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Assessing Outsider's Realizations w/ Our Models

One tricky thing that has come up again and again here on DhO is how we can assess the claims of other practitioners in this community. I think equally tricky is assessing the degree of realization of those that aren't in this community, don't practice transparent dharma, in that they either a) don’t openly talk about their realization (i.e. most of the Western Dharma scene) or b) those that openly claim not to be fully realized.

With regards to the first point, on assessing people’s degree of realization, who don’t openly make claims, I think we would all agree that just because one doesn’t make a claim doesn’t mean one isn’t awake to one degree or another. Daniel pointed out, in an interview I did with him for Buddhist Geeks that if you read between the lines people are making claims all the time. Just by being a roshi, a Rinpoche, or on the senior teacher list of a major retreat center you’re kind of putting out there that you know what you’re doing (i.e. are enlightened to some degree or another). Of course, that doesn’t mean every Rinpoche, roshi, or retreat teacher is. No easy answers, I’m afraid.

What I’ve personally found is it often takes building a good rapport with people, having a decent amount of contact with them, asking them questions, getting support from them in your practice and seeing how their advice actually helps (or not) to begin to get a sense of what they do or do not know. And, for some people, if the rapport is good enough they will talk about their realizations privately in very candid ways. This has been happening between teachers and close students for thousands of years. One recent example is that Ajahn Maha Boowa recalls that Ajahn Mun shared with his close students his attainment of 4th path. Remember, the rule about monastics not sharing specifics around attainments isn’t that they can’t, just that they can’t share those which aren’t true.

Anyway, my point here is that even people who don’t publically discuss these things, often do so in semi-private contexts and also are constantly sending out signals about what they do or don’t know. If you know how to interpret the signals you can often reconstruct quite an interesting picture of their practice history. I think everyone here would probably agree on these points.

The next category of teachers are a bit trickier, those who openly claim not to be fully realized (in the Theravada context, it’s usually claiming not to be an arhant). As an example, and Kenneth cited this elsewhere, when I was sitting part of the annual 3-month retreat in 2005, Joseph Goldstein during a public talk or question / answer period (I can’t remember which) said quite frankly that he wasn’t an arhant, and that if there were anyone in the building that was, they could have the place (meaning they could take over IMS). Everyone laughed, and I cringed. At the time, I took that to mean that he simply hadn’t done it (and of course I had my models about what “it” was) and I thought about telling Kenneth that he should just go ahead and take over the place, since at the time he was working in the maintenance department there. That’d be a sweet promotion, right? ;)

The problem is, and I’ve seen this trend on the DhO even with some of the most accomplished practitioners here, is that we take our model of what an arhant is, whether that’s the non-duality model that Daniel has written about or whether it’s the model that Kenneth has mentioned from time to time that has to do with someone having a certainty about it being done or complete in some way, and we then judge their statements through the lens of our models. We take what they say at face value, filter it through our favorite model, and then say, “Yep, they don’t get it.”

The problem, of course, is that they are oftentimes using different models themselves. They are using the limited emotional-range or action models (or others) and are assessing their own practice based on these criteria. So when they say, “I‘m not an arhant” what they’re really saying is, I haven't achieved whatever my model says an arhant would be. But how do we know what their models are, and how do we assess them through the filter of our own models? And even if our models are better in many ways (notice that I’m not claiming that all models are equal or relative), how do we know where they might line up on those models. Well, often we don’t. And it may not even be possible, most of the time.

The interesting thing is that if we make this mistake, and begin assessing or dismissing people just because we don’t know how they line up with our models, then guess what… we now have what Daniel calls a “specific knowledge model” of enlightenment operating. Remember, specific knowledge models are:

"Those that have to do with gaining conceptual knowledge of facts and details about the specifics of reality, as contrasted with the models that deal with perceiving fundamental aspects of reality."

We can’t assume that just because someone has a deep and abiding realization (including what we call 4th path) that they will suddenly have better models about what enlightenment is, or any other sort of conceptual knowledge pertaining to that realization. We also can’t assume that all of them will know that they’re done—that would be to take on a limited-emotional range model that says doubt isn’t possible, or at the very best that doubt in our realization is not possible.

And the real danger here, I think, is beginning to dismiss many skilled teachers who have a ton to offer us practically. Not only that, but as a community we could begin to form a complex around being the only one’s that “get it,” again confusing our models for our realizations and then thinking that we are the only one who have arhants (by our current definitions) hanging out here. Wrong.

And to take this a step further, I’d like to challenge even the best and most noble of our models (if we can’t slaughter our own sacred cows then we might as well quit now), including the noble non-duality model. Even amongst the couple people here, who there is a consensus around their being “arhants” they disagree strongly as to whether this model is the most useful at describing what actually changes w/ enlightenment. (I’ll let them speak up here if they want). For me, that brings into question any model that is generated by the human mind to describe what changes with enlightenment, and points instead toward what conditions or factors that actually go into the development of our models. I’m not sure what all those factors are, but they seem to include things like, the kinds of practices that we have done, how long those practices took to bring about said realization, what models one was exposed to during the process, where one is in their process, and all sorts of other psychological and social conditions—i.e. our entire karmic circumstances. Imponderable, indeed.

And I’m not trying to build a meta-theory here, to transcend the wonderful work that Daniel has done on the “models of enlightenment.” Instead, I’m interested in challenging our held collective beliefs (including the belief that there is one really good model of enlightenment out there that is good all the time, in all contexts, for all people) and inviting, perhaps, a sense of not knowing and ambiguity into this whole dialogue of attainment (without relativizing it to the point of oblivion). Instead, as we continue this amazing experiment in transparent dharma, can we hold the pain of not knowing and see what emerges from here?

Questions pertaining to this topic:

- How do we assess other people’s realizations, especially when they don’t speak about them openly or use very divergent models to describe them?
- Is it better to dismiss those people who use different models (including those we find unhelpful & unrealistic) or is there a way to learn from them while avoiding the pitfalls associated w/ their models? If so, how?
- Is it possible to both be uncertain about our models and still be pragmatic and support each other’s development as contemplatives?
- How should we interact w/ new members who clearly have divergent models than those here (this has happened several times in the past)?

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