Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

General discussion of issues related to Theravada Meditation, e.g. meditation postures, developing a regular sitting practice, skillfully relating to difficulties and hindrances, etc.
Goob
Posts: 98
Joined: Thu Aug 05, 2010 5:14 pm

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by Goob »

And yet is it assumed that this name & form relationship is fundamentally the same for everyone?
User avatar
convivium
Posts: 577
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 7:13 am

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by convivium »

thoughts and dream-like experience or hallucinations (nimittas), and distinctions or mappings can be discerned from bodily sensations (vedana) by using the bodily sensations as a frame of reference with enough samadhi.
Just keep breathing in and out like this. Don't be interested in anything else. It doesn't matter even if someone is standing on their head with their ass in the air. Don't pay it any attention. Just stay with the in-breath and the out-breath. Concentrate your awareness on the breath. Just keep doing it. http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Just_Do_It_1_2.php
User avatar
convivium
Posts: 577
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 7:13 am

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by convivium »

feeling, perception, intention, contact and attention.
i guess i had a naive conception of nama rupa based on the experience i described. i don't see how e.g. contact is categorized as nama. i wasn't familiar with this list. edit: i think it's a very interesting list.
Last edited by convivium on Thu Mar 14, 2013 7:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Just keep breathing in and out like this. Don't be interested in anything else. It doesn't matter even if someone is standing on their head with their ass in the air. Don't pay it any attention. Just stay with the in-breath and the out-breath. Concentrate your awareness on the breath. Just keep doing it. http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Just_Do_It_1_2.php
User avatar
convivium
Posts: 577
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 7:13 am

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by convivium »

i appreciate the wittgenstein reference in a buddhist forum and will have to read your post more carefully when i can. one knee jerk response is that theravada works with fabrications and distinctions to get beyond distinctions and fabrications. crowley was a black magician and a drug addict and RAW was a new age hippy stoner so i am going to be biased towards anything you have to say :tongue:
Just keep breathing in and out like this. Don't be interested in anything else. It doesn't matter even if someone is standing on their head with their ass in the air. Don't pay it any attention. Just stay with the in-breath and the out-breath. Concentrate your awareness on the breath. Just keep doing it. http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Just_Do_It_1_2.php
danieLion
Posts: 1947
Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 4:49 am

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by danieLion »

Ñāṇa wrote::goodpost:

Also, Ven. Ñāṇananda, Nibbāna Sermon 01:
  • Even though he is able to recognize objects by their conventional names, for the purpose of comprehending name-and-form, a meditator makes use of those factors that are included under 'name': feeling, perception, intention, contact and attention. All these have a specific value to each individual and that is why the Dhamma has to be understood each one by himself -- paccattaṃ veditabbo. This Dhamma has to be realized by oneself. One has to understand one's own world of name-and-form by oneself. No one else can do it for him. Nor can it be defined or denoted by technical terms. [Emphasis added.]
The "Heretic" Buddhist fascinates me lately. Thanks for this.
User avatar
Mr Man
Posts: 4016
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2011 8:42 am

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by Mr Man »

danieLion wrote: The "Heretic" Buddhist fascinates me lately. Thanks for this.
o/t unfortunately the website which had a good interview with Ven. Ñāṇananda no longer seems to be there.
User avatar
convivium
Posts: 577
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 7:13 am

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by convivium »

he's a heretic?
Just keep breathing in and out like this. Don't be interested in anything else. It doesn't matter even if someone is standing on their head with their ass in the air. Don't pay it any attention. Just stay with the in-breath and the out-breath. Concentrate your awareness on the breath. Just keep doing it. http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Just_Do_It_1_2.php
User avatar
convivium
Posts: 577
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 7:13 am

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by convivium »

i'd like to know the context and background of the quote if you consider the guy a heretic. i'm interested in his classification of nama rupa and how it relates to the suttas... or if you would contextualize it with mahayana thought whether e.g. yogacara or madhyamaka
Just keep breathing in and out like this. Don't be interested in anything else. It doesn't matter even if someone is standing on their head with their ass in the air. Don't pay it any attention. Just stay with the in-breath and the out-breath. Concentrate your awareness on the breath. Just keep doing it. http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Just_Do_It_1_2.php
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19941
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by mikenz66 »

convivium wrote:he's a heretic?
I don't think so, but it makes a catchy headline...

As Mr Man says, the interview seems to have disappeared from the particular links here:
http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2010/10 ... etic-sage/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=7338" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:anjali:
Mike
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19941
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by mikenz66 »

OK, thanks!

:anjali:
Mike
User avatar
convivium
Posts: 577
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 7:13 am

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by convivium »

Even if we agree that we experience our spot sensationally via nama-rupa, we are still dealing with private mental constructs. I might select the earth elements present in my spot via intention, attention, feeling, contact and perception while you might select the water elements present in you spot via mentality. Your spot may seem warm, mine cold; yours motionless, mine moving. So we cannot even clearly distinguish an idea from a sensation, for "sensation" is an ideation too.

