Thank you much for these first-hand details! Scaling up ignorance is not skillful, and IMO it sounds likely that Jhourney is partly playing that kind of game. Decades ago I did two 10-day silent retreats at Wat Suanmokkh, lived there a couple of months, and based on that and time spent in other practices I share your concerns. I am glad the Jhourney guys sought your feedback and hope they learn from it.
This was a good one. Germane to the times, albeit less directly Buddhism. But definitely Buddhist geeks. Delightfully so. Thanks for sharing... There's an excellent recording on RU-vid of McGilchrist, Schmachtenberger, and Vervaeke talking about what we might do to bring forth the kind of world that could appropriately confront the metacrisis.
God please Paris Jackson all I care about in life. Love and being adult isn't always "fun" or " easy" it's about digestion. It's gross acidic can burn you (badly) but at the end of digestion your whole body is healthier. I need her. I will accept anything to get a chance with relationship with her. Please.
TWIM is my main method. Did some retreats with it and had a great experience with it. The six Rs are clunky at first but one gets into a smooth flow after a couple days; I thinks it’s great for counteracting the tension of craving and keeping a person moving in the soft jhana direction. It’s frustrating to hear that it is being by appropriated and I agree with Vince says here. Someone had to say it. Doing a ten day at Dhamma Suhka where Bhante V used to teach is amazing for the record. TWIM is legit as are many methods. I also did Goenka retreats and TWIM is much safer. I feel like I’m mainly saying TWIM works well and has a strong context. Nothing is perfect and I am always learning and listening to new teachings. Thanks
I wonder if the jhourney guys are delivering TWIM as it is delivered by authorized teachers. I wonder if morality is emphasized (sila) for example, or the other various Buddhist topics like dependent origination. TWIM is about as Buddhist as it gets!
This understanding of "buddhist tantra is incorrect". So the starting point is wrong. But i do understand the desire to change things, especially if it is in a way we think is more in line with modern thought. This guy should claim to base his new approach on some of the ideas behind tantra and buddhism.
Cultural appropriation? As a Scot should I be outraged when I see non-Scots using penicillin, the TV, the phone, the fridge, the syringe, the engine, the tyre, or the flushing toilet? Maybe you should be carrying your excrement into the back garden and burying it, instead of insensitively flushing it away using Scottish tech.
I don’t know many details about the histories of Bill Hamilton, Kenneth Folk, and Daniel Ingram. Were they lineage holders? I wish Jhourney the best of luck, but would definitely feel better if they partnered with more experienced retreat teachers. I know Delson Armstrong has both taught TWIM retreats and been involved in medical research involving jhanic states. He seems like the perfect person for them to collaborate with. I wonder if they’ve reached out to him.
Once I hear you cant adopt things because It is "cultural appropriation" then I know you are dealing with woke bullshit. If a practice is good steal it. Are you proposing patented dharma ?
He's a Palestinian?! He'd better be careful about a world where you can only use the technology developed by your own group. He'd have to get by with falafel and keffiyehs.
He already knew that technologies make people lonely. Yes, we are now...I really thank for your teaching🙏May buddhism wisdom spread all over the world and may we be wiser and more compassionate!
I thought that a cessation, in which the mind apparently loses consciousness, was the taste of nirvana. In AN 9.34, the Nibbana Sutta: Unbinding, a monk asks how the unbinding can be pleasurable when there is nothing felt. Sariputa responds that it is pleasurable precisely because there is nothing felt.
The pleasure comes after, not during. In the moment of cessation there are, as Bill Hamilton pointed out, no reference points upon which to base a description.
This takes me back to Naropa days, it mirrors stuff Reggie, Shishin Wick, and Lama Tenpa would say. I'm so glad y'all are putting this out into the world.
I just saw this shared today, and magically enought I had just been thinking of Bob Thurman sharing this years ago and how much I loved it! Excited to watch this video.
I always thought the vagueness was important in cults and spiritual organizations and religions because the practitioner can fill in the blank with what works for them in terms of motivation. Also it makes the promises of these organizations more or less obtainable depending on what the leader(s) would like, so they can move the goal post if they would like to keep you around our get rid of you. It just provides wiggle room. The practicing within a group also gives lots of room to hide out and disguise our intent through keeping it vague. And a final thought it’s all pretty subjective, and open to interpretation so good luck to science trying to nail it down.
