Rod,

I am very sympathetic to the idea that contemplation should, ideally, go beyond the notion of using effort.  Yet, how to unpack that is a rather subtle issue.  For one thing, individuals who got deep into contemplative insight in the past almost invariably spent years practicing with enormous diligence.  For another, in a typical dream, our awareness is misled into taking the dream images to be real, so even though `everything is there' we effortlessly reach a completely wrong conclusion.  Something more seems to be needed for real insight than just being effortless, yet effort as we normally know it is likely to lead in the wrong direction.  The third Chan (Zen) patriarch talks about `beyond the easy and the hard' -- indeed, those two poles don't seem to cover the spectrum of possibilities.

This, however, is a huge topic in itself, and I would like to keep our discussion focused on whether we can use a research attitude, working with a working hypothesis, as a viable alternative to years of practice.

I like your suggestion to make the discussion more concrete, by exploring some particular methods, and then see whether/how that may connect with the notion of a working hypothesis.

Is there any specific method you have in mind?

Piet