(Part 2) Best products from r/streamentry

This would be an excellent subject for a standalone post: Pragmatic dharma's take on child rearing.

I've found that Fred Rogers was the ultimate master in this regard. Although he was Christian, he didn't discuss religion or religious topics on his show. Instead, he focused on basic principles of morality -- loving oneself and one's neighbor, kindness, allowing one's feelings and being respectful of the feelings of others, and so on. (Daniel Tiger, the modern manifestation of Fred Rogers' excellent program is equally quality.)

We try and follow the Fred Rogers school in my house as best we can. Apart from that, here are some of the other things we have worked on:

• The importance of "ohana" or family; not just our immediate family, but a family that includes all creatures and all beings. (Lilo and Stitch is an excellent movie for teaching this principle.)
  
• An emphasis on work and service over pleasure seeking. Work and service are "healthy foods" in life; movies, shows, and games are "dessert" that we enjoy as rare treats only if we've gotten our work done. (This principle must be taught by example, obviously. If you're preaching about work but spend all day on Netflix or grinding ranks in League of Legends, it won't work -- children have a keen eye for hypocrisy).
  
• Dharma in the rough. Enjoying the song "Don't worry, be happy." I emphasize Buddha's parable of the two arrows in as many ways as possible. I love the beginning of this song, which goes something like: "Every life will have some trouble, but when we worry we make it double." Finding dharma in accessible pop culture that children enjoy is always like finding a diamond. I love sharing these things with the kid.
  
• Not shying away from religion. We tell stories about the ancient masters, whether that's Fred Rogers, the Buddha, or Jesus. Kids love these stories, and there's a reason why the world's ancient religions are the world's ancient religions, even if human ignorance has corrupted the teachings at times. Delve back into those teachings and share them in a way that comports with whatever wisdom you have developed. My kid is five years old, and here is what he knows about "God" based on what I have told him (and this is a delicate conversation because his mom and mom's husband are scientific-materialist atheists with a nihilistic bent):
  
  • God is like a loving papa, a warm, loving presence that never leaves him.
    
  • My idea of "God" (see above) is just an idea and cannot fully capture the essence of "God" that goes beyond words or ideas or our imagination.
    
  • The best way to know if somebody really knows God is to tell them that their idea of "God" is stupid and see how they react. If they laugh, there's a chance they know God. If they respond with kindness, there's a chance they know God. If they get angry, they do not know God (as I have defined him). (He then told me my idea of God was stupid, and I told him: "Well done.") (N.B.: This may be terrible advice, but somehow I was moved to share it...)
    
• Growth mindset. If you're not familiar with the concept of "growth mindset," I recommend Carol Dweck's book by this name. Carol is a Stanford researcher who has studied two mindset archetypes -- growth and fixed mindsets. Growth mindset is the belief that our qualities are not fixed, and we can grow through right effort and diligence. Fixed mindset is the belief that our qualities are fixed at birth, and we cannot change them. These mindsets fall along a spectrum, and one person may apply different mindsets to different areas of their life (intelligence, athletic ability, artistic ability). Research has consistently shown that fixed mindsets lead to negative outcomes, and growth mindsets lead to positive outcomes. Here is an example of the different mindsets expressed as statements. Preaching growth mindset is transformative. Failures and mistakes become a celebration for learning. "Being good" is de-emphasized: applying practice and effort toward a goal is cherished. It gives the household a chance to rally around the idea of constant growth, individually and as a family.
  
• Family dinners. A great ritual to emphasize the family values. We aim to always share our "rose and thorn" of the day, state one thing we're all grateful for, explain an act of kindness that we performed, and talk about a mistake we made and what we learned from it. Depending on the night, the kid might be more or less in the mood to share, but again, a great time to emphasize values.
  
