Thank you for posting this link! I just read through the whole page and it was really fascinating.

What's got me stuck is the experience of joy as the focal point to kick things off. I don't have a person, place, or memory that triggers joy in the way she describes. I was a long distance runner as a teenager and there was one particular run that elicited the strongest (least complicated) joy I've ever felt but it was so long ago I can't really access it well anymore. I'm trying not to focus on the lack of joy in my experiences and trying to figure out how to pivot- change to another emotion or catalyst.

For a preparatory sutta, you might try the Ganakamoggallana sutta, on gradual training.

But I would avoid excluding yourself from being able to practice jhana because you’re not experienced yet. The jhana factors build because of successful meditation. Just let yourself relax and good things will follow.

What is it that you find valuable in Hegel in relation to your path? Would you consider him the most important from western philosophy in that regard?

It's too early for me to say yet.

You know when you're drawn to something, yet that something can take a while for you to grok? (And Hegel is famously one of the harder philosophers to get to grips with).

What it seems like so far to me is that, whilst Buddha, Gautama and Buddhism as a whole, even in Buddhism's disparities, potentially holds the title (in my view) as: best Wisdom Tradition/Techniques/Maps for eliminating suffering. And in line with:

"This is the claim that the Buddha was essentially a pragmatist, someone who rejects philosophical theorizing for its own sake and employs philosophical rationality only to the extent that doing so can help solve the practical problem of eliminating suffering." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buddha/

Buddha, Gautama wasn't as focused on Metaphysics as he was on eliminating suffering.

And, for me, it's seeming like, so far, Hegel is filling the gaps I see in Buddhism/Buddhist communities, somewhat. Or, at least reframing things.

I'm also just interested in comparative religion and philosophy; here're some papers that discuss overlaps between Hegel/German Idealism and Eastern traditions:

"The Specter of Nihilism: On Hegel on Buddhism" - D'Amato and Moore

"Hegelian ‘Absolute Idealism’ with Yogācāra Buddhism on Consciousness, Concept (Begriff), and Co-dependent Origination (Pratītyasamutpāda)" - Adam Scarfe

"GERMAN IDEALISM MEETS INDIAN VEDĀNTA AND KAŚMIRI ŚAIVISM" - K. E. BARHYDT & J. M. FRITZMAN

And here're some quotes from a secondary text on Hegel's P.O.S:

"Spirit comes to know itself, not through calm methodical inquiry but through passionate self-assertion. Spirit is spirited. As we see repeatedly in Hegel's examination of spirit's claims to know, this spirited self-risking is spirit's folly: all the claims fall to the ground. They do so because they are finite or partial, because they fail to capture the whole of truth. But the act of positing is also spirit's bravery. Spirit cannot make progress, or even make a beginning, without self-assertion and positing. It cannot become wise with­ out making a fool of itself. An extremist at heart, spirit, our human essence, is fated by the demands of its nature to learn through suffering."

"The Phenomenology is not only the path by which man comes to know himself and God. It is also the path by which God, as divine Mind, comes to know himself in and through man. 8 This is the goal of Hegel's Phenomenology: to demonstrate the presence of divine Mind within human history, eternity within time, God within the human community (671]."

"Christianity makes up for this lack by assimilating mortality into the nature of God. It posits a God who "emp ties himself, into time, deathifies himself, and thus becomes present both to mankind and to himself: God suffers in the form of human history. This human-divine suffering is necessary in order for God to know himself and to become actual. Christianity also gives birth to the idea that God manifests himself in community. Both together-the divine as pure thinking, and the divine as the suffering God who is present in history and in human com munity-go together to produce spirit."

"All are stages on the way to the fully developed selfhood that is spirit."

"The history of philosophy, for Hegel, is the interconnected series of efforts to reach truth in a purely conceptual way. Wisdom emerges as a pro­ cess of becoming, and all the great philosophic systems of the past con­ tribute to the full flowering of wisdom."

"Spirit is not the divine puppet-master who plans everything out in advance and moves his­ story toward a providential end. Time is not a cloak that spirit wears but the outpouring of what spirit is. History is spirit wandering in its self-created labyrinth, searching for its self-knowledge and its freedom."

