Seems too good to be true

meditation is a meaningless boomersc term
Find me one single line in the tripitaka that talks about meditation.

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I've been getting better at meditation but Imy current hurdle is when I meditate for a long period of time my head becomes unbearably heavy. Any anons know the solution to this?

Pepe is Mara

your practicing of meditation is literally spiritual materialism. I just want to feel good therefore i meditate. Like a wallstreet banker that meditates for enhanced focus.
Modernity is disgusting.

This, all you guys fell for a meme.

youtube.com/watch?v=BkHREw19eg8

omfg never has anybody mentioned anything remotely close to that.
how can you even project that much?

>It's true, it's all just a meme, the Jhanas are just basic blissful states that one can just as easily access through Sufi Dikr, through Daoist and Hindu meditation/contemplation, through Neoplatonist Theurgy, through Eastern Orthodox Theosis.
Fair, but I don't think the claim is made in the book that jhanas or blissful meditation states are exclusive to Buddhism. Even the Buddha himself was canonically taught Jhana by other Brahmins of his day.
Mr John Yates (or Culadasa lmao) tries to lure his unsuspecting readers in with grandiose claims of belonging to an initiatic lineage going all the way back to Buddha (major red-flag)
>I'll agree with that, since literally every Buddhist monastic is part of a lineage going back to the Buddha. A weird claim to put in the book, but I think he's just trying to sell copies/appeal to a wide audience (again, I still agree that it is very suspicious).
>and then inundates them with a bunch of scientism muh neuroscience bullcrap that immediately reveals himself as a crypto-materialist like Sam Harris.
I don't know about this. The book hardly mentions neuroscience at all (despite it being mentioned proudly on the cover) and there are massive sections in the later parts of the book where he basically describes how all of experience is mind-projected. This isn't an outright denial of materialism, but doesn't exactly imply allegiance with it, especially since he never really takes any actual materialist stances in the book (from what I remember).
>It's worth reading just to expand your knowledge of what various systems teach but should not be taken too seriously. Ultimately, trying to reach various 'states' are just a distraction from the spiritual reality staring you in the face at the present moment but you have to spiritually mature and travel many roads before eventually reaching this conclusion.
Agreed with all of this. I don't like the meme people fall for where they think that one book will take them to enlightenment, I think meditation is hardly as linear as the book presents it (with literal stages), and even in Buddhism, there are many more types of meditation than what is described in The Mind Illuminated. However, I think that the way it's painstakingly detailed will help Westerners, especially those who find little help in instructions like "just follow the breath lol."
Trying to reach blissful states is indeed a distraction bu the book clearly doesn't present them as that - it repeats over and over that the point is 'Awakening,' of realizing the reality of experience, and that the blissful states are temporary, not the goal...etc etc.

good posts

>I was able to see through many of the claims and notice that much of what it talks about is not unique to Buddhism and is also found elsewhere
This is odd because John Yates seems to almost take a perennialist approach in the book and does not argue that any of it is exclusive to Buddhism. He even references 'I Am That' by Nisargadatta Maharaj, and implies a few times that the meditation techniques lead to the same state, only to be interpreted differently by the views of the meditator.
>degradation of eastern spiritual teachings with a veneer of Buddhist dogmatism and scientism worship glazed on top
I don't really know where in the book you found any of that.

apologies for shit formatting for my first couple comments
meant for it to read:
>It's true, it's all just a meme, the Jhanas are just basic blissful states that one can just as easily access through Sufi Dikr, through Daoist and Hindu meditation/contemplation, through Neoplatonist Theurgy, through Eastern Orthodox Theosis.
Fair, but I don't think the claim is made in the book that jhanas or blissful meditation states are exclusive to Buddhism. Even the Buddha himself was canonically taught Jhana by other Brahmins of his day.
>Mr John Yates (or Culadasa lmao) tries to lure his unsuspecting readers in with grandiose claims of belonging to an initiatic lineage going all the way back to Buddha (major red-flag)
I'll agree with that, since literally every Buddhist monastic is part of a lineage going back to the Buddha. A weird claim to put in the book, but I think he's just trying to sell copies/appeal to a wide audience (again, I still agree that it is very suspicious).
>and then inundates them with a bunch of scientism muh neuroscience bullcrap that immediately reveals himself as a crypto-materialist like Sam Harris.

