[This post is a promotion of a comment in my “return” post. The post before this one is actually newer. https://meditationstuff.wordpress.com/2018/09/17/some-brief-long-overdue-probably-regretfully-unsatisfying-updates/]
do you consider the meditation program outlined by Culadasa in The Mind Illuminated to be safe-ish (obviously keeping in mind that the whole “pursuit of Nirvana” thing is inherently a pretty crazy deal), if followed by a rational, sane, sensible person who generally has his/her life in order?
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However I would be very interested in knowing what’s your opinion on Shamatha-heavy practices (like Culadasa’s) and on the Jhanas.
I’ve gotten a lot of value out of Culadasa et al.’s work. I think the practice, the instructions, and the theoretical models are high quality. I think, for a significant portion of practitioners, it will get them the thing (and, as far as I’m aware, lots of people have had success with this method? I haven’t tried to figure out the size of the community and the survivorship/selection bias/file drawer effect).
As with most practices, though, a significant portion of practitioners will get “stuck.” There will be something avoided in mind or body and/or there will be some error in how mind, body, attention, sensations, etc., are construed.
Reggie Ray and David Johnson [1] are on to something very important regarding the body.
Gendlin and parts work people (e.g. Internal Family Systems; Jay Earley [2] are also on to something.
Sensations are sort of a window into the mind from the outside, and meaning is sort of a window into the mind from the inside.
The body is a reflection of mind. Muscle tension and uncomfortable feelings point to something important and arguably unhandled in the bodymind system.
One can help out the system by attending to sensations with a healthy relational intention, i.e. from the “outside.” [Note that hammering away at muscle tension with a strong will is probably very counterproductive. What does it need? How can you help it? How can you and it both get a good thing?]
And one can also help out the system by attending to the meaning (with a healthy relational intention) that corresponds to those body sensations i.e. from the “inside.” [Does this make sense? Can I look at this terrible, feared thing about self, life, or world, gently and impartially, without it or self needing to change right then and there? ]
I haven’t tried this, but, in the TMI practice, when one finally ignores everything but mind(?), one might include the entire emotional/interoceptive/sensational body and any “thinking”/”meaningfulness” that’s happening inside the body. So the only thing to be ignored would be sensations that are definitely not being generated by the bodymind. There are probably yet finer distinctions to made, here, and I’d be curious for any TMI practitioners to chime in.
Stream-entry, in one sense, is the initial realization of important relationships between sensations, meaning, world, self, mind (and hopefully body).
If you’re good to the system you get more slack in the system to have the right things happen. (cf. spiritual bypassing)
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/wiki/beginners-guide [See TWIM]
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Self-Therapy-Step-Step-Cutting-Edge-Psychotherapy/dp/0984392777
