Gautama, Siddhārtha. Dislike him. A cheap nihilist, insipid and foolhardy. A pied piper, pathological narcissist and a cloying moralist. Some of his modern disciples are extraordinarily amusing. Nobody takes his claims about remembering past lives seriously.
Majjhima Nikāya. His best work, though an obvious and shameless imitation of Yājñavalkya's "Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad"
Dīgha Nikāya. Dislike it intensely.
Dhammapada. Dislike it intensely. Ghastly rigmarole
Is there an equivalent to the Pre-Socratics and Plato that you gotta read before you head into specific schools of Indian philosophy, or do they just all start off with their own traditions and writings, with no common ground or root to think of everything as diverging from?
Volume one or the introductory chapters of Surendranath Dasgupta's History of Indian Philosophy and the introductory chapters of Geoffrey Samuels' Origins of Yoga and Tantra would set you up pretty well
> s there an equivalent to the Pre-Socratics and Plato that you gotta read before you head into specific schools of Indian philosophy
The Upanishads, especially the early pre-Buddhist Upanishads.
>or do they just all start off with their own traditions and writings, with no common ground or root to think of everything as diverging from?
Well, Buddhists and Jains like to believe that the teachings of their traditions were independent of the Upanishads, but the only problem is that the Upanishads are the only pre-Buddhist and pre-Jain texts we know of that talk about the ideas found in Buddhism and Jainism, and ‘dharmic’ ideas in general. The more parsimonious explanation is that these kinds of general ‘dharmic’ ideas like karma, rebith, liberation etc come from the Upanishads and then directly and indirectly made their way from the Upanishads into other schools both Hindu and non-Hindu, but non-Hindus generally loathe to admit this.
The Buddhists wrote down their stuff first and their own scriptures are sometimes the earliest or only extant sources on some sects and schools of Indian philosophy/religion. That said, the oral tradition of the Vedas predates Buddha, and significant portions of the nikayas (earliest canonical Buddhist texts) reference, oppose, and redefine ideas from either the Brahminical/Vedic religion (village priests officiating a theistic religion centered on ritual, sacrifice, recitations) or from the sramanas (ascetic, often wandering holy men, who could be Brahmin, Jain, Ajivika (extinct), etc... some similarity to pre-Socratics in that sense, these are also the gymnosophists encountered by Alexander's expedition). Some of this background is briefly covered in Gombrich's book on Theravada Buddhism, and the introductions in the English translations of the nikayas published by Wisdom. I don't think you need to have read the Upanishads as a pre-requisite unless you are interested more in the history of ideas or of scholastic philosophy. Certainly no Buddhist missionary to Gandhara or China or Tibet (or California) carried a copy of the Upanishads with him as introductory material to offer those interested in Buddhism and its soteriological claims.
>Start with the Buddha
which one, the one the mahayanists made up, or the one the hinayanists made up? Or the one the mahasanghikas made up? Or the one the <one of 100s of buddhist schools. here> made up?
>Made Up Writings
Every religion has this "problem;" you can either accept what the tradition says about the writings and decide if you find them valuable, or insist that they are false because of philological reasons and refuse to see any value in them
You shouldn't be reading anything. Just go find a living teacher who has experienced at least stream entry and learn from them. Try a ten day retreat with the Dhamma Sukkha center (the online one if you can't make it in person). You can soon verify the truth of things for yourself.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Dhamma Sukkha
wtf did u just call me? ive played with enough russians online to know that you just called me a bad word
2 years ago
Anonymous
How do you find a teacher that has attained stream entry?
2 years ago
Anonymous
Just do a retreat with an experienced monk. Stream entry is almost unavoidable if you persistently meditate in a monastic environment, so pretty much all of the senior monks have experienced it. You do want to pick a teacher that teaches the jhanas however, because its hard to enter the stream without experiencing them.
>how do I enter the stream
1. Associate with people of integrity
2. Listen to the true Dhamma
3. Exercise appropriate attention
4. Practice in accordance with the true Dhamma
>or experience a jhana
"There is the case where an individual, withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities, enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation."
So the trick is to abandon sensuality and unskillful qualities (usually understood as the five hindrances) being careful not to mistake abandonment for suppression (since that would be a kind of aversion). Pleasure and rapture will then arise automatically as a consequence of the withdrawal. Imagine trying to smell a flower in the midst of a garbage heap. Withdrawing from the heap, the smell of the flower--which was always there, suddenly becomes strong and clear. Likewise the pleasure and rapture (and all the other factors as you progress through the jhanas).
