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RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
6/1/13 1:41 AM as a reply to Ian And.
Dear Ian,

Hey, didn't mean to skip that part, just fit in a bit of an answer when I had a moment and just didn't think much about it.

Well, there are issues with what might be called "orthodoxy", but I think that some of that is breaking down as more people do more science on what has been considered the world of CAM, and more paradigms are shifting in places, though for most purposes, the emergency department is not really a place where I think much about those things, as it is based on a business model and constrained by factors that make it very fast. It requires rapid diagnoses and treatment effects within very narrow parameters, and the expectations of patients, particularly here in this relatively conservative part of the world (Missississississippi), make it such that basically nobody is asking about things like that, and I have so little time for much of anything that requires the slower, more specifically patient-centered and holistic paradigms that it really isn't much of something I think about day to day.

There are a few exceptions:

I consider much of we do in the realm of "saving" people who would have died an otherwise dignified death often to be excessive, unhelpful, and ultimately a waste of resources that also produces more suffering and less good in the world, so it is bad from all points of view: see this site by a friend and colleague of mine who shares this view:

Ok to Die

Beyond that, I often do trigger point injections often (something my colleagues basically don't except a few rare ones on occasion), which is sort of like basic acupuncture but with a medicinal kick (sensorcaine +/- decadron), and these are actually some of my happiest patients.

I did make a diagnosis of mercury poisoning after numerous specialists had worked this poor guy up for all sorts of things to the tune of 10's of thousands of dollars by asking something really basic that they didn't, namely, "What do you eat?" to which he replied, "Canned tuna."

I do try to ask people about things like stressors, diet, sleep, and the like, but it is extremely rapid-fire due to the pressures of where I find myself.

I can tell you that if I did get cancer, I would go full-court press: herbs, diet, exercise, shamans, energetic work, whatever it took to avoid chemo unless that really seemed the only thing or the time course required something extremely rapid (such as blast crisis in leukemia). I personally try to eat an organic, very healthful diet, something nearly none of my colleagues do except the rare few.

I have all sorts of theories about all sorts of things related to meditation and physiology, many of which were hinted at in the titles of the journal articles I wished to see in the call for a new scientific journal.

I have had all sorts of experiences that are so far out from anything related to what I do on a daily basis (such as the time I could see all my energy channels and manipulate them just by gently moving the energy around and opening the channels and the like) that I can't fit into any medical context easily in any practical way that would change what I actually do in the ER.

I think I do have an appreciation of what the mind can do to the body and vice versa that is beyond most of those I work with, but I could be wrong, as it is not something I have spent much time talking with them about, so this may be projection.

I get the sense that you have thoughts beyond those you mention below. What's on your mind?

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
6/10/13 3:03 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
I completely agree with the call for bringing statistics & near-mainstream science to bear on the practice of enlightenment, for instance:

-- how do the various levels of attainment impact cognitive functioning (e.g IQ, working memory, attention, etc)

-- what changes occur in the brain during the journey (e.g. changes in EEG, fMRI, etc)

-- traits (personality, genetic, everyday environment) that can be used to determine which practices are best suited for a particular individual

comments on the following neurotheology/neurscience perspective on enlightenment
-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqrpKUTMXgY

-- how do psychedelics and other practices help/harm enlightenment (e.g. polyphasic sleeping, lucid dreaming, calorie restriction, (intermittent) fasting, diet, brain trauma, electrical stimulation (tDCS, TMS, etc.)

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
6/25/13 6:11 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Hi Daniel

Here's something: what happened in your relationships with other people as a direct consequence of your spiritual quest.

You touch on this very briefly in the Dark Night material in the book.

I'm not asking out of sensationalism or trying to pry. Rather, many of the shifts I experienced in my own spiritual quest had profound impact on many of my relationships: some ended, some started, and some deepened as a direct consequence of my seeing things, including my own patterns of behavior, more clearly, and the resulting release from being bound up in them.

Since this is very personal, I understand if you don't want to discuss this, and will never mention it again emoticon

Maybe this would even make for a less autobiographical, more generalized chapter all of its own.

