Question for the arhats (and those heading that way) - Discussion
I find myself going through a series of "phases" when it comes to my intellectual reasons for getting into Buddhism.
PHASE ONE was simply me first becoming interested in Buddhism because I thought it offered a way to be less stressed. Like a hot bath.
PHASE TWO saw a change from that, for two reasons. First, I found (and still find) practice hard -- not relaxing at all (yet). Second, as I read about samatha vs vipassana and so on, I learned that The Point is not to relax per se but rather to come to a true understanding of reality. That sounded very cool, but mysterious, and very grand and unattainable.
PHASE THREE was where I stumbled on DhO and MCTB. That had two effects. First, The Point seemed to become more attainable. Conversely, it became less grand. I guess I began to wonder if Buddhism was to the brain (sic) nothing more than what working out or learning gymnastics is to the body.
But I find myself now entering PHASE FOUR. Among other things I've been reading B. Alan Wallace's "Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic", and I recently watched Bob Thurman and Deepak Chopra comparing Buddhism and Vedanta here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD_dZ4pc3vA [**]. The result is a combination of the prior phases TWO and THREE in that the splendour of what may be on offer has grown again, but it remains attainable.
The effect is really quite breathtaking. As I finally intellectually get to grips (I think) with what this stuff is all about, I am flabbergasted. If it's true, it's *spectacular*. It's like an alchemist has just found what may be the recipe for the elixir of life. I am torn between on the one hand continuing to read and ponder and discuss, thereby feeding my already gobsmacked awe at the prospect of what may be possible, and on the other hand accepting the fact that "knowing" this stuff is not the same as "doing" or "experiencing" and therefore just putting all the books and videos and *thinking* away and just get sitting; the more the better.
But I do have a question -- one little nag in my head. It's primarily for the advanced practitioners and arhats among us.
Why aren't you guys simply beside yourselves with joy and excitement?
I mean, if it were me I'd be dancing on the roof. Or does seeing the true nature of reality make roof dancing mundane and ordinary?
Robert
** I cannot stress how much of a change it represents in me, that I would *ever* cite Deepak Chopra except to call him an idiot. But I'm not calling him an idiot now.
PHASE ONE was simply me first becoming interested in Buddhism because I thought it offered a way to be less stressed. Like a hot bath.
PHASE TWO saw a change from that, for two reasons. First, I found (and still find) practice hard -- not relaxing at all (yet). Second, as I read about samatha vs vipassana and so on, I learned that The Point is not to relax per se but rather to come to a true understanding of reality. That sounded very cool, but mysterious, and very grand and unattainable.
PHASE THREE was where I stumbled on DhO and MCTB. That had two effects. First, The Point seemed to become more attainable. Conversely, it became less grand. I guess I began to wonder if Buddhism was to the brain (sic) nothing more than what working out or learning gymnastics is to the body.
But I find myself now entering PHASE FOUR. Among other things I've been reading B. Alan Wallace's "Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic", and I recently watched Bob Thurman and Deepak Chopra comparing Buddhism and Vedanta here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD_dZ4pc3vA [**]. The result is a combination of the prior phases TWO and THREE in that the splendour of what may be on offer has grown again, but it remains attainable.
The effect is really quite breathtaking. As I finally intellectually get to grips (I think) with what this stuff is all about, I am flabbergasted. If it's true, it's *spectacular*. It's like an alchemist has just found what may be the recipe for the elixir of life. I am torn between on the one hand continuing to read and ponder and discuss, thereby feeding my already gobsmacked awe at the prospect of what may be possible, and on the other hand accepting the fact that "knowing" this stuff is not the same as "doing" or "experiencing" and therefore just putting all the books and videos and *thinking* away and just get sitting; the more the better.
But I do have a question -- one little nag in my head. It's primarily for the advanced practitioners and arhats among us.
Why aren't you guys simply beside yourselves with joy and excitement?
I mean, if it were me I'd be dancing on the roof. Or does seeing the true nature of reality make roof dancing mundane and ordinary?
Robert
** I cannot stress how much of a change it represents in me, that I would *ever* cite Deepak Chopra except to call him an idiot. But I'm not calling him an idiot now.
Robert McLune:
But I do have a question -- one little nag in my head. It's primarily for the advanced practitioners and arhats among us.
Why aren't you guys simply beside yourselves with joy and excitement?
I mean, if it were me I'd be dancing on the roof. Or does seeing the true nature of reality make roof dancing mundane and ordinary?
What grade/type/degree of the affective compounding fabrication/mind state of 'joy' or 'excitement' are you talking about?
Though 'joy' or a sense of 'wellbeing' is a vital factor for developing the skills of discernment and calm, at a certain baseline shift, 'joy' ' as an overly excited emotion or even a subtle sense of emotive wellbeing ceased to compound like before. Though one may wonder, what of a life without such 'joy'? The absence of such a fabrication and the absence of any compounding 'mood' trumps their very arising manifold. It is a path of 'loss', and what one loses (which may be what one is very attached to at the moment and can't see living without) is so very, very much more preferable to its arising.