Even the term "body" is an idea. For yogis, the import of "whole-body" awareness--like all ideas--is purely pragmatic. If there was a consensus about "body" or "whole-body" topics like this wouldn't be necessary. So we are playing a language game. When we accept an instruction from our teacher about focusing on the "whole-body" we are not agreeing on an ultimate definition but a conventional meaning that serves our practical purposes for the moment--in this case for the purpose of being aware of an object of samadhi. But we still have to test this privately. When we cannot verify it personally, we return to our language games with our teacher or fellow practitioners for clarification ang go back and forth like this until we are satisified with knowing for ourselves the value of the experience, at which point we have no need to rely on convention. Knowing for ourselves implies we are not knowing for others, so their ideations about spots, or nama rupa, or body become irrelevant.
this first paragraph seems all fine and obvious enough. i don't see how it follows, however, to say that sensation is an ideation. i think it's certainly a product of the nervous system, but i think the nervous system has different aspects and functions. one is ideation, one is tactile sensation. nothing in my experience leads me to nihilize this distinction (while i think sensation and thought are intimately and perhaps inexorably linked). there is a difference between ultimate and common definitions; i think we commonly know well enough what "the entire body" refers to, as opposed "a single point of the body". i agree that we should ultimately find out for ourselves (by practice, and experience) why this difference in instruction exists between respectable teachers. as far as ultimate meaning goes, that seems like another issue to me. let me know if i'm missing your deep point.
Just keep breathing in and out like this. Don't be interested in anything else. It doesn't matter even if someone is standing on their head with their ass in the air. Don't pay it any attention. Just stay with the in-breath and the out-breath. Concentrate your awareness on the breath. Just keep doing it. http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Just_Do_It_1_2.php
User avatar
convivium
Posts: 577
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 7:13 am

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by convivium »

thanissaro says it's ultimately problematic to remain at one point of focus in doing anapanasati. however, if we meditate on one point long enough then full body awareness naturally arises. it might not be the most efficient method (i think it is commentary inspired when teachers strongly suggest staying at one point). thanissaro doesn't think we should adhere to techniques rigidly, but rather explore and see how different approaches work for us. once one has facility in mindfulness of sensations, i think using one point serves as a sort of anchor and doesn't necessarily lead to the exclusion of the other sensations. even thanissaro's full-body techniques pass over or try to relieve unpleasant sensations (so that we can have full body ease pleasure as a gateway to deeper samadhi). method 2 is what is taught to new people at wat metta: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/inmind.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. but sometimes we just need to drill the mind in with easier objects (e.g. buddho, or one point).
Just keep breathing in and out like this. Don't be interested in anything else. It doesn't matter even if someone is standing on their head with their ass in the air. Don't pay it any attention. Just stay with the in-breath and the out-breath. Concentrate your awareness on the breath. Just keep doing it. http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Just_Do_It_1_2.php
danieLion
Posts: 1947
Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 4:49 am

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by danieLion »

convivium wrote:i don't see how it follows, however, to say that sensation is an ideation. i think it's certainly a product of the nervous system, but i think the nervous system has different aspects and functions. one is ideation, one is tactile sensation....
"Nervous system" and "tactile sensations" are words. Words are ideas or mental constructs--linguistic approximations of observations. As Korzybkski, following Wittgenstein ("Don't think. Look!"), pointed out, "Words are not things;" or, "Words are symbols for things but not the things the symbols represent." He also pointed out how languages, like English, based upon erroneous Aristotelian logic and ontology are particularly pernicious in leading us to conflate symbols and things.

The Buddha was of a similar mind when he said things like, "In the seen, let there be only the seen."

See what I mean? ;)
danieLion
Posts: 1947
Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 4:49 am

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by danieLion »

convivium wrote:thanissaro says it's ultimately problematic to remain at one point of focus in doing anapanasati. however, if we meditate on one point long enough then full body awareness naturally arises. it might not be the most efficient method (i think it is commentary inspired when teachers strongly suggest staying at one point). thanissaro doesn't think we should adhere to techniques rigidly, but rather explore and see how different approaches work for us. once one has facility in mindfulness of sensations, i think using one point serves as a sort of anchor and doesn't necessarily lead to the exclusion of the other sensations. even thanissaro's full-body techniques pass over or try to relieve unpleasant sensations (so that we can have full body ease pleasure as a gateway to deeper samadhi). method 2 is what is taught to new people at wat metta: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/inmind.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. but sometimes we just need to drill the mind in with easier objects (e.g. buddho, or one point).
I agree with Thanissaro and this is in accord with my other posts here.
danieLion
Posts: 1947
Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 4:49 am

Re: Teachers teaching Jhana as whole-body awareness?

Post by danieLion »

Mr Man wrote:
danieLion wrote: The "Heretic" Buddhist fascinates me lately. Thanks for this.
o/t unfortunately the website which had a good interview with Ven. Ñāṇananda no longer seems to be there.
The Wikepedia entry and link on the bottom seem to be current.
Post Reply