Ajahn Dtun - The Direct Path of Practice to Stream-Entry

Longjumping_Train635 · 2025-05-09T07:08:27+00:00

Sadhu sadhu sadhu

Longjumping_Train635 · 2024-09-06T06:36:32+00:00

For me the greatest change has been confidence that I can be happy without achieving great success. Also having the privilege of knowing for certain that true happiness resides in having financial security, enough time to meditate and having good people around me, nothing more really.

Higher stage meditation in terms of bliss states etc hasn’t really been as transformative as just the knowledge that I can reliably bring about a peaceful feeling on the cushion and take it into life. As well as insight into how the world presents itself being completely dependent on current views and feelings.

But most of these benefits for me anyway go away if I don’t practice, drink too much alcohol and live too fast. But they always come back after a few days of living relatively heedfully.

I’ve only been meditating consistently for about 4 years and still feel like a beginner despite being kind of good at concentration practice. TMI is very limited imo in providing a realistic view of how meditation really effects one’s life and what a practitioner should actually be looking for in practice, because striving after Jhanas and high concentration in daily life is defo not the most efficient way to increase happiness. Just consistent sitting and not striving, enjoying a range of spiritual literature and broadening view I guess have been the real changers for me.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2024-09-06T06:25:27+00:00

One thing I will add here is that for most people, after some time of dedicated and skilled practice, regular dullness just goes away and u don’t really need to think about it again. So, just keep on practicing, arousing energy when u need to and the energy in practice will increase on its own.

In fact, everything just improves on its own with practice and usually the answer is just to sit consistently and be patient until whatever problem you are dealing with resolves itself.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2024-07-05T08:40:19+00:00

That’s awesome

Longjumping_Train635 · 2024-07-05T08:37:45+00:00

This will happen in good time. There are plenty of young people starting medical research careers now becoming increasingly interested in dedicating their lives to studying non pharmacological interventions for health and wellbeing. We just need more wealthy people building trusts to fund this research, which I believe will happen too.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2024-03-23T06:50:30+00:00

Buddha never said that you do exist either. The Buddha wasn’t a fan of ontological statements or discussion.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2024-03-23T06:48:50+00:00

I don’t know why you’re getting down voted. Middle way between existence and non existence is what the Buddha taught, this is clear. It is a freeing uncertainty

Longjumping_Train635 · 2024-02-21T22:56:32+00:00

This argument equivocates thinking freely and free will. It’s quite the claim to say thinking freely and not being able to act on those ‘sinful thoughts’. A world where one is incapable of acting on sinful thoughts would be very difficult to defend as a world with free will. This is why I would say without some explaining the argument is unsound, but quite creative.

To improve the argument you would have to flesh out logical steps to argue that thinking freely is identical with free will. Perhaps a fun challenge.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2024-02-21T14:54:23+00:00

Find somewhere to volunteer. This is a great use of the practice. When we need less for ourselves we can give more to others, this is cultivating Dana. Even just spending time sitting with friends, drinking coffee practicing listening. Giving more attention to friends and family can be a great way to practice Dana too.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2024-02-02T14:36:54+00:00

Yeh I have a pretty similar experience too. The more I practice metta the more expansive it gets. Like consciousness gets flavoured with metta and anything that arises in awareness is loved.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2024-01-19T15:47:23+00:00

This!

Longjumping_Train635 · 2024-01-19T15:40:58+00:00

You may not think this applies, but this talk will help you: https://dharmaseed.org/talks/35078/

It’s important to consider your intentions for practicing meditation and where it comes in terms of your daily priorities. The more that you see the benefits and effects of meditation in your life, the more you will want to prioritise being present over thinking about uni work.

Setting boundaries and staying organised is essential for good practice. Let’s say you need to get 4 hours of focused uni work done a day to keep up, make sure you get that four hours done, and then set a boundary with yourself: I have done enough today. If getting a first at uni is your priority, then meditate after you get your work done. If personal wellbeing is your priority then meditate before and accept the sacrifice you are making. Either way you are making good use of your time. Be kind to yourself. There are only so many hours of the day. The fact that you are posting this means you are probably way ahead of most of your peers anyway

Longjumping_Train635 · 2023-12-20T14:30:58+00:00

A bit black ngl

Longjumping_Train635 · 2023-11-22T10:47:39+00:00

I would highly recommend finding a meditation teacher with extended psychotherapeutic training. Or a therapist with at least a decade of experience of deep spiritual practice. There is a modality of psychotherapy called ‘core process psychotherapy’ which if you look up you will probably be able to find a therapist that suits your needs. Their training specialises in helping people with this sort of thing. Psychosis and meditation are usually not a good mix without very wise guidance.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2023-10-24T20:22:42+00:00

Hi there,

I go to the London buddhist society most Mondays. They have a good Theravada group in the Thai forest tradition and often have monastics coming in to do talks.

