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by Ron Crouch
Mon May 28, 2012 5:36 am
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

Greetings Ron, There was a question from retro about how the DN lines up with this. Retro, you and I have disagreed mostly, but my understanding is that the insight knowledges line up in the "gnosis & vision of things as they are (yathābhūtañāṇadassana) → disenchantment (nibbidā)". Eq...
by Ron Crouch
Mon May 28, 2012 5:28 am
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

What confuses me a bit here is that the nyāṇas are typically called "knowledges". If someone has to redo them from the beginning each time, to what extent can it be claimed that they actually "know" and have "knowledge" of the various insights? Surely they haven't forg...
by Ron Crouch
Mon May 28, 2012 4:43 am
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

Nana, you seem to be suggesting that one has cognitions in Nibbana -are you really saying that this is how it happens? Well, there is no such thing as " in nibbāna." One has a cognition of nibbāna, i.e. a cognition of extinguishment. And cognitions always arise with concomitant mental fac...
by Ron Crouch
Sun May 27, 2012 10:39 pm
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

Nana, you seem to be suggesting that one has cognitions in Nibbana -are you really saying that this is how it happens?
by Ron Crouch
Sun May 27, 2012 10:00 pm
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

... 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 co...
by Ron Crouch
Sun May 27, 2012 9:49 pm
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

Have you ever experienced the cessation of all 'me-ness' and then its re-arising? One's notion of 'stress' may change if so. As you can already tell, I'm an Ayya Khema fan: "The path moment doesn't have any thinking or feeling in it. It is not comparable to the meditative absorptions (jhana). ...
by Ron Crouch
Sun May 27, 2012 6:35 pm
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

If you want to verify for yourself that they are part of the path please read them in the Visuddhimagga. They start on page 666, in the chapter entitled: Purification by Knowledge and Vision of the Way http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanamoli/PathofPurification2011.pdf" onclick=&quo...
by Ron Crouch
Sun May 27, 2012 6:28 pm
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

Ron said.... @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 "...
by Ron Crouch
Sun May 27, 2012 6:07 pm
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

Hi Ron, It seems to me you're blaming the general problems of discernment on psychotherapy. This might be a good time to recall your "causes aren't correlations" training and incorporate it into your analysis of the relationship between psychotherapy and practice. Psychotherapists have be...
by Ron Crouch
Sun May 27, 2012 5:39 am
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

Most teachers simply do not tell students that these insight stages exist and are part of the insight path. To me this is a big ethical lapse in our dhamma communities. Hi Ron, It is obvious to me from my knowledge of the Nikayas and other stories of enlighted masters (like Milarepa) that there is ...
by Ron Crouch
Sun May 27, 2012 5:32 am
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

How do you interpret the many passages like the following? I discerned, as it was actually present , that 'This is stress [dukkha]... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress... This is the way leading to the cessation of stress... These are fermentations... This is the ...
by Ron Crouch
Sat May 26, 2012 3:48 pm
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

Hi Ron, Thanks for the long reply. What is it that the dark night mind thinks it is grieving the loss of? I wonder if there is some particular variety of common self view which results in this kind of experience. One that is not as prevalent in everyone. Im just speculating in order to make theoret...
by Ron Crouch
Sat May 26, 2012 7:15 am
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

Hi Ron, I stress that this is more a personal observation than anything, but it has been pretty consistent. When a person really gets their act together enough to meditate well, they no longer take themselves very seriously. Thanks for that observation. I think that's also the case for teachers and...
by Ron Crouch
Sat May 26, 2012 5:53 am
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

But I think Ñana points to the the cause of it. I was not able to see why 'I' was suffering like so. Sure, I could see the compounding of sensations with a mental overlay of negativity, but it sometimes got too much to fabricate equanimity towards those sensations as Goenka instructs. I lacked a mo...
by Ron Crouch
Sat May 26, 2012 5:48 am
Forum: General Theravāda Meditation
Topic: Why Meditate?
Replies: 341
Views: 63631

Re: Why Meditate?

I've mentioned this several times in this discussion already - but let me say it again- experiencing the dukkha nanas is not a sign that your sila is off. You really can't get as far as the dukkha nanas if your behavior is poor. Hi Ron, Behavior is not always apparent. Much of our behavior is menta...