How Do You Know What Is True? (Culadasa's Lecture)

[ardacigin]

Here is a great lecture from Culadasa that points out how to distinguish truth from falsehood and how to find joy and happiness in meditation. These are important aspects of the practice so I recommend everyone to watch this.

Here is my quick summary of the lecture:

Truth is informed by direct experience. Whenever your understanding of reality contradicts what actually exists in direct experience, you are operating from falsehood.

Successful Meditation needs these components:

1- Relax: Let go of any mental and physical tension when you become aware of them. This re-trains the nervous system to create the necessary conditions for awakening. Don't mistake relaxation in meditation with dullness or sleepiness. Relaxation must be supported by an energetic mind. 

2- Look for the joy: Consciously notice/re-create positive and pleasant mental and physical sensations. Even if pain arises, you need the ability to contact some level of happiness, contentment and joy.

3- Observe with Equanimity: Equanimity is non-reactivity to sensate experience. Observing is being clear about what occurs in direct experience. Stable Attention and Awareness are trained with this equanimous observation in mind.

4- Let it come, let it be, let it go: Do not create mental tension by grasping when you are doing meditation techniques. Especially concentration oriented ones. That attitude blocks open spaciousness, relaxation and joy. The better alternative is to let sensations appear in consciousness, accept the momentary experience with equanimity and don't grasp after it if it subsides.

You need to set intentions depending on your spiritual development but you must accept the conditions that arise in meditation without expectations. Stay in the present moment and do your techniques with this detachment in mind.

 

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by ardacigin

[Nak Khid]

I like his unpretentious style

However I notice this recent scandal

https://engagedharma.net/2019/08/19/culadasa-charged-with-sexual-misconduct/

2019/08/19

Culadasa Charged with Sexual Misconduct

John Yates, aka Culadasa, author of The Mind Illuminated, has been confronted with charges of sexual misconduct by the Board of Dharma Treasure. The incidents involve adultery with several women, for whom he also allegedly provided financial support.

Dear Dharma Treasure Sangha,

It was recently brought to the attention of Dharma Treasure Board members that John Yates (Upasaka Culadasa) has engaged in ongoing conduct unbecoming of a Spiritual Director and Dharma teacher. He has not followed the upasaka (layperson) precepts of sexual harmlessness, right speech, and taking what is not freely given.

We thoroughly reviewed a substantial body of evidence, contemplated its significance, and sought confidential counsel from senior Western Dharma teachers, who urged transparency. We also sought legal advice and spoke with various non-profit consultants to draw on their expertise and objectivity in handling this matter. As a result of our process, the Board has voted to remove Mr. Yates from all positions with Dharma Treasure.

In a series of Board meetings as well as written correspondences with Mr. Yates, he admitted to being involved in a pattern of sexual misconduct in the form of adultery. There is no evidence that this adultery involved improper interactions with students or any form of unwanted sexual advances.  Rather, adultery with multiple  women, some of whom are sex workers, took place over the past four years. The outcome was extended relationships with a group of about ten women. Relationships with some continue to the present day.

He has provided significant financial support to some of these women, a portion of which was given without the prior knowledge or consent of his wife. Mr. Yates also said he engaged in false speech by responding to his wife’s questions with admissions, partial truths, and lies during these years.

After we brought this misconduct to the attention of Mr. Yates, he agreed to write a letter to the Sangha disclosing his behavior, which would give students informed consent to decide for themselves whether to continue studying with him. However, after weeks of negotiations, we were unable to come to an agreement about the content and degree of transparency of his letter.

At the end of this entire process, we are sadly forced to conclude that Mr. Yates should not be teaching Dharma at this time. Likewise, we are clear that keeping the upasaka (layperson) vows is an absolutely essential foundation for serving as the Spiritual Director of Dharma Treasure. With heavy hearts, the Board has voted to remove him from this role, from the Board, and from all other positions associated with Dharma Treasure.