Diane Musho Hamilton quote highlights from this video: “Some people actually have a difficult time taking their own perspective … Some people literally couldn't take their own point of view.” “Then you have people who could take their own point of view, but couldn't take the point of view of the other.” “I suddenly started to see that perspective-taking was developmental.” Egocentric self: Ego development, developing an ego, is absolutely not only natural but necessary. It's a localized experience. There tends to be a lot of stress, a lot of emphasis on survival, accomplishment, being seen. The self isn't bad; the self is simply limited and tends to suffer. Ethnocentric self: I'm now concerned with my group, my family, my nation, the people I belong to, the people I feel at home with. There’s a set of virtues and values. I’m willing to sacrifice my life for my clan or my group. The egocentric self suffers, the ethnocentric self goes to war. It's much more dangerous for human beings to identify with this which is why we disown it. World-centric: I become a member of humanity. I really feel like I belong, and I also feel that the pain of the world is mine. National boundaries dissolve. I start to see the beauty of the ecosystems and caring about the species on the planet. We see a global community. Rather than being threatened by difference, we're interested in it. Cosmic-centric self: Paradox is my reality. It's all one. It's the same. There's a beauty that starts to emerge. I can be available to the world-centric domain, I can be available to my family and the ethnocentric, and I can continue to work with my own consciousness. Your compassion is large enough to actually handle what you're doing because it's not yours.
"Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect" I was lucky enough to hear that when I was a teenager, from an actual World Champion who lived near us: Jonah Barrington.
totally agree and i had a similar hunch that regardless of the practice, jhana is included or a necessary prerequisite, and in some cases, like when a person stumbles upon a deep and lasting insight, samadhi or jhana still needs to occur if it hasn’t already, in order for it to be an abiding awakening. for instance Ramana Maharshi spent years in Samadhi AFTER his awakening.
I can't fucking believe it! I'm just discovering/realizing for the first time in my 44 years of life... The rage and grief I feel... THESE ARE MY SUPERPOWERS! The fact that I can feel these at all, this alone, is my superpower! It is sacred it is divine it is feminine it is miraculous. Most are too numb to know or to feel. But I know. And I feel. This has all been in preparation for my mission as an alchemist. I am a Lioness. I am a Goddess. I am a Radically Honest Biker Bitch! Holy heaven I am mind-blown! HALLEUJAH! AND PRAISE THE LORD!
Thank you for discussing this. I think there's a level where you have to be willing to put some time into a method, maybe even any method to develop the discernment to choose a more suitable method. The analogy I would use is when I was first learning to play guitar, I wanted to get a very good guitar. My father pointed out that I didn't know enough yet to know what a very good guitar was, and I should spend time learning and getting to the point where I would know a good guitar when I picked it up to play.
Nice explanation. I appreciate this. I came across the Four Chokshak on my own and contemplated them for quite awhile without any formal explanation and came to very similar insights. This practice is both a map and a doorway. Very useful IMO.
I've been interested in the Mahayana since studying these views & practices at Naropa University, and engaging with Zen practice, so for the past two decades now. I've always found the view that we aren't just doing this for ourselves, the view of the interdependence of the self, non-duality, etc. to be a big part of what's interesting about Buddhism.
To what end are we supposed to hyper-fixate on the breath until it becomes an object of fascination? This just seems like an internally-generating form of craving and entertainment. Isn't the appropriate task actually to become disillusioned with sensuality so that you stop appropriating it and becoming entangled in it? If one wants an entertaining source of absorption to just sit there and watch they can look at a campfire or cat videos.
In the 2,500 years since the Buddhas time a variety of meditation practices and approaches has developed and evolved. For some people Goenka style vipassana really works (whether or not its canonical or not). Likewise jhana practice can be approached separately to vipassana. Even just in Burma alone there are a wide variety of different approaches. This is to be celebrated in my view.
I've been meditating off and on for about 48 year, and first experienced access concentration 30 years ago. It wasn't until this video that I understood what it was though...
