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Other Methods? [Here's an interesting one for you...]

Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2013 10:38 am
by Beautiful Breath
:stirthepot:

We all have our particular practice that we either feel comfortable with or they work (for us). I have flirtations with Silent Illumination as well as attempting Jhana practice.
My question is this, why 'don't' you practice other methods that you may have experience of....whats your rationale?

For instance, I used to practice a very analytical form of meditation on Emptiness in the Gelug Tradition - but find that it feels like I am giving my mind more to deal with rather than attempting to calm it.

My motivation for asking is honest and its not meant to open a Pandoras Box :anjali:

BB...

Re: Here's an interesting one for you...

Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:10 pm
by LonesomeYogurt
I used to practice in the Mahasi tradition, but I just felt like I was more geared towards tranquility than bare insight. I still love the Mahasi walking meditation techniques though.

Re: Here's an interesting one for you...

Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:59 pm
by daverupa
I don't practice the previous methods I'm familiar with because they simply cannot accomplish my current goal, which is dukkha-nirodha.

Ceremonial Magick, taijiquan, qigong, various shamanisms, Hoshinroshiryu's Secret Smile, Zen - it was all of a similar flavor, where satipatthana is altogether different, altogether useful, altogether productive of results. Night and day, really.

Re: Here's an interesting one for you...

Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2013 6:16 pm
by LonesomeYogurt
daverupa wrote:I don't practice the previous methods I'm familiar with because they simply cannot accomplish my current goal, which is dukkha-nirodha.

Ceremonial Magick, taijiquan, qigong, various shamanisms, Hoshinroshiryu's Secret Smile, Zen - it was all of a similar flavor, where satipatthana is altogether different, altogether useful, altogether productive of results. Night and day, really.
I too come from a background of ceremonial magick, mainly chaos magick. That was a trip, and I think it helped me develop a lot, but in the end it was not right for me.

Re: Here's an interesting one for you...

Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2013 8:07 pm
by daverupa
With respect to results, magick was no different than role-playing, in my case. (My D&D experience provided an interesting comparison; when one casts spells in character, and feels the same way when praying or doing other mystical stuff, it doesn't take much to become disillusioned.)

Same with the rest, really. There's a way for conceiving about self and cosmos and their mutual relationship to proceed indefinitely, which is what most of that involves, and it can be quite enticing... but it's such a waste of time...

:candle:

Re: Here's an interesting one for you...

Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:20 am
by manas
Beautiful Breath wrote::stirthepot:

We all have our particular practice that we either feel comfortable with or they work (for us). I have flirtations with Silent Illumination as well as attempting Jhana practice.
My question is this, why 'don't' you practice other methods that you may have experience of....whats your rationale?

For instance, I used to practice a very analytical form of meditation on Emptiness in the Gelug Tradition - but find that it feels like I am giving my mind more to deal with rather than attempting to calm it.

My motivation for asking is honest and its not meant to open a Pandoras Box :anjali:

BB...
I'm gradually waking up to the understanding that the Four Noble Truths really are the most important things I need to see, and to see them properly I need to develop the Noble Eightfold Path. As far as I can see, anapanasati, and jhana, fit pretty well in with the sati-samadhi division of the Path. As I'm making slow yet steady progress with their cultivation, I had better not look sideways too much, getting distracted by other by-roads or ways of doing things, because actually our time here is short. In fact - and I don't mean to sound morbid, but - literally, we could die today. In fact it is within the realm of possibility that every breath could be our last. So make it a mindful one.

We ought to practice now while we still can. That's why I don't have time to try 'every other alternative' anymore.

Metta :anjali:

Re: Here's an interesting one for you...

Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:46 am
by convivium
:goodpost: over the years i've found myself agreeing with what ajahn amaro told me (with regard to goenka technique), namely, that "meditation is meditation". then the tantric stuff is a whole different thing. i don't mess with kundalini or tantra related practices anymore (if you are thinking about it you need a legitimate guru).

Re: Here's an interesting one for you...

Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:49 am
by Coyote
One reason not to practice certain techniques is that they are based on wrong view, and therefore not conducive to the goal.
I guess I don't really have a taste for other traditions within Buddhism as a whole. There's plenty within Theravada to get your teeth stuck into.
Taking on a practice without the accompanying framework I find can be quite jarring and doesn't seem to me to be the best of ideas. Getting inspiration is another matter but other traditions sometimes have a radically different understanding of the goal, so it doesn't really make sense to take too much from them.

Sometimes I'll try something new in meditation if I have been inspired by a particular teaching here or there, but I keep the main practice the same until I have really given it a good go. It's the only approach that makes sense to me.

I have seen some of your other threads and my advice is, little though it may be worth - don't let your meditation experiences guide your choice of meditation technique. If you practice a meditation and it doesn't go as planned and then you look to other traditions to explain the experience, seems the wrong approach to me. Work within one framework and it will be easier in the long run, I would think. Choose one, and interpret experiences accordingly. If you really think that you are more suited to one or the other then change, but I don't think it is a good idea to have two systems running at the same time.

Re: Here's an interesting one for you...

Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 1:06 am
by manas
Coyote wrote: Getting inspiration is another matter but other traditions sometimes have a radically different understanding of the goal, so it doesn't really make sense to take too much from them.
Yes indeed. I've been inspired by Zen poetry, the Mahayanist 'Bodhisattva's guide', some of the words of Jesus, and some of the poems of Rumi; but when it comes to actual practice, it's straight-down-the-line Theravada Buddhist. But inspiration can be found in many places, ime, even in science sometimes. So long as it's just a sip, and we don't get so involved with it that we go off-course and stray from the Eightfold Path.

For example -
May I be protector for those without one,
A guide for all travellers on the way;
May I be a bridge, a boat and a ship
For all who wish to cross (the water).

May I be an island for those who seek one
And a lamp for those desiring light,
May I be a bed for all who wish to rest
And a slave for all who want a slave.


- For me, (apart from that last line about being a slave), those are among the most beautiful verses I've ever read. But when it comes to actual practice, I tread the path of a disciple. Which afaik is how most beings come to the ending of all sorrow. Much fewer come to the final cessation of dukkha as Sammasambuddhas (someone correct me if I'm wrong please).

:anjali:

Re: Here's an interesting one for you...

Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 2:24 am
by m0rl0ck
I started with zazen, did the koan mu for a while, back to zazen for a while, chan huatou and idk what im really doing now. Mind watching mind would be as good a description as any i guess.
I have tried other techniques and find i end up in the same place with all of them. If i try to do breath meditation for instance, i start noticing who is noticing the breath and all of a sudden im doing my regular practice again.
It works ok for me, gives me more day to day serenity than i would have otherwise, and thats enough for me since i dont really beleive in that enlightenment/nirvana stuff anymore anyway, at least not in the way that most people seem to, like some magic pill or something.

Re: Here's an interesting one for you...

Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 7:44 pm
by Beautiful Breath
danieLion wrote:
Beautiful Breath wrote:My question is this, why 'don't' you practice other methods that you may have experience of....whats your rationale?
My question is this. Why do you seem to be presuming that Buddhists don't practice other methods? Or are you presuming that if you practice some form of Buddhist method that this implies that they are mutually exsclusive to anything not strictly Buddhist? :stirthepot:
Not really what I was asking my friend.

My question was designed to establish that if you had tried a particular practice/tradition and decided not to carry on with it....why? :smile:

Re: Here's an interesting one for you...

Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 8:11 pm
by daverupa
It would be impossible for me, now, to draw down the moon or do a Tarot spread or create a circle or any of that silliness because none of it is based on right view and all of it aggrandizes the self in one way or another, as I see it all now in retrospect.

Even when events occurred which seemed momentous, it's all with contact as condition...

:meditate:

Re: Here's an interesting one for you... other paths

Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2013 8:14 pm
by mikenz66
Discussion of Magick split off to here:
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 76#p236376

:anjali:
Mike