't exist without the Buddha, but that which it describes (Dharma) would still be true. Someone else could've found the exact same things, and used different terminology and expressed themselves differently.

Generally true. There is something to be said for not being hasty to claim things or showing off, but that has swung so far now that it's become sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy where people exaggerate how high various attainments are and how impossible it is to achieve them, and thus don't achieve them. The Pragmatic Dharma folks have a better attitude about these things.

Haven't read it, but judging by parts of the wikipedia summary: "Siddhartha does not follow, claiming that the Buddha's philosophy, though supremely wise, does not account for the necessarily distinct experiences of each person. [...] Siddhartha realizes that time is an illusion and that all of his feelings and experiences, even those of suffering, are part of a great and ultimately jubilant fellowship of all things connected in the cyclical unity of nature. [...] Siddhartha replies that for every true statement there is an opposite one that is also true; [...] Siddhartha simply urges people to identify and love the world in its completeness." -Siddhartha from the book isn't Siddhartha Gotama (the Buddha). They are different people with different understandings. -Buddhism deals with the fundamental structures of experience, so while people do have distinct experiences and need to adjust their practice accordingly, all experience follows the same framework (as ice and steam and water are all H2O). -Whether or not time, as a metaphysical thing, is an illusion, is irrelevant. The experience of things arising, changing and ceasing is real. -'Ultimately jubilant fellowship of all things' contradicts the first noble truth. -The opposite of a true statement is false. -Loving sentient beings is good, but 'loving the world in its completeness' sounds like attachment to an idea of a mystical Absolute sort of thing. By all accounts it's a cool book, but I wouldn't consider it Buddhist teaching.

I'd suggest mindfulness of breathing... a profound practice in itself, and sets a foundation for anything else you might want to do. Here's a good guide to get started: http://www.wildmind.org/mindfulness

Yes, emotion is elaborated from feeling. For example the exact same situation could cause many people to have the same type of feeling, but based on their differing life histories and way of thinking and so on they could all have a subtly or not-so-subtly different emotional response. Well the sound itself is just sound. Other factors lead to a certain feeling in response, further factors elaborate that into the emotion. Emotions, like everything else, arise from a complex interplay. Certainly attachment and aversion have roles. All this is just how I see the idea of the skandhas. I can't see quite where your book is coming from on this. Bhikkhu Bodhi also seems to say that emotion involves the forth skandha: I don't see how emotions not arising from conditioning could even be a thing.

Hi, new member! My understanding - the second skandha, vedana (feeling - positive/negative/neutral), refers to something more basic than emotion. It's the immediate liking/disliking/indifference that comes before or alongside the emotion, which is more complex. Emotion is an aspect of the fourth skandha. For example, you hear someone say something unpleasant about you and the process is something like this (numbers = skandhas 1-5): Sound enters ear[1] and ear consciousness arises[5]. The sounds are perceived as words and understood[3, 4]. Negative feeling[2]. Depending on interpretations based on who is talking and the wider social context[4] there may be emotions of sadness or anger or embarrassment, etc[4]. Hopefully that makes things clearer? Though a more important point imo is to bear in mind the purpose for this teaching about the skandhas. The idea isn't to give the one and only way you can put all the stuff that makes a person in different categories. There are lots of ways you could do that. The simplest way would be to use just two categories: 'physical' and 'mental'. Or you could think up as many categories as you wanted. This set of 5 is just a way to be comprehensive but not ridiculously complicated. It doesn't matter as such whether a particular thing is this skandha or that skandha. This is just to help us understand anatta - it makes it easier to see that we are a bunch of processes, and all these processes interacting account for our entire being - without there being any central 'self' or 'perceiver' or 'subject' independent from the rest. As the Buddha says to Bahiya:

It helps to stay mindful if you approach it with a mood of investigation... for example, get curious about the impermanence of everything you're experiencing. The experience of breathing can be broken down into many pulses of air, muscular movements, all really rapidly arising and passing. Each thought - many pulses of mental experience. Same with everything! Does anything last for over a moment? Be curious, try to get to know firsthand how experience works in a nonconceptual, direct, moment-to-moment way. Hope that helps. Welcome to the DB's.