"Spirit learns by making itself present to itself. It does this by generating a world of knowing. It must first generate this world, or rather series of worlds, before it can know itself in and through that which it has generated, before it can ''wake up" to itself.17"

"History includes the play of contingency or chance. In revealing itself in time, spirit abandons itself to this play and therefore can neither recon struct its past ( until the final stage) nor predict its future. Spirit does not know where it is going until it gets there; it emerges rather than guides."

"This is the tragic dimension of spirit's journey and the more precise sense in which, for Hegel, learning is suffering."

"Finally, the shapes of knowing that embody man's effort to know the divine are also the shapes in which the divine, which is incarnate in man, comes to know itself."

"These unortho­dox appropriations of Christian imagery emphasize that Hegel's book is no mere epistemology, psychology, or anthropology. At its deepest level, it is the unfolding of God's suffering in time-his coming to full self-consciousness in the course of human history."

“The Logic of Desire: An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit” by Peter Kalkavage

If you go with the view that Jhanas are basically a panic attack in reverse -- that is, a self-reinforcing loop of positive emotions, then no, hours and hours of meditations aren't needed. I achieved J1 without knowing about them on day 6 of a vipassana retreat with no prior meditation experience. I think the gatekeeping is exaggerated.

I particularly enjoyed this reading: https://nadia.xyz/jhanas

A ripple

A wave

A whirl

just water

We construct our own mazes and then strategize and despair about solving them. The "Mind" is just an artifact of our belief we are in a maze. So while the inner experience of a human is of a mind - reaching, changing and suffering - it is really just empty neural activity and a buddha and a rapist are the same- a ripple, wave and whirl of empty patterns.

Do you have a source for that Zen paradox? Thanks for sharing it!

What is it that you find valuable in Hegel in relation to your path? Would you consider him the most important from western philosophy in that regard?

there are different definitions of stream entry and kensho floating around on the internet. When people use kensho or stream entry to refer to seeing you're not the personality or an I Am experience it is not the same as what the suttas refer to as stream entry. Former is a recognition of consciousness but there is still lots of identification. The sutta definition is what people call MCTB 4th path or anatta realization when self is seen not in any of the aggregates. With an experiential understanding of anatta self view fetter breaks, doubt fetter break as well you will have zero doubt in what the buddha meant. It feels so complete that people call themselves arahants. But the rest of the path still need to be walked until everything is purified.

Regardless of how I’m using the word “mind,” minds do in fact reach different states due to development, conditioning, perspectives, etc. There is a mind, and it is a construct that comes from others and other beings, of course. It may be a subjective illusion, especially in terms of cognition and individualism, but it does in fact exist and we use it throughout the day.

We are in fact reaching something, as we are changing our habits, thoughts and conditioning, mental formation, perception, perspective, etc., from our practices—not only meditative but habitual practices that align with the dhamma. It is something you “reach” from change—from practice, from habits, from perspective. Whether you consider it deconditioning, reconditioning, conditioning; these practices change neurophysiology, habits, perspective, perception. The word “reach” may be a misnomer for the practices and perspective, but it can be used.

According to the Pali Cannon, the source of Sotopanna teachings, a Sotopanna has abandoned 3 of the 10 fetters permanently, never to return.

Doubt is one fetter, and it means specifically doubt that the teachings of the Buddha are the way to attain Nirvana. It doesn't mean anything other than that.

The second fetter abandoned is clinging to rites and rituals. If you believe rites and rituals are what takes you to nirvana, it is wrong view. The map must be discarded. If you believe you cannot discard the map without discarding nirvana realization, this would be wrong view, and an example of this specific fetter.

The 3rd fetter to be abandoned is self view. Realizing your sense of self is not permanent and unchanging. You realize your sense of individual self is a result of the 5 aggregates, and you cannot undue it. Just like the scientist has analyzed and inspected the solid table and seen it is not a solid table at all, it is actually vibrating atoms. So too the Sotopanna has analyzed and inspected the self and seen it is only the 5 aggregates. Definitely a self exist...only now you know the truth of it, it is temporary.