>Trying to reach blissful states is indeed a distraction bu the book clearly doesn't present them as that - it repeats over and over that the point is 'Awakening,' of realizing the reality of experience, and that the blissful states are temporary, not the goal...etc etc.
this, the other retard clearly haven't read it. Yates repeatedly said that jhanas are only a tool in unification of the mind and aren't even necessary.

Only one more question: how long have you been meditating? And how much time per day?

1-2 one hour sittings daily, I think my first truly dilligent sittings started in january, although my first lame attempts without any detailed guidance started almost a year ago

not him but two 45 minute sessions a day should be plenty for most people, if not everyone

It's a Western meme that Buddhism is just meditation and nothing else, but the practices of jhana and development of sati are described very often in the Tipitaka.
obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts/mn/mn.118.horn.pts.htm#p1
obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts/mn/mn.119.horn.pts.htm#p1
obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts/sn/05_mv/sn05.47.010.wood.pts.htm#p1
obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts/sn/05_mv/sn05.46.053.wood.pts.htm#p1
obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts/dn/dn.22.rhyt.pts.htm#p1
obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts/mn/mn.020.horn.pts.htm#p1
obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts/mn/mn.128.horn.pts.htm#p1

Absolutely this. The practices of jhana are canon in the theravadic tradition. Emphasis needs to be maintained on the fact that the jhana are just an aspect of Buddhism, and in no way is meditation something that distinguishes Buddhism from other religions, as is often thought amongst westerners who know no better, but it is still an aspect.

Can anyone who has read the book tell me if the author adheres to any particular tradition?

it is not that good. A mix of tibetan or hindu retardation like nonduality with breath with the word awareness slapped all over the place. He says the next step is with the other retardation of the Visuddhimagga.

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No he takes stuff from Theravada, Vajrayana (the "Meditation On The Mind" section is literally Dzogchen), and I suspect even some Advaita Vedanta.
It's good shit though, the instructions are clear and will take you farther than any meme McMindfulness book. The goal in The Mind Illuminated is 'Awakening,' not just feeling good or being more productive at work.
If you're a Buddhist though/interested in Buddhism, you should ABSOLUTELY do more reading on the other meditative techniques, as well as the rest of the Eightfold Path, since Buddhism is not just meditation. Also reading up on the theory (three marks of existence, emptiness...etc.) will help the insights realized in meditation be less shocking.

>retardation like nonduality

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Culadasa (John Yates, Ph.D.) is a meditation master with over four decades of experience in the Tibetan and Theravadin Buddhist traditions. He taught physiology and neuroscience for many years at the Universities of Calgary and British Columbia. Later, he worked at the forefront of healthcare education and therapeutic massage, serving as the founding director of the West Coast College of Massage Therapy. Culadasa retired from academia in 1996, moving with his wife into an old Apache stronghold in the Arizona wilderness, where they deepened their spiritual practice together. He currently leads the Dharma Treasure Buddhist Sangha in Tucson, Arizona and holds retreats across the United States.

Smart answer, thank you. I'm starting my Buddhist readings and have been considering some more popular books to accompany my reading of the discourses for sake of ease and breaking up some of the primary texts with modern commentary, so long as it is accurate.

>>>>retardation like nonduality
Spotted the Cartesian, your kind is not welcome here

Thanks for this. Sounds like a good source of information and a good guy, I'll be sure to pick this book up

Read "the buddha pill", there's no proof secular meditation works, and in fact it can be harmful.

>self-reflection can be harmful if you hate yourself

WOAH!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?????

