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mimirom
Czech Republic
368 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 15 2014 : 11:23:31 AM
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Hi fellow yogis and yoginis,
I have not been contributing to the forums for a couple of years. I've been well though and practice went good. Now something rather extraordinary happened in my life and I believe this experience deserves to be shared.
May this information be of benefit for you, brothers and sisters on the path. 
First, I would like to express gratitude to Yogani, who enabled me to use all the previously inaccessible tools of advanced yoga and offered guidance as to how to apply them properly, and Sean Prichard (ex. Bhante U Vansarrakhita), who is my Vipassana meditation teacher and who granted me guidance through this challenging experience. 
So what happened?
So far, I've been living with the idea that I want to do as much as I can in this life to achieve spiritual progress. Through the years I also learned to live with the knowledge, that most definitely I will not be able to achieve any stage of Awakening within this lifetime, as I don't have enough bhakti to travel long trips to Asia o my own, search for meditation masters and spend months and years in retreat somewhere in Burma, or the Himalayas, meditating relentlessly, night and day, for significant parts of my lifetime.
Now this prospect seems to have changed rather dramatically, after attending a 14 day long Theravadan Buddhist meditation retreat, where I attempted a rather radical combination of some of the AYP techniques and the Mahasi method of Vipassana meditation. The result was very surprising, as I've been able to advance radically faster through the stages of insight (jñána) (which lead to the experience of Nirvána), than ever before. In fact, using this method/combination it became possible to go through the experiences of the first 11 jñánas (including early stages of Sankhára upekkhá jñána), which is a substantial part of the whole trip, and it is possible/probable that the last day of the retreat I've been knocking on the door of the very last few steps immediately preceding the first experience of Nirvána or "Stream entry" (sotàpatti magga jñána). The entire process of going through this took 13 days, which, when you think about it, is really not much. Furthermore, I've been able to do this some 130 kilometers from my hometown, in my regular free time. I think this is something fantastic!
So I'm writing this with the idea, that some of you practitioners might want to try this method out for yourself and by sharing your experiences contribute to a clarification whether this is a more universally applicable method, that may bring benefit to others as well.
Also, there may be obviously some flaws or pitfalls to this combination of methods, which I may not have had recognized, or have yet recognized. In particular, I would advice anyone who decides to attempt this to watch carefully signs of overload, apply self-pacing prudently and in general to proceed very carefully. The experience has been rather extreme, presenting a high load on my entire system. I would like to say that I've been engaging in some kind of training of all the bodies (gross, subtle, causal - all or some at various stages) for about 10 years now, and this probably increased my capacity to accept physical, energetic and mental/intellectual stress. So this is an advanced practice, meant for advanced practitioners. (Further down this post I will provide a brief summary of my personal history of spiritual practice, in order to clarify what my starting position for this experiment was.) Also, I've been doing this under constant supervision of an experienced teacher of the Mahasi tradition and in a protected environment. I wouldn't recommend doing this at home, alone, etc. (At least not as a first-time experiment.)
Summary of my background
So what is the basis, upon which I attempted this experiment?
I am a 36 years old, healthy man. First I explored non-ordinary states of consciousness with the help of all kinds of natural and synthetic drugs, in the age of approx. 19 - 25. Simultaneously I started individual study of the subjects of philosophy, psychology, a little bit of physics, and later Buddhism. (The scope and solidity of the general conceptual framework is, in my opinion, important for not getting overwhelmed by the rather extreme experiences that may come up during the process.) I started to systematically apply spiritual-transformative tools some 9 years ago, in 2005. First I started with Stan Grof's Holotropic Breathwork, which I've been doing systematically over the next 6 years, or so (altogether 26 sessions). In 2006 I attended my first formal Vipassana retreat, and continued to attend further retreats throughout the following years. In 2008 I joined the AYP community and started the twice daily practice. After a few moths the Kundalini process started to activate. After some 3 years of piling up the practices rather enthusiastically I ran into a major overload, which forced me to stop all practices for 8 months. I've been then able to very slowly pick up my ayp practice over the next approx. 6 months. I had to do little steps like 5 minutes of deep meditation only, after a few months getting to 3 minutes of spinal breathing pranayama, etc. Now, after some further 2 years or so I'm back to full speed, doing amaroli, ásanas, 5 - 10 minutes of SBP, mula bandha - uddiána bandha - shámbaví mudra, 20 minutes of DM, Samyama and Cosmic Samyama, and occasionally stage 3 kecharí mudra, all twice daily.