Cheers,
Florian

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
6/25/13 3:28 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Could you go into a little more detail on why you think of yourself as an Arahat, despite still suffering, etc., and why you think thousands of Buddhist contemplatives have been denying the truth for over 2000 years? Now that I've stopped to consider this, I can see that it's really a gob-smackingly audacious claim... I mean, maybe if you had spent, say, 20 years in solitary retreat, ardently striving for the end of all suffering, it might not be completely ridiculous, but going by the retreat experience you've disclosed... it's almost beyond belief. To attempt an analogy, finding the DhO was like washing up on a small island after being lost at sea, pitching a tent, starting a fire... only to discover to my horror that I was actually atop a giant, prehistoric sea monster - in all my relief I had overlooked the suspicious-looking surface, and only after taking many steps back could I begin to see.

At the same time I'd like to reaffirm my gratitude to you for starting and maintaining this site, and writing MCTB. The openness and willingness to speak up against the unhelpful culture and dogma, etc., is something I really admire. But, whatever about being open about attainments, massively reducing people's aspirations for the sake of... what, exactly? Peace of mind?.. that's just plain unhelpful.

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/6/13 5:11 PM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Hi Daniel,

How about the brahma viharas and how to you think they should be integrated into ones practice(if at all). You mentioned in a post somewhere here that Metta was very good at increasing concentration, is Upekkha(equanimity) useful for reaching stream entry?. What about the 2 others? Its hard to find info on them.
Cheers,
Jerry

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/7/13 1:28 AM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Florian's post + 1

B B:
Could you go into a little more detail on why you think of yourself as an Arahat, despite still suffering


That's a good question.

B B:
Now that I've stopped to consider this, I can see that it's really a gob-smackingly audacious claim... I mean, maybe if you had spent, say, 20 years in solitary retreat, ardently striving for the end of all suffering, it might not be completely ridiculous, but going by the retreat experience you've disclosed... it's almost beyond belief.


Not really a gob-smackingly audacious claim or beyond belief There are countless examples within the Pali canon of people becoming arahants or Stream Enterers etc. just from simple hearing a dhamma talk or even a few verses from the Buddha himself or another esteemed arahant. I am unable to give you the references as to where you'd find these in the canon (I'm sure more esteemed scholars out there could) but I have heard and read of these cases multiple times from multiple sources. As I understand it (crudely) it quite simply comes down to how many aeons/world cycles you've spent deveoping your virtues. If you've been "hanging around" for some time it could take you just 7 days of sustained practice, but if you're still relatively unripe it could take you 7 years of sustained practice to ripen. This is basically what the Buddha says in so many words, at the end of the Satipattana Sutta.

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/9/13 2:58 AM as a reply to Piers M.
Alright, why "Arahat" despite suffering.

Here is the short version:

The Buddha suffered and so did numerous reported arahats, the most extreme one of which killed himself with a knife as the pain he experienced in his old age was too extreme. The Buddha suffered from headaches, among other things, but also frustration with his monks, logistical difficulties, and other complexities.

The Shorter Discourse on Voidness says that even for arahats there still remains that suffering that results from having been born and conditioned by life (MN121).

That pain would still be pain and there would still be conflicts, illness, and the like is to be expected. Even in dependent origination, it is still there as predicted in that profound teaching.

That all said, what I have done is remarkable and very unusual.

All sensations occur totally on their own, are known by themselves, where they are, without any Agent, Subject, Observer, Doer, Controller, or Knower at all, all the way through, evenly, without exception. This was finally locked in 10 years ago by a remarkable series of transformations. In short, the sense of a self in the sense caused by ignorance of the Three Characteristics is totally gone, flipped over, untangled at the core, and extirpated totally at the root. All actions occur totally on their own. The sense of a center-point is totally gone. Everything is just where it is in a totally integrated, totally transient, totally directly manifest field. At the time it happened, there was the profound sense, "Wow! That's it!" and that sense and the direct perceptual evaluation of the path of insight being completed on that front has remained ever since.

What would you call that?

It took me 7 years from Stream Entry (January, 1996), meaning nearly 9 from beginning to end (August, 1994, when I did my first retreat, to April, 2003, when I did my last retreat). Those years involved an extremely high level of engagement with the dharma.

As to world-cycles or the like, my past life experiences line up along the following lines, if you believe in such experiences having validity:

1) This life human.
2) Last life some sort of moderately powerful, clearly somewhat debauched male jealous god/sorcerer of some kind that was stabbed in the back with a dagger by a woman who he had wronged in some way, I think.
3) Some sort of mother skunk-like animal that was eaten by a large black dog or wolf.
4) Some sort of mother bat that was killed when the rock it was clinging to at the top of the cave fell to the floor.
5) Some sort of grim, gigantic, armored skeletal titan-like thing that ran tirelessly through space swinging a gigantic sword and doing battle nearly continuously without sleep for hundreds of thousands of years that was killed by something like a dragon.
6) Some gigantic, gelatinous, multi-tentacled, very alien being living in a very dark place for a very long time, probably under water, I think.

