So there's two ways to look at this, I think. A very important viewpoint here is beautifully articulated by Daniel in his post Toxic Evangelism, Hardcore Dharma and Relationships[0], which discusses the dangers of evangelizing and pushing your interests on other people.

Another way to look at it is as follows, though. Meditation is very clearly a beautiful, interesting, fun, and above all very healthy thing to do. Within a relationship it's often very good to introduce things to each other, teach each other things, push each other a little bit and gently hold each other accountable. For instance, my partner and I try to drag each other out for regular exercise, since we both know we can be lazy about this even though we are both always very glad to have done it. We also introduce each other to our hobbies and try to engage in them together, since we are very similar people with similar interests, and doing stuff together is fun.

With that said, given that my relationship with my partner is extremely stable, we have good respect for each other's boundaries, and he is decently interested in meditation stuff and he has a good intuition for phenomenology, I'd really like to give another shot to introducing him to it.

We've done some meditation together in the past and it was helpful for him, but between everyday obligations and never quite knowing where to start it kind of petered out -- there's a lot to talk about after all, a lot of techniques one could practice, theoretical analysis of things isn't the same as practice, the hardcore MCTB practices I got started with are really not appropriate here, etcetera.

Any suggestions on how we might go about this -- techniques to practice, resources to look at, personal experience reports or opinions etc? Preferably things that can be done on a modest time commitment of about 15 minutes a day (for him, I don't mind spending some more time preparing myself) that is decently gentle without being watered down.

I would say my partner is capable of mindfulness but clearly not trained in it and naturally forgetful, good at investigation and naturally curious, low in energy, not super fascinated by rapture and naturally more driven towards aversion than greed, very high on tranquility, spotty on concentration and naturally very distractable, and high on equanimity.
I would say I am personally middling on mindfulness, very good at investigation and naturally very analytical, problematically high in energy (which often manifests as then suppressing that energy), sensitive to rapture, poor on tranquility, very inconsistent at concentration (capable of very intense concentration but with poor control over it), and probably better than average on equanimity when it comes to the "big stuff" but worse than average when it comes to the "small stuff".

I see myself as a stream-enterer and I've never heard my partner report anything that sounds like an A&P experience, nor does he seem to experience dark knight territory.

My partner has extensive broad-spectrum psychedelics experience (as do I) and handles that territory very well, and is generally very cool and competent when it comes to intense experiences.

On some level I feel like concentration practices might be a good place to start, they're a standard preliminary practice for a reason and we both have serious weakpoints there -- they're also easier to teach than insight practices, I think. On the other hand, ultimately insight practices are where most of the relief of suffering is, and I'm not sure how much serious progress we could make with concentration practices at such low dose.

Any thoughts, experiences, suggestions, resources etc welcome!

[0] https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/98527

When I first started going on retreats I wanted to explain to my parents what I was getting involved in so I got them a copy of Jack Kornfield's audio program "The Inner Art of Meditation". It's on CD's now but at that time it was on six cassette tapes. My parents loved it and listened to the whole thing together several times. Neither of them were meditators but for some reason they loved listening to it. I think they found it relaxing - they would listen while lying in bed at night instead of late night talk radio.

My suggestion would be that, if your partner feels he needs a teacher, rather than just exploring on his own, make sure that his teacher is someone other than you. The warning against mixing romance and teaching is there for good reasons. There are many examples of how it can go wrong, and I cannot think of any examples of it going right. 

I give +1 for Martin's comment about love, partners, and teacher-student relationships not mixing well. The problem is typically ego (as it is with most things), and the desire to teach a partner is usually based on having the superior position in this area of a relationship, visibly knowing something your partner doesn't or something similar.

The wise money is on, "No, don't proceed in that way."

I speak from experience - read my comment (third one) in the DhO thread you posted.

EDIT: I still stand by the content of this post without asterisks, but the extensive rambling way it is written was mostly driven by defensiveness, so if just want a tl;dr of more appropriate length, feel free to skip this one and read my next post which adequately covers the same ground in just a few paragraphs.