"And I had been, as you mentioned, doing TM for a couple of years and I hadn’t had a lot of luck teaching myself meditation using the material from the Vedanta Society, which is really no surprise - I had no teacher, no idea where to find one. And then when the Beatles brought Maharishi and TM became available and I started meditating, and all of a sudden I did something that worked, and I was excited about that. So I was going to become a TM teacher..."

lol

>books to accompany my reading of the discourses for sake of ease and breaking up some of the primary texts with modern commentary, so long as it is accurate
seeingthroughthenet.net/books/
These free books are some of the best work I have ever read on deeper Buddhist teachings. If I can recommend anything, it would be going through those works. The stuff on Nirvana, on Concept and Reality, on Dependent Arising, is incredible. The author essentially breaks down the primary texts and explains them in an understandable way, and even pulls from the various Buddhist traditions (of Mahayana, Vajrayana...etc) when they have something that aligns with the Early Buddhist Texts, and will even occasionally refer to Greek mythology to make a point. He's also a monastic of some 50+ years.
Absolutely top shit

the plebbitors infatuated with the book have their own site

old.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/comments/ay1ze5/what_is_the_exact_lineage_of_culadasa/
old.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/comments/63ehdz/which_parts_of_culadasas_teachings_are_tibetan/

If this is trash can someone recommend me a good book for learning about "meditation" or whatever you want to call it?

This reminds me of the Dalai Lama being asked a question, he didn't understand how anyone can hate themselves, because people loving themself too much is a basic buddhist assumption.

But no, the act of meditation itself (not just self-relfection) can be harmful for some people and there's numerous people who have gone insane. Especially people visiting secular retreats and so on.

I would recommend being initiated into a tradition with a teacher instead of being a retarded secular hippie "discovering yourself".

The Path to Nibbana by David Johnson

It's free on their website. You can also do free online retreats with them where they give you personal guidance (highly recommended) if you can't travel for a physical retreat.

In my experience, anapanasati (which is what Culadasa teaches) is not as pleasant as metta/brahmavihara (which is what Bhante Vimalaramsi teaches).

>But no, the act of meditation itself (not just self-relfection) can be harmful for some people and there's numerous people who have gone insane. Especially people visiting secular retreats and so on.

you wanna cite any of these or explain why it can be harmful

TMI is so good that you can reach Insight (even Stream Entry) without knowing nothing about Dhamma, the Noble Eightfold Path, etc. and reaching Insight without theory can be really traumatic (in the 90s a lot of secular meditators suffered years of Dark Night because of this)

pennlive.com/news/2017/06/york_county_suicide_megan_vogt.html

>10 hours a day of meditation

How are you going to make someone that's never meditated before do this

>The goal in The Mind Illuminated is 'Awakening,' not just feeling good or being more productive at work.
that's why you're enthusiastically shilling it

>woah bro im so enlightened

>that's why you're enthusiastically shilling it
I think it has strong detailed instructions for building up a basis of mental concentration required for various types of meditation and spiritual practices. I did say that it is not great on its own, and that further reading is required.
>woah bro im so enlightened
I'm not enlightened, I am just explaining what the scope of the book is. The book mentions time and time again throughout, that the point of its practices is 'Awakening.'
Unless you think 'enlightenment' and spiritual insight is a meme, in which case, stick to Sam Harris, I suppose.

kill yourself

>How are you going to make someone that's never meditated before do this
That's the point of a retreat: intensive meditation.
Casual meditation should be done at home.

but noobie meditators just fall sleep after some time

.

People go insane because they have faulty brain chemistry and not because of their lack of tradition. Fuck off, idiot.

Good book. Read Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha too.

Found online for free here:

integrateddaniel.info/book

what would be a non modern approach

cringe

that title reminds me of soccer mom workout videos "master your love handles now!"

People drawn to those kinds of retreats are unstable and a little nutty to begin with.

Spiritual elitism can be counterproductive to spiritual progress.

Nice memes. Been there, done that. Long time ago.

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He's shitposting and thinks TMI is just another secular materialist "The New Mindfulness Trend That Will Give You an Edge at the Office!" book, when it isn't that.
Unless he's just that hardcore, then he probably means that a better, non-modern approach would be learning to meditate from the primary texts (ie the suttas).

