How's this book? Is it any good?
It is very good as a theoretical and technical manual for shamatha meditation in plain English if you have the patience to read it as such, and only as that. It is very lacking in the religious and philosophical context department. Most people in history who would be progressing towards the end stages described in the book would have done so with a teacher to correct harmful wrong views.
>>24106036Is there a better book that's more complete, that you'd suggest?
It's fine for a technical description of buddhist meditation.What it doesn't tell you is that buddhist meditation is terrible for you and basically training mental illness.
>>24106131elaborate
>>24106095Not really. I think it's quite good. But if you have trouble, I would suggest talking to an experienced monk of a reputable lineage rather than continuing on as autodidact.
>>24106131My brother in Christ, meditation is the act of silencing the voice, only then can you truly connect with God.The voice is not you, but the serpent.
it's the usual book by atheist westerners about meditation: Culadasa was a coomer who shilled whatever is under the sun hoping to get a wide audience, he mixed buddhism with mahayana in a great meditative slop, >Also, this book is a fusion of teachings from different Buddhisttraditions. While it is entirely consistent with all of them, it does notreflect any one tradition in particular. I believe this is one of its greatadvantages. It brings together the Indo-Tibetan Mahayana andtraditional Theravada meditation teachings, and shows how each fills inthe gaps of the other. The techniques presented here apply to every kindof meditation practice., and just ends up with vipassana, as in the vipassana mediation stemming from the commentarieshttps://culadasa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Meditation-and-Insight-III.pdfIt's good first book, but don't believe it's the ultimate book. There really isn't a complete book on meditation, simply because people don't read the suttas, and the suttas don't fill up a whole book. You follow the precepts, you do mindfulness of body, death, breath, dhammas, you guard the faculties (indriyas) and you cultivate the kusala states of mind and the pleasure of renunciation.>1.1. Teaching Skillful Qualities>3.1And moreover, sir, how the Buddha teaches skillful qualities is unsurpassable. 3.2This consists of such skillful qualities as 3.3the four kinds of mindfulness meditation, the four right efforts, the four bases of psychic power, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven awakening factors, and the noble eightfold path. 3.4By these a mendicant realizes the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life. And they live having realized it with their own insight due to the ending of defilements. 3.5This is unsurpassable when it comes to skillful qualities. 3.6The Buddha understands this without exception. There is nothing to be understood beyond this whereby another ascetic or brahmin might be superior in direct knowledge to the Buddha when it comes to skillful qualities. I forgot there was a subreddit about him lolhttps://transcendentmind.github.io/html/culadasa_qna_index.html
>>24106260It's basically an exercise in ignoring the healing function of your psyche. Ones internal dialogue, fantasy, dreams, etc is there to draw your attention to the limitations of your beliefs and habits as well as provide the insight that lets you overcome them and understand more of the world.Trying to quieten that is an exercise in keeping you stuck in an insufficient worldview at best and inviting psychic death at worst.Read Jung to understand more, particularly Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche.
>>24106622No, mental masturbation and dreams are a disease stemming from ignorance, confusion and disappointment from hedonistic tendencies towards goods and events that are inherently perishable and a source of sufferingJung was bourgeois cumbrain produced by the atheist revolution.
>>24106622Watch out, the twenty something psychoanalysis autodidact has arrived to enlighten us.
>*cheats on his wife with a cheap streetwalker*>nothing personel kid Some much for that character development through insight. Regardless, Buddhist meditation is a dead end anyway. The continuous transmissions of meditative instructions were broken long, long ago (visuddhimagga was already filled with retardation and it's almost as old as Buddhism itself in the grand scheme of things) and what most people think of as being Buddhist meditation is something that was invented by Burmese revivalists in the 19th century brought over the West by jewish hippies in the 1960's. The suttas themselves are also too vague to gleam exact, unambiguous instructions from (apart from that you should hang out in graveyards and think about dead bodies a lot, which nobody seems to teach for some reason lmao) that's why literally everybody has a different opinion on how to actually practice anapanasati.