  Anyhow, just some ideas for you based on my experience and practice with this bit of dharma. :)

A while back I took a break from Insight Timer since motivation was largely concerned with sustaining a streak, plus the star system started to feel gaudy / materialistic. I resorted to sitting in shorter bursts randomly (while commuting, work breaks, during the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, etc.) while emphasizing off-cushion practice, and it did feel right to strip that layer of complexity out of practice. This worked for a time, but external circumstances started bearing down despite transmuting suffering / turbulence / strong emotions into moments of opening often. A pattern of story reification started creeping in, namely that because I was "handling life's challenges so well" that the storm would calm down soon. This pattern overshadowed all of the beautiful, worthwhile, and just plain good moments of the last few months. Anxiety and worry started growing to a concerning degree.

As such, I've been adjusting life to support waking up early and sit for at least an hour, no exceptions. This includes powering down electronics an hour before bed and using candlelight to support ideal sleeping conditions. Given that I'm a light sleeper and am sensitive to caffeine I'm taking a break from coffee yet again, as I'll often drink 2-4 cups absentmindedly til as late as 3pm. Even though dullness has crept in since I'm unused to sitting at 5am I'm noticing more tranquility throughout the day. Prioritizing packing lunch for work also opens up another 30 minutes to practice during the day as well. I'm curious to how this shift in practice will effect life and trust that it will do positively.

Currently I'm practicing ten points to refine perception of sensations in the body without bringing other techniques into the fold to keep things simple. Afterwards I'll do awareness practice inspired by Moonbeams of Mahamudra for 15-20 minutes. Still memorizing 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, though I dropped the Memory Palace aspect of it for now and am relying on rote memorization. It's been wonderful to relate to these poems during life's hectic moments, and often seemed auspiciously relevant.

I see your dilemma. One often cited quote from Goenka (who studied with U Ba Khin) is that to find water it is advisable to dig one deep well rather than several shallow ones. It's definitely not bad advice, but it is definitely not a law. If you check out the great book Realizing Awakened Consciousness it is not uncommon for Buddhist teachers to have trajectories that developed across different traditions, even non-Buddhist ones.

From what you have written, I'm going to make a wild guess that you already crossed what is called the Arising & Passing Away stage in a traditional Buddhist map often referred to as the Progress of Insight. Have you heard anything on this direction?

If I'm right about this, working within a system that emphasizes the development of Right Concentration would be my recommendation. This is not to say that body scanning does not allow for its development. There are people that reportedly used it to achieve stream entry such as /u/duffstoic and here (scroll way down). This later reference starts with the detailed report of someone who devoted years to the technique and found, in his case, not sufficient to enter the stream.

This is all to say that there's no right technique and this is really a case of hit or miss and experimentation. This is actually a great practice. To what degree am I clinging to something already known, with results that may be just around the corner? To what degree am I clinging to experience something new, with results that can be extraordinarily surprising and fast?

Very fruitful ground for investigation. In any case, we are here to help!

Read Thanissaro's advice on the path, check out The Mind Illuminated and Right Concentration. These books provide balanced, mutually compatible approaches for the cultivation of jhana. Their instructions are effective and many people have achieved great results by putting them into practice.

Don't worry about when you're going to reach stream-entry. Enjoy the development of relaxation in your practice. Best of luck to you.

In trying to better understand this question, I have found it useful to study how Buddhism evolved over the last 2500 years. To get a better sense of what the historical Buddha may have said and taught, I have found Bhikku Boddhi's translations of the Pali canon and the Theravada tradition useful and it does not seem to emphasize inherent buddha nature.

https://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Words-Anthology-Discourses-Canon/dp/1536614688

However, later Mahayana schools of thought seem to have emphasized the inherent buddhahood or buddha nature or Tathāgatagarbha nature. I have found Gethin and Williams books useful to understand these later evolutions of the theory and practice of buddhism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tath%C4%81gatagarbha_S%C5%ABtra

https://www.amazon.com/Mahayana-Buddhism-Doctrinal-Foundations-Religious/dp/0415356539

If you're interested in learning more about the debate surrounding free will, causal determinism, moral responsibility, etc. I recommend reading the following book:

https://www.amazon.com/Four-Views-Free-Martin-Fischer/dp/1405134860

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It's an excellent introduction to the issues surrounding Free Will and it gives equal time and space to the various stances, and also allows the four authors to respond to each other's arguments. On a personal note, Fischer was one of my philosophy professors in college and I still consider him a mentor years later.