We also acknowledge the benefit of Mr. Yates’ scholarship, meditation instructions, and the personal guidance he has provided for so many earnest seekers, including ourselves. People from all over the world have been deeply impacted by the Dharma he has presented, and we do not wish to minimize the good he has done. We are forever grateful for the study and practice we have all undertaken together with Mr. Yates.

We know people may feel disbelief and dismay upon learning about this pattern of behavior. However, it is our strong wish that we all use this time as an opportunity to practice patient inquiry, compassion, and discernment. Our goal in sharing this information with the Sangha is to provide each of you with enough information to make your own informed decision about whether or how to work with Mr. Yates as a teacher. We hope this transparency about Mr. Yates’ behavior can help us all move toward a place where we honor teachers for their gifts while acknowledging they are complex human beings who make mistakes.

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You can imagine this has been a long, methodical, and distressing process. Moving forward, we feel it is in the best interest of the organization to form a new Board that brings fresh perspectives and energy. The current Board will resign after vetting and electing new qualified Board members to carry on the mission of Dharma Treasure.

Finally, we hope this disclosure about Mr. Yates’ conduct does not shake your confidence in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. The transformative strength of refuge in the triple treasure can sustain us through this challenging time. Many other communities have walked this difficult path and emerged wiser and stronger. The ancient and modern history of Buddhism is filled with examples of the Dharma’s liberating individual and social power and compassion. Let us never forget that.

In service,
The Dharma Treasure Board of Directors
Blake Barton
Jeremy Graves
Matthew Immergut
Eve Smith
Nancy Yates

 

 

[ardacigin]

@Nak Khid Hi! Yes. I'm aware of the allegations. I've talked to Culadasa about it. Let me address that.

He definitely made a mistake and is ready to purify that shadow aspect of himself. He is also open to working with a therapist if the need arises. He also said that he is doing shamanic breathing practices to work on deep emotional work.

This is basically Shinzen's procrastination issue all over again in a different context. The person is awake spiritually but there are still subtler and subtler layers of craving and suffering that results in immoral action.

All of us have these issue including myself. I still watch porn and play video games. But these actions become bad, wrong and immoral from the moral excellence paradigm. There is actually no such thing as wrong actions. That is why mindfulness when you are awake sometimes allows for these sorts of 'cracks' in the armor. Morality is a human construct and is relative. These sort of 'negative' behaviours constitute your uniqueness in this infinite-ness of consciousness.

And what is interesting is that even if suffering is fully eliminated, these 'immoral' actions can still occur automatically just due to sheer habit force in times when the mindfulness is less powerful.

This is also similar to Joshua Sasaki Roshi's sexual allegations with students. The person is deeply awake but gaps in contextual understanding, lack of emotional work, childhood traumas, powerful negative habits all create these cracks in the mindfulness and results in less than moral actions.

Behaviors are very important. But one's depth of spiritual realization is not a direct cause of their quality of behaviors due to the existence of egoic habit forces, emotional trauma and shadow aspects.

So the teachings do work. Culadasa is deeply awake. But just like everyone he has behavioral issues, a shadow aspect and hasn't embodied a Buddha-like ideal of moral excellence. Such a thing actually doesn't exist.

These are different lines of development and should not be confused with the validity of actual spiritual insight or methods. 

Look at Peter Ralston, Leo, Shinzen, Culadasa, Martin Ball...etc. they all have behavioral issues to a degree and are not morally excellent. You can easily cherry-pick all sorts of behavioral issues by observing them if your standards are moral excellence.

For instance, Peter Ralston has a masculine and arrogant personality style. This can be seen as a lack of embodiment and a strong habit force when it comes to morality, personality and love aspects of consciousness. But it also can be a personal choice. 

Culadasa's style is much more loving and less-arrogant but his cracks in mindfulness are in different areas. This is one of them.

Shinzen's style is precise but his mindfulness has cracks in procrastination (which is a behavioral problem) which is a deep unconscious habit force. 

Martin ball and Leo have insight mastery to varying degrees but are working on both embodiment and behavioral change.

And so do everyone else including Eckhart Tolle, Sahdguru etc.

