If things are going along that well, I say just enjoy it and worry about putting them in order later! :)

Thank you for dropping by the other day, I appreciate your thought and consideration my friend. I’m doing quite well. Try as I might to slow down an keep the whole frame in focus, life seems to keep speeding by. But at this point I’m learning so much and seeing so much and doing so much that I am realizing the importance of taking time to care for yourself, cultivating habits, skills, and thought processes that lead to a more fulfilling life.

I am very happy to read that your Ango training went well. It seems to have helped you cultivate new skills and habits that will help you in many ways. Or at the very least, the training has helped give you a deep understanding of what you already posses.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Ian. Enjoy the rest of 2009, and I hope the new year sees you well.

Sam

And thanks for the link to C4Chaos’s blog too. I hadn’t realized he’d posted about his retreat experience. I just kind of assumed he’d been on one though, given how much he likes Shizen’s teaching style. Good to read about the experience from someone who clearly got so much out of it.

Have you ever tried one of his phone retreats?

I have not. But C4Chaos has. It sounds pretty incredible.

Shinzen Young is one of my very favorite dharma teachers. I have his The Science of Enlightenment audio program, and I’ve watched most of the videos of his teaching on YouTube. The guy is a dharma genius, and a total geek – a winning combination!

I don’t think he still practices in the Shingon tradition, but it’s the tradition he first practiced in Japan. He seems to be well informed in regards to all Three Vehicles.

It’s a good time to be a yogi.

Yes, as I believe someone said on either Open Enlightenment, or Dharma Overground, it’s truly an embarrassment of riches. A very exciting time to be alive.

And Shinzen Young? Yes, I do believe I’ve heard of him. :)

He’s works in the Shingon Vajrayana tradition as well, right? So that’s all three vehicles, pretty cool. Have you ever tried one of his phone retreats?

And yes, BuddhaNet is an excellent resource. I found an excellent ebook there by Sayadaw U Silananda titled No Inner Core: An Introduction to the Doctrine of Anatta. Highly recommended.

Regarding Daniel’s Theravada influenced terminology, I think that Shinzen Young’s work is a good bridge between Burmese vipassana and Zen. But you probably already knew that, huh? There’s just so much good dharma out there right now. It’s a good time to be a yogi.

I greatly appreciate Daniel’s insight and willingness to both share and to put up with the results of having shared. Perhaps reading his book will give me a clearer understanding of how to “translate” my experience.

Also, I remember someone (Dan Bartlett maybe?) mentioning that Practical Insight Meditation was available somewhere as a PDF. I did a quick search and found this. Looks to be a pretty awesome group of texts. Will check out this one and MTCB and shout my opinions from the rooftops (of my blog…) when I’m done.

And no worries on the HTML (which I’ve taken the liberty of fixing), I do that shit all the time. However, I would like to draw everyone’s attention to the finely crafted buttons on the top of the comments form, which make it a lot easier to add HTML to the comments (particularly links). The plug-in’s available here if anyone’s interested in using in on their site. Not that I can take credit for the fine button crafting myself, but it is a useful plugin.

Daniel is also really accessible, as he communicates with people regularly at the Dharma Overground. This is great, because you can ask him all sorts of questions about the book and actually get some answers.

Be sure to let everyone know what you think of the book :-D