How do I know if I'm enlightened?

Ajahn Brahmali: Fake or deluded stream-entry

(Buddhist Insights @ Empty Cloud) Streamed live on Dec. 26, 2021. How can we relate to phony or deluded claims of stream entry, the first stage of Buddhist enlightenment (bodhi)? Ajahn Brahmali answers questions from fellow Thai tradition Theravada Buddhist monastics. To learn more about Buddhist Insights, see: linktr.ee/buddhistinsights

• Q: How does one know whether the first stage of enlightenment (stream entry or sōtapanna) is reached? | Ajahn Dtun

Progress of Insight vs. Shinzen Young's System

The Progress of Insight vs. Shinzen Young's System 🌱 How I teach this path of Spiritual Enlightenment

(Deep Mindfulness, 9/23/19) Interested in a course on this topic? Find out more here: deepmindfulness.io/pos. Have you ever wondered how to navigate the Progress of Insight and Shinzen Young's meditation system? How does this traditional Buddhist Dharma path of classical enlightenment and [autistic spectrum] Shinzen Young's ultra-detailed secular mindfulness system? This video discusses how one teacher guides people through this material. The first key is to stop treating the "stages" of insight as stages and instead look at them as skills to develop. When we develop these skills enough, the stages arise on their own. This video briefly explores some of the tools used to help bridge these two systems.

Intro to Shinzen Young on Paths of Awakening

Introduction to Shinzen Young: A Conversation on Paths of Awakening

(Deep Mindfulness, 12/23/21) Register for the "Progress of Shinsight" course here: 🌱 DeepMindfulness.io/pos. In Part 1 of this wide-ranging discussion with American meditation master Shinzen Young, we discuss the relationship of his system and the Progress of Insight meditation map, The Mind Illuminated, and other views on awakening. We also discuss the philosophy behind the experiential path of awakening. Finally, we begin talking about the relationship between art and awakening.

Content: Timecodes:

• 0:00 - Intro
• 1:01 - The Progress of Shinsight class:
• 3:36 - Shared Lineage, Shinzen, Bill Hamilton, Daniel Ingram, and Kenneth Folk
• 6:40 - From pre-Buddhism to modern mindfulness. Good News/ Bad News
• 9:03 - Polarities in Art History and in Buddhism
• 10:13 - The Mind Illuminated - How do “Attention and Awareness” fit into your system?
• 16:18 - How is the Unified Mindfulness (UM) is a skeleton key of meditation practices?
• 21:07 - UM is system for awakening in any meditation system.
• 26:53 - Comparing Attention/ Awareness and Nama/Rupa
• 30:00 - Visiting Teacher from Burma - Ven. Taungpulu Sayadaw
• 33:24 - “There is Nothing but Nama/Rupa”
• 36:37 - The problem communicating great teachings.
• 39:12 - How Conceptual Art and Meditation are talking about the same thing (intro - cut for technical difficulties)

🌱 FREE: The 15 Foundation Guided Meditations (in my opinion)

Alan Clements: "Spiritually Incorrect" (video)

Alan Clements (worlddharma.com, 1/20/20); Dhr. Seven, Ellie Askew (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly


Spiritually Incorrect (trailer)

(UnitedNaturesMedia.com) The documentary Spiritually Incorrect features the former Western Burmese Buddhist monk Alan Clements (worlddharma.com). Due for release in 2020, it is directed by Peter Charles Downey with music by Sacred Earth (sacredearthmusic.com).

Western monks are treated like royalty in Burma.

The question is, Who's Alan Clements? If only they made a movie about this author, social activist, war journalist, stand up artist, and former Buddhist monk. He was one of the first Westerners to go from America to Burma to ordain since the very first Westerner to become a Theravada Buddhist monk -- Irishman Laurence Carroll or U Dhammaloka (The Dharma Bum).

• Clements appears on the Insight Myanmar podcast, Ep. 1

Who's Alan Clements?

Aung San Suu Kyi (Clements)

Alan Clements dropped out of the University of Virginia, went East, and became one of the first Westerners to ordain as a Buddhist monk in Burma, where he lived at Mahasi Sayadaw's Mindfulness Meditation Center, Rangoon, for nearly five years.

He trained in the practice and teaching of mindfulness insight (vipassana) meditation and Buddhist psychology (Abhidharma), under the guidance of his preceptor Mahasi Sayadaw and his successor Sayadaw U Pandita.

In 1984 he was forced to leave the monastery by Burma’s military authorities with no reason given. So Clements returned to the West and was invited to lecture widely on the “wisdom of mindfulness.”

