| | I am glad to see this debate happening here, as I think that getting clear on this is really important. Thanks for the lucid posts: they warm my heart..
Basically, the progressive paths assume that no amount of simply trying to pretend to not want something you want is going to do it. This is mere conceptual delusion at its worst.
Instead, using practices that progressively build up the clarity of mind to see things as they are, practices that are grounded in the right here, right now, as it is, staying present to things regardless of anything, seeing thoughts of future happen now, seeing thoughts of past happen now, seeing the process of identity construction happen now, seeing all this being so insubstantial as to obviously not be a self or refuge, perceiving all this clearly again and again, causally, naturally, moment after moment, narrowing the gap between the tyranny of dualistic content and the stark fact of immediate, integrated experience, moving through the stages that gradually integrate this awareness into one's natural way of perceiving the world, so that in the first vipassana jhana one can actually stay with an object, in the second jhana one can do this more naturally without all the effort and see the truth of it, widening this out to begin to include the background in the third jhana, and then finally including everything else, space, consciousness, effort, intention, inquiry, and all the other objects that would seem to support a notion of a self, until, having now gotten to a place of profound clarity and made this one's natural baseline, suddenly without effort, without striving, without goal, the mind naturally knows things as they, and enlightenment is attained. Those who simply as an intellectual exercise try shutting off desire just become neurotic. Those who practice well attain realization and more. Mastery based on present-focused techniques is the practical, effective fusion of the apparent duality.
Q.E.D. |