If one has taken upon oneself the Noble Eightfold Path, one will cultivate jhana, just as one cultivates the other factors; the Path is meant to be developed as a whole way of living, afaik. (And by 'cultivation' I meant that one is 'working on it', not that one has 'mastered' it as yet - just to be clear). So I share the concern for the 'average joe' who just walks in off the street and signs up for a ten-day retreat, without the gradual but steady preparation that comes when one cultivates the Dhamma over a longer period of time.Prasadachitta wrote:Ron said....
Hi Ron,@mikenz66- regarding the question of whether the path inevitably leads to a dark night, the answer is, unfortunately, "it depends." The issue rests on the kind of meditation a person is doing. In classical buddhism there is a distinction made between "wet" and "dry" insight, which is the difference between the insight knowledges (nanas) experienced directly after deep concentration ("wet" = jhana) or without deep concentration ("dry" = no jhana). If you are doing it wet, then the dukkha nanas (dark night stages) seem like a breeze, a mild bit of turbulence in an otherwise smooth flight. If you are doing it dry however, then the dukkha nanas can really rock your world - and not in a good way. In the old texts and commentaries they divide it up into these two types as if they were all or nothing, but in truth almost everyone mixes it up and so the ambiguous answer of "it depends." Essentially, it depends on how deep your concentration is and how well you use it to move through the insight stages. So, while everyone will go through the insights into suffering in one form or another, how you experience it depends a lot on your concentration. Stronger concentration equals less difficulty.
Hope that helps.
If we take the above as an accurate model then why not emphasize more jhana? Why risk the tendency for what sounds like a seriously depressing episode that could cause a person to quit the practice and wallow in a dark place for the rest of their life? Why would anyone advocate a "dry vipasana technique?
Prasadachitta
This is not to criticize Ron or anyone else, it's just grounded in my own personal experience. If I had tried to squeeze into ten days (or even a month) the understanding that has taken me about 20 years of (not always consistent, but gradually unfolding) practice, i would have lost my marbles, I'd say. And ime, taking things gradually, one still does not necessarily escape a 'dark night' that can make one feel as though life has lost it's meaning, that everything is deadened and has lost it's joy, that one is stuck because one cannot go back to the 'old perspective', but has not yet broken through to the newer one either - but, if one has had some time to prepare, there can be this voice inside saying, "stay calm man, it's not the end of the world! So the world isn't what you thought it was - so what? You're still here - and life still needs to be lived, whatever it's 'ultimate' nature. The floor might well be conditionally arisen, but it still needs sweeping!"