My problem with that advice is that in my mind it creates two rather artificial "buckets";

The first bucket is the bucket that holds approximately ~everything in normal everyday life. The principles of this bucket are as follows: if I know how to do something, and you want to know too, or I think you would be happy to know, I show you what I know. This is a very natural thing that happens almost automatically and really doesn't require establishing much of a "teacher-student relationship" in the heavy authoritaritive way that phrase implies.

For example; my partner is really into music. We have started working towards playing music together. We are both dabbling in the area of music production, but he has more experience than me; thus, doing this stuff together often involves him telling me things such as "if you want to learn about this area, I have found such resource very useful"; "if you run into this issue, such might be the cause"; "if you want to practice this skill, I have heard such drill is a good one". It seems borderline impossible to engage in any skill-based activity with another person in a natural way while going through great efforts to prevent this.

The other bucket would then hold "the dharma", where the rule would be "even though this is a very beneficial, learnable-but-tricky thing in which you have some hard-earned experience, don't share it with loved ones, as the risk of shadow sides is too big". That's not an incoherent position, but it strikes me as very drastic to make as a blanket statement. It also seems at odds with other conventional dharma wisdom such as "the dharma is the greatest gift you can give", the importance of having dharma friends, the value of discussing the dharma and so on.

I find "the desire to teach a partner is usually based on having the superior position in this area of a relationship, visibly knowing something your partner doesn't or something similar" above all a very strange comment to throw out as a blanket statement at someone you don't know, to the point where... and I really don't mean this in a combatitive way, but I don't know whether to read that as "one of us is not understanding the other", "Chris has or seen some really traumatic stuff and is projecting", "Chris has an extremely alien view of personal relationships" or, I suppose, just "Chris knows something I don't". In a different context I would be pretty worried that I was coming across as needing a very sharp reprimand personally, just because it feels like such a weird thing to say as a generality.

The reason I feel it is so weird is because as soon as you leave out the implicit subject of "the dharma" and put in something more mundane, it becomes very disturbing; imagine you had written "the desire to teach [playing guitar to] a partner ..." or "the desire to teach [your risotto recipe to] a partner ..." or... well... anything, really. I think that's just as true of your comment in the thread I linked, too; if dharma practitioners never felt the need to engage with non-practitioners, none of us would be here, as the entire dharma would've gone extinct a hundred times over.

The reasons for wanting to teach this stuff are... well, for one the obvious one is that the stuff works, it's pretty simple and solves many problems and reduces many kinds of suffering. It's far from a panacea or a free lunch, but it's easily the best thing I've found to do to increase my quality of life, with exercise being a decisively beaten but respectable runner-up (exercise is another case where my partner and I make a good effort to encourage and teach each other, and there I truly cannot be accused of trying to show off, as I'm really not a sportsy person and my partner is in better shape than I am).

Aside from his wellbeing of course I also benefit from having someone to meditate together with, hold me accountable, discuss the dharma with, share my experiences with learn from and so on.

Finally it's just kind of... normal and fun for couples to be involved in each other's lives? I make an effort to learn about and get involved with his hobbies and activities and vice versa. It's fun and motivating!

I really don't feel like I've heard much of a justification for how strongly pressed this advice feels or how much it feels like it draws a hard categorical line between the dharma and everything else. I really don't want to come across like I'm trying to justify evangelizing something to someone who's not interested, or establishing some kind of teacher relationship, or anything like that! Much the opposite; my partner is decently interested in the stuff, has done some meditation in the past and enjoyed it, but was ultimately pretty lost in the massive sea of different teachers, different techniques and areas of development, different terminologies and so on.

My own meditation path was "cross the A&P at like 5 years old, discover hardcore MCTB-style dharma 15 years later while deep in dysfunctional dark night shit" and I know very well that that stuff is not appropriate to push on anyone except the people who desperately need it, hence why I'm looking for pointers.