All awakened people are in a continuum that has different behavioral strengths and weaknesses. And also all awakened people are conscious of specific spiritual insights and have embodied them to varying degrees. So there is no such thing as a binary awakening. 

Awakening is a process of spiritual growth. Especially when it comes to behavioral change. 

Hope this clarified the issue  

 

[Nak Khid]

29 minutes ago, ardacigin said:

@Nak Khid

Shinzen's style is precise but his mindfulness has cracks in procrastination (which is a behavioral problem) which is a deep unconscious habit force.

Shinzen said he has procrastination issues?

[ardacigin]

1 hour ago, Nak Khid said:

Shinzen said he has procrastination issues?

@Nak KhidYes. He said that even after deep awakenings, he had to work with a psychologist for 6 months to overcome procrastination.

Mindfulness itself was not enough for him and he said that this tendency to procrastinate was so strong that it destroyed his productivity over the years. He needed some sort of an accountability structure for this particular issue.

Again, this is an example of a deep behavioral issue that requires the integration of mindfulness, emotional work, and psychotherapy. Look at another spiritual teacher and he might have zero problems with procrastination. Everyone has different quirks.

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by ardacigin

[moon777light]

dayum, Culadasa is a sugar daddy

[ardacigin]

Just now, moon777light said:

dayum, Culadasa is a sugar daddy

[Nak Khid]

12 hours ago, ardacigin said:

@Nak KhidYes. He said that even after deep awakenings, he had to work with a psychologist for 6 months to overcome procrastination.

Mindfulness itself was not enough for him and he said that this tendency to procrastinate was so strong that it destroyed his productivity over the years. He needed some sort of an accountability structure for this particular issue.

Again, this is an example of a deep behavioral issue that requires the integration of mindfulness, emotional work, and psychotherapy. Look at another spiritual teacher and he might have zero problems with procrastination. Everyone has different quirks.

 

Ironically In some cases meditation could be used as procrastination.  

Or any good thing could in excess turn into a bad thing.   I would think it would be a good idea on noticing this weakness to then to add a countermeasure as a part of one's practice.

You said Shinzen's style is precise but his mindfulness has cracks in procrastination (which is a behavioral problem) which is a deep unconscious habit force. 
But assuming he has been "cured" of his procrastination he may have fixed the cracks or even their root since then

[ardacigin]

15 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

Ironically In some cases meditation could be used as procrastination.  

Or any good thing could in excess turn into a bad thing.   I would think it would be a good idea on noticing this weakness to then to add a countermeasure as a part of one's practice.

You said Shinzen's style is precise but his mindfulness has cracks in procrastination (which is a behavioral problem) which is a deep unconscious habit force. 
But assuming he has been "cured" of his procrastination he may have fixed the cracks or even their root since then

Yeah. And many enlightened people fix these issues once they become aware of them to a sufficient degree. But they need to focus on them and be aware of them.

Also, these are only publicized flaws of teachers. There are many more issues an awakened person might have besides procrastination etc. 

So when Shinzen cured his procrastination, that doesn't mean he turned into a perfect Buddha. That was only one big issue he faced. There still are micro issues he might be dealing with and we'll never know because they are not publicized.

The point I've tried to make was that awakening doesn't equate to moral excellence or behavioral saintliness.

Awakening is little bit of a double-edged sword here. It makes it easier to work on these issues if the person wants to get rid of them but it can also make them totally fine to have these issues and therefore eliminate all motivation to change those behaviors and thought patterns.

That is why all awakened people have all sorts of behavioral issues. Whether big or small. Some do have much less so than others, but they still have them.

Edited December 17, 2019 by ardacigin

[V-8]

On 12/16/2019 at 2:11 AM, ardacigin said:

Here is a great lecture from Culadasa that points out how to distinguish truth from falsehood and how to find joy and happiness in meditation. These are important aspects of the practice so I recommend everyone to watch this.

Here is my quick summary of the lecture:

Truth is informed by direct experience. Whenever your understanding of reality contradicts what actually exists in direct experience, you are operating from falsehood.