To say the self is unreal, is to abandon the 1st noble truth which tells us suffering is definitely real, not only is suffering real, but the buddha says' everything in the world of appearance is suffering..he amplifies what we see as suffering. No where in the teachings is there a realization that "Actually it was all fake, and no suffering to be found".

So ensure you don't fall into the trap of discarding the 1st noble truth. What occurs is the scientist still purchases a solid table with his wife at the furniture store. So to you still operate with the self, but understand what it is. There is no ego death, only ego transcendence.

100% of all "ego death" is simply another ego taking the place as a "heroic ego" who destroyed the other "individual ego". These are products of mind, which is an aggregate, which you are not.

Kensho (non-dual Zen) and Stream Entry (suttas from Canon Pali) are two completely different things from distinct traditions and magnitude.

Kensho: (as it was explained to me), if you reach it, you will have no doubt, it is when the mind takes consciousness as an object and discursive thinking (the voice in your head) stops completely or becomes minimal. For the average person who spends most of their time in an endless dialogue with themselves, it is impossible not to see the difference. Sometimes it is called Presence too.

Stream Entry: is something of a completely different nature and magnitude, from the point of view of an average person, a sotapanna is practically an arahant. It implies a complete understanding of the 4 Noble Truths. A sotapanna has no doubt about the Dhamma, about Buddha, about the 4 Noble Truths, anatta, and can verify that this is indeed the case, basically because they know how to escape suffering (the suffering of a sotapanna is almost 0, there is a sutta about that) and because their sila (morality) is perfect if they so desire. Immoral actions are usually the result of sensuality (desire pressures you to do something, a sotapanna knows how to free their mind from this desire or how to endure it until it disappears without acting, is suffering what force you to make immoral actions against your will), or are the result of ignorance. As a definition in the suttas, it is said that a sotapanna knows good as good and bad as bad, so the option of ignorance cannot lead them to break the Sila.

So in both cases it is almost impossible to have doubts, and having doubts is almost a definitive proof that you haven't had a kensho in one case or you're not a sotapanna in the other case. The only reason why someone may have doubts IMO is because they don't know the definition of the words.

Nice a guided meditation is perfect ,, I’ll try it out!

It does, thank you your help. I’ll definitely be exploring this more, the natural softness. You’re totally right. It’s like what changed when I couldn’t allow softness for myself but for kids and animals it’s easy peasy?

Sure! It's not perfect at all - I was rushed on time as I recorded it, and it's perhaps a little bit too involved in guidance - but the easiest way for me to share here is to link you to a guided meditation I have on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzAbi7k1qTI

Try developing more relaxation. If you’re using too much effort to hold your awareness in place, it can lead to tension once piti starts kicking in. Feel the weight of your body on the cushion, feel gravity holding you against the earth. Train yourself through repetition to maintain contact with the weight of your body. This is very important. Sometimes maintaining contact with the weight of your hands, surrendering them to gravity, can aid in this process.

If you want to enter lite jhanas, you focus on pleasant feelings, but the feelings need to be stable enough to stick with. If they’re jumping around or with an abrasive quality they won’t work. In this case continue following the breath until things stabilize. This can take a lot of work and time. 

As long as your relaxation is in good order, ideally you just want to “endure” the piti until it subsides into passadhi on its own. From here a nimitta will eventually arise, and you can enter legitimate samatha jhanas. 

There is a hack that I learned from Ajahn Brahm to enter deep jhana from strong piti, but if your stability isn’t deep enough yet, it will kick you right out. But if it works, you can get a taste of the intensity and bizarreness of deep jhana, even if it’s only for a couple seconds.

To do this, once you get into solid access concentration, which has a “rolling” feel to the piti, like the steady movement you feel on a small boat. This will feel extremely good and you’ll likely be smiling intensely. At this point imagine you get into a car with someone for a nice drive on a sunny spring Sunday. This is a very trustworthy driver and there’s nothing to worry about. You get into the passenger seat and hand the keys to the driver (this is important). The driver drives at a steady pace and has everything under control. So you let go and relax as he drives you along. 

