Cut to the chase

"Regarding the sri lankan method.
Do you note aloud?
No following of the breath or such?
"

Hi Meekan,

In the beginning, one can note aloud...or not. Not a big deal. One will note slowly, KFD style, until one slips into the phenomenological mode of A&P...or at least "Arising". Basically, you move away from the "I'm sitting here meditating & living my life out in the universe" to "there is feeling, there it goes away, there is frustration, there it is passing away, there [insert phenomena here]" etc etc etc.

The Sri Lankan method incorporates jhana a LOT. Using the breath at the nose is encouraged as it is a smaller defined point than the abdomen. One uses the KFD syle noting or another "continuity of mindfulness" practice until one gets super-concentrated....or one simply enters 1st jhana, comes out, and immediately begins vipassana...it is really a matter of personal preference.

One breaks down the breath, following the individual sensations & noting them rise/fall (becomes noticing when things get fast). The idea is to note quickly before the mind becomes attached. The second something arises, you note it & drop it....a touch-&-go for the mind. If anything else arises, just note the sense door (hearing, thinking, etc.) and immediately return to the breath.

[continued in next post]

"Regarding the sri lankan method.
Do you note aloud?
No following of the breath or such?
Also, how do you go about noting or keeping awareness going in between formal sits?
And when tasks are intellectually demanding?
Thanks, brian!"

[continued from prev. post]

The idea is you keep noting so that you release the phenomena *very quickly* & return to the breath. At some point, you realize [on a more intuitive level] that the intention to move the note and/or come back to the breath should be noted, too.

This begins to create a short-circuit...it brings you to the "Edge of the Vortex", so to speak...after a few seconds (sometimes up to a few minutes) of this short-circuiting, equanimity arises & it becomes more peaceful. A few seconds later & fruition occurs (or reoccurs).

For a portion, this does feel mentally demanding/exhausting, but right when you feel you can't take it anymore everything calms & blissful equanimity arises.

The whole Sri Lankan/Nanarama system is pretty much the same as U Pandita's model. It just incorporates more concentrative practices to intensify mindfulness & letting go (& therefore quicken the progress to stream-entry).

Most of the changes I like very much...it just seems more direct & to the point, IMHO.

"Regarding the sri lankan method.
Do you note aloud?
No following of the breath or such?
Also, how do you go about noting or keeping awareness going in between formal sits?
And when tasks are intellectually demanding?
Thanks, brian!"

Forgot to answer the "between sits" question. This is exactly the same as U Pandita (Maha Satipatthana Sutta). One keeps the watcher going, mindfully aware of all activities. Early on, this helps progress more than anything else. Also, having a developed jhana practice you have a place to "rest" when the work is mentally exhausting...

On a side note...though it really isn't applicable for a "Western Practice Community" such as KFD:), you may find it interesting that the SL system incorporates a lot of sila/dana practice prior to commencing meditation. One does a small bit of walking & throws some bread to a bird (or offers something to someone), thinking "may this still your hunger" or something of the sort. You should zero-in on that feeling of generosity, dwell in it. Then reflect on your precepts & how you have not broken them & therefore have given the world the gift of harmlessness. Reflect on recent virtuous actions. You zero-in on this too, then follow with deep metta meditation. This metta takes you to 1st jhana, where you then commence the noting practice.

Sounds silly to many people, but these "feelings" generated can really pave the way for a great sitting session.

OK, Brian Ananda, let's change gears for awhile. I'd like to see a practice thread from you. I love your dedication and enthusiasm and you have a gift for sounding authoritative when you write. On the other hand, according to my notes, I taught you the noting technique for the first time in June and you got the A&P for the first time on July 13. That was just five months ago. Just sayin'... You're not allowed to be a pundit yet, at least not on this forum.

Your opinions about what is the mac-daddy of noting techniques will change a dozen times over the next ten years. Whatever you think now is just thoughts. Note it and move on.

Now, as for the practice thread... I remember that you got stream entry about August, is that right? But you have also claimed 2nd Path on this thread, so I'd be grateful if you would document that for us. I like to discourage outright claims of attainment when they aren't backed up by careful descriptions of your experience while sitting or doing formal walking. If you can give us some idea of what happened to you when you believe you attained 2nd Path in addition to whatever is going on in your practice now, the rest of us can chime in with guidance about where to go from here. It's a long road. Hit the cushion, young man. ;-D

Affectionately,

Kenneth

Now, as for the pressing debate about whether fast noting is better than slow noting, the answer is (drum roll please)...

it doesn't matter much. Some very good teachers, including Daniel Ingram, teach fast noting. Daniel even suggests that you reduce the note to "dat" or some similar word, just so that you can acknowledge that you have noticed something and move on. I teach a more leisurely pace, about once a second or once every two seconds, primarily because I encourage noting aloud, which cannot be sustained at a pace above about 1 hz.

People get enlightened with both techniques. People get enlightened without noting at all, just paying close attention to the changing phenomena of mind and body. People get enlightened in systems that don't use vipassana. People get enlightened in while praying to Jesus, or Mary, or Zeus, or whichever god they pray to. Some people get enlightened while waiting for a bus, never having done any contemplative practice at all.

From our point of view, as we cannot count on the bus-stop scenario, the important thing is to pick some kind of practice and stick with it. Thinking about it won't help, which is why I don't advocate spending a lot of time perseverating about which noting technique is best. Once you have decided to try noting, just pick a technique, put your head down and note. Can't decide? Flip a coin. Better yet, find a teacher and follow his or her recipe to the letter. He or she will probably customize a practice just for you, taking into account your unique strengths and interests.

I say this based on my own 28 years of experience with many different variations of noting, not-noting, meditating and not-meditating. Most of all, I say this from the point of view of one who has had the privilege of coaching dozens of people to stream entry and beyond. This is going on even as we speak... people are getting enlightened here. Who's next?

Brian Ananda responded with two posts on this thread a moment ago. I took his comments to be discourteous and argumentative and deleted both posts.

This website is my classroom. This is where I teach people what I can about enlightenment. That's all. Arguing just isn't interesting to me anymore.

I have learned that it is better to take a firm hand in the beginning and risk offending someone than to let a thread turn into a flame war. No apologies. There it is.

Its probably pointless commenting on an old thread, but I had to slightly disagree with this statement. I've been working in the mastery realm for 17 years in martial arts and used to frequently experience plateaus and would of course eventually grow from them to new levels.

However, over time I am becoming more and more convinced that plateaus are not necessary and using a few techniques I have not experienced a significant one in over 3 years.

My main technique is to seek discomfort. To me, discomfort is a feeling the mind creates when it can not find a clean mental model for something it is experiencing - thus if you go toward discomfort, the brain has to learn to accommodate the new data and thus change the mental models to fit. This refitting to the new data is where big breakthroughs occur.

The other approach is to identify "mini games" that you think ought to be mastered. When no discomfort is to be found or I am otherwise comfortable with my martial arts practice, I find different very small, very specific techniques or movements that I want to master. I then focus on them for a while and usually as I go deeper, some light will be shed on some other area of my practice and I will switch attention and follow that.

I think the key prerequisite for this is to be comfortable in trusting your own wisdom - as long as I was blindly following a teacher, I would expect them to tell me what to do next and I would often find myself in periods of plateau.

....so I guess all that said, maybe there is a chicken-and-egg. If you are closely following a teacher perhaps plateau is inevitable until you eventually find your own wings and take control of your practice at which point it has a high potential of really taking off.