 

 

 

 

The quick summary was enough to understand that Mr Culadasa is another Caterpillar teaching Caterpillars to be Butterflies.

Perhaps one of the first things to bring up in a discussion of truth is...“Two truths cannot contradict one another”  - Galileo Galilei

Thus,...all that is necessary to uncover a single absolute truth,...which is sadly missing in today's culture.

I can certain type out an Absolute Truth,...such as "There is no Present in time."....yet it doesn't do much good until one realizes that themselves.

"Contradictions in perspective among those Seeing the profound do not occur" – Taranatha.

Real seekers of truth eventually realize that the way or path to uncovering Absolute Truth is through the letting go of the false.

"The real seeker of truth never seeks truth. On the contrary, she tries to clean herself of all that is untrue, inauthentic, insincere."  Chandra Mohan Jain

"We need to draw our attention to what is false in us, for unless we learn to recognize the false as the false, there can be no lasting transformation, and you will always be drawn back into illusion, for that is how the false perpetuates itself"        Eckhart Tolle

But who really wants to do that?

"How many of us truly want wisdom?  We want many things, but who really wants to be wise."  Gabrielle Roth

What most want is their Me Stories and Personal Truth,...which are always lies.

Edited December 17, 2019 by V-8

[V-8]

 

On 12/16/2019 at 3:48 AM, ardacigin said:

@Nak Khid Hi! Yes. I'm aware of the allegations. I've talked to Culadasa about it. Let me address that.

Awakening is a process of spiritual growth. Especially when it comes to behavioral change. 

Hope this clarified the issue  

 

Awakening is a Conscious Awareness of Spirit,..the in-breath/out-breath of duality.  The majority are stuck in a patrifocal conscious tethered to Form, because of their identification with the senses.

"As man unfolds from sensed man to spiritual man he gradually becomes aware of the two-way motion of all effect" - Walter Russell.  

"The senses do not grasp reality in any way" Socrates

Spirituality is among the most mis-defined words in today's world. 

Spirit....from the Latin spiritus, or breath,...relates to the in-breath (yang, masculine energy) and out-breath (yin, feminine energy) of duality's phenomenal world,...that is, how this illusory Dream reality breaths.  Spirit ONLY exists within the perception of separation.  Without separation, there is no Spirit,..no Duality,...and thus no One.  Without the Past, Spirit does not exist.  There is no Spirit in the Present, just like there is no energy or mass in Undivided Light. 

Spirituality is an awareness of integration or rhythmic balanced interchange of duality.   The Great Absence among Sentient Beings is the Feminine, and by consequence, only a Shadow Masculine is known.   The Feminine of Duality is not a gender of Form, but the Wave of a Particle.

 

One final point in reference to this thread,...NO ONE who advocates meditation is a Spiritual Being, or aware of Truth.

"Do you think you can clear your mind by sitting constantly in silent meditation? This makes your mind narrow, not clear."  Lao-Tzu  Huahujing

“If your purpose is to medicate dukkha,...then meditate. If your wish is bodhi,...practice absolute bodhicitta.”  a Chan  saying.

Hui Neng said that meditation is unnecessary, and warned that such practice can easily become a narcotic.   

"Free yourself from meditation, practice non-meditation" - Kyergangpa Chökyi Senge

"The practice of meditation is represented by the three monkeys, who cover their eyes, ears and mouths so as to avoid the phenomenal world. The practice of non-meditation is ceasing to be the see-er, hearer or speaker while eyes, ears and mouths are fulfilling their function in daily life."   - Wei Wu Wei  

"in my regard there is no view on which to meditate" - Kunje Gyalpo

"Meditation is about repetition, whereas Non-meditation is observing something totally new in every moment. If you want to connect with the open, spacious quality of mind, at some point you have to stop trying to meditate."  Lama Willa B Miller

"The state of non-meditation is born in the heart...."  Jigme Lingpa

"meditation and religious teachings are all gentle deceptions meant to soothe the inner coward, not forge the inner hero."  Jed McKenna

 

 

 

[Leo Gura]

7 hours ago, V-8 said:

One final point in reference to this thread,...NO ONE who advocates meditation is a Spiritual Being, or aware of Truth.

