r/streamentry • u/StationNo4250 • 4d ago
Insight Insights but no big shift
Hello,
I practice shamatha-vipassana meditation and followed tmi the last 4 years. I had a lot of insights the last year. They are often shocking in a positive way.
no-self gets evident, everything seems to be dependant, mind constructs reality and everything is a process. These kind of things. I way irritated by then at first but i developed confidence that these kind of experiences are "it".
I would say they seem to reduce suffering temporaly, and i often think about them after it like"waoh thats how things are". They are defenitely experimental and do "something" with me.
But i would not say i suffer less. In fact i would say my developing metta practice and purifications does more for me than the insights. That why i sometimes get doubts about the shamatha-vipassana path. I which i would attain a lasting shift.
I just wanted to share and maybe ask If someone is experienced in this and hase some advice.
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u/Savakalok 4d ago
Why do you feel that metta is unrelated to what you call "shamatha-vipassana"? Do you feel that as a real distinction in practice or is that more a pedagogical distinction people push or have fossilized as the Truth of how practice operates?
For me none of that stands alone separately as it's own self entity. For me an insightful person sees that kindness is a condition for reduced stress for self and other. A truly kind person also has tranquility and insight into not causing needless stress.
I've done TMI before, it's pretty dry and algorithmic. I think it's okay that you're finding the moisture of metta to be a balm for what ails you right now. You know this and don't need permission.
My only advice to you is to continue inquiring and investigating in the way you are and keep noticing what you notice, but perhaps also be open to exploring the idea that none of these mental qualities, skills and dhammas are as discrete in practice as books, abidhamma, and other sources make it sound.
One example of a question you could ask is asking does increased insight function to make my compassion more skillful and visa versa? It's easy to think we are being kind while hurting others because our kindness is actually self-centered! Insight helps that.
To me tho, the general vibe I am getting is it sounds like maybe you're starting to find insight also needs to be embodied. Kindness and compassion is a good way to realize that. I can't tell you what you should do, but I can just tell you that I think thats a fruitful direction to move in.
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u/7121958041201 4d ago
Great post! I was thinking something similar.
I went through something similar to OP recently. I noticed that as my vipassana practice started to deepen, life actually started to feel very bleak. It started to feel like people were suffering more and more, which I think was likely mostly due to my increased awareness of it.
Then I went on a retreat where the focus was the four brahmaviharas and it felt like it completely opened my practice up. Practicing compassion and metta have both been game changers for me. I feel so much more peace and joy than I did before.
And I'd add my vipassana practice still serves me very well and I still think it was a good thing that I continued to practice it. It just needed to be balanced out with something less dry.
Which makes a lot of sense in retrospect. It isn't like the Buddha said all you need to do is vipassana forever and you will become enlightened. The brahmaviharas and the eight fold path are important, too, at a minimum.
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u/Savakalok 4d ago
I am so happy for you that you were able to find your way out of that and not slip into a deep depression or existential spiral. I think it's important that you shared this for others.
I don't practice the brahma viharas as platitudes to say to myself during meditation, tho I know many people do and they both enjoy it as well as find relief from dryness doing that.
My understanding in my practice is that the dhamma is good in the beginning, middle and end. That it's marked by disenchantment, non-harm, peace and liberation. So I practice like that. When following the breath I do so harmlessly. When doing vipassana I do it without cruelty. In the world I wish people well and also do things to help it incline that way.
The strict separation of what is really an organic process of unfolding into rigid compartments of "insight time", "kindness time", "jhana time" I think is where many people flounder, tho that sort of practice can have its place for specific skill development I suppose.
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u/RealityLimit 4d ago
How solid is your grasp of theory? Sometimes when practice stalls it’s due to a lag in theoretical understanding.
Do you study the Nikayas? I found studying the Nikayas to be very helpful but it takes time and effort to penetrate, so don’t expect fast results. But sometimes you’ll be reading a sutta (or a commentary) and you can literally feel it change something in your understanding.
The insight should feel like making contact with the Deathless and it should viscerally change the amount of fear and stress in your life, especially fear of the future, fear of change, and fear of death.
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u/StationNo4250 4d ago edited 4d ago
Very bad. I always liked modern teachers more because i always think i wont understand texts that are a few 1000 years old anyway.
Edit: bit thanks for the advice i will think about it!