If even that comes across as a very bad idea to you then I would at least be very interested to hear more in depth why. If you do think there is some reason why this can't "succeed" (a word I don't like here, since I really do mean something much more open take-it-or-leave-it and not a "project" that can "succeed") I'd be curious to hear why that is. If you do strongly believe that this will not only "not work" but very likely actually go badly I'm very curious too, since that's a very strong position to take on strangers' interpersonal relationships.

Also, I suspect a decent number of people here are more of the "better not to begin; once begun, better to finish" persuasion, in which case do please say so, as I am not the kind of person to believe that, so that's a deeper underlying value difference that changes the nature of the discussion a lot.

(sorry for being such a rambler >_<")

I guess since this is a meditation forum after all I might as well add a bit more and report a bit more open-heartedly about the sensations I'm experiencing than I would otherwise feel comfortable with/feel to be appropriate.

Substantially, and being a bit more discerning and critical, my feelings are:

1) Oh, these teachings and techniques are truly wonderful and liberating. It would be such a shame to go through life never seeing the urgency behind doing this, or even moreso, never realizing how relatively simple and counterintuitively extremely impactful these practices really are. I know it's not for everyone, and not everyone will get it, but I'm confident my partner at least would see the value here pretty quickly after actually experiencing substantial meditation. It just takes some actual doing to get over that hump of "just like there's no $100 bills lying on the street for me to pick up, so does it seem very implausible for there to be such undervalued practices";
2) It's pretty lonely having this very impactful part of my life that I can't really share with people who don't directly engage with it. I do talk to my partner about my practice and he's very open-minded, but there's only so much you can say and be understood to someone who hasn't experience them;
3) I think I would be pretty good at teaching some of this stuff, and I know that teaching things generally is very good for my own understanding of things;
4) My partner and I are very close and similar and yet have well-established boundaries; from the inside view I'm really not worried about these kinds of things, even in cases where I would expect the median couple to have problems;
EDIT: 5) I really don't want to come across as trying to establish something heavier or more formal than I'm trying to do; I think I assign much more value to the lighter "15 minute daily sit" (+ daily life practice) end of the dharma and put much more stake in people being able to get far without going through really disruptive territory than is perhaps typical in this very hardcore end of the pond -- I spent a lot of time in the Shinzen Young end of the pond, where serious goal-driven techniques do get practiced but there's much more of a "dharma for everyone" culture. My partner practiced in that school for a while too, but it's very much a "here's a massive toolbox of a billion techniques and optional modifications" thing which can be paralyzing, and that community is too secularising and allergic to serious dharma theory for me to want to get very involved socially;
6) I feel a little, and somewhat unreasonably annoyed and defensive about hearing one of the most senior and respected members here essentially telling me "I think your idea is bad and your motivations are impure";
7) Obviously there's a point to the "ego" part as well, which is why it's an annoying comment that makes me defensive, so I will take the point, though I still don't buy the "don't do it" conclusion.

I think this is the humbler, more to the point version of the above post that I should've written to begin with and I'll edit that post to reflect that.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do. Just keep in mind there's a difference between sharing information and taking on the authority implied by becoming  the "teacher." 

Question: do you see the ego in your most recent replies?

Argh, my post got eaten when hitting submit...

 Of course I see there's ego in those posts, given that the second post is quite literally "there's too much ego in that first post, so here's another one". If you want to say that if there was no (more) ego, I wouldn't even feel the need to make the second post, then that's a point taken, too.

There's always a complicated dance between wanting to make a good impression for ego's sake, wanting to make a good impression for practical reasons, wanting to not give an incorrect impression -- but then, we're much more likely to correct bad, incorrect impressions than good, incorrect impressions, aren't we?

There's ego in being asked whether you see your own ego and replying extensively like this, too -- maybe the best way to reply is just "Yes"? But then, to what extent we see our own ego very much is useful and on-topic information on a forum like this one. This stuff is very subtle and tricky to navigate. Often ego may want something that is ultimately not a bad decision, and ego feelings are often present even when acting skillfully and not letting them drive us.