I actually recommend trying lying meditation first because it's much easier to relax and get into the jhanas. just do it at a time when you are alert so you don't fall asleep.
As I understand it true Dhamma is just Samma Ditthi, Right View, i.e the four noble truths, the three perceptions and the law of kamma. The last noble truth, magga, is just "this Eightfold path". To follow the path is therefore to practice in accordance with the true Dhamma.
It's really not that complicated. I would say the real difficulty is in Right Action (i.e maintaining the five precepts) more than Right Concentration and of course the two are complementary. For example, you'll quickly discover that all of your hindrances arise because at some point in the past you broke one of the precepts (the doctrine of kamma would say this extends to actions taken even before you were born into this present existence, but certainly there plenty of examples within this existence for your to contend with). The precepts are really best understood when connected to the hindrances. It's not just about not killing, for example, but about not harming oneself or other beings (because this gives rise to ill-will). It's not just about physical intoxicants like alcohol which dull the mind but mental intoxicants like television (which gives rise to sloth and torpor). It's not just about avoiding sexual misconduct but also avoiding situations and environments that incite lust (which gives rise to restlessness and sensual desire). And so on.
Because the work of jhana is about withdrawal from the hindrances, much of it just pre-emptive, just changes in lifestyle. This is why people will see rapid progress in a retreat and then lose most of it afterwards. It's just kamma. You change the causes and conditions and the effects will follow "like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox"
2 years ago
Anonymous
You're right, it's extremely hard to uphold the precepts. Especially when you start interpreting them more broadly, like you did in your post. Does the first precept require vegetarianism, for example? Or even veganism, since factory farming no doubt produces a lot of suffering? Does refraining from drugs and intoxicants include things like coffee, tea, or even sugar and high calorie foods that cause fatigue and dullness? Does sexual misconduct include masturbation? And so on.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I wouldn't go so far as to create hard rules from the precepts. It's more about using it as a general guideline with which to explore your own reactions to things. If you feel guilty about eating animals or have a particular craving for eating meat then a period of abstinence may be helpful in uprooting those tendencies. But if you could quit eating meat tomorrow with no problems, then it probably shouldn't be a top priority. (And while the Buddha did say that engaging in butchery or animal slaughter was part of Wrong Livelihood, he did not practice vegetarianism since he got all his food from alms and ate whatever was put in his bowl). Likewise with things like junk food or stimulants.
Also the precepts are more like a taxonomy than commandments. They are tool to help you quickly identify what you're doing that's giving rise to the hindrance that arises in meditation. Whatever hindrances keep arising in meditation---that's what you should focus your energies on. In a certain sense, they are your best guide.
2 years ago
Anonymous
This makes more sense. Using the precepts as a guide to figure out my strongest attachments does seem way more insightful than interpreting them as strictly as possible. Thanks for clarifying
Also, how do you avoid getting caught up in the "samsaric" influences others might have on you through their lifestyle, especially when you have a job, live in a city, and so on? It might seem like something inconsequential, but there've been several times where it clicked inside of me that I had been stuck in some kind of torpor for months and had to re-center myself lest I get lost in worthless pursuits.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah this is why the monk life is the fastest path to release and why the Buddha begins most his discussions about meditation with the refrain "having gone to the wilderness, to the shade of a tree, or to an empty building" i.e away from society.
But it's not entirely hopeless. You can make incremental changes to your environment to better keep the precepts. You can associate with more wholesome people (one of the factors of stream entry). You can be more diligent about your practice, trying to extend it beyond the sit. It's not easy but if you persist, things will begin to shift little by little toward the wholesome---it has to, by the doctrine of kamma. Everything complements everything else. Your meditation practice sharpens your mindfulness which makes it easier to tell when you're about to do something that will give rise to a hindrance later and not do it which will help you get deeper in your meditation which will give rise to jhanic states which will help you abandon craving for sensual pleasures which will make it easier to keep the precepts which will cause hindrances to arise less often etc. etc. The doctrine of kamma means that nothing is ever done in vain, no matter how small, for good or ill.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I'd like to drop everything and live in seclusion, I could do it if I really wanted, but there are people counting on me for the time being so I don't know what to do.