This is nonsense.

[remember]

7 hours ago, V-8 said:

"Do you think you can clear your mind by sitting constantly in silent meditation? This makes your mind narrow, not clear."  Lao-Tzu  Huahujing

“If your purpose is to medicate dukkha,...then meditate. If your wish is bodhi,...practice absolute bodhicitta.”  a Chan  saying.

also these, you would want to build a synthesis of these. bodhicitta without a clear view is self deception and often ends in suffering and self denial. meditation without bodhicitta is lightbody blindness.

Edited December 18, 2019 by remember
it`s late

[ardacigin]

Also, let me add my own experiences with behavioral change. 

I'm not awake from a traditional Theravadan standpoint, however as a skilled samatha meditator, I've reduced suffering and increased life satisfaction, present moment awareness and happiness so radically than before that I'm TOTALLY fine eating chocolate here and there. I'm also TOTALLY fine watching porn and playing video games. 

I understand that some of you would view these activities to produce attachments and perturb the mind, however that is actually an illusion. All of this work (for the spiritual dimension) occurs internally. Suffering is reduced internally. So once you actually start to do that, you can't point to external activities and say:

'Watching porn is bad and wrong!'

So you can sit on a couch and just act like a 'potato' all day, watching porn, TV shows, playing games, and relaxing and that would be a blissful spiritual experience. None of this produces suffering inducing thoughts like:

'Man! I gotta do something with my life. I gotta take action and achieve goals. I feel like something is missing sitting at my mom's basement.'

It also doesn't produce negative emotions like sadness, anger, hatred, anxiety etc.

See, the entire thought pattern arises out of dissatisfaction and suffering. Someone who has reduced suffering sufficiently would be content living in his mom's basement.

However, once you become even more awake, you also start to develop love for sentient beings and compassion for your imagined sense of self and other.

Once you are on that level of mastery for both mindfulness and behavioural change, you consciously choose to get out of your mom's basement and decide to help reduce the suffering of the world.

So your actions stop being facilitated by the experience of suffering. This might sound simple but even after legit awakening, this is a HUGE challenge. This is why even zen and vipassana masters struggle with behavior change. You need to truly become a master to act from a place of love without a regard for sensate suffering and pain.

Don't forget the powerful force of suffering that taints your everyday momentary experience right now as you are reading this. 

But provided that you get to that level, you'll choose to work on your behavior issues and act on the world rather than being a couch potato. But again! There is nothing wrong with being a couch potato from a spiritual point of view. And you'll come to love and enjoy your shortcomings until you become even more radically awake. At that point, you will still love all of your personal shortcomings but also will do your best to help others reduce their suffering

You are filled with joy and contentment. You haven't eliminated all suffering however, you are conscious enough that what is being referred to as 'bad and undesirable' in self-development circles like laziness, video games, entertainment industry, porn (no-fap challeneges etc.), eating junk foods have no longer the ability to produce aversion and unhappiness in the psyche.

Therefore your entire view of these activities changes radically. You realize that intrinsically speaking there is no undesirable activities or sensations provided that you can work with these skillfully in the present moment. They become bad and undesirable once you fail in mindfulness or when they contradict with the sense of self's imagined goals, values and moral paradigms. Not only are these values a mental construction but so is the sense of self that resides at the center of your world. 

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by ardacigin

[Buba]

5 hours ago, ardacigin said:

'Man! I gotta do something with my life. I gotta take action and achieve goals. I feel like something is missing sitting at my mom's basement.'

That is what has been torturing me for 13 years. I thought I was the only one like this. I felt incomplete, loser, fail. But still my case is more absurd one.

I always wanted to feel contentment and complete. If even enlightened ones can feel incomplete, then I am doomed to live this hell.

The thing is I did not feel like this until 2006. I was happy and complete although I occasionally felt anger, hatred, sadness, fear and etc. However overall in the background everything was ok. I did not have a feeling "I have to do something". But then after that incident in 2006 put me in hell, where I have a constant feeling that I have a mission. I have been in a constant unease for 13 years. I tried everything and this meditation was my last hope.

