ohnofabrications wrote:
With thanissaro's method, I would, upon recognizing the unfortunate mindstate begin to actively combat it, as he suggests. I would alter my pattern of breathing, working through the tension and mental vedana intentionally with visualization and directing breath energy. I would re-formulate my narratives about the scenario - were my rights really violated? does that person thinking of me as stupid really harm me? As such I would eventually exert a fabrication to still the unskillful fabrication. Over time I would do this a lot, lose my desire for negative fabrication and only fabricate jhanas, I would then apply essentially the method above to stop fabricating entirely/desiring nothing.
Some evidence for my above assertion that thanissaro bhikku himself teaches bare attention (with a different role in the path) but calls it something else:
thanissaro bhikku wrote:
The move from equanimity to non-fashioning is briefly described in a famous passage:
"Then, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bahiya, there's no you in that. When there's no you in that, there's no you there. When there's no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."
— Ud 1.10
On the surface, these instructions might seem to be describing bare attention, but a closer look shows that something more is going on. To begin with, the instructions come in two parts: advice on how to train attention, and a promise of the results that will come from training attention in that way. In other words, the training is still operating on the conditioned level of cause and effect. It's something to be done. This means it's shaped by an intention, which in turn is shaped by a view. The intention and view are informed by the "result" part of the passage: The meditator wants to attain the end of stress and suffering, and so is willing to follow the path to that end. Thus, as with every other level of appropriate attention, the attention developed here is conditioned by right view — the knowledge that your present intentions are ultimately the source of stress — and motivated by the desire to put an end to that stress. This is why you make the effort not to add anything at all to the potentials coming from the past.
The need for right view would seem to be belied by the circumstances surrounding these instructions. After all, these are the first instructions Bahiya receives from the Buddha, and he attains Awakening immediately afterward, so they would appear to be complete in and of themselves. However, in the lead-up to this passage, Bahiya is portrayed as unusually heedful and motivated to practice. He already knows that Awakening is attained by doing, and the instructions come in response to his request for a teaching that will show him what to do now for his long-term welfare and happiness — a question that MN 135 identifies as the foundation for wisdom and discernment. So his attitude contains all the seeds for right view and right intention. Because he was wise — the Buddha later praised him as the foremost of his disciples in terms of the quickness of his discernment — he was able to bring those seeds to fruition immediately.
A verse from SN 35.95 — which the Buddha says expresses the meaning of the instructions to Bahiya — throws light on how Bahiya may have developed those seeds.
Not impassioned with forms
— seeing a form with mindfulness firm —
dispassioned in mind,
one knows
and doesn't remain fastened there.
While one is seeing a form
— and even experiencing feeling —
it falls away and doesn't accumulate.
Thus one fares mindfully.
Thus not amassing stress,
one is said to be
in the presence of Unbinding.
(Similarly with sounds, aromas, flavors, tactile sensations, and mental qualities or ideas.)
— SN 35.95
Notice two words in this verse: mindfulness and dispassioned. The reference to mindfulness underlines the need to continually remind oneself of the intention not to add anything to any potentials from the past. This again points to the willed nature of the attention being developed here.
MN 106 offers an alternative way of expressing this intention, at the same time offering further analysis of the stages the mind goes through when it is kept in mind. The intention is this: 'It should not be, it should not occur to me; it will not be, it will not occur to me. What is, what has come to be, that I abandon.'As the Buddha says in that discourse, a person who pursues this intention will abandon passion for sights, sounds, etc., and arrive at the equanimity of the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. But if discernment isn't yet sharp enough, he or she will simply move the focus of passion from sensory and mental input to the equanimity itself, and thus stay fixated on that level. Thus the importance of the second word noted above — dispassion — which highlights the fact that passion is the crucial factor normally added to the seen, heard, sensed, and cognized, and thus the factor most needing to be undercut in every way possible.
I guess he thinks that when people teach bare attention and they say "don't interfere" with the flow of phenomena or whatever, that they are deluding themselves because it isn't possible. It seems clear to me that when they say "don't interfere" they mean just what he does:
The reference to mindfulness underlines the need to continually remind oneself of the intention not to add anything to any potentials from the past. This again points to the willed nature of the attention being developed here.
and
Thus, as with every other level of appropriate attention, the attention developed here is conditioned by right view — the knowledge that your present intentions are ultimately the source of stress — and motivated by the desire to put an end to that stress. This is why you make the effort not to add anything at all to the potentials coming from the past.
and from his teacher:
ajahn fuang wrote:Whenever anything hits you, let it go only as far as ‘aware’. Don’t let it go all the way into the heart.
Clearly this method works. You keep up the intention to not add any intention and eventually you succeed and drop everything as bahiya did.
So I'd have to say, thanissaro bhikku is actually completely right, meditation as they describe it if followed by a precise analytical mind such as his wouldn't lead anywhere, and it would make no sense within the pali canon, but the instructions they and their followers practice is, regardless effective.