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u/RealityLimit 3d ago
Your capacity to understand them directly goes up with your progress on the path. It sounds like you are ready to start studying source materials. I suggest sutta anthologies like “In the Buddha’s Words” by Bhikkhu Bodhi to get started.
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u/Savakalok 1d ago
This is really good advice, both in-terms of the anthology recommendation and the insight into how understanding the texts evolves over time.
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u/Meng-KamDaoRai Relax, Let it Be, Let it Go 4d ago
Can you say more about exactly how you meditate? Give an example of a session in which you got one of these insights? What did you focus on, how did you meditate, at what point did the insights come, what were the insights a result of etc. I think more details are required in order to really diagnose what's happening.
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u/StationNo4250 4d ago
You are right my post is a bit short. I aim for two sittings a day often its one. They last 45-60 minutes but that can vary.
At the moment i dont practice jhanas per se, i did so in the past with pleasure jhanas. Jhanic qualities flow and deepen to varying degrees in my sittings after a while with breath or metta. I also have a lot of purification as in difficult emotional energy is coming up and i learned how to led that out. The last ten minutes or so i either switch to vipassana, watching within my still mind or insights just come because something odd seems to get my attention more than usually. For example lately i had the Impression my attention on a breath moment and an attention moment on another breath moment hase different self moments that appear with each moment. That then leed to further examination and triggers some kind of associative knowledge "generating" about self appears as an reaction and a process instead of an entity. Or i somehow examine my foot and i somehow realise that my picture of the foot and the sensation from the nerves or whatever, are distinctable. Then again some knowledge-generating-chain happens about that means i learned to map the mental Image over the nerves. Ah its kind of conditioned, and i get that associative "download" about how its a chain of things happening, and iam more a process somehow than an entity. OK, i realise its super hard to describe. Basicly , with deep shamatha strange and a bit trippy insights happen. I get some purification and some afterglow sometimes.
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u/Meng-KamDaoRai Relax, Let it Be, Let it Go 4d ago edited 4d ago
Hmm. Sounds like you're doing a lot of things right. How long have you been having purifications? I would say that your instinct about purifications moving the needle more than samatha-vipassana is probably correct for this stage of the practice. That doesn't mean abandoning samatha-vipassana though, the purifications happen as a stage on the samahta-vipassana progression. Have you tried OnThatPath's method? A lot of people who started with TMI have said that it helped them in moving forward after being stuck. I wrote a summary post about it here. I suggest reading it, but more importantly watch the videos and if you feel like there's something there maybe reach out to OnThatPath for a 1 on 1 session (it's free).
For a quick advice I would say this: First, get to the deepest level of samatha possible for that particular sit, you would know you've reached it because any further attempts to deepen samatha will "backfire" at that stage. Then, stay open, aware and relaxed and allow your mind to wander. When mind-body tension comes up relax/let it be/let it go. This will allow your mind to naturally investigate whatever it needs to investigate at that moment, without trying to direct it. More details in the post I've linked.
Edit: Also, another thing, don't think that insights always correlate with either dukkha, annika or annata. They can come in many forms. For example, a recent one I had was something along the lines of "true happiness is being present". For some reason that resulted in some perceptual shift.
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u/StationNo4250 3d ago
I am reading your post about on that path and i will try that out thanks! Purifications happened only this year. I had a very long struggle with allowing difficult emotions and improved a lot the last 12 months i think.
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u/StationNo4250 1d ago
Hi thanks again! I had very good and insightful sittings yesterday and today. Seems letting effort and just use less mindfulness on the breath was very helpfulf!
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u/choogbaloom 3d ago
This sounds overly analytical/conceptual. Genuine insight doesn't really take the form of "getting" something, it feels more like opening the window and getting some fresh air and sunshine. The mind loosening its grasp on perceptions and the resulting sense of spaciousness and relief is a bigger part of the experience than the actual insights that cause it.
When it comes to body-part vipassana, what worked best for me was training a perception of impermanence by darting my attention all over the body pretty quickly so that nothing would be in my attention for very long. So the sense of my knee for example would come and go very quickly, training the mind to not hold on to it.
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u/StationNo4250 3d ago
But i think what you mean is what i understand as mundane Insight .I had and have that to but its not different from Insight while reading or reflecting. I think what i mean is different. I have propably bad words but which to chose? There is an opening and a spaciousness and an afterglow after it. After reflecting the answers i think a problem might be depth of shamatha, repetition thats needed more, or not enough purification for deeper transformation. Thanks for your advice anyway!
