Finding Balance

This thread basically takes off where my Mahasi and Chah threads ended. My attempt at understanding the difference between these two approaches and how they might better understand each other.

[Following my posting of the Mahasi and Chah threads, I had a running email conversation with Constance trying to figure this stuff out a bit more. She mentioned that what I called the deathless and the qualities of this experience sounded to her like the Mahasi review phase and the area around it. As I do not have experiential familiarity with the Mahasi terminology - the insight stages, etc. I asked Constance to give me more detail regarding this phase.]

Constance:
"In high equanimity, the practice is subtle ... just carefully seeing how there is leaning in or pulling back from phenomenon. The syncing is sweet and present at a high level so the hard noting isn't necessary, just looking into suffering, or any sense of self appearing or belief in any fixed phenomenon, and seeing that as deluded with a soft, firm, clear attitude, this sort of non-attached seeing will produce stream entry, or a fruition.

The review always happens immediately following the blip, not some time later, it happens right away. And, because high equanimity is so open and non-attached it is possible to miss seeing the blip, especially if one is walking, standing, in movement and not in intensive sitting practice."

[This also seems to be describing how the 3 C's are used - which is something else I didn't understand.]

Constance: "It's a natural progression to be looking into the three characteristics if one is intuitively open and honest, and at a high level of subtle energy work attention is naturally drawn toward tension or contracted areas in the body, so the holding pattern would be looked into."

Constance: "My experience is that immediately following the blip there is a review, or a release into being that which we all are, and the knowings that come are related to the particular holding pattern that was just previous to the blip"

When one releases through the jhanas as I explained in another thread, the practice involves calming the tension in the mind and body together. The functional equivalent of the 3 C's is by gaining sensitivity to when tension arises and relaxing that tension - mentally and physically. It is a practice of bringing a spaciousness into that tension - to open it up and release it.

I think Constance is correct: we don't notice the blip. The deathless is what is called Review in the Mahasi tradition. My feeling is if a Mahasi practitioner that has gone through a path wants to relate to a Chah practitioner try connecting around the review experience first as this is probably the most shared part of the two approaches.

This understanding - that the Mahasi review = Chah path has cleared some things up for me. But I still wonder about the 10 fetters model. For me, these review periods were described by the 10 fetters model. So what else is different?

The other factor that differs between these two styles is the attention to mental/physical relaxation. This is built into the Thai Forest practices, Chi Gong, and Vajrayana. If this is not part of ones training, then whether you do this or not will be determined more by your natural inclination and/or practices you pick-up on the outside.

My sense is that this is what accounts for the difference in day to day experience. It is not the way we experience the paths but rather that we have included in the practice the kind of body work that helps a person let go of the tension and apparent solidity of stress as it is carried in the body.

In researching this, I started looking at some meditation instructions by Mahasi Sayadaw
link: www.acharia.org/downloads/Satipatthana_Vipassana.pdf

The basis of this practice is the Sathipattana Sutta.
link: www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.than.html

In the Sutta, the phrase "He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the entire body.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming bodily fabrication.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming bodily fabrication.'" is repeated several times. But I can find no reference to relaxing or calming the body in Mahasi Sayadaws' instructions.

Constance: "My interpretation in the difference between how we interpret or experience the release is how we are designed: i.e. I have a lot of earth energy, (and fire) always have been very intensely grounded, so it feels very strange to balance that with more air or wind qualities. You seem to have always had more wind or air qualities with water and so you are being infused with earth and fire at times, feels strange to the system,

--we are designed to come into balance or unison with the universe and the earthly plane so we can be fully present here.... eing ... focused on content is just a very earthy thing happening"

If different teachers emphasize different energies or aspects of the practice according to their own sort of 'energy affiliations' - we also should consider our own nature and look at ways of incorporating different practices to balance things for ourselves.

Those Tibetans: They say that all beings are Buddhas in the making and that each of us emphasises or brings to the party a certain kind of focus or energy (5 Buddha families -each associated with a specific element: space, water, earth, fire, wind). There is a discussion of this in Reggie Rays book Secret of the Vajra World (Chapter 7 - The World Beyond Thought).

What I had termed emerging qualities of the deathless, I now see as emerging qualities of the body work when combined with the awakening process. For example, the body work undermines the apparent solidity of anger - this is regardless of ones level of awakening - and when this solidity is opened up - the spaciousness within is seen - it looses its power. When this is combined with the awakening experience that breaks up the hold of the self identity - the two qualities/experiences are mutually supportive. I am seeing it like this: We need to free the mind from its contraction that is self-identity and we need to free the body from its contraction that is fear.

So this is where I am at now with this stuff.

" I am seeing it like this: We need to free the mind from its contraction that is self-identity and we need to free the body from its contraction that is fear.

"

Perfect!

"So this is where I am at now with this stuff. " - chelek

Go on, this is very interesting!

"If different teachers emphasize different energies or aspects of the practice according to their own sort of 'energy affiliations' - we also should consider our own nature and look at ways of incorporating different practices to balance things for ourselves." - chelek