Other than some sense that the skunk-thing and the bat-thing were virtuous mothers, I have no sense that there was any profound previous dharmic development at least back that far, and, in fact, have the distinct sense that the previous one was a bit of a cad and not very ethical. Take that all for what you will.

Daniel

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/9/13 4:29 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel M. Ingram:
The Shorter Discourse on Voidness says that even for arahats there still remains that suffering that results from having been born and conditioned by life (MN121).

That's fine, but what about the arahat definition: the freedom from all defilements. Are you completely free from greed, hatred, delusion, ignorance and craving?

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/9/13 6:52 AM as a reply to PÃ¥l S..
Are you completely free from greed, hatred, delusion, ignorance and craving?

+1. I think that gets to the crux of it.

And if I could reiterate my thoughts from another thread that seems to have gotten buried:
  • How could something like greed still arise without some degree of ignorance remaining regarding the unsatisfactoriness of conditioned phenomena?
  • How is there suffering inherent the perception of pain? All along the path, I'm constantly being reminded that it's my reaction to sensations that cause suffering. How can you claim to truly grasp the emptiness of pain - and the perceiver of pain - and still suffer from it?
  • When there are so many openings and plateaus along the path that deceive so many people into believing "that was it", full enlightenment, how can you be so sure?

Edit: also Daniel, having just read that discourse, the word "dukkha" never appears in it:
He discerns that 'Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the effluent of sensuality... the effluent of becoming... the effluent of ignorance, are not present. And there is only this modicum of disturbance: that connected with the six sensory spheres, dependent on this very body with life as its condition.'

It's an extremely long stretch to say that the Buddha is referring to a form of suffering here.

How The Buddha Suffered

More than that, beware of chasing fantasies.

Eliminating the sense of a center-point, Subject, etc. is the ignorance to be eliminated, and removing that eliminates that strange way of holding the mind where part of it tries to get to or away from parts of reality, but a mammal was born, and it will feel pain, get sick, and die.

You have solid evidence otherwise?

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/10/13 3:32 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
How The Buddha Suffered

This is entitled "Why the Buddha Suffered" and only describes him suffering in previous lives.
More than that, beware of chasing fantasies.

The possibility of vastly reducing one's suffering in such a fundamental way that it relieves stress most people are never even aware they are under is itself an absurd fantasy to most people. I would also have regarded the degree to which I've succeeded in reducing my own suffering over the past 6 months to have been an absurd fantasy - had I ever had the temerity to imagine it - even when I was convinced SE was possible within only a few years.
You have solid evidence otherwise?

You're the one denying the evidence of thousands of contemplatives over 2500 years. The burden of proof lies with you. And speaking of absurd fantasies, the notion that in that time, no-one has had the guts to speak out about this, as you write in MCTB - that all these monks who have given up all worldly possessions, who dedicate their lives to becoming ever more self-less, that essentially none have had the balls to contradict doctrine... that it's all come down to some "arrogant American" who doesn't even do this full-time. Words fail me - there's no summing-up that level of absurdity.

And personally speaking, as I've progressed I've noticed numerous situations where, though they would once have caused me intense suffering, I now no longer suffer at all, despite the intensity of the sensations remaining just as severe. You should also have plenty of experience with this correlation, yet in the "end" it is denied.

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/10/13 4:33 AM as a reply to B B.
Just to clarify - from 'Why the Buddha Suffered'

The texts which are translated here describe the previous deeds of the Buddha which led in his last life to various kinds of suffering: from spending a long time in the wasteland of severe austerities; to receiving slander at various hands; to physical ailments of various kinds: being attacked and cut by rocks and scalpels; and getting headaches, backaches and dysentry.


Assuming 'Last Life' means the life including his time as a Buddha.

Peace

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/10/13 5:24 AM as a reply to B B.
Well, that is a traditionally-based response and a very interesting filter, a filter so strong that it would miss that the Buddha did have back aches and headaches and difficulties in the texts while he was a Buddha, and those stories are explaining the purported karma that lead to those afflictions while he was a living Buddha.

I have had poor success arguing with those with filters like those in place, so we will probably just have to agree to disagree, as I know what I have done, and you know what you believe, and there is not much to talk about beyond that, as I can't give you a tour of this, and you are not going to be able to convince me of your point of view based on the ancient dogmas.