The practice itself is difficult too. Basically it feels like a lack of clarity in everything, even during meditation there's this haze that I can never really break through. I guess we really are stuck in ignorance deeper than we can even imagine.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I'm in a similar situation to you. I got married before I discovered the Dhamma and now I have responsibilities that I can't abandon without also harming others. Not only that but my family is of a different faith (and dogmatic about it) and I basically have to practice in secret in order to avoid unnecessary conflict. At some point, I expect I'll be able to untangle myself from these responsibilities (hopefully I stay alive till then) but in the meantime I can't take any of that as an excuse not to practice. Don't forget how precious this life is, how rare it is to be a human being of sound mind and health, who has heard the true Dhamma and has the opportunity and desire to practice it. Remind yourself of all the causes and conditions that had to have happened for you to arrive here. Ignorance is indeed deep, but your very interest in the Dhamma and your desire to practice it indicates that you are ripe. Very likely you can achieve stream entry (at the very least) in this very life, even as a layperson. If so, why wait?
Also, regarding your meditation: you may be forcing things too much (a form of craving or aversion). I recommend trying out TWIM for a week or two. Their emphasis on relaxation and taking metta as the object really helps to quickly and effortlessly reach the jhanas.
2 years ago
Anonymous
You're entangled even deeper than me it seems, your situation sounds tricky. Yet you seem to have a solid and grounded practice and understanding. Have you ever gone on retreats? >how precious this life is
This is the thing, the sense of urgency that permeates this life considering everything has aligned perfectly for it to be a good opportunity to practice: a life not so bad that suffering makes the dhamma impossible to practice, yet not so pleasant that I would have no interest in it in the first place.
I really do hope stream entry is achievable in this life. As for forcing, it might be the opposite, I feel like I'm not focused enough, even my practice is irregular and not as disciplined as it should be. Also, like many people (especially westerners), I am probably expecting results too much.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I haven't had the opportunity to go on physical retreats but I've done two 10-day online retreats (where you check-in every day with an instructor, watch Dhamma talks, and report your practice). Those helped me attain some of the arupa jhanas which convinced me of the validity of this practice through direct experience.
By forcing I mean the craving for the meditation to go a certain way or for yourself to be a certain way from the beginning. This is different from "chanda", the wholesome interest in and desire to practice the Dhamma (which often arises from "samvega", the sense of urgency you described). Basically you're putting the cart before the horse. I had the same issue of meditating inconsistently. The way I got out of it was simple: I made it so it was harder to find an excuse not to do it. I lowered the "daily meditation quota" to just five minutes and kept track of how many days in a row I could do. Within a month, I had firmly established a daily routine, not missing a single day, and although I kept that quota at 5 minutes, I was regularly sitting for half an hour or more by the end. It took about six months for it grow to an hour per sit. Nowadays I try to do two sits of ninety minutes each (it helps that I can meditate while lying down now, without falling asleep). The quota is still just five minutes though. The longest streak I ever had was something like sixty days. I also do walking meditation, at least 30 minutes every day.
The key though, is keeping the precepts. All the meditation and jhanas in the world won't help you if you aren't changing your behavior. The same hindrances will just keep arising. This is the main obstacle for me now and it's something I'm working on.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Do you generally report your progress to a teacher in order to receive help and pointers? Or maybe that's only done in Vajrayana since the teacher-student relationship is central there. >craving for the meditation to go a certain way
There are some reasonable expectations to be had though right? If your mind drifts and wanders and you end up falling into a hypnagogic state, obviously that's not good. So expectations for some kind of focused and equanimous state seem reasonable. And not managing to reach that state is frustrating.
The five minutes thing seems like a really good way to build a consistent habit, thanks. Do you usually practice in the morning, at night, or with no specific schedule in mind? >changing your behavior
Yes. When you feel those hindrances arise (anger, lust, craving for a particular experience...), do you ignore it until it goes away?
2 years ago
Anonymous
I did report progress during my online retreats. I will still sometimes contact them for support and advice. If you can learn from a teacher in person, that is even better. Yuttadhammo for example runs an online sangha where he has regular one-on-one video chats with his students. He teaches Vipassana however and I've never found much success with that method. The Dhamma Sukka center also runs online Dhamma meetings where you can ask questions (or email the instructors).
