Hi Mike,
mikenz66 wrote:
I've spent a long time reading DSG, and posted a little. and my conclusion is somewhat similar to Freawaru. The Ajahn Sujin followers do not advocate "dry insight" in the sense that I understand it, e.g. as taught by the Burmese traditions such as Mahasi,
Yes, my understanding is that DSG "dry insight" is even "dryer" in the sense that no concentration practice is undertaken before or in parallel with insight (and insight is also not seen as an intentional practice but a moment of understanding that cannot be forced to arise, and in fact, it's the very forcing which usually prevents understanding from arising). From what I know about Mahasi methods, they still do have a facet of concentration practice in them, even though i's not stressed that much.
mikenz66 wrote:
and as explained in the Visuddhimagga - of course, as you know, they deny that the Suttas, Commentaries, and Visuddhimagga contains any "instructions" at all.
Yeah, I find that very interesting. I can't say that I understand it entirely yet, but imo that kind of interpretation has some important advantages, in particular, understanding the three marks (in my case at least).
mikenz66 wrote:
My frustation with them is that they essentially refuse to engage on the interesting questions and retreat to the: "citta rise and fall very fast and there is no self, so there is no control and therefore meditative development is impossible" argument.
I know what you mean. This is not an easy topic and it took me a while before it started making at least a bit of sense. Currently, my understanding is (as brief as I can put it):
1. It is not said that meditative development is impossible.
2. Samatha (jhana absorption) is possible and it would depend on one's accumuations whether it can be reached. Everyone else who doesn't have such accumulations will be likely engaging in wrong concentration when they are aiming for jhana or even think they reached it.
3. Meditative development (bhavana) does not equate to concentration practice nor even jhana absorption.
4. Bhavana can be described as samatha and vipassana, but more precisely, bhavana happens when kusala citta is accompanied with panna (as well as other kusala cetasikas). So there can be what you and me conventionally call meditation and concentration, but, defining them by cetasikas, they can be either kusala or akusala cittas (where aksuala obviously doesn't lead to liberation).
5. Whenever there is kusala citta with panna, there's automatically kusala concentration and calm (samadhi) and the stronger the panna, the stronger the insight as well as samadhi.
6. So, meditative development (bhavana) happens with development of panna,
7. Panna cannot be forced to arise (being conditioned, and thus beyond control by a self), so when someone tries to force it to arise (or force sati or concentration to be this way or that), it is evident that at that moment there is no panna that would understand these dhammas as being beyond control by a self, and thus, such forcing is necessarily a product of akusala cittas.
8. It is important to divorce the above from conventional activities and apply it to a single moment. I.e. whatever we are conventionally doing right now - meditating, reading suttas, discussing dhamma, cleaning the room, etc, each of these activities will have quadrillions of cittas, and some will be kusala, some aksuala, depending on panna.
9. going beyond single citta frame reference when considering abhidhamma is not advised because it requires operating with concepts (e.g. I'm (not) meditating - both "I" and "meditating" are concepts), and concepts are not paramattha dhammas.
10. single citta frame reference (and thus the speed you mention) is very useful for establishing the right view - understanding the three marks of dhamma(s) in the present moment.
Not sure if this help, we can discuss more if you like. Btw, I answered on DSG to one of your posts couple of days ago about multiple citta trends in abhidhamma (so not just single citta frame), not sure if you caught it. If not, let me know, and I'll chase down the post number for you.
mikenz66 wrote:
Of course, all Buddhist teachers are well aware of "lack of control". It is a key insight. It would be interesting to discuss the subtleties with them, but since they appear reject what all other Buddhist teachers teach, I don't find it easy to have much useful discussion. (A notable exception for me is a Robert K's posts - it's a pity he stopped posting here).
I'd suggest talking a bit more with Sarah and Jon, they are always glad to discuss this topic. The problem is that Sarah (and Jon) is quite busy, as well as feeling the responsibility that she has to welcome each newcomer and answer almost every question posted, so it takes her a while to get to your post. I am also in a marathon thread with her on this topic, as I am in favor of jhana, so every month or so, she replies, then I reply in a month, etc. It's slow, but worthwhile. If you haven't caught that thread, let me know, and I'll chase down the link for you. Or keep at the thread you started but address your questions to her, and I'm sure she'll reply, though you'd need to be patient as she's usually on a backlog of several hundred posts.
Best wishes