"The teacher" is a role I very much don't want to take, but thank you for pointing out how attractive and tempting that role can really be, and how ego can summon defensiveness to obscure that. There can be a lot of ego-feeling behind a thank-you and wanting to be a good student, too.

I'm glad I decided to start actively posting here despite having to overcome a not-insubstantial amount of anxiety. I think this "spot the ego" exercise will keep me busy for quite a while, and it's not something that would've easily come to me like this sitting alone or reading a book. I'm very grateful for that.

EDIT: Despite all that, I don't think my mind is ultimately very changed on the matter of introducing my partner to the dharma, specifically. But it was still a very helpful exchange otherwise.

When my wife and I met about 12 years ago, I was very much into hardcore practice and hardcore talk about
MCTB, etc. It was enough to "inspire" her to do a 10 day retreat, and that was enough to put her off meditation until recently. Just in the last few months, she has started practicing, with very little input from me. When I do share information, I make it a point to minimize my experience. The way I see it, if you aren't done, as in done, we are on this path together. Come to think of it, that has brought us a little closer together.

I just keep it to myself.  My parents ridiculed me when I was 19 and said I was curious about studying buddhism.  . Most people find it strange

Hypothetically if you were going to "teach your partner"

​​​​​​​What is it you think you have to teach?

And just to put a real fine point on this. Reading what you've written so far... I'm not sure you ought to be teaching anybody. I'm not convinced you understand the karma of teaching meditation. I, and I imagine some others here, do have fairly high standards for what a teacher ought to be. 

​​​​​​​Why not work out your own salvation with diligence, then you can worry about everybody else's. 

If it's important for your partner to practice they will come to practice in their own way. 

​​​​​​​There are better avenues for shared spiritual practices than insight meditation fyi.

 I do feel like words of "teaching" or "being a teacher" are being very evocatively put in my mouth... I think I've gone through a lot of effort to specify very concretely what I want to do -- recommend some techniques, sit together with my partner, share books and other resources -- and instead I have been getting what feels like pretty sharp criticism of never clearly defined, very essentialist notions of "being a teacher".


Because that's really not a notion I have personally brought into this, and nobody has really made much of an effort to communicate to me what they think it is I am trying to do -- even though I make an effort to say "I don't know what you are picturing, but here is what I am picturing" -- I can hardly tell *if* I disagree with replies here, let alone exactly *how*. Please don't put quotes around "teacher your partner" as though those are my words, when if you read my original post carefully, they're very explicitly words I *avoided*, because of how evocative such a phrase is.

I will definitely take heed of how strong these warnings are, coming from experienced practitioners, and put this idea on the back burner until I can understand more clearly where you're coming from, and probably talk privately to someone experienced about this -- I've worked with a teacher in a different tradition (Shinzen family of practices) before who I respect and who meditates with his partner and was very enthusiastic when I brought this idea up -- very much the polar opposite of the reaction here. I think after some time has passed I will send him this thread and have a discussion about it.

Anyhow, I just don't think there's much to be discussed here anymore at this point. After sleeping on it for a night my assessment of the tone of the conversation here has shifted from "uncomfortably direct" to "wholly inappropriate to say to a stranger in a public forum" -- something that is not uncommon here on this forum and has held me from making an account for a long time.

Don't take that as a "be better" -- your forum and culture were here for a long time before I showed up, and what communication styles work is very very personal -- but please be mindful that if the objective is for people to understand each other's viewpoint and communicate, this thread has been a pretty dismal failure for me. I definitely feel like out of many words I wrote only few were read.

With that said I really don't feel like there is anything more to discuss here. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

If your partner is interested, then go ahead and teach. Be sensitive to feedback. If he says you are being bossy, obnoxious, then completely back off. Basically respect your partner.

My wife told me long ago, not in so many words of course, but the intent was clear, that she thinks meditation is for people with nothing better to do, and she has zero interest in it. She told me this when I asked her if she wanted to learn. I respected her views and she left me mostly alone when I would meditate.

