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RE: Shinzen Young's 10 steps towards Enlightenment

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Shinzen Young, in his own words.

In order to see the text with diagrams, check pages 40-45.

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I’m going to describe a series of experiences that you might go through as your mindfulness skills deepen over time. Not everyone will pass through all or only these stages. I’m just using them to give you the general idea. Also, although it’s presented as a single linear progression, people typically cycle through these stages many, many times, with the process becoming clearer at each iteration. Finally, when I use phrases like “Absolute Now,” I’m not implying that you are literally experiencing a mathematical point on the continuum of time. I only mean that sensorially you seem to abide in an Eternal Present.

1. Just starting
2. Got the form
3. Detect coarse impermanence
4. Detect subtle impermanence
5. Detect underlying wavelets
6. Rhythmic arising and passing
7. Passing becomes rich
8. Arising becomes rich
9. Time begins to warp
10. Dance at the Source

1. Just Starting
You attempt to keep track of what’s going on but spend a lot of time wondering what you’re supposed to be doing. You get lost in thoughts and preoccupied with bodily discomforts. You do a lot of thinking about thinking about thinking about….

2. Got the Form
You’re familiar with the form of the technique. You can settle in and just do it. You track the sequence of
sensory experiences in a matter-of-fact way without “tripping out” on the process too much.

3. Detect Coarse Impermanence
You start to get a sense that experiences come and go.

4. Detect Subtle Impermanence
The individual sensory events are themselves ripply and vibratory.

5. Detect Underlying Wavelets
Each vibration and ripple has its own arising and passing. Sensory events are a sort of “Fourier Synthesis” of component frequencies.

6. Rhythmic Arising and Passing
Preconsciousness experience becomes conscious at this stage. Nothingness is noted, from which each wavelet arises and to which it returns.

7. Passings Become Rich
The Nothing to which each wave and wavelet returns becomes rich, providing: tranquility, safety, fulfillment, love. Notice also that less and less does experience need to be “born,” i.e., arise into surface events. Ordinary surface experience is less salient. Subtle preconscious experience now dominates awareness.

8. Arising Becomes Rich
Nothingness polarizes into expansive and contractive forces. Experiences arise when Nothing divides into future (expansion, yáng) and past (contraction, yīn). They disappear when that cleft collapses, reuniting future and past into the Absolute Present of Nothing. This special Nothing is known to contemplative traditions around the world (eg. śunyatā (Buddhism), xū (Daoism), etc).

9. Time Begins to Warp
All arisings tend to coalesce into a single polarization. All passings tend to coalesce into a single neutralization. Subjective time begins to feel less like a linear extension. Very little is happening and everything is happening.

10. Dance at the Source
One abides in a metaphoric black hole outside time and space, participating in the pure flow of the Source. The One Nothing is metaphorically a gravitational singularity. The boundary between surface and deep consciousness (represented by the dotted line) is metaphorically the Event Horizon.

RE: Shinzen Young's 10 steps towards Enlightenment
Answer
12/27/13 10:14 AM as a reply to Pablo . P.
Thanks. Really good PDF, but I still have to note "seeing" in order to not attach to the concept of enlightenment while reading it. LOL!

RE: Shinzen Young's 10 steps towards Enlightenment
Answer
12/27/13 9:35 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Ha ha, it's probably his best article, summing up in a concise wording most of his video talks. Actually, most of the article is about equanimity and positive change of behavior, which I think resonates with your quest, as I get from your practice thread, isn't it? In fact, there's little room in the article about maps, stages and what perceptual changes occur when going deep in the practice. I thought that it get lost in the +70 pages and it would be of interest to DhO fellows, in order to trace similarities and differences with other maps exposed in MCTB, the Taoist map added at the Wiki section, and Hokai Sobol explanation of his Zen map Japanese Vajrayana map.

For a comparative perspective, as far as I understand, this SY Zen Map it's heavy sided on Impermanence, which goes deep into the nature and arising & passing of Formations (polarizations) and recognize the use of concentration to sew a string of Fruitions (Nothingness), focusing in its just before & after moments (creation and cancellation), which finally coalesce into a single polarization (Time begins to Warp), ending in a full No-Self participating in the flow of the Source. Interesting isn't it?

RE: Shinzen Young's 10 steps towards Enlightenment
Answer
12/27/13 11:30 PM as a reply to Pablo . P.
Pablo . P:
Ha ha, it's probably his best article, summing up in a concise wording most of his video talks. Actually, most of the article is about equanimity and positive change of behavior, which I think resonates with your quest, as I get from your practice thread, isn't it? In fact, there's little room in the article about maps, stages and what perceptual changes occur when going deep in the practice. I thought that it get lost in the +70 pages and it would be of interest to DhO fellows, in order to trace similarities and differences with other maps exposed in MCTB, the Taoist map added at the Wiki section, and Hokai Sobol explanation of his Zen map Japanese Vajrayana map.

For a comparative perspective, as far as I understand, this SY Zen Map it's heavy sided on Impermanence, which goes deep into the nature and arising & passing of Formations (polarizations) and recognize the use of concentration to sew a string of Fruitions (Nothingness), focusing in its just before & after moments (creation and cancellation), which finally coalesce into a single polarization (Time begins to Warp), ending in a full No-Self participating in the flow of the Source. Interesting isn't it?


It may be long but it's worth a read.

Without an improvement in behaviour it's useless so I'd be interested in how mindfulness can help. Despite seeing the no-self Shinzen still needed psychotherapy to let go of drug addiction so that's an eye-opener on how developing the right beliefs is very important while doing this practice.

How Shinzen Broke Through Addiction