By having expectations toward the meditation, as with expectations toward anything, you are setting yourself up for craving and aversion. It's not that craving and aversion are themselves intrinsically bad, they are after all just feelings, but rather that they lead directly to suffering. In particular, it is those expectations which result in a negative feedback loop where you don't want to meditate because your expectations are not being met.
But it's easy to say "don't have expectations". Lowering your expectations is probably more feasible, e.g doing the five minute quota method that I mentioned. Your attitude toward the mediation also counts. Regard it like a curious scientist regards an experiment, rather than as a sportsman regards his sport. You know the protocol of the experiment. You run it, observe the results and then change the protocol accordingly. If you have any expectations, they are only in the form of hypothesis to be tested (and discarded if they prove false). This way, you don't discouraged when the experiment gives you results other than what you expected but in fact the surprise encourages you to continue experimenting. That surprise is nothing less than discovery and learning taking place---what the Buddha might call "insight".
I practice once in the morning, just after waking (usually while stilly lying down) and once at night, sitting and then lying down when I get tired. Also a walk in the afternoon.
It's only recently that I figured out how to handle the hindrances in such a way that they actually lead to behavioral change. The process of 6Rs recommended by TWIM (which is just a short-hand for Right Effort) is what eventually did the trick. At this point it's just a matter of persistence, but I can already see cracks forming in a lot of my past habitual tendencies.
The doctrine of kamma indicates rebirth not reincarnation. It's the process of consciousness arising and passing away. It happens so fast that you perceive it as something continuous, but in fact, it's a discrete process. In the deeper states of mediation, things slow down enough that you can actually see this process for yourself, it manifests as a kind of visual flickering or popping sound.
Dhammapada should be required reading
Gautama, Siddhārtha. Dislike him. A cheap nihilist, insipid and foolhardy. A pied piper, pathological narcissist and a cloying moralist. Some of his modern disciples are extraordinarily amusing. Nobody takes his claims about remembering past lives seriously.
Majjhima Nikāya. His best work, though an obvious and shameless imitation of Yājñavalkya's "Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad"
Dīgha Nikāya. Dislike it intensely.
Dhammapada. Dislike it intensely. Ghastly rigmarole
>some russian pedophile vs. the enlightened one
>nihilist
Filtered.
dude this is just the guy who wrote of e-girlta, why we should take anything he has to say about buddhism seriously?
>nihilist
modern western philosophy is mental illness
I love you Nabokov poster
Read the Bhadammanara and didn't really get it. Why do Buddhists take issue with barter?
Do the needful, sirs. Start with the 'Jeets.
Is there an equivalent to the Pre-Socratics and Plato that you gotta read before you head into specific schools of Indian philosophy, or do they just all start off with their own traditions and writings, with no common ground or root to think of everything as diverging from?
Volume one or the introductory chapters of Surendranath Dasgupta's History of Indian Philosophy and the introductory chapters of Geoffrey Samuels' Origins of Yoga and Tantra would set you up pretty well
Start with the early Indus Valley civilization.
They have no surviving written ‘literature’, only random stamps and seals and such in an undeciphered script
decipher the stamps
> s there an equivalent to the Pre-Socratics and Plato that you gotta read before you head into specific schools of Indian philosophy
The Upanishads, especially the early pre-Buddhist Upanishads.
>or do they just all start off with their own traditions and writings, with no common ground or root to think of everything as diverging from?
Well, Buddhists and Jains like to believe that the teachings of their traditions were independent of the Upanishads, but the only problem is that the Upanishads are the only pre-Buddhist and pre-Jain texts we know of that talk about the ideas found in Buddhism and Jainism, and ‘dharmic’ ideas in general. The more parsimonious explanation is that these kinds of general ‘dharmic’ ideas like karma, rebith, liberation etc come from the Upanishads and then directly and indirectly made their way from the Upanishads into other schools both Hindu and non-Hindu, but non-Hindus generally loathe to admit this.