Over the entire 10 years I did always some kind of physical training - Pilates, yoga postures (always some kind of vinyasa flow), and I've been doing training periods of weightlifting.
Also, there have been some systematic Karmic interventions on basis of channeling. These were powerful.
Before this recent retreat, I attended 2 AYP rereats, which were 9 days long, and done according to the official, recommended way. These didn't actually do much for me. Then I attempted twice a solo ayp retreat, also according to the recommended way, which were 25 and 34 days long. These were unsuccessful, in the sense that they significantly contributed to the major overload I've already mentioned, and didn't bring any satisfaction.
I also attended several Vipassana retreats, some led according to the Thai tradition of Ajahn Chah, an some to the Burmese Mahasi Sayadaw method (as taught by Chanmyay Sayadaw and Sayadaw U Pandita). During the last two of these, which were also 2 week long, I've been once able to attain the fourth jñána and once I got stuck somewhere in the early dukkhá jñánas (number 5 probably) for the entire second half of the retreat.
I then attempted a combination of ayp and Vipassana at a 7 day retreat, which was led by sister Ajahn Chandasiri of the Thai forest tradition. This was a rather mild combination of a twice daily ayp routine, and a moderate vipassana retreat schedule. This was a success, as I found that good results are actually possible with the combination. During this retreat I was able to go back and forth between ordinary functioning (like in the kitchen) and relatively deep concentration while doing sitting practices, within short periods of time, like half a day.
What did I do this time:
The present retreat was planned as a vipassana retreat of the "hard core" type, done in the Burmese tradition style and the Mahasi method in particular. (I'm attaching the original schedule of the retreat further down this document.)
A key understanding for me to be able to combine the ayp practices with the vipassana method was probably the relationship between the ayp terms of "stillness", "inner silence" and "pure bliss consciousness" on one side, and the term "concentration" (samádhí) as used in the vipassana context. As I understand them today, they all represent more or less the same function or state of mind, and the differences in the terms and general flavor of the ways of describing the state/function may be rather the result of 1) achieving this state with a different method, and 2) using it then in a different way. In ayp deep meditation, on the one hand, we achieve "stillness" unintentionally, with no effort, and a great emphasis is given on the instruction, that we don't try to stay with the mantra, we only come back to it again and again, whenever we notice we are not repeating it. On the other hand, in samathá practice (which is a part of the Mahásí method) the emphasis is also on coming back to the object again and again, but with the goal to stabilize the mind at the object, possibly to the point of exclusion of anything else from the mind, and moreover, effort (viriya) plays a role in this. So, as a result of this difference, although arriving through both techniques at a similar place, we might feel that in the former case some kind of spacious stillness effortlessly arises in the mind, whereas in the latter case we feel, that we focus the mind concentrically, narrowing it to one point, and we may use some effort to achieve this. Then, in ayp, the inner silence is more ore less our "goal", a state where we arrive and then we get up and engage in our daily activities, not doing any formal practice anymore. In vipassana this is different, because here we actively use concentration to fuel further formal techniques, and to sharpen our ability to penetrate into the true nature of things. So these differences may further contribute to our feeling, that in one case it is appropriate to talk about inner silence, whereas in the other about concentration.
The key to the success of this experiment may lie in that it is bringing together "left-handed", rather aggressive techniques for stimulating and balancing Kundalini, with the completely "right-handed", powerful and uncompromising method of Knowing the true nature of all existence.
At vipassana retreats of this type the schedule is very tight. The goal is to meditate non-stop, which is achieved by dividing the day into three areas of practice - sitting meditation, walking meditation, and daily activities meditation. The first two are formal, precisely instructed practices. Daily activities are reduced to the necessary minimum, and some of them, like eating, are also instructed, and could be seen as formal practice. No talking is allowed, except with the teacher.
The first two or three days are usually dedicated to build up concentration, which is then used to get the vipassana process going. Some teachers prefer to do Mettá practice, others do focus on inbreath and outbreath, combined with attention on the sensations on the feet while doing walking practice. I chose to focus on breathing (specifically the sensations of raising and falling of the abdominal wall) + attention on feet, and in addition to this I did my normal twice-daily ayp routine. During the second day my practice already started to naturally switch to vipassana, as a result of the concentration getting stronger.
