Samatha vs Vipassina

[C T]

In the past, when there was a curiosity about Goenka's vipassana retreats, I used to think that in some ways the basis of this brand of meditative exercise is quite akin to Gestalt therapy, which might explain why participants often report of a purging effect during the retreat. 

[Spotless]

15 hours ago, dmattwads said:

I was wondering if anyone else has ever felt that after doing either meditation that even if they feel good while doing it, a little while later they feel bad (mentally/emotionally)? I think I am starting to notice this pattern, and this is over the space of several years. 

If you are stopping "at the wall" which for men is typically 35-45minutes into meditation then it is reasonably common to have some fairly thick energies not long afterward.

 

"the wall" is a sort of heavy energy that men will tend to hit around the time given that causes one to think it is a good time to stop - it takes usually about 2-3 minutes to move beyond this energy- though it will definitely feel longer.

 

It is important to stop before hitting this energy or to try to regularly move on through it - ending in this wall is what you wish to avoid.

 

When you move past/through the wall meditation takes on a whole new level - generally one is fully past figetting and in a much cleaner space - stillness and ease become.

 

Women hit this between 15 and 25 minutes typically.

 

At the wall many leave their bodies while a fairly high level of core blocks have become energized.

 

 

[Maddie]

6 hours ago, Spotless said:

If you are stopping "at the wall" which for men is typically 35-45minutes into meditation then it is reasonably common to have some fairly thick energies not long afterward.

 

"the wall" is a sort of heavy energy that men will tend to hit around the time given that causes one to think it is a good time to stop - it takes usually about 2-3 minutes to move beyond this energy- though it will definitely feel longer.

 

It is important to stop before hitting this energy or to try to regularly move on through it - ending in this wall is what you wish to avoid.

 

When you move past/through the wall meditation takes on a whole new level - generally one is fully past figetting and in a much cleaner space - stillness and ease become.

 

Women hit this between 15 and 25 minutes typically.

 

At the wall many leave their bodies while a fairly high level of core blocks have become energized.

 

 

Sometimes I'd go for a couple hours, that wasn't the problem. It was afterwards, often for days feeling emotionally awful. 

[blue eyed snake]

20 hours ago, dmattwads said:

Thanks... I've actually taken a few days off from meditation to see what happens, and this has been my observation. The feelings have become less intense, I'm still aware of them but they are not so acute. I'm sure to some degree I probably identify with the feelings but I don't think that is the main issue. Its like I got my leg stuck in a bear trap, I don't think the bear trap is me, but it still hurts like hell lol. 

 

 

I've always much trouble finding the right words for what i want to say,

 

I can relate to your bear-trap though. What I tried to say that is that there will come a moment that you will not have your leg in a bear-trap. But that you observe that once, very long ago, not threatening or painful anymore. there was someone, carrying your name. Who had his leg in a bear-trap.

[C T]

1 hour ago, dmattwads said:

Sometimes I'd go for a couple hours, that wasn't the problem. It was afterwards, often for days feeling emotionally awful. 

 

One possible explanation is that you've somehow decided to take the longer way home. The shorter and more assured way is to first investigate what is the one that remains prone to such emotional sways, and what are the accessible antidotes to remove the root of such vulnerability, provided that you acknowledge it is an obstacle - if not, then your practice does not accord with the basic approach to Buddhist liberation, and it will be unlikely that you'd become free of the idea that these emotional arisings are real and that they somehow repeatedly manifest each time you enter and exit the practices. 

[Spotless]

4 hours ago, dmattwads said:

Sometimes I'd go for a couple hours, that wasn't the problem. It was afterwards, often for days feeling emotionally awful. 

 

Often meditation takes us beyond habituated patterns - whole parts of what were staid complex frequency fields on which we hung our identities and story break up and we can feel physically out of sorts for weeks and months.

 

This is part of the intentional suffering we do in real practice - we actively break up stuck but ego safe staid patterns of self identity 

 

It is also possible that while we are doing the above we may also end our meditation and even do our meditation with our 'house' wide open: it is often thought that one of the objectives is to open up our chakras during meditation and clear ourselves - engineering our energies. This will definitely result in all sorts of maladies and often the onset of long term disorders. ( i dont think this is the case for you)

 

If one meditates in trance - it is very important to come out of trance at the end of a session and fully ground into embodiment.

This is definitely not a space in which ones chakras hang out fully open.

 

If you are meditating from Trance you may wish to look at meditation out of trance. Humans typically live nearly their entire life in trance - so it is helpful for a time to truly understand trance but it is much more helpful to exercise ones embodiment out of trance and in stillness. Trance stillness is easy to achieve - and not much different than sleep.

