Discussion Forum Discussion Forum

Non-specific/Broad/Generic

RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?

Toggle
Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/24/14 10:35 PM
If I don't practice, my awakening goes away. I don't feel any sort of permanent shift, is there such thing as a concrete, permanent shift that does not require practice to maintain? I need complete honesty here.

Many of the "breakthroughs" that I had were very nice and pleasant, but without sustained energy, these states drop away. Does anyone have any sort of permanent shift that allows laxity after obtaining it?

Dogen does not seem to think so, Ken Wilber seems to think that waking up is state training, and that states are not real permanent "growth" changes, Richard from the AFT seems to think that an altered state of consciousness takes a lot of effort to maintain.

What do you think?

In general if I practice I'm happy, fluid, malleable, smooth etc. I'm on top of things.

Lacking striving I become depressed an in pain.

Thoughts?

Edit: Also, I take medication. If I stop, (surprise surprise) I feel bad, and depression kicks in. If I resume medication, I feel great!

Here the Buddha records how he dwells nearly constantly in mental concentration:



Here it is implied:


RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/24/14 11:15 PM as a reply to J J.
I've been able to perminantly alter my perception of spiders.  Maybe this seems conventional, but if I can completely remove that fear, specifically, why not all fears?  They all seem to be based on the same kinds of perceptions.  Anger, too, is slipping away.  I'll let you know if it lasts. emoticon

I think this stuff can be pretty straightforward if you want it to be.  Maybe instead of looking at states to monitor your progress, just look to see how you feel abot things that used to bother you.

RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/24/14 11:40 PM as a reply to J J.
Paths should not require even an iota of practice to maintain.  The longest I've gone without doing any practice at all is close to almost two years, although within the last week I've started sitting again.  I never experienced even a miniscule amount of regression past the point of the last cycle obtained in any of about three long duration breaks I've taken.. Also, things like depression or other mental illness symptoms can still occur in the context of a permanent realization.  Although, there may be some differences in terms of intensity and duration.

If your enlightenment goes away when you stop practicing then you're, at least, not practicing in accordance to the vipassana method or the methods of MCTB.

RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/25/14 12:10 AM as a reply to J J.
I don't feel any sort of permanent shift, is there such thing as a concrete, permanent shift that does not require practice to maintain? I need complete honesty here.


Yes. It isn't just that no effort is required. Once you see it, it seems like it can't be unseen.

RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/25/14 12:20 AM as a reply to J J.
Hello all,

Thanks for responding, it seems that everyone is pointing to the idea that there are permanent, irreversible changes that can be arrived at through practice.

Ok cool. I often have a fear of regression, so I'm often worried about slipping back. Just today I laxed my energy as much as I could and I totally felt out of sync and in the shits, it was quite unpleasant. I roused myself again and then I felt better. Perhaps I tighten the energy too much? Excessive strenuity is mentioned in the Pali Canon. I feel better now though.

Thanks again.

RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/25/14 6:47 AM as a reply to J J.
The best "model" I've seen for this was described by Ken McLeod. Basically, insight is permanent, but the freed energy goes into the remaining unawake reactivity. So the insights don't solve everything and in fact can make things worse. Lingering greed, hatred, and delusion can be abe triggered with even greater intensity. Frankly it explains a lot about teachers which seem to be awake, but f##k-up royally.

RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/25/14 7:23 AM as a reply to x x.
x x:
The best "model" I've seen for this was described by Ken McLeod. Basically, insight is permanent, but the freed energy goes into the remaining unawake reactivity. So the insights don't solve everything and in fact can make things worse. Lingering greed, hatred, and delusion can be abe triggered with even greater intensity. Frankly it explains a lot about teachers which seem to be awake, but f##k-up royally.


Hmm, why even bother then?
Subquestion:
What is the meaning of bolded sentence?

RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/25/14 7:44 AM as a reply to ftw.
It's worth bothering because it's worth having better problems, even if problems themselves never go away completely.