The Buddhists wrote down their stuff first and their own scriptures are sometimes the earliest or only extant sources on some sects and schools of Indian philosophy/religion. That said, the oral tradition of the Vedas predates Buddha, and significant portions of the nikayas (earliest canonical Buddhist texts) reference, oppose, and redefine ideas from either the Brahminical/Vedic religion (village priests officiating a theistic religion centered on ritual, sacrifice, recitations) or from the sramanas (ascetic, often wandering holy men, who could be Brahmin, Jain, Ajivika (extinct), etc... some similarity to pre-Socratics in that sense, these are also the gymnosophists encountered by Alexander's expedition). Some of this background is briefly covered in Gombrich's book on Theravada Buddhism, and the introductions in the English translations of the nikayas published by Wisdom. I don't think you need to have read the Upanishads as a pre-requisite unless you are interested more in the history of ideas or of scholastic philosophy. Certainly no Buddhist missionary to Gandhara or China or Tibet (or California) carried a copy of the Upanishads with him as introductory material to offer those interested in Buddhism and its soteriological claims.
Start with Han Fei.
>Start with the Buddha
which one, the one the mahayanists made up, or the one the hinayanists made up? Or the one the mahasanghikas made up? Or the one the <one of 100s of buddhist schools. here> made up?
The one you can become through direct experience of cessation.
cool, which Made Up Writings of the Buddha™ should I read for starters
>Made Up Writings
Every religion has this "problem;" you can either accept what the tradition says about the writings and decide if you find them valuable, or insist that they are false because of philological reasons and refuse to see any value in them
You shouldn't be reading anything. Just go find a living teacher who has experienced at least stream entry and learn from them. Try a ten day retreat with the Dhamma Sukkha center (the online one if you can't make it in person). You can soon verify the truth of things for yourself.
>Dhamma Sukkha
wtf did u just call me? ive played with enough russians online to know that you just called me a bad word
How do you find a teacher that has attained stream entry?
Just do a retreat with an experienced monk. Stream entry is almost unavoidable if you persistently meditate in a monastic environment, so pretty much all of the senior monks have experienced it. You do want to pick a teacher that teaches the jhanas however, because its hard to enter the stream without experiencing them.
just take mushrooms
how do I enter the stream or experience a jhana
>how do I enter the stream
1. Associate with people of integrity
2. Listen to the true Dhamma
3. Exercise appropriate attention
4. Practice in accordance with the true Dhamma
>or experience a jhana
"There is the case where an individual, withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful qualities, enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation."
So the trick is to abandon sensuality and unskillful qualities (usually understood as the five hindrances) being careful not to mistake abandonment for suppression (since that would be a kind of aversion). Pleasure and rapture will then arise automatically as a consequence of the withdrawal. Imagine trying to smell a flower in the midst of a garbage heap. Withdrawing from the heap, the smell of the flower--which was always there, suddenly becomes strong and clear. Likewise the pleasure and rapture (and all the other factors as you progress through the jhanas).
I actually recommend trying lying meditation first because it's much easier to relax and get into the jhanas. just do it at a time when you are alert so you don't fall asleep.
What is the true dhamma and the associated practice? I feel like even basic attainments require years of practice and I don't know where to start
As I understand it true Dhamma is just Samma Ditthi, Right View, i.e the four noble truths, the three perceptions and the law of kamma. The last noble truth, magga, is just "this Eightfold path". To follow the path is therefore to practice in accordance with the true Dhamma.
It's really not that complicated. I would say the real difficulty is in Right Action (i.e maintaining the five precepts) more than Right Concentration and of course the two are complementary. For example, you'll quickly discover that all of your hindrances arise because at some point in the past you broke one of the precepts (the doctrine of kamma would say this extends to actions taken even before you were born into this present existence, but certainly there plenty of examples within this existence for your to contend with). The precepts are really best understood when connected to the hindrances. It's not just about not killing, for example, but about not harming oneself or other beings (because this gives rise to ill-will). It's not just about physical intoxicants like alcohol which dull the mind but mental intoxicants like television (which gives rise to sloth and torpor). It's not just about avoiding sexual misconduct but also avoiding situations and environments that incite lust (which gives rise to restlessness and sensual desire). And so on.
Because the work of jhana is about withdrawal from the hindrances, much of it just pre-emptive, just changes in lifestyle. This is why people will see rapid progress in a retreat and then lose most of it afterwards. It's just kamma. You change the causes and conditions and the effects will follow "like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox"
You're right, it's extremely hard to uphold the precepts. Especially when you start interpreting them more broadly, like you did in your post. Does the first precept require vegetarianism, for example? Or even veganism, since factory farming no doubt produces a lot of suffering? Does refraining from drugs and intoxicants include things like coffee, tea, or even sugar and high calorie foods that cause fatigue and dullness? Does sexual misconduct include masturbation? And so on.
