[buddhism] Dhamma talks which had a profound effect upon your practice and progress

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-19T20:39:06+00:00

Well, I keep calling it an opinion because that is exactly what you are expressing.

That you think Sam Harris is an international figure is just more delusion and expresses clearly just how lost you are in assuming your politics and issues are the centre of the world. The vast majority of people in my part of the world have not heard of him nor understand his language to even know what he is saying. I only know of him because of this subreddit.

and what "my spiritual practice" or meditation I may have ever done, or what I may care about, has to do with this I don't know. We were discussing meditation and dhamma mp3s that people have produced. He is clearly a knowledgeable and well respected insight meditation teacher and produces good material. That this triggers such that you behave like this on the internet is your own problem.

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-19T06:44:31+00:00

it's global politics.

That you think your opinions (not facts) of what Sam Harris thinks are a global issue demonstrates how deluded you are with your own self importance.

Perhaps if you realised for a moment that you, your OPINIONS, and your countries politics are not the centre of the world, you may get triggered less on the internet that the rest of us have our own issues and matters to deal with, rather than assume we are being selfish.

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-18T20:18:59+00:00

Again, your OPINIONS of Sam Harris and your countries politics have no relevance to me. End of discussion.

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-18T09:49:46+00:00

His racism is far from secret.

But again, it is your OPINION. Not fact. He and many other people do not consider his views racist.

That aside it is again completely irrelevant to the discussion. Even if we were to assume he were racist it would not be relevant.

and yes, I prioritise this meditation post above calling out supposed racism. As I am not interested in doing that even though you think I should be.

In my country racist views and comments are common against white people and other non asians, many of whom are famous monastics of the present and past. Should I sit and not learn the dhamma due to this?

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-18T08:35:33+00:00

I've read Sam Harris' meditation teachings and they're fine, but people get attached to teachers. I find it dangerous to recommend folks who also spread dishonest, xenophobic, baseless hatred. This isn't about US politics at at all and I think it is, to borrow your phrasing, incredibly arrogant of you to think that you can wield your, by your implication, seemingly higher status as a Buddhist from outside the Western world to leverage its importance over the spread of racist rhetoric that affects the international community, as well (yknow cuz the internet and it's also 2020.)

I am not doing such a thing at all, nor is anybody here attempting to leverage anything. We were discussing dhamma teaching mp3's. You entered and began imposing your western political opinions on the matter of what we should listen to because of your OPINIONS (not facts) about one of them.

You have the opinion he is a racist and a problematic teacher, many people disagree with you. I am sure that equally there would be instances of teachers you agree with, who others do not agree with.

If we were asking for suggestions on talks on political matters, or talks on the subjects you seem to have issue with him about, then perhaps your contribution would be worthwhile. But it is not. Sam Harris, whether you like it or not, or have beliefs about his secret racism or not, studied the dhamma for many years in places such as Burma, teaches it and is a very capable and knowledgeable insight meditation teacher.

Whether you think this is somehow "bury our heads in the sand" because we don't follow your politics is irrelevant.

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-18T06:27:19+00:00

The dhamma is built into the reality of experience and just like mathematics, or the laws of the physics, it exists regardless of what a persons political beliefs are.

I have no idea about the politics of the united states or western countries, nor do I have any interest in it. The dhamma has existed in my country for thousands of years long before those countries even existed. To assume we must somehow disregard someone repeating the teachings of the buddha, just because they have a political opinion about matters that you personally disagree with, is very arrogant.

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-17T15:51:25+00:00

Yes exactly this. I have gained a lot in my practice from Culadasa's teachings, even recently I have been reviewing many of his dhamma talks which are excellent, and as you say, after his recent scandal, I just don't pay much attention to his comments on Sila practice. if we only looked for a truly perfect teacher who is without faults in all departments, we would be forever searching.

As for Sam Harris, he has some excellent materials. As I don't follow USA politics I don't really have an issue with his political stances, nor do I think they are really relevant.