Over time she learnt some basic stress reduction techniques from me which she practices whenever she feels like. If going forward in the future she wants more depth, then she will ask me and I will teach. If not, then so be it.

I think basic mutual respect prevents obnoxious evangelizing.

When your dealing with a practice that can have really quite intense phenomenological effects and effects that can change you in ways that can be challenging and derealizing then I think it's worth being cautious and being careful with people.

I don't think you can come back from the A&P and just be a regular person. The dark night can be hell for people for years. Meditation is really serious business. Not a casual thing. Least that's how I see it. 

​​​​​​​This is not necessarily an opinion that fits within the conventional world view of "spiritual practices" but it is an opinion I have arrived at through years of practice and participation with the lived experiences of other practicioners. 

​​​​​​​It's really worth sitting with the karma of this. 
​​​

Yeah, given that opinion I can see where the disagreement lies, thank you. If that's where you're coming from then that gives me more to work with. I alluded to that earlier too; if you're of the "better not to start, when started, better to finish"/"only people who spontaneously cross the A&P should meditate" persuasion then I think that's a reasonable position.

There's a flip side perspective too, though. For one, this forum faces very heavy selection bias; Daniel essentially wrote The Book for People Who Cross the A&P and Find Themselves in Deep Shit, which advocates very intense "get it done quick practices", and then people who find that book tend to end up on this forum. That's how I got here as well, so I can relate. You can learn a lot about motorcycling in a forum for motorcycle accident survivors, but don't forget where you are kind of deal, is my impression.

There's equally valid, respectable voices that disagree though. Shinzen Young is the one I am most familiar with personally; he is clearly a very well-realized person -- I don't think that's a controversial statement here? -- who has spent decades working full time to teach meditation at scale, and he's much more of the "extremely destabilizing effects are preventable side effects of intense practices and poor social support" end of things. And the practices he teaches, although systematized in his own way, secularized and not very hardcore, are still genuine effective noting practices and not homeopathic "corporate mindfulness" junk. And Shinzen does talk enlightenment, does talk goal-oriented practice -- though that really isn't on the table for anything I would introduce my partner to FWIW.

That is not particularly meant to convince you, but I assign as much credibility to that teacher and community's take as I do to to the whole hardcore dharma culture that lives here. If I hear two equally credible voices, one saying "this thing is not preventable" and the other saying "this thing is preventable, and we successfully prevent it", then it's not that hard for me to accept "the thing is preventable, and the first community just doesn't manage it", than it is to accept "the second community doesn't prevent this, and is in blatant denial about this" -- since in the first resolution both voices can still be perfectly sensible and credible, while the second resolution is a pretty big fall from grace for one camp (that I think is not otherwise born out by my perception of them).

Another view is that doing nothing is also a choice. Your reasoning quickly starts to sound "trolley problemey" to me, where you're "on the hook" for negative consequences of introducing someone to something, but not "on the hook" for missed opportunity from not introducing someone to something. If there's some activity that has an X% chance of A amounts of negative outcome, and a Y% chance for B amounts of positive outcome, then it feels to me like it should matter a lot what X, Y, A and B actually are. I think what you would respond to that is something like "I know what X, Y, A and B are far better than you" (point taken) and some variation of "first, do no harm" (not sure if I am convinced or not).

To give another example -- I am not quite a regular motorcyclist yet, but I got my license before starting procedures to move abroad and I will buy a bike once I can. Motorcycling is a dangerous activity, with a small but very present chance of life-destroying injury or death, while being fun and rewarding at a much higher probability -- but the fun wouldn't weigh up to becoming paraplegic, if that does happen to you.