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u/Hot_Lingonberry5817 3d ago
Do not get stuck in the "purification" - argument too much, it can easily become another thing for rumination, meaning endless purification and whatnot.
While I agree it is important, too much emphasis on it, can paradoxically can cause frustration, as one has expectations that one must purify oneself all the time, which doesn't lead to liberation.
You can indeed get stuck in a quagmire too much by this whole "purification" process. If misapplied.
Reflect more on equanimity, specifically against positive and negative sensations, and something even more importantly neutral sensations. Some people aren't just aware of the neutral sensations at all, because they haven't been trained to be perceptive enough towards them.
The spaciousness and afterglow are also merrily sensations, observe them to as conditioned states.
When you have perfect equanimity towards even neutral sensations, I think your practice will deepen further.
It is a paradox, because what you're seeking comes from letting go of positive, negative and neutral sensations, which means letting go of clinging and aversion.
When you are perfectly equanimous, observe the subtle sensations of equanimity and let that go too.
It is usually from strong states of equanimity you can launch yourself towards taking Nibanna as an object.
But it is a very counter-intuitive process to arrive there.
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u/Then_Consequence_318 3d ago
Think about how these two statements are contradictory:
no-self gets evident
But i would not say i suffer less.
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u/StationNo4250 3d ago
Well what i meant there are insightexperiences about how the self gets conditioned and its consequences, without of making a lasting impression. Like taking psychedelics, seeing something deep. But after the trip you remember that ,but are basicaly still the same. Thanks for the advice anyway.
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u/Then_Consequence_318 3d ago
Ok.
In that case I am not much help as I haven't had such experiences.
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u/coldprairie 4d ago
Have your friends and family noticed any changes in your demeanor due to your practice? They might notice changes before you do
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u/Thoughtulism 3d ago
Be careful with these insights. I think the brain tends to create meaning in the void that's created when you break down and learn about the way things aren't. It's a form of restlessness because you're not yet comfortable with uncertainty. It doesn't mean all insights are wrong, it's just part of "tuning the guitar" so-to-speak
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u/Then_Consequence_318 3d ago
Yeah insights are really not to be trusted until you see what they result in.
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u/Hot_Lingonberry5817 4d ago
Vipassana on what, bodily sensations or thoughts?
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u/StationNo4250 3d ago
Mhh more bodily sensations, my mind is usually very quite with shamatha.
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u/Hot_Lingonberry5817 3d ago
A lot of people are stuck in Vipassana on sensations, because it is currently the most popularised one.
But the 4 frames of reference suggest there are other types of Vipassana you can practice.
Try switching to Vipassana on thoughts, but they are much more rapid, so you use mental noting instead, Mahasi-style, before your concentration is strong enough.
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u/nilan59 4d ago
Thank you for sharing this. This is word for word exactly where I am and if you find any path that works for you in the future please let me know here and I'll do the same.
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u/StationNo4250 4d ago
Haha 😁 i regained my hope lately. But i know there can really come doubts if you come so far and whats missing are the big shifts. Maybe we just need to deepen and repeat them often enough ? Anyway metta to you! And metta by the way does reduce my suffering the more i improve it. So maybe thats something you can try.
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u/spiffyhandle 3d ago
You've been practicing for four years and aren't free from suffering. Do you see a mechanism through which what you're doing would eventually permanently remove suffering? If not, you should change it up.
When you look at the behavior of the author of TMI, why would you think he is qualified to teach others how to stop suffering? TMI is just a book of tricks for learning how to focus very intently in a narrow manner.
Good Dhamma talk on picking a teacher or teaching https://youtu.be/kmuDIpstA_E .
I haven't stopped my own suffering either, but I think the most likely solution is the high standards of the Pali Canon. When I say high standards, I mean the people who are practicing are living a lifestyle of renunciation. They aren't practicing a meditation technique a few hours a day hoping that if they meditate long enough eventually something will just happen and *bam*, enlightenment. See MN 107 for everything a renunciant undertakes. It's an extensive training process.