>>24106309This voice?>And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
>>24106742Suffering is not a problem, you’d see that if you had the balls to walk through it. Accepting more knowledge is not ignorance. Engaging with the world is not hedonism, it’s life. Buddhism is a nihilistic death cult
>>24106622your internal dialogue and healing functions are way more productive and less full of noise after meditation
>>24106017the author got caught cheating on his wife with 10 prostitutes at like 85yo, so i'd say it works
>>24106999yes, he pretty much disproves all the claims about mindfulness itself being good to develop moral character, still like the book but it refutes itself
>>24106999>(apart from that you should hang out in graveyards and think about dead bodies a lot, which nobody seems to teach for some reason lmao)bloated corpse meditation is the most literary of all ngl, Visuddhimagga is a cute compendium of autism
>>24109510he must be 90+ at this point and still kicking more balls and pussy than most 20s incels must've accidentally fucked with kundalini
>>24107923Some people have a greater aspiration than you do, and that's fine. Enjoy your life how you see fit.
>>24109628he died sadly
>>24109510>>24109628at least it wasn't rape like most asiatic cult leaders, so maybe his method has some moral benefits
>>24109685was he even a cult leader west is only catching up to that kinda level where the religious hegemon declares prima nocta over his female following it's just what he deserves
>>24106095
>>24106017Isn't he the guy who was banging prostitutes the whole time?https://engagedharma.net/2019/08/19/culadasa-charged-with-sexual-misconduct/https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/16/is-enlightenment-compatible-with-sex-scandals/
>>24109692he had a Dharma Treasure retreat with teachers and students, no idea how cultish it was, but he got couped by his wife at some point>https://dharmatreasure.org/
>>24109701doesn't that prove that his method works? specially if you want to be a sex panther geezer
>>24109707I remember a lot of Buddhists got uptight about it because once you reach that level you're supposed to be freed of desire, so by whoremongering he proved he was a fraud (by their standards.)
>>24109714yeah, his book has a lot of claims about mindfulness, without any additional moral training, making you more moral and compassionate and things along those linestbf in most real buddhist real books like the Visuddhimagga 1/3 of the book is about moral precepts you have to follow for a long time before you start meditating, then 1/3 of the book about concentration, and only the last 1/3 about mindfulness+insight. tbf his book covers parts 2 and 3, most western books just cover part 3
>>24109685True
>>24109744The ethics stuff is for the plebs. The top monks are all degenerate rapists who get their way by threatening magic spells or dharma damnation on the peasants beneath them. Always have been. At least Yates paid his prostitutes.
>>24109767reminder that this shit only came out after the Dalai Lama said "Europe for the europeans" kek, before that all those new yorker jews were sucking tibetan cock to dunk on china
Tibetans have always been filthy which is exactly why Hollywood and westerners were deifying with them. >When Kawaguchi finally returned to Japan, he caused a sensation and an instant surge of interest in the distant Tibet. His travelogue, quickly published based on talks he gave, shows his shock at the lack of hygiene by Tibetans, the filth of Tibetan cities, and many Tibetan customs, including sexual practices, monastic immoderation, corruption and superstitious beliefs.[12]
>>24109805Sogyal was raping French women in France.>SOGYAL RINPOCHE: "HIS WAY IS TO RAPE"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwpldZ667bY
>>24109744>only the last 1/3 about mindfulness+insightwhat stage is that does it mean at some point shamatha automatically turns into vipassana or what i placed myself somewhere in the mid when i was doing it more regularly like stage five what exactly happens in mindfulness + insight meditation t. someone who only knows how to do visualizations and can't follow all moral percepts to the highest standards
>>24106999This is why advaita vedanta is supreme
Is The Path to Nibbana based? I don't care about autistic buddhist lore, mumbo jumbo or meme words full of vowels, just wanna become a real nibba.
Harrari is talking about vipassana lol>Yuval Noah Harari on Vipassana, Reality, Suffering, & Consciousnesshttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOmz2UcUeJqD0KL4uXU6rcA
>>24107923>egoyou are like baby
>>24109645If it’s greater then why do they run away from the meaning of life? You might as well say becoming an alcoholic is greater.
>>24110725What is the meaning of life?
>>24110979plant a book, read a tree, shit on the street
>>24106622>training mental illness.>JungianPot, kettle.
>>24106999The lineage of instruction in Theravada has been broken, but it definitely hasn't in Tibetan and East Asian Mahayana
>>24110979The individuation process; continuing integration and realisation of archetypal potential
meditationlets reek so bad of cope in this thread
>>24111393Which is irrelevant as the instructions in Tibetan and East Asian Mahayana are fake and gay.