Reading the most excellent A Comprehensive Guide to Daoist Nei Gong and working on many short (5 minute-ish) periods of zhan zhuang daily. Multiple short sessions seems to be more beneficial for me than one longer one, the latter of which I also have more resistance to actually doing.

For people that already have a daoist energy practice, I highly recommend reading Damo Mitchell's A Comprehensive Guide to Daoist Nei Gong. It is by far the most comprehensive text I've seen so far

There's also a section within it where it goes in depth with zhan zhuang/the wuji posture and highlights important pieces and theory, which I think most other texts don't bother to explain

I haven’t read it, but The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep is supposed to be good.

Check out Culadasa's take on it:

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness-ebook/dp/B01INMZKAQ

The book does NOT focus on "what to do" with energy flows, but is very clear on when and why they occur, what meditation practices lend to them, and offers (the beginning of) a physiological theory.

A useful warning: Be cautious about making Radical Life Changes when you're in the early stages of the path, especially if you're newly full of intense passion, vigour, and excitement for the path, or recently started to feel like you've finally started experiencing the fruits of practice, or recently had a Major Spiritual (or just cool) Experience, all of which could be signs of the Arising & Passing Away. It's possible, if that's the case, and you're practicing in some way that would lead someone down the Progress of Insight (nod here to controversy about whether or not those stages are applicable to people practicing anything other than vipassana), you could be in the dukkha nanas, even if it doesn't seem as dramatic as the worst-case descriptions in MCTB.

It's very common after the A&P to want to renounce the world, or be disgusted or unhappy with your life, and think that changing your life will fix the disgust or unhappiness. It might not! And then you might be stuck without a job, or in a career you hate more or are less suited for. Or, you could find your Dharma and lose a huge source of stress and worry. Or somewhere in between. No one else can say what would happen or what might be right for you.

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Now, I have, in fact, changed careers since starting practice, and the change is at least partially attributable to the insights gained from the practice. But, on the other hand, I might have changed careers anyway, so who can say.

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I went to theatre school, with plans on being a big shot stage manager/writer. Partially because of the new sensitivity to my emotional state that I gained from practice, I found that I didn't actually like doing the work. I *very* much liked the feeling of having worked on a really, really great show... But when I worked on shows that were just okay, or were awful, I suffered terribly.

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I hated the work I had to do, I hated the egos and people, I hated the hours, I hated sitting and listening or watching these plays that I thought were really bad. I thought that was all just normal stress. Nope - I wasn't doing it for the sake of the work (which could have made it possible for me to bear all those other shitty things). I was doing it because I loved the thought of myself as this big important theatre person, because it gave me this image and identity that made me feel good about myself. Working on Bad Theatre broke that identity and image, which was painful.

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A friend had just left the industry to be a web developer, and got a great paying job after just under two years of teaching himself how to code. He encouraged me to try, and I thought, "That'd be great. That'd give me a lot of money, so I can pay off my debt, and then I can spend lots of time on retreat and become a dharma teacher, which is the only thing I'm really excited about right now and must be my True Calling."

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Turns out, I actually really, really love coding. I've been doing it professionally for a year now, and my days tend to fly by. What I make almost doesn't matter (as long as it doesn't conflict with my values) - I just like the work for the work's sake.

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The tech industry suffers from some similar things you pointed to in the advertising industry - excess, Dark Design patterns, manipulation, unethical behaviour, a rabid pursuit of wealth at any cost... But it's very possible to make a living with these skills I've developed, without doing harm. I'm very happy to turn down work that I think is unethical, even if it means I make less money (so far, that hasn't proven to be the case, but it's only been a year). If the actual day to day, moment to moment work that you do brings you joy, and feels Right, then I'm sure there's a way you can use those skills and knowledge you've developed to do work that doesn't make involved diving into the culture of excess, manipulate people, or take you away from your family.

https://www.amazon.ca/Great-Work-Your-Life-Journey/dp/055380751X

This book was a game changer for me. Stephen Cope draws on the Bhaghavad Gita to basically try to answer the question, "What am I supposed to do with my life?"