It took me some three or four days of experimenting to figure out the extent to which it would be reasonable to mix the ayp and vipassana practices and also the extent to which it would feel safe in terms of overload. After that initial period I arrived at a conclusion that the practices work well together and that I want to try to do as powerful a mix as possible. I decided to start every morning with a 30 minute sequence of asanas, essentially using the ayp asana routine for preparation of the nervous system, plus a series of asanas focused on relieving any tensions from extensive sitting and walking practice. (I can provide details on this if someone's interested.) Then I would do my normal twice daily ayp routine, in the appropriate times, with the exception of cosmic Samyama, which I did only afternoon. The rest of time I would stick to the schedule of the retreat. Additionally I supercharged every vipassana sit with an initial sequence of 10 minutes of spinal breathing pranayama and 20 minutes of deep meditation. Then I would switch to vipassana for an hour or so. This proved to be an exceptionally powerful sequence, delivering insights almost as if "on demand". After the sbp + dm there would be typically a 15 - 20 minutes waiting time, and then the experience gradually developed over the following 40 to 45 minutes. At the end of the day I would do a 30 minutes mettá sit to close the day and prepare for sleeping.
So to sum it up, every day there would be typically four 10 minute-long SBP sessions, four 20 minute-long DM sessions, two Samyama sessions, one cosmic Samyama session, two 1.5 hour-long vipassana sits, and the rest of the time ultra-slow walking meditation practice, moving, eating, washing and toilet. The teacher would encourage us constantly to move very, very slowly the entire day, during any activity, and to not allow for any gaps in concentration throughout the entire day. At the end of the retreat I took 24 hours to slowly come down, before leaving the protected environment and driving a car, which was pretty much exactly what I needed.
Right now I'm back to my normal twice daily ayp practice (it's been 3 days now) and everything feels smooth and there are no sings of overload whatsoever. I nevertheless scaled back on sbp, which I'm now doing just about 3 minutes or so and very lightly (basically just going with awareness to head and pelvis). Also, I switched to the heart centering version of dm, as a precaution.
Schedules:
This is the original schedule of the retreat:
• 5:00 get up
• 5:15 walking meditation
• 6:00 chanting, sitting meditation
• 7:00 breakfast
• 7:50 working period
• 8:45 instructions, sitting meditation
• 10:00 walking meditation
• 11:00 sitting meditation
• 12:00 lunch, rest, laundry, shower
• 14:00 walking meditation
• 15:00 sitting meditation
• 16:00 walking meditation
• 17:00 tea, fruits
• 17:30 walking meditation
• 18:00 sitting meditation
• 19:00 Dhamma-talk
• 21:00 walking meditation
• 21:30 mettá meditation
• 22:00 bed
And this is what I actually ended up doing:
• 5:15 get up
• 5:30 ásanas
• 6:00 chanting (very nice to get the vocal cords going in the morning)
• 6:15 full ayp sitting routine (no cosmic samyama)
• 7:00 breakfast (ultra slow, almost formal practice)
• 8:00 working period (hoovering in my case - not a bad choice)
• 8:25 walking meditation
• 9:00 interview with teacher
• 9:20 walking meditation
• 10:00 sitting meditation (10min sbp, 20min dm, 60min vipassana)
• 11:30 ultra slow moving - drinking from a bottle, observing
• 12:00 lunch (again - ultra slow, almost formal practice)
• 13:00 sleeping in half-seated position (or showering)
• 14:00 walking meditation
• 15:00 sitting meditation (10min sbp, 20min dm, 60min vipassana)
• 16:30 ultra slow moving, observing
• 17:00 tea, fruits
• 17:30 walking meditation
• 18:00 full ayp sitting routine (including cosmic samyama)
• 19:15 Dhamma-talk
• 20:30 tea, walking meditation
• 21:30 mettá meditation (sitting)
• 22:00 bed
Diary:
What follows is a transcript of notes I've been writing throughout the entire retreat. These were meant to capture the most relevant or interesting experiences, so that I don't need to worry about remembering them. I then used these notes during the interviews to communicate to the teacher what I've experienced. Important experiences are bold letters. The first sheet of notes corresponds to the second full day of meditation, and the numbers indicate intervals between interviews, usually one day.
