Episode 3 – Daniel Ingram Interview

05/01/20 • -1 min

An amazing interview with Daniel – really enjoyed this one! We were particularly blown away by his insights into the Goenka vipassana tradition, and why they don’t use the meditation maps. Goenka retreats were pivotal for both me and Jasmine, so it’s amazing to hear stories about his initial training, and why the retreats downplay or ignore ‘dark night’ or ‘dhukka nana’ phenomena (difficulties that can emerge during meditation).

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Topics

3:24 – Practice and framing. How one begins on the adventure of meditation. Starting a practice during COVID-19 lockdown?
6:00 – Daniel Ingram’s practice day to day. Morality, concentration, wisdom
10:50 – Fire Kasina technique & history
13:30 – Meditation and scary events. Demons!
19:00 – Magical practices, grimoires, entities in the practice and traditions
20:15 – Loving kindness meditation (metta) origins
22:00 Loving kindness towards entities
23:00 Fire kasina & necessity for theory and roadmap
24:00 Bill’s memories – encountering an entity in teenage years
27:15 Bill reflecting on how this impacted practice
29:50 Is any dose of meditation safe? Considering the Therevadan maps. Chapter 30 MCTB.
38:00 Use of maps and how they’ve helped Ingram, benefits
41:00 Daniel challenges others to bring forward insight on maps
41:48 Why Therevadan maps are so useful. Possible drawbacks and why some people don’t like the insight maps
44:42 Benefits of maps for meditation.
46:00 Why does the Goenka meditation tradition not use the maps technology that is available? Why do they keep their students in the dark about it? #dhamma #vipassana
48:00 Maps and how they script meditation experiences and paths
52:50 Sayadaw ‘Noting’ practice
54:47 Inside story on Goenka’s training and practice with Sayagyi U Ba Khin – along with fellow students Ruth Dennison, and Robert Harry Hoover. All were taught from the Visuddhimagga in very individualised ways. Goenka went on to teach the version he learnt, without the differentiation he’d received. The Visuddhimagga has many techniques for different types of people. When the students went on to try and teach together, they rapidly clashed as they realised they were all teaching different things!
56:48 Goenka did not have ‘dark night’ problems (dhukka nanas) – so never included warnings about them or help to navigate them in his teaching! With him around – and his warm, encouraging presence, his students didn’t run into so many problems.
59:00 This difficulty of making any changes to the Goenka institution
1:00:02 – The Fire Kasina – why did it get lost and why is it not more popular?
1:10:10 Fire Kasina for beginners, and on retreat
1:14:00 Bill & Jasmine’s ambitions for the podcast & current practice
1:24:00 Scripting and the Jhanas
1:29:50 Daniel’s thoughts on having a meditation teacher and how to find the right one.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this one so do please email or leave us a comment below!

Links

Audio-only version Audio version

Subscribe in your favorite podcast app:

Topics

3:24 – Practice and framing. How one begins on the adventure of meditation. Starting a practice during COVID-19 lockdown?
6:00 – Daniel Ingram’s practice day to day. Morality, concentration, wisdom
10:50 – Fire Kasina technique & history
13:30 – Meditation and scary events. Demons!
19:00 – Magical practices, grimoires, entities in the practice and traditions
20:15 – Loving kindness meditation (metta) origins
22:00 Loving kindness towards entities
23:00 Fire kasina & necessity for theory and roadmap
24:00 Bill’s memories – encountering an entity in teenage years
27:15 Bill reflecting on how this impacted practice
29:50 Is any dose of meditation safe? Considering the Therevadan maps. Chapter 30 MCTB.
38:00 Use of maps and how they’ve helped Ingram, benefits
41:00 Daniel challenges others to bring forward insight on maps
41:48 Why Therevadan maps are so useful. Possible drawbacks and why some people don’t like the insight maps
44:42 Benefits of maps for meditation.
46:00 Why does the Goenka meditation tradition not use the maps technology that is available? Why do they keep their students in the dark about it? #dhamma #vipassana
48:00 Maps and how they script meditation experiences and paths
52:50 Sayadaw ‘Noting’ practice
54:47 Inside story on Goenka’s training and practice with Sayagyi U Ba Khin – along with fellow students Ruth Dennison, and Robert Harry Hoover. All were taught from the Visuddhimagga in very individualised ways. Goenka went on to teach the version he learnt, without the differentiation he’d received. The Visuddhimagga has many techniques for different types of people. When the students went on to try and teach together, they rapidly clashed as they realised they were all teaching different things!
56:48 Goenka did not have ‘dark night’ problems (dhukka nanas) – so never included warnings about them or help to navigate them in his teaching! With him around – and his warm, encouraging presence, his students didn’t run into so many problems.
59:00 This difficulty of making any changes to the Goenka institution
1:00:02 – The Fire Kasina – why did it get lost and why is it not more popular?
1:10:10 Fire Kasina for beginners, and on retreat
1:14:00 Bill & Jasmine’s ambitions for the podcast & current practice
1:24:00 Scripting and the Jhanas
1:29:50 Daniel’s thoughts on having a meditation teacher and how to find the right one.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this one so do please email or leave us a comment below!

Links

Previous Episode

Episode 2 – Catch up

We catch up on life in lockdown, Jasmine’s ongoing home retreat and practice in general. This is an experimental format – it’s a pretty loose conversation with minimal editing. Does it work? Let us know!

We also announce our upcoming guest interview with (drum roll) ... the one and only Daniel Ingram!

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Next Episode

Episode 4 – Limits to enlightenment

A fun chat that started with a regular call. We were meant to be talking about updating this website, but after “How are you doing? How’s your practice?” we got into an interesting discussion so began recording! We hope that you too, dear listener, will enjoy this.

Audio version

Topics

0:00 Intro and Mahasi Sayadaw style ‘noting’ practice
3:00 On high-speed ‘noting’ meditation
5:30 Do all types of meditation lead to the same place? Comparisons with yoga and other, Buddhist types of meditation.
7:00 Altered Traits book – studies of long-term, advanced meditators. Similarities and differences between veterans of different meditation traditions.
9:00 Zen Masters in the early 20th Century – part of the II World war effort.
12:00 Bill Hamilton – Saints & Psychopaths book. Can meditation touch or change extreme psychological conditions?
14:00 Daniel Ingram & Kenneth Folk on the limits of ‘awakening’ – Can it save you from being a ‘total arsehole’?
15:00 Can metta ‘loving kindness’ meditation make you a better person? Jasmine on her current practice and how empathy practices have shaped her personality.
17:00 Emotional intelligence at work and on the career ladder. Chade-Meng Tang‘s Search Inside Yourself book on habit building
18:40 Enlightenment doesn’t solve all your problems. While panna (wisdom) has an achievable goal, the trainings of sila (morality, virtue) and samadhi (concentration, ‘coming together’) are infinite.
20:00 Bill & Jasmine‘s current focus in meditation
21:00 Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (now the Triratna Buddhist Community) and ‘Pure Land’ Buddhist approaches to enlightenment.
22:00 Jasmine‘s family’s take on enlightenment
24:00 Bahia of the bark cloth! Buddha’s best ever student who reached full enlightenment in about 5 minutes after being given the instruction. Bill [I missed ‘smell’ from the list of sense ]
27:00 Going meta on the podcast itself – thoughts on colours, the meditation podcast market, and the feedback we’ve received so far. Thanks for that, by the way!