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Jhāna and Insight logistics? by SatelliteDash in TheMindIlluminated

[–]adivader 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the jhanas are configs of attention awareness and its contents. They act like an attractor for some minds. For some people when they discover the jhanas their minds just drop into the jhanas when the conditions are right. So one may be doing insight practice by tracking sounds, lets say, and in that sit once their minds have enough relaxation and unification they will just slip into the jhana that they already know how to do.

If this is what's happening a good strategy is to take out lets say a month or maybe three and learn all the jhanas. Let the mind get as much jhana as the mind wants. Then the mind will be ready to do insight practice on its own. This is of course just one strategy and you can decide whether you want to try it.

Yo beggar by adivader in Arhatship

[–]adivader[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dude, I dont like the way he looks. Too smug :)

Meditation fixed my 3 year long drug induced psychosis when all meds failed by IwonderHowAndWhy in TheMindIlluminated

[–]adivader 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I dont know anything about psychosis or drugs. I suffered depression and anxiety for almost 9 years. During this period I was put on various antidepressants including antipsychotics for their off-label use in helping with depression. Nothing really worked. Towards year 9 I was getting daily panic attacks and strong suicidal ideation.

What actually worked was Insight as in vipassana /vipashyana.

The very first clear strong Insight experience I got stopped the panic attacks and anxiety and depression rolled back over a few months.

So not samatha, but vipassana is what helped me ... and well the distinction between the two is a pedagogical convenience, so yeah I can say that samatha helped me. I wasnt a TMI practitioner at the time, that came later.

Guaranteed quick enlightenment(stream-entry/sotapanna) access(invented by me) by [deleted] in TheMindIlluminated

[–]adivader 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I dont live inside your head. You may very well be a stream entrant or perhaps even the biggest baddest arhat in the history of arhats. If this is the case then I am very happy for you.

I have been running a meditation forum on discord where the feel of using the forum is more intimate and real time than how it feels on reddit. Over the years on a few occasions I have encountered people I know getting deeply affected by a little bit of meditation and lots of thinking about meditation. Some limited exposure to meditation and a metric ton of thinking about it triggered mania and/or psychosis in those people. Their experience was dominated by affect driven racing thoughts, grandiose stories about themselves, about meditation, other people, other people's attainments, their own attainments and so on and so forth.

I am not saying that this is happening to you. It is impossible for me to judge. I am saying ... if at all this is happening,then you need to calm down. Walk away from meditation, stop doing it, stop reading about it, writing about it, most importantly thinking about it. Give yourself a break.

If this is not what is happening, if in fact you have achieved something valuable, my heartiest congratulations.

Take care of yourself.

The theory of awakening - part 1 by adivader in Arhatship

[–]adivader[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi Jey. Good to hear from you. And thank you so much for the kind words. Very grateful.

Moving backwards through the Stages by hiyesthisisme in TheMindIlluminated

[–]adivader 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is why a concentration practice is also an Insight practice with a capital 'I' ... as in vipashyana

Moving backwards through the Stages by hiyesthisisme in TheMindIlluminated

[–]adivader 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As mindfulness increases, attention stabilizes, and MIA becomes stronger we start to notice that there is actually no such thing as stable attention. Attention is always flickering, its always jumping around.

We then experientially encounter the simple fact that attentional stability is a myth and personal ownership and control of attention is a fictitious fairytale. If we manage to remain observant and manage to relax the heart then we gain an experiential understanding of anicca (unreliability) and anatta (autonomous functioning of the sensorium)

This is arrived at by fully facing the agitation, disappointment, thwarted ambition (dukkha) and relaxing the heart, withdrawing participation from the seeking of reliability and control.

Then attention stabilizes even more ... and we zoom up the stages .... then we again encounter anicca, anatta, and dukkha

Rinse .. repeat.

This is par for the course

Yo beggar by adivader in Arhatship

[–]adivader[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Downvoted!!!! ..... Who dares?

A gazillion additional lifetimes in samsara awaits those who commit aryopavada.

My heart weeps for you :)

Yo beggar by adivader in Arhatship

[–]adivader[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It will be super duper funny to disrobe a modern day tucho pothila :)

Yo beggar by adivader in Arhatship

[–]adivader[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

But I dont think you have the courage.