I've been into this stuff for roughly 6 years now. So far I've changed a fair bit and came to see things very differently - partly from just life, of course, but also very much through this path. The first year or two were very interesting and challenging times as I tried to figure things out, adjusting to ideas and practices I'd never encountered before and often found very confusing at first. Looking back on those first steps, here's some of the things that might have helped me find my bearings quicker. If you're starting to be interested in Buddhism, maybe you'll find this helpful. Starting meditation. There are various options for where to start. IMO the most important thing for a beginner is to learn to relax, and make practice a habit. This has all you need to get a shamatha practice going: http://www.wildmind.org/mindfulness. Better 15-20 minutes every day then an hour intermittently. There's no rush. Don't think you're a failure for being 'bad' at this. Meditation is the process of training your mind to be more focused than before. Someone who wanders into a gym for the first time and can't lift like a bodybuilder hasn't 'failed'. Saying 'I can't meditate, I'm too distracted' is a fundamental misunderstanding of the process. The whole point of going to the gym is to get stronger. So what you can't lift twice your body weight yet? Do the practice each day, enjoy it, and see how your mind changes. Try to resist the urge to switch practices too much, or think 'oh this looks cool', 'wait this seems more advanced', 'oh actually this one'... You'll want to try out different things until you find your groove, but give a practice at least 40 days. And don't think that there's some practice out there that fits you perfectly and will make you instantly a Buddha. Focus on the foundation. When I first started looking into these things, I tried to learn everything at once. In retrospect, it's much better to leave emptiness and Buddha-nature and so on to the side until you have a reasonable understanding of the basics underpinning them. Focus primarily [not saying it has to be exclusively] on Theravada/the first turning for a while. Right now I find 'the basics' suit me fine anyway, and others who do practice Zen or Vajrayana or whatever will tell you to learn and respect the first turning anyway. There's no rush to understand everything - get your foundation. Nobody is going to make you sit an exam in two weeks. Learn about the Four Noble Truths. Does 'dukkha' really mean 'suffering', or something more sophisticated than that? What is dependent origination? Are 'craving' and 'desire' the same thing? What is 'sense craving', 'craving for being', 'craving for nonbeing'? It's important to resolve any doubts you have about anatta (you've probably misunderstood something). Why is "what gets reborn" a misguided question? How does all the theory tie together and link to practice? Ask people questions! Translations and reading. If you're reading an old - or even a modern - text, it's using English to get across the meaning as well as possible, and it won't be 100%. There often aren't exact English equivalents for key terms. A lot of people get thrown off by 'suffering', not realizing that this isn't an ideal translation for 'dukkha' because English doesn't have an equivalent word. It can be a good idea to check alternate translations sometimes, and look up the original terms. At some point you'll probably want to read the Dhammapada. For some reason there are really bad high-selling translations out there which really twist the meaning. Two excellent translations are Acharya Buddharakkhita's and Gil Fronsdal's. Go only for translations by practicing Buddhists who know Pali. When it comes to the rest of the Pali Canon, you only really need the suttas: IMHO, the abidhamma and commentaries are more trouble than they're worth. http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/37325-jhana-suttas-vs-commentaries/ When it comes to modern writing, I recommend Ven. Thanissaro, Leigh Brasington and Daniel Ingram. Assumptions to watch out for. You almost certainly carry a lot of preconceptions from pop culture's version of Buddhism and from your own ideas about all sorts of topics. Many of them are so ingrained that you don't know they're there or think that they're just obviously true. For example, when I first looked into Buddhism I took 'no-self' to mean 'no individual self because we are all one' and 'dependent origination' to mean 'because everything is connected we should identify with the whole' - essentially 'there must be a self really' and 'a spiritual tradition must have some sort of ontological absolute'. Reading, asking questions, and most importantly doing practice will gradually set this straight. Be open-minded, curious and skeptical. You will often assume that you understand something fully, or think 'well this is just saying an obvious thing everyone knows', and then over the next few years come to see whole new angles and depths. Phenomenology. I.e. this is primarily about first-person experience [phenomena], not the nature of external reality. This principle will help you understand why Buddha rejected certain questions, like the origin of the universe, as fundamentally beside the point. It will also help you see the theory in a much deeper and more practical light. For example, instead of seeing impermanence in terms like 'someday the sun will run out of hydrogen' or 'the seasons change', see it in terms like 'this itch on my elbow is actually made of many brief flashing sensations'. If you can see impermanence like that, you'll gain the level of insight needed to awaken. I spent a lot of time confusing myself trying to figure out how the mind relates to the body. It took me a long time before I thought to ask myself what I was really hoping to get out of that. Practice > intellect. I'm not saying that intellectual understanding doesn't matter at all - a lot of the advice here is about it. Your intellectual understanding helps prevent you completely getting the wrong end of the stick, guides your practice, clears false ideas and doubts out of the way, and gives you confidence. This is all important, but you can't think your way to awakening. If you find yourself getting stressed about whether X or Y is true, or stressed about a doubt you have over some arcane bit of doctrine that you don't know how to apply to practice anyway, maybe leave it aside, at least for a little while. If you find yourself just having to argue with someone on the internet, or defend yourself against someone arguing with you on the internet, take a breath, cultivate some metta, and let it go. You can do this! Don't put the jhanas and awakening in a magic box labelled 'someday, in a far-flung land of mystery and wonder'. A lot of people - past-me included - by default, without quite thinking about it, treat the attainments described in the texts as things that they don't expect to happen to them, not really. People meditate for 'calm' or 'clarity' or 'insight' - all well and good - but don't actually aspire to personally experience the jhanas or stream-entry. Which is a very strange thing, isn't it, because the Buddha wandered around for 40-odd years teaching people how to get awakened. Of course there is a sense in which trying to 'get' jhanas like they're trophies is spiritual materialism, and who 'gets' awakened anyway, yadda yadda yadda, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. You can do this! --- What do you wish someone had told you when you'd started out?