We are both familiar with the dogma, so quoting that at each other will just go through our various ways of looking at this, and, if you don't have the basis in practice, then we can hardly talk on that level and have it mean anything real, so perhaps you should just see what you are able to do and where it leads and consider that there are maps out there that one day you might find helpful if you later decide to change your mind about them, and I wish you the opportunity to be able to make those comparisons against your own experience some day.

Just to tell a small story that is likely of little to no (or perhaps even negative) value...

I was on my last retreat in 2003 at MBMC in Malaysia. During the first two week I was there, before I had done it, Sayadaw U Pandita, Junior (so-called to differentiate him from the other, older Sayadaw U Pandita), the abbot of the center at the time, mostly talked about his home country, Burma, about things like how they have nice gems there and how they make nice lacquer boxes, and sometimes would just gently say things to me like, "Anytime! This is very nice! Come on! You can do it!" with him knowing explicitly that I considered myself an anagami at the time, knowing that I had 8 jhanas at a whim, knowing that I had Fruitions occurring about every 5 minutes or so even when walking, knowing that I had attained to Nirodha Samapatti a few times on that retreat just basically out of frustration as I didn't know what else to do and was, for a while, sort of flailing around (if that can all be considered flailing around) trying to figure out how to crack the nut that I had been beating my head against for 6 years, the last nut, the Big Nut, and that that was my explicit goal.

Finally, about two weeks in, I got it, the thing flipped over, and his message and stories totally changed on that day. There were only two of us there listening to that day's dharma talk, me and a novice meditator. He told this long story about a monk who visited another monk in another monastery and of their interactions and finally he said, looking straight at me, "So, the moral of this story is: if you are an arahat or have psychic powers, don't go around saying that!" He also gave me permission to teach, and, in fact, encouragement to do so, and didn't give me any other dharma instructions during that last week of the retreat, as what could he say?

Thus, you can take that as you like it, but there at least one monk, and a well-respected, lineaged monk that they let be an abbot of a major meditation center in the Mahasi tradition (and these are people with pretty high standards) who doesn't think that I am crazy, and, on the contrary, just thinks I am crazy to tell people about it. He may have a point, as this conversation demonstrates all too well, but still, I think the downsides are outweighed by the benefits.

When the knot is untangled, then there is nowhere to go on that front and nobody to go there, as everything is just where it is, and so all the motion of mind that was bound up in thinking there was some self in a permanent, separate way at the center of all of that doesn't happen. As the monk said, "This is very nice! You can do it! Come on! Anytime!".

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/10/13 6:17 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Very interesting filter?
Honestly, how many times in the Pali canon is some variation on the phrase "freedom from all suffering" used? The Buddha was being unequivocal. It wasn't "freedom from all suffering, apart from, er... headaches, and really, pain in general. Oh, and logistical difficulties." Don't be daft. Suffering is not inherent to pain, as you really should know by now.

Good luck in the next life. Personally, I've had enough of this shit!

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/10/13 6:48 AM as a reply to B B.
You need to read the fine print: it is intrinsic to the Dependent Origination framework and explicit: there is Nibbana and there is Parinibbana, and one has remainder, and that remainder is subject to pain, sickness, old age and death.

Consider the arahat to killed himself as the pain of old age and sickness was to great: Channa was his name. The Pali Canon is trying to tell you something.

Consider that pain is still pain regardless of any lack of clarity about it or any incomprehension of the truth of it. The Buddha talked about the suffering inherent in having been born and in this round of rebirths.

His truth of suffering is truth number one and he was very explicit about all the things that were suffering. He didn't say only that your mind's reactions to pain are suffering, but that pain itself is suffering.

All suffering ends at the death of a fully enlightened being, so the teachings explicitly go. Until then, you were born, and that has very predictable consequences.

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/10/13 8:23 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
He didn't say only that your mind's reactions to pain are suffering, but that pain itself is suffering.

Daniel, can I refer you to the second Noble Truth: that the origin of dukkha is craving. How much more explicit can it get?

Having just read the passage on Channa's suicide, it's not at all clear that he was suffering from this pain, and in all likelihood simply thought that he could do no more good in the world lying on his sickbed as an old man.

And it's explicitly stated that all suffering ends on the attainment of Nibbana, i.e. Arahatship.

It's really dismaying watching you jump through all these mental hoops in a desperate attempt to cling to this viewpoint.