I.
morning -
sitting:
- inbreath/outbreath
- surprisingly strong concentration after
walking:
- concentration peak about 30 minutes, suddenly down to intentions, labeling thinking, planning, hearing
feet: lifting, pushing, touching, pressing
happy - no pressure
- than mettá for +- 10 minutes, concentration gone
------
lunch - could become superslow for some time - enjoyed
------
I'm starting to see the repetitiveness of the mind (planning/recalling)
------
there are background thoughts most of the time when there's good concentration during in walking
------
chocolate observation
II.
sitting: 1h 20min
- mettá - works
- raising, falling, thinking, hearing
- pain in legs + pressure in chest -> focused on pressure + labeled "fear" - then pressure built up and I "threw up" - then pain changed into something not painful
trying to get up, opening bottle: 40 min
- ultra slow
- first broken movements
- movements as if industrial machines
- getting "stuck" on intentions
back to sitting
------
walking:
- o.k.
sitting: 1h15min
- pressure in chest -> pain -> look for emotion ->emo/pressure escalates -> release in emo expression = Kriya/grimasse -> pain looses painfulness
------
drinking:
- mechanical, robotic
- something happened with the objectual image -> rescaling
III.
sitting: 1h30min
- same stuff: pain -> fear -> a couple releases
- Kundalini (Kriyas) seem to be involved in pain release
What is this pain/emo/muscle tension combo?
walking:
- slow but nothing special
------
walking: 1 -> 4 (5)
sitting: 1h15min
- Kriyas + visions of K
- not much pressure in chest
- into pain, away from pain
- shámbaví strong
- yawning
- after sit -> hard to move at all
- again somewhat robotic (same atmo)
- very hard to move legs initially ("not in charge of)
- rolling up into standing like pulling on a puppet (felt some distance too)
dining hall:
- suddenly in a clear, tender, blissful state
- slow motion
- easy to label anything, including thoughts
- no pressure, no confusion
[Note - This is the fourth insight - Udayabbáya jñána. From here on, the dukkhá jñánas follow.]
------
Can see now how subtle thoughts (images, fragments of memory) create clusters of meaning and get attached to gross thoughts.
IV.
sitting: 1h30min
- raising & falling very slow, could separate clearly subtle thoughts from sensations -> observing sensations sharpens concentration
- see clearly components - gross thoughts/subtle thoughts/meaning (puppy)
- pain - could not find much emotion
- can see desire/intention/action
------
walking: o.k.
sitting:
- not nice - new it right away
- gradually everything started to annoy me - thoughts, watching breathing unsatisfactory, hatred, not wanting, anger, arrogance
- hated pain for not setting in, then for being there
- not wanting to accept pain
- screaming internally with grimace
- final pain somewhat transformed after realizing that I want it to go away
------
dining hall:
- the blissful one again
- effortlessness, like MDMA
- stayed longer
V.
sitting: 1h45min
- bored, annoyed, doubt
- pain transformed somewhat
- some dullness/dreaminess
- pain didn't want to go away. Why!? Why this!?
walking:
- pushing limbs
- hard to start motion
- jerking
- little bit trying to recreate past experiences
------
sitting:
concentration peak - head O>
- pain - same sequence -> pain -> remove emo -> new pain
- maybe shifted to a slightly more neutral position towards the pain
activities:
- mindfulness gets steady, stays more automatically
- seem to focus quickly in walking
VI.
sitting: 1h30min
- dullness/sleepiness -> fear -> realized all just states -> fear dissolved -> dull dissolved -> then clarity
- labeled away all kinds of emo
- pain not very personal
- emo have 2 entry points -> emo label or physical component
- some good expression releases
- labeled "sorrow" finally -> good release (one more when later recalled it)
- in the end just one pain-spot left
slow drinking:
- clearly saw broken movements in hands & fingers
- got shaky hands after
------
walking:
- broken m. here and there
sitting:
- perhaps overconcentrated
- unable to focus on anything, not knowing what to do, bored, disgusted, endless, didn't know if I'm watching anything or not, difficult, frustrating
- pain just stays - doesn't transform now - aversion, hatred, rage
------
can see faces on walls
------
mettá:
- Individuals and the mettá wishes started disintegrating on me. Had to switch to vipassana -> steady, autonomous awareness, could focus on breath, shábmaví or prana.
VII.
walking:
- b.m. in knees
sitting: 1h30min + 1h
- couldn't recall what was happening even immediately after sit
- same space, couldn't stick to any objects
- eventually I realized that I don't have to necessarily be always watching some object -> then bigger release, mixed emo including grief/sorrow -> then space opened and peaceful but soon realized it's somehow corrupted -> I don't want to be in that peace
- then pain, several emo releases
------
bottle:
-b.m. in fingers and hands
-------
I'm actually shocked with how much thought is pride motivated.