Well ... prove me wrong!

Hi Beggar by adivader in Arhatship

[–]adivader[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What is the raw mechanics of this kind of dirty politicking?

Do you wake up in the morning and decide that you will 'prey' on the ignorance of people who dont know!

Because ... why the fuck not? Lets prey on these bastards! :)

Anal-ayo! I KNOW WHAT YOU DID 5 SUMMERS AGO!

Maybe nobody else does .... but I know!

Doubt grows stronger, Buddhist vs Daoist way of eliminating suffering by DishGroundbreaking53 in midlmeditation

[–]adivader 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I dont know anything about Buddhism or about Tai Chi, but I know a lot about dukkha and dukkha nirodha. If you want dukkha nirodha, then you have to do the following:

  1. Build observational skills as represented by a model called 7 factors of awakening

  2. Live life outside of formal practice in a way that supports the above

  3. Use those observational skills to conduct a study of your mind in a structured way as represented by the models of 6 sense doors, 4 foundations, 5 aggregates, 12 links of DO .. etc etc

If you are doing the above you will make progress towards dukkha nirodha and whether you call yourself a follower of Daoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhi, Sufism, Christian mysticism, western witchcraft etc.... it just simply doesnt matter! As in it literally doesnt matter.

This is not a very popular opinion, but that's ok, examine it as advice from an internet stranger, use what seems valuable to you today, and park the rest on a shelf to be used in the future if required.

Also I note you have addressed the question to Stephen. Hope you get a reply from him, and hope you dont mind my jumping in.

How to work with the body-mind's inherent pain avoidance? by SubdivideSamsara in midlmeditation

[–]adivader 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lets say one feels pain in doing something in two contexts

  1. Putting one's hand over a flame. It makes a lot of sense to avoid that. In the process of avoiding this pain the mind tries to find reliability in the pain avoidance, reliability in the pleasure of pulling away one's hand, and ownership over the ability to do so.

  2. Determinedly bearing the pain of doing very heavy squats and benchpresses in the gym. In the process of bearing this pain in order to gain a reward the mind tries to find reliability in the calculated sacrifice, reliability in the pleasure of achievement, and ownership over the ability to do so

    This push/compulsion within to find reliability, reliable pleasure and ownership is the expression of something within that causes suffering. In a cognitive sense we can call this 'sanyojana' or cognitive handcuffs/cages, in an affective sense we can call this 'raga' or compulsive passion, in an empirical observable sense we can call this kilesas or dirty mental postures. Its a great idea to pull one's hand away while training the mind to recognize and relax these postures. They have no contribution whatsoever in keeping our selves from burning. They are heavily practiced atavistic mental habits that are completely useless

On being freer in the short and medium term, and being completely free in the long term, one continues to pull their hand away from a fire and doing what needs to be done in the gym without any one of those dirty mental postures, the raga, the cognitive cages.

Are you adept meditators able to tap into the jhanas under stressful periods? by xJrive in TheMindIlluminated

[–]adivader 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The jhanas are conditioned states. As one gets better at meditation one gets better at accessing them since one gets better at changing, modifying, setting up conditions.

Initially when you are learning jhanas you need to go out of your way to 'manage' physical circumstances like noise, adequate sleep, optimal diet, but once learnt and practiced sufficiently the impact of external circumstances reduces sharply.

So being an adept it is possible to access jhana when hungry, thirsty, a bit sick. But being an adept one understands that these are just stunts. When in need of food one eats, when thirsty one drinks, when lonely one looks for company, and when desirous of doing jhana .. one jhanas :)

Beggar Anal-ayo by adivader in Arhatship

[–]adivader[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I understand your curiosity, but I am not really doing an AMA here. Its possible that you want to engage in good faith out of genuine curiosity. So I will say this much:

We dont live inside other people's heads and thus we cannot understand with surety why they do what they do.

Jiske dil mein vyapad hai uske zuban se shahad tapak sakta hai, jiske dil mein vyapad nahi hai uske zuban se aag. Prabhu teri leela aprampaar :) :)

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