Is it that hard to believe that it can be dangerous for an unfamiliar secularist to do heavy high-level training in a retreat environment?
Would you say the same about someone who tries to lift weights for the first time in their life and goes straight to trying to bench 3x their body weight?
Meditation is training the mind, and you can't do the heavy lifting straight out the gate, or you'll probably get hurt.

You are making a different argument now. Clearly training is required for heavy lifting but is it dangerous for a secularist to lift weights? No, the training does not require a set of beliefs. One can be an untrained trad and still go crazy or a trained secularist and not go crazy. I also still think there is likely a problem with the brain beforehand in the case of most of these going crazy from meditation stories.

Most "self hatred" is just mislabeled narcissism.

how?

>You are making a different argument now.
Apologies, I wasn't the user you were replying to.
>Clearly training is required for heavy lifting but is it dangerous for a secularist to lift weights? No, the training does not require a set of beliefs.
Meditation certainly isn't exclusive to Buddhism and doesn't require any traditional framework if it is to be done at a shallow level. However, the girl on the retreat who killed herself was at a Buddhist Insight Meditation retreat, where the point is to realize fundamental truths about experience (impermanence, unsatisfactoriness...etc). In a case like that, it is absolutely necessary to have a background in the theory of the tradition/religion you are practicing in.
When it gets to the meditative 'heavy lifting,' massive changes will occur in the meditator's perception of reality, and someone without a background in the theory/tradition of what is happening to them will probably think they're going insane.

There are plenty of secular meditators and meditation teachers and even secular meditation retreats. Most are just fine. I am sure there are true believers who also encounter issues with intense meditation. I blame their brains not some personal failure. Moreover, just because a secularist does not believe in certain traditional ideas does not mean they are automatically unfamiliar with the tradition or its beliefs. I myself am a secular person but have still read deeply into eastern and western theology and philosophy for one. Most importantly, however, there is a big difference between thinking you're going crazy and actually going crazy too. People who actually suffer from schizophrenia, for example, are often embroiled with spiritual practices, yes, and indeed often believe too much in traditional metaphysics, but they also have been shown scientifically to have certain genetic predispositions that, IMO, are more explanatory than their alleged lack of familiarity with traditional teachings.

Secular meditation should come with a warning label like cigarettes, instead people are manically endorsing it without any precautions.

Psychedelics are also dangerous. But because of brain chemistry, not secularism.

Psychedelics are illegal, meditation isn't, right? Meditation and especially retreats triggering these mental illness presdispositions as you say is what needs to be researched more. Endorsing meditation fanatically -- for it's health benefits no less -- is a mistake, when this definitely has not been the case for everyone.

>Retardation like non-duality

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meditatinginsafety.org.uk/category/research-evidence/

Yeah, probably true in a lot of cases.

Wonderful to see a meditation thread on here. Haven't visited this site in some time, vowing off from it, but decided to come here one last time just to see if there were any literary recommendations I'd appreciate. An interesting tale I'd like to share with you all is that I began to perceive "clairvoyant" phenomena through my eyes several months back, and have since been trying to understand it in a sober, systematic manner. Essentially, I can perceive all kinds of phenomena around me which my eyes could not previously - these include colored auras around people, static "mist" everywhere in space, and even what I consider to be "entities" of higher-kind made of said mist, hanging out in my home. Yes, I know this sounds quite "crazy", schizophrenia and so on. But I'm giving you an honest report of my experiences. And since they began, I have been attempting to become more "spiritually aligned", believing they might have some relation to that. I've been trying to learn meditation now, for example, hence why I clicked on this thread alone in the catalog. I believe much of what I'm seeing corresponds to an external reality, and not a mental projection, simply because of factors like it remaining in position despite myself moving locations, my movement does not cause it to move, my belief in it being there or not does not change anything of it, I see different phenomena depending on what I'm viewing, it has spatial "depth" to itself, and other reasons. I've observed that the deeper my state of consciousness, the more vivid said phenomena become.

So I wanted to ask you all here: do any of you believe in "the supernatural", and have any of you had your own experiences? Meditation is said to be a way to unlock such kinds of powers, and one that I'm partly pursuing for the sake of developing the one described above (but mostly for the spiritual growth) - have any of you had supernatural experiences through meditation?