------
more on sitting:
- in the end some "over-acted" caricature-like feelings and expressions
- also while chewing lunch as if bored/inconvenienced by the need to chew
------
sitting:
- couldn't stick to anything even if I tried - objects unsatisfactory
- unsatisfactoryness (boredom)
- mind like grey, oily, undifferentiated porridge
- didn't want to accept it, hated it, hard to stand back
- laughed towards the end, found situation funny
- virtually no pain
- the whole thing looks kinda nice, but really is totally unsatisfactory
evening extra sit: 50min
- started with r&f unsatisfactory/uninteresting
- then I decided that I deserve rest and wanted to finish sit
- breath gradually deepened and prolonged
- slowly a calm, pleasant state arose and replaced the unsatisfactoryness
- discomfort in legs appeared distant
- labeled fear that it won't last and desire to keep it
- finished after 15" volitionally
- awareness raised to eye-level surface
went outside:
- mindfulness seems to "stick"
- Nature seems richer in information when looked at. (Perhaps richer than when normally looked at + thought about.)
------
Q:
- as if not concentrated after sit?
- quite a lot of thinking during daily activities, as if loosing grip on the objects
VIII.
sitting: 1h30min
- powerfull sit
- once I got concentrated I recognized that I'm again afraid of how the sit will develop. Then it started to dawn on me that it's an endless cycle.
- cryed very emotionally for 30 - 40 minutes
- I saw that there is no end to suffering
- anything pleasant is only a preparation for further suffering
- there's no point in what I've been doing my whole life
- it's like utterly naively trying to lift ones face from mud, only to hit back, again and again, endlessly.
- it has no happy end. I've been living in a delusion
- there is no point in trying to intervene or modify this
- After the experience came to an end, I've been just sitting there, quite content with what's happening, trying to understand/evaluate my new position.
- later, feelings of gratefulness during lunch
- little synchronicity with glasses
- when opened eyes after sit and saw meditation hall, I felt like I returned from somewhere else
------
sitting: 1h20min
- first part quite pleasant
- realized that for the first time I'm not attempting to manipulate the experience
- sitting there with everything as it was - some pleasant/some unpleasant/some neutral
- towards the end I realized something's strange:
pleasant experience - doesn't matter
unpleasant experience - doesn't matter
"How do I live with that!?"
- Then got up and became a cloth puppet. Hardly moving, pulling limbs behind.
- TOTAL LOSS OF MEANING
note: shámbaví is definitely associated with concentration
------
morning:
Q: New paradox: We wish happiness to all beings, but if this just sets the stage for more unhappiness, what then? We wish that suffering goes away. We chant it every morning.
Q: Is there ever going to be a stage, where pain is equally acceptable as bliss? How do I do that? Do I stop enjoying bliss, or start enjoying pain? Because I ultimately want to enjoy, yes?
IX.
walking/moving:
- when focused, moving becomes a problem
- movements very impersonal
- like inanimate, mechanical parts steered by intention
- limbs loose, paralysis-like
- body is just a bunch of moving parts (not "me" for sure)
sitting: 1h30min
- sharp, alert, clear
- mostly neutral feeling
- could observe subtleties of grasping/preferring pleasant exp.
- could see longing for experiencing itself
- when everything is neutral, a subtle feeling that something's missing becomes evident.
daily activities:
- can see there's preference for pleasant exp. more readily
------
sitting: 1h30min
- mind not able/willing to accept what is. at the same time knows that trying to change things is even worse.
- towards the end some laughing over absurdity of the situation
- tried to stop labeling because had a feeling that it drives me to seek ever further objects
walking:
- now zombie-state stopped and walking turned into something rather elegant
- broken movements present
- motions fluidly pushed by continuous intention
- noted clinging to the prospect of a new, more pleasant phase of practice
X.
walking:
- very elegant
- b.m. in feet, legs, even spine
- continuous intention
- intention on standing
- happy
sitting: 1h30min
- breath gradually deepened
- then long, powerful inbreaths, often with yawn or screaming expression at the top
- gradually retentions on inbreath
- powerful visions of fat streams of light flying and swirling through body, head, chakras, etc.