In addition to leading numerous mindfulness-based meditation retreats and trainings throughout the U.S., Australia, and Canada. This included assisting in a three-month mindfulness teacher training with Sayadaw U Pandita at Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts.

A Future to Believe In

In 1988 he integrated his classical Buddhist training and his political awareness of global human rights, environmental sanity, democracy, and the preciousness of everyday freedom. His efforts working on behalf of oppressed peoples has led a former director of Amnesty International to call Clements “one of the most important and compelling voices of our times.”

As an investigative journalist he has lived in some of the world's most volatile areas. In the jungles of Burma in 1990, he was one of the first eyewitnesses to document the mass oppression of ethnic minorities by Burma’s military, which resulted in his first book, Burma: The Next Killing Fields?, which includes a foreword by the Dalai Lama. More

Seven things to DO in meditation (video)

Ven. (Bhante) Vimalaramsi, 3/13/18; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
We apologize for the somewhat arrogant, patriarchal, mansplaining appearance of this presentation, but maybe this American monk is onto something.

Metta Meditation instructions and the Six-Rs

Western Theravada Buddhist monk Ven. Vimalaramsi Mahathera from Missouri trained for many years in Burma (Myanmar). Here he defines "mindfulness" and describes his instructions for metta ("loving-kindness") using his practice of "The Six Rs" to eliminate the Five Hindrances to meditation.

1. [Rest (up then get in a comfortable, restful position to start), our implicit addition].
2. Recognize (any distractions, which means any time the meditation object is drifted away from).
3. Release (it by not keeping attention on the distraction).
4. Relax (the tightness caused by that distraction, which appears in the head/mind, due to craving [liking/disliking], this returns us to an open mind so that it's possible to return to the meditation object and continue observing it with a pure mind untainted by greed, hatred, or delusion).
5. Re-smile (which is a way to bring up something wholesome, so smile with the face and the mind, as this leads to not trying so hard, smiling to recognize distractions and again to resume).
6. Return (to the meditation object with a lighter mind as a result of smiling).
7. Repeat (all of this to stay with the object).

"Mindfulness" (sati) is "remembering to observe how mind's attention moves from one thing to another." This definition works in all situations the word is used.

This is the first part of the Brahma Viharas (Four "Divine Abidings") practice or what Ven. Vimalaramsi calls TWIM ("Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation"). Retreats are available at the Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center (dhammasukha.org).

BOOK: The Path to Nibbana (Sanskrit Nirvana) has been published by David C. Johnson on these teachings (thepathtonibbana.com). This talk was recorded on Nov. 20, 2016 at the St. Francis Retreat Center in San Juan Bautista, California, delivered by the abbot of DSMC of Annapolis, Missouri.

Fundamentals of Vipassana (Insight) Meditation

Ven. Mahāsi Sayādaw, Fundamentals of Vipassanā Meditation, Maung Tha Noe (trans.) via palikanon.com; Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

What do we meditate on [to] develop insight?

This is a very important question. There are two kinds of Buddhist meditation -- meditating to develop calm and meditating to develop insight.

Meditating on the ten meditative devices only gives rise to calm rather than insight. Meditating on the ten foul things (i.e., an unsightly swollen corpse), too, only gives rise to calm, not insight.

The Ten Recollections, like remembering the Buddha, the Dharma, and others, too, can develop calm but not insight.

Meditating on the 32 parts of the body -- like hair, nails, teeth, skin -- these too are not insight. They develop only calm concentration.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness (sati) of breathing is also concentration-developing, but one can develop insight from it as well. The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga), however, includes it in the concentration subjects, so we will call it as such here.

 

Then there are the Four Divine Abidings (brahma-viharas) -- love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity -- and the Four Formless States leading to formless meditative absorptions (jhānas).

Then, there is the meditation on the loathsomeness of food.  All of these are subjects for concentration-meditation.

Both

 

Venerable Burmese scholar-monk Mahasi Sayadaw

When one meditates on the Four Elements inside the body, it is called the "analysis of the Four Elements." Although this is a concentration-meditation, it helps develop insight as well.

 

All of these 40 subjects of meditation are subjects for developing concentration. Only mindfulness of breathing and analysis of the Four Elements have to do with insight.

The others will not give rise to insight. If one wants insight, one will have to work further.

 

To come back to the question, How do we develop insight? The answer is that we develop insight by meditating on the Five Aggregates of Clinging.