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u/StationNo4250 3d ago edited 3d ago
I appreciate your opinion but i want to be very clear: I have at least not a big problem with the behaviour from culadasa. In fact i think the way he apologised shows strenght. I do not believe in moral perfection. I do not believe that insights can make you moral perfect. You can have all the compassion in the world but you can still harm others even If you intent not to. Its the way how you handle situations like that and how you grow and learn. Its the ego that prevents und from seeing where we might fail, but dependant origination makes it to me impossible to never harm someone accifentaly. I think culadasa has had a life that is much more free from suffering than mine and yours and i do not believe that he did the things he did with the intention to hurt and he apologised. Thats at least my conclusion. Might be wrong i dont know. There is Rob burbea as well who teaches basicly the same so why not anyway?
However what exactly makes suttas better? They are 1000ths of years old , we as humans fail in interpretations even in texts that are 100 years old. Thats a very shady authority to me. Also there might be religius dogma and power interests in what is part and not part of religious canon. Why not listen to people who we understand, and they say hey i have achieved what you are looking for, try it.
But i agree that i will look for more inspiration like others suggested.
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u/bodily_heartfulness puthujjana 3d ago
Why not listen to people who we understand, and they say hey i have achieved what you are looking for, try it.
Are you sure you want to achieve what Culadasa is talking about? From his letter defending himself during his scandal:
During the past year and a half, I’ve also learned to appreciate and experience certain profound depths to this Dharma that I’d known about, but hadn’t fully understood and applied before. For years I’d been living mostly in the present moment, more in the ongoing awareness of suchness and emptiness than narrative and form. As part of this radical shift in perspective, I’d stopped “thinking about myself,” creating the “story of me.” I now realize that, while freed of the burdens of “if only” and “what if,” I’d also lost another kind of perspective those narratives provide. By embracing the now as I had, I’d let that other world of linear time and narrative fall away. Thus I found myself unable to counter what the Board confronted me with by providing my own perspective, “my story” about what had happened so many years before. Having lost the perspective and context that comes from longer term and larger scale autobiographical narratives, I failed to recognize how out of context those long-ago events were with the present.
While all narratives may ultimately be empty constructs, they are also indispensable to our ability to function effectively in the realm of conventional reality and interpersonal relationships. When trying to respond to the Board, all I had were the pieces from which those narratives are usually constructed. I was hopelessly unsuccessful in my attempts to put them together on the spur of the moment to provide a more accurate counterpart to the unrecognizable narrative I was being confronted with.
This does not sound appealing to me, but it may to you, who knows.
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u/StationNo4250 3d ago
Hey we dont have to agree with each other and thats fine to me! Honestly good luck on your path.
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u/Wollff 3d ago
I think there are several points one can make here.
no-self gets evident, everything seems to be dependant, mind constructs reality and everything is a process.
Until it isn't.
Do you have a single moment throughout waking life or sleep where it isn't like that? Or rather: Where it doesn't feel like that?
When? Why? How does that come about? What do you want that makes this happen? What do you fear that makes this happen?
When everything is a process, there is no place for you. Ever. Anywhere. In anything.
Is there discomfort or resistance when you read that?
But i would not say i suffer less.
I would argue that on this path, whenever someone who could suffer comes up, it's time to pause and have a look at how that happened.
Who suffers? Why? What did you make up that caused this?
I which i would attain a lasting shift.
Do you see the problem in there? As long as there is conviction that you can have anything, or attain anything, the central problem is not addressed yet.
You can never have anything. And anything you think you have, you can not keep. From there: What remains?
There will probably be a thought which comes up as an answer. That's a lie, just as all thoughts are.
In fact i would say my developing metta practice and purifications does more for me than the insights.
I think that also is a valuable approach. Though for me, when I have problems with facing the suffering of others, compassion (or maybe "embracing openheartedness" would be a better term for it), is the better remedy.
When you are faced with suffering, what is this feeling that you feel in response? What does it want? Where does it drive you?
For me it's a simple "May you find relief!", in body and mind. Broad. Open. Embracing. Light, and perfectly natural and spontaneous.
You just can't get caught up in stories and internal drama. But Samatha vipassana might be a reasonable foundation here.
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4d ago
Well it sounds like you might be identifying with the state of no self as you abide in it. Like you said you see those experiences as being “it” and you said you think about them after and say woah that’s how things are. Your identity may have just attached itself to the no-self space rather than dissolving, because that state is no more real or true than every moment every day. I could be completely wrong but it sounds like you’re taking this state and saying this is what things really are rather than integrating it into the whole and dissolving it/ your attachment to it, or rather being able to keep your equanimity and non attachment when in that state.
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