Greetings Tilt,
tiltbillings wrote: ↑Wed Oct 11, 2017 4:20 amActually, the suttas and the commentaries do not support your position.
And on this point we disagree. Your reference to venerable Dhammanando's quote may have applicability to the initial steps of anapanasati, but your attempt to use that as a broad brush dismissal of all the sutta and commentarial points made thus far is totally baseless. For example, does what ven. Dhammanando said refute the need to tranquilize (rather than aggravate) bodily formations? No, it does not.
"Now, lady, what are fabrications?"
"These three fabrications, friend Visakha: bodily fabrications, verbal fabrications, & mental fabrications."
"But what are bodily fabrications? What are verbal fabrications? What are mental fabrications?"
"In-&-out breaths are bodily fabrications. Directed thought & evaluation are verbal fabrications. Perceptions & feelings are mental fabrications."
"But why are in-&-out breaths bodily fabrications? Why are directed thought & evaluation verbal fabrications? Why are perceptions & feelings mental fabrications?"
"In-&-out breaths are bodily; these are things tied up with the body. That's why in-&-out breaths are bodily fabrications. Having first directed one's thoughts and made an evaluation, one then breaks out into speech. That's why directed thought & evaluation are verbal fabrications. Perceptions & feelings are mental; these are things tied up with the mind. That's why perceptions & feelings are mental fabrications."
...
"But when a monk is attaining the cessation of perception & feeling, which things cease first: bodily fabrications, verbal fabrications, or mental fabrications?"
"When a monk is attaining the cessation of perception & feeling, friend Visakha, verbal fabrications cease first, then bodily fabrications, then mental fabrications."
As we see from the sutta, bodily fabrications are tranquilized,
prior to mental fabrications being tranquilized. By this logic, the only thing one could do worse than huffing, is to engage in verbal fabrications. This natural Dhammic order of things directly contradicts your earlier assertion that...
tiltbillings wrote:The mind is not "inflamed" during "heavy breathing" period, nor is it "inflamed" after.
tiltbillings wrote:Interestingly, and in keeping with Theravadin tradition, Ven Sunlun was carefully evaluated and tested by learned Elders, finding that his teachings were very much inline with the suttas. I will take these learned monks learned opinions and assessments of Ven Sunlun over the less learned contrarian positions presented in this thread.
By all means, have your faith and reverence in these various claims of enlightenment and such, and the possibility that there may be something more to all of this than mere
attanomati. That is your prerogative to regard the matter in such a way. As it stands however, in this topic, it has not been demonstrated, and the scriptural
support for it (rather than the alleged absence of direct contradiction) remains totally non-existent.
Until such time as any support or evidence is forthcoming, I will leave you to your
attanomati...
Metta,
Paul.
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."