I was introduced to motorcycling by a friend who picked it up, who was and still is also a beginner, but a slightly more advanced one than me. He told me about the pleasures and dangers of riding a bike, taught me some things about motorcycles, showed me where good resources are, recommended me teachers and techniques and safety practices etcetera -- this is pretty much how I envision meditation between my partner and I as well. It's actually a really good example, since in due time I would be eager to goad my partner into giving bike riding a try as well. Comparing the two, I would say the upside of meditation is far greater, the first of negative effects is also greater (but not as much greater as the upside), but motorcycling is more likely to cause life-destroying irrepairable injury.

I think he did me a real favor introducing me to this hobby, even though the actual potential consequences here are near impossible to oversee or communicate. Obviously if I do end up paraplegic I will feel like the world's biggest fool -- and yet despite the inherent unknowability here I do feel empowered to make this kind of decision, and I also don't feel like my friend is an idiot for showing me this and recommending it in a responsible way, nor would I feel a problem with showing this hobby to someone else once I get some more experience with it.

It's also a matter of where you are on the "you only get one life, don't fuck it up!" versus the "you only get one life, live it to the fullest!" spectrum. Those are decisions we must all constantly make on extremely limited information, and nobody gets to make that decision for someone else; the best we can do is responsibly inform people of our risk assessment, other people's risk assessment, whatever scientific figures exist on this -- would that more of them existed for meditation! At least I know Daniel is absolutely working his ass off in that area.

If you think that meditation is actually a net negative for most people who haven't crossed the A&P then I would love to hear that stated explicitly, since that's a pretty controversial take, I think.

Thank you for helping bring the conversation back to something to the level of real world facts and personal values! That's much more pleasant for me to deal with than what at least to me felt like positions of dogma or assessments of my personal character from strangers. It definitely is stuff to think about, and I'll sit with the topic for a while more, I think -- at least long enough until my own practice is in a stabler state, my everyday life stuff is more stable after moving, and I've had the opportunity to talk personally to a few experienced meditators and teachers about this, I suppose, if the recommendation here is that strong.

Bit of a spicy question to throw out there, but it almost asks itself -- given that there's a ton of teachers out there who are trying to push meditation to more of a mass audience, and presuming you'll accept the notion that at least some of them are highly realized and have worked with a large variety of students and teachers of varying levels of realization and natural inclinations -- do you feel like they are making some big mistake? Do you feel like they are grossly irresponsible, or seriously deluded? Why do you think they arrive at such a different conclusion from you? To me it seems that description catches most teachers who are not of the more esoteric sectarian type, and your position seems like a pretty small minority within more open dharma culture -- but maybe a silent majority among teachers in general, most of which proverbially stay in their monasteries?

Do we have good historical sources on this topic? What did the Buddha say on this topic? I would ask what most traditions say on this topic, but I think it is "people should only practice meditation within our organization and our specific frameworks" which is its own big impedence mismatch with the culture here, so I don't know how useful that question is.

Been eyeing this thread since it resonates with me as I am in a similar situation with my wife. In regards to your later question, I do have some feedback on that as it's something I've already found and am abiding by.

"What did the Buddha say on this topic?"

From Attavagga: The Self

"One should first establish oneself in what is proper; then only should one instruct others. Thus the wise man will not be reproached.One should do what one teaches others to do; if one would train others, one should be well controlled oneself. Difficult, indeed, is self-control."

​​​​​​​While I've been studying and practicing for a couple years now, I still consider myself a beginner. I have provided some guidance in the past to my wife over how to meditate but have since held off as my understanding of things has kept changing. I will continue to do so until I align with what the Buddha said from the quote I shared. When that occurs, I will not attempt to share a broad spectrum of techniques they could try or the various frameworks out there they could peruse. I will only share the technique I know and the framework it exists within as that is what I practice and can confidently provide guidance upon. They then can take what they want and discard the rest for their personal journey.

Akko --


The conclusion I reached from experience was not to think I could navigate the ethical intricacies of teaching relatives and good friends meditation. The student-teacher relationship is complicated and difficult enough to manage without the added confusion and potential ethical morass wrapped into close, pre-existing relationships.

