Seeker of Wisdom

Daniel Ingram, MD, is a key figure in 'hardcore/pragmatic dharma' along with folks like Kenneth Folk and Shinzen Young, advocating a goal-oriented, straightforward technical approach to Buddhist practice which emphasizes vipassana (probing into the Three Characteristics of experience), particularly the Mahasi Sayadaw noting technique, stripped of dogma so pragmatic tech and real results are left. At his forum, The Dharma Overground, there is a controversial cultural norm of being open about attainment, and expecting practitioners to become awakened with good practice. His book, 'Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha' (MCTB) is currently being updated into MCTB2. http://thedaobums.com/topic/38892-tdbs-interview-with-daniel-ingram/

So I asked Daniel Ingram for a TDB interview, and he's up for it. Daniel Ingram, MD, is a key figure in 'hardcore/pragmatic dharma' along with folks like Kenneth Folk and Shinzen Young, advocating a goal-oriented, straightforward technical approach to Buddhist practice which emphasizes vipassana (probing into the Three Characteristics of experience), particularly the Mahasi Sayadaw noting technique, stripped of dogma and hagiography so pragmatic tech and real results are left. At his forum, the Dharma Overground, there is a controversial cultural norm of being open about attainment, and expecting practitioners to become awakened with good practice. This stuff makes him rather unpopular with many traditionalists. From his book, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha or 'MCTB', which is currently being updated into MCTB2 (http://static.squarespace.com/static/5037f52d84ae1e87f694cfda/t/5055915f84aedaeee9181119/1347785055665/) Here is his interview on batgap: So, let's gather some questions!

Interview complete! http://thedaobums.com/topic/38892-tdbs-interview-with-daniel-ingram/

I'm not familiar with Osho's teachings or methods, so I don't know how useful they are. However, IMHO thelerner and Perceiver are right about separating a person's work from the moral dubiousness of their actions. Just because someone is an utter failure at basic morality and conventional wisdom doesn't mean they have nothing useful to say on ultimate wisdom. And acknowledging one isn't trying to cover up or ignore the other.

I've sent the questions - Daniel's a busy guy so it may take a while to get his answers. Thanks to those who put forward questions - all of them are included, although some overlapping ones are merged. Fun fun fun...

Yeah, important not to fetishise misery in the weird way some philosophical types and cultivators can do: http://thedaobums.com/topic/35341-lessons-in-buddhism/page-2#entry595982 What I get from your post, allinone, is that impermanence is making you miserable. I see two possibilities here: 1) You've been thinking about impermanence and basically made yourself feel that there's no point in anything because it just ends anyway -> stop contemplating like that, get some sunlight and nice company and exercise, practice metta and qigong. If none of that helps or seems possible some CBT or something may be in order. 2) You've been practising some good vipashyana, seeing impermanence to a deep level, and have got in the dark night stages -> learn about the nanas (http://contemplativefitnessbook.com/book-two-theory/the-progress-of-insight-map/), and keep going up to equanimity and beyond.

I'd recommend 'Daoist Nei Gong' by Damo Mitchell. The sung breathing practice is great stuff, and I can't really see how anyone could do it wrong.

You will never find perfect conditions for meditation. Don't give up on it in this life! Hoping for perfect conditions later on is really just an excuse to not practice through the cards you've been dealt. If you sit down and meditate, is somebody going to burst through the door and make you stop at gunpoint? Virtue, yes, but work on the other stuff as well if you really want this. GO GO GO!

If you don't know who Ingram is - see link in my sig. If you want to take this opportunity to suggest questions for him - go to the link in my sig.

I will be sending out the interview questions on Thursday. If you have anything you'd like to ask Daniel Ingram, post in http://thedaobums.com/topic/38806-gathering-qs-for-daniel-ingram/?p=633688 before then!

I will be sending out the interview questions on Thursday. If you have anything you'd like to ask Daniel Ingram, post in http://thedaobums.com/topic/38806-gathering-qs-for-daniel-ingram/?p=633688 before then!

I will be sending out the interview questions on Thursday. If you have anything you'd like to ask Daniel Ingram, post here before then!

The jhanas are refined states of consciousness resulting from high levels of samadhi. Necessary, useful, awesome, but not in themselves awakening. Emptiness - it's hard to start to get a clue what this is trying to point to. I have a thread in my PPF trying to explain stuff (to the limited extent of my own understanding!), posts on emptiness starting here: http://thedaobums.com/topic/35341-lessons-in-buddhism/#entry564123 Hope that helps.