I wouldn't go so far as to create hard rules from the precepts. It's more about using it as a general guideline with which to explore your own reactions to things. If you feel guilty about eating animals or have a particular craving for eating meat then a period of abstinence may be helpful in uprooting those tendencies. But if you could quit eating meat tomorrow with no problems, then it probably shouldn't be a top priority. (And while the Buddha did say that engaging in butchery or animal slaughter was part of Wrong Livelihood, he did not practice vegetarianism since he got all his food from alms and ate whatever was put in his bowl). Likewise with things like junk food or stimulants.
Also the precepts are more like a taxonomy than commandments. They are tool to help you quickly identify what you're doing that's giving rise to the hindrance that arises in meditation. Whatever hindrances keep arising in meditation---that's what you should focus your energies on. In a certain sense, they are your best guide.
This makes more sense. Using the precepts as a guide to figure out my strongest attachments does seem way more insightful than interpreting them as strictly as possible. Thanks for clarifying
Also, how do you avoid getting caught up in the "samsaric" influences others might have on you through their lifestyle, especially when you have a job, live in a city, and so on? It might seem like something inconsequential, but there've been several times where it clicked inside of me that I had been stuck in some kind of torpor for months and had to re-center myself lest I get lost in worthless pursuits.
Yeah this is why the monk life is the fastest path to release and why the Buddha begins most his discussions about meditation with the refrain "having gone to the wilderness, to the shade of a tree, or to an empty building" i.e away from society.
But it's not entirely hopeless. You can make incremental changes to your environment to better keep the precepts. You can associate with more wholesome people (one of the factors of stream entry). You can be more diligent about your practice, trying to extend it beyond the sit. It's not easy but if you persist, things will begin to shift little by little toward the wholesome---it has to, by the doctrine of kamma. Everything complements everything else. Your meditation practice sharpens your mindfulness which makes it easier to tell when you're about to do something that will give rise to a hindrance later and not do it which will help you get deeper in your meditation which will give rise to jhanic states which will help you abandon craving for sensual pleasures which will make it easier to keep the precepts which will cause hindrances to arise less often etc. etc. The doctrine of kamma means that nothing is ever done in vain, no matter how small, for good or ill.
I'd like to drop everything and live in seclusion, I could do it if I really wanted, but there are people counting on me for the time being so I don't know what to do.
The practice itself is difficult too. Basically it feels like a lack of clarity in everything, even during meditation there's this haze that I can never really break through. I guess we really are stuck in ignorance deeper than we can even imagine.
I'm in a similar situation to you. I got married before I discovered the Dhamma and now I have responsibilities that I can't abandon without also harming others. Not only that but my family is of a different faith (and dogmatic about it) and I basically have to practice in secret in order to avoid unnecessary conflict. At some point, I expect I'll be able to untangle myself from these responsibilities (hopefully I stay alive till then) but in the meantime I can't take any of that as an excuse not to practice. Don't forget how precious this life is, how rare it is to be a human being of sound mind and health, who has heard the true Dhamma and has the opportunity and desire to practice it. Remind yourself of all the causes and conditions that had to have happened for you to arrive here. Ignorance is indeed deep, but your very interest in the Dhamma and your desire to practice it indicates that you are ripe. Very likely you can achieve stream entry (at the very least) in this very life, even as a layperson. If so, why wait?
Also, regarding your meditation: you may be forcing things too much (a form of craving or aversion). I recommend trying out TWIM for a week or two. Their emphasis on relaxation and taking metta as the object really helps to quickly and effortlessly reach the jhanas.
You're entangled even deeper than me it seems, your situation sounds tricky. Yet you seem to have a solid and grounded practice and understanding. Have you ever gone on retreats?
>how precious this life is
This is the thing, the sense of urgency that permeates this life considering everything has aligned perfectly for it to be a good opportunity to practice: a life not so bad that suffering makes the dhamma impossible to practice, yet not so pleasant that I would have no interest in it in the first place.
I really do hope stream entry is achievable in this life. As for forcing, it might be the opposite, I feel like I'm not focused enough, even my practice is irregular and not as disciplined as it should be. Also, like many people (especially westerners), I am probably expecting results too much.
I haven't had the opportunity to go on physical retreats but I've done two 10-day online retreats (where you check-in every day with an instructor, watch Dhamma talks, and report your practice). Those helped me attain some of the arupa jhanas which convinced me of the validity of this practice through direct experience.