Do any of you believe that at least some of the entities seen on DMT are real? Personally, I do. And I desperately want to understand what they are, and their nature.

Though I'm not religious, the philosophy I subscribe to is a kind of pantheism and panpsychism, and I also happen to respect Buddhism tremendously. The more I read into Buddhism, the more I realize it pretty much beat me to every position of mine, and articulated it far more profoundly. The concept of reality and mind being one, for example, with mind-states corresponding to physical-planes, is extremely brilliant to me, and one I believe in. The existence of higher beings, which we ourselves can become, is another unique concept, and one that DMT reports only help verify my belief of.

Sorry if it seems I'd derailing the thread here - this is just a one-off post, I'll leave right after. I just wanted to know of any of you Yea Forumsfrens have any personal ties to "supernatural" realities. Also whether you had advice for me, given the above story of "clairvoyance".

Is Dark Night of the Soul where your sense of ego reaches a dissolved state enough that you realize your identity was illusory and a lie, and you have to continue on through life as if you were still under said illusion? That sounds really terrifying, I hope that "ego death" isn't a real thing, the way it's defined, but that it's merely a temporary state where your awareness expands so greatly that your ordinary identity must diminish simultaneously for you to experience it, like water overflowing from a cup.

Anyone here recommend TMI book by the way? I've been trying to learn meditation, using articles online and personal experimentation, but I'll get my hands on this book if people say I should.

>An interesting tale I'd like to share with you all is that I began to perceive "clairvoyant" phenomena through my eyes several months back, and have since been trying to understand it in a sober, systematic manner. Essentially, I can perceive all kinds of phenomena around me which my eyes could not previously - these include colored auras around people, static "mist" everywhere in space, and even what I consider to be "entities" of higher-kind made of said mist, hanging out in my home.
You'll find more about "auras" and supernatural/magical visions through the Western magick/occult traditions more than you will find anything about it in Buddhism or the kind of meditation being discussed in this thread.
>So I wanted to ask you all here: do any of you believe in "the supernatural", and have any of you had your own experiences? Meditation is said to be a way to unlock such kinds of powers, and one that I'm partly pursuing for the sake of developing the one described above (but mostly for the spiritual growth) - have any of you had supernatural experiences through meditation?
Since I'm not a materialist, I don't think it's reasonable to say that there are no otherworldly beings, or things most scientists would consider "supernatural."
>have any of you had supernatural experiences through meditation?
I have only reached first Jhana, which is hardly supernatural - but I have a story of a mutual friend in India who, while in deep meditation, suddenly became vividly aware of these ugly ghostly beings, covered in bile and with the appearance of rotting flesh, who approach him and tried to eat his leg. He broke out of meditation and they disappeared, but they kept returning when he went back to meditate from that day on, so he stopped meditating for a week or so. He decided to do metta meditation to make them go away, and he went to give alms at his local Buddhist temple, where he dedicated the merit to those beings that approached him. When he went back to meditate, they stopped appearing.
>Do any of you believe that at least some of the entities seen on DMT are real? Personally, I do. And I desperately want to understand what they are, and their nature.
I don't think it matters whether they're real or not desu. Our sober reality is illusory enough, I don't think it's very important to uncover the visions one might have on hallucinogenic drugs.

The "Dark Night of the Soul" (a term borrowed from St. John of the Cross, btw, not native to Buddhism) in a Buddhist context is a catch-all term for the Dukkha Nyanas (knowledges of suffering). It is not anything like what you described here:
>your sense of ego reaches a dissolved state enough that you realize your identity was illusory and a lie, and you have to continue on through life as if you were still under said illusion?
It's basically the mind adjusting to the insights realized in meditation. The meditator will typically have intense feelings of hopelessness, fear, disgust...etc, until they reach a stage of Equanimity and eventually (in Buddhism) stream-entry or path fruition. It is a temporary stage in the path to Awakening. You can read more on it here:
accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/mahasi/progress.html#ch6.5

>the philosophy I subscribe to is a kind of pantheism
>and I also happen to respect Buddhism tremendously
Buddhism contradicts pantheism. Read up on emptiness, or sunnyata.