Until recently I did AdvancedYogaPractices. Ive read some of Tibetan Ice's posts critiquing AYP, and I agree with much of what he's said. I'm fully expecting some people to make comments like 'every path leads up the mountain', or to tell me not to judge. But as everyone's mind works on the same principles, clearly practices need to be based on certain principles if they are to lead up the mountain. In other words, every VALID path leads up the mountain, and not all are valid. The first step towards truth is fair and open debate to spot falsehood. I followed AYP for under 2 years compared to TI's 4 and a half, but I feel like I should add my thoughts on the matter so people can make an informed decision on the pros and cons of Yogani's system. Deep Meditation The core of AYP is DM, which is a meditation where you mentally repeat a mantra invented by Yogani, in an effortless way. Its basically TM, but with a different mantra. This method worked for me for a while, but ultimately, by the nature of the practice, it leads to a dead end. If you just watch the mind use the mantra, then your coarser mental processes will slow down and the mantra will refine. However, once the mantra refines into silence what do you do to go further? You're told to use no sustained effort whatsoever, so you rest in that fuzzy pseudo-clarity for a while until the mantra comes back. If you're lucky, you might experience samadhi once in a while, for a brief time. But I am aware of no AYP practitioner who's really refined their mind and mastered any level of samadhi. I haven't reached samadhi yet (I've only been into this stuff for about 2 years, and much of that time was in AYP), but I can tell you that towards the end with AYP it was getting clear that I wasn't advancing any further. Indeed, TM'ers only seem to reach a basic relaxation that could be achieved by repeating any word mindlessly (and remember, DM basically is TM). DM is better than nothing, so long as you manage not to end up cultivating torpor. I did get into the habit of meditating at least, and was able to reach a slightly clearer, slightly more refined mental state than before. And I 100% agree that meditation and suchlike is more important than working with prana. That's one area Yogani is spot on, IMO. But since I started anapana instead, the difference is obvious: much richer, more natural, smoother. Anapana has stages leading on to samadhi, and the right balance between sustained effort and force. As does any real technique. Someone posted on the AYP forum: Is this really desirable? AYP pranayama The pranayamas in AYP are focused on the sushumna nadi as far as the third eye, then forward to between the eyebrows. You take prana up on inhale and down on exhale along this route for the basic 'spinal breathing', in 'spinal bastrika' you breathe faster a la bastrika pranayama, and there are some which include kumbhaka. There is little direct focus on the chakras, which I feel is wise. What's the point of making the pump powerful if the pipe is still clogged? AYP practitioners seem unusually rife with kundalini issues and whatnot. Yogani says this is because the practices are so powerful, but I doubt it. I think it's because there are flaws in their design. Holding mulabanda on inhale and exhale is a very unusual practice. It means that on the exhale you are taking the combined prana and apana from the inhale back down to the root to combine with yet more apana and prana. Anyone doing that for even slightly too long would have the equivalent of an uncontrolled fusion reaction taking place right where the kundalini rests. Also if the prana and kundalini starts really flowing, it will go up the sushumna and have nowhere else to turn because none of the other nadis are properly developed yet. The classic yoga pranayamas often don't ask you to direct the prana along a particular nadi, so that the whole system can clean up naturally, in a balanced way. I now do simple nadi shodana pranayama, with kumbhaka after the inhales, with no attempt at all to guide the prana. It's much better. I actually feel the prana doing its thing more than I did with AYP, but that prana can flow how it should all around. It's not that guiding prana is bad in itself. It's just that AYP does it without forethought, and exclusively in one area. What about the feet, arms, sides, back, front? AYP claims working on the sushumna automatically clears the whole system because its the main channel, so more prana through there, more flushing along the whole system. But thats nonsense because prana, like everything else, tends to take the path of least resistance. Technically its correct, but youd need to do AYP pranyama for two hundred years to really get somewhere. It would be like flushing a fire hose down the Nile to try to clear pollution from the world's entire water system. And even then, youre still not past the form skhanda! The AYP approach to asanas I never practiced the AYP asana sequence as its in the books and I never bought any of them (judging by the contents pages, its just the online lessons and a little more). However, the AYP approach of asanas being a relatively minor practice, and as a warm-up for pranayama and meditation, is something I really agree with. The other 7 limbs are somewhat overshadowed by asana these days, and AYP tries to counteract this. Good job Yogani! AYP recommends siddhasana as the posture to sit for practice. I did it for a while, although without back support (AYP suggests back support, but unless you need it I think it increases risk of torpor) and it was OK, but after a while I gave it up and sat cross-legged. Try siddhasana, it might work for you though. 'Self pacing' and terrible kundalini advice. AYP advises people pace themselves if they have issues. Sensible, though maybe Yogani wouldnt have to devote so much time to saying this if his practices were better designed. Tibetan Ice exposes the crap advice AYP gives to people with kundalini issues here. "AYP has no practice about how to learn to direct the energy flow and store it safely away or rid the excess into the ground. Although it is very nice and commendable that there are so many people at AYP who are willing to 'help' and voice their opinions (or parrot the standard AYP opinions), the solutions that are presented such as "abstaining from practice", "eating heavy meals", "practise Spinal Breathing and Meditation", performing "other mantra practices", "alternate nostril breath" are a real hodgepodge of advice. Some suggestions work to some minimal degree and some suggestions will exacerbate the situation. Let the buyer beware! There is never any mention or clear understanding of a direct approach to control the path of the flow of kundalini." "In AYP, Spinal Breathing's path is up the spine, makes a 90 degree turn at the center of the head to the brow, and then reverses the path back down the spine to muladhara. So what happens in a full blown kundalini experience that is rushing up the spine to the crown? Wouldn't trying to take the current back down the spine be like trying to swim against the current? Doesn't it make more sense to take the energy down the front channel instead and store it in the lower tan tien?" (Spinal breathing is often advised as a solution to K issues!) The scenery half-truth In AYP all experiences are treated as scenery on the road to enlightenment. While I certainly advise not getting fixated on flashy stuff along the way, this motto isnt quite right. A more accurate statement would be experiences arent the destination so dont get sidetracked, but some of them are really useful signposts. Astral projection is scenery. Insignificant pranic experiences are scenery. Contact with advanced beings who can guide you is not scenery, so long as you are sensible and dont obsess over it at the expense of your practice! Some experiences are signs that you should change your practice. The experience of going nowhere told me it was time to leave AYP. The experience of a nimitta appearing in anapana is a sign to shift focus from the physical breath to it, to progress further towards samadhi. Yogani doesnt seem able to understand this: Which brings us neatly to my next point... Inner stillness and ecstatic conductivity Yogani sees the stillness when thoughts slow down as the Self, not realising that there are layers of the psyche still working outside this small bubble of silence. What of the chitta, buddhi, and the levels of samadhi? You wont get to them because you need focused awareness to do that! Yogani has the audacity to say that inner stillness is the Self, when it isnt even anywhere near the consciousness skhanda, let alone beyond it; beyond existence and non-existence, subject and object, space and time. AYPers end up clinging to a little bubble of stillness, which is often not even real stillness but just torpor, as the friggin absolute basis of reality! In response to someone asking how I know AYP'ers experience torpor: Ecstatic conductivity is defined as a pleasurable flow of prana through the opened sushumna. AYP really says this is HALF of enlightenment? Its surely just a foundational stage of pranic development, and (ironically!) scenery. AYP does say to its credit that ecstatic conductivity alone leads nowhere, but I still think it makes much too big a deal of it. Pseudo-samyama Tibetan Ice goes into this here. AYP Tantra To Yogani, Tantra is just sexual practices. But hey, at least he acknowledges the need to retain veerya/jing and transmute it, although once again the theory behind this is very flaky in AYP. Semen actually travelling up into the brain? Obviously not! The seminal fluid is just a physical counterpart of veerya, not the veerya itself. Many yogis these days don't mention this AT ALL, so big kudos to Yogani there. Daily life outside practices (quoting myself from 30/12/12) Yogani says: So this approach is to do practices twice a day, and completely forget about it for the whole rest of the day. Even if the AYP practices were effective and safe, this approach would be a case of one step forward, one step back. If between practices you don't use mindfulness/introspection/virtue cultivation/mantra/self-inquiry/etc; surely there will be cultivation during practice time but in the majority of the day the old samskaras will be reasserting themselves? Common sense states that cultivation requires sustained practice because we're trying to completely overhaul the deepest layers of negative habits, ignorance, and so on. How can one advance far in (for example) shamatha from concentrating in meditation for the AYP suggested 40mins (20mins, 2 sessions), then returning to usual multitasking and mindlessness for the rest of the day? And when we consider that in AYP meditation involves no effort at all... well, it's not hard to see that mental flickering will not be uprooted to unveil natural stability, just glossed over with torpor or at best relaxation. The same applies for any aspect of the path to enlightenment. Conclusion Is AYP all bad? No. I wasnt harmed personally during the nearly 2 years I practiced it. As I say, it did get me started and through AYP I was able to develop beyond the level where it still helps you. There are some nuggets of good stuff mixed in there! Read the AYP lessons as food for thought and to exercise your skepticism muscles if you like, but don't do their practices. AYP is an experiment and its practitioners are the guinea pigs...