By forcing I mean the craving for the meditation to go a certain way or for yourself to be a certain way from the beginning. This is different from "chanda", the wholesome interest in and desire to practice the Dhamma (which often arises from "samvega", the sense of urgency you described). Basically you're putting the cart before the horse. I had the same issue of meditating inconsistently. The way I got out of it was simple: I made it so it was harder to find an excuse not to do it. I lowered the "daily meditation quota" to just five minutes and kept track of how many days in a row I could do. Within a month, I had firmly established a daily routine, not missing a single day, and although I kept that quota at 5 minutes, I was regularly sitting for half an hour or more by the end. It took about six months for it grow to an hour per sit. Nowadays I try to do two sits of ninety minutes each (it helps that I can meditate while lying down now, without falling asleep). The quota is still just five minutes though. The longest streak I ever had was something like sixty days. I also do walking meditation, at least 30 minutes every day.
The key though, is keeping the precepts. All the meditation and jhanas in the world won't help you if you aren't changing your behavior. The same hindrances will just keep arising. This is the main obstacle for me now and it's something I'm working on.
Do you generally report your progress to a teacher in order to receive help and pointers? Or maybe that's only done in Vajrayana since the teacher-student relationship is central there.
>craving for the meditation to go a certain way
There are some reasonable expectations to be had though right? If your mind drifts and wanders and you end up falling into a hypnagogic state, obviously that's not good. So expectations for some kind of focused and equanimous state seem reasonable. And not managing to reach that state is frustrating.
The five minutes thing seems like a really good way to build a consistent habit, thanks. Do you usually practice in the morning, at night, or with no specific schedule in mind?
>changing your behavior
Yes. When you feel those hindrances arise (anger, lust, craving for a particular experience...), do you ignore it until it goes away?
I did report progress during my online retreats. I will still sometimes contact them for support and advice. If you can learn from a teacher in person, that is even better. Yuttadhammo for example runs an online sangha where he has regular one-on-one video chats with his students. He teaches Vipassana however and I've never found much success with that method. The Dhamma Sukka center also runs online Dhamma meetings where you can ask questions (or email the instructors).
By having expectations toward the meditation, as with expectations toward anything, you are setting yourself up for craving and aversion. It's not that craving and aversion are themselves intrinsically bad, they are after all just feelings, but rather that they lead directly to suffering. In particular, it is those expectations which result in a negative feedback loop where you don't want to meditate because your expectations are not being met.
But it's easy to say "don't have expectations". Lowering your expectations is probably more feasible, e.g doing the five minute quota method that I mentioned. Your attitude toward the mediation also counts. Regard it like a curious scientist regards an experiment, rather than as a sportsman regards his sport. You know the protocol of the experiment. You run it, observe the results and then change the protocol accordingly. If you have any expectations, they are only in the form of hypothesis to be tested (and discarded if they prove false). This way, you don't discouraged when the experiment gives you results other than what you expected but in fact the surprise encourages you to continue experimenting. That surprise is nothing less than discovery and learning taking place---what the Buddha might call "insight".
I practice once in the morning, just after waking (usually while stilly lying down) and once at night, sitting and then lying down when I get tired. Also a walk in the afternoon.
It's only recently that I figured out how to handle the hindrances in such a way that they actually lead to behavioral change. The process of 6Rs recommended by TWIM (which is just a short-hand for Right Effort) is what eventually did the trick. At this point it's just a matter of persistence, but I can already see cracks forming in a lot of my past habitual tendencies.
But you're supposed to end with Buddha too.
no you end with laozi
Start with the Buddha™. Banish thirst to land of darkness and shadow. Buddha™ Cola.
>Banish thirst to land of darkness and shadow. Buddha™ Cola.
That's where thirst already is though
>as your desire is, so is your will
So Nirvana is not annihilation of will, but extinction of desire.
>start with the Buddha
I like drinking too much
Bump
reincarnation is so obviously false, why should I take anything he says seriously
The doctrine of kamma indicates rebirth not reincarnation. It's the process of consciousness arising and passing away. It happens so fast that you perceive it as something continuous, but in fact, it's a discrete process. In the deeper states of mediation, things slow down enough that you can actually see this process for yourself, it manifests as a kind of visual flickering or popping sound.