 

 

[Maddie]

I'm sure the things that have been said are relevant, but I think a lot of what it is, is dredging up a lot of suppressed stuff from a very abusive childhood.

[Spotless]

11 minutes ago, dmattwads said:

I'm sure the things that have been said are relevant, but I think a lot of what it is, is dredging up a lot of suppressed stuff from a very abusive childhood.

Precisely what I mentioned in:

Often meditation takes us beyond habituated patterns - whole parts of what were staid complex frequency fields on which we hung our identities and story break up and we can feel physically out of sorts for weeks and months

[Apech]

Couple of points about vipassana and shamatha from the perspective of mahamudra.  And in response to dmattwads comments above.

 

What is said that obscures meditation are karmas, habitual formations and conflicting emotions.  So - stuff from the past, our own obsessions and addictions and our confused emotional responses.  So its not really surprising that meditation can cause some 'backlash' - though I would say that this is usually part of the purification process - so all that shit has to come out and it can be painful.  The best way i have found to deal with emotional states is to study them.  That is you look at them without trying to change them - and you ask yourself where did this arise from, is it durable/permanent and when it subsides where does it go or what does it leave.  Particularly if you just look at them intently without trying to change them - you will notice right away that they are changed and that they keep morphing as you examine them.  This means they are temporary fluid structures (anger, hate, jealousy and so on) which only arise out of a complex of causes.  When you see this you can let them go and they naturally start to dissolve.  Its not very easy to do this but effective I have found.

 

In mahamudra there is both vipassana and shamatha - but I would say they are reconceived slightly.  That is shamatha is resting in the mind as it is and vipassana is examining the mind as it is.  What is said about this is that they are not really two.  So for instance to do shamatha effectively you cannot just rest - which would risk dullness/sleep and so on - but you have to check how settled you mind is - so in shamatha there is an element of vipassana (which means something like vivid looking). Similarly in vipassana its helpful not to have a scattered mind to practice so in looking at mind there is an element where you are stilling it also.   So the two work hand in hand rather than being alternatives.

[C T]

Online course starting Jan 15 that the OP might be interested to explore due to the relevance of the subject matter - 

 

https://learn.tricycle.org/courses/rain?utm_source=FBPI&https%3A%2F%2Fgoo.gl%2FS8mgc3

[Eden]

Shamatha is honing your attention to one object and leaving it there, Vipassana is seeing all the objects coming through the six sense doors (hearing, tasting, seeing, thought, etc) and noticing them, noticing their characteristics. Shamatha sets the stage for true vipassana to happen in an unbroken manner... You can also develop shamatha simultaneously with developing vipassana and insight... an example is Mahasi Sayadaw style noting of sensations arising and passing, and just doing that in a concentrated and unbroken manner will develop shamatha/concentration... but having a dedicated shamatha practice is a bit easier, as you are simply choosing just one object, like the breath, or a candle flame, and concentrating on that... If your mind wanders from the object to other objects of awareness, you just bring it back... eventually the mind becomes settled enough that you can become absorbed in the chosen object... Thats when you wield your concentrated mind and like a flash light that lights up sensations more clearly, you begin to notice the characteristics of all sensations... i.e. no-self, impermanent, not ultimately that satisfying. They seem to be happening on their own, not necessarily to anyone... just twinkling in and out of existence and not lasting for but a moment... this changes the whole game with disturbing emotions if you see that they don't really exist but for a moment... Rather than being stuck in a depression for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months... vipassana dis-assembles things into their parts and somehow that is really liberating.

[Mark Foote]

On 12/28/2017 at 11:36 AM, dmattwads said:

 Lately I have been thinking that the Samatha approach is better for me as I feel pretty good from doing it, whereas after doing the Vipassina method I often tend to feel agitated. I'm sure other people may have had other experiences but I am speculating that having endured a lot of childhood trauma in my early years perhaps Vipassina isn't the best for me. Can anyone relate? 

 

 

Keep in mind that the order split into Theravadin and Mahayana over whether or not an enlightened individual could have a wet dream, about 150 years after Gautama's death.  I'm serious, that was the issue they couldn't agree on--it's not about wisdom versus concentration, that's just something invented after the fact to explain the schism (you can find it in A.K. Warder's "Indian Buddhism"). 

 

If a teaching is really consistent with the oldest historical record of what Gautama taught (the first four Nikayas in the Pali sermon volumes), then it's about the cessation of habitual or willful activity, whether it's Theravadin or Zen. 

