Everyone else is wrong

Everyone else is wrong.

I feel this strongly, often lately.

The other Buddhist practitioners are wrong. They are soft, inconsistent.

My parents are wrong in how they treat me.

My teachers must be wrong. I don't like what they teach sometimes. Or what they teach contradicts each other, or themselves! Maybe one of them is right, but the rest are wrong.

The "dharma teachers" who aren't *my teachers* are even more wrong, of course. Like Mark Epstein.

The government is wrong. Not efficient. Corrupted.

My enemies are wrong.

Everyday people are wrong. They do the things that most cause their *own* suffering. But they like to blame others.

I'm wrong, too. I had misguided notions before about how to do things.

Rich people are wrong for being greedy.

Poor people are wrong for being short-sighted, unwilling to help themselves.

Nonprofits are wrong for being into their missions, but ultimately being pretty dysfunctional.

People in love are wrong because love doesn't last.

Everybody, everybody is wrong. When will they wake up?

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(Reflecting)

I don't think this way of thinking is helpful.

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As I reflect on my own actions, I have the seeds of many of these faults myself. (Sobering up)

There is intense hardening, too. That hardening isn't helpful.

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I seem to think more these ways when I am uncomfortable. When I'm not getting what I want.

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There seems to be a voice in my head that says that if I get *MY* way, everything will be better. Wishful thinking in two ways. First, I'm never gonna get things my way. Second, even if I did get my way in the world outside, that wouldn't solve my world inside. It wouldn't calm the mind. I need to remember this when I get into these "everybody is wrong" moods.

QUOTE: Comparison, concentrated and unconcentrated mind

I spent a long time (years) thinking I had developed a concentrated mind. I had falsely convinced myself.

I shifted toward an attitude of noticing the difference. Between concentrated and unconcentrated. And this helped me (1) learn how to use that concentration and (2) how to check if I was falsely convincing myself I was concentrated.

It turned out that what my old self thought was concentration was just a pleasant state of escapist mind. It felt different. It felt special. But it was still quite entangled with the world and my own concepts.

The real concentrated state has several forms (it's a region, more than a point), but in all instances has a sharper alertness combined with a easeful awareness (especially good if grounded in the body. It can be broad or narrow, depending on (if) a frame of reference used). It is without sensual greed, aversion, sloth, restlessness, or grandiose identification. It's also not trying to be something that one saw on TV or in a magazine ad or even in a sutta. It might take effort to get into a state of concentration, but once one is in it, the effort is either minimal (Jhana1) or none (Jhana2, internal assurance).

 It has a different feel from the everyday mind which is always striving and stirring, often feeding.

"The point is simply that you train the mind to be centered and then compare it to the state of mind that isn't centered, so that you can see how they differ, how the mind that has attained concentration and then withdraws to contemplate matters of the world and the Dhamma differs from the mind that hasn't attained concentration."

Ajaan Thate

"Buddho", by Phra Ajaan Thate Desaransi, translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 2 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/thate/buddho.html .

Loathsomeness

The Buddha relates that one of the benefits of mindfulness of breathing, when developed greatly, is a handle on loathsomeness. That is, one has control over the perception of what is loathsome.

This is one way to "test" your mindfulness of breath. Can it be directed to see the loathsomeness and unloathsomeness of things? And also to be equanimous, independent, unsustained, unentangled?

It's not just about pleasure or passive awareness.

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EXCERPT

"If a monk should wish: 'May I remain percipient of loathsomeness in the presence of what is not loathsome,' then he should attend carefully to this same concentration through mindfulness of in-&-out breathing.

 "If a monk should wish: 'May I remain percipient of unloathsomeness in the presence of what is loathsome,' then he should attend carefully to this same concentration through mindfulness of in-&-out breathing.

 "If a monk should wish: 'May I remain percipient of loathsomeness in the presence of what is not loathsome & what is,' then he should attend carefully to this same concentration through mindfulness of in-&-out breathing.

 "If a monk should wish: 'May I remain percipient of unloathsomeness in the presence of what is loathsome & what is not,' then he should attend carefully to this same concentration through mindfulness of in-&-out breathing.

 "If a monk should wish: 'May I — in the presence of what is loathsome & what is not — cutting myself off from both — remain equanimous, mindful, & alert,' then he should attend carefully to this same concentration through mindfulness of in-&-out breathing.

See Dipa Sutta, SN 54.8

SHORTY: Sati and lack of sati

Nothing good comes from a lack of sati*.

Pg 126 of Sanditthiko, by Ajahn Maha Boowa, translated by Steven Towler.

NOTES

*Sati is usually translated as mindfulness. In particular, it refers to samma sati, or right mindfulness. After reading Ajaan Geoff/Thanissaro Bhikkhu's book Right Mindfulness, I prefer to use a longer translation of Mind-Memory-Framework-Yoke. This is because it's not just naked awareness. It is using the mind (effort, direction) and applying memory (how to do it. And what it is) to a framework (boundaries for the mind, or the lens to be used. Like breath or body or feelings, in and of themselves) and yoking oneself to that framework (staying in that framework).

Shorty: No Gaps

In your concentration, aim for no gaps.

Like tracking a bird or insect with your eyes. No gaps.

AKA, keep your eye on the "ball", the breath energy or your meditation object.