The bolded sentence means that psychological shadow issues can become even bigger after spiritual insights/awakenings. You might just sort of be a negative renunciate, but that can blossom into a kind of dogmatic renunciate identity after awakening. Likewise, you could be an indulge the richness of life kind of person, but that can blossom into hedonism after awakening. Or you could have issues around being right or an authority and that could blossom into a repressive heirarchical cult that you create.

This is why morality is first and last training. It's very easy to avoid stuff when you have good concentration and awareness, at least for a little while. Then it can crash down, leaving a lot of wreckage. It's important to be humble and realize that awakening isn't a get out of jail free card.

RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/26/14 2:36 AM as a reply to x x.
x x, I really value your contributions to DhO. 
How can a fully enlightened person still have psychological shadow issues, or at least be reactive to those issues? You imply that they can even get bigger after awakening/s.  I'm familiar with most of the incidents that happen to so called "enlightened masters". The question remains, were they really fully enlightened whatever that means or they didn't clean up their attic to the full.

RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/26/14 3:25 AM as a reply to ftw.
The best "model" I've seen for this was described by Ken McLeod. Basically, insight is permanent, but the freed energy goes into the remaining unawake reactivity. So the insights don't solve everything and in fact can make things worse. Lingering greed, hatred, and delusion can be abe triggered with even greater intensity. Frankly it explains a lot about teachers which seem to be awake, but f##k-up royally.


Um, I don't know about this.  This doesn't seem true to me at all.  I think this might be true during the review cycles after each path or during the immediate aftermath of certain stages of realization, or even the final stage of realization, but I doubt it is very long-lasting in most cases.  You did use the word "remaining unawake," but even the final stage of realization creates a causal inertia where continued reactive patterns can continue for a bit longer.  However, they tend to lose steam fairly quickly.

RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/26/14 7:36 AM as a reply to Tom Tom.
I can't speak about this from personal experience, so I have to reference what other awakened people have said. That said, it really does explain a lot. Andrew Cohen, Trungpa, Adi da, etc. etc. All seem to be people that have had significant awakenings yet have screwed up. Ken Wilber also mentions that with awakening, the "darth vader" option is always possible, its sort of like "power corrupts" in conventional life.

Of course, you could make a tautological statement that "full awakening" results in "full elimination of shadow side", but then it begs the question -- does someone have full awakening? My best guess (admittedly based on ignorance) is that full awakening is possible if conditions of experience are held constant (e.g. in a monastic situation).

But even Buddha had times when he caught "Mara" trying to corrupt him. lthough he was a monastic, he was actively involved with creating a society and navigating the power structures of the time. I'm sure if he stayed on mostly solitary retreat, he wouldn't have seen mara anymore. But because he was developing means to help other's suffering, he was innovating, and conditions of experience weren't constant.  So I don't think even full awakening means there will be no more challenges to one's realization.

Ultimately it's maybe an interesting thought problem, but I guess that's all it is.

p.s. I did some googling and came across this... kinda interesting discussion of mara:

http://www.dharmalife.com/issue25/devil.html

'To me the Buddha and the devil, or Mara, are two modes of a single organism. The Buddha is the capacity of that organism to open, Mara is its capacity to shut down. And that is non-dualistic because there's only the one organism, the human being. Traditional Buddhism has succumbed to a dualism, that the Buddha is good, Mara is bad. The Buddha is perfectly good; in his idealised perfection, he is no longer quite human. Mara is this figure the Buddha overcomes. Good and evil are split off from one another in orthodox Buddhism.'

RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/26/14 1:22 PM as a reply to J J.
James,

Have you considered the simple, logical possibility that you are not awakened, nor you landed any path? The description of these attainments is that they involve a permanent shift in perception. By construction. And nice and pleasant breakthroughs, which require some form of sustained energy, are normally described as absorption states as opposed to insight stages. Don't get me wrong, I cannot know what you achieved, I just recalled what is routinely said in such contexts.

RE: Are awakening (states) permanent?
Answer
9/26/14 1:28 PM as a reply to Zed Z.
Hey Zed,

Yes that's currently what I believe. Most of my practice was absorption-based (sustained energy lead to bliss), and not vipassana-like or deconstructive.

Cheers,

James