- towards the end retentions after outbreath
- very deep & powerful breath through entire sit
- stopped exactly on time, as if switched off
------
- new lady triggering me physically
------
sitting: 1h20min
- first started to get bored, annoyed, etc. with all the objects and the mind's functioning
- then I got particularly inconvenienced with the mind's endless repetitiveness - planning million times the same irrelevant things, then getting millions of times disturbed when recognizing it, beating itself up, in endless cycles
- at some point recalled your hint about dukkhá also being impermanent
- then I felt a shift is happening and a wonderful state started developing gradually
- I developed a mettá-like attitude towards the mind and all its flaws and weaknesses, also compassionate
- could label every new cycle of planning, thinking, pride, etc. with compassion, acceptance and understanding that this is the way things are. And I knew, with contentment, that eventually even pride may be uprooted.
- realized clearly that I am not the mind's processes
walking:
- all movements have great elegance
- experience continued, I "floated on a cloud"
- had feelings towards lifting+pushing+dropping of feet as if towards dearest friends or my children
- also the usually disturbing bell ringing was nice
[Note - It seems that the experience described above may have been a full-blown experience of the Sankhára upekkhá jñána - 11th stage]
early morning sit: 1h30min
- got up at 2:30
- huge breath, long and powerful retentions both after inbreath and outbreath
- massive flows of prana, powerful cone of light above head on antar kumbhaka
- labeled somewhat sporadically
asanas:
- direct contact to muscles and posture forms
------
dining hall - (experience)
- suddenly things around me started to apparently loose mass and substance
- time dilation
- all material objects seemed to be gently floating in time
- it seemed like tables and chairs will soon start floating around, like in outer space, and then just very elegantly will fall apart
- it was evident that matter and space are empty of substance and that under some special circumstances it could happen that matter and space would get just switched off, like a holographic 3D movie, and would just very lightly and elegantly fade away
- there was a sense of amusement and perplexity
------
sitting: 1h20min
- once more reviewed tendency to identify with "victim" of emo
- at some point a chain of various emo got fired in such a fast succession, at the same time getting expressed on my face, that the whole thing became a joke
- once more it became evident that there's no point in taking this personally
XI.
sitting:
- inner visual field gradually became filled with a whitish light
- state somewhat pleasant
- labeled everything very tightly
walking:
- bliss
------
got up at 2:30
walking:
- down to more or less continuous broken movements
sitting:
- a pleasant/neutral state developed
- some feelings of detachment
- focused on labeling pleasant védaná and desire for progress
- realized that labeling itself is motivated by desire for progress
- then recognized fear that I will never be able to achieve any further progress
- Than I gradually realized that there has been a huge misunderstanding and arrogance, all the way from the beginning of the practice, maybe even life, because I thought "I" am doing all the progress, literally "forcing" the insights to happen. It became clear that there is absolutely nothing I could do to force the next insight into existence and that I've been tricked by myself all the way.
- I started crying
- then I got outside the meditation hall and saw one of the yogis carrying a teapot slowly and with great care
- I suddenly realized the unimaginable arrogance with which I've been judging the fellow yogis. I saw them giving genuine, patient and authentic effort, getting a fraction of he results that I've been given. Moreover, I felt proud of my progress and even sometimes got inconvenienced with the was other yogis approached the practice, feeling that they are "not meeting my standards". It was terrible.
- Then I somehow got to the altar and while kneeling there and crying, all my pride and arrogance got mercilessly exposed and destructed. I hope this is what actually happened, at least to some degree.
- the experience developed over 45 - 60 minutes
- during chanting I realized how shameless it was to chant "sharing merits", whereas in truth I've been wanting all the benefit of practice for myself.
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Edited by - mimirom on Jul 16 2014 11:00:20 AM |
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Experientialknowing
USA
263 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2014 : 08:03:38 AM
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| An impressive well organized piece of writing. Thank you for being open enough to share many will likely read this in the years to come and appreciate your efforts. |
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mimirom
Czech Republic
368 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2014 : 11:12:21 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Experientialknowing
An impressive well organized piece of writing. Thank you for being open enough to share many will likely read this in the years to come and appreciate your efforts.
Yes, it remains a somewhat open question, if it is good practice to talk openly about ones spiritual progress. I've heard that Buddhist monks are advised not to. My teacher, however, was as open-minded as to give me continual context in terms of the progress of stages of insight. Some teachers choose not to give this information to their students. I am very glad that I've been given that context and I think it has not hindered the process of meditation. So I also somehow feel that it is a good thing to share this information with members of the spiritual sangha. |
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Successful Experiment: AYP+