Would 'joy' compound as it usually does for most people if the ongoing experience shifted to 'just the seen in the seen, just the heard in the heard, just the cognised in the cognised, just the sensed in the sensed a la bahiya? I'm sure people will interpret such descriptions to fit their view of things. I also do the same which works for me. I don't think 'emotion' nor any fabrication will be given shape if such was the ongoing experience. Back of the eyelids!
Disclaimer: I am one of those pesky yogis who does not wish to refer to the following criteria as 'arahat' due to personal motivations/past conditioning still in play/practice reasons/view of what 'becoming/bhava' is/keeping the bar higher for myself thus conditioning what I do and don't do in life/practice. This is for my own personal reasons. Others may wish to call it what they will.
1) Utter centerlessness: no watcher, no sense of a watcher, no subtle watcher, no possibility of a watcher. This is immediately obvious just as color is to a man with good eyesight as the old saying goes. Thus, anything and everything simply and obviously manifest just where they are. No phenomena observe any others and never did or could.
2) Utter agencylessness: meaning no agency, no sense of doing, no sense of doer, no sense that there could be any agent or doer, no way to find anything that seems to be in control at all. Whatever effort or intent or anything like that that arises does so naturally, causally, inevitably, as it always actually did. This is immediately obvious, though not always the forefront of attention.
3) No cycles change or stages or states or anything else like that do anything to this direct comprehension of simple truths at all.
4) There is no deepening in it to do. The understanding stands on its own and holds up over cycles, moods, years, etc and doesn't change at all. I have nothing to add to my initial assessment of it from 9 years ago.
5) There is nothing subtle about it: anything and everything that arises exhibits these same qualities directly, clearly. When I was third path, particularly late in it, those things that didn't exhibit these qualities were exceedingly subtle, and trying to find the gaps in the thing was exceedingly difficult and took years and many cycles. I had periods from weeks to months where it felt done and then some subtle exception would show up and I would realize I was wrong yet again, so this is natural and understandable, and if someone claims 4th as I define it here and later says they got it wrong, have sympathy for them, as this territory is not easy and can easily fool people, as it did me many, many times over about 5 years or so. However, 4th, as I term it, ended that and 9 years later that same thing holds, which is a very long time in this business.
There are other aspects that may be of value to discuss at some other time, but those are a great place to start for those who wish to claim this. If you truly have those, then perhaps we can talk about a few other points that are less central and essential.
Now, how there can still be affect (though quite modified in many ways) when there is centerlessness and agencylessness, this is a mystery to the AF kids and to me as well, and that brings me to my next point: there seems to be areas of development depending on what you look for and aim for that may arise independently, and not everything seems to come as a package necessarily. Those things are what I looked for really hard for about 7 years, and that is what I found. Now I find that the interest in the unraveling of what drives that residual affect is arising, and so that investigation happens on its own also.
Daniel Ingram
2) Utter agencylessness: meaning no agency, no sense of doing, no sense of doer, no sense that there could be any agent or doer, no way to find anything that seems to be in control at all. Whatever effort or intent or anything like that that arises does so naturally, causally, inevitably, as it always actually did. This is immediately obvious, though not always the forefront of attention.
3) No cycles change or stages or states or anything else like that do anything to this direct comprehension of simple truths at all.
4) There is no deepening in it to do. The understanding stands on its own and holds up over cycles, moods, years, etc and doesn't change at all. I have nothing to add to my initial assessment of it from 9 years ago.
5) There is nothing subtle about it: anything and everything that arises exhibits these same qualities directly, clearly. When I was third path, particularly late in it, those things that didn't exhibit these qualities were exceedingly subtle, and trying to find the gaps in the thing was exceedingly difficult and took years and many cycles. I had periods from weeks to months where it felt done and then some subtle exception would show up and I would realize I was wrong yet again, so this is natural and understandable, and if someone claims 4th as I define it here and later says they got it wrong, have sympathy for them, as this territory is not easy and can easily fool people, as it did me many, many times over about 5 years or so. However, 4th, as I term it, ended that and 9 years later that same thing holds, which is a very long time in this business.
There are other aspects that may be of value to discuss at some other time, but those are a great place to start for those who wish to claim this. If you truly have those, then perhaps we can talk about a few other points that are less central and essential.
Now, how there can still be affect (though quite modified in many ways) when there is centerlessness and agencylessness, this is a mystery to the AF kids and to me as well, and that brings me to my next point: there seems to be areas of development depending on what you look for and aim for that may arise independently, and not everything seems to come as a package necessarily. Those things are what I looked for really hard for about 7 years, and that is what I found. Now I find that the interest in the unraveling of what drives that residual affect is arising, and so that investigation happens on its own also.
Daniel Ingram
Nikolai .:
Though it is also good practice and quite progressive to continuously become aware of how much of our 'selves' and the mentally projected affective overlays we add to what we read ...
I can't disagree with that. I myself made an error in that very area with you only a few posts back. (BTW, the fact that you graciously let that pass uncommented and unpunished didn't go unnoticed or unappreciated by me
)