Daniel M. Ingram:
the age old story
somebody practices hard and realizes something useful
that gets codified into meditation techniques and a movement for positive change and reform
and then that gets codified into some belief structure
and that becomes some dogmatic religion
which is used for political and economic control
and to exploit vulnerable populations
and justify immoral acts, usually murder, rape and theft
and were the original innovator there to see it they would likely vomit
give reality 100 years: there will probably be Glorious Pragmatic Dharma Drone Strikes in the name of Liberation
Daniel, I am surprised that you are still unresolved over this, it shows you surely have not destroyed all the illusions. If a realised man vomited, it would be because of sudden understanding that all his gross worldly efforts were only a rearranging of the mass of filth that is the human dimension. If your story was mundane and about nuclear fission then it could pass, but the path to enlightenment is awkward and subtle and getting upset when directions are naturally misunderstood is just plain wrong.
Your 'vulnerable populations' are beings that have ended up in the human realm as a result of their own doings, and the cosmic machine is not broken, it is your sentimental lens that is distorted.
Your movement for positive change and reform (because you are obviously working your story to work with dho) is naturally limited, nothing can change that. Starting from the top: "somebody practices hard and realizes something useful". The sentence is structured to go, somebody is on square one and through effort advances to square two. But what is the something useful? You often say yourself that nothing externally in your life has changed due to your achievement, and you still have a worldly occupation. So what is the useful? A bicycle is useful, but permanently destroying patterns or 'karma' is an odd use of the term 'useful'. I agree that it has to be done, but that the word useful depends on a context that can never apply.
"that gets codified into meditation techniques and a movement for positive change and reform". All of the big men themselves never codified techniques. Buddha never gave very practical instructions on how to enter jhana and others like Patanjali just said, once you've achieved samadhi (hindu version of jhanas) just keep doing it through thick and thin and that's all you need, the curtains of illusion will keep falling away. What is the movement for positive change and reform? Even if a few people have destroyed some low level illusion, for a movement of thousands, it would all become very gross very quickly. What is there to reform? We dont eat food anymore and absorb energy like plants? By trying to game the human realm, the laws of existence will come against you and it is not something to fight, afterall, Buddha saw that his sangha was eventually a mess.
"and then that gets codified into some belief structure" Well of course! Human realm remember! Not much to say about the rest because its the fruit of the beginning
"and that becomes some dogmatic religion
which is used for political and economic control
and to exploit vulnerable populations
and justify immoral acts, usually murder, rape and theft
and were the original innovator there to see it they would likely vomit
give reality 100 years: there will probably be Glorious Pragmatic Dharma Drone Strikes in the name of Liberation"
Dont be so high and mighty, what you call pragmatic is no more 'useful' than all the old schools. Of course in the culture of bits and bytes and hyper-materialism the attraction of an enlightenment through breaking down things to pieces in a secular way is attractive. But instead of chanting one goes to talk about the oscillations as if they were in isolation, in a petri dish. What on earth is the bearing of sixteen vibrations a second without consideration for the rest?
And in general, one must stop using the term advanced yogi in such a blaze manner. When one can alter the physical world as they see fit using the mind then perhaps they can be called that. Oh and while im here, Daniel, in another thread you mentioned how you really got your concentration going by practicing 18 hours a day of jhana. Every bathroom break alone must break that time up considerably. Does your jhana reach maximum hardness within one minute or something?