Hello! Thank you for writing this and sharing your experience in other posts. Sorry if I missed the AMA window or if you’ve answered this elsewhere.
What meditation technique do you credit with allowing you to reach stream entry?
You talk about following the breath and arriving at mushin elsewhere. You also mention TMI and MCTB. I started out in zen, counting and then following the breath and then (attempting) shikantaza. I’ve also experimented with noting practice. Given the importance of consistency, what would you recommend? I understand everyone is different and I need to find what works for me. Guidance from a noble friend is always helpful.
The meditation practice I used to get to stream entry was Zen (shikantaza).
While The Mind Illuminated was important to my personal intellectual journal, I didn’t find it personally useful to getting stream entry. MCTB was useful for some general principles too, but it’s more like an quirky reference book than a simple instruction manual.
Regardless of what technique you’re using—even Zen—you need to reach access concentration before you can drop into an altered state of consciousness. For me, just counting to 10 isn’t enough to build that much momentum. It takes more like 30 minutes of focused attention on the breath [with, perhaps, 1-2 short breaks to move my legs] before I can drop into a state of mushin. In fact, I personally avoid counting altogether because the act of counting is too attention-grabbing.
As for consistency, I recommend starting short (1-5 minutes) and building up to longer sits over time. This shouldn’t be too hard, because you should feel like you’re getting something out of the shorter sits. If you’re not getting anything out of the shorter sits, then you’re unlikely to be motivated to do longer sits.
I also recommend joining the most hardcore[1] meditation center in your city. It doesn’t matter what lineage they are. They could be Zen, Therevada, Vajrayana or even Sufi. By “hardcore”, I mean that you want to maximise time meditatingtime talking. Guided meditation counts as “time talking”. Chanting and bowing are neutral (they count as neither talking nor meditating).
As for books, I recommend The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice by Philip Kapleau Roshi. I found the more cryptic stuff like Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki useful too, but your mileage may vary. The same goes for the translated poems of Ryokan.
Feel free to email me if you want more personalized feedback.
Hello! Thank you for writing this and sharing your experience in other posts. Sorry if I missed the AMA window or if you’ve answered this elsewhere.
What meditation technique do you credit with allowing you to reach stream entry?
You talk about following the breath and arriving at mushin elsewhere. You also mention TMI and MCTB. I started out in zen, counting and then following the breath and then (attempting) shikantaza. I’ve also experimented with noting practice. Given the importance of consistency, what would you recommend? I understand everyone is different and I need to find what works for me. Guidance from a noble friend is always helpful.
The meditation practice I used to get to stream entry was Zen (shikantaza).
While The Mind Illuminated was important to my personal intellectual journal, I didn’t find it personally useful to getting stream entry. MCTB was useful for some general principles too, but it’s more like an quirky reference book than a simple instruction manual.
Regardless of what technique you’re using—even Zen—you need to reach access concentration before you can drop into an altered state of consciousness. For me, just counting to 10 isn’t enough to build that much momentum. It takes more like 30 minutes of focused attention on the breath [with, perhaps, 1-2 short breaks to move my legs] before I can drop into a state of mushin. In fact, I personally avoid counting altogether because the act of counting is too attention-grabbing.
As for consistency, I recommend starting short (1-5 minutes) and building up to longer sits over time. This shouldn’t be too hard, because you should feel like you’re getting something out of the shorter sits. If you’re not getting anything out of the shorter sits, then you’re unlikely to be motivated to do longer sits.
I also recommend joining the most hardcore[1] meditation center in your city. It doesn’t matter what lineage they are. They could be Zen, Therevada, Vajrayana or even Sufi. By “hardcore”, I mean that you want to maximise time meditatingtime talking. Guided meditation counts as “time talking”. Chanting and bowing are neutral (they count as neither talking nor meditating).
As for books, I recommend The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice by Philip Kapleau Roshi. I found the more cryptic stuff like Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki useful too, but your mileage may vary. The same goes for the translated poems of Ryokan.
Feel free to email me if you want more personalized feedback.
I assume you live in a Western country. If you live in Asia, then you need not go for maximum hardcore.