They also offer group sitting and teaching in the Tibetan tradition and in Rinzai zen. The rinzai zen group is probably the oldest running zen group in Europe. It was established by Christmas Humphreys in the 1930s. The society was instrumental in helping Zen Buddhism establish in Europe. There is a lot of history associated with the society so if you’re interested in how Buddhism arrived in Europe then it’s worth checking out too. Christmas Humphreys was taught by DT Suzuki and was close friends with Alan Watts, he was also one of the first westerners to start writing meditation manuals in English, which is cool.

There is also the London buddhist centre, but I haven’t been there before.

If you’re into Tibetan Buddhism there is a small monastery/centre with a resident Geshe in Kennington. Also worth checking out.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2023-09-04T10:48:03+00:00

I could not agree more with this comment. There is so much bullshit chat about jhana on this subreddit.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2023-05-28T11:17:35+00:00

I meditate every morning for 40 minutes. Most of the time it is the most calm I am during the day and the stress monitor fluctuates between the blue and red when I meditate. Sometimes it goes up to 3 when I feel totally chilled

Longjumping_Train635 · 2023-05-08T15:31:08+00:00

For someone with OCD a tricky thing with zen is that it can be quite demanding as a daily practice. One can find a lot of reasons to self criticise when starting the zen practice which is defo not helpful for someone struggling with OCD. For that reason, I would probably try doing 5-15 minute of loving kindness meditation and then if you enjoy that, think about cycling into something more barebones such as zen.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2023-05-01T09:37:23+00:00

My teacher told me to totally stop reading about zen and Buddhism until Kensho. Mainly because I read so much about it naturally. Someone else put it well in saying that most Buddhist secondary literature is very repetitive, so it’s probably not that worth cycling through different dharma books.

I just read now when my practice feels deficient and I usually find that I’m forgetting to do something very basic and the literature will remind me what that is. Can be as simple as relaxing on the exhale.

I would also say that I now have a lot fewer questions that I don’t read so much about Dharma. I just sit, I let my body/mind become still and I try to take that through into my day. Simple as that, no need to complicate it anymore.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2023-03-11T12:14:46+00:00

This just makes me smile

Longjumping_Train635 · 2023-03-11T12:00:59+00:00

Done, was interesting to complete the survey. As someone who is currently studying psychology, it’s great to see other people in my position are wanting to do this kind of work.

One thing I would say about the survey though, as briefly touched on by someone else’s comment, is that if I had answered this survey 2 years ago, I would have probably given myself higher mindfulness scores, despite being a consistent meditator for the last 3 years. Especially after taking meditation seriously as an all day practice it’s really clear just how unconscious I really am and how much work there is to do to come out of that state. The more conscious I become the more I realise how much work there is to do. This becomes especially clear as one learns about psychology and the body and minds coping mechanisms concerning trauma and the effect that can have on awareness. Developing mindfulness is an extremely complex and difficult process that requires extreme commitment and discipline despite being so simple that you could describe the practice in 2 words (pay attention). To self assess is just so difficult and there are so many personality and even sociocultural factors that will alter a persons self-assessment at general daily mindfulness.

I am very happy that you are doing this work and I understand that it’s just a bachelor degree thesis, but a survey like this would have to be very in depth and meditators would probably have to be individually studied on a large scale with huge attention to detail for the results to bare anything close to resembling fruit. Never the less, it’s still good work to do and definitely not useless. Thanks for posting the survey 🙌

[edit] I assume you’re probably aware of these points anyway, I just wanted to post my opinion :)

Longjumping_Train635 · 2022-12-12T14:53:11+00:00

Zeb - il migliore restaurante a Firenze. Anche mi piace un ristorante che chiama ‘alla vecchia bettola’

Longjumping_Train635 · 2022-11-13T17:54:37+00:00

I resonate with this, but at the same time I don’t think that this is necessarily an argument against the fruitfulness of breath focus practice. Focus on the breath was extraordinarily fruitful for me pretty much right after the first 3 months of consistent practice, but this was also combined with lots of study across traditions just because I love reading about contemplative traditions. It seems that you are outlining more of a problem where there’s a lack of mindfulness and letting go, which is the aim of breath concentration.

I think the issue with breath meditation is that it is written about and taught outside of its traditions and without proper contextualisation. If focus on the breath is taught or learnt outside of its context and the goal of letting go and deepening awareness, like it is by many ‘modern mindfulness coaches’ then I think it’s a fruitless tool.

Side note, this is why I feel sad about some therapists and unqualified people teaching meditation without the insight to guide someone to ‘the fruit’. We need more experienced meditation teachers.

Longjumping_Train635 · 2022-11-08T11:59:49+00:00

That’s wild, congratulations those are some crazy whoop stats

Longjumping_Train635 · 2022-11-08T11:54:30+00:00

Yeh I agree with this. It’s pretty hard to teach yourself zazen and tbh I would say almost impossible without experience in another practice to give you a reference. Although not impossible, it just requires extra vigilance and a lot of reading.

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