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> I started reading it largely to consider how I was keeping myself from entering into meditative jhana. Can you elaborate on this please? I've read The Inner
by kranner 6y ago
> I started reading it largely to consider how I was keeping myself from entering into meditative jhana.
Can you elaborate on this please? I've read The Inner Game of Tennis and I'm familiar with the (samatha) jhanas (and somewhat experienced as well). Do you mean something like convincing Self 1 to relax enough and trusting Self 2 to take you into the first jhana, etc?
- SirensOfTitan 6y ago> Do you mean something like convincing Self 1 to relax enough and trusting Self 2 to take you into the first jhana? Yeah, pretty much. It primed me to pay a lot more attention to the judging mind particularly during sits (and really made me aware how much doubt as a hindrance disrupts my practice). While retrospectively it’s sort of obvious, I mainly have learned meditation through reading, so if an instruction isn’t phrased the right way I’ve noticed I miss it.
- kranner 6y agoThanks. I similarly came up with a heuristic after reading Tor Nørretranders’ book The User Illusion. I remind myself that there is some part of my brain already paying attention constantly to the breath at the tip of the nose (or whatever the current meditation object is) because if a noxious stimulus presented there I would certainly become consciously aware of it. So all I have to do is ‘tune in’ to that part of my awareness. This works pretty well for me, and not surprisingly many meditation instructions use this metaphor of tuning a radio, but it didn’t make as much sense before I began to think of it in this way. I have also learned meditation mainly from reading.
- SirensOfTitan 6y agoAh that’s a wonderful heuristic, I’ll try next time I sit. Thanks for sharing. :)