As to your question about other teachers "out there" - there are good ones, not-so-good ones, and bad ones. There are teachers who will fit your needs (not necessarily your wants or desires), teachers who are one-trick ponies, wanna-be gurus, and all manner of other things you can imagine. I found a teacher here on DhO in about 2006, and asked that person to teach me after observing their behavior over a long period of time, and then asking their existing students about them. Yes, this person was highly realized and very experienced in Theravada Vipassana mediation, which is what I wanted to do. I got what I needed - not what I wanted. There were times when we argued extensively about my practice, and times when we were aligned. The arguing part was generally a disagreement about what I thought was happening in my practice versus what my teacher saw, from deep experience. This person was forthright enough to tell me when I was full of crap. I don't think a relative or a good friend would as capable of being that kind of teacher, for various reasons.

Ideally, a meditation teacher is:

- compassionate
- very experienced and realized
- honest, almost to a fault
- ethical and forthright
- aware of the boundaries necessary to the relationship
- aware of the complex nature of the student-teacher relationship
- willing to call out students on their BS

It's easy to discount the potential dangers of meditation in general, let alone the responsibilities inherent in teaching it. But folks do it all the time.


Maybe what's going on here is that you don't know or see what you don't know. Some of us are trying to get you to see that. Motorcycle riding IS very dangerous. Yes, you can be injured or killed doing it. Meditation is likewise dangerous - but in a different way. You wouldn't want to learn to ride a motorcycle from someone who is a beginner at motorcycle riding. The same applies to learning how to meditate. The human mind is likely the most complicated and powerful think that we know of. It should be treated as such. Meditation is all about the mind in all its nuanced complexity.

Anyway, I wish you good luck with whatever you decide to do.

So... If a loved one of yours was interested in meditation and wanted to learn, what would you actually do? I think hearing your answer to that would clear a lot up to me.

EDIT: if this is your take on teachers, what is your take on "dharma friends"?

If my wife wanted to learn meditation I would encourage her to get a good teacher. I could advise her on how to do that, and on the various types of meditation. After that, she's better off with a third party whose an expert according to the attributes I posted earlier.

Dharma friends are great and can be very helpful. But they aren't capable of replacing a good teacher. I prefer to think of them as coaches or friendly advisors.

Are you of the opinion that meditation should involve a teacher as a general rule? I never worked with one outside of a handful of sessions, then realised I wasn't interested in that kind of relationship at this time, especially since money is usually involved and "pay for a one hour session" doesn't match my chaotic and wordy communication style.

Or would you say that that situation specifically would make a teacher a necessity? I don't think I would recommend a teacher relationship to a beginner personally, but I'm also very much someone who dislikes having people tell me what to do or looking over my shoulder -- much more "experiment and ask questions".

Would you sit with your wife? Discuss dharma books, introduce her to your dharma friends? I guess relevantly also: do you keep "dharma friends" you do those things with?

Or would you draw a line there and say "some things are appropriate between friends but not in a relationship"? I acknowledge that's true for some dynamics. Where are you on the "my wife is a very special friend" versus "my wife is my wife and my friends are my friends" spectrum? My partner and I aremmore on the end of the former -- same sex relationships often have a different character here too.

Feel free to ignore any questions you think are uncomfortably personal.

I will say I do think your advice overall is very wise and bears saying -- just sometimes feels like "a very good response to what I didn't write, rightfully dissuasive about something I don't want", if that makes sense.

What if your wife wanted to learn meditation, but didn't want to get involved in a teacher relationship at all? Would you say "don't"? Only if it's your wife, or if anyone asked?

If I tell you I have no teacher and am not particularly looking, would you try to convince me otherwise?

Akko, can you tell me why you care so much about this? This seems to be getting obsessive. Do what you want or need to do. Just be honest with yourself and do your research.

​​​​​​​

I don't think I care that much about it? I feel like I often have a communication mismatch, where I personally put a lot of stake in very thorough, clear communication -- I care a lot about mutual understanding -- which then gets taken as taking something much more than it is. Check my other posts elsewhere, this is just how I talk.