The mental and material ("name-and-form," nama-rupa) qualities inside beings are aggregates of clinging. They may be grasped with delight by craving, in which case it is called "grasping of the sense objects" -- or they may be grasped wrongly by wrong views -- in which case it is called "clinging through wrong views."

One has to meditate on them and see them as they truly are. If one does not, one will grasp them with craving and wrong views.

Once we see them as they truly are, we will no longer cling to them them. In this way one develops insight. We will discuss the Five Aggregates of Clinging in detail. More 

FULL CONTENTS

	A Word from the Translator, Preface
	Calm and Insight
	Aggregates
	Knowledge and Freedom
	The Right Method
	The Mind
	What time?
	Origination
	How grasping arises
	Meditate Right Now
	Incessant Work
	Things Fall Apart
	Impermanence
	Rediscovery
	Peace at Last
	Progress
	Noble Path
	The Young Weaver
	The Dull Young Monk
	Uposatha the Goddess
	Truths
	Appendix - Glossary

Insight Meditation Society (East Coast)

Seven, Wisdom Quarterly, Insight Meditation Society (Dharma.org); BCBSdharma.org

Insight Meditation Society (IMS) is a Buddhist meditation center (open to all people of all traditions).

 

On Valentines Day in 1976 a small group of young Buddhist meditation teachers (including Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield (West Coast), and Sharon Salzberg, all friends back from Asia) and dedicated staff opened a retreat center outside of Boston.

They found an ideal place in an old, stately mansion in idyllic Barre, Massachusetts. Armed with few resources and imperfect operational knowledge, but passionate about the Buddha’s teachings, they set about creating an environment where the Dharma could flourish and take root in the West. 

Teachers at IMS like Myoshin Kelly, Sharon Salzberg, and Leigh Brasington (Dharma.org)

 

And so began IMS, now a large and successful short-term Retreat Center with a Forest Refuge center for instensives.

Over its history, IMS has become a spiritual home to thousands of practitioners. It is now regarded as one of the Western world’s most respected centers for learning and deepening meditation practice.

 

The organization operates two meditation retreat facilities and also promotes a growing school, the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Two are set on about 200 secluded acres in the quiet woods of central Massachusetts, and the third is right next door. More

How to Develop the 528 Kinds of Love

Wisdom Quarterly translation (from obtuse English) by Mahasi Sayadaw

In the Path of Discrimination (Patisambhidamagga) 528 kinds of universal loving-kindness (metta) are possible. This refers to the manner of developing loving-kindness by those who have achieved meditative absorption through love (metta jhana).

Developing universal love is the duty of monastics, as is doing the recitation for the development of perfection and the wholesome. The Pali chant they recite is the same as the recitation done by rote by the majority of people. This is that chant:

Sabbe satta, sabbe pana, sabbe bhuta, sabbe puggala, sabbe attabhavapariyapana. These five phrases denote that universal love is ultimately sent out equally to all sentient beings without distinction or limitation.

"All creatures, all who breathe, all living beings, all individuals, and all who have the attributes of a being," convey the same meaning: ALL beings. This is love without distinction (anodhisa).

Coincidentally, 528 Hz is a healing frequency

To distinguish (odhisa) one brings these beings to mind: "All females, all males, all Noble Ones [who have reached the various stages of enlightenment and liberation from suffering], all ordinary worldlings, all devas or light beings [usually but not exclusively celestial], all human beings, all beings in the four woeful realms (those suffering gravely, animals, ghosts, "demons," and hellions).

These denote the seven kinds of beings. Loving-kindness is developed in oneself [for oneself first] then radiated to that degree towards these groups individually and together.

In developing universal loving kindness, these two groups are recited or uttered in combination with the four phrases:

1. May [they] escape from all dangers;
   
2. may [they] be free from mental distress or misery;
3. may [they] be free from bodily suffering or injury;
   
4. may [they] have full accomplishment with complete happiness, that is, look after themselves with ease.
   

The last phrase is significant and meaningful: All beings are exposed to external dangers. There are also internal dangers such as disease and unpleasant sensations in the material body. For the sake of health and proper livelihood, everything should be done to stay well. Only when one is free of danger and harm and when the necessities of life are adequately obtained can there be happiness physically and mentally.

If the burden of the aggregates (khandha) can be successfully shouldered, all is satisfactory regarding worldly affairs. Then love is undertaken with a benevolent frame of mind: "May one be able to shoulder and sustain the aggregates with happiness."