[ardacigin]

@Buba Hi! That contentment and happiness you are looking for don't even require full-blown hardcore deep awakening. Once you become a skilled Samatha meditator, the contentment, joy and happiness will slowly develop and get to legit drug levels.

I'm not saying this is easy but at least it is systematic. You develop tangible skills at your own rate. Insight recognition, mastery and embodiment is messier. Once you get to TMI stages 8-9-10, you'll have this contentment and happiness with equanimity. There is no doubt about it. If you don't have the happiness, joy and contentment, then you are not TMI stage 8-9-10. Simple as that. If that is the case, you need to work on stages 4-5-6. And if you can't even do that go all the way back to stages 1-2-3 and start from scratch on a solid foundation.

Regardless, once you develop the necessary skills, you'll get there. How fast you'll get there depends on your motivation, talent, nervous system inclination and hard work. It took me about 3-4 years with exclusive practice with TMI.

Start reading the book 'The Mınd Illuminated' and see if the practice helps. 

So enlightened people do feel content and complete. Even skilled Samatha skills will get you there without awakening. So stay diligent and start practicing daily. Motivate yourself and do intense sessions. Try to enjoy your practice as much as you can. Do the jhana practice taught by Leigh Brasington.

Edited December 18, 2019 by ardacigin

[Buba]

53 minutes ago, ardacigin said:

@Buba Hi! That contentment and happiness you are looking for don't even require full-blown hardcore deep awakening. Once you become a skilled Samatha meditator, the contentment, joy and happiness will slowly develop and get to legit drug levels.

I'm not saying this is easy but at least it is systematic. You develop tangible skills at your own rate. Insight recognition, mastery and embodiment is messier. Once you get to TMI stages 8-9-10, you'll have this contentment and happiness with equanimity. There is no doubt about it. If you don't have the happiness, joy and contentment, then you are not TMI stage 8-9-10. Simple as that. If that is the case, you need to work on stages 4-5-6. And if you can't even do that go all the way back to stages 1-2-3 and start from scratch on a solid foundation.

Regardless, once you develop the necessary skills, you'll get there. How fast you'll get there depends on your motivation, talent, nervous system inclination and hard work. It took me about 3-4 years with exclusive practice with TMI.

Start reading the book 'The Mınd Illuminated' and see if the practice helps. 

So enlightened people do feel content and complete. Even skilled Samatha skills will get you there without awakening. So stay diligent and start practicing daily. Motivate yourself and do intense sessions. Try to enjoy your practice as much as you can. Do the jhana practice taught by Leigh Brasington.

Thank you Arda very much. But how is it possible? I have deep rooted beliefs which make me suffer. That is why I was doing vipassana to uproot them. Even on cocaine I could see those beliefs torturing me, despite the euphoria induced by the drug. How can janas make me happy then?

And dont too much concentration practices hinder insight practices?

[ardacigin]

42 minutes ago, Buba said:

Thank you Arda very much. But how is it possible? I have deep rooted beliefs which make me suffer. That is why I was doing vipassana to uproot them. Even on cocaine I could see those beliefs torturing me, despite the euphoria induced by the drug. How can janas make me happy then?

And dont too much concentration practices hinder insight practices?

@BubaOkay. One of the key insights you'll have is that pleasure without contentment + equanimity doesn't lead to anything. You don't feel truly happy. That dopamine high is not delivering that satisfaction you want. That is why the pleasure of a drug doesn't fulfill you. There is a lot of craving and suffering in the psyche. 

You want true fulfillment? Get to a nice jhana state. Really stabilize that joy and happiness in the mind. Now bring a lot of mindfulness, metacognitive awareness, contentment and equanimity. Add that whole body awareness as well. Stabilize those samatha factors.

Then you'll experience more satisfaction comparing to your heroin experience full of craving. The pleasure is less, but enjoyment is 10 times higher due to the RADICAL reduction in craving.

