Taking a trip back to the early '70's, what you have to understand is that color televisions were not very common, video games hadn't been invented. No personal phones. No personal computers (99% of the people in the world didn't know what a computer was, personal or industrial).
What kinds of toys did kids play with? They kicked a can down the street. They played with dolls or action figures. They played sports and games with their friends IRL (in real life).
So coming from that context, imagine if you were a kid seeing the very first video games to reach the masses in malls (places where people buy goods) and convenience stores for the first time.
Do you know how mind blowing that is?
It's like Harry Potter going to hogwarts castle and seeing magic for the first time.
This is what heaven looked like to kids from the 80's
They have an emulated version running here,
as far as I can tell it's a perfect replica, without the ambience from the arcade scene above.
https://archive.org/details/flash_spaceinvaders#
After you click the power on button in the game screen, there's a small button to start a game you have to click, and in the game you use left and right arrow to move, and space bar to fire missiles.
Not a very sophisticated video game, compared to what we see 40 years later, but revolutionary at the time.
Where's the Dharma?
What's the point of this preamble? If you know me by now, I don't like to waste time, I don't like idle chit chat, so I must be going somewhere with this.
The point is, many kids from dawn of video games, and perhaps even more so today with the sophistication of video games getting closer to reality, could spend hours at a time, all day even, playing a stupid little game like 'space invaders', and having the best time of their life.
1. First important point, wrong jhana is still a kind of jhana that shares something in common with right jhana.
Doing a quick google search, here are many articles profiling kids and adults who died from binging on video games, having multi day marathon sessions of playing without sleeping and eating.
It's happened many times, and it will continue to happen, because video games are fun and addictive, and you can die from overdose just as with many other recreational drugs.
I've seen many kids with an official diagnosis of Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) , yet I've seen their butts planted on the couch for many hours without moving (their butt) watching Harry Potter or other popular movie, or playing video games alone or with their friends IRL or networked.
So basically, they are jhana capable. They can do wrong jhana for several hours with complete focus and concentration.
I've heard of many kids with amazing sati (remembrance, mindfulness) too. Kids who memorized every word of a harry potter book and can recite it word for word with perfect accuracy, and can instantly recall events from the book more quickly and accurately than the author of the book.
2. There really isn't such a thing as Attention Deficit Disorder. Just unmotivated sati and jhana with a wrong object of focus.
Throw in some bad science, evil pharmaceutical companies who want you addicted and dependent on their harmful ADHD medication, bad parenting (giving kids too much sugary caffeinated junk food and free reign to play video games), and there you have most of the causes of this problem.
What's the solution?
3. Kusala version of 👾Space Invaders.
One day the funny thought occurred to me, I'm doing the same thing now as I would have been doing as a kid with a pocket full of quarters in an arcade playing space invaders continuously for 8 hours.
The only difference is, instead of blowing up imaginary space aliens on the video screen in an ultimately futile endeavor (the game, like samsara just keeps throwing new waves at aliens at you),
now I'm blowing away evil Akusala Dharmas whenever they arise, right when they arise, with extreme prejudice. Continuously. Hour after hour, every waking hour.
Prior to first jhana, Akusala Dharmas seem like those waves of space invaders lined up and marching an army at you. As you progress through the jhanas, the Alien population decreases drastically in numbers, but the ones that remain at large get more subtle and clever, and you have to find ways to see them, recognize them for what they are, and terminate them.
These 4 suttas in AN 4 are particularly important, basically the kusala version of space invaders game come to life.
AN 4.11 Caranta [Cara]: walking: same as KN Iti 111: second aspect of right effort applied to all 4 postures to cease akusala vitakka (thinking), verse alludes to 2nd jhana and beyond.
AN 4.12 Sīla: same as KN Iti 112: virtuous-behavior: walking meditation in jhāna, with 5 hindrances supressed
AN 4.13 - 🔗🔊 Padhāna: Exertion. STED 4pd same as samma vāyāmo + verse
AN 4.14 - 🔗🔊 Saṃvarap-padhāna [Saṃvara]: protect-exertion: Builds on STED 4pd by giving recommended exercise for each
AN 4.14 especially, you're doing that all the time, whether you have jhana or not. If you have a good jhana, then you should be spending a lot of time on part 4.
AN 4.14 English, fluent (no peyyāla)
- [[1] The exertion of restraint.]
- [[2] The exertion of abandoning.]
- [[3] The exertion of development.]
- [[4] The exertion of continuous, repeated protection.]
- (verse)
The point is, many kids from dawn of video games, and perhaps even more so today with the sophistication of video games getting closer to reality, could spend hours at a time, all day even, playing a stupid little game like 'space invaders', and having the best time of their life.
I'm doing exactly that now, except I'm playing kusala space invaders (AN 4.14), and having way more fun than the kid. That's pāmojja (mudita, joy in partaking virtue) and pīti (rapture awakening factor) that is caused by the vīriya (vigor) awakening factor. Vigorously blasting away evil akusala Dharmas in the 7sb awakening factor causal sequence leads to rapture, pacification, four jhanas.
You won't believe me until you have some competent jhana yourself, but this is way more fun than I ever had as a kid playing video games or going to disneyland.
No comments:
Post a Comment