New talk to listen to: interesting and helpful also odd

www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/148/talk/9597/

This is Rodney Smith, who according to his "Seattle Insight Meditation Society" web site ordained as a monk with Mahasi Sayadaw, and who is a long-time IMS affiliated teacher.
He caught my eye among the "new talks" part of the Dharma Seed site because I'd read a dharma talk from him in the latest Trycycle that I really liked.
So, the talk is definitely worthwhile and has a lot of helpful insights, comments, etc.
I imagine he is First Path and beyond and that is supposedly what he is teaching (how to get developmental insight). But, he NEVER mentions the maps, the stages, etc. It is just all so vague. Wouldn't it really help the talk to put it in terms of the maps? I mean, really help?
This way it almost seems .... literary, you know?

I haven't listened to the talk but it is strange that even people like Goldstien who were trained in the Mahasi tradition are quit on the matter. I know that deep down it because they don't want people scripting... but I think that sort of thing is probably easy to spot for a mature teacher anyway... The strange thing is how widespread the silence is... Mind control? Secret oaths? Conspiracy theories? haha

I know I bring this up a lot here, but I truly don't get it. I listened to another talk by the same guy.
Does anyone have the answer? What is going on out there in the dharma? Are the teachers talking in code? Do they reveal what is really going on in private? Do they actually not care about the stages of insight and just want to say soothing words about how to have "peace?"
signed,
Confused

This is always such an interesting topic for me.

On the one hand, the majority of my practice has been guided by the maps (or at least correlated to them). I feel comfortable in saying that I would not be where I am today, in terms of meditative development, if it were not for Mahasi Sayadaw and teachers like Daniel and Kenneth.

On the other hand, I really do understand why some of these teachers don't come right out and talk maps, especially in larger group settings. For one thing, when starting out, not everyone has a temperament conducive to practice mapping. It can cause one to strive and crave too much, which distorts the natural qualities that are the foundation for progress (think 'Seven Factors'). It's not that effort is bad, as there is 'wise effort' and 'unwise effort'. These seemingly mushroomy insight teachers are weary of cultivating the latter.

It is also possible that some of these teachers are using maps to guide their students' practices in a more personal setting. That doesn't mean that the student knows the teacher is mapping. The teacher may recognize what is being described by the student, and offer advice based on their own experience of the maps without blatantly saying so (for fear of - once again - encouraging unwise effort and craving).

As with all things, it is usually unwise to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In my opinion, the benefits of map-based practice far outweigh the downsides. The odds of the map-based practice being beneficial are increased when a highly skilled and experienced teacher is involved.

So, I understand both sides of the issue, and I still come out in favor of maps for the most part. It's really not about maps vs. no-maps so much as deciding what is most beneficial for the practitioner... which is usually maps

~Jackson

Thanks, that helps, and I certainly agree with you. "Unwise effort" is just another thing to work with, right? Who cares?
And, I still really enjoy listening to all these zen and vipassana talks that are out there cause there is always something that I connect with and learn from . But, still, its weird when there is so much obvious crap unsaid. It just feels like lying to me.
Oh, and Im about to listen to a brand new Goldstein talk on "the middle way" so we'll see what's up with that.

"But, still, its weird when there is so much obvious crap unsaid. It just feels like lying to me." ~Mike

I know what you mean. It does often feel misleading. I was fortunate enough to start a "serious" meditation practice (as I only practiced lightly for a few years prior) only after discovered Daniel Ingram's interviews on Buddhist Geeks. Those talks are inspiring, to say the least.

I can only imagine how it must feel to have practiced meditation for decades, only to find out that there are systems that actually work, and that one's teachers knew about these systems THE WHOLE TIME. Personally, I would feel betrayed. The only thing I can relate it to is my experience growing up in the church. Three years into Bible College, I stumbled upon a wealth of literature which blatantly contradicted nearly everything I had been taught about the Bible, religion, and 1st Century history. I felt - and still feel - as though I had been deceived. The truth was there, and I'm sure my professors and pastors knew it. They just didn't feel like sharing it with me or other students, for fear that we might "go astray." I guess they were right.

It's best to get the truth out there, and to teach others how to deal skillfully with the consequences of that truth. Otherwise, people get blindsided and suffer all sorts of emotional consequences.

*stepping down from soapbox*

~Jackson

**stepping on the recently vacated soap box**

Ahem...

I'd like to put my hand up as one of those poor shmucks who meditated for close to a decade without a clue to the maps, which would have been so helpful. But you know what, I don't even think actual teachers know about the maps in the Goenka tradition. So many old students who have sat course after course have mentioned how they are very unfamiliar with the maps. Bloody hell! That is why I feel so anti-mushroom. I feel very anti -secrecy about this and I seem to be acting out against it......... ***growls***...hehe!


** steps down from soap box and growls some more**

"Ahem..." ~Nick

You crack me up

Concern about scripting is part of it, but I suspect a darker aspect of this is a kind of paternalism--a view that the laypeople just couldn't handle this information or aren't ready for it. Magic/mythic views about enlightenment are still predominant also, even in the largely rationalistic western vipassana scene. So, in a recent talk I listened to, a teacher enthusiastically presented the Mahasi noting technique, but kind of laughed uncomfortably at one point and said something like, "They say Mahasi was an arahat. I don't know about THAT!"
Right, because nobody could ever live up to the comic-book portrayal of what an arahat is, not even an obvious master yogi like Mahasi.

To hear Daniel and Kenneth tell it, Bill Hamilton absorbed a view of enlightenment from the Mahasi tradition in which attainment up to and including arahatship was viewed as an actual, realistic possibility.

And yet in one talk, U Vivekenanda, a close student of Sayadaw U Pandita, seems to kind of laugh off the notion of arahatship being attainable as well. For him, all of the defilements have to be completely uprooted, which of course seems like a near-impossibility.

I think this pragmatic view of enlightenment must be fairly rare--maybe even exclusive to a couple of Burmese lineages--and something that has to be spelled out very, very explicitly for people. Otherwise, kind of by default, they internalize this view of a past Golden Age when people were fundamentally different from the way they are now. Without this pragmatic view, why focus on the maps? Attainment was something for the great yogis of the past. Our job is to use meditation to work on our stuff.

I'm listening to the Goldstein talk now -- I'm almost through it.
It is so boring and frustrating. It reminds me SO much of a Christian sermon. The thing that bugs me the most is that he talks about "the buddha" like a Christian minister talks about Jesus -- so admiring, so worshipful, so much so that none of us could ever be so insightful. He makes all kinds of little disparaging remarks about all us regular practitioners and how we all fall short all the time and there is this irritating knowing laughter from the audience.
It all seems so far away from myself and my own life and experiences.