Love Math
If love is developed towards the five types using the four phrases (5 x 4 = 20), there are 20 anodhisa. If further development of love is practiced, uttering "all females" and so on, comprising seven phrases distinguishing beings "May all be free from danger" and so on, which describe the manner of developing love in four phrases (7 x 4 = 28), it comes to 28 odhisa. Adding the 20 anodhisa and the 28 odhisa totals 48. This is love on Earth in all directions (disa anodhisa).

Developing love towards all beings living in the ten directions, "May all beings [in this direction] be free from danger and harm" and so on, would make up a sum of 48:

1. East (48)
2. West (48)
3. North (48)
4. South (48)
5. Southeast (48)
6. Northwest (48)
7. Northeast (48)
8. Southwest (48)
9. Nadir (48)
10. Zenith (48)

When added (10 x 48 = 480), it comes to 480. Developing love according to regions of the universe [this world-system and world-systems in all directions] is called disa odhisa. Adding 480 to 48 disa anodhisa results in a total of 528 kinds of love.

• It may seem specious or like splitting hairs, but loving-kindness is recited in this way. It is important to recognize that, as unpopular as this sounds, one is not in fact correctly practicing loving kindness meditation until one achieves "absorption" (non-dual full concentration) through it. That absorption is what is expanded to all beings without distinction. (It is not possible to attain absorption through oneself or through a person who has died, for reasons that have yet to be explained but that suggest our profound interconnectedness). That absorption is what brings the unbelievable benefits of loving kindness so often touted by meditation teachers.
  

1. May all beings be free from danger, free from mental distress (misery), free from bodily suffering (pain), and be able to care for themselves with ease (shoulder the burden of psychophysical existence)....

2. May all beings who breathe...

After reciting the words "May [they] be free from danger" in the course of developing universal loving kindness, the mind that concentrates and the voice of utterance immediately cease. This cessation of mind and matter is also contemplated. Such contemplation, loving serenity-meditation together with insight-meditation, is being developed in pairs.

Continuous contemplation of serenity and insight in pairs is called yuganaddha vipassana:

3. May all living beings be free from danger, free from mental distress, free from bodily suffering, and be able to look after themselves with ease (or happily shoulder the burden of this existence with physical and mental happiness).

4. May all individuals be free from danger, and so on... More

• *Patisambhidamagga: Pali for "path of discrimination" (often simply Patisambhida) is a Buddhist sacred scripture, a component of the ancient Pali Canon preserved in Theravada Buddhism. It is part of the 12th book of the Collection of Sutras called the Khuddaka Nikaya. Tradition ascribes it to the Buddha's chief disciple...
  

• Nude Janice Dickinson on meditation, yoga
• Yoga Journal: "The Power of Love Meditation"
• Quantum Balancing: Love Meditation steps
• VIDEO: Solfeggio tones binaural beats alpha 528 Hz
• In the Buddha's Words (Bhikkhu Bodhi) Study Guide
  

"Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha"

Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

"Good teachers can help; they are basically a necessity and so are highly recommended, but you must do the work yourself. You must understand, and then you will have to do this again and again. Get used to it, as it can be quite an adventure. It is sometimes hard for people to believe that right there in their experience is what they are looking for. It is right here, right now, in your own experience, in your own heart, mind and body. It is these sensations right now that are just soaked with the truth." - Daniel Ingram, author, MCTB

My Kind of Kick *ss Dharma!
C4Chaos (Reviewer)
I’m currently re-reading my paperback copy of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel Ingram. The paperback had just been released in the U.S. but the e-book has been available for free on Ingram’s site as PDF download and in “blook” format.

I finished reading the “blook” version on my iPhone but I still purchased the paperback so I can read and re-read it offline. I think this book will be an instant cult classic, especially to those people who are into hardcore, no-nonsense Dharma. Here’s my rundown of the contents of the book.

First off, unlike other mainstream politically-correct spiritual authors, Ingram breaks away from political correctness and egalitarianism by claiming he had already achieved arahatship, meaning, that he is already “enlightened.” Depending on your notion of “enlightenment” Ingram could either put you off and make you stop reading the book, or it could pique your curiosity and keep you reading. I read the book from cover to cover, and I’m glad I did.

Ingram makes it clear what his intentions are in the opening of the book. He even warned the readers about his social commentaries on Buddhism in particular and mystical traditions and spiritual teachers in general. More>>

Jack Kornfield: You Too Can Meditate

Dipa Ma with Mahasi Sayadaw

FULL LENGTH VIDEO (Google)
Buddhist Meditation Masters (18:07)
Dipa Ma, Anagarika Munindra, Mahasi Sayadaw