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/10/13 3:02 PM as a reply to B B.
Yes, craving,
And craving leads to birth.
Dependent Origination: very specific about this and the timing of it.
To get off of the round of rebirths.
This is not mental gymnastics, it is just obvious and straightforward.
As the standard dogma goes, there is ignorance
That leads to a bunch of steps, one of which is craving
And after that one a few steps down is birth,
And right after that suffering, old age, and death, as we all know and live daily.
With the extirpation of ignorance, the thing begins to collapse,
But that last birth did occur...
And birth leads exactly to what we all obviously know it leads to as we all observe daily,
Particularly if you work in an emergency dept,
As I do.
So, apparently you believe that all suffering will vanish and pain will totally cease to be any problem at all before death: find me the living confirmation of that: one that could, for example, undergo major surgery without anesthesia of some kind, or have a major broken bone reset without pain medication or flinching of any kind and truly consider that no problem at all.
Your view does go against both the dogma, as Dependent Origination is very specific in its sequence and timing, and obvious living fact, and so the burden of proof is clearly on you.
It is not that things can't get much better in some ways, as they can and have, but still, birth occurred.

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/10/13 3:34 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
I wonder how far you cold take your view of the thing...

Could you, for example, take an arahat as you conceive of them being today and, say, slowly burn their legs off in a fire while pouring acid into their eyes and gently removing the bones of their spine with red-hot tongs with them calmly reciting a dharma talk with normal vital signs, etc., for example? It is a truly morbid, horrible thought, obviously, but still, I wonder how far your belief system goes in that regard, as you seem to conceive it as being without physiological limits or thresholds, and that is truly amazing.

It would imply things that I consider totally physiologically impossible, this being from one who is a well-trained vipassana practitioner given permission to teach by two respected teachers, one of which was a lineaged Mahasi abbot, and also an emergency department physician who daily sees what pain does to humans and how they react and has for 10 years, with causes and their effects being very straightforward in that regard, and as one who has had some truly intense pain from kidney stones and seen how this mammal reacted to it despite some very strong practice, I can say that to make extremely intense pain no problem at all, you would truly have done something remarkable, something beyond anything I have knowledge of or have ever heard reported in this life or seen, and I have been lucky enough to hang out with a bunch of very strong, well-trained practitioners from a bunch of traditions.

Please, the living example today. The Proof. If these techniques produced such effects in the distant, ancient past but don't today, then the tradition is hardly worth arguing about, as it has lost its potency.

If, on the other hand, part of the past was highly mythologized, as even the most cursory reading of the Pali texts show it was (gods and earthquakes, lotus blossoms blooming from his footsteps, and the list goes on and on and on and on, with mythology clearly swamping good, practical advice in sheer volume, not that there isn't some very good stuff in all of that), then we must look to current reality for answers, and currently reality is pretty straightforward.

Read "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry" by Jack Kornfield, one of the most respected of the modern meditators and one who has also been researching this stuff and teaching this stuff for decades and is a PhD psychologist and also trained with some of the very best meditators of the last century and also had the opportunity to interview some of the very best masters of the last century. You won't find your view confirmed by the facts of what the best of Buddhism has produced in the last 80 years or so that we know of and can confirm for ourselves.

Read The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: in it you will find a lineaged Tibetan teacher of the highest level saying how difficult life was and how hard practice was in the face of the endless injections and other things he was subjected to in the hospital as he was dying. He did not say, "This mind was perfectly clear and perfectly free from suffering despite all the pain." Nothing of the kind.

Reality is telling you something. The very best alive today are telling you something. This human life you have been born into is telling you something. The clinging is yours.

By pursuing a dream, you will miss this reality, and this reality is where the payoff that can be obtained in this reality is found.

RE: MCTB2: "My Spiritual Quest": Anything you want me to include?
Answer
8/10/13 7:17 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
The body and mind are profoundly connected.

You release enough adrenalin, the brain really changes its perspective and function.

You release enough immune chemicals, leukotriene, prostaglandins, TNF-alpha, and brain function really changes.

The notion that the body could be profoundly suffering, with severe injuries or pain and yet the mind not only be totally clear but functioning at some peak and transcendent level is naive. The system in reality simply doesn't work like that.

Again, this is not fantasy, this is the gritty reality of being a human, the basic and perhaps advanced physiology of how the system works.

Even the far fringe of promise makers, such as Richard of AF, take their pain medications for pain. Why, if it was all bliss and totally suffering free? Why get constipated and waste your time if there was no suffering?