BRO I thought you had escaped Yea Forums, last time I saw you, you said you were staying off for good!

>cryptosatanical
what's a good way to spot when something is this?
is all mystical, non-mainstream religious stuff 'cryptosatanical'?

TMI is way superior to any online articles and short books mostly because the autistic troubleshooting for distractions and dullness which other books lack. If you want to meditate just for relaxation and fun (see Jhanas) follow the steps til stage 6 or 7. If you want to experience Insight follow through the 10 stages but remember to complement with some theory about the teachings of the Buddha. Culadasa has some good recordings in his site about the Dhamma, only bad thing are the super dense boomers making questions.
My first approach to meditation were "zen" books and "just sit and breathe" didn't do it for me. TMI is really good in that respect
The Dark Night is when some parts of your mind (and your body) don't accept the Insight(s). Can be painful if you're not prepared (i.e. if you've not been following the noble eightfold path which works like a lubricant)
Also there's no "ego death" because never was an "ego" in first place

Please respond bruvs....

Just exercise your neck lmao wtf dude?

switch it up with walking meditation
don't just exclusively do sitting meditation

Good article about meditation.

lionsroar.com/true-stories-about-sitting-meditation-from-charlotte-joko-beck-joseph-goldstein-sylvia-boorstein-and-sharon-salzberg/

I know jack shit about meditation, is this a good starting point?

Yes. Unironically, if it's not of Christ it is cyrptosatanic, or satanic to some degree

Stop "meditating" and pray to the Almighty God, there's your advice retard

yea it's good
start exploring other stuff at stage 6-7 of the book though

Why doesn't amazon let me do free shipping? bastards.

>Literally inventing demons into your body to posess you
You have to be a complete moron to do vipassana meditation.

Mindfulness (Being aware) is obviously a good thing on the other hand.

I started doing this, but even after months couldn't make it past stage two. Meditating more than 25 minutes at a time began to feel like a burden, and I started procrastinating my sits. Eventually I dropped the practice.

>implying meditation is buddhism specific

Same, pretty much word for word. Using a different meditation (metta) is what eventually worked for me. See

youtube.com/watch?v=LkoOCw_tp1I

right samadhi is specific yes

All you need is pic related. You can put 2 and 2 together and learn to meditate from this book. Just sit still, in silence, eyes closed, be comfortable, and try to shut out all representation. Only Will remains. Use a sensory deprivation tank if you like.

Attached: WWR.jpg (1642x2560, 296K)

>tfw i've been meditating with the goal of enhanced focus since high school 5-10 mins ocassionally

do you fags also chant since a lot of you are into buddhism/hinduism?

mindfulness is the same thing is vipassana
both are different names for "sati"

no one has said this
the only kind of meditation that is Buddhism-specific is sati/vipassana
Samadhi/concentration is universal, however.

>Use a sensory deprivation tank if you like.
Oh yeah I'll just whip one out of my fucking asshole pal. Out of touch rich kid.

>>mindfulness is the same thing is vipassana
no

And how, bhikkhus, is a bhikkhu sato? There is the case where a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself — ardent, alert, & mindful — subduing greed & distress with reference to the world. He remains focused on feelings... mind... mental qualities in & of themselves — ardent, alert, & mindful — subduing greed & distress with reference to the world. This is how a monk is mindful.

And how, bhikkhus, is a Bhikkhu sampajāna? Here, bhikkhus, to a bhikkhu the vedanās arise being known, they persist being known, they pass away being known. The vitakkās arise being known, they persist being known, they pass away being known. The saññās arise being known, they persist being known, they pass away being known. In this way, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu is sampajāna

vipassana is is the result of arahanthood

>vipassana is is the result of arahanthood
In the modern use of the word, "vipassana" refers to a style of meditation, though I am aware that it is incorrect to use the word in that way.
In the way that that user was using it, "vipassana meditation" as it is usually referred to, is the same as mindfulness meditation.
With the correct use of the word, mindfulness/sati is what leads to vipassana.