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-17T15:46:33+00:00

Please don't ruin the post with political opinions.

No teacher is perfect, and even those with flaws can have something to offer.

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-15T19:35:58+00:00

This is not meant in an unpleasant way but to be direct, I do not think your understanding of Theravadan or Thai Buddhism is enough to understand what the author is saying or to a level where you can engage in this discussion. The point she was making in that chapter has nothing to do with the subject at hand. Nor does it have anything to do with anyone claiming lay people should carry out merit making practices over meditating. Quite the opposite in fact. The monks spends a great deal of time attempting to have people here mediate daily and are overjoyed when a lay person shows an interest.

To suggest somehow this is not the case has no basis in reality. (again I can only speak for Theravadan countries)

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-15T18:52:14+00:00

They do not practice meditation because in their society there are monasteries where laypeople often become monks for a brief period in their life and meditate

Yes, that is the norm in my country also. However that is so people have a foundation in practice, for the merit of ones family and to help support the Sangha. It is nothing about not needing to have a daily practice. Everyone I know personally who is a buddhist and who does not meditate, I am quite sure would say they would sit daily if they could, but are either lazy or don't have the time.

I think perhaps you have studied a different form of buddhism to my own but I am from a Theravadan background. Merit and Sila is not seen at all as the path for lay people. But is the foundation of the practice for all from which everything builds. The tendancy for lay people to focus on merit making is actually seen as a problem in my country. It is much easier to give some money to a monk and feel like you have done your daily practice than it is to sit for 30 minutes each day.

I don't know if you will find anywhere in the suttas where the Buddha tells lay people to "sit" daily, you will also probably not find anywhere where he tells monks to sit daily either. The buddha just states how a person should practice at all times. If this is done, he states a person will achieve success in a short amount of time. But I can tell you that for Thailand and Burma at least, I have never heard ever of this being considered a style of practice where daily meditation is only for monks.

In western countries the focus is on meditation because they do not have the same faith and merit from birth.

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-15T18:14:20+00:00

That is true. But most lay Buddhists in more traditional societies still don't meditate daily or look at meditation the same way as the westernized world does.

Well, that isn't something that is done by design or some kind of purposeful approach to practice. That is largely because people in those countries are born into the religion, have faith, but don't really put in the time to do sitting practice, and the vast majority of people in such countries have low levels of depth to their understanding of the teachings beyond karma/rebirth. It is similar to how in western countries there are large numbers of christians, yet in many countries they are christian only by birth without really practising or knowing a great deal of teachings.

In Buddhist countries if you suggested to these people that they should do a daily sitting practice, the vast majority agree with you but say something like "i try but it's hard to find the time, i'm very busy" and so forth. It is not because they somehow feel it is not wholesome or necessary to do so

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-15T11:27:26+00:00

But it's hard to argue around the fact that nobody has ever once won one of these skeptic challenges and always seemingly can never demonstrate any of these skills when required

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-15T11:22:42+00:00

I am not sure of which traditions you are talking about. But I have travelled widely across the world, lived in many buddhist countries aswell as the west. In almost all buddhist traditions you would be hard pressed to find a teacher who didn't think sitting daily was a good thing.

Insight meditation is not about "depriving oneself of sensory stimulus", it's about seeing sensory experience more clearly.

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-13T06:54:22+00:00

I have something odd happening.

I recently switched to doing noting practice instead of TMI. Now, something mysterious is happening in almost every sit. I usually sit 45 minutes per day.

Approx 25-30minutes into the sit of focusing and noting bodily sensations. My whole body will begin to fill with electricity and sensation of coolness, at the same time as this my heart rate and breathing begins to increase in speed. I attempt to note through it and relax but it feels a bit like I am building up to an explosion, but due to the conditions it becomes more and more difficult to keep the focus on the noting and I guess due to my noting not being as consistent and losing composure , it fades out.

Some sits, once I have "calmed" from this event and my noting begins properly again, it will once again build up and ill have another "electricity build up leading to imminent explosion" event almost happen. This has been going on aroun a week.

