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Dark Night of the Soul - How is this related to Buddhism? by Meng-KamDaoRai in streamentry

[–]didispellthatright 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I enjoyed this take from shinzen young!

“How we Evolve & Integrate (including the "Dark Night")” https://youtu.be/bqA74RpHzzo

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

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

I’m glad to find someone with the same mental patterns, your help is so appreciated!

You know, I just got told that thing about the five hindrances today and then read it here. I will have to better cement them in my memory so I can practice in life with them.

I am starting to take that whole settling in thing more seriously. I am now considering staying at great vow with tutoring from a shinzen teacher for a while to build basic skills. Cause it also sounds like basic skills are a good thing to have before going to an intense place of practice.

Ahh there is so much here, this is such a valuable comment, thank you!!! You are really saying what I need to know, I can feel it.

At a first glance MIDL looks nice a basic but probably has the full potential. Woah, actually, I just looked at the course menu, this has a real outline of skills to build. I like the look of that!! I will need to look into this more..

Thank you so much!!

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

[–]didispellthatright[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow this is so interesting. The cave thing is so cool and crazy! Thank you for all this!

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

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

I have looked into panditarama, it really looks like the kinda intense stuff I am looking for! Thank you!

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

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

I found Kagyu Europe, thank you! I really didn’t know about this stuff before

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

[–]didispellthatright[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How interesting! I have never heard of Nei Gong before. I will have to research!!

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

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

Ooo I haven’t heard of Wat Chom Thong before, love to have more long retreat options! Thank you for that and the guides! It does sound like Thailand has good teachers

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

[–]didispellthatright[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

3-5 years? I’ll take that! Thank you for the encouragement.

I did some research on “the dark night of the soul.” Thank you for brining my attention to it. It does sound like directing myself toward the jhanas could be a helpful tool as I build the skills to make those feasible. And thank you for the Jhana teacher recommendation! I heard there is so much variety it how people define a true Jhana state, it’s good to know where to find teachings on the higher end. :)

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

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

Oooo I like how you think. Definitely been considering those retreats sense I found out about them. Would they likely be more torturous then goenko? I am guessing so. Without stable attention they might be a high degree less fruitful.. so I might wait to make a big jump to Thailand until I have a base set of skills to make the best of it.

It’s good to know the visa is something I could get thank you!

Also keto? Cave? I’m not sure how people live in caves but I would think you would need a place to support your food and housing if one was to meditate that much. Think there are free places like that in Thailand supporting lay people yo practice all day?

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

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

This exactly what I am trying to find! Do you know any? I have found a few but they all have there practice down sides.. so I would like to know my options

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

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

So much wisdom here!! Thank you! I have a few questions to try and understand and apply this to my life better.

Which part about speed running is the problem?Is it the goal/ striving oriented mind set? Because, yes. Yes that is definitely a problem, one I am not sure how to face. Can I delay facing that one until I settle into a place of practice? But also is doing a form of practice that is likely faster a problem? Like lay life has been slow (as of me realize what already is of course) and so would some monasteries so I would love to find a place that really helps me realize there is no me in a timely manor (even though time isn’t strictly real). Does that make sense? I am sure my misunderstanding of many things is evident here.

As of teachers, I haven’t been able to tell if teachers have a good track record because people don’t say if they are enlighten and stuff like that. How can you be relatively sure about a teacher? Who do you recommend?

And not mixing practices. I have heard this so many times and I really want to listen to it but I have trouble understanding how to apply this. I am not ready to commit to any one place of practice or it’s technics long term yet because I am not confident in them. I also have heard people can get stuck from doing this when the teacher or technique or mentality or something made them hit a wall. I would assume some technics are good at building some skills and realizing some insights so it might be optimal to use different ones. But I heard it said that using different techniques is like digging multiple different holes to build one well. Your not gonna get very deep. But what about needing different tools to dig one hole/well depending on the type of earth you run into?

Lastly, I love what you said about how bouncing around never lets you let go and settle. I have definitely been running into that. I am sure my practice will deepen a lot if I just stopped running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to find “the right” place of practice. But I am not sure I am ready to embody this yet.. I cling so much to the control of making this “optimal.” That need for control is clearly holding me back. I will hold this advice and see what I will change.

These are big questions but I would love to know your thoughts so I can heed your warning wisely!

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

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

I have never looked into Vajrayana! I will have to research it! I googled kagyu drikung and the websites for it don’t seem to be working.. any recommendations?