By the way, the happiness of  meditative joy and jhanas are on drug levels, but they are not as intense as heroin. Both are increased opioid production in the brain but heroin binds receptors in a different way than naturally induced endorphins.

This insight sounds simple. Shinzen turned into an equation. It seems easy. But this is profound stuff once you experience this all the time. There is pleasure in the mind body. And I have 2 options.

1- I can crave and suffer.

2- I can relax into the experience, crank up the metacognitive awareness, body awareness, contentment and equanimity and decrease craving. As a result suffering is decreased. Satisfaction is increased.

Concentration practices are done with the intention of developing the samatha factors I've described above. It aids insight practices. It hinders only if you get into dull states of minds with concentration and not develop any awareness with it.

Awareness is the name of the game in the higher stages. Stable attention is how you systematically train awareness. 

Hope this was useful. Again, read TMI to get a deeper understanding of this material.

Edited December 18, 2019 by ardacigin

[ardacigin]

Doing vipassana is great but dry insight approach can create a lot of negative emotions and issues even after legit awakenings. Look at Daniel Ingram and his emphasis on dark night of the soul. 

I also know people that experience a lot issues integrating the insights into emptiness and no-self in the dry insight approach. That doesn't mean samatha vipassana styles like TMI doesn't lead to integration issues with these insights. Awakening has a price of admission either way. But samatha masters go through the progression of insight in a more pleasurable and gentler way. 

From personal experience, my emotional health is close to awakening levels as Samatha factors are getting more ingrained in the nervous system. Effortless access to jhana basically means activating anti-depressant levels of pleasure in the mind at will and maintaining that with contentment on top of that from waking up to going to bed.

Initially that sort of a thing can be effortless, but then a lot of hardcore mindfulness is needed to maintain that as months go by. 

I don't want to say that this is advanced stuff but this sort of emotional mastery is not too common at the initial stages of awakening (stream entry etc.) Samatha mastery is not to be downplayed. Craving can reduce very radically. 

A stage 10 TMI master can actually be regarded as awake on a skill-based level. Not actual insight wise but in terms of the skills you need for awakening, it just gives you incredible levels of consciousness on demand consistently. But you are not completely free of suffering until there is no self so that is why vipassana is essential. Samatha skills by themselves only go so far. You need to investigate and go deeper with those skills as a foundation.

Now, how will a samatha master react to the truth of no-self when it arises as an insight? Depression and meaningless? Initially, yes. This is a traumatic experience that undermines all of your egoic agendas. The entirety of your life dissolves into meaningless. But you integrate the no-self deeper and get to bliss faster if you are Samatha master already.

What happens as a dry insight meditators, noting sensations without stable attention and sufficient awareness? You still get to the insight into no self, but you get stuck in the meaningless and negative emotional sensations. Then you need to deal with dark night sort of issues for a while until awareness gets to sufficient levels. Then you get to bliss. But at that point you master samatha.

So the question is, will you do the work now and master samatha or do it after the traumatic insight into no-self, suffering , impermanence and emptiness,?

The safest and the most pleasurable path is to do the samatha mastery first. It is harder and requires more discipline initially but it is worth it. I understand dry insight meditators doing noting practices and self enquiry all the time but I'm seeing a lot of people experiencing issues integrating insight into daily life. So I recommend samatha mastery strongly to everyone. And to add the vipassana component, I think TMI is a great manual.

It integrates all this and does so in a scientific but non-materialistic way.

Edited December 18, 2019 by ardacigin

[Raptorsin7]

@Buba If you are using meditation as a way to cure your unhappiness then listen to this guy's post. I am like you. I used meditation to seek happiness and joy because I was unsatisfied with life. I am at a point where i'm seeking enlightenment but I don't even get joy and happiness from meditation. I would have been much wiser to do something like this from the star, but I didn't know you could systematically create happiness like this from meditation.

@ardacigin Should i do a long 3 or 4 hour single sit first and see if my state changes significantly before i buy The Mind Illuminated. and try to do the happiness practices there?