I don't think the body creates consciousness either, but purely to be argumentative - IMHO here you are mixing up ontology and epistemology. It is theoretically possible for A to cause B (ontology), and for A to be unknowable until B exists (epistemology). How something comes to exist and how something comes to be knowable are two different issues.

Great question, forest. Since words can be so slippery here, though, could you define what you mean more? Is this definition from Swami Krishnananda acceptable?

There is a lot on dan tien work in 'Daoist Nei Gong' by Damo Mitchell. You may also want to read our interview with him: http://thedaobums.com/topic/34992-damo-mitchell-interview-for-tbs-may-2014/ Hope that helps.

Kenneth Folk's unfinished but satisfactorily complete, and really interesting book: http://contemplativefitnessbook.com

Here are some really interesting talks which go a bit more into detail on vipassana and the nanas than the batgap interview: https://vimeo.com/28182419 https://vimeo.com/28182458 https://vimeo.com/28182481

Really interesting talks which get a bit more into detail on vipassana and the nanas: https://vimeo.com/28182419 https://vimeo.com/28182458 https://vimeo.com/28182481

Good questions folks, keep them coming!

I don't think there's Greece-level immediate risk. But as China et al rise, it'll be interesting to see how power/money shifts internationally.

Anyone interested in Ingram - I'm gathering questions for a TDB interview with him. Link in my sig.