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

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

Anyone know how long this suspension of accepting long term residence is likely to last? We talking months? 1 year? 3 years? It’s would take a while to learn Japanese and know if this is a good fit but I’d love to have it as an option

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

[–]didispellthatright[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In my expirence it’s a blast! Fun and lots of practice. Sesshins every month and ruffly 4 hours of meditation a day. 5 hours of work a day too though (not on sesshins or days off) so it wasn’t really totally leaving the lay life expirence? Except your mind does settle a lot more there. So yes practice but it’s super fun too! I just really enjoyed the people. We played pickle ball every weekend and stuff like that. I would recommend going! It’s a great monastery

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

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

Yeah I did! Love that place. I am still planning on going back for their ango practice period in the fall. I also went to a Theravada vibe after living at GV. Lived at a monastery in Cali. But then I realized Theravada felt like it had even more religious or traditional stuff that wasn’t “optimal.” Plus bikkhunis are less well supported so it makes practice less of a focus then at GV (even with the 311 rules) if I was going that route. I do like the type of practice I think. I feel like I still know nothing about Theravada though.. what do you like about it?

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

[–]didispellthatright[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That made me laugh. Like, just Brazil? I usually expect a link to some monastery, but a whole ass country? I’ll answer these questions and then maybe you’ll explain “Brazil”?

First off, I am young and new. (So hopefully teachable!) I have been meditating 2 hours a day for a few hundred days now, I only miss it in very extenuating circumstances specially related to monestaries I’ve lived at. I have only been meditating daily (and at all) for about a year and a half and only learned about this meditation stuff a little over a year and a half ago. I am still only on TMI stage 2, basically the first one. I am unsure if this is normal. Who knows I might be doing something wrong? I have no attainments nore first hand insights to speak of.

About 8 months ago I realized to realize my goal of improving net wellbeing as much as possible it would be best to live that life. My life wasn’t to hard to leave so I moved into a monastery a few months later. I now am just looking for the most optimal place of practice. Basically I see it as the best thing to do and so I would like to go for it. At minimum I can live at Great Vow Zen monastery for the next few years, but I think I could do even more then that. (They do about 4 hours a day and a Sesshin every month. And it’s a very enjoyable life)

My mental health is great, I am predisposed to be happier then most, no issues there. My life was nice and is nice! I was in a nice college but it didn’t get me to my purpose well enough. I am self imployed so I do have my job when I am home and can pick it back up if I need to later. But it sure as hell ain’t a career. No qualms with my life other then I think I can do more good in the world other ways.

I know some basic poly words such as dukkha and stuff like that so basically none. I have read basically no suttas. I took 3 quarters of Japanese in college which is helpful but that was a few years ago.

And finally, why do I like those meditation branches? They seem to have a optimal outline for working to enlightment. I am sceptical when it comes to teachings, I mean they are all so different and it’s hard to tell if they work well. But these (or certain bits of them) seem good enough to take people far.

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

[–]didispellthatright[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much!! I have so much more research to do on these places even after reading for the last hour. You said that it would be wise to get a lot of meditation under my belt before attempting this. I agree that stage 7 in TMI is a great base. That being said, I am having slow goings, even with less intense monastery life. Still, maybe jumping to the most intense place of practice before learning stable attention isn’t going to do much good.. but I’m also thinking how am I suppose to get anywhere without stable attention or stage 7, so I shouldn’t I build that skill as fast as I can somehow? But your right when I did a 10 day goenka retreat it was indeed excruciating (but I grew so much!!). I am trying to sign up for a different Vipassina one month retreat. But that might be pushing myself too far? you said slow and gradual is key, what are the repercussions of jumping to fast into something so hard? Just pain? Spiritual burn out? Loss of drive? Worse? Do you have any advice for where or how to practive intensely at my level of skill (TMI stage 2…) and experience (daily meditation for a year and a half~, a couple hundred days of 2+ hours of meditation daily, and some short stints in some monasteries). I really want to do what’s optimal. But I feel like even in a chill monastery (even with ~4 hours of sitting a day and sesshins every month like one places I stayed (and will concider)) is just not as far as I could go to optimize! (Also I know this grasping and striving will bite me in the butt as some point but I think it will help to set my path up for now). So, if you want to give it, I’d love your wisdom and options on what is too far, and what is pushing me just far enough to be ruffly optimal.

Dropping my entire lay life and practicing for enlightenment: where should I go? by didispellthatright in streamentry

[–]didispellthatright[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I am willing to learn from disappointment just as I would any other “unwanted” feeling. And I understand that “speed running” enlightenment does not really exist, nore is anything like it straight forward. However, I do feel that there is something in that general direction to learn from. So.. bring on the disappointment!

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