Insofar as I became pretty emotionally invested in this thread earlier it has much more to do with tone of communication and norms regarding that.

In this case I really am just curious to understand your viewpoint on this, I want to learn something. Some of these questions have bearing on my practice too, e.g. I know very little about traditional teacher-student relationships (which I mentally mostly bucket as "works for some, strikes me as creepy").

Mind fwiw that I am autistic, so what makes intuitive sense for me in communication might feel odd to you (the vice-versa is definitely true in this thread).

Still, it's pretty dispiriting to ask questions out of curiosity and get hit by the "why are you obsessed?"

I'm sorry, Akko.

​​​​​​​I just got a bit frustrated after having explained my POV multiple times in different ways. I get the neurodivergent part, but I had not picked up on it. Thanks for making it explicit. It will help me understand your communications style  much better.

All good -- I get the feeling, I really don't mean to hold a debate club here. Thanks for replying, I got a lot out of this conversation regardless. I think both the question I asked and the question you answered have been adequately put to rest now, and though there's still much for me wonder and ponder, I think this thread has served its purpose for me.

Thank you for sharing your wisdom, be well !

I only skimmed some of the content here, but to speak directly to sharing practices with a partner, I'll share my own experience. 

I "work" as a "full-time dhamma teacher," and my wife is also into meditation.  Before we met, she mostly used meditation apps or just did an unintentional shikantaza / just sitting style as her daily practice.  As we got to know each other, she became more interested in the Buddhist/spiritual side of meditation, as well as a more precise Insight approach, rather than the sort of mass-market mindfulness on the apps. 

We've always been careful to not have me be her teacher.  She reads dhamma books and listens to dhamma talks independent of me. She goes on her own retreats.  She works with her own teacher who has nothing to do with me and is even a completely different lineage (Mahayana).

And yet, a lot of the directions she taken were suggestions I made, like, "I read this book / engaged with this teacher; they're really great, you should put it on your list."  But then she's also engaged with books/teachers I find myself pretty disinterested in.  And I welcome that.

We have dhamma discussions and meditate together.  We did a co-created retreat once w/ noble silence in a forest cabin, listening to dhamma talks for instruction.  Occasionally, we go to dhamma events together, but not super often.

While sometimes I have more to share, I make a concerted effort of relating to her as a fellow practitioner, as opposed to the knowing teacher.  I share my shortcomings and the limits of my understanding.  I very rarely would give any kind of unsolicited advice about her practice.  Occasionally, she'll come to some event I lead, like a daylong retreat or a drop-in sangha, but she isn't a regular attendee.  

In periods where she has dropped off from formal meditation for a time, I don't think much of it or say anything about it.  It's her practice.

Basically, we've found it important for her to have her own relationship with meditation/buddhism independent of me.  However, as you describe, similar to music or any other hobby, it's natural for one partner to have more experience/knowledge, and that can be part of the dynamic, but as much as possible, we relate to other each as fellow practitioners.  

Hope this is helpful.

One question is whether you want to learn more? You are a Streamenterer so there is a long way to go if you want to. For that it might! be nice if your partner was into this stuff as well.

If available I would always recommend a good teacher with 4th path even for people pre-streamentry. Also, even trying to avoid all the mistakes, having read a lot of books and knowing about them beforehand you will still make most of them just in way less bad ways, at least that's my experience so far.

Random thing: Since you want to explore it with your siginificant other you could explore attention/awareness during sex ;). Trying to stay in equanimity, some kind of soft jhana 4 might be interesting. Are you the periphery? Is your partner? What is the periphery/center of attention at different moments?

I went through a bit of a similar journey as you (A&P sometime as a child, streamentry way later without meditation, then hardcore mctb practice).I can definitely recommend the higher paths especially 4th which I don't yet have ;0.

I am also at the mindset that finishing stuff up is far better. Especially if you started as a child you might not be able to escape. Posting on dharma forums is also in general a bad sign ;).