This tricks the brain into letting go, and as the car moves along the piti grows to great intensity until “boom” jhana snatches you up like a rag doll. 

This might seem like a lot of discursive action for deep meditation, but it’s very easy to get the hang of with a little practice. When I first tried it I was astonished at how effective it is. But again, it’s likely to spit you out just as fast as it snatched you up, so ideally you want to let the piti subside on its own until a nimitta arises and you fall into that. Then it’s much easier to stay in.

This gives me a clearer picture of what we’re doing here with practice. Do you have some practices that are anatta focused?

This is very helpful thank you.

Winnie the Pooh

I would describe the Earthsea quartet as fantasy, but her science fiction is amazing as well. Ursula Le Guin knew what it was about. She also has an excellent translation of the Tao Te Ching.

With my conversation gojeezy on this thread, I think I worked out a practical approach. Most people should strive for streamentry with it's most lax requirements.

Let's say a person is a lay person with a wife and family. If they use the divine abodes/brahmaviharas to guide their decisions. Becoming a monk and not cherishing their wife is not compassionate. That person can work towards streamentry and then once he achieves it, he has 7 lifetimes to reach the next step. Considering the vast amount of time available to him and the guarantees that come with becoming a stream-enterer, I don't think it's unreasonable for that person to spend the rest of their current life taking care of his relationships and ensuring positive karma. In future lives they can become a monk and continue "completing" the path.

Although, if their family is better of without them because they're abusive or something, maybe retreating to become a monk is the compassionate option.

If we take this expansive view, the Buddha's words no longer contain as much contradictions.

As people sharing our views publicly, I think keeping to the most permissive restrictions to guarantee the largest number of people reaching the first step streamentry is a skillful and practical way to about things.

We can leave the stricter stuff to people who are actually inside a monastery and have a proper teacher to relay that information at the appropriate time. Especially considering that the more advanced stuff is more easily misunderstood for those who aren't mature in the path.

The effects of stream entry will remove any doubt that the dharma works and you're heading in the right direction. You can still doubt that you've got stream entry if you've built it up in your mind into something unrealistic, but you'll know for sure that your practice has advanced in a major way because the positive effects are undeniable.

I second Rain_on_a_tin-roof's comment OP. As someone with ADHD, practices that allow you to meet the attention where it is at (U Tejaniya, Open Awareness and Noting in some forms too) seem to be the most effective, and definitely help stabilise attention. U Tejaniya's practice is particularly helpful as it promotes all day awareness with whatever you are encountering - not something elsewhere/or a different state. It also doesn’t involve any forcing attention in one point and keeping it there, just simply noticing anything and everything.

That being said, it still feels worth dedicated sometime to single pointed focus. How precise (breath sensations) or vague (like mettā) the object of focus is something I am still working out. And as others have pointed out counting the breath is quite good too. Rinzai Zen has good a practice where they count the breath at the belly. I'm experimenting with these and the results are varied, but it feels like this style of practice is still useful. And it's especially helpful for getting you in a place where you can do U Tejaniya's practice. Just don't make single-pointedness everything, that's my two cents at least.

Sometimes people awaken gradually, so graudally they don't realize they are awakened, in cases like that they can have doubt.

Read the part in this interview with Shinzen Young about gradual enlightenment especially the story about the samurai.

https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/1jsixnu/doubt/

There is a lot of variation among people in how their brain is wired. Some people are left handed, some are intuitive some are analytical, some can't spell, some are not good at math etc. etc. Some people learn languages easily some don't.

It is not really a good idea to assume anything that involves the brain is exactly the same for everyone.

Sounds lovely! Though i'd be cautious with the conclusion of it being a total fluke..! 

Perhaps it wouldn't be always the same image, or perhaps it would if it works, with repeated practice and development of wise relationships to when you're not quite feeling it, this kind of experience can become a common visitor and its range of contexts when it's available can expand too. If it feels resonant to you I'd say go for it, you'll likely surprise yourself!