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It’s about time we got someone knowledgable talking about this.

I was thinking what if I used loving kindness as an object of mediation and found out about (TWIM) Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation. There’s a book written about this. It highlights that the Buddha mentioned Mindfulness of Mettā practice more frequently in the suttas than Mindfulness of Breathing practice. The Buddha also stated that Mettā and Brahmavihāras practice alone can lead to the supreme attainment of Nibbāna. TWIM, using loving-kindness as the object of meditation, is found to be easier and yield faster results than using the breath. Additionally, TWIM includes a crucial step found in the suttas, which is key to achieving Nibbāna! You can get the free pdf here: http://library.dhammasukha.org/uploads/1/2/8/6/12865490/a_guide_to_twim.pdf

@Ayham Kriya Yoga is not really for me plus its not that effective without a guru and plenty of things could go wrong if practiced from a book. So I’m doing the Neigong and Alchemy course with Rudi whilst doing the Buddhist practices, they both complement each other really well along with Flying Phoenix Chi Kung and Zhan Zhuang.

@The0Self I read a blog post about balancing the two approaches. essentially it states that TMI focuses on adjusting attention and awareness to minimize distractions, while MCTB emphasizes recognizing the flavors of distractions objectively. TMI explores the nature of attention/awareness, while MCTB delves into the nature of distraction. Both approaches highlight the importance of objectifying distractions and adjusting attention/awareness. To find a balance between the two, one suggestion is to maintain attention on the sensations of breathing and establish a sense of calm. When distractions arise, apply a labeling technique by noting an aspect of the distraction, such as body sensations, urges, emotions, or thought patterns. The goal is to develop clearer insight into the nature of distractions. So by doing this It adds in vipassana or insight practice to your breath meditation which is mostly a samatha or calming practice. By noting and labeling distractions that arise, such as frustration, confusion, depression, worry, and other emotions, they can be transformed into opportunities to strengthen mindfulness practice. heres the link to the blog if you wanna check it out: https://shargrolpostscompilation.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#balancing-tmi-and-mctb-approaches

@The0Self I see.. I’d probably go with TMI as well. I have come across different perspectives regarding their differences and according to Ingram, Culadasa's approach in TMI is to protect students from discomfort by taking a longer route, working solely to build your concentration before Vipassana is implemented, while Ingram believes that a little discomfort can be beneficial and is less concerned about avoiding all Dark Night experiences. Even Ingram admitted his approach tends to lead to chaos and pain and TMI tends to lead to happiness and ease.

Can’t decide between Ingram’s or Culadasa‘s book. If anyone has any experience with both of them, how do these two approaches differ from each other? Which one do you prefer and why?