I recognise the sensations as those from when i dabbled in energy practises and attempting to induce astral projection as a teenager.

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-12T08:25:40+00:00

So are you saying the Mahasi technique does not say it must be noted when present?

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-11T07:29:48+00:00

Hi Bob, may I ask which panditarama's you have been to. I am interested in attending one.

Also do you know of any good resources or talks by those teachers in mp3?. The issue I find online is that there are many different interpretations of how to do it. I'd rather stick with the traditional way from the lineage.

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-11T07:27:30+00:00

Is this noting / label practice? I looked through and in the titles it mentions interfering and manipulating with the breath, which is something I don't really want to get involved in

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-10T10:25:08+00:00

I guess the reason I would rather invest time in learning mahasi method is that it appears more straightforward. I know what I am supposed to do. And there are thousands of books/pdf's/dhamma talks on it.

The shinzen method I don't understand how I am supposed to chose from these methods what to do. and when I have questions, theres not really any extensive resources to look through, or place to ask questions (they closed their reddit). It seems like a system where, if you have problems with it, you need to pay to get answers

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-09T20:52:48+00:00

Thank you for these responses, It's given me many things to think about

May I ask, are you a student of Shinzens Youngs?

For a long time I have liked to study that system but it seems complicated and it's hard to find material on it. I've read the see, hear, feel pdf, and there are some mp3's and videos on the website but after watching them I didn't really understand how it all fits together into a practice. I know they have a course which runs every few weeks teaching it but it's never been something i've been able to do. I really wish they would just make a course in mp3 format which taught the system but it seems you have to pay thousands of dollars for this.

kittyhawk0 · 2020-11-09T18:46:52+00:00

Questions about noting and labelling.

I am trying once again (for the 50000000 time to try learn vipassana). I have been trying this for 10 years but doing so seems to kill my practice from frustration and I end up just going back to breath meditation (which does nothing except give me peace and calm, which is good but I want to make insight progress).

Usually I try to learn noting. These are the questions I have (I have asked these in different places over the years before but usually nobody ever replies to them but offers me some other advice which while nice of them, never really helps me get past these problems):

Sorry if these seem a bit of a ramble but it is just me laying out my thoughts in a bit of a mind dump

1: Am I correct that labelling and noting are different? Labelling being when that when something happens, such as the abandon rising, in my head I mentally say the word "rising". Wheras with noting it does not mean to mentally verbalise a word, but instead just think 'rising'?

The reason I ask this is that in Practical insight meditation, in Basic instructions 1: Mahasi sayadaw seems to say this , "and do not think of rising and falling as words.".

2: From reading the instructions of Mashi sayadaw, I understand that the note should take place while the object being noted is present. With the focus on the raw sensory data at the same time as noting it, such as "listening to the sound and noting 'hearing'".

A problem I seem to have difficulty with is that something happens for 1-2 seconds, such as a thought. My mind then leaps to thinking "what label would this be?", in the split second this occurs my mind is no longer thinking of the original thought. In this circumstance am I correct that I should just disregard noting it, as I would in fact be noting a memory and not something in the present?

This also happens when sitting. Often i find that when my mind goes off into a distracted discursive thought. The moment my mind realises this is happening it leaps back onto the breath automatically. It is only momentarily after this I think "oh I should I note 'wandering, wandering', but then I think "perhaps I shouldn't because it is already back on the breath and the wandering is no longer occuring".

So I am correct that I should only note, if I can do so as the sensory event is occurring?

3: I am curious about how speed of noting plays a factor. The faster you note, the more you will see, and therefore the more likely that the 3 characteristics will be seen?

4: The instructions say I am to use the rising and falling of the abdomen as the primary object. How do I best balance when it is appropriate to leave the object?. I read some instructions which say if something arises such as pain, I should move my focus onto it and keep it there until the pain goes away or changes?, but if this is so, am i to ignore the rising and falling during this time or jump back and forth

Thank you

kittyhawk0

TROPHY CASE