 

Seated meditation is going to involve thought applied and sustained at times, but thought applied and sustained also ceases.  Each aspect of Gautama's mindfulness was intimately associated with in-breathing or out-breathing--if you ask me that is what's unique about Gautama's teaching--and freeing the direction of mind in in-breathing or out-breathing was a part of Gautama's way of living (I can quote the chapter and verse, if you like).  One of sixteen aspects of setting up mindfulness that comprised his way of living, so it goes around and it comes around.

 

There are other senses involved for me when I sit (equalibrioception, proprioception, graviception), and I emphasize them and free the location of my awareness; not the object of my awareness, but the location of awareness itself.

 

Being aware of the stretch helps me relax into my body; being aware that my happiness depends on a natural breath helps me let go of activity.  I can usually sink into a stretch for awhile, and find a spontaneous breath in the midst of a stretch, but about 35 minutes and I'm cooked. 

 

I wouldn't sit for more than 50 minutes or an hour.  The guy I know who sat 50 minutes in the lotus 14 times a day for five days every month is sitting in a chair now, and he grew up in Japan--I wouldn't press it that hard! 

 

Shunryu Suzuki told Blanche Hartman:

"Don't ever think that you can sit zazen! That's a big mistake! Zazen sits zazen!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gerard]

Honestly none...

 

Wait.

 

Until you get a solid body-mind foundation; that is:

 

A healthy body that can cope with the demands of pure still meditation where the mind solely matters.

 

Bear in mind that Buddhism was developed by an extraordinary individual who was born 2,500 years ago in a planet very pure and peaceful far from what we have today. Almost no body blockages hence the body was an irrelevant issue in Buddha's system.

 

Focus on IMA training and do seated meditation as a secondary practice.

 

Good luck

 

 

[C T]

Saying the body was an irrelevant issue during the time of the Buddha is incorrect. 

 

Gerard: A healthy body that can cope with the demands of pure still meditation where the mind solely matters.

This is basically what Shakyamuni proposed, which matches whats been outlined above. At the time of initial illumination, he found asceticism and other forms of physical mortification not conducive to meditation. 

[Boundlesscostfairy]

The way, the tao and an everflowing love of beauty.

 

Breathwork.. and vipassana.. are the elite levels in Buddhism..

 

Buddhas that acknowledge loss and wins.. as in wind meditation..despise of anything isnt Buddhist as it is an attachment to the negative is.

 

Blue blood chalk.. and the soul yoke of the soul.. which wants to paint pictures..

 

Similar to Dali's Geopoliticus child.

 

Breathwork and the way..

 

Even vipassana has objevtives and therefore objects of meditation.. the insight itself is an object.. and the one who holds insight.. the witness and observer are objects as well..! 

 

Thus to relieve oneself from object identification leads to non self and non existence..

 

Thus is the Cancer(The Crab) true at midnight sorting through his beads of wisdom.. each one being a divine pearl of wisdom and himself as understanding!

 

Each to their own.. how can we even have morals when there is non self..

 

Thou I doubt many people reach that state!

[Mark Foote]

And so, Ananda, I have taught directed meditation; and I have taught undirected meditation. Whatever is to be done by a teacher with compassion for the welfare of students, that has been done by me out of compassion for you. Here are the roots of trees. Here are empty places...

 

SN 47.10

PTS: S v 154

CDB ii 1638

Bhikkhunupassaya Sutta

 

Glad for zafus, am I!

[Gerard]

On 17/01/2018 at 8:10 PM, C T said:

This is basically what Shakyamuni proposed, which matches whats been outlined above. At the time of initial illumination, he found asceticism and other forms of physical mortification not conducive to meditation. 

 

 

I didn’t know it was outlined above because honestly and didn’t thread the entire thread only the OP’s first post. But in that case it’s excellent news. However, following the historical Buddha’s path is very dangerous, not the philosophical/spiritual aspect obviously, because we live in a totally different world...also the Buddha walked everywhere. Cars, trains, buses, subway, planes? What on earth is that?! He wouldn’t have believed those things were going to be used for transportation 2,000 years later. 

 

Leys adapt Buddhism to the modern world and for that Taoism is the best vehicle. Thank ‘God’ for that!

 

Buddhism + Taoism work along quite nicely. Aren’t we all here into this combined path anyway?

 

 

 

[C T]

1 hour ago, Gerard said:

 

 

 

Buddhism + Taoism work along quite nicely. Aren’t we all here into this combined path anyway?

 

 

 

 

Maybe 

[Boundlesscostfairy]

Yes We are for the most part or at least I am..

 

Lets start right now with basic ideas..

 

I have the primal belief which is of Taoism.. that we always need to go with the flow of the moment.. which would work on any ride.. a bus a train or car.. so the vehicle of meditation.. can be taken with you whenever you want.. 

 

I call it meditation on the go..

 

What are some theories of Buddhism that should be made up to date?