The #1 most common question I receive as a meditation teacher is: “How do I know I’m on the right track?” 1️⃣
When I first was starting out as a meditation teacher I answered this question by helping people recognize and move through the traditional state-stages of the early Buddhist meditative path (ex. The 16 stages of the progress of insight, the 4 paths, the 8 jhanas, etc.) 2️⃣
I quickly realized this was a sub-optimal way of teaching because: 1) Not everyone can easily move through the traditional state-stages and have success with this approach. 3️⃣
2) It’s a system that becomes overlaid ON TOP OF people’s lives. Then they have to change themselves (including their motivational structure) and change the world around them (good luck!) to fit the practice. Again, most people can’t do this and frankly shouldn’t. 4️⃣
3) It presumes that the early Buddhist framework has the best answer on why and how you should be practicing. If this doesn’t align with why one is actually meditating it creates huge (and unnecessary) friction. 5️⃣
The traditions usually say to change yourself to fit “the right view”, but I’ve found it’s much more effective to work with people’s own motivational structure and offer what I’ve found useful in response to that from all the methods and approaches I’ve practiced. 6️⃣
Now when I’m asked the question, “Am I on the right track?” I respond by asking a series of questions to try and help expose people to their own assumptions about what the path is, how it should look, and what their deepest motivations for doing this actually are. 7️⃣
Once we’ve uncovered the deep motivation the path begins to reveal itself and waking the path isn’t a struggle. It’s still challenging, but it’s the challenge of transformation, not the challenge of trying to force oneself into an ideological straight jacket. 8️⃣
With this approach authority becomes less centralized. The emphasis is not on helping people get enlightened (with a preconception about what that is) but rather on helping people learn how to get enlightened, while not knowing what that will be like. 9️⃣
Traditional maps and models become useful only insofar as they map onto a students experience and predilections. Interestingly, I’ve found they hold up fairly well and continue to be surprisingly useful. 🔟
My current guess as to why that is has to do with the deep structures of contemplative transformation as well as with people’s contemplative predilections. Some people’s awakening, even when it’s self-directed, has a “zen” or “vipassana” or “vajrayana” flavor. 1️⃣1️⃣
When I see those contemplative predilections that’s when I suggest people check out traditional sources. But it’s more about fleshing out one’s current understanding rather than using them as functional maps. 1️⃣2️⃣
The only functional map, IME, is one that’s being constantly reformulated using real-time data from multiple sources, including: oneself, peers, teachers, traditional sources, and wise people who exist outside of these systems. I call this triangulating the path. 1️⃣3️⃣
I hadn’t meant for this to be an advertisement, but I’m available for private sessions online if this sounds like an approach that resonates: meditate.io/p/sessions 1️⃣4️⃣
And if you are somehow successful at making your life look like the path then you also